Oscars Red Carpet 2018
Here are some of the best looks from the red carpet at the 90th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, March 4, 2018.
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‘Shape of Water’ Triumphs at an Oscars Full of Change
The 90th Academy Awards crowned Guillermo del Toro’s monster fable “The Shape of Water” best picture at an Oscars that confronted the post-Harvey Weinstein era and sought to pivot to a vision of a more inclusive movie business.
A sense of change was palpable at the ceremony Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where winners made impassioned arguments for gender equality and diversity.
Guillermo del Toro’s monster fable “The Shape of Water,” which came in with a leading 13 nods, took a leading four awards, including best production design, best score and best director for del Toro. He became the third Mexican-born filmmaker to win the award, joining his friends and countrymen Alejandro Inarritu and Alfonso Cuaron — who once were dubbed “the Three Amigos.”
“The greatest thing that art does, and that our industry does, is erase the lines in the sand,” said del Toro, alluding to his international career.
Jordan Peele won for his script to his horror sensation “Get Out,” becoming the first African-American to win for best original screenplay. Peele said he stopped writing it “20 times,” skeptical that it would ever get made.
“But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone would let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it,” said Peele. “So I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie.”
In a year lacking a clear front-runner the awards were spread around. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic “Dunkirk” landed three awards, all for its technical craft: editing, sound editing and sound design.
Things went expected in the acting categories, where Frances McDormand won her second Oscar for her performance in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” McDormand asked all the attending female nominees stand up in the theater.
“Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects that need financing,” declared McDormand. “I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Inclusion Rider.”
Subbing for last year’s best-actor winner, Casey Affleck, in presenting the best-actress award were Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence. “It’s a new day in Hollywood,” said Lawrence.
Three widely admired veteran actors won their first Oscars. Gary Oldman won for his Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour,” Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”) took best supporting actress, and Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”) won best supporting actor. Oldman thanked his “99-years young” mother. “Put the kettle on,” he told her. “I’m bringing Oscar home.”
But many of the show’s most powerful moments came in between the awards. Ashley Judd, Anabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek — who all made allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein — together assembled for a mid-show segment dedicated to the #MeToo movement that has followed the downfall of Weinstein, long an Oscar heavyweight. They were met by a standing ovation.
“We work together to make sure the next 90 years empower these limitless possibilities of equality, diversity, inclusion and intersectionality,” said Judd. “That’s what this year has promised us.”
Host Jimmy Kimmel opened with a monologue that mixed Weinstein punchlines with earnest comments about reforming gender equality in Hollywood. And of course, Kimmel — returning to the scene of the flub — dove straight into material about last year’s infamous best-picture mix-up.
“I do want to mention, this year, when you hear your name called, don’t get up right away,” said Kimmel. “Give us a minute.”
But while Kimmel spent a few moments on the fiasco known as Envelopegate, he expended far more minutes frankly and soberly discussing the parade of sexual harassment allegations in the wake of the revelations regarding Weinstein. Kimmel cited the industry’s poor record for female directors and equal pay.
“We can’t let bad behavior slide anymore,” said Kimmel. “The world is watching us.”
Gesturing to a giant statue on the stage, he praised Oscar, himself for keeping “his hands where you can see them” and for having “no penis at all.” But Kimmel introduced the broadcast as “a night for positivity,” and cited, among other things, the box-office success of “Black Panther” and “Wonder Woman.”
“I remember a time when the major studios didn’t believe a woman or a minority could open a superhero movie — and the reason I remember that time is because it was March of last year,” said Kimmel.
Several cinema legends won their first Oscar. James Ivory, 89, won best adapted screenplay for his script to the coming-of-age drama “Call Me By Your Name,” becoming the oldest winner ever. After 14 nominations, revered cinematographer Roger Deakins finally won for his photography on “Blade Runner 2049.” In the category, Rachel Morrison (“Mudbound”) became the first woman nominated for best cinematography.
Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani joined Kenyan-born Lupita Nyong’o to salute the so-called Dreamers — immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and here without permanent protection from deportation. “Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood and dreams are the foundation of America. And, so, to all the Dreamers out there, we stand with you,” Nanjiani said.
Later, Pixar’s colorful ode to Mexican culture “Coco” won best animated film as well as best song for “Remember Me.” Best foreign language film went to Chile’s “A Fantastic Woman,” Sebastian Lelio’s drama starring transgender actress Daniela Vega.
“The biggest thank you of all to the people of Mexico,” said director Lee Unkrich to loud applause. “Marginalized people deserve to feel like they belong. Representation matters.”
Netflix scored its first feature-film Oscar, with best documentary going to “Icarus,” Bryan Fogel’s investigation into doping in sports, aided by the assistance of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory who candidly discussed the doping scheme under Vladimir Putin. Fogel dedicated the award to Rodchenkov, “our fearless whistleblower who now lives in grave danger.”
“Darkest Hour” won for best makeup. The period romance “Phantom Thread” won for costume design.
The ceremony was the crescendo of one of Hollywood’s most turbulent awards seasons ever — one that saw cascading allegations of sexual harassment topple movie moguls, upended Oscar campaigns and new movements launched to improve gender equality throughout the industry.
No Golden Globes-style fashion protest was held by organizers of Time’s Up, the initiative begun by several hundred prominent women in entertainment to combat sexual harassment. Their goals go beyond red carpets, organizers said in the lead-up to the Oscars. “We did the dress code thing and now we’re doing the work,” said (hash)MeToo founder Tarana Burke on the red carpet.
The parade of sexual harassment allegations made the normal superficial red carpet a place of sometimes more serious discussion than attire. Scrutiny fell Sunday on E! host Ryan Seacrest after his former stylist, Suzie Hardy, alleged sexual harassment against the red-carpet regular. Seacrest has denied it and E! has supported him. Best supporting actress Oscar nominee Mary J. Blige said Seacrest is “fighting for his life right now.”
Twenty years ago, a “Titanic” sweep won record ratings for the Oscar broadcast. But ratings have recently been declining. Last year’s show drew 32.9 million viewers for ABC, a 4 percent drop from the prior year. Even more worrisome was a slide in the key demographic of adults aged 18-49, whose viewership was down 14 percent from 2016.
Movie attendance also hit a 24-year low in 2017. But this year is already off to a strong start, thanks largely to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” which many analysts believe will play a prominent role at next year’s Oscars. In three weeks, it has already grossed about $500 million domestically. The film’s star, Chadwick Boseman, was placed front-and-center, at the Dolby Theatre.
