Americans have not needed iceboxes to keep food cold for nearly a century, ever since refrigerators became widely available. But that doesn’t stop folks in Holderness, N.H., from carrying out a winter task that’s been done for more than 120 years — harvesting ice for the summer months. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Month: February 2019
How do editorial cartoons fit into the U.S. political realities? What can they change, and who can they inspire or shame? Anna Rice talked with seasoned editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes who, for more than two decades, has been drawing Washington’s political players and bringing attention to their political blunders.
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Scientists are helping patients fight flu, diabetes and other maladies with the help of a smart watch that monitors body chemistry for blood sugar, sweat and other data. Researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas say it can also help couples get pregnant by tracking the stress. Mariia Prus traveled to Texas to learn more. Joy Wagner narrates her report.
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A new kind of electric car charging point has been switched on in London. It’s designed to make electric vehicle, or EV, charging infrastructure cheaper and greener. It also acts as a data port, as VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
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One of the world’s top research universities, the U.S.-based University of California, Berkeley, has stopped new research projects with Huawei Technologies, a Chinese telecommunications giant.
The university’s suspension, which took effect on January 30, came after the U.S. Department of Justice filed criminal charges against the corporation and some of its affiliates two days earlier. The department announced a 13-count indictment against Huawei, accusing it of stealing trade secrets, obstruction of justice, violations of economic sanctions and wire fraud.
Vice Chancellor for Research Randy Katz said in a letter addressed to the Chancellor’s cabinet members the campus would continue to honor existing commitments with Huawei that provide funding for current research projects.
Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, has been under house arrest in Canada since December 1 for allegedly deceiving U.S. banks into clearing funds for a subsidiary that interacted with Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions. Her extradition to the U.S. is pending.
Meng’s arrest has prompted some observers to question whether her detention was an attempt to pressure China in its ongoing trade war with the U.S. She is the daughter of the corporation’s founder, a relationship that places her among the most influential corporate executives in China.
UC Berkeley and other leading U.S. universities, meanwhile, are getting rid of telecom equipment made by Huawei and other Chinese companies to prevent losing federal funds under a new national security law.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump alleges Chinese telecom companies are manufacturing equipment that allows the Chinese government to spy on users in other countries, including Western researchers working on innovative technologies.
UC Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said. The University of California, Irvine is also replacing Chinese-made audio-video equipment. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, are reviewing their telecom suppliers.
The action is in response to a law Trump signed in August. A provision of the National Defense Authorization Act prohibits recipients of federal funding from using telecom and networking equipment made by Hauwei or ZTE.
Universities that fail to comply with the law by August 2020 could lose federal government research grants and other funding.
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Wearing a headscarf and a smile, Muslim movie director and writer Lena Khan stands out when she walks in Hollywood circles.
“It’s very hard to be a female filmmaker in Hollywood, that is for sure,” she said. “I think they feel like you don’t have as much authority, or you can’t command a set as much. And for the Muslim thing, I think they are still trying to process that.”
Khan is a child of immigrants from India. Born in Canada, she moved to the United States with her family when she was 2 years old and settled in a neighborhood east of Los Angeles. In school, she explored several career options before deciding on filmmaking.
“I had wanted to become a teacher. You look around and you’re like, ‘Nobody learns from teachers anymore,’” Khan joked. “Sometimes it feels like it,” she added. “And at least people learn so much from movies and films, about people, about social issues, about everything.”
However, Khan’s decision to pursue a career of writing and filmmaking sparked some criticism.
“When I was starting out, people in the community, South Asians most of all, they’re like, ‘Why are you entering such a stupid career?’”
Stories have value
But Khan persisted. Her first success was a movie she co-wrote and directed called “The Tiger Hunter.” The 2017 comedy is about the immigrant experience of a man from India in the U.S. Khan said the movie’s success surprised people in her community.
“People who are South Asian or Muslim can’t seem to believe that our stories have really real value. And so, the moment you start talking about, ‘Oh, you know such and such person from this company’ — aka white person — ’said this movie is good.’ That’s when their eyebrows raise. That’s when they feel like, ‘Oh, OK, somebody else validated this brown person’s story, and thus it has something to say.’”
