Day: October 16, 2018

You could say baseball has struck out as America’s favorite pastime, because Americans would apparently rather watch TV than head to the ballpark.

Most Americans prefer to fill their spare time watching television than doing just about anything else, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Nearly 80 percent of people living in the United States are watching TV on any given day. Television viewing swallows up more than half of all the time Americans spend on sports and leisure activities, according to data from the BLS’s American Time Use Survey.

From 2013 to 2017, people 15 and older spent about 2 hours and 46 minutes a day watching TV — 55.2 percent of their total spare time — when they could have been doing pretty much anything else they wanted.

That TV time includes watching recorded TV shows, live programming, DVDs, and streaming content on TVs, computers, and portable devices. It does not include time spent watching a film in a movie theater.

Men watch about a half-hour more TV than women each day.

Older people and the unemployed watch the most TV, while parents with small children watch the least. Older people and the unemployed spent the most time watching TV. Americans over the age of 65 are the nation’s biggest couch potatoes. They spend the most time — 4 and a half hours per day — in front of the tube.

TV watching also varies by geography. Residents in the American South are among the nation’s most ardent TV viewers. People living in several of the Rocky Mountain states and in the Northeast tend to watch the least.
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In West Africa, like in other parts of the continent, dancing is an important part of the daily life and traditions. And in Baltimore Maryland, a multi-generational family is performing Senegalese and other West African dances. The Von Hendricks dance in local and national festivals. They recently started a school to teach the moves to others. Faith Lapidus narrates for VOA’s Faiza Elmasry.
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Anna Burns won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday with Milkman, a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland’s years of Catholic-Protestant violence.

Burns is the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize, which is open to English-language authors from around the world. She received her trophy from Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during a black-tie ceremony at London’s medieval Guildhall.

Milkman is narrated by a young woman dealing with an older man who uses family ties, social pressure and political loyalties as weapons of sexual coercion and harassment. It is set in the 1970s, but was published amid the global eruption of sexual misconduct allegations that sparked the #MeToo movement.

“I think this novel will help people to think about MeToo, and I like novels that help people think about current movements and challenges,” said philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, who chaired the judging panel. “But we think it’ll last — it’s not just about something that’s going on in this moment.

“I think it’s a very powerful novel about the damage and danger of rumor,” he added.

Burns beat five other novelists, including the bookies’ favorites: American writer Richard Powers’ tree-centric eco-epic The Overstory and Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, the story of a slave who escapes from a sugar plantation in a hot-air balloon.

The other finalists were U.S. novelist Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room, set in a women’s prison; Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, a verse novel about a traumatized D-Day veteran; and 27-year-old British author Daisy Johnson’s Greek tragedy-inspired family saga Everything Under.

Founded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. Americans have been eligible since 2014, and there have been two American winners — Paul Beatty’s The Sellout in 2016 and George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo in 2017.

A third consecutive American victor would have revived fears among some U.K. writers and publishers that the prize is becoming too U.S.-centric. But Appiah said neither the nationality nor the gender of the authors was a factor in the judges’ deliberations.

“If we had been drifting towards thinking that one of the men on the list was the best one, I wouldn’t have said ‘No, guys, we’re going to get in trouble for this’ — any more than if we’d been drifting towards an American,” he said. “We picked the one … most deserving of the prize.”

The Man Booker is always subject to intense speculation and lively betting, and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Hilary Mantel.

It’s likely to bring a big boost to Burns, who is 56 years old and has published two previous novels, but is hardly a household name.

Milkman appears on the printed page as a continuous torrent with few paragraph marks, which has led some to label it experimental and challenging. But Appiah said the vivid, distinctive Belfast language in Burns’ book was “really worth savoring.”

“If you’re having difficulty, try reading it out loud,” he said. “The pleasure of it really has to do with the way that it sounds.

“It’s challenging in the way a walk up (mount) Snowdon is challenging. It’s definitely worth it, because the view is terrific when you get to the top.”
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Former Congresswoman Mary Bono has announced she is resigning as interim president and chief executive officer of USA Gymnastics after just five days on the job.

“My withdrawal comes in the wake of personal attacks that left undefended, would have made my leading USAG a liability for the organization,” Bono said in a statement Tuesday.

