What makes a film fit for the holidays? Not so much a religious subject as an appeal to the whole family and audiences of all ages. This year, three high-budget films, “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” the political thriller “The Post” and the musical “The Greatest Showman,” fit the bill. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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We’re gathering the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending Dec. 16, 2017.
Winter is fast approaching here in the Northern Hemisphere, and sure enough, the chart freezes up this week, yielding no new titles.
Number 5: Imagine Dragons “Thunder”
Imagine Dragons retreats a slot to fifth place with “Thunder.” This Las Vegas band was rock’s biggest crossover success story with two Top Five singles in 2017.
“Believer” and “Thunder” are streaming smashes, with nearly one billion combined plays. The group may also soon grab more Grammy wins: “Radioactive” took Best Rock Performance in 2014, and this year, “Thunder” and the “Evolve” album are both competing in separate Pop categories. Grammies get handed out on January 28.
Number 4: Lil Pump “Gucci Gang”
Lil Pump sinks a slot to fourth place with “Gucci Gang.”
TMZ reports the 17-year-old rapper received a $345,000 advance from Warner Brothers to make his debut album. It’s a five-album deal which reportedly will allow Lil Pump to keep 15 percent of the royalties from his debut album. He also reportedly receives a cut from merchandise sales.
Number 3: Ed Sheeran with Beyonce “Perfect”
Ed Sheeran and Beyonce climb two slots to third place with their remix of “Perfect.”
Ed’s not done with this song … on December 12 he announced that an orchestral version featuring Italian opera singer Andrea Bocelli will appear on December 15. Producing and orchestrating the song will be Ed’s brother, Matt Sheeran.
Number 2: Camila Cabello Featuring Young Thug “Havana”
Camila Cabello and Young Thug just can’t break free from second place with “Havana.”
Camila and her former group Fifth Harmony both performed — separately of course — at the Z100 Jingle Ball in New York City on December 8. Camila reportedly had a brief but cordial backstage chat with Fifth Harmony member Lauren Jauregi. Camila left Fifth Harmony in December 2016.
Number 1: Post Malone Featuring 21 Savage “Rockstar”
While we await the arrival of Post Malone’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys” album, let’s rack up “Rockstar” for an eighth week at No. 1.
Post says he feels his breakout hit “White Iverson” remains his one truly good song. He says he used to perform it twice in concert to make up for his lack of worthy material.
There’s no telling what will happen next week, but we hope you’ll be back.
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On a recent Saturday, BloomBars was filled with energy. “Give me the peace sign,” announced Baba Ras D, holding up his two forefingers in the “V” that is known in the U.S. as the peace sign.
“Pass the peace, pass the peace,” he said, touching his fingers with those of some of the toddlers in his audience, before beating on his drum. “Give me the peace sign!” The toddlers beat on drums, too.
The nonprofit community arts center in Washington rocked with sound and movement, some of it rhythmical, some of it not.
“They are children who can’t say peace. They can’t say the word, but they know how to pass it,” Baba Ras D says about his audience.
His program is called Harambee, which means “all pull together” in Swahili. Baba Ras D, who has Trinidadian and Caribbean roots, created it more than 25 years ago.
“I was not born in Africa; Africa was born in me,” he said. “You can bring unity about with one word, and that word is harambee.”
Baba Ras D, whose name means “Father of Kings and Queens,” is a former college basketball player, who holds a degree in criminal justice and worked as a juvenile corrections officer. That experience helped make him aware of the importance of early childhood development and led him to start the Harambee program.
“That is the most important move I have ever made,” he said. “Just to see where I can fit in to be able to help dismantle the cradle-to-prison pipeline, and a way where I can also be of an impact for our future to let them study war no more.”
Growing up in a musical family, Baba Ras D learned to play a variety of instruments, including his signature drum. “The Djembe drum from West Africa is a percussion instrument that I find resonates with my heartbeat,” he said. His drum also connects with the heartbeat of his audience. “That is the power of the drum to bring us all together as one.”
Toddler ambassadors
Baba Ras D, whose given name is Darren Campbell, hopes the children will learn compassionate communications and become peace ambassadors, peacekeepers and peacemakers.
