Study Finds Meditation Improves Attention in Anxious Individuals
A new study has found engaging in a simple meditation exercise for 10 minutes a day can reduce symptoms in people with anxiety disorders.
Anxiety disorders are marked by repetitive, anxious, often baseless thoughts and fears about the future. Canadian researchers say one in four people will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives.
The worrying can become obsessive and prevent anxious individuals from focusing on work and other important activities.
But engaging in a simple daily meditation exercise for 10 minutes, according to researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada, may help people keep their minds from wandering, improving their performance on tasks.
The participants in a study conducted by Mengran Xu and colleagues engaged in something called mindful meditation.
Mindfulness is commonly defined as paying attention on purpose and staying in the present moment without judgment.
Xu is a clinical psychologist at Waterloo who led a study of people with symptoms of anxiety, published in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.
“We know that anxious people in general, if you ask them to stay on task, it is hard for them. Their minds tend to wander. They tend to worry. But those people who practice mindfulness didn’t. They were able to stay on task.”
In the study, 82 people with anxiety were asked to perform a computer task that required concentration. They were periodically interrupted to gauge the volunteers’ ability to stay focused.
Half the group was then assigned to listen to an audio book and the other half to engage in a mindful, meditative activity, paying attention to their breathing, for approximately 10 minutes.
Then they were reassessed using the computer task.
Xu said there was a noticeable difference in performance between anxious people who did the simple meditation and those who did not.
“The anxious people who listened to the audio book, they performed much worse over time while the anxious people who practiced mindfulness meditation, they were able to in a way improve and maintain their performance on the task,” said Xu.
By increasing awareness of the present moment, researchers found a reduction in the frequency of repetitive, off-task thinking in people with anxiety disorders.
Xu said that wandering thoughts account for nearly half of a person’s stream of consciousness.
In people with anxiety disorder, the thoughts tend to occur over and over again, causing worry.
By learning to reign in repetitive thoughts with a simple, 10-minute mind exercise, the findings suggest those with an anxiety disorder may be able to improve their productivity and even safety, so their minds don’t wander while driving a car, for example.
your ad hereObamas to Visit Chicago to Discuss Planned Library, Museum
Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will visit Chicago for a community meeting to discuss their planned library and museum.
The Obama Foundation announced Monday the Obamas will host a round table discussion Wednesday to “update the community” on the progress of the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side. The Obamas are also expected to hear from community members on their ideas for the library.
New York-based Ralph Appelbaum Associates will head a team of several firms and individuals with expertise in media, lighting and acoustics in designing exhibits.
The foundation has said almost half of the exhibition design work for the museum will be performed by minority- and women-owned businesses.
The project is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Activist Uses Novel Approach to Combat HIV
An HIV activist in Uganda has come up with a novel approach to encourage young people to protect themselves against the disease. She calls it “pill power.” Halima Athumani has the story for VOA from Kampala.
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A New Way to Store the Sun for Future Use
Generating solar energy is pretty easy. Storing it is the challenge. Now a research team from Sweden is working on an innovative way to fix this frustrating problem. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Trump Administration Turns Back Obama School Lunch Rules
The Trump administration is turning back a U.S. public school program promoted by former first lady Michelle Obama that required healthier lunches for children.
“If kids aren’t eating the food and it’s ending up in the trash, they aren’t getting any nutrition … undermining the intent of the program,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Monday.
He made his announcement at an elementary school cafeteria in Leesburg, Virginia, near Washington, before a tray of chicken nuggets, fruit and salad.
Perdue said he appreciates what Michelle Obama wanted to do — giving children lunches with more whole grains and less fat and salt. But he said his department wants to adjust the program to make the healthier food more appetizing.
Chocolate milk back on menu
For starters, schools can now serve chocolate or strawberry flavored milk with 1 percent fat instead of nonfat milk.
Under the 2012 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, schools that wanted federal meal subsidies would have to put limits on salt and fat in lunches and add more fruit, vegetables and whole grains to the menus.
Health experts say U.S. children do not exercise enough and that one in six are overweight.
