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Month: January 2024
Baldwin Indicted on Involuntary Manslaughter Charge in Movie Set Shooting
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the actor.
Special prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico this week, months after receiving a new analysis of the gun that was used. They declined to answer questions after spending about a day and a half presenting their case to the grand jury.
Defense attorneys for Baldwin indicated they’ll fight the charge.
“We look forward to our day in court,” said Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, defense attorneys for Baldwin, in an email.
While the proceeding is shrouded in secrecy, two of the witnesses seen at the courthouse included crew members — one who was present when the fatal shot was fired and another who had walked off the set the day before due to safety concerns.
Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza.
Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired.
The charge has again put Baldwin in legal trouble and created the possibility of prison time for an actor who has been a TV and movie mainstay for nearly 40 years, with roles in the early blockbuster “The Hunt for Red October,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” and the sitcom “30 Rock.”
The indictment provides prosecutors with two alternative standards for pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in the death of Hutchins. One would be based on negligent use of a firearm, and the other alleges felony misconduct “with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.”
Judges recently agreed to put on hold several civil lawsuits seeking compensation from Baldwin and producers of “Rust” after prosecutors said they would present their case to a grand jury. Plaintiffs in those suits include members of the film crew.
Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the slain cinematographer’s parents and younger sister in a civil case, said Friday that her clients have been seeking the truth about what happened the day Hutchins was killed and will be looking forward to Baldwin’s trial.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in Los Angeles, pointed to previous missteps by prosecutors, saying they will need to do more than present ballistics evidence to make a case that Baldwin had a broader responsibility and legal duty when it came to handling the gun on the set.
Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun.
The analysis from experts in ballistics and forensic testing relied on replacement parts to reassemble the gun fired by Baldwin, after parts of the pistol were broken during testing by the FBI. The report examined the gun and markings it left on a spent cartridge to conclude that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed.
The analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona stated that although Baldwin repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, “given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.”
The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February.
“Rust” assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting.
An earlier FBI report on the agency’s analysis of the gun found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer, such as by dropping the weapon.
The only way the testers could get it to fire was by striking the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down and resting on the cartridge, or by pulling the trigger while it was fully cocked. The gun eventually broke during testing.
The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of civil lawsuits — including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ family — centered on accusations that the defendants were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations.
The Rust Movie Productions company has paid a $100,000 fine to state workplace safety regulators after a scathing narrative of failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting.
The filming of “Rust” resumed last year in Montana under an agreement with the cinematographer’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, that made him an executive producer.
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Japan’s Lunar Spacecraft Is on the Moon, but Status Unclear
tokyo — Japan’s spacecraft arrived on the surface of the moon early Saturday, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the landing was a success, because the Japanese space agency said it was still “checking its status.”
More details about the spacecraft, which is carrying no astronauts, would be given at a news conference, officials said. If the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM, landed successfully, Japan would become the fifth country to accomplish the feat after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India.
SLIM came down onto the lunar surface at around 12:20 a.m. Tokyo time Saturday (1520 GMT Friday).
As the spacecraft descended, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s mission control said that everything was going as planned and later said that SLIM was on the lunar surface. But there was no mention of whether the landing was successful.
Mission control kept repeating that it was “checking its status” and that more information would be given at a news conference. It wasn’t immediately clear when the news conference would start.
SLIM, nicknamed “the Moon Sniper,” started its descent at midnight Saturday, and within 15 minutes it was down to about 10 kilometers (six miles) above the lunar surface, according to the space agency, which is known as JAXA.
At an altitude of five kilometers (three miles), the lander was in a vertical descent mode, then at 50 meters (165 feet) above the surface, SLIM was supposed to make a parallel movement to find a safe landing spot, JAXA said.
About a half-hour after its presumed landing, JAXA said that it was still checking the status of the lander.
SLIM, which was aiming to hit a very small target, is a lightweight spacecraft about the size of a passenger vehicle. It was using “pinpoint landing” technology that promises far greater control than any previous moon landing.
While most previous probes have used landing zones about 10 kilometers (six miles) wide, SLIM was aiming at a target of just 100 meters (330 feet).
The project was the fruit of two decades of work on precision technology by JAXA.
The mission’s main goal is to test new landing technology that would allow moon missions to land “where we want to, rather than where it is easy to land,” JAXA has said. If the landing was a success, the spacecraft will seek clues about the origin of the moon, including analyzing minerals with a special camera.
The SLIM, equipped with a pad to cushion impact, was aiming to land near the Shioli crater, near a region covered in volcanic rock.
The closely watched mission came only 10 days after a moon mission by a U.S. private company failed when the spacecraft developed a fuel leak hours after the launch.
SLIM was launched on a Mitsubishi Heavy H2A rocket in September. It initially orbited Earth and entered lunar orbit on Dec. 25.
Japan hopes a success will help regain confidence for its space technology after a number of failures. A spacecraft designed by a Japanese company crashed during a lunar landing attempt in April, and a new flagship rocket failed its debut launch in March.
