Environment Minister: Japan May Have to Dump Fukushima Water into Ocean
Tens of thousands of tons of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant might have to be released into the Pacific Ocean, Japan’s environment minister said Tuesday.The water, used to cool damaged fuel cores after the plant was damaged by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, is being stored in giant tanks at the site. But the storage space is running out.FILE – Workers are seen in front of storage tanks for radioactive water at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Okuma town, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, Feb. 18, 2019.”The only option will be to drain it into the sea and dilute it,” Yoshiaki Harada said at a news briefing in Tokyo. “The whole of the government will discuss this, but I would like to offer my simple opinion.”Tokyo Electric Power, which operates the nuclear plant, has said it will run out of storage space for the water in 2022. For the past eight years since the meltdown of Fukushima’s three reactors, some 200 tons of radioactive water have been pumped out of the damaged buildings every day.At another meeting, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the government has not yet settled on a course of action. He said Harada’s opinions were his own.”There is no fact that the method of disposal of contaminated water has been decided. The government would like to make a decision after making thorough discussion,” he said.Japan’s vast fishing industry, as well as its neighbor South Korea, have strongly opposed the idea of dumping the contaminated water into the ocean.
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HBO Produces Documentary to Help Kids Understand 9/11
For students from elementary to high school, the Sept. 11 terrorist attack isn’t a memory. It’s history. A new HBO documentary that debuts on the event’s 18th anniversary treats it that way.The necessity of her project, “What Happened on September 11,” struck filmmaker Amy Schatz when a third-grade girl told her about a playdate where she and a friend Googled “Sept. 11 attacks.””When a child does that, what he or she finds are some pretty horrific images that are not necessarily appropriate for kids,” Schatz said Tuesday. “So I felt a responsibility to try to fill that void and try to give kids something that isn’t horrifying and kind of fills in the gap.”The half-hour film debuts Wednesday at 6 p.m. A companion piece, focusing on the memories of former students at a high school near Ground Zero, premieres three hours later.Amy Schatz arrives at an event in Los Angeles, Feb. 7, 2015.Schatz has made a specialty of creating films that seek to explain the inexplicable, with “The Number on Great-Grandpa’s Arm” tackling the Holocaust and another on the Parkland shooting.”I’m really desperate for some more lightness very soon,” she said.In this case, she worked with the Sept. 11 remembrance museum on the story, filming two men who work there giving presentations to third graders. Stephen Kern, who worked on the 62nd floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower, talks about being evacuated. Matthew Crawford, whose father was a firefighter who died that day, discusses his experience. She also found a middle school in Secaucus, New Jersey, that teaches history through art and poetry, helping students process the emotions of what they learned.Short history lessons are sprinkled throughout the film, about New York and the World Trade Center, the one-time tallest towers in the world. Construction began in 1968.”One of the biggest questions the kids have is ‘Why? Why would somebody do that? Why would there be such cruelty?'” she said. “That’s a very difficult thing to grapple with and answer, so that was the trickiest part of the project.”The film tells of Osama bin Laden and his activism that started with the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan. But it never truly answers the whys. Maybe no one can.Schatz doesn’t avoid some of the terrible images of the day: the second plane striking the World Trade Center and resultant fireball, the collapse of each tower and the giant clouds of debris that billowed through the canyons of city streets. Schatz didn’t want to avoid those clips, since kids know that planes crashed into the buildings, but she opted not to spend much time on them “so that we didn’t create too many lingering after-images in people’s minds.”Stuyvesant High SchoolAs part of her research, Schatz interviewed alumni of Stuyvesant High School near the World Trade Center site. But the memories of what they saw, heard and smelled that day — and the uncertainty of how they would get home from school — proved too raw. That’s why “In the Shadow of the Towers: Stuyvesant High on 9/11” is a separate film that premieres on HBO three hours after the first one.Schatz said a school curriculum is being developed for teaching children about the tragedy, and “What Happened on September 11″ will be made available to schools for free. The film is aimed generally at children ages 7 to 12.Throughout her work, Schatz kept returning to the memory of the youngster searching for details about Sept. 11 on the internet.”You can’t protect kids from what they’re going to come across,” she said. “It seemed to me there was an opportunity to put something out there that is age-appropriate and not too scary and give them the tools they need to understand the world around them.”
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Facebook Bans Self-Harm Images in Fight Against Suicide
Facebook will no longer allow graphic images of self-harm on its platform as it tightens its policies on suicide content amid growing criticism of how social media companies moderate violent and potentially dangerous content.The social network also said Tuesday that self-injury related content will now become harder to search on Instagram, and it will ensure that it does not appear as recommended in the Explore section on the photo-sharing app.Facebook’s statement comes on World Suicide Prevention Day, and follows Twitter’s remarks that content related to self-harm will no longer be reported as abusive in an effort to reduce the stigma around suicide.About 8 million people die due to suicide every year, or one person every 40 seconds, according to a report by the World Health Organization.Facebook has a team of moderators who watch for content such as live broadcasting of violent acts as well as suicides. The company works with at least five outsourcing vendors in at least eight countries on content review, a Reuters tally showed in February.Governments globally are wrestling over how to better control content on social media platforms, often blamed for encouraging abuse, spreading online pornography and influencing or manipulating voters.Last month, Amazon.com told Reuters that it plans to promote helpline phone numbers to customers who query its site about suicide, after searches on its site suggested users search for nooses and other potentially harmful products.Alphabet’s Google, Facebook and Twitter have already been issuing helpline numbers in response to user queries involving the term “suicide.”
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Scientists Rethink Alzheimer’s, Diversifying Drug Search
When researchers at the University of Kentucky compare brains donated from people who died with dementia, very rarely do they find one that bears only Alzheimer’s trademark plaques and tangles — no other damage.
If they do, “we call it a unicorn,” said Donna Wilcock, an Alzheimer’s specialist at the university’s aging center. Contrary to popular perception, “there are a lot of changes that happen in the aging brain that lead to dementia in addition to plaques and tangles.”
That hard-won lesson helps explain how scientists are rethinking Alzheimer’s.
For years researchers have been guided by one leading theory — that getting rid of a buildup of a sticky protein called amyloid would ease the mind-robbing disease. Yet drug after drug has failed. They might clear out the gunk, but they’re not stopping Alzheimer’s inevitable worsening. Today’s treatments only temporarily ease symptoms.
The new mantra: diversify.
With more money — the government had a record $2.4 billion to spend on Alzheimer’s research this year — the focus has shifted to exploring multiple novel ways of attacking a disease now considered too complex for a one-size-fits-all solution. On the list, researchers are targeting the brain’s specialized immune system, fighting inflammation, even asking if simmering infections play a role.
Most of these fresh starts are in the earliest research stages. It’s far from clear that any will pan out, but “the field is now much more open-minded than it ever was to alternative ideas,” Wilcock said.
Breaking the plaque and tangle link
No one knows what causes Alzheimer’s but amyloid deposits were an obvious first suspect, easy to spot when examining brain tissue. But it turns out that gunk starts silently building up 20 years before any memory loss, and by itself it’s not enough to cause degeneration.
Sometime after plaques appear, another protein named tau starts forming tangles inside neurons, heralding cell death and memory loss.
But again, not always: Autopsies show sometimes people die with large amounts of both plaques and tangles, yet escape dementia.
So something else — maybe several other things — also must play a role. One possible culprit: The brain’s unique immune cells, called microglia.
No surprise if you’ve never heard of microglia. Neurons are the brain’s rock stars, the nerve cells that work together to transmit information like memories. Microglia are part of a different family of cells long regarded as the neurons’ support staff. But “it’s becoming clear they’re much more active and play a much more significant role,” said Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging.
One microglial job is to gobble up toxic proteins and cellular debris. Recently, a mutation in a gene called TREM2 was found to weaken microglia and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s. Dr. David Holtzman at Washington University in St. Louis took a closer look — and says microglia may be key to how the amyloid-tau duo turns toxic.
