Toronto Film Fest Lineup Will Generate Buzz, and Debates
Few institutions in cinema can match the teeming, overwhelming Toronto International Film Festival as a conversation-starting force. It simply has a lot of movies worth talking about.
And this year, many of the films that will parade down Toronto red carpets will hope to shift the dialogue not just in terms of awards buzz, but in other directions, too: equality in Hollywood; politics in Washington; even about the nature of the movies, themselves. At TIFF, expect debate.
That’s what the filmmakers behind “The Battle of the Sexes,” one of the anticipated films heading to TIFF in the coming days, are hoping for. After the festival opens Thursday with another tennis movie, the rivalry drama “Borg/McEnroe,” Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (the directing duo who helmed 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine”) will premiere their drama about the 1973 showdown between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
The movie, starring Emma Stone and Steve Carell, holds obvious parallels for a movie industry with its own issues of gender equality, in both pay disparity and directing opportunity. For others, it will recall issues that dominated last year’s U.S. presidential campaign. But “Battle of the Sexes” may surprise moviegoers in its broad sympathies on both sides of the net.
“The one thing we didn’t want to have happen was this polarizing political document,” said Dayton. “Right now, there’s enough of that in the world. We wanted to tell a more personal story and keep it from becoming too binary.”
The filmmakers say they are expecting “a variety of opinions in any one audience.”
“It’s really the best way to release a film, at a festival like Telluride or Toronto,” said Faris. “It’s a great way to get the word out about a film. It’s a great thing for the filmmakers to have what is usually a pretty film-oriented, film-loving audience. It gives you hope that they’re still out there.”
The Toronto International Film Festival comes right on the heels of the Venice and Telluride festivals, but the size and scope of Toronto has long made it the centerpiece of the fall movie season. It’s where much of the coming awards season gets handicapped, debated and solidified. It’s also a significant market for new films, and this year several intriguing films — “I, Tonya,” with Margot Robbie as Tonya Harding, and “Hostiles,” a brutal Western with Christian Bale — are on the block.
But most eyes will be on the gala premieres of the fall’s biggest films, including Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,” Guillermo Del Toro’s “The Shape of Water,” George Clooney’s “Suburbicon,” and maybe the most explosive movie of the season, Darren Aronofsky’s mystery-shrouded allegorical thriller “mother!”
It can be a competitive landscape, with dozens of daily premieres and their respective parties, all trying to stand out. But several first-time directors may end up stealing the spotlight. Greta Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” will sail into Toronto on waves of rave reviews from Telluride. Aaron Sorkin, arguably the top screenwriter in Hollywood for two decades, will present his directorial debut, “Molly’s Game.”
Sorkin didn’t initially anticipate he’d direct his script. But he became, he says, obsessed with the story of Molly Bloom (Jessica Chastain), the former elite skier who was indicted for running a high-stakes poker game in Los Angeles. It’s a potentially career-redefining movie for Sorkin — and he’s appropriately anxious.
“I’d feel the same way if we were launching it in Wyoming. I’m nervous because other than test audiences, this will be the first time people see it,” said Sorkin. “The Toronto Film Festival is a very prestigious place to debut a film, so I’m aware of the company I’m in and what’s expected in the movie. It will be up to others to decide if it delivered.”
“The Disaster Artist” poses a similar turning point for its star and director, James Franco. It’s about the making of what’s widely considered one of the worst movies ever made — the cult favorite “The Room,” by Tommy Wiseau. Franco, who plays Wiseau, considers it a new step for him as a filmmaker, and says the film’s parody is laced with affection.
“The characters are outsiders. They are weirdos,” said Franco. “But everybody can relate to having a dream and trying to break into this incredibly hard business.”
The film will premiere to a surely raucous audience at a midnight screening. Franco, who first saw “The Room” with an especially excitable Vancouver audience, expects it to be the perfect debut for his film: “Canadians know how to do ‘The Room.”’
“The Disaster Artist,” which A24 will release in December, might give TIFF what “La La Land” did last year — a happily escapist movie about Hollywood. Other films will tackle less comic real-life tales, including Angelina Jolie’s searing Cambodia drama “First They Killed My Father,” the Winston Churchill biopic “Darkest Hour,” with Gary Oldman; and the documentary “The Final Year,” about the last year of Barack Obama’s administration.
Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the festival, said Trump’s presidency “was not a factor in the films we selected,” though he expects it to color the reception of many.
“Some of them will be received with the current political climate in mind,” said Bailey. “One of the things I think you learn from films like (the Watergate drama) ‘Mark Felt’ and (the Ted Kennedy drama) ‘Chappaquiddick’ and others that we have here is that the process of politics is not a pretty one. It involves a lot of conflicted motives, shall we say.”