JAXA has a track record with difficult landings. Its Hayabusa2 spacecraft, launched in 2014, touched down twice on the 900-meter-long (3,000-foot-long) asteroid Ryugu, collecting samples that were returned to Earth.
Experts say a success of SLIM’s pinpoint landing, especially on the moon, would raise Japan’s profile in the global space technology race.
Takeshi Tsuchiya, aeronautics professor at the Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, said it was important to confirm the accuracy of landing on a targeted area for the future of moon explorations.
“It is necessary to show the world that Japan has the appropriate technology in order to be able to properly assert Japan’s position in lunar development,” he said. The moon is important from the perspective of explorations of resources, and it can also be used as a base to go to other planets, like Mars, he said.
SLIM is carrying two small autonomous probes — lunar excursion vehicles LEV-1 and LEV-2, which were due to be released just before landing.
LEV-1, equipped with an antenna and a camera, is tasked with recording SLIM’s landing. LEV-2, is a ball-shaped rover equipped with two cameras, developed by JAXA together with Sony, toymaker Tomy and Doshisha University.
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In Documentary, Director Ivory Portrays Beauty of Afghanistan
Paris — The oldest person ever to win an Oscar, renowned director James Ivory, is still making films at 95, with a documentary about his formative trip to Afghanistan in 1960.
Though American, Ivory is best-known for a string of costume dramas about the repressed emotions of Brits, including Remains of the Day and Howard’s End, both starring Anthony Hopkins, and Room with a View with Daniel Day-Lewis.
In 2017, he reached a new generation with his screenplay for Call Me By Your Name starring Timothee Chalamet as a teenager discovering his sexuality, which won Ivory an Oscar at the age of 89.
But his career began as a student making films about art in Venice and South Asia.
“I was making a film in India, and it was getting hotter and hotter,” he told AFP.
“I couldn’t take it another minute. The backers told me to go to a cooler climate, so I went to Afghanistan. I knew nothing about it, but I went.”
Decades later, his footage from Kabul has been worked into a documentary that shows a peaceful Afghanistan, before the wars and extremism that would drag it into decades of violence.
“(The footage) was amazing from the first reel, very poetic and mysterious,” said Giles Gardner, a long-time collaborator who helped pull the film together after digging the footage out of Ivory’s archives.
“With all we know about Afghanistan, the violence we see on the news, this idea of it as a place of beauty has been erased,” he said.
The resulting film, A Cooler Climate, serves as a sort of origin story for Ivory’s career, since it was immediately after returning from Afghanistan that he met producer Ismael Merchant. They became personally and professionally involved and went on to make more than 40 films together until Merchant’s death in 2005.
By then their names — Merchant Ivory — had become a byword for high-quality period dramas.
Their romantic relationship was never revealed during Merchant’s lifetime as he came from a conservative Indian family.
But Ivory said his own life was largely a breeze. Growing up gay in an Oregon town was fine, even idyllic, he insisted.
“I don’t know why people think I had to escape anything, I was a happy young man,” he said.
Still in good shape for 95, traveling between Europe and the U.S. for screenings of the documentary, he comes across as a man of few regrets, apart from the sadness at losing friends, particularly Merchant and their writing partner, novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.
“I wish they were here every day,” he said. “I love them. I’m a very old man now and have close friends, but I miss them very much.”
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Astronauts From Europe Head to Space Station on Chartered Flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — Turkey’s first astronaut and three other crew members representing Europe were launched from Florida on Thursday on a voyage to the International Space Station in the latest commercially arranged mission from Texas startup Axiom Space.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the Axiom quartet lifted off about an hour before sunset from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, beginning a planned 36-hour flight to the orbiting laboratory.
The launch was shown live on an Axiom webcast.
The autonomously operated Crew Dragon was expected to reach the space station early Saturday morning and dock with the orbiting outpost 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
The mission was the third such flight organized by Houston-based Axiom over the past two years as the company builds on its business of putting astronauts sponsored by foreign governments and private enterprise into Earth’s orbit.
The company charges its customers at least $55 million for each astronaut seat.
Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the launch was postponed for 24 hours to allow more time for final inspections and data analysis, including for an issue related to the parachute system used to slow the capsule’s return descent before splashdown, Axiom and SpaceX said.
Plans for the Axiom-3 mission call for the crew to spend roughly 14 days aboard the station conducting more than 30 scientific experiments, most of them focused on the effects of spaceflight on human health and disease.
More symbolically, the mission reflects the growing number of nations venturing to Earth’s orbit as a way of enhancing global prestige, military prowess and satellite-based communications.
Turkey, a longtime applicant for EU membership, was poised to enter the exclusive-but-expanding club of space station guest countries by sending Alper Gezeravcı, 44, a Turkish air force veteran, on his nation’s debut human spaceflight as an Ax-3 mission specialist.
He was being joined by Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei, 49, Ax-3’s designated pilot; Swedish aviator Marcus Wandt, 43, another mission specialist; and retired NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria, 65, a dual citizen of Spain and the United States, acting as mission commander. Lopez-Alegria, an Axiom executive, also commanded the company’s first mission to the space station in April 2022.
Axiom billed the flight as “the first all-European commercial astronaut mission” to the space station.
