The commission that enforces rules for U.S. elections is not regulating AI-generated deepfakes in political advertising ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Deana Mitchell has the story.
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Actor Julian Sands, who starred in several Oscar-nominated films in the late 1980s and ’90s including “A Room with a View” and “Leaving Las Vegas,” was found dead on a Southern California mountain five months after he disappeared while hiking, authorities said Tuesday.
An investigation confirmed that it was Sands whose remains hikers found Saturday in wilderness near Mount Baldy, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. The 65-year-old actor was an avid and experienced hiker who lived in Los Angeles and was reported missing January 13 after setting out on the peak that rises more than 3,048 meters east of the city. Crews aided by drones and helicopters had searched for him several times but were severely hampered by wintry conditions that lasted through spring. No sign of him was found until the civilian hikers came upon him.
The chances of Sands being discovered alive had long since diminished to nearly nothing, but the Sheriff’s Department, which conducted an official search the day before he was found, emphasized that the case remained active.
An autopsy has been conducted, but further test results are needed before the cause of death can be determined, authorities said.
Sands, who was born, raised and began acting in England, worked constantly in film and television, amassing more than 150 credits in a 40-year career. During a 10-year span from 1985 to 1995, he played major roles in a series of acclaimed films.
After studying at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Sands embarked on a career in stage and film, playing small parts in films including “Oxford Blues” and “The Killing Fields.” He landed the starring role of George Emerson, who falls in love with Helena Bonham Carter’s Lucy Honeychurch while on holiday in Tuscany in the 1985 British romance, “A Room with a View.”
The film from director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for best film, and was nominated for eight Oscars, winning three.
In the wake of its success, Sands moved to the United States to pursue a career in Hollywood.
He played the title role in the 1989 horror fantasy “Warlock” and its sequel. In the 1990 horror comedy “Arachnophobia,” with Jeff Daniels and John Goodman, Sands played an entomologist specializing in spiders.
The following year he appeared in director David Cronenberg’s surreal adaptation of the William Burroughs novel “Naked Lunch” in 1991. In 1993, Sands starred in the thriller “Boxing Helena.”
In 1995’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” Sands played an abusive Latvian pimp alongside Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue. The film was nominated for four Oscars, with Cage winning best actor.
Sands touted his love of the outdoors in a 2020 interview with the Guardian, saying he was happiest when “close to a mountain summit on a glorious cold morning” and that his biggest dream was scaling “a remote peak in the high Himalayas, such as Makalu.”
The actor said in the interview that in the early 1990s, he was caught in an “atrocious” storm in the Andes and was lucky to survive when three others near his party didn’t.
After “Leaving Las Vegas,” the quality of the films Sands was cast in, and the size of his roles, began declining. He worked steadily, appearing in director Wim Wenders’ “The Million Dollar Hotel” and director Dario Argento’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
Sands was born in Yorkshire, the middle child of five brothers raised by a single mother. He had three children of his own.
He had been married since 1990 to journalist Evgenia Citkowitz, with whom he had two adult daughters, Imogen Morley Sands and Natalya Morley Sands. His eldest child was son Henry Sands, whom he had with his first wife, journalist Sarah Harvey.
A few days before he was found, Sands’ family issued a statement saying, “We continue to hold Julian in our hearts with bright memories of him as a wonderful father, husband, explorer, lover of the natural world and the arts, and as an original and collaborative performer.”
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Italy’s culture and tourism ministers have vowed to find and punish a tourist who was filmed carving his name and that of his apparent girlfriend in the wall of the Colosseum in Rome, a crime that resulted in hefty fines in the past.
Video of the incident went viral on social media. The message reading “Ivan+Haley 23” appeared on the Colosseum at a time when residents already were complaining about hordes of tourists flooding the Eternal City in record numbers this season.
Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano called the writing carved into the almost 2,000-year-old Flavian Ampitheater “serious, undignified and a sign of great incivility.” He said he hoped the culprits would be found “and punished according to our laws.”
Italian news agency ANSA noted that the incident marked the fourth time this year that such graffiti was reported at the Colosseum. It said whoever was responsible for the latest episode risked $15,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.
Tourism Minister Daniela Santanche said she hoped the tourist would be sanctioned “so that he understands the gravity of the gesture.” Calling for respect for Italy’s culture and history, she vowed: “We cannot allow those who visit our nation to feel free to behave in this way.”
In 2014, a Russian tourist was fined $25,000 and received a four-year suspended jail sentence for engraving a big letter ‘K’ on a wall of the Colosseum.
The following year, two American tourists were also cited for aggravated damage after they carved their names in the monument.
Italian tourism lobby Federturismo, backed by statistics bureau ISTAT, has said 2023 is shaping up as a record for visitors to Italy, surpassing pre-pandemic levels that hit a high in 2019.
Outside the Colosseum on Tuesday, visitors called for such monuments to be protected and preserved.
“There is a rich history here. It helps us learn from the past,” Diego Cruz, an American student, said.
Güldamla Ozsema, a computer engineer visiting from Turkey, said his country also had difficulty protecting its monuments from disrespectful tourists.
“I really get angry with them, with this behavior,” Ozsema said.
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Robot makers who want to explore the oceans are looking to one of Earth’s most successful sea creatures for design inspiration. Steve Baragona reports.
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The United States will be playing for an unprecedented three-peat at this year’s Women’s World Cup. It won’t be easy for the No. 1 team in the world.
Co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, the quadrennial tournament kicks off on July 20 and features an expanded field of 32 teams, up from 24. There are 64 matches during the tournament.
That means more competition for the two-time defending World Cup champion U.S., which won the 2015 event in Canada and the 2019 tournament in France. The Americans have won four titles overall, most of any nation.
Schedule, location
The 32 teams are divided into eight groups of four teams each. Each team plays a three-game, round-robin group stage, running from July 20 to August 3.
The top finishers advance to the round of 16 from August 5 to 8. The quarterfinals are set for August 11 to 12, and the two semifinal matches will be played August 15-16. A third-place game is set for August 19 in Brisbane, ahead of the final in Sydney.
The final will air at 6 a.m. ET on August 20 in the United States.
The broadcast schedule is complicated by the time difference. The United States is playing in Group E with Vietnam, the Netherlands and Portugal. The opening match is against Vietnam on July 22 in Auckland, which because of the time difference, will air in the U.S. on July 21 at 9 p.m. ET.
A rematch of the 2019 final against the Netherlands is set for July 27 in Wellington, airing at 9 p.m. ET on July 26 in the U.S. The last group game against Portugal is set for August 1, airing at 3 a.m. ET that day.
Where to watch
Fox holds the English-language media rights in the United States for the Women’s World Cup. Telemundo holds the Spanish-language rights.
Fox will broadcast a record 29 matches on its main network. The rest of the games will be aired on FS1. All matches will be streamed on the Fox app.
FIFA struck a collective deal with the European Broadcasting Union in mid-June, ending a standoff with broadcasters in five major European television markets. The deal guarantees the games will air in France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Britain.
Players to watch
There are two distinct groups of players to watch at this World Cup: veteran superstars and talented younger players.
Canada’s Christine Sinclair leads a group of veterans that includes Brazil’s Marta, Australia’s Sam Kerr, France’s Wendie Renard and American Alex Morgan.