Khan said the film’s universal themes and the coincidental timing of its release helped draw attention to it.
“The Muslim ban happened right when the movie came out,” she said, referring to President Donald Trump’s executive order that temporarily barred people from seven countries, most with a predominantly Muslim population, from entering the U.S. “That was never intended. It’s not a good thing, but it became very, very relevant.”
Her own path
“The Tiger Hunter” opened doors to opportunities that Khan never had. She is now working on a TV comedy and directing a movie for Disney. She said she surprised many people during Hollywood meetings.
“The first thing when you walk into a room in a lot of places is them kind of looking at your head — sort of just a quick eye-glance over there. And then, when you say things like how I play the drums, and they were just very shocked,” she said. “They want people who they feel like they can hang out with that are part of their club. And you really don’t look like you’re a part of their club.”
But Khan said she will not compromise who she is. She just creates her own path.
“I’m not going to hang out in a bar until 2 a.m., which sometimes a lot of business gets done that way, and sometimes meeting those people on TV that you need to meet. So, you kind of have to make up for it in other ways,” she said. “For me, I’ve always had to make up for it, part of it. That’s how I started making my own movies.”
What keeps her going, even with obstacles from Hollywood and within her own community?
“I like what I’m doing,” she said. “I like it. I feel like it has some value. It’s incredibly fun. Then, I’m also a faithful person, whereas it’s always for me, it’s about sort of like how you went about your day, and kind of what you tried, and the results are up to God.”
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It does not yet have office space, staff or even Republican members, but Florida Rep. Kathy Castor is confident that a special House committee on climate change will play a leading role on one of the most daunting challenges facing the planet.
Castor, who chairs the new panel, says those early obstacles can be overcome as lawmakers move to reduce carbon pollution and create clean-energy jobs.
“The Democratic caucus is unified under the belief we have to take bold action on the climate crisis,” Castor said in an interview.
While that can take many forms, the transition to renewable energy such as wind and solar power is “job one,” she said.
Castor, who’s in her seventh term representing the Tampa Bay area, said Congress has a “moral obligation” to protect future generations from the costly effects of climate change, including more severe hurricanes, a longer wildfire season and a dangerous sea-level rise.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi named Castor to lead the panel in December, saying she brings experience, energy and urgency to what Pelosi called “the existential threat of the climate crisis” facing the United States and the world.
The climate panel is similar to one Pelosi created when Democrats last controlled the House from 2007 to 2010. The panel was eliminated when Republicans took the majority in 2011.
While the previous panel played a key role in House approval of a landmark 2009 bill to address global warming, Castor said the new panel is likely to focus on a variety of actions rather than a single piece of legislation.
She and the eight other Democrats named to the panel “are ready to stand up to corporate polluters and special interests” as they press for action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move toward a clean-energy economy, Castor said.
“Climate deniers, fossil fuel companies and other special interests have had an outsized influence” in Congress in recent years, she said, promising to “stand up” to those forces to protect the environment and create green jobs.
The climate panel is separate from an effort by Democrats to launch a Green New Deal to transform the U.S. economy and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.
Castor dismissed the idea that the Green New Deal — put forth by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and veteran Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts — will conflict with the climate panel.
“My job and the committee’s job is to take the general concepts (of the Green New Deal) and turn them into a real policy framework and legislative language and eventually law,” she said.
Pelosi agreed, saying in a statement that the climate panel will “spearhead Democrats’ work to develop innovative, effective solutions to prevent and reverse the climate crisis.”
Pelosi invited Ocasio-Cortez, a social media star and the best-known member of the large class of freshman Democrats, to join the climate panel, but she declined, saying she wants to focus on the Green New Deal and other committee assignments.
Three freshmen — Sean Casten of Illinois, Mike Levin of California and Joe Neguse of Colorado — serve on the panel, along with veteran lawmakers such as Rep. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, the fourth-ranking House Democrat, and Californians Julia Brownley and Jared Huffman, both close Pelosi allies.
