Month: February 2018

The American men have won the Olympic gold medal in curling in a decisive upset of Sweden.

 

John Shuster skipped the United States to a 10-7 victory Saturday for the second curling medal in U.S. history. Shuster was part of the other one, too, as the lead thrower on Pete Fenson’s bronze-medal team at the 2006 Turin Games.

 

The Americans received a good luck call from Mr. T before the match. The King of Sweden was there, as was U.S. presidential daughter Ivanka Trump.

They saw Shuster convert a double-takeout for a five-ender in the eighth — an exceedingly rare score that made it 10-5 and essentially clinched the win.

Sweden retained the last-rock advantage known as the hammer for the ninth end, and scored two. 

But that gave the hammer to the Americans for the 10th and final end. Shuster played it safe, throwing away one stone intentionally to keep the target area clear and avoid the traffic that can lead to big scores. The remaining rocks were used to methodically pick off Sweden’s until there weren’t enough left to catch up. 

With two stones apiece left, Swedish skip Niklas Edin pushed off with a spin and a smile, and then conceded defeat. (Although Sweden had two stones in the house, the end does not count in the score).

Sweden is the reigning world champion silver medalist and finished first in pool play with a 7-2 record. The Americans barely squeaked into the playoffs with a 5-4 record after losing four of their first six games to move to the brink of elimination. 

But Shuster, American curling’s only four-time Olympian, guided his team to three straight victories to advance to the playoffs and then a semifinal win over three-time defending gold medalist Canada. No U.S. curling team, men’s or women’s, had ever beaten Canada at the Olympics.

This year’s team — Shuster, Tyler George, Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner and alternate Joe Polo — did it twice in one week.

 

Sweden took the silver medal. Switzerland beat Canada in the third-place game on Friday for bronze. 
…

Nanette Fabray, the vivacious, award-winning star of the stage, film and television, has died at 97.

Fabray’s son, Dr. Jamie MacDougall, told The Associated Press his mother died Thursday at her home in Palos Verdes Estates.

Fabray launched her career at age 3 as Vaudeville’s singing-dancing Baby Nanette.

On Broadway she won a Tony in 1949 for the musical “Love Life” and was nominated for another for “Mr. President.”

She starred opposite Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the hit 1953 film “The Band Wagon.”

Her television roles included playing Bonnie Franklin’s mother in the hit 1980s sitcom “One Day at a Time.”

She also played the mother of Shelley Fabares, her real-life niece, in the 1990s sitcom “Coach.”
…

Mikaela Shiffrin is not quite convinced Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic career is done.

“Whenever I hear anybody say something about this,” Shiffrin said Friday, “it’s like, ‘most likely,’ ]’probably,’ ‘maybe,’ ‘we’ll see,’ ‘not sure.’ I’m like, ‘Knowing Lindsey, I don’t believe her.’ ”

And with that, Shiffrin let out a big laugh.

She is, without a doubt, the heir apparent to Vonn as the leader of U.S. ski racing. They were the only two members of the country’s Alpine team to earn medals at the Pyeongchang Games — and the only two to hold news conferences a day after the sport’s last two individual events.

First came Vonn, 33, wearing her downhill bronze medal. After she left the room, it was time for Shiffrin, 22, whose gold from the giant slalom and silver from the combined dangled from her neck.

Vonn spent much of her session taking questions about her, um, extensive experience — “You’re not getting any younger,” was the way one reporter put it, to which the skier replied with a smile, “Come right out and say it, why don’t you!” — and the emotions of her (presumably) last Olympics.

Then Shiffrin discussed what she called the frustration of dealing with schedule changes that contributed to a fourth-place finish in her top event, the slalom, and forced her to enter only three of five races.

Tribute to Vonn

When asked about being Vonn’s successor, she was deferential.

“I don’t necessarily feel like I’m taking over something for the sport. I don’t know if I could fill Lindsey’s shoes, the way that she has worn them,” Shiffrin said. “I’m going to do my best to help the sport grow in whatever way that I can. The best way that I can do that, as far as I see right now, is just to ski my best and to keep taking ski racing to a new level.”

Shiffrin also was asked about what sort of advice she might have received from Vonn about taking over as the face of Alpine skiing in the United States.

“I haven’t had a lot of advice about what to do because, first of all, I don’t think Lindsey sees herself as being done yet or passing the baton,” she answered. “And I don’t see myself as taking the baton.”

Shiffrin is now what Vonn once was: a multiple Olympic medalist in her 20s with a bright future.