Sinclair, who is 40 and likely playing in her final World Cup, is international soccer’s all-time leading scorer, among women or men, with 190 career goals.
Young stars include 22-year-old U.S. forward Sophia Smith, 21-year-old Jody Brown of Jamaica and 19-year-old Melchie Dumornay of Haiti.
Smith doubled up last year as both the U.S. Soccer Player of the Year and the National Women’s Soccer League’s Most Valuable Player.
Teams to watch
The United States is ranked No. 1 in the world in the latest FIFA rankings. The Americans are a strong team despite recent injuries, but their dominance in international play will be challenged at this World Cup.
Germany, ranked No. 2, won back-to-back World Cups in 2003 and 2007. Third-ranked Sweden knocked the United States out of the 2016 Olympics in the quarterfinals. Seventh-ranked Canada won the gold medal at the Tokyo Games.
Considered a contender, England has been hit by a series of injuries to top players including Beth Mead, Fran Kirby and captain Leah Williamson. All three will miss the World Cup. France switched coaches in March after a trio of players threatened to skip the tournament.
Australia can’t be counted out as co-hosts. The Matildas, the country’s national team, will be boosted by Kerr, one of the world’s best players.
Betting guide
The United States is a +240 favorite to win the World Cup, according to FanDuel Sportsbook. England is next at +380, followed by Spain at +650.
There’s also a big group of teams the oddsmakers say have little chance of lifting the trophy, including Jamaica, Vietnam, Argentina, Zambia, Nigeria, Costa Rica, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Haiti and Panama. All are at +43,000.
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UNESCO member states meet later this week on the Biden administration’s bid to rejoin the Paris-based U.N. scientific and cultural body, a move that will inject hundreds of millions of welcome dollars into its coffers and give the United States a say in shaping programs ranging from climate change to education and artificial intelligence.
Few expect any surprises on the outcome of the deliberations, which will be held at an extraordinary UNESCO session Thursday and Friday. There have been no reports of serious objections by the agency’s 193 members, although China and Russia have offered some critical and cautionary remarks.
Yet even as many welcome Washington’s move to rejoin over concern that competitors like China are filling the void, some observers wonder how long that welcome will last. Next year’s U.S. presidential elections are looming, potentially ushering in another administration hostile to UNESCO’s policies and membership.
Still others suggest Israel, which similarly defunded and ultimately left the body, should follow Washington’s footsteps in returning.
UNESCO itself has given an enthusiastic thumbs up to the U.S. request to rejoin earlier this month. Secretary-General Audrey Azoulay — who has taken pains to erase perceptions UNESCO was biased against Israel and woo Washington back — called it “a historic moment.”
“The reason why the U.S. is coming back is a strong signal that UNESCO’s mandate is more relevant than ever,” said UNESCO’s New York office head, Eliot Minchenberg, in an interview, laying out a raft of UNESCO programs reflecting U.S. priorities including fighting antisemitism and Holocaust education.
“In the absence of the U.S., of course others have stepped up and helped, but it is definitely not the same as the U.S. presence and engagement — both financially, diplomatically and politically,” he added.
Also welcome are U.S. dues that once accounted for 22% of UNESCO’s budget. The Biden administration has proposed slowly paying off the $619 million in arrears, starting with $150 million in 2024 dues and back payments.
French baguettes and the Everglades
Located not far from the Eiffel Tower, the small agency — known officially as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization —runs a raft of programs from promoting education and free press, to fighting against climate change and antisemitism.
Many know it best for helping to preserve and showcase the cultural and physical heritage of member states. French baguettes, Tunisian harissa, Finnish sauna culture and Colombian marimba music have all landed on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list.
More than a thousand sites have also made UNESCO’s World Heritage List, including two dozen in the U.S., from the Statue of Liberty to the Everglades and Yellowstone national parks.
Even today, some U.S. universities and other private groups continue collaborating with UNESCO.
That includes the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists, whose deputy director for climate and energy programs, Adam Markham, says without membership the U.S. cannot weigh in on key discussions around climate change and World Heritage sites.
China
“You’re seeing China taking a lot of leadership roles,” said Markham, who can still participate in scientific meetings as a member of a nongovernmental organization. “I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It’s just changing the geopolitical relationships that the U.S. has with other UNESCO partners.”
The U.S. first quit UNESCO in 1984 under the Reagan administration, over corruption concerns and an allegedly pro-Soviet tilt. It rejoined under another Republican president, George W. Bush, then suspended dues under Democrat Barack Obama, when Palestine became a member.
In 2018, President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out altogether over perceived anti-Israel bias and management issues, with Israel following suit.
Now, politics are again driving America’s return — this time, over concerns Beijing may otherwise have an outsized say in sensitive programs like artificial intelligence.
“Joe Biden’s administration has realized that the empty chair policy is incompatible with the defense of the country’s interests and that its absence from this forum ends up serving those of its great rival, China,” wrote France’s Le Monde newspaper in an editorial — even as it warned against Washington’s “fickleness.”
“The succession of departures and returns can only raise questions about the durability of the…decision, less than two years before a presidential election that could bring the party of ultra-nationalist retreat back to the White House” it added, referring to the Trump administration.
Israel next?
China’s ambassador to UNESCO has indicated Beijing was ready to work with a newly rejoined Washington. But the state-backed China Daily was blunter.
“Whether the U.S. will play a positive role in the agency remains a conjecture,” it wrote in an editorial. “If… its return is just for regaining its own influence against that of China in the organization, the U.S. will likely just be a troublemaker.”
Russia’s foreign ministry said it, too, was willing to welcome back the U.S., but warned Washington needed to follow UNESCO’s rules and “should pay back its astronomical debt unconditionally and in full.”
In Israel, Michael Freund, a former communications advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, cast the U.S. return as a “fiasco” and UNESCO “as an appalling club,” in an opinion in The Jerusalem Post.
But the newspaper’s own editorial suggested Israel might consider rejoining the agency — picking which programs to support while boycotting others — to counter Palestinian “disinformation.”
Mixed reactions over UNESCO have been sounding in the U.S. as well.
“Returning to UNESCO is a waste of time and money, and not an effective riposte to China,” John Bolton, a former national security advisor under President Trump, wrote in the New York Post. He called on Congress, with the House of Representatives now controlled by Republicans, to block UNESCO funding and said no current Republican presidential candidate appeared to support rejoining the agency.
But Markham, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says he saw a different reaction when he spoke recently to a group of historic preservationists in New Jersey.
“The one thing they burst out spontaneously in applause was when I said the US had announced it was going back to UNESCO,” he said. “And I’m certain there were Republicans as well as Democrats in that audience.”
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Elton John gave the final concert at Britain’s legendary Glastonbury Festival on Sunday, bringing down the curtain on the annual spectacular with what could be his final U.K. performance.
“I never thought I’d ever play Glastonbury,” he told the crowd. “It’s a very special and emotional night for me — it might be my very last show in England, in Great Britain, so I’d better play well and entertain you.”
The 76-year-old pop superstar is winding down a glittering live career with a global farewell tour, having played his last concerts in the United States in May ahead of a final gig in Stockholm on July 8.
Glastonbury, Britain’s best-known music festival, has been hosted on a farm in southwest England for five decades.
Before John took to the main Pyramid Stage on Sunday night, anticipation was high among fans.