In donated human brains, his team found more tau tangles clustered around amyloid plaques when people harbored microglia-weakening TREM2 mutations. The researchers altered the TREM2 gene in mice and seeded their brains with a little human tau. Sure enough, more tangles formed next to plaques in mice with weak microglia than in those with functional immune cells, they recently reported in Nature Neuroscience.
Why? Normal microglia seem to restrict amyloid plaques, which limits damage to surrounding tissue — damage that can make it easier for tau to take hold, he explained.
While it was known that amyloid buildup drives tau tangles, “we never had a good clue as to how it is doing that,” Holtzman said. The new findings “would argue that these cells are sort of a missing link.”
Separately, biotech company Alector Inc. has begun first-step patient testing of a drug designed to boost TREM2 and better activate microglia.
The germ conundrum
Could gum disease or herpes be to blame? The idea that infections earlier in life could set the stage for Alzheimer’s decades later has simmered on the edge of mainstream medicine, but it’s getting new attention. It sounds weird, but both the germ that causes gum disease and different strains of herpes viruses have been found in Alzheimer’s-affected brain tissue.
Researchers in New York are testing the herpes drug valacyclovir in 130 people with mild Alzheimer’s who have evidence of infection with certain herpes strains.
And Cortexyme Inc. is enrolling more than 500 early-stage patients around the country to test a drug that targets potentially neuron-damaging substances produced by gingivitis bacteria.
Whether the germ theory is a worthwhile pursuit was hotly debated at an international Alzheimer’s Association meeting in July. One skeptic, Dr. Todd Golde of the University of Florida, cautioned that germs’ mere presence doesn’t mean they caused dementia — they could be a consequence of it.
Still, a 2018 study from Taiwan offered a hint that treating herpes infection might lower later dementia risk. And a U.S. study found certain herpes viruses affected the behavior of Alzheimer’s-related genes.
“Maybe these are just opportunistic pathogens that have space to spring up in the brains of people affected with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Benjamin Readhead of Arizona State University, who co-authored that U.S. paper. But, “it looks at least plausible that some of these pathogens are capable of acting as accelerants of disease.”
A common denominator
One key commonality among emerging Alzheimer’s theories is how aggressively the brain’s immune system defends itself — and thus how inflamed it becomes.
Inflammation is a normal part of the body’s response to illness and injury, one method of fighting infection or healing wounds. But when inflammation is too strong, or doesn’t go away, it’s like friendly fire that harms cells. Remember how some people have lots of plaques and tangles but no dementia? A few years ago Massachusetts General researchers found strikingly little inflammation surrounded all the gunky buildup in the resilient brains — but the Alzheimer’s-affected brains harbored a lot.
Research since has found similar inflammatory effects with other forms of dementia — like vascular dementia, where tiny blood vessels that feed the brain are lost or blocked, and dementias caused by Lewy bodies or other toxic proteins. A growing list of genes linked to inflammatory processes also may play a role.
A handful of drugs are being explored in the quest to tamp down inflammation’s damaging side without quashing its good effects. Take those microglia, which Holtzman said “may be a two-edged sword.”
Early on, before there’s too much plaque, revving them up may be good. But later on, a hyperactive swarm around growing plaques spews out inflammatory molecules.
In addition to their immune system job, microglia also secrete molecules that help nourish neurons, noted Kentucky’s Wilcock. The goal is to restore the natural balance of a healthy brain’s environment, she said, so microglia “can perform their essential functions without damaging surrounding tissue.”
Amyloid’s still in the picture
All those drug flops weren’t a waste of time.
“Every time there’s a failure it’s absolutely clear that we learn a lot,” Emory University neurologist Dr. Allan Levey recently told the government’s Alzheimer’s advisory council.
One lesson: Timing may matter. Most of the failed anti-amyloid drugs were tested in people who already had at least mild symptoms. Some studies seeking to prevent memory loss in the first place still are underway. Several anti-tau drugs also are being tested.
Another lesson: Most people have a mix of different dementias, which means they’ll need a variety of treatments.
“Now we have an opportunity, a real opportunity, to expand and try all these avenues,” said Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer Maria Carrillo. “The triggers as we understand them are broad.”
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With Little Change, iPhones May Get Upstaged by Streaming
Apple is expected to unveil three new iPhone models that are so similar to last year’s lineup, they may be upstaged by details about the company’s upcoming video service.The company will show off its latest iPhones Tuesday at a products showcase in Cupertino, California. But the buzz surrounding its best-selling products has waned, as have sales, in the absence of compelling new features.IPhone shipments are down 25% so far this year, according to the research firm IDC, putting more pressure on Apple to generate revenue from services such as music streaming, product repairs, revenue sharing from apps and ad commissions from making Google the default search engine. Revenue from services rose 14% to nearly $23 billion during the first half of this year.And now Apple is getting ready to roll out a Netflix-like video service that will feature a slate of original programs featuring stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Jason Momoa. Apple provided a peek in March, but hasn’t specified when it will debut this fall or how much it will cost. Those details are expected to be revealed Tuesday, along with more information about a video gaming service called Arcade.The company’s new phone models will likely mirror last year’s iPhone XR, XS and XS Max. Prices are likely to stay at $750 to $1,100, before add-ons such as more storage. And they will likely have the same design — with more display space, less bezel and no home button — that Apple switched to with the iPhone X in 2017.With little change, many customers who bought models in the past two years may hold off upgrading this year, analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights said.The biggest difference is likely to be in the phone’s camera, an area that Apple and its rivals have all been trying to improve as consumers snap more pictures on their devices. Even there, improvements from year to year have been small.This year, Apple is expected to add an extra camera lens to each model. The two pricier models already have a telephoto lens for better zoom. Now, they are expected to sport a wide-angle lens to capture more of a scene than regular shots. The cheapest model is expected to get one of those features, but it’s not clear which.Even with those additions, the new iPhones may still be catching up with the improvements that rivals such as Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo and Google have been making to their latest phones.Unlike some of the other devices coming out this year, the new iPhones aren’t expected to support upcoming ultrafast cellular networks known as 5G. Apple paid billions of dollars to settle a royalty dispute with chipmaker Qualcomm in April to gain the technology it needs for 5G iPhones, but those models aren’t expected to be ready until next year.Besides iPhones, Apple is also expected to provide looks at the next versions of its internet-connected watch and its video-streaming device, Apple TV. New iPads could also be in the mix.
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New Atwood Novel ‘The Testaments’ Revisits Dystopian World
Margaret Atwood often gets asked if “The Testaments,” her sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” is set in a dystopian world.
“Let us hope so,” she says drily.
The Canadian author noted as her new novel was published with a ferocious blast of publicity Tuesday that several U.S. states recently enacted laws to limit women’s reproductive rights. She likened it to the extreme control over women in Gilead, the theocratic future United States where both “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments” are set.
“If you look at the legislative moves made by a number of different states within the United States, you can see that some of them are almost there,” Atwood said at London’s British Library during a publication-day news conference.
When “The Handmaid’s Tale” was published in 1985, some readers found the idea of a fundamentalist state supplanting the democratic United States far-fetched. Now, it strikes many as eerily prescient with authoritarianism on the rise around the world.
Atwood said she wasn’t a prophet, just observant.
“In 1985, people were already saying these kinds of things,” Atwood said. “(Politicians) were talking about what they would like to do in the United States if they had the power. And now they do have the power.”
Atwood says she long resisted revisiting the world of “The Handmaid’s Tale” because she didn’t think she could recapture the voice of narrator Offred, a “handmaid” compelled to bear children for a powerful man.
The success of the Emmy Award-winning “Handmaid’s Tale” television series starring Elizabeth Moss – and renewed interest in the novel from the TV drama – may have helped change the writer’s mind.
“The Testaments” is set about 15 years on from where “The Handmaid’s Tale” ends with Offred fleeing to an undetermined future. It has three narrators, including Aunt Lydia, one of Gilead’s fearsome enforcers, who features in both book and series of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The author says the follow-up tells the story of “the beginning of the end” of Gilead.
The TV series that first aired in 2017 has helped make Atwood’s Gilead a cultural touchstone. Demonstrators at women’s rights protests routinely don the red cloaks and bonnets of the show’s handmaids.
Intriguingly, the dominant color of “The Testaments,” splashed on the book’s cover and ad campaign, is bright green.