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Rei Kawakubo, Visionary of Fashion, Honored at New Met Show
If you’re someone who likes a lot of guidance and explanation at the museum, you might want to dramatically recalibrate your expectations before heading into “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between,” the lavishly presented new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.
Arriving in a brilliant white space containing a series of geometric structures, you’ll find no one pointing you in the right direction, and no explanatory text next to the garments. That’s because for Kawakubo, the revered Japanese designer who’s been reinventing her clothes for nearly a half-century — to the point that she no longer calls them clothes, but “objects for the body” — there is no right answer.
“I don’t like to explain the clothes,” the Comme des Garcons founder, now 74, was quoted as saying in 2013. “The clothes are just as you see them and feel them.”
There is a bit of guidance available. Andrew Bolton, star curator of this and other blockbuster Met fashion exhibits, has provided paper brochures with maps and context, though he cheerfully welcomes you to ditch them. And even this much explanation for the visitor was a hard-fought compromise with Kawakubo.
“It was a battle,” Kawakubo says in an interview with Bolton. “Are you going to write that we fought?”
They seem to have fought over various things. Showing a reporter around the exhibit a few days before opening, Bolton noted that although Kawakubo approached him 18 months ago saying she was ready for a show, she was resolutely opposed to a retrospective. She hates focusing on the past, because she has moved on.
“She finds it physically painful to look at her work. So, that took months of negotiation,” he said.
Fans of “Comme,” as fashion-lovers call it, would have been “screaming in my ears,” Bolton added, if he hadn’t included collections like “Broken Bride,” where Kawakubo explored the concept of marriage, and “Ballerina Motorbike,” in which she juxtaposed the very feminine — a filmy pink tutu — with the tough, muscular look of a black motorcycle jacket.
Her ‘ruptures’
Kawakubo wanted to focus exclusively on the last few years of designs — following her second “rupture” in 2014, when she said she was no longer making “clothing” in the sense of wearable garments. (Her first rupture, in 1979, is known as the moment she decided to ditch her early, folklore-inflected designs and “start from zero.”) “This was where her mind was at,” Bolton said. He convinced her otherwise, and sprinkled through the show are juxtapositions of the older, more functional clothes, and the new.
Pointing out a 2009 dress, he noted: “This still has arms, still has legs, still has openings.” Then, pointing to a post-2014 version: “Now you see the priority of form over function.” An example of her later work is three jackets, fused into one — with two of the jackets forming sleeves of the central jacket.
It is rare that the Costume Institute focuses on a single living designer — the last was Yves Saint Laurent in 1983. But Bolton had long wanted to work with Kawakubo. “For me Rei is not only the most important and influential designer of the last 40 years, but the most inspirational at the same time,” he says. “Her influence is enormous — especially on the vocabulary of fashion that we now take for granted, like asymmetry, like the unfinished, like black as a fashionable color.”
“She summarizes the last 50 years of fashion. She’s that important.”
‘Least dissatisfying’ collection
The exhibit, which began with the glitzy Met gala Monday night and opens to the public May 4, is divided into nine themes, all of them dualities in Kawakubo’s work: Fashion/Anti-Fashion, High/Low, Design/Not Design, and Clothes/Not Clothes are a few.
Passing by one display, Bolton notes that the collection is one of Kawakubo’s favorites — and then stops himself. “Well, she wouldn’t say favorite — she would say `least dissatisfying.”‘ That 1997 collection was called “Body Meets Dress — Dress Meets Body.” Garments in gingham-like fabric are stretched over bizarre protrusions on the body, coming out from the stomach or the back or the hip.
“I didn’t expect them to be easy garments to be worn every day,” Kawakubo has said about that collection. “It is more important … to translate thoughts into action rather than to worry about if one’s clothes are worn in the end.” (Of course, she has made more commercial collections that end up in stores, if not the runway.)
Scurrying around the exhibit the other day, Bolton described a classic anxiety dream he’d had two nights earlier: The exhibit opened, but it was in a huge airplane hangar — and nobody came. No one at all.
And Kawakubo, too, has not been immune to anxiety about the show. “Do you think the space is disorienting?” she asks him during the interview. “Do you think people will get lost?”
Getting lost, he assures her, is rather the point.
