Even at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, there is ambivalence about the ways technology affects children. VOA’s Michelle Quinn talked to people about the benefits and costs as technology is becoming more a part of young people’s lives.
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Following an outcry over a significant disparity in pay between co-stars, Mark Wahlberg agreed Saturday to donate the $1.5 million he earned for reshoots for All the Money in the World to the sexual misconduct defense initiative Time’s Up.
Wahlberg said he’ll donate the money in the name of his co-star, Michelle Williams, who reportedly made less than $1,000 on the reshoots.
“I 100% support the fight for fair pay,” Wahlberg said in a statement.
Williams issued a statement Saturday, saying: “Today isn’t about me. My fellow actresses stood by me and stood up for me, my activist friends taught me to use my voice, and the most powerful men in charge, they listened and they acted.”
She noted that “it takes equal effort and sacrifice” to make a film.
“Today is one of the most indelible days of my life because of Mark Wahlberg, WME (William Morris Endeavor) and a community of women and men who share in this accomplishment.”
The announcement Saturday came after directors and stars, including Jessica Chastain and Judd Apatow, shared their shock at reports of the huge pay disparity for the Ridley Scott film. The 10 days of reshoots were necessary after Kevin Spacey was replaced by Christopher Plummer when accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced against Spacey. USA Today reported Williams was paid less than $1,000 for the 10 days.
Both Williams and Plummer were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances.
Talent agency William Morris Endeavor, which represents both Williams and Wahlberg, said it will donate an additional $500,000 to Time’s Up. The agency said in a statement that wage disparity conversations should continue and “we are committed to being part of the solution.”
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A new biography of French first lady Brigitte Macron says her husband penned a racy novel inspired by their early romance, when he was still a teenager and she his married drama teacher.
President Emmanuel Macron, who turned 40 last month, fell for Brigitte during rehearsals for a school play at the Providence high school in Amiens, and defied his parents’ disapproval to pursue the relationship with a woman 24 years his
senior.
The book, “Brigitte Macron, The Liberated Woman”, to be published next week, quotes a family neighbor from Macron’s home town who says she typed up the 300-page manuscript.
“It was a daring novel, a little bit smutty. Of course, the names were not the same but I think he needed to express what he was feeling at the time,” the unnamed neighbor is quoted as saying in excerpts published by Closer magazine.
A spokeswoman for Macron’s office declined to comment.
In the excerpts, the typist said she had not kept a copy of the novel – perhaps sparing the blushes of a leader who has promised to clean up French politics and says he wants to restore the dignity of the presidency.
But Macron would not be the only current French politician to try his hand at adult literature.
In 2011, the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, co-authored ‘Dans l’ombre’ (In the Shadows), a political thriller laced with steamy encounters. The finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has written a novel entitled ‘Le Ministre’ (The Minister), which includes a steamy scene between the minister and his wife in Venice.
Macron’s literary ambitions as a young man are well known and he wrote at least two unpublished works before authoring a book entitled “Revolution” during his election campaign.
He told the weekly magazine Le Point last year that he had not sought a publisher for the earlier works “as I was not happy with them”.
In a separate article for the same magazine, asked by French author Philippe Besson if he regretted not becoming a writer himself, Macron replied: “My life isn’t finished yet.”
Gadgets that can make homes smarter are becoming more affordable for consumers. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, even simple devices were getting sophisticated new brains. VOA’s George Putic has more.
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Saudi women were allowed into a sports stadium for the first time Friday to watch a soccer match between two local teams, though they were segregated in the stands from the male-only crowd with designated seating in the so-called “family section.”
The move was the first of Saudi Arabia’s social reforms planned for this year to ease restrictions on women, spearheaded by the kingdom’s 32-year-old crown prince. The kingdom has also announced that starting in June, women will be allowed to drive, lifting the world’s only ban on female drivers.
Integrate women into society
More than just an incremental step toward greater rights, the presence of women in the sports stadium underscored a wider effort to integrate women into society and grant them more public visibility in a country where gender segregation is widely enforced and where most women cover their faces and hair with black veils and don loose-flowing black robes, known as abayas.
The first stadium to open its doors to women was in the Red Sea city of Jiddah. The stadium in the capital, Riyadh, will open to women on Saturday, followed by the western city of Dammam on Thursday.
At the Jiddah stadium Friday, young Saudi women wearing bright orange vests over their abayas were deployed to help with the female crowds. “Welcome to Saudi families,” read a sign in Arabic erected across the section of the stadium reserved for women.
“It’s very festive and very well organized. A lot of people are just really happy to be here. I think there’s a lot of excitement when you walked in, especially among the children,” said Sarah Swick of the match between Saudi soccer teams Al-Ahli and Al-Batin.
