Month: July 2018

CBS said Friday it is investigating sexual misconduct allegations against Les Moonves, the company’s 68-year-old chairman and CEO.

The claims were detailed Friday on the website of The New Yorker magazine in an article written by Ronan Farrow.

Farrow won a Pulitzer Prize last year for an article in the same magazine about the sexual allegations against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In his latest article, Farrow said that he interviewed six women who said they had been sexually harassed by Moonves between the 1980s and the late 2000s.

“Four described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings,” he wrote. “Two told me that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers.”

All of them, Farrow said, continue to fear “speaking out would lead to retaliation from Moonves, who is known in the industry for his ability to make or break careers.”

Janet Jones, a writer, told Farrow that Moonves “has gotten away with it for decades.” She said she had to push Moonves off of her after he “forcibly kissed” her at a work meeting.

Moonves said in a statement published in The New Yorker: “I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely. … I have never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone’s career…”

Farrow said 30 current and former CBS employees told him that the sexual misconduct allegations at CBS include not only Moonves, but also extend “to important parts of the corporation, including CBS News and 60 Minutes, one of the network’s most esteemed programs.”

Under Moonves, Farrow wrote, “men at CBS News who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.”

Last year, Moonves was one of the founders of Hollywood’s Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, chaired by Anita Hill.

Moonves’ wife, a CBS TV producer and personality, Julie Chen, said on Twitter:

​
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Carrie Fisher is not done with Star Wars after all. Lucasfilm says unreleased footage of the actress will be used in the next installment of the science fiction saga to draw her character’s story to an end.

The studio and writer-director J.J. Abrams announced Friday that footage of Fisher shot for 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be used in the ninth film in the space opera’s core trilogies about the Skywalker family that includes Fisher’s character, Leia. 

Filming is scheduled to begin Wednesday at London’s Pinewood Studios.

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, will also appear in the film, which for the moment is simply called Episode IX. It is scheduled to be released in December 2019.

Fisher died in December 2016 after she finished work on the middle installment in the trilogy, The Last Jedi. Director Rian Johnson opted not to alter her storyline, leaving Leia’s fate to be handled by Abrams.

“We desperately loved Carrie Fisher,” Abrams said in a statement. “Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us.”

He said recasting Fisher or re-creating her using computer graphics, as was done in a spinoff film, Rogue One, was not an option.

“With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII,” Abrams said.

Friday’s announcement also confirmed that Billy Dee Williams will be returning to the franchise as Lando Calrissian, a hero of the rebellion who hasn’t been seen in the latest trilogy.
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How late is too late to become a mother? Actress Brigitte Nielsen has had her fifth child at 54, reopening debate on the growing number of women using IVF to have babies later in life.

Fertility experts say the average age of mothers is steadily rising across the world, with women increasingly turning to fertility treatments to extend their childbearing years.

Some have renewed calls for women to prioritize having children in their younger and more fertile years, but others said health providers needed to take into account the pressures that led women to put off starting a family.

“We should trust women to make this decision for themselves,” Katherine O’Brien, head of policy research at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a charity.

“What we need is a health care service that supports their decisions rather than trying to cajole women into children at a time that’s not right for them,” she told Reuters.

Nielsen said she conceived using eggs she had frozen in her 40s, an increasingly popular choice among women seeking to extend their fertile years.

Given that the quantity and quality of eggs declines with age, most women trying to conceive in their mid-40s or above would be advised to consider using donor eggs taken from a younger woman.

A recent analysis of fertility treatments in 1,279 institutions across Europe found almost a third of births through egg donation in 2014 were to women aged 40 or older.

One Indian woman thought to be in her 70s gave birth last year using a donor egg, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a case that promoted debate over the ethics of older women using treatment to conceive.

“There is a global trend for women choosing to have their children later in life,” said Richard Kennedy, the president of the International Federation of Fertility Societies.

“Certainly, in the UK and western Europe it’s personal choices: It’s lifestyle, it’s women pursuing their professions and [they] are making lifestyle choices to delay having families to until their late 30s or early 40s,” he said.

Kennedy said pregnancies of women in their 50s or older “is not something that should necessarily be encouraged,” citing the heightened risks of cardiac and other health problems during pregnancy.