This year, the academy prohibited the PwC accountants who handle the envelopes from using cellphones or social media during the show.
With just a few minutes before the show started, Kimmel and his team emerged from his dressing room chanting, “Let’s get it right this time!”
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‘A Fantastic Woman’ Wins Foreign Film Oscar
Chile’s “A Fantastic Woman” has been named the winner of the best foreign language film Academy Award.
The film from director Sebastian Lelio stars transgender actress Daniela Vega as a woman who faces acrimony and scrutiny after the death of her lover. Lelio called Vega the inspiration for the film.
Kimmel launches Oscars, Rockwell wins supporting actor
The 90th Academy Awards brought the most tumultuous awards season in recent memory to a close Sunday with a ceremony that confronted the post-Harvey Weinstein era for Hollywood while honoring the year’s best filmmaking, including the sound design of “Dunkirk,” the production design of “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” co-star Sam Rockwell.
Host Jimmy Kimmel got the Oscars underway Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles with an opening monologue that mixed Weinstein punchlines with earnest comments about reforming gender equality in Hollywood. And of course, Kimmel – returning to the scene of the flub – dove straight into material about last year’s infamous best-picture mix-up.
“I do want to mention, this year, when you hear your name called, don’t get up right away,” said Kimmel. “Give us a minute.”
But while Kimmel spent a few moments on the fiasco known as Envelopegate, he expended far more minutes frankly and soberly discussing the parade of sexual harassment allegations that have coursed through the movie business in the wake of the revelations regarding Weinstein. He also spoke straightforwardly about the industry’s poor record for female directors and equal pay.
“We can’t let bad behavior slide anymore,” said Kimmel. “The world is watching us.”
Gesturing to a giant statue on the stage, he praised Oscar, himself for keeping “his hands where you can see them” and for having “no penis at all.” But Kimmel introduced the broadcast as “a night for positivity.”
“I remember a time when the major studios didn’t believe a woman or a minority could open a super hero movie – and the reason I remember that time is because it was March of last year,” said Kimmel.
The night’s acting honors are considered fairly locked for nominees, and the first award of the evening – as expected – went to Rockwell for his supporting performance as a dimwitted and racist police officer in Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic revenge drama “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Raising the award, the veteran character actor – celebrating his first Oscar – shouted: “For my buddy, Phil Hoffman.” Philip Seymour Hoffman died in 2014.
Kimmel, with stopwatch in hand, also emphasized keeping acceptance speeches short. He promised the shortest speech would win a Jet Ski. Go long, and winners might get Lakeith Stansfield screaming “Get out!” as the actor briefly reprised his character from the Oscar-nominated “Get Out” on stage.
Early wins went to makeup that adorned Gary Oldman’s Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour,” the period costume design of “Phantom Thread” and the sound editing for Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk.” Guillermo del Toro’s monster fable “The Shape of Water,” which came in with a leading 13 nods, took best production design.
Best documentary went to Netflix’s “Icarus,” Bryan Fogel’s investigation into doping in sports, aided by the assistance of Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory who candidly discussed the doping scheme under Vladimir Putin. It’s the first feature film Oscar for Netflix. Fogel dedicated the award to Rodchenkov, “our fearless whistleblower who now lives in grave danger.”
“At least now we know Putin didn’t rig this election,” said Kimmel after the “Icarus” win.
In another topical moment, Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani joined Kenyan-born Lupita Nyong’o to salute the so-called Dreamers – immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and here without permanent protection from deportation. “Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood and dreams are the foundation of America. And, so, to all the Dreamers out there, we stand with you,” Nanjiani said.
The ceremony is the crescendo of one of Hollywood’s most turbulent awards seasons ever – one that saw cascading allegations of sexual harassment topple movie moguls, upended Oscar campaigns and new movements launched to improve gender equality throughout the industry.
No Golden Globes-style fashion protest was held by organizers of Time’s Up, the initiative begun by several hundred prominent women in entertainment to combat sexual harassment. Their goals go beyond red carpets, organizers said in the lead-up to the Oscars. “We did the dress code thing and now we’re doing the work,” said #MeToo founder Tarana Burke on the red carpet.
Yet the #MeToo movement is sure to have a prominent place in the awards. Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) is just the fifth woman nominated for best director. Rachel Morrison “Mudbound” is the first woman nominated for best cinematography. Ashley Judd, the first big-name actress to go on the record with allegations of sexual misconduct against Weinstein, is among the scheduled presenters.
Before he was tossed out of the film academy after a storm of sexual harassment and sexual abuse allegations, Weinstein was for the last two decades the grand poobah of the Oscars. By one study’s findings, Weinstein was thanked more often than God in acceptance speeches.
The parade of sexual harassment allegations has made the normal superficial red carpet a place of sometimes more serious discussion than attire. Scrutiny was falling Sunday on E! host Ryan Seacrest after his former stylist, Suzie Hardy, alleged sexual harassment against the red-carpet regular. Seacrest has denied it and E! has supported him. Best supporting actress Oscar nominee Mary J. Blige said Seacrest is “fighting for his life right now.”
It’s been an unusually lengthy – and often unpredictable – awards season, already an increasingly protracted horse race begun as most of the contenders bowed at film festivals last September. The Academy Awards were moved a week later this year because of the Olympics.
While the night’s other major acting categories are widely expected to go to Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”) and Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”), the long season hasn’t produced a clear best-picture favorite.
Twenty years ago, a “Titanic” sweep won record ratings for the Oscar broadcast. But ratings have recently been declining. Last year’s show drew 32.9 million viewers for ABC, a four percent drop from the prior year. Even more worrisome was a slide in the key demographic of adults aged 18-49, whose viewership was down 14 percent from 2016.
Movie attendance also hit a 24-year low in 2017. But this year is already off to a strong start, thanks largely to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” which many analysts believe will play a prominent role at next year’s Oscars. In three weeks, it has already grossed about $500 million domestically. The film’s star, Chadwick Boseman, was placed front-and-center, at the Dolby Theatre.
This year, the academy prohibited the PwC accountants who handle the envelopes from using cellphones or social media during the show. Neither of the PwC representatives involved in the mishap last year, Brian Cullinan or Martha Ruiz, will return to the show.
However, multiple reports say that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will be returning to again present best picture, a year after they announced “La La Land” as the winner instead of “Moonlight,” because Cullinan handed them the wrong envelope. The “Bonnie and Clyde” duo will, 12 months later, get “take two.”
With just a few minutes before the show started, Kimmel and his team emerged from his dressing room chanting, “Let’s get it right this time!”