“There are some new costume choices in the book,” Atwood said. “These kinds of regimes are very big on outfits.”
“The Testaments” is sure to be one of the year’s biggest books, and the months leading up to its publication were surrounded by secrecy – and security.
Atwood says she and the publishers were targeted in cyberattacks aimed at stealing the manuscript. Publisher Penguin’s tight pre-publication procedures were slightly compromised when Amazon sent some customers copies early. Amazon apologized for the “technical glitch.”
The book was launched with “Harry Potter” levels of hype: midnight festivities in British book stores, a press conference for international journalists and a celebrity-studded evening gala broadcast to 1,300 movie theaters around the world.
The novel is on the shortlist for the prestigious Booker Prize – Atwood’s sixth time as a Booker finalist. She has won the prize once (for “The Blind Assassin” in 2000), along with a slew of other awards including Canada’s Governor General’s Award and the PEN/Pinter free-speech prize.
She’s long been considered a favorite for the Nobel Prize for Literature. When British writer Kazuo Ishiguro won in 2017, he said “I apologize to Margaret Atwood that it’s not her getting this prize.”
Atwood was introduced at a news conference Tuesday as a “literary rock star.”
Atwood, who turns 80 in November, said she is “pleased and grateful,” but unfazed.
“I think this kind of thing can be quite ruinous for a 35-year-old,” she said. “Because where do you go from there? In my case, I think we know the answer.”
She has no immediate plans for another installment, but has not ruled out a third trip to Gilead.
“I never say never to anything, because I have said ‘never’ and been wrong,” Atwood said.
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India’s Unmanned Lunar Lander Located on Surface
India’s space agency says it has located the lunar probe that was feared lost as it was making its final approach towards the surface last weekend.The Vikram lander was just two kilometers above the moon’s South Pole Saturday when ground controllers lost contact with the spacecraft. The Indian Space Research Organization said Tuesday the Chandrayaan-2 probe has discovered the lander on the surface, but had not yet established communications with Vikram, named after Vikram Sarabhai, the scientist regarded as the “father” of India’s space program.If the probe landed intact, India will join the United States, Russia and China as the only nations to achieve a soft landing of a spacecraft on the moon. It will also become the first nation to attempt a controlled landing on the moon’s South Pole.The $141 million Chandrayaan-2 mothership entered lunar orbit nearly a month after it was launched aboard India’s powerful Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark Three rocket. The Vikram lander was designed to release a small rover that will roam the moon’s surface in search for signs of water, and to assess its topography and geology. Chandrayaan-2 was a huge step up from India’s previous space explorations, such as its first moon mission in 2008 and a mission to Mars in 2013 that involved sending a spacecraft to the Red Planet.
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Malawi Pageant Shines Light on Albino Beauty
Malawi has crowned Ms. and Mr. Albinism during the country’s first ever beauty pageant for albinos, held in the capital Lilongwe. The Association of People with Albinism organized the event as part of efforts to destroy myths which have led to albino attacks in Malawi and other African countries. Lameck Masina reports from Lilongwe.
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Wine Glass Melodies Play at Fingertips of Iraqi Student
A medical student-turned-musician built an instrument using water in wine glasses to create a kind of music in Baghdad that Iraqis have rarely heard. He does it by skillfully turning slight friction into musical notes and harmony. VOA’s Jim Randle narrates our report.
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How Polluted, Noisy Barcelona Could Save Lives by Cutting Traffic
Barcelona could cut deaths from air pollution and improve quality of life by implementing in full a plan to calm traffic and free up space for residents, researchers said Monday.The compact Spanish city is home to more than 1.6 million people and is plagued by contaminants and noise largely due to heavy density of traffic, as well as lack of greenery.A study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), published in the journal Environment International, found the city of Barcelona could prevent 667 premature deaths every year if it created 503 “superblocks” as first proposed.The superblocks — which keep cars out of designated areas in the city and develop public space in streets — have been complex to roll out, with only six put in place so far.”What we want to show with this study is that we have to go back and put the citizen at the center of … urban plans, because the health impacts are quite considerable,” said lead author and ISGlobal researcher Natalie Mueller.As a city with the highest traffic density in Europe, Barcelona also needed to make it easier for people to commute in from the wider metropolitan area by public transport, she added.The projected reduction in deaths from the superblocks plan would be achieved mainly as a result of a 24% decrease in air pollution from nitrogen oxide (NO2), along with lower traffic noise and urban heat, the study said.Data released Friday from the Barcelona Public Health Agency showed air pollution accounted for 351 premature deaths in the city in 2018, around the same as in 2017.Motor vehicles generated the main pollutant, with almost half the city’s population regularly exposed to NO2 levels above the safe limit set by the World Health Organization, the city council said.From January 2020, Barcelona will implement low-emission zones on weekdays, keeping 125,000 vehicles out of the city.The city council will also declare a climate emergency including a package of urgent measures to cut down on private vehicle use and boost public transport, among other actions.It has already extended cycle paths and upgraded its shared bike scheme, while shrinking on-street parking.’Courage’ neededBarcelona City Hall told the Thomson Reuters Foundation it aimed to start drafting plans for three new superblocks shortly, as well as launching public consultations for others.The ISGlobal study found that, besides reducing deaths, a full roll-out of the superblocks project would increase life expectancy by almost 200 days on average per inhabitant, and generate an annual economic saving of 1.7 billion euros ($1.9 billion).The superblocks have sparked opposition in some local areas, notably among small traders who fear they could deter customers.But Mueller said the concept was similar to banning smoking in bars and restaurants, which was initially unpopular but quickly accepted once people realized the benefits.”Even if they don’t see it in the beginning, often in the end they are quite happy,” she said, noting the need for “courage” in public policy making.
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Facebook, Instagram Close Accounts of Italian Neo-fascist Groups
Facebook and Instagram on Monday blocked the social media accounts of two Italian neo-fascist groups and some of their activists because they had violated the platforms’ policies against spreading hate, Facebook said.Casapound and Forza Nuova, which espouse extreme right-wing ideologies, have boosted their profile in Italy by leading anti-migrant campaigns on their social media sites.”People and organizations that spread hatred or attack others based on who they are, have no place on Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook, which owns Instagram, said in a statement.Casapound leader Simone Di Stefano denounced the decision.”This is an abuse by a private multinational in contempt of Italian law. A spit in the face of democracy,” he wrote in a tweet. Casapound had 250,000 followers on Facebook.Di Stefano said his personal profile, which had 140,000 followers, had been shuttered along with those of a number of city councilors around Italy who belong to the group.FILE – A tattoo is seen on a hand of a supporter of Italy’s far-right Forza Nuova party during a demonstration in Rome, Italy, Nov. 4, 2017.Forza Nuova leader Roberto Fiore confirmed his movement’s profiles had also gone dark, and said his group would respond with more street protests and recruitment.The groups’ political opponents applauded the move.”This is another step towards the end of an organized season of hatred on social networks,” said former lower house speaker and left-wing lawmaker Laura Boldrini.On Monday, Casapound and Forza Nuova supporters took part in a protest outside parliament to demand snap elections after the center-left Democratic Party replaced the far-right League in a coalition with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.Some of those in the crowd were filmed making the stiff-armed fascist salute.
