Month: January 2018

Three USA Gymnastics board members resigned on Monday in the wake of its former team physician sexually abusing female gymnasts, a step the organization said would support its reform efforts.

USA Gymnastics has been criticized by several of the sport’s top gymnasts during the sentencing hearing of former team doctor Larry Nassar who pleaded guilty in November to 10 counts of molesting female gymnasts. About 160 victims were expected to make statements in Ingham County Circuit Court in Lansing, Michigan.

The resignations include the board chairman Paul Parilla, vice chairman Jay Binder and treasurer Bitsy Kelley, who comprise the gymnastics governing body’s executive leadership team, USA Gymnastics said in a statement.

“We believe this step will allow us to more effectively move forward in implementing change within our organization,” the body said.

“We remain focused on working every day to ensure that our culture, policies and actions reflect our commitment to those we serve,” it said. Prosecutors have asked for a sentence of 40 to 125 years for Nassar, 54, who was also a prominent physician at a Michigan State University sports clinic. Nassar is already serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison on child pornography convictions.

On Thursday, USA Gymnastics terminated its agreement with the Karolyi Ranch in Huntsville, Texas, where a number of top gymnasts said they were victims of Nassar’s sexual abuse. The facility had been used for regular training camps.

Last March, USA Gymnastics President and Chief Executive Steve Penny resigned as the organization was criticized for how it handled complaints about Nassar.

On Friday, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman blasted U.S. gymnastics officials for failing to protect her and other women from years of sexual abuse, calling the governing body “rotten from the inside.”

Raisman, co-captain of the U.S. women’s gymnastics squad at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games, called for an independent investigation into U.S. gymnastics and Olympic officials who she said had the power to stop Nassar.

“It’s clear now that if we leave it up to these organizations, history is likely to repeat itself,” Raisman, 23, said, referring to USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee.

USA Gymnastics also said in the Monday statement it will work to promote athlete safety and prevent future abuse by adopting and enforcing its new “safe sport” policy that more clearly defines misconduct and prevents inappropriate interaction.
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Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, winner of the National Book Award for fiction, is now a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle prize.

Other finalists announced Monday include Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West for fiction, Roxane Gay’s Hunger for autobiography and Masha Gessen’s The Future is History, winner of the National Book Award for nonfiction. The celebrated author-journalist John McPhee will receive a lifetime achievement award and Carmen Maria Machado, author of the story collection Her Body and Other Parties, will be honored for best debut book. The author-critic Charles Finch will receive a citation for “excellence in reviewing.”

The critics circle chose five nominees in each of six competitive categories: fiction, nonfiction, autobiography, biography, poetry and criticism. Winners will be announced March 15.

Fiction nominees besides Ward’s haunting story of family and race in the American South include Hamid’s best-selling tale of young lovers who become refugees, Exit West; Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour; Joan Silber’s Improvement and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, her first novel since winning the Booker Prize in 1997 for The God of Small of Things.

Besides Gessen, nonfiction nominees were Jack E. Davis for Gulf: The Making of An American Sea, Frances FitzGerald for The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America, Kapka Kassabova for Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe and Adam Rutherford for A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes.

In biography, the finalists were Caroline Fraser’s Prairie Fires, Edmund Gordon’s The Invention of Angela Carter: A Biography, Howard Markel’s The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek, William Taubman’s Gorbachev: His Life and Times and Kenneth Whyte’s Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times.

Autobiography finalists besides Gay’s Hunger were Thi Bui’s An Illustrated Memoir, Henry Marsh’s Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon, Ludmilla Petrushevskay’s The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing Up in Communist Russia and Xiaolu Guo’s Nine Continents: A Memoir In and Out of China.

In poetry, the nominees were Nuar Alsadir for Fourth Person Singular, James Longenbach for Earthling, Layli Long Soldier for Whereas, Frank Ormsby for The Darkness of Snow and Ana Ristovic for Directions for Use.

Edwidge Danticat, a prize-winning novelist and memoir writer, is a finalist in criticism for The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story. The poet Kevin Young is also a criticism nominee for Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News. The others cited were Carina Chocano for You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages, Camille T. Dungy for Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood, and History and Valeria Luiselli for Tell Me How it Ends.