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Airship Drones Could Stay Aloft for Days
Battery-powered drones have mostly replaced manned aircraft in a range of tasks, from scientific measurements to aerial photography, with one persistent disadvantage – the limit of their power source. A startup company in San Francisco says their airship can do a lot of those tasks while staying in the air much longer. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Applications for Facial Recognition Increase as Technology Matures
From a shopping center and an airport to a concert venue or even your own phone, these are all places facial recognition technology can now be used due to technological advancements in the last few years. The types of applications are growing in a world where the idea of privacy is constantly evolving. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains.
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Drama in Red and Neutrals on Oscars Red Carpet
Looks in neutrals, reds and purples brought the drama Sunday on the Oscars carpet at Hollywood’s biggest fashion show.
Salma Hayek looked like exotic royalty in a custom Gucci gown in lilac. It was heavily jeweled and had a busy, ruffled tiered skirt. Rita Moreno, meanwhile, honored Academy Awards history by donning the same gown (with a bold patterned full skirt) she wore in 1962, when she won an Oscar for “West Side Story.”
“It’s been hanging in my closet this whole time,” Moreno told The Associated Press.
Among the walkers in Los Angeles were a few recently returned Olympians, including skier Lindsey Vonn in a fringed black gown and diamond choker with statement red stones. Figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu walked together. He wore belt-leather straps that crossed his chest and she chose a sheer, long-sleeve gown in soft blue.
Allison Williams of “Get Out” went for neutral. So did Gina Rodriguez in a nude sheath with silver embellishment, a plunging neckline and full princess skirt, courtesy of Zuhair Murad.
Among those in red was Allison Janney of “I, Tonya,” in long sleeves that fell to the ground. Sofia Carson wore a red cape gown with 26.10 carats of diamonds in her Chopard choker. Meryl Streep also wore red, a deep plunge at the neck. Last year’s best actress Emma Stone chose skinny trousers and a pink-belted, red tuxedo jacket.
The purple peeps also included presenter Ashley Judd, who went strapless in a dark shade by Badgley Mischka, accompanied by diamond strands.
There was an abundance of white, including fitted looks worn by Margot Robbie, Jane Fonda, Laura Dern (in Calvin Klein) and Mary J. Blige. One actress, Taraji P. Henson, was all leg in ethereal black with a high slit.
Among the standout guys: “Get Out” writer-director Jordan Peele, in a creamy white tuxedo jacket, and Chadwick Boseman, who honored his kingly T’Challa character in “Black Panther” with a long embellished coat.
Boseman’s co-star, Lupita Nyong’o, repped Wakanda in royal, one-sleeved gold with a studded sash element that had black detailing.
One of the evening’s brightest pops of color came on Viola Davis in electric pink from the Michael Kors Collection, hoops in her ears and a clutch to match. “Lady Bird” star Saoirse Ronan wore soft pink from Calvin Klein, while Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming of age film, offered another bright pop – hers in marigold yellow.
In beauty, a side-part trend took hold, both in updos and loose.
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Academy Awards Winners List
BEST PICTURE
WINNER: THE SHAPE OF WATER
Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale, Producers
OTHER NOMINEES
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges and Marco Morabito, Producers
DARKEST HOUR
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten and Douglas Urbanski, Producers
DUNKIRK
Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers
GET OUT
Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr. and Jordan Peele, Producers
LADY BIRD
Scott Rudin, Eli Bush and Evelyn O’Neill, Producers
PHANTOM THREAD
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison and Daniel Lupi, Producers
THE POST
Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh, Producers
ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
WINNER: FRANCES MCDORMAND
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
OTHER NOMINEES
SALLY HAWKINS
The Shape of Water
MARGOT ROBBIE
I, Tonya
SAOIRSE RONAN
Lady Bird
MERYL STREEP
The Post
ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
WINNER: GARY OLDMAN
Darkest Hour
OTHER NOMINEES
TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET
Call Me by Your Name
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS
Phantom Thread
DANIEL KALUUYA
Get Out
DENZEL WASHINGTON
Roman J. Israel, Esq.
DIRECTING
WINNER: THE SHAPE OF WATER
Guillermo del Toro
OTHER NOMINEES
DUNKIRK
Christopher Nolan
GET OUT
Jordan Peele
LADY BIRD
Greta Gerwig
PHANTOM THREAD
Paul Thomas Anderson
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
WINNER: REMEMBER ME
from Coco; Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
OTHER NOMINEES
MIGHTY RIVER
from Mudbound; Music and Lyric by Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson
MYSTERY OF LOVE
from Call Me by Your Name; Music and Lyric by Sufjan Stevens
STAND UP FOR SOMETHING
from Marshall; Music by Diane Warren; Lyric by Lonnie R. Lynn and Diane Warren
THIS IS ME
from The Greatest Showman; Music and Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul
MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
WINNER: THE SHAPE OF WATER
Alexandre Desplat
OTHER NOMINEES
DUNKIRK
Hans Zimmer
PHANTOM THREAD
Jonny Greenwood
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
John Williams
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Carter Burwell
CINEMATOGRAPHY
WINNER: BLADE RUNNER 2049
Roger A. Deakins
OTHER NOMINEES
DARKEST HOUR
Bruno Delbonnel
DUNKIRK
Hoyte van Hoytema
MUDBOUND
Rachel Morrison
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Dan Laustsen
WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
WINNER: GET OUT
Written by Jordan Peele
OTHER NOMINEES
THE BIG SICK
Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani
LADY BIRD
Written by Greta Gerwig
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; Story by Guillermo del Toro
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Written by Martin McDonagh
WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
WINNER: CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
Screenplay by James Ivory
OTHER NOMINEES
THE DISASTER ARTIST
Screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
LOGAN
Screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; Story by James Mangold
MOLLY’S GAME
Written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin
MUDBOUND
Screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
WINNER: THE SILENT CHILD
Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton
OTHER NOMINEES
DEKALB ELEMENTARY
Reed Van Dyk
THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK
Derin Seale and Josh Lawson
MY NEPHEW EMMETT
Kevin Wilson, Jr.
