RadioRob

Published by BANG Showbiz English 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.” View the full article

Published by AFP In this file illustration photo taken in August 2021, the Facebook logo is seen on a smartphone in front of a computer screen in Los Angeles 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. View the full article

Published by Reuters 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.) View the full article

Published by AFP Scientists fear the triggering of invisible climate tripwires known at tipping points 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. Why are we hearing about them now? – 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. View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English 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.” View the full article

Published by DPA A meme a day keeps the therapist away. This could be the lesson of fresh research into the impact of humorous content from social media during the pandemic. Fabian Sommer/dpa 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.” View the full article

Published by Reuters By Paul Sandle and Kate Holton LONDON (Reuters) – Facebook will fuel more violent unrest around the world because of the way its algorithms are designed to promote divisive content, whistleblower Frances Haugen told the British parliament on Monday. Haugen, a former product manager on Facebook’s civic misinformation team who has turned whistleblower, appeared before a parliamentary select committee in Britain that is examining plans to regulate social media companies. She said the social network saw safety as a cost centre, lionised a start-up culture where cutting corners was good, and said it was “unquestionably” making hate worse. “The events we’re seeing around the world, things like Myanmar and Ethiopia, those are the opening chapters because engagement-based ranking does two things: one, it prioritises and amplifies divisive and polarising extreme content and two it concentrates it,” she said. Facebook declined to provide any immediate comment in response to Haugen’s appearance at the parliamentary committee. Haugen in October told a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing that Facebook had devised ways to keep users scrolling even if it was detrimental to their wellbeing, putting profit before people. She also said she provided the documents used in a Wall Street Journal investigation and a Senate hearing on Instagram’s harm to teenage girls. She compared the platform to addictive substances such as tobacco and opioids. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has hit back against Haugen’s accusations, saying earlier this month: “The argument that we deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical.” BRITISH INTERIOR MINISTER SEEKS TOUGHER LAWS Before Monday’s hearing, Haugen met the country’s interior minister, Priti Patel, who advocates tougher legislation for tech platforms that fail to keep users safe. Haugen is scheduled to speak at a major tech conference, the Web Summit, next week and in Brussels to European policymakers. “Facebook has been unwilling to accept even little slivers of profit being sacrificed for safety, and that’s not acceptable,” she said on Monday, singling out Instagram’s impact on the mental health of some young users. Britain is bringing forward laws that could fine social media companies up to 10% of their turnover if they fail to remove or limit the spread of illegal content, such as child sexual abuse. Platforms such as Facebook will also need to do more to protect children from exposure to grooming, bullying and pornography, the government has said. Reuters, along with other news organisations, viewed documents released to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Congress by Haugen. They showed Facebook had known that it hadn’t hired enough workers who possessed both the language skills and knowledge of local events needed to identify objectionable posts from users in a number of developing countries. (Editing by Keith Weir and Barbara Lewis) View the full article

Published by Reuters 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) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Alec Baldwin‘s prop gun – believed to be a vintage Colt pistol – that robbed the life of cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, this week was reportedly also used recreationally offset by crew members. The gun was one of many weapons on set and operated in a previous scene without causing any incident. MEGA An insider from the movie’s production revealed crew members had allegedly used the Colt pistol for “target practice” with real bullets outside of filming. This could add up to the story of how the gun reportedly contained a “live round” during the fatal shooting in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Presumably, to get to the bottom of investigations, the cops would want to find out who had used the firearm for said purpose and who was responsible for returning it, among other weapons used for the filming. As Radar previously reported, Alec pulled the trigger of a gun handed to him while being on the set of his upcoming new movie and accidentally shot Halyna and the film director Joel Souza. Authorities were called out to the scene at the Bonanza Creek Ranch on Thursday afternoon and confirmed the incident. MEGA According to officials, “two individuals were shot” by a prop firearm “discharged by Alec Baldwin.” Hutchin was transported via helicopter to the University of New Mexico, where she was “pronounced dead by medical personnel.” Meanwhile, Souza was taken via ambulance to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical center to treat his injuries. Following the tragedy, the production was halted immediately, and police started to launch an investigation, including issuing search warrants for the ranch. Souza’s representatives later announced he was released from the hospital Friday morning. The head armorer Hannah Reed admitted during a podcast interview last month claiming she was “nervous” to take the job for the movie and doubted her capabilities. “I was really nervous about it at first, and I almost didn’t take the job because I wasn’t sure if I was ready,” she confessed. “But doing it, it went really smoothly.” Baldwin expressed his “sadness” and revealed he was “heartbroken” for Hutchins’ family following the deadly incident. He also issued astatement via Twitter saying he is “cooperating with the police investigation” and “in touch with her [Hutchins] husband, offering my support to him and his family.” MEGA Officials said they’re “trying to determine right now how and what type of projectile was used in the firearm” therefore, the case remains “open and active” for investigation. View the full article