After Vonn won a gold and bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games, the assumption was she would go on to add medal upon medal to her career total. Instead, she was forced to miss the 2014 Olympics after tearing knee ligaments.

So after an eight-year wait, Vonn stepped back on the stage, but has said this would be her last Olympics. As it is, she became the oldest woman to win an Alpine medal.

Vonn said the woman who took the gold in the downhill, good friend Sofia Goggia of Italy, wrote a note trying to lobby for a return in 2022.

“I told her … if I physically could continue for four years, then I probably would, as long as I considered myself still a competitor,” Vonn said. “But four years is a really long time. I told her that. She said she’s going to keep trying to convince me.”

Career record

In the meantime, there are other goals Vonn will pursue before retiring. She reiterated she is “not going to stop ski racing until I break” Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record for most career race wins. She has 81; he had 86.

“I think next season,” Vonn said, “I can get it done.”

She also intends to pursue a chance to compete against men, something she’s sought for years.

The sport’s governing body is supposed to consider her request in a few months, but if that doesn’t work out, Vonn said she would think about trying to set up an exhibition race.

All of that will be put on hold for a bit, though.

Instead of joining the skiing circuit when it resumes in Switzerland next weekend, Vonn will wait until the World Cup Finals in Are, Sweden, on March 14-18, to try to overtake Goggia for the season downhill title.

“I need a break,” Vonn said. “I need a moment to breathe. I’ve never actually had time after an Olympics to enjoy it, so I’m going to.”
…

They were little girls with dreams of Olympic gold when they started in gymnastics. Now they’re women with lifelong injuries, suffocating anxiety and debilitating eating disorders. 

They are the other victims of USA Gymnastics. 

Thirteen former U.S. gymnasts and three coaches interviewed by The Associated Press described a win-at-all-cost culture rife with verbal and emotional abuse in which girls were forced to train on broken bones and other injuries. That culture was tacitly endorsed by the sport’s governing body and institutionalized by Bela and Martha Karolyi, the husband-and-wife duo who coached America’s top female gymnasts for three decades.

The gymnasts agreed to speak to AP, some for the first time, after the recent courtroom revelations about USA Gymnastics’ former team doctor, Larry Nassar, who recently was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment.

The Karolyis’ oppressive style created a toxic environment in which a predator like Nassar was able to thrive, according to witness statements in Nassar’s criminal case and a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics, the Karolyis and others. Girls were afraid to challenge authority, Nassar was able to prey on vulnerable girls and, at the same time, he didn’t challenge the couple’s harsh training methods.

“He was their little puppet,” Jeanette Antolin, a former member of the U.S. national team who trained with the Karolyis, said. “He let us train on injuries. They got what they wanted. He got what he wanted.”

Young girls were virtually starved, constantly body shamed and forced to train with broken bones or other injuries, according to interviews and the lawsuit. Their meager diets and extreme training often delayed puberty, which some coaches believed was such a detriment that they ridiculed girls who started their menstrual cycles.

USA Gymnastics declined to answer questions for this story, and the Karolyis didn’t reply to requests for comment. The Karolyis’ Houston attorney, Gary Jewell, said the Karolyis didn’t abuse anyone.

Some female gymnasts in the U.S. were subjected to abusive training methods before the Karolyis defected from their native Romania in 1981. But other coaches and former gymnasts say the Karolyis’ early successes — starting with Romania’s Nadia Comaneci becoming the first woman gymnast awarded a perfect score in competition — validated the cutthroat attitudes that fostered widespread mistreatment of American athletes at the highest levels of women’s gymnastics.

The Karolyis, who helped USA Gymnastics win 41 Olympic medals, including 13 gold over three decades, trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, Texas, known as “the ranch.” They selected gymnasts for the national team and earned millions from USA Gymnastics. 

A congressional committee investigating the gymnastics scandal said in Feb. 8 letters to the Karolyis, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee that they were all “at the center of many of these failures” that allowed Nassar’s sexual abuse to persist for more than two decades.

It’s unclear what the Karolyis knew about Nassar’s sexual abuse and whether they took any action to stop it.

Martha Karolyi, in a deposition given last year as part of the lawsuit against the Karolyis and numerous others, acknowledged that “in or around June 2015” she received a phone call from the then-head of the national gymnastics organization, Steve Penny, informing her that the organization had received a complaint that Nassar had “molested a national team gymnast at the ranch.”

The deposition was included in a Feb. 14 letter to two U.S. senators from John Manly, an attorney representing Nassar victims in a lawsuit that seeks monetary damages and court oversight of USA Gymnastics.

