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Published by Reuters By Philip Pullella VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Catholic groups on Tuesday accused Italy’s Church of an “institutional failure” to confront clergy sexual abuse, and demanded an independent national inquiry mirroring ones conducted in France and Germany. A collective of nine groups – seven headed by women – issued the demand during the launch of a campaign called “Beyond the Great Silence” and a hashtag, #ItalyChurchToo, inspired by the international #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. In an online news conference, Paola Lazzarini, head of Women in the Church, called for the opening of the archives of “all dioceses, convents and monasteries”, damages for victims and the uncovering of the truth, “however painful”. Globally, revelations of sexual abuse by clergy have so far cost the Church hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. The Italian campaign aims to increase public pressure on the Church and the government for a national inquiry going back decades, and rejects assertions from some Italian Catholic leaders that the Church has the resources to do the work itself. “Only independent investigations (elsewhere) have overcome the Church’s resistance to recognise its own institutional failure,” said anti-abuse advocate Ludovica Eugenio. Any Italian investigation “absolutely has to be impartial,” added Francesco Zanardi, head of Rete l’Abuso (The Abuse Network). Pope Francis has expressed shame at the Church’s inability to deal with sexual abuse cases and said it must make itself a “safe home for everyone”. The Vatican had no comment on Tuesday. Italian bishops are due to decide in May on what type of abuse inquiry, if any, the country will hold. Antonio Messina, 28, one of victims who participated in the news conference, says he was repeatedly abused when he was a minor by an adult seminarian who went on to become a priest. Without providing details, he said local church authorities in his home town had tried to buy his silence. “The Church is not able to handle this (investigation),” he said. The German study, released in 2018, showed 1,670 clergymen abused 3,677 minors from 1946 to 2014. The French investigation, released last year and covering seven decades, said more than 200,000 children were abused in Catholic institutions. Zanardi said the figures would be higher in predominately Catholic Italy because the country has traditionally had many more priests. (Reporting by Philip Pullella; editing by John Stonestreet) View the full article

[This post contains video, click to play] Published by BANG Showbiz English Harry Hamlin thinks playing a gay character ‘ended his career.’ The 70-year-old actor – who is married to ‘Real Housewives’ star Lisa Rinna -played the role of gay writer Bart McGuire in the 1982 film ‘Making Love’ and was advised by “a lot of people” to avoid the role because of his own sexuality. He said: “I was told by a lot of people, you can’t do that movie. I think it had been offered to pretty much everybody in town and everyone had turned it down because they thought it might be damaging to their careers. “Even though I was told by my friends not to do it, my agent said I should.” The ‘Clash of the Titans’ star – who has daughters Delilah, 23 and Amelia, 20, with Lisa as well as son Dimitri, 41, from his previous marriage to Ursula Andress – went on to explain that work dried up when studios became concerned about potential audience “confusion” after he had played a gay character as a straight man. He told PEOPLE: “The [negative reception] ended my career. For years, I’d think ‘Was that the reason why I stopped getting calls?’ And finally realised that was the last time I ever did a movie for a studio. I’ve done independent films but never a studio film. I had been doing nothing but studio films and basically going out on all the castings for all the movies. That stopped completely. As far as the film business sort of shutting the door, I think it just had to do with the fact of the studio system being a closed system and once they saw there could be some confusion about my sexuality, then they just said they didn’t want to take the chance.” “If they were contemplating having me be a love interest to a young female star, the thought was, ‘How is the audience going to react?’ Even though I was straight, I think the perception at the time was that anybody who could play gay must be gay.” View the full article

Published by AFP As Oscars voters have increasingly drifted away from more mainstream fare, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has toyed with various reforms to boost the ceremony’s popularity Los Angeles (AFP) – Next month’s Oscars will include a new “fan favorite” prize for the year’s most popular film as voted for by Twitter users, organizers said Monday seeking to lure viewers back to a ceremony that has seen audiences plummet. The announcement — which will be made during the 94th Academy Awards telecast on March 27 — comes after several crowd-pleasing blockbusters including “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “No Time To Die” failed to earn Oscar nominations in major categories, including best picture. Their omission raised fears that many movie fans will skip the show. But any film released in 2021 can be voted for in the new category using the Twitter hashtag #OscarsFanFavorite or via the Academy’s website, raising the chances of a blockbuster being honored on the night. Television ratings for the Oscars have dramatically declined in recent years. Last year’s edition, which honored mainly smaller, arthouse movies such as best picture winner “Nomadland,” was watched by just over 10 million viewers — a 56 percent decline from 2020, which was already a record low. As Oscars voters have increasingly drifted away from more mainstream fare, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has toyed with various reforms to boost the ceremony’s popularity. In 2018, organizers proposed a “popular film” Oscar to honor blockbuster movies such as Star War films or Marvel superhero films that rake in millions at the box office. But it swiftly shelved those plans after critics ridiculed the move, and the new “fan favorite” award will not be a formal Oscar category. Meryl Johnson, the Academy’s vice president of digital marketing, said the move would “help build an engaged and excited digital audience leading up to this year’s ceremony” and allow fans to “engage with the show in real-time, find a community and be a part of the experience in ways they’ve never been able to before.” Twitter’s Sarah Rosen said the collaboration was “an exciting way to further engage movie fans and celebrate their love and passion for the films released this year.” Hosts revealed? Movie fans can vote up to 20 times per day until March 3, and three randomly selected winners will be invited to present an Oscar at next year’s ceremony. A separate poll will ask voters to chose their favorite “movie cheer moment.” The five most popular choices — billed as scenes where “audiences couldn’t help but erupt into cheers in theaters” — will be shown during the Oscars. Meanwhile, reports emerged Monday in the Hollywood trade press about the possible identities of this year’s Oscars hosts. Variety and Deadline both reported that actors Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes will share hosting duties. The Academy did not comment on the reports. Broadcaster ABC last month confirmed the Oscars will have a host for the first time since 2018, when Jimmy Kimmel last took the stage for Tinseltown’s most important prize-giving event. The following year’s hostless format drew praise and was even emulated by other awards shows such as the Emmys, but subsequent Oscar ceremonies have been criticized for lacking focus and humor. Next month’s Oscars will return to the ceremony’s traditional Dolby Theatre venue in Hollywood, after the pandemic-affected 2021 Academy Awards were held at a Los Angeles train station. They are being held later than usual, reportedly to avoid clashing with February’s Winter Olympics and Sunday’s Super Bowl in Los Angeles. View the full article

