Facebook, Twitter and Google executives testified in public before Senate and House investigations into Russian election interference for the first time Wednesday, amid disclosures that Russian influence on social media platforms was much wider in scope than previously understood. The lawmakers had tough questions for the Silicon Valley executives as VOA’s Katherine Gypson reports from Capitol Hill.
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Museums of fine art in Bern, Switzerland, and Bonn, Germany, have put on display hundreds of paintings and drawings, including works by Picasso, Matisse and Chagall, collected by German art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt. Some of the works were looted from Jewish homes, others were acquired after Nazi authorities had them removed from galleries. Gurlitt, who died in 2014, bequeathed what was left of the collection to the Bern Kunstmuseum. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
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Houston needed seven games to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers, and rode George Springer’s home run streak to the franchise’s first championship
With a World Series title at stake Wednesday night, the Houston Astros jumped out to an early 5-0 lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers and held on to win the first Major League Baseball championship in franchise history.
The deciding Game 7 lacked some of the dramatics of the back-and-forth series that set a record for home runs in a World Series and included two extra-inning games.
But Astros right fielder George Springer punctuated Wednesday’s contest, and his dazzling series, with a two-run home run in the second inning. It was his fourth consecutive game with a home run, and his five total in the World Series tied a record held by two other players.
Springer earned series Most Valuable Player honors for his performance. After the game, he said it was one of the happiest days of his life.
“This is a dream come true. It’s an honor. But you know what, it’s about the Houston Astros tonight and our city and our fans. We’re coming home a champion, Houston,” Springer said.
From worst to first
Four years ago, the Astros were baseball’s worst team by a large margin, losing 111 games. This year, they were one of the best, winning 101 games during the regular season with a roster full of young stars including Venezuelan Jose Altuve and Puerto Rico native Carlos Correa.
The team was also a sentimental favorite after Houston was devastated by Hurricane Harvey in late August, and players played with “Houston Strong” patches on the front of their jerseys.
“We did this for them,” Altuve said after Wednesday’s game. “I know it’s been a lot going on in Houston since last year, but this is because of them, they are the biggest reason why we’re here playing every day.”
Correa also said it was special to win a championship for Houston and to represent hurricane-battered Puerto Rico.
“Being able to bring joy, happiness to their lives in this moment right now it’s really special. The same for my people in Puerto Rico, I love you so much,” Correa said.
On the field after the game Correa added to the joy of Wednesday night by asking his girlfriend, Daniella Rodriguez, to marry him. She said yes.
Dodgers falter in post-season
The Dodgers were the league’s best team during the regular season with 104 wins, but failed in their attempt to win their first World Series since 1988.
Springer’s home run knocked Dodgers starting pitcher Yu Darvish from the game, continuing a trend in the series of starters exiting games early because of ineffectiveness. For Darvish, whose mother is Japanese and whose father is Iranian, it was the second poor performance of the World Series after he failed to complete two innings in a Game 3 loss.
The Dodgers acquired Darvish in a midseason trade, hoping to solidify an elite pitching staff that included ace Clayton Kershaw. The Astros made their own trade for pitcher Justin Verlander, who played an integral role in their march through the playoffs and allowed just five hits in his two World Series starts.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts described how the final game got away from his team so early.
“The walk, the double, and then next thing you know Springer hits a homer and you’re down 5-0, so it happened very quick. And we did what we could to kind of damage control and keep us in the ball game, but we really couldn’t break through tonight.”
But while the Dodgers scored only one run in Game 7 after averaging more than five runs per game in the series, Roberts said he told the team they should be proud of how they played.
“It hurts. It’s supposed to hurt. But there’s nothing to regret when you leave it all out there,” he said.
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U.S. officials said Wednesday that they have proposed ending the Obama administration’s ban on new uranium mining leases on public land outside Grand Canyon National Park.
The Forest Service proposed the change in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order for federal agencies to eliminate restrictions on energy production. The Trump administration has moved to unravel former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations aimed at curbing climate change.