And who better to make sense of the current political landscape than Armando Iannucci (“Veep,” “The Thick of It”), the master of rapid-fire political farce. In his second feature film, “The Death of Stalin,” he travels back to 1950s Russia only to find an expectedly timely tale of the madcap machinations of political power.
“It is bizarre, isn’t it? When I started showing it to people in January and February earlier this year, people said it resonated with Trump and Putin and fake news,” said Iannucci. “It is about autocracy. It is about what happens when democracy falls apart and one person decides everything. I’m kind of glad it does resonate now. But am I pleased?”
…
Study: Treating Insomnia Eases Anxiety, Depression
Treating young people who suffer from insomnia by using online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could reduce debilitating mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, scientists said Wednesday.
In a large trial published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal, researchers at Oxford University’s Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute also found that successfully treating sleep disruption eased psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and paranoia.
“Sleep problems are very common in people with mental health disorders, but for too long insomnia has been trivialized as merely a symptom, rather than a cause, of psychological difficulties,” said Daniel Freeman, a professor of clinical psychology who led the work.
“This study turns that old idea on its head, showing that insomnia may actually be a contributory cause of mental health problems.”
The research involved 3,755 university students from across Britain who were randomized into two groups. One group had six sessions of online CBT, each lasting about 20 minutes, and delivered via a digital program called Sleepio. The others had access to standard treatments but no CBT.
Freeman’s team monitored participants’ mental health with a series of online questionnaires at zero, three, 10 and 22 weeks from the start of treatment.
The researchers found that those who had the CBT sleep treatment reduced their insomnia significantly as well as showing small but sustained reductions in paranoia and hallucinatory experiences.
The CBT also led to improvements in depression, anxiety, nightmares, psychological well-being, and daytime work and home functioning.
Andrew Welchman, head of neuroscience and mental health at the Wellcome Trust health charity, which helped fund the research, said the results suggested improving sleep may provide a promising route into early treatment to improve mental health.
Freeman added: “A good night’s sleep really can make a difference to people’s psychological health. Helping people get better sleep could be an important first step in tackling many psychological and emotional problems.”
…
Plastic Found in Drinking Water on Five Continents
Tiny pieces of plastic have been found in drinking water on five continents – from Trump Tower in New York to a public tap on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda – posing a potential risk to people’s health, researchers said on Wednesday.
Plastic degrades over time into tiny particles known as microplastics, which were found in 83 percent of samples from Germany to Cuba to Lebanon analyzed by U.S.-based digital news organization Orb Media.
“If you ask people whether they want to be eating or drinking plastic, they just say, ‘No, that’s a dumb question,’ ” said Sherri Mason, one of study’s authors and a chemistry professor at the State University of New York.
“It’s probably not something that we want to be ingesting, but we are, whether through our drinking water, through beer, juice. It’s in our food, sea salt, mussels. Nobody is safe,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Microplastics of up to 5 millimeters are also in bottled water, she said.
The health impact of ingesting plastics are unclear, but studies on fish have shown they inhibit hatching of fertilized eggs, stunt growth and make them more susceptible to predators, increasing mortality rates.
Microplastics absorb toxic chemicals from the marine environment, which are released into the bodies of fish and mammals who consume them, Orb Media’s chief executive, Molly Bingham, said in a statement.
While many studies have shown the prevalence of microplastics in the world’s oceans, where more than 5 trillion pieces of plastic are floating, it is the first time research has been conducted into drinking water.
…
‘Hunger Games’ Actor Donald Sutherland to Get Lifetime Oscar
Donald Sutherland, the star of “MASH,” “The Hunger Games” and more than 140 other movies, is to get a lifetime achievement Oscar, along with Belgian director Agnes Varda, Oscar organizers said on Wednesday.
Sutherland and Varda will be joined by African-American indie film director Charles Burnett and cinematographer Owen Roizman in receiving honorary Oscars at a ceremony in Los Angeles in November, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in statement.
Academy president John Bailey said the honorees reflect “the breadth of international, independent and mainstream filmmaking, and are tributes to four great artists whose work embodies the diversity of our shared humanity.”
Canadian actor Sutherland, 82, has a career spanning five decades starting with his 1967 breakthrough in “The Dirty Dozen.” He went on to play wisecracking army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in the 1970 movie version of “MASH,” as well as roles in thriller “Don’t Look Now” and “Klute.”
Sutherland, the father of “24” actor Kiefer Sutherland, played President Snow in all four of the recent “Hunger Games” young adult movie franchise. He has never been Oscar nominated.