WATU WOTE/ALL OF US
Katja Benrath and Tobias Rosen
DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
WINNER: HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405
Frank Stiefel
OTHER NOMINEES
EDITH+EDDIE
Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright
HEROIN(E)
Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon
KNIFE SKILLS
Thomas Lennon
TRAFFIC STOP
Kate Davis and David Heilbroner
FILM EDITING
WINNER: DUNKIRK
Lee Smith
OTHER NOMINEES
BABY DRIVER
Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos
I, TONYA
Tatiana S. Riegel
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Sidney Wolinsky
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI
Jon Gregory
VISUAL EFFECTS
WINNER: BLADE RUNNER 2049
John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R. Hoover
OTHER NOMINEES
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2
Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner and Dan Sudick
KONG: SKULL ISLAND
Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza and Mike Meinardus
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES
Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon and Joel Whist
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
WINNER: COCO
Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson
OTHER NOMINEES
THE BOSS BABY
Tom McGrath and Ramsey Naito
THE BREADWINNER
Nora Twomey and Anthony Leo
FERDINAND
Carlos Saldanha and Lori Forte
LOVING VINCENT
Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
WINNER: DEAR BASKETBALL
Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant
OTHER NOMINEES
GARDEN PARTY
Victor Caire and Gabriel Grapperon
LOU
Dave Mullins and Dana Murray
NEGATIVE SPACE
Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata
REVOLTING RHYMES
Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer
ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
WINNER: ALLISON JANNEY
I, Tonya
OTHER NOMINEES
MARY J. BLIGE
Mudbound
LESLEY MANVILLE
Phantom Thread
LAURIE METCALF
Lady Bird
OCTAVIA SPENCER
The Shape of Water
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
WINNER: A FANTASTIC WOMAN
Chile
OTHER NOMINEES
THE INSULT
Lebanon
LOVELESS
Russia
ON BODY AND SOUL
Hungary
THE SQUARE
Sweden
PRODUCTION DESIGN
WINNER: THE SHAPE OF WATER
Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau and Jeffrey A. Melvin
OTHER NOMINEES
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
BLADE RUNNER 2049
Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Alessandra Querzola
DARKEST HOUR
Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer
DUNKIRK
Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
SOUND MIXING
WINNER: DUNKIRK
Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo and Mark Weingarten
OTHER NOMINEES
BABY DRIVER
Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin and Mary H. Ellis
BLADE RUNNER 2049
Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill and Mac Ruth
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and Glen Gauthier
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Stuart Wilson
SOUND EDITING
WINNER: DUNKIRK
Richard King and Alex Gibson
OTHER NOMINEES
BABY DRIVER
Julian Slater
BLADE RUNNER 2049
Mark Mangini and Theo Green
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira
STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI
Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce
DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
WINNER: ICARUS
Bryan Fogel and Dan Cogan
OTHER NOMINEES
ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL
Steve James, Mark Mitten and Julie Goldman
FACES PLACES
Agnès Varda, JR and Rosalie Varda
LAST MEN IN ALEPPO
Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen
STRONG ISLAND
Yance Ford and Joslyn Barnes
COSTUME DESIGN
WINNER: PHANTOM THREAD
Mark Bridges
OTHER NOMINEES
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Jacqueline Durran
DARKEST HOUR
Jacqueline Durran
THE SHAPE OF WATER
Luis Sequeira
VICTORIA & ABDUL
Consolata Boyle
MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
WINNER: DARKEST HOUR
Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick
OTHER NOMINEES
VICTORIA & ABDUL
Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard
WONDER
Arjen Tuiten
ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
WINNER: SAM ROCKWELL
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
OTHER NOMINEES
WILLEM DAFOE
The Florida Project
WOODY HARRELSON
Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
RICHARD JENKINS
The Shape of Water
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER
All the Money in the World
…
MASH Star David Ogden Stiers Dies at 75
American actor David Ogden Stiers, known as the arrogant but brilliant surgeon Charles Emerson Winchester on the television series MASH, has died of bladder cancer at 75.
MASH was the story of an army hospital near the front lines during the Korean War.
The series was a well-established hit when Stiers, a classically-trained stage and film veteran, joined the cast in 1977 to play Winchester, a character created to replace the clownish Major Frank Burns.
While Burns was a mediocre doctor and the butt of jokes, Stiers’ Winchester was a superb surgeon and made sure everyone from his patients to the nurses and his fellow doctors know it.
Winchester was smug, vain, and ultra-conservative but often showed a generous and deeply caring side. He sometimes proved to be as much a practical joker as his fun-loving colleagues.
Stiers was twice nominated for outstanding supporting actor Emmys for MASH and continued to act in films and on television when the series closed in 1983 – most notably with director Woody Allen and in a series of Perry Mason TV films.
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1.5 Million Penguins Discovered on Remote Antarctic Islands
A thriving “hotspot” of 1.5 million Adelie penguins, a species fast declining in parts of the world, has been discovered on remote islands off the Antarctic Peninsula, surprised scientists said Friday.
The first bird census of the Danger Islands unearthed over 750,000 Adelie breeding pairs, more than the rest of the area combined, the team reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
The group of nine rocky islands, which lie off the northern tip nearest South America, in the northwest Weddell Sea, housed the third- and fourth-largest Adelie penguin colonies in the world, they found.
“It is certainly surprising and it has real consequences for how we manage this region,” study co-author Heather Lynch of Stony Brook University told AFP.
Just 160 kilometres (100 miles) away on the west of the peninsula — a thin limb jutting out of West Antarctica — Adelie numbers have dropped about 70 percent in recent decades due to sea ice melt blamed on global warming.
“One of the ways in which this is good news is that other studies have shown this area [the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula] is likely to remain more stable under climate change than the western Antarctic Peninsula,” said Lynch.
“So we end up with a large population of Adelie penguins in a region likely to remain suitable to them for some time.”
Adelies are one of five penguin species that live in and around the Antarctic continent.
A medium-sized penguin, they grow to about 70 centimeters (almost 28 inches) tall, and weigh three to six kilograms (about seven to 13 pounds). They are identified by a white ring around the eye.
They are carnivores, and krill — shrimp-like creatures that are commercially fished in the area — is an Adelie staple.
The Danger Islands group was discovered thanks to Earth-monitoring satellites, said the research team from America, Britain and France.
“This is called the Danger Islands for a reason,” said Lynch.
“The area is covered by heavy sea ice most of the year, and even in the height of summer it is difficult to get into this region to do surveys.”
‘Very lucky’
Even the most visited of the isles, Heroina Island at the chain’s northeastern tip, receives only about one ship landing per year.
Evidence of the previously-unknown penguin colony first emerged in data from the Landsat Earth-monitoring satellites run by NASA and the US Geological Survey.
Lynch and her team “then went and looked at higher resolution commercial imagery to confirm the guano staining that our algorithms had picked up in the Landsat imagery,” she said.
