‘Lady Bird’ Named Best Picture by New York Film Critics
Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird has been named best picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, which also awarded Gerwig best director and its star, Saoirse Ronan, best actress.
The film critics’ group announced its awards Thursday on Twitter, throwing its fullest support behind Gerwig’s coming-of-age tale. Considered one of the year’s top Oscar contenders, Lady Bird also has the distinction of setting a record for perfection from Rotten Tomatoes as the most-widely reviewed movie to receive only positive reviews.
Call Me By Your Name breakthrough star Timothee Chalamet took best actor. Tiffany Haddish, the Girls Trip breakout, took supporting actress.
Other winners include Willem Dafoe for his supporting performance in The Florida Project and Paul Thomas Anderson for his screenplay to Phantom Thread.
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Jim Nabors, TV’s Gomer Pyle, Dies at 87
Actor Jim Nabors, best known for his U.S. television character Gomer Pyle, died Thursday at his home in Hawaii at age 87.
Nabors, born in Alabama, exaggerated his Southern accent for the Pyle character. The dull-witted but lovable Pyle became a beloved presence on television’s The Andy Griffith Show in 1962. The show about a sheriff and his family and friends in North Carolina is remembered today for its idyllic portrayal of small-town American life in the 1960s.
After two years, the popular Nabors character was given his own spinoff. In Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., the gentle, sweet-natured Pyle joined the U.S. Marine Corps and delighted audiences by clashing repeatedly with a no-nonsense drill sergeant, played by Frank Sutton. The show ran for five seasons.
Nabors gave his character a number of catchphrases still remembered by fans today. Among them were “Surprise, surprise, surprise!,” “Shazam!,” and an awestruck utterance of “Gollll-ly!” that stretched the word into four syllables.
For two seasons beginning in 1969, CBS presented The Jim Nabors Hour, on which he joshed with guest stars, did sketches with Sutton and fellow Gomer Pyle veteran Ronnie Schell, and sang country and opera.
‘Difficult to believe’
Offstage, Nabors retained some of the awed innocence of Gomer. At the height of his fame in 1969, he admitted, “For the first four years of the series, I didn’t trust my success. Every weekend and on every vacation, I would take off to play nightclubs and concerts, figuring the whole thing would blow over someday.
“You know somethin’? I still find it difficult to believe this kind of acceptance. I still don’t trust it.”
He was an accomplished singer, recording 28 albums of love songs, sacred music and holiday tunes in his rich baritone voice.
Among his regular gigs was singing Back Home Again in Indiana at the Indianapolis 500 auto race each year, which he first did in 1972. The first time, he wrote the lyrics on his hand so he wouldn’t forget.
“I’ve never thought of [the audience reaction] as relating to me,” Nabors said. “It’s always relating to the song and to the race. It is applauding for the tradition of the race and the excitement.”
Illness forced him to cancel his appearance in 2007, the first one he had missed in more than 20 years. He was back performing at Indy in 2008, saying, “It’s always the main part of my year. It just thrills you to your bones.”
In 2014, Nabors announced he would be singing for the last time at the race, because his health was limiting his ability to travel from his home in Hawaii.
Nabors lived in Hawaii with Stan Cadwallader, his partner of more than 40 years. He had told Hawaii News Now, years earlier, that he had first visited the farthest-flung U.S. state in the 1960s and knew he wanted to make it his home.
Friendliness of Hawaii
“I just walked off that plane and knew this is where I wanted to be,” he said. “It was the air and the friendship and the friendliness and the people, you know. I just knew — there’s something inside me that told me, ‘Hey, you’re gonna end up here.’ ”
Nabors ended up buying a flower-and-nut farm on the island of Maui.
Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after contracting hepatitis B, died peacefully at his home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year, said Cadwallader, who was by his side.
“Everybody knows he was a wonderful man. And that’s all we can say about him. He’s going to be dearly missed,” Cadwallader said.
The couple married in early 2013 in Washington state, where gay marriage had recently been made legal. Nabors’ friends had known for years that he was gay, but he had never said anything to the media.
“It’s pretty obvious that we had no rights as a couple, yet when you’ve been together 38 years, I think something’s got to happen there, you’ve got to solidify something,” Nabors told Hawaii News Now at the time. “And at my age, it’s probably the best thing to do.”
In 1991, Nabors got a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in ceremonies attended by pals Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson, Phyllis Diller and Florence Henderson. His reaction? “Gollll-ly!”
The late Associated Press Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas wrote biographical material for this story.
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New Dengue Vaccine Could Worsen Disease in Some People
Drugmaker Sanofi says that its dengue vaccine, the world’s first, should only be given to people who have previously been sickened by the virus, according to new long-term data.
