Monthly Archives: October 2017

Dakota Fanning Says ‘Important’ to Speak Up About Assault

Actress Dakota Fanning has told reporters that although she hasn’t experienced the sort of sexual assault that has turned Hollywood on its head, it’s “important to talk about these issues, for women to stand up for themselves.”

 

Fanning, 23, spoke Tuesday at the Rome Film Festival, where she was presenting the film “Please Stand By.” She plays a young autistic woman obsessed with the Star Trek series, who runs away from her home in San Francisco to get to Los Angeles to submit her manuscript for a Star Trek script writing contest.

 

Fanning said she shares her character’s determination in achieving her goal, adding: “you have to fight for what you believe in and stay true to what you are.”

 

 
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‘House of Cards’ Filming Suspended Amid Spacey Allegation

The suspension of filming on House of Cards Tuesday in response to allegations that star Kevin Spacey made sexual advances on a teen boy is a rare move in an industry that puts commerce first.

Shows are infrequently derailed by concerns other than their ratings performance, said TV historian and former network executive Tim Brooks.

“It usually depends on how popular the show is, not to put too fine a point on it,” Brooks said Tuesday.

In recent days, Hollywood has reacted swiftly to allegations of sexual harassment and assault: Harvey Weinstein was fired from the company he founded within days after initial reports of sexual harassment were published in the New York Times earlier this month. 

And hours after news broke about the allegations against Spacey, Netflix said it was pulling the plug on House of Cards, though the streaming network said the decision was made before the BuzzFeed News report on Spacey over the weekend. The network has not commented on plans for a Gore Vidal biopic starring Spacey that is currently in production.

The widespread tumult has prompted unusual actions — such as Weinstein being booted from industry organizations — and created a climate of uncertainty. But a look back shows that Hollywood has dealt with disruption before, with even beloved shows and actors fighting to keep their balance amid controversy.

Lucille Ball

During Hollywood’s 1950s “red scare,” Brooks said, I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist sympathizer. The sitcom co-starred her husband, Desi Arnaz, who took action.

“Desi came out before a studio taping and said, ‘The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and that’s not real,”‘ using humor to effectively defuse the situation, Brooks said. The show’s No. 1 status also helped.

Stacey Keach

Popularity and audience acceptance of a star’s personal issues aided Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer when lead actor Stacey Keach served six months in jail for a drug-related arrest in England in the mid-1980s.

The 1984-85 season was cut short, but the series resumed in 1986 with Keach aboard and aired until 1987 on CBS.

Isaiah Washington

Grey’s Anatomy was swamped by controversy in late 2006 when an on-set scuffle broke out between stars Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington over Washington’s use of a gay slur regarding another cast member.

After Washington repeated the slur at the 2007 Golden Globes while denying he had used it, ABC rebuked him publicly, as did co-star Katherine Heigl. He was subsequently fired, and the medical drama from TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes sailed on even as Washington blamed racism for his treatment.

Spacey’s cast mates

An actor’s popularity with his cast mates can determine his fate, Brooks said.

“If they like him, if they get along with him, it’s easy enough to say, ‘If I don’t get my career ruined in this, I’ll stick with him,”‘ he said.

How Spacey’s cast mates are reacting to him and the allegations remains to be seen. Robin Wright, who stars opposite Spacey as his wife, hasn’t commented publicly, but her Twitter feed includes a number of posts backing social issues including female rights and education.

Netflix and House of Cards producer Media Rights Capital had already decided to end the series at the end of next season, its sixth, but on Tuesday they chose to pause the production, which is filmed in Baltimore, “to give us time to review the current situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew.” Spacey was not scheduled to work that day.

Allegations, response

The move comes after actor Anthony Rapp came forward with claims Spacey made inappropriate sexual advances toward him in 1986, when Rapp was 14.

Spacey responded by saying he doesn’t remember the alleged encounter but if he acted the way Rapp alleges, “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” He also spoke publicly for the first time about being gay, which draw backlash from some observers as an attempt at deflection.