“After the series of time coming to the Harambee experience, they just don’t practice it here,” he said. “They practice at home. They practice in the community. They practice it in the neighborhood.”
Matt Dull has brought his son Max to the program for three years, and he has seen changes in Max. “Max uses Baba Ras D as a reference point in many of our everyday activities. At his day care … I think he is a good sharer. I think he learned here.”
Parents benefit, too.
“It makes me feel a lot better than when I showed up here,” said Kaydee Dahlin, who has been bringing her 4-year-old daughter, Flora, to Harambee practically since she was born. Now, she also brings 1-year-old Gustavo.
“I love the messages,” she said. “Like today when we said over and over ‘Love Is on the Rise,’ I got a tear in my eye because these days there’s a lot of bad news, and to bring our children to a place where you can sing and play music and sing ‘Love is on the Rise’ — really it’s healing.”
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U.S. attorneys in Utah prosecuting a multimillion-dollar opioid drug-ring are moving quickly to sell seized bitcoin that’s exploded in value to about $8.5 million since the alleged ringleader’s arrest a year ago.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for Utah cites the digital currency’s volatility in court documents pressing for the sale. The bitcoin cache was worth less than $500,000 when Aaron Shamo was arrested on drug charges, but the value of the digital currency has skyrocketed since then.
Bitcoin was created as a digital alternative to the traditional banking system, and is prone to swings in value based on what people believe its worth.
For federal prosecutors in Utah, sales of seized assets like cars are routine, but bitcoin is new territory, spokeswoman Melodie Rydalch said Thursday.
Shamo is accused of selling pills containing the powerful opioid fentanyl on the dark web — an area of the internet often used for illegal activity — to thousands of people all over the U.S., at one point raking in $2.8 million in less than a year.
The 500,000-pill bust ranked among the largest of its kind in the country, and authorities also found $1 million of cash stuffed into trash bags.
Shamo has pleaded not guilty to a dozen charges.
The proceeds of the bitcoin sale will be held until the case is resolved, and then decisions will be made about where the money goes, Rydalch said. Seized asset sale proceeds usually goes to the agency that investigated, like the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Defense attorney Greg Skordas is not contesting the sale of his client’s bitcoins.
Although there’s no global consensus over the status of bitcoin — debate rages whether the virtual money is an asset or a currency — that hasn’t stopped officials in the U.S. and elsewhere from cashing in on the digital hauls seized from cybercriminals.
In 2014 the U.S. Marshals Service announced the auction of nearly 30,000 bitcoins seized from notorious dark web drug marketplace Silk Road. Other seizures have since netted the American government millions of dollars in a series of sales.
Other governments — from Australia to South Korea — have set up similar auctions over the years.
Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
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Britain’s Prince Harry and his American fiancee, Meghan Markle, will marry on Saturday May 19, Kensington Palace said.
Queen Elizabeth’s grandson, fifth-in-line to the throne, and Markle, who stars in the U.S. TV legal drama “Suits”, announced their engagement last month with the marriage to take place in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle.
“His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales and Ms. Meghan Markle will marry on 19th May 2018,” Kensington Palace said in a statement.
The couple have chosen to marry in Windsor, west of London, because it is “a special place for them”. Harry’s 91-year-old grandmother, Elizabeth, will attend the ceremony.
Markle, 36, who attended a Catholic school as a child but identifies as a Protestant, will be baptized and confirmed into the Church of England before the wedding.
She intends to become a British citizen, though she will retain her U.S. citizenship while she goes through the process.
The Gothic St George’s Chapel is located in the grounds of Windsor Castle, which has been the family home of British kings and queens for almost 1,000 years.
Within the chapel are the tombs of ten sovereigns, including Henry VIII and his third wife Jane Seymour, and Charles I.
The German government says it backs an “open and free internet” following the U.S. decision to repeal net neutrality rules.
A spokeswoman for the Economy Ministry said Friday that Germany had “taken note” of the U.S. move but declined to comment directly on it.
However, spokeswoman Beate Baron said the German government supports rules introduced across the European Union last year forbidding discriminatory access to the internet.