In a statement, Sanofi said it had recently examined six years of patient data. Scientists concluded that while the vaccine protects people against further infection if they’ve already been infected with dengue, that’s not the case for people who haven’t previously been sickened by the disease.
“For those not previously infected by dengue virus…the analysis found that in the longer term, more cases of severe disease could occur following vaccination,” Sanofi said. “These findings highlight the complex nature of dengue infection.”
People who catch dengue more than once can be at risk of a hemorrhagic version of the disease. The mosquito-spread disease is found in tropical and sub-tropical climates worldwide. It causes a flu-like disease that can cause joint pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash. In severe cases, dengue can cause breathing problems, hemorrhaging and organ failure.
The World Health Organization says that about half the world’s population is at risk of dengue and estimates that about 96 million people are sickened by the viral infection every year.
Sanofi is proposing that national authorities update their prescribing information. It also said doctors should assess the likelihood of prior dengue infection in people before choosing whether they should get the vaccine.
“For individuals who have not been previously infected by dengue virus, vaccination should not be recommended,” Sanofi said. The vaccine is currently recommended in most dengue-endemic countries for people over age nine.
The company expects to take a 100 million euro ($118 million) loss based on the news.
There is no specific treatment for dengue and there are no other licensed vaccines on the market.
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Hollywood’s Long-Awaited Movie Museum to Open in 2019
The founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, said at its inception in 1927 that the organization needed a library and museum. The Academy, best known for giving Oscars at its annual awards ceremony, soon got its library, but has been waiting nearly a century for the museum.
The long wait is nearly over, said film historian Kerry Brougher during a tour of the site of the $388 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is under construction and scheduled to open in 2019 with Brougher as its director. The 27,000-square meter facility will be built around a historic department store that was built in 1939, and which, since 1994, has been used for exhibitions of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art next door. The expanded facility will include a glass-domed sphere with a view of the Hollywood Hills and a 1,000-seat theater.
Brougher says the museum will open as Hollywood enters a new phase in creating entertainment, extending its reach beyond movie theaters. “Film is expanding,” he says. “It’s in the theaters still, but it’s also projected onto buildings, it’s also on your iPhone, it’s on your computer…It’s part of the art gallery world, with film installations.” And while films and multi-media projects are made worldwide, he says the heart of the industry is still in Hollywood.
The museum will feature exhibits from the Academy’s collection of 12 million photographs and 80,000 screenplays, and which include props, costumes and set elements from such classic films as Casablanca, Psycho and The Ten Commandments.
Known as the Academy Museum, the venue will also feature Oscar statuettes donated by people who won them.
Brougher says visitors will have the feeling that they are in a movie in immersive exhibits. They will even get a chance to walk on a red carpet and accept their own Academy Award.
It will be “like a journey,” Brougher says. “You won’t necessarily know what’s coming next, what’s around the next corner. And you’ll be in environments sometimes that make you feel like you’ve gone back to the past, that you’re in the era that you’re actually exploring.”
Visitors to Los Angeles have been able to tour movie studios and view the sidewalk plaques that honor movie stars or the footprints of them in the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. They can visit the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars are presented, but beyond that, they are often at a loss, says Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “I think they wander around wondering where they can experience this great golden ticket…to the movies,” he says. “Now they’ll have a place.” That will include the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the movie business and who will finally be able to visit a site that celebrates LA’s iconic industry, Garcetti notes.
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NBC Fires Morning Show Host Over Harassment Allegations
The U.S. television network NBC has fired its leading morning news anchor, Matt Lauer, just days after receiving a complaint against him describing sexual misconduct. Hours later, U.S. lawmakers discussed how to handle harassment on Capitol Hill. Esha Sarai reports.
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AIDS Day: A Moment to Reflect on Progress Against a Deadly Scourge
Friday marks World AIDS Day, and the World Health Organization is promoting a campaign of universal health coverage to help the 36.7 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS. Gabrielle Weiss reports for VOA on the efforts of a Washington, D.C., clinic, Whitman Walker Health.
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Photo Exhibit Recaptures Bhutanese-Nepali Lost History
As refugees resettle in a new country, their identities are often lost in the transition. A photo exhibit in the U.S. Midwestern city of Columbus, Ohio, offers a small window into one local refugee community. VOA’s June Soh explored the exhibit that sheds light on the refugees’ brave journeys from Bhutan through refugee camps in Nepal before finally settling in central Ohio.
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Marvel’s Biggest Cast Assemble for ‘Avengers: Infinity War’
The evil villain Thanos is preparing to take over the universe and Marvel has recruited all of its cinematic superheroes, from Iron Man and Thor to Doctor Strange and Spider-Man, to save the galaxy in Wednesday’s new trailer for “Avengers: Infinity War.”