“Elton’s a legend,” Ph.D. student Giles Briscoe, 26, told AFP ahead of the set, wearing a replica of the iconic baseball outfit John wore at his famous 1975 concerts at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles. “The fact that he’s going to perform on such a big stage, at such a historic moment of his career, is such a big event.”
John did not disappoint, kicking the show off with “Pinball Wizard” — a role he memorably played in The Who’s rock opera “Tommy” — before reeling through some of his biggest hits, including “Candle in the Wind,” “Crocodile Rock” and an intense “I’m Still Standing.”
John dedicated “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” to his “friend” and “inspiration” George Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016, and who would have turned 60 on Sunday.
John’s husband, David Furnish, had told Sky News ahead of the concert that John would not stop making music after the farewell tour ends next month and would start work on a new studio album later this year.
He also teased Sunday’s performance, saying it would be “very special” and “not just another day in the office.”
Indeed, John was joined on stage by several surprise guests: first off, the London Community Gospel Choir and Jacob Lusk of the soul-pop group Gabriels.
Next up was Stephen Sanchez, with John singing one of the 20-year-old American’s songs.
He later shared the stage with Brandon Flowers of The Killers for “Tiny Dancer” and with Rina Sawayama for “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.”
He closed out the set with a soaring rendition of “Rocket Man,” complete with fireworks.
During the concert, John thanked his fans “for 52 years of amazing love and loyalty.”
“It’s been an incredible journey and I’ve had the best, best time. I will never forget you — you are in my head, my heart and my soul,” he said.
John’s U.K. swansong caps days of big-name performances in front of more than 200,000 fans at Glastonbury, including veteran U.S. rockers Guns N’ Roses, who were making their debut at the long-running festival in the coveted Saturday night headline slot.
They rocked through their extensive catalogue during a two-hour-plus set, playing hits including “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “November Rain.”
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, whose band played a so-called secret slot Friday, joined them onstage to help play a special rendition of “Paradise City.”
Other acts playing this year included UK indie giants Arctic Monkeys, singer Lizzo, rapper Lil Nas X, post-punk icon Blondie and “rickroller” Rick Astley, highlighting Glastonbury’s eclectic ethos.
On Saturday, a supportive crowd sang along as Scottish singer Lewis Capaldi, who suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, struggled to finish his set.
He announced he would take a break, after previously cancelling gigs to recuperate over health concerns.
Dairy farmer Michael Eavis first organized the festival in 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix died, and fans who came to see acts including Marc Bolan and Al Stewart paid £1 each for entry and received free milk from the farm.
It was held intermittently in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it really began to acquire its cult status.
While able to draw the biggest performers from every genre and generation, it is equally known for hosting thousands of small acts and events across the huge Worthy Farm site, as well as for often rainy and muddy conditions.
That has not proved a problem this year, with Britain in the midst of a prolonged dry period leaving much of the country scorched.
More than 100,000 standard tickets for this year’s festival sold out in just over an hour, despite the price rising to $427 this year.
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When the International African American Museum opens to the public Tuesday in South Carolina, it becomes a new site of homecoming and pilgrimage for descendants of enslaved Africans whose arrival in the Western Hemisphere begins on the docks of the Lowcountry coast.
Overlooking the old wharf in Charleston at which nearly half of the enslaved population first entered North America, the 150,000-square-foot (14,000-square-meter) museum houses exhibits and artifacts exploring how African Americans’ labor, perseverance, resistance and cultures shaped the Carolinas, the nation and the world.
It also includes a genealogy research center to help families trace their ancestors’ journey from point of arrival on the land.
The opening happens at a time when the very idea of Black people’s survival through slavery, racial apartheid and economic oppression being quintessential to the American story is being challenged throughout the U.S. Leaders of the museum said its existence is not a rebuttal to current attempts to suppress history, but rather an invitation to dialogue and discovery.
“Show me a courageous space, show me an open space, show me a space that meets me where I am, and then gets me where I asked to go,” said Dr. Tonya Matthews, the museum’s president and CEO.
“I think that’s the superpower of museums,” she said. “The only thing you need to bring to this museum is your curiosity, and we’ll do the rest.”
The $120 million facility features nine galleries that contain nearly a dozen interactive exhibits of more than 150 historical objects and 30 works of art. One of the museum’s exhibits will rotate two to three times each year.
Upon entering the space, eight large video screens play a looped trailer of a diasporic journey that spans centuries, from cultural roots on the African continent and the horrors of the Middle Passage to the regional and international legacies that spawned out of Africans’ dispersal and migration across lands.
The screens are angled as if to beckon visitors towards large windows and a balcony at the rear of the museum, revealing sprawling views of the Charleston harbor.
One unique feature of the museum is its gallery dedicated to the history and culture of the Gullah Geechee people. Their isolation on rice, indigo and cotton plantations on coastal South Carolina, Georgia and North Florida helped them maintain ties to West African cultural traditions and Creole language. A multimedia, chapel-sized “praise house” in the gallery highlights the faith expressions of the Gullah Geechee and shows how those expressions are imprinted on Black American gospel music.
On Saturday, the museum grounds buzzed with excitement as its founders, staff, elected officials and other invited guests dedicated the grounds in spectacular fashion.
The program was emceed by award-winning actress and director Phylicia Rashad and included stirring appearances by poet Nikky Finney and the McIntosh County Shouters, who perform songs passed down by enslaved African Americans.
“Truth sets us free — free to understand, free to respect and free to appreciate the full spectrum of our shared history,” said former Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley, Jr. who is widely credited for the idea to bring the museum to the city.
Planning for the International African American Museum dates back to 2000, when Riley called for its creation in a State of the City address. It took many more years, through setbacks in fundraising and changes in museum leadership, before construction started in 2019.
Originally set to open in 2020, the museum was further delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, as well as by issues in the supply chain of materials needed to complete construction.
Gadsden’s Wharf, a 2.3-acre waterfront plot where it’s estimated that up 45% of enslaved Africans brought to the United States in the late 18th and early 19th centuries walked, sets the tone for how the museum is experienced. The wharf was built by Revolutionary War figure Christopher Gadsden.
The land is now part of an intentionally designed ancestral garden. Black granite walls are erected on the spot of a former storage house, a space where hunched enslaved humans perished awaiting their transport to the slave market. The walls are emblazoned with lines of Maya Angelou’s poem, “And Still I Rise.”
The museum’s main structure does not touch the hallowed grounds on which it is located. Instead, it is hoisted above the wharf by 18 cylindrical columns. Beneath the structure is a shallow fountain tribute to the men, women and children whose bodies were inhumanely shackled together in the bellies of ships in the transatlantic slave trade.
To discourage visitors from walking on the raised outlines of the shackled bodies, a walkway was created through the center of the wharf tribute.
“There’s something incredibly significant about reclaiming a space that was once the landing point, the beginning of a horrific American journey for captured Africans,” said Malika Pryor, the museum’s chief learning and education officer.
Walter Hood, founder and creative director of Hood Design Studios based in Oakland, California, designed the landscape of the museum’s grounds. The designs are inspired by tours of Lowcountry and its former plantations, he said. The lush grounds, winding paths and seating areas are meant to be an ethnobotanical garden, forcing visitors to see how the botany of enslaved Africans and their descendants helped shape what still exists today across the Carolinas.
