Electric cars are steadily gaining ground in the global auto market, but it’s a slow process. Along with their high price, one of the main reasons for the consumers’ reluctance is the scarcity of infrastructure needed for charging the cars’ batteries. VOA’s George Putic looks at efforts to remove one of the obstacles on the road towards the electric future.
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The bumper sticker on the back of Scott Wilson’s car reads, “This is what the end of gasoline looks like.”
And what does that car look like? A sleek, sci-fi experimental vehicle? A $100,000 Tesla luxury car?
Nope. It’s just a Kia Soul EV, the battery-powered version of the Korean automaker’s boxy hatchback.
Once the domain of concept cars and hobbyists, electric vehicles are no longer so exotic. And sales are picking up. A record 150,000 of them sold last year in the United States.
“It used to be I knew everyone I saw that was driving an electric car,” said Wilson, the vice president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Greater Washington, D.C. “Now, I don’t.”
There are about to be a lot more strangers in EVs on the roads, many experts say.
Big carmakers, big plans
Volvo says every car it makes in 2019 and beyond will have an electric motor. General Motors says the company “believes in an all-electric future.” Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) predicts that in just over two decades, EVs will make up more than half of all vehicles sold.
Other analysts have more modest expectations. But even Exxon Mobil sees EVs topping 10 percent of the market by 2040.
Automakers hit a significant milestone in the past year. In December, General Motors launched the Chevrolet Bolt EV, the first car with a price tag under $40,000 and a range of more than 320 kilometers.
Automakers hit a significant milestone in the past year. In December, General Motors launched the Chevrolet Bolt EV, the first car with a price tag under $40,000 and a range of more than 320 kilometers.
That range is “basically double anything else that’s available at a comparable price,” said Chevrolet spokesman Fred Ligouri. Those figures “do wonders for getting beyond” what’s known as range anxiety, potential buyers’ fear of draining the battery before reaching their destination.
One-third of buyers have never owned an electric vehicle before.
“They went from (an) internal combustion engine vehicle right into pure electric,” an encouraging sign, Ligouri said.
The Bolt’s performance has impressed critics as well. Motor Trend magazine named the Bolt the 2017 Car of the Year.
The Bolt beat industry upstart Tesla to the mid-priced market. A modest 15,000 or so have been sold so far. But nearly a half-million people have ordered the Tesla Model 3, the company’s entrant into the mass market, despite long waits and slow production.
“Those are signals that there’s unmet demand for some of these new technologies,” said the World Resources Institute’s Eliot Metzger.
Electrification is cheaper than ever as the price of lithium ion batteries plummets faster than analysts expected. As costs come down, experts are moving up the date when electric vehicles can compete with internal combustion engines on price. BNEF puts that date in the second half of the next decade.
“We’re much further along than most researchers (and) industry insiders would have projected just two or three years ago,” said Nic Lutsey at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
China syndrome
Another reason the industry is moving fast: China.
Officials in the world’s biggest auto market will require carmakers to meet an electric vehicle quota starting in 2019.
Beijing aims to increase EVs’ share of the market from 1 to 2 percent today to around 4 percent in 2020.
“That’s a very large scale up within just several years,” Lutsey noted, but automakers say they can do it.
The push for electric vehicles is part of the government’s plan to clean up the toxic air in China’s major cities. Chinese officials are considering a ban on gas- and diesel-powered cars.
But it’s not just China. Pollution concerns in France, the United Kingdom, and India have officials there considering bans, too.
In the United States, the Trump administration aims to relax vehicle emissions standards, though state policies will likely complicate those efforts.
Without a push from government, experts say electric vehicles will have a hard time making major gains as long as gas prices are relatively low.
But as electric vehicle driver Wilson points out, that can change at any time.
“After the next crisis, when gas is $5 a gallon, then there will be waiting lists for cars like this,” he said.
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Electric cars have been a futuristic promise for decades. And electric vehicles finally appear poised to enter the mainstream. Major carmakers, from Volvo to General Motors, are proclaiming the future is electric. VOA’s Steve Baragona has a look at how soon that future may arrive.
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The FBI hasn’t been able to retrieve data from more than half of the mobile devices it tried to access in less than a year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Sunday, turning up the heat on a debate between technology companies and law enforcement officials trying to recover encrypted communications.
In the first 11 months of the fiscal year, federal agents were unable to access the content of more than 6,900 mobile devices, Wray said in a speech at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference in Philadelphia.
