Cardi B and Post Malone marked major breakthroughs in the last year, but the rap stars won’t compete for best new artist at the 2019 Grammy Awards.

Cardi B, who earned two nominations at this year’s Grammys held in February, was not eligible for nomination because of her previous nominations. The Grammys, which has adjusted the rules of best new artist over the years to keep up with the changing musical landscape, state that “any artist with a previous Grammy nomination as a performer” would not qualify. If Cardi B had not released an album around the time she earned her first pair of nominations for “Bodak Yellow,” she could have qualified. But because she had enough music to be eligible for best new artist at the 2018 show and earned prior nominations, she was not qualified to enter the category.

A person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to publicly discuss the topic, said Cardi B was submitted for best new artist at this year’s show, though she didn’t earn a nomination. The award went to Alessia Cara, while nominees included SZA, Khalid, Lil Uzi Vert and Julia Michaels.

Post Malone was also submitted for best new artist at this year’s show but didn’t garner a nomination. Because he had never earned a Grammy nomination, he met the criteria to be a best new artist contender for the upcoming awards show, but at a Grammy nominations meeting held this month his inclusion in the category was met with debate, the person said. Malone lost in a vote by music industry players — ranging from executives to producers to publicists — and will not compete for the coveted honor. Some felt because the hitmaker had success with his 2016 debut, “Stoney,” as well as the hit songs “Congratulations” and “White Iverson” — released in 2015 — he had already past new artist status.

A representative for Post Malone declined comment Wednesday. A representative for Cardi B did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The first round of voting for the 2019 Grammy nominations begins Oct. 17. Nominees will be announced Dec. 5 and best new artist will include eight contenders instead of five for the first time. The show airs live on Feb. 10.

The best new artist rules state that an artist can be submitted three times and is eligible so long as they have only released three albums or 30 tracks. Some artists, for example, earned nominations with second and third albums since those records marked their major breakthroughs as rising acts on the music scene.

Malone was also a hot topic at the Grammys meeting for his recent album, “Beerbongs & Bentleys,” which was kicked out of the rap category and pushed into the pop genre, the source said. Best rap album nominees must contain 51 percent or more of rap music, and the Grammys rap committee felt “Beerbongs” leaned more toward the pop genre with its the production, sound and melodies. The diverse album also includes singing, elements of R&B and rock and veers outside of rap with songs like the guitar-tinged “Stay.” The person said the larger Grammys committee listened to the entire 18-track album — which includes the No. 1 hits “Rockstar” and “Psycho” as well as “Better Now,” currently No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart — and voted that it would compete in pop instead of rap.

The best rap album category is expected to feature stiff competition since the genre has heavily dominated the pop charts in the last year, with albums by Drake, Eminem, XXXTentacion, Cardi B, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne, J. Cole and Migos being proposed as possible nominees.

It was not clear where Malone’s singles would land — they could appear in rap or pop, or both. Over the years more and more musicians have had songs from a single album appear in different genre categories. Beyonce’s “Lemonade” album had tracks compete in rock, pop, R&B and rap categories, while Justin Timberlake and Rihanna’s nominations have ranged over the years from dance to pop to R&B to rap.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

In Yassin Mohammed’s sketches and paintings, he and other Egyptian prisoners are crammed into tiny cells, feet in each other’s faces and their few belongings hanging from the walls.

The cramped scenes, defined by bars and closed cell doors, capture the claustrophobic reality of Egypt’s prisons, where tens of thousands have been locked away, often for months or years without charge, in the heaviest crackdown on dissent in the country’s modern history.

“One day, all this pain will go away,” one watercolor proclaims.

Mohammed, who walked free last month after serving a two-year sentence for taking part in a protest, chronicled daily life in his cellblock in dozens of sketches and paintings, offering a rare and intimate look inside Egypt’s sprawling prison network.

He has been in and out of prison since 2013, when the military overthrew a freely elected but divisive Islamist president. Since then, thousands of Islamists have been jailed, as well as a number of secular, pro-democracy activists, some of whom played a key role in the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who as defense minister led the 2013 military takeover, authorities view even mild dissent as a threat. Protests have been outlawed, hundreds of websites have been blocked, and vague laws criminalize the spreading of “false news.”