Belgian-born Varda has experimented with shorts, documentaries and feature films during her more than 60-year career. Called the mother of the French New Wave, her movies include “Cleo from 5 to 7,” “Le Bonheur,” and “One Sings, the Other Doesn’t.”
Burnett is an independent filmmaker whose work, including “America Becoming,” has been praised for its portrayal of the African-American experience.
Roizman has five Oscar nominations for his work as a cinematographer on movies including “The French Connection,” “Tootsie” and “Network.”
The honorary Oscars will be presented at a gala dinner on Nov. 11.
…
Tech Leaders Prepare to Fight DACA Decision
They took to Twitter, Facebook and their corporate blog posts. They called their congressional representatives, signed letters and pledged to fight.
This week, many tech industry leaders geared up for battle after the Trump administration announced it was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows people in the U.S. without legal documents to live, work and go to school without fear of deportation.
The fate of young adults who benefited from DACA is a civil rights issue, say tech executives and leaders.
However, the lengths to which the tech industry will go to get Congress to act before the program expires in six months remain unclear.
Already, some tech executives have pledged not to fire employees who are DACA beneficiaries, even if they lose the legal right to work in the U.S.
Tools of political action
But there is more the tech industry could do. It could use its very services to put out a call to employees and customers to lobby Congress, something many firms and organizations did in 2012 when they successfully fought anti-copyright piracy legislation.
Tech companies also could pledge not to disclose personal information collected on their platforms to authorities to help deport people.
While many tech leaders spoke out this week against the decision, it’s not clear how uniform the industry is about how to advocate for DACA beneficiaries.
“They need to go to Washington and sit down with people and say, ‘Get this done,’” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, an advocacy group co-founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “It is a must-pass legislative item.”
DACA before tax reform
Some companies have promised to make congressional legislation their No. 1 issue, even putting aside their long-held hopes for tax reform, which congressional leaders pledged to address this fall.
Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer at Microsoft, said Congress should pursue DACA legislation before tax reform.
“We need to put the humanitarian needs of these 800,000 people on the legislative calendar before a tax bill,” Smith wrote in a blog post.
The software giant also is pledging to help with the legal costs of the 39 DACA beneficiaries who it knows work at its company, he said.
Zuckerberg, in a Facebook post, called on people to contact congressional representatives.
In an email to employees, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would provide help to the more than 250 employees who are in the program, according to CNET.
Ads attacking Trump
The Emerson Collective, the philanthropic organization run by Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow, began airing political ads Wednesday in some cable markets criticizing the Trump administration action regarding DACA.
Outside of Silicon Valley, business leaders also were joining the call for action.
Stas Gayshan, managing director of Cambridge Innovation Center, a workspace business in the Boston area catering to entrepreneurs, said he planned to be part of “ramping up pressure to make it clear that these folks are Americans.”
“This is a pretty clear assault on what makes our country great,” said Gayshan, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Uzbekistan when he was nine years old.
In Chicago, Rishi Shah, chief executive officer and founder of Outcome Health, a digital health firm currently valued on paper at more than $1 billion, said he was seeing the tech industry move quickly to get Congress to act.
“This is not a niche issue for the industry,” said Shah, whose father emigrated to the U.S. from India. “We really see this as a defining moment.”
…
Facebook: Likely Russia-based Operation Bought Ads During 2016 US Election
Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday it had found that an influence operation likely based in Russia spent $100,000 on ads promoting divisive social and political messages in a two-year-period through May.
Facebook, the dominant social media network, said that many of the ads promoted 470 “inauthentic” accounts and pages that it has now suspended. The ads spread polarizing views on topics including immigration, race and gay rights, instead of backing a particular political candidate, it said.
Facebook announced the findings in a blog post by its chief security officer, Alex Stamos, and said that it was cooperating with federal inquiries into influence operations during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The company said it found no link to any presidential campaign. Three-fourths of the ads were national in scope, and the rest did not appear to reflect targeting of political swing-states as voting neared.
Facebook did not print the names of any of the suspended pages, but some of them included such words as “refugee” and “patriot.”
Even if no laws were violated, the pages ran afoul of Facebook requirements for authenticity, setting up the
suspensions.
More than $1 billion was spent on digital political ads during the 2016 presidential campaign, 10,000 times the amount identified by Facebook’s security team.
But the findings buttress U.S. intelligence agency conclusions that Russia was actively involved in shaping the election.
Facebook previously published a white paper on influence operations, including what it said were fake “amplifier” accounts for propaganda, and said it was cracking down.
As recently as June, it told journalists that it had not found any evidence to date of Russian operatives buying election-related ads on its platform.
A Facebook employee said Wednesday that there were unspecified connections between the divisive ads and a well-known Russian “troll factory” in St. Petersburg that publishes comments on social media.