The fallout for Spacey also included the loss of an award he was going to get later this month by The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The group says “it will not honor Kevin Spacey with the 2017 International Emmy Founders Award,” which is to honor “an individual who crosses cultural boundaries to touch humanity.” Spacey was to get it at a gala on Nov. 20 in New York City. Past recipients include Rhimes, Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams.

A release date for the final House of Cards episodes has yet to be announced. Netflix is developing a possible spinoff of the award-winning drama that helped put the streaming service on the TV series map.
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UN Environment Report Urges Revived Effort to Cut Emissions

The U.N.’s environment program said Tuesday countries and industries need to do more to meet targets to trim emissions of greenhouse gases that experts say are contributing to global warming.

 

In its latest “Emissions Gap” report issued ahead of an important climate conference in Germany next week, the program takes aim at coal-fired electricity plants being built in developing economies and says investment in renewable energies will pay for itself — and even make money – over the long term.

 

Tuesday’s report comes as U.N. officials are making a renewed push to maintain momentum generated by the Paris climate accord of 2015.

 

It aims to cap global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius (Fahrenheit) by the year 2100 compared to average world temperatures at the start of the industrial era.

 

“The Paris agreement boosted climate action, but momentum is clearly faltering,” said Edgar Gutierrez-Espeleta, Costa Rica’s environment minister who heads the 2017 UN Environment Assembly. “We face a stark choice: up our ambition, or suffer the consequences.”

 

A new round of U.N. climate talks known as COP 23 starts in Bonn, Germany, on Monday, when countries will take stock of their achievements and prepare more ambitious national goals.

 

In a summary of the report, UNEP says that current trends suggest that even if current national commitments are met, a temperature increase of 3-degrees Celsius by the end of the century is “very likely — meaning that governments need to deliver much stronger pledges when they are revised in 2020.”

 

“Should the United States follow through with its stated intention to leave the Paris agreement in 2020, the picture could become even bleaker,” the statement said, alluding to the Trump administration plans to withdraw the U.S. from the global climate pact.

 

On the upside, the agency highlights “rapidly expanding mitigation action” and says carbon-dioxide emissions have remained stable since 2014, thanks partly to renewable-energy use in China and India. It cautioned that other greenhouse gases like methane continue to rise, however.

 

UNEP trumpets the positive effects of investment in solar and wind energy and efficient appliances and cars, and efforts to preserve forests.

 
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Want to Know When Ebola Will Strike Next? Look to the Forest

Ebola outbreaks tend to occur two years after trees have been cut down or forests cleared in West and Central Africa, researchers said on Monday, suggesting that deforestation data could be used to predict outbreaks of the deadly disease.

A study published in online journal Scientific Reports was the first to find a time correlation between deforestation and the onset of Ebola, caused by a virus which humans catch from infected wild animals that can then be transmitted between humans through direct contact.

Ebola ravaged Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone in 2014-2016, killing around 11,300 people in the world’s worst recorded outbreak, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There have been dozens of smaller outbreaks since the disease was discovered in 1976, typically in remote villages near tropical rainforests in West and Central Africa, WHO said.

By analyzing 27 outbreak sites for the period 2001-2014, researchers found that the Ebola was significantly more likely to emerge in areas with surrounding forest loss, typically two years after the damage was done.

Deforestation likely pushes infected wild animals into human areas, but how exactly this works – and why it takes two years – is not yet known, said John Fa, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University and one of the authors of the report.

“The next step is to pinpoint areas that were deforested two years ago,” Fa told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“If we know where they will occur, we might be able to prevent future outbreaks.”

Fa hopes that the findings will be used to create an early warning system in high-risk areas so that Ebola can be detected and stopped before it spreads. However, many of the areas involved are vast and inaccessible, the study said.

Africa’s tropical forests are being lost to industrial agriculture, logging, urbanization and more, a trend that is only expected to accelerate with population growth, experts say.

Ebola outbreaks may increase in coming decades as humans penetrate deeper into Africa’s remaining forests, the study found.

“Our results show that forest loss, like EVD (Ebola virus disease) should be seen as a major global health issue,” the researchers wrote.