“Adoption of this recommendation could reopen lands to mineral entry pursuant to the United States mining laws facilitating exploration for, and possibly development of, uranium resources,” according to a report last week by the Forest Service’s parent agency, the Department of Agriculture.
The Oct. 25 report also said it’s in the national interest “to promote the clean and safe development of America’s vast energy resources.” Nuclear power plants use uranium as fuel.
Conservationists are decrying the Forest Service’s move, saying that past uranium mining in the region has polluted soils, washes, aquifers and drinking water.
“The Forest Service should be advocating for a permanent mining ban, not for advancing private mining interests that threaten one of the natural wonders of the world,” said Amber Reimondo, energy program director of the Grand Canyon Trust based in Flagstaff.
In 2012, then-Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar banned new hard rock mining for 20 years on more than 1 million acres of national forest and Bureau of Land Management land near the Grand Canyon. He said he was acting to protect a “priceless American landscape.”
The ban did not affect existing mining claims in the region.
Los Angeles is preparing to stage the 2028 Olympic Games, and hopes to avoid the high costs that have hurt other host cities in recent years. In some cases, financial worries prompted other cities to drop their bid to host Olympic games. But organizers in Los Angeles are applying lessons in efficiency and frugality from previous times the city staged the Olympics. The games in 1932 and 1984 produced significant surpluses. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports.
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Facebook reported better-than-expected quarterly profit and revenue on Wednesday as it pushed further into video advertising, showing no sign of financial damage from the controversy over how Russia used the social network in an attempt to sway voters in the 2016 U.S. election.
The company’s shares, which hit a record earlier in the day, initially rose in after-hours trading, but later fell into negative territory. They have gained almost 60 percent this year.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg condemned Russia’s attempts to influence last year’s election through Facebook posts designed to sow division, and repeated his pledge to ramp up spending significantly to increase the social network’s security, something he said on Wednesday would affect profits.
“What they did is wrong, and we are not going to stand for it,” Zuckerberg said of the Russians, on a conference call with analysts.
Facebook is at the center of a political storm in the United States for the ways it handles paid political ads and allows the spread of false news stories. U.S. lawmakers have threatened tougher regulation and fired questions at Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch in hearings this week.
Facebook, in a series of disclosures over two months, has said that people in Russia bought at least 3,000 U.S. political ads and published another 80,000 Facebook posts that were seen by as many as 126 million Americans over two years. Russia denies any meddling.
Facebook’s total advertising revenue rose 49 percent in the third quarter to $10.14 billion, about 88 percent of which came from mobile ads.
Analysts on average had expected total ad revenue of $9.71 billion, according to data and analytics firm FactSet.
Facebook in the third quarter gave advertisers for the first time the ability to run ads in standalone videos, outside the Facebook News Feed, and the company is seeing good early results, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told analysts on a conference call.
“Video is exploding, and mobile video advertising is a big opportunity,” Sandberg said.
More than 70 percent of ad breaks up to 15 seconds long were viewed to completion, most with the sound on, she said.
The 49 percent increase in total ad sales in the latest quarter compares with a 47 percent rise in the prior quarter and a 51 percent jump in the first quarter.
Facebook has been warning for more than a year about reaching a limit in “ad load”, or the number of ads the company can feature in users’ pages before crowding their News Feed.
Advertisers seem unfazed, though, spending heavily as the social network continues to attract users.
The nearly 50 percent jump in ad revenue “is phenomenal, especially when for the past few quarters they’ve been trying to bring that expectation way, way down. Yet it keeps going up,” Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth said.
Of the Russia scandal enveloping Facebook publicly, Feinseth said: “In the bigger picture, I don’t think it’s a really big factor.”
The company’s performance was strong in comparison with smaller social media firms Snap Inc and Twitter, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said.
“Facebook grew revenues by $3.3 billion year-over-year for the quarter. This is more than Twitter and Snapchat generate combined for the full year,” he said.
Facebook said about 2.07 billion people were using its service monthly as of Sept. 30, up 16 percent from a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected 2.06 billion monthly active users, according to FactSet.
