Over The Moon Director Glen Keane Illustrates Girl’s Dream Rocket | Netflix
FeiFei’s rocket ship in Over The Moon has inspired girls and boys around the world to conjure up their own dream rockets. Watch Over The Moon’s Oscar®-Winning Animator & Director Glen Keane bring Lulu’s vision to life. Watch OVER THE MOON, on Netflix this fall: https://ift.tt/3ern3yX SUBSCRIBE: http://bit.ly/29qBUt7 About Netflix: Netflix is the world's leading streaming entertainment service with over 195 million paid memberships in over 190 countries enjoying TV series, documentaries and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments. Over The Moon Director Glen Keane Illustrates Girl’s Dream Rocket | Netflix https://youtube.com/Netflix Fueled by memories of her mother, resourceful Fei Fei builds a rocket to the moon on a mission to prove the existence of a legendary moon goddess.
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Thursday, October 29, 2020
Letitia Wright, Michael K. Williams to star in civil war drama ‘Surrounded’
The story is told ‘from the eyes of a Black female during the Wild West.’
Letitia Wright, Michael K. Williams and Jamie Bell have been tapped to star in the upcoming civil war drama Surrounded from acclaimed music video director Anthony Mandler.
The project is a collaboration between Blackhand Media and BRON Studios, and will begin production next month, Shadow and Act reports.
Read More: Letitia Wright on ‘Black Panther’ without Boseman: ‘Not something I want to think about’
Here’s the synopsis:
Five years after the Civil War, former Buffalo Soldier Moses “Mo” Washington travels West to lay claim on a gold mine bequeathed by her late slaveowner father. It is a mean, dangerous world for an unaccompanied Black woman and so Mo travels into the deep frontier disguised as a man. After her stagecoach is ambushed, she is tasked with holding a dangerous outlaw captive and must survive the day when the bandit’s gang tries to free him.
BRON will co-produce with Blackhand Media Production, in association with Mandalay Pictures, 3.16 Productions and Creative Wealth Media, per Deadline.
Read More: ‘Lovecraft Country’ star Michael K. Williams dances to house in viral video
“I couldn’t be more excited that Surrounded is the first film under my partnership with Aaron L. Gilbert’s BRON and the Blackhand Media banner,” said Mandler. “I’ve always loved the Western genre and the opportunity to tell this story from the eyes of a black female during the Wild West is an honor.”
Meanwhile, Mandler’s feature film directorial debut Monster, based on the bestselling novel by Walter Dean Meyers, will debut on Netflix in 2021. The film stars Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington and Jeffrey Wright, and centers on a teenager accused of participating in a murder committed during a robbery.
Netflix has also picked up Washington’s Born to Be Murdered a thriller, set to drop next year. The film follows a vacationing couple who get caught up in a violent conspiracy, per THR.
Meanwhile, Black Panther star Letitia Wright has joined the critically acclaimed British anthology drama I Am.
“Collaborating with Dominic Savage has been an amazing experience. His unique and sensitive style of directing has stretched me as an artist. I’m so proud that we came together on a story that we both felt was important to explore & share with the world,” said Wright in a press release.
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Facebook offered Trump lower ad rates than Biden: report
A ban on political ads on the platform went into effect Tuesday.
Joe Biden paid more on average than President Donald Trump to run ads on Facebook between July 1 and Oct. 13, 2020, according to the nonprofit newsroom The Markup.
In August, when Trump wanted to warn older voters in Arizona that “The RADICAL Left has taken over Joe Biden and the Democratic Party,” Facebook charged his campaign an “estimated $14 for each 1,000 times the advertisement appeared in people’s feeds,” The Markup writes.
A few days later, when Biden targeted that same demographic with a message about his plan to expand Medicare and cut drug prices, Facebook charged his campaign more than six times what Trump paid, “an estimated $91 per 1,000 views of his ad,” per the report.
Read More: Facebook will suspend all political ads the day after Election Day
According to The Markup’s investigation, “the price difference wasn’t an anomaly.”
In July and August, Biden’s campaign paid more than double Trump’s average to run advertisements aimed at Facebook users in swing states.