Africa’s most recent Ebola outbreak, which ended in July, killed four people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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At 86, Senior Olympics Medalist has Been Breast Cancer Free for 30 Years

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer facing women, worldwide. During the last few decades, new treatments and early detection have improved the survival odds. But an 86 year-old Maryland woman credits her recovery to her family and to her love of favorite sport. As Breast Cancer Awareness month in the US draws to a close, VOA’s Natalia Leonova brings us Rita Eisenberg’s story.
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Forbes: Michael Jackson Top-earning Dead Celebrity With $75 Million

Michael Jackson died eight years ago, but he’s still generating millions of dollars.

Jackson is atop the Forbes list of top-earning dead celebrities for the fifth straight year, with $75 million. Forbes says Jackson’s earnings are boosted by a new greatest hits album, a Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil show and a stake in the EMI music publishing catalog.

Two other singers join Jackson in the top five. Elvis Presley comes in fourth with $35 million and Bob Marley ranks fifth with $23 million.

Golf legend Arnold Palmer is the second-highest earner. He brought in $40 million in part through sales of Arizona lemonade and ice tea beverage made in his name.

Palmer is followed by Charles Schulz. The creator of the “Peanuts” franchise made $38 million.
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WMO: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Highest in 800,000 Years

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reports greenhouse gas emissions in Earth’s atmosphere have reached the highest level ever in 800,000 years. The figure was made public at the launch in Geneva of the WMO’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

 

The report was released in advance of next week’s U.N. climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. It is meant as a wake-up call to nations that time is running out to take the necessary actions to curb global warning.

The WMO reports CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere surged at record-breaking speed last year to historic highs. The WMO says CO2 levels are now 145 percent higher than pre-industrial levels. It warns this has the potential to change the climate systems in unprecedented and disastrous ways.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas says this is already occurring. He told VOA scientists have been able to track the variability of carbon dioxide concentrations thousands of years back.

“We have far exceeded this natural variability that took place in the past and we are giving extra energy for our planet. We have already started seeing a growing amount of natural disasters related to weather. And, for example, the economic losses related to these disasters, they have tripled since the 80s. So, that is a consequence of climate change,” Taalas said.

The report finds CO2 contributes more than 60 percent to the heating of the planet and that human activity and natural climate variability are behind the substantial increase in greenhouse gas concentrations.  

Taalas warned temperature increases will reach dangerous levels by the end of the century without rapid cuts in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions. He said measures to mitigate climate change must be urgently taken.  

Taalas said work on developing renewable energy systems and transportation systems, including electric and hybrid cars, must be accelerated. He added these low carbon technologies can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and lowering the Earth’s heat for future generations.

 
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Revolutionaries to Supernovas: ‘Glamour’ Names Women of 2017

It’s been one epic year for women, a notion definitely not lost on Glamour magazine as it named U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, 27 key facilitators of the Women’s March on Washington and astronaut Peggy Whitson among its women of the year from the worlds of politics, entertainment, fashion, business and more.

 

The other winners announced Monday, ahead of a Nov. 13 gala in Brooklyn, New York, are actor Nicole Kidman, singer Solange Knowles, Syrian refugee Muzoon Almellehan, late-night TV host Samantha Bee, supermodel Gigi Hadid, Dior’s first female creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, and “Wonder Woman” helmswoman Patty Jenkins.

 

Cindi Leive, Glamour’s editor-in-chief, called them “wildly diverse changemakers” who reflect this “tumultuous and electric year for women.” All will be on hand for the magazine’s annual awards night, with a summit featuring Chelsea Clinton, Laverne Cox, Cecile Richards and other past winners planned for earlier the same day.

 

This year’s honorees will be featured on multiple Glamour covers and in a spread for December.

 

A look at some in the Class of 2017:

 

THE REVOLUTIONARIES

 

Listening especially to the strong voices of young women after Hillary Clinton’s popular vote win but Electoral College loss to Donald Trump, Glamour called the impact of the Women’s March massive, along with an outpouring around the globe.