The opening of the Charleston museum adds to a growing array of institutions dedicated to teaching an accurate history of the Black experience in America. Many will have heard of, and perhaps visited, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in the nation’s capital, which opened in 2016.
Lesser-known Afrocentric museums and exhibits exist in nearly every region of the country. In Montgomery, Alabama, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and the corresponding National Memorial for Peace and Justice highlight slavery, Jim Crow and the history of lynching in America.
Pryor, formerly the educational director of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, said these types of museums focus on the underdiscussed, underengaged parts of the American story.
“This is such an incredibly expansive history, there’s room for 25 more museums that would have opportunities to bring a new curatorial lens to this conversation,” she said.
The museum has launched an initiative to develop relationships with school districts, especially in places where laws limit how public school teachers discuss race and racism in the classroom. In recent years, conservative politicians around the country have banned books in more than 5,000 schools in 32 states. Bans or limits on instruction about slavery and systemic racism have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021.
Pryor said South Carolina’s ban on the teaching of critical race theory in public schools has not put the museum out of reach for local elementary, middle and high schools that hope to make field trips there.
“Even just the calls and the requests for school group visits, for school group tours, they number easily in the hundreds,” she said. “And we haven’t formally opened our doors yet.”
When the doors are open, all are welcome to reckon with a fuller truth of the Black American story, said Matthews, the museum president.
“If you ask me what we want people to feel when they are in the museum, our answer is something akin to everything,” she said.
“It is the epitome of our journey, the execution of our mission, to honor the untold stories of the African American journey at one of our nation’s most sacred sites.”
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“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” slung its webs back atop the box office ranks while “The Flash” saw a drop faster than the film’s speedy character.
The Spidey animated sequel — starring Shameik Moore as the teenage webslinger Miles Morales — reclaimed the No. 1 spot in its fourth week in North American theaters, scoring $19.3 million. The latest number helped the Sony film reach $317.1 million domestically and an impressive $560.3 million worldwide.
“Spider-Verse” beat out “Elemental,” which took second place for the second week in a row with an estimated $18.5 million. The film held on to the spot after experiencing Pixar’s worst three-day opening last week.
No other film had such a dramatic drop than “The Flash” with $15.2 million for the big-budget offering. The second week output for the DC and Warner Bros superhero film, starring Ezra Miller, fell off by 72% after opening with a subpar $55 million.
So far, the numbers “The Flash” has accumulated haven’t measured up for a movie with a $200 million production budget. Some are crediting the film’s struggles to Miller’s off-screen behavior that has included arrests and misconduct. The actor has apologized and sought mental health treatment.
“The Flash” barely edged out “No Hard Feelings,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman. The raunchy comedy, which opened in fourth place with $15.1 million, tells a story about a teen’s parents who hired a woman (Lawrence) to date and boost his confidence.
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” came in fifth place with $11.6 million in its third week with a total $122.9 million. It placed ahead of Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City,” which did better than expected with $9 million.
In seventh, “The Little Mermaid” pulled in $8.6 million to bring its total to more than $270 million.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” $19.3 million.
“Elemental,” $18.4 million.
The Flash,” $15.2 million.
“No Hard Feelings,” 15.1 million.
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” $11.6 million.
“Asteroid City” $9 million.
“The Little Mermaid,” $8.6 million.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $3.5 million.
“The Blackening,” $3 million.
“The Boogeyman,” $2.5 million.
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Zion Rose is well aware that the percentage of Black U.S. players in Major League Baseball has been on the decline for decades.
But the 18-year-old catcher from Chicago, still sweaty from a workout during MLB’s Draft Combine this week at Chase Field in Phoenix, said he’s got some news: That’s not going to be the case for long.
“You’ll see,” he said. “We’re starting to come through.”
Rose was one of more than 300 players of all backgrounds in Phoenix this week to take part in the combine, which featured workouts, interviews and games in an effort to showcase some of the game’s best amateur talent at the high school and college levels before July’s draft. MLB said that approximately 15% of the players in the showcase were Black.
The hope is that the next Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts or Andrew McCutchen will be in that bunch. Possibly several.
A recent study from The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found Black U.S. players represented just 6.2% of players on MLB opening day rosters, down from last year’s previous record low of 7.2%. Both figures are the lowest recorded in the study since it began in 1991, when 18% of players were Black. Last year’s World Series was the first since 1950 without a U.S.-born Black player.
There are tangible reasons to believe the percentage of Black players might be on the upswing soon.
Four of the first five players picked in last summer’s amateur draft were Black for the first time ever. Those four were among the hundreds who had participated in diversity initiatives such as the MLB Youth Academy, DREAM Series and the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) program. MLB has also pledged $150 million in a 10-year partnership with the Players Alliance. The nonprofit organization of current and former players works to increase Black involvement at all levels.
Many of those programs started several years ago, and the younger participants are starting to hit draft-eligible age.
Rose is among them. He said the diversity initiatives didn’t just provide exposure to scouts, but also opened a vital pipeline for minority players to connect, share experiences and see faces similar to their own. The catcher said that Black former MLB players and coaches were also in attendance at many of the tournaments, providing role models. He cited Reds pitcher Hunter Greene as a big influence.
“I met most of my best friends at those camps,” Rose said. “Just being able to see people your color playing the game, being able to relate to them, that’s been important.”
Homer Bush Jr. — whose dad played in the big leagues for seven seasons for the Blue Jays, Yankees and Marlins — said baseball is also doing a better job of being social media savvy. The outfielder just finished his junior season in college at Grand Canyon.
Bush said its important that baseball portrays itself as a fun sport. Baseball’s trend of elaborate celebrations for home runs and big hits — like Pittsburgh’s swashbuckling routine — is a good start.
He also said he believes having more Black players in the big leagues should create a snowball effect that brings more young minority players into the game.
“I could talk about it for hours,” Bush said. “But I feel like one of the biggest things is just representation. I had a dad who played in the big leagues, so I had someone to look up to and admire. But most guys — when you click on MLB Network or ESPN — there’s not a ton of Black baseball players.”
Of course, there are other variables to getting more minority players to the big leagues — mainly money and time.
Simply put, developing a big-league ballplayer is usually expensive. There’s the equipment, the costs of joining a travel team and the pricey individual instruction that is sometimes needed — expenses than can easily total thousands of dollars per year. There’s also the time commitment: weekends completely filled with two and sometimes three games each day.
“We took a lot of videos of other players for their parents who couldn’t make it,” said Shaun Rose, Zion’s dad.
Karin Rose, Zion’s mom, said she was fortunate that she has a job as a school nurse, which allowed her to travel with Zion during much of the summer baseball season while Shaun worked at his barber shop. Money wasn’t a huge problem, because both had good jobs and some family members chipped in.
Zion took the additional step of transferring from Brother Rice High School in Chicago to IMG Academy in Florida for his senior season, so he could take advantage of the facilities and year-round baseball weather. He’s ranked by MLB.com as the 144th best prospect in this year’s draft, projecting for roughly the fifth round, where the recommended signing bonus is around $400,000.
“We understood the sacrifice, but it was Zion’s will to be a great player that put us in this position,” Karin Rose said. “We’ve been really blessed with travel ball, lots of support from friends and family.”