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US Doctors’ Group Says Just Stop Vaping as Deaths, Illnesses Rise
The American Medical Association on Monday urged Americans to stop using electronic cigarettes of any sort until scientists have a better handle on the cause of 450 lung illnesses and at least five deaths related to the use of the products.The AMA, one of the nation’s most influential physician groups, also called on doctors to inform patients about the dangers of e-cigarettes, including toxins and carcinogens, and swiftly report any suspected cases of lung illness associated with e-cigarette use to their state or local health department.The recommendation followed advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday for people to consider not using e-cigarette products while it investigates the cause of the spate of severe lung illnesses associated with vaping.Many, but not all, of the cases have involved those who used the devices to vaporize oils containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis.CDC officials said some laboratories have identified vitamin E acetate in product samples and are investigating that as a possible cause of the illnesses.Public health experts have not found any evidence of infectious diseases and believe the lung illnesses are probably associated with a chemical exposure.Megan Constantino, 36, from St. Petersburg, Florida, quit vaping six days ago after hearing reports of the illnesses and deaths related to vaping.”It scared me into quitting,” she said.Like many users of vaping pens, Constantino picked up the device after quitting cigarette smoking three years ago, and said, “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”She added, “I threw the last cartridge away. I took a picture of it and I literally cried.”Constantino said many people who vape have been “on pins and needles” for the investigation results, and she is concerned that the reports of a link to vaping THC may give people an excuse to ignore the warnings.E-cigarettes are generally thought to be safer than traditional cigarettes, which kill up to half of all lifetime users, the World Health Organization says. But the long-term health effects of vaping are largely unknown.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has faced mounting pressure to curb a huge spike in teenage use of e-cigarettes, a trend that coincided with the rising popularity of Juul e-cigarettes.”We must not stand by while e-cigarettes continue to go unregulated. We urge the FDA to speed up the regulation of e-cigarettes and remove all unregulated products from the market,” AMA president Dr. Patrice Harris, said in a statement.Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, which advocates for cigarette smokers to switch to nicotine-based vaping devices, said the AMA should be “ashamed of themselves for playing politics with people’s health and protecting the profits of drug dealers.”He criticized the AMA for “fearmongering about nicotine vaping products” while not mentioning “the very real risks of vaping illicit THC products.”Juul Labs declined to comment. Altria Group Inc owns a 35 percent stake in Juul.
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Downton Abbey Cast Feeling Pressure Ahead of Movie
Get out the tiaras and the best china. Hit British television series Downton Abbey is about to arrive on the big screen and the makers are feeling uncharacteristically nervous.Driven by fan demand, the aristocratic family and their servants return with a movie set around a royal visit to the vast Grantham country home.”When something’s been a big, big hit on television and you make a movie, there is a kind of onus that the movie should satisfy those people who loved the show. … I think I was aware of that and conscious of it,” creator Julian Fellowes, who wrote the screenplay for the Downton Abbey movie, told Reuters at the world premiere Monday.Most of the original cast, including Hugh Bonneville (Lord Grantham), Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary) Jim Carter (butler Mr. Carson) and Maggie Smith as the crusty Dowager Countess, reprised their roles for the movie, which opens in much of Europe on Sept. 13 and in the United States on Sept. 20.The television series, set in the early 20th century, ran from 2011-2015 and won numerous awards for its portrayal of the quintessentially British stiff upper lip.Elizabeth McGovern, who plays Lady Grantham, said Monday she was particularly nervous about making the movie “because I didn’t want to destroy the affection that people have for the show.”Carter said he hoped the movie lived up to the expectations of fans. “It’s been driven by the fans really, this film. In the three years since the TV series finished, every time we talk to someone it’s always been, ‘Is it going to be a film?'”
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Seeing Art in Grandee Style: Spanish Duke’s Palace Opens to Public
One of Madrid’s hidden cultural gems, up to now only accessible to private guests or art aficionados willing to endure a near three-year waiting list, the neoclassical Palace of Liria will open its doors to the general public from Sept. 19.Home to the 19th Duke of Alba, a Grandee – or highest nobility – of Spain and head of one of its oldest and richest aristocratic houses, it boasts paintings by Francisco Goya, Diego Velazquez and Peter Paul Rubens and a unique library with letters penned by Christopher Columbus and a first edition of Don Quixote.”You can feel the weight of history the moment you enter this house,” Alvaro Romero Sanchez-Arjona, head of the culture department at the Casa de Alba Foundation, told Reuters.”Visitors … will realize they’re not in a conventional museum, they are in a palace, in an inhabited house,” Romero added while taking receipt of Goya’s portrait of the 13th Duchess of Alba – the painter’s muse – returned after a temporary lease to the Thyssen museum.The 18th century building is the third palace the Albas have opened to paying visitors since 2016 in an effort to maintain the heritage of the family, which is restricted from selling many of its heirlooms due to their historic importance for Spain.Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, Duke of Alba stands behind “XIII Duchess of Alba” painting by the Spanish painter Francisco Goya at Liria Palace in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 9, 2019.The House of Alba dates back to the 1400s and its wealth is estimated to be between 600 million euros and 3.5 billion euros ($663 million-$3.87 billion).The Palace of Liria, where France’s last empress and wife of Napoleon III, Maria Eugenia de Montijo, died in exile 1920, will allow groups of 20 visitors to tour its ground and first floors
every 30 minutes for a 14-euro ($15.50) fee.Duke Carlos Fitz-James Stuart and his family will continue to live on the second floor of the palace, which was extensively rebuilt after suffering heavy damage from bombing in Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War.($1 = 0.9046 euros)
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Melting Ice Sees Sweden’s Highest Peak Lose Crown After 139 Years
The south peak of Kebnekaise, Sweden’s highest peak for well over a century, has been demoted to second place after decades of rising temperatures melted more than a third of the mountain’s glacier.Since 1880, when measurements started, Swedish children have been taught that the southern peak is the highest peak in Sweden but this year the melting of the glacier covering it means the ice-free northern peak is higher for the first time.”It’s a powerful symbol of change. This little peak is an icon in Sweden,” said Ninis Rosqvist, a geography professor at Stockholm University. “But it’s not a surprise. When the temperature rises, ice melts, but this is something that really hits home for a lot of people.”In the last 50 years, the southern peak has lost 24 meters of its roughly 60 meters of ice cap. It now stands at 2,095.6 meters compared with the 2,096.8 meters of the northern peak.Sweden has experienced unusually hot summers in the last 10 years and 2018 was the warmest ever on record.Last month Iceland unveiled a plaque to its Okjokull ice sheet, the first of the country’s hundreds of glaciers to melt away due to climate change.
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States Led by Texas Target Google in New Antitrust Probe
Fifty U.S. states and territories, led by Texas, announced an investigation into Google’s “potential monopolistic behavior.”
The Monday announcement closely followed one from a separate group of states Friday that disclosed an investigation into Facebook’s market dominance. The two probes widen the antitrust scrutiny of big tech companies beyond sweeping federal and congressional investigations and enforcement action by European regulators.Nebraska attorney general Doug Peterson, a Republican, said at a press conference held in Washington that 50 attorneys general joining together sends a “strong message to Google.”
California and Alabama are not part of the investigation, although it does include the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Tara Gallegos, a spokeswoman for California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, declined to confirm or deny any state investigation and would not comment on the announcement by the other states.Mike Lewis, a spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, also said the state’s legal team had no comment on the probe.The news conference featured a dozen Republican attorneys general plus the Democratic attorney general of Washington, D.C.Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has a market value of more than $820 billion and controls so many facets of the internet that it’s fairly impossible to surf the web for long without running into at least one of its services. Google’s dominance in online search and advertising enables it to target millions of consumers for their personal data.
Google expects the state authorities will ask the company about past similar investigations in the U.S. and internationally, senior vice president of global affairs Kent Walker wrote in a blog post Friday.
Critics often point to Google’s 2007 acquisition of online advertising company DoubleClick as pivotal to its advertising dominance.
Europe’s antitrust regulators slapped Google with a $1.7 billion fine in March for unfairly inserting exclusivity clauses into contracts with advertisers, disadvantaging rivals in the online ad business.
One outcome antitrust regulators might explore is forcing Google to spin off search as a separate company, experts say. Regulators also could focus on areas such as Google’s popular video site YouTube, an acquisition Google scored in 2006.
Joining Paxton, a Republican, in the investigation are the attorneys general of almost all U.S. states and the District of Columbia.Google response
Google has long argued that although its businesses are large, they are useful and beneficial to consumers.
“Google is one of America’s top spenders on research and development, making investments that spur innovation,” Walker wrote. “Things that were science fiction a few years ago are now free for everyone — translating any language instantaneously, learning about objects by pointing your phone, getting an answer to pretty much any question you might have.”
But federal and state regulators and policymakers are growing more concerned not just with the company’s impact on ordinary internet users, but also on smaller companies striving to compete in Google’s markets.
