The mayor on Wednesday ordered all city employees to show proof of inoculation against COVID-19 or be placed on unpaid leave, drawing the union’s ire.

The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York said on Twitter that it had filed a suit in the state Supreme Court. It asked the court for a temporary restraining order to halt the mandate while the suit remains pending.

The union added on Twitter that there was “still no written, NYPD-specific policy guidance on how the mandate will be implemented.”

The mayor set a deadline of 5 p.m. this coming Friday for employees to show proof of inoculation to a supervisor. Over 70% of all 160,000 New York City workers, including a similar percentage in the police department, have already received at least one dose, the mayor said.

Patrick Lynch, president of the Police Benevolent Association representing the city’s 50,000 active and retired officers, said they should have the opportunity to choose whether to get the vaccine.

De Blasio cited overtime and redeployments as contingency plans should a large contingent of those officers and other unvaccinated city workers refuse to comply with the mandate.

Municipalities, school districts and other jurisdictions throughout the country are grappling with masking and vaccination requirements. The number of new COVID-19 cases has steadily declined in the United States since a surge caused by the Delta variant of the virus during the summer.

De Blasio had said employees will no longer have the option to be regularly tested instead of getting the vaccine, but added the city will still grant medical and religious exemptions.

 

Anne Heche claims she was “patient zero in cancel culture”.

The 52-year-old actress insisted she was “blacklisted” by Hollywood after going public with her romance with Ellen DeGeneres in 1997 and as a result she feels she was the first person to lose her career as a result of her public statements.

She told the New York Post newspaper’s Page Six column: “This wasn’t a long-term love affair. This was a moment in my life when I was given the glory of being able to stand up for what I believe in and have since I was a kid.”

Anne previously admitted she was advised not to take Ellen – who she split from in 2000 – to the premiere of her movie ‘Volcano’, and she’s reflected on the tough repercussions of her decision to defy the advice for the sake of “living in loving-kindness”.

She claimed: “I didn’t do a studio picture for 10 years. I was fired from a $10 million picture deal and did not see the light of day in a studio picture.”

The ’13 minutes’ actress – who has son Homer, 19, with ex-husband Coleman Laffoon and Atlas, 12, with former partner James Tupper – hailed Harrison Ford her “hero” for standing by her when it seemed her proposed role ‘Six Day, Seven Nights’ was about to be axed as a result of her relationship with Ellen.

Recalling how the 79-year-old star called her at home one morning, she remembered: “He said, ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn who you’re sleeping with. We have a romantic comedy to make. Let’s make it the best one that’s ever happened.’

“That is why Harrison Ford is my hero. To stand behind me at such a time when the force of what I was standing up for could have been toppled.”

But despite claiming her relationship derailed her career, Anne is “proud” she helped to instigate change.

She said: “Those repercussions that happened, are to me what has created a part of the change. I’m a part of it. It is a badge of honor.”

Sir Elton John still owns “most” of his crazy spectacles.

The 74-year-old music legend is known for his extensive hoard of rock-star shades, having amassed thousands of bonkers glasses in all shapes and sizes over the past five decades, and he still has many of the ones he’s worn on stage, including his famous oversized star-shaped lenses.

However, he finds it impossible to pick a favourite.

Asked if he could name his most-loved pair, the ‘I’m Still Standing’ hitmaker told LADbible: “Not really because I’ve got so many I can choose whatever mood I’m in. I’m you know I’m very lucky to have so much to choose from.”

Asked: “How many do you have?”, Elton replied: “Oh god I’m not sure I mean it’s in the thousands. It has to be yeah but I’ve been collecting them ever since 1970 when I started wearing the stars and all the crazy glasses I still have most of them.”

As well as his impressive glasses collection, Elton also owns more than 100,000 CDs.

The ‘Rocket Man’ star is an avid record collector and though his collection is huge, none of it has been placed into storage so he can always access whatever it is he wants to listen to.

He admitted previously: “I have over 120,000 CDs and 15,000 pieces of vinyl. They are stored in my home shelves so I can access whatever I want, whenever I want… I definitely prefer LPs.”

Meanwhile, Elton revealed he is health-conscious these days after abusing drugs and alcohol in the past – and his post-gig feast is less rock and roll than you’d expect.

The rock icon – who recently underwent hip replacement surgery – tends to opt for “a handful of almonds and a glass of water” instead of a calorific slice of pizza, which he’d really like to chow down on.

He said: “It’s very hard to eat after gigs because it’s very bad to eat that late at night so I might have a handful of almonds and a glass of water which is really boring where I’d love to have a pizza.”

Check out the full interview on LADbible’s YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs4yTNfOrho.

Bitcoin is now the 13th biggest country in the world after overtaking the Swiss Franc

The digital cryptocurrency – which can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer network without the need of a central bank – experienced a surge this week, shooting up to $66,000 and according to experts, it shows no signs of stopping.