“We need their passion and energy, and we need support from all corners all across the country,” Castor said of the freshmen members. “It’s all hands on deck right now.”
Republicans have not named anyone to the climate committee, but six GOP members are expected to join the panel this month.
While she would have preferred that the committee be given subpoena power and legislative authority to draft their own bills, the panel’s more limited power “is not going to hamper us,” Castor said. Most invited witnesses will be eager to testify, she said, and those who resist — including members of the Trump administration — can be compelled to appear by other committees such as Energy and Commerce or Natural Resources.
While the earlier climate panel focused on establishing the threat posed by climate change, Castor said the time to debate climate science is long past.
“People understand the problems,” she said. “They see the effects of sea rise and more dangerous storms. They understand it. They look at Washington and kind of throw up their hands and say, ‘Why don’t you guys do something?’ ”
The committee’s challenge, she added, will be “to restore the faith of people and show them Washington can do some things.”
The Hollywood film industry is hard for anyone to break into. There may be a few more hurdles if you are a woman and Muslim. One filmmaker found success both in Hollywood and in her own community. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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The Vatican’s former doctrine chief has penned a “manifesto of faith” to remind Catholics of basic tenets of belief amid what he says is “growing confusion” in the church today.
Cardinal Gerhard Mueller didn’t name Pope Francis in his four-page manifesto, released late Friday. But the document was nevertheless a clear manifestation of conservative criticism of Francis’ emphasis on mercy and accompaniment versus a focus on repeating Catholic morals and doctrine during the previous two papacies.
Mueller wrote that a pastor’s failure to teach Catholic truths was the greatest deception — “It is the fraud of the anti-Christ.”
Francis sacked Mueller as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2017, denying the German a second five-year term.
‘Truth of revelation’
In the document, which was published by conservative Catholic media that have been critical of Francis, Mueller repeats basic Catholic teaching that Catholics must be free from sin before receiving Communion. He mentions divorced and remarried faithful, in a clear reference to Francis’ opening to letting these Catholics receive Communion on a case-by-case basis after a process of accompaniment and discernment with their pastors.
Mueller also repeats that women cannot be ordained priests and that priests must be celibate. Francis has reaffirmed the ban on ordination for women but has commissioned a study on women deacons in the early church. Francis has also reaffirmed priestly celibacy but has made the case for exceptions where “pastoral necessity” might justify ordaining married men of proven virtue.
“In the face of growing confusion about the doctrine of the faith, many bishops, priests, religious and lay people of the Catholic Church have requested that I make a public testimony about the truth of revelation,” Mueller wrote. “It is the shepherd’s very own task to guide those entrusted to them on the path of salvation.”
Nostalgic for Benedict XVI
The manifesto was the latest jab at Francis from the conservative wing of the church. Already, four other cardinals have called on the Jesuit pope to clarify his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics.
And the Vatican’s former ambassador to the U.S. has demanded Francis resign over what he claimed was the pope’s 2013 rehabilitation of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick despite knowing the high-ranking American slept with adult seminarians. McCarrick is likely to be defrocked in the coming days after he was more recently accused of sexually abusing minors.
Mueller’s manifesto carries the date of Feb. 10, the eve of the sixth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s historic announcement that he would resign. Many conservatives are nostalgic for the doctrinal clarity and certainty of Benedict’s reign.
It was published after Francis penned a joint declaration of “fraternity” with a prominent Muslim imam during his recent trip to the United Arab Emirates. Some conservatives say the document’s claim that the pluralism of religions is “willed by God” muddies Catholic belief about the centrality of Christ. Francis has defended the document as doctrinally sound.
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Cultural Fusion, a blend of international styles and tastes, seems to be everywhere, from trendy restaurant menus to fashion runways to hit movies. Rendy Wicaksana of VOA’s Indonesia Service reports on an unusual fusion of classical Western orchestral music with the traditional sounds of Indonesian gamelan.
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Many more Americans may be getting opioids for their pets, and veterinarians appear to be prescribing increasingly potent versions of these drugs to animals, a small study suggests.