Published by AFP Former U.S. President Barack Obama urged Virginia residents to vote for the democratic candidate in the gubernatorial race 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.” View the full article

Published by Radar Online Boosie has gone too far and soon will have to be sorry for making such vile homophobic comments against rapperLil Nas X as well as suggesting him to commit suicide in their latest feud. The verbal attack started after Lil Nas was joking about making a new song with Boosie. MEGA On Saturday, Boosie went on a homophobic tirade after finding out the Grammy winner trolled his fans with a harmless claim, saying he’s been working on a song with “Lil Boosie” via Instagram Live. The older but lesser-known rapper then shocked the internet, spewing such horrendous remarks against Lil Nas, calling him the F-gay slur. “STOP TROLLING ME FA—T LOL!! U A WHOLE BITCH PLAYING WITH A GANGSTA SMH U CAN KEEP SUCKING D— N GETTING F—ED N YOUR A– N PEACE N #uhateyourself I WOULD TOO IF I WAS YOU LOL,” he tweeted. As if the disgusting comments weren’t enough, Boosie continued his insensitive rant with an alarming suggestion, callously asking for Lil Nas to kill himself. “NASx IF YOU #commitsuicide YOU WOULD DO THIS WORLD A HUGE FAVOR NOBODY WANTS U HERE,” he wrote. His unhinged words have made the internet go wild, with users pointing out the hate speech contains unacceptable and dangerous elements to society. Actress Tyla Harris wrote on Instagram, saying, “It will always and forever be disgusting to use suicide as an insult. Add insult to injury, suicide is one of the top three causes of death in African American children 10-19. Going this hard for what?” MEGA Another user suggested that Boosie seems to be projecting a “deeper” issue he’s experiencing within himself. “This response is evidence that his issue is waaaay deeper than Lil Nas X,” she shared. However, Boosie’s response shouldn’t come as a surprise. Radar previously reported he once had defended his disgraced rapper friend DaBabywho had made such disparaging comments against the LGBTQ community. This is also not the first time Boosie had attacked Lil Nas via social media. In July, the 38-year-old rapper told his fans on Instagram, “Everybody not with they nephew sucking d–k. Everybody not with that s–t. You just can’t put that s–t on everybody and expect to be cool.” “Now, as X say, he gon’ perform naked on stage for charity,” he continued. “You don’t f–k with him like you f–k with DaBaby! Be even sided, man. Be even-sided. You don’t feel that’s disrespect gon’ dance naked? You don’t think that’s disrespect in front of boys who’re tryna be straight? It’s totally disrespect. Totally disrespect.” Boosie took a slight pause from his rant before once again going a little too far, making a violent threat towards Lil Nas, saying, “If I’m at an awards [show] and he go up there naked, I’mma drag his as- offstage and beat his as-.” MEGA Lil Nas has been making headlines recently for his controversial yet bold performances as a young queer artist. In an interview, he once opened up, claiming he’s feared for his safety to address homophobic issues in the rap industry. “The honest truth is, I don’t want to speak on a lot of the homophobia within rap because I feel like this is a very dangerous playing field,” he explained. ” It’s more for my own safety rather than anything else.” View the full article

Published by AFP This still image from video released by the DC Cat Count/Humane Rescue Alliance shows a cat photographed by a wildlife camera in Washington 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.” View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English 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.” View the full article