Family sections
To prepare for the change, the kingdom designated so-called “family sections” in the stands for women, separated by barriers from the male-only crowds. The stadiums were also fitted with female prayer areas and restrooms, as well as separate entrances and parking lots for female spectators. Local media said women would also have their own designated smoking areas.
“Family sections” are ubiquitous across the kingdom, allowing married couples, direct relatives and sometimes groups of friends to sit together, isolated from male-only tables at restaurants and in waiting areas at banks and hospitals. The sections also include women out on their own or in groups with other women.
Although only 20 riyals ($5.33) a ticket, the family section for Friday’s match was still less than half full.
“A lot of people wanted to wait and see how it is. Some thought it wouldn’t be very safe or organized,” said Swick, who attended the game with her Saudi husband and son, and her American mother.
Swick, who grew up in Maryland and has been living in Saudi Arabia for the past nine years, has attended football games in the U.S. and soccer matches in France, but said she was impressed with how organized Friday night’s match was.
“I definitely think we will come back,” she said.
Some opposed
An Arabic hashtag on Twitter about women entering stadiums garnered tens of thousands of tweets on Friday, with some using the hashtag to share photos of female spectators wearing their team’s colors in scarves thrown over their black abayas.
While many welcomed the decision to allow women into stadiums, others spoke out against it.
Some used the hashtag to write that women’s place should be in the home, focusing on their children and preserving their faith, and not at a stadium where male crowds frequently curse and chant raucously.
Change and jobs
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is seen as the driving force behind the loosened restrictions on women. Still in place, however, are guardianship laws that prevent women from traveling abroad, obtaining a passport or marrying without a male relative’s consent.
Set to inherit a country where more than half the population is younger than 25 and hungry for change, the young crown prince has looked to boost his popularity by curbing nearly four decades of deeply entrenched ultraconservative influence. His reforms, which include allowing movie theaters to open in March after a more than 35-year ban, are also aimed at creating more jobs and increasing local spending on entertainment as the country faces several more years of budget deficit amid continued lower oil prices.
The country’s large, new stadiums were built with hundreds of millions of dollars when oil prices were nearly double what they are now. The government spent lavishly on them in an effort to appease young Saudis and provide spaces for fans eager to cheer on local clubs, as well as hold national parades and ceremonies.
In a one-off, the stadium in Riyadh allowed families to enter and watch National Day festivities in September, marking the first time women had set foot inside.
Earlier failures, successes
In 2015, a Saudi woman who tried to attend a soccer game in Jiddah was arrested after local media said she was spotted by security officers “deliberately disguised” in pants, a long-sleeve top, a hat and sunglasses to avoid detection.
Over the years, though, there have been some exceptions for foreign women.
In 2015, an Australian female supporter of Western Sydney Wanderers soccer club was permitted to attend a match at Riyadh’s main stadium and a group of American women traveling with a U.S. Congress delegation also watched a local club match there.
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Doreen Tracey, a former child star who played one of the original cute-as-a-button Mouseketeers on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s, has died, according to Disney publicist Howard Green. She was 74.
Tracey died of pneumonia Wednesday at a hospital in Thousand Oaks, Calif., following a two-year battle with cancer.
Tracey maintained ties to Disney and show business throughout her life, appearing in the film Westward Ho the Wagons! and touring with the Mouseketeers. She later served as a publicist to musician Frank Zappa and worked at Warner Bros.
It was the pig-tailed Tracey and her talented co-stars — including Annette Funicello — who appeared on television in black hats with ears following the anthem “M-I-C, K-E-Y, M-O-U-S-E …” on ABC’s The Mickey Mouse Club.
Millions of kids raced home from school to watch in wonder as the bouncy Mouseketeers announced themselves at the top of the show.
The Mickey Mouse Club was the brainchild of Walt Disney during the flowering of his company’s fortunes in the mid-1950s. To help finance the Disneyland park, he agreed to supply ABC with TV shows. One was designed for children in the pre-dinner hour.
The hourlong show proved a sensation with its Oct. 3, 1955, debut. It flourished for two seasons, then was reduced to a half-hour for two more. Tracey stayed for its four-year run.
The black-and-white series was syndicated in 1962-65. The 1990s version of The Mickey Mouse Club launched the careers of singers Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, and actors Keri Russell and Ryan Gosling.
Born in London on April 3, 1943, to parents who worked in vaudeville, Tracey arrived in the United States when she was 4 and learned to sing and dance. She nabbed a spot on The Mickey Mouse Club when she was 12.
Lorraine Santoli, a former executive at Disney who wrote The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book, said Tracey remained close to her Disney roots, maintaining longtime friendships with her fellow Mouseketeers.