The researchers examined data on opioid tablets and patches dispensed or prescribed by 134 veterinarians at an academic small-animal hospital in Philadelphia from 2007 to 2017. Over the decade, the amount of opioids used for creatures like rabbits, birds and reptiles surged 41 percent even though visits to the hospital increased by only 13 percent.
“We have no way of knowing if any of these prescriptions were obtained by pet owners for themselves, and most were likely not,” said senior study author Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, a toxicologist with the emergency medicine department at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
“However, the risk to humans is that leftover opioid prescriptions to animals end up in the same medicine cabinets as leftover opioids for people, leading to opportunities for misuse by teenagers or unintentional exposures in children that can be lethal,” Perrone said by email.
The study included 366,468 pet visits to the animal hospital. During these visits, veterinarians prescribed a total of 105.2 million tablets of tramadol, more than 97,000 tablets of hydrocodone, almost 39,000 tablets of codeine and 3,153 fentanyl patches.
Most were for dogs
Dogs got the most drugs, accounting for 73 percent of these prescriptions, followed by cats at 22.5 percent and exotic animals at 4.5 percent.
A major factor contributing to the growing opioid crisis in the U.S. is the increasing availability of these drugs, which addicts often get from friends or relatives when they aren’t able to obtain a prescription, researchers note in JAMA Network Open.
Although medical and dental health providers are the biggest source of these opioids, the current study suggests that veterinary prescriptions may also be part of the problem, they write.
Veterinarians and animal hospitals can be registered with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and in many states vets can prescribe, stock and dispense opioids without the same reporting requirements that are in place at many retail outlets.
Only 20 states require veterinarians to report opioid prescribing as medical doctors do to a registry designed to limit misuse, the study authors note.
Pennsylvania is one of many states without reporting requirements, and results from the study may reflect what happens in other states that lack registries to help curb abuse, Perrone said.
It’s not clear if the increase in prescriptions in Pennsylvania might be due to an increased push to better manage pain for animals and pets, said Dr. Lee Newman, a researcher at the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora, or if it is due to the growing number of people with substance abuse problems trying to get medications from veterinarians, or both.
Switch surmised
“It’s speculation on my part, but it could be that when a human patient stops getting opioid prescriptions from their doctor that they next turn to the veterinarian to try to get drugs,” Newman, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
While the study suggests that opioid prescribing from veterinarians represents only a small fraction of the overall opioid prescribing in the country, it also suggests that veterinary practices may be an overlooked part of the problem, said Kirk Evoy, an assistant professor in both the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, and at the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
“This study brings to light that this is yet another potential source of access to opioids that many clinicians and policymakers may not be thinking about in their efforts to curtail the country’s opioid abuse epidemic,” Evoy, who wasn’t
involved in the study, said by email.
“Furthermore, while human opioid prescribing has begun to level off in recent years in response to the opioid epidemic, this data seems to indicate that, at least in the specific hospital being studied, prescribing of opioids for animals has continued to climb,” Evoy said.
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Lawmakers in the U.S. Northwestern state of Washington, which is battling a measles outbreak, are considering a bill that would prohibit parents from claiming a personal or philosophical exemption to their children receiving vaccinations.
Hundreds of people opposed to the bill lined up early Friday to attend a hearing in Olympia, the state capital, where lawmakers heard testimony from both supporters and opponents of the proposed bill.
The measure came after health officials reported at least 52 known cases of the measles in the state and four cases in the neighboring state of Oregon.
Current law
Washington state law requires children to be vaccinated for nearly a dozen diseases, including measles, before they can attend schools or child care centers. However, exemptions are allowed for parents based on personal beliefs, including medical, religious and philosophical views.
The proposed bill would eliminate that personal exemption, meaning all children would have to be vaccinated for a range of diseases before enrolling in schools or child care facilities.
The bill has the support of the state medical association as well as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who declared a state of emergency last month because of the measles outbreak.
Opponents testifying against the bill Friday included environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has questioned vaccine safety standards.