Published by Reuters (Reuters) – Eleven Picasso paintings and other works that helped turn Las Vegas into an unlikely destination for art were sold at auction on Saturday for more than $100 million. The Sotheby’s auction was held at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas, where the works had been on display for years, and took place two days before the 140th birthday of the Spanish artist on Oct. 25. Five of the paintings had hung on the walls of the Bellagio’s fine dining restaurant, Picasso. The restaurant will continue to display 12 other Picasso works. The highest price was fetched by the 1938 painting “Femme au beret rouge-orange” of Picasso’s lover and muse Marie-Therese Walter, which sold for $40.5 million, some $10 million over the high pre-sale estimate. The large-scale portraits “Homme et Enfant” and “Buste d’homme” sold for $24.4 million and $9.5 million respectively, while smaller works on ceramic, like “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe” which sold for $2.1 million, went for three or four times their pre-sale estimate. The buyers’ names were not disclosed. Saturday’s sale was part of a bid by casino and hotel group MGM Resorts to further diversify its vast collection to include more art from women, people of color and emerging nations as well as from LGBTQ artists and artists with disabilities. American museums and art galleries have been working to broaden their collections in the wake of the widespread cultural reckoning in 2020 over racism at all levels of U.S. society. A 2019 Public Library of Science study of 18 leading U.S. museums found that 85% of the artists on display are white and 87% are men. The MGM Resorts Fine Arts Collection boasts about 900 works by 200 artists, including modern pieces by Bob Dylan and David Hockney. It was started more than 20 years ago by Steve Wynn, former owner of the Bellagio and former chief executive of Wynn Resorts. (Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Edwina Gibbs) View the full article

Published by DPA Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (C) chairs the weekly Cabinet meeting. Bennett said that the meeting with the Russina President Vladimir Putin was very good and in-depth. Haim Zach/GPO/dpa Ahead of the upcoming COP26 world climate conference, the Israeli government on Sunday approved a comprehensive climate protection plan. The aim is to boost climate-friendly innovation, the development of technologies to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and preparation for climate change, the office of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said. Israel wants to support the international fight against climate change through research and technological development, it added, with a focus on technologies in areas such as climate, energy, food, agriculture and water. Israel is considered a global pioneer in the field of high-tech and water management in particular. The Israeli news website ynet reported on Sunday that the plan contains 100 steps to combat climate change, involving 14 ministries and amounting to an overall 4.8 billion dollars. Among other things, the money is to be invested in organic waste treatment plants, more energy efficiency and a reduction of CO2 emissions in industry and municipalities, a switch to electric mobility for public transport and more bicycle paths. “The climate crisis is rightly one of the central issues on the global agenda,” Bennett said, according to his office. “This affects all of our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren.” Environment Minister Tamar Sandberg said the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26) was a “catalyst” for the endorsement of the plan. The global talks, postponed from last year, are due to start at the end of the month. View the full article