“I think that women should be conscious of their fertility,” he added. “A woman should be encouraged to consider that when she is making decisions around her career and personal life.”

O’Brien, however, said much of the debate around fertility “just ignores the reality of women’s lives.”

She pointed to research by BPAS that found women were aware that fertility declined with age, but were often waiting to have children for practical reasons — such as concern over their financial stability or the impact on their careers.

“The fact that women are able to have children at that stage of their life should be celebrated,” she said. “All this finger-wagging is directed solely at women and that ignores that this is largely a decision taken by two people.”
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Whether it’s in movies, comic books or video games, fans say there is diversity in the superhero universe.

At the international Comic-Con convention that ended July 22, Emmeline Ye, a Chinese-American from San Diego, is dressed up in a Wonder Woman costume. She said her next costume will be of her favorite character in the video game, “Overwatch.”

“I appreciate that they put a Chinese character in that game, and the fact that she’s a scientist and she’s smart. She’s helping save the world,” Ye said.

For many African-American movie fans, the film “Black Panther,” released this year, was a milestone.

“When ‘Black Panther’ came out, I was so excited to see my future children have something to look up to,” said Shanice Souvenir, who also attended Comic-Con dressed as Princess Shuri of Wakanda, a character in the movie.

Diversity in comics

In recent years, superheroes in comic books and American popular culture have become increasingly diverse. But fans and creators say more work needs to be done, especially on the big screen, to fully represent American society.

“Print, I think, tends to be able to get away with that first and kind of test the waters,” said freelance comic book writer Vita Ayala.

University of Oregon director of comics and cartoon studies Ben Saunders agreed that initial risks can be taken with comics, a medium that can be more experimental than big-budget Hollywood films. But he said comic book superheroes have not always been so diverse.

“The initial wave of superheroes of the 1930s and ’40s was predominantly male and always exclusively white,” Saunders said.

Nonwhite characters at the time were stereotypes, said Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, granddaughter of Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founder of DC Comics.

“African-Americans were always drawn with big white lips, which is just horrible. And the Asian characters’ skin tone was usually yellow, which is just weird. And so, they were usually the menace. They were usually the evil bad guy,” she said.

​First nonwhite heroes

The first nonwhite superheroes did not quite look human and took the form of the green Hulk and The Thing, who is orange.

“The Hulk is readily sort of understandable as a kind of complicated allegory for race, as a sort of figure through ideas of monstrosity,” Saunders said.

In 1966, in the midst of the U.S. civil rights movement, Black Panther became the first black superhero in the Marvel universe, which Hollywood has embraced.

“We actually saw ‘Black Panther’ a couple of different times on opening day because it was so good,” said comics and pop culture fan Rosemary Matthew. “And we were really glad to see that something that was related to somebody that we could relate to was done really well.”

“Black Panther” opened strong in China, earning $66.5 million during the first three days in theaters. Reviews in China have been lukewarm.

“A lot of the times, I do hear that China doesn’t want to see black people or other people of color. Hollywood doesn’t think that diverse stories could sell overseas, so they make less of it, and they don’t give chances to diverse stories that could be good,” said Chinese-American Alice Mei Chi Li, who works as a freelance illustrator.

In May, Marvel released its first Chinese superheroes in print.

The Black Panther, the Hulk and other superheroes appear together in the latest Marvel film, “Avengers: Infinity War.” It has become Marvel’s most successful superhero movie in China and was granted a 30-day extended run.
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Tom Cruise’s latest action installment of Mission: Impossible Fallout follows operative Ethan Hunt, the daredevil spy, on an extremely perilous quest to save the world.

Cruise and the rest of the Mission: Impossible cast, along with the powerful visuals and the megastar’s mind-bending stunts, keep audiences on the edge of their seats for almost three hours.

The film starts with a dramatic failed operation in which Hunt, an operative of the fictional independent espionage agency “Impossible Mission Force” — or IMF — loses three plutonium bombs to the enemy. With nuclear devastation looming, Hunt teams again with field agents Benji and Luther, played by Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, to reclaim the missing bombs. They are not alone. The CIA’s deputy director, Erica Sloane, played by Angela Bassett, insists on sending along one of the agency’s own with Hunt’s team.