“Their platform allows political campaigns to have broad reach into demographics like seniors and suburban women that are particularly valuable audiences in 2020,” political consultant Regan Opel told The Markup.
Facebook has defended its ad pricing during this election season.
“This article reflects a misunderstanding of how digital advertising works. All ads, from all advertisers, compete fairly in the same auction. Ad pricing will vary based on the parameters set by the advertiser, such as their targeting and bid strategy,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesperson, told The Markup in an email statement.
Read More: Lil Wayne reveals ‘great’ meeting with Trump, praises his Platinum Plan
Collectively, Biden and Trump have spent $183 million on advertising on Facebook and Instagram this year, according to the report.
Facebook will make an estimated $420 million on political ads, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meanwhile, a ban on political ads on Facebook went into effect Tuesday, and will last through this final week before the election on Nov. 3.
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Arizona Coyotes renounce draft pick Mitchell Miller over past racist bullying
‘We do not condone this type of behavior but embraced this as a teachable moment.’
The Arizona Coyotes renounced the rights to draft pick Mitchell Miller after he admitted to bullying a developmentally disabled, Black classmate four years ago.
Miller’s relentless harassment of Isaiah Meyer-Crothers landed him in juvenile court at age 18 in 2016, and he was convicted after pleading guilty to racist “bullying,” CBS Sports reports. Miller confessed to tricking Meyer-Crothers into licking a push pop that he and another teen wiped on a urinal. He also used racial slurs on his victim and referred to him as the “N-word.”
Read More: Arizona man arrested after telling Black men ‘this is a no n—- zone’
The Coyotes selected Miller in the fourth round of the 2020 NHL Draft, as the 111th overall pick, on Oct. 7. The team responded to the report about his hostile past with a statement from president and CEO Xavier Gutierrez.
“We have decided to renounce the rights to Mitchell Miller, effective immediately. Prior to selecting Mitchell in the NHL Draft, we were aware that a bullying incident took place in 2016. We do not condone this type of behavior but embraced this as a teachable moment to work with Mitchell to make him accountable for his actions and provide him with an opportunity to be a leader on anti-bullying and anti-racism efforts,” the statement reads.
Read More: Arizona police shoot Black man who failed to show up to court with bean bags
Gutierrez also apologized to Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family.
“We have learned more about the entire matter, and more importantly, the impact it has had on Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family. What we learned does not align with the core values and vision for our organization and leads to our decision to renounce our draft rights. On behalf of the Arizona Coyotes ownership and our entire organization, I would like to apologize to Isaiah and the Meyer-Crothers family,” Gutierrez said.
Many sports fans and social media users find it quite disturbing that every team knew about Miller’s bullying case and didn’t remove him from their draft lists. Critics say this highlights that there are still major, underlying issues in the NHL.
Many on Twitter noted that the Arizona Coyotes did not renounce Miller because he bullied a Black kid with disabilities, they did it because the public found out about it.
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Philadelphia Police, Officials To Release Body Camera Footage of Walter Wallace Shooting
Philadelphia city officials and the police department said they will release the body camera footage and 911-tapes of the Walter Wallace Jr. shooting that occurred on Monday.
Wallace Jr. was shot and killed Monday night by two Philadelphia police officers during a confrontation after police responded to a report of a man carrying a weapon. According to Fox News, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw made the announcement Wednesday, saying the department will release the video “in the near future,” but plans on meeting with Wallace’s family first “to ensure they get an opportunity to view the materials first.”
Since Wallace was shot Monday, Philadelphia has endured three nights of turmoil as thousands have protested and rioted. Videos across social media showed looters running into a Walmart, breaking into a Chick-fil-A, and pulling items out of a Foot Locker. According to the New York Times, protesters also set fires to debris on the street and damaged Philadelphia police cruisers.
Fifty-three officers have been hurt and 172 people have been arrested Monday and Tuesday night combined.
When Outlaw and city officials release the footage, it will be the first time the Philadelphia Police Department has ever released body camera footage of a shooting, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
John McNesby, the president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #5, released a video on Twitter urging Outlaw and city officials to release the footage.