Tracey strained her relationship with Disney by posing for a men’s magazine in 1976 with nothing on except her mouse ears and later wearing nothing but an open trench coat in front of Disney Studios. Still, she often appeared at Mickey Mouse Club reunion shows at Disneyland and at Disney conventions, last celebrating the show’s 60th anniversary in 2015.
Tracey is survived by her son, Bradley, and two grandchildren, Gavin, 9, and Autumn, 12.
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President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer brokered a $130,000 payment to a porn star to prevent her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.
Trump met Stephanie Clifford, whose goes by the name Stormy Daniels in films, at a golf event in 2006 — a year after Trump’s marriage to his wife, Melania.
According to the Journal’s report, Clifford began talking with ABC News in the fall of 2016 for a story involving an alleged relationship with Trump, but reached a $130,000 deal a month before the election, which prevented her from going public.
Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen arranged for the payment through Clifford’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, the Journal reported.
In a statement to the Journal, Cohen did not address his role in negotiating the supposed payment but said Trump denies any such relationship with Clifford. Clifford has previously denied an alleged relationship with Trump.
On Friday afternoon, the White House issued a statement calling the Journal’s story “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.”
Cohen also accused the Journal of perpetuating “a false narrative for over a year.”
Just days before the 2016 election, the Journal published a story stating that the National Enquirer — run by David Pecker, a fervid supporter of Trump — had paid $150,000 to silence former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about a sexual relationship she allegedly had with Trump a decade ago.
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Americans may love Oprah Winfrey, but most don’t want the chat show queen to run for president, although if she did she would beat Donald Trump, a poll revealed Friday.
Winfrey’s rousing speech at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony ignited speculation that the billionaire entertainment mogul, the first black woman to own a television network, is harboring Oval Office ambitions.
Sixty-four percent of respondents have a favorable view of Winfrey, including 43 percent of Trump supporters, according to the NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist survey.
But when asked if they wanted Winfrey to run in 2020, only 35 percent said yes. A majority — 54 percent — said no and 11 percent said they were unsure.
Yet if a hypothetical presidential head-to-head was held today, 50 percent of national registered voters said they would vote in Winfrey as a Democrat. Only 39 percent said they would return Trump to office.
Voters were predictably split along party lines. Ninety-one percent of Democrats backed Winfrey. Eighty-five percent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump.
While there is little indication that 63-year-old Winfrey wants the job, Hollywood’s loathing of Trump and Democrats’ bafflement that a reality TV star could win with no previous government experience has fueled talk of finding their own celebrity candidate.
Trump said Tuesday he doubted Winfrey would run, but if she did, he would win.
The survey was carried out among 1,350 adults earlier this week, after Oprah’s speech made headlines. The poll carried a margin of error of 2.7 percent and three percent among registered voters.
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General Motors Co is seeking U.S. government approval for a fully autonomous car — one without a steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator pedal — to enter the automaker’s first commercial ride-sharing fleet in 2019, executives said.
For passengers who cannot open doors, the Cruise AV — a rebranded version of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt EV — has even been designed to perform that task. It will have other accommodations for hearing and visually impaired customers.
This will be one of the first self-driving vehicles in commercial passenger service and among the first to do away with manual controls for steering, brakes and throttle. What is the driver’s seat in the Bolt EV will become the front left passenger seat in the Cruise AV, GM said.
Company President Dan Ammann told reporters GM had filed on Thursday for government approval to deploy the “first production-ready vehicle designed from the start without a steering wheel, pedals or other unnecessary manual controls.”
GM is part of a growing throng of vehicle manufacturers, technology companies and tech startups seeking to develop so-called robo-taxis over the next three years in North America, Europe and Asia. Most of those companies have one or more partners.
On Friday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed GM had petitioned for approval to operate up to 2,500 vehicles without steering wheels or human drivers.
“Safety is the [Transportation] department’s top priority. The department will review this petition and give it careful consideration,” the agency said in a statement.
Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday it will partner with delivery service Postmates Inc as the automaker starts testing ways to transport people, food and packages this spring in its self-driving cars, which are being developed by Ford’s Argo unit.
Other companies, from Uber Technologies Inc to Alphabet Inc’s Waymo, have been testing self-driving vehicle prototypes in limited ride-sharing applications, but have been less explicit than GM in announcing plans for commercial robo-taxi services.
GM executives said the automaker has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow 16 alterations to existing vehicle safety rules — such as having an airbag in what would normally be the driver’s seat, but without a steering wheel — to enable the deployment of the Cruise AV.