For most of the two years he was in prison, Mohammed shared a 6- by 15-meter (yard) cell with nearly 30 other inmates — Islamists, jihadis, liberal leftists and, he said, people who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rights groups say abuse of political detainees is widespread in Egypt, but Mohammed says he wasn’t physically abused, other than occasionally being pushed or slapped by guards. He says the real torment came from the unending boredom and the total lack of privacy.

His only escape was through art.

He managed to paint in a corner of his cell where the guards could not see him. Fearing that the guards would destroy the art if they found it, he smuggled the paintings out.

One piece that landed him in trouble was an unflattering caricature of el-Sissi, which guards seized in a surprise raid on his cell. Prison authorities chose not to press charges, instead sending him to solitary confinement, a light punishment for a man who says he yearned for privacy so much he spent time in the toilet just to avoid the other inmates.

A self-portrait inspired by that experience shows him sitting in the corner of a gray and black cell, slumped in resignation as a solitary ray of sunlight shines through the barred window.

Others show rare signs of normality or even beauty. A depiction of a prison bathroom — including garbage pails used by the inmates to store water because of frequent outages — has signs on the wall reading: “Please, leave the bathroom as you would like to see it!”

A bouquet of brightly colored flowers hangs above the bathroom — a wedding anniversary gift from the wife of one of the inmates.

In another painting, cardboard boxes turned into flower planters hang from the iron bars above a corridor. Mohammed says the prisoners save the cardboard boxes that their families use to deliver food and gather soil from sacks of potatoes they get from the prison’s kitchen.

“Plants and flowers there are like life in the midst of death,” said Mohammed.

Mohammed periodically had possession of a cellular phone while in prison, enabling him to communicate with a close circle of friends on social media. In the posts — which he asked his friends not to share for fear of repercussions — he described his daily routine and chores, and the claustrophobia he depicted in the paintings.

“God, I pray to you every day when the call for the dawn prayers rings out so you will free all those that are unjustly jailed or to soften their plight, and to let me meet Tom Hanks,” one post said, reflecting his near-obsessive admiration for the Oscar-winning film star.

Since his release on Sept. 20, just a day short of his 24th birthday, he has been traveling across Cairo collecting the works he smuggled out. He would like to put on an exhibition of some 50 pieces, but Egypt’s few remaining art galleries are unlikely to display his work for fear of angering authorities.

Instead, he plans to display them in his apartment in downtown Cairo.

“I don’t want to go back to prison. It does not take much these days to be sent to prison,” he said. “So, I will silently listen, watch and observe, and when I feel like I want to express a political opinion, I will talk to myself while alone in the privacy of my room.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists reported Sunday. But they provide little hope the world will rise to the challenge.

The Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its gloomy report at a meeting in Incheon, South Korea.

In the 728-page document, the U.N. organization detailed how Earth’s weather, health and ecosystems would be in better shape if the world’s leaders could somehow limit future human-caused warming to just 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit (a half degree Celsius) from now, instead of the globally agreed-upon goal of 1.8 degrees F (1 degree C). Among other things:

* Half as many people would suffer from lack of water.

* There would be fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases.

* Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less.

* Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats.

* There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts.

* The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting.

* And it just may be enough to save most of the world’s coral reefs from dying.

“For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt,” said Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald, a lead author on the report

Limiting warming to 0.9 degrees from now means the world can keep “a semblance” of the ecosystems we have. Adding another 0.9 degrees on top of that – the looser global goal – essentially means a different and more challenging Earth for people and species, said another of the report’s lead authors, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia.

But meeting the more ambitious goal of slightly less warming would require immediate, draconian cuts in emissions of heat-trapping gases and dramatic changes in the energy field. While the U.N. panel says technically that’s possible, it saw little chance of the needed adjustments happening.

In 2010, international negotiators adopted a goal of limiting warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) since pre-industrial times. It’s called the 2-degree goal. In 2015, when the nations of the world agreed to the historic Paris climate agreement, they set dual goals: 2 degrees C and a more demanding target of 1.5 degrees C from pre-industrial times. The 1.5 was at the urging of vulnerable countries that called 2 degrees a death sentence.

The world has already warmed 1 degree C since pre-industrial times, so the talk is really about the difference of another half-degree C or 0.9 degrees F from now.

“There is no definitive way to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 above pre-industrial levels,” the U.N.-requested report said. More than 90 scientists wrote the report, which is based on more than 6,000 peer reviews.