A message from President John McNesby. Please share. @FOPLodge5 @john_mcnesby pic.twitter.com/AJAKed7Xlw
— FOPLodge5 (@FOPLodge5) October 28, 2020
“We’re calling on the city leadership to release the facts of this case. It’s not hard,” McNesby said. “It’s cut and dry, release what you have. Support your officers, back your officers and let’s get a handle on this thing.”
Wallace’s father, Walter Wallace Sr., told CNN Tuesday his son was bipolar and in crisis at the time of the incident. Shaka Johnson, an attorney representing the Wallace family, said in a news conference Tuesday, relatives called the authorities three times including once when Wallace’s brother asked for an ambulance.
“Law enforcement was called because they wanted an ambulance to come here,” Johnson told reporters. “The police are who arrived first.”
Johnson added Wallace’s wife told the officers when they arrived Wallace was “manic, bipolar” and in crisis.
“Unfortunately, the officers were not equipped with the training or the proper equipment to deal with a person who was experiencing crisis in that moment,” Johnson told CNN. “You don’t deal with crisis with a firearm.”
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VMI to remove Confederate statue following accusations of racism
The school initially refused to take down the monument of the slave owner who joined the Confederate Army
The Virginia Military Institute will remove a prominent statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson amid an investigation into ongoing “structural racism” at the oldest state-run military college.
The administration initially refused to take down the statue of the slave owner who taught at VMI before joining the Confederate Army. But the Board of Visitors unanimously voted for its removal on Thursday, according to the Washington Post. Three of VMI’s 17 board members are Black.
The board’s decision follows a Change.org petition launched by graduate Kaleb Tucker, calling for the school to “acknowledge the racism and black prejudice that still occurs at VMI” and remove the statue of Jackson.
Read More: Black contractor braves threats in removing Confederate statues in Richmond
“There has been story on top of story of racism and black prejudice within the walls of the institute. However VMI has not once acknowledged allegations nor has there been any just punishment to the doers of this racism and black prejudice,” Tucker wrote in the petition.
When Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) caught word of allegations of racism against former and current Black cadets, which were made public in a Washington Post article, he ordered an independent investigation into “the clear and appalling culture of ongoing structural racism at the Virginia Military Institute.”
Retired Gen. J.H. Binford Peay III, VMI’s superintendent, defended the statue of Jackson in a July letter to the school community, calling the general a “military genius” and a “staunch Christian.” But Peay also noted that he wanted to “erase any hint of racism at VMI.”
Peay reportedly resigned a week after Gov. Northam announced the investigation.
Read More: Charlottesville tears down Confederate statue outside courthouse
The school allegedly fosters an atmosphere of cultural insensitivity, where the leaders celebrate the slaveholding South during the Civil War.
“I wake up every day wondering, ‘Why am I still here?’ ” said William Bunton, 20, a Black senior from Portsmouth, Va.
It is unclear where the statue of Jackson will go but it may be transferred to the New Market Civil War battlefield.
The statue was erected in 1912 and up until a few years ago, students allegedly had to salute it when they passed. Blacks make up about 8 percent of VMI’s 1,700 students, according to the report.
“It’s time to move forward,” said board’s chairman, John “Bill” Boland. [The monument] was drawing a lot of fire and distracting from what our true mission is. The most important thing to me is to maintain our mission and our methods.”
VMI reportedly received $19 million in state funds this past fiscal year.
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Hip-hop museum and ‘All In’ director get together to get out the vote
The Universal Hip Hop Museum and Emmy winning filmmaker Lisa Cortes want to reach voters traditional outreach doesn’t with a panel tied in to the film ‘All In’
The Universal Hip Hop Museum and filmmaker Lisa Cortes want to bring some new voters to the table — those that the usual campaigns don’t — apathetic voters who think their vote doesn’t count, younger voters unsure how the process benefits them others that might not watch news 24-7 and are just struggling to get by.
Read More: How are Black Americans going to survive the 2020 election?