Net income rose to $4.71 billion, or $1.59 per share, from $2.63 billion, or 90 cents per share.
Analysts on an average were expecting the company to earn $1.28, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Total revenue increased 47.3 percent to $10.33 billion beating analysts estimate of $9.84 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Various U.S. investigations into how Russia may have tried to sway American voters in the months before and after last year’s elections are hanging over Facebook and its competitors.
There is also proposed U.S. legislation that would extend rules governing political ads on television, radio and satellite to also cover digital advertising.
“We expect more scrutiny about Facebook’s ad system ahead,” analyst Debra Aho Williamson of research firm eMarketer said in a note. “We’re also monitoring for any signs that this investigation will have a material impact on ad revenue.”
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Women in Saudi Arabia have scorned the government’s decision to grant citizenship to a female robot who, unlike them, does not need a male guardian or have to cover her head in public.
Social media was abuzz with questions about whether the robot, Sophia, who was unveiled at a technology conference in the capital Riyadh last week, will be treated like other women in the conservative kingdom now that she is a citizen.
“It hit a sore spot that a robot has citizenship and my daughter doesn’t,” Hadeel Shaikh, a Saudi woman whose four-year-old child with a Lebanese man does not have citizenship.
Women married to foreigners in the gender-segregated nation cannot pass on citizenship to their children.
The creation of the world’s first cyborg citizen is the latest surprise announcement from the Sunni Muslim kingdom, which granted women the right to drive last month and to watch events in all-male sports stadiums for the first time next year.
Shaikh hopes for greater reform as she is worried about the future of her daughter who only has a residency card.
“I want her to have all the privileges of her mum,” Shaikh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. “I want her to feel welcomed even if I am not here.”
A guardianship system in Saudi Arabia also requires a male family member to grant permission for a woman to study abroad, travel and other activities.
“I’m wondering if robot Sophia can leave Saudi Arabia without her guardian consent!” tweeted Saudi feminist, Moudi Aljohani, who is based in the United States.
Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan are some of the Middle Eastern countries that also do not allow women married to foreigners to pass on citizenship to their children.
“It creates a lot of problems,” said Suad Abu-Dayyeh, a Middle East expert with Equality Now, a global advocacy organization, calling for restrictions on women’s rights to be lifted across the region. “They were born and raised there – but it is not their country.”
In a vast, subterranean space in New York City, three flights down from the largest sound stage east of Hollywood, 80,000 costumes await their return to the limelight.
This is the TDF Costume Collection, run by the not-for-profit Theater Development Fund. The clothing and accessories have been donated from Broadway, Off Broadway, opera, film, and regional productions. And they are all available for rent, but not to anyone, says collection director Steven Cabral.
“We’re not renting for Halloween, and we’re not renting for parties with food or liquids where something could happen to the costume. But if you’re doing something that seems of an artistic nature in some way, we’re going to be able to rent to you.” And, he notes, there’s a little bit of everything in the collection – from medieval suits of armor to outfits from the 1920’s to modern ball gowns.
He says TDF got into the costume business in the mid-1960s, when the Metropolitan Opera was about to move into a new home in Lincoln Center. “They had [costumes for] 22 full operas that they knew that they would not be taking with them, but they didn’t want to just toss away. So TDF took on all of these old productions from the Met, and began to, at a very, very, very inexpensive rate, rent out these costumes.”
High school, college and community theater groups, movie production companies and TV shows have all taken advantage of the incredible variety of costumes in the collection. Opera companies can find whatever they need here.
Cabral points out a gown from a Met production of Lucia di Lammermoor, which was once shipped to an opera company in the Midwest. Cabral recalls a phone call he got later from the company director, who told him, ‘You had one of my singers in tears last night.’
“The person being fitted for this costume was a young opera singer,” he says, “and when she saw the costume, and saw that it had the Metropolitan Opera label, and it said wedding scene, and it said Beverly Sills. The young woman broke down because she couldn’t believe that she was so fortunate to not only wear Metropolitan Opera, but to wear something owned by Beverly Sills.”