The film, due in theaters in May 2018, will see the biggest gathering of Walt Disney Co.-owned Marvel’s fast-expanding cadre of cinematic superheroes, including Doctor Strange, Black Panther and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
“This is the culmination of 10 years of filmmaking and I think it’s unprecedented,” Joe Russo, who co-wrote and co-directed the film with his brother Anthony Russo, told Reuters in July, after early footage of the film was shown at Disney’s D23 fan exposition in Anaheim, California.
The trailer shows the Avengers coming together as they prepare to battle Thanos.
Tony Stark and Bruce Banner are seen with Dr. Stephen Strange and Wong, Peter Parker feels his Spider-Man senses tingling while on the school bus, Loki gets his hands on a powerful Infinity Stone and Black Panther teams up with Captain America, Black Widow and the Winter Soldier.
“When you combine them, you get something that you haven’t seen before,” Joe Russo said.
The Russo brothers said that “Infinity War” will close out a 10-year storyline that began with 2008’s “Iron Man,” and set the stage for a new iteration of Marvel’s on-screen superheroes.
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Sundance Works to Make Film Festival Safer Amid Hollywood Sex Scandal
Sundance Film Festival organizers say they are working with law enforcement to make the annual independent film showcase in January a safer place in the wake of sexual harassment accusations sweeping Hollywood.
“Sundance is really the first grand community gathering after all this has hit. So we’re looking for ways to form a community around it … and making it very safe — not only a safe place to do your work but a safe place to talk about these issues,” festival director John Cooper told Reuters.
“We’ve always worked closely with local law enforcement and also the security in hotels. We’re upping the game on code of conduct. We’ve always had a code of conduct for our staff and volunteers (and) we’re presenting that broadly to the whole community,” he added.
Movie producer Harvey Weinstein, formerly a major force in independent films and a staple at Sundance, has been accused by more than 50 women of sexual harassment or assault over the past three decades.
Some of the accusations against Weinstein involve incidents said to have taken place at the 10-day Sundance festival in Park City, Utah.
Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone.
Reuters has been unable to independently confirm any of the allegations.
Several Hollywood actors, filmmakers and agents have stepped down in the past two months following sexual misconduct allegations leveled against them.
Cooper said Weinstein, who was fired as chief executive of his award-winning Weinstein Company in October, has not applied for a credential to the Sundance festival this year.
Sundance Film Festival, organized by Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, unveiled its 2018 line-up of movies and documentaries on Wednesday, many featuring female leads.
They include “Eighth Grade,” a coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old girl, “The Kindergarten Teacher” starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as a teacher helping a young prodigy, and “The Tale” in which Laura Dern plays a woman examining her sexual history.
“The performances and the women you see on screen are strong and complex and have deep psychology in these characters that you often don’t see,” said Trevor Groth, the festival’s director of programming.
Other films profile actress and activist Jane Fonda, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, Japanese visual artist Yayoi Kusama and Yazidi ISIS survivor Nadia Murad.
“They’re all from different walks of life and backgrounds and fields, but all with the same passion and drive to make their mark on the world,” Cooper said.
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Facebook Suspends Ability to Target Ads by Excluding Racial Groups
Facebook Inc. said on Wednesday it was temporarily disabling the ability of advertisers on its social network to exclude racial groups from the intended audience of ads while it studies how the feature could be used to discriminate.
Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, told African-American U.S. lawmakers in a letter that the company was determined to do better after a news report said Facebook had failed to block discriminatory ads.
The U.S.-based news organization ProPublica reported last week that, as part of an investigation, it had purchased discriminatory housing ads on Facebook and slipped them past the company’s review process, despite claims by Facebook months earlier that it was able to detect and block such ads.
“Until we can better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately, we are disabling the option that permits advertisers to exclude multicultural affinity segments from the audience for their ads,” Sandberg wrote in the letter to the Congressional Black Caucus, according to a copy posted online by ProPublica.
It is unlawful under U.S. law to publish certain types of ads if they indicate a preference based on race, religion, sex or certain classifications.
Facebook, the world’s largest social network with 2.1 billion users and $36 billion in annual revenue, has been on the defensive for its advertising practices.
In September, it disclosed the existence of Russia-linked ads that ran during the 2016 U.S. election campaign. The same month it turned off a tool, also reported by ProPublica, that had inadvertently let advertisers target based on people’s self-reported jobs, even if the job was “Jew hater.”
Sandberg said in the letter that advertisers who use Facebook’s targeting options to include certain races for ads about housing, employment or credit will have to certify to Facebook that they are complying with Facebook’s anti-discrimination policy and with applicable law.
Sandberg defended race- and culture-based marketing in general, saying it was a common and legitimate practice in the ad industry to try to reach specific communities.
U.S. Representative Robin Kelly of Illinois, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Facebook’s action was appropriate.