The automaker would then need to obtain similar approval from individual U.S. states. GM executives said seven U.S. states already allow the alterations sought by the automaker.
In other states — including those that stipulate a car must have a licensed human driver — GM will work with regulators to change or get a waiver from existing rules.
The company declined to identify the first states in which it plans to launch the vehicle or say when it would begin testing.
GM wants to control its own self-driving fleet partly because of the tremendous revenue potential it sees in selling related services, from e-commerce to infotainment, to consumers riding in those vehicles.
At a Nov. 30 briefing in San Francisco, GM’s Ammann told investors the lifetime revenue generation of one of its self-driving cars could eventually be “several hundred thousands of dollars.” That compares with the $30,000 on average that GM collects today for one of its vehicles, mostly derived from the initial sale.
GM’s Cruise AV is equipped with the automaker’s fourth-generation self-driving software and hardware, including 21 radars, 16 cameras and five lidars — sensing devices that use laser light to help autonomous cars “see” nearby objects and obstacles.
The Cruise AV will be able to operate in hands-free mode only in premapped urban areas.
GM’s prototype self-driving vehicles have been developed in San Francisco by Cruise Automation, the onetime startup that GM acquired in March 2016 for a reported $1 billion.
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After a stop at Mount Rushmore in the state of South Dakota, and hitting the halfway mark on his quest to visit all 417 National Park sites, National Parks traveler Mikah Meyer headed east… to the South Dakota Badlands, and shared his impressions with Faith Lapidus.
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Scholarship program TheDream.US said on Friday it had received a $33 million donation from Amazon.com Inc Chief Executive Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie Bezos to fund 1,000 college scholarships.
The scholarship program will fund U.S. high school graduates with a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, an Obama-era program protecting young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents — commonly known as Dreamers.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the federal court system as “broken and unfair” after a judge blocked his administration’s move to end the DACA program.
2,850 students are currently enrolled in different colleges as part of TheDream.US scholarship, which covers the cost of tuition, fees and books.
Bezos’ parents, Mike and Jackie Bezos, were among the early donors to TheDream.US. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pershing Square Foundation and Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are also among the other major contributers to the program.
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The same Russian government-aligned hackers who penetrated the Democratic Party have spent the past few months laying the groundwork for an espionage campaign against the U.S. Senate, a cybersecurity firm said Friday.
The revelation suggests the group often nicknamed Fancy Bear, whose hacking campaign scrambled the 2016 U.S. electoral contest, is still busy trying to gather the emails of America’s political elite.
“They’re still very active — in making preparations at least — to influence public opinion again,” said Feike Hacquebord, a security researcher at Trend Micro Inc., which published the report . “They are looking for information they might leak later.”
The Senate Sergeant at Arms office, which is responsible for the upper house’s security, declined to comment.
Hacquebord said he based his report on the discovery of a clutch of suspicious-looking websites dressed up to look like the U.S. Senate’s internal email system. He then cross-referenced digital fingerprints associated with those sites to ones used almost exclusively by Fancy Bear, which his Tokyo-based firm dubs “Pawn Storm.”
Trend Micro previously drew international attention when it used an identical technique to uncover a set of decoy websites apparently set up to harvest emails from the French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign in April 2017. The sites’ discovery was followed two months later by a still-unexplained publication of private emails from several Macron staffers in the final days of the race.
Hacquebord said the rogue Senate sites — which were set up in June and September of 2017 — matched their French counterparts.
“That is exactly the way they attacked the Macron campaign in France,” he said.
Attribution is extremely tricky in the world of cybersecurity, where hackers routinely use misdirection and red herrings to fool their adversaries. But Tend Micro, which has followed Fancy Bear for years, said there could be no doubt.
“We are 100 percent sure that it can attributed to the Pawn Storm group,” said Rik Ferguson, one of the Hacquebord’s colleagues.
Like many cybersecurity companies, Trend Micro refuses to speculate publicly on who is behind such groups, referring to Pawn Storm only as having “Russia-related interests.” But the U.S. intelligence community alleges that Russia’s military intelligence service pulls the hackers’ strings and a months-long Associated Press investigation into the group, drawing on a vast database of targets supplied by the cybersecurity firm Secureworks, has determined that the group is closely attuned to the Kremlin’s objectives.
If Fancy Bear has targeted the Senate over the past few months, it wouldn’t be the first time. An AP analysis of Secureworks’ list shows that several staffers there were targeted between 2015 and 2016.
Among them: Robert Zarate, now the foreign policy adviser to Florida Senator Marco Rubio; Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who now runs a Washington consultancy; and Jason Thielman, the chief of staff to Montana Senator Steve Daines. A Congressional researcher specializing in national security issues was also targeted.