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Blame Your Microbes for Your Cravings, Research Shows
The microbes in your gut may have a say in what you want for dinner, according to new research.
The findings only apply to fruit flies at the moment. But they add to the evidence that microbes influence the behavior of the creatures they inhabit, from flies to people.
Fruit flies are a good place to begin to study how microbes affect complex behaviors like food choices, according to neuroscientist Carlos Ribeiro at the Champalimaud Foundation, because while the human gut contains hundreds of different kinds of microbes, flies have just five.
Craving killer
In the new study in the journal PLOS Biology, Ribeiro and his colleagues raised flies in a sterile environment and fed them a carefully controlled diet. When the flies were deprived of protein, they sought out yeast.
“Yeast is the steak of the flies,” Ribeiro said.
But when these sterile, protein-starved flies were inoculated with two of the five species of normal gut bacteria, they no longer sought out yeast.
“We’re not talking about a slight reduction,” Ribeiro added. “It’s really that the flies do not show an increase in protein appetite when they have these two bacteria.”
In effect, the microbes were telling the flies what to eat.
Also, while protein-hungry flies normally produce a lot fewer eggs, flies carrying these two bacteria did not see as big a drop in fertility.
Ribeiro doesn’t know why the bacteria would have these effects. But he noted that flies don’t live as long when they eat more protein-rich food.
“It might be advantageous not to overeat,” he said. “Maybe what the bacteria do to the fly is, it allows it to maximize reproduction while minimizing the shortening of its lifespan.”
Microbes were there first
“This is a pretty cool paper, I have to say,” said University College Cork neuroscientist John Cryan, who was not involved with the research. Cryan has studied how gut microbes affect anxiety and behavior in mice.
“What I’ve come to realize over the years is that there are very few elements of neurodevelopment and the brain that are not in some ways regulated by microbes,” he said. “We have to remember that the microbes were there first, before all species. We’ve all developed, including flies, in a microbial milieu, sending signals from the gut to the brain.”
While the fly study makes it tempting to blame our meat cravings on our microbiomes, “We have no idea whether any of this could be upscaled to a mammal,” Cryan said.
Ribeiro also has no idea how the bacteria are exerting their influence. His group plans to study metabolites the bacteria produce, and how the flies’ brain activity changes in the presence of the bacteria.
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Showtime to Air Stone Interviews With Vladimir Putin
Showtime cable network is presenting four hours of director Oliver Stone interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin on four consecutive nights in June.
The network announced Monday that “The Putin Interviews” will air first on June 12 at 9 p.m. Eastern, with three additional hour-long installments on the following nights. Showtime said Stone interviewed Putin more than a dozen times over the past two years, most recently in February.
Showtime is comparing the project to conversations held by British TV host David Frost and former U.S. president Richard Nixon in 1977.
Stone had also interviewed Putin for his documentary “Ukraine on Fire,” which was said to take a sympathetic view of Russia’s involvement in the conflict there.
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Twitter and Bloomberg to Stream News
Twitter and Bloomberg news are teaming up to launch a 24-hour streaming news channel.
In response to a story in the Wall Street Journal about the partnership, Bloomberg Media’s top executive tweeted confirmation of the news.
“We’ll have a lot more to say about this exciting new partnership at Bloomberg Media’s NewFronts on Monday,” tweeted Justin Smith, referring to a meeting the company is holding.
The Journal said Bloomberg would create exclusive content for the streaming channel, but that it would be separate from the company’s television channel.
Twitter did not provide any comment on the story due to an official announcement planned for later Monday.
For Twitter, the deal could help restore user growth which has been slow compared to other social media sites.
The 10-year-old Twitter has never made a profit, and despite tweaks to the format, has only seen modest growth in users. Twitter recently reduced staff and an attempt to sell the company failed. The partnership with Bloomberg could attract more users beyond the core of politicians, journalists and celebrities.
Last week the company gave its quarterly results, which saw another drop in revenue despite seeing a 14 percent spike in users to 328 million. The company said its loss of $62 million was better than last year, which saw the company lose $80 million.
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US Federal Budget Deal Would Spare Arts Agencies
The new federal spending bill would spare – and even slightly increase – funding for three arts-related agencies that President Donald Trump had proposed eliminating: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities.