“When I first raised this issue with Facebook, I was disappointed,” Kelly, a Democrat, said in a statement. “When it became necessary to raise the issue again, I was irritated. Thankfully, we’ve been able to establish a constructive pipeline of communication that’s resulted in a positive step forward.”
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Simple Water Test could Prevent Crippling Bone Disease
A fast color-changing test that detects fluoride in drinking water could help prevent the crippling bone disease skeletal fluorosis in developing countries. Faith Lapidus has details.
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Cloud Clothing Packs Computing Power Under Your Shirt
For individuals, storing information in the cloud means it can be available to them anywhere they have a connection to the internet. It can be cheap, and it can be useful, but because all that data is going back and forth, it’s not quite as secure as storing everything on your phone or home computer. But what if you could wear your information? That’s the idea behind some National Science Foundation-supported research into cloud clothing. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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New, Long-acting Drugs Cut Frequency of Migraine Headaches in Trials
New, long-acting drugs may offer hope to millions of people who suffer from migraines. Studies of two of these medicines, given as shots every month or so, found they cut the frequency of the notoriously painful and disabling headaches.
The drugs are the first preventive medicines developed specifically for migraines. They work by interfering with a substance involved in modifying nerve signaling and progression of pain and symptoms.
“It’s a whole new direction” for treatment and an important advance for people who don’t want to take or aren’t helped by the daily pills sometimes used now to prevent recurrences, said Dr. Andrew Hershey, neurology chief at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
He had no role in the research but has tested other migraine drugs and wrote a commentary published with the studies Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Migraines plague more than a billion people worldwide, more than 38 million in the U.S. alone. They’re more severe than an ordinary headache — throbbing, squeezing pain and pressure, often accompanied by vision problems, sensitivity to light, noise or smells, and nausea. They can leave people unable to work or do simple things like cooking or even holding a conversation.
What studies show
One study tested erenumab, from Amgen and Novartis, in about 900 people who averaged eight migraines a month. Nearly half had already tried other preventive medicines.
For six months, they were given monthly shots into the abdomen of a high dose of the drug, a low dose or a dummy medicine. The number of days they suffered migraines each month dropped by three to four in the drug groups and nearly two in the placebo group. Half of the patients on the higher dose saw their migraine days cut at least in half.
“I very definitely benefited,” said Anne Vickers, who got the lower dose through one of the study leaders at Mercy Hospital St. Louis in Missouri.
“I can have anywhere from 15 to 18 headaches per month, and probably five of those days are migraines,” but that dropped 40 percent on the drug, she said. “I have three kids, so for me it meant having more days when I was able to live my everyday life, cook a meal at home, go to events at school.”
The second study tested fremanezumab, from Teva Pharmaceutical, for chronic migraines, defined as headaches on 15 or more days per month, at least eight of them migraines.
About 1,000 patients were given monthly shots for three months: One-third got the drug each time, another third got the drug the first time and then dummy shots the next two times, and the rest got dummy shots each time.
Monthly headache days dropped by four to five in the groups given the drug and by two to three for those given dummy treatments.
The caveats
Average reductions of one or two days a month are modest, but “there are some patients who have had a complete response — they become headache-free,” Hershey said.
No worrisome side effects emerged, but the studies were very short, so long-term safety and effectiveness are unknown.
The new drugs were not tested against existing ones, only placebo treatments.
Many study leaders work for or have other financial ties to the drugmakers, and the companies helped analyze results.
Biotech drugs like these tend to be very expensive, and if they’re approved, insurers may set big co-pays or require patients to try older medicines first, Hershey said. When the drugs did work, the benefit was seen right away, so there’s less financial risk in trying one or two doses.
“The patient will know quickly if this is a drug for them, and if not, move on to something else,” Hershey said.
Both drugs have been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval. Eli Lilly and Co. and Alder Biopharmaceuticals also are testing similar drugs.
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Snapchat Seeks to Attract More Users by Redesigning App
Snapchat is separating what friends share and what media organizations publish in an attempt to appeal to a broader range of users.
The photo messaging app has not been gaining enough users, especially beyond its core of younger people. Parent company Snap Inc.’s stock is down sharply since its initial public offering earlier this year.
Users will now see two separate feeds — one from friends and one from publishers and non-friend accounts they follow. Before, Snapchat was mixing those posts, much the way Twitter, Facebook and other rivals continue to do. Snap hinted at changes three weeks ago, but didn’t provide details then.
CEO Evan Spiegel took a jab at rivals, writing that social media “fueled ‘fake news’” because of this content mixing.
your ad hereWith Deforestation Rising, Colombia Businesses Join Fight to End Destruction
Colombia’s palm oil industry and big businesses have pledged to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains as the country battles to reverse the growing destruction of its tropical rainforests.
