USA TODAY
THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
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Julia Roberts is queen of this ‘Homecoming’
11.02.18
In her fi rst TV series role, she anchors the Amazon drama as a counselor helping returning veterans. eeeE In Life AMAZON
IN BRIEF US charges Chinese companies in theft of trade secrets The United States has charged companies in China and Taiwan and three individuals with stealing trade secrets from a U.S. semi-conductor company, the Justice Department announced Thursday. The Justice Department said the defendants, including a Chineseowned company singled out this week by the Trump administration, targeted Idaho-based Micron over a technology it produces that stores memory in electronics.
US vows tough approach to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba The Trump administration is laying out a tougher approach to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, said Thursday that those three countries form a “troika of tyranny” and he’s announcing new sanctions on Venezuela and Cuba, and says the U.S. will impose additional ones on Nicaragua. Bolton says the countries represent “destructive forces of oppression, socialism and totalitarianism.”
USA TODAY EXCLUSIVE
Fatal experiments on dogs move ahead at VA Research continues after change in leaders Donovan Slack USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Aff airs is pushing forward with invasive and ultimately fatal experiments on dogs as part of its medical research program, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY.
The controversial procedures previously sparked outrage and opposition from some veterans’ advocates and prompted strict restrictions from Congress. The VA says the studies could produce discoveries that may help veterans suff ering from spinal cord or breathing problems. In Milwaukee, the experiments call for researchers to remove sections of dogs’ brains to test neurons that control See VA, Page 2B
Successes cited by the VA date to the 1960s. BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY
USA TODAY SPECIAL REPORT
Federal health care website up and running after slow start The federal website where consumers can get health insurance under the Aff ordable Care Act was running Thursday after a slow start as sign-up season for 2019 opened days before the midterm elections. Early Thursday, people accessing the site were directed to a screen that said work was underway. Things seemed to be normal by 9 a.m. EDT. Before the site went live for signups at the start of a new coverage year, technicians had to load up details on thousands of changes in plans and premiums.
Another NASA spacecraft declared dead, the 2nd this week NASA has lost a second spacecraft this week, ending a fruitful mission in the asteroid belt. Running low on fuel for some time, the Dawn spacecraft this week stopped communicating with fl ight controllers. Earlier, the planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope ran out of fuel needed for pointing the spacecraft. Both kept working longer than anticipated, and their demise had been expected.
Feds charge Malaysian fi nancier in money laundering scheme The Justice Department has charged a fugitive Malaysian fi nancier in a money laundering and bribery scheme that pilfered billions of dollars from a Malaysian investment fund created to promote economic development in that country. Prosecutors on Thursday announced a three-count indictment against Low Taek Jho, who is also known as Jho Low. From staff and wire reports USA SNAPSHOTS©
Video provided by Boston’s WCVB-TV shows flames consuming the roof of a house in Lawrence, Mass., on Sept. 13. Gas pipes overpressurized as work crews replaced cast-iron pipes, causing the explosion and fi re. AP
Dangerous old natural gas pipes still aren’t repaired Blasts in Massachusetts a sign of lingering threat Gregory Korte USA TODAY
The catastrophic explosions that rocked northeastern Massachusetts last month have drawn new attention to the problems of an aging natural gas infrastructure that’s prone to dangerous – and sometimes fatal – gas leaks. USA TODAY reported on the problems of aging natural gas pipelines in
USA TODAY
51% SOURCE Udemy survey of 1,000+ U.S. employees MIKE B. SMITH, ALEJANDRO GONZALEZ/USA TODAY
Among the fi ndings:
Vulnerable gas mains not replaced Despite decades of warnings about the dangers of cast-iron gas mains, many local utilities still haven’t replaced all of their old – and increasingly fragile – cast-iron and bare steel gas mains. In 2014, USA TODAY found that more than 85,000 miles of gas mains still used those outdated pipes. By the end of 2017, the number was 71,000. See GAS PIPES, Page 2B
Fall of the wild: Wilderness areas are vanishing Doyle Rice
of office employees don’t believe remote workers put in a full day.
2014 and found that leaking cast-iron mains were a primary cause of natural gas fi res and explosions. But despite a call to action that year from then-Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, replacing those pipes has been slow – and sometimes as perilous as the pipes themselves. A new USA TODAY investigation of natural gas pipeline safety, based on federal data and interviews with industry, experts and regulators, found spotty oversight and a lack of transparency by utilities and regulators responsible for keeping gas customers safe.
The world’s last remaining wilderness areas are rapidly disappearing, a report warns. “A century ago, only 15 percent of the Earth’s surface was used by humans to grow crops and raise livestock,” lead author James Watson said. “Today, more than 77 percent of land – excluding Antarctica – has been modifi ed by human activities,” said Watson, a scientist at the University of Queensland in Australia. The study, which was was published
Wednesday in the British journal Nature. also said that about “87 percent of the ocean has been modifi ed by the direct eff ects of human activities.” From 1993 to 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness almost fi ve times as big as the state of Texas – about 1.2 million square miles – was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures, the report noted. In a new map that accompanies the study, researchers show that the vast bulk of the remaining wilderness areas – about 70 percent – are in fi ve of the world’s biggest nations: Russia, Canada, Australia, Brazil and the USA.
“Wilderness will only be secured globally if these nations take a leadership role,” study co-author John Robinson of the Wildlife Conservation Society said. “Right now, across the board, this type of leadership is missing. ... We must grasp these opportunities to secure the wilderness before it disappears forever.” The authors defi ne wilderness areas as those places that do not have industrial-level activity within them and areas without direct use by people. “These results are nothing short of a horror story for the planet’s last wild places,” Watson said.
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