Baron told reporters in Berlin that “an open and free internet is indispensable for the successful development of a digital society that everyone wants to take part in.”
The Republican-controlled U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Thursday repealed Obama-era rules requiring all web traffic to be treated equally.
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They say young children are like sponges. They soak up information from all around them unconsciously, and build on that core foundation for the rest of their lives. Baba Ras D, a corrections-officer-turned-singer, is a firm believer in the theory. He created a program for children that inspires peace and unity in the community. And the children love him and the program. VOA’s June Soh met him at a performance in Washington.
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Charged particles from the sun are responsible for the brilliant auroras at the earth’s poles. But there can be cases of too much of a good thing. When huge solar storms push massive waves of energized particles into Earth’s path, they can wreak havoc on our satellites and electric grid. That is why researchers are trying to figure out what causes solar storms. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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U.S. President Donald Trump has touted progress on slashing federal regulations, which he says cost America trillions with no benefit. Speaking Thursday from the White House, the president said his administration had exceeded its goal of removing two federal regulations for every new one, by removing 22 for every new one. Opponents have criticized some of the deregulation, especially dismantling of the net neutrality rules that guarantee equal access to the internet. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
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Walmart and a book distributor distanced themselves from Tavis Smiley on Thursday after PBS said an investigation found “troubling allegations” of sexual misconduct by the radio and TV host.
The moves came a day after PBS said it was suspending Smiley following an independent investigation by a law firm. PBS said the firm uncovered “multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS.” His show’s page at PBS was scrubbed on Thursday.
Smiley has denied any wrongdoing.
Walmart, which had been a sponsor of Smiley’s talk show and an upcoming touring theatrical show, cut ties with him. “We take these issues very seriously and are troubled by the recent allegations,” the retail giant said in a statement. “As a result, we are suspending our relationship with Mr. Smiley, pending the outcome of the PBS investigation.”
Hay House, which distributes the Smiley Books imprint, said all Smiley projects were “on hold” pending an internal review. Smiley had planned in September to release Leading by Listening: Connecting through Conversation to Transform Your Relationships and Your Business.
Smiley responded to the allegations on Facebook, saying PBS “overreacted” and calling it “a rush to judgment.” He said he has never harassed anyone and claimed one relationship the network uncovered was consensual.
“If having a consensual relationship with a colleague years ago is the stuff that leads to this kind of public humiliation and personal destruction, heaven help us,” he said. “This has gone too far. And, I, for one, intend to fight back.”
PBS responded to Smiley’s accusations by saying it stands by the integrity of the investigation. “The totality of the investigation, which included Mr. Smiley, revealed a pattern of multiple relationships with subordinates over many years,” a PBS spokesperson said.
The ouster comes weeks after PBS cut ties with anchor and talk show host Charlie Rose, citing “extremely disturbing and intolerable behavior” by him toward women at his PBS talk show.
Smiley brought rare diversity to late-night TV and has drawn the ire of conservatives and liberals alike for some of his views. He has worked for six networks over a 30-year career and his radio program “The Tavis Smiley Show” was distributed by Public Radio International from 2005 to 2013. He has been with PBS for 14 seasons and some 3,000 episodes.
Upcoming projects
Smiley also has a development deal with Warner Bros. Television and was working with J.J. Abrams to turn his new book about Michael Jackson’s last days and death into a limited TV series. He also has a podcast via PodcastOne.
Smiley next month is expected to launch a nationwide 40-city tour of a theatrical production focusing on the last year of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life. Death of a King: A Live Theatrical Experience is based on Smiley’s 2014 book of the same title and was to start Jan. 15, King’s birthday.
Death of a King is being produced by Mills Entertainment, which did not respond Thursday to requests for comment. Several of the venues slated to host the show did not respond to queries about whether the show would play as scheduled. One that did, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, said: “We just learned of these allegations and at this time will reserve comment.”
Smiley also oversees the publishing imprint Smiley Books and has written more than a dozen books, including his memoir What I Know for Sure and The Covenant with Black America.