When the Landsat data originally suggested the presence of hundreds of thousands of penguins on the islands, she thought it “was a mistake”.
“We were surprised to find so many penguins on these islands, especially because some of these islands were not known to have penguins.”
Then followed a field expedition for a census using a combination of drone footage, pictures taken on the ground, and an old fashioned walk-about headcount.
“We were… very lucky to have a window of time where the sea ice moved out and we could get a yacht in,” said Lynch.
The Danger Islands, said the team, has felt the ravages of climate change less than the western peninsula, and knew very little human activity.
Now it turns out, the area may need stronger protection from overfishing.
“The most important implication of this work is related to the design of Marine Protected Areas in the region,” said Lynch.
“Now that we know this tiny island group is so important, it can be considered for further protection from fishing.”
In addition to Adelies, the team also found about 100 nests of gentoo penguins, and about 27 nests of chinstrap penguins.
The polar regions are warming more rapidly than the rest of Earth as heat-trapping greenhouse gasses from fossil fuel-burning build up in the atmosphere.
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Politics a Subtext at Oscars
The Academy Awards, or Oscars, will be presented in Hollywood on Sunday, celebrating the movies and showcasing Hollywood glamour. Mike O’Sullivan reports, the ceremony will probably have some political moments in a year when many in Hollywood have their minds on politics.
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Students Build Program That Sniffs Out Twitter ‘Bots’
For months, university students Ash Bhat and Rohan Phadte had been tracking about 1,500 political propaganda accounts on Twitter that appeared to have been generated by computers when they noticed something odd.
In the hours after the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the bots, short for robots, shifted into high gear, jumping into the debate about gun control.
The hashtag #guncontrol gained traction among the bot network. In fact, all of the top hashtags among the bots were about the Parkland shooting, Bhat and Phadte noticed.
Explainer: What Is a Twitter Bot?
Twitter under fire
Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, technology companies have come under fire for how their services were used by foreign-backed operations to sow discord among Americans before and after the election.
Twitter, in particular, has been called out repeatedly for the sheer number of computerized accounts that tweet about controversial topics. The company itself has said 50,000 accounts on its service were linked to Russian propaganda efforts, and the company recently announced plans to curtail automated, computer-generated accounts.
On Monday, executives from Twitter are expected to be on Capitol Hill to brief the Senate Commerce committee about how the service was manipulated in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
For Bhat and Phadte, students at the University of California, Berkeley, the growing public scrutiny on bots couldn’t come fast enough.
Figuring out Twitter fakes
Childhood friends from San Jose, Calif., the two work out of their shared apartment in Berkeley on ways to figure out what is real and fake on the internet and how to arm people with tools to tell the difference.
“Everyone’s realizing how big of a problem this is becoming,” Bhat, co-founder of RoBhat Labs, said. “And I think we’re also at a weird inflection point. It’s like the calm before the storm. We’re building up our defenses before the real effects of misinformation hit.”
One of their projects is Botcheck.me, a way for Twitter users to check whether a person on Twitter is real or fake. To use botcheck.me, users can download a Google Chrome extension, which puts the blue button next to every Twitter account. Or users can run a Twitter account through the website botcheck.me.
Some of the characteristics of a fake Twitter persona? Hundreds of tweets over a 24-hour period is one. Another, mostly retweeting others. A third clue, thousands of followers even though the account may be relatively new.
Polarizing the debate
The result is a digital robot army ready to jump into a national debate, they say.
“The conversation around gun control was a lot more polarizing in terms of for and against gun control, as opposed to seeing in the Parkland shooting other issues, such as mental illness,” Bhat said.
The two do not speculate who may be behind the bots or what their motives may be. Their concern is to try to bring some authenticity back into online discussions.
“Instead of being aggravated and spending an hour tweeting and retweeting, or getting madder, you can find out it’s a bot and stop engaging,” Bhat said.
In recent months, the students say they have seen a lot of Twitter accounts they have been tracking suspended.
But as fast as Twitter can get rid of accounts, the students say new ones are popping back up. And suspicious accounts are starting to look more like humans. They may tweet about the weather or cars for awhile before switching over into political content.
“You can sort of see these bots evolve,” Bhat said. “And the scary thing for us is that if we aren’t keeping up on their technological progress, it’s going to be impossible to tell the difference.”
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New Plan Increases Cardiac Arrest Survival Rate
More people in Columbus, Ohio, are now surviving when their hearts suddenly develop an abnormal beat and stop beating altogether. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports their survival is due to a new procedure developed after the hospital partnered with a local fire department.
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Patients and Caregivers Use Comics to Document Medical Journeys
A graphic medicine exhibit has opened at the U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, showcasing comics that show the medical journeys experienced by patients and caregivers. Organizers hope this ‘new language’ will give clinicians and policy makers a more personalized way of understanding the issues faced by them both. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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Students Create Program to Identify Fake Twitter Accounts
Social media users like to have friends and followers on various platforms. But how many accounts are real and how many are generated by computers? Two university students in California say they have a way of detecting if you’re communicating with a human or a “bot”. Michelle Quinn reports.
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Movie Awards Honor the Best and Worst of Hollywood
Hollywood crowns its best and its worst this weekend. On Saturday, the Golden Raspberry Awards (or Razzies) were “awarded” to the worst movies while another, more serious fete recognized achievement in independent film. On Sunday the 90th Annual Academy Awards – better known as the Oscars – will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.
“The Emoji Movie” took top honors with the Worst Picture prize at the Razzie awards on Saturday, a gag award given by a group of Hollywood industry insiders known as the Golden Raspberry Foundation. The first full-length animation film to win the Worst Picture award, “The Emoji Movie” also scored wins for worst screenplay, worst director, and worst screen combo.
Watch the Golden Raspberry Awards:
Tom Cruise was selected as Worst Actor for his work in “The Mummy,” while Tyler Perry – a male actor whose most famous character is a woman named Madea – got Best Actress for “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween.” Hollywood long-timers Mel Gibson and Kim Basinger took the Razzies for supporting roles in “Daddy’s Home 2” and “Fifty Shades Darker.”
A new Razzie category debuted this year: The Razzie Nominee So Rotten You Loved It. The winner was “Baywatch,” a movie about Los Angeles County lifeguards. The winner is selected by the general public through an online poll.
The Golden Raspberry Foundation also posted a tongue-in-cheek “In Memoriam” video – a parody of the Academy Awards’ annual remembrance of those who died in the past year – that highlighted men in the entertainment industry accused of sexual harassment. While suggesting their careers have died because of the allegations, the video ends by saying “We Won’t Be Missing You.”