Beyond the issue ads, Facebook said it uncovered $50,000 more in overtly political advertising that might have a link to Russia. Some of those ads were bought using the Russian language, even though they were displayed to users in English.
…
Biblical Archeologist Searching Ancient Turkish Sites
Like the film character Indiana Jones, Mark Fairchild is a professor at a university in Indiana. He travels to far off places in search of Biblical antiquities and doesn’t like snakes. That’s why his students call him Indiana Mark. It’s also one of the reasons he’s the focus of a new documentary. Erika Celeste reports from Huntington, Indiana.
…
Madonna Moves to Portugal, Rated New Star Destination for Expats
New Lisbon resident Madonna has been extolling the delights of living in the Portuguese capital, the most illustrious of a growing number of foreigners in the newly-fashionable city.
“I used to be a basket case but now I live in Lisbon,” she wrote on Instagram on Sunday under a photo of baskets hanging from the ceiling of an old Portuguese kitchen.
Local media say she has bought a 7.5 million-euro ($9 million) estate in the mountains of Sintra, outside Lisbon, and will continue to stay at the Pestana Palace hotel, where she is in the royal suite, while it is refurbished.
The 18th century Quinta do Relogio estate mentioned by various news outlets was still up for sale on the Engel&Volkers real estate agency’s website on Wednesday.
If the reports are true, Madonna — who wrote that “the energy of Portugal is so inspiring” — joins film stars Michael Fassbender and Monica Bellucci, who have bought properties in Lisbon in the past year.
Among the reasons the pop star has come to Lisbon is that her 11-year-old son, David Banda, has started soccer training at the youth academy of Benfica, according to the Lisbon club.
She also arrives as Portugal has been named Europe’s best destination for expatriates to live in 2017 and the world’s best for quality of life, in a survey published by social network InterNations on Wednesday.
In the overall global rating for best expatriate destination, it soared 23 positions from 2016 to No. 5, making it the leading gainer worldwide.
Portugal, which boasts sandy beaches, golf courses, historic castles and some of the lowest prices in Western Europe, was hard-hit by an economic and debt crisis in 2010-13, but has been on a steady recovery since and is going through a tourism boom.
…
Danish Queen’s Husband, Prince Henrik, Diagnosed with Dementia
Denmark’s Prince Henrik, the husband of Queen Margrethe, has been diagnosed with dementia, a condition that has affected his behavior and judgement, the palace said Wednesday.
The announcement came weeks after the 83-year-old announced he did not want to be buried next to his wife, saying he was unhappy he had never been acknowledged as her equal.
“Following a longer diagnostic process and lately a series of examinations during late summer, a specialist team … has now concluded that his Royal Highness Prince Henrik suffers from dementia,” the Royal House said in a statement.
“The extent of the cognitive failure is … greater than expected considering the age of The Prince,” it added.
Henrik, who married Margrethe in 1967, retired last year and renounced his title of Prince Consort, saying he was disappointed not to be named King Consort. Since then he has participated in very few official duties and spent much of his time at his private vineyard in France.
In Denmark, a princess traditionally becomes queen when her husband takes the throne, but a man does not become king when the roles are reversed.
Born Henri Marie Jean Andre de Laborde de Monpezat in France in 1934, Henrik has two sons with the queen, Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Joachim.
…
French Fashion Giants Agree to Ban Size 0 Models
Two of the world’s biggest luxury goods conglomerates announced a joint charter Wednesday which they said aims to protect the health of fashion models by making those who are unhealthily thin ineligible to work.
The pact adopted by French corporations LVMH and Kering incorporates — and goes beyond —a new French law that requires all models to provide medical certificates proving they are healthy before they can work.
While the French law set to take effect Oct. 1 requires both male and female models to present a health certificate obtained within the previous two years, LVMH and Kering said their charter would shorten the time frame to six months of the job.
The pact also bans the conglomerates’ labels from using female models below a French women’s size 34, which is typically equivalent to a U.S. size 0-2 and a U.K. size 6. The French law initially included a minimum body mass index requirement, but it was removed after lawmakers deemed the doctor’s certificate an adequate safeguard.
The fashion companies’ said their agreement would take effect this month, in time for the spring-summer ready-to-wear runway collections.
Unlike the French law, the charter also will apply to the international Kering and LVMH brands with runway collections presented in Milan, London and New York. The two groups said they hoped to set a new global standard for the fashion industry.
“We hope to inspire the entire industry to follow suit, thus making a real difference in the working conditions of fashion models industry-wide,” Kering CEO Francois-Henri Pinault said in a statement.