Bono’s selection to lead USA Gymnastics had almost immediately come under fire by several high-profile gymnasts, including Olympic gold-medal winners Simone Biles and Aly Raisman.

Raisman objected to the choice of Bono, pointing out the former GOP lawmaker’s association with a law firm that advised USAG during the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

Both Biles and Raisman were among the hundreds of girls and young women molested by the physician.

“My teammates & I reported Nassar’s abuse to USAG in 2015,” wrote Raisman. “We now know USOC (the U.S. Olympic Committee) & lawyers at Faegre Baker Daniels (Bono’s firm) were also told then, yet Nassar continued to abuse children for 13 months!? Why hire someone associated with the firm that helped cover up our abuse?”

Nassar is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to federal child pornography charges and state charges of sexual abuse.

“Survivors, current gymnasts, families, coaches, gymnastics community & fans deserve better,” Raisman wrote Monday.

Biles, meanwhile, took issue with Bono’s response to Nike’s advertising campaign featuring former American football player Colin Kaepernick, who was the first to kneel during the playing of the national anthem to draw attention to injustice, social inequality and police brutality.

Bono posted a photo of herself blacking out a Nike logo on a golf shoe. Biles tweeted in response: “mouth drop … don’t worry, it’s not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president, or any sponsors or anything.”

Bono’s departure is another blow for USA Gymnastics, which has struggled to rebuild in the aftermath of the Nassar scandal.

Bono served as U.S. Representative from Southern California for 15 years. She won her first term in a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of her husband, former pop star and lawmaker Sonny Bono.
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Pippa Middleton, the sister of Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, has given birth to a baby boy.

A spokeswoman for Middleton and her husband James Matthews said Tuesday that their first baby had been born the day before.

Kensington Palace says that Prince William and Kate are “thrilled for Pippa and James.”

The new baby will be a cousin to William and Kate’s three children – George, 5, Charlotte, 3, and 5-month-old Louis.

The baby was born on the day the palace announced that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are expecting their first child.

 
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In the three years that Donald Trump rocketed from candidate to president, the PEN American Center has criticized him as a bully, an autocrat, a user of hate speech and an enemy of free expression. It has published studies, organized petitions and established a Press Freedom Incentive Fund.

Now the literary and human rights organization, which includes thousands of authors and journalists, is taking a more direct step: PEN is suing the president.

In a suit filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, the center, also known as PEN America, alleges that “official acts” by Trump have “violated the First Amendment and his oath to uphold the Constitution.” PEN cites such examples as reports that Trump was meddling in the proposed merger of AT&T and CNN, a frequent target of Trump’s anger (The Justice Department has sought to block the merger).

The suit also notes Trump’s comments on Washington Post owner and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Trump, unhappy with the Post’s coverage, has threatened antitrust action against Amazon and suggested raising its shipping costs. According to the Post, he has pressured U.S. Postmaster General Megan Brennan to double the rates. (Last week, the United States Postal Service proposed some hikes for 2019, among them increases which would affect Amazon. Shipping costs have been raised several times over the past decade).

“President Trump has First Amendment rights and is free to criticize the press vehemently, but he is not free to use the power and authority of the United States government to punish and stifle it,” the complaint reads.

An email sent to a White House spokeswoman shortly before the suit was filed was not immediately returned.

In an interview this week with The Associated Press, PEN chief executive officer Suzanne Nossel said that Trump had moved beyond harsh [and legally protected] rhetoric such as “fake news” and “enemy of the people.”

“There is widespread concern that the president is actually extracting reprisals on the media for coverage he considers unfavorable,” she said.

PEN is asking that Trump be enjoined from “directing or ordering any officer, employee, agency, or other agent or instrumentality of the United States government to take any action against any person or entity with intent to retaliate against, intimidate, or otherwise constrain speech critical of him or his Administration.”

The organization seeks no money beyond “costs, including attorneys’ fees,” and other “relief as the Court deems just and proper.”

Trump has been sued thousands of times over past the few decades, and shortly before taking office agreed to pay $25 million in a settlement over fraud allegations against the now-defunct Trump University. He also has been sued as president, including on First Amendment grounds.