The agreement announced Monday calls for the CPB’s budget to remain the same, at $445 million. Spending for fiscal 2017 would go up for the NEA and NEH, each from $148 million to $150 million. The three organizations provide money for everything from public television programming to community theaters and scholarly research.
The arts community had denounced Trump’s proposed cuts, which have long been advocated by some conservatives. But members of both parties had supported the agencies, with former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a Republican and Trump supporter, among those saying the NEA should be preserved.
The proposed arts budgets are part of a $1 trillion-plus spending bill that would fund most government operations through September. The 1,665-page bill was made public in the pre-dawn hours Monday and is tentatively scheduled for a House vote on Wednesday.
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Facebook Sought to Target Troubled Teens with Ads
Facebook appears to have targeted vulnerable young people for advertising purposes, according to a report from Australia.
According to The Australian newspaper, which obtained documents about the targeting of young people from Facebook’s Australian office, the company was seeking ways to exploit the feelings of kids as young as 14 to serve up ads to them.
The documents, which were marked as confidential, show how the social media giant could monitor posts from youth to try to figure out how they were feeling. According to the newspaper, these included words like “defeated,” “overwhelmed,” “stressed,” “anxious,” “nervous,” “stupid,” “silly,” “useless” and “failure.”
The so-called sentiment analysis could then be used to target vulnerable kids with advertising based on their perceived mood. The idea was only to be used on young people in Australia and New Zealand.
For example, if a young person was feeling “defeated” because of being overweight, Facebook could show that person an advertisement for an exercise program or workout machine.
“The data on which this research is based was aggregated and presented consistent with applicable privacy and legal protections, including the removal of any personally identifiable information,” Facebook said in a statement to the newspaper.
This is not the first time Facebook has looked at sentiment analysis. The company was harshly criticized in 2012 when it conducted an experiment on nearly 700,000 users, without their knowledge, to see if the company could influence them through positive or negative posts in their newsfeeds.
Neither case appears to be in violation of the company’s Data Use Policy, which says the company “may use the information we receive about you … for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research and service improvement.”
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Deadline Looms on TV and Film Writers Contract Negotiations
The contract for television and film writers is nearing expiration and a costly strike looms that could send some popular televisions shows into reruns.
The writers contract expires at 12:01 a.m. PDT Tuesday and picketing could begin that morning. Representatives for the writers and producers are engaged in a media blackout, meaning it is unclear how far apart the sides remain or how likely a strike will be called.
The Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have been negotiating off and on since March 13 but have been unable to reach an agreement on a new contract. The main sticking points are compensation and healthcare.
WGA’s members overwhelmingly approved a strike late last month. A strike would immediately end the jokes and witty banter on late-night talk shows, and could eventually impact everything from daytime soap operas to major motion pictures in development.
In a memo to WGA members Sunday, the writers’ negotiators warned to “be ready to strike Tuesday.”
“If you’ve got anything great in your office on a studio lot, consider packing it up on Monday — just in case,” it read.
The memo, though, also said negotiations could continue after the deadline.
A strike would be first work stoppage by writers in nearly a decade. In 2007 and early 2008, a 100 day writers strike halted productions on numerous shows, led to a shortened television season and even impacted major film releases.
The dispute is driven in large part by shifts in how television is consumed, with streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon joining broadcast and cable TV and garnering viewers, critical and audience love, and awards.
There are more television shows than ever, but the work for writers has changed. Most series run for fewer than the traditional 22 to 24 broadcast episode season.
The shorter seasons of eight to 12 episodes translate into less pay for writers, who are paid on a per-episode basis.
The film industry can better weather a shorter strike, but felt the impact of the 2007-08 strike. Several films, including “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” were affected and were met with poor reviews. Many of the filmmakers and stars involved later said the movies simply didn’t have the screenplay they needed.
That strike also affected numerous industries that support film and television production. A Milken Institute estimate found the strike cost the California economy $2.1 billion.
your ad here5 Things to Know as Britain’s Princess Charlotte Turns 2
It’s nearly party time for Britain’s Princess Charlotte, who celebrates her 2nd birthday on Tuesday.