Fancy Bear’s interests aren’t limited to U.S. politics; the group also appears to have the Olympics in mind.
Trend Micro’s report said the group had set up infrastructure aimed at collecting emails from a series of Olympic winter sports federations, including the International Ski Federation, the International Ice Hockey Federation, the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation, the International Luge Federation and the International Biathlon Union.
The targeting of Olympic groups comes as relations between Russia and the International Olympic Committee are particularly fraught. Russian athletes are being forced to compete under a neutral flag in the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics following an extraordinary doping scandal that has seen 43 athletes and several Russian officials banned for life.
Amid speculation that Russia could retaliate by orchestrating the leak of prominent Olympic officials’ emails, cybersecurity firms including McAfee and ThreatConnect have picked up on signs that state-backed hackers are making moves against winter sports staff and anti-doping officials.
On Wednesday, a group that has brazenly adopted the Fancy Bear nickname began publishing what appeared to be Olympics and doping-related emails from between September 2016 and March 2017. The contents were largely unremarkable but their publication was covered extensively by Russian state media and some read the leak as a warning to Olympic officials not to press Moscow too hard over the doping scandal.
Whether any Senate emails could be published in such a way isn’t clear. Previous warnings that German lawmakers’ correspondence might be leaked by Fancy Bear ahead of last year’s election there appear to have come to nothing.
On the other hand, the group has previously dumped at least one U.S. legislator’s correspondence onto the web.
One of the targets on Secureworks’ list was Colorado State Senator Andy Kerr, who said thousands of his emails were posted to an obscure section of the website DCLeaks — a web portal better known for publishing emails belonging to retired Gen. Colin Powell and various members of Hillary Clinton’s campaign — in late 2016.
Kerr said he was still bewildered as to why he was targeted. He said while he supported transparency, “there should be some process and some system to it.
“It shouldn’t be up to a foreign government or some hacker to say what gets released and what shouldn’t.”
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As Wyclef Jean records in his New Jersey studio, electricity flows through his fingertips – a harmonic concoction of adrenaline, then inspiration. Or so he describes the process that has seamlessly blended day-and-night sessions over his 27-year high-profile musical journey, from early 90s-era Fugees member to solo artist.
But until now, the 48-year old Haitian-native refugee, rapper, musician and cultural icon hadn’t produced a studio album in eight years, the longest drought in his 20-year solo career – one that he says was sparked by a return trip to Haiti.
“I had an epiphany,” he told VOA in an exclusive interview. “You can’t spend a lifetime just doing music.”
Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti that left more than 200,000 dead, Jean made a high-profile bid to run for the nation’s presidency; an effort that didn’t pan out from the beginning on constitutional grounds. But the effort, he contends, was never a “failure” due to the “world appeal” it brought to the country’s woes.
So when the Trump administration announced an end to Temporary Protected Status for nearly 60,000 Haitian beneficiaries in November, citing “sufficiently improved” conditions for nationals to return safely to the island nation, Jean used his stardom again, on stage and in interviews, to lambast the decision.
“It’s sort of like you’re just sending them back to their death and famine,” he told VOA, comparing their plight to being on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, where thousands of homeless residents live on the streets. TPS is scheduled to expire in 2019 for Haitians.
“There is still a reality on the ground in Haiti,” Jean said. “The level of how many people that’s deported that are in prisons in Haiti, the structure of the police force, the judicial system…”
Haiti ranks 163 out of 188 on the 2015 Human Development Index, a composite statistic by the United Nations Development Program, factoring life expectancy, education, and income per capita. 24.7 percent of the population lives in extreme poverty – $1.25 a day – according to 2013 data.
Growing up, Jean knew poverty, only leaving it behind after his ascension into hip-hop. A refugee at the age of nine, Jean and his mother scraped by on welfare in the United States, first in Marlboro Houses, a notorious public housing project in Brooklyn, and later in Newark, New Jersey. It was then that Jean’s musical abilities began to take form and offer a more promising future.
Wyclef details his journey in his new album, Carnival III: The Fall and Rise of a Refugee, and in a conversation with VOA, below.
(VOA spoke to Wyclef Jean prior to President Donald Trump’s reported disparaging remarks about Haiti and African countries).
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It was a good night for women at the Critics’ Choice Awards, which honored women-centered stories like “Big Little Lies,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” “Wonder Woman” was named best action movie and star Gal Gadot accepted a special award for challenging gender stereotypes.
Yet the industry’s ongoing sexual misconduct crisis remained an element of the ceremony as James Franco won an acting award early in the evening, hours after a report detailed new misconduct allegations against “The Disaster Artist” star and director. Franco did not attend Thursday’s presentation at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, and his award was presented during a pre-telecast section broadcast only online.