 

“Vastly more women turned out for the march, not just in Washington but the marches around the world, than anyone expected,” Leive told The Associated Press in a recent interview. “There were so many hundreds of women who were involved in the organization and planning of these marches, but 27 key leaders and organizers really devoted the lion’s share of their time between Election Day and Inauguration Day.”

 

In all, an estimated half a million made their way to Washington, where maybe 200,000 had been expected, and 5 million more gathered everywhere from Australia to Antarctica.

 

The honorees are:

 

Bob Bland, Tamika D. Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Paola Mendoza, Carmen Perez, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Janaye Ingram, Ginny Suss, Emma Collum, Cassady Fendlay, Lisa Harps, Mia Ives-Rublee, Rabbi Barat Ellman, Toshi Reagon, Sophie Ellman-Golan, ShiShi Rose, Caitlin Ryan, Jenna Arnold, Nantasha Williams, Alyssa Klein, Mariam Ehrari, Meredith Shepherd, Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs, Breanne Butler, Mrinalini Chakraborty, Brea Baker and De’Ara Balenger.

 

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THE CONGRESSWOMAN WHO COULD

 

At 79, Maxine Waters describes herself in Glamour as a mix of “intellect and alley cat.” She has been on the front line of progressive politics for years, but that moment over the summer when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin appeared to be trying to run out her allotted five minutes rather than answer her questions about Trump’s financial ties to Russia, the congresswoman shut him down when she declared repeatedly that she was “reclaiming my time.” Her words became a hashtag and a call to action for women.

 

Waters earned Glamour’s lifetime achievement award.

 

“Most young people really became aware of her over the course of this year because she’s been very vocal, very outspoken, standing up to members of the administration, but she’s actually had an incredibly inspiring lifetime of achievement,” Leive said. “This is a woman who grew up without all that much and decided that she would go back to college in her 20s, after having worked at the phone company, and then worked as a community coordinator for Head Start. She wasn’t born into politics or anything like that. She really made her own career.”

 

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GIGI THE SUPERNOVA

 

The first time Gigi Hadid bubbled to the surface was on the reality show “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Modeling since she was around 3, she went from a Guess campaign at 17 to supermodel five years later, racking up numerous magazine covers, editorial gigs and runway shows, along with a fashion collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger and an upcoming cosmetics collection with Maybelline.

 

As Glamour writes, Hadid didn’t just take off, “she took over.”

 

At 22, Hadid has a 36-million strong following on Instagram and a megaplatform that could easily have been wasted. Instead, she has spoken out about gun control and marched with sister Bella to protest Trump’s signing of an executive order that suspended immigration to the U.S. from seven Muslim countries.

 

Their father, real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, was born in Palestine and their mother, Yolanda Hadid, emigrated from Holland in her teens.

 

“When I started working in fashion, it was like, Gigi, the all-American. I was very much that ‘girl next door,'” she told Glamour, “but if you read my interviews, I always talk about my parents’ cultural backgrounds.”

 

Leive called her “incredibly wise beyond her years.”

 

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SOLANGE BREAKS IT OPEN

 

With a Grammy win and a groundbreaking album, “A Seat at the Table,” Knowles is living her truth in abundance. The record, released late last year, takes on some key issues: racism, cultural appropriation, activism and empowerment among them.

 

“She’s such a fantastic and inspiring example of somebody who has always chosen not to do things the easy way,” Leive said. “Her sister is Beyonce. She could have become a pop star in any number of ways but she decided to really focus on her own personal vision of art.”

 

Knowles told the magazine that she worked on “A Seat at the Table” on and off for three years, at one point spending three months writing songs in tiny Patoutville, Louisiana, soaking up the pride, resilience and traditions of the regional culture. She worked in a house on a sugar plantation, feeling a closeness to her ancestors and feeling a “constant state of reflection.”

 

Part of her goal was to reclaim and change her own narrative, she said, “whether it was people challenging who wrote what on my album, whether it was about some editor commenting on my hair in a story or someone feeling like they were entitled to space in my life. I needed to unfold, reveal and discover my truth.”

 

 

 
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