Costumes from the Met are built to last, so when they arrive, they go into a small room of “special stock.” After these costumes have seen their share of use, they’re moved into “regular stock.” And once they start looking shabby, they might go into the “distressed” section. Or they could go straight to the semi-annual bag sale, where Cabral says there’s a set price for everything you can stuff into one bag.
“And the rule is, we just don’t ever want to see the costume again.”
Because there’s always a new crop of donations waiting for space on the TDF racks.
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The head organizer of the 2010 World Cup has denied raping a singer and former South African ruling party lawmaker 24 years ago.
Danny Jordaan, the head of South African soccer, released a statement through his lawyer to deny the allegations made by Jennifer Ferguson, who said in a series of online posts that she was raped by Jordaan at a hotel in South Africa in 1993.
Ferguson made the claim two weeks ago, using the hashtag #MeToo, an online campaign denouncing sexual assault and harassment.
In the statement, Jordaan’s lawyer, Mamodupi Mohlala-Mulaudzi, said Jordaan denies raping Ferguson.
Jordaan was criticized in South Africa for taking so long to respond, but his lawyer said “Dr. Jordaan’s perceived silence in the face of such serious allegations is because of his empathy with the victims of gender-based violence. Dr. Jordaan has, however, after careful consideration decided to assert his innocence.”
The lawyer said Ferguson’s allegations must be tested in court.
Ferguson said she didn’t report the rape because she was “too ashamed to go through the reporting procedure.” She said she met Jordaan at a hotel where she was performing. She claimed Jordaan followed her back to her room and raped her.
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The steakhouse at Harrah’s New Orleans Casino is now called BH Steak _ instead of Besh Steak.
The change, reported by New Orleans media, comes a week after the casino broke ties with celebrity chef John Besh. The action followed an investigative story by NOLA.comThe Times-Picayune about allegations of sexual harassment involving the business.
The story outlined the claims of women who said they were victims of sexual harassment by male co-workers and bosses in the Besh Restaurant Group. Besh stepped down from his management role in the business after the story was published.
The name BH Steak honors William “Bill” Harrah, who founded the Harrah’s gambling empire in the 1930s.
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Malaysia is investigating an alleged attempt to sell the data of more than 46 million mobile phone subscribers online after a major data breach, Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak said on Wednesday.
The massive data breach was first reported last month by Lowyat.net, a local technology news website, which said it had received a tip-off that someone was trying to sell huge databases of personal information on its forums.
Salleh said the country’s internet regulator, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), was looking into the matter with the police.
“We have identified several potential sources of the leak and we should be able to complete the probe soon,” Salleh told reporters at parliament.
The leaked data was being sold for an undisclosed amount of Bitcoin, a digital currency, Lowyat.net said on Monday.
It included lists of mobile phone numbers, identification card numbers, home addresses, and SIM card data of 46.2 million customers from at least 12 Malaysian mobile phone operators.
Malaysia’s population is just around 32 million, but many have several mobile numbers. The lists are also believed to include inactive numbers and temporary ones bought by visiting foreigners, local daily The Star reported.
MCMC’s chief operating officer Mazlan Ismail said on Tuesday the regulator had met with local telecommunications companies to seek their cooperation in the probe, according to state news agency Bernama.
The data also includes private information of more than 80,000 individuals leaked from the records of the Malaysian Medical Council, the Malaysian Medical Association, and the Malaysian Dental Association, Lowyat.net said.
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The Olympic flame begins a long cross-country journey through South Korea Wednesday that marks the official countdown to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.
A plane carrying the iconic Olympic flame landed in Incheon International Airport earlier in the day after a flight from Athens, Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. Moments after its arrival, Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon used the flame to light a ceremonial cauldron and a specially designed torch.
Later Wednesday, the torch will begin a 2,018-kilometer, 100-day relay to Pyeongchang in time for the opening ceremony on February 9, 2018. Teenage figure skating star You Young will be the first of 7,500 torchbearers that will carry the Olympic flame through nine provinces, eight major cities and over 150 counties and districts before arriving at its final destination.