Manly cited the deposition in accusing the sport’s governing body of lying to Congress. 

In a timeline submitted to a congressional committee investigating the scandal, the organization said it was told in mid-June of an athlete “uncomfortable” with Nassar’s treatment, but that it was not until late July 2015 that it decided to notify law enforcement “with concerns of potential sexual misconduct.”

Penny, the former USA Gymnastics chief, said in a statement that Martha Karolyi was mistaken about the timing of his call.

Texas has one of the strongest child abuse reporting laws in the nation, requiring anyone who has reason to believe abuse has occurred to immediately alert authorities. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable by jail time and a fine.

In the deposition, Martha Karolyi said she did not discuss what she learned about Nassar with anyone but her husband, her lawyers and the USA Gymnastics official who called her. 

Jewell, the Karolyis’ attorney, said the couple didn’t know about any sexual assault complaints involving Nassar until Martha Karolyi was contacted by a USA Gymnastics official in the summer of 2015.
…

A second Russian athlete has failed a doping test at the Pyeongchang Games, a day before the International Olympic Committee’s executive board is to decide whether to reinstate the country for Sunday’s closing ceremony.

 

Russian Bobsled Federation president Alexander Zubkov told The Associated Press on Friday that a drug-test sample that pilot Nadezhda Sergeeva gave on Sunday was positive.

 

The Russian delegation at the Pyeongchang Olympics said in a statement that the substance found was trimetazdine, a medication used for angina sufferers that is listed by the World Anti-Doping Agency as a banned substance affecting the metabolism.

 

“She confirms she took no such medication and the team confirms she was not issued any medication,” said Zubkov, a former bobsledder who himself was stripped of two Olympic gold medals for the Russian doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games. “Federation representatives at the Olympics” are starting to prepare a defense, he said.

 

Zubkov also said a sample she had given five days earlier was negative.

 

“I can tell you that on the 13th it was clean, but on the 18th it gave a positive result for the heart medication,” he said.

 

The IOC said later Friday it had been informed of the positive test by the Russian delegation.

 

Sergeeva’s crew finished 12th in the women’s bobsled competition on Wednesday, after she had given the sample that later came back positive.

 

The Russian team was barred from the Olympics in December for doping at the Sochi Games, but the IOC invited 168 athletes from the country to compete under the Olympic flag. The IOC set out the criteria for Russia to be reinstated, and the latest doping cases are a setback.

 

“This won’t win us any extra credit,” Russian delegation leader Stanislav Pozdnyakov said in comments reported by Russian media. “Unfortunately this case speaks to negligence by the athlete. She has let us down.”

 

A group of influential anti-doping organizations has called on the IOC not to reinstate Russia in time for the closing ceremony.

 

The Institute of National Anti-Doping Organizations says the IOC “can’t merely ‘wish away’ the most significant fraud in the history of sport,” adding that “by failing to impose a meaningful sanction on the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee), the IOC would be culpable in this effort to defraud clean athletes of the world.”

 

Earlier this month, Sergeeva told the AP that competitors from other countries had warmed to her after she passed IOC vetting for Pyeongchang, which included an examination of her drug-testing history.

 

“I don’t know why, but they’ve started talking to us more than ever before. I feel it. Maybe it’s a sign to them that we’re clean,” Sergeeva said. “There’s a lot of people coming up and saying, ‘We’re happy you’re here.’”

 

At the time, she was training in a T-shirt with the words “I Don’t Do Doping.” Sergeeva used to compete in track and field as a heptathlete before switching sports in 2010.

 

It is the fourth doping case of the games. Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky was stripped of his bronze medal Thursday after testing positive for the banned substance meldonium. Slovenian hockey player Ziga Jeglic and Japanese speedskater Kei Saito also left the games after testing positive.

Trimetazidine, the substance found in Sergeeva’s sample, has been detected in previous doping cases. Chinese swimmer Sun Yang, an Olympic gold medalist, was banned for three months in 2014 by his country’s sports authorities after testing positive for the substance.

 

Sun said he had been prescribed the drug for a medical condition and hadn’t known it was banned. The perceived leniency of that three-month ban led to Sun receiving criticism from swimmers from other countries at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where he won another gold medal.

 

Russia’s bobsled program has been in the spotlight for drug use for several years.

 

Zubkov and four other bobsledders were disqualified from the 2014 Sochi Games for doping, though four other bobsledders have been reinstated. Another gold medalist, Dmitry Trunenkov, was banned last year for failing a doping test.