The commitment signed this week makes Colombia the first country in the world to launch its own chapter of the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020, a global effort by governments, companies and nongovernmental organizations.
The TFA 2020 Colombia Alliance aims to help businesses shift to deforestation-free supply chains by sharing best practices, monitoring forest clearance and training small farmers in sustainable agricultural methods.
It also aims to promote development of certified sustainable products from beef to palm oil for consumers to buy in local supermarkets.
Rainforests in Colombia, Latin America’s largest palm oil producer, are coming under increasing pressure, and deforestation is rampant.
Deforestation in the country’s Amazon region rose 23 percent and across the country rose by 44 percent from 2015 to 2016, said Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s environment minister.
Norway is one of four main donor countries, along with the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands, backing the TFA 2020, an initiative hosted by the World Economic Forum.
“These numbers have been higher than what we expected and that’s why it is important to intensify efforts,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Getting the private sector to commit to deforestation-free supply chains is a “critical part of the puzzle” to protect forests, he said.
First such cooperation
“This is the first time in Colombia we see the government and the private sector joining forces like this,” he said.
“My hope and belief is that this partnership will find ways of ensuring that it is not only an agreement on paper but something that will happen in practical terms.”
Protecting forests helps cut carbon emissions, a key driver of climate change. When forests are degraded or destroyed, the carbon stored in the trees is released into the atmosphere.
Colombia is home to a swath of rainforest roughly the size of Germany and England combined and has declared a goal of zero net deforestation by 2020 and halting the loss of all natural forest by 2030.
Its rainforests have been increasingly threatened since a 2016 peace deal to end its decades-long civil war opened up former conflict areas to business, agriculture and development, Helgesen said.
Trees also are being cleared for cattle ranching, illegal mining and growing coca — the raw ingredient for cocaine.
Signing up with the Alliance are about 25 palm oil producers and buyers, Colombia’s Federation of Oil Palm Growers and Alqueria S.A., its third-largest dairy company. Also signing up are retail giant Grupo Exito and international companies operating in Colombia such as consumer goods company Unilever.
“The launch of the TFA 2020 Colombia Alliance is important as a strengthening mechanism for joint action in Colombia to reach our deforestation goals,” said Mariana Villamizar, a spokeswoman for Grupo Exito.
Producers and buyers from the beef, dairy and timber sectors are expected to join the partnership soon.
Each company will set targets to achieve zero deforestation across their often complex supply chains, and the government and NGOs will help monitor deforestation.
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US Supreme Court Considers Limits on Government in Key Privacy Case
The U.S. Supreme Court signaled Wednesday it may be open to new limits on the government’s ability to track someone’s movements by accessing data on that person’s cellphone.
A case before the high court could result in a landmark decision in the ongoing debate over civil liberties protections in an era of rapid technological change.
At issue is whether law enforcement will be able to access cellphone data that can reveal a person’s whereabouts without having to first obtain a court-issued search warrant.
The case stems from the conviction of Timothy Carpenter for a series of robberies back in 2010 and 2011. Prosecutors were able to obtain cellphone records that indicated his location over a period of months, information that proved crucial to his conviction.
Get a warrant
On Wednesday, lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union argued that law enforcement should be required to obtain a court-ordered search warrant before obtaining such information.
They also argued that allowing law enforcement to access the cellphone data without a warrant would violate the prohibition on unreasonable search and seizures contained in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“It is impossible to go about our daily lives without leaving a trail of digital breadcrumbs that reveal where we have been over time, what we have done, who we spent time with,” said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler, who spoke to reporters outside the Supreme Court following oral arguments. “It is time for the court, we think, to update Fourth Amendment doctrine to provide reasonable protections today.”
Some of the justices also raised concerns about privacy in the digital age.
“Most Americans, I think, still want to avoid Big Brother,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who often sides with the liberal wing of the court, said.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who often sides with conservatives on the court, said the central question was whether the cellphone information should be accessible to the government “without a warrant.”
Privacy versus security
Justice Department lawyers defended the process of obtaining the data without a court warrant, arguing that even though the technology has changed, the need to rapidly obtain such information for law enforcement has not. The government also argued that privacy rights are not at issue because law enforcement agencies can obtain information from telecommunications companies that record transactions with their customers.
Justices Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy indicated they were open to the government’s position in the case.
Legal experts say whichever way the court eventually rules could have an enormous impact on privacy rights in the digital age.
“I don’t think that this is a world that anybody anticipated a couple of decades ago,” Stanford University law professor David Alan Sklansky said via Skype. “These new data capabilities are rapidly increasing the things that government can do for good and for evil. And figuring out how we allow the government to make full use of these new capabilities, without endangering political liberties and endangering the privacy that is necessary for us to have the kind of flourishing democratic social life we want, is a huge ongoing challenge.”