The Olympic flame last burned over South Korea during the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul.
Final preparations for the 16-day Pyeongchang Olympics are taking place under the cloud of rising tensions with rival North Korea over its nuclear weapons program and ballistic missile tests, with only 340,000 tickets sold so far.
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Modern forensics have come a long way with the use of DNA evidence and fingerprint databases. But it’s not always easy to match a full set of prints, especially if a corpse is stranded in the desert and scavenging animals have picked it apart. But a new FBI database aims to share as much information despite the few clues available. Arash Arabasadi reports.
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Attorneys for Twitter, Facebook and Google on Tuesday told U.S. lawmakers that Russian entities used their platforms to sow discord and disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, but downplayed the magnitude of those efforts.
“Foreign actors used fake accounts to place ads in Facebook and Instagram that reached millions of Americans over a two-year period,” Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said, testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee. “Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory. Some are downright offensive.”
Sean Edgett, Twitter’s acting general counsel, said the company studied all tweets posted from Sept. 1 to Nov. 15, 2016, and found that election-related content posted by automated Russian troll accounts “was comparatively small.” He said the Russian troll accounts made up “around 1/100th of a percent of total Twitter accounts” during the time studied.
“Twitter believes that any activity of that kind — regardless of magnitude — is unacceptable and we agree we must do better to prevent it,” he said.
Twitter has taken action against the suspected Russian trolls, suspending 2,752 accounts and implementing new dedicated teams “to enhance the quality of the information our users see,” Edgett said.
Facebook, meanwhile, said it would hire more people to vet and, when necessary, remove content, and verify and publish the identities of election advertisers.
Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in the Senate requiring some of the very steps technology giants say they are implementing on their own.
“These platforms are being used by people who wish us harm and wish to undercut our way of life,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
“It shouldn’t be news to anyone that Russia interfered in the election,” said California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. “What is really staggering and hard to fully comprehend is how easily and successfully they turned modern technologies to their advantage.”
The social media attorneys said Russian trolling campaigns consistently sought to rile up Americans, first in a way damaging to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. After the election, they said, Russian efforts appeared aimed at sowing doubts about the legitimacy of Republican Donald Trump’s victory at the polls — a point seized upon by Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
“Russia does not have loyalty to a political party in the United States; their goal is to divide us and discredit our democracy,” Grassley said.
Representatives from the same social media companies testify Wednesday before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
VOA’s Joshua Fatzick contributed to this report.
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Apple is offering a nifty way to unlock its new iPhone X — just stare at it.
Face ID, Apple’s name for its facial-recognition technology, replaces the fingerprint sensor found on other models.
How well does it work — not just technically, but in everyday use? After all, it’s much easier to align your finger with the sensor than to align your face with the phone.
The iPhone X costs about $1,000 — $300 more than the iPhone 8. Advance orders began this past Friday, and Apple is now giving delivery times of five to six weeks. Apple says it will have limited supplies at stores for same-day pickup on Friday, but you’ll have to get there early.
Better face detection
Many rival Android phones already use facial-recognition technology. Samsung also has an unlock feature that scans your iris. But the systems can be tripped with something as simple as eyeglasses.
While Android largely bases its match on a two-dimensional camera shot of you, the iPhone X goes 3-D. During setup, the iPhone guides you to rotate your head so it gets a more complete picture of you — analyzing some 30,000 points on your face, to be specific. So if you’re wearing glasses, the iPhone can still recognize you using other parts of your face. Same goes for wearing a hat.
And Apple’s system continually learns. Each time you use your face to unlock the phone, it automatically keeps tabs on small changes, such as growing a mustache or simply getting older. With Android, you have to go into the settings to teach the phone’s face recognition to get better.
There are limits. If you shave your beard, it’s too big of a change for the iPhone X to be sure it’s you. You’ll need a passcode, but the phone should remember you the next time .
Recognizing you
I tested the iPhone X against Samsung’s iris scanner on the Galaxy Note 8 and face systems on Google’s Pixel 2 and LG’s V30 phones. V30 improves upon the standard Android technology in asking you to turn your head slightly during the setup, though in practice the Pixel was far better at recognition.