They are combining forces for the #AllInForVoting campaign and the #HipHopRocksThe Vote campaign to do a virtual panel tied into the film All In: The Fight for Democracy currently showing on Amazon Prime.
Cortes, a hip hop veteran who once worked with artists like LL Cool J and The Beastie Boys, is the Emmy-winning producer of the HBO documentary The Apollo. She is also the producer-director of 2019’s The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion on Netflix and directed All In: The Fight for Democracy, a film about the history of voter suppression. The documentary highlights the many ways that voter suppression persists around the country despite the myriad laws on the books to keep Black, brown and poor voters from being disenfranchised.
“We made All In: The Fight For Democracy to look at who gets to participate in our democracy, and who is pushed aside,” Cortes told theGrio. “How can we all fight back? Voting is the cog that makes the machinery of democracy work — and if the machinery breaks for some, it will eventually break for all.
She adds: “Many of the problems we have seen over the past several elections are rooted in an issue that has plagued our country from its founding. From our nation’s beginning, laws were designed to suppress certain segments of the population. Voter suppression is a nonpartisan human rights issue, which if solved, would amplify the voices of the disenfranchised and strengthen our democratic
republic.
As Stacey Abrams says, “Voter turnout is the best remedy to voter suppression.”
Abrams details her fight to win the gubernatorial race in 2018 in Georgia and how it was tainted by voter suppression tactics that helped ultimate victor Brian Kemp into the governor’s mansion in a hotly contested election. Former Attorney General Eric Holder and journalist Ari Berman, among others, talk about how voter suppression continues to play a role in elections at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Universal Hip Hop Museum is still building their home in the Bronx, New York, where hip-hop emerged in the 70s and until then they continue to build bridges with the community. They are hosting this event with Cortes and panelists Rocky Bucano, executive director and president of the Universal Hip Hop Museum, Angela Lang, executive director of BLOC, community organizer Rosa Clemente,
journalist and hip-hop activist, Kevin Powell, famed New York writer, activist, and founder of the Young Lords, Felipe Luciano, Chuck D of Public Enemy and Dayton, Ohio born rapper Yellopain who released the song “My Vote Don’t Count” earlier this year.
Read More: Five reasons to watch ‘City So Real’ the docuseries exploring Chicago politics
The panel takes place on Friday, Oct. 30 starting at 6 p.m. You can view the panel HERE. Afterward, All In: The Fight for Democracy will be available for free from Oct. 30 through to Sunday, Nov. 1 on Amazon Prime’s YouTube channel.
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Lil Wayne reveals ‘great’ meeting with Trump, praises his Platinum Plan
The hip-hop star shares photo with the president and applauds his record on criminal justice reform.
Lil Wayne is the latest rapper to signal support for President Donald Trump, revealing that he met with the Republican presidential incumbent just days before the 2020 general election on Nov. 3.
In a tweet on Thursday night, the New Orleans hip-hop star shared a photo of he and Trump standing side by side as they smile with their thumbs up.
“Just had a great meeting with @realdonaldtrump @potus,” wrote Wayne, real name Dwayne Carter Jr. He continued, “…besides what he’s done so far with criminal reform, the platinum plan is going to give the community real ownership.”
“He listened to what we had to say today and assured he will and can get it done.”
Read More: Ice Cube explains why he blew off Zoom call with Kamala Harris: ‘I want to get things done’
Trump’s Platinum Plan, his campaign’s offering of policy plans for Black Americans if he is reelected, made headlines in recent weeks after the campaign revealed another fellow hip-hop giant, Ice Cube, had played a role in its execution.
Many were incensed over Ice Cube’s involvement, so much so that the rapper turned Hollywood actor and producer was compelled to publicly denounce Trump, tweeting “I will never support a motha***** like Donald Trump EVER!!!”
Still, Cube — who penned a “Contract for Black America” back in August — defended his working with the Trump campaign as a nonpartisan effort to get things done for Black America, claiming both Democrats and Republicans contacted him and he made the decision to speak with the Trump administration, which he said ultimately altered the plan.
