and a host of us to big picture here in r.t. america holland cook joins us to discuss and later can't we all just get along in space we discuss cooperation of space nations with michelle faul our nasa scientists and every haskell the c.e.o. of shuttle dot i owe all of that in our sight but first we had to write some headlines let's go to. the international economic intrigue around chinese tech firm wall way leads our global report today as the story continues to develop new angles in the u.s. and abroad starting in the united states federal prosecutors in the u.s. justice department here in washington are reportedly pursuing a criminal investigation of suspected corporate economic espionage by wall way targeting tech sector rivals including cell phone provider team mobile according to a scoop by the wall street journal investigators are believed to be building upon the foundation of a twenty fourteen civil lawsuit by t.v.

mobile in which to walk away employees were eventually found to have appropriated perhaps stolen technology from t. mobile for use by wall weigh the investigation has been characterized as being in an advanced stage and while way is also being scrutinized from another angle here in washington as members of congress raise questions about why always a role in building solar energy capacity in the united states a bipartisan group of u.s. legislators was warned in a letter to the trop of ministration energy secretary rick perry that while ways growing presence and role in large scale and residential solar markets quote may pose a threat to our nation's infrastructure there was bi cameral legislative action on the issue raised in the letter with the introduction of two bills on electric grid security in the house and senate. in a statement on the bill prime senate sponsor tom cotton of arkansas called wall weight quote an intelligence gathering arm of the chinese communist party.

meanwhile germany has become the latest u.s. ally to consider excluding walk away from a role in building next generation five g. internet infrastructure all the way policy is not yet set much less than actual ban the german economy minister sibal today after a recent u.s. diplomatic efforts on the issue that consideration and comparison of security records of contract seekers like while way is highly relevant the current german position is a measured but significant shift after at least one german official previously opined that there was no legal basis for excluding away from contracting. and in other news on china's rise as a multi net multi-polar world the defense secretary of the philippines has expressed concerns about the role of two chinese companies in the future of the philippines largest shipyard at subic bay the philippine government leases the site as is considering as as it considers bids for tenacity from companies based in the

us south korea japan and australia as well as the two chinese companies the defense secretary delfin lorenzana said he has raised the issue directly with president. in a cabinet meeting yesterday mr du territory whose personal temperament bears comparison to u.s. president donald trump has never the less notably steered filipino democracy toward china in recent months. and we now move back stateside to talk about hunger in america and about how the partial government shutdown is having a disproportionate impact upon those who can least afford it the less fortunate among us to do so i'm pleased to be joined by a former colleague at the u.s. department of agriculture the c.e.o. of hunger free america joel berg joe i can't tell you how great it is to be with you and have you have you with us welcome to the show. thank you so much part so first off you know set the stage for us with regard to hunger in the united states where are we are we making any progress before the government shutdown there were

forty million americans that's about equal to the combined population of texas and west virginia that lived in homes they couldn't afford enough food were still double digits percentage wise higher in us. than they were in the late one nine hundred ninety s. in the height of the clinton era economic boom so even though the stock market has been rising over the last few years and settle down recently even though billionaire wealth has soared in america we still have forty million americans who don't always know where their next meal is coming from that doesn't mean they're starving like they would be in north korea or somalia but that doesn't mean they're choosing between food and rent so there's no better example of boom versus bust. the incredible rates of hunger and malnutrition america while we have so much billionaire wealth well i guess joel it proves that a rising tide does not lift all boats or people let's talk about this government shutdown

a little bit and how that's impacting people you know it's the longest government shutdown in history in the u.s. what's the latest regard to specific programs that in particular snap supplemental nutrition assistance program which is really the heavy weight of all nutrition programs how is that doing and what are the problems associated with the shutdown jol. through some accounting sleight of hand as the trump administration was able to find money to keep the snap program going to what's the actual name for the old food stamp program going through february and don't get me wrong that's a great thing if the program shuts down entirely as it could in march if this impasse is that into ended thirty eight million americans could lose four point seven billion dollars worth of food so that's continue however the old u.s.d.a. employees are old colleagues or not so old colleagues whose job it is to certify stores to be able to participate in the snap program they're not on the job by and large so so far more than two thousand private sector retail stores in america have

actually lost certifications and received snap benefits that's not a crisis level yet because there are two hundred sixty thousand stores in the program but if this continues it will be and just today out of north carolina there was a report that a school district in north carolina is actually serving less food in the school lunch program less food in the school lunch program for goodness sakes because the government shutdown this is so so wrong and so so pointless. you know we did a program last week joel we talked about the atheist inspectors and the packers and stockyards of the t.s.a. folks were getting paid some of those actually been ordered back by the president although they're not being paid yet of course but maybe the administration will look to find out that you know this really could impact people in their lives if they're hungry and and put some of these folks back at least to uproot some of these applications and let me ask you joe how are businesses involved with hunger