Several Black former MLB players were in Phoenix to help with the combine, including Chris Young, who played in the big leagues for 13 seasons and was an All-Star with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2010. He said the sport’s diversity inititaves are a good way to lessen the financial load, but it will never go away completely.
“I don’t think baseball is going to get any less expensive anytime soon,” the 39-year-old Young said. “It’s an expensive game. It was an expensive game even back when I was a kid.”
He also hopes that more Black athletes will choose baseball over football or basketball, sports that have claimed top baseball prospects in the past like Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray. Another of this year’s top prospects — Duce Robinson — is trying to decide between pro baseball or playing tight end at USC.
“We have to make it worth their while,” Young said. “If you’re getting guys like that — I don’t want to overspeak — but you’re getting athletes like Mike Trout. Then it’s just up to each team’s player development.”
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Saudi Arabia has ambitious plans to welcome millions more pilgrims to Islam’s holiest sites. But as climate change heats up an already scorching region, the annual Hajj pilgrimage — much of which takes place outdoors in the desert — could prove even more daunting.
The increased number of pilgrims, with the associated surge in international air travel and infrastructure expansion, also raises sustainability concerns, even as the oil giant pursues the goal of getting half its energy from renewable resources by 2030.
Next week, Saudi Arabia hosts the first Hajj pilgrimage without the restrictions imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 2.5 million people took part in the pilgrimage in 2019, and around 2 million are expected this year.
Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s wide-ranging plan to overhaul the kingdom’s economy, known as Vision 2030, 30 million pilgrims would take part in the Hajj and Umrah — a smaller, year-round pilgrimage. That would be an increase of more than 10 million from pre-pandemic levels.
It will require a vast expansion of hotels and other infrastructure in Mecca and Medina, ancient cities already largely obliterated by high-rises and shopping malls. The additional pilgrims will require more long-distance flights, more buses and cars, more water and electricity.
The Associated Press reached out to several Saudi officials with detailed questions but received no response. It’s unclear what, if any, studies the government has done on the environmental impact of the pilgrimage or whether that figures into its plans. And well-intentioned measures, like a high-speed railway network, aren’t enough to remove polluting traffic in and around the holy city.
The trains whip through the arid landscape at top speeds of 300 km/h (186 mph), carrying pilgrims in air-conditioned comfort from Jeddah to Mecca. But they stop several kilometers away from the Grand Mosque, meaning pilgrims must either walk at least an hour or take a bus or car to the holy site. The $19 one-way price from Jeddah’s airport to Mecca may also be out of reach for pilgrims on lower incomes.
The Hajj is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims who are able to are required to undertake it at least once in their lives. For pilgrims, retracing the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad is a profound religious experience that wipes away sins, deepens one’s faith and unifies Muslims the world over.
The Saudi royal family’s legitimacy is largely rooted in its custodianship of Islam’s holiest sites and its ability to host one of the largest annual religious gatherings on the planet.
Experts have found that the Hajj both contributes to climate change and will be affected by it in the coming decades as one of the hottest places on Earth gets even warmer.
A study of the 2018 Hajj by experts from Victoria University in Melbourne estimated that the five-day pilgrimage produced over 1.8 million tons of greenhouse gases, roughly the amount New York City emits every two weeks. The biggest contributor was aviation, accounting for 87% of emissions.
Abdullah Abonomi, a Saudi researcher and one of the authors of the study, said Saudi authorities have embraced sustainability as part of Vision 2030, which calls for preserving natural resources in order to attract pilgrims, tourists and businesses.
“Everything has changed,” he said, pointing to the establishment of national centers to coordinate sustainable policies, the creation of an environmental police force to crack down on violations and the integration of sustainability into university courses on tourism.
“If you ask four years ago about sustainability … no one understands what sustainability is,” he said. “But today, everything is going to be better. And I know we are late, but better late than never.”
In the past, he says, cars and buses packed with pilgrims filled the streets around Mecca, belching exhaust into the air, but expansion of the Grand Mosque has led to bigger courtyards and increased pedestrianisation in most of the routes leading to the holy site.
Still, human bottlenecks have replaced traffic, and garbage swirls in clouds of heat. For travel around Mina and Arafat, two crucial Hajj locations, cars and buses remain the two most widespread forms of transport. The journey by foot, in sweltering temperatures, is arduous but can prove faster than four wheels.
In its Hajj ambitions, Saudi Arabia faces managing huge numbers of pilgrims in a rapidly warming world.
During the rituals, pilgrims often walk for hours outside, scale a desert hill known as the Mountain of Mercy, where the prophet is said to have delivered his last sermon, and cast stones at pillars representing the devil in a desert plain. They pack into the Grand Mosque in Mecca to circumambulate the Kaaba. On top of the exertions, the Hajj population skews to the elderly, who are more vulnerable to heat.
On an evening this week around sunset in Mecca, temperatures hovered around 37 degrees Celsius (98 degrees Fahrenheit). The crowds made it feel hotter, stifling any airflow. In a bustling basement supermarket near the Grand Mosque, pilgrims bought handheld fans that spray water on the face and every kind of umbrella.
A 2019 study by experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that even if the world succeeds in mitigating the worst effects of climate change, the Hajj would be held in temperatures exceeding an “extreme danger threshold” from 2047 to 2052 and from 2079 to 2086.
Islam follows a lunar calendar, so the Hajj falls around 11 days earlier each year. In 2030, the Hajj will occur in April, and over the next several years it will fall in the winter, when temperatures are milder.
In recent years, Saudi authorities have installed large awnings and misters around holy sites to cool pilgrims. As temperatures climb, authorities will likely need to step up such measures or introduce new strategies like limiting pilgrim numbers in higher-heat years, the heat stress study concluded.
“People who want to do Hajj should get the opportunity to do it,” said Elfatih Eltahir, one of the study’s authors. “Global warming is going to make it a little bit more difficult — for some years, for some individuals.”
Muslim activists have launched grassroots initiatives aimed at a “green Hajj,” encouraging pilgrims to only make the journey once, to avoid single-use plastics and to offset carbon emissions by planting trees.
The Hajj “can be green and sustainable if there are smart policies and technology to lower the ecological footprint,” said Odeh Jayyousi, a professor at the Arabian Gulf University in Bahrain who researches sustainability and innovation.
The use of biodegradable plastics, reusable tents, and renewable energy would cut down on greenhouse gases, he said. Artificial intelligence could be brought to bear on logistics, streamlining travel and ensuring that planes and busses are full and do not spend too much time idling.
“The young generation are mindful of the trade-offs and the need to change consumption patterns,” Jayyousi said. “Hajj can offer a platform for displaying the best green practices to global audiences.”
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The confessionals where generations of Belgians admitted their sins stood stacked in a corner of what was once Sacred Heart Church, proof the stalls — as well as the Roman Catholic house of worship — had outlived their purpose.
The building is to close for two years while a cafe and concert stage are added as part of the plans to turn it into “a new cultural hot spot in the heart of Mechelen,” almost within earshot of where Belgium’s archbishop lives. Around the corner, a former Franciscan church is now a luxury hotel where music star Stromae spent his wedding night amid the stained-glass windows.
Across Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century.
“That is painful. I will not hide it. On the other hand, there is no return to the past possible,” Mgr. Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, told the Associated Press. Something needs to be done and now, ever more of the once-sacred structures are repurposed for anything from clothes shops and climbing walls to nightclubs.