Her parents marked the occasion Monday by distributing a snapshot of Charlotte taken by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. Here are five things to know about the family as the landmark nears:
Why haven’t we seen more of Princess Charlotte?
Prince William and his wife, Kate, want to protect their daughter’s privacy. It’s not surprising that Kate took the official photo to mark Charlotte’s second birthday on the protected grounds of the family’s country estate. The royal couple has tried to keep Charlotte mostly out of the limelight and away from the paparazzi that often follow senior royals at events in London. An important exception was an official trip to Canada in the fall. William and Kate brought Charlotte and her older brother, Prince George, on the trip and Charlotte even attended a children’s party.
What does the photo show? What impact will it have?
Don’t be surprised if there’s a run on fluffy yellow cardigans with cute sheep decorations in British stores catering to kids – that’s what Charlotte is wearing in the official photo. It’s possible the outfit was chosen by the clothes-conscious Kate, who snapped the photo. Earlier outfits worn by Prince George in public have become extremely popular with British consumers charmed by the young royals.
Charlotte looks very proper and very British, with her hair styled by a clip and her blue-grey eyes looking directly at the camera at the outdoors photo session in April.
What is the birthday girl’s full name?
She is officially named Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, in tribute to her late grandmother Diana, Princess of Wales, and her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II. She is also known as Princess Charlotte of Cambridge.
What’s next for Charlotte and her family ?
The family is expected to spend more time in London and less in the countryside as William takes up more royal duties and Prince George, 3, prepares to start school in the fall. Their London base is at Kensington Palace.
Will she ever be queen?
Charlotte is fourth in line for the throne, behind Prince Charles (her grandfather), Prince William and Prince George.
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SpaceX Launches Secret Spy Satellite
Chalk up another win for Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which successfully launched a secret spy satellite for a U.S. government agency early Monday.
The launch at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida, was delayed by a day due to a sensor problem. The payload, dubbed NROL-76, is a classified satellite from the National Reconnaissance Office. It was inserted into an unknown orbit.
The NRO, which bills itself as the country’s “eyes and ears in space,” maintains and develops spy satellites.
The type of satellite is unknown, but the NRO is responsible for tracking potential threats to the U.S. such as terrorist attacks, nuclear weapons development or missile launches.
SpaceX has been making progress on its mission to make space travel less expensive by recycling rockets. Last month, the company successfully launched a previously used rocket.
SpaceX has recovered 10 first stages of the company’s Falcon 9 rockets, starting in 2015. Some landed on pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and others on drone ships at sea.
The NRO launch used a new rocket, but the first stage made a safe landing at Cape Canaveral Air Force station and will likely be used again for a future launch.
This was SpaceX’s fifth launch of 2017.
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Shrinking Worm Harvest Upsets Sports Fishing Business
A mysterious decline in two of the most popular fishing worms is depriving fishermen of their favorite bait and threatening the livelihood of Maine’s so-called “wormers.” VOA’s Faith Lapidus reports.
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John Legend Named 1st Recipient of New Social Justice Award
John Legend is expected on a Massachusetts college campus this week to receive a social justice award.
The singer-songwriter becomes the first recipient of the Salem Advocate for Social Justice award when he accepts the honor Tuesday at Salem State University.
Legend is to perform and also discuss his work on criminal justice, education and other issues.
The Salem Award Foundation for Human Rights and Social Justice bestows the award to recognize those who champion social justice issues and advocate for people who are underrepresented.
This is the first year the award will be given.
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Guy in Gorilla Costume Finishes London Marathon After 6 Days
An English policeman wearing a gorilla costume while crawling the London Marathon has finally finished the race, almost a week after starting.
Metropolitan Police officer Tom Harrison, who goes by the name “Mr. Gorilla,” raised a reported 26,000 pounds ($33,650) for the Gorilla Organization, which is dedicated to conserving gorillas in countries including Rwanda and Uganda.
The 41-year-old Londoner started the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) route last Sunday and crossed the finish line on Saturday.
Harrison slept at friends’ houses in the evenings after completing around 10 to 12 hours and 4.5 miles per day. He has swapped between crawling on his hands and knees and up on his hands and feet to save his blistered knees.