“On the one hand, you could just say, ‘well Google is dominant because they’re good,'” said Jen King, the director of privacy at Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society. “But at the same time, it’s created an ecosystem where people’s whole internet experience is mediated through Google’s home page and Google’s other products.”Three possible targetsExperts believe the probe could focus on at least one of three areas that have caught regulators’ eyes.
A good first place to look might be online advertising. Google will control 31.1% of global digital ad dollars in 2019, according to eMarketer estimates, crushing a distant second-place Facebook. And many smaller advertisers have argued that Google has such a stranglehold on the market that it becomes a system of whatever Google says, goes — because the alternative could be not reaching customers.
“There’s definitely concern on the part of the advertisers themselves that Google wields way too much power in setting rates and favoring their own services over others,” King said.Another visibly huge piece of Google’s business is its search platform, often the starting point for millions of people when they go online. Google dwarfs other search competitors and has faced harsh criticism in the past for favoring its own products over competitors at the top of search results. European regulators also have investigated in this area, ultimately fining Google for promoting its own shopping service. Google is appealing the fine.
Google’s smartphone operating system, Android, is the most widely used in the world.
European regulators have fined Google $5 billion for tactics involving Android, finding that Google forced smartphone makers to install Google apps, thereby expanding its reach. Google has since allowed more options for alternative browser and search apps to European Android phones.
The U.S. Justice Department opened a sweeping investigation of big tech companies this summer, looking at whether their online platforms have hurt competition, suppressed innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. The Federal Trade Commission has been conducting its own competition probe of Big Tech, as has the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.
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Drones Offer Ghana’s Farmers Hope of Better Yields – and Income
Smallholder farmers in Ghana are adopting drone technology for crop surveillance in a bid to increase yields and incomes.The new technology is being used as farmers’ cooperatives are slowly abandoning manual labor as they seek higher efficiency.Some, however, think the use of the drones is too costly and may shut out poor farmers. At the Kpong rice irrigation scheme in Ghana, 28-year-old George Majitwey of GEM Solutions watches as his drone becomes airborne and begins its first task of the day – surveying for diseases and pests.“The one we are using is a multispecial enabled drone that is specific to agriculture. It’s looking for pest, disease, irrigation issues, that kind of deal,” Majitwey said.His is among companies now sponsored by the Netherlands-based Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation, a European Union-funded institute, in a bid to attract more young Africans to agriculture.CTA estimates that streamlining agriculture through technology could earn the continent $2.6 billion every year.Giacomo Rambaldi, a senior program coordinator at CTA, said, “It’s an evolving industry. It’s a market which is still untapped.”While not all farmers can afford to work with drones and many fear they could lose their jobs to technology, some, like Appiah Owusi, see it as a way of increasing yields, compared to traditional techniques.“When you use the knapsack machine your leg will tear the root (and) reduce yield,” Owusi said.Delegates are meeting in Accra to discuss ways to transform agriculture on the continent, and drones are just one of the topics they are discussing as a way to improve Africa’s food security.
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Turner Classic Movies Hires Its First African American Host
Jacqueline Stewart has been named host of Turner Classic Movies’ silent movie program “Silent Sunday Nights,” making her the network’s first African American host in its 25 year history.
TCM on Monday announced the hiring of Stewart, a professor of cinema and media studies at the University of Chicago who has specialized in the racial politics of film preservation. She will make her TCM debut on Sunday.
“I hope that as a host at TCM that my presence there will interest a greater diversity of viewers to see what there is to watch,” Stewart said in an interview. “If my presence on TCM gets people interested in film history, especially young people of color, to look at a body of work that they might not think would resonate with them, that’s really important.”For years after the network’s founding in 1994, Robert Osborne was the sole host on TCM. In 2003, Ben Mankiewicz joined the network. But only recently has TCM expanded the number of personalities that introduce and give context to the classic films that air on its commercial-less network. Last year, Alicia Malone became the first female host on TCM. Also added in recent years were “Noir Alley” hosts Eddie Muller and Dave Karger.
Pola Changnon, senior vice president of marketing, studio production and talent for TCM, says that as TCM has expanded its operations to include an annual film festival and classic movie-themed cruise, the network has needed “a deeper bench” of talent. Changnon said Stewart’s deep knowledge of film history and her engaging way of talking about it made her a natural fit.
“For us, it’s a chance to learn from her, too,” said Changnon. “With classic movies, there are certain assumptions about who got to tell the stories and who was featured in these movies. With Jacqueline’s guidance, we’re going to do more to attend to the Oscar Micheauxs of the world.”Among the first films Stewart will host on TCM will be 1920’s “Symbol of the Unconquered” by Micheaux, the pioneering African American filmmaker. Also planned is 1912’s “Cleopatra” by the Helen Gardner Picture Players. Gardner was the first actor, male or female, to create her own production company in the U.S.
Stewart, a Chicago native, has dedicated her research toward expanding an understanding and appreciation of film history outside of the largely white lens it is often seen through _ something TCM has sometimes been criticized for contributing to. She has served on the National Film Preservation Board where she is chair of its diversity task force.
Stewart’s 2005 book “Migrating to the Movies: Cinema and Black Urban Modernity” told the often overlooked history of the first black filmmakers. Her South Side Home Movie Project collected an archive of more than 300 home movies from families in the Chicago neighborhood as a way of intimately capturing local African American history.
“It’s important for all viewers of TCM to recognize that expertise comes in many different forms, many different colors,” said Stewart. “I’m especially excited about the kinds of conversations that can emerge because of the unique perspective that I can bring as a host.”
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Pyer Moss Celebrates Black Culture with Fashion, Music
There was a huge choir that veered from stirring, soaring gospel, then spit verses from Cardi B and sang lines from Queen Latifah’s ‘”U.N.I.T.Y.'”; a spoken word artist who reminded the audience that rock ‘n’ roll was invited by a black, queer woman; and a stunning collection of clothes that ran the gamut from casual chic to red-carpet gowns, all modeled by black or brown faces. “Sister,” Pyer Moss’ latest production for New York Fashion Week, was a brilliant, irreverent and joyous celebration of black culture, specifically black women – a show where even the colorful, eye-catching garments proved to be just part of the story its designer, Kerby Jean-Raymond, masterfully weaved together on Sunday night.
“The whole thing is really to recognize our worth, and us as black people, what we’ve contributed to what pop society is in America,” Jean-Raymond told The Associated Press after his show ended a little before midnight. “What I aim to do is to make disenfranchised people, black people, with this series and minorities and women, know and understand how important they are to this thing called America right now.”
The Pyer Moss collection is modeled during Fashion Week, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019 in New York.The first sign that the Pyer Moss was going to be something out of the ordinary was its location: Miles from Manhattan, the upstart fashion house held court on Flatbush Avenue, at the Kings Theatre, a venue sitting in one of the more culturally rich black neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York.
Once inside the ornate and refurbished venue, a runway was fashioned in front of the stage, and in between stood a piano – another hint that clothes would be merely part of the story Jean-Raymond planned to tell.
What followed was a production that borrowed from black music, the black church and other aspects of the culture to pay loving tribute to what African Americans have achieved. Before the show began, spoken word artist Casey Gerald noted the grim anniversary currently being marked worldwide – 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the United States.
The Pyer Moss collection is modeled during Fashion Week, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019 in New York.But instead of sorrow, Gerald emphasized freedom and noted “we have come here to say we ain’t gonna grieve no more . we have come tonight to say you can’t hurt us no more.”
With that, The Pyer Moss Tabernacle Drip Choir Drenched in the Blood took to the stage and began to sing. Dressed in formal black against a white backdrop, it was the perfect complement to the designs that would grace the runway. Looks included a flowing white tunic with red trim and matching white pants; a brilliant yellow-gold gown with long, billowing sleeves, a skirt that flared at the bottom and a cut-out back; matching men’s and women’s leather outfits that recalled cowboy chic; and brilliant artwork emblazoned on casual outfits (“Stranger Things” star Caleb McLaughlin was one of the models).