and are they stepping up to meet this or what is going to be an increase in need. some businesses are definitely helpful and my organization hunger free america's largest private donor is the wal-mart foundation associated with the wal-mart company and they've been very generous to our is a giving us millions of dollars over the past few years other companies are trying to help as well but make no mistake about it the magnitude of the federal safety net is such that if these programs shut down all the private charity on the planet isn't going to help avoid massive hunger on a scale we haven't seen since the great depression all the business back sharing in america now equals of bout one fifteenth one fifteenth of the federal nutrition assistance a thing that and so we appreciate business support we certainly work with the private sector and we think the most important thing is for them to do is to create jobs that pay a living wage and then give to charities but i hope people on don't get the false

impression that somehow magically like a frank capra american happy ending movie that if the federal safety net goes away that our friends and business will be able to save this problem and many of them will be in huge huge difficulty if the programs really go away they will have to probably engage in massive layoffs. a sobering somber story we want to keep telling it because it is so important to people it's important to our country we hope you'll join us again jo'burg how great to see you the c.e.o. of america thanks joe. thank you. and there's privacy news today involving two of the biggest names in the tech sector apple c.e.o. tim cook has published an essay calling for action by the u.s. congress and the federal trade commission on privacy issues mr cook specifically called for comprehensive federal privacy legislation to protect for specific rights

he says should be guaranteed to consumers mr cooke frame the issues as urgent and pointed to so-called data brokers as the apparent villains in the story writing quote consumers shouldn't have to tolerate another year of companies irresponsibly amassing huge user profiles data breaches that seem out of control and the vanishing ability to control our own digital lives right on mr cook. meanwhile online retail giant amazon is facing more challenges to their plans for commercial deployment of facial recognition technology this time from a shareholder proposal the self described to describe tri state coalition for responsible investment and alliance of amazon investors basing their objections in catholic teachings on social justice on chills will justice rather tabled a proposal that says quote amazon's facial recognition technology poses risks and risks to civil and human rights and shareholder value the proposal would prohibit

sales of the technology until or unless amazon's board is able to rule out those risk this week a separate coalition of privacy and criminal justice reform advocates including the american civil liberties union or a.c.l.u. reiterated their concerns on the facial recognition technology in a letter sent to amazon as well as tech rivals google and microsoft. and we're going to squeeze in a quick pause for the promotional pause here but hang with us because of landru turn the. media merger of madness continues as a hedge fund dubbed the destroyer of newspapers sixty five the good net company the owner of usa today newspaper professorial lecture at american university margot suskind and host of the big picture hong cooks joins us and then we'll be joined by michelle faller nasa scientist and avery haskell the c.e.o. of shuttle dot iow to talk about space and beyond i'll ask about the case for space

cooperation among nations as we go to break here the numbers at the closing bell we'll be back in a flash. that entire collection of countries and regions that have been the main economic. players for decades now over time they're going to become this much more players of the world is going to evolve china india middle east africa. under certain scenarios they're going to represent about eighty percent of world g.d.p. at the end of the century and that scenario is where they do catch up in terms of productivity growth.

when they came back from a. marijuana her was. cocaine methamphetamine so anything that's altering trying to get us out. that bad. use of the chemical that would be so. i want to be drinking and drinking ino new not just killing myself but. alcoholics drink to get drunk alcoholics drink to feel normal. that's why it's this way

drug addicts do. a shot while still in their. star cool under which these guys are going through to do it it just means to. need to be helped and pushed on by the v.a.'s r.'s drugs bill and stuff they need to be built. and either she really should be looked at like numbers they should be looked at like people if they go to a veteran center for health issues be considered as someone who really needs attention it. wouldn't make this manufactured consent into instant of public wealth. when the ruling classes protect themselves. when the final larry go around to lift the one percent. we can all middle of the room signals. to leave the room i mean real news is.

welcome back media merger mad. continues in twenty nineteen although this time there's a definitive distinction as a hedge fund dubbed by some of some as the destroyer of newspapers seeks to buy good net the us media holding company which owns the usa today newspaper and many more papers the hedge fund all doing group capital and its subsidiary digital first media is known for cutting in gutting staff and resources and has reportedly offered one point four billion dollars for

a good net but that may not be anough to discuss we're joined by margot suskind professorial lecturer at american university and host of the big picture right here in r.t. america holland cook thank you to both of you for being here this is going to be fun i've got the best people on the planet for this particularly with regard to get net you you used to work there give us just a quick background what's going to how they've done and how they got to where they are now and nineteen ninety one the future was bright how bright they bought a scrappy little tech start up from me and my three techie nerd partners and fifty some million dollars later our product was called usa today sky radio very innovative at that time you had part in the germination of usa today well i was a new media unit but live via satellite audio to delta united northwest airlines news and top channels years before dot com and they could afford to do this because they had these profitable t.v.

