Corts

Nearly 10,000 Died From COVID-19 Last Month, Fueled by Holiday Gatherings, New Variant, WHO Says

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geneva — The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information.

“Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable deaths is not acceptable,” the World Health Organization director-general told reporters from its headquarters in Geneva.

He said it was “certain” that cases were on the rise in other places that haven’t been reporting, calling on governments to keep up surveillance and provide continued access to treatments and vaccines.

Tedros said the JN.1 variant was now the most prominent in the world. It is an omicron variant, so current vaccines should still provide some protection.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at WHO for COVID-19, cited an increase in respiratory diseases across the globe due to the coronavirus but also flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia.

“We expect those trends to continue into January through the winter months in the northern hemisphere,” she said, while noting increases in COVID-19 in the southern hemisphere — where it’s now summer.

While bouts of coughs, sniffling, fever and fatigue in the winter are nothing new, Van Kerkhove said this year in particular, “we are seeing co-circulation of many different types of pathogens.”

WHO officials recommend that people get vaccinated when possible, wear masks and make sure indoor areas are well ventilated.

“The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO.
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Hundreds Honor Ukrainian Poet-Soldier Killed in Action

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KYIV, Ukraine — Hundreds of people attended a ceremony Thursday honoring the memory of renowned Ukrainian poet Maksym Kryvtsov, who was killed in action while serving as a soldier in the war Russia started in Ukraine nearly two years ago.

A large crowd gathered in the courtyard of Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, where ceremonies are often held to honor soldiers killed in the war. People brought flowers adorned with blue and yellow ribbons — the colors of the Ukrainian flag — and patiently queued up to enter the monastery and pay their respects. A funeral was scheduled to be held in Kryvtsov’s hometown of Rivne on Friday.

Among those attending the memorial service were many fellow soldiers, including some who had served with Kryvtsov since 2014.

“He became a warrior right away, but he was very kind,” said a soldier who asked to be identified by his military call sign Grandpa. He said he finds it difficult to speak about Kryvtsov, saying that it feels like “a piece of the heart has been torn out.”

“He did not die,” Grandpa said. “We just gained another guardian angel. He will always be with us.”

Book earns high praise

Kryvtsov was killed on January 7 by artillery fire in the Kupiansk area of the Kharkiv region — one of the key fronts in Moscow’s winter offensive.

He was an active participant in the Revolution of Dignity, the uprising that unleashed a decade of momentous change for Ukraine, and joined the army in 2014 after Russia illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula. Several years later, he took a break from the war and focused on civil activities, including poetry.

His first and last book, “Poems from the Loophole,” published in 2023, received a warm reception and high praise within Ukraine’s cultural community. The published poems primarily reflect on the harsh reality imposed by the war.

With the onset of Russia’s invasion in 2022, Kryvtsov had re-enlisted.

The Ukrainian chapter of the International Association of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists, or PEN, included his book on its list of the best books of 2023. Earlier, Kryvtsov’s poems were also featured in collections with the works of other poets. The print run of the book has been swept from the shelves of bookstores.

Poet’s work goes viral

Kryvtsov’s death sparked a broad reaction on social media, where his poetry went viral for several days following his passing. Many drew parallels with Ukrainian cultural figures killed during the Soviet repression of artists of the 1920s and early 1930s, known in Ukrainian history as the “Executed Renaissance.”

“They kill our artists and then laugh in our faces,” wrote Ukrainian composer Yana Yaschuk on Facebook.

An assessment by the Ukrainian PEN found that 95 people in artistic professions have been killed in the war as of December 2023. Among them are actors, painters, sculptors, linguists, historians and others. PEN noted that the actual number could be higher.

Award-winning Ukrainian writer Viktoria Amelina was killed in a deadly Russian missile attack on a popular restaurant in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region in July of last year.

Mourners kneel in respect

Many fans of Kryvtsov’s poetry also attended the memorial, some holding his book in their hands.

As the casket was carried out of the monastery, attendees in the crowded courtyard knelt to bid him farewell. An air raid siren announcing a possible missile threat went off but people continued to kneel, holding flowers and flags.

The crowd proceeded to Kyiv’s central square, where the second part of the memorial service took place. People on the streets stopped and some burst into tears as the column, led by the poet’s body, passed by.

“He left us not just his poems and testimonies of the era but his most powerful weapon, unique and innate,” said poet, volunteer and combat medic Olena Herasymiuk, who was a close friend of Kryvtsov. “It’s the kind of weapon that hits not a territory or an enemy but strikes at the human mind and soul.”

Many attended the memorial service with violets, a reference to his last poem, which was published on Facebook a few days before his death. The poem went viral and in it, he wrote, “my hands torn off will sprout violets in the spring.”
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NFL’s Patriots Part Ways with Coach Bill Belichick, Who Led Team to 6 Super Bowl Championships

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FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Six-time National Football League champion Bill Belichick agreed to part ways as the coach of the New England Patriots, ending his 24-year tenure as the architect of the most decorated dynasty of the league’s Super Bowl era.

Belichick and team owner Robert Kraft announced the move to the media Thursday at Gillette Stadium. They didn’t take questions, though Kraft scheduled an availability for later in the day.

Belichick, 71, is just the third coach in NFL history to reach 300 career regular-season victories earlier this season, joining Hall of Famers Don Shula and George Halas. With 333 wins including the playoffs, Belichick trails only Shula (347) for the record for victories by a coach.

But the Patriots ended this season 4-13, Belichick’s worst record in 29 seasons as an NFL head coach. It supplanted the 5-11 mark he managed in his last year in Cleveland in 1995 and again in his first year in New England in 2000. Including the playoffs, he ends his Patriots tenure with a 333-178 overall record.