The Pyer Moss collection is modeled during Fashion Week, Sunday, Sept. 8, 2019 in New York.As captivating as the clothes were, they were hard to compete with the choir, which started slow and majestic, with a gospel song, then morphed to deliver snippets of popular works of contemporary black singers, from Anita Baker to Whitney Houston to Missy Elliott: the audience roared as the choir began to rap Elliott’s “The Rain,” and cheered when it later segued to Cardi B’s “Money,” and erupted as it went into Adina Howard’s “Freak Like Me.”
Jean-Raymond beamed about his choir afterward, and noted that he had wanted to have more than 100 members, but “the stage structure couldn’t hold all of our swag.”
Jean-Raymond said he chose the songs to pay tribute to the contributions of black women in culture, specifically music. He noted the often overlooked Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who is considered by many to be the rightful creator of rock ‘n’ roll.
“And I feel like black women are often erased from things, and I wanted to do this specifically for black women,” he said.
FILE – Pyer Moss collection designer Kerby Jean-Raymond appears backstage during Fashion Week in New York.It may have been specifically for black women, but the entire audience – which included celebrities ranging from Fantasia to former NBA star Chris Bosh, former NFL star Victor Cruz and actress girlfriend Karrueche Tran, and singer Normani – erupted in applause as it was ending.
In the end, it was far more than a fashion show, which is what Jean-Raymond – who declared fashion shows boring and elitist – hoped to achieve.
“I look at this as an art project, and I think the success of it is bringing people closer to me than trying to assimilate into whatever else people are doing,” he said.
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US Officials Fear Disjointed Battle Against the ‘Global Cyber Pandemic’
Security officials these days are anything but shy when they describe the dangers facing the United States in cyberspace.“We’re in the midst, I think we all know, of a global cyber pandemic,” the National Security Agency’s top lawyer warned at a conference last week.And NSA General Counsel Glenn Gerstell did not stop there.FILE – The National Security Agency (NSA) campus in Fort Meade, Maryland.“I think it’s probably fair to say it’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he added. “The opportunities for cyber mischief are increasing at a great rate… The opportunities for our ability to defend against it are not increasing at the same rate.”The costs are significant. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center took in more than 351,000 complaints in 2018, the last full year for which data is available, with losses to companies and individuals topping $2.7 billion.And officials are quick to point out, those are only the cases they know about. Many go unreported. And the potential impact is not insignificant.U.S. officials have described the country’s economy as a “cross-cutting” of various systems that have been integrated into a “common fabric.” But they say U.S. adversaries, like China, see a web of interconnected targets, much of which is not within the purview of U.S. government agencies. “Much of what we care about in the U.S. is in private hands,” said Tonya Ugoretz, the deputy assistant director for cyber, at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.“There’s no shortage of vulnerabilities and opportunities for malicious actors,” she added, speaking this past week at a security conference. “We see that landscape only growing in complexity.”Smart devices vulnerabilities
A chief concern is what is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT), which include a whole host of so-called smart devices, from mobile phones to refrigerators to teddy bears, that are connected to the internet.FILE – A Samsung employee arranges the new Samsung Galaxy S10e, S10, S10+ and the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G smartphones at a press event in London, Feb. 20, 2019.While being able to use a smart phone to talk to a refrigerator to figure out what to pick up at the grocery store may be convenient, it can also be risky. A criminal who can hack into the home network and the refrigerator could theoretically use that opening to access a bank account or other sensitive material.When experts add in the impact of new and growing technologies, like artificial intelligence or 5G wireless networks, many see danger.“It’s increasing the opportunities or the attack surfaces, as military folks like to call it, for mischief,” according to the NSA’s Gerstell. “That’s increasing at an extraordinary, breathtaking rate.”Extensive damageDefending the growing target list for cyberattacks is difficult, as is undoing the damage.While the U.S. has had some success in recovering lost or stolen funds — the FBI reported a recovery rate of about 75% in 2018 — the damage from stolen data or trade secrets can linger.At the same time, there is a growing frustration especially among private sector companies that the U.S. government is holding them back from taking more aggressive, and perhaps more effective, action.“What they are facing is not just routine criminal activity but it’s often blended, that the criminals are linked to nation states and that nation states are increasingly conducting criminal activities,” said John Carlin, a former assistant attorney general with the U.S. Department of Justice, who now represents companies that have been victimized by cyberattacks.Limited powers
“They are neither permitted because of the national security implications to take steps on their own to disrupt attacks that are occurring or to take acts to collect information outside of their networks,” he said. “Nor are they getting additional actionable intelligence on the front end of the threat so that they can take precautionary steps to protect themselves.”
As a result, there has been persistent talk that companies should be allowed to “hack back,” to track and retaliate against cyber actors who have targeted them.There are already indications that companies are going after their attackers.“There are signs it is going on in an international sort of emerging market for what you might call defense services,” according to Wyatt Hoffman with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Cyber Policy Initiative.“Much of the evidence is anecdotal,” he said. “But there is evidence that, for instance, in the financial sector in different parts of the world, there are banks that will hire firms to do kind of server take down services where if they’re if they’re suffering from a [denial of service] attack or a persistent threat, they’ll hire a firm in a jurisdiction where it’s a little more permissive.”For now, such “hack backs” are not legal in the U.S. and attempts by lawmakers to make it legal have not gained sufficient traction in Congress.U.S. government officials also continue to request that any companies that suspect they have been hacked contact law enforcement.“Most of the studies I’ve seen suggest that the average time it takes to discover a data breach is about six months, certainly months,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Hickey said during a recent panel discussion on hacking back.“The odds that the hackers will have transferred it [the data] only once to an identified IP address and left it there without copying it or removing it from the United States in that time strikes me as very, very unlikely,” he added.Some software providers agree, and have joined with government officials to warn companies against taking matters into their own hands.“It just doesn’t work,” said Rich Boscovich with Microsoft’s, Digital Crime Unit, warning of unintended consequences. “The liability there is enormous. So, hacking back is not something that you want to do.”