Published by Radar Online mega A renowned forensic expert is calling for Bob Saget’s body to be exhumed after he and several pathologists raised questions about his “accidental” death and an autopsy showing massive skull fractures, Radar has learned. The 65-year-old Full House and Fuller House star, who was COVID-19 positive, died from a freak head injury inside his Orlando, Florida, Ritz-Carlton hotel room on January 9. But now health experts who reviewed an autopsy report released by the Orange County Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Stephany are crying foul – with one telling another media outlet the injury appears consistent with the actor being hit with a baseball bat or falling from a height of up to 30 feet. Renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht tells Radar that if Saget’s family agrees, he thinks a second autopsy should be conducted along with a full-on investigation into the actor’s movements and activities hours before he died. “All of these injuries fractures and areas of hemorrhage could not have been sustained by one fall,” he said. “I am just very surprised that the medical examiner attributed it to one fall. There is no way this could have occurred with one fall.” mega He added, “The first autopsy is not a bad autopsy – I’m not being critical – but what I am being critical of is attributing everything to one fall. I would like to see that medical examiner and the consultant he dealt with explain how you get all those injuries from one fall. No way!” “The fracture of the skull does require significant force – things that we would see in a significant fall or of a violent nature– a motor vehicle accident where the head Is moved backward and forward.” Dr. Stephany concluded Saget died after falling backward striking his head then somehow crawling into his bed where his body was found. He concluded there was no suspected foul play. “It is most probable that the decedent suffered an unwitnessed fall backwards and struck the posterior aspect of his head,” explained the medical examiner, who discovered various abrasions to Saget’s scalp and fractures to the base of his skull. Dr. Gavin Britz, the head of neurosurgery at Houston Methodist Hospital, told the New York Times, the injury is “significant trauma” and the fractures were in thick parts of the skull. mega “This is something I find with someone with a baseball bat to the head, or who has fallen from 20 or 30 feet,” he said. Joining the chorus is neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, who said on an episode of New Day: “I think what it reveals more than anything else is this was not a simple bump on the head.” “The fracture in the front of his eye sockets and contusions these are things that cannot be attributed to injuries away from the point of impact.” mega The beloved comic was in the area performing a stand-up tour the night before and investigators found no drugs or alcohol in his system. Dr. Wecht told Radar investigators should retrace Saget’s steps before he checked into the hotel, talk to witnesses who may have seen his face at check-in, examine hotel card key usage to see if anyone entered his room or even if he was seen with someone else. “I could not rule out something more sinister here and call it a mere accident without knowing all of the details.” mega View the full article

Published by AFP In 2010 former president Barack Obama initiated two comprehensive sex-education programs: Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP) Washington (AFP) – An Obama-era sex education program that was criticized by conservatives succeeded in reducing teen birth rates in parts of the US that implemented it, a large study said Monday. Teen births are higher in the United States than in any other G7 country, and the topic of whether to teach adolescents about the use of contraceptives has remained heated among academics, politicians and the public. A 1996 law allocated federal funding to abstinence-only education, but in 2010 then-president Barack Obama initiated two more comprehensive sex-education programs: Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP). These programs provided more information about sex, contraception, and reproductive health compared to abstinence-only education, which research has shown has no effect on teen birth rates. “We looked at ‘Where did this funding go? And what happens to teen birth rates in the places that it went?'” Nicholas Mark, a researcher at New York University (NYU) and lead author of the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) told AFP. Mark and his co-author, NYU professor Lawrence Wu focused on TPP, because this program’s funding was allocated at the county rather than state level. This made it possible to draw comparisons between counties of similar income and poverty levels. The researchers had access to public data on which counties received TPP funding, and a restricted birth certificate database that gave them birth rates in counties, as well as allowing them to capture the age of mothers at the time of birth and where they lived. They examined teenage birth rates in 55 US counties from 1996-2009, the years before they received TPP funding, and during the years they received this funding, 2010-2016. They also compared the birth rates in those 55 counties to more than 2,800 counties without the funding in the years before and after TPP was implemented. This method allowed them to make the truest comparison possible, by disentangling the specific impact of the sex education program from an overall trend of declining teen birth rates in recent years. Birth rates among 14 to 19 year olds in counties that received TPP funding dropped by approximately three percent in the years studied — both compared to the period before they received funding, and compared to unfunded counties. The paper is the first national effort to study the question, and its methods demonstrated cause-and-effect, rather than simply correlation, according to the authors. Support for comprehensive sex education versus abstinence-only teaching remains a fault line in the country’s ongoing culture wars. The administration of former president Donald Trump attempted to reallocate funding back towards abstinence programs, but faced opposition in court by the reproductive health group Planned Parenthood. Many teen pregnancies and subsequent births are unwanted by the mothers, and therefore can be affected by access to abortion. The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon be poised to overturn the ruling that made abortion a constitutional right in the United States 50 years ago, paving the way for state-level bans. View the full article

Published by Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) – A judge said on Monday he will dismiss a defamation lawsuit by Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate, against The New York Times. Palin sued over a June 2017 editorial that incorrectly linked her to a January 2011 mass shooting where six people died and Democratic U.S. congresswoman Gabby Giffords was seriously wounded. Here is a look at 10 key moments from the trial, which began on Feb. 3. *During his opening statement, Palin’s lawyer Shane Vogt told jurors that his client was fighting an “uphill battle” to show the editorial reflected the Times’ knowledge it was false and its “history of bias” toward her and other Republicans. *Times lawyer David Axelrod countered in his opening statement that the editorial sought to hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible for inflammatory rhetoric, and said the newspaper acted “as quickly as possible” to correct its mistake. *Palin testified on the fifth and sixth days of the trial. She told the jury she felt “powerless” after the editorial was published, likening herself to the biblical underdog David. “I wanted to raise my head and try to get the word out that there were untruths printed once again,” Palin said. “I knew I was up against Goliath, and I felt collectively the people were David, that I was David.” *Palin also described her suffering following the editorial. “It’s hard to lay your head on a pillow and have a restful night when you know that lies are told about you, a specific lie that was not going to be fixed,” she said. “That causes some stress that anyone would feel.” *The former New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet testified on the fourth and fifth days of the trial. He said he did not mean to cause Palin harm, and that the Times moved quickly to correct the editorial. “We don’t promise to be perfect, we promise to try our damnedest to be perfect, and when we’re not, we try to fix it,” he said. *Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times columnist, testified that he had emailed Bennet less than an hour after the editorial was published that it appeared without basis to link Palin to the Giffords shooting. “If there was a correction that needed to be made, the sooner the better,” he said. *Linda Cohn, a now-retired Times editor, testified that Bennet was initially surprised after the editorial was published that some readers were upset with its wording. “There was a general sense of ‘oh no,'” she said. *Kenneth Turkel, another lawyer for Palin, in his closing argument accused the Times and Bennet of turning a “blind eye” to the facts, and essentially accusing Palin of inciting the murder of six people. “All they had to do is care the slightest bit,” he said. “All they had to do is dislike her a little less, and we’re not sitting here today.” *Turkel also noted that Palin had withstood many attacks in the nine years since she had entered the national spotlight, something that Palin acknowledged in her own testimony came with the territory. “She’s got thick skin,” Turkel said. “This one crossed the line.” -Axelrod said in his closing argument that no one criticized Palin over the editorial, undermining her claim that the editorial hurt her reputation. He labeled the error an “honest mistake” several times. “The evidence does not support branding him (Bennet) with a scarlet ‘D’ for defamation for the rest of his life,” Axelrod said. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman) View the full article