In May 2023, Axiom-2 launched a team of two Americans and two Saudis, including Rayyanah Barnawi, a biomedical scientist who became the first Arab woman ever sent to orbit, on an eight-day mission to the space station.
SpaceX, the privately funded rocket and satellite company of billionaire Elon Musk, provides Axiom’s launch vehicles and crew capsules under contract, as it has for NASA missions to the space station. SpaceX also runs mission control for its rocket launches from the company’s headquarters near Los Angeles.
NASA, besides furnishing the launch site at Cape Canaveral, assumes responsibility for the astronauts once they rendezvous with the space station.
Axiom, an eight-year-old venture headed by NASA’s former space station program manager, is one of a handful of companies building a commercial space station that’s intended to eventually replace the international facility, which NASA expects to retire around 2030.
Launched to orbit in 1998, the International Space Station has been continuously occupied since 2000 under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that includes Canada, Japan and 11 countries that belong to the European Space Agency.
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American Red Cross Concerned About US Blood Shortage
The American Red Cross has declared a critical blood shortage, with supplies running the lowest in 20 years. The number of donors in the country has declined by 40%, for reasons that include COVID, seasonal infections, and bad weather. Angelina Bagdasaryan visited a blood donation station in Los Angeles and talked with some of the donors. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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Malaysian Filmmakers Charged with Offending Religious Feelings in Banned Film
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The director and producer of a banned Malaysian film that explores the afterlife were charged Wednesday with offending the religious feelings of others in a rare criminal prosecution of filmmakers, slammed by critics as an attack on freedom of expression.
Mohamad Khairianwar Jailani, the director and co-scriptwriter of Mentega Terbang, and producer Tan Meng Kheng pleaded not guilty to having a “deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of others” through the independent, low-budget film. If found guilty, they could face up to a year in jail, a fine or both.
Defense lawyer N. Surendran said the two believe the charge is “unreasonable and unconstitutional” because it violates their right to freedom of expression. “As far as we are concerned, these are groundless charges and we will challenge those charges in court,” he said.
The film, which debuted at a regional film festival in 2021, revolves around a young Muslim girl who explores other religions to figure out where her ailing mother would go when she dies. Scenes that angered Muslims included ones showing the girl desiring to eat pork, which is forbidden in Islam, and pretending to drink holy water, and her father supporting her wish to leave Islam. It also sparked death threats against Khairianwar.
The film was briefly shown on a Hong Kong streaming platform last year before it was removed. The Home Ministry banned the film last September without giving any reason. The two filmmakers filed a suit challenging the government’s decision before they were charged.
Race and religion are sensitive issues in Malaysia. Ethnic Malays account for two-thirds of the country’s 33 million people and must be Muslims, with apostasy considered a sin. There are large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities that are Buddhist, Hindu and Christian.
Critics say religious conservatism has been on the rise in Malaysia, after an influential Malay-Islam alliance won strong gains in the November 2022 general election.
Human Rights Watch accused Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government of prosecuting the two filmmakers to win political support from Malays.
“This sort of crude political pandering at the expense of human rights is precisely the sort of thing that Anwar accused previous governments of doing when he was in the opposition — but now he’s hypocritically changed his tune after assuming power, and using the same censorship and persecution,” said the group’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson.
“The government should reverse course, uphold human rights principles, immediately direct prosecutors to drop these ludicrous, rights abusing charges, and lift the ban on the film Mentega Terbang,” he said.
The court on Wednesday also forbid the two filmmakers from making statements about the case throughout the trial and ordered them to report to police monthly.
Khairianwar has said this is likely the first time a filmmaker has been criminally charged in the country.
“I am disappointed if this is a way to silence storytellers and concerned that it would make many more storytellers stop telling their stories out of fear of prosecution,” Khairianwar told the online news portal Free Malaysia Today a day before he was charged.
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US Lawmakers Push for Limits on American Investment in China Tech
Capitol Hill — U.S. lawmakers renewed calls Wednesday to pass bipartisan legislation that would restrict American investment in Chinese technology.
“It should come as no surprise that China’s military and surveillance state are exploiting loopholes in U.S. policy to access billions of U.S. investment dollars and expertise. We know that U.S. investment has not democratized China and countries which are controlled by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] have no power over the applications of their technology. The CCP can direct it to us for military or surveillance purposes,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said at a hearing on the legislation Wednesday.
The bill – which has support from both conservative organizations and the Biden administration – was not included in the National Defense Authorization Act or NDAA passed late last year. Republican Senator John Cornyn has sponsored companion legislation in the U.S. Senate that passed with more than ninety votes.
Lawmakers hope it can still be passed individually and signed into law.
If passed, McCaul said the measure, H.R. 6349, would target “specific technology sectors, like AI [artificial intelligence] and quantum computing, that are empowering China’s military development and surveillance.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said an executive order issued by the Biden administration last August “that calls for provisions and notification requirements of specific types of American investments in China, or in certain companies that develop or produce semiconductors, quantum computers, and artificial intelligence applications” is an important first step.
But experts in U.S.-China relations told a House panel more could be done.