Some analysts have predicted that with several more bitcoin ETFs expected to be approved by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the latter months of 2021 could be “parabolic” for the market of cryptocurrency.

David Wachsman, CEO of emerging tech consultancy firm Wachsman, told The Independent newspaper: “The market cap of bitcoin has surpassed the trillion dollar mark, an element that indicates that the parabolic rise of bitcoin is continuing.

“This could suggest a further consolidation over the next months with a number of additional bitcoin futures ETFs in the US due to be approved over the coming weeks.”

He went on to claim that the concept of cryptocurrency is no longer the niche market it once was.

He added: “While futures ETFs can be complex financial products for retail investors to leverage, there can be no doubt that the launches are a significant sign of how the asset class has gone mainstream. It is clear that crypto assets are no longer a niche market, with a broad range of participants including retail, institutions and corporates accelerating their involvement in the market.”

Rupert Everett has cast Kit Clarke, John Malkovich and Kristin Scott Thomas in the autobiographical film ‘Lost and Found in Paris’.

The 62-year-old star will explore the hedonism, seduction and intrigue of the French capital in the 1970s and is set to direct from his self-penned screenplay based on his own real-life experiences.

Kit will star as Rupert’s younger self – an unruly teenager sent by his exasperated parents to live with a Parisian socialite family to learn French and grow up.

The ‘My Best Friend’s Wedding’ star will also have a supporting role in his own movie.

The flick follows Rupert as a 17-year-old art student in Paris in 1977. He is seduced into the hedonistic world of rival fashion designers Gary Saint Lazare (Everett) and Wim Waldemar (Malkovich) in the dying days of disco.

Lost in an unforgettable era, Rupert has a sexual awakening and experiences a dark first love. Only when tragedy strikes does he realise that some loyalties don’t last forever.

The film is being produced by Jeremy Thomas at Recorded Picture Company and is set to start production in spring 2022. The movie will also feature a soundtrack filled with some of the greatest hits from the disco and punk era.

Everett said: “‘Lost and Found in Paris’ is a film about the rollercoaster of life, the exuberance and glamour of youth, seen through the lens of a life well-lived.

“I went to Paris on an exchange trip in 1977. I was supposed to learn French. Instead I discovered fashion, disco, drugs, rent boys and finally – right at the edge of the abyss – myself.”

Kristin added: “I’ve known Rupert since his incredible screen debut in ‘Another Country’, and his multifaceted talents and personal story makes ‘Lost and Found in Paris’ an unusual blend of comedy with true-life adventure.”

By Nina Chestney

LONDON (Reuters) – Current commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions put the planet on track for an average 2.7 degrees Celsius temperature rise this century, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, in another stark warning ahead of crunch climate talks https://www.reuters.com/business/cop.

Governments will be in the spotlight at the COP26 conference next week to meet a deadline of this year to commit to more ambitious cut pledges, in what could be the last chance to put the world on track to limiting warming to below 2C above pre-industrial levels and ideally to 1.5C.

As extreme weather events ranging from wildfires to floods have hit countries around the world, a U.N. report in August warned that global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions could breach 1.5C in the next two decades.

But British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday it was “touch and go” whether the most important round of U.N. talks since the Paris Agreement in 2015 will secure the agreements needed to tackle climate change.

And the U.N. World Meteorological Organization said ahead of the two-week event which begins in Glasgow, Scotland on Sunday that greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record last year and the world is “way off track” in capping rising temperatures.

The annual “emissions gap” report by the United Nations’ Environment Programme (UNEP), which measures the gap between anticipated emissions and those consistent with limiting the temperature rise this century as agreed in the Paris accord, said updated pledges only reduce forecast 2030 emissions by an additional 7.5%, compared to the previous commitments.

If continued throughout this century, this would lead to warming of 2.7C, slightly less than the 3C UNEP forecast in its last report. A 30% cut is needed to limit warming to 2C and a 55% cut is needed to limit to 1.5C.

It said current commitments to net zero could limit warming to around 2.2C by the end of the century, but 2030 pledges so far do not put major emitters on a clear path to this.

WAKE-UP CALL

Latest U.N. data shows 143 countries, accounting for around 57% of global emissions, have submitted new or updated emissions cut plans ahead of COP26 and their total emissions are estimated to be around 9% of 2010 levels by 2030 if implemented fully.

But if all pledges by 192 countries under the Paris Agreement are taken together, an increase of around 16% in global emissions is expected by 2030 compared to 2010, which would lead to warming of around 2.7C.

“This report is another thundering wake-up call. How many do we need? The emissions gap is the result of a leadership gap,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres told a press briefing.

China and India, which are together responsible for around 30% of global emissions, have not yet made enhanced pledges.