With his cutoff hoodies and ever-present scowl, Belichick teamed with quarterback Tom Brady to lead the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories, nine AFC titles and 17 division championships in 19 years. During a less successful — but also tumultuous — stint with the original Cleveland Browns, Belichick earned 37 of his career victories.

It’s not immediately clear who Kraft will tap to replace the future Hall of Famer.

Patriots linebackers coach Jerod Mayo won a Super Bowl ring playing under Belichick and has interviewed for multiple head coaching vacancies since becoming a New England assistant in 2019. Mayo turned down a few interviews last offseason before signing a contract extension to remain with the Patriots.

Mike Vrabel, who was fired earlier this week by the Tennessee Titans and won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, is also expected to be a candidate for the head coaching job.

Belichick had been grooming offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to replace him before McDaniels left following the 2021 season to become the coach of the Raiders. He has since been fired by Las Vegas. Belichick’s two sons, Steve and Brian, are also on the coaching staff.

Belichick’s exit from the Patriots comes just a day after another legendary coach and his longtime friend Nick Saban announced he’d retire after winning seven college national championships. Saban worked for Belichick’s father, Steve, in the 1980s as a coach at Navy, and Bill Belichick hired Saban as his defensive coordinator when he became Cleveland’s head coach in 1991.

The six Super Bowl wins tie Belichick with pre-merger mentors Halas and Curly Lambeau for the most NFL championships. Belichick also won two rings as Bill Parcells’ defensive coordinator with the New York Giants.

But the Patriots have stumbled to a 29-38 record since Brady departed following the 2019 season and missed the playoffs in three of those four seasons. Beginning in 2001 when Brady became the starting quarterback, the Patriots missed the playoffs only once (2008) when Brady was injured. This marked New England’s fifth consecutive season without a playoff victory.

Belichick’s subsequent solutions at quarterback haven’t panned out.

Brady’s initial replacement, Cam Newton, didn’t resemble the player who won the 2015 MVP award and was cut after a 7-9 finish in 2020. Meanwhile Brady won his seventh Super Bowl ring with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers that same season.

Potential long-term replacement Mac Jones, a 2021 first-round draft choice, was a Pro Bowl selection as a rookie and led New England to the playoffs. But he regressed in Year 2 when Belichick put longtime defensive assistant Matt Patricia in charge of the offense. Jones didn’t fare much better this season when Bill O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator. He was benched four times before being replaced as starter by backup Bailey Zappe for the final six games.

That left the Patriots looking at a lengthy rebuild, with no candidate on the roster to bring stability to the sport’s most important position.

Belichick, who also served as the de facto general manager with final say on personnel decisions, was celebrated for his ingenuity managing the salary cap during the run of Super Bowl success. It included getting stars like Brady and others to accept cap-friendly contracts or adjust their deals to accommodate the signing of other players.

But that acclaim has waned in the years since Brady left, as a run of draft picks and high-priced free agents didn’t live up to expectations. In addition, Belichick has seen several members of his personnel and scouting departments leave for other jobs. The list includes his former player personnel director, Nick Caserio, who was hired as Houston’s general manager in 2021.

Now it won’t be Belichick making the decisions for the Patriots on or off the field.

The only child of a World War II veteran who spent three decades as a Navy assistant coach, Belichick is a football historian with an encyclopedic knowledge of strategy from the sport’s early days to current NFL trends. His players said his attention to detail never left them unprepared.

Belichick has been a master of the NFL rule book, unearthing loopholes in clock operations and offensive line formations that — though entirely legal — cemented his reputation as a mad genius.

But his legacy in New England also includes two major cheating investigations — and other, minor ones — that cost him and the team draft picks and more than $1 million in fines. Opponents accused the Patriots of everything from hacking their headsets to cutting corners on injury reports.

His friendship with former President Donald Trump, which Belichick insisted was not political, landed the coach on the list to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom in the waning days of the administration. After the outcry against the U.S. Capitol siege, Belichick announced “the decision has been made not to move forward.”
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WHO: Life-Saving Aid Not Reaching Millions of People Caught in Health Emergencies

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Geneva — The World Health Organization is warning that millions of people caught in conflict-driven health emergencies risk dying from traumatic wounds and infectious diseases because life-saving humanitarian aid is not reaching those in need.

In one of his most forceful statements to date, the WHO’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, accused the Israeli government of blocking essential aid to Gaza.

In a briefing to journalists Wednesday, Tedros said a humanitarian mission to northern Gaza planned for that day, the sixth since December 26, had to be canceled because “our requests were rejected and assurances of safe passage were not provided.”

“Delivering humanitarian aid in Gaza continues to face nearly insurmountable challenges. Intense bombardment, restrictions on movement, fuel shortages, and interrupted communications make it impossible for WHO and our partners to reach those in need,” he said. “We call on Israel to approve requests by WHO and other partners to deliver humanitarian aid. … Health care must always be protected and respected; it cannot be attacked, and it cannot be militarized.”

WHO officials say Gaza is buckling under what they call a perfect storm for the proliferation of disease. As of January 1, it has documented nearly 200,000 respiratory infections and tens of thousands of cases of scabies, lice, skin rashes, and jaundice.

The agency says 2,140 cases of diarrhea among children under five in Gaza were reported in 2021-2022; by November 2023, that number had increased 20-fold to 42,655 cases.

“This is an underestimation,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the occupied Palestinian territory, speaking in Jerusalem. “We lack access to health facilities. …So, the situation is likely to be worse.

“If the situation is not improved, we can expect more outbreaks and deaths,” he warned.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health says at least 23,357 Palestinians have been killed and 59,410 injured since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel October 7, killing 1,200 people, and taking some 220 hostages.

The WHO says it is impossible to access the population in Gaza without an effective deconfliction system in place because of the massive destruction of Gaza’s public health infrastructure and continued intense hostilities.