“Congress has an opportunity to build on the initial steps taken by the Trump and Biden administrations to prevent U.S. capital from fueling China’s military and intelligence capabilities. First, Washington should take a sectoral rather than merely an entity-based approach. The Treasury Department has demonstrated since at least 2021 that it is disinterested in using even its existing narrow authorities to limit investment in Chinese military-linked companies. And in fairness to the Treasury Department tackling the problem on a company-by-company basis would be a resource-intensive and gargantuan task,” Matthew Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser during the Trump administration, said Wednesday.
“We still haven’t learned that they will do everything they can to take anything we sell, particularly in the area of electronics and really high tech, and use it for the military. They’ve been doing that for decades. We don’t learn. We think somehow if you trade more, they’ll matriculate from dictatorship to democracy,” Republican Rep. Chris Smith said Wednesday.
The bipartisan push in the U.S. House comes as Senate negotiators continue work on the White House’s $106 billion national security supplemental request that includes funding to combat Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Citing a border security crisis, Senate Republicans have sought changes to U.S. immigration law in return for their votes to pass more than $50 billion in assistance to Ukraine that is also part of the Biden administration’s request.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urged lawmakers Wednesday to reach an agreement soon.
“It’s become quite fashionable in Washington to talk about how we’re not taking competition with China seriously enough,” McConnell said. “Winning this competition means credibly deterring Beijing’s worst impulses, which, for us, means investing in American strength. Outcompeting the PRC [People’s Republic of China] will require greater investments in our military capabilities and in our industrial capacity to produce them. The West cannot be caught unprepared for this challenge. We cannot afford to neglect the lessons of history.”
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UN Concerned by Spread of Cholera to 10 African Countries
Harare, Zimbabwe — The U.N.’s Children’s Fund expressed alarm this week about a cholera outbreak in Africa that has spread to at least 10 countries, with the situation in Zambia and Zimbabwe “very serious.”
Dr. Paul Ngwakum, the regional health adviser for UNICEF in East and Southern Africa, said about 200,000 cases have been reported and more than 3,000 lives taken by the disease.
Of the 10 countries he named as having an active outbreak, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are in “acute cholera crisis.”
“The key drivers are long-term poor water sanitation and hygiene conditions, exacerbated by changing weather patterns, climate change leading to floods and droughts, end-of-year festivities, inadequate community sensitization [and] late care-seeking behavior for those that are affected,” Ngwakum said.
“Children, unfortunately, carry the lion’s share of the affected,” he said. “For example, over 52% of the cases in Zambia are children less than 15 years old.”
Ngwakum said Zambia and Zimbabwe are experiencing a rapid rise in the number of cases since the Christmas and New Year holidays, with 1,000 cholera cases reported a week in each of the neighboring countries.
“The situation in Zambia and Zimbabwe is very serious,” he said. “These two countries are the most affected in the region. In Zambia, nine out of 10 provinces are reporting cases.”
The disease’s fatality rate is alarmingly high, Ngwakum said, with 4% of the more than 9,000 cases ending in death.
“This is extremely high because the acceptable threshold is below 1%,” he said. “Since the beginning of 2024 alone, Zimbabwe has recorded over 17,000 cases, with about 384 deaths. … And these continue to spread geographically.”
In Zimbabwe, a shortage of purified water is forcing residents to depend on open sources. That, along with uncollected refuse and running sewage, are being blamed for the waterborne disease.
Douglas Mombeshora, Zimbabwe’s health minister, said the central government is doing all it can to contain the outbreak, starting in the capital, Harare.
“If you move around … Harare, people are just dumping garbage in undesignated areas, and this has not been collected,” Mombeshora said. “So government has mobilized resources so that we clean up Harare. And government is moving in to mobilize resources to procure water-treating chemicals. Supply of potable water has dropped from 350 megaliters to 200 megaliters per day.”
Itai Rusike, executive director of the Community Working Group on Health in Zimbabwe, called on the government to declare a national disaster so that international aid agencies such as WHO, UNICEF and USAID can swiftly help to contain the cholera outbreak.
“All the measures to end cholera are in the purview of the government — central government or local government — by providing safe water, safe sanitation and also hygienic safe disposal,” Rusike said. “So the buck stops with the government in making sure that people are provided with uninterrupted potable water, refuse is collected on time, burst sewer pipes are fixed [promptly] and the general public are given information about cholera guidelines and protocols.”
UNICEF fears that if the outbreaks are not controlled, it will mean schools closing — as is already the case in Zambia.
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Australia Outlines Plan to Manage the Rise of Artificial Intelligence
sydney — The Australian government is considering new laws to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in “high-risk” areas such as law enforcement and self-driving vehicles.
Voluntary measures also are being explored, such as asking companies to label AI-generated content.
The country has outlined its plan to respond to the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, or AI.
Under the Canberra government’s plan announced Wednesday, safeguards would be applied to technologies that predict the chances of someone again committing a crime, or that analyze job applications to find a well-matched candidate.
Australian officials have said that new laws could also mandate that organizations using high-risk AI must ensure a person is responsible for the safe use of the technology.