stations they had all these newspapers which were still a license to print money at the time and they had the biggest billboard company in north america and there was an expression within can that women e w i m m e u will it make money ever fast forward then one nine hundred ninety four and there was a little arena decorating move in the furniture around to make usa today profitable finally for its tenth anniversary and fast forward to present day they've spun off the t.v. stations they spawn off the out. or hugely profitable and you see what a pickle the newspapers around this well that brings us more go to the circumstance in which we find ourselves the new media landscape that we've talked about before on the program how things are changed i mean can they make it particularly i mean tell us about all that a little bit but you know if they cut and gut usa today along with the other papers

i think we may have even have a chart on this some of the other newspapers that they don't need to be up and started. going to see it as sort of the new arizona i mean can they make it or are we just seeing the death of print journalism the vultures are circling on this one and the question about whether or not digital first can make it i think we have to ask ourselves the question about what do you mean by that i think digital first is not at all concerned with quality journalism they own the denver post which you know the staff revolted after all who owns the denver post that's right all done which is the hedge fund that owns digital first so and they're known for guiding newspapers mentioned what they were like downtown denver is something they they took a move them out to the suburbs or some old warehouse or sometimes not just the digital first issue that's a lot of corporate owners are doing that and i think it's funny that we're looking at net as this you know all of a sudden since the news broke over the weekend by the wall street journal that that this digital first hostile bid for good net could happen that all of

a sudden we're looking at the net as this you know bastion of first amendment protection and i mean that could net as also closing offering or you know early buyouts voting consolidating and you know i did not and you know isn't the only one i think with the concern about digital first is is that they are really going to just go after the bones and pick them until they're done i don't think you know being operated by a hedge fund they are only concerned with profit and there isn't any net still had a pulitzer prize winning work with the cincinnati enquirer and opiate addiction. knack immunity you still saw some quality journalism and i know there are still great reporters doing work all over the country at connect papers and even a digital first papers but it's going to get much harder to do that work when profit and only profit is the consideration this is this is bad news for journalism this is bad news for local communities who rely on that coverage where i could agree with you more and speaking of you know subscriptions if you look at like the

new york times and the washington post you know they really are national newspapers now but you know u.s.d.a. today is a national newspaper how many subscriptions are people going to buy is there room in the sandbox for usa today digital along with everybody else i want go back what maybe ten years every newspaper was watching the new york times model we'll give you x. number of stories for free before we need y. dollars for you to get more and they've been tweaking that i love the wall street journal model as a subscriber but the newspapers are going through what broadcasters are going through where we are following the consumer to the digital platform and we're swapping analog dollars for digital dimes when it comes to advertising it's a panch and we're pretty much into the death spiral i guess but how great to have you guys to talk with us margo so it's going to holland thank you margot thank you

thank you holland you're going to hear a good idea. a few days ago we told you about how china had landed on the far side of the moon but there's a heck of a lot more going on including china looking to launch their own version of the international space station within the next few years and companies like space x. most musk is space x. hoping to land people on mars it made us think what will be the scientific and economic endgames as the human race looks to the stars and isn't there a case for more space cooperation among nations here to help us is every haskel c.e.o. of shuttle dot io and michelle faul are nasa scientists welcome to you both really great to have you and the show let me start with you china landed that lunar exploration module on the news and it's kind of early but has anything been revealed so far from that well i think

a lot of people heard that this was the first plant that actually germinated it began to grow on the far side of the moon and this is the amazing thing of course we're not going to call it the dark side every part of the moon gets the same amount of sunlight but this is the far side that faces away from the earth and this is the first landing on that so it's incredibly significant it's one of the most geologically fascinating parts of the moon and we've germinated a little plant the first thing to grow on the moon cut in seeds right here add level leave that cell and unfortunately we think the plant is now dead because it's getting ready for litter night that side is now going into the dark side it's actually going to be very cold but at least for a little while and as it was mentioned earlier we're actually going to try to grow things like potatoes on the moon later so china has done something really wonderful in this that i'm very excited and very happy for them well not to be too glib michel but i mean there's nobody to talk to the plants while they're there that always helps as science has proven avery it's so good to have you back we saw you in boston at the forbes under thirty and we're glad to have you we're in the early stages of commercial space flights for the average person but people you. offer

that sort of thing so people can check it out there but space x. sort of kicked this off ten years ago i mean do you think commercial space expert for a should at least from a business perspective will become more and more common and is the international cooperation important you know going faster and further avery. yes i do think space exploration will become more profitable as time goes on i think today space x. is private and when it's just said they'll be private until they start doing regular manned missions to mars however i think as we start to mine asteroids and find resources and stablish new bases and launch space stations there's much more opportunity for commercialization and i think working internationally provides more opportunities for businesses to launch their payloads and to launch their space stations through different international space organizations such as the japanese