“We have heard various comments that the U.N. isn’t doing enough,” said Michael Ryan, head of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program.

“If you continue to destroy infrastructure, if you continue to destroy services at this rate, and then you blame the people who come in and support and provide life-saving assistance—who is to blame here?” he said. “We are on the ground, and we are serving. We can do much more. We must be given the means to do much more, but right now that is not possible.”

In a virtual briefing Friday, Col. Elad Goren, head of the civil department of COGAT, the Israeli agency that facilitates aid in Gaza, said the “narrative of blockade — that is completely false.”

He said that U.N. and other humanitarian agencies have told him that there was a “sufficient amount of food in Gaza and we continue to push the humanitarian agencies to collect more trucks at the borders and to distribute them.”

He added that “Israel has not and will not stand in the way of providing humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza that are not a part of terror. They are not our enemy.”

 

While Gaza continues to dominate headlines globally, WHO chief Tedros warned that millions of people in other countries in conflict, notably Sudan and Ethiopia, are threatened by increasing violence, mass displacement, spread of disease, famine, and death, and must not be forgotten.

In the past month, he said conflict has displaced half-a-million people from Al-Gezira state, which used to be a haven from the conflict in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. 

“Due to security concerns, WHO has temporarily halted its operations in Al-Gezira,” he said. “The state is also considered the breadbasket of Sudan, and fighting there has disrupted the annual harvest, and increased the risk of food insecurity in conflict-affected areas.”

Tedros also said conditions have deteriorated especially for Sudanese children since war erupted in mid-April, noting an estimated 3.5 million children under the age of 5 — one in seven — are acutely malnourished, and “more than 100,000 are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, requiring hospitalization.”

Tedros expressed grave concern about the worsening health crisis in parts of Ethiopia, saying the northwestern region of Amhara has been badly affected by conflict since April and restrictions on movement were hampering efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance.

“Fighting is affecting access to health facilities, either through damage or destruction, roadblocks, and other obstacles,” he said. “Health authorities are unable to deliver training and supplies and are unable to transport samples for laboratory confirmation in many areas.

“Disease outbreaks are spreading in northern Ethiopia, as the result of conflict, drought, economic shocks, and malnutrition, especially in the Tigray and Amhara regions,” where many people reportedly were suffering from near-famine conditions, he said, adding that “the most pressing need is for access to the affected areas, so we can assess the need and respond accordingly.”
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Australian Research Highlights Impact of Climate Change on Rainfall

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sydney — Australian researchers have found that record heat profoundly affected the global water cycle in 2023, contributing to severe storms, floods and droughts. An Australian National University study published Thursday asserts that rising sea and air temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels have intensified monsoons, cyclones and other storm systems.

The world’s climate is increasingly lurching between extreme events, according to the study. It results in severe storms and cyclones dumping more water than they used to and droughts developing much faster.

The burning of fossil fuels is identified by the report’s authors as “by far the biggest contributor to global warming.”

They say that some of the worst disasters of 2023 were linked to unusually strong cyclones that brought massive rainfall to Libya, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Zealand and Australia. A lack of rainfall and high temperatures exacerbated long-standing droughts in South America, parts of Africa and the Mediterranean.

Lead author Albert Van Dijk, a professor at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University College of Science, told VOA climate change is deeply affecting the global water cycle.

“On the one hand, we see that severe storm and rainfall events carry more water than they used to,” he said. “So cyclones dump more water and start to behave in some erratic ways that causes them to slow down, which happened, for instance, in Australia, but also in other places, dumping a lot of water in one place and causing massive flooding. On the other hand, we’re seeing that droughts develop much faster.”

The research team in Australia used data from thousands of ground stations and satellites to provide real-time information on rainfall, air temperature and humidity in the air.

Severe storms have hit parts of eastern Australia in recent weeks, while other parts of the country have battled bushfires.

In the first few days of summer, in early December, a heat wave warning affected areas in every state and territory, apart from the island of Tasmania.

Increasing natural disasters in Australia have raised concerns among politicians, environmental activists and scientists about the impacts of climate change.

Australia’s government has legislated a target to cut carbon emissions by 43% from 2005 levels by 2030 and to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. 
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Climate Change Drove Great Ape Species to Extinction, Study Finds

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washington — An ancient species of great ape was likely driven to extinction when climate change put their favorite fruits out of reach during dry seasons, scientists reported Wednesday. 

The species Gigantopithecus blacki, which once lived in southern China, represents the largest great ape known to scientists — standing 10 feet tall and weighing up to 650 pounds. 

But its size may also have been a weakness. 

“It’s just a massive animal – just really, really big,” said Renaud Joannes-Boyau, a researcher at Australia’s Southern Cross University and co-author of the study published in the journal Nature. “When food starts to be scarce, it’s so big it can’t climb trees to explore new food sources.” 

The giant apes, which likely resembled modern orangutans, survived for around 2 million years on the forested plains of China’s Guangxi region. They ate vegetarian diets, munching on fruits and flowers in tropical forests, until the environment began to change. 

The researchers analyzed pollen and sediment samples preserved in Guangxi’s caves, as well as fossil teeth, to unravel how forests produced fewer fruits starting around 600,000 years ago, as the region experienced more dry seasons. 

The giant apes didn’t vanish quickly, but likely went extinct sometime between 215,000 and 295,000 years ago, the researchers found. 

While smaller apes may have been able to climb trees to search for different food, the researchers’ analysis shows the giant apes ate more tree bark, reeds and other non-nutritious food. 

“When the forest changed, there was not enough food preferred by the species,” said co-author Zhang Yingqi of China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. 

Most of what scientists know about the extinct great apes comes from studying fossil teeth and four large lower jaw bones, all found in southern China. No complete skeletons have been found. 