Wave of dismissals
The dismissals of Smiley and Rose at PBS follow dozens of firings and suspensions of prominent men who have been accused of sexual misconduct or harassment. The wave began this fall with allegations lodged against Harvey Weinstein and has impacted numerous high-profile TV and media figures, with Matt Lauer, Garrison Keillor, journalist Mark Halperin, NPR news chief Michael Oreskes, reporter Glenn Thrush and New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier all felled, among others.
According to Variety, the investigation found that Smiley had engaged in sexual relationships with multiple subordinates and created “a verbally abusive and threatening environment.”
Smiley in his Facebook post claims PBS “refused to provide me the names of any accusers, refused to speak to my current staff, and refused to provide me any semblance of due process to defend myself against allegations from unknown sources.”
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The publisher of The New York Times Co. is stepping down after 25 years and will be succeeded by his 37-year-old son, the Times announced Thursday.
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. will retire as of Dec. 31 but will remain as chairman of the board of directors, the Times said. His son and current deputy publisher, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, will take over as publisher.
“It is the greatest honor to serve The Times — and the people who make it what it is — as the next publisher,” the younger Sulzberger, known as A.G., said in a staff-wide email.
Sulzberger praised his father as “the only publisher of his generation who took the reins of a great news organization and left it even better than he found.”
A.G. Sulzberger will be the fifth generation of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to serve as publisher since Adolph Ochs, his great great-grandfather, bought the Times in 1896.
The outgoing publisher, who is 66, took over from his own father, Arthur O. Sulzberger, in 1992 and went on to preside during an era of rapid change brought on by the rise of digital media.
The Times published its first color photo in 1993 and its first web edition in 1996.
The newspaper’s 2011 move to charge online readers through a pay wall was watched closely, with some doubting consumers would pay for content they were used to getting for free. The Times now has 3.5 million subscribers, 2.5 million of them paying for digital-only content.
“It has been an extraordinary honor to serve as publisher of The New York Times and I will step down at the end of the year prouder than I have ever been of the strength, independence and integrity of this institution,” Sulzberger said in a statement.
The Times won 60 Pulitzer Prizes during Sulzberger’s leadership but weathered controversies including a 2003 plagiarism scandal involving reporter Jayson Blair and the 2014 firing of Jill Abramson, the paper’s first female executive editor.
The younger Sulzberger headed a team that produced a 2014 “innovation report” that outlined strategies for adapting to the digital era.
The Times has set a goal of bringing in at least $800 million in digital revenue by 2020, double what the company earned in 2014.
The younger Sulzberger joined the Times in 2009 after working as a reporter at the Providence Journal and the Oregonian. He worked as a New York metro reporter and later as the head of the Times’ Kansas City bureau, where he wrote about his struggle to survive as a vegetarian in a “Mecca of meat.”
After Kansas City, he became an assistant editor and was appointed deputy publisher last year.
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“Net neutrality” regulations, designed to prevent internet service providers like Verizon, AT&T, Comcast and Charter from favoring some sites and apps over others, have been repealed. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to dismantle Obama-era rules that have been in place since 2015, but will forbid states to put anything similar in place.
Here’s a look at what the developments mean for consumers and companies.
What is net neutrality?
Net neutrality is the principle that internet providers treat all web traffic equally, and it’s pretty much how the internet has worked since its creation. But regulators, consumer advocates and internet companies were concerned about what broadband companies could do with their power as the pathway to the internet — blocking or slowing down apps that rival their own services, for example.
What did the governments do about it?
The FCC in 2015 approved rules, on a party-line vote, that made sure cable and phone companies don’t manipulate traffic. With them in place, a provider such as Comcast can’t charge Netflix for a faster path to its customers, or block it or slow it down.
The net neutrality rules gave the FCC power to go after companies for business practices that weren’t explicitly banned as well. For example, the Obama FCC said that “zero rating” practices by AT&T violated net neutrality. The telecom giant exempted its own video app from cellphone data caps, which would save some consumers money, and said video rivals could pay for the same treatment. Pai’s FCC spiked the effort to go after AT&T, even before it began rolling out a plan to undo the net neutrality rules entirely.