Published by Radar Online mega The anti-vaccine blowhards at Fox News are allegedly using their soapbox to encourage American style ‘Freedom Convey’ like the economically crippling blockade that nearly bought Canada to its knees, media experts charge. In fact, Radar has learned New York State troopers are currently being deployed to the Canadian border near Niagara Falls and Montreal areas to head off any attempt by American truckers to logjam the crossings. “Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity have been cheering it on and those are the two most watch personalities on planet earth,” a source told Radar. “They like anything that makes [President] Biden look stupid even if it’s destructive to America. It’s scorched earth policy.” “What’s crazy is that the Canadian truckers were like a fringe of a fringe, and they are getting all this international attention and now apparently they’ve inspired other people in the United States to do the same thing!” mega “The troopers want to make sure that our side of the border doesn’t get clogged up.” The two-week long Freedom Convoy demonstration in Ottawa by up to 8,000 protesters eventually led to the blockade of the economically vital Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor. The traffic trick disrupted and estimated $360 million in vital business supplies – DAILY! The auto industry swallowed nearly $1 billion in losses because they couldn’t receive parts, according to data from a research firm obtained by Yahoo Finance. Leading the charge for the Canadian protestors was Fox News, according to the Toronto Star who complained about the cheerleading “media personalities” south of the border pouring gasoline on the fire and encouraging the mayhem. mega “The website of Fox News’ Sean Hannity blasted out a story this week with the headline “TRUCK YEAH: Canada Forms Freedom Convoy of 10K Trucks to Protest Vax Mandates, ‘Overreach is Over,’” the Jan. 28 article states. As the Canadian’s police moved in to bust up the protest big-mouth Carlson slammed the move claiming the truckers are being treated like a “terror group.” “This is a peaceful, political protest. No one has shown any evidence to the contrary. It’s not a drug trafficking or human trafficking operation. It’s not Al Qaeda,” Carlson said on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. “These are Canadian citizens who drive trucks for a living, but they’re being treated like a terror group.” mega As the Canadian clamped down on the protesters – American truckers and those who walk lockstep with Fox’s right-wing views were plotting a similar Freedom Convey. Hundreds of protestors and dozens of vehicles gathered at the Peace Bridge near Buffalo, New York to support the Canadian Freedom Convoy by honking their horns and holding American flags on one banner stating: “my body, my choice” and “do not comply.” There is also a grassroots plot for a coast-to-coast Freedom Convoy from California to Washington D.C. to voice their opposition to vaccine and mask mandates. mega Jane Hall, an American University communications professor and former Fox contributor, says Fox News “is naturally going to pick this up” because it caters to their anti-vax demographic. View the full article

Published by AFP Zachary Horwitz promised healthy returns on investments, but was running a giant ponzi scheme and using the cash to fund a lavish lifestyle Los Angeles (AFP) – An American actor who swindled $650 million in a huge Hollywood ponzi scheme, using it to finance a lavish lifestyle of yachts, jets and fast cars, was jailed Monday for 20 years. Zachary Horwitz created fake contracts that he told investors were with HBO and Netflix to trick them into handing over vast sums of money, which he splurged on private flights, top-of-the-range autos and a luxury Los Angeles mansion, complete with a wine cellar. “Horwitz portrayed himself as a Hollywood success story,” prosecutors said, according to the Department of Justice. “He branded himself as an industry player, who… leveraged his relationships with online streaming platforms like HBO and Netflix to sell them foreign film distribution rights at a steady premium. “But, as his victims came to learn, (Horwitz) was not a successful businessman or Hollywood insider. He just played one.” Horwitz, who acted in small-time horror films under the name Zach Avery, told investors he was buying foreign distribution rights for US movies, and then selling them to streaming platforms. The 35-year-old gave each victim a note promising a handsome profit six or 12 months later. Over seven years he kept the scheme going by using new investors’ money to repay the old ones. By the time it all fell apart, more than $230 million had vanished. He admitted security fraud in October, and acknowledged that he had never bought any film rights, or secured any distribution contracts. It would be “difficult to conceive a white-collar crime more egregious,” prosecutors said in a memo to the judge, noting he started his life of crime by swindling university friends, according to the Los Angeles Times. “He began by betraying the trust of his own friends, people who lowered their guard because they could not possibly imagine that someone they had known for years would unflinchingly swindle them and their families out of their life savings,” they wrote. Horwitz was jailed for 20 years, and ordered by Judge Mark Scarsito to repay $230 million to his victims. View the full article