Between around 2 and 22 million years ago, several dozen species of great apes inhabited Africa, Europe and Asia, fossil records show. Today, only gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and humans remain. 

While the first humans emerged in Africa, scientists don’t know on which continent the great ape family first arose, said Rick Potts, who directs the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and was not involved in the study. 
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Ancient Human DNA Hints At Why Multiple Sclerosis Affects So Many Northern Europeans Now 

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Washington — Ancient DNA helps explain why northern Europeans have a higher risk of multiple sclerosis than other ancestries: It’s a genetic legacy of horseback-riding cattle herders who swept into the region about 5,000 years ago.

The findings come from a huge project to compare modern DNA with that culled from ancient humans’ teeth and bones — allowing scientists to trace both prehistoric migration and disease-linked genes that tagged along.

When a Bronze Age people called the Yamnaya moved from the steppes of what are now Ukraine and Russia into northwestern Europe, they carried gene variants that today are known to increase people’s risk of multiple sclerosis, researchers reported Wednesday.

Yet the Yamnaya flourished, widely spreading those variants. Those genes probably also protected the nomadic herders from infections carried by their cattle and sheep, concluded the research published in the journal Nature. 

“What we found surprised everyone,” said study co-author William Barrie, a genetics researcher at the University of Cambridge. “These variants were giving these people an advantage of some kind.”

It’s one of several findings from a first-of-its-kind gene bank with thousands of samples from early humans in Europe and western Asia, a project headed by Eske Willerslev of Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen who helped pioneer the study of ancient DNA. Similar research has traced even earlier cousins of humans such as Neanderthals.

Using the new gene bank to explore MS was a logical first step. That’s because while MS can strike any population, it is most common among white descendants of northern Europeans and scientists have been unable to explain why.

The potentially disabling disease occurs when immune system cells mistakenly attack the protective coating on nerve fibers, gradually eroding them. It causes varying symptoms — numbness and tingling in one person, impaired walking and vision loss in another — that often wax and wane.

It’s not clear what causes MS although a leading theory is that certain infections could trigger it in people who are genetically susceptible. More than 230 genetic variants have been found that can increase someone’s risk. 

The researchers first examined DNA from about 1,600 ancient Eurasians, mapping some major shifts in northern Europe’s population. First, farmers from the Middle East began supplanting hunter-gatherers and then, nearly 5,000 years ago, the Yamnaya began moving in — traveling with horses and wagons as they herded cattle and sheep.

The research team compared the ancient DNA to about 400,000 present-day people stored in a UK gene bank, to see the MS-linked genetic variations persist in the north, the direction the Yamnaya moved, rather than in southern Europe.

In what is now Denmark, the Yamnaya rapidly replaced ancient farmers, making them the closest ancestors of modern Danes, Willerslev said. MS rates are particularly high in Scandinavian countries.

Why would gene variants presumed to have strengthened ancient immunity later play a role in an autoimmune disease? Differences in how modern humans are exposed to animal germs may play a role, knocking the immune system out of balance, said study co-author Dr. Astrid Iversen of Oxford University.

The findings finally offer an explanation for the north-south MS divide in Europe, but more work is needed to confirm the link, cautioned genetic expert Samira Asgari of New York’s Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who wasn’t involved with the research, in an accompanying commentary.

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at WHO for COVID-19, cited an increase in respiratory diseases across the globe due to the coronavirus but also flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia.

“We expect those trends to continue into January through the winter months in the northern hemisphere,” she said, while noting increases in COVID-19 in the southern hemisphere — where it’s now summer.

While bouts of coughs, sniffling, fever and fatigue in the winter are nothing new, Van Kerkhove said this year in particular, “We are seeing co-circulation of many different types of pathogens.”

WHO officials recommend that people get vaccinated when possible, wear masks, and make sure indoor areas are well ventilated.

“The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO. 
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UN Health Agency: Holiday Gatherings, New Variant Have Driven Up COVID Cases Globally

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Geneva — The head of the U.N. health agency said Wednesday holiday gatherings and the spread of the most prominent variant globally led to increased transmission of COVID-19 last month. 

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said nearly 10,000 deaths were reported in December, while hospital admissions during the month jumped 42% in nearly 50 countries — mostly in Europe and the Americas — that shared such trend information. 

“Although 10,000 deaths a month is far less than the peak of the pandemic, this level of preventable deaths is not acceptable,” the World Health Organization director-general told reporters from its headquarters in Geneva. 

He said it was “certain” that cases were on the rise in other places that haven’t been reporting, calling on governments to keep up surveillance and provide continued access to treatments and vaccines. 

Tedros said the JN.1 variant was now the most prominent in the world. It is an omicron variant, so current vaccines should still provide some protection. 

Maria Van Kerkhove, technical lead at WHO for COVID-19, cited an increase in respiratory diseases across the globe due to the coronavirus but also flu, rhinovirus and pneumonia. 

“We expect those trends to continue into January through the winter months in the northern hemisphere,” she said, while noting increases in COVID-19 in the southern hemisphere — where it’s now summer. 

While bouts of coughs, sniffling, fever and fatigue in the winter are nothing new, Van Kerkhove said this year in particular, “We are seeing co-circulation of many different types of pathogens.” 

WHO officials recommend that people get vaccinated when possible, wear masks, and make sure indoor areas are well ventilated. 

“The vaccines may not stop you being infected, but the vaccines are certainly reducing significantly your chance of being hospitalized or dying,” said Dr. Michael Ryan, head of emergencies at WHO. 
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‘Oppenheimer’ Leads Screen Actors Guild Nominations as Gala Moves to Netflix

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Los Angeles — Fresh from its wins at the Golden Globes, Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” on Wednesday topped the nominations for the influential Screen Actors Guild Awards, which are key to Oscars success.