In addition, the charter requires each brand to put a dedicated psychologist at the disposal of fashion models during working hours — either by phone or in person in the work place.
A monitoring committee of representatives from Kering and LVMH will meet annually with brands, modeling agencies and models to ensure the charter is being correctly implemented.
The two giants’ fashion houses include Dior, Kenzo, Stella McCartney, Saint Laurent, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and others.
…
New Rockets Could Inspire Next Generation
Rockets that will take Americans back to space from U.S. soil for the first time since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011 could also launch new careers in space science. Faith Lapidus reports.
…
Treadmills Prove Link Between Movement and Health
Peripheral Artery disease is a painful condition caused when cholesterol and other fats build up and clog blood flow in the veins. One of the most effective treatments involves getting up and moving. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
40 Years After Launch Voyager 1 Still Sending Data
Forty years ago, as President Carter was spending his first year in office, NASA launched two spacecraft hoping to learn about Jupiter, Saturn and Saturn’s moon Titan. But beyond all expectations, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are still communicating. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…
New York Fashion Week Ready for Kickoff
New York Fashion Week, the first in a series of global style weeks during September, is gearing up with designers ready to present their visions for Spring 2018.
This season, more than 100 designers will showcase their latest creations in venues across New York on Thursday, although some flagship brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Thom Browne, Proenza Schouler, and Altuzarra have opted to move their shows overseas.
The six-day schedule, which previously ran for a full week, has been streamlined to give buyers and editors more time to fly out to London Fashion Week, which follows directly after New York’s.
“When you look at fashion weeks globally – starting in New York, then London, then Milan, then Paris – it’s basically a month. You have editors and buyers traveling to all those fashion weeks,” said Steven Kolb, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Inc. (CFDA), describing the “sheer exhaustion” of such a jam-packed schedule.
High-profile fashion houses Calvin Klein and Tom Ford are kicking off the New York shows to “put it on the same playing field” as its European counterparts, Kolb said.
In keeping with the political messaging that often underlies the program, many fashionistas on and off the runway are expected to wear blue ribbons, created in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“The ACLU is an important group that really stands up for people’s rights – the right for people to live their lives as they choose,” Kolb said.
Celebrities have been sporting the ribbon on red carpets already this year, but for fashion week, the ribbon is branded with the NYFW initials.
Last season the CFDA paired up with the Planned Parenthood health group to create pink pins that ended up on the garments of models on the runway, designers such as Marchesa’s Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig and Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour.
…
Dozens of Items Linked to Princess Diana Hit Auction Block
It’s been 20 years since Princess Diana’s death, yet her legacy has barely faded.
Now, dozens of items with a direct connection to one of the most admired women in the world — from articles of clothing, to jewelry, to signed papers and photographs, and even to a piece of her wedding cake — are for sale by Boston-based RR Auction.
“She still resonates all over the world,” RR Executive Vice President Bobby Livingston.
The 79 items from a variety of sources span most of her life, from her childhood to her teenage years to her wedding day and afterward. They even include belongings she donated to charity auctions just months before her death in a Paris car crash on Aug. 31, 1997, at age 36.
The most spectacular item is a satin-lined, silver-jeweled evening bag that dates to the early 1980s. It was given to a member of the royal household and comes with a letter confirming its authenticity. It’s expected to sell for more than $15,000.
A 17-inch (43-centimeter) silver necklace with a capital “D” charm that Diana is thought to have worn as a teen is Livingston’s favorite item for sale.
“It really strikes me as the most personal item,” he said. “The logo became definitive of her.”
The necklace is expected to sell for $2,000, but Livingston suspects it could get much more.
Perhaps the strangest item for sale is a piece of wedding cake encased in a special box commemorating Diana’s marriage to Prince Charles, marked on the cover with “CD, Buckingham Palace, 29th July 1981.”
The auction even includes a casual white sweater from British department store Marks & Spencer with a simple label inside that reads “D. Spencer.” It was likely worn in Diana’s teenage years and came into the possession of the head chef at her family’s home when the family decided to redecorate her bedroom.
Diana’s signed childhood copy of Beatrix Potter’s “The Tale of Pigling Bland” could sell for more than $2,000.
Online bidding ends Sept. 13.
…
Facebook’s Pricey Cricket Bid Shows Appetite for Big Sports Events
Facebook’s $600 million losing bid to buy the streaming rights to a hugely popular cricket tournament in India shows the social network is willing to spend big bucks for high-profile sporting events to keep users engaged on its platform.
Facebook on Monday emerged as the highest bidder for the rights to stream the Indian Premier League (IPL) through 2022, but lost out to Twenty-First Century Fox’s Star India, which bid $2.55 billion for the television and streaming rights combined.