“To put it mildly, this is a huge, huge problem,” Wray said. “It impacts investigations across the board – narcotics, human trafficking, counterterrorism, counterintelligence, gangs, organized crime, child exploitation.”
The FBI and other law enforcement officials have long complained about being unable to unlock and recover evidence from cellphones and other devices seized from suspects even if they have a warrant, while technology companies have insisted they must protect customers’ digital privacy.
The long-simmering debate was on display in 2016, when the Justice Department tried to force Apple to unlock an encrypted cellphone used by a gunman in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The department eventually relented after the FBI said it paid an unidentified vendor who provided a tool to unlock the phone and no longer needed Apple’s assistance, avoiding a court showdown.
The Justice Department under President Donald Trump has suggested it will be aggressive in seeking access to encrypted information from technology companies. But in a recent speech, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein stopped short of saying exactly what action it might take.
“I get it, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between encryption and the importance of giving us the tools we need to keep the public safe,” Wray said.
In a wide-ranging speech to hundreds of police leaders from across the globe, Wray also touted the FBI’s partnerships with local and federal law enforcement agencies to combat terrorism and violent crime.
“The threats that we face keep accumulating, they are complex, they are varied,” Wray said, describing threats from foreign terror organizations and homegrown extremists.
Wray also decried a potential “blind spot” for intelligence gathering if Congress doesn’t reauthorize an intelligence surveillance law set to expire at the end of the year. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to collect information about militants, people suspected of cyber crimes or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other foreign targets outside the United States. Intelligence and law enforcement officials say the act is vital to national security.
A section of the act permits the government, under the oversight of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to target non-Americans outside the United States.
“If it doesn’t get renewed or reauthorized, essentially in the form that it already is, we’re about to get another blind spot,” Wray said.
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For almost 15 years, environmental activist Patterson Clark has been one of the U.S. National Park Service volunteers who go through forests and remove invasive plants. Because he knew how destructive these plants can be, killing their native host trees, increasing soil erosion, and causing major damage to streams and other wetland areas, Clark had already developed an antagonistic relationship with them.
“One day, when I was pulling a plant, I thought, how can I change my relationship with this plant so it’s not just eradication, taking something’s life?,” he wondered. “Since then, I’ve been harvesting plants, rather than just killing them. Some people who volunteer to pull weeds are called warriors. I don’t consider myself a warrior, I’m more of a gatherer.”
The artist, graphic editor and self-described “weed gatherer” now gives these plants a new life.
“When I first work with a plant, I call that prospecting,” he said. “I’ll sit with the plant, study its nature, cut it, bring it back into the studio, and then start running tests on it to see if it’s good for pigment [or] paper [or] other kinds of fiber.”
White mulberry produces paper
Over the years, Clark has developed a fondness for some of the weeds, like white mulberry.
“It offers paper, the strongest, whitest paper, pretty good lumber, fuel, [and] ash from that fuel is used to create a chemical used to break down the inner bark to make paper,” he says.
That’s a multistep process that takes long hours of work, and a lot of patience. Clark estimates it takes 20 minutes to cut down the plant, 30 minutes to steam it, five minutes to strip the bark, three hours to scrape it, an hour to cook it, 20 minutes to wash it and another hour to beat it. Then, he molds the sheet and lets it dry overnight. He’s rewarded with a stack of unique papers that have become art.
Bushes offer colors
Clark extracts the inks he uses in his paintings and prints from a variety of invasive vines and bushes.
“I take some ivy leaves and put them in ethanol,” he explains. “That’s how we get the green ink. Multiflora rose, the stems give us red ink. Bush honeysuckle, the inner bark provides an aqua color. And the leatherleaf mahonia, the inner bark of that, put it in ethanol, creates a fluorescent yellow color.”
Each print Clark creates includes all the plants he’s collected.
“I also include the landscape where these plants came from,” he says. “Sometimes I will include a volunteer pulling plants, or a tool used to process the plants, but all of these are part of the design.”
Creating art
Clark uses a computer to create his designs.
“I still use digital techniques in this work to expedite the process. Any tool or device that allows me to consume more weeds is good in my book,” he says. “The more weeds I consume, the more space I create for the return of native plants and native animals. So, it’s an environmental practice.”
He cuts his design into a block of wood by laser. Then, he applies his plant-based ink onto the block and presses it onto the handmade paper, repeating the process for each color.
Clark also makes frames for his prints from foraged plants, which attracts a lot of attention and admiration when he shows them in art exhibits.