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Dark ‘Joker’ Wins Top Venice Film Festival Prize
Todd Phillips’ dark comic book film “Joker” won the Golden Lion Award at the 76th Venice International Film Festival on Saturday and cemented its place as a legitimate contender for the rest of the awards season.Jury president Lucretia Martel announced the winners of the prestigious award during a ceremony on the Lido. The Golden Lion previously put a spotlight on films that went on to be major awards season players, such as “Roma” and the film academy’s 2018 best picture winner, “The Shape of Water.”“I want to thank Warner Bros. and DC for stepping out of their comfort zone and taking such a bold swing on me and this movie,” Phillips said with star Joaquin Phoenix by his side on stage.Phoenix did not win the best actor prize — it went to Italian actor Luca Marinelli for the Jack London adaptation “Martin Eden” — but the director of “Joker” dedicated much of his speech to the talents of his leading man.In the film, he transforms from struggling stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck into Batman’s classic nemesis.“Thank you for trusting me with your insane talents,” Phillips said to Phoenix.Actress Emmanuelle Seigner holds the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize for the film ‘An Officer and a Spy’ on behalf of her husband Roman Polanski at the closing ceremony of the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival, Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 7,…Grand jury prizeRoman Polanski’s Dreyfus affair film, “An Officer and a Spy,” won the grand jury prize, which recognizes other strong contenders for the Golden Lion.Polanski, who fled the U.S. after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl and has been a fugitive for over 40 years, was not at the ceremony to accept the award.The inclusion of “An Officer and a Spy” among the 21 films competing for the Golden Lion was widely criticized, although it was welcomed warmly by Venice Film Festival audiences. Jury president Martel issued a statement saying that while she does not “separate the art from the artist,” she bore no prejudice toward Polanski’s film.Roy Andersson won best director for “About Endlessness,” although hip complications prevented him from accepting the award in person.Actress Ariane Ascaride took the best actress prize for the French domestic drama “Gloria Mundi.” Olivia Colman won best actress in Venice last year for “The Favorite,” and went on to win the best actress Oscar.Director and writer Yonfan, holds the award for Best Screenplay for the film ‘No. 7 Cherry Lane at the closing ceremony of the 76th edition of the Venice Film Festival, Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2019. (Photo by Joel C Ryan/Invision/AP)Best screenplay went to Yonfan for the animated film “No. 7 Cherry Lane,” about Hong Kong in 1967. He thanked Hong Kong for giving him the freedom to create.Toby Wallace won best new talent award for his work in Shannon Murphy’s “Babyteeth.”“We can’t believe we’re here in general, so anything extra is super nice,” Wallace said.He thanked co-stars Eliza Scanlen and Ben Mendelsohn, as well as Murphy, his director. She was one of only two female directors in the main competition.“(Murphy) led us into this project with so much honesty,” Wallace said.Adapted from Rita Kalnejais’ comedic stage play, “Babyteeth” is about an ill teenage girl who falls in love with a small-time drug dealer.The jury that chose the winner of the Golden Lion and other top awards was headed by Martel, an Argentine director, and included director Mary Harron, actress Stacy Martin, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto and Toronto International Film Festival executive director Piers Handling.Notable also-ransNotable films in the main competition leaving the Lido empty-handed include the Brad Pitt space epic “Ad Astra,” Steven Soderbergh’s Meryl Streep-led Panama Papers comedy “The Laundromat” and Noah Baumbach’s divorce drama “Marriage Story,” with Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver.The Venice Film Festival also handed out prizes to a diverse array of films in other sections, like Venice Classics, Virtual Reality and Horizons.Venice ClassicsIn Venice Classics, best documentary went to “Babenco: Tell Me When I Die,” about the late Brazilian filmmaker Hector Babenco, who was known for his socially conscious works. Director Barbara Paz said the prize was very important to her country.“We must say ‘no’ to censorship,” Paz said. “Long (live) freedom of expression, long (live) Brazil cinema.”“You Will Die at Twenty,” from Sudanese director Amjad Aby Alala, was awarded the Luigi de Laurentiis award for a debut film.“I’m really feeling honored and happy,” Alala said. “I’m from a country that has no cinema because we are under regime that didn’t want to support cinema.”Virtual Reality“Daughters of Chibok,” about Boko Harem’s abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria, won best VR story.Nigerian director Joel Kachi Benson said he wanted to, “Take the world to Chibok and show them these women who for five years have been living in pain because their daughters are still missing.”HorizonsIn the Horizons sections, director Saim Sadiq accepted the award for best short film for “Darling,” about the transgender community in Pakistan.The Horizons special jury prize went to “Verdict,” about domestic abuse in the Philippines, from director Raymund Ribay Gutierrez.“The struggle for battered women continues, and I hope the film can reach people that can make a difference,” Gutierrez said.Finally, the Horizons best film award went to the Ukrainian film “Atlantis,” directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych, about a near-future dystopia in eastern Ukraine and a former soldier suffering from PTSD.
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AP: Women Facing Restrictions Seek Abortions Out of State
At a routine ultrasound when she was five months pregnant, Hevan Lunsford began to panic when the technician took longer than normal, then told her she would need to see a specialist.Lunsford, a nurse in Alabama, knew it was serious and begged for an appointment the next day.That’s when the doctor gave her and her husband the heart-wrenching news: The baby boy they decided to name Sebastian was severely underdeveloped and had only half a heart. If he survived, he would need care to ease his pain and several surgeries. He may not live long.Lunsford, devastated, asked the doctor about ending the pregnancy.I felt the only way to guarantee that he would not have any suffering was to go through with the abortion,'' she said of that painful decision nearly three years ago.FILE - Bianca Cameron-Schwiesow, from left, Kari Crowe and Margeaux Hartline, dressed as handmaids, take part in a protest against HB314, the abortion ban bill, at the Alabama State House in Montgomery, Ala., April 17, 2019.But the doctor said Alabama law prohibits abortions after five months. He handed Lunsford a piece of paper with information for a clinic in Atlanta, a roughly 180-mile (290-kilometer) drive east.Lunsford is one of thousands of women in the U.S. who have crossed state lines for an abortion in recent years as states have passed ever stricter laws and as the number of clinics has declined.Although abortion opponents say the laws are intended to reduce abortions and not send people to other states, at least 276,000 women terminated their pregnancies outside their home states between 2012 and 2017, according to an Associated Press analysis of data collected from state reports and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In New Mexico, the number of women from out of state who had abortions more than doubled in that period, while Missouri women represented nearly half the abortions performed in neighboring Kansas.The procedure itself was probably the least traumatic part of it,” Lunsford said. If it would have been at my hospital, there would have been a feeling like what I was doing was OK and a reasonable choice.''While abortions across the U.S. are down, the share of women who had abortions out of state rose slightly, by half a percentage point, and certain states had notable increases over the five-year period, according to AP's analysis. FILE - Abortion rights supporters protest at the Louisiana Capitol, where lawmakers were considering a bill that would ban abortion as early as six weeks of pregnancy, May 21, 2019, in Baton Rouge, La. The bill won final passage May 29.In pockets of the Midwest, South and Mountain West, the number of women terminating a pregnancy in another state rose considerably, particularly where a lack of clinics means the closest provider is in another state or where less restrictive policies in a neighboring state make it easier and quicker to terminate a pregnancy there.In many places, the right to abortion exists on paper, but the ability to access it is almost impossible,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, CEO of Whole Women’s Health, which operates seven abortion clinics in Maryland, Indiana, Texas, Virginia and Minnesota. We see people's access to care depend on their ZIP code.''The numbers Nationwide, women who traveled from other states received at least 44,860 abortions in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available, according to the AP analysis of data from 41 states.That's about 10% of all reported procedures that year, but counts from nine states, including highly populated California and Florida, and the District Columbia were not included, either because they were not collected or reported across the full five years.Thirteen states saw a rise in the number of out-of-state women having abortions between 2012 and 2017.New Mexico's share of abortions performed on women from out of state more than doubled, from 11% to roughly 25%. One likely reason is that a clinic in Albuquerque is one of only a few independent facilities in the country that perform abortions close to the third trimester without conditions.Georgia's share of abortions performed on out-of-state women rose from 11.5% to 15%. While Georgia has passed restrictive laws, experts and advocates still view it as more accessible than some neighboring states.In Illinois, the percentage of abortions performed on non-residents more than doubled to 16.5% of all reported state abortions in 2017. That is being driven in large part by women from Missouri, one of six states with only a single abortion provider.Even that provider, in St. Louis, has been under threat of closing after the state health department refused to renew its license.FILE - Abortion rights and anti-abortion rights protesters stand outside Planned Parenthood as a deadline looms to renew the license of Missouri's sole remaining Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis, May 31, 2019.Missouri lawmakers also passed a law this year that would ban almost all abortions past eight weeks of a pregnancy, but it faces a legal challenge.About 10 miles (16 kilometers) from St. Louis, across the Mississippi River, is the Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois, which has seen a 30% increase in patients this year and has added two doctors, deputy director Alison Dreith said.About 55 percent of its patients come from Missouri, and it also sees women from Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. All those states have mandatory waiting periods to receive an abortion, a requirement Illinois does not have.Dreith called it a scary time for women in states with highly restrictive laws and few clinics.The landscape that we’re seeing today did not happen overnight, and it was not by accident,” she said.And Illinois isn’t the only place Missouri women are heading for abortions.In 2017, Missouri women received 47% of all abortions performed in Kansas. That is in large part because the only access to the procedure