Published by Reuters (Note offensive language in paragraphs 10, 15.) By Rich McKay and Brad Brooks BRUNSWICK, Ga. (Reuters) – A federal prosecutor in Georgia said on Monday that three white men on trial for hate crimes in the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, had a long history of using racial epithets and undoubtedly killed him because of his race. Arbery did nothing to deserve his fate, Barbara Bernstein, deputy chief of the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, told the U.S. District Court in the coastal town of Brunswick in her opening statement. Gregory McMichael, 66, his son Travis McMichael, 36, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, were convicted last year of shooting dead Arbery after chasing him in pickup trucks through their mostly white neighborhood because they wrongly suspected he may have been guilty of a crime. Unlike last year’s state trial, the federal hate-crimes trial will focus more squarely on the motive for the killing and whether the defendants targeted Arbery because he was Black, as the prosecution alleges. Arbery’s killing was one of several murders of Black men and women, often at the hands of police, that helped spark recent racial justice protests around the world. The federal trial of Arbery’s killers is one of the first in which those who carried out a high-profile killing are facing a jury in a hate-crime trial. “Most of this trial will be about why the defendants did what they did,” Bernstein said. Bernstein said if Arbery, an avid runner, had been white, he would have been able to go for an afternoon jog unmolested and “been home in time for Sunday supper.” “Instead, he went out for a jog, and ended up running for his life. Instead, he ended up bleeding to death, alone and scared, in the middle of the street,” she told the court. As Bernstein talked to the jury, Arbery’s parents sat in the front of the public gallery looking somber and shaking a little. His father, Marcus Arbery, sighed as Ahmaud Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, put her arm on Marcus Arbery’s shoulders. Bernstein cited several messages posted on Facebook and elsewhere in which all three men used racial epithets. She especially highlighted the words of Travis McMichael – who shot Arbery – who she said had made violent and racist statements on social media, including calling Black people “monkeys” and “subhuman savages.” He had also told a friend that he was glad to have left the Coast Guard because he no longer had to work with or be around Black people, she added. She said the jury would hear from a witness how Gregory McMichael “went on a racist rant about Black people.” Bernstein said Bryan used a racial epithet in an online post after learning four days before Arbery’s death that his daughter was dating a Black man. USING THE N-WORD Defense attorneys for the three men said in their opening statements that they found their clients’ use of racial epithets deeply offensive, but emphasized it was no reason to convict them. They said the men were not motivated by Arbery’s race. “I can’t stand before you and say my client has never used the ‘N-word’,” said Amy Copeland, the attorney for Travis McMichael. “He did. He left a digital footprint over several years.” But Copeland said Travis McMichael had chiefly been concerned with cases of theft that had left his neighborhood on high alert when he decided to chase down Arbery. Trial experts told Reuters that the challenge for the prosecutors will be to back up the evidence of racist utterances with evidence that on the day of the shooting the three men were motivated by racial animus. The court is scheduled to hear from Special Agent Richard Dial of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who has previously testified that Bryan told his office that Travis McMichael uttered a racial slur as Arbery lay dying. Bryan’s attorney, Pete Theodocion, tried to distance his client from the McMichaels, saying that when he joined the McMichaels in chasing Arbery he assumed “he (Arbery) did something wrong, but not because of his race.” Travis McMichael said at a hearing last month that he was willing to plead guilty to attacking Arbery because of his “race and color” after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors. But he changed his mind after Judge Lisa Wood rejected the agreement, saying she could not accept it because it bound her to sentencing McMichael to 30 years in federal prison before he was handed back to the state of Georgia to serve out the rest of his life sentence for murder. She said she needed more information to know whether a 30-year sentence was just, and cited emotional testimony from Arbery’s family. (Reporting by Rich McKay in Brunswick, Georgia, and Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas; Editing by Ross Colvin, Alistair Bell and Matthew Lewis) View the full article

Published by Reuters By Karen Freifeld NEW YORK (Reuters) – The accounting firm that handled Donald Trump’s company’s financial statements dropped it as a client and said it could no longer stand behind a decade of statements, a court filing showed on Monday. Mazars USA, in a Feb. 9 letter made public on Monday, told the Trump Organization, the former president’s New York-based real estate business, that its financial statements for 2011 through 2020 should no longer be relied on. The disclosure was made as part of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil investigation into the Trump Organization, which could result in financial penalties. That probe partially overlaps a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney, which James joined in May, into the company’s practices. Mazars said it had based its conclusion on a January filing by the New York attorney general, its own investigation and information from internal and external sources. “While we have not concluded that the various financial statements, as a whole, contain material discrepancies, based upon the totality of the circumstances we believe our advice to you to no longer rely upon those financial statements is appropriate,” Mazars said in the letter addressed to the chief legal officer at the Trump Organization, Alan Garten. In the letter, filed in New York state court, Mazars said that it had “performed its work in accordance with professional standards.” The accounting firm also said it would no longer work for the Trump Organization. New York state’s attorney general has accused the Trump Organization of repeatedly misrepresenting the value of its assets to obtain financial benefits. A Trump Organization spokesperson said in a statement the company is “disappointed that Mazars has chosen to part ways.” But the spokesperson added the letter confirms that “Mazars’ work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles” and that the statements of financial condition “do not contain any material discrepancies.” The New York attorney general filed the Mazars letter in support of its efforts to compel the production of outstanding documents from Trump and his company as well as testimony by him and two of his adult children, Donald Trump Jr. And Ivanka Trump. In a memorandum also filed on Monday, the attorney general noted media reports that Trump had destroyed documents covered by the Presidential Records Act and wants him to supply a sworn statement on whether the files produced for her probe are complete and how they may have been destroyed and by whom. Trump has decried the probe as political. In Monday’s filing, James’ office said the accounting firm’s statement and actions further supported the legitimacy of the investigation. James has been investigating whether the Trumps inflated real estate values to obtain bank loans, and reduced values to lower tax bills. In one example, she said Trump’s annual financial statements said an apartment he personally owned in Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet(2,787 square meters), when it was in fact a third that size. Neither Trump nor his children have been accused of criminal wrongdoing. (Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Scott Malone, Grant McCool and Sandra Maler) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes are reportedly set to host the 2022 Academy Awards. The prestigious ceremony hasn’t had a host for the past three years since Jimmy Kimmel in 2018, while last year’s event featured plenty of stars at the helm throughout the night rather than one designated host. Now, Variety reports that the trio are in final talks to front the Oscars, with each star responsible for one hour of the three-hour show on March 27. ‘Girls Trip’ producer Will Packer is producing this year’s event, and Hall has worked with him in the past on the likes of ‘Little’ and ‘Think Like A Man’. Meanwhile, Schumer and Sykes both have a connection to ABC – the broadcaster for the ceremony – with the former’s series ‘Life Beth’ heading to Hulu, which is owned by ABC’s parent company Disney. Meanwhile, Sykes appears in ABC series ‘Black-ish’. It’s said the trio will be officially unveiled on Tuesday’s episode (15.02.22) of ‘Good Morning America’. While the trio – and the Academy – are yet to comment on the news, Schumer shared an Instagram slideshow of some of her career highlights on Sunday (13.02.22). She wrote: “Big fun news comin’.” The ceremony has not had a presenter since Kevin Hart stood down from hosting in 2019 after homophobic jokes that he had previously posted on social media resurfaced. He previously admitted he wished he had handled the controversy surrounding his past homophobic tweets differently, and confessed there was a “big gap” between what he thought the problem was and what had actually upset people. He said: “I’m a firm believer in laying in the bed that you made. If there’s something that you did, then you did it. You know, there’s no wiggle room around it. You can address it, and then you can move on. “With the whole Oscars thing, there was a big gap between what I thought the problem was versus what the problem really was. “I got 10 years where I made sure not to joke or play in the way that I did back then because it was a problem. I don’t care if you’re gay or not gay. I’m a people person. I’m going to love you regardless.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Prince Harry’s tell-all book will “shake the monarchy to its core”, his friends have said. The Duke of Sussex is set to publicly reveal details about his relationship with the royal family in a new memoir due to be published later this year, and friends of Harry have hinted that the world can expect some explosive revelations. They told the Daily Mirror newspaper: “If they think he’s gone soft, they are mistaken. Just wait for the book to come out because that will shake the monarchy to the core.” Harry – who stepped down as a senior member of the royal family and relocated to the US alongside his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex in 2020 – will collaborate with JR Moehringer in what has been described as “the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him”. Friends of the 37-year-old royal have suggested that the memoir will touch on Harry and his brother Prince William’s relationship with their stepmother Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall – who is set to become Queen Consort when Prince Charles accedes to the throne. They said: “Although tensions have eased between two of them over the years, it was more for a show of unity than a close relationship. “There were big problems at the start but as Harry and his brother William aged and matured, things got better and they can now co-exist as adults.” Friends of Harry – who shares children Archie, two, and Lilibet, eight months, with Meghan – added: “He has got lots to say. People think he’s keeping a low profile to respect the family but it’s not that. “He’s writing a book. He’s got a multi-million-pound book deal and he’s keeping a lot of his opinions for that. The memoir deal states that it should include personal details of personal and family arrangements. “And it will be a really intimate take on his feelings about his family and what has gone in the breakdown of the relationship.” View the full article