It is a phenomenon seen over much of Europe’s Christian heartland from Germany to Italy and many nations in between. It really stands out in Flanders, in northern Belgium, which has some of the greatest cathedrals on the continent and the finest art to fill them. If only it had enough faithful. A 2018 study from the PEW research group showed, in Belgium, that of the 83% that say they were raised Christian, only 55% still consider themselves so. Only 10% of Belgians still attended church regularly.
Nowadays, visiting international choirs may find that their singers outnumber the congregation.
On average, every one of the 300 towns in Flanders has about six churches and often not enough faithful to fill a single one. Some become eyesores in city centers, their maintenance a constant drain on finances.
Mechelen, a town of 85,000 just north of Brussels is the Roman Catholic center of Belgium. It has two dozen churches, several huddled close to St. Rumbold’s cathedral with its UNESCO World Heritage belfry tower. Mayor Bart Somers has been working for years to give many of the buildings a different purpose.
“In my city we have a brewery in a church, we have a hotel in a church, we have a cultural center in a church, we have a library in a church. So we have a lot of new destinations for the churches,” said Somers, who as Flemish regional minister is also involved in repurposing some 350 churches spread across the densely populated region of 6.7 million.
A landmark repurposing project in Belgium was Martin’s Patershof hotel in Mechelen, where the interior of the church was gutted to create rooms where the beds have headboards resembling organ pipes and a breakfast room next to the altar where wafers of gold leaf hover overhead.
“We often hear that people come here to relax and enjoy the silence of its former identity,” said hotel manager Emilie De Preter.
With its understated luxury, it offers contemplation, and more.
“In the hotel, people sleep in a church, maybe have sex in a church. So you could say: ethically, is it a good idea to have a hotel in a church? I don’t have so many hesitations,” said Somers. “I am more concerned about the actual architectural value.”
The design value is especially clear at St. Anthony of Padua church in Brussels, also known as Maniak Padoue climbing club these days, where the multicolored hand and footholds on the wall now compete with the stained glass as the prime multicolored attraction.
“The stained glass brings a real shimmering and warm light to the venue when the sun goes through it, so we can really feel the presence of the remains of the church,” said Kyril Wittouck, the co-founder of the club. “The altar is still in place, so we are surrounded by remains and it reminds us where we actually are.”
Also in Brussels, the Spirito night club has taken over a deconsecrated Anglican church and has a drawing of a priest kissing a nun as its logo.
It is not exactly what Bishop Bonny had in mind.
Even if Roman Catholic religion is on the wane, a sense of the sacral or a need for reflection is also still present in society, whether one is religious, agnostic or atheist. And the aura of tranquility emanating from a church is hard to match. So for Bonny, there is no reason to turn churches into supermarkets or discos.
“Those are places for contemplation. And is that not exactly that the care of the church should be about?” he said. Bonny thinks the most successful and gratifying repurposing has been the handing over to other Christian communities, be they Coptic or Eastern European.
At his office, though, he can get weary just looking at the procession of suitors for empty Roman Catholic buildings. His heart is heavy when a real estate agent shows up.
“They see possibilities. And you cannot believe, suddenly, how pious they can become when a financial opportunity presents itself. Suddenly they are more devout than a nun,” he said.
Knowing the winding history of Christianity over centuries, Bonny takes the long view, since the near future does not look bright.
“Every 300 years we nearly had to start again,” he said. “Something new, I’m sure, will happen. But it takes time.”
At the Martin’s Patershof, there is a condition that the church can reclaim the building if it is needed again, said De Preter. The hotel elements were built on steel beams and could be totally disassembled and taken out again.
“If the church, at a certain point, wants the building back — which holds a very small chance, probably — it is possible,” she said.
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At Tyler Malek’s ice cream parlors, one cook’s trash is another chef’s frosty treat.
The head ice cream maker at the Portland, Oregon-based Salt & Straw uses the whey leftover from yogurt makers in upstate New York to make his lemon curd flavor. For chocolate barley milk, he mixes in the remnants of rice and grains from beer brewing to give it a light and creamy taste.
“Instead of calling this food waste, we need to call it wasted food and start decreasing how much wasting we’re doing,” Malek said.
Malek’s ice cream chain is among those at the forefront of the upcycling movement, the process of creating high-quality products from leftover food. Malek’s shops from the Pacific Northwest to Miami now feature flavors like “Cacao Pulp & Chocolate Stracciatella Gelato,” which is made from leftover cacao pulp from chocolate production that otherwise would have gone to waste.
It’s a trend gaining ground as consumers spend more time reading packaging labels and menu ingredients to learn where their food comes from and how it affects the environment. More than 35 million tons (31 million metric tons) of food are wasted every year in the U.S. — about 40% of the country’s food production — costing the national economy more than $200 billion, according to the Upcycled Food Association.
Upcycled food is becoming increasingly common in cake mixes and veggie chips at natural grocery stores. Ingredients include fruits and vegetables from farms nationwide that are perfectly edible but often rejected by restaurants and grocery stores because of their shape or color, like white strawberries, wilted greens and ugly mushrooms.
The Upcycled Food Association, which will celebrate World Upcycling Day on Saturday, issues an official “Upcycling Certified” seal to qualifying products. These seals, which adorn the new Salt & Straw upcycled flavors, raise awareness with consumers that the company making the food used such ingredients.
The association initially certified about 30 products in 2021 and now has 450 carrying the label.
“A lot of the food that is uneaten or thrown away in our supply chain is actually due to archaic cosmetic standards or sort of perceptions that what we think is edible or quality food,” said Angie Crone, the association’s chief executive. “So this is a mark that you can see on the products wherever you go shopping, to be able to understand how that company is reducing food waste in their supply chain.”
The association’s seal also is featured on all products made by Renewal Mill, an Oakland-based company turning byproducts from plant-based milk into pantry stables like baking flour to reduce waste at the manufacturing level.
“Our first product is the pulp leftover from making soy milk. We turn that into a high fiber gluten-free flour called okara flour,” co-founder Caroline Cotto said. “And then we use that flour to make things like baking mixes and ready-to-eat cookies.”
The company’s okara flour is featured in Salt & Straw’s new “Salted Caramel & Okara Cupcakes” flavor.
The movement isn’t confined to recycled products found in a trendy ice cream store, farmers market or natural grocery. In San Francisco, a restaurant serving pizza and wine focuses on upcycled ingredients such as ugly mushrooms, misshapen peppers and discolored tomatoes, as well as offcuts of meat for menu stars like beef heart meatballs.
“I think so many people think about dumpster diving or using rotten ingredients, but we have this wildly overproductive food system that accounts for a ton of waste,” said Kayla Abe, co-owner of Shuggie’s Trash Pie. “Some people might not read that it’s a beef heart meatball and they just might see meatball. They order it and they’re like, that was the best meatball I’ve ever had in my life.”
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Just a dot on the horizon at first, the bug-like and surprisingly quiet electrically-powered craft buzzes over Paris and its traffic snarls, treating its doubtless awestruck passenger to privileged vistas of the Eiffel Tower and the city’s signature zinc-grey rooftops before landing him or her with a gentle downward hover. And thus, if all goes to plan, could a new page in aviation history be written.
After years of dreamy and not always credible talk of skies filled with flying, nonpolluting electric taxis, the aviation industry is preparing to deliver a future that it says is now just around the corner.