“Global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate,” the report states.

Deep in the report, scientists say less than 2 percent of 529 of their calculated possible future scenarios kept warming below the 1.5 goal without the temperature going above that and somehow coming back down in the future.

The pledges nations made in the Paris agreement in 2015 are “clearly insufficient to limit warming to 1.5 in any way,” one of the study’s lead authors, Joerj Roeglj of the Imperial College in London, said.

“I just don’t see the possibility of doing the one and a half” and even 2 degrees looks unlikely, said Appalachian State University environmental scientist Gregg Marland, who isn’t part of the U.N. panel but has tracked global emissions for decades for the U.S. Energy Department. He likened the report to an academic exercise wondering what would happen if a frog had wings.

Yet report authors said they remain optimistic.

“We have a monumental task in front of us, but it is not impossible,” Mahowald said Sunday. “This is our chance to decide what the world is going to look like. ”

To limit warming to the lower temperature goal, the world needs “rapid and far-reaching” changes in energy systems, land use, city and industrial design, transportation and building use, the report said. Annual carbon dioxide pollution levels that are still rising now would have to drop by about half by 2030 and then be near zero by 2050. Emissions of other greenhouse gases, such as methane, also will have to drop. Switching away rapidly from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas to do this could be three to four times more expensive than the less ambitious goal, but it would clean the air of other pollutants. And that would have the side benefit of avoiding more than 100 million premature deaths through this century, the report said.

“Climate-related risks to health, livelihoods, food security, water supply, human security and economic growth are projected to increase with global warming” the report said, adding that the world’s poor are more likely to get hit hardest.

Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said extreme weather, especially heat waves, will be deadlier if the lower goal is passed.

Meeting the tougher-to-reach goal “could result in around 420 million fewer people being frequently exposed to extreme heat waves, and about 65 million fewer people being exposed to exceptional heat waves,” the report said. The deadly heat waves that hit India and Pakistan in 2015 will become practically yearly events if the world reaches the hotter of the two goals, the report said.

Coral and other ecosystems are also at risk. The report said warmer water coral reefs “will largely disappear.”

The outcome will determine whether “my grandchildren would get to see beautiful coral reefs,” Princeton’s Oppenheimer said.
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From: MeNeedIt

The largest city named for Christopher Columbus has called off its observance of the divisive holiday that honors the explorer, making a savvy move to tie the switch to a politically safe demographic: veterans.

Ohio’s capital city, population 860,000, will be open for business Monday after observing Columbus Day probably “for as long as it had been in existence,” said Robin Davis, a spokeswoman for Democratic Mayor Andrew Ginther. City offices will close instead on Veterans Day, which falls on Nov. 12 this year.

Native Americans and allied groups have long used Columbus Day to elevate issues of concern to them. That includes a peaceful protest of prayers, speeches and traditional singing in 2016 at Columbus City Hall — underneath the statue of the explorer that sits out front — to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline and to urge Ohio to support more renewable energy.

The decision to stop observing the holiday was not triggered by the national movement to abolish Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day as a way of recognizing victims of colonialism, Davis said. Columbus Day marks the Italian explorer’s arrival in the Americas on Oct. 12, 1492.

“We have a number of veterans who work for the city, and there are so many here in Columbus,” Davis said. “We thought it was important to honor them with that day off.” And, she said, the city doesn’t have the budget to give its 8,500 employees both days off, she said.

Columbus made its announcement Thursday in a two-paragraph news release focused on the impact on trash pickup and parking enforcement schedules. In that way, it avoided much of the consternation that has taken place elsewhere around the holiday.

An attempt in Akron to rename the holiday grew ugly last year, dividing the all-Democratic city council along racial lines. Five black members voted to rename the holiday and eight white members voted not to, keeping the holiday in place.

A similar effort twice failed in Cincinnati before a vote Wednesday finally recognized Columbus Day as the renamed Indigenous Peoples Day. It became the second Ohio city to do so, after the liberal college town of Oberlin in 2017. Cleveland, which has a large Italian-American population, continues to host a major Columbus Day parade.

Organizers of the 39-year-old Columbus Italian Festival, traditionally held on Columbus Day weekend, were not given advance notice of the city’s decision, said board member Joseph Contino.