Only the iPhone and the Pixel recognized me with standard eyeglasses — important, as I expect the same performance with or without spectacles. That said, Face ID unlocked with just one of the two sunglasses I tried; the other was too big.
Costumes and disguises also challenged Face ID. A Santa hat was OK, but a Santa beard wasn’t. Nor did it like funny glasses and a fake nose. Winter clothing was fine, as long as the scarf wasn’t covering too much of my face.
Face ID worked better than expected in bright sunlight — not every time, but enough to be satisfying. It also worked in the dark, thanks to the use of infrared sensors rather than just the standard camera. That’s important when you wake up in the middle of the night and must absolutely check Facebook or Tinder. For those keeping score, the Pixel worked in sunlight, but not in the dark; it’s the reverse for Samsung. Samsung also worked with the Santa beard, as it’s focused on your eyes.
The iPhone also unlocked after getting a haircut.
I didn’t try to fool the iPhone into unlocking with someone else’s face. I’m sure hackers will spend the coming weeks trying. Apple says Face ID could be unreliable with twins and other siblings who look like you, as well as for children under 13 — though young children don’t really need a $1,000 phone. Give them a $200 iPod Touch — or better yet, a book to read.
No more fingerprint
The home button is gone to increase screen space. Others that have done this have moved the fingerprint scanner to the back. Apple ditches it completely, so Face ID is the only alternative to a passcode. The Olsen twins, among others, will face a hardship.
It’s also tougher to check Facebook during a meeting without getting busted by the boss. You can casually unlock a phone with your fingerprint under the table. It’s much more conspicuous to stare at a screen, especially because your face should ideally be 6 to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) away.
Besides unlocking the phone, you can use Face ID to confirm app purchases and log into banking apps. You can also confirm Apple Pay transactions. You don’t have to twist your head awkwardly for facial authorization while the phone is laying sideways on a payment terminal, either. With the iPhone X, you authorize Apple Pay before tapping. It was much faster than fingerprint when paying for lunch.
Bottom line is Face ID works fairly well — though keeping the fingerprint option would have been nice.
Actress Dakota Fanning has told reporters that although she hasn’t experienced the sort of sexual assault that has turned Hollywood on its head, it’s “important to talk about these issues, for women to stand up for themselves.”
Fanning, 23, spoke Tuesday at the Rome Film Festival, where she was presenting the film “Please Stand By.” She plays a young autistic woman obsessed with the Star Trek series, who runs away from her home in San Francisco to get to Los Angeles to submit her manuscript for a Star Trek script writing contest.
Fanning said she shares her character’s determination in achieving her goal, adding: “you have to fight for what you believe in and stay true to what you are.”
The suspension of filming on House of Cards Tuesday in response to allegations that star Kevin Spacey made sexual advances on a teen boy is a rare move in an industry that puts commerce first.
Shows are infrequently derailed by concerns other than their ratings performance, said TV historian and former network executive Tim Brooks.
“It usually depends on how popular the show is, not to put too fine a point on it,” Brooks said Tuesday.
In recent days, Hollywood has reacted swiftly to allegations of sexual harassment and assault: Harvey Weinstein was fired from the company he founded within days after initial reports of sexual harassment were published in the New York Times earlier this month.
And hours after news broke about the allegations against Spacey, Netflix said it was pulling the plug on House of Cards, though the streaming network said the decision was made before the BuzzFeed News report on Spacey over the weekend. The network has not commented on plans for a Gore Vidal biopic starring Spacey that is currently in production.
The widespread tumult has prompted unusual actions — such as Weinstein being booted from industry organizations — and created a climate of uncertainty. But a look back shows that Hollywood has dealt with disruption before, with even beloved shows and actors fighting to keep their balance amid controversy.
Lucille Ball
During Hollywood’s 1950s “red scare,” Brooks said, I Love Lucy star Lucille Ball was accused of being a communist sympathizer. The sitcom co-starred her husband, Desi Arnaz, who took action.