Ice Cube also claimed that Democrats told him to wait until after the election to make demands on behalf of the Black community. Biden surrogate Rep. Cedric Richmond, however, denied that ever happened. Richmond added that Biden’s plan for Black Americans was more comprehensive.
“It’s not as comprehensive as our plan. And so that’s what we told him, and the offer to stay engaged was not, ‘we’ll talk to you after the election.’ It went like this: ‘Here’s my cell number, anything else you want to talk about on this plan or anything you think, you know, we need to talk about further, just pick up the phone and call,” Richmond said.
Lil Wayne makes at least the third hip-hop star to curry favor with Trump — Kanye West also infamously showed his support for the president, going as far as to don Trump’s red MAGA hat.
50 Cent also told his followers to vote for Trump in a tweet complaining about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden‘s tax plan.
50 Cent later backtracked his statements saying “F**k Donald Trump,” and according to ex-girlfriend Chelsea Handler, the Queens rapper wasn’t serious about his previous support for the president.
Read More: Chelsea Handler offers to pay ex-boyfriend 50 Cent’s taxes if he drops Trump support
Lil Wayne’s support for Trump is likely to cause outrage, as most Black Americans are solidly against Trump, who has a long history of racism. This wouldn’t be the first time, however, that Wayne has ruffled feathers for his political comments.
In 2016, he said he didn’t “feel connected” to the Black Lives Matter movement and went as far as to say that there’s “no such thing as racism.” The rapper used an example of a white cop saving his life at 12 as proof of his claim.
“I don’t know what racism is,” he said.
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Men charged with intimidating Black voters ordered to call back victims, admit messages were false
Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman were charged in more than one state for allegedly trying to deter Black voters
Two men are in big trouble for allegedly trying to suppress the Black vote.
Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 54, were ordered on Wednesday to call back all the recipients of their robocalls whom they spread misinformation to by 5 p.m. on Thursday or they will be in contempt of court. The men are out of jail on a bond of $100,000 according to Metro Times.
They came together to allegedly spread false information to folks in places like Detroit and Ohio to stop them from voting.
Read More: Shaq explains why he never voted before: ‘I didn’t have time’
“Mail-in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your personal information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts? The CDC is even pushing to use records for mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines. Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man, stay safe and beware of vote by mail,” the call said.
They made about 12,000 calls that were false and illegal in Detroit and U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero called it “electoral terror.”
In the order he wrote, “The means Defendants use to intimidate voters, though born of fear and similarly powered by hate, are not guns, torches, burning crosses, and other dire methods perpetrated under the cover of white hoods,” said Marrero. “Rather, Defendants carry out electoral terror using telephones, computers, and modern technology adapted to serve the same deleterious ends.”
Read More: Lizzo stumps for Biden and Harris in digital ad targeting Michigan’s young voters
They were arraigned at the 36th District Court on October 8 and charged with conspiracy to commit an election law violation, intimidating voters, and using a computer to commit the crime of conspiracy and election law.
The Attorney General of Michigan Dana Nessel says the men were clearly trying to deter voters. In a statement, Nessel said, “Voting is a cornerstone of our democracy and all voters should be able to cast their ballot without confusion or fear.”
The pair were also charged in Ohio on Tuesday for supposedly making similar calls in Cleveland and East Cleveland. In addition to that the The National Coalition on Black Civil Participation sued both men under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 claiming they made calls to over 85,000 people in Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Marrero ordered the alleged liars to call back victims and say the following:
“At the direction of a United States district court, this call is intended to inform you that a federal court has found that the message you previously received regarding mail-in voting from Project 1599, a political organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, contained false information that has had the effect of intimidating voters, and thus interfering with the upcoming presidential election, in violation of federal voting-rights laws.”
Burkman’s attorney, Scott Grabel told the judge, “The charges are an absolute atrocity” and that “It did not deter voters.”
Assistant Attorney General Richard Cunningham barked back and said, “We have a very strong case.”
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Learn How to Land in the Top Google Search Results with This $15 Course
Modern businesses require a website in order to attract online customers. This is especially important these days now that customers rely on the Internet to conduct business. Don’t expect potential customers to flock to your website as soon as it goes live, though. First, you need to make sure your website is search engine optimized (SEO) so that it generates traffic.