The Associated Press cited state Department of Health records that showed 4 percent of Washington secondary school students had nonmedical vaccine exemptions. The records showed that 3.7 percent of those exemptions were personal, while the remainder were religious exemptions.
Arguments for, against
Proponents of eliminating the personal exemption argue that schools must be safe and protect vulnerable children. Opponents of the eliminating the exemption argue that the vaccines come with a medical risk and that therefore people must have a choice about whether to use them.
Both California and Vermont have removed personal belief vaccine exemptions for schoolchildren.
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In 2001, the government of Nigeria, along with all African Union countries, pledged to spend 15 percent of its annual budget on health care. But the country has never come close to reaching that goal.
The result is that up to 70 percent of medical spending in Nigeria is out of pocket, forcing many with sudden health problems into debt or poverty.
Ajayi Taiwo is one of those people. Taiwo was involved in a car accident a year ago that injured his right leg and pelvis three weeks before his wedding.
Today, he’s still recovering.
“I actually spent like two … close to two months in the hospital and all the resources we had gathered together for the wedding to make it good actually went into hospital bills,” he said.
Discounts promised, not granted
The government hospital where Taiwo was taken would not grant him discounts promised under Nigeria’s national health care plan.
So he had to sell his car and other valuables to pay for care.
“Imagine — I went to a government hospital and I was paying heavily as if I was in a private hospital,” he said.
Health care pledge
The 2001 health care pledge made by Nigeria and its fellow African Union countries is called the Abuja Declaration.
But 18 years later, Nigeria’s highest-ever budget share for health care was just 7 percent. Last year, it dropped to less than 4 percent.
The impact is that 70 percent of hospital spending in Nigeria is out-of-pocket, which pushes Nigerians like Taiwo into debt or poverty.
“Having to pay out of pocket is a huge, devastating effect on any family,” said Elijah Miner, a consultant surgeon. “I mean you’ve got to look out for food first for the family, school fees, and other things, just basic things to live and that’s why you find out that a lot of people that end up in the hospital come only when it is late simply because they don’t have the funds.”
Out-of-pocket costs
Nneka Orji is a financial officer in Nigeria’s Ministry of Health. She said the government is partnering with international and private affiliates to make health care more affordable.
“Our out-of-pocket expenditure was estimated at over 70 percent and even the estimate we have for 2017 is even higher,” she said. “So our goal is to use this strategy from the basket funding and making sure with basic minimum package of care to reduce the out-of-pocket expenditure.”
But until Nigeria dramatically increases its health care budget, patients like Taiwo likely face a struggle to stay physically and financially healthy.
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Albert Finney, one of the most respected and versatile actors of his generation and the star of films as diverse as “Tom Jones” and “Skyfall,” has died. He was 82.
From his early days as a strikingly handsome and magnetic screen presence to his closing acts as a brilliant character actor, Finney was a British treasure known for charismatic work on both stage and screen.
Finney’s family said Friday that he “passed away peacefully after a short illness with those closest to him by his side.” He died Thursday from a chest infection at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, a cancer treatment center.
Finney burst to international fame in 1963 in the title role of “Tom Jones,” playing a lusty, humorous rogue who captivated audience with his charming, devil-may-care antics.
He excelled in many other roles, including “Saturday Night and Sunday Morning”, a 1960 drama that was part of the “angry young man” film trend.
Finney was a rare star who managed to avoid the Hollywood limelight despite more than five decades of worldwide fame. He was known for skipping awards ceremonies, even when he was nominated for an Oscar.
“Tom Jones” gained him the first of five Oscar nominations. Other nominations followed for “Murder on the Orient Express,” ″The Dresser,” ″Under the Volcano” and “Erin Brockovich.” Each time he fell short.
In later years he brought authority to bid-budget and high-grossing action movies, including the James Bond thriller “Skyfall” and two of the Bourne films. He also won hearts as Daddy Warbucks in “Annie.”
He played an array of roles, including Winston Churchill, Pope John Paul II, a southern American lawyer, and an Irish gangster. There was no “Albert Finney”-type character that he returned to again and again.