“The era of half measures and hollow promises must end. The time for closing the leadership gap must begin in Glasgow.”

By 2030, to reach the 1.5C limit, annual greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by an extra 28 gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 equivalent, or be halved from current levels of nearly 60 Gt, over and above what is promised in updated pledges and other 2030 commitments, the report said.

For the 2C limit, an additional 13 Gt cut in annual emissions is needed by 2030.

“We have eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts,” UNEP executive director Inger Andersen said.

“The clock is ticking loudly.”

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Alexander Smith)

Sir Elton John is looking forward to spending time with his family after his farewell tour.

The 74-year-old singer is poised to hit the road for one last time for his Yellow Brick Road tour, and he’ll then focus his attention on spending quality time with his family.

Elton – who has Elijah, eight, and Zachary, 10, with his husband David Furnish – said: “They’re going to be teenagers soon. I need to be with them.”

Elton will be 76 when the farewell tour ends and he’s determined to spend more time at home.

He told the ‘Today’ show: “I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth after that. You know, I’ve had enough applause. I don’t want to keep travelling. I don’t want to be away from my family.”

Meanwhile, Elton recently joked that he “played Ernie Wise” to Stevie Wonder’s Eric Morecambe on their new collaboration.

The music icon joined forces with Stevie, 71, for the track ‘Finish Line’, and Elton admits that the song reminded him of the TV comedy double act Morecambe and Wise.

He explained: “I kind of played Ernie Wise to his Eric Morecambe.

“My vocal is pretty straight, but there he is singing like [he does on] ‘Superstition’. I haven’t heard him sing like that for a long, long time, and that was magical, to hear him stretch out.”

Elton has worked with a host of younger artists in recent months, including The Weeknd and Dua Lipa. However, by comparison, he has an “old-fashioned” approach to songwriting.

He said: “I went in the studio and wrote something with The Weeknd when I was [in Los Angeles].

“Whether he’ll release it or not, I don’t know, but it was fascinating to see the way he works. I write songs from start to finish, I’m old-fashioned; these people take bits of melodies and make a collage. Songwriting doesn’t have to be the same old form of songwriting.”

San Francisco (AFP) – Facebook held back from doing all it could to stop users from being radicalized and US election misinformation from flooding the social network, according to media reports Friday.

An array of US news outlets cited documents from former Facebook worker Frances Haugen, adding to a series of critical revelations already published based on information she provided.

Articles in the New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere on Friday focused on how Facebook apparently intensified political division.

Examples included an internal finding that 10 percent of political content viewed by US users in the days after the election perpetuated the falsehood that the vote had been rigged.

What has come to be known as the “Big Lie” has been repeated relentlessly by former President Donald Trump and enraged his supporters, who stormed the US Capital in a deadly attack on January 6.

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms banned Trump from their platforms for encouraging the violent effort to thwart the democratic process.

Revelations published Friday indicated that Facebook could have anticipated such trouble.

‘Carol’s journey’

The information was reportedly found in the thousands of internal documents Haugen provided to regulators at the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Haugen told US lawmakers early this month that the social media giant fuels division, harms children and urgently needs to be regulated, drawing pledges Congress would take up long-delayed action.

The testimony by Haugen has fueled one of Facebook’s most serious crises yet, and prompted a denial from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said in a post on his account that her claim the company prioritizes profit over safety was “just not true.”

A common theme in revelations is that Facebook knew about problems hurting users and society but chose, in large part, to ignore them.

Articles Friday referred to a report compiled by Facebook’s own internal researchers titled “Carol’s Journey to QAnon.”

Facebook’s security team in 2019 reportedly created a fake account for a “conservative mother from North Carolina” given the profile name Carol Smith.

The social network software quickly offered Smith a “barrage of extreme, conspiratorial and graphic content” including from the QAnon movement known for unfounded conspiracy theories, according to the researchers.

Defense

Faced with the mounting criticism, Facebook on Friday detailed anew steps it has taken to protect the election and keep the social network safe.

“Our comprehensive strategy to protect the US 2020 elections began years before the election cycle even began and was designed to last through the inauguration,” Facebook vice president of integrity Guy Rosen said in a blog post.

“Responsibility for the insurrection itself falls squarely on the insurrectionists who broke the law and those who incited them.”

Facebook’s tenacious efforts to fend off critics is not likely to appease elected officials openly calling for action against the tech giant.

More revelations from leaked documents appear in store, and a former member of Facebook’s integrity team emerged Friday as another whistleblower.

The former employee reportedly told US regulators that Facebook dismissed controversy over Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election as a “flash in the pan” and that managers undermined efforts to fight disinformation for fear of angering Trump or his fans.

By Marcelo Teixeira and Hyunjoo Jin

NEW YORK/ SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. electric car maker Tesla Inc on Sunday rolled back the latest version of its Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta software, less than a day after its release, after users complained of false collision warnings and other issues.