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is comprised of around 1,000 critics and book review editors.
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Kid Rock has donated about $122,000 from sales of merchandise promoting his potential U.S. Senate campaign to a voter-registration organization.

 

The Detroit-area rocker, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, teased the public for months. At a September concert, he was introduced as Michigan’s “next senator.”  In October, he confirmed he wasn’t running.

 

Kid Rock’s publicist, Jay Jones, said in an email to The Detroit News that money raised from political merchandise was sent to CRNC Action, an affiliate of the College Republican National Committee that did voter-registration work last summer at Kid Rock concerts.

 

Ted Dooley, president of CRNC Action, says the donation was made in December. He says registering voters at the concerts was “pretty much like other voter registration work we do… except a lot more fun.”
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The New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles have advanced to the National Football League’s Super Bowl after winning their respective conference championship games Sunday.

In the American Football Conference championship, the underdog Jacksonville Jaguars led for much of the game, including holding a 20-10 advantage with nine minutes left to play.

But New England quarterback Tom Brady responded with two touchdown passes, both to receiver Danny Amendola, to bring the Patriots back for the 24-20 win.

“Yeah, we played a lot better in the second half,” Brady said. “We just couldn’t get the drives going, and obviously weren’t very good on third down and just got into a little tempo stuff in the second half and played a little bit better. So, it was a great win. Happy for our team and just a great, great game.”

There was far less drama in the National Football Conference championship with the Eagles soundly defeating the Minnesota Vikings 38-7.

The Vikings scored their lone touchdown on the first drive of the game, but were outmatched from there as Eagles quarterback Nick Foles threw three touchdown passes to deny Minnesota the chance of playing essentially a home game in the Super Bowl.

The game will be played February 4 in Minneapolis. 

Oddsmakers have put New England as the favorite to win its second consecutive Super Bowl and its third in a span of four years. Philadelphia has never won a Super Bowl, losing twice, including to New England in 2005.
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Women and inclusivity continued to dominate the awards season conversation Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards, where Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical romance The Shape of Water won the top award and honorees like Jordan Peele and Ava DuVernay gave rousing speeches to the room of entertainment industry leaders.

The untelevised dinner and ceremony, held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., is closely watched for its capacity to predict the eventual Oscar best picture winner, but this year the “awards race” seemed to be the secondary show to the more urgent questions facing the industry, including the crisis of representation and sexual misconduct.

The Producers Guild on Friday ratified guidelines for combating sexual harassment in the entertainment industry, and everyone from DuVernay to Universal Chair Donna Langley and television mogul Ryan Murphy made mention of the changing times and the work that still needs to be done.

“If we want more brilliant films like Get Out … we need to have many different perspectives including equal numbers of women, people of color, people of all faiths and sexual orientation involved in every stage of filmmaking,” Langley said in accepting the Milestone Award, noting that she was only the third woman to do so.

It was not the only time Get Out got a special mention, despite not winning the top award. Peele also won the Stanley Kramer Award.

Del Toro was not present to accept the PGA’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures, due to the health of his father.

His film was up against 10 others this year, including Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won big at the Golden Globes earlier this month, Lady Bird, Get Out, Dunkirk, The Post, Call Me By Your Name, The Big Sick, I, Tonya Wonder Woman and Molly’s Game — many of which were represented by actors and directors in attendance, such as Timothee Chalamet, Christopher Nolan, Margot Robbie, Patty Jenkins and Greta Gerwig.

In television, The Handmaids Tale picked up best drama series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel won best comedy series, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver won best TV variety series, Black Mirror for long-form TV, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath for nonfiction television, Sesame Street for children’s program and Carpool Karaoke for best short-form program.

The pre-announced honorees stole most of the show, however.

Norman Lear presented the Stanley Kramer Award to Peele invoking the award’s namesake in speaking of Get Out, which Lear proudly said he’s seen three times.

Peele said he was proud to call Lear a friend.

“I want to say, you can use my body for your brain anytime,” Peele laughed, before taking a more serious turn in his speech.