The Canberra government also wants to minimize restrictions on low-risk areas of AI to allow their growth to continue.
An expert advisory committee will be set up to help the government to prepare legislation.
Ed Husic is Australia’s federal minister for industry and science. He told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. On Wednesday that he wants AI-generated content to be labeled so it can’t be mistaken as genuine.
“We need to have confidence that what we are seeing we know exactly if it is organic or real content, or if it has been created by an AI system. And, so, industry is just as keen to work with government on how to create that type of labeling,” he said. “More than anything else, I am not worried about the robots taking over, I’m worried about disinformation doing that. We need to ensure that when people are creating content that it is clear that AI has had a role or a hand to play in that.”
Kate Pounder, the head of the Tech Council of Australia, which represents the technology sector, told local media that the government’s AI proposals strike a sensible balance between fostering innovation and ensuring systems are developed safely.
The Australian Parliament defines artificial intelligence as “an engineered system that generates predictive outputs such as content, forecasts, recommendations…without explicit programming.”
Recent research shows that most Australians still distrust the technology, which they see as unsafe and prone to errors.
your ads here!Kenya Embarks on its Biggest Rhino Relocation Project; Previous Attempt Was a Disaster
nairobi, kenya — Kenya has embarked on its biggest rhino relocation project and began the difficult work Tuesday of tracking, darting and moving 21 of the critically endangered beasts, which can each weigh over a ton, to a new home.
A previous attempt at moving rhinos in the East African nation was a disaster in 2018, as all 11 of the animals died.
The latest project experienced early troubles. A rhino targeted for moving was successfully hit with a tranquilizer dart shot from a helicopter but ended up in a creek. Veterinarians and rangers held the rhino’s head above water with a rope to save it while a tranquilizer reversal drug took effect, and the rhino was released.
Wildlife officials have stressed that the challenging project will take time, likely weeks.
The black rhinos are a mix of males and females and are being moved from three conservation parks to the private Loisaba Conservancy in central Kenya, the Kenya Wildlife Service said. They are being moved because there are too many in the three parks, and they need more space to roam and hopefully, to breed.
Rhinos are generally solitary animals and are at their happiest in large territories.
Kenya has had relative success in reviving its black rhino population, which dipped below 300 in the mid-1980s because of poaching, raising fears that the animals might be wiped out in a country famous for its wildlife.
Kenya now has nearly 1,000 black rhinos, according to the wildlife service. That’s the third biggest black rhino population in the world behind South Africa and Namibia.
There are just 6,487 wild rhinos left in the world, according to rhino conservation charity Save the Rhino, all of them in Africa.
Kenyan authorities say they have relocated more than 150 rhinos in the last decade.
Six years ago, Kenya relocated 11 rhinos from the capital, Nairobi, to another sanctuary in the south of the country. All died soon after arriving at the sanctuary. Ten of them died from stress, dehydration and starvation intensified by salt poisoning as they struggled to adjust to saltier water in their new home, investigations found. The other rhino was attacked by a lion.
Some of the 21 rhinos in the latest relocation are being transferred from Nairobi National Park and will make a 300-kilometer (186-mile) trip in the back of a truck to Loisaba. Others will come from parks closer to Loisaba.
The moving of the rhinos to Loisaba is poignant, given the region was once home to a healthy black rhino population before they were wiped out in that area 50 years ago, said Loisaba Conservancy CEO Tom Silvester.
Kenyan wildlife authorities say the country is aiming to grow its black rhino population to about 2,000, which they believe would be the ideal number considering the space available for them in national and private parks.
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Smoking Declines Globally as Vaping, E-Cigarette Use Soars
geneva — While new data show that smoking globally is on the decline, the World Health Organization warns that this good news is being undercut by an alarming rise in the use of e-cigarette and vaping devices, especially among children.
“It is an alarming increase in the last four to five years. That is why we are ringing the alarm bell here,” said Ruediger Krech, director of health promotion at WHO.
“In a couple of countries, we see huge increases in the use of e-cigarettes and vaping devices. We see a 150% increase in the U.K. and in the U.S. We also see an uptick in double-digit numbers of vaping among children,” he said.
Krech accuses the tobacco industry of employing devious tactics to get a future generation of young people hooked on tobacco by introducing them to novel products “where they actually try to get our children as young as 8 years old to use e-cigarettes or vapers.”
“If you know that your actions will cause death … I personally believe that this is criminal,” he said.
Tobacco control measures effective
National surveys show that children ages 13-15 in most countries are accessing and using tobacco and other nicotine products. WHO estimates that at least 37 million children ages 13-15 currently are using some form of tobacco, and “many countries have found alarming levels of e-cigarette use among adolescents, as well.”
This trend is gaining pace at a time when new information indicates that years of tobacco control measures are paying off. According to WHO, 1.25 billion adults globally use tobacco.
The latest estimates in WHO’s global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000-2030, issued Tuesday, find a continued decline in tobacco use rates around the world. The data show about one in five adults worldwide in 2022 consumed tobacco compared to one in three in 2000.