A federal appeals court upheld the rules in 2016 after broadband providers sued.
The telcos
Big telecom companies hated net neutrality’s stricter regulation and have fought them fiercely in court. They said the regulations could undermine investment in broadband and introduced uncertainty about what were acceptable business practices. There were concerns about potential price regulation, even though the FCC had said it won’t set prices for consumer internet service.
Silicon Valley
Internet companies such as Google have strongly backed net neutrality, but many tech firms were more muted in their activism this year. Netflix, which had been vocal in support of the rules in 2015, said in January that weaker net neutrality wouldn’t hurt it because it’s now too popular with users for broadband providers to interfere.
What happens next
With the rules repealed, net-neutrality advocates say it will be harder for the government to crack down on internet providers who act against consumer interests and will harm innovation in the long-run. Those who criticize the rules say the repeal is good for investment in broadband networks.
But advocates aren’t sitting still. Some groups plan lawsuits to challenge the FCC’s move, and Democrats — energized by public protests in support of net neutrality — think it might be a winning political issue for them in 2018 congressional elections.
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There could soon be a major change in what Americans see on the internet after federal regulators voted Thursday to scrap traditional “net neutrality” rules.
Thursday’s 3-2 vote by the Federal Communications Commission went along party lines, with Republican members voting to end the regulations and Democrats dissenting.
Individual states will also be barred from enacting their own rules governing the internet.
Net neutrality has been the norm since the internet was created more than 30 years ago. The FCC under former President Barack Obama formalized net neutrality rules in 2015.
The idea of net neutrality is for giant internet providers to treat all content equally. The Obama-era rules prevented them from giving preferential treatment to their own services and blocking and slowing down content from rivals.
Consumer groups and internet companies like net neutrality.
But FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, said the internet needs what he calls a “light touch” instead of what he believes is unnecessary government regulation.
WATCH: What is ‘net neutrality’?
“Prior to 2015, before these regulations were imposed, we had a free and open internet,” Pai told NBC ahead of the vote. “That is the future as well under a light touch, market-based approach. Consumers benefit, entrepreneurs benefit. Everybody in the internet economy is better off with a market-based approach.”
But Democratic FCC member Mignon Clyburn said the FCC was “handing the keys to the internet” to a “handful of multibillion-dollar corporations.”
British engineer Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the World Wide Web, said this week that getting rid of net neutrality rules meant internet service providers “will have the power to decide which websites you can access and at what speed each will load. In other words, they’ll be able to decide which companies succeed online, which voices are heard — and which are silenced.”
Officials in several states, including New York and Washington, said they would challenge the new rules in court.
Ken Bredemeier contributed to this report.
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India has issued a rare diktat to its powerful movie moguls, reminding Bollywood to keep women safe from the sort of sex abuse allegations poisoning the U.S. film industry.
India’s minister for women and child welfare Maneka Gandhi wrote to major production houses on Wednesday, asking them to comply with the Sexual Harassment at Workplace Act, which stipulates a series of processes to protect women at work.
“Bollywood filmmakers are ethically and legally accountable for the safety of not only their direct employees but of all outsourced and temporary staff as well,” read a tweet posted by Gandhi’s ministry, quoting from her letter.
Indian firms with 10 or more employees must set up committees to look into complaints of sexual harassment and ensure that female staff know their workplace rights.
Despite such laws, activists say very few of cases of sexual harassment are reported to the police in an industry, like Hollywood, that is run by men and operates by its own rules.
Film families
The vast majority of Bollywood’s biggest producers and film-makers come from prominent film families who until recently controlled most of the high-profile and lucrative industry.
Tales of sexual harassment have begun to surface in Mumbai, home to the world’s biggest film industry, following a wave of similar accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
More than 50 women have claimed that Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them over the past three decades.
Weinstein has denied having non-consensual sex with anyone.
But Bollywood has all the same elements that make it easy for men to exploit wannabe stars eager for fame and fortune.
Thousands of young boys and girls flock to the Bollywood capital Mumbai every year seeking film parts and are often exploited by agents who promise roles in exchange for favors.
While some big Bollywood names have been charged with rape and harassment, they have rarely lost their peers’ support.