“I do appreciate the compliments,” he admits, “but one thing I have heard some concern about is the archival quality of these prints. Some of the pigments that I use will last for a long time. Some of the brighter colors, however, if put in really bright light, will eventually fade a little bit. So, I encourage people who buy a print to put it in low light or keep it in a folio. That’s how I’d like these things to be treated.”
With his artistic treatment of invasive species, Patterson Clark is turning them into something that is actually valued.
When the propaganda film, “The Founding of an Army,” hit theaters in China recently, the reaction wasn’t quite what the ruling Communist Party might have hoped for.
Instead of inspiring an outpouring of nationalism and self-sacrifice for the state, it was roundly mocked for trying to lure a younger audience by casting teen idols as revolutionary party leaders.
Viewers more used to seeing the idols play love interests in light-hearted soap operas responded to the film by projecting “modern-day romantic narratives on the founding fathers of the nation,” said Hung Huang, a well-known social commentator based in Beijing. “It was hilarious.”
Limiting Western influence
While China’s resurgent Communist Party once pushed its policies on an unquestioning public, it now struggles to compete for attention with the country’s booming entertainment industry and the celebrity culture it has spawned.
“Chinese people are increasingly ignoring party propaganda and are much more interested in movie stars, who represent a new lifestyle and more exciting aspirations,” said Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
President Xi Jinping, who will cement his authority with his expected endorsement to a second five-year term at this week’s national party congress, has placed a priority on stamping out too much Western influence in Chinese society in part so the party can dictate the values the youth should embrace.
Authorities have responded by taking aim at everything from gossip websites to soap opera story lines to celebrity salaries. Instead of selfish, rich stars, the state is promoting performers who are all about patriotism, purity and other values that support the party’s legitimacy.
Party values vs. youth interests
The results have at best been mixed and at worst ham-fisted and out of touch.
One problem is that the party’s values often clash with what young Chinese want to watch, according to Hung. Among the more popular shows watched by Chinese youth are those that center on palace intrigue, martial arts fantasies, high school romances or single, independent women.
“While the government could once dictate to young people what they should value and how they should lead their lives, they find themselves completely without the tools to do that now,” she said.
In the 1970s, the state was able to promote people seen as paragons of youthful devotion and selflessness, but Hung said that no longer works because young Chinese — like their counterparts in the West — now prefer to follow celebrity gossip and have the tools with which to do so.
Just this month, teen idol Lu Han, also known as China’s Justin Bieber, announced he had a girlfriend, triggering a flood of shares, responses and 4 million “likes” within a few hours that briefly crashed the country’s popular Weibo microblog service.
A recent commentary in The Global Times, a party newspaper with a nationalistic stance, railed against such celebrity worship, saying China had now surpassed the West in that regard.
That was likely a reason the government-backed China Alliance of Radio, Film and Television moved last month to cap the pay of actors, whose salaries had hit historic highs as young Chinese and a burgeoning middle class increasingly spend on movie tickets and goods.
Gossip sites closed
In another move earlier this year, authorities closed 60 popular celebrity gossip and social media accounts and called on internet giants such as Tencent and Baidu to “actively propagate core socialist values, and create an ever-healthier environment for the mainstream public opinion.”
The tension between popular culture and state propaganda isn’t new in China. In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping’s lieutenants railed against spiritual pollution. But it has gained new traction since Xi came to power in 2012 and officials began a wide-ranging crackdown on perceived societal ills from corruption to dissent to — now — entertainment.
“Xi Jinping has been advocating a revision to traditional, Confucian moral standards,” Lam said. “The definition of what is vulgar or morally problematic has been inflated and expanded so that it has become all-encompassing.”
Shows about the pursuit of great wealth and luxury that used to be tolerated under Xi’s predecessor, aren’t anymore.
The government has demanded that broadcasters “resist celebrity worship” and limit the air time dedicated to film and TV stars.
“The party does not want these entertainment programs to compete with news programs and ‘morality shows,’” said Jian Xu, a Chinese media research fellow at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia.
The government has also tried to shape some celebrities into party-sanctioned role models.
Thanks to their wholesome image and uplifting, patriotic lyrics, the TFboys, China’s first home-grown boy band, have risen to fame because of “political opportunities” they’ve been given, Xu said. The band is pursued by adoring fans and has performed twice on the coveted Lunar New Year gala hosted by state broadcaster China Central Television; it has also been promoted by the Communist Youth League.