Cricket is the most popular sport in India and the IPL is watched by more than a billion people worldwide. The tournament began in 2008 with franchise owners including movie stars and India’s richest man.
The bid by Facebook also highlights the company’s efforts to accelerate its push into video as it tries to take advertising dollars from television and increase the time people spend on its platform. Facebook currently offers live video from a number of news publishers as well as its users.
“[Facebook’s bid] is still significant because it’s such a large amount of money in a market that’s still nascent,” Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser said. “It clarifies that they intend to be a real player in traditional premium video content.”
With a cash pile of $6.25 billion, Facebook will have even more shots at bidding for live sporting events as it seeks to keep people glued to its expanding media network.
Facebook kicked off live-streaming sports events about a year ago with a soccer match between Manchester United and Everton. It has since streamed basketball, baseball and more soccer matches.
Another significant deal for Facebook was its agreement with Major League Baseball in May to live-stream 20 games this season.
However, the social network lost out to Amazon.com in April for the highly coveted rights to stream 10 U.S. National Football League (NFL) games this year.
Amazon agreed to pay the NFL five times the amount Twitter had spent on the rights last year, which was reported to be $10 million, a source told Reuters at the time.
Facebook was also competing with Twitter and Snapchat parent Snap to score the online rights to video highlights from Fox for next year’s soccer World Cup, Bloomberg reported in July.
Facebook might also eye other big events such as the Olympics or the soccer World Cup, the world’s most viewed sports event, Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth said.
…
Boston Honors Man Who Inspired ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
The man who inspired the ice bucket challenge that has raised millions for ALS research is being honored at Boston City Hall.
Mayor Martin Walsh is hosting a rally Tuesday for Pete Frates at City Hall Plaza. The event coincides with the release of a new book on Frates.
“The Ice Bucket Challenge: Pete Frates and the Fight against ALS” was written by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. Half of its proceeds benefit the Frates family.
Walsh will declare Sept. 5 as Pete Frates Day in Boston.
Frates, his family, the book authors, Boston Red Sox officials and the Boston College baseball team are expected to attend.
Frates is a former Boston College baseball star who has inspired millions of dollars in donations for research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS.
your ad hereEU Says 40 Countries Now Affected in Tainted Egg Scandal
A European Union official says 40 countries now have been affected by a Europe-wide contaminated egg scandal, including 24 EU members and 16 non-members.
Vytenis Andriukaitis, the official in charge of health and food safety for the European Commission, said Tuesday in Estonia that only four countries in the 28-nation EU haven’t had eggs tainted by the pesticide Fipronil, considered a health hazard if consumed in large quantities. The unaffected EU nations are Lithuania, Portugal, Cyprus and Croatia.
Millions of eggs across Europe have been destroyed after they were found to contain traces of Fipronil.
No one has fallen ill in the scandal in which Fipronil was found to have been illegally mixed in an insect spray for chickens. At least two people in the Netherlands have been detained.
your ad hereFewer Harvey Victims at Shelters Doesn’t End Housing Needs
One couple displaced by Harvey managed to get a hotel room, but got kicked out after one night for lacking state identification that was lost to the flooding. A man whose cellphone was wrecked by floodwater is staying at a convention center, waiting for government offices to reopen Tuesday.
While the number of evacuees seeking refuge in Houston’s emergency shelters has dwindled, many thousands of people are still in dire need of housing. Some returned to complexes inundated with sewage and mud. Others are staying with family and friends.
More than 50,000 went to government-paid hotels, some far away from homes and schools.
“You can’t just pick the hotel,” said D’Ona Spears, who has no way of getting her children to school when it resumes next week. “You have to go further out, further out, further out.”
Without ID, couple forced to move
Spears and Brandon Polson had gotten a government-funded hotel room near downtown, but without ID they had to leave. After going to the Toyota Center, the basketball arena that’s also housing evacuees, they were taken to a motel in Humble, about 20 miles (32.19 kilometers) away. Spears said she wished the family could return to the convention center.
At the George R. Brown Convention Center, about 1,500 people remain and several said they were homeless, disabled or from public housing. About 2,800 were at the NRG Center, another convention center that opened after George R. Brown reached double its original capacity.
Morris Mack, who arrived at the convention center Aug. 30, sat outside the main entrance, sharing a cigarette. He hasn’t been able to re-enter his home in a public housing development in northwest Houston, and he didn’t know whether it’d be flooded.
While he registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, Mack’s cellphone was damaged by floodwaters, and he didn’t have a working email address, making it difficult for the agency to get in touch with him or send him a check. He was hoping that once government offices reopen, he could get a government assistance card, which he could then use to get a cellphone to communicate with FEMA.