The setback comes as Tesla is under regulatory scrutiny over the safety of its semi-autonomous driving technology, which it calls “FSD.”

“Seeing some issues with 10.3, so rolling back to 10.2 temporarily,” Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a Twitter post on Sunday.

“Please note, this is to be expected with beta software. It is impossible to test all hardware configs in all conditions with internal QA (quality assurance), hence public beta,” he said.

Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

The release of the new driving assist system to some owners of Tesla models, which the company said featured several improvements, had been announced for Friday, Oct 22.

On Saturday, Musk said the release would probably be delayed by a day.

“Regression in some left turns at traffic lights found by internal QA in 10.3. Fix in work, probably releasing tomorrow,” he tweeted on Saturday.

The Tesla vehicles with the latest 10.3 software repeatedly provided Forward Collision Warnings when there was no immediate danger, according to video postings of beta users. Some vehicles also automatically applied brakes without reason, users said on social media posts.

Some users said they lost the FSD beta software entirely after having problems with the latest iteration.

There was no information on Sunday about a possible new date for the release, either from Musk on social media or from Tesla.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in August opened a formal safety probe into Tesla’s Autopilot system in 765,000 U.S. vehicles after a series of crashes involving Tesla models and emergency vehicles.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira and Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Diane Craft and Lincoln Feast.)

Paris (AFP) – Leaders may be going into the UN climate summit in Glasgow with the do-or-die goal of limiting global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, but breaching that cap is not what keeps scientists awake at night.

The real disaster scenario begins with the triggering of invisible climate tripwires known as tipping points. 

“Climate tipping points are a game-changing risk — an existential threat — and we need to do everything within our power to avoid them,” said Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.

What’s a tipping point?

Anyone who has leaned back in a chair balancing on two legs knows there is a threshold beyond which you irrevocably crash to the floor. 

That portal between two stable states — in this case, an upright versus a fallen-over chair — is a tipping point, and Earth’s complex, interlocking climate system is full of them.     

These temperature thresholds have potentially widespread impacts.  

If temperatures rise enough to melt the ice sheets atop Greenland and West Antarctica, it could lift oceans more than a dozen metres (40 feet). 

The Amazon tropical forest, upon which we depend to soak up carbon pollution, could turn into savannah.  

Or shallow subsoil known as permafrost — mostly in Siberia — tenuously holding twice the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could see those harmful emissions seep into the air.

“We have seen a number of tipping points already in coral reefs and polar systems, and more are likely in the near term,” the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in a draft report on climate impacts, due out in February, obtained by AFP.

In most cases, reversing the changes set in motion would be beyond the grasp of humanity for many generations, if not millennia.

Why so scary?

One of the first scientists to unlock the secret of tipping points recalled suddenly understanding some 15 years ago why they were so ominous.

“It was an ‘Oh Shit!’ moment,” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told AFP in an interview.   

“Planetary machinery — the monsoon system, ocean circulation, the jet stream, the big ecosystems — abounds with non-linear systems,” he said, referring to the potential for abrupt, dramatic change. 

“That means you have so many points of no return.”

In Antarctica, more than half the ice shelves that prevent glaciers — some larger in area than England and Scotland combined — from sliding into the ocean and lifting sea levels are at risk of crumbling due to climate change.

“It is like uncorking a bottle, and we are uncorking them one by one,” said Schellnhuber.

Earth-altering tipping points have different temperature thresholds. Scientists know these tripwires are there, but not exactly where they lie.   

Even more unsettling is how easily our already belaboured efforts to eliminate carbon pollution could be overwhelmed by the changes we are setting in motion.

If thawing permafrost surrenders as much CO2 as humanity stops emitting, we find ourselves fighting a war on two fronts: on top of the struggle to slash our own emissions we’d have to cope with those generated by the planet itself.  

How many are there?

Scientists count about 15 significant tipping points in the planet’s climate system. Some are regional, others are global, all are interconnected.

Those least resistant to global warming and closest to a point of no return are tropical coral reefs, the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, alpine glaciers, Arctic summer sea ice and the Amazon forest.

Parts of the climate system more resistant to rising temperatures include the global currents that redistribute heat through the oceans, the Arctic jet stream, the Indian monsoon, El Ninos in the Pacific, and desertification in the Sahel. 

While permafrost probably doesn’t have a single temperature tripwire, the IPCC estimates it will release tens of billions of tonnes of CO2 for every extra degree of global warming.

The last holdout would be East Antarctica’s ice sheet, which holds 56 metres worth of sea-level rise.

The IPCC’s most recent mega-report is the first to give tipping points more than a cursory mention.

“Abrupt responses and tipping points of the climate system… cannot be ruled out,” the UN’s climate science advisory body now warns.