Sklansky added that the United States “has historically been a leader in thinking about privacy rights, particularly with regard to privacy from the government.”
And he predicted that other countries will be closely following the high court case as they wrestle with similar conflicts. “This is a global problem. Countries around the world are trying to figure out how to deal with it. I think that people in all democratic countries should care about how the United States winds up resolving this question,” he said.
Past rulings
Twice in recent years the Supreme Court has ruled in major cases related to privacy and technology and both times ruled against law enforcement.
The court ruled in 2012 that a warrant is required to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle. And in 2014, the high court ruled that a warrant is required to search a cellphone seized during an arrest.
A decision in the current case, known as Carpenter v. U.S., is expected sometime before the end of June.
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US Scientists Take Step Toward Creating Artificial Life
In a major step toward creating artificial life, U.S. researchers have developed a living organism that incorporates both natural and artificial DNA and is capable of creating entirely new, synthetic proteins.
The work, published in the journal Nature, brings scientists closer to the development of designer proteins made to order in a laboratory.
Previous work by Floyd Romesberg, a chemical biologist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, showed that it was possible to expand the genetic alphabet of natural DNA beyond its current four letters: adenine(A), cytosine(C), guanine (G) and thymine(T).
In 2014, Romesberg and colleagues created a strain of E. coli bacteria that contained two unnatural letters, X and Y.
In the latest work, Romesberg’s team has shown that this partially synthetic form of E. coli can take instructions from this hybrid genetic alphabet to make new proteins.
“This is the first time ever a cell has translated a protein using something other than G, C, A or T,” Romesberg said.
Although the actual changes to the organism were small, the feat is significant, he said in a telephone interview. “It’s the first change to life ever made.”
Objective: Treatments for diseases
It’s a goal Romesberg has been working toward for 20 years. Creating new forms of life, however, is not the main point. Romesberg is interested in using this expanded genetic alphabet to create new types of proteins that can be used to treat disease.
In 2014, he formed a company called Synthorx Inc., which is working on developing new protein-based treatments.
“A lot of proteins that you want to use as drugs get cleared in the kidney very quickly,” Romesberg said. The new system would allow scientists to attach fat molecules to drugs to keep them in the body longer.
Romesberg is aware that the creation of semisynthetic organisms might raise concerns of hybrid life forms spreading beyond the lab, but the system they used makes such an escape unlikely.
For example, in natural DNA, base pairs are attracted to each other through the bonding of hydrogen atoms. Romesberg’s X and Y bases are attracted through an entirely different process, which prevents them from accidentally bonding with natural bases.
And because cells cannot make their own X and Y without the addition of certain chemicals, the semisynthetic organisms cannot live outside a laboratory.
“They can’t escape,” Romesberg said. “There’s no ‘Jurassic Park’ scenario.”
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Things You Might Not Know About Bubbly Bitcoin
Bitcoin blasted past $11,000 to hit a record high for the sixth day in a row on Wednesday after gaining more than $1,000 in just 12 hours, stoking concerns that a rapidly swelling bubble could be set to burst in spectacular
fashion.
Here are some facts that you might not know about the largest and best-known cryptocurrency.
HOW MANY ARE THERE?
Bitcoin’s supply is limited to 21 million — a number that is expected to be reached around the year 2140. So far, around 16.7 million bitcoins have been released into the system, with 12.5 new ones released roughly every 10 minutes via a process called “mining,” in which a global network of computers competes to solve complex algorithms in reward for the new bitcoins.
ENERGY DRAIN
These mining computers require a vast amount of energy to run. A recent estimate by tech news site Motherboard put the energy cost of a single bitcoin transaction at 215 kilowatt-hours, assuming that there are around 300,000 bitcoin transactions per day. That’s almost enough energy as the average American household consumes in a whole week.
BITS OF BITCOIN
Bitcoin’s smallest unit is a Satoshi, named after the elusive creator of the cryptocurrency, Satoshi Nakamoto. One Satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin, making it worth around $0.0001 at current exchange rates.
BITCOIN BILLIONAIRES
Bitcoin has performed better than every central-bank-issued currency in every year since 2011 except for 2014, when it performed worse than any traditional currency. So far in 2017, it is up around 1000 percent. If you had bought $1,000 of bitcoin at the start of 2013 and had never sold any of it, you
would now be sitting on $80 million. Many people consider bitcoin to be more of a speculative instrument than a currency, because of its volatility, increasingly high transaction fees, and the fact that relatively few merchants accept it.
EXCHANGE HEISTS
More than 980,000 bitcoins have been stolen from exchanges, either by hackers or insiders. That’s a total of more than $10 billion at current exchange rates. Few have been recovered.