Stars deviating from the party’s image of purity and moral acceptability, however, have been punished. In a high-profile drug crackdown in 2014, authorities publicly chastised a succession of celebrities caught using drugs, including Jackie Chan’s son, Jaycee Chan, and singer Li Daimo, forcing them to apologize on state television.
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Autistic children often have social difficulties. They tend to linger on the edges of social groups at school and have fewer friendships than those without the condition. But that can change, if their classmates understand them and give them a chance. As Faiza Elmasry tells us, an Australian mother wrote and illustrated a children’s book to help kids do that. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation warned in a report distributed by email late on Friday that the nuclear, energy, aviation, water and critical manufacturing industries have been targeted along with government entities in attacks dating back to at least May.
The agencies warned that hackers had succeeded in compromising some targeted networks, but did not identify specific victims or describe any cases of sabotage.
The objective of the attackers is to compromise organizational networks with malicious emails and tainted websites to obtain credentials for accessing computer networks of their targets, the report said.
U.S. authorities have been monitoring the activity for months, which they initially detailed in a confidential June report first reported by Reuters. That document, which was privately distributed to firms at risk of attacks, described a narrower set of activity focusing on the nuclear, energy and critical manufacturing sectors.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Scott McConnell declined to elaborate on the information in the report or say what prompted the government to go public with the information at this time.
“The technical alert provides recommendations to prevent and mitigate malicious cyber activity targeting multiple sectors and reiterated our commitment to remain vigilant for new threats,” he said.
The FBI declined to comment on the report, which security researchers said described an escalation in targeting of infrastructure in Europe and the United States that had been described in recent reports from private firms, including Symantec Corp.
“This is very aggressive activity,” said Robert Lee, an expert in securing industrial networks.
Lee, chief executive of cyber-security firm Dragos, said the report appears to describe hackers working in the interests of the Russian government, though he declined to elaborate. Dragos is also monitoring other groups targeting infrastructure that appear to be aligned with China, Iran, North Korea, he said.
The hacking described in the government report is unlikely to result in dramatic attacks in the near term, Lee said, but he added that it is still troubling: “We don’t want our adversaries learning enough to be able to do things that are disruptive later.”
The report said that hackers have succeeded in infiltrating some targets, including at least one energy generator, and conducting reconnaissance on their networks. It was accompanied by six technical documents describing malware used in the attacks.
Homeland Security “has confidence that this campaign is still ongoing and threat actors are actively pursuing their objectives over a long-term campaign,” the report said.
The report said the attacker was the same as one described by Symantec in a September report that warned advanced hackers had penetrated the systems controlling operations of some U.S.
and European energy companies.
Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said in an email that much of the contents of Friday’s report were previously known within the security community.
Cyber-security firm CrowdStrike said the technical indicators described in the report suggested the attacks were the work of a hacking group it calls Berserk Bear, which is affiliated with the Russian Federation and has targeted the energy, financial and transportation industries.
“We have not observed any destructive action by this actor,” CrowdStrike Vice President Adam Meyers said in an email.
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The Fox News Channel says the company knew a news analyst planned to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill O’Reilly when it renewed the popular personality’s contract in February.
The New York Times reported Saturday the company renewed the TV host’s contract after he reached a $32 million settlement with the analyst.
In a statement, 21st Century Fox defended its decision because it said he had settled the matter personally. It also said O’Reilly and the woman had agreed the financial terms would be kept confidential.
The company says O’Reilly’s new contract had added protections that allowed Fox to dismiss him if other allegations surfaced.
O’Reilly was ousted months later when it was revealed Fox had paid five women a total of $13 million to keep quiet about harassment allegations.
The news analyst’s allegations included repeated harassment, a nonconsensual sexual relationship and the sending of gay pornography and other sexually explicit material to the woman, according to people briefed on the matter who spoke to The New York Times.
The settlement was by far the largest of a half dozen deals made by O’Reilly or the company to settle harassment allegations against the host, according to the newspaper.
It was reached in January. In February, 21st Century Fox granted O’Reilly’s a four-year extension on a $25 million-a-year contract. In April, it fired him.
O’Reilly has called his firing from the Fox News Channel a “political hit job” and that his network’s parent company made a business decision to get rid of him. He also has said his conscience was clear in how he dealt with women. O’Reilly could not be reached for comment Saturday.