 
…

New York State Police say actor and comedian Chevy Chase was kicked in the shoulder during an altercation with another driver.

Police say the 74-year-old Chase was driving in South Nyack on February 9 when he was cut off in traffic by a 22-year-old Long Island man. Authorities say the former “Saturday Night Live” star chased the other driver across the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, before both pulled over.

 

Authorities say the driver and Chase got into a verbal argument, which led to a passenger in the car cursing at Chase and kicking him in the shoulder. The driver contends the kick was self-defense because Chase threw a punch first.

 

The passenger faces harassment charges.

 
…

Jessie Diggins has one more big Olympic moment awaiting her.

Diggins — who thrust herself across the finish line to give the Americans a dazzling gold medal in the cross-country team sprint — has been selected as the U.S. flagbearer for Sunday night’s closing ceremony at the Pyeongchang Games. She’s the first cross-country skier to carry the U.S. flag into an Olympic ceremony since Bill Koch did the honors at Albertville’s opening in 1992.

Retiring luge star and 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Erin Hamlin carried the U.S. flag into the opening of the Pyeongchang Games two weeks ago. That pick was followed by some curious remarks by speedskater Shani Davis, who lost to Hamlin in a tiebreaker.

Diggins’ moment, however, will likely lead to no argument. All U.S. Olympians in Pyeongchang were eligible to vote for the closing flagbearer.

“This is such an incredible honor for me,” Diggins said. “I’m really humbled and moved that the athletes voted for me. It’s so inspiring to feel the support and cheering from everyone. The coolest thing for me about the games has been getting to meet other athletes on Team USA, and getting to cheer them on at their events and learn about what they do. I have so much respect and admiration for everybody here and am beyond honored to be able to lead us out of these games.”

It’s the first time women have been picked as U.S. flagbearers for both the opening and closing of an Olympics since 2004, when basketball’s Dawn Staley led the Americans into the Athens Games and soccer’s Mia Hamm carried the flag out. The last time U.S. women were picked for both roles at a Winter Games was in 1976, when skier Cynthia Nelson and speedskater Sheila Young were the selections.

And it seems fitting that U.S. women were tapped twice in Pyeongchang.

The U.S. has 21 medals so far and women have claimed 14 of them — 12 on their own, two others on mixed teams in figure skating. Many of the most spectacular moments by Americans in Pyeongchang came from women’s events, including the hockey team winning a shootout to finally beat Canada for gold and, of course, Diggins’ dive to victory.

“Jessie’s breakthrough performances here in Pyeongchang have been inspirational and historic, and her success is representative of years of teamwork and determination from all our athletes,” U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said. “I am proud that she has been recognized.”

American women have clearly led their country’s gold rush in Pyeongchang.

Including the mixed wins, U.S. women have gold medals in seven events so far. There’s never been a Winter Games where American women reached the top of the medal podium more often; they got five in 1992, five more in 2002 and were golden in five events again in Sochi four years ago.

“I think everyone in the world knows there’s still room for growth for women in sports and women in business or all walks of life,” U.S. women’s hockey gold medalist Meghan Duggan said after her team topped Canada for the Olympic title. “We’re proud to be women.”
…

Forget Lindsey Vonn and Adam Rippon. The real rock stars of the Pyeongchang Olympics are a humble group of Korean curlers who have no idea they’ve become a global sensation.

They are known as the “Garlic Girls,” the South Korean women’s curling team with the fairy-tale story whose moniker reflects the locally famed garlic grown in their hometown. Never considered a medal contender coming into Pyeongchang, they have risen to No. 1 in the rankings, earning worldwide attention for their fierce talent and funny personalities.

And yet the Garlic Girls have been almost totally sheltered from the international frenzy both by personal choice — they switched off their phones during the games to block outside attention — and by a protective coach who is keenly aware that curling is as much a mental game as a physical one.

​Famous and they don’t know it

After a recent match, the women were quickly shuffled past waiting reporters, giving journalists apologetic smiles and greetings of “Anyonghaseyo!” (hello) before vanishing. None of them, says coach Kim Min-jung, are aware that they’ve become superstars.

“I’m sorry that I could not bring the athletes today, because I’m worried there will be too much pressure and burden on them,” Kim said. “Even the crowd is too interested in them.”

That interest is understandable. The Garlic Girls seem tailor-made for stardom.

The wildly skilled underdogs came into the Olympics ranked eighth in the world and went on to crush curling heavyweights including Canada and Sweden. They are cute and comical, referring to themselves by quirky nicknames such as “Pancake” and “Steak.”