Published by Reuters By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK (Reuters) – Meghan Picerno was back at work after 18 months of pandemic limbo, overjoyed to be singing and dancing again with her “Phantom of the Opera” castmates as they rehearsed for the return of Broadway’s longest-running show. As the musical’s late October reopening neared, sometimes all Picerno could think about was making it to the first curtain call unscathed by the breakthrough COVID-19 cases that had sidelined vaccinated actors at other shows. Outside long days in a chilly mirror-lined rehearsal studio near New York City’s Times Square, Picerno had put herself back on what she called lockdown. “I’m a full-on monk now,” she said during a rushed lunch break between back-to-back run throughs. She knew her job came with risks of exposure. Playing the show’s heroine Christine required Picerno to kiss two co-stars daily and to sing full-throated love songs with them unmasked and at close range. “Hopefully, none of us have it, because if one of us have it, we all have it,” she said. The crowded Broadway theaters, vital to the city’s tourism industry, were the first places closed by the New York government as the coronavirus began to ravage the state. Word of the abrupt shuttering came during a “Phantom” matinee at the Majestic Theatre on March 12, 2020, as some cast and crew themselves were falling sick. Now, after an unprecedented shutdown, the theaters are among the last workplaces to reopen. Their return this fall is viewed as a test of the city’s efforts to restore some new sense of normalcy. Reuters watched as the “Phantom” company prepared for its return. The pandemic left unmistakable marks. Within a few weeks of the show going dark, COVID-19 had claimed the life of a beloved dresser, Jennifer Arnold, who had been with the show for more than three decades. After protests filled U.S. streets last year in outrage at the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer, newly unemployed Broadway workers pushed the industry to make overdue changes to increase racial diversity in theater companies. In August, “Phantom” producers announced they had cast the first-ever Black actor to play Christine since the show opened on Broadway in 1988. The actor, Emilie Kouatchou, would make her Broadway debut as an alternate for Picerno. For the returning cast, there were tweaks to lyrics and staging to learn, making it more straightforward to cast non-white actors in principal roles. The entire company was required to be vaccinated and twice a week went to get their noses swabbed at a nearby theater lobby repurposed as a temporary coronavirus testing site. Picerno said she was happy to embrace whatever was needed to get back on stage. In the dark days of 2020, living back in North Carolina with her parents and claiming unemployment benefits, she said she “almost felt like a failure.” She sang her part every day to keep it fresh in her mind until the singing made her too sad and she stopped. Emotion again overcame her on the first day reunited with her castmates in late September. Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber had swung by the studio to deliver a pep talk to the cast before they sang through the familiar score. Picerno’s singing dissolved in tears during the love duet “All I Ask of You.” “Sing along! Help her!” the conductor urged the masked chorus, whose voices carried Picerno until she regained her composure. ‘THINK OF ME’ A few days later, the cast practiced dance steps in a mix of street clothes and the bulkier parts of their 19th-century-style costumes. Picerno drew a scarf through her fingers as she danced and sang “Think of Me” in her bell-like soprano. Off in a corner of the studio, Kouatchou silently mirrored Picerno’s every move. Kouatchou, the daughter of immigrants from Cameroon, grew up in the Chicago suburbs. “Phantom” was the first Broadway show she ever saw, on a trip to New York with her high school. She remembers being transfixed by Christine. “I could sing that role in my sleep,” she recalled thinking. Still, she worried about stereotyping, that some would see a mismatch in her voice, an operatic soprano, and her appearance, which was not the sort of “petite white girl” who seemed to always get cast as a show’s ingénue or heroine. “I didn’t feel like I had a place in musical theater because I didn’t see anyone who looked like me who sung like me,” she said. COVID-19 had both upended live theater and made space for progress. “The pandemic was terrible,” Kouatchou said. “But we wouldn’t be able to have conversations like this and change things like this if it hadn’t been for the pandemic.” Now, as the Phantom begins making his terrifying presence known in Act One, a frightened ballet dancer turns to the heroine and sings: “Christine, are you alright?” Before the pandemic and Kouatchou’s casting, the lyric had always been: “Your face, Christine, it’s white!” The old, creepy Christine doll that stood in the Phantom’s lair, her features unmistakably white, also was out. A new doll, designed to be racially ambiguous, would debut on reopening night. Later that week, Kouatchou got her first glimpse of one of the new Christine wigs designed to match her hair texture. “It’s curlier and frizzier and I love it,” Kouatchou said. ‘THE POINT OF NO RETURN’ On the first full day of stage rehearsals at the Majestic Theatre, members of the company waited to show vaccination proof in an alleyway lined with trash cans leading to the stage door. Backstage, masked dressers who help actors quickly change costumes in the darkness of the wings were testing alternatives to the bitelights they had gripped in their teeth pre-pandemic. They experimented with little lamps strapped to their foreheads or on gloves, hoping they wouldn’t confuse audiences by shooting out beams of light across the stage mid-show. From the orchestra seats, John Riddle, who plays the show’s hero Raoul, marveled at one of the dazzling spotlights high up in the proscenium. Its beam used to illuminate a “constant cloud of dust,” he said. “The fact that it’s clear now means something to me,” he said. “They say it’s the cleanest a Broadway theater has ever been.” Even so, there was worrying news from shows nearby. The Disney musical “Aladdin” was forced to close for two weeks soon after its September reopening because too many actors tested positive for the coronavirus. Maree Johnson, who plays the black-clad ballet mistress Madame Giry, said she was resigned to the likelihood that “Phantom” also would record breakthrough coronavirus cases. “It’s going to happen sooner or later,” she said. Nine days later, on Friday afternoon, Picerno was in her dressing room when she opened the email with results of her final coronavirus test ahead of reopening night. Relief washed over her. It was negative. That night, audience members dressed in evening gowns, bow ties and the occasional “Phantom”-style costume crowded the theater doors, fishing out proofs of vaccination. “Welcome back to Broadway!” chirped the newly hired COVID safety monitors who waved large signs saying “MASKS UP” at the audience inside. Backstage at the top of a staircase, a few members of the company had placed a vase of flowers and a photograph of Arnold, the dresser lost to COVID-19. Some of the cast and crew paused by the memorial before resuming the final minutes’ rush in nearby dressing rooms. The house lights dimmed, and the familiar descending chromatic chords of the “Phantom” theme surged from the orchestra pit. Picerno danced across the stage as Kouatchou watched from the audience, sometimes mimicking her hand gestures. The new Christine doll lurked in the Phantom’s lair, her face now silver. At the final curtain call, the audience roared with delight. Picerno ran to the front of the stage to take her bow, her face crumpled and shining with tears. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Diane Craft) View the full article