The most-watched figure in cable TV was dismissed by 21st Century Fox nine months after the company removed its founding CEO, Roger Ailes, following harassment charges. The 77-year-old Ailes died in Palm Beach, Florida, last May.
The company said it has taken numerous steps to change its workplace environment.
“21st Century Fox has taken concerted action to transform Fox News, including installing new leaders, overhauling management and on-air talent, expanding training, and increasing the channels through which employees can report harassment or discrimination,” Fox said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. “These changes come from the top, with Lachlan and James Murdoch personally leading the effort to promote civility and respect on the job, while maintaining the company’s long-held commitment to a diverse, inclusive and creative workplace.”
O’Reilly hosts his “No Spin News” podcast on his website, www.billoreilly.com, contributes to Glenn Beck’s radio program on TheBlaze and continues to write books in his best-selling series of historical “Killing” books, including his newest release, “Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence.”
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Parents of small children have long been hearing about the perils of “screen time.” And with more screens, and new technologies such as Amazon’s Echo speaker, the message is getting louder.
And while plenty of parents are feeling guilty about it, some experts say it might be time to relax a little.
Go ahead and hand your kid a gadget now and then to cook dinner or get some work done. Not all kids can entertain themselves quietly, especially when they are young. Try that, and see how long it takes your toddler to start fishing a banana peel out of the overflowing trash can.
“I know I should limit my kid’s screen time a lot, but there is reality,” said Dorothy Jean Chang, who works for a tech company in New York and has a 2-year-old son. When she needs to work or finds her son awake too early, “it’s the best, easiest way to keep him occupied and quiet.”
Screen time, she says, “definitely happens more often than I like to admit.”
She’s not alone. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group focused on kids’ use of media and technology, said in a report Thursday that kids ages 8 and younger average about 2 hours and 19 minutes with screens every day at home. That’s about the same as in 2011, though it’s up from an hour and a half in 2013, the last time the survey was conducted, when smartphones were not yet ubiquitous but TV watching was on the decline.
While the overall numbers have held steady in recent years, kids are shifting to mobile devices and other new technologies, just as their parents are. The survey found that kids spend an average of 48 minutes a day on mobile devices, up from 15 minutes in 2013. Kids are also getting exposed to voice-activated assistants, virtual reality and internet-connected toys, for which few guidelines exist because they are so new.
Mixed message
Some parents and experts worry that screens are taking time away from exercise and learning. But studies are inconclusive.
The economist Emily Oster said studies have found that kids who watch a lot of TV tend to be poorer, belong to minority groups and have parents with less education, all factors that contribute to higher levels of obesity and lower test scores. For that reason, it’s “difficult to draw strong conclusions about the effects of television from this research,” Oster wrote in 2015.
In fact, the Common Sense survey found that kids whose parents have higher incomes and education spend “substantially less time” with screens than other children. The gap was larger in 2017 than in previous years.
Rules relaxed
For more than a quarter century, the American Academy of Pediatrics held that kids under 2 should not be exposed to screens at all, and older kids should have strict limits. The rules have relaxed, such that video calls with grandma are OK, though “entertainment” television still isn’t. Even so, guidelines still feel out of touch for many parents who use screens of various sizes to preserve their sanity and get things done.
Jen Bjorem, a pediatric speech pathologist in Leawood, Kansas, said that while it’s “quite unrealistic” for many families to totally do away with screen time, balance is key.
“Screen time can be a relief for many parents during times of high stress or just needing a break,” she said.
Moderation
Bjorem recommends using “visual schedules” that toddlers can understand to set limits. Instead of words, these schedules have images — dinner, bed time, reading or TV time, for example.
Another idea for toddlers? “Sensory bins,” or plastic tubs filled with beads, dry pasta and other stuff kids can play around with and, ideally, be just as absorbed as in mobile app or an episode of “Elmo.”
Of course, some kids will play with these carefully crafted, Pinterest-worthy bins for only a few minutes. Then they might start throwing beans and pasta all over your living room. So you clean up, put away the bins and turn on the TV.
In an interview, Oster said that while screen time “is probably not as good for your kid as high-quality engagement” with parents, such engagement is probably not something we can give our kids all the time anyway.
“Sometimes you just need them to watch a little bit of TV because you have to do something, or you need (it) to be a better parent,” Oster said.
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Millions of children the world over dream of visiting Disneyworld. But Sean Baker’s heartbreaking film The Florida Project, throws light on those living in dire poverty in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle in Orlando.