Published by DPA Why say the whole word? The German Bratwurst is simply called “brat” in US restaurants. Daniel Karmann/dpa A man in a Brooklyn restaurant orders a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, perhaps the pinnacle of European winemaking, a full-bodied and complex wine. “Cab Sav, you got it,” says the waitress. These days in the US, the first syllable of the word is enough to convey your meaning, as a glance at a menu will show. There’s Guac for Mexican guacamole. There’s Parm for Italian parmesan. And there’s Brat for Germany’s bratwurst. The desire for brevity can be found beyond the world of food too, with plenty of talk of the “vax,” referring to “vaccines” or “vaccination.” US talkshow host Stephen Colbert used the word in his recasting of Salt n Pepa’s famous hit, with the refrain, “Let’s talk about vax, baby.” That instinct to shorten words is not new, according to Lisa Heldke, a philosopher at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, whose focuse is on the American pragmatist tradition – and food. People use monosyllables in many settings and they are not only reducing foreign words to their first syllable, she says. “Students here call the cafeteria “the caf,” which drives our dining service director crazy.” Linguists have yet to study whether people in the US are more likely to use just the first syllable compared to other nations. But American English is known for its abbreviations – just think of “OK.” Hedke says Americans tend to abbreviate everything, or give it a nickname. Considering why people may tend to just use the first syllable of words, she suggests maybe speakers are trying to be concise. Also, there are social factors, she suggests. “I think it’s about approachability. We think of short words as ‘friendly,’ as approachable, as ‘fun,’ as ‘not snobby.’ I actually attribute it a lot to (some) Americans’ deep desire to resist anything that smacks of intellectualism,” she says. “I think it’s also about familiarity, intimacy. If I have a short nickname, it means I am close enough to that person or thing that I GET to be informal with it,” she adds. After all, people give nicknames to the things that they like. Many factors are at play, Heldke says. “I think we do tend to make the shortened forms to pronounce them in a ‘middle class white American way’.” When it comes to foreign foods such as parmesan or guacamole, maybe speakers want to suggest a relaxed attitude to what they are describing, she says. “Guac maybe isn’t exactly American, but the sounds are more ‘indigenous’ to American English than the sounds in the full word guacamole (which we also tend to pronounce in an American way, of course),” she notes. The urge towards simplicity may go back even further. People in the US were calling each other “bro” more than a century ago. But the trend may go as far back as the first lexicographer of the US. Noah Webster was the author of the 1828 dictionary popularly known as “Webster’s,” an abbreviation of the title “An American Dictionary of the English Language,” coming after his first dictionary in 1806. He sought a simpler spelling than British English and dispensed with superfluous letters, which is why in the US, people write “color” instead of “colour,” for example. He embraced non-literary terms and colloquial expressions. He sought a spirit of linguistic unity and clarity and wanted to distinguish the language so the US could assert its independence from colonializing Britain. His drive for simplicity made sense at a time when people were migrating to the US from all over the world, speaking countless languages and dialects. Historians have also argued that unlike more codified British English, in the US, people were willing to improvise. Americans were using language flexibly, speaking pidgin, borrowing from Dutch, German and other languages and creating neologisms. In 1919, HL Mencken published the first edition of “The American Language.” He sought to sum up the attitude to language, identifying a “large capacity for taking in new words and phrases” as a tendency. He also noted “its impatient disregard for grammatical, syntactical and phonological rule and precedent.” That spirit lives on. Brat, anyone? It might have a complex and beautiful sounding name in Italy, but in America, a bowl of pasta with Parmesan cheese is simply called “Parm.” Oliver Berg/dpa View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Lizzo wants to pose for Playboy. The ‘Good As Hell’ hitmaker is a big fan of the adult publication and urged Cardi B, who was named the brand’s first-ever creative director in residence in December, to get in touch to arrange for her to take part in a photoshoot. Asked if she’d ever pose for Playboy, Lizzo told TMZ: “Oh my God, tell Cardi to call me! “I love Playboy. Yeah, I’ll do it!” The 33-year-old star had earlier shared footage on TikTok of a piercing party she’d held for her team and she revealed she’d had a jewellery inserted in an intimate area of her body. She said: “I have so many piercings right now, I never thought I’d be this girl! “You can’t see my coochie, I can’t show you. I can’t show you! I can’t show TMZ my p****.” Last week, Lizzo shared a nude photo of herself on Instagram as she reflected on having “unconditional” love for herself. She wrote: “If you love me… you love all of me. You don’t get to pick and choose. We should be unconditionally loving of one another, starting with being unconditionally loving to ourselves. Take a moment today and think about the conditions we cling to. Free yourself in love. You deserve it.” The ‘Truth Hurts’ singer previously praised Cardi – who was a stripper before finding musical success – as a game-changer for female artists following their collaboration on ‘Rumors’. She said: “Cardi B is the ultimate. She, to me, has always done it right. “Everything that she said, every way that she’s reacted because you know why? It’s because she was true to herself the whole time. She’s a ground breaker. You can’t deny her ability. She’s a superstar. “She has changed the game forever for a lot of us, a lot of women. I don’t even think she realises she’s doing it because it’s just like, I’m trying to just be successful. I’m trying to get this money. I want to live a happy life. “She just follows her heart. That’s what I love about her.” View the full article