Published by Radar Online Donald Trump is not wasting time and going at it with Meghan McCain, spewing petty hate in response to her claims regarding his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The former View host called the two “funeral crashes” after they both attended her well-known father John McCain‘s funeral uninvited. MEGA After Trump caught wind, the former president labeled McCain as a “low life” and “bully” before also attacking the other hosts on The View by calling them “Slobs and Radical Left maniacs.” “Isn’t it funny that Meghan McCain, who has always been a bully and basically a lowlife, is now complaining that it was she who was bullied by the Slobs and Radical Left maniacs of The View?” he said in a statement. Trump also took the opportunity to take a jab at Meghan’s dad, a former United States senator who he claimed he was never a “fan.” “At the request of many of her representatives, I made it possible for her father to have the world’s longest funeral, designed and orchestrated by him, even though I was never, to put it mildly, a fan,” he added. “In any event, Meghan should fight the Communists instead of explaining how they beat her, hurt her, and made her physically ill. She should fight back against the losers ofThe View the way she fights against very good and well-meaning Republicans, and she would do herself a world of good. MEGA McCain responded to Trump’s attack by thanking him “for encouraging everyone to buy my Audible book Bad Republican where they can hear my story in my words.” The retaliation from Trump comes after the Daily Mail columnist recalled seeing Ivanka and Jared during her father’s service in an interview on Watch What Happens Live. She claimed the situation “angers” her. “I remember seeing them and seeing her [Ivanka] specifically,” Meghan told the host Andy Cohen. “they had no God-damn business being there, and it’s something that still angers me, clearly.” During the interview, she claimed that she was bullied out of her job on the primetime show blaming her co-workers. “Only one person was bullied out of their job and doesn’t work there anymore, and I think that really says it all,” she explained. As Radar previously reported, McCain announced her departure from The View in July after being a permanent co-host for four seasons. She reportedly “had enough” with the job after constantly getting into arguments with her other co-hosts, especially with her role as the only conservative voice on the panel. She reportedly had two more years left on her contract at the time of her exit. MEGA View the full article

Published by BANG Showbiz English Ryan Gosling is set to star as Ken in the ‘Barbie’ movie. The 40-year-old actor is in talks to co-star with Margot Robbie, 31, in the live-action movie about Mattel, Inc’s iconic doll, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach have written the script for the Warner Bros movie, with Gerwig attached to direct. Robbie will produce the movie via her LuckyChap production company alongside her husband, LuckyChap’s Tom Ackerley. Mattel Films’ Robbie Brenner and Paddington’s David Heyman will also produce. Ryan was previously offered the role during the summer but turned it down due to a scheduling conflict. However, due to a delay in filming, he is now free to take on the part. Margot previously vowed to give audiences “something totally different” to what they would expect from the famous Mattel doll. Margot said last year: “Something like Barbie where the IP, the name itself, people immediately have an idea of, ‘Oh Margot is playing Barbie, I know what that is’, but our goal is to be like, ‘Whatever you’re thinking, we’re going to give you something totally different – the thing you didn’t know you wanted.'” Margot’s producing partner Josey McNamara added that the acclaimed duo will help change viewers’ expectations of the project. He explained: “As Margot said, you think you know what the movie is with Margot as Barbie, but Greta and Noah have subverted it, and we can’t wait to get into that one.” The film centres on Barbie being expelled from Barbie Land for failing to live up to the expectations of its residents and Robbie hopes that it will put some “positivity out in the world”. She previously said: “I think it’s a great opportunity to put some positivity out in the world and a change to be aspirational for younger kids.” View the full article

Published by AFP John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1962 Washington (AFP) – The White House said Friday it would delay the release of long-classified documents related to the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. President Joe Biden wrote in a statement that the remaining files “shall be withheld from full public disclosure” until December 15 next year — nearly 60 years after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas, Texas in 1963. In 2018, former president Donald Trump released several thousand secret files on the assassination, but withheld others on national security grounds. The White House said the national archivist needs more time for a review into that redaction, which was slowed by the pandemic. Biden also said the delay was “necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations” and that this “outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.” The assassination of the 46-year-old president was a “profound national tragedy” that “continues to resonate in American history and in the memories of so many Americans who were alive on that terrible day,” the statement said. A 10-month investigation led by then-Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald, a former Marine who had lived in the Soviet Union, acted alone when he fired on Kennedy’s motorcade. But the Commission’s investigation was criticised for being incomplete, with a Congressional committee later concluding that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy.” US law requires that all government records on the assassination be disclosed “to enable the public to become fully informed.” View the full article