“In just the last two years, we already see a drop of around 19 million tobacco users in the world,” said Krech. “This is despite the continuing growth of the world’s population, which added approximately 149 million adults over the same period.
“In total, 150 countries are now on a downward trend in tobacco use, with 56 among them already tracking towards the global target of a 30% reduction by 2025,” he said.
Tobacco industry targets Africa
WHO reports the highest prevalence of tobacco users are in the Southeast Asian region at 26.5%, with the European region not far behind at 25.3%. It notes that rates among women in the European region are more than double the global average for women.
Currently, the report finds that the fastest decreases in tobacco use are happening in the lower middle-income group of countries, with the lowest prevalence in the African region, where smoking has decreased from around 18% in 2000 to under 10% in 2022.
“We are seeing the tobacco industry targeting Africa the most because it has the lowest prevalence, and they are trying to increase their growth. So, they are trying to interfere with governments and policies,” Krech said.
“Also, Africa is a very young continent, so once they recruit their victims,” Krech said, “they know that they might have a presence there for a very long time.”
WHO is urging countries to fight tobacco industry interference by implementing tobacco control policies, including taxing tobacco, banning tobacco advertisements, and regulating sales.
Krech said it was critically important for countries that have not banned e-cigarettes to enact strong regulatory measures to ensure that children have no access to e-cigarettes.
He warned that the tobacco industry was making the use of e-cigarettes very attractive to get young people hooked on nicotine, a highly addictive product.
“There are thousands of e-flavored cigarettes on the market, including vanilla ice cream and gummy bears, which are very attractive to children,” he said. “We strongly recommend that all flavors be banned.”
WHO says tobacco smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease worldwide. It says tobacco causes about 8 million premature deaths a year and that smoking also can cause cancer, heart diseases, stroke, lung diseases and diabetes.
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Professional Riders Brave Eight Seconds on a Bucking Bull
In the Western United States, professional bull riders risk serious injury on the back of bulls that can weigh more than 700 kilograms. But eight seconds on a bucking beast can mean thousands of dollars. VOA’s Scott Stearns takes us to the show.
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List of Top Emmy Award Winners
LOS ANGELES — List of the top winners of the prime-time Emmy Awards.
BEST DRAMA SERIES: “Succession”
BEST COMEDY SERIES: “The Bear”
BEST LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES: “Beef”
ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Kieran Culkin, “Succession”
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Sarah Snook, “Succession”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”
SCRIPTED VARIETY SERIES: “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Niecy Nash-Betts, “Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”
REALITY COMPETITION SERIES: “RuPaul’s Drag Race”
TALK SERIES: “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”
LIVE VARIETY SPECIAL: “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium”
ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Steven Yeun, “Beef”
ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Ali Wong, “Beef”
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‘Succession’ Dominates Drama Emmys, ‘The Bear’ Claims Comedy, Brunson Makes History
LOS ANGELES — “Succession” secured its legacy with its third best drama series award, “The Bear” feasted as the night’s top comedy, and the two shows about squabbling families dominated the acting awards at Monday night’s Emmys.
Historic wins also came for Quinta Brunson of “Abbot Elementary” and Steven Yeun and Ali Wong of “Beef” at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony that was finally held four months late after a turbulent year of strikes in Hollywood.
“Succession,” the HBO saga of the dysfunctional generations of a maladjusted media empire, won the top prize for its fourth and final season. It also won best actress in a drama for Sarah Snook and best actor in a drama for Kieran Culkin.
“We all put our all into it and the bar was set so high,” Snook said.
“The Bear,” the FX dramedy about a contentious family and a struggling restaurant at the center of the life of a talented chef, won best comedy series for its first season. It also made a meal of its acting categories, with Jeremy Allen White winning best actor in a comedy, best supporting actress in a comedy for Ayo Edebiri winning best supporting actress, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach taking best supporting actor. All three were first-time nominees.
“This is a show about family and found family and real family,” Edebiri said from the stage as she accepted the first trophy of the night at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.
Instead of the usual producer speeches, Matty Matheson, a real-life elite chef who plays a kitchen newbie and repairman on “The Bear,” spoke for the show near the end of the Fox telecast.
“I just love restaurants so much, the good and the bad, we’re broken inside,” Matheson said before getting a long kiss on the mouth from Moss-Bachrach.
Brunson won best actress in a comedy for the show she created, ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” becoming the first Black woman to win the award in more than 40 years and the first from a network show to win it in more than a decade.
“I am so happy to be able to live my dream and act out comedy,” Brunson said during her acceptance on the Fox telecast, fighting back tears. The writer-actor was among the stars with standout looks on the Emmys’ silver carpet.
“Succession” won six Emmys overall including best supporting actor in a drama for Matthew Macfadyen and best writing in a drama for show creator Jesse Armstrong. The only drama acting category it didn’t win was supporting actress, taken for the second time by Jennifer Coolidge of “The White Lotus.”
“The Bear” won in every category it was nominated for Monday night, and along with the four it had won previously at the Creative Arts Emmys, took 10 overall, the most of any show.