Franco won a similar award at the Golden Globes earlier in the week, where most women dressed in black to protest sexual harassment. More women dressed in color on Thursday, but their determination to end gender discrimination remained just as fierce.
“I want to share this award with all the women and men who stand for what’s right, standing for those who can’t stand or speak for themselves,” Gadot said as she accepted the second annual #SeeHer award. “My promise to you is: I will never be silenced. We will continue to band together to make strides, uniting for equality.”
Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy romance, “The Shape of Water,” was the top film winner with four awards. Del Toro, who was also named best director, closed the show Thursday night by shouting that he’s always believed in the equality of women.
“Let me tell you one thing, if you don’t do that, you don’t know what you’re missing,” he said.
The Shape of Water,” which led all nominees with 14 bids, also claimed the best picture prize, along with score and production design honors.
Olivia Munn hosted the dinner ceremony, which was broadcast live on the CW network. The actress, who has spoken publicly about her own experiences with sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry, led the audience in a toast. Joined by actress Niecey Nash, they raised a glass “to all the good guys in Hollywood,” who held meetings in conference rooms rather than hotel rooms.
“Congratulations for doing what you’re supposed to do!” Nash said.
“Big Little Lies” received four awards: best limited series, as well as acting honors for Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgard and Laura Dern.
Kidman thanked the entertainment community “who show up to make really fantastic films and TV and let us do what we love.”
“I love being an actor,” said the 50-year-old Oscar winner. “Thank you for letting me do it all the way through to this age and beyond.”
Stories about women also won in comedy categories. “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” was named best comedy series, and star Rachel Brosnahan won best actress in a comedy.
As she accepted her award, Brosnahan noted that even though women aren’t wearing black like most did at the Golden Globe Awards earlier in the week, she said the fight to eradicate sexual harassment continues.
“Let’s not lose focus,” she said, urging viewers to support the Time’s Up initiative. “Let’s keep this going.”
Presenter Chris Hemsworth noted that women have had a stellar year at the box office.
“The three biggest movies of 2017 in North America were `Star Wars: The Last Jedi,’ `Beauty and the Beast’ and `Wonder Woman,”‘ which all feature female protagonists, he said. “The biggest comedy was a female ensemble, `Girls Trip,’ and the biggest independent movie was written and directed by Greta Gerwig.”
Hemsworth presented the best actress award to an absent Frances McDormand for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” The film also won for acting ensemble and supporting actor for Sam Rockwell.
Double winners Thursday included “I, Tonya,” “Darkest Hour,” “Get Out” and “Coco.”
“I, Tonya” brought acting accolades for star Margot Robbie and supporting actress Allison Janney. “Darkest Hour” won awards for makeup and lead actor for Gary Oldman. “Get Out” was named best sci-fi or horror film, and writer-director Jordan Peele claimed original screenplay honors. “Coco” won animated feature and original song for “Remember Me.”
Many Critics’ Choice Awards winners also took home Golden Globes, including McDormand, Rockwell, Oldman, Brosnahan and the stars of “Big Little Lies.” Hollywood’s awards season continues through March 4, when the Academy Awards are presented.
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The robot revolution has arrived at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Many tech companies are developing robots that act as social companions who can be a part of the family. Will people embrace robots like smartphones? Elizabeth Lee finds out from the show in Las Vegas.
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A paraplegic rock climber in Hong Kong is China’s first-ever nominee for the world’s greatest moment in sports. The wheelchair user hopes to inspire his countrymen and others living with disabilities to overcome the challenges that stand between them and their dreams. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Facebook on Thursday announced a major update that will put friends and family above pages or celebrities in a user’s news feed — and likely result in people spending less time on the leading social network.
The change to the way Facebook ranks posts will put more weight on social interactions and relationships, according to News Feed product manager John Hegeman.
“This is a big change,” Hegeman said.
People more important
“People will actually spend less time on Facebook, but we feel good about that because it will make the time they do spend more valuable, and be good for our business in the end.”
For example, a family video clip posted by a spouse will be deemed more worthy of attention than a snippet from a star or favorite restaurant.
“We think people interaction is more important than passively consuming content,” Hegeman said. “This will be one of the more important updates that we have made.”
Facebook co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that bringing people together and strengthening communities in the real world are priorities.
Update coming soon
The news feed ranking update, which is set to roll out globally in the coming weeks, is expected to support that goal.
“As we roll this out, you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media,” Zuckerberg said in a post at his Facebook page.
“And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard — it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”
Battling fake news
Google, Twitter and Facebook have come under fire for allowing the spread of bogus news — some of which was directed by Russia — ahead of the 2016 US election and in other countries.