“Desi came out before a studio taping and said, ‘The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and that’s not real,”‘ using humor to effectively defuse the situation, Brooks said. The show’s No. 1 status also helped.
Stacey Keach
Popularity and audience acceptance of a star’s personal issues aided Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer when lead actor Stacey Keach served six months in jail for a drug-related arrest in England in the mid-1980s.
The 1984-85 season was cut short, but the series resumed in 1986 with Keach aboard and aired until 1987 on CBS.
Isaiah Washington
Grey’s Anatomy was swamped by controversy in late 2006 when an on-set scuffle broke out between stars Patrick Dempsey and Isaiah Washington over Washington’s use of a gay slur regarding another cast member.
After Washington repeated the slur at the 2007 Golden Globes while denying he had used it, ABC rebuked him publicly, as did co-star Katherine Heigl. He was subsequently fired, and the medical drama from TV hitmaker Shonda Rhimes sailed on even as Washington blamed racism for his treatment.
Spacey’s cast mates
An actor’s popularity with his cast mates can determine his fate, Brooks said.
“If they like him, if they get along with him, it’s easy enough to say, ‘If I don’t get my career ruined in this, I’ll stick with him,”‘ he said.
How Spacey’s cast mates are reacting to him and the allegations remains to be seen. Robin Wright, who stars opposite Spacey as his wife, hasn’t commented publicly, but her Twitter feed includes a number of posts backing social issues including female rights and education.
Netflix and House of Cards producer Media Rights Capital had already decided to end the series at the end of next season, its sixth, but on Tuesday they chose to pause the production, which is filmed in Baltimore, “to give us time to review the current situation and to address any concerns of our cast and crew.” Spacey was not scheduled to work that day.
Allegations, response
The move comes after actor Anthony Rapp came forward with claims Spacey made inappropriate sexual advances toward him in 1986, when Rapp was 14.
Spacey responded by saying he doesn’t remember the alleged encounter but if he acted the way Rapp alleges, “I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior.” He also spoke publicly for the first time about being gay, which draw backlash from some observers as an attempt at deflection.
The fallout for Spacey also included the loss of an award he was going to get later this month by The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The group says “it will not honor Kevin Spacey with the 2017 International Emmy Founders Award,” which is to honor “an individual who crosses cultural boundaries to touch humanity.” Spacey was to get it at a gala on Nov. 20 in New York City. Past recipients include Rhimes, Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams.
A release date for the final House of Cards episodes has yet to be announced. Netflix is developing a possible spinoff of the award-winning drama that helped put the streaming service on the TV series map.
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The southern African country of Malawi may not be what comes to mind when you think of kung fu movies. But four young acrobats in its capital, Lilongwe, are out to change that. The trailer for their first locally produced action flick, The Town Monger, has been generating buzz online and drawn interest from regional cable distributors. The film will premiere in Malawi this week.
The buzz started soon after the director posted the film’s trailer online.
“It is not what we expected, and we have been overwhelmed by the response,” said Denis Imaan, manager of the Kufewa Acrobatics. “And we have taken some time now just to sit down, trying to strategize like ‘OK, where do we go from now?’”
Kufewa Acrobatics is a group of four school drop-outs from the Area 36 Township in Malawi’s capital.
The acrobats are self-taught. They learned by watching Jackie Chan movies and videos of Cirque de Soleil.
“At first, we were performing around our neighborhood. After the positive response, we started performing in townships, performing in the streets. In the process, people would give us money for each performance,” explained group member Abdul Rashid Shaibu.
Making their own movie seemed a natural progression. In 2015, they embarked on The Town Monger. The film tells the story of the challenges they have faced.
“We have sometimes been accused by many people, even by our own relatives, that what we are doing has no future. But I could not back down because I had a vision, and, moreover, these are the skills which God blessed me with,” said Alfred Hambali of Kufewa Acrobatics.
The 82-minute movie was filmed using a borrowed camera and a borrowed iPad. The set was the streets they know well.
