Scientists at New York University have untangled what they believe is the mystery behind the graying of hair. The discovery offers hope to individuals who spend considerable time and money at hair salons to ward off this evidence of aging, but hair colorists say they don’t think they will be put out of business. Aron Ranen reports from New York City.
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Day: April 27, 2023
The first thing 11-year-old Mia Rodriguez says she did with her new prosthetic hands was draw a picture of a kitten.
The Uruguayan girl, whose fingers never fully developed, put on the prosthetic hands and demonstrated the grasping movement she can now make.
“Now I can hold the pencil with one hand. Before, I had to do it with both hands because my fist wouldn’t close,” she said, while her mother, Ana Van López, watched excitedly.
Rodriguez received the prostheses from the Uruguayan Manos de Heroes foundation, which designs and prints hands and arms with 3D technology for children and adults across the South American country.
Since 2020, the foundation has provided more than 100 free prostheses, most of them for families in vulnerable situations.
Van Lopez, 28, lives with her partner and their four children in an abandoned factory in Salinas, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Montevideo, and her income comes from informal work such as selling firewood or pineapples. The family has a monthly income of about $200, or 8,000 pesos.
“I am very grateful; I thought my daughter was the only one with this problem. She had never come across someone like her in the hospital or on the street. It’s very difficult for us,” said Lopez, who is trying to obtain a state disability benefit for the girl equivalent to a little more than $380, or 15,000 pesos a month. In addition, they receive a similar amount of state support, she said.
Almost 16% of the Uruguayan population registers some level of disability, the majority mild, according to a 2011 census by the National Statistics Institute.
Rodriguez’s prosthetic hands move with threads that are taut from the motion of her wrists. They are violet with pink, colors she said she chose because they go well together, and are decorated with unicorn decals. Other children prefer the colors of their favorite soccer club or superhero.
The prostheses can be mechanical or electronic. They are placed on the hands, forearm, elbow or shoulder, according to the needs of each person.
Designing a hand, printing it and putting it together takes a couple of weeks, said Andrea Cukerman, an electrical engineer and founder of Manos de Heroes, or Hands of Heroes.
The prostheses are free, and the foundation is financed with contributions from private companies and donations. In Europe, a prosthetic hand with much more advanced technology can cost as much as $100,000, the foundation said.
On one of the walls of the foundation’s office there are photos of children and adults who have received prostheses. The images show children striking poses with hands and arms in vibrant colors — orange, green — or like those of Spider-Man.
“The idea is that they don’t feel alone,” Cukerman said.
The photos of adults are more subdued; most of their prostheses imitate the color and details of the skin.
Cukerman shows the prostheses she is currently printing: the arm of an adult who had an accident.
The day of the test, Rodriguez kept looking at everything in front of her, Cukerman recalled.
“When we showed her her hands, her face lit up, her big eyes, she hardly spoke,” she said.
They explained how the prosthetic hands worked, what movement she had to make to open and close her fist, and warned that some adjustments might have to be made.
Rodriguez put her hands on and began to try movements.
“It took a few seconds; they were perfect,” said her mother.
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Jerry Springer, the onetime mayor and news anchor whose namesake TV show featured a three-ring circus of dysfunctional families willing to bare all on weekday afternoons including brawls, obscenities and blurred images of nudity, died Thursday at 79.
At its peak, “The Jerry Springer Show” was a ratings powerhouse and a U.S. cultural pariah, synonymous with lurid drama. Known for chair-throwing and bleep-filled arguments, the daytime talk show was a favorite American guilty pleasure over its 27-year run, at one point topping Oprah Winfrey’s show.
Springer called it “escapist entertainment,” while others saw the show as contributing to a dumbing-down decline in American social values.
“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” said Jene Galvin, a family spokesperson and friend of Springer’s since 1970, in a statement. “He’s irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”
Springer died peacefully at home in suburban Chicago after a brief illness, the statement said
On his Twitter profile, Springer jokingly declared himself as “Talk show host, ringmaster of civilization’s end.” He also often had told people, tongue in cheek, that his wish for them was “may you never be on my show.”
After more than 4,000 episodes, the show ended in 2018, never straying from its core salaciousness: Some of its last episodes had such titles as “Stripper Sex Turned Me Straight,” “Stop Pimpin’ My Twin Sister,” and “Hooking Up With My Therapist.”
In a “Too Hot For TV” video released as his daily show neared 7 million viewers in the late 1990s, Springer offered a defense against disgust.
“Look, television does not and must not create values, it’s merely a picture of all that’s out there — the good, the bad, the ugly,” Springer said, adding: “Believe this: The politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be.”
He also contended that the people on his show volunteered to be subjected to whatever ridicule or humiliation awaited them.