Enter CIA assassin August Walker, played by Henry Cavill, of DC Comics Superman fame. He portrays a large, powerfully built fighter and something of a wild card in the movie.

​Strong women

Rebecca Ferguson returns as operative Ilsa Faust, an antagonist and a love interest for Hunt, who more often than not, saves his life.

“Oh, I always save Tom’s life. I’m tired of saving Tom’s life, actually,” she joked during a red carpet event. 

Ferguson, smart and funny, told VOA how happy she’s been to work on the set with the rest of the cast in an action film that respects and elevates women. 

“They brought back incredible women and introduced women, who, all of them, have a character and a reason and a purpose for being in this film, and that’s gender equality,” she said.

Her feelings are echoed by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett.

“What my character brings to the movie is gravitas, her brilliance, her mystique, her strength, her integrity and her ability to play chess very well when she is being underestimated by those around her,” Bassett said. “But she also does not mistake her presence for the be-all and end-all. If she is right, she is right. And if she is wrong, she can admit that, too.”

Jaw-dropping stunts

From Europe to India, the action-packed film offers a tight storyline and a stellar cast, but the franchise’s secret weapon is Cruise himself, who performs his own jaw-dropping stunts — from a skydive 27,000 feet above ground, and a plane flying 167 miles per hour, to a vertical helicopter fall he himself is piloting.

He flashes his trademark smile when VOA asks him about his fearlessness. 

“I don’t know where it comes from,” Cruise said. “I just have a tremendous passion for what I do and I can’t stop unless I know it’s really there and it’s working.”

He describes his two greatest stunts on film. 

“Both of them are very intense,” he said. “On the helicopter, I spent a year and a half training, and I trained with aerobatic helicopter pilots. I’ve trained in airplanes before, I fly aerobatics in airplanes, but the airplanes are very different than helicopters, so I went through grueling training, and I did anything I could to make sure that I was as competent as possible.”

And for a good reason: his life depends on it. Co-star Ferguson recounts her terror when she saw Cruise fall during the helicopter stunts above New Zealand’s mountain peaks. 

“And I scream. I was terrified, absolutely terrified until he says, ‘That’s great, that’s a cut, we got that.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God! This is Mission. Phew!’ I’ve done some of the stunts, but nothing compares to what he does,” she added.

Cruise tells us he saved the most difficult stunt for last. He jumps off a C-17 military transport plane airplane. 

“It took over 106 jumps to get it. One-hundred-and-six jumps, and you know, we planned to be there for a week and ended up being there almost a month trying to get that sequence. It is significantly more challenging than I anticipated. I have to say, it was pretty exciting, too,” Cruise said.

So, how long does Cruise plan to keep going? And how can he keep outdoing his previous exploits? Smiling, he says, “As long as I can.”

Film’s value in story, characters

Mission: Impossible producer Jake Myers says that although it is stressful to watch Cruise do all these impossible feats, “We wouldn’t have the movies without them. But obviously there is a nail biter every time he does a stunt, so that’s what we are here for.”

Since Cruise assumed the role Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies, he has infused the franchise with extremely dangerous stunts that bring audiences to the theater. At this point everyone is wondering about the personal risks he takes. During the shooting of this installment, Cruise broke his ankle jumping out of a window and over a wall.

Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie does not hide his concern.

“Yes, I mean, when you look at what happened in this movie, when he broke his ankle when he was doing the simplest stunt. There are no small stunts. So, when you are doing a helicopter chase or you are jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet, it’s all pretty nerve-wracking,” McQuarrie said.

Stunts aside, the Oscar-winning filmmaker says that the film’s value lies in its unpredictable storyline and its complex and endearing characters. One of them is Pegg, who plays the witty, loyal but often skittish Benji.

“I think he is like the most kind of an audience member, Benji, that is why people relate to him,” Pegg said. “That is why sometimes he can be funny because he says the things we are thinking in these incredible situations, where the cool guys are just getting on with it, Benji is the one who asks ‘why are we doing this?’”

Mission: Impossible FALLOUT offers stellar cinematography, which as filmmaker McQuarrie says, was incredibly sophisticated based on the action he had to tape.

“It is very challenging, especially because you have an actor who is willing to do all those stunts,” he said. “It gives you the freedom to put the camera wherever you want and sometimes it is very challenging to find the right place to put it.”