Two teammates are sisters and all are longtime friends, creating irresistible chemistry on the ice. The team’s “skip,” or captain, has a steely gaze and funky, owl-eyed glasses that have become fodder for endless Internet memes.

Screaming fans

Many Koreans who have never seen a curling match have traveled to remote Gangneung to peek at their nation’s new darlings in person.

“I’m very proud of them,” said Lee Ji Sun, a 26-year-old who had never been inside a curling arena before Wednesday’s match. “They are showing we can do well even in new sport events.”

Every match featuring the team is packed with screaming, flag-fluttering Koreans who leap to their feet to cheer on the women’s stunningly precise shots. One fan in the crowd Wednesday waved what appeared to be a hand-drawn portrait of skip Kim Eun-jung with her trademark spectacles.

​Late to the game of curling

That curling has gained any prominence in Korea is surprising in itself. Korea didn’t even have a team in Olympic curling until the 2014 Sochi Games.

It took Koreans awhile to wake up to curling, largely because the country lacked sufficient facilities until recent years, Kim Young, a curling legend who started the Korean Curling Club in 1988, said by email. Now, he says, Korea has six dedicated curling arenas, and many schools have curling teams.

In 2006, South Korea’s first curling center was built in the rural town of Uiseong. Four of the five team members attended Uiseong Women’s High School, where they were on the school’s curling team. Uiseong’s reputation as the nation’s default curling capital slowly grew, and the curling center has hosted about 15 major domestic and international curling events.

Garlic and those nicknames

Still, until the women’s team began their surprise winning streak in Pyeongchang, Uiseong was better known for its prolific garlic production.

Koreans consider garlic a health food that boosts stamina. Seo Eun Ha, a 26-year-old Garlic Girls fan, believes garlic may have contributed to the team’s success. (She also credits the women’s good teamwork and strong relationships.)

Like many fans at Gangneung, Seo is particularly fond of the curlers’ unusual nicknames: Sunny, Steak, Pancake, Annie (a brand of yogurt) and ChoCho (a type of cookie).

“I think their nicknames go well with their lively images,” Seo said. “I like ‘Steak’ the most. It sounds so funny and unique.”

The nicknames started as a gag over breakfast one day, said Kim, the coach. The women were talking about how difficult it was for other countries’ athletes to pronounce their names at international competitions. All five team members and their coach also share the same surname — Kim, which is very common in Korea — making their names even more confounding for foreigners.

Kim Seon-yeong, who was eating a sunny-side-up fried egg, joked that she could go by the name “Sunny.” The other women loved the idea. They each opted to nickname themselves after the English words for their favorite breakfast foods, figuring that would be easier for others to grasp.

Though the women’s team is getting the most attention, Korean fans have been going wild for the men, too. After Wednesday’s men’s match, a player from the Korean team began throwing T-shirts into the crowd, which surged forward with outstretched arms.

Kim Heae Darm, a fan who leaped up and managed to snag a shirt sailing overhead, pressed it to her face and screamed with glee. She then turned to capturing the attention of Korean mixed doubles player Lee Ki-jeong, who scrawled his autograph in her notebook.

As she struggled to catch her breath, she explained her excitement by noting that Lee was strong, athletic and “very handsome.”

As for the success of the women’s team, Kim, the founder of the curling club, couldn’t be prouder. “They are heroes!” he said.

Yet the Garlic Girls do have one request: Maybe someone could come up with a nicer team name for them?

“We would prefer the name ‘Team Kim,’” Kim, the coach, said with a laugh. “Because although our hometown is Uiseong — which is related to garlic — we have no relationship with garlic at all.”
…

American cities are becoming safer as violent crime decreases nationwide. But the city of Baltimore is an exception. Amy Berbert, a local artist whose photography project “Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk” aims to bring awareness and compassion to the frequently forgotten victims of Baltimore’s homicides. Gabrielle Weiss reports.
…

Saudi Arabia will stage more than 5,000 shows, festivals and concerts in 2018, double the number of last year, as it tries to shake off its conservative image in a drive to keep tourist dollars at home and lure in visitors.

The state wants to capture up to a quarter of the $20 billion currently spent overseas every year by Saudis seeking entertainment, lifting a ban on cinemas and putting on shows by Western artists.

U.S. rapper Nelly performed in Jeddah in December, albeit to a men-only crowd, and Greek musician Yanni played to a mixed-gender audience.

The gradual relaxing of gender segregation risks causing a backlash from religious conservatives, but public objections to a wider program of reforms have been more muted in recent months after several critics were arrested.