Walt Disney Co on Thursday agreed to buy film, TV and international assets from Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc for $52.4 billion as Disney seeks greater scale to tackle growing competition from Netflix and Amazon.com.
Under the terms of the all-stock deal, Disney acquires significant assets from Fox, including the studios that produce the blockbuster Marvel superhero pictures and the “Avatar” franchise, as well as hit TV shows such as “The Simpsons”.
Fox shareholders will receive 0.2745 Disney shares for each share held. This translates to a value of $29.50 per share for the assets that Disney is buying, Reuters calculations based on Disney’s Wednesday market closing price show.
Immediately prior to the acquisition, Fox will separate the Fox Broadcasting network and stations, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network into a newly listed company that will be spun off to its shareholders.
The deal ends more than half a century of expansion by Murdoch, 86, who turned a single Australian newspaper he inherited from his father at the age of 21 into one of the world’s most important global news and film conglomerates.
Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger, 66, will extend his tenure through the end of 2021 to oversee the integration of the Fox businesses. He has already postponed his retirement from Disney three times, saying in March he was committed to leaving the company in July 2019.
Disney will also assume about $13.7 billion of Fox’s net debt in the deal.
Through Fox’s stake in the Hulu video streaming service, Disney will assume majority control of one of Netflix Inc’s main competitors. Hulu is also partially owned by Comcast Corp and Time Warner Inc.
Shares in both Disney and Fox were up nearly 1 percent in premarket trading.
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As the federal government prepares to unravel sweeping net-neutrality rules that guaranteed equal access to the internet, advocates of the regulations are bracing for a long fight.
The Thursday vote scheduled at the Federal Communications Commission could usher in big changes in how Americans use the internet, a radical departure from more than a decade of federal oversight. The proposal would not only roll back restrictions that keep broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from blocking or collecting tolls from services they don’t like, it would bar states from imposing their own rules.
The broadband industry promises that the internet experience isn’t going to change, but its companies have lobbied hard to overturn these rules. Protests have erupted online and in the streets as everyday Americans worry that cable and phone companies will be able to control what they see and do online.
That growing public movement suggests that the FCC vote won’t be the end of the issue. Opponents of the move plan legal challenges, and some net-neutrality supporters hope to ride that wave of public opinion into the 2018 elections.
Concern about FCC plan
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai says his plan eliminates unnecessary regulation that stood in the way of connecting more Americans to the internet. Under his proposal, the Comcasts and AT&Ts of the world will be free to block rival apps, slow down competing service or offer faster speeds to companies who pay up. They just have to post their policies online or tell the FCC.
The change also axes consumer protections, bars state laws that contradict the FCC’s approach, and largely transfers oversight of internet service to another agency, the Federal Trade Commission.
After the FCC released its plan in late November, well-known telecom and media analysts Craig Moffett and Michael Nathanson wrote in a note to investors that the FCC plan dismantles “virtually all of the important tenets of net neutrality itself.”
That could result in phone and cable companies forcing people to pay more to do what they want online. The technology community, meanwhile, fears that additional online tolls could hurt startups who can’t afford to pay them — and, over the long term, diminish innovation.
“We’re a small company. We’re about 40 people. We don’t have the deep pockets of Google, Netflix, Amazon to just pay off ISPs to make sure consumers can access our service,” said Andrew McCollum, CEO of streaming-TV service Philo.
ISPs: Trust us
Broadband providers pooh-pooh what they characterize as misinformation and irrational fears. “I genuinely look forward to the weeks, months, years ahead when none of the fire and brimstone predictions comes to pass,” said Jonathan Spalter, head of the trade group USTelecom, on a call with reporters Wednesday.
But some of these companies have suggested they could charge some internet services more to reach customers, saying it could allow for better delivery of new services like telemedicine. Comcast said Wednesday it has no plans for such agreements.
Cable and mobile providers have also been less scrupulous in the past. In 2007, for example, the Associated Press found Comcast was blocking or throttling some file-sharing. AT&T blocked Skype and other internet calling services on the iPhone until 2009. They also aren’t backing away from subtler forms of discrimination that favor their own services.