Published by Reuters (Reuters) – The father of a teenager who was killed in Florida’s Parkland high school shooting marked the fourth anniversary of the massacre on Monday by climbing a construction crane near the White House and demanding the Biden administration take action on gun violence. Gun-control advocate Manuel Oliver unfurled a sign that read “45K people died from gun violence on your watch” above a picture of his son Joaquin Oliver. The teenager was among 17 people killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the deadliest high school shooting in the United States. “The whole world will listen to Joaquin today. He has a very important message,” Oliver said in a video he posted on Twitter as he wore a helmet and safety gear from atop the 150-foot (46 m) crane as police officers watched below. Oliver added that he has yet to get a meeting he had requested with President Joe Biden. Biden said in a statement on Monday that his administration has working to reduce gun crime by curbing the number of untraceable guns, cracking down on gun dealers who violate the law and promoting safe firearm storage. “As we remember those lost in Parkland, we also stand with Americans in every corner of our country who have lost loved ones to gun violence or had their lives forever altered by a shooting,” he said. The accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was a former student who had been expelled from Parkland. He opened fire on Feb. 14, 2018, with an AR-15-style rifle inside the South Florida high school, killing 14 students and three staff members and injuring 17 others. Cruz pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. A jury will decide if he faces the death penalty or spends the rest of his life in prison without parole during a sentencing trial starting in April. Like many other Parkland parents and students, Oliver has become a vocal advocate against gun violence since the shooting, calling on federal lawmakers to address the issue. The 54-year-old artist has also traveled across the country, building “Walls of Demand” murals in honor of his son. “As we mark this day of solemn remembrance, and every day, let us renew our commitment to ending the horrors of gun violence, restoring safety to our schools, workplaces and houses of worship,” U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. (Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega While this year’s Super Bowl was full of surprises, perhaps one of the biggest was Eminem kneeling down on one knee following his halftime show performance. While the simple move has a history of being controversial, the National Football League was apparently aware that it was coming. According to the New York Times, the NFL was aware the 49-year-old rapper was going to take a knee after singing his hit song Lose Yourself because he did just that after each rehearsal in preparation for the gig. Although the halftime show was comprised of five of the biggest hip-hop artists – plus a surprise appearance from 50 Cent to make six – Eminem arguably made the biggest statement when he knelt down and put his hand to his head. Mega The NFL partnered with Jay-Z’s entertainment company Roc Nation in 2019, and the football league’s mission was to reportedly “amplify the league’s social justice efforts.” Prior to that, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick came under fire for taking a knee during a pre-game national anthem to protest and bring awareness to racial inequality. Now, many are speculating that Eminem’s taking a knee was, like Kaepernick, to bring awareness to social justice efforts. But while Kaepernick was arguably penalized for taking a knee, Eminem was not, and a spokesperson representing the league stated on Sunday that NFL officials were well aware of the rapper’s plan because the league’s officials “watched it during rehearsals” prior to the actual performance. Mega As Radar recently reported, Eminem was one of the five scheduled artists to perform during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show. Besides the Venom rapper, who took a knee, the other performers included Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Mary J. Blige. During a recent interview, Blige revealed that the halftime show performers don’t get compensated for their acts. Mega “I mean, listen, you’re going to be paid for the rest of your life off of this,” the singer said after being asked about the lack of pay. “People are going to be knocking at your door. They don’t have to pay me…but if they were paying, it’d be a lot of money.” View the full article