The SAG Awards, voted on by Hollywood actors, are likely to enjoy a profile boost of their own this year as they are broadcast globally on Netflix — an awards show first for the world’s biggest streamer.

“Oppenheimer,” which tells the story of the inventor of the atomic bomb, earned nods for Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Emily Blunt, as well as “outstanding performance by a cast” — the SAG Awards’ top prize.

Nolan’s three-hour epic, which earned nearly $1 billion and received rave reviews from critics, is rapidly becoming the clear favorite for the Academy Awards in March.

“Barbie,” the other half of last summer’s “Barbenheimer” box office phenomenon, and the year’s highest grossing film, picked up nominations for Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and overall cast.

The surreal comedy based on the wildly popular doll also picked up an additional nomination for its stunt performers.

The other films with three acting nominations were Martin Scorsese’s epic “Killers of the Flower Moon” — despite Leonardo DiCaprio missing out — and scathing satire “American Fiction,” starring Jeffrey Wright.

Both movies are nominated for best cast, with musical remake “The Color Purple” closing out that category.

Elsewhere, Globes winners Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph picked up nods for “The Holdovers,” as did Emma Stone and her co-star Willem Dafoe for “Poor Things.”

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan were nominated for Leonard Bernstein biopic “Maestro.”

But all three films missed out on nominations for outstanding cast.

The winner of that prize has gone on to win best picture at the Oscars in three of the past four years (“Parasite,” “CODA” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once”).

The SAG Awards also honor television, with “Succession” on top with five nods, followed by “The Bear,” “The Last of Us” and “Ted Lasso,” all on four.

The 30th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will take place in Los Angeles on February 24.
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Taliban Minister Boasts Afghan Anti-Polio Gains While Addressing Global Health Huddle  

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Islamabad — A senior representative of Afghanistan’s Taliban government told a Pakistan-hosted international health conference Wednesday that his country had recorded an increase in mosquito-borne malaria and dengue fever cases, but infections caused by highly contagious poliovirus declined significantly.

Only 12 children around the world were paralyzed by wild poliovirus in 2023, all of them in Afghanistan and Pakistan — with six reported in each. The two countries, sharing a nearly 2,600-kilometer border, have not detected a polio infection this year.

“Polio is still a great challenge for both Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Qalandar Ebad, the Taliban health minister, said in his English-language speech at the first global health security summit in Islamabad.

Delegates from 70 countries worldwide, including those from the United States and the United Nations, are attending the summit in the Pakistani capital.

“We are trying our best to eradicate the polio virus from the country and fortunately we have good accomplishments in this area,” Ebad said.

The World Health Organization says the polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan has improved in quality and outreach since the Taliban regained control of the war-ravaged country in August 2021, leading to the cessation of years of nationwide hostilities.

The Taliban minister noted that there was a “slight increase in HIV/AIDS cases” in the impoverished country, but he did not elaborate.

Ebad blamed climate change for some health emergencies facing his South Asian nation of more than 40 million people. He urged the need to assist Afghanistan and other developing countries in improving their national healthcare systems to enable them to utilize locally available expertise to combat infectious diseases.

“We are witnessing that the funding in Afghanistan is decreasing, but still, in our country, instead of national capacity [building], many international [workers] with higher salaries are recruited, though the national [workers] can perform the same tasks as internationals do,” the Taliban minister asserted.

No foreign country has recognized the Taliban, citing their bans on Afghan women’s access to education and work.

Afghanistan lost billions of dollars in foreign aid after the Taliban takeover as Western countries and international donors suspended their financial support for the country, where the health sector was primarily dependent on the funding.

In his address to Wednesday’s opening session of the summit, Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged collective efforts to fight global infectious diseases like COVID-19 and climate change-induced emergencies.

Kakar said that “no state in the world, no matter how powerful it is, can meet such challenges” alone.

While addressing the gathering, Donald Blome, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, backed calls for a collaborative international approach to global health security.

“Coordination with partners is the most effective way to address regional and global health threats,” Blome said. He added that halting infectious disease outbreaks at their point of origin is one of the best and most economical ways to save lives. “Health is the cornerstone to the future of any thriving nation, and the United States will be a strong partner to build this future.”
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2023 Hottest Recorded Year as Earth Nears Key Limit

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PARIS — The year 2023 was the hottest on record, with the increase in Earth’s surface temperature nearly crossing the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, EU climate monitors said Tuesday.

Climate change intensified heatwaves, droughts and wildfires across the planet and pushed the global thermometer 1.48 C above the preindustrial benchmark, the Copernicus Climate Change Service reported.

“It is also the first year with all days over one degree warmer than the preindustrial period,” said Samantha Burgess, deputy head of the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

“Temperatures during 2023 likely exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years,” she said.

Nearly half the year exceeded the 1.5C limit, beyond which climate impacts are more likely to become self-reinforcing and catastrophic, according to scientists.

But even if Earth’s average surface temperature breaches 1.5C in 2024, as some scientists predict, it does not mean the world has failed to meet the Paris Agreement target of capping global warming under that threshold.

That would occur only after several successive years above the 1.5C benchmark, and even then, the 2015 treaty allows for the possibility of reducing Earth’s temperature after a period of “overshoot.”

2023 saw massive fires in Canada, extreme droughts in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East, unprecedented summer heatwaves in Europe, the United States and China, along with record winter warmth in Australia and South America.

“Such events will continue to get worse until we transition away from fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions,” said University of Reading climate change professor Ed Hawkins, who did not contribute to the report.

“We will continue to suffer the consequences of our inactions today for generations,” he said.

The Copernicus findings come one month after a climate agreement was reached at COP28 in Dubai calling for the gradual transition away from fossil fuels, the main cause of climate warming.