“It’s very in vogue politically right now to do that. It’s not PC for me to say anything against indigenous peoples,” he said. “You can kick Christians, you can kick Catholics. That’s the message that it sends to us and that’s what it feels like; we’re Europeans and we lop Indians’ heads off. Which is just not true.”

Contino said he viewed the decision on the holiday as a missed opportunity.

“If you’re mayor of a city and its name is Columbus, why wouldn’t you capitalize on that? Use it to unite everybody,” he said. “Use this day to celebrate the entire culture, celebrate Italians and indigenous both.”

Tyrone Smith, director of the Native American Indian Center of Central Ohio, said the city’s decision is another step in embracing its growing diversity.

“The past is the past. It may not be pretty at times, but we cannot hold what happened back then against today’s society, regardless their bloodline,” he said. “The fact that the city of Columbus is taking action is a victory for everyone.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Bill Cosby’s lawyers have asked a Pennsylvania court to overturn the actor’s conviction and three- to 10-year prison sentence because of what they call a string of errors in his sex assault case.

The defense motion argued that trial Judge Steven O’Neill erred in declaring Cosby a sexually violent predator who must be imprisoned to protect the community. Lawyers called the sentence more punitive than necessary, given the standard two- to three-year guideline range for the crime and the fact Cosby is 81 and blind.

They also said the trial evidence never proved the encounter with accuser Andrea Constand took place in 2004, and not 2003, or that Cosby was arrested within the 12-year time limit.

Cosby was arrested on Dec. 30, 2015, and was convicted at a second trial this April. He has been in a state prison near Philadelphia since the Sept. 25 sentencing, when the judge refused to let him stay out on $1 million bail pending appeal. Given his fame, wealth and use of drugs to molest the accuser, the judge said, Cosby could remain a threat to other women.

The defense motion said O’Neill improperly considered the trial testimony of five other accusers in sentencing Cosby, instead of limiting that “prior bad act” testimony to the question of his guilt or innocence. O’Neill, in explaining the sentence in court, told Cosby he considered “voices from the past, your past,” and that he “heard their voices loud and clear,” the defense said.

The lawyers also challenged the state’s sex offender laws, which have been revised several times amid challenges they are unconstitutionally vague. The law requires judges to find that a sexually violent predator has a “mental abnormality,” a term they said has no legal or psychological meaning, yet subjects defendants to lifetime counseling and police registration.

The defense motion, dated Friday, was posted to a public court docket in the case over the weekend. Kate Delano, a spokeswoman for the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, said the office will file a response.

The motion was filed by lawyer Peter Goldberger, a top appellate lawyer in the region, and Joseph P. Green Jr., who handled Cosby’s sentencing after more than a dozen other lawyers on the case had come and gone. A former appellate lawyer on the case is suing Cosby over what he called more than $50,000 in unpaid bills.

The defense also complained that an audio recording played to jurors of a 2005 conversation between Cosby and Gianna Constand, the mother of accuser Andrea Constand, was “not authentic.” They said they did not make the discovery until an expert review after the trial.

District Attorney Kevin Steele has dismissed that as a legitimate appeal issue, saying it’s been widely known that Gianna Constand started her recorder after the call began. She had called Cosby to get answers about what happened to her daughter after Andrea Constand disclosed the assault a year later. The family went to police, who suggested they try to record Cosby.

During the call, Cosby acknowledged engaging in “digital penetration” after giving her daughter pills he would not identify, and offered money for Andrea to attend graduate school, Gianna Constand testified.

“If that’s what they’ve got, it’s beyond a Hail Mary,” Steele said at the sentencing, as Cosby’s lawyers sought to keep Cosby free on bail over the tape recording. O’Neill instead had Cosby led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Ben Affleck says battling addiction is “a lifelong and difficult struggle.”

The actor posted on Instagram Thursday that he has completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction and remains in outpatient care.

The 46-year-old says the support he’s received from family and friends has given him strength to speak about “his illness” with others. He says he is fighting for himself and his family.

Affleck says battling addiction is a full-time commitment and “one is never really in or out of treatment.”

He had previously sought treatment in 2001 and 2017.

Affleck has been separated from actress Jennifer Garner since 2015. They have three children.
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From: MeNeedIt

Monica Lewinsky is teaming up with celebrities for an anti-bullying campaign that targets name-calling.