Published by Reuters (Corrects paragraph 22 to show Lake was an anchor for a local Fox affiliate, not Fox News) By Ted Hesson and Alexandra Ulmer WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In the past year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the southern U.S. border, begun building a new border barrier, and arrested migrants for allegedly trespassing on private property. The two-term Republican governor has taken the lead in opposing Democratic President Joe Biden’s immigration reforms, earning him an endorsement by former President Donald Trump. But as Abbott runs for a third term, conservative candidates challenging him in a March 1 Republican nominating contest contend he is still not tough enough on illegal immigration. Allen West, a former Republican U.S. congressman, says Texas should arrest and deport immigrants who enter the United States illegally – something states do not have the power to do – if the federal government refuses to act. The “porous border” shows how Abbott’s approach has failed, West argues. Don Huffines, a businessman and former state senator, wants to close Texas’ bridges with Mexico to most inbound traffic and deploy the entirety of the state’s National Guard to the border. Abbott spokesperson Renae Eze rejected criticism of the governor’s immigration record, saying that Texas had been forced to step up after Biden “abdicated” his responsibilities to safeguard the border. While opinion polls show Abbott has a sizable lead over both West and Huffines, he will likely face the most competitive gubernatorial primary of his career. The attacks from his right flank show how even the staunchest Republican border hawks face pressure to be ever more stringent on the issue in the run-up to the election. Trump rewrote the party’s immigration playbook after he successfully campaigned in 2016 on building a border wall and blocking the entry of refugees, often employing nativist language to describe his goals. The current election cycle shows Trump’s influence persists even after losing the presidency in 2020 – and that some candidates are going further. “No issue grabs the attention of Republicans like immigration and border security do,” said James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. Republican primary voters have a seemingly “unlimited appetite” for tough immigration measures, Henson added. CALLS FOR MORE ACTION Some 68% of Republicans in Texas say border security or immigration are the top issues facing the state, according to an October 2021 University of Texas poll. And while Republicans broadly approve of Abbott’s immigration policies, according to surveys, the polling suggests they want even more action. The tougher border proposals pushed by Abbott’s challengers demonstrate how Republican candidates are trying to out-Trump each other on an issue that remains a powerful galvanizing force for the party’s primary voters, despite economic issues and tensions around COVID policies dominating headlines. And for Republicans in competitive primaries, a tough stance on immigration is a way to differentiate themselves without risking backlash from voters, said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. Republicans across the country have made immigration a major focus heading into the Nov. 8 congressional election, where Democrats risk losing control of Congress, stymieing Biden’s legislative agenda. Candidates can tap into voter outrage over record-high attempted border crossings and the cost of providing public services to migrants, a message amplified by the country’s popular conservative media like Fox News. Liberal advocacy groups say Republicans are demonizing migrants who come to the United States seeking refuge, distorting the economic effects of immigration, and trying to capitalize on xenophobic fears over the fate of the country’s white majority. ‘EVERY STATE IS A BORDER STATE’ As Republican candidates work to burnish their hardline immigration credentials, some are turning to Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s restrictive immigration agenda. Miller is formally advising Republican hedge fund CEO David McCormick in his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania and informally speaking with other candidates, he told Reuters. McCormick last week visited the Arizona town of Yuma near the Mexican border – some 2,400 miles (3,900 km) from Pennsylvania’s capital Harrisburg. “Every state is a border state when Joe Biden and his administration incentivize illegal immigration,” he said in a written statement. In Arizona, Kari Lake, the Trump-endorsed Republican frontrunner for governor, agrees with Texas’ border crackdown but has vowed to go further. Lake, a former anchor at a local Fox affiliate in Arizona, wants to forge an alliance among like-minded states to deport immigrants in the United States illegally, which is a federal responsibility. Some Republican primary candidates are even taking aim at legal immigration, once a major plank of the party’s pro-business stance. “We need to have a full immigration moratorium,” said Trump-endorsed Joe Kent, an Army veteran running in a Washington state primary against U.S. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler. Kent says too many tech jobs are being taken by H-1B visa holders, a skilled-worker program whose recipients are majority Indian. It remains to be seen if enough voters will back the hardliners. Lake narrowly leads the field of Republican candidates for Arizona governor. McCormick entered the race for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania about a month ago and public polling has yet to gauge his standing. Analysts say Washington’s voting system, where candidates of all parties appear on the primary ballot together and the top two vote-winners advance to the general, will favor moderates like Herrera Beutler. Nonetheless, NumbersUSA, a hawkish advocacy group that pushes for lower levels of immigration, said it had received more responses than usual to an election-year survey it conducts among candidates to rate them on their hardline immigration stances – suggesting candidates are eager to establish their Trump-esque credentials. “A couple years ago it used to be, ‘Legal immigration good, illegal immigration bad.’ That used to be the Republican mantra,” said Deputy Director Chris Chmielenski. “You’re starting to see less of that.” (This story corrects paragraph 22 to show Lake was an anchor for a local Fox affiliate, not Fox News) (Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington and Alexandra Ulmer in San Francisco; Editing by Ross Colvin and Rosalba O’Brien) View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Whoopi Goldberg has returned to ‘The View’ after a two week suspension. The 66-year-old actress had been suspended from her presenting role after claiming during a debate that the Holocaust was “not about race” and noted in her opening speech on her return to the talk show that it was “marvellous” to be back. She said: “Hello, hello, hello and welcome to The View. And yes, I am back. I missed you all. I got to tell you, there’s something kind of marvellous about being on a show like this because we are The View and this is what we do.” The ‘Sister Act’ star then went on to seemingly acknowledge her ill-received comments about the Holocaust by stating that debates on the show are not always handled as “eloquently” as they could be. She added: “Sometimes we don’t do this as eloquently as we could.” Whoopi – who was joined on her return to the ABC panel show by Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin and guest host Ana Navarro – had initially apologised for her comments on the following episode of the show just before she was landed with a two-week suspension. She told viewers: “I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined because my words upset so many people, which was never my intention. And I understand why now, and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and it helped me understand some different things.” Her comments were criticised by the Anti-Defamation League and the Oscar-winning actress went on to issue a separate apology to the organisation, which was accepted. Frederic L. Bloch, chief growth officer of the ADL, said in a statement: “We criticized this misinformed statement and called for Goldberg to get her facts right and apologize. She did so, and graciously invited our CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to come onto ‘The View’ to talk about the racial underpinnings of the Holocaust and the problems caused by comments like Goldberg’s. ADL has accepted her apology, as we have always known her as someone who stands up for the Jewish community. Goldberg has been suspended for two weeks by ABC News. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Nancy Lapid (Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that has yet to be certified by peer review. Previous COVID-19 less protective against Omicron variant The immune response to COVID-19 helps protect against reinfection, but that protection is weaker against Omicron than it was against earlier variants of the coronavirus, according to new data. A previous SARS-CoV-2 infection protects against Omicron reinfection only 56% of the time, researchers found in a review of national data in Qatar. Having had COVID was 90.2% effective against reinfection with the Alpha variant, 85.7% effective against a Beta variant reinfection, and 92% effective against Delta reinfection, researchers reported on Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. As was the case with reinfection due to earlier variants, however, “the protection of previous infection against hospitalization or death caused by reinfection (with Omicron) appeared to be robust,” they said. In cases of reinfection with Omicron, for example, the immune response to previous infection was 87.8% effective at preventing the second infection from progressing to severe or critical illness or death. mRNA vaccine booster protection declines within months Protection provided by booster shots of the mRNA vaccines from Moderna Inc or Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE starts waning quickly, according to data published in Friday’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Researchers reported that within two months after the second dose of an mRNA vaccine during the surge in infections caused by the Delta variant of the virus, vaccine efficacy was 94% against hospitalization and 92% against emergency department or urgent care (ED/UC) visits. Efficacy waned thereafter, but climbed to 96% and 97%, respectively, at two months after a booster shot. Four months later, however, that protection had declined to 76% and 89%. Once Omicron became predominant, vaccine efficacy was 71% against hospitalization and 69% against ED/UC visits within two months after the second dose, 91% and 87% at two months after a booster, and 78% and 66% four months later. The estimates are drawn from analyses of 241,204 COVID-related ED/UC visits and 93,408 hospitalizations between August and January. “Our findings suggest that additional doses (of vaccines) may be necessary,” Brian Dixon of the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University said in a statement. “We also found that people who are Hispanic or Black are half as likely to have a third vaccine dose than people who are white, making (them) more vulnerable to severe COVID.” For a graphic on vaccines in development: https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/VACCINE-TRACKER/xegpbqnlovq/ (Reporting by Nancy Lapid and Gene Emery; Editing by Bill Berkrot) View the full article

Published by AFP Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the megadrought ravaging the southwestern United States Paris (AFP) – The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday. Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell’s intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. “The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change,” lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote. Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking. Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate. 2021 was especially dry. As of February 10, 95 percent of western US had drought conditions, according to the US government’s Drought Monitor. Last summer, two of North America’s largest reservoirs — Lake Mead and Lake Powell — reached their lowest recorded level in more than a century. The odds are high that the current dry spell will continue for at least a couple of years, probably longer, according to the findings. Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 94 percent chance that the drought would extend through 2022. There’s a three-in-four chance it will run until the end of decade. Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts — lasting at least 19 years — between the years 800 and 1600. Chronic water scarcity Earlier research had established that the period 2000-2018 was likely the second worst drought since the year 800, topped by one in the late 1500s. Data from 2019-2021, backed by new climate models released last year, have revealed the current drought to be worse than any from the Middle Ages. But without climate change it “wouldn’t hold a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s or 1100s,” Williams said in a statement. Western North America is not the only region hit by increasingly severe dry periods. Climate change worsened the El Nino-driven droughts of 2015-2016, leading to widespread crop failures, loss of livestock, Rift Valley fever outbreaks, and increased rates of malnutrition. Globally, 800 million to three billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to drought caused by two degrees Celsius warming above preindustrial levels, according to a draft 4,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate impacts seen by AFP. In a 4C world, that figure is up to four billion people. Earth’s surface has already warmed 1.1C on average, and is almost certain to breach the 1.5C cap called for in the Paris Agreement within two decades. Other natural extreme weather events enhanced by global warming include deadly heatwaves, flood-causing rainfall and superstorms. View the full article