Gerald Norman Springer was born Feb. 13, 1944, in a London underground railway station being used as a bomb shelter. His parents, Richard and Margot, were German Jews who fled to England during the Holocaust, in which other relatives were killed in Nazi gas chambers. They arrived in the United States when their son was 5 and settled in the Queens borough of New York City, where Springer got his first Yankees baseball gear on his way to becoming a lifelong fan.
He studied political science at Tulane University and got a law degree from Northwestern University. He was active in politics much of his adult life, mulling a run for governor of Ohio as recently as 2017.
He entered the arena as an aide in Robert F. Kennedy’s ill-fated 1968 presidential campaign. Springer, working for a Cincinnati law firm, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970 before being elected to city council in 1971.
In 1974 — in what The Cincinnati Enquirer reported as “an abrupt move that shook Cincinnati’s political community” — Springer resigned. He cited “very personal family considerations,” but what he didn’t mention was a vice probe involving prostitution. In a subsequent admission that could have been the basis for one of his future shows, Springer said he had paid prostitutes with personal checks.
Then 30, he had married Micki Velton the previous year. The couple had a daughter, Katie, and divorced in 1994.
Springer quickly bounced back politically, winning a council seat in 1975 and serving as mayor in 1977. He later became a local television politics reporter with popular evening commentaries. He and co-anchor Norma Rashid eventually helped build NBC affiliate WLWT-TV’s broadcast into the Cincinnati market’s top-rated news show.
Springer began his talk show in 1991 with more of a traditional format, but after he left WLWT in 1993, it got a sleazy makeover.
TV Guide ranked it No. 1 on a list of “Worst Shows in the History of Television,” but it was ratings gold. It made Springer a celebrity who would go on to host a liberal radio talk show and “America’s Got Talent,” star in a movie called “Ringmaster,” and compete on “Dancing With the Stars.”
“With all the joking I do with the show, I’m fully aware and thank God every day that my life has taken this incredible turn because of this silly show,” Springer told Cincinnati Enquirer media reporter John Kiesewetter in 2011.
Well in advance of Donald Trump’s political rise from reality TV stardom, Springer mulled a Senate run in 2003 that he surmised could draw on “nontraditional voters,” people “who believe most politics are bull.”
“I connect with a whole bunch of people who probably connect more to me right now than to a traditional politician,” Springer told the AP at the time. He opposed the war on Iraq and favored expanding public healthcare, but ultimately did not run.
Springer also spoke often of the country he came to age 5 as “a beacon of light for the rest of world.”
“I have no other motivation but to say I love this country,” Springer said to a Democratic gathering in 2003.
Springer hosted a nationally syndicated “Judge Jerry” show in 2019 and continued to speak out on whatever was on his mind in a podcast, but his power to shock had dimmed in the new era of reality television and combative cable TV talk shows.
“He was lapped not only by other programs but by real life,” David Bianculli, a television historian and professor at Monmouth University, said in 2018.
Despite the limits Springer’s show put on his political aspirations, he embraced its legacy. In a 2003 fund-raising infomercial ahead of a possible U.S. Senate run the following year, Springer referenced a quote by then National Review commentator Jonah Goldberg, who warned of new people brought to the polls by Springer, including “slack-jawed yokels, hicks, weirdos, pervs and whatnots.”
In the informercial, Springer referred to the quote and talked about wanting to reach out to “regular folks … who weren’t born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”
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U.S. cigarette smoking dropped to another all-time low last year, with 1 in 9 adults saying they were current smokers, according to government survey data released Thursday. Meanwhile, electronic cigarette use rose, to about 1 in 17 adults.
The preliminary findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are based on survey responses from more than 27,000 adults.
Cigarette smoking is a risk factor for lung cancer, heart disease and stroke, and it’s long been considered the leading cause of preventable death.
In the mid-1960s, 42% of U.S. adults were smokers. The rate has been gradually dropping for decades, due to cigarette taxes, tobacco product price hikes, smoking bans and changes in the social acceptability of lighting up in public.
Last year, the percentage of adult smokers dropped to about 11%, down from about 12.5% in 2020 and 2021. The survey findings sometimes are revised after further analysis, and CDC is expected to release final 2021 data soon.
E-cigarette use rose to nearly 6% last year, from about 4.5% the year before, according to survey data.
The rise in e-cigarette use concerns Dr. Jonathan Samet, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health. Nicotine addiction has its own health implications, including risk of high blood pressure and a narrowing of the arteries, according to the American Heart Association.
“I think that smoking will continue to ebb downwards, but whether the prevalence of nicotine addiction will drop, given the rise of electronic products, is not clear,” said Samet, who has been a contributing author to U.S. Surgeon General reports on smoking and health for almost four decades.
Smoking and vaping rates are almost reversed for teens. Only about 2% of high school students were smoking traditional cigarettes last year, but about 14% were using e-cigarettes, according to other CDC data.
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From discussing nuclear war to belting out a beloved hit: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s White House visit ended on a high note when he sang Don McLean’s “American Pie” to great applause.