The action movie got mixed reviews at its first local screening to journalists.
“What has impressed me most is the setting. As [what] was at the beginning, when the movie was being set, it was not just linear,” said Shadrick Kalukusha of World Wide Media.
“It never had a lot of dialogue,” noted Gertrude Abudu of Rainbow TV. “That they can really grow on. It never had a lot of female actresses. We only saw only one female actress. That we also definitely grow on.”
Meanwhile, several regional TV networks have expressed interest in buying rights to the film. It is entirely in the local language, Chichewa. Producers are busy adding English subtitles.
The four young men are preparing to stage live action performances of The Town Monger, and they hope to one day perform abroad.
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British media are reporting that police have widened their investigation into sexual assault claims against disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.
Citing unidentified sources, the Independent newspaper, Press Association and Sky News say London’s Metropolitan Police are now investigating allegations by seven women over incidents that reportedly took place from the 1980s to 2015.
Police declined to comment, only saying Tuesday that officers from its child abuse and sexual offenses command are probing sexual assault allegations made by seven victims. British police do not identify people under investigation until charges are laid.
The news comes just days after the British Film Institute stripped Weinstein of its highest honor, saying his alleged “appalling conduct” stands in opposition to the organization’s values.
Weinstein denies having any non-consensual sexual activity.
There’s a short but not-so-simple question facing Vietnam’s technology startup fans: Now, what?
The communist country was not immune to the startup craze that swept the globe, but much of the early period was spent talking about tech and all the local potential. In what could be called the next phase of the craze, Vietnam now hopes to go beyond just talking. The focus now is on getting entrepreneurs to deliver on their pitches and meet concrete benchmarks, whether that’s to turn a profit, expand overseas, or find “exits” for their businesses, such as through acquisitions.
At a basic level, Vietnam has what’s needed to be a place prime for startups. Citizens have high literacy rates and math proficiency, which eases the path to creating an army of programmers for the economy. The country also has a balance that combines, on the one hand, a large consumer market on par with those of Thailand and the Philippines, and on the other hand, a lower level of development with high growth rates on par with those of Laos and Cambodia. And the low cost of things like wages and Internet plans allows people to establish companies at minimal expense.
But these are only ingredients, not, so far, action toward a modern culture of enterprise.
“Vietnam usually does copy-paste,” said Lam Tran, CEO of the startup WisePass, adding that locals should move past the model of copying a business idea from a foreign country and pasting it into the domestic market. “We don’t know how to internationalize.”
WisePass, an app that connects monthly subscribers to bar and restaurant deals, launched in Ho Chi Minh City with plans to cover seven countries in the near future.
Taking advantage of cross-border ties is one effective, increasingly popular strategy, startup aficionados say. For one thing, Vietnam has a huge postwar diaspora, known as Viet Kieu, who help connect the Southeast Asian country to investors, advisers, and developers abroad. For another, the tech scene inside the border is more cosmopolitan than ever.
To give one example, the Vietnam Innovative Startup Accelerator (VIISA) has invested in 11 companies for the second batch of what it calls “graduates.” All have domestic links, but have partners operating in locales as disparate as Ukraine, South Korea and France.
Sangyeop Kang, investment officer at VIISA partner Hanwha Investment, said he’s “delighted about the diversity” of this sophomore batch.
“The foreign teams were able to expand their business in Vietnam, while helping Vietnamese companies with global insights,” Kang said. “This is a step forward for the ecosystem.”
In a sign of official interest, the government has a carve-out for startups in its Law on Supporting Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, which will take effect Jan. 1. The law offers young companies support with co-working spaces, technical equipment, intellectual property training, and low interest rates, among other things.
To do more than copy and paste, new businesses are contemplating how to outfit themselves for Vietnam. The startup But Chi Mau, for instance, makes games that tap into the unquenchable thirst for education, while MarketOi deploys motorbike drivers to let customers customize their food deliveries.
“The question is how to differentiate ourselves,” MarketOi founder Germain Blanchet said, before proceeding to answer that question: “This is with flexibility.”