“We desperately need to rapidly cut fossil fuel use and reach net-zero to preserve the livable climate that we all depend on,” said John Marsham, atmospheric science professor at the University of Leeds.

The year saw another ominous record: two days in November 2023 exceeded the preindustrial benchmark by more than two degrees Celsius.

Copernicus predicted that the 12-month period ending in January or February 2024 would “exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial level.”

Reliable weather records date to 1850, but older proxy data for climate change — from tree rings, ice cores and sediment — show that 2023 temperatures “exceed those of any period in at least the last 100,000 years,” Burgess said.

Records were broken on every continent. In Europe, 2023 was the second-warmest year on record, after 2020.

2023 saw the beginning of a naturally occurring El Nino weather phenomenon, which warms waters in the southern Pacific and stokes hotter weather beyond.

The phenomenon is expected to reach its peak in 2024 and is linked to the eight consecutive months of record heat from June to December.

Ocean temperatures globally were also “persistently and unusually high,” with many seasonal records broken since April.

These unprecedented ocean temperatures caused marine heatwaves devastating to aquatic life and increased storm intensity.

Oceans absorb more than 90% of excess heat caused by human activity and play a major role in regulating Earth’s climate.

Rising temperatures have also accelerated the melting of ice shelves — frozen ridges that help prevent massive glaciers in Greenland and West Antarctica from slipping into the ocean and raising sea levels.

Antarctic sea ice hit record-low levels in 2023.

“The extremes we have observed over the last few months provide a dramatic testimony of how far we now are from the climate in which our civilization developed,” said Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus director.

In 2023, carbon dioxide and methane concentrations reached record levels of 419 parts per million and 1,902 parts per billion, respectively.

Methane is the second-largest contributor to global warming after CO2 and is responsible for around 30% of the rise in global temperatures since the industrial revolution, according to the United Nations Environment Program.
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Sinead O’Connor Died of Natural Causes, London Coroner Says

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LONDON — Irish singer Sinead O’Connor, who was found unresponsive at an address in London in July last year, died of natural causes, the coroner said on Tuesday. 

O’Connor, known for her stirring voice, outspoken views and 1990 chart-topping hit “Nothing Compares 2 U,” was pronounced dead at the scene. Police had said her death, at the age of 56, was not being treated as suspicious. 

The coroner’s court said at the time that an autopsy would be conducted before a decision was made on whether to hold an inquest. 

“This is to confirm that Ms O’Connor died of natural causes. The coroner has therefore ceased their involvement in her death,” London Inner South Coroner’s Court said in a statement. 

Artists around the world reacted to the news of her death last year, with REM frontman Michael Stipe and U.S. musician Tori Amos among those who paid tribute to O’Connor’s fierce honesty, intense presence and uncompromising spirit. 

Thousands gathered outside O’Connor’s former seaside home to bid farewell to her when her funeral was held in August, some singing along to hits blasted from a vintage Volkswagen camper van and others showering her hearse with flowers. 
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Taiwan Unleashes Robots on Dengue-Carrying Mosquitoes

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Researchers in Taiwan are using a special robot to hunt mosquitoes that carry the virus that causes dengue fever. From the southern city of Kaohsiung, Shelley Schlender has our story.
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Franz Beckenbauer, World Cup Champion as Player and Coach for Germany, Dies at 78

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Munich — Franz Beckenbauer, who won the World Cup both as player and coach and became one of Germany’s most beloved personalities with his easygoing charm, has died, news agency dpa reported Monday. He was 78.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce that my husband and our father, Franz Beckenbauer, passed away peacefully in his sleep yesterday, Sunday, surrounded by his family,” the family said in a statement to dpa, the German news agency. “We ask that we be allowed to grieve in peace and be spared any questions.”

The statement did not provide a cause of death. The former Bayern Munich great had struggled with health problems in recent years.

Beckenbauer was one of German soccer’s central figures. As a player, he reimagined the defender’s role in soccer and captained West Germany to the World Cup title in 1974 after it had lost to England in the 1966 final. He was the coach when West Germany won the tournament again in 1990, a symbolic moment for a country in the midst of reunification, months after the Berlin Wall fell.

Beckenbauer was also instrumental in bringing the highly successful 2006 World Cup to Germany, though his legacy was later tainted by charges that he only succeeded in winning the hosting rights with the help of bribery. He denied the allegations.

Beckenbauer and three other members of the committee were formally made criminal suspects that year by Swiss prosecutors who suspected fraud in the true purpose of multi-million euro (dollar) payments that connected the 2006 World Cup with FIFA. But he was eventually not indicted in 2019 for health reasons and the case ended without a judgment when the statute of limitations expired in 2020 amid delays to the court system caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The allegations damaged Beckenbauer’s standing in public perception for the first time. Until then, Beckenbauer had seemingly been unable to say or do anything wrong. Germans simply loved him.

The son of a post official from the working-class Munich district of Giesing, Beckenbauer became one of the greatest players to grace the game in a career that also included stints in the United States with the New York Cosmos in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Born on Sept. 11, 1945, months after Germany’s surrender in World War II, Beckenbauer studied to become an insurance salesman but he signed his first professional contract with Bayern when he was 18.

“You are not born to become a world star in Giesing. Football for me was a deliverance. Looking back, I can say: Everything went according to how I’d imagined my life. I had a perfect life,” Beckenbauer told the Sueddeutsche newspaper magazine in 2010.

Beckenbauer personalized the position of “libero,” the free-roaming nominal defender who often moved forward to threaten the opponent’s goal, a role now virtually disappeared from modern football and rarely seen before his days.

An elegant, cool player with vision, Beckenbauer defined as captain the Bayern Munich side that won three successive European Cup titles from 1974 to 1976.

In his first World Cup as player in 1966, West Germany lost the final to host England. Four years later, with his arm strapped to his body because of a shoulder injury, Germany lost a memorable semifinal to Italy.