Performing SEO ensures your website appears at top of search lists, which increases the likelihood of people clicking on your website. SEO best practices are constantly evolving, so if you’re looking for up-to-date information to improve your website’s searchability, Complete SEO Training 2020 + The SEO Course can help for just $14.99.
Complete SEO Training 2020 + The SEO Course offers 10 hours of educational content on how to maximize your website’s organic traffic on Google and other search engines. It covers popular SEO methods such as keyword research, link building, writing engaging SEO content, and much more. Not only will these techniques attract visitors, but they will also help give your visitors a more enjoyable browsing experience that increases the time they spend on your website, which ultimately leads to a higher conversion rate.
Every successful website is easily searchable and must deliver an engaging experience that keeps visitors hooked. If you’re looking for a great way to increase your web traffic organically, learning SEO is the way to go. Complete SEO Training 2020 + The SEO Course is normally $199, but Black Enterprise readers can grab it for $14.99, or 92% off.
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How to Install Hadoop Single Node Cluster (Pseudonode) on CentOS 7
Hadoop is an open-source framework that is widely used to deal with Bigdata. Most of the Bigdata/Data Analytics projects are being built up on top of the Hadoop Eco-System. It consists of two-layer, one
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Wednesday, October 28, 2020
How to Monitor Ubuntu Performance Using Netdata
Netdata is a free and opensource real-time monitoring and troubleshooting tool for cloud servers, containers, applications, and on-premise IT infrastructure. It provides high granular and real-time system metrics such as CPU performance, RAM &
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Artificial intelligence model detects asymptomatic Covid-19 infections through cellphone-recorded coughs
Asymptomatic people who are infected with Covid-19 exhibit, by definition, no discernible physical symptoms of the disease. They are thus less likely to seek out testing for the virus, and could unknowingly spread the infection to others.
But it seems those who are asymptomatic may not be entirely free of changes wrought by the virus. MIT researchers have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way that they cough. These differences are not decipherable to the human ear. But it turns out that they can be picked up by artificial intelligence.
In a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, the team reports on an AI model that distinguishes asymptomatic people from healthy individuals through forced-cough recordings, which people voluntarily submitted through web browsers and devices such as cellphones and laptops.
The researchers trained the model on tens of thousands of samples of coughs, as well as spoken words. When they fed the model new cough recordings, it accurately identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people who were confirmed to have Covid-19, including 100 percent of coughs from asymptomatics — who reported they did not have symptoms but had tested positive for the virus.
The team is working on incorporating the model into a user-friendly app, which if FDA-approved and adopted on a large scale could potentially be a free, convenient, noninvasive prescreening tool to identify people who are likely to be asymptomatic for Covid-19. A user could log in daily, cough into their phone, and instantly get information on whether they might be infected and therefore should confirm with a formal test.
“The effective implementation of this group diagnostic tool could diminish the spread of the pandemic if everyone uses it before going to a classroom, a factory, or a restaurant,” says co-author Brian Subirana, a research scientist in MIT’s Auto-ID Laboratory.
Subirana’s co-authors are Jordi Laguarta and Ferran Hueto, of MIT’s Auto-ID Laboratory.
Vocal sentiments
Prior to the pandemic’s onset, research groups already had been training algorithms on cellphone recordings of coughs to accurately diagnose conditions such as pneumonia and asthma. In similar fashion, the MIT team was developing AI models to analyze forced-cough recordings to see if they could detect signs of Alzheimer’s, a disease associated with not only memory decline but also neuromuscular degradation such as weakened vocal cords.
They first trained a general machine-learning algorithm, or neural network, known as ResNet50, to discriminate sounds associated with different degrees of vocal cord strength. Studies have shown that the quality of the sound “mmmm” can be an indication of how weak or strong a person’s vocal cords are. Subirana trained the neural network on an audiobook dataset with more than 1,000 hours of speech, to pick out the word “them” from other words like “the” and “then.”