The film underscores the social divide in America through the eyes and lives of children. The film follows precocious 6-year-old Moonee and her friends, roaming around in the sweltering Florida summer months.
They live in cheap motels like the “Magic Castle,” and receive little to no supervision from their single, underemployed or unemployed mothers.
Baker said he wanted to reveal the darker underbelly of an America that barely subsists.
WATCH: An America of Poverty Subsists Alongside the Glitter of Disney World
“My co-screenwriter brought this topic to my attention and the fact that there are families with children living in budget motels outside what we consider ‘The happiest place on earth,’ a place for children, and that juxtaposition obviously grabbed me,” the filmmaker said.
Inspired by Little Rascals
Baker says he was also inspired by the Little Rascals, the comic shorts about a gang of children getting into trouble in the 1920s and 1930s. The series was set against the Great Depression, depicting poverty through the life and resilience of children.
Baker says, Brooklynn Prince, who plays the boisterous Moonee is the present day Spanky McFarland, one of the main characters in Little Rascals.
Moonee’s childlike pranks verge into serious offenses.
“Spanky was the quintessential little rascal, and I said, ‘We are not going to move forward unless we find him’ and one day, Brooklynn Prince walks in the room for the audition and she has all the wonderful cuteness, the wit, the absolute hilarity,” Baker said.
The motel manager, Bobby, is the only character played by a big star, Willem Dafoe. Bobby is the only one who can barely supervise these unruly kids. He is both the disciplinarian and a protector of these children.
Baker says Dafoe’s character was inspired by a real low-budget motel manager in Florida.
“When Willem Dafoe was actually cast, he wanted to understand the world as much as we did,” Baker said. “He wanted to understand his character, so he actually came a week early from production, before we even needed him, and he interviewed this gentleman, he interviewed others. I think he absorbed, he started to develop his character by being there and understanding the situation. And then, one day, he comes to the set and he has this spray tan on, he had all kinds of accessories he chose building this Florida man as his character.”
Putting life in danger
Bria Vinaite inhabits Moonee’s infantile mother, Halley. She loves her daughter and tries to stay positive. But she is unable to get a job or any kind of child support and slowly crumbles.
To survive, she ends up becoming a sex worker, unwittingly putting her life and her daughter’s life a risk. Vinaite says she drew from real-life women who have fallen by the wayside.
“You have a daughter you have to take care of, a roof to put over her head, food, and then, on top of that, you have to take care of yourself. And I feel like in her situation, her concerns are not even important to her. It’s about Moonie. And it’s just so admirable that she doesn’t give up even till the very end,” Vinaite said.
During one of the film’s screenings, she says she was approached by a European fan, who told her how European countries provide social support and free day care for children of single unemployed mothers. Not here, she says.
“It makes you wonder: What is wrong with the government, for them not to care for such drastic situations that really mold these children, their whole lives? No child should have to experience that,” Vinaite said.
Vinaite says before she was cast for the role she had no idea that there were single mothers living day to day, hand to mouth, one step from homelessness.
“(Filmmaker) Sean (Baker) had flown me out for an audition to the area, drove me around where we would be filming and introduced me to some of the women, who lived in these motels, and I remember I went back to my hotel room and I started crying because I was so shocked,” she said.
Newcomers
Baker found Vinaite, a newcomer, on Instagram. He says he wanted new people who would give authenticity to the story. He definitely succeeds.
Both Vinaite and Brooklynn, who had never acted before, deliver tour de force performances. As the film turns darker, young Brooklynn emotes such pain as Moonee, she might earn an Oscar nomination.
“I cry at the end, too; like on the screen,” Brooklynn said. “I cry. I cried just watching it and I’m like Brooklynn! You have mascara on!”
Moonee’s childlike optimism is tested by the stark reality that an uncaring society will ultimately decide her fate. But ultimately, Moonee finds refuge in her childlike perception of the world.
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Environmental pollution, from filthy air to contaminated water, kills at least 9 million people a year, according to a new study published by the medical journal The Lancet. Two entrepreneurs from Georgia have invented a wearable filter they say can produce clean, fresh air. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Millions of children the world over dream of visiting Disney World. But Sean Baker’s heartbreaking film “The Florida Project,” throws light on those living in dire poverty in the shadow of Cinderella’s castle in Orlando. The film underscores the social divide in America through the eyes and lives of children. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with director and cast.
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Another actress has accused U.S. movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexually assaulting her, the latest of some 40 women who have alleged sexual harassment and assault spanning decades.