Especially when his team had to capture the star fall from the sky just as the sun was setting. The efforts have not gone unrewarded. Critics are calling the movie one of this year’s best action films.
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Tom Cruise’s latest action installment of “Mission: Impossible FALLOUT” follows operative Ethan Hunt, the daredevil spy on a mission impossible to save the world. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with Cruise, inhabiting his character Ethan Hunt, along with the rest of the cast, about the powerful visuals and megastar’s mind-bending stunts that keep audiences on the edge of their seats for almost three hours.
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As American women seek a larger role in politics, fairer wages and an end to sexual harassment, the Girl Scouts see an opportune time to show some swagger in promoting their core mission: girl empowerment.

They recruited Queen Latifah to narrate a video featuring famous former Girl Scouts — Venus Williams, Katie Couric and many more. And they indulged in a little bragging when Girl Scout alumna Meghan Markle married into Britain’s royal family.

“Life is always better with a Girl Scout by your side, and Prince Harry truly hit the jackpot,” enthused a post on Girl Scout Blog.

But the marketing campaign is about more than boasting. It’s also an effort to confront several high-stakes challenges, including reversing a long slide in membership, making the case for all-girl scouting after the rival Boy Scouts included girls and updating the organization’s curriculum for a new generation that expects more than cookies and camping.

“What’s happening in society as a whole makes it all the more important for girls to have every possible opportunity to learn that their voice and opinion matter, and to have the courage and confidence to become who they want to be,” said Megan Ferland, CEO of the Seattle-based Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

One major challenge, she said, is to puncture some of the myths and stereotypes that affect public perceptions.

“People hear ‘Girl Scouts’ and think, ‘Oh, those cute little girls that sell the cookies and make macaroni necklaces’ and that’s it,” Ferland said. “It is so much more than that.”

She cited activities such as robotics and rock climbing, a strong emphasis on community service and the iconic cookie sales, which she depicted in a recent newspaper essay as “the largest girl-run business in the world.”

The Boy Scouts decided last year to admit girls into all programs. But the Girl Scouts’ parent organization, Girl Scouts of the USA, will not follow suit by admitting boys.

“I believe with full conviction that Girl Scouts is the best leadership organization in the world for girls, and that is because we are girl-led and girl-centric,” said Violet Apple, CEO of Girl Scouts of Central Maryland.

The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, as well as other youth organizations and sports leagues, have experienced membership declines in recent years, for reasons ranging from busy family schedules to the lure of online games and social media. The Girl Scouts say they now have about 1.76 million girls and 780,000 adult members — down from about 2.9 million girls and 900,000 adult volunteers in 2003.

Some recruitment efforts reflect the Girl Scouts’ pride in the diversity of their membership. For example, the organization over the past two years has created more than 240 new troops in low-income Los Angeles neighborhoods to serve several thousand girls from Hispanic, African-American, Korean and other communities.

Denise Nowack, who oversees the recruitment programs, said the Girl Scouts council in LA decided to cover basic first-year costs for the new troops, including membership fees and uniforms, to ease the financial burden.

Many other councils struggle to find enough adults to serve as volunteer troop leaders, leaving hundreds of girls on waiting lists.

“It’s really sad,” said Asha Menon, a troop leader for seven years in the Atlanta suburb of McDonough. “All these parents show up with kids who want to be in it — but they want another adult to take the lead.”

In Chicago, TV producer Craig Harris has tried — with minimal success — to persuade other men to join him as Girl Scout leaders. Harris started as a volunteer 14 years ago when his eldest daughter — now a confident college student — joined the Girl Scouts as a shy 5-year-old.

Harris’ 11-year-old daughter is active in the Girl Scouts, pursuing her interest in science.

“I lead a full career, but I’ve found ample time to be a volunteer,” Harris said. “My oldest daughter went all the way through, and I was there at every stage. It was invaluable time building those memories with her.”

Among the many mothers juggling work and Girl Scout duties is Audra Fordin, owner of an auto-repair business in New York City’s Flushing neighborhood. She is founder of an education initiative called Women Auto Know and leader of her teenage daughter’s troop.

Fordin is confident the Girl Scouts can maintain their stature as an all-girl institution even as the Boy Scouts make its programs available to boys and girls.