Yoon is on a six-day state visit to Washington, where he discussed with U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday “the end” of any North Korean regime that used nuclear weapons against the allies.
But the two leaders had more cheerful topics on the agenda at the White House state dinner in Yoon’s honor later that day, with the South Korean leader — who is known at home to be something of a karaoke buff — sharing his love of American music.
“We know this is one of your favorite songs, ‘American Pie,'” Biden said to Yoon, having pulled him up onto the stage at the end of the evening to listen to singers perform the classic.
“Yes, that’s true,” the 62-year-old Yoon admitted, saying that he had loved the Don McLean song, released in 1971, since he was at school.
“We want to hear you sing it,” said Biden.
“It’s been a while but…” Yoon responded, offering only token resistance as he took the microphone.
Yoon belted out the first few lines of the song a cappella, triggering rapturous applause from the crowd and delighting Biden and the First Lady.
“The next state dinner we’re going to have, you’re looking at the entertainment,” Biden told the crowd, referring to Yoon.
Then he turned to the South Korean president and said: “I had no damn idea you could sing.”
Biden told Yoon that McLean could not be at the White House to join them but had sent a signed guitar, which the U.S. president gave to the South Korean leader.
“Yoon literally tore up the stage and White House!” one Twitter user wrote in Korean in reply to a video of the president singing.
“Yoon has revealed his hidden singing talent,” another commenter wrote, also in Korean, resharing the video.
It is not Yoon’s first time singing in public.
On the campaign trail in 2021, he appeared on the famous South Korean TV show “All the Butlers”, wowing its celebrity hosts with a sparkling rendition of the K-pop ballad “No One Else” by Lee Seung-chul.
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Actor Angelina Jolie, home improvement duo Chip and Joanna Gaines and Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim headlined the list of big names from politics, business, sports and entertainment glamming up a fancy black-tie dinner that U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Wednesday for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Broadway’s Lea Salonga, one of the night’s entertainers, confessed as she arrived that she was “freaking out” over the whole experience, allowing, “It feels like being in the middle of a fairy tale.” Kim, for her part, served up a classic understatement as she strolled in, telling reporters, ”I heard the food’s going to be very good.” Jolie wasn’t inclined to chat as she arrived in a vintage Chanel jacket and a flowing cream gown, but her date, 21-year-old son Maddox, at least offered that his favorite thing about Seoul was “the people.”
A smattering of politicians made the guest list, too, and most were determinedly on message, talking a lot of shop. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., held forth on infrastructure, debt reduction and the budget. Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., talked abortion rights. Former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker, a big Democratic donor from Illinois, talked up plans for the Democratic convention in Chicago in 2024, promising, “of course” it will go well.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, proudly showed off her traditional hanbok gown, saying it was important to showcase cultural diversity. She added that the big challenge was “not to trip over it.”
Also among the nearly 200 guests were Arthur Blank, a co-founder of Home Depot; Pachinko author Min Jin Lee; and former Major League Baseball pitcher Chan Ho Park. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah also attended, as did the governors of Delaware, New Jersey and Vermont.
On a perfect spring evening, guests entered the White House by strolling through the Jacqueline Kennedy garden in the East Wing and being directed to a cocktail reception before dinner in the East Room, where tables were topped with towering centerpieces of cherry tree boughs in full bloom. On the menu: crabcakes, beef ribs and banana splits.
While most guests were strolling in through the garden, Biden and wife Jill welcomed Yoon and wife Kim Keon Hee on a red carpet on the steps of the North Portico, where the president flashed a thumbs-up for the assembled cameras. Kim wore a cream-colored jacket over her gown, which was also creamy. Jill Biden wore a mauve sheath gown by Reem Acra.
In their toasts before dinner, President Biden said he believed Yoon’s visit had “brought two nations even closer together.”
Yoon, for his part, nodded to Biden’s Irish heritage and love of Irish poets.
“There’s an old saying, and Mr. President, this one is also Irish, that goes: A good friend is like a four-leaf clover, hard to find and lucky to have,” Yoon said, offering a toast to our “ironclad alliance.”
A state visit, including an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn and a sparkly state dinner, is the highest diplomatic honor the U.S. bestows on its closest allies. Yoon was visiting as the U.S. and South Korea mark the 70th year of an alliance that began at the end of the Korean War and committed the U.S. to help South Korea defend itself, particularly from North Korea. Approximately 28,500 U.S. troops are currently based in South Korea.
Biden’s first invitation for a state visit went to France last year and President Emmanuel Macron was toasted at a black-tie dinner last December with more than 300 guests inside a heated pavilion erected on the south grounds of the White House.
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Artificial intelligence, or AI, could potentially transform arts and entertainment, from music to movies, but it is also raising concerns. Is AI a creative tool or a threat to creators and artists? VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan examines the question.
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