While scientists have long been aware of the danger that tipping points pose, part of the problem has been the inability of climate models — which are built to track gradual, linear change — to anticipate the timing or impact of abrupt shocks.

“Just because tipping points are challenging to predict doesn’t mean they can be ignored,” Lenton said.

What is the ripple effect?

A new wave of research is focusing on how sudden shifts triggered by tipping points ripple across the climate system, leading to possible chain reactions.

Accelerating melt-off from the Greenland ice sheet, for example, is almost certainly slowing down the conveyor belt of ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). 

This, in turn, could push Earth’s tropical rain belt southward and weaken the African and Asian monsoons, upon which hundreds of millions depend for rain-fed crops. 

Scientists cannot rule out the possibility that the AMOC will stall altogether, as it has in the past. If this happened, European winters would become much harsher and sea levels in the North Atlantic basin could rise substantially.

There are dozens of other ways in which facets of the climate system are intertwined. 

What is a ‘hothouse Earth’?

Earth’s past tells us that continuing greenhouse gas emissions “could tip the global climate into a permanent hot state,” according to the recent IPCC report.

Think of it as the ultimate tipping point: “hothouse Earth”.

The last time atmospheric concentrations of CO2 matched today’s levels, some three million years ago, temperatures were at least 3C more and sea levels five-to-25 metres higher.

A combination of more carbon pollution and emissions from permafrost and dying forests “might set us on such a trajectory in little more than a century,” said Jan Zalasiewicz, a palaeo-biology professor at the University of Leicester. 

Johan Rockstrom, PIK director, said a 2C cap on warming was “not a social or economic choice, it is actually a planetary boundary”.

“The moment that the Earth system flips over from being self-cooling — which it still is — to self-warming, that is the moment that we lose control,” he told AFP. 

What are economic risks?

Tipping points are not currently taken into account when assessing the economic risks associated with climate change — but experts argue that they should be.  

New York University economist Gernot Wagner earlier this year calculated the potential cost to society of major planetary tipping points. 

Once Earth’s potential for nasty surprises is taken into account, the dollar damage to health and the environment caused by each ton of CO2 emitted today — known as the social cost of carbon — would increase by at least a quarter, he found. 

In other words, the greater the risk, the higher the cost. 

Any silver linings?

But there is potential for positive change too. 

Just like social momentum helped to spur rapid transitions — the ending of slavery, the dismantling apartheid in South Africa, or the push to legalise gay marriage in the US, for example — so it might be with climate change.   

From electric vehicles and green investments, to a global youth movement led by Greta Thunberg, a crescendo of change has experts wondering whether the world is turning the corner on climate.

Harry Styles helped a fan come out at his concert in Connecticut at the weekend.

The One Direction star – who has a strong LGBTQ+ following – was performing a solo gig at the Mohegan Sun Arena inside the casino in Uncasville on Saturday (23.10.21) night when he assisted a gig-goer in their request to publicly declare their sexuality.

After he spotted a girl holding a sign with “Help me come out” emblazoned across it in the packed-out crowd, the 27-year-old pop star threw up a rainbow pride flag and said: “Anyone particular you’d like to come out to?

“Is it for yourself? When I raise this flag you’re officially out, heard that’s how it works! She’s oooout!”

The ‘Watermelon Sugar’ singer has made a thing of taking requests from fans via signs at his shows.

Last month, Harry did a gender reveal for a pregnant fan midway through his show.

The ‘Golden’ hitmaker was performing at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville when he spotted the woman in the audience urging him to help her.

The fan held a sign which played on the lyrics to Harry’s song ‘Kiwi’ and read: “I’m having a baby. Please make it your business…”

Another poster urged him to “open the results”, which he agreed to do.

After being given the piece of paper containing the results, Harry – who was on the phone with the woman’s partner, Mike – laughed and said: “I revel in these moments because I know everything… and you don’t.”

And he then joked he planned to keep the couple in suspense as he said: “Okay we’re going to do another song!

“Oh you’re still there Mike!”

He then organised the audience into a countdown before dropping to his knees and declaring: “It’s a little baby girl.”

He quipped: “That’s what I wanted – is that what you wanted?”

The music star then pretended to cry with joy as the arena erupted in cheers at the news.

And the week before, Harry – who is dating Olivia Wilde – offered some dating advice to one woman in the audience after she used a placard to ask him a question.

At the show in Minnesota, the fan was holding up a sign which read, “Should I text him?”, and the ‘Adore You’ singer addressed the question on stage.

He said: “In my opinion, if you should, then this isn’t even a question.

“If we’re playing games … If you’re wondering, ‘Should I text him? Can’t text him too soon … And now I’m thinking about double texting and that’s whole other risky business …’

“My personal opinion is that if there’s any sort of games: Trash, trash, trash, not for you.”