He crossed the finish line in central London flanked by his two sons – and beating his chest.
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VOA Observes Jazz Appreciation Month
April 30 is International Jazz Day, with events and concerts being held throughout the world. It also marks the end of Jazz Appreciation Month in the United States. Sponsored by the National Museum of American History, it’s designed to stimulate and encourage people to participate, study and listen to a genre of music that is uniquely American. Jazz has a storied place in Voice of America’s 75-year history. For 40 years, millions of people worldwide listened to VOA’s Jazz Hour with Willis Conover. During the Cold War, Conover’s programs created a connection to the United States for millions of people living behind the Iron Curtain. Earlier this past week, Voice of America hosted The Frankie Addison Quintet to mark Jazz Appreciation Month and VOA’s part in keeping the free form music genre alive. Enjoy the music.
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Iranian Filmmaker Jailed Over His Work Released Early
An award-winning Iranian filmmaker imprisoned over his work has been released after serving about five months of his yearlong sentence, though he doesn’t know whether he’ll make movies again in the Islamic Republic.
Keywan Karimi told The Associated Press on Sunday that he credited international pressure for his early release, as well as escaping the 223 lashes that were part of his sentence. Others, however, remain imprisoned in the Islamic Republic as part of a hard-line crackdown amid President Hassan Rouhani’s outreach to the wider world through the nuclear deal.
Karimi said in an interview over Skype that he served his sentence in Tehran’s Evin prison, which holds political prisoners and dual nationals detained by the security services. He described spending his first month in solitary confinement, a place he described as “very dirty, very cold.”
He said he suffered pain in his stomach and leg, but ultimately recovered. He later was put into the general prison population, sharing a room with 20 other prisoners.
“You’re far away from freedom, far away from something you love,” Karimi said.
Karimi was convicted of “insulting sanctities” in Iran, whose government is ultimately overseen by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The case involved footage from both a “video clip” and a film he directed called “Writing on the City,” which focuses on political graffiti in Iran from its 1979 Islamic Revolution to its contested 2009 election.
Karimi is perhaps best known by international film critics for his 2013 black-and-white minimalist film, “The Adventure of the Married Couple.” The short film, based on a story by Italian writer Italo Calvino, follows the grinding routine of a husband and wife working opposite shifts, she in a bottle factory and he at a mannequin store. Neither speaks, the only noise is the hum of the city they live in.
The film played in some 40 film festivals and won prizes in Spain and Colombia.
Karimi is one of several artists, poets, journalists, models and activists arrested in a crackdown on expression led by hard-liners who oppose Rouhani. His release comes ahead of Iran’s May presidential election, in which Rouhani is seeking re-election.
For now, Karimi said he was grateful to be out of prison, though he felt alienated from Iran and its people.
“I want to continue filmmaking, but I don’t know how and in which country,” Karimi said.
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‘The Godfather’ at 45: The Trials, Inspiration Behind the Film
Al Pacino was considered too short, Marlon Brando was required to do a screen test, and director Francis Ford Coppola was almost fired.
The director and cast of The Godfather reminisced Saturday in a 45th anniversary reunion in New York about the trials, perseverance and inspiration that resulted in the Oscar-winning Mafia movies.
Coppola, Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Talia Shire and Robert Duvall watched back-to-back screenings of The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) along with an audience of 6,000 on the closing night of the Tribeca film festival.
“I haven’t seen these movies for years,” Coppola said. “I found (watching) a very emotional experience. I forgot a lot about the making of it and thought about the story, and the story used a lot of family and my personal stuff.”
Brando too difficult
The two films won nine Oscars and their tale of how an orphan from Sicily emigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century and formed the Corleone crime family became movie classics.
But the film had a less than auspicious start. Coppola recalled that Hollywood studio Paramount wanted to set the movie in the 1970s and make something “cheap and quick.”
Coppola was almost fired several times and met stiff resistance to the casting of Pacino as Michael Corleone and Brando as the titular Godfather.
Brando, who died in 2004, had made several box-office flops after a stellar career in the 1950s and had a reputation for being difficult.
“I was told (by studio executives) that having Brando in the film would make it less commercial than having a total unknown,” Coppola said.