throughout western Missouri, particularly the greater Kansas City area, is across the state line in Overland Park, Kansas.FILE – The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for a formal portrait Nov. 30, 2018. Alabama’s virtual ban on abortion is the latest state law seemingly designed to prod the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade.Legislative action Between 2011 and May 31 of this year, 33 states passed 480 laws restricting abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights.In 2019 alone, lawmakers approved 58 restrictions, primarily in the Midwest, Plains and South — almost half of which would ban all, most or some abortions, the group said.The most high-profile laws, which face legal challenges that could eventually test the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat can be detected — as early as six weeks.Advocates say that if the Supreme Court upholds the latest restrictions, it will become more common for women to seek abortions in other states.The intent of these lawmakers is to completely outlaw abortion and force people not to have abortions. But in reality, it pushes people farther and wider to access the care they want and need,'' said Quita Tinsley, deputy director of Access Reproductive Care Southeast.ARC Southeast is part of the National Network of Abortion Funds, a collective of 70 abortion support groups for women in six Southeast states. Some provide money to women to pay for abortions, while others also help with transportation, lodging and child care.A third of women calling the group's hotline for help end up traveling out of state for abortions, Tinsley said. Many choose Georgia because it's convenient to get to and considered slightly less restrictive than some other states in the South.In Georgia, which has a mandatory waiting period, a woman is not required to come to a clinic twice, as they are in Tennessee. But if Georgia's new fetal heartbeat law survives a court challenge, it would have one of the earliest state-imposed abortion bans.That would force many women to go even farther from where they live to terminate their pregnancies.Increase in New Mexico Of all states, New Mexico has seen the biggest increase in the number of women coming from elsewhere for an abortion — a 158% jump between 2012 and 2017, according to AP's analysis.The New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice helps an average of 100 women a year but is on track to assist 200 this year. Some of its 55 volunteers open their homes to women coming from out of state.Executive director Joan Lamunyon Sanford said her group is doing what faith communities have always done:Care for the stranger and welcome the traveler.”Lamunyon Sanford said the need is growing as barriers increase and women are unable to access care where they live.They have to figure out so many details and figuring out how they are going to get the funding for everything,'' she said.Sometimes it’s just too much. And then they become parents.”The coalition helped Beth Vial, who didn’t learn she was pregnant until she was six months along after chronic medical conditions masked her symptoms.As a 22-year-old college student living in Portland, Oregon, Vial was beyond the point when nearly every abortion clinic in the country would perform the procedure.Vial’s only option for an abortion was New Mexico, where a volunteer with the New Mexico Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice drove her to and from the clinic in Albuquerque and brought her meals.The support she received inspired her to join the board of Northwest Access Abortion Fund, which helps women in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska.To have people I didn't even know support me in ways that I didn't even really know I needed at the time was unlike anything I have ever experienced,'' said Vial, now 24.It has encouraged me to give back to my community so other people don’t have to experience that alone.”FILE – People rally in support of abortion rights at the state Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., May 21, 2019.Hoping for cultural shift Abortion opponents say the intent of laws limiting the procedure is not to push women to another state but to build more time for them to consider their options and reduce the overall number of abortions.I have been insistent in telling my pro-life colleagues that's all well and good if the last abortion clinic shuts down, but it's no victory if women end up driving 10 minutes across the river to Granite City, Illinois, or to Fairview Heights,'' said Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri and a longtime anti-abortion lobbyist.Anti-abortion activists also hope a broader cultural shift eventually makes these issues disappear.We are seeing this trend toward life and a realization of what science tells us about when life begins,” said Cole Muzio, executive director of the Family Policy Alliance of Georgia, who advocated successfully for new abortion limits there. Just because something is legal does not mean that it is good.''Before the recent wave of legislation focused on limiting when an abortion can be performed, opponents largely worked to regulate clinics. Critics say those regulations contributed to more clinics closing in recent years, reducing access to abortion in parts of the country and pushing women farther for care.Texas lost more than half its clinics after lawmakers in 2013 required them to have facilities equal to a surgical center and mandated that doctors performing abortions have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.Even though the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key provisions of the law in 2016, most clinics have not reopened.Candice Russell was among those who felt the impact. When she sought an abortion in Dallas in 2014, she was told she would have to wait more than two weeks because of an influx of patients from other parts of Texas where clinics had closed.She feared she would not be able to miss work for back-to-back appointments, required under Texas' mandatory waiting period, so she told the bar where she worked that a relative had died and took out a payday loan to buy an airplane ticket to California. She had the procedure the next day.Even though I had to take on that horrendous loan and entered a debt spiral that lasted until about two years ago, I am really, really lucky,” said Russell, now 36 and working as deputy director of the Yellowhammer Fund, which helps women in Alabama seeking abortions. There are a lot of people who just can't do that. They can't get on a plane and fly 1,500 miles for an abortion.''Nationwide, 168 independent abortion clinics have closed since 2012, and just a handful opened over that time, according to the Abortion Care Network, a clinic advocacy group.Some resulted from providers retiring and an overall decline in unplanned pregnancies, but advocates say many shut down because of restrictive laws.It’s not about safety of patients,” said Nikki Madsen, executive director of the Abortion Care Network. It's about closing clinics.''For Lunsford, it took two years before she could begin managing the grief of losing her son, compounded by the hurdles she faced to carry out that painful decision — the drive to Atlanta, staying in a hotel and going to a clinic with doctors she didn't know.Lunsford, now 31, said she thinks about how she couldn't hold her baby, an intimate goodbye that might have been possible if she had the abortion at a hospital. Before she left Atlanta, she asked the clinic's staff to use the inkpad and paper she brought so she could keep her son's footprints and handprints.Most of the laws I navigated, there was no reason for them,” she said. “None of them prevented my abortion. It just made it where I had to travel out of state.”
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Andreescu Beats Williams in US Open Final
Bianca Andreescu displayed the same brand of big-serving, big-hitting, in-your-face tennis that Serena Williams usually does.
And now the 19-year-old from Canada is a Grand Slam champion, earning her first such title while preventing Williams from collecting a record-tying 24th.
Andreescu took charge early in the U.S. Open final, going up by a set and two breaks, then held off a late charge by Williams to win 6-3, 7-5 for the championship Saturday night.
“Being able to play on this stage against Serena, a true legend in this sport, is amazing,” said Andreescu, who was appearing in her first major final, while Williams was in her 33rd. “Oh, man, it wasn’t easy at all.”
This is the second year in a row that Williams has lost in the final at Flushing Meadows. This one had none of the controversy of 2018, when she got into an extended argument with the chair umpire while being beaten by Naomi Osaka. Still trails Court
Williams has now been the runner-up at four of the seven majors she has entered since returning to the tour after having a baby two years ago. The 37-year-old American remains stuck on 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one shy of Margaret Court’s mark for the most in history.
“I’m just so proud that I’m out here and competing at this level. My team has been so supportive through all the ups and downs and downs and downs and downs,” Williams said. “Hopefully, we’ll have some ups soon.”
Andreescu, the first player from Canada to win a major singles title, went up 5-1 in the second set and served for the victory there, even holding a match point at 40-30. But Williams erased that with a forehand return winner off a 105-mph serve.
That launched a four-game run for Williams, who broke Andreescu again to make it 5-all.
“I was just fighting at that point,” said Williams, a six-time U.S. Open champion. “Just trying to stay out there a little bit longer.”
The Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd was overwhelmingly supporting Williams, not surprisingly, and spectators got so loud as she tried to put together a successful comeback that Andreescu covered her ears with her hands after one point.
“I just tried to block everything out,” Andreescu said afterward. “I’m just glad with how I managed, really.”
Suddenly, this was a contest.
Or so it seemed. Not Williams’ best
But as well as Andreescu handled everything — herself, her far-more-experienced and successful opponent, and even the moment — Williams was far from her best, especially while serving. She got broken for the sixth time in the final game.
This was the largest age gap in a Grand Slam final, and it came almost exactly 20 years to the day since Williams won the U.S. Open for her first major title in 1999, a year before Andreescu was born.
Andreescu is the first woman to win the trophy at Flushing Meadows in her main-draw tournament debut in the Open era, which started in 1968 when professionals were allowed into Grand Slam tournaments. She has participated in only four majors in her brief career.
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NOAA Assailed for Defending Trump’s Hurricane Dorian Claim
Former top officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are assailing the agency for undermining its weather forecasters as it defends President Donald Trump’s claim that Hurricane Dorian had threatened Alabama.
They say NOAA’s action risks the credibility of the nation’s weather and science agency and may even risk lives.
The critics served both Republican and Democratic presidents. Among them are four former top NOAA officials and a former disaster response chief.
On Friday, a NOAA statement from an anonymous spokesperson lent support to Trump’s warning days earlier that Alabama faced danger from Dorian. Alabama had never been included in official hurricane advisories and his information was outdated.
The statement undermined a National Weather Service tweet from Sunday that had said Alabama would see no impact from Dorian.
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