A few funny memes every day can be enough to help people better cope with the everyday stresses of life during the pandemic, according to a US study on the effect of the humorous online content, published in the Psychology of Popular Media journal.

Such comical photos shared on social media can also increase people’s confidence in their ability to deal with the pandemic – but only if they are not too cutesy, according to the researchers.

The idea that memes, of all things, could be a key weapon in the mental health battle during the pandemic is not as far-fetched as it might sound at first.

Last year a study published in the journal Scientific Reports had reported that memes about depression can help lift the mood of those with mental health problems.

“As the pandemic kept dragging on, it became more and more interesting to me how people were using social media and memes in particular, as a way to think about the pandemic,” says Jessica Myrick, lead author of the new study.

For the Penn State University professor, it is not the first time she has dealt with a pop-cultural internet phenomenon. One of her previous studies had looked at the effects of cat videos on happiness.

For her new study, Myrick and her team surveyed 748 people online last December to find out whether viewing different memes influences emotions, anxiety, information processing and generally coping during the pandemic.

To do this, the researchers collected hundreds of popular memes on relevant platforms and divided them into different categories, such as whether the caption referred to Covid-19 or not.

For the study, those memes were selected that were rated as equally funny and cute by a group of participants.

For some memes, the researchers wrote new Covid- or non-Covid-related captions. For example, one meme featured a picture of an angry cat with the caption, “New study confirms: Cats can’t spread Covid-19 but would if given option.”

The non-Covid-related version of the meme had the caption: “New study confirms: Cats can’t sabotage your car but would if given option.”

The next step was to randomly assign subjects to see different memes or, as a control, different types of imageless text.

The researchers then examined how cute and funny the study participants found the media they saw, what emotions they reported and how equipped to deal with the pandemic they felt.

They found that people who viewed memes showed higher levels of humour and more positive emotions than others, which was indirectly associated with a reduction in stress related to the pandemic.

Subjects who viewed memes with captions about Covid-19 were even more likely to feel less stress about the pandemic than those who viewed memes without coronavirus-related captions.

At the same time, those who viewed Covid-related memes thought more intensely about the content and felt more confident about coping with the pandemic.

However cute memes had a different effect, and participants who saw particularly cute memes featuring human or animal babies were less likely to think about the pandemic and its impact on their own lives – even if the captions referred to the coronavirus. “Cuteness responses, generally, were associated with decreased coping efficacy,” the authors write in the study.

The study comes in contrast to much previous research on the psychological impact of social media platforms such as Instagram, where the emphasis on beauty and success have been shown to have negative mental health impacts. At the same time, a recent study showed that “doomscrolling” through pandemic news headlines can also sour a person’s mood.

However lead author Myrick stresses that things are different for memes. “While the World Health Organization recommended that people avoid too much Covid-related media for the benefit of their mental health, our research reveals that memes about Covid-19 could help people feel more confident in their ability to deal with the pandemic.”

Officials could use such memes as a cheap and accessible way to communicate with the public about stressful situations. Myrick concludes: “The positive emotions associated with this type of content may make people feel psychologically safer and therefore better able to pay attention to the underlying messages related to health threats.”

By Jody Godoy and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Lev Parnas, a onetime associate of Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, was found guilty on Friday of violating U.S. campaign finance laws during the 2018 elections.

Parnas, a Ukraine-born American businessman, and his former associate Igor Fruman had been accused of soliciting funds from Russian businessman Andrey Muraviev to donate to candidates in states where the group was seeking licenses to operate cannabis businesses in 2018.

Parnas also concealed that he and Fruman, who pleaded guilty in September, were the true source of a donation to a group supporting Republican then-President Trump, prosecutors said. Giuliani’s attorney has said the Parnas case is separate from a probe into whether violated lobbying laws while representing Trump.

Giuliani, a U.S. prosecutor in the 1980s before he was elected New York’s mayor in 1994, has not been charged with any crimes and denies wrongdoing.

Parnas was found guilty on all six counts of federal election law violations that he faced, which included illegally helping a foreigner contribute to a U.S. election campaign, making contributions in the names of others, and lying to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

Andrey Kukushkin, a Muraviev associate and California resident who was tried alongside Parnas, was found guilty on Friday of two counts of campaign finance violations. Kukushkin is also a Ukraine native.

The trial in U.S. District Court in Manhattan has drawn attention because of the role Parnas and Belarus-born U.S. citizen Fruman played in helping Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney while he held office, to investigate Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. Biden won the election, denying Trump a second term.

Parnas, dressed in a blue suit, stared straight at the jury as the verdict was read. Kukushkin, wearing a grey sweater, shook his head after he was pronounced guilty on the second count.

“I’ve never hid from nobody,” Parnas said as he left court wearing a black “Combat COVID” mask. “I’ve always stood and tried to tell the truth.”

