World's oldest living person dies aged 117

Agencies
September 20, 2017

Washington, Sept 20: The world's oldest living person and the last living subject of Queen Victoria, Violet Mosse- Brown, has passed away at the age of 117 in Jamaica.

Brown is also the first verified supercentenarian from Jamaica. In 2015, she was given a letter by Queen Elizabeth II in honor of her 115th birthday.

Brown was born on March 10 in 1900, 67 years before Jamaica was founded, when it was still part of the British Empire.

Better known by family and friends as Aunt V, Brown officially claimed the title on July 27 this years aged 117 years and 139 days old, the Guinness World Records said.

Brown died on September 15 after being diagnosed with dehydration and irregular heartbeat.

"It was truly an honour to present Ms Violet Brown with her Guinness World Records certificate for being the oldest person living, as she put it, 'in the entire world'," said GWR's Carlos Martinez.

"Not every day does one have the opportunity to share some time with the person who has been on this planet the longest," said Martinez.

"Really and truly, when people ask what I eat and drink to live so long, I say to them that I eat everything, except pork and chicken, and I don't drink rum and dem tings," Brown had said when asked about her secret to long life.

Brown has seven children in total, four of whom are still living. Her first child, Harland Fairweather, died on April 19 this year at the age of 97 years and 4 days.

She shared another record for longevity with her 96- year-old child - the Highest combined age for a parent and child (living).

Harland Fairweather was born in Jamaica on 15 April 1920, which meant that he and his mother had a combined age of 213 years 345 days in March earlier this year, Guinness World Records said.

"As a child of 1900, Violet was born before the advent of zeppelins, vacuum cleaners and Nobel Prizes, and the world population was a quarter of what it is now," said Craig Glenday, Editor-In-Chief of the Guinness World Records.

The previous oldest living person, Emma Morano, passed away on April 15 this year, aged 117 years, 137 days.

The Oldest person ever to have lived is also female, Jeanne Calment from France who lived to 122 years and 164 days.

There is no current record holder for Oldest living male. Guinness World Records is consulting expertsto verify the potential successor for both the female and male titles.

According to the list of living supercentenarians maintainec by the Gerontology Research Group, Nabi Tajima from Japan is now the oldest living person, aged 117 years and 46 days.

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Agencies
July 24,2020

Pune, Jul 24: Agile and dexterous, 85-year-old Shantabai Pawar wields sticks with absolute ease as she displays 'lathi-kathi' on the streets of Pune.

A video of her, displaying her skills in the Indian martial art form for livelihood, has gone viral on social media.

Pawar told media persons that she learnt the art form when she was only eight and has been practising it since then. The ancient martial art s believed to be linked to Dombari community, a nomadic tribe in Maharashtra.

"I have been pursuing the art of lathi-kathi since I was eight. I have never left it. It is part of me and it is an honour to practice it. My father taught me this. He taught me to work hard," Pawar told media persons.

In the video, the sari-clad octogenarian takes a warrior-like stride and effortlessly rotates a stick several times in a second in her hand and around her head and then does it with two sticks together with a smile on her face. She also tosses a stick in the air and catches it with ease.

The assembled gathering is impressed and enthused.

"People come and say, 'Well done Daadi!' I practice it to earn money for my children and grandchildren," she said.

Pawar leaves her home in the morning in the conditions created by coronavirus and performs the art form on roads and streets.

"I go to various areas to perform the art form and people give money," she said.

The artiste also uses thali and stick to gather the attention of people as most of them are indoors due to conditions created by COVID-19.

Senior citizens have been advised against venturing out due to their greater susceptibility to coronavirus but Pawar said she is not afraid to step out.

"People do advise me to not go out due to fear of COVID-19 but I am not scared. Whenever I step out, I pray to my God and he has kept me safe so far," she said.

Aishwarya Kale, a dancer and the person who uploaded the video on social media, said that it is "only an artist who can understand what help another artist needs".

"I was in that area shopping for some items and it was then I saw her performing and thought that I should film her and upload her video on social media. But I never thought that the video would go viral and she would receive financial help not just from people in the country but overseas as well," Kale told media persons.

"She is now getting honour for her craft that she couldn't get in the last 85 years. I feel good that through my small video, her art form has become viral," she added. 

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News Network
July 9,2020

U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc is "very close" to achieving level 5 autonomous driving technology, Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Thursday, referring to the capability to navigate roads without any driver input.

"I'm extremely confident that level 5 or essentially complete autonomy will happen and I think will happen very quickly," Musk said in remarks made via a video message at the opening of Shanghai's annual World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).

"I remain confident that we will have the basic functionality for level 5 autonomy complete this year."

Automakers and tech companies including Alphabet Inc Waymo and Uber Technologies are investing billions in the autonomous driving industry.

However industry insiders have said it would take time for the technology to get ready and public to trust autonomous vehicles fully.

The California-based automaker currently builds cars with an Autopilot driver-assistance system.

Tesla is also developing new heat-projection or cooling systems to enable more advanced computers in cars, Musk said.

Industry data showed Tesla sold nearly 15,000 China-made Model 3 sedans last month.

Tesla has become the highest-valued automaker as its shares surged to record highs and its market capitalisation overtook that of former front-runner Toyota Motors Corp.

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Agencies
July 4,2020

Twitter has joined efforts to do away with racially loaded terms such as master, slave and blacklist from its coding language in the wake of the death of African-American George Floyd and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests.

The project started even before the current movement for racial justice escalated following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd in police custody in May.

The use of terms such as "master" and "slave" in programming language originated decades ago. While "master" is used to refer to the primary version of a code, "slave" refers to the replicas. Similarly, the term "Blacklist" is used to refer to items which are meant to be automatically denied.

The efforts to change these terms in favour of more inclusive language at Twitter were initiated by Regynald Augustin and Kevin Oliver and the microblogging platform is now backing their efforts.

"Inclusive language plays a critical role in fostering an environment where everyone belongs. At Twitter, the language we have been using in our code does not reflect our values as a company or represent the people we serve. We want to change that. #WordsMatter," Twitter's engineering team said in a post on Thursday.

As per the recommendations from the team, the term "whitelist" could be replaced by "allowlist" and "blacklist" by "denylist".

Similarly, "master/slave" could be replaced by "leader/follower", "primary/replica" or "primary/standby".

Twitter, however, is not the first to start a project to bring inclusivity in programming language.

According to a report in CNET, the team behind the Drupal online publishing software started using "primary/replica" in place of "master/slave" as early as in 2014.

The use of the terms "master/slave" was also dropped by developers of the Python programming language in 2018.

Now similar efforts are underway at Microsoft's Github and LinkedIn divisions as well, said the report.

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