Facebook has introduced a series of changes intended to address the problem.
“We are doing a ton of work to reduce the frequency of bad content on Facebook,” Hegeman said.
“This update is more about amplifying the things people value.”
He cited academic research indicating that interacting with loved ones is crucial to a person’s wellbeing, while reading news articles or watching shared videos may not be.
“There is really no silver bullet here to determine what is most meaningful, but we are trying to mine the signals to get the best representation that we can,” Hegeman said.
Fix Facebook
Known for setting annual personal goals ranging from killing his own food to learning Mandarin, Zuckerberg’s stated mission for this year is to “fix” the social network, including by targeting abuse and hate, and making sure visiting Facebook is time well spent.
“I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions,” Zuckerberg said Thursday.
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Six more women have stepped forward to accuse prominent conductor Charles Dutoit of sexually assaulting them in the United States, France and Canada, including a musician who says the maestro raped her in 1988.
The women said they were compelled to speak out after The Associated Press published a story Dec. 21 detailing accusations from three singers and a musician who said Dutoit forcibly restrained them, groped them and kissed them without permission.
The 81-year-old Grammy-winning conductor emphatically denied the accusations, but eight major orchestras immediately distanced themselves from him and two launched their own investigations.
The new accusers said they were angered by his initial denial and wanted to show the scope of Dutoit’s sexual misconduct during his globe-trotting career. They said the Swiss-born conductor attacked them in Paris, Montreal and the United States over a four-decade period, starting in the late 1970s.
Dutoit had been principal conductor and artistic director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London. Hours after the AP sent Dutoit and the Royal Philharmonic detailed summaries of the fresh allegations, the orchestra announced Wednesday that he was leaving those posts.
Dutoit issued a statement saying he was “sickened” to be accused “of the heinous crime of rape.” “I am shaken to the core by this bewildering and baseless charge. To this, I submit my categorical and complete denial,” he said.
During a career leading the world’s top orchestras, Dutoit has held such notable positions as music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra.
The woman who accused the conductor of raping her said the assault occurred when she was working with him at an orchestra on the East Coast of the U.S in early 1988. The AP does not publish the names of people who say they are victims of sexual assault without their permission so, to protect her identity, the AP also is not disclosing the instrument she plays, her orchestra or the city where she said she was attacked.
Rape allegations
The musician said she was 28 and auditioning for an orchestra where Dutoit was guest-conducting. One night, she rode the elevator up with him to their shared hotel floor, the woman said.
“As soon as I got to my room, the phone rang. It was Maestro Dutoit,” she said, adding that he told her his luggage was broken and asked for a tool used to fix musical instruments. She brought it to his room, where he quickly forced herself on her, she said.
“He came closer to me and tried to kiss me, and held my head so strongly it ripped my earring out,” said the musician, now in her 50s. “He pinned my wrists to the wall and pushed me to the bed.”
“His pants were down in a split second and he was inside me before I could blink,” she said. She said she started crying, told him to stop and that she was married, but that it made no difference.
When she blurted out that she was not on birth control, he quickly pushed her out the door, she said. “‘I’ll get some condoms and I’ll get you back,”‘ she quoted him as telling her.
AP spoke with three male musicians who said she confided in them after the encounter. One of them recalled she was afraid to be alone and said he served as her chaperone at subsequent concerts. Another said he urged her to report Dutoit to police but that she never did.
Additional allegations
French soprano Anne-Sophie Schmidt told the AP that Dutoit pushed her against a wall, groped her and forcibly kissed her in 1995 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris. Shortly after the opera’s run ended, she said Dutoit dropped her from upcoming performances he had scheduled with her.
Canadian soprano Pauline Vaillancourt told the AP that Dutoit asked her to dinner to discuss work issues after a performance with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in March 1981. She said he then drove her home, stopping the car to grope her breasts and other parts of her body.
Canadian musician Mary Lou Basaraba said she was in her early 20s when she was asked to interview Dutoit for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in the late 1970s. The interview took place in Dutoit’s apartment, where he put his hands on her breasts and crotch and tried to kiss her as she sat on his sofa, she said.
Fiona Allan, now 50, told the AP that Dutoit pushed her against the wall and put his hand on her breast when she delivered documents to his dressing room in 1997 while interning at the Tanglewood festival, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Allan said the Boston Symphony was aware of the conductor’s behavior and did nothing. The symphony declined to answer repeated questions from the AP about whether it had received prior complaints about Dutoit, a regular guest conductor since 1981.