His attorney Joseph Bondy said they would be filing a motion to vacate the verdict “in the interest of justice.”

“It’s obviously a very difficult time for Mr. Parnas and his wife and his children,” Bondy said.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken denied a request from prosecutors to detain Parnas and Kukushkin. “The defendants have sufficiently established that they’re not a risk of flight,” Oetken said after the jury left.

Oetken set a sentencing date of Feb. 16 for Kukushkin. He did not set a sentencing date for Parnas, who faces another possible trial on separate fraud charges.

‘IN WELL OVER HIS HEAD’

The case provided a glimpse into the inner workings of political fundraising in the United States.

“You saw the wires from Muraviev,” Assistant U.S Attorney Hagan Scotten told the jury during closing arguments on Thursday. “You saw how that money came out on the other side, finding its way into American elections, where the defendants thought they had bought influence to further their business.”

Parnas’ defense lawyers countered that Muraviev’s funds went toward business investments, not campaign contributions, and that the donation to the pro-Trump group was from a company founded by Parnas and broke no laws.

In his closing statement Parnas attorney Bondy characterized his client as a passionate proponent of marijuana legalization who was “in well over his head.” He argued that Muraviev’s money funded business operations, not campaign contributions.

Deliberations in the trial began on Friday morning and lasted about five hours.

Fruman, who lives in Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting campaign contributions from a foreign national. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 21.

Parnas and Kukushkin had faced two counts of conspiring to make donations from a foreign national, and making the donations. Parnas had also been charged with four other counts, including making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Franklin Paul, Grant McCool and Jonathan Oatis)

Richmond (United States) (AFP) – Former US president Barack Obama urged voters Saturday to back the Democrat in a neck-and-neck state election touted as a test of the party’s prospects in next year’s midterm elections — casting the Republican as a threat to democracy.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who is vying for a second term as Virginia’s governor, has seen his lead extinguished in recent polls and is in a dead heat with Republican Glenn Youngkin ahead of the November 2 vote.

Obama told a cheering crowd of several hundred rapt supporters at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond that Youngkin would cut teaching jobs, restrict abortion access and back Donald Trump’s fraudulent campaign to convince Americans that the last election was stolen from him by President Joe Biden.

“As far as I can tell, the big message of Terry’s opponent is that he’s a regular guy because he wears a fleece. And he’s accusing schools of brainwashing our kids,” Obama said,

“He’s also said he wanted to audit the voting machines used in the last presidential election again. Really? Encouraging the lies and conspiracy theories that we’ve had to live through all this time? And yeah, we’re supposed to believe he’s going to stand up for our democracy?”

The McAuliffe camp fears turnout among supporters in an off-year election may be low and has brought in some of the party’s heavy hitters in the final stretch, including First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Biden won Virginia by 10 points in 2020 and the last time Republicans won a statewide race there was 2009.

But the McAuliffe-Youngkin battle has been tightening, with a survey released this week by Monmouth University showing the Democrat’s earlier lead evaporating. 

A McAuliffe win would boost Washington Democrats’ push for twin infrastructure and social welfare mega-bills that are the cornerstone of Biden’s vision for remaking the economy.

But a loss could spook moderates already nervous over the high price tag, which they are trying to chisel down from a combined total of almost $5 trillion to around $3 trillion.

Harbinger

Party chiefs hope Obama, still the most popular Democrat on the national stage five years after leaving office, will galvanize Black voters, a key constituency in Virginia. 

“I’m here today because I believe Virginia will make the right choice. I believe America, ultimately, will make the right choice,” Obama told the crowd of a few hundred cheering supporters. 

“I believe you right here in Virginia are going to show the rest of the country, and the world, that we’re not going to indulge in our worst instincts. We’re not going to go back to the past that did so much damage, we’re going to move forward with people like Terry leading the way.”

The first genuinely competitive election since Biden took office is expected to be a harbinger of the national political landscape ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Wedged between the Washington suburbs in northern Virginia, a Democratic stronghold, and the state’s conservative south and southwest, Richmond could go either way.

McAuliffe, 64, has tried to make the race a referendum on twice-impeached Trump.

Youngkin, 10 years his junior, has focused on the fight over schools, with Republicans railing against mask mandates and running ads showing McAuliffe saying he doesn’t want parents involved in education. 

‘Resurgence of Trumpism’

In a delicate high-wire act, Youngkin has been trying to conjure the spirit of Trump while not specifically endorsing his false election fraud claims that are backed by the majority of Republicans.   

The former president has not visited, although he called in to a pro-Youngkin “Take Back Virginia Rally” on October 13 featuring former White House advisor Steve Bannon and other prominent promoters of Trump’s election fraud lies.

McAuliffe, who took the stage before Obama, pledged to work with “Reasonable Republicans” to improve the lives of Virginians.