Published by Radar Online Mega Candian citizens aren’t the only ones backing the truckers’ “freedom convoy.” Loads of celebrities — who aren’t even Canadian — are throwing their hat in the ring. Billionaire Elon Musk, comedian Russell Brand, and right-wing Fox News host Tucker Carlson are among those with star power vocalizing about their support. Evangeline Lilly Attended D.C. Rally Where Anti-Vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Compared Vaccine Mandates To The Holocaust Mega The self-proclaimed “freedom convoy” includes thousands who are protesting vaccine mandates for truckers that were implemented last month on the US-Canadian border. Their peaceful protests have quickly gone sideways with some joining the movement while waving Confederate and Nazi flags. They not only want the vaccine mandates abolished, but they also want Canadian Prime Mister Justin Trudeau ousted from office. Taking to YouTube, Brand dropped a 14-minute video explaining why he’s backing the truckers. Calling out what he claims as hypocrisy, the British comedian said the delivery drivers have gone from being heroes during the pandemic to the bad guys who are “loathed if they won’t participate and capitulate according to the wills of the powerful.” Mega “This is precisely what people need to do. You have to work out what your objectives are, work out how you’re going to pursue it, make sure you’re ideologically sound and that your conduct is fair,” Katy Perry‘s outspoken ex-husband said about the “freedom convoy.” “We’re dealing with a pretty nefarious machine that will say anything to shut down opposition to its intentions.” As for Musk, the Telsa founder — who was born in South Africa — made his support known from the very beginning. “Canadian truckers rule,” he tweeted on January 27. He’s also been liking tweets about other countries who are stopping their mandates. Mega When it comes to Tucker, everyone knows he’s on board with the truckers’ protest. The conservative television personality is even selling t-shirts online reading, “I (heart) Truckers” instead of “I (heart) Tucker.” Thousands of truckers have been stationed in the capital city of Ottawa for more than two weeks, blocking streets, heckling citizens, honking horns at all hours of the night, and even forcing some businesses to shut down. The mayor of Ottawa has even declared a state of emergency. Besides Elon, Brand, and Tucker, another celebrity backing the truckers includes Marvel star Evangeline Lilly, who is actually Canadian. As Radar reported, the actress even attended an anti-vaxx rally last month in D.C. View the full article

Published by Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. judge on Monday threw out Sarah Palin’s lawsuit accusing the New York Times of defaming the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate by incorrectly linking her in an editorial to a mass murder. U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said he will order the dismissal of Palin’s lawsuit, but in an unusual twist will enter his order after the jury finishes its own deliberations. Rakoff said he expected Palin to appeal, and that the appeals court “would greatly benefit from knowing how the jury would decide it.” The judge’s order effectively preempted a potential jury verdict to the contrary, in a case seen as a test of longstanding protections for American media. Jurors began deliberating on Friday and resumed their work on Monday. They are not being told about the judge’s ruling, and will continue deliberations. Palin, 58, had sued the newspaper – one of America’s most prominent media organizations – and its former editorial page editor James Bennet, arguing that a 2017 editorial incorrectly linked her to a mass shooting six years earlier that wounded Democratic U.S. congresswoman Gabby Giffords. It is rare for a major media outlet to defend its editorial practices in court, as the Times had to do in this case. Palin had sought unspecified monetary damages. Palin had said that if she lost at trial, her appeal might challenge New York Times v. Sullivan, the 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision establishing the “actual malice” standard for public figures to prove defamation. The lawsuit concerned a June 14, 2017, editorial headlined “America’s Lethal Politics,” that addressed gun control and lamented the rise of incendiary political rhetoric. It was written the same day as a shooting at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia where Republican U.S. congressman Steve Scalise was wounded. One of Bennet’s colleagues prepared a draft that referred to the January 2011 shooting in a Tucson, Arizona, parking lot where six people were killed and Giffords was wounded. Bennet inserted language that said “the link to political incitement was clear” between the Giffords shooting and a map previously circulated by Palin’s political action committee that the draft editorial said put Giffords and 19 other Democrats under crosshairs. On the witness stand, Palin compared herself, a celebrated conservative politician with a national following, to the biblical underdog David against the Times’ Goliath, while accusing the newspaper of trying to “score political points.” Palin testified that the editorial left her feeling “powerless” and “mortified,” and that the correction issued by the newspaper the morning after publication was accurate but insufficient and did not mention her by name. She maintained that the Times undermined her reputation by falsely linking her to a mass murder and by not being fast or thorough enough in correcting its error. Palin, who no longer commands as much public attention as she once did, struggled under cross-examination to provide specific examples about how the editorial harmed her reputation and cost her opportunities. (Reporting by Jody Godoy and Jonathan Stempel in New York;Editing by Will Dunham and Noeleen Walder) View the full article

Published by Hong Kong Free Press Hong Kong Gay Games founder and leader Dennis Philipse has announced that he is stepping down, citing “continuing uncertainty” over the city’s international travel regulations during the Covid-19 pandemic. In a statement issued on Monday, the Gay Games 11 Hong Kong (GGHK) co-chair said it was time for him to resume his professional career, after the event, which was originally scheduled for November this year, was postponed to 2023 owing to the city’s pandemic-related travel rules. Philipse served the organisation for seven years and worked as a full-time volunteer since 2020. Originally from … Read More View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Grindr has limited the visibility of Olympic athlete users in an attempt to protect their privacy. The location-based gay dating app – which has around 13 million monthly users – has an ‘Explore’ feature, which allows for the tracking of any location in the world, but the feature has been modified to exclude profiles logging in from the Olympic Village. Grindr boss Jack Harrison-Quintana said in a statement: “We want Grindr to be a space where all queer athletes, regardless of where they’re from, feel confident connecting with one another while they’re in the Olympic Village.” While users staying in the Olympic Village – which is an is an accommodation centre built for the Olympic Games set up in the hosting city, the next of which will be Paris in 2024 – will be able to browse nearby profiles, but the new privacy setting will prevent the athletes from unwanted exposure. Users logging in to Grindr from the Olympic Village will be told: “Your privacy is important to us. Our Explore feature has been disabled in the Olympic Village so that people outside your immediate area can’t browse here.” It comes just one month after Grindr removed itself from Apple’s App Store in China, citing a new privacy law was the reason behind their decision, despite initial reports it was due to views on homosexuality in China. In a statement, a Grindr spokesperson said :”We’ve chosen to remove our app from the app store in China due to the potential increased burden from China’s recently implemented Personal Information Protection Law. We may revisit this in the future.” View the full article