Also Saturday, the independent film industry took its awards ceremony to the beach, in a free-wheeling afternoon party meant to contrast sharply with the pomp of the Oscars ceremony the following night.
The Film Independent Spirit Awards gave top directing honors to comedian Jordan Peele for “Get Out,” a horror comedy exploring relations between blacks and whites in modern-day America.
Best International Film went to director Sebastian Lelio of Chile, for “A Fantastic Woman,” a murder mystery centered on a transgender woman.
Greta Gerwig won Best Screenplay for the coming-of-age story “Lady Bird,” which features a mother and daughter at odds with each other. Gerwig also directed the film.
And the award for Best First Screenplay, a separate category, went to Pakistani-American comic Kumail Nanjiani for “The Big Sick,” a semi-autobiographical romance.
On Sunday, the red carpets will be out for Hollywood’s biggest night, the Academy Awards. Among the frontrunners for Best Picture are Spanish director Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy “The Shape of Water,” Christopher Nolan’s historical picture “Dunkirk,” and Martin McDonagh’s “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” Peele’s “Get Out” and Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” are also among the contenders.
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Razzie Awards Name ‘The Emoji Movie’ Worst Film of 2017
Maybe it was destiny for a movie with a pile of poop as a central character.
“The Emoji Movie” has received Hollywood’s most famous frown, the Razzie Award , for worst picture of 2017, making it the first animated feature in 38 years to earn the top dishonor.
“Leading this year’s list of movie-misfires is the emoticon-based, talking poop opus,” the Razzies said in a statement announcing the recipients, saying the film came in a year when “Hollywood’s recycled trash heap attained an all-time high” and saw a “toxic-level lack of originality.”
The annual awards bestowed on the worst the movie business has to offer were announced Saturday in their traditional spot, the day before the Academy Awards.
“The Emoji Movie” landed four of the 10 Razzies given out this year, also taking worst screenplay, worst director, and worst screen combo, which was given to “any two obnoxious emojis” from the movie.
Tom Cruise’s attempted reboot of the “Mummy” franchise landed him worst actor. He now has no Oscars after three nominations, but two Razzies. Cruise and Brad Pitt won for worst screen couple for 1994’s “Interview with the Vampire.”
Tyler Perry took worst actress for “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween,” the director’s 10th time donning a dress and playing his signature white-wigged matriarch.
Kim Basinger took worst supporting actress for “Fifty Shades Darker,” putting her in the special company of Faye Dunaway, Liza Minelli and Halle Berry as actresses who have won both a Razzie and an Oscar.
Mel Gibson, who last year won the “Redeemer” award for getting an Oscar nomination just a few years after getting a Razzie nomination, is back at the bottom again as far as the Razzies are concerned, taking worst supporting actor for “Daddy’s Home 2.”
“Baywatch,” won the inaugural “Special Rotten Tomatoes Award: The Razzie Nominee So Bad You Loved It!” The award is the result of an online poll held in conjunction with the review site Rotten Tomatoes.
The rest of the Razzie Awards are determined by what the organization says are over 1,000 voting Razzie members in 27 countries and from every U.S. state except Montana.
your ad hereWHO: Nearly 1 Billion People Risk Hearing Loss by 2050
On the occasion of World Hearing Day, Saturday, the World Health Organization (WHO) is warning one in 10 people globally, or more than 900 million, are at risk of disabling hearing loss by 2050 unless preventive action is taken now.
The World Health Organization reports 466 million people around the world currently suffer from disabling hearing loss. The annual cost to countries in direct health services and lost productivity resulting from this disability is estimated at $750 billion.
Problems resulting from hearing loss are expected to rise because of a growing and aging population – a population that is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050.
Shelly Chadha, a technical officer in the WHO’s Department of Prevention of Deafness and Hearing Loss, says the rise in the aging population does not mean that an increase in hearing loss is inevitable. She says there are many factors besides aging that affect hearing.
“These may be factors such as infectious diseases, which we may encounter in childhood – rubella or mumps, meningitis or ear infections. There may be factors such as exposure to loud sounds, to loud music or noise at work places. Many of these causes are preventable, and by addressing them, we can reduce or minimize the risk of hearing loss,” Chadha said.
The WHO reports about 60 percent of hearing loss in children can be prevented. Measures include immunizing children against infectious diseases, screening and treating chronic ear infections, avoiding the use of drugs harmful to hearing, and controlling exposure to loud sounds and music.
In cases where hearing loss is unavoidable, the WHO says people can be helped through technologies such as hearing aids and surgically implanted electronic cochlear implants.
It says these devices are of great benefit to the hard-of-hearing because they make it possible for them to better communicate and socialize with others.
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Australia’s Mardi Gras Celebrates 40 Years, Same-Sex Marriage
About half a million people are expected to line Sydney’s streets Saturday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, the first time the annual parade has taken place since Australia legalized same-sex marriage.
The event started in 1978 as a protest march for gay rights and the decriminalization of homosexuality but has since grown into a major tourist spectacle featuring leather, sequins, glitter, lasers and dance music. It is now Sydney’s biggest street party and a major focal point for Australia’s gay and lesbian community.
This year’s procession includes 200 floats and groups of street dancers and will be headed by Dykes on Bikes, a motorcycle club.
Pop superstar Cher will headline the parade’s official party.
Same-sex marriage legalized
Australians overwhelmingly endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage in a postal survey in a country where sodomy laws were still in place in some states until as recently as the 1990s.
This year’s Mardi Gras will honor the 78ers, a group of people involved in the original protest, which took place June 24, 1978, as a peaceful march for gay rights that sparked the annual parade.
That protest was marred by police brutality with 53 people arrested in subsequent scuffles. Police have since apologized for the events of 1978 and now march each year in the parade alongside other emergency services.
Changing attitudes
Bruce Pollack, a Mardi Gras volunteer since 1984, said the parade has played a major role in changing attitudes toward the LGBT community over the decades.
“I was involved in the gay and lesbian counseling service … you would always hear young gays, and older gays, and much older gays say ‘it’s OK to come out because I saw people like me in the parade enjoying themselves — and there were spectators,’” Pollack told Reuters. “It was Mardi Gras that made it OK to be gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender.”
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Launch of Innovative Satellite Opens New Window for Meteorologists
“A game-changer for weather forecasts.” That’s what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA are calling the just-launched GOES-S satellite. It is the second in a pair of the most advanced weather satellites ever built. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Peak Bloom for DC’s Famed Cherry Trees Is Coming Early
Washington’s cherished cherry tree blossoms signal the unofficial start of spring in the nation’s capital, and it looks like it’s coming a bit early this year.