“I’m just trying. I can only wait now,” Mack said.
Over 50,000 residents in hotels
Harvey struck Texas on Aug. 25 as a Category 4 hurricane, but brought the worst flooding to Houston and other areas as a tropical storm. The rain totalled nearly 52 inches (1.3 meters) in some spots, and the storm is blamed for at least 60 deaths.
FEMA said about 560,000 families are registered for its housing assistance program. It said 53,630 residents displaced by Harvey are currently in government-funded hotel rooms.
The temporary housing has been provided for 18,732 households, said FEMA spokesman Bob Howard. Once people are granted the assistance, there is a minimum allotment of 14 days, but that can be extended if necessary.
FEMA officials also are weighing other options, such as mobile homes, should the need arise.
Mobile homes have troubled past
After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, FEMA bought thousands of mobile homes for people left homeless, but the program was plagued by problems. Some flood victims who lived in the homes were exposed to high levels of formaldehyde, which was used in building materials.
Some people choosing to go back to their homes after Harvey were trying to make do the best they could.
But at the Clayton Homes, some apartments were filled with water and floors caked in mud and sewage. Clayton Homes residents were among the first to arrive at the convention center last weekend, many riding in the back of city dump trucks. The complex is bounded on one side by Buffalo Bayou, the muddy waterway that jumped its banks and sent water rushing into homes.
Piles of garbage and soggy furniture sat next to the gnarled remains of a fence separating the bayou from the complex. The rotting stench was present in parts of the complex.
Fear for her possessions
Rosie Carmouche spent two days at George R. Brown with her two children. But she didn’t want to stay too long, fearing for her possessions.
“They made you feel as comfortable as they possibly can. I will give them that,” Carmouche said. “But when your mind is — you know what kind of community you live in? It’s hard.”
Laquinna Russell used bleach to scrub out the bottom floor of their two-story home, but is worried about mold and invisible bacteria, so her family is sleeping on their second floor.
“We didn’t have anywhere to go but back here,” she said.
…
Houston Homeowners, Small-business Owners Feel Effects of Harvey
Much of Houston is cleaning up from the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey and the flooding that followed. The rebuilding is just beginning, and the financial impact is being felt by both flood victims and those who did not get water in their homes. Elizabeth Lee explains from Houston.
…
Growing US Dilemma: Automated Jobs Meet Social Consciousness
Security guard Eric Leon watches the Knightscope K5 security robot as it glides through the mall, charming shoppers with its blinking blue and white lights. The brawny automaton records video and sounds alerts. According to its maker, it deters mischief just by making the rounds.
Leon, the all-too-human guard, feels pretty sure that the robot will someday take his job.
“He doesn’t complain,” Leon says. “He’s quiet. No lunch break. He’s starting exactly at 10.”
Even in the technology hotbed stretching from Silicon Valley to San Francisco, a security robot can captivate passers-by. But the K5 is only one of a growing menagerie of automated novelties in a region where you can eat a delivered pizza made via automation and drink beers at a bar served by an airborne robot. This summer, the San Francisco Chronicle published a tech tourism guide listing a dozen or so places where tourists can observe robots and automation in action.
Yet San Francisco is also where workers were the first to embrace mandatory sick leave and fully paid parental leave. Voters approved a $15 hourly minimum wage in 2014, a requirement that Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law for the entire state in 2016. And now one official is pushing a statewide “tax” on robots that automate jobs and put people out of work.
It’s too soon to say if the effort will prevail, let alone whether less-progressive jurisdictions might follow suit. The tussle points to the tensions that can flare when people embrace both technological innovation and a strong brand of social consciousness.
Such frictions seem destined to escalate as automation makes further inroads into the workplace. One city supervisor, Norman Yee, has proposed barring food delivery robots from city streets, arguing that public sidewalks should be solely for people.
“I’m a people person,” Yee says, “so I tend to err on the side of things that should be beneficial and safe for people.”
Future for workers
Jane Kim, the city supervisor who is pushing the robot tax, says it’s important to think now about how people will earn a living as more U.S. jobs are lost to automation. After speaking with experts on the subject, she decided to launch a statewide campaign with the hope of bringing revenue-raising ideas to the state legislature or directly to voters.
“I really do think automation is going to be one of the biggest issues around income inequality,” Kim says.
It makes sense, she adds, that the city at the center of tech disruption take up the charge to manage that disruption.
“It’s not inherently a bad thing, but it will concentrate wealth, and it’s going to drive further inequity if you don’t prepare for it now,” she says.
“Preposterous” is what William Santana Li, CEO of security robot maker Knightscope calls the supervisor’s idea. His company created the K5 robot monitoring the Westfield Valley Fair mall in San Jose.