There’s also a problem with the FCC’s plan to leave most complaints about deceptive behavior and privacy to the FTC. A pending court case could leave the FTC without the legal authority to oversee most big broadband providers. That could leave both agencies hamstrung if broadband companies hurt their customers or competitors.
Critics like Democratic FTC commissioner Terrell McSweeny argue that the FTC won’t be as effective in policing broadband companies as the FCC, which has expertise in the issue and has the ability to lay down hard-and-fast rules against certain practices.
Public outcry
Moffett and Nathanson, the analysts, said that they suspect the latest FCC rules to be short-lived. “These changes will likely be so immensely unpopular that it would be shocking if they are allowed to stand for long,” they wrote.
There have been hundreds of public protests against Pai’s plan and more than 1 million calls to Congress through a pro-net neutrality coalition’s site. Smaller tech websites such as Reddit, Kickstarter and Mozilla put dramatic overlays on their sites Tuesday in support of net neutrality. Twitter on Wednesday was promoting #NetNeutrality as a trending topic. Other big tech companies were more muted in their support.
Public-interest groups Free Press and Public Knowledge are already promising to go after Pai’s rules in the courts. There may also be attempts to legislate net neutrality rules, which the telecom industry supports. Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, on Tuesday called for “bipartisan legislation” on net neutrality that would “enshrine protections for consumers with the backing of law.”
But that will be tough going. Democrats criticized previous Republican attempts at legislation during the Obama administration for gutting the FCC’s enforcement abilities. Republicans would likely be interested in proposing even weaker legislation now, and Democrats are unlikely to support it if so.
Some Democrats prefer litigation and want to use Republican opposition to net neutrality as a campaign issue in 2018. “Down the road Congress could act to put in place new rules, but with Republicans in charge of the House, Senate, and White House the likelihood of strong enforceable rules are small,” Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on Reddit last week. “Maybe after the 2018 elections, we will be in a stronger position to get that done.”
A future FCC could also rewrite net-neutrality regulation to be tougher on the phone and cable industry. That could bring a whole new cycle of litigation by broadband companies.
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Christmas is not Christmas, for some people, unless there are colorful lights and decorations. Some homes have spectacular outdoor displays. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us to Alexandria, Virginia, to show us a couple of houses with over-the-top Christmas spirit.
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There is a new word in the English language that all internet users should learn, because it may define the next stage in global financial transactions. It may not be translatable to many other languages so it may become an international term, much like “computer” or “internet,” used and understood around the world. The word is “blockchain,” and VOA’s George Putic explains its meaning.
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A Hollywood actor originally from West Africa recently announced that he is an undocumented immigrant and a recipient of DACA. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, enacted under the Obama administration, allows undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children to live and work legally, in what was meant to be a temporary solution. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the story of actor Bambadjan Bamba, and why he is revealing his immigration status now.
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PBS television suspended broadcasts of Tavis Smiley’s late-night talk show because of what it calls “troubling allegations” against him.
“The inquiry uncovered multiple credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS,” a network statement said late Wednesday.
PBS did not specify the complaints against Smiley.
But the show business newspaper Variety says they include alleged sexual relations between Smiley and a number of female employees who say they believed their jobs depended on whether they had sex with him.
Variety says others described Smiley as verbally abusive and that he created a threatening work environment.
The host has not yet commented on the allegations.
Smiley’s Los Angeles-based interview series began in 2004 and airs on a number of public television stations.
He is the latest of a number of well-known celebrities who have been fired or suspended from their jobs because of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Alabama Republican Roy Moore’s loss in Tuesday’s special election to the U.S. Senate is believed to be in part because of charges that he dated and sexually molested teenage girls in the 1970s.
Two Democratic members of Congress, Senator Al Franken and Representative John Conyers, resigned last week over such charges.
A number of women have renewed charges first made last year that President Donald Trump sexually harassed them in the 1970s, leading to calls from some in Congress for an investigation or that he resign.
Sexual misconduct charges cost television hosts Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose their jobs, and actor Kevin Spacey and comedian Louis C.K. have also been accused of inappropriate behavior.
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