At an event to launch the 2018 entertainment calendar, Ahmed al-Khatib, chairman of the state-run General Entertainment Authority (GEA), said infrastructure investments over the next decade would reach 240 billion riyals ($64 billion), including an opera house to be completed around 2022.

That will contribute 18 billion riyals to annual GDP and generate 224,000 new jobs by 2030, the GEA said.

“The bridge is starting to reverse,” Khatib said, referring to the causeway linking Saudi Arabia with more liberal Bahrain where many Saudis flock for weekend getaways.

“And I promise you that we will reverse this migration, and people from Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain will come to Saudi.”

However, on Thursday night, the Minister of Culture and Information said Khatib’s opera plans were an infringement of the role of the General Authority for Culture, a separate government body, the Saudi Press Agency said.

Economic hopes

The entertainment plans are largely motivated by economics, part of a reform program to diversify the economy away from oil and create jobs for young Saudis.

The Vision 2030 plan aims to increase household spending on cultural and entertainment events inside the kingdom to 6 percent by 2030 from 2.9 percent.

“We are bringing the most exciting and famous events to Saudi Arabia this year,” Khatib told Reuters in an interview, adding that state-sponsored entertainment events would be staged in 56 cities.

“We are creating new local events with local content,” he said. “Almost 80 percent of the calendar [events] are for families.”

Saudi Arabia lifted a 35-year ban on cinemas late last year, with plans for regional and global chains to open more than 300 movie theaters by 2030. The first cinemas are expected to start showing films in March.

Last year, the country announced plans to develop resorts on some 50 islands off the Red Sea coast and an entertainment city south of Riyadh featuring golf courses, car racing tracks and a Six Flags theme park.
…

The world’s oldest known cave paintings were made by Neanderthals, not modern humans, suggesting our extinct cousins were far from being uncultured brutes.

A high-tech analysis of cave art at three Spanish sites, published on Thursday, dates the paintings to at least 64,800 years ago, or 20,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa.

That makes the cave art much older than previously thought and provides the strongest evidence yet that Neanderthals had the cognitive capacity to understand symbolic representation, a central pillar of human culture.

“What we’ve got here is a smoking gun that really overturns the notion that Neanderthals were knuckle-dragging cavemen,” said Alistair Pike, professor of archaeological sciences at the University of Southampton, who co-led the study.

“Painting is something that has always been seen as a very human activity, so if Neanderthals are doing it they are being just like us,” he told Reuters.

While some archaeologists already viewed Neanderthals as more sophisticated than their commonplace caricature, the evidence until now has been inconclusive. With the data from the three Spanish cave sites described in the journal Science, Pike and colleagues believe they finally have rock-solid proof.

The early cave art at La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales includes lines, dots, discs and hand stencils — and creating them would have involved specific skills, such as mixing pigments and selecting appropriate display locations.

The Neanderthals living in the same land that would one day give birth to Diego Velazquez and Pablo Picasso also needed the intellectual ability to think symbolically, like modern humans.

Scientists used a precise dating system based on the radioactive decay of uranium isotopes into thorium to assess the age of the paintings. This involved scraping a few milligrams of calcium carbonate deposit from the paintings for analysis.

A second related study published in Science Advances found that dyed and decorated marine shells from a different Spanish cave also dated back to pre-human times.

Taken together, the researchers said their work suggested that Neanderthals were “cognitively indistinguishable” from early modern humans.

Joao Zilhao of the University of Barcelona said the new findings meant the search for the origins of human cognition needed to go back to the common ancestor of both Neanderthals and modern humans more than 500,000 years ago.

Neanderthals died out about 40,000 years ago, soon after direct ancestors arrived in Europe. It is unclear what killed them off, although theories include an inability to adapt to climate change and increased competition from modern humans.

If they were still alive today, Pike believes they could well have gone on develop complex art and technology.

“If they had been given the time, the resources and the population, then they might have ended up in some version of the world we live in today.”
…

Visitors from across the world gathered Thursday in Aswan, Egypt, for a rare glimpse of a unique event that still amazes the world – when the sun rays go inside the corridor of the Abu Simbel temples and perpendicular on the faces of Ramses II, his wife, Queen Nefertari and the god Amun on the back wall. It happens twice a year on the same two dates: October 22, Ramses II’s birthday, and on his coronation day, February 22.
…

Director Steven Soderbergh said on Wednesday he so enjoyed making his psychological thriller “Unsane” on an iPhone, he would find it hard to go back to conventional filmmaking.