The National Park Service announced Thursday that the projected peak date for the blossoms along the Tidal Basin would be March 17 to March 20.
Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said April 4 is the historical average date for peak bloom, which is the day when 70 percent of the blossoms are open in trees around the Tidal Basin.
This year’s National Cherry Blossom Festival will run from March 20 to April 15.
Considered the world’s largest U.S.-Japanese celebration, the festival commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki to the District of Columbia.
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US Flu Outbreak on Decline
U.S. health officials say the worst of this season’s unusually strong flu outbreak is over.
In its weekly report Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the flu peaked in early February and is now on the decline. However, health officials say that while the worst has passed, the flu season is not yet over, and will likely continue for weeks.
The agency said reports of the influenza virus remained widespread in 45 states.
The Midwestern state of Indiana reported Friday that it recorded 244 flu-related deaths this season. Seventy-five percent of the deaths were in people age 65 and older. Nine of the deaths were in people under the age of 25.
Nationwide, health officials say 114 children have died from the flu this season.
Flu season usually begins in earnest in late December and peaks around February. This season, the virus was widespread in many states by early December last year.
Health officials have said it is not clear why the flu has been so severe this year.
The dominant strain this season, influenza A (H3N2), is especially strong and tends to lead to more hospitalizations and deaths than other more common strains. Still, last year’s outbreak of influenza A was not as severe as this year.
Experts say that flu seasons are notoriously hard to predict.
Also contributing to the difficulties this year was the fact that the vaccine did not work very well and health officials say they are trying to figure out why it did so poorly.
Flu is a contagious respiratory illness that causes such symptoms as fever, cough, muscle aches, headaches and fatigue. Most people who get the flu get better within a week or two. However, some people develop serious complications caused by a viral infection of the nasal passages and throat and lungs.
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US Utilities Find Water Pollution at Coal Ash Sites
Major utilities have found evidence of groundwater contamination at coal-burning power plants across the U.S. where landfills and man-made ponds have been used for decades as dumping grounds for coal ash, according to data released by plant owners under a Friday deadline.
Heightened levels of pollutants — including arsenic and radium in some cases — were documented at plants in numerous states, from Virginia and North Carolina to Washington and Alaska.
The Environmental Protection Agency required the plant owners to install test wells to monitor groundwater pollution as a first step toward cleaning up the sites. The future of that effort was cast into uncertainty Thursday when the Trump administration announced it intends to roll back aspects of the program to reduce the industry’s compliance costs by up to $100 million annually.
“There’s no dispute that the underlying groundwater is being contaminated. We see that clearly,” said Duke University professor Avner Vengosh, who researches the effects of coal ash and has reviewed some of the new data. “The real question is whether it’s migrating toward people or wells next to [coal plants].”
Vengosh added that the discovery at some sites of radium at levels far exceeding drinking water standards — which can increase the risk of cancer — were of particular concern. It appears to mark the first time coal ash has been associated with radioactivity in groundwater, he said.
Duke Energy spokeswoman Erin Culbert noted that government-sponsored research has shown most coal ash does not have radioactive elements, and the issue does not represent a health concern for neighbors of its plants.
The Associated Press conducted an initial review of the reports, which were still being filed Friday, and spoke with power company executives across the country, who warned against misinterpreting the pollution data. Generally, they said further studies were needed to confirm the ash storage sites as the source of the contamination and whether public drinking water supplies were threatened.
U.S. coal plants produce about 100 million tons annually of ash and other waste, much of which ends up in old, unlined disposal ponds that are prone to leaking. Some have been in use for decades.
Among large U.S. utilities, Duke Energy reported preliminary findings of contamination of groundwater at 48 ash basins and landfills. American Electric Power, or AEP, reported potential groundwater impacts at 24 ash disposal sites. Dominion Energy, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy and others also reported evidence of contamination.
Mark McCullough, executive vice president at AEP, said the company needed more data to decide which sites will need to close.
“These [monitoring] wells that are close to the sites are telling us something, and we are committed to doing the hard work and to understand where the real source is and what it is,” McCullough said.
Pam Faggert, the chief environmental officer for Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion, said the company also conducts surface water tests near its facilities and was confident that the groundwater impacts were not having an effect on public drinking water or public safety offsite.
Coal ash storage and disposal went largely unregulated until a 2008 spill at a Tennessee Valley Authority power plant in Kingston, Tennessee. A containment dike burst and flooding covered more than 300 acres (121 million hectares), dumped waste into two nearby rivers, destroyed homes and brought national attention to the issue.
In 2014, an estimated 39,000 tons of coal ash spewed into the Dan River after a drainage pipe running below a waste dump collapsed at a Duke Energy plant in Eden, North Carolina. The toxic sludge turned the river gray for more than 70 miles (112 kilometers).
Apart from spills, other ash problems have been documented across the country.
In Montana, an estimated 200 million gallons (757 million liters) of contaminated water a year are leaking into the groundwater from ash ponds in the city of Colstrip, leaving the water undrinkable.
In North Carolina, some neighbors of Duke power plants have been relying on bottled water since toxic chemicals appeared in some of their wells.
In Virginia, Dominion has offered to hook some neighbors of the Possum Point Power Station up to municipal water or filtration systems after groundwater testing found elevated levels of some contaminants.
Remediation work at some coal ash disposal areas already is underway.
AEP has closed six ash storage sites to date, the company said. Duke Energy has started excavation work at 11 sites and had spent $1.4 billion on such efforts through last December, the company disclosed last week. It plans to spend another $2.5 billion on ash site closures over the next five years.
Attorney Frank Holleman with the Southern Environmental Law Center said the disclosure of the utilities’ data was critical to informing the public about how much arsenic, mercury and other pollutants are leaking into groundwater supplies. He pushed back against the utilities’ argument that the data so far has been largely indicative of on-site contamination, not a broader public health threat, saying groundwater doesn’t stay in one place — it moves and flows.
“The groundwater resources of these communities are not something that the utilities have a right to trash and throw away,” he said. “They don’t own the groundwater. That’s a public resource.”
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NASA Launches Advanced Weather Satellite for Western US
NASA launched another of the world’s most advanced weather satellites Thursday, this time to safeguard the western U.S.
The GOES-S satellite thundered toward orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket, slicing through a hazy late afternoon sky. Dozens of meteorologists gathered for the launch, including TV crews from the Weather Channel and WeatherNation.