Appearing Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, Lewinsky says the #DefyTheName campaign calls on people to change their social media names to include the names they were bullied by. Lewinsky says she’ll now be known as ”Monica Chunky Slut Stalker That Woman Lewinsky.”

Lewinsky says she had a long list of names from childhood on. She says name-calling is the most common form of bullying and it’s important not to let those names define you.

Lewinsky says organizers want to recreate a community of empathy online.

Lewinsky was a White House intern when she had an affair with President Bill Clinton. Clinton initially denied the affair before admitting to it in 1998.
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From: MeNeedIt

Chance the Rapper says he’s donating $1 million to help improve mental health services in Chicago.

The Chicago native made the announcement Thursday during a summit for his nonprofit organization SocialWorks, saying those involved “want to change the way that mental health resources are being accessed.”

Six mental health providers in Cook County will each get $100,000 grants and SocialWorks is starting an initiative called “My State of Mind” to help connect people with treatment. Members of the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Chicago Department of Public Health were on hand for the announcement.

Also Thursday, the rapper, whose real name is Chancelor Bennett, announced plans to give money to 20 additional Chicago Public Schools. His nonprofit has given millions to Chicago schools in recent years.
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From: MeNeedIt

People who regularly engage in light to moderate physical activity — like walking four hours a week or swimming two hours weekly — might have less severe strokes than individuals who aren’t as active, a Swedish study suggests.

Researchers examined data on 925 patients who were treated for strokes at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 2014 and 2016. Overall, four in five of these patients had mild strokes.

Slightly more than half of the patients were inactive before their strokes. Compared with this inactive group, people who got at least some exercise before their strokes were twice as likely to have mild strokes, researchers reported in Neurology.

“We knew from earlier research that physical activity could reduce stroke incidence,” lead study author Malin Reinholdsson of the University of Gothenburg said by email. “However, whether or not pre-stroke physical activity could also influence stroke severity was not clear.”

Patients in the study were 73 years old on average and most of them had what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common kind, which occurs when a clot blocks an artery carrying blood to the brain. About 6 percent of patients had hemorrhagic strokes, a less common type that is caused by a ruptured blood vessel in the brain.

Surveyed about exercise

To assess pre-stroke activity levels, researchers surveyed participants about the duration and intensity of any exercise they got before they were hospitalized.

Researchers defined “light” activity as walking at a leisurely pace for at least four hours a week, and classified exercise as “moderate” intensity when people did things like swimming, running or walking briskly for two to three hours weekly.

Among 481 people who were inactive, 354, or 74 percent, had mild strokes.

For those who managed light physical activity, 330, or 86 percent, had mild strokes. And among the 59 participants who got moderate intensity exercise, 53, or 90 percent, had mild strokes. 

Age also mattered, with higher odds of a mild stroke for younger people in the study.

The study wasn’t designed to prove whether or how the amount or intensity of exercise might influence stroke severity.

Another limitation is that researchers relied on stroke survivors to accurately recall their previous exercise habits, and memory is often compromised after a stroke.

Even so, the results add to evidence suggesting that an active lifestyle can both lower the risk of stroke and reduce the chances that a stroke will be severe, said Nicole Spartano, co-author of an accompanying editorial and a researcher at Boston University School of Medicine.

“Regular exercise helps the brain to maintain healthy arteries that have more complex networks,” Spartano said by email. “So when a blockage [stroke] happens in one area, there may be another route to provide oxygen to the affected area.”

Being physically active can also help prevent risk factors for stroke, like obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, Spartano noted.

“This study is exciting because it suggests that you might not have to do a lot of intense exercise to see an effect,” Spartano said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Marion “Suge” Knight was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for mowing down and killing a Compton businessman in a case that completed the former rap music mogul’s downfall from his heyday as one of the biggest and most feared names in the music industry.

Knight will now spend much of the rest of his life, if not all the rest, in a California prison. He showed no emotion in court Thursday as relatives of Terry Carter, the man he killed, described their loved one as a devoted family man and peacemaker.

Carter was killed after Knight and one of his longtime rivals, Cle “Bone” Sloan, started fighting outside a Compton burger stand in January 2015. Knight was upset about his portrayal in an N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, on which Sloan was serving as a consultant. Knight clipped Sloan with his pickup truck, seriously injuring him, before speeding through the parking lot and running over Carter and fleeing.