Capitalizing on its moment in the global spotlight, the Paris region is planning for a small fleet of electric flying taxis to operate on multiple routes when it hosts the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games next summer. Unless aviation regulators in China beat Paris to the punch by greenlighting a pilotless taxi for two passengers under development there, the French capital’s prospective operator — Volocopter of Germany — could be the first to fly taxis commercially if European regulators give their OK.
Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke, a former top executive at aerospace giant Airbus, has a VVIP in mind as his hoped-for first Parisian passenger — none other than French President Emmanuel Macron.
“That would be super amazing,” Hoke said, speaking this week at the Paris Air Show, where he and other developers of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft — or eVTOLs for short — competed with industry heavyweights for attention.
“He believes in the innovation of urban air mobility,” Hoke said of Macron. “That would be a strong sign for Europe to see the president flying.”
But with Macron aboard or not, those pioneering first flights would still be just small steps for the nascent industry that has giant leaps to make before flying taxis are muscling out competitors on the ground.
The limited power of battery technology restricts the range and number of paying passengers they can carry, so eVTOL hops are likely to be short and not cheap at the outset.
And while the vision of simply beating city traffic by zooming over it is enticing, it also is dependent on advances in airspace management. Manufacturers of eVTOLs aim in the coming decade to unfurl fleets in cities and on more niche routes for luxury passengers, including the French Riviera. But they need technological leaps so flying taxis don’t crash into each other and all the other things already congesting the skies or expected to take to them in very large numbers — including millions of drones.
Starting first on existing helicopter routes, “we’ll continue to scale up using AI, using machine-learning to make sure that our airspace can handle it,” said Billy Nolen of Archer Aviation Inc. It aims to start flying between downtown Manhattan and Newark’s Liberty Airport in 2025. That’s normally a 1-hour train or old-fashioned taxi ride that Archer says its sleek, electric 4-passenger prototype could cover in under 10 minutes.
Nolen was formerly acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. regulator that during his time at the agency was already working with NASA on technology to safely separate flying taxis. Just as Paris is using its Olympic Games to test flying taxis, Nolen said the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics offer another target for the industry to aim for and show that it can fly passengers in growing numbers safely, cleanly and affordably.
“We’ll have hundreds, if not thousands, of eVTOLs by the time you get to 2028,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press at the Paris show.
The “very small” hoped-for experiment with Volocopter for the Paris Games is “great stuff. We take our hats off to them,” he added. “But by the time we get to 2028 and beyond … you will see full-scale deployment across major cities throughout the world.”
Yet even on the cusp of what the industry portrays as a revolutionary new era kicking off in the city that spawned the French Revolution of 1789, some aviation analysts aren’t buying into visions of eVTOLs becoming readily affordable, ubiquitous and convenient alternatives to ride-hailing in the not-too-distant future.
And even among eVTOL developers who bullishly talked up their industry’s prospects at the Paris show, some predicted that rivals will run dry of funding before they bring prototypes to market.
Morgan Stanley analysts estimate the industry could be worth $1 trillion by 2040 and $9 trillion by 2050 with advances in battery and propulsion technology. Almost all of that will come after 2035, analysts say, because of the difficulty of getting new aircraft certified by U.S. and European regulators.
“The idea of mass urban transit remains a charming fantasy of the 1950s,” said Richard Aboulafia of AeroDynamic Advisory, an aerospace consultancy.
“The real problem is still that mere mortals like you and I don’t get routine or exclusive access to $4 million vehicles. You and I can take air taxis right now. It’s called a helicopter.”
Still, electric taxis taking to Paris’ skies as Olympians are going faster, higher and stronger could have the power to surprise — pleasantly so, Volocopter hopes.
One of the five planned Olympic routes would land in the heart of the city on a floating platform on the spruced-up River Seine. Developers point out that ride-hailing apps and E-scooters also used to strike many customers as outlandish. And as with those technologies, some are betting that early adopters of flying taxis will prompt others to try them, too.
“It will be a total new experience for the people,” said Hoke, Volocopter’s CEO. “But twenty years later someone looks back at what changed based on that and then they call it a revolution. And I think we are at the edge of the next revolution.”
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The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has opened an investigation into the implosion of the Titan, the underwater sea vessel that imploded with five people onboard as it was traveling to the wreckage of the Titanic, the British ocean liner that sank in the North Atlantic in 1912 after striking an iceberg.
The submersible vessel was the property of OceanGate Expeditions, a U.S.-based company. Its support ship, Polar Prince, however, is a Canadian-flagged ship.
“The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is launching an investigation into the fatal occurrence involving the Canadian-flagged vessel Polar Prince and the privately operated submersible Titan,” the board said in a statement Friday, raising questions about the safety of the ill-fated excursion. The board said a team of investigators has been sent to St. John’s, Newfoundland, to gather information and conduct interviews.
U.S. officials said they too, were opening an investigation.
“The U.S. Coast Guard has declared the loss of the Titan submersible to be a major marine casualty and will lead the investigation. The NTSB has joined the investigation and will contribute to their efforts. The USCG is handling all media inquiries related to this investigation,” the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Friday in a tweet.
The Polar Prince lost contact with the Titan an hour and 45 minutes after the submersible began its descent Sunday.
Responders rushed equipment to where remains of the Titan were found. Five major fragments of the 6.7-meter Titan were located in the debris field left from its disintegration, including the vessel’s tail cone and two sections of the pressure hull, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. No mention was made of whether human remains were sighted.
OceanGate Expeditions said in a statement the five people on the vessel were company CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet.
Since the submersible went missing with an approximately four-day air supply, questions about it its safety have grown.
“I know there are also a lot of questions about how, why and when did this happen,” said Rear Adm. John Mauger of the First Coast Guard District. “Those are questions we will collect as much information as we can about now.”
According to an Associated Press report, David Lochridge, a former OceanGate director of marine operations, raised questions in 2018 about the methods the company used to insure the structural viability of the hull.
Filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 Academy Award-winning film Titanic and who has made several dives to the ocean liner’s wreckage aboard other deep-sea submersibles, said in an interview with the BBC that he was sure an “extreme catastrophic event” had happened when he heard the submersible had lost communication and navigation.
“For me, there was no doubt,” he said.
He told the BBC the news about the air supply and underwater noises were a “prolonged and nightmarish charade” to provide false hope to the families of the passengers. Cameron said that once a remotely operated vehicle reached the depth of the vessel, it was likely to be found “within hours … probably within minutes.”
Arthur Loibl, a passenger on the Titan two years ago, described his trip to the Titanic as a “kamikaze operation.” The retired German businessman said, “Imagine a metal tube a few meters long with a sheet of metal for a floor. You can’t stand. You can’t kneel. Everyone is sitting close to or on top of each other.”
Scientist and journalist Michael Guillen, who survived an expedition in 2000 that ran into some challenges, said, “We need to stop, pause and ask this question, why do you want to go to the Titanic and how do you get there safely?”
Some information is from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with U.S. and Indian technology executives in Washington on Friday, the final day of a state visit where he agreed to new defense and technology cooperation and addressed challenges posed by China.
U.S. President Joe Biden rolled out the red carpet for Modi on Thursday, declaring after about 2-1/2 hours of talks that their countries’ economic relationship was “booming.” Trade has more than doubled over the past decade.