GOES-S is the second satellite in an approximately $11 billion effort that’s already revolutionizing forecasting with astonishingly fast, crisp images of hurricanes, wildfires, floods, mudslides and other natural calamities.
The first spacecraft in the series, GOES-16, has been monitoring the Atlantic and East Coast for the past year for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The same first-class service is now coming to the Pacific region.
Besides the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, GOES-S also will keep watch over Mexico and Central America. It will become GOES-17 once it reaches its intended 22,000-mile-high orbit over the equator in a few weeks, and should be officially operational by year’s end.
“We can’t wait!” tweeted the National Weather Service in Anchorage just before the rocket soared from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The weather service’s Jim Yoe said on NASA TV that he was “really excited” to see his first launch in person.
“I’m even more excited about the work that’s coming up for me and my colleagues, putting these new data to work for better forecasts and warnings for the American public,” said Yoe, an official at the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation.
‘Brilliant eyes in the sky’
With these two new satellites, NOAA’s high-definition coverage will stretch from the Atlantic near West Africa, a hotbed for hurricane formation, all the way across the U.S. and the Pacific out to New Zealand.
It’s the third weather tracker launched by NASA in just over a year: “three brilliant eyes in the sky,” as NOAA satellite director Stephen Volz puts it. GOES-16 launched in late 2016 and an environmental satellite rocketed into a polar orbit from California last November.
These next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES, are “a quantum leap above” the federal agency’s previous weather sentinels, Volz said. This is the 18th launch of a GOES since 1975; one was lost in an explosion during liftoff and all but three of the satellites already up there are retired. Rockets by United Launch Alliance, a venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, carried all those GOES.
Even as it was still being checked in orbit, GOES-16 provided invaluable data to firefighters battling blazes in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere last March and to Houston-area rescue teams in the flooded aftermath of Hurricane Harvey last August, according to officials. GOES-16 also observed the uncertain path of Hurricanes Irma and the rapidly intensifying Hurricane Maria in September.
Exceeding expectations
GOES-16 “turned out to be better than we expected it to be,” said National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini, on hand for Thursday’s launch. The satellite wasn’t officially on duty yet, “and we were just standing there gawking at the imagery,”
As Hurricane Harvey approached the Texas coast, the satellite revealed the clouds sinking in the eye and the eye expanding as the storm morphed from a category 2 to 4, Uccellini said. Those images helped determine when it was safe for rescue teams to go out and save stranded residents, he added.
The satellite also alerted authorities in Texas and Oklahoma to the eruption of new blazes even before the 911 calls came in, Uccellini said. He said the satellite also tracked the direction of the fires like never before, prompting first responders to later tell NOAA: “You saved lives.”
Two more are planned in this four-satellite series: GOES-T in 2020 and GOES-U in 2024. The $10.8 billion cost includes the development, launch and operation of all four satellites as well as ground systems through 2036.
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Vero a Hot Instagram Alternative, but Will It Last?
Instagram users fed up with the service becoming more and more like Facebook are flocking to a hot new app called Vero.
Vero lets you share photos and video just like Instagram, plus it lets you talk about music, movies or books you like or hate. Though Vero has been around since 2015, its popularity surged in recent days, thanks in part to sudden, word-of-mouth interest from the cosplay community — comic book fans who like to dress up as characters. That interest then spread to other online groups.
There’s also a growing frustration with Instagram, with a flood of ads, dearth of privacy options and a recent end to the chronological ordering of posts. Instagram users have been posting screenshots of Vero, asking their friends to join.
But don’t ring Instagram’s death knells just yet. Hot new apps pop up and fizzle by the dozen, so the odds are stacked against Vero. Remember Ello? Peach? Thought so.
“Young people are super fickle and nothing has caught on in the way that Snapchat or Instagram has,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer analyst who specializes in social media.
From 2015 until this past week, Vero was little known, with fewer than 200,000 users, according to CEO Ayman Hariri. Then cosplay members started posting photos of elaborate costumes and makeup. Photographers, tattoo artists and others followed. As of Thursday, Vero was approaching 3 million users, Hariri said.
A fee, eventually
Vero has gotten so popular in recent days that some users have reported widespread outages and error messages. Vero says it’s working to keep up in response “a large wave of new users.”
Vero works on Apple or Android mobile devices and is free, at least for now. The company eventually wants to charge a subscription fee.
There are no ads, and the service promises “no data mining. Ever.” That means it won’t try to sell you stuff based on your interests and habits, as revealed through your posts. Of course, Facebook started out without ads and “data mining,” and it’s now one of the top internet advertising companies. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and started showing ads there the following year.
Instagram’s privacy settings are all or nothing: You either make everything available to everyone on Instagram, or make everything visible only to approved friends. Vero lets you set the privacy level of individual posts. If you don’t want something available to all users, you can choose just close friends, friends or acquaintances.
Another big difference: Vero shows friends’ posts in chronological order rather than tailored to your perceived tastes, as determined by software. Instagram got rid of chronological presentations in 2016, a change that hasn’t gone well with many users.
Founder was already wealthy
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire after starting the service. Vero’s founder was already one.
Hariri is the son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and helped run the family’s now-defunct construction company in Saudi Arabia. He got a computer science degree from Georgetown and returned to Saudi Arabia after his father was assassinated in 2005. His half brother, Saad, is Lebanon’s current prime minister.
Hariri’s ties with the family business, Saudi Oger, have come into question. The company has been accused in recent years of failing to pay workers and stranding them with little food and access to medical care. Vero says Hariri hasn’t had any operational or financial involvement with the business since late 2013.
Hariri said he started the service not to replace Instagram but to give people “a more authentic social network.” Because Vero doesn’t sell ads, he said, it isn’t simply trying to get people to stay on longer. More important, he said, is “how you feel when you use [it] and how you feel it’s useful.”
Newcomers like Ello and Peach can quickly become popular as people fed up with bigger services itch for something new. But reality can set in when people realize that their friends are not on the new services or that these services aren’t all they promised to be.
Williamson, the eMarketer analyst, said it’s difficult for a new service to become something people use for more than a few weeks.
A rare exception is Snapchat, which was founded in 2010, the same year as Instagram. Unlike Instagram, it has remained an independent company and is still a popular service among younger people. But even Snapchat is having trouble growing more broadly.
EMarketer recently published a report that predicted 2 million people under 25 leaving Facebook for other apps this year. But that means going to Snapchat and the Facebook-owned Instagram, not necessarily emerging services like Vero.
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ePUMB skype chat