Former actress Heather Kerr told a news conference Friday that Weinstein attacked her during a private meeting in 1989 when she was in her 20s.
“He said that if he was going to introduce me around town to directors and producers, he needed to know if I was any good. He kept repeating that word,” Kerr said.
Kerr, who is now 56, said Weinstein then unzipped his pants and forced her hand onto his genitals. She said that Weinstein told her that “this is how things work in Hollywood,” and that all actresses who had made it did it this way.
“I was frozen with fear,” said a tearful Kerr, who appeared on the 1980s sitcom The Facts of Life.
Rape allegations
Also Friday, the Los Angeles lawyer for an Italian actress who has accused Weinstein of rape say it has had a “humongous impact on her life’’ and she is extremely scared.
Attorney David Ring said his client, who has not been named, has given Los Angeles police detectives a description of sexual assault and rape, which the actress said took place at the Los Angeles Italia film festival in 2013.
On Thursday, the Los Angeles Police department said it had opened a criminal investigation into Weinstein, who is also under criminal investigation in New York and London because of similar allegations.
Weinstein’s attorneys have released a statement saying, “We deny any allegations of nonconsensual sex, though obviously can’t respond to anonymous allegations.”
This was the second statement from Weinstein attorneys saying their client has not participated in nonconsensual sex.
Emmys disciplinary process
In another development Friday, the Television Academy, which bestows the Emmy awards, said it has voted to begin disciplinary proceedings against Weinstein. The academy’s board of governors said a hearing has been set for November, in which the group could terminate the producer’s membership.
News about Weinstein broke two weeks ago, when The New York Times and New Yorker magazine both published exposes of the legendary producer, citing allegations that go back as far as the 1980s.
Since then, Weinstein has been fired from his production company, and has been thrown out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and stripped of various other honors.
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The Group of Seven industrialized nations threw their support behind a new technology industry alliance aimed at detecting and blunting online propaganda, saying Friday it had a “major role” to play in combating extremism on the internet.
G-7 interior ministers meeting in Italy invited representatives from Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter to a session Friday dedicated to the fight against terrorism. In a final communique, the ministers pressed the industry as a whole to do more.
“Internet companies will continue to take a proactive role and ensure decisive action in making their platforms more hostile to terrorism, and will support actions aimed at empowering civil society partners in the development of alternative narratives online,” the statement said.
Social media companies have long seen themselves as neutral platforms for other people to share information, and have traditionally been cautious about taking down objectionable material. But as social media platforms have increasingly been used to recruit jihadis, radicalize young people, share fake news and incite extremism, they have come under pressure from governments to take action.
Facebook, Google, Twitter and YouTube in June created the Global Internet Forum to Combat Terrorism, which got an early boost when British Prime Minister Theresa May used a speech to the U.N. General Assembly to applaud the initiative and demand internet companies develop technology to more quickly identify and remove terrorist content.
The alliance says it is committed to developing new content detection technology, to helping smaller companies combat extremism and to promoting “counter-speech,” content meant to blunt the impact of extremist material.
The G-7 endorsed the aims and pledged to work collaboratively across the industry to counter the “misuse of technology” by terrorist organizations.
Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said “a great alliance” had been formed between world governments and major internet providers. While stressing the internet has been an important tool for promoting freedom, “at the same time we all together have agreed that al-Qaida and Islamic State are enemies of our freedoms.”
Several ministers said that while the industry had made progress to quickly remove extremist content, more needed to be done, and faster.
“Our enemies are moving at the speed of a tweet, so we have to counter them just as quickly,” said acting U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke.
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We’re on the job with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending October 21, 2017.
We have some excitement this week, as a new remix results in a huge rebound for a song that was already a hit.
Let’s open in fifth place, where Taylor Swift dips two slots with “Look What You Made Me Do.” She’s been busy in London.
On October 14, she was spotted shooting a music video. Taylor was all over the place: in a double-decker bus, in a taxi, and on a bike on the Millennium Bridge. She also hosted a listening session in her London home for her upcoming “Reputation” album – the rest of us will have to wait until it drops on November 10.
Number 4: Logic Featuring Alessia Cara & Khalid “1-800-273-8255”
Logic treads water in fourth place with “1-800-273-8255” featuring Alessia Cara and Khalid.
This song has gone double platinum in the United States, moving two million units…and that’s just the beginning. Latin superstar Juanes has added his voice to a bilingual remix of the suicide-prevention single.