MYSTERY CREATOR
Despite many attempts to find the creator of bitcoin, and a number of claims, we still do not know who Satoshi Nakamoto is, or was. Australian computer scientist and entrepreneur Craig Wright convinced some prominent members of the bitcoin community that he was Nakamoto in May 2016, but he then refused to provide the evidence that most of the community said was necessary. It is not clear whether Satoshi Nakamoto, assumed to be a pseudonym, was a name used by a group of developers or by one individual. Nor is it clear that Nakamoto is still alive — the late computer scientist Hal Finney’s name is sometimes put forward. Developer Nick Szabo has denied claims that he is Nakamoto, as has tech entrepreneur Elon Musk more recently.
INFLATED CHINESE TRADING
Until earlier this year, it was thought that Chinese exchanges accounted for around 90 percent of trading volume. But it has become clear that some exchanges inflated their volumes through so-called wash trades, repeatedly trading nominal amounts of bitcoin back and forth between accounts. Since the Chinese authorities imposed transaction fees, Chinese trading volumes have fallen sharply, and now represent less than 20 percent, according to data from website Bitcoinity.
“MARKET CAP”
The total value of all bitcoins released into the system so far has now reached as high as $190 billion. That makes its total value — sometimes dubbed its “market cap” — greater than that of Disney, and bigger than the market cap of BlackRock and Goldman Sachs combined.
CRYPTO-RIVALS
Bitcoin is far from the only cryptocurrency. There are now well over 1,000 rivals, according to trade website Coinmarketcap.
“SHORTING”
It is already possible to short bitcoin on a number of retail platforms and exchanges, via contracts for difference (CFDs), leveraged-up margin trading or by borrowing bitcoin from exchanges without leverage. But a number of big financial institutions — including CME Group, CBOE and Nasdaq — have
recently announced that they will offer bitcoin futures, which will open up the possibility of shorting the cryptocurrency to the mainstream professional investment universe.
Reporting by Jemima Kelly.
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DEA Targets Opioid Abuse With New Appalachian Field Office
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency is targeting opioid abuse in Appalachia by establishing a new field office in Kentucky to oversee a region ravaged by overdose deaths.
Acting DEA Administrator Robert Patterson says the new Louisville field office will have a special agent in charge to oversee investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. The agency says the new office will enhance efforts in the Appalachian mountain region and streamline drug trafficking investigations under a single office. D. Christopher Evans, an associate agent in charge in the DEA’s Detroit field office, will lead the new Louisville office.
Overdose deaths were 65 percent higher among residents in Appalachia than in the rest of the country in 2015, a recent Appalachian Regional Commission study found.
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Trump Reacts to Lauer Firing with New blast at ‘Fake News’
President Donald Trump quickly responded to the firing of “Today” show host Matt Lauer on Wednesday, saying executives at NBC and Comcast should be “fired for putting out so much Fake News.”
Trump tweeted: “Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for ‘inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.’ But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News.”
He then called out the NBC News chairman, adding: “Check out Andy Lack’s past!” It was not immediately clear what that comment referred to. NBC declined to comment on Trump’s tweets.
NBC, which is owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp., announced Wednesday that it had terminated Lauer after receiving a “detailed complaint” from a colleague about sexual misconduct. Lauer’s co-anchor, Savannah Guthrie, made the announcement at the top of the “Today” show.
Trump’s comment on “Fake News” was a reiteration of his long-standing grievances with mainstream news outlets that he contends have covered his presidency unfairly and inaccurately. Trump, who often judges stories he doesn’t like to be fake news, has said that he has a “running war with the media.”
The tweets seeking to undermine mainstream news outlets have been a mainstay of his first year in office and come amid tensions over a traditional White House holiday party.
CNN, which is among Trump’s favorite targets, announced Tuesday night that the network’s reporters would not be attending Friday’s White House Christmas party, an annual tradition in which reporters and administration officials can interact in a more relaxed setting.
“In light of the President’s continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN, we do not feel it is appropriate to celebrate with him as his invited guests,” the network said in a statement, adding that they intended to send “a White House reporting team to the event” to report on any news. A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment about what that meant.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded to the news with a celebratory tweet.
“Christmas comes early! Finally, good news from (at)CNN,” she wrote Tuesday.
Trump piled on Wednesday morning: “Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time!”
Over the weekend, Trump had gone after CNN International on Twitter, saying that the network was “a major source of (Fake) news” outside the U.S. and complaining that they “represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly.”
“The outside world does not see the truth from them!” he wrote.