Landmark wins on TV’s big night
“Beef” won best limited series, while Steven Yeun and Ali Wong became the first Asian Americans to win in their categories – Yeun for best actor in a limited series and Wong for best actress. Creator Lee Sung won Emmys for writing and directing. It had eight Emmys overall after three wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards.
Brunson had won a writing Emmy for “Abbott Elementary,” her mockumentary about a predominantly Black and chronically underfunded grade school in Philadelphia, but this is her first for acting. Isabel Sanford of “The Jeffersons” was the only previous Black woman to win the category in 1981.
The first hour of the show held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day saw three Black women win major awards: Brunson, Edebiri and Niecy Nash-Betts, who won best supporting actress in a limited series for “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”
On the Netflix show, Nash-Betts played a neighbor of the serial killer whose complaints to authorities about his behavior go unheeded.
“I accept this award on behalf of every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard and over-policed,” she said.
“Everybody having fun at the chocolate Emmys tonight?” host Anthony Anderson said during the show. “We are killing it tonight! … This is like MLK Day and Juneteenth all rolled up in one!”
The tweaked awards calendar made for some oddities. Edebiri and White won their Emmy for the show’s first season eight days after after winning Golden Globes for the second season.
Baby talk amid ‘succession’ wins
Culkin outshined the older brother and the father to win the final lead actor Emmy for “Succession.”
He had twice been nominated for best supporting actor for “Succession” without a win. But in the final season, in which his character Roman Roy goes from sideline wisecracker to emotional disaster at the center of the show’s drama, he was put in the lead category and won over castmates Brian Cox, who played his father, and Jeremy Strong, who played his older brother.
He then shifted to his own family, getting big laughs during his speech when he told his wife Jazz Charton that their two young kids weren’t enough. “I want more,” he said. “You said if I won, we could talk about it.”
Snook took her first Emmy in three nominations for “Succession” and her fictional husband Macfadyen won the second Emmy of his career for playing Tom Wambsgans, the son-in-law that began the HBO series as a hanger-on and ended it as the closest thing it had to a victor on “Succession.”
Many tears, and one concerned mother
Emotions ran high from the start of the ceremony. Edebiri and Brunson were both quick to cry as they took the stage, and the first presenter, Christina Applegate, who said in 2021 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, got a standing ovation as she came out using a cane, helped by Anderson. She struggled to get through the nominees and winner with the tears in her eyes.
Anderson told the nominees at the beginning of the night that instead of having their speeches cut off by music, his mother, actor Doris Hancox, sitting in the audience, would tell them when it was time to move on. But she more often shouted down her son in the running gag.
Older shows return to spotlight
Honoring TV history was the theme at the 75th Emmys. Anderson opened the show on a “Mr. Rogers” set and performed TV theme songs including “Good Times,” and several cast reunions were spread throughout the show.
Cast members including Martin Lawrence and Tisha Campbell from “Martin,” Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman from “Cheers,” and Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers from “All in The Family,” performed short bits from recreations of their sitcom sets before presenting awards.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reunited to present an award in the form of their 2001-2005 “Weekend Update” team-up from “Saturday Night Live.”
“We’ve reached the stage in life where we’ll only present awards sitting down,” Fey said.
One notable appearance came from Katherine Heigl, who joined Ellen Pompeo and other former “Grey’s Anatomy” cast mates on a hospital room set after leaving the show, now about to start its 20th season, on not the best terms in 2010.
“Yes, there have been changes over the years,” Heigl said with a wry smile, “But the one constant is the amazing fanbase.”
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Messi, Bonmati Win FIFA Best Player Awards
london — Lionel Messi has been named FIFA’s best men’s player after moving from Paris Saint-Germain to Inter Miami and leading the David Beckham-owned team to a little-known Leagues Cup title — all while single-handedly elevating soccer’s relevance in the United States.
The 36-year-old Argentine on Monday was selected over Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, the same pair he beat for his eighth Ballon d’Or award last October.
Messi was not in attendance at Hammersmith Apollo theater in west London.
Moments later, World Cup champion Aitana Bonmati, 25, of Spain was named FIFA’s best women’s soccer player, building on her Ballon d’Or award last October, which followed a Union of European Football Associations award in August.
And that was after she led Spain to World Cup glory and Barcelona to the Champions League title. She was named player of the tournament for both competitions.
Bonmati won Monday over Spain teammate Jenni Hermoso and Colombia star Linda Caicedo.
They were FIFA finalists in voting by a global panel of national team coaches and captains, selected journalists, plus fans online. The women’s eligibility period covered performances from August 1, 2022, through the World Cup final last August.
Spain’s women won their first World Cup by beating England 1-0 in the final in Sydney, Australia.
Messi secured the FIFA award for the eighth time in 15 years. He had won it last year, too, after leading Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title.
The men’s award did not consider the World Cup, which ended 13 months ago. It recognized achievements from after the tournament through August 20.
Messi and Mbappe helped PSG win the French league title, but the team underperformed in the Champions League and French Cup — exiting both competitions in the round of 16.
That means Messi’s exploits in the United States surely swayed some voters.