In one of his final roles, as the gruff Scotsman, Kincade, in “Skyfall,” he shared significant screen time with Daniel Craig as Bond and Judi Dench as M, turning the film’s final scenes into a master class of character acting.
“The world has lost a giant,” Craig said.
Although Finney rarely discussed his personal life, he said in 2012 that he had been treated for kidney cancer for five years.
He also explained why he had not attended the Academy Awards in Los Angeles even when he was nominated for the film world’s top prize.
“It seems silly to go over there and beg for an award,” he said.
The son of a bookmaker, Finney was born May 9, 1936, and grew up in northern England on the outskirts of Manchester. He took to the stage at an early age, doing a number of school plays and — despite his lack of connections and his working-class roots — earning a place at London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
He credited the headmaster of his local school, Eric Simms, for recommending that he attend the renowned drama school.
“He’s the reason I am an actor,” Finney said in 2012.
Finney made his first professional turn at 19 and appeared in several TV movies.
Soon, some critics were hailing him as “the next Laurence Olivier” — a commanding presence who would light up the British stage. In London, Finney excelled both in Shakespeare’s plays and in more contemporary offerings.
Still, the young man seemed determined not to pursue conventional Hollywood stardom. After an extensive screen test, he turned down the chance to play the title role in director David Lean’s epic “Lawrence of Arabia,” clearing the way for fellow RADA graduate Peter O’Toole to take what became a career-defining role.
But stardom came to Finney anyway in “Tom Jones”.
That was the role that introduced Finney to American audiences, and few would forget the sensual, blue-eyed leading man who helped the film win a Best Picture Oscar. Finney also earned his first Best Actor nomination for his efforts and the smash hit turned him into a Hollywood leading man.
Finney had the good fortune to receive a healthy percentage of the profits from the surprise hit, giving him financial security while he was still in his 20s.
“This is a man from very humble origins who became rich when he was very young,” said Quentin Falk, author of an unauthorized biography of Finney. “It brought him a lot of side benefits. He’s a man who likes to live as well as to act. He enjoys his fine wine and cigars. He’s his own man. I find that rather admirable.”
The actor maintained a healthy skepticism about the British establishment and turned down a knighthood when it was offered, declining to become Sir Albert.
“Maybe people in America think being a ‘Sir’ is a big deal,” he said. “But I think we should all be misters together. I think the ‘Sir’ thing slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery.”
He told The Associated Press in 2000 that he would rather be a “mister” than a “Sir.”
Instead of cashing in by taking lucrative film roles after “Tom Jones,” Finney took a long sabbatical, traveling slowly through the United States, Mexico and the Pacific islands, then returned to the London stage to act in Shakespeare productions and other plays. He won wide acclaim before returning to film in 1967 to co-star with Audrey Hepburn in “Two for the Road.”
This was to be a familiar pattern, with Finney alternating between film work and stage productions in London and New York.
Finney tackled Charles Dickens in “Scrooge” in 1970, then played Agatha Christie’s sophisticated sleuth Hercule Poirot in “Murder on the Orient Express” — earning his second Best Actor nomination— and even played a werewolf hunter in the cult film “Wolfen” in 1981.
In 1983, he was reunited with his peer from the “angry young man” movement, Tom Courtenay, in “The Dresser,” a film that garnered both Academy Award nominations.
Finney was nominated again for his role as a self-destructive alcoholic in director John Huston’s 1984 film “Under the Volcano.”
Even during this extraordinary run of great roles, Finney’s life was not chronicled in People or other magazines, although the British press was fascinated with his marriage to the sultry French film star Anouk Aimee.
He played in a series of smaller, independent films for a number of years before returning to prominence in 2000 as a southern lawyer in the film “Erin Brockovich,” which starred Julia Roberts. The film helped introduce Finney to a new generation of moviegoers, and the chemistry between the aging lawyer and his young, aggressive assistant earned him yet another Oscar nomination, this time for Best Supporting Actor.