Number 3: J. Balvin & Willy William Featuring Beyonce “Mi Gente”
Speaking of bilingual songs, how about ”Mi Gente”?
Colombian singer J Balvin and French DJ Willy William already had a sizable hit with “Mi Gente,” and now Beyonce has added her voice to the remix…propelling it from 21st to third place. Sales proceeds go to hurricane relief efforts in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other affected Caribbean islands.
Number 2: Post Malone Featuring Savage “Rockstar”
Post Malone and 21 Savage rack up a third straight week in the runner-up slot with “Rockstar.”
That’s here on the Hot 100: in Australia, the song enjoys a third consecutive week at number one. It holds off Camila Cabello’s “Havana,” which has yet to make the Top 20 here in the States.
Number 1: Cardi B “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)”
Yes, Cardi B is your Hot 100 champ for a third week with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves),” and yes, that’s a big deal.
The Hot 100 chart has been around since August, 1958…and this is the first time a solo female rapper has held the title for as long as three weeks. Congratulations, Cardi B!
The chart never sleeps, so be sure and join us next week!
The newly refurbished USS Constitution is taking its first spin under sail in three years.
Friday’s joyride from Charlestown Navy Yard in Boston to Fort Independence on Castle Island will celebrate the U.S. Navy’s 242nd birthday and the 220th anniversary of the iconic vessel’s maiden voyage.
The world’s oldest commissioned warship will fire a 21-gun salute in the waters off the fort, and its cannons will boom another 17 times as it passes the U.S. Coast Guard station — the former site of the shipyard where the Constitution was built and launched in 1797.
It will be the warship’s first sail since October 2014.
The ship earned its nickname “Old Ironsides” during the War of 1812 with Britain.
Harvey Weinstein is now facing criminal inquiries in three cities after an Italian actress told Los Angeles detectives the disgraced film mogul raped her in a hotel room in 2013.
Police confirmed Thursday they are looking into the woman’s allegations, and her attorney said he would give additional details about them at a news conference outside a downtown Los Angeles courthouse on Friday afternoon.
The unidentified woman is an Italian model and actress, according to an announcement of attorney David M. Ring’s press conference. In addition to talking to detectives, the woman and Ring spoke to the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, telling them Weinstein bullied his way into her hotel room, refused to leave and raped her.
Sallie Hofmeister, a representative for Weinstein, said in a statement that Weinstein “unequivocally denies allegations of non-consensual sex.”
The Los Angeles investigation comes after announcements last week by police in New York and London that they are taking a new look at allegations involving the Oscar-winner. New York police are taking a fresh look for complaints involving Weinstein and the department has encouraged anyone who may have information about abuses by the producer to contact the department. London police are investigating allegations of sexual assault against him made by two women.
More than 40 women have accused Weinstein, 65, of harassment or abuse. Actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and Lupita Nyong’o have all accused Weinstein of harassment, while actresses Asia Argento and Rose McGowan have accused the film mogul of raping them.
Nyong’o accused Weinstein of several incidents of harassment in an op-ed piece published by The New York Times on Thursday, including a 2011 incident in which she said the mogul tried to give her a massage at his Connecticut home. She refused, instead giving the mogul a massage and leaving when he said he wanted to take off his pants, Nyong’o wrote.
The stories of harassment and abuse dating back decades has left to the total downfall of a producer who once ruled Hollywood’s awards season with a string of contenders including “Shakespeare in Love,” for which he shared an Oscar, and films such as “The King’s Speech” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”
Since The New York Times published its initial expose on Oct. 5, Weinstein has been fired from the company he co-founded, expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the producers guild has initiated his expulsion. Honors conferred by Harvard University and the British Film Institute have been rescinded, and several Democratic lawmakers have donated political contributions they received from Weinstein to charity.
Ring said in a statement Thursday that the breadth of accusations against Weinstein compelled his client to speak to police.
“My client is grateful to all the courageous women who have already come forward to finally expose Weinstein,” Ring said. “These women may not have realized it, but they gave my client the support and encouragement to hold Weinstein accountable for this horrible act.”
An aquatic robot, small and nimble enough to fit inside the smallest of openings, is being tested in Japan ahead of being deployed into the damaged core of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Faith Lapidus reports.
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American teens have crowned a new king of social media. According to a recent poll, Snapchat is the most popular app for teens, toppling even Facebook for their neck-bending attention. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington.
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