In rejecting Saudi Arabia for the MLS, Messi brought star power to a league that fights for relevance in an American sports landscape dominated by the NFL and NBA.
LeBron James, Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian were all on hand in Fort Lauderdale for Messi’s debut on July 21, when the forward scored from a free kick goal in stoppage time to beat Cruz Azul 2-1.
The goals kept coming — 10 in seven games to lead the MLS club to its first-ever trophy by winning the Leagues Cup final on August 19, one day before FIFA award eligibility period ended.
Haaland and Mbappe could make good arguments that they deserved to win.
Haaland scored 28 goals in 36 games in all club competitions from after the World Cup through the end of the 2022-23 season as a driving force in Manchester City winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. The 6-foot-4 striker then scored three goals in two appearances for Norway in June.
Mbappe scored at nearly a goal-per-game clip in the period of eligibility for PSG and then for France in European Championship qualifying in March and June.
Messi’s figures in France after the World Cup were good but unspectacular: nine goals and six assists in 22 games across all competitions.
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Emmys Finally Arrive for Changed Hollywood, as ‘Succession’ and ‘Last of Us’ Vie for Top Awards
Los Angeles — The time has finally come for a most unusual Emmys.
The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards are arriving four months past their due date on Monday night at the Peacock Theater, coming after a year of historic Hollywood turbulence in an industry whose upheavals are evident everywhere.
Strikes by both actors and writers, seismic shifts toward streaming, and the dismantling of the traditional TV calendar mean the envelopes opened during the Fox telecast hosted by Anthony Anderson on Martin Luther King Jr. Day will display winners that were decided months ago for shows that in some cases were completed years ago — and have a fraction of the audience they had a few decades ago.
But for actors and others taking part in the ceremony, norms just aren’t a thing anymore in this business.
“Since the pandemic it’s been really strange, you shoot something, then sometimes it’s another couple years until you see it, and a while longer until something like this,” actor Nick Offerman told The Associated Press last week after winning an early Emmy for “The Last of Us,” a show that is among Monday night’s top nominees along with “Succession,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Bear.”
The Emmys will provide some respite and celebration after the strike and the troubles that spurred it, and with its 75th edition, will attempt to provide links to its past and to TV history. It will include a series of cast reunions and scene recreations from beloved shows including “Cheers,” “Game of Thrones,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Martin.”
The nominations themselves provide one big link to Emmys past — the continuation of the decades-long dominance of HBO, which this year has the three most nominated shows with “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us.”
Anderson has been tasked with hosting at a time when emceeing awards shows is hardly a coveted job, especially after comic Jo Koy was widely roasted for his Golden Globes performance last weekend.
But Anderson said he’s actually coming in relaxed and relieved, because for the first time in nearly a decade, he’s not a nominee. He never won an Emmy despite 11 nominations as a producer and actor for his former show, “black-ish.”
“All the pressure is off of me now,” Anderson, now the host of Fox’s “We Are Family,” said during ceremony preparations. “I don’t have to sit there and wonder, am I going to win? Am I going to get it? What time are they going to get to this category? I just get to come up here and be myself.”
How to watch
The Emmys will air live on Fox starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, and available to stream starting Tuesday on Hulu.
The ceremony is watchable in dozens of countries. The Television Academy website has a handy list of broadcasters and in some instances, air times.
There are also many ways to watch the Emmys red carpet, which begins at 5 p.m., when E! kicks off its coverage. People and Entertainment Weekly are also hosting a red carpet show that will stream on their websites and YouTube pages.
The nominees
“Succession” got a leading 27 nominations. It’s the probable favorite to win its third best drama series Emmy and it has three men — Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin — up for best actor with four more nominated for best supporting actor.
But it won’t come away with the most wins. That’s because “The Last of Us,” second with 24 nominations, is coming in with eight via last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, where “Succession” won none. Those include best guest acting awards for Offerman and Storm Reid, suggesting that voters may also favor its lead actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Both could make history, with Pascal becoming the first Latino to win best actor in a drama and Ramsey the youngest to win best actress.
The elite ensemble from “The White Lotus” is all over the supporting categories. It has five women up for best supporting actress in a drama, including Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza.
On the comedy side, the night could become a victory lap for the third and final season of “Ted Lasso,” the soccer-themed series that won best comedy for its first two seasons.
Its main challenger comes from the kitchen. “The Bear,” about a chef struggling with his family’s legacy, will vie for best comedy, and its lead, Jeremy Allen White, could challenge Jason Sudeikis of “Ted Lasso” for best actor in a comedy.
The long wait
Last year’s two strikes meant the Emmys, normally held in September, made an unprecedented move to January, putting it in the heart of Hollywood’s awards season.
Academy voting took place on the normal timetable, however, meaning the winners have been determined since late August.
The wait and other quirks of the calendar make for some strange award circumstances. “The Bear” is up for Emmys for its first season, after having already won key Golden Globes for its second.
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Robotic Restaurant Opening in California
An automated restaurant is opening this month in Pasadena, California. CaliExpress will be serviced by robots that make food in the kitchen and AI that takes clients’ orders. The only job humans will still need to do is assemble and pack the food. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian
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