It was an especially pointed attack on a news organization that prides itself on its international coverage and that has dozens of staffers positioned in hot spots around the globe. CNN tweeted back that “it’s not CNN’s job to represent the U.S. to the world. That’s yours. Our job is to report the news.”
your ad hereUS Adopts Recovery Plan for Mexican Grey Wolves
After decades of legal challenges and political battles that have pitted states against the federal government, U.S. wildlife managers on Wednesday finally adopted a plan to guide the recovery of a wolf that once roamed parts of the American Southwest and northern Mexico.
The plan sets a goal of having an average of 320 Mexican gray wolves in the wild over an eight-year period before the predator can shed its status as an endangered species. In each of the last three years, the population would have to exceed the average to ensure the species doesn’t backslide.
Officials estimate recovery could take another two decades and cost nearly $180 million.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considered tens of thousands of public comments – from state lawmakers and business groups to independent scientists and environmentalists – as it worked to meet a court-ordered deadline to craft the recovery plan. It was a long time coming as the original guidance for restoring the wolf was adopted in 1982.
“This plan really provides us a roadmap for where we need to go to get this species recovered and delisted and get its management turned back over to the states and tribes,” Sherry Barrett, the Mexican wolf recovery coordinator, told The Associated Press in an interview.
Barrett said state wildlife officials reviewed the scientific data and the models used to calculate the best way forward for the agency as it works to bolster genetic diversity and continue building the wild population.
There are now more of the wolves roaming the Southwest than at any time since the federal government began trying to reintroduce the animals in 1998. The most recent annual survey shows at least 113 wolves spread between southwestern New Mexico and southeast Arizona.
There are about 31 wolves in the wild in Mexico, officials said.
Under the recovery plan, those numbers would be expected to grow to 145 in the U.S. and 100 in Mexico over the next five years.
Barrett said targeted releases of captive-bred wolves and translocations are necessary to make the program work.
In an effort to avoid future skirmishes with states, the plan calls for coordination with wildlife officials in New Mexico and Arizona when it comes to the timing, location and circumstances of the releases.
Environmentalists are voicing concerns, suggesting there needs to be more than 700 wolves in the wild if the population is to withstand illegal shootings, genetic issues and other challenges.
They have pushed for years for more captive wolves to be released, but ranchers and elected leaders in rural communities have pressed back because the predators sometimes attack domestic livestock and wild game.
Last year, the U.S. Interior Department’s internal watchdog said the Fish and Wildlife Service had not fulfilled its obligation to remove Mexican gray wolves that preyed on pets and cattle.
Barrett said with the new plan and other rules that give the agency flexibility in managing problem wolves, there is optimism among officials that progress can be made.
“I know that with most things having to do with wolves, there’s going to be a lot of strong opinions on both sides,” she said. “But to us, it is a big step forward for us to have something in place to start working toward and working with the public to achieve.”
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Ice Baths, Tape and M&Ms: Secrets of the Rockettes Revealed
Everyone knows about the Rockettes’ high kicks, but do you know how many calories each burns? Would you believe 1,000 calories per show?
What do they snack on? M&Ms and fruit and popcorn. What’s the best place to be in their famous kick line? It turns out it makes no difference. How many high kicks do they do per show? A mind-boggling 3,000.
Two veterans of the Christmas show revealed all the backstage secrets, including how they manage to look the same height when they’re not. Turns out that’s a bit of an optical illusion: They put the taller women in the center and gradually go down to the shorter dancers on the ends. The costumes are also designed in such a way as to help maintain the illusion.
your ad hereMan Who Posed as Justin Bieber to Entice Girls Sentenced
A Connecticut man who pretended to be pop stars like Justin Bieber and Harry Styles to entice young girls into performing sexual acts during online video chats has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors say 50-year-old John Eastman, of Waterbury, was also sentenced Tuesday to a lifetime of probation.
Prosecutors say Eastman contacted girls through online video chatting services in 2012 using screen names such as justin.bieber727 and Harry.Styles888 and enticed them into sexually explicit conduct, which he then recorded and saved on his computer. He also used previously recorded videos the singers had uploaded on YouTube to further deceive the girls.
He was arrested in May 2013 and pleaded guilty in March.
Eastman has 31 past convictions, including for sex-related crimes.
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Microsoft Plans to Rebuild its Headquarters
Microsoft says it’s overhauling its longtime headquarters with an 18-building construction project that will make room for another 8,000 workers.
The announcement came ahead of the company’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday.
Microsoft’s decision to expand on the footprint of its campus in Redmond, Washington, its home since 1986, is in contrast to the highly-publicized office expansion plans of Seattle-based Amazon.
Amazon has been looking at cities across North America for a spot to build a second headquarters that will be as big at its Seattle hub.
Microsoft Corp.’s current Redmond campus employs about 47,000 people in 125 buildings. The company says its project will include renovations and new construction and will take 5 to 7 years.
It’s also promising $150 million in transportation improvements and other public amenities.
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