Peele likened the idea of “the sunken place” in the film to what is happening in the world right now, referencing Haiti, the water crisis in Flint, and President Donald Trump’s criticisms of athletes for protesting on the field.

“What really scares me … is the silencing of voices,” Peele said “Get Out is my protest against that.”

Peele ended on a hopeful note, however.

“Finally unique voices are breaking through,” he said. “Diverse and honest storytelling opens eyes and hearts. We can break out of the sunken place together.”

​Selma and A Wrinkle in Time director Ava DuVernay gave a similarly poignant speech in accepting the Visionary Award,

“It’s an odd moment, you have a women’s march and you have a country with a government shut down,” DuVernay said. “We’re in the midst of times that will be long remembered.”

DuVernay said what is important is, “The way we work. The people we actually choose to see. That we choose to amplify in the moments where no one is looking.”

“Don’t think of diversity as a good thing to do,” she added. “Think of it as a must. An absolute must.”
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Bobsled and Nigeria are not two words typically used in the same sentence. But soon they will be heard together often. Bobsledders Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga will not be heading to February’s Winter Olympic Games just to be a “feel good” side story. They say they want to win something they can bring back to West Africa. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports on the historic participation of the Nigerian bobsledding team in this year’s games.
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Afghanistan’s arts and architecture were once the pride of Asia. However, more than four decades of war have left many of the country’s traditional crafts on the verge of extinction. Now a Britain-based organization, Turquoise Mountain, is working to preserve Afghan heritage in the capital’s still surviving commercial district, Murad Khani. VOA Deewa service’s Munaza Shaheed reports from a recent trip to Kabul.
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Tom Petty died last year of an accidental drug overdose that his family said occurred the same day he found out his hip was broken. He had just finished a string of dozens of shows with a less serious injury.

His wife and daughter released the results of Petty’s autopsy via a statement Friday on his Facebook page, moments before coroner’s officials in Los Angeles released their findings and the rocker’s full autopsy report. Dana and Adria Petty say they got the results from the coroner’s office earlier in the day that the overdose was the result of a variety of medications.

Fentanyl among drugs

The coroner’s findings showed Petty had a mix of prescription painkillers, sedatives and an antidepressant. Among the medications found in his system were fentanyl and oxycodone. An accidental overdose of fentanyl was also determined to have killed Prince in April 2016.

Petty suffered from emphysema, a fractured hip and knee problems that caused him pain, the family said, but he was still committed to touring.

He had just wrapped up a tour a few days before he died in October at age 66.

“On the day he died he was informed his hip had graduated to a full-on break and it is our feeling that the pain was simply unbearable and was the cause for his overuse of medication,” his family’s statement said, adding that he performed more than 50 concerts with a fractured hip.

The family said Petty had been prescribed various pain medications for his multitude of issues, including fentanyl patches, and “we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident.”

They added: “As a family we recognize this report may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that it is a healthy and necessary discussion and we hope in some way this report can save lives. Many people who overdose begin with a legitimate injury or simply do not understand the potency and deadly nature of these medications.”

Common prescriptions

Painkillers and sedatives are among the most commonly prescribed medications in the U.S., but both drug types slow users’ heart rate and breathing. The Food and Drug Administration has warned against mixing them because the combination can lead to breathing problems, coma and death.

Government figures released in December showed that for the first time, the powerful painkiller fentanyl and its close opioid cousins played a bigger role in the deaths than any other legal or illegal drug, surpassing prescription pain pills and heroin.

Petty was a rock superstar with the persona of an everyman who drew upon the Byrds, Beatles and other bands he worshipped as a boy in Gainesville, Florida. He produced classics that include Free Fallin’, Refugee and American Girl. He and his longtime band the Heartbreakers had recently completed a 40th-anniversary tour, one he hinted would be their last.

The shaggy-haired blond rose to success in the 1970s and went on to sell more than 80 million records. He was loved for his melodic hard rock, nasally vocals and down-to-earth style. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Petty and the Heartbreakers in 2002, praised them as “durable, resourceful, hard-working, likable and unpretentious.”
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