This weekend, China will be hosting the annual BRICS summit – a meeting of leaders from five developing nations including Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Lourdes Casanova, academic director of Cornell University’s Emerging Markets Institute, says that political and economic instability in Brazil and South Africa has solidified China’s lead position at the forum.

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

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Emergency officials continue to fight fires at an Arkema plant near Houston, that was flooded by Tropical Storm Harvey. Containers of chemicals stored at the plant caught fire today, and company officials expect other containers to do the same. Brett Fors, assistant professor in Cornell University’s Department of Chemical and Chemical Biology, works extensively with organic peroxides in his research.

Arts and Sciences

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Tropical Storm Harvey continues to wreak havoc on southeastern Texas, and made a second landfall in Louisiana early Wednesday morning.  Charles H. Greene is a professor of Earth and Atmospheric sciences in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, a fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and a leading expert in effects of global climate change on ocean ecosystems and extreme weather.

Agriculture and Life Sciences

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Uber Technologies Inc. is expected to announce the end of an app feature that allows the company to track riders for up to five minutes after a trip. Karen Levy, professor of information science at Cornell University, studies how law and technology interact to regulate social life, with a particular focus on social and organizational aspects of surveillance.

Computing & Information Sciences

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The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are holding a historic congress in Bogota this week to determine the political fate of the demobilized guerrilla organization. Gustavo Flores-Macias, a professor of government at Cornell University and author of the book “After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America”, says that while much is still unclear about the FARC’s ideological identity and popular support as it transitions into a political party, the process itself will strengthen Colombia’s democracy.

Law, Government & Public Policy

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Art DeGaetano, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and expert on climate data at Cornell University, says that although the meteorological elements in hurricane formation are common in late summer weather patterns, climate change has affected those components and the strength and impacts of Harvey.

Energy, Environment & Sustainability

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Cornell University economist Steven C. Kyle, an expert in macroeconomics and government policy, says economic indicators are ill-equipped to calculate the economic damage caused by natural disasters such as Hurricane Harvey – which is expected to drift back into the Gulf of Mexico today.

Dyson School of Applied Economics & Management

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What place do Confederate statues and symbols have in society today? The question has triggered national debate and continues to fuel political clashes across the country. Riché Richardson, associate professor of African American literature at Cornell University, researches the public dialogue about controversial symbols, including lingering Confederate symbolism.

Arts and Sciences

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Voyager 1 and 2 will reach 40 years of operation and exploration later this month and in early September. Despite their distance, they continue to communicate with NASA daily and are still exploring the final frontier. Lisa Kaltenegger is the director of the Carl Sagan Institute and professor of astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University.

Arts and Sciences

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Phillip Nicholson, an astronomy professor at Cornell University who studies the solar system, says they’re very predictable – you can actually calculate future eclipse times within a few seconds. But millions of years from now, total solar eclipses will only be a thing of the past.

Arts and Sciences

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