His work also helped propel Roberts to her first Best Actress Oscar. Still, Finney declined to attend the Academy Awards ceremony — possibly damaging his chances at future wins by snubbing Hollywood’s elite.
Finney also tried his hand at directing and producing and played a vital role in sustaining British theater.
The Old Vic theater said his “performances in plays by Shakespeare, Chekhov and other iconic playwrights throughout the ’60s, ‘70s and ’80s stand apart as some of the greatest in our 200-year history.”
Finney is survived by his third wife, Pene Delmage, son Simon and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements weren’t immediately known.
The World Health Organization reports it is scaling up efforts to try to control an outbreak of Lassa fever, which is escalating at a rapid pace.
Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic illness that occurs after human exposure to the urine or feces of infected Mastomys rats. It is also transmitted person to person. About 80 percent of those infected show no symptoms. The disease can be effectively treated in its early stages with the antiviral drug Ribavirin.
West Africa is in the midst of a seasonal outbreak, which usually flares between December and March. The disease is endemic in the region so, the current outbreak was expected. But, WHO spokesman Tarek Jasarevic says what is alarming is the scale and speed with which the disease is spreading.
“Right now, since the beginning of the outbreak until now, we already have one-third of the number of cases that we had last year,” said Jasarevic. “And already last year was the biggest Lassa fever outbreak. So, basically, we are seeing more cases than usual.”
Nigeria declared an outbreak on January 22. The disease so far has affected 16 states. The Nigeria Center for Disease Control confirms 213 cases, including 42 deaths in what is seen as the largest outbreak in West Africa.
While Nigeria is the source of the most anxiety, WHO reports a total of 12 cases, including two deaths have been confirmed in Benin, Guinea, Liberia and Togo, with more suspected cases being investigated.
Jasarevic says the Lassa fever season is expected to last another four months. He tells VOA it is crucial that communities take certain preventive hygienic measures.
“For example, to store grain and other food in rodent-proof containers, disposing of garbage far from their home, maintaining clean households and keeping cats,” said Jasarevic. “Because this particular type of rat is abundant in endemic areas, it is not really possible to completely eliminate them from the environment.”
Jasarevic says the WHO is intensifying its technical assistance, enhancing surveillance, and mobilizing experts to the region to support case management and infection prevention and control. He says the agency is also supporting prevention and readiness activities in six other countries at risk of outbreaks.
Rainwater is essential for life.
It helps plants and food crops flourish, and it keeps grasslands green and lush.
But too much of it, especially in the city, can lead to flooding, causing sewers to overflow and carry pollutants and contaminants to nearby streams and waterways.
To combat the problem in urban areas of the country, a growing number of cities across the U.S. are initiating programs like rooftop gardens.
A labor of love
To help with that initiative in the nation’s capital, a team at the University of the District of Columbia has created a rooftop garden on campus with a wide variety of vegetation to help absorb excess rainwater and grow food at the same time.
Architect David Bell, who designed five “green roofs” on the campus, says he’s excited about the project because “it meant doing something more than just dealing with storm water management.”
“It took advantage of a resource above the city that you see all over where you have these flat roofs that aren’t doing anything and really made it into something that was about urban agriculture,” he said.
Rainwater is distributed through an irrigation system and collected in cisterns for the rooftop garden. It is also used in other parts of the campus.
The result is a picturesque sea of green vegetation and patches of brightly colored plants and flowers that attract pollinating insects and other wild creatures.
Urban agriculture
“In an urban environment, you don’t have that many spaces to choose from, and so rooftops are just unutilized space,” said Caitlin Arlotta, a graduate student in the school’s Urban Agriculture program. “So it’s a really good way to not have to restructure your city necessarily and be able to incorporate green roofs.”
The project, she points out, is part of a research initiative to see which plants are best suited for rooftop environments, both for food as well as pollination. They include hibiscus, strawberries, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.
“We have the same experiment running with tomatoes as we do with strawberries, so we’re doing variety trials and we’re trying to see which variety grows the best in a green roof setting,” she said.
A community affair
She pointed out that plants grow in a variety of different systems on campus, not just on the rooftop.