While Carter’s relatives said they hoped Knight’s lengthy sentence would bring them peace, many had no kind words for the Death Row Records co-founder, whom they criticized for showing a complete lack of remorse.

Carter’s daughter Crystal called Knight a “low-life thug,” “career criminal” and “a disgusting, selfish disgrace to the human species.”

“I ask that you sentence this unrepentant, remorseless, cold, callous menace to society to the maximum of 28 years,” she told a judge.

Pleaded no contest

Before Thursday’s hearing, Knight had already agreed to his lengthy prison term by pleading no contest to a voluntary manslaughter charge and avoiding a trial on murder and attempted murder charges that could have resulted in a life sentence if he was convicted. The sentencing ended a nearly four-year court saga that included frequent outbursts by Knight, 53, who also collapsed in court during one appearance and shuffled his defense team 16 times.

Between the restrictions of the three-strikes law and the time Knight has already served, he’ll likely spend roughly 20 years in prison before he’s eligible for parole. 

Knight has been in decline for decades. At his pinnacle in the mid-1990s, he was putting out wildly popular records that are now considered classics from Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur.

Shakur was in Knight’s car when he was killed in a drive-by attack in Las Vegas in 1996.

Knight later lost his stake in Death Row Records in bankruptcy proceedings.

Nearly two dozen of Carter’s relatives packed the courtroom Thursday. Carter’s daughter, Nekaya Carter, said she hoped that the end of the courtroom saga could bring her some peace.

“I wanted justice for my dad and now we’ve finally got it, kind of,” she said.

She then addressed Knight directly despite the judge’s instructions not to: “My dad can finally rest in peace while you live out the rest of your life in prison.”

Carter’s sister, Jessica Carter, told Los Angeles Superior Court Ronald Coen, “He was so much more than the person the defendant killed with his truck.” 

‘He helped people’

There have been disputed accounts of why Carter was at the scene, but his family said he often acted as a community mediator and peacemaker.

“This wasn’t no cat who went after nobody,” Carter’s brother-in-law Damu Visha said in court. “He helped people.”

The death was captured on surveillance video, and family members described their anguish at having to see it repeatedly, and chastised the media for showing it so often.

Coen appeared moved by the family’s words and offered his own condolences. 

“If it hasn’t been said by anyone else,” Coen said, “let me tell you that my heart goes out to you.”

Most of the victim’s family members spoke of the need to forgive Knight for their own peace of mind.

“I hope and I pray that we find forgiveness,” Terry Carter’s cousin, Patricia Hawkins, said. “But it won’t be today.”
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From: MeNeedIt

EgyptAir is standing by a writer for its in-flight magazine who penned a bizarre article purportedly based on an interview with American actress Drew Barrymore.

The article, riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors, led with a description of Barrymore as “being unstable in her relationships” and quoted her as saying that motherhood was “the most important role in my life.”

In a tweet sent late Wednesday in response to online criticism, the national carrier thanked author Aida Tekla for “the clarification” in which she claimed the interview was indeed real and took place in New York.

Barrymore has yet to issue an official statement and her representatives could not be reached for comment. Press reports in the U.S. have quoted representatives as denying any such interview took place, with some suggesting the author must have based her article on misinterpretations of a press conference.

Barrymore shot to fame as a child starlet in Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film “E.T.” and is now featured in the Netflix horror-comedy series “Santa Clarita Diet.”

The article on the inflight magazine Horus was first noticed by Yemen analyst Adam Baron, who published photos of it on Twitter and called it “surreal.”

The article says Barrymore had failed relationships because her parents divorced.

“It is known that Barrymore had almost 17 relationships, engagements and marriages; psychologists believe that her behavior is only natural since she lacked the male role model in her life after her parents’ divorce,” Tekla wrote.

In another passage, she quoted Barrymore as being pleased with recent weight loss after having a second daughter. Another quote describes Barrymore as celebrating women’s achievements in “the West” because they handle tasks that men cannot.

“Women exert tremendous efforts that men are incapable of exerting due to their numerous commitments and obligations,” the article quoted her as saying.

EgyptAir’s inflight magazine has Arabic and English sections, but translations are often poor and English-language articles are filled with errors.