The team trained a second neural network to distinguish emotional states evident in speech, because Alzheimer’s patients — and people with neurological decline more generally — have been shown to display certain sentiments such as frustration, or having a flat affect, more frequently than they express happiness or calm. The researchers developed a sentiment speech classifier model by training it on a large dataset of actors intonating emotional states, such as neutral, calm, happy, and sad.
The researchers then trained a third neural network on a database of coughs in order to discern changes in lung and respiratory performance.
Finally, the team combined all three models, and overlaid an algorithm to detect muscular degradation. The algorithm does so by essentially simulating an audio mask, or layer of noise, and distinguishing strong coughs — those that can be heard over the noise — over weaker ones.
With their new AI framework, the team fed in audio recordings, including of Alzheimer’s patients, and found it could identify the Alzheimer’s samples better than existing models. The results showed that, together, vocal cord strength, sentiment, lung and respiratory performance, and muscular degradation were effective biomarkers for diagnosing the disease.
When the coronavirus pandemic began to unfold, Subirana wondered whether their AI framework for Alzheimer’s might also work for diagnosing Covid-19, as there was growing evidence that infected patients experienced some similar neurological symptoms such as temporary neuromuscular impairment.
“The sounds of talking and coughing are both influenced by the vocal cords and surrounding organs. This means that when you talk, part of your talking is like coughing, and vice versa. It also means that things we easily derive from fluent speech, AI can pick up simply from coughs, including things like the person’s gender, mother tongue, or even emotional state. There’s in fact sentiment embedded in how you cough,” Subirana says. “So we thought, why don’t we try these Alzheimer’s biomarkers [to see if they’re relevant] for Covid.”
“A striking similarity”
In April, the team set out to collect as many recordings of coughs as they could, including those from Covid-19 patients. They established a website where people can record a series of coughs, through a cellphone or other web-enabled device. Participants also fill out a survey of symptoms they are experiencing, whether or not they have Covid-19, and whether they were diagnosed through an official test, by a doctor’s assessment of their symptoms, or if they self-diagnosed. They also can note their gender, geographical location, and native language.
To date, the researchers have collected more than 70,000 recordings, each containing several coughs, amounting to some 200,000 forced-cough audio samples, which Subirana says is “the largest research cough dataset that we know of.” Around 2,500 recordings were submitted by people who were confirmed to have Covid-19, including those who were asymptomatic.
The team used the 2,500 Covid-associated recordings, along with 2,500 more recordings that they randomly selected from the collection to balance the dataset. They used 4,000 of these samples to train the AI model. The remaining 1,000 recordings were then fed into the model to see if it could accurately discern coughs from Covid patients versus healthy individuals.
Surprisingly, as the researchers write in their paper, their efforts have revealed “a striking similarity between Alzheimer’s and Covid discrimination.”
Without much tweaking within the AI framework originally meant for Alzheimer’s, they found it was able to pick up patterns in the four biomarkers — vocal cord strength, sentiment, lung and respiratory performance, and muscular degradation — that are specific to Covid-19. The model identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people confirmed with Covid-19, and of those, it accurately detected all of the asymptomatic coughs.
“We think this shows that the way you produce sound, changes when you have Covid, even if you’re asymptomatic,” Subirana says.
Asymptomatic symptoms
The AI model, Subirana stresses, is not meant to diagnose symptomatic people, as far as whether their symptoms are due to Covid-19 or other conditions like flu or asthma. The tool’s strength lies in its ability to discern asymptomatic coughs from healthy coughs.
The team is working with a company to develop a free pre-screening app based on their AI model. They are also partnerning with several hospitals around the world to collect a larger, more diverse set of cough recordings, which will help to train and strengthen the model’s accuracy.
As they propose in their paper, “Pandemics could be a thing of the past if pre-screening tools are always on in the background and constantly improved.”
Ultimately, they envision that audio AI models like the one they’ve developed may be incorporated into smart speakers and other listening devices so that people can conveniently get an initial assessment of their disease risk, perhaps on a daily basis.
This research was supported, in part, by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited.
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Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff won’t be adviser: ‘I’m her partner’
‘She’s got plenty of great people giving her political advice.’
Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff is opening up about hitting the campaign trail with his wife and how he’s preparing to potentially become America’s first-ever Second Gentleman.
In a new interview with PEOPLE, the attorney makes clear that he has no plans to lead Harris’ team of advisers if she becomes vice president.
“I’m her husband, that’s it,” Emhoff said in a recent joint Zoom interview with the California Senator. “She’s got plenty of great people giving her political advice,” he continues. “I’m her partner, I’m her best friend and I’m her husband. And that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to have her back.”
Read More: Kamala Harris encourages Black Americans to vote, support HBCUs at 2020 BET Hip Hop Awards
The couple, both 56, met on a blind date in 2013 and married the next year. Emhoff has two children from his first marriage, son Cole and daughter Ella, who call Harris “Momala.”
“We stay connected all day,” says Emhoff of the days that he and Harris are campaigning separately.
“Hopefully we get to stay together at night,” he says. “And then we really get to catch up and compare notes of what we’re hearing out there in the real world. That helps drive the campaign as we’re really responding to what’s going on out there.”
Read More: Ice Cube explains why he blew off Zoom call with Kamala Harris: ‘I want to get things done’
Emhoff and Harris have each embarked on virtual tours amid the pandemic.
“When we do have dinner together — it depends, because we’re going to different states a lot— we meet up at night. Sometimes, it’s very late at night and one of us is scarfing down food that the other has prepared,” Harris says. “It has been often the case that one of us is eating at the table while the other is bringing the food and then listening to the day.”
If Emhoff becomes “second gentleman,” he says “justice and access to justice” are issues that he can get behind.
“Right now, I’m just thinking about, let’s get through this election and let’s win this election,” he says. “I really just want to focus on winning this election.”
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Trump says Miles Taylor should be prosecuted, fired for ‘Anonymous’ op-ed
‘It turned out to be a low-level staffer, a sleazebag, who has never worked in the White House.’
Miles Taylor, former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official, has identified himself as the “anonymous” writer behind a New York Times op-ed that was highly critical of President Donald Trump.
An earlier report on theGRIO noted that the identity of Anonymous had been hidden until Taylor, an outspoken Trump critic, tweeted Wednesday that he wrote the 2018 op-ed in The New York Times and a subsequent book.
Trump responded by calling Taylor a “low-level staffer” and a “sleazebag” who should be “prosecuted” for penning the op-ed.
“It turned out to be a low-level staffer, a sleazebag, who has never worked in the White House,” Trump said at a rally in Goodyear, Ariz. TheHill reports.
“Anonymous was a nobody, a disgruntled employee who was quickly removed from his job a long time ago for, they tell me, incompetence,” Trump said.
“I have no idea who he is,” he added.
“He worked with the — listen to this — the fake news New York Times, and he is an employee of Google, he works for Google,” Trump continued. “The whole thing was just one more giant hoax from the Washington swamp and a corrupt special interest group. I’ll tell you what. This guy, in my opinion, he should be prosecuted.”
Read More: Trump campaign website hacked to say Americans ‘have no choice’ in election
Taylor previously denied being anonymous in an interview last year with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
“There was an op-ed, there was a book, by someone calling themselves ‘Anonymous.’ Are you aware of who that is?,” Cooper asked Taylor, per TheHill.
“I’m not,” Taylor replied. “That was a parlor game that happened in Washington, D.C., of a lot of folks trying to think of who that might be. I’ve got my own thoughts about who that might be —”
“You’re not ‘Anonymous?’ ” said Cooper.
“I wear a mask for two things Anderson: Halloween and pandemics. So no,” Taylor replied.
Taylor left the Trump administration last year and currently works as a contributor for CNN.
“I witnessed Trump’s inability to do his job over the course of two-and-a-half years. Everyone saw it, though most were hesitant to speak up for fear of reprisals,” Taylor wrote Wednesday.
“So when I left the Administration I wrote A Warning, a character study of the current Commander in Chief and a caution to voters that it wasn’t as bad as it looked inside the Trump Administration — it was worse,” he added.
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