Pianist Jenny Chai said she was attacked when she attended a Philadelphia Orchestra concert in the early 2000s in which Martha Argerich, an ex-wife of Dutoit’s, was playing. Chai went backstage to meet Argerich but instead spoke with Dutoit, who she said hugged her, put his hands on her waist and back and tried to stick his tongue in her mouth.
The AP cross-checked all the accusers’ accounts with friends or colleagues they talked to about their experiences.
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We’re uncorking the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles Chart, for the week ending Jan. 13, 2018.
We have no big changes for you this week, just a small re-arrangement.
Number 5: Imagine Dragons “Thunder”
It starts in fifth place, where Imagine Dragons rebounds a slot with “Thunder.” HBO Documentary Films has acquired the U.S. TV rights to lead singer Dan Reynolds’ film about the Mormon Church and how it treats its LGBTQ members. Titled “Believer,” the movie features two original songs. It premieres later this month at the Sundance Film Festival.
Number 4: G-Eazy “No Limit”
Lil Pump leaves us this week, while G-Eazy takes over fourth place with “No Limit,” featuring A$AP Rocky and Cardi B.
Last month, G-Eazy dropped his fourth studio album “The Beautiful & Damned,” while also co-writing a short film about his life. The 24-minute film reflects the album’s theme of duality: G-Eazy has achieved his dream of stardom, but is it everything he thought it would be?
Number 3: Camila Cabello Featuring Young Thug “Havana”
Camila Cabello has realized her dream of solo stardom, and it begins in earnest this week. On January 12, the former Fifth Harmony member releases her much-delayed debut solo album, “Camila.”
Young Thug is the only guest artist on the standard edition, while a special edition features a “Havana” remix featuring Daddy Yankee. Right now, Camila only has two confirmed concert dates on the way: a March 16 show in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the following day in Santiago, Chile.
Number 2: Post Malone Featuring 21 Savage “Rockstar”
Post Malone and 21 Savage remain in second place with their former champ “Rockstar.” Post is currently touring Australia and New Zealand, while April finds him in Southern California at the huge Coachella Festival. Post’s next album has yet to appear, but this week you can see him on TV. He’s a guest on the “Ghost Adventures” show, airing on the Travel Channel.
Number 1: Ed Sheeran Duet with Beyonce “Perfect”
Ed Sheeran and Beyonce are as real as can be … and their combined star power rules the Hot 100 for a fourth week with “Perfect.”
Apparently, Ed has a food obsession. The London Sun reports that Ed loves tomato ketchup so much that he has an assistant carry a bottle wherever he goes. Ed’s reportedly sick of high-end restaurants not carrying the popular condiment.
Thanks for spicing up our countdown today … let’s do it again next week!
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Cindy Crawford is heading back to the Super Bowl: The model has recreated her iconic 1992 Super Bowl ad for Pepsi, now featuring her 18-year-old son.
Crawford recently filmed the commercial, which will debut at Super Bowl 52 on February 4. It includes her son, Presley Walker Gerber, as well as footage from Michael Jackson’s memorable Pepsi commercial.
The 51-year-old said she didn’t hesitate to recreate the ad 26 years later, especially since she was able to work with her son.
“Just as a mother, we drove to work together that day and we shared the same trailer. And when he was doing his thing, I was just a proud mom watching from the sidelines, trying not to annoy him,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday.
The new Super Bowl ad, dubbed “This Is The Pepsi,” is part of the company’s “Pepsi Generation” campaign honoring the brand’s 120-year history in pop culture.
The original features Crawford in a tank top and jean shorts — made from her own jeans she brought to the set that day — driving a Lamborghini and stopping at a gas station to buy a can of soda. She said she felt the 1992 spot “became such a classic for so many reasons.”
“It was one of those moments in my career that when I walked down the street, people were like, `Pepsi!’ Or I’d be at a bar and people would send me over a Pepsi,” she said, laughing. “And it’s funny because during Halloween a lot of women will dress up as me in that commercial. It’s like an easy Halloween costume.”
Crawford plans to attend the Super Bowl in Minneapolis, where her father lives.
“I think probably that will be the highlight for me is just getting to see my dad,” she said. “I took him to a Super Bowl before I had kids … and it’s not like he ever wanted to go to an awards show or something like that, but if I can take him to the Super Bowl, that’s a pretty cool thing for me to be able to do with my dad.”
Crawford’s modeling talents have not only extended to her son — her 16-year-old daughter graces the February cover of Vogue Paris.
“She’s more ready for it. She’s just so much more sophisticated and worldly than I was at that age,” she said of Kaia Jordan Gerber.
“I do know the business … [and] I feel like who better to help guide my kids?” she added.
“It kind of happened for both of them and they listen to my advice when it comes to this. The one thing they can’t say is, `Mom, you don’t get it.”‘
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