“We have a hydroponic experiment, aquaponics experiment, we have a couple of bucket experiments going on with partner rooftops, and then we also have our own farm experiments,” Arlotta said. “Within each of those growing systems, we want to be able to tell people which varieties of these crops grow the best.”
A main goal of the program she explained, is to have “food justice.”
“So bringing fresh food into cities where you wouldn’t necessarily have that access,” she said.
And that includes produce for immigrant members of the community as well.
“In the U.S., it may not seem very common to use hibiscus leaves and sweet potato leaves as food, but in many places around the world it is,” Arlotta said.
An excess of riches
Sandy Farber Bandier coordinates UDC’s Master Gardener program, which seeks to “enhance the ecological health and aesthetics of urban environments by training District of Columbia residents to become Master Gardeners.”
She says she’s been surprised by the garden’s bountiful harvest.
“We produced 4,250 pounds (about 1,928 kilos) of produce the first year and were able to disseminate that to people in need,” she said.
Grateful recipients included a number of area food banks and charities.
Spreading the wealth
Another benefit, Bandier says, was being able to show D.C. residents and people beyond the nation’s capital what — and how — food can be grown on a rooftop.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” she said. “This is the future for food. What we have established here at this college is the food hub concept: you grow it here, you prepare it in a commercial kitchen, you distribute through farmers markets, food trucks, and then you recycle, you recycle, you compost.”
While D.C. is home to one of the largest numbers of green roofs in the country, not all of them are designed to grow food. Architect David Bell hopes that over time, that will change.
“I’d like to see this becoming more of the standard, where people design and build buildings with farming on the roof, with the ability to actually go up there and enjoy it and have a better connection to nature, but also to provide better fresh food to people in urban areas,” he said.
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The National Institutes of Health is investigating whether a dozen researchers there failed to report taking funding from foreign governments, specifically China.
Last August, NIH sent a letter to more than 10,000 research institutions urging them to ensure that NIH grantees are properly reporting their foreign ties. The agency also said it is investigating about a half-dozen cases in which NIH-funded investigators may have broken reporting rules, and it reminded researchers who review grant applications that they should not share proposal information with outsiders.
NIH is also getting pressure from Congress.
Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, last month requested the NIH Inspector General’s office investigate “threats posed by foreign actors seeking to steal U.S. intellectual property by exploiting U.S. research institutions and the vetting processes in place regarding researchers and public grants [supported] by taxpayer-funded research.”
“The threats to our academic institutions from foreign governments are well known,” Grassley wrote. “Our government must take all reasonable and necessary steps to protect the integrity of taxpayer-funded research.”
Grassley inquired about the background checks of the researchers conducted by the FBI, as well, asking if “federal law enforcement has taken to educate various government agencies and institutions of higher learning about the threat and a history of investigatory and prosecutorial steps taken by the department in the last five years.”
The senator pointed to testimony in December 2018 from Justice Department witness John Demers, who testified that some “researchers in labs, universities, and the defense industrial base … may have undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions and conflicted loyalties.”
In February 2018, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about worldwide threats that the Chinese are “exploiting” and “taking advantage” of our academic institutions.
The same month, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio wrote to four Florida universities imploring them to sever their relationship with “Confucius Institutes,” or language and cultural programs sponsored by the Chinese government, and in the past few years, accused of spreading Chinese propaganda.
“There is mounting concern about the Chinese government’s increasingly aggressive attempts to use Confucius Institutes … to influence foreign academic institutions, and critical analysis of China’s past history and present policies,” Rubio wrote.
Several educational institutions have severed ties with “Confucius Institutes” in their countries, including France, Japan, Germany, Canada and Australia. In 2014, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) published a statement titled “Confucius Institutes Threaten Academic Freedom.”
“Confucius Institutes function as an arm of the Chinese state and are allowed to ignore academic freedom,” AAUP wrote.
Grassley’s correspondence cited recent convictions of Chinese nationals who have stolen research from American universities.
“In simple terms, it’s called cheating,” Grassley wrote. “And it’s only getting worse.”
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