“Some girls may not feel as capable of doing the same things boys can do,” she said. “But when we come together in a group, we can accomplish whatever we want to do.”

Reeny Boutros, 18, of Wichita, Kansas, started Girl Scouts at age 5. She said the experience helped her develop the skills and confidence that recently earned her admission to Stanford University, with plans to major in computer science.

Boutros has received Girl Scouting’s highest honors — first earning the elite Gold Award, then being selected as one of 10 National Young Women of Distinction. She’s a technology whiz now, but recalled struggling with studies back in middle school.

“The badge work (with Girl Scouts) was one of the few academic recognitions I got,” she said. “I got exposed to archaeology, photography. It was a great way to boost my self-esteem.”

Boutros’ experience reflects the Girl Scouts’ push to engage girls in science, technology, engineering and math. There are a host of new STEM-related badges, and there’s a newly opened year-round camp in Dallas — the STEM Center of Excellence — that will offer K-12 STEM programs on a 92-acre campus.

But the best part of being a Girl Scout? “It’s always been camping,” she said. “You put your phones away and bond with nature — and just giggle uncontrollably with your friends.”

 
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Former President Donald Trump aide and “Apprentice”  contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman has a memoir coming that her publisher calls “explosive” and “jaw-dropping.”

The book is called “Unhinged.” Gallery Books announced Thursday that it will be released on Aug. 14.

Manigault Newman was a Trump ally who joined his administration in January 2017 as a White House communications director.

 

She had vowed that political foes would “bow down” to Trump. But she left after a year and spoke harshly of her experience, while denying reports she was fired. She said she was worried about the country and would never vote for Trump again.

The rare black woman in Trump’s administration, she has likened her departure to being freed from a “plantation.”
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German Football Association (DFB) head Reinhard Grindel on Thursday said he should have made clearer that racism is unacceptable after midfielder Mesut Ozil quit the national team citing “racism and disrespect” over his Turkish roots.

Ozil, who plays for English Premier League club Arsenal, was widely criticized for having his photograph taken with Turkey’s authoritarian President Tayyip Erdogan in May.

Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan, a team mate of Turkish descent who also posed with Erdogan, were jeered by German fans in warm-up games before the World Cup in Russia.

Grindel rejected Ozil’s accusations of racism against the DFB but said he regretted the photograph had been misused to justify “racist words” but did not go into any details.

“In retrospect, as the president I should have clearly said what is obvious for me personally and for us as an association, namely that any form of racism is unbearable, unacceptable and intolerable,” he said in a statement.

The 29-year-old’s decision to quit has triggered a public debate in Germany about its relations with its largest immigrant community, with Ozil being a key member of the team that won the World Cup in 2014 and also being voted German Player of the Year a record five times through public ballots.

Some politicians and the leader of the Turkish community in Germany had called for Grindel to resign but there were others who said Ozil’s racism claims were out of place.

Earlier this week, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany was a “cosmopolitan country” where people with migrant backgrounds were welcome and sport played a big role in integration. She added that Merkel valued Ozil as a “great” footballer.

But German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas questioned the debate by saying: “I don’t believe the case of a multimillionaire living and working in England gives much insight into the success or failure of integration in Germany.”

Erdogan has said the treatment of Ozil was racist and unacceptable.

Ozil said Grindel had blamed him for Germany’s group stage elimination from this year’s World Cup, their earliest exit from the tournament in 80 years, and considered him a German when the national team won but an immigrant when the side lost.

Grindel said the personal criticism had affected him.

“I feel even more sorry for my colleagues, the many volunteers and staff at the DFB to be mentioned in relation to racism,” he said. “I decisively reject this – both for me personally and for the association.”

He said he shared the DFB’s values of diversity, solidarity, anti-discrimination and integration and said that during his time at the DFB he had witnessed how football could help integrate people.

Grindel said the DFB would use the integration debate stoked by Ozil’s departure as an opportunity to redouble its integration efforts.

He also said the DFB would do a sports analysis on the team’s poor performance in Russia and added it hoped to win the bid to host the Euro 2024 tournament – for which Turkey is also bidding. UEFA will hold a meeting on Sept. 27 to choose between them.

 
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