“Unsane”, which premieres at the Berlin film festival, was shot over just two weeks — way shorter than the months a movie

usually takes.

It tells the story of Sawyer Valentini, who moves to a new city to escape her stalker David but finds herself admitted to a

mental health institution where he works.

Sawyer, played by Claire Foy, is convinced she has been wrongly admitted to the facility but no one believes her so she

is trapped there and subjected to torments from David, who gives her pills that make her lash out and imprisons her in a padded cell where he declares his love for her.

Soderbergh said the overall experience of making a film on an iPhone was good, although there were some drawbacks such as

the phone being very sensitive to vibrations.

“I have to say the positives for me really were significant and it’s going to be tricky to go back to a more conventional

way of shooting,” he said.

Not having to make a hole in a wall or secure a camera to the ceiling are big advantages, as is being able to go straight

from watching a rehearsal to shooting, Soderbergh said.

“The gap now between the idea and the execution of the idea is just shrinking and this means you get to try out more ideas

so I wish I’d had this equipment when I was 15,” he said.

Joshua Leonard, who plays David, said filming on an iPhone enabled the actors to stay in the world of their characters and

the film more than the conventional camera set-up would allow.

“There’s nothing more fun as an actor than just being in the thick of the creative process when you’re actually on set and

not having to wait for the machine of filmmaking to catch up with the creative impulse,” he said.

Being used to people putting iPhones close to his face to take selfies helped too because “it really minimized any

self-consciousness about the process of making a film”, he said.

“Unsane” is among around 400 films screening at the festival but it is not among the 19 movies vying for the main prize, the

Golden Bear, which will be awarded on Saturday. The festival in the German capital runs until Feb. 25.
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Thousands of South Koreans are calling for two speedskaters to be expelled from the Olympics after they left their slower teammate behind in a race defined by teamwork and walked away as she quietly sobbed at the stadium in one of the most bizarre moments of this year’s Winter Games.

As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 570,000 signatures had been gathered on an online petition to South Korea’s presidential office calling for skaters Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji Woo to be expelled from the Olympics.

 

During the women’s team pursuit quarterfinals on Monday, Kim and Park skated ahead as teammate Noh Seon-yeong fell behind the pack. Noh finished the race nearly four full seconds after her teammates did. Cameras showed Kim and Park walking away after the race as Noh cried in the infield of the Gangneung Oval. She was comforted only by her Dutch coach, Bob de Jong.

 

Some South Koreans believe Kim and Park were trying to humiliate Noh because there was nothing to be gained by crossing first.

 

“It’s clearly a disgrace to our national image that these individuals of bad character are representing this country at the Olympics,” the petition says.

The petition also calls for an investigation into what it describes as “various corruption and irregularities” at the Korea Skating Union, the national skating body. The union has come under criticism for many years for alleged factionalism and nepotism in selecting athletes to compete for the Olympics.

There was no immediate comment by the union.

In team pursuit, the finishing time is set by the third and last skater crossing the line. Normally, the first rider sets the pace and takes the air pressure head on while the other two follow in the draft. Skaters are also allowed to cooperate, including pushing their slower teammates from behind.

 

But in their quarterfinal heat, it seemed Kim and Park weren’t putting much effort into helping Noh keep pace and stay in the pack.

 

Kim further triggered public anger after the games with comments many saw as putting the blame on Noh.

 

“It was regretful, since it’s the time of the last skater that counts. If our last skater had come in a bit earlier we might have made the semifinals. But it’s finished,” Kim said after the race. “Park Ji Woo was supposed to go out with speed, and Noh Seon-Yeong would do minimal. But after we got separated, we couldn’t really communicate. That was probably the reason.”

 

As the public anger grew, Kim appeared in a news conference with her coach on Tuesday and tearfully offered her “sincere apology” and said she didn’t realize Noh was that far off until it was too late.

 

Both Kim and Park are from the Korea National Sports University, whose athletes and alumni have been at the center of factional disputes in the country’s super-competitive speedskating scene.

 

Skaters from other schools have previously complained that athletes with ties to the university are favored in domestic competitions to pick athletes for the Olympics and other international events. That’s believed to be particularly true in short-track speedskating where multiple athletes can work together _ jostling for position, blocking and ceding _ to improve the chance that a certain athlete wins.

 

Ahead of the Olympics, Noh reportedly complained that she wasn’t getting much time to train with Kim and Park, who were practicing separately at the university.

 

For Noh, it was her second tearful Olympics in a row.