Last month, a federal court in Cincinnati ruled that protesters at a Trump rally in March 2016 in Louisville, Kentucky, could not sue him for inciting violence, finding nothing incriminating in his remarks. Earlier this year, the Knight First Amendment Institute sued Trump and his communications team for blocking several people from the president’s Twitter account. A judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, where PEN’s suit was filed Tuesday, ruled in May that blocking Twitter critics violated the First Amendment.

“We wouldn’t be filing this lawsuit if we didn’t think it would be meritorious,” said David A. Schulz, co-director of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, a Yale Law School program serving as co-counsel with the nonprofit, nonpartisan Protect Democracy on the lawsuit. “There is so much evidence of the president’s motives.”

One issue for PEN might be how the organization and its members have been affected by President Trump, what is known as legal standing. Kristy Parker of Protect Democracy said that “PEN’s members, especially those who are journalists covering current affairs, are indeed directly affected by the President’s retaliatory acts and credible threats because they are forced to work in an atmosphere where they could be punished by the President for their speech.”

Nossel added that PEN was not yet “actively asking” Bezos or CNN or other media outlets to join the lawsuit.

“Media organizations are focused on covering the news objectively and providing the essential transparency and accountability that is the work of a free press,” she said. “Every organization has to make their own determination of how best to play their role in this environment. That media organizations might determine to focus on journalism should not mean that the President’s violations go unchallenged by those affected by them.”

 
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It’s the 50th anniversary of the iconic moment when two African American Olympic athletes raised their fists in defiance to bring attention to racial oppression in back home. It happened at their medal award ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. VOA’s Mariama Diallo examines the significance of the moment in history.
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Egyptian officials say EgyptAir has removed the latest edition of its in-flight magazine over a contentious article it published, purportedly based on an interview with American actress Drew Barrymore.

They say the carrier had agreed with its publisher, Al-Ahram advertising agency, to stop printing more copies of the October issue of the magazine, Horus, and pull the ones already placed onboard the fleet’s aircraft.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to talk to the media.

Earlier this month, EgyptAir said Al-Ahram is to blame for Horus’ content and specifically for the Barrymore article, which was riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors. It described Barrymore as “being unstable in her relationships” and quoted her as saying that motherhood was “the most important role” of her life.

 
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Blind Paralympic cyclist Shawn Cheshire, 43, recently faced her biggest challenge — a rim-to-rim hike through the Grand Canyon.

Cheshire crossed 68 kilometers of steep and uneven terrain, hiking through the night and finishing in 24 hours and 15 minutes — believed to be a record by a blind hiker.

“The last couple of years, I’ve been on this desperate purpose of grasping as much independence as possible,” Cheshire said. “And so for me, being able to walk in the Grand Canyon like that, that’s freedom.”

Cheshire lost her sight after an accident nine years ago and turned to athletics.

“I was in a really dark place and hated being blind.” But she said sports and physical challenges gave her “another opportunity at living.” She competed in the Paralympics in Rio in 2016 and hopes to compete in Tokyo in 2020. 

In the meantime, Cheshire was determined to complete this challenging hike.

“I had a huge ball of emotion welled up in my chest — like I cannot believe we just did that — and just (felt) gratitude,” she said.

​She finished the challenging hike on Oct. 8. Three friends helped her complete the trek, serving as guides and warning of obstacles as they worked to set a record.

“We literally smashed it,” recalled guide Sara Schulting-Kranz, “including going up the north rim and down the north rim, the entire thing. Every trail that we were on, I’ve never actually gone that fast on,” she said.

It is believed that the previous record by a blind hiker was set in 2014 at 28 hours. Cheshire beat that mark by nearly four hours.

It was an exercise in teamwork. Cheshire and her guides walked several paces apart. She listened for warnings of obstacles from her teammates and monitored the bell that the lead hiker wore, which sounded as they walked. She used hiking poles for balance.

It was a journey of discovery for the four-person crew.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself,” said Scott Drum, a friend of Cheshire’s and a guide on the trek. “I learned a lot more about the canyon,” he added.

For Cheshire, it was a major accomplishment on the road to others. In addition to cycling and hiking, she runs, skis and rock climbs. 

“I’d like to figure out everything a blind woman has never done, and I would like to do that.”
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