The Egyptian government has waged a heavy crackdown on dissent and independent media in recent years, and has passed vaguely worded laws that criminalize the spreading of false news.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

After years of delays Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji fish market is closing Saturday to move to a more modern facility on reclaimed industrial land in Tokyo Bay.

The new, 569 billion yen ($5 billion) facility at Toyosu will open Oct. 11, over the objections of many working in Tsukiji who contend the new site is contaminated, inconvenient and unsafe.

“If the new place were better, I’ll be happy to move,” said Tai Yamaguchi, whose family has run fish wholesaler Hitoku Shoten since 1964.

​Beloved local institution

The 75-year-old leader of a group of 30 women whose families run shops in Tsukiji opposed to the move, Yamaguchi feels it has been mishandled by authorities who failed to fully consult those affected.

“They are hiding so much,” she said.

Tsukiji now has more than 500 wholesalers employing several thousand people. About 40,000 people visit each day. Much of the angst over the move has to do with closing down a beloved local institution.

A labyrinth of quaint sushi stalls and shops selling knives and ice cream encircling the huge wholesale market famous for its predawn haggling over deep-frozen tuna and other harvests from the sea, Tsukiji has been supplying Tokyo’s fancy restaurants and everyday supermarkets since 1935. Its origins date back nearly a century.

Opponents of the move fear tourists will be less likely to visit out-of-the-way Toyosu, which resembles a huge, modern factory and lacks the picturesque quality of Tsukiji.

​Place of unusual diversity

Makoto Nakazawa, 54, who has worked in Tsukiji for more than 30 years, said he dislikes the new space he will be working in and is angry over the closure of a market that has “fed Tokyo for years.”

Tsukiji is special, a place of unusual diversity in conformist Japan where misfits like avant-garde theater actors and convicts are accepted, Nakazawa said.

“People who want us out want to redevelop this place. I can’t imagine any other reason,” he said. “There’s obviously money to be made.”

Some of Tsukiji’s sprawling shops will remain in their old locale surrounding the market site. But the wholesale market itself, which clears an average of 1.6 billion yen, or about $14.5 million, worth of seafood a day, is leaving for good after a decade of controversy.

In the latest setback, Gov. Yuriko Koike postponed the move, which had been scheduled for November 2016, after an inspection found arsenic and other contaminants in the groundwater at Toyosu, a former gas plant.

“Safety has been ensured,” Koike declared at a recent opening ceremony for the new market after extra concrete was poured and better water pumps installed. Even now, cracks stretching for several meters have appeared in the paving in Toyosu’s loading area. City officials say they’re not dangerous and will be fixed.

Koike stressed Toyosu will carry on the “Tsukiji brand.”

Old site becomes parking lot

The long-term future for the Tsukiji site is still undecided.

Spanning more than 230,000 square meters, or the equivalent of about 17 baseball fields, it first will be turned into a parking lot for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Ideas for the long-term include an amusement park, a casino, a shopping mall — all of them and more. Its location in downtown Tokyo within walking distance from the glitzy Ginza shopping district makes for lucrative opportunities.

An informal opinion survey by Yamaguchi’s group found that 80 percent of 261 Tsukiji businesses that responded were unhappy about the move. The survey’s response rate was about 50 percent.

Several hundred market workers joined by labor union members, housewives and others marched on a rainy Saturday afternoon from Tsukiji through Tokyo’s downtown in a final protest.

“What’s wrong with Tsukiji? What’s wrong with Tsukiji? Tsukiji for another hundred years!” they shouted, banging on drums and waving placards.

City hall insisted a more modern and efficient facility was needed. Workers say Tsukiji’s layout, with its myriad of zipping carts, is a work of art that evolved over the years.​

​‘Old Japanese culture’

As the shutdown neared, Gianluca Lonati, 31, a chef, and Kayleigh Gill, 25, a bar manager, visiting together from Sydney, were among many tourists and locals visiting the market one recent afternoon.

They said they were planning to have some fresh Tsukiji fish with their feast of ramen, green tea ice cream and savory “okonomiyaki” pancakes.

“It’s very sad,” Gill said of the plans to close the market. “You really get to see inside old Japanese culture.”

Keahi Pagatpatan, an airline worker from Long Beach, California, strolling recently in Tsukiji with a friend praised the market’s emotional and cultural backdrop.

Toyosu just won’t be the same, he said, “It takes away from the authenticity.”
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From: MeNeedIt