The studio later agreed “if Marlon will do a screen test and do it for nothing and put up a $1 million bond that he wouldn’t cause trouble during the production.”
Brando created the rasping voice, jowly cheeks and oiled hair for Corleone in the screen test. Yet three weeks into shooting, there was more trouble.
“They (the studio) hated Brando. They thought he mumbled and they hated the film. … It was very dark,” Coppola said. Brando went on to win an Oscar for his performance.
Pacino too short
Newcomer Pacino had to screen test “countless times” for the role of Michael, the college-educated son who takes charge of the Corleone business of casinos, gambling and racketeering.
Studio bosses though he was too short and wanted to cast Robert Redford or Ryan O’Neal.
Yet Coppola persevered because “every time I read the script, I always saw his (Pacino’s) face, especially in the scenes in Sicily.”
Pacino said he originally wanted the part of the hot-headed son, Sonny, and thought Coppola “was really nuts” about wanting him to play Michael.
“I thought this is either a dream or a joke … and then started the whole trial of them not wanting me and Francis wanting me,” Pacino recalled. The film launched his career as one of the most honored actors of his generation.
Then some luck
Luck played a part in the creation of some of the most memorable scenes in the two films. The revelation by Corleone’s wife Kay (Keaton) that she had aborted their baby because of horror over her husband’s criminal activities was suggested by Talia Shire (Connie).
And the cat Brando cradles in the opening scene of “The Godfather,” making for a stark contrast with his intimidating presence, was a last-minute addition.
“I put that cat in his hands. It was the studio cat. It was one take,” Coppola said.
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White House Press Corps Dinner More Sober, Less Glitz
The White House press corps gathered Saturday for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair this year after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to bow out in 36 years.
Without Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.
Most of Trump’s administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the president, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.
“I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away,” he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.
‘Not fake news’
In Washington, WHCA President Jeff Mason defended press freedom even as he acknowledged this year’s dinner had a different feel, saying attempts to undermine the media was dangerous for democracy.
“We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people,” said Mason, a Reuters correspondent.
Instead of the typical roasts — presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years — the event returned to its traditional roots of recognizing reporters’ work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein presented awards.
“That’s not Donald Trump’s style,” NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell told MSNBC, referring to the self-deprecating jokes presidents in the past have made despite tensions with the press.
Jokes for free speech
Instead, the humor fell to headline comedian Hasan Minhaj.
“We’ve got to address the elephant that’s not in the room,” Minhaj, who plays a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, told the crowd. “The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow. It’s a very long flight. As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”
He also joked about Trump, despite organizers’ wishes, saying he did so to honor U.S. constitutional protection of free speech: “Only in America can a first-generation, Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.”
Trump in Pennsylvania
Trump was indeed in Pennsylvania, having scheduled a rally in Harrisburg to mark his 100th day in office. He began his remarks with a lengthy if familiar attack on the news media while dismissing the dinner and its participants.
“A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now,” Trump said. He added: “And I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington’s swamp, spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people, right?”
Trump became the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip the event — and Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt.
In a video message, actor Alec Baldwin, who has raised Trump’s ire playing him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” program also encouraged attendees.
Fewer celebrities
Few other celebrities graced the red carpet, although some well-known Washingtonians, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, appeared.
Trump attended in 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made jokes at the expense of the New York real estate developer and reality television show host.
In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump said he decided against attending as president because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the media, adding: “I would come next year, absolutely.”
In Pennsylvania, Trump told supporters the media dinner would be boring but was noncommittal on whether he would go in 2018 or hold another rally.
Late night television show host Samantha Bee also hosted a competing event — “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” — that she said would honor journalists, rather than skewer Trump.
Journalists honored
The WHCA awards and this year’s recipients:
Aldo Beckman Memorial Award winner: Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post for stories on President Barack Obama’s speeches and policies that contrasted the realities of 2016 with the hopes of 2008.
Merriman Smith Award winner for outstanding White House coverage under deadline: Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico for his coverage of the historic meeting between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro.
