Cryptocurrency funding for UO

Global cryptocurrency company Ripple will give $1 million in real money to the University of Oregon to support the study of the digital payment industry.

San Francisco-based Ripple will give the university the money in a five-year agreement. Ripple will also provide technical support and resources. Ripple’s donation will support a new program on cryptocurrency, blockchain and cybersecurity in its computer and information science department.

Conditions set 
for ZTE deal

President Donald Trump handed the Chinese telecom firm ZTE a lifeline Thursday, defusing tensions with China’s president, who asked Trump to intervene to save ZTE.

The Commerce Department said ZTE had agreed to pay a $1 billion fine, replace its board and senior leadership, and allow the United States to more closely inspect the company by effectively having a handpicked compliance team embedded inside the firm. The U.S. would then lift a seven-year ban that prevented ZTE from buying U.S. products and was quickly driving it out of business.

Idaho utility sues EPA over Hells Canyon dams

An Idaho utility has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency contending the agency failed to act on a request by the state to modify water temperature standards below a hydroelectric project where federally protected fall chinook salmon reproduce.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday by Idaho Power Company in U.S. District Court seeks to force the agency to act on a 2012 request by Idaho allowing warmer water temperatures in the Snake River below the Hells Canyon Complex on the Idaho-Oregon border.

Snake River fall chinook were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in the 1990s. A recovery plan released late last year by federal agencies identified the Snake River below the dams as the best spot for boosting the number of naturally reproducing spawning fish for the cold-water species.

Hells Canyon is a mile-deep canyon carved by the Snake River, much of it popular for recreation but inaccessible by road. The three-dam Hells Canyon Complex built from the late 1950s through the 1960s partially tamed the river.

Idaho Power in the lawsuit said the EPA is violating environmental and administrative laws.

The EPA did not immediately respond.

Fed on track to hike rates

Emerging markets struggling with higher U.S. interest rates are likely to get little sympathy from the Federal Reserve.

Currencies of such nations have been hammered in a spreading sell-off amid worries that their economies won’t cope with higher U.S. borrowing costs. That’s prompted central bankers in India and Indonesia to raise interest rates and urge Fed caution, with Turkey on Thursday also delivering a surprise hike to defend the lira.

There are few signs such concerns will steer the Fed away from its course for at least two and possibly three more rate increases this year, including a move at its policy meeting next week.

IHOP to become IHOb, but few know why

The International House of Pancakes prompted internet furor this week with one head-scratching tweet. “For 60 pancakin’ years, we’ve been IHOP,” the company wrote Monday. “Now, we’re flippin’ our name to IHOb.”

What would the “b” stand for? The American breakfast chain wouldn’t say. Its curious customers would have to wait until June 11 to find out.

Speculation abounds. Surely the “b” could stand for “breakfast,” some suggested on social media. Could it be brunch? others offered. Or maybe even bacon?

But for one corner of Twitter, Arabic speakers, the mysterious “b” actually made perfect sense.

“What do y’all mean name change,” Chris Tadros wrote, “this is what Arab parents called IHOP for years.” That’s because in the Arabic alphabet, no letter exists with a hard “p” sound, making it tough for Arabic speakers to pronounce the letter P. Arabs have worked around this issue with the closest alternative — the Arabic equivalent of the letter “B.” Across the Middle East, Pepsi is known as “Bebsi.” Pizza is “bizza.”

It’s still to be determined whether IHOP is actually aware of the connection. But coincidence or not, Arabic tweeters dwelled in the moment.

“An Arab parent hacked IHOP’s account,” one joked.

— Staff and wire reports