The private security industry, Li says, suffers from high turnover and low pay. As he sees it, having robots handle menial tasks allows human guards to assume greater responsibilities — like managing a platoon of K5 robots — and likely earn more pay in the process.
Li acknowledges that such jobs would require further training and some technological know-how. But he says people ultimately stand to benefit. Besides, Li says, it’s wrong to think that robots are intended to take people’s jobs.
“We’re working on 160 contracts right now, and I can maybe name two that are literally talking about, `How can I get rid of that particular human position?”‘
Spurring new jobs
The question of whether — or how quickly — workers will be displaced by automation ignites fierce debate. It’s enough to worry Bill Gates, who suggested in an interview early this year a robot tax as a way to slow the speed of automation and give people time to prepare. The Microsoft co-founder hasn’t spoken publicly about it since.
A report last year from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development concluded that 9 percent of jobs in the United States — or about 13 million — could be automated. Other economists argue that the impact will be much less drastic.
The spread of automation should also generate its own jobs, analysts say, offsetting some of those being eliminated. Workers will be needed, for example, to build and maintain robots and develop the software to run them.
Technological innovation has in the past created jobs in another way, too: Work involving new technologies is higher-skilled and typically higher-paying. Analysts say that much of the extra income those workers earn tends to be spent on additional goods and services, thereby creating more jobs.
“There are going to be a wider array of jobs that will support the automation economy,” said J.P. Gownder, an analyst at the research firm Forrester. “A lot of what we’re going to be doing is working side by side with robots.”
What about people who lose jobs to automation but can’t transition to more technologically demanding work?
Lawmakers in Hawaii have voted to explore the idea of a universal basic income to guarantee wages to servers, cooks and cleaners whose jobs may be replaced by machines. Kim, the San Francisco supervisor, is weighing the idea of using revenue from a robot tax to supplement the low wages of people whose jobs can’t be automated, like home health care aides.
Doug Bloch, political director of Teamsters Joint Council 7 in Northern California and northern Nevada, said there have been no mass layoffs among hotel, trucking or food service staff resulting from automation. But that day is coming, he warns.
Part of his responsibility is to make sure that union drivers receive severance and retraining if they lose work to automation.
“All the foundations are being built for this,” he says. “The table is being set for this banquet, and we want to make sure our members have a seat at the table.”
Innovation ‘moves the world forward’
Tech companies insist their products will largely assist, and not displace, workers. Savioke, based in San Jose, makes 3-foot-tall (91 centimeter) robots — called Relay — that deliver room service at hotels where only one person might be on duty at night. This allows the clerk to stay at the front desk, said Tessa Lau, the company’s “chief robot whisperer.”
“We think of it as our robots taking over tasks but not taking over jobs,” Lau says. “If you think of a task as walking down a hall and waiting for an elevator, Relay’s really good at that.”
Similarly, friends Steve Simoni, Luke Allen and Gregory Jaworski hatched the idea of a drink-serving robot one night at a crowded bar in San Francisco. There was no table service. But there was a sea of thirsty people.
“We all wanted another round, but you have to send someone to leave the conversation and wait in line at the bar for 10 minutes and carry all the drinks back,” Allen says.
They created the Bbot, a box that slides overhead on a fixed route at the Folsom Street Foundry in San Francisco, bringing drinks ordered by smartphone and poured by a bartender — who still receives a tip. The bar is in Kim’s district in the South of Market neighborhood.
Simoni says the company is small and it couldn’t shoulder a government tax. But he’s glad policymakers are preparing for a future with more robots and automation.
“I don’t know if we need to tax companies for it, but I think it’s an important debate,” he says.
As for his trio, he says: “We’re going to side with innovation every time. Innovation is what moves the world forward.”
…
Creator of Food Sharing App Wants to Feed the World
Here’s a statistic for you to consider: the U.N. estimates that over 30 percent of the food that is produced every year never gets eaten. Now one enterprising Nigerian entrepreneur has built an app to help get some of that food to those who need it. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
…
Desalination Promises Ample Supply of Fresh Water
Although 75 percent of our planet is covered with water, many countries around the world suffer from a low supply of fresh water. There is plenty of water in the ocean, but removing the salt is very expensive, and only coastal nations with an ample supply of power, such as the Arab Gulf States, can afford to rely on desalination. Now, as sources of fresh water dwindle, emerging new technologies could make the technology much more cost effective. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…
Old Tires and Congealed Fat Generate Interest and Energy
Some energy, like solar and wind, is renewable. Other sources of power are recyclable. Faith Lapidus tells us how old tires and congealed fat are generating interest and energy.
…
ePUMB skype chat