Edgar A. Poe Award winner: David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post for stories on Donald Trump’s philanthropic claims.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Artificial Womb Provides Hope for Premature Babies
Every year, an estimated 15 million babies are born prematurely. It’s believed 1 million children die around the world each year of complications of pre-term birth. Researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia may have developed a technology that could change that outlook. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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EV Manufacturers Expect Surge in Demand
Despite lingering anxiety over their range, interest in electric cars is rising, especially in industrialized countries. Manufacturers say they are improving the mileage by building more charging stations, but the industry is still waiting for a major breakthrough in battery technology. VOA’s George Putic reports.
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Senegal to Introduce HPV Vaccine to Battle Cervical Cancer
Cervical cancer is preventable, yet it remains the most common type of cancer in Africa, the World Health Organization says.
WHO data show that Senegal currently has one of the world’s highest rates of the disease, with over 1,400 new cases diagnosed each year.
The country’s health officials have stepped up efforts against the disease with a nationwide campaign to vaccinate girls against the virus that causes cancer.
On a recent day at the Philippe Maguilen Senghor health center on the outskirts of Dakar, women lined up for free breast and cervical cancer screenings. The event was run by young Senegalese volunteers from Junior Chamber International (JCI), a nonprofit organization.
Sassy Ndiaye waited patiently for her turn. At age 60, this was only the second time she had been tested for the disease.
“Before we didn’t know about this,” she said. “I went through eight pregnancies and never did a cervical cancer screening with my gynecologist. I did it after my menopause.”
For comparison, in the United States, it is common for women of all ages to be screened for abnormal cervical cells every three years.
In Dakar, gynecologist Mouhamoudou Moustapha Yade said that by the time patients come to see him, their cervical cancer can be advanced.
“At a later stage, recovery is painful and difficult. And more importantly, the prognosis is not good,” he said. “This is why screening is so important. When you catch the cancer early, treatment is easier and much less expensive.”
But most women in Senegal cannot afford the cost of cervical cancer screening. Doctors and women interviewed at the Philippe Maguilen Senghor clinic said the cost was 40,000 francs ($66).
“Every time we organize free screening days, I am impressed by the number of women that turn up,” said Thiamel Ndiade, a JCI volunteer. “This shows you they are actually informed, but that money is the main issue.”
Ndiade added that most clinics lack the machinery needed to detect the illness, meaning women have to travel long distances just to get checked.
“Not all health centers have a video colposcope, for example,” Ndiade said. “We had to bring our own here today, which shows you just how inaccessible this technology is.”
HPV link
The arrival of a vaccine could help Senegal address these challenges.
Cervical cancer is caused by certain strains of the human papillomavirus; those who are infected with HPV often do not initially display any visible symptoms. A vaccine against HPV has been in use in the United States and other parts of the developed world since 2006, but it has only recently arrived in Africa.
In 2013, Senegal was among 10 African countries chosen by Gavi — a global alliance that strives to create access to vaccines in the world’s neediest countries — for pilot vaccination programs.
The nationwide rollout in Senegal followed a successful pilot program last year in two parts of the country. Ethiopia and Zimbabwe are also set to introduce the vaccine soon.
“Senegal is one of the first three countries in Africa [after Rwanda and Uganda] to introduce the HPV vaccine on a national scale,” said professor Mamadou Diop, head of oncology at the Aristide Le Dantec hospital. “It will be integrated within the country’s national vaccination program and reach the whole targeted population of girls.”
The aim is to roll out the vaccine in two phases, starting with a mass vaccination campaign reaching 889,445 girls aged between 9 and 15 by May 2018. After this, the vaccine will be administered to all girls at age 9 as part of routine immunization programs.
“The vaccine has been jointly subsidized by Gavi and the Senegalese state,” added professor Ousseynou Badiane, head of the Immunization Division for the Ministry of Health in Senegal. “This means it will be free and accessible to all.”
New vaccines can be met with suspicion, so health practitioners are urging the government to also launch a public education campaign. If the rollout is successful, Gavi estimates the HPV vaccine could help prevent up to 90 percent of cervical cancer cases.
Senegal unveiled its action plan as countries across the continent celebrate the 7th African Vaccination Week, an annual event to strengthen immunization programs in Africa by raising awareness about every person’s need and right to be protected against disease.
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