Biden and Modi gathered with CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
Also present were Sam Altman of OpenAI, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, and Indian tech leaders including Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, and Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, the White House said.
“Our partnership between India and the United States will go a long way, in my view, to define what the 21st century looks like,” Biden told the group, adding that technological cooperation would be a big part of that partnership.
Observing that there were a variety of tech companies represented at the meeting from startups to well established firms, Modi said: “Both of them are working together to create a new world.”
Modi, who has appealed to global companies to “Make in India,” will also address business leaders at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts. The CEOs of top American companies, including FedEx, MasterCard and Adobe, are expected to be among the 1,200 participants.
Not ‘about China’
The backdrop to Modi’s visit is the Biden administration’s attempts to draw India, the world’s most populous country at 1.4 billion and its fifth-largest economy, closer amid its growing geopolitical rivalry with Beijing.
Modi did not address China directly during the visit, and Biden mentioned China only in response to a reporter’s question, but a joint statement included a pointed reference to the East and South China seas, where China has territorial disputes with its neighbors.
Farwa Aamer, director for South Asia at the Asia Society Policy Institute, in an analysis note described that as “a clear signal of unity and determination to preserve stability and peace in the region.”
Alongside agreements to sell weapons to India and share sensitive military technology, announcements this week included several investments from U.S.-firms aimed at spurring semiconductor manufacturing in India and lowering its dependence on China for electronics.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the challenges presented by China to both Washington and New Delhi were on the agenda but insisted the visit “wasn’t about China.”
“This wasn’t about leveraging India to be some sort of counterweight. India is a sovereign, independent state,” Kirby said at a news briefing, adding that Washington welcomes India becoming “an increasing exporter of security” in the Indo-Pacific.
“There’s a lot we can do in the security front together. And that’s really what we’re focused on,” Kirby said.
Some political analysts question India’s willingness to stand up to Beijing over Taiwan and other issues, however. Washington has also been frustrated by India’s close ties with Russia while Moscow wages war in Ukraine.
Diaspora ties
Modi attended a lunch on Friday at the State Department with Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Asian American to hold the No. 2 position in the White House, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In a toast, Harris spoke of her Indian-born late mother, Shyamala Gopalan, who came to the United States at age 19 and became a leading breast cancer researcher.
“I think about it in the context of the millions of Indian students who have come to the United States since, to collaborate with American researchers to solve the challenges of our time and to reach new frontiers,” Harris said.
Modi praised Gopalan for keeping India “close to her heart” despite the distance to her new home, and he called Harris “really inspiring.”
On Friday evening, Modi will address members of the Indian diaspora, many of whom have turned out at events during the visit to enthusiastically fete him, at times chanting “Modi! Modi! Modi!” despite protests from others.
Activists have called for the Biden administration to publicly call out what they describe as India’s deteriorating human rights record under Modi, citing allegations of abuse of Indian dissidents and minorities, especially Muslims. Modi leads the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and has held power since 2014.
Biden said he had a “straightforward” discussion with Modi about issues including human rights, but U.S. officials emphasize that it is vital for Washington’s national security and economic prosperity to engage with a rising India.
Asked during a rare press conference on Thursday what he would do to improve the rights of minorities including Muslims, Modi insisted “there is no space for any discrimination” in his government.
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The Metropolitan Opera in New York not only organizes concerts and campaigns to support Ukraine but also has offered four Ukrainians an internship. Iryna Solomko has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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Titans of business, fashion, entertainment and more made the guest list for Thursday’s big White House dinner in honor India’s Narendra Modi, with the likes of designer Ralph Lauren, filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and tennis legend Billie Jean King rubbing shoulders with tech leaders from Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Shyamalan powered past reporters as he arrived, declaring it was “lovely” to be at the White House. Lauren revealed he’d designed first lady Jill Biden’s off-shoulder green gown for the occasion, calling her style “chic and elegant.” And violinist Joshua Bell, part of the after-dinner entertainment, said the evening was a “little different than anything I’ve done before.”
“I’ll skip out and practice for half an hour” during dinner, he reported.
Saris and sequins were prominent among those attending the splashy event, with a guest list of about 400 names heavy with prominent Indian Americans. Politicians of both parties also made the cut, notably including Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
Other notables on the guest list included social media influencer Jay Shetty, big Democratic donors including Florida lawyer John Morgan and civil rights activist Martin Luther King III. The CEO contingent included Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.
Guests were to dine on a plant-based menu of millet, mushrooms and strawberry shortcake, catering to the vegetarian tastes of the prime minister. For guests wanting something more, there was roast sea bass available on request.
Despite deep differences over human rights and India’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden extended to Modi the administration’s third invitation for a state visit. It included the state dinner, a high diplomatic honor that the U.S. reserves for its closest allies.
Biden hopes all the pomp and attention being lavished on Modi — from the thousands who gathered on the White House lawn to cheer his arrival in the morning to the splashy dinner at the end of the day — will help him firm up relations with the leader of a country the U.S. believes will be a pivotal force in Asia for decades to come.
Guests were riding trolley cars down to a pavilion erected on the White House south grounds decorated in the green and saffron colors of India’s flag.
Despite concerns about backsliding on democracy in India, Representative Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said she was attending to send the message that the nation of 1.4 billion people is important and “we must call out some of the real issues that are threatening the viability of democracy in all of our countries.”
A group of more than 70 lawmakers, organized by Jayapal, wrote to Biden this week urging him to raise concerns about the erosion of religious, press and political freedoms with Modi.
Jayapal, who praised Modi’s leadership skills, told The Associated Press earlier that Modi “has the ability to move India and the people in his party back to the values that we have held so dear as a country.”
Pichai said he looked forward to the dinner as “an exciting time for U.S.-India relations.”
“I think we have two countries which have a lot of shared foundations, large democratic systems and values,” Pichai said earlier Thursday in an interview. He cited technology as one area of mutual interest between the nations. “So I think it’s an exciting opportunity. I’m glad there is a lot of investment in a bilateral relationship.”
Jill Biden enlisted California-based chef Nancy Curtis to help in the kitchen. Curtis specializes in plant-based cooking and said the menu “showcases the best of American cuisine seasoned with Indian elements and flavors.” She said she used millet because India is leading an international year of recognition for the grain.
The dinner featured a salad of marinated millet, corn and compressed watermelon, stuffed Portobello mushrooms and saffron risotto, and a strawberry shortcake infused with cardamom and rose syrup.
Lotus flowers, which are native to Asia and featured in Indian design, were visible throughout the pavilion, along with saffron-hued floral arrangements that differed from table to table.
“We hope guests feel as if someone has set that table just for them — because we have,” the first lady said as she and her staff previewed the setup.
After-dinner entertainment was from Bell; Penn Masala, a South Asian a cappella group founded by students at the University of Pennsylvania; and the U.S. Marine Band Chamber Orchestra.
India was last honored with a state visit in 2009, when President Barack Obama pulled out all the stops for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. More than 300 guests attended what was the first big social event of the new administration.
But it made headlines worldwide after a celebrity-seeking husband and wife were admitted, even though they were not invited, and were able to interact with both leaders.
The embarrassing episode led the White House and U.S. Secret Service, which protects the president and the executive mansion, to overhaul its clearance and security procedures.
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