Finally, in 1974 at home, Beckenbauer captained West Germany to the title.

Beckenbauer left Bayern for New York in 1977 to play for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. He missed the 1978 World Cup because the Germans decided not to invite players playing abroad. He returned to Germany in 1980, spent two seasons with Hamburger SV — and won another Bundesliga championship, his fifth — before returning for a final season with the Cosmos.

Although he had never coached before, Beckenbauer was hired to revive West Germany in 1984 after a flop at the European Championship.

West Germany made it to the final of the 1986 World Cup, losing to Diego Maradona’s Argentina in Mexico City. Although West Germany failed to win the 1988 Euros title at home, it went to the final of the 1990 World Cup and defeated Argentina in the final in Rome, another highlight in the year after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Later, at the news conference, he said he was “sorry for the rest of the world” because a united Germany would be unbeatable for years to come. But Germany had to wait 24 years before winning another World Cup title.

Beckenbauer retired from the West Germany job after coaching the team to the 1990 World Cup triumph. The final was the last tournament game played by a West Germany-only team.

He didn’t have much success at coaching Marseille but won the Bundesliga title with Bayern in 1994 and the UEFA Cup in 1996, both after taking over as coach late in the season. He later became Bayern’s president, until leaving most functions when he turned 65 in 2010.

Beckenbauer’s legal issues around the 2006 World Cup continued into his retirement, but he remained a much-loved figure in German soccer and society.
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Climate Change Ruining Farms on El Salvador’s Coast

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The impact of climate change is increasingly evident along El Salvador’s coastlines where saltwater is slowly claiming what once was farmland. Veronica Villafañe narrates this report from Claudia Zaldaña
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‘Oppenheimer’ Dominates Golden Globes, ‘Poor Things’ Upsets ‘Barbie’ in Comedy

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BEVERLY HILLS, California — “Oppenheimer has dominated the Golden Globe Awards, taking home the night’s top honor. Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” has won best comedy or musical at the 81st Golden Globes, an upset victory over the category favorite, “Barbie.” 

Emma Stone also won for her performance in “Poor Things.”

On the television side, “Succession” and “The Bear” are took multiple honors. Christopher Nolan’s epic American drama “Oppenheimer” picked up five big awards including best drama film, best director for Nolan, best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.

Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for their performances in “The Holdovers.”

Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer” dominated the 81st Golden Globes, winning five awards including best drama, while Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein riff “Poor Things” pulled off an upset victor over “Barbie” to triumph in the best comedy or musical category.

If awards season has been building toward a second match-up of Barbenheimer, this round went to “Oppenheimer.”

The film also won best director for Nolan, best drama actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and for Ludwig Göransson’s score.

“I don’t think it was a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination to make a three-hour talky movie — R-rated by the way — about one of the darkest developments in our history,” said producer Emma Thomas accepting the night’s final award and thanking Universal chief Donna Langley.

Along with best comedy or musical, “Poor Things” also won for Emma Stone’s performance as Bella, a Victorian-era woman experiencing a surreal sexual awakening.

“I see this as a rom-com,” said Stone. “But in the sense that Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person.

She accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently.”

Lily Gladstone won best actress in a dramatic film for Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone, who began her speech speaking the language of her native tribe, Blackfeet Nation, is the first Indigenous winner in the category.

“This is a historic win,” said Gladstone. “It doesn’t just belong to me.”

The Globes were in their ninth decade but facing a new and uncertain chapter. After a tumultuous few years of scandal, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was dissolved, leaving a new Globes, on a new network (CBS), to try to regain its perch as the third biggest award show of the year, after the Oscars and Grammys. Even the menu (sushi from Nobu) was remade.

“Golden Globes journalists, thank you for changing your game, therefore changing your name,” said Downey in his acceptance speech.

It got off to a rocky start. Host Jo Koy took the stage at the Beverly Hilton International Ballroom in Beverly Hills, California.

The Filipino American stand-up hit on some expected topics: Ozempic, Meryl Streep’s knack for winning awards and the long-running “Oppenheimer.” (“I needed another hour.”)

After one joke flubbed, Koy, who was named host after some bigger names reportedly passed, also noted how fast he was thrust into the job.

“Yo, I got the gig 10 days ago. You want a perfect monologue?” said Koy. “I wrote some of these and they’re the ones you’re laughing at.”

Hi, Barbie

Downey’s win, his third Globe, denied one to “Kenergy.” Ryan Gosling had been seen as his stiffest competition, just one of the many head-to-head contests between “Oppenheimer” and Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie.”

The filmmakers faced each other in the best director category, where Nolan triumphed.

It was two hours before “Barbie,” the year’s biggest hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, won an award Sunday. Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” took best song, and swiftly after, “Barbie” took the Globes’ new honor for “cinematic and box office achievement.”

Some thought that award might go to Taylor Swift, whose “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” also set box-office records. Swift, though, remains winless in five Globe nods.

Margot Robbie, star and producer of “Barbie,” accepted the award in a pink gown modeled after 1977’s Superstar Barbie.

“We’d like to dedicate this to every single person on the planet who dressed up and went to the greatest place on Earth: the movie theaters,” said Robbie.

“Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” two blockbusters brought together by a common release date, also faced off in the best screenplay category.

But in an upset, Justine Triet and Arthur Harari won for the script to the French courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall.” Later, Triet’s film picked up best international film, too.

Though the Globes have no direct correlation with the Academy Awards, they can boost campaigns at a crucial juncture. Oscar nomination voting starts Thursday, and the twin sensations of Barbenheimer remain frontrunners.

Other contenders loom, though, like “Poor Things” and “The Holdovers.”

Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph both won for Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” Giamatti, reuniting with Payne two decades after “Sideways,” won best actor and Randolph won for her supporting performance as a grieving woman in the 1970s-set boarding school drama.

“Oh, Mary you have changed my life,” Randolph said of her character. “You have made me feel seen in so many ways that I have never imagined.”

Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won best animated film, an upset over “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.”

‘Succession,’  ‘The Bear’ Lead TV Winners

The final season of “Succession” cleaned up on the television side. It won best drama series for the third time, a mark that ties a record set by “Mad Men” and “The X-Files.” Three stars from the HBO series also won: Matt Macfadyen, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin.

“It is bittersweet, but things like this make it rather sweeter,” said “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong.

Hulu’s “The Bear” also came away with a trio of awards, including best comedy series. Jeremy Allen White won for the second time, but this time he had company.

Ayo Edebiri won her first Globe for her leading performance in the Hulu show’s second season. She thanked the assistants of her agents and managers.

“To the people who answer my emails, you’re the real ones,” said Edebiri.

“Beef” won three awards: best limited series as well as acting awards for Ali Wong and Steven Yeun.

The Globes also added a new stand-up special award. That went, surprisingly, to Ricky Gervais, who didn’t attend the show he so often hosted. Some expected Chris Rock to win for “Selective Outrage,” his stand-up response to the Will Smith slap.

The Globes Comeback

A few years ago, the Golden Globes were on the cusp of collapse. After The Los Angeles Times reported that the HFPA had no Black members, Hollywood boycotted the organization.

The 2022 Globes were all but canceled and taken off TV. After reforms, the Globes returned to NBC last year in a one-year deal, but the show was booted to Tuesday evening.

With Jerrod Carmichael hosting, the telecast attracted 6.3 million viewers, a new low on NBC and a far cry from the 20 million that once tuned in.

The Golden Globes were acquired by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, which Penske Media owns, and turned into a for-profit venture.

The HFPA (which typically numbered around 90 voters) was dissolved and a group of some 300 entertainment journalists from around the world now vote for the awards.

Questions still remain about the Globes’ long-term future, but their value to Hollywood studios remains providing a marketing boost to awards contenders. (The Oscars won’t be held until March 10.)

This year, because of the actors and writers strikes, the Globes are airing ahead of the Emmys, which were postponed to Jan. 15.

With movie ticket sales still 20% off the pre-pandemic pace and the industry facing a potentially perilous 2024 at the box office, Hollywood needed the Golden Globes as much as it ever has.

The most comical evaluation on the Globes came from presenters Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig, who blamed the awards body for the constant interruption of a song they found irresistible while otherwise solemnly presenting best actor in a drama.

A furious, dancing Ferrell shouted: “The Golden Globes have not changed!”
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‘Wonka’ Is No. 1 at Box Office Again as 2024 Gets Off to Slower Start

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LOS ANGELES — Timothee Chalamet and “Wonka” topped the box office charts for the third time in its four weekends in theaters. Warner Bros.’ family-oriented musical added $14.4 million in ticket sales according to studio estimates Sunday, bringing its total domestic grosses to $164.7 million. 

“‘Wonka’ is following in the tradition of a film like ‘The Greatest Showman,'” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. That Hugh Jackman musical opened under $9 million in December 2017 and went on to gross $435 million globally. 

“‘Wonka’ is a perfect crowd pleaser released at the perfect time and it’s going to ride that wave into January,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s an opportune time for it to be in the marketplace.” 

After finishing 2023 on a high note, 2024 is getting off to a slower start than last year, down around 16%, with the Universal/Blumhouse horror “Night Swim” as the only major new offering in theaters. The movie stars Wyatt Russell and Kerry Condon as a couple with a sinister, supernatural swimming pool. 

“Night Swim” drew in an estimated $12 million in its first weekend in 3,250 theaters in North America against a reported $15 million production budget. Including international showings in 36 markets, “Night Swim” is heading towards a $17.7 million global debut. 

“Not only did it perform really well at the box office, but it’s going to make us look at every swimming pool with a little more trepidation,” said Jim Orr, Universal’s head of domestic distribution. 

Horror movies are largely critic-proof, but with fairly negative reviews and a C CinemaScore rating, it’s unlikely to repeat the viral success of last year’s demon doll movie “M3GAN.” 

“We don’t have ‘Avatar: The Way of Water,’ which totally dominated the box office a year ago, or ‘M3GAN,’ which made that a bigger weekend,” said Dergarabedian. “But it’s a bit early to call it in terms of how the year is going to turn out.” 

Warner Bros. and Universal placed third and fourth on the charts as well. Warner Bros.’ DC superhero movie “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” earned $10.6 million in its third weekend, bumping its domestic tally just over the $100 million mark. Universal’s animated “Migration” added $10.3 million, bringing its running domestic total to $77.8 million. 

Sony’s Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney romantic comedy “Anyone But You” landed in fifth place with $9.5 million, up 9% from last weekend. The movie has grossed $43.7 million to date. 

Cineplexes are full of awards contenders, including “The Color Purple,” “The Iron Claw” and “Poor Things,” and the Golden Globes broadcast Sunday night might help spread awareness for those and other films. 

“The Golden Globes are like a three-hour infomercial for the industry,” Dergarabedian said. “There’s no downside to having a very high profile telecast that puts a spotlight on the movies.” 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

  1. “Wonka,” $14.4 million. 

  2. “Night Swim,” $12 million. 

  3. “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” $10.6 million. 

  4. “Migration,” $10.3 million. 

  5. “Anyone But You,” $9.5 million. 

  6. “The Boys in the Boat,” $6 million. 

  7. “The Color Purple,” $4.8 million. 

  8. “The Iron Claw,” $4.5 million. 

  9. “Ferrari,” $2.5 million. 

  10. “Poor Things,” $2 million. 
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