 

Four years ago, she was bent on competing with her brother Jin-kyu at the 2014 Sochi Games. But the talented short-tracker failed to make it there after he was diagnosed with bone cancer. He died two years later.

 

Her preparations for the Pyeongchang Games were equally troubled.

 

She was supposed to be on the pursuit team, but she was told barely two weeks before the games started that she could not compete since she had not qualified for an individual event. The Korea Skating Union said an administrative error was to blame. After a withdrawal from other athletes, though, a spot opened up and she took it.

 

On Wednesday night, Noh skated with Kim and Park again in a two-team race to determine seventh place. As the stadium’s announcer called out their names, the crowd quietly acknowledged Kim and Park, but saved a thunderous cheer for Noh.

 

The Koreans lost to Poland and finished eighth.
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Jennifer Lawrence on Wednesday blasted a controversy over a photo of her wearing a plunging black dress outside on a cold London day as sexist, ridiculous and “not feminism.”

The Oscar-winning star, 27, said in a Facebook posting that she was also “extremely offended” by what she called the “utterly ridiculous” reaction on social and mainstream media to the photo, taken as part of promotions for her upcoming movie “Red Sparrow.”

The picture, taken outdoors on a bitter winter’s day in London earlier this week, showed a bare-shouldered Lawrence wearing a black gown, while actor Jeremy Irons and three fellow cast members donned thick wool coats.

Many commentators saw the photo as a reflection of the pressure on women in Hollywood to look good, particularly given Lawrence’s previous outspoken criticism of the gender pay gap in the movie industry.

“True equality means either Jennifer Lawrence getting a coat, or Jeremy Irons having to pose for a photo call in assless chaps,” tweeted London journalist Helen Lewis.

Australian journalist Stephanie Peatling remarked on Twitter that it was “cold enough that the bloke actors have to wear coats and scarves to their press call and yet poor Jennifer Lawrence is wearing a small amount of fabric some might call a dress.”

Lawrence, one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, was having none of it.

“That Versace dress was fabulous, you think I’m going to cover that gorgeous dress up with a coat and a scarf? I was outside for 5 minutes. I would have stood in the snow for that dress because I love fashion and that was my choice,” she wrote on Facebook.

“This is sexist, this is ridiculous, this is not feminism,” she added. “It’s creating silly distractions from real issues. Get a grip people.”

“Red Sparrow,” a thriller in which Lawrence plays a Russian spy, opens worldwide next week.

 
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Ivanka Trump is set to attend the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics in South Korea on Sunday in the latest high-profile visit to Games which have been dominated by the North Korea crisis.

The trip by U.S. President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter — who is also one of his advisers — comes in the wake of a visit to the Pyeongchang Games by North Korea’s ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam and Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un.

“The upcoming visit by adviser Ivanka is intended to celebrate the successful hosting of the Pyeongchang Olympics and highlight the mutual understanding of the South Korea-US alliance,” Noh Kyu-duk, spokesman for the foreign ministry in Seoul, said Tuesday, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Trump is expected to arrive in South Korea on Friday, the agency added, quoting Noh as saying her detailed itinerary will be released by the United States.

When asked if North Korea would be on the agenda for any potential talks during Ivanka Trump’s visit, Noh said, according to Yonhap: “Issues of mutual interest could naturally be on the table during the process of the visit.”

There has already been a high-profile meeting between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the North Korean delegation, during which Kim Jong Un’s sister passed on his invitation for Moon to visit Pyongyang for a summit.

Despite the thaw in ties between the two Koreas, Washington has said it will maintain its campaign of “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang, and insists there are no differences with Seoul on how to handle the North.

The Games’ opening ceremony saw US Vice President Mike Pence and the North Korean representatives seated in the same box, but they did not interact.

They had planned to meet secretly while in South Korea, but US officials said Pyongyang scrapped the plan after Pence denounced North Korea’s “murderous regime”.

Tensions rose rapidly last year over the North’s development of nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles, with President Trump and Kim Jong Un exchanging personal insults.

But the North’s participation in the Games has led to an easing in tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent weeks.
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Award-winning chef Jose Andres is working on a book about his efforts to help Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.

Ecco told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it has acquired We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time. The book is scheduled for Sept. 11 and is co-written by Richard Wolffe. A portion of proceeds will be given to the Chef Relief Network of Andres’ nonprofit World Central Kitchen. We Fed an Island will be released through Anthony Bourdain’s imprint at Ecco.

Andres says he wanted to provide the “inside story” of the relief work by himself and World Central Kitchen last fall.
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