“I’ll work with you, but let me make one thing perfectly clear today. Glenn Youngkin is not a reasonable Republican. I call him Donald Trump in khakis,” he told the crowd of a few hundred.

“Do we want a lapdog for Donald Trump to be our governor here in the Commonwealth? No we don’t.”

Washington (AFP) – A striped feline leaps from a rock under the shade of a tree on a late October morning. 

As its front paws touch the ground, the whiskered creature looks up, eyes darting left. A wildlife camera clicks and captures the scene.

It’s a cat — and the location isn’t a remote rainforest, but the capital of the United States.

The photo is part of the DC Cat Count, a first of its kind, three-year effort by animal welfare advocates, conservationists and scientists to enumerate every Felis catus in Washington.

The team behind the study says it provides an accurate estimate of the size of the city’s indoor, outdoor and shelter population.

It found there are about 200,000 cats in the District of Columbia, with about half of them living indoors only, said Tyler Flockhart, a conservation biologist and science lead on the DC Cat Count.

The other half is a group that includes owned cats with limited or unlimited access outdoors, stray cats, and roughly 3,000 to 4,000 feral cats who avoid interactions with humans, Flockhart said.

“I don’t think that you can find another wild mammal — another wild carnivore — that occurs at that density anywhere in the world,” he said, of cats and urban environments. 

“I think that this is really sort of an interesting idea that we can have so many cats in such a small location.”

Consensus for a cat census

The study brought together groups that are often at odds over the impact that outdoor cats have on wildlife and landscape.

While conservationists worry that outdoor cats can decimate bird populations, animal advocates seek to ensure the welfare and safety of cats seeking to survive outside.

“What was really groundbreaking with the DC Cat Count was these organizations coming together,” said Stephanie Shain, the chief operating officer of the Humane Rescue Alliance (HRA), which took part in the study.

They were driven by a common purpose “to really focus not on who is right or who has been right, but really focus on getting it right —  finding out the information, analyzing the data,” she added. 

Shain said HRA recommends that cat owners keep their feline friends indoors only in order to keep them safe and avoid damaging wildlife.

“I was pleased to see how many people actually follow that advice,” she said.

To count all the cats who call the seat of American power home, researchers surveyed more than 2,600 residents, analyzed animal shelter records, walked along specific routes in search of cats and set up wildlife cameras in more than 1,500 spots.

“This is probably the most thorough analysis of cats of any city in the world,” Flockhart said.

He and other researchers continue to analyze the data collected since 2018 and the research has already led to several peer-reviewed scientific papers.

The DC Cat Count team also made an extensive toolkit available online with protocols and guidelines for organizations wishing to carry out their own cat census.   

Besides cats, the camera traps also snapped pictures of numerous animals including squirrels, raccoons, foxes, deer — and even a bobcat.

“There’s a huge diversity of wildlife in our cities,” Flockhart said.

“We tend to think of it as humans-only, and it could be anything but the case. There are all types of wildlife, from rodents all the way up to large predators.”

Corey Feldman’s prosthetic ear from ‘Stand By Me’ is set to go under the hammer.

The 50-year-old actor’s character in the 1986 coming-of-age drama, Teddy Duchamp, had his ear burned off when his father shoved his head into a flaming hot stove as a child.

And the rubber ear and an NFT digital art are set to be auctioned off in honour of the 35th anniversary of the flick.

Corey said: “I don’t know what you’re going to do with the ear.

“Wear it for Halloween, throw darts at it, use it as a coaster! The possibilities are limitless.”

Movie fans who wish to own the unique piece of memorabilia will need to make their bids between October 31 and November 3.

A replica of the ear and an NFT are also being sold for $12.

More information can be found via www.cfnftnme.com/corey-ear.

Meanwhile, Corey recently dashed hopes of a sequel to ‘The Goonies’.

The screen legend starred in Richard Donner’s iconic 1985 adventure comedy flick but has given up hope of playing Clark ‘Mouth’ Devereaux again after being “let down” by plans for another movie.

He said: “Well, Sean Astin and Josh Brolin want a sequel but you know. It’s one of those powers that be things. Every time I thought, ‘OK, it’s really gonna happen’, I’ve been let down and had my heartbroken.”

The ‘Lost Boys’ star explained that he got his hopes up during the pandemic when the cast and crew reunited virtually and even claimed that screenwriter Chris Columbus had pledged to begin working on a new script that would revisit the treasure-hunting characters.

Corey said: “I think I probably believed it the most over the pandemic. Because I thought, ‘OK it’s (‘The Goonies’) 35th anniversary, we did two reunions in one year, we went back and read the script together.

“And Chris Columbus even said on the call with all of us, and in subsequent emails, ‘Guys I’m so inspired, I’m actually writing again. Like I’m gonna do this. We’re gonna do this. We’re doing this.’ And then, nothing.”