space organization or the chinese space organization yeah and michele two things have been the one i mean what's really driven our desire to explore space further and further and to speak on the show all the time we were speaking earlier today about why the way it is concerned about huawei stealing technology not just here but the u.s. but i mean space seems like it should be sort of like a neutral zone right where we are trying to develop things for the human race and climate change out there goodness knows what else is there should we be looking at cooperating more with other nations and are you seeing that when you go to conferences etc well absolutely i mean to answer the first one why do we explore i mean curiosity is an evolutionary advantage there's no species that does particularly well by ignoring its larger environment we're learning about the earth as you mentioned learning about the climate how the climate is changing also how the planets formed how the solar system formed what are places in the universe

there also are really compelling financial reasons as well i mean think about. the apollo program where there was actually this push to many computers and that's what the united states in the position to lead the computer revolution in the one nine hundred seventy s. and eighty's so as far as international collaboration pretty much every major nasa mission is a collaboration with the japanese space agency with the european space agency the only way to get to the space station right now is with the russian space agency so everything we do is a collaboration i hope someday we'll be able to collaborate with the chinese right now we're not able to do that but the more we do as an entire species i mean more is more it's better so i mean whatever you know past is prologue right but michele but i mean look we didn't allow the chinese to really be part and parcel to the first space station that's you know our space station that's going to be not just our earth but that's going to be decommissioned and the chinese are going to have a space station what are we good be doing put not our thumb for right after we said no to them when we drove by them before i mean how does this thing work what do you

think what will we just decide to all get along the show well i certainly hope all decide to get along but nasa has plans to go farther into space with a permanent human presence the idea is to slowly roll off the international space station as it is into commercial applications we want companies to actually go up there and start to really use the space environment and then nasa in collaboration with our partners wants to establish a human presence around the moon perhaps an orbiting space station around the moon the europeans are talking about landing on the lunar surface from that so nasa has plans to go beyond low earth orbit and that's the idea leaving lower earth orbit behind in a way for companies to really take advantage of we go farther and avery speaking of that you know i read a report recently about a spaceport in japan and you mentioned japan earlier but this space port might be ready as early as twenty twenty one i mean do you think that astronauts who retire are going to all of a sudden enter sort of the private sector and and be involved in this exploration and will that also help to fuel inject business and commercialization of space.

yeah absolutely i think so and i hope that they are able to work with shuttle and other organizations and the overview effect shuttle's nonprofit arm to further the mission of opening space to everyone and to getting more children and youth involved and becoming astronauts and building these space stations of the future and michelle do you what do you look at forward to at nasa this year after nasa ends up being funded i might add when mass is funded what sort of things are on the agenda that are exciting coming up well i mean we're preparing for so many different things right now are working on the mars two thousand and twenty rover that's something that's going to be landing on mars as the name suggests in two thousand and twenty we're also getting ready to explore the moons of jupiter jupiter europa and missions to asteroids as well so it's going to be a fascinating year as always i mean we just flew by the farthest object that humankind is ever seen nearby this belt object called ultimate tulay so it's got to

be an exciting year and avery before we go if people want to go ahead and book and go to space themselves using your website when would they be able to do that. yes so we expect to do our first space flights this year in two thousand and nineteen we want to go to space he's the dude to talk with and we certainly had the do do it asked the best people in the world to talk about this segment michel faller and avery we stake you so much for being with us appreciate it we'll talk to you again sometime soon thank you. thank you so much and that's it for this time thanks for being with us we do have a special broadcast coming up next time from miami at the north american bit coin conference we hope you'll join us for that and as always you can catch boom bust on direct t.v. channel three twenty one dish network channel two eighty we're streaming twenty four seven on pluto t.v. that's a free t.v. ad in a one thirty two or is always you can hear is that you tube dot com see. there's

will be a whole cost going on in america for profit and the drug companies are killing millions of americans for profit and if no politician does anything about it i mean i look around the world and i see these relational and the friends protests and i see that as growing going global it john locke said in sixteen ninety i believe that if the social contract was broken it's up to the people to revolt the social contract has been shattered revolution this in the sense. that i see no provision on my part going to what it. was but i.

lost his boss because i just got the. resources you know. that people go mano a mano with those in person but the pressure on us i don't mean. so you know you're not. you're not just i mean. i'm already. in the i mean. if it up as well i might be. getting letters but those was. just. my family fussy about my just but that's already yes it will be in the thought of getting up there with you.

mr. donald trump and takes his space and force ambitions even higher revealing plans to put u.s. missile defense systems into orbit it's ultimately going to be a very very big part of our defense and obviously for.