The galaxy far, far away is expanding further on screen with a new trilogy of Star Wars films outside of the ongoing Skywalker saga, Walt Disney Co. said Thursday, to be overseen by Rian Johnson, the director of the franchise’s upcoming film The Last Jedi.

Johnson, 43, will write and direct the first of a new Star Wars trilogy that will bring new characters and worlds not yet explored on screen, Disney said.

“He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy,” Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement.

Disney said no release dates have been set for the new trilogy.

Johnson was brought on to write and direct the second film in Disney’s rebooted trilogy of the Skywalker stories, which George Lucas first brought to screen in 1977.

The Last Jedi, which follows on 2015’s hit film, The Force Awakens, is expected to focus on Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), will be in theaters on Dec. 15.

Disney is also making three standalone Star Wars films outside of the Skywalker saga, including last year’s Rogue One and next year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, following the origins of the charming roguish smuggler Han Solo, made famous by Harrison Ford in the film.
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From: MeNeedIt

Award-winning actor John Hillerman, best known as Jonathan Higgins, the sidekick to TV’s Magnum P.I., died Thursday in Houston.

Hillerman was 84, and no cause of death was given.

Hillerman was a stage and screen veteran when he took on the role that made him one of television’s most familiar faces and voices.

Magnum P.I. starred Tom Selleck as a detective based in Hawaii. Hillerman played the caretaker of the resort out of which Magnum operated. It ran from 1980 until 1988 and earned Hillerman an Emmy as best supporting actor.

Before Magnum made him a star, Hillerman proved to be adept at both comedy and drama on the stage, on television and in films, including the slapstick Blazing Saddles and dark detective drama Chinatown.
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From: MeNeedIt

A large long-term study on the use of the big-selling weedkiller glyphosate by agricultural workers in the United States has found no firm link between exposure to the pesticide and cancer, scientists said Thursday.

Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), the study found there was “no association between glyphosate,” the main ingredient in Monsanto’s popular herbicide RoundUp, “and any solid tumors or lymphoid malignancies overall, including non-Hogkin Lymphoma (NHL) and its subtypes.”

It said there was “some evidence of increased risk of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) among the highest exposed group,” but added “this association was not statistically significant” and would require more research to be confirmed.

Lawsuit against Monsanto

The findings are likely to impact legal proceedings taking place in the United States against Monsanto, in which more than 180 plaintiffs are claiming exposure to RoundUp gave them cancer, allegations that Monsanto denies.

The findings may also influence a crucial decision due in Europe this week on whether glyphosate should be re-licensed for sale across the European Union.

That EU decision has been delayed for several years after the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reviewed glyphosate in 2015 and concluded it was “probably carcinogenic” to humans. Other bodies, such as the European Food Safety Authority, have concluded glyphosate is safe to use.

Agricultural Health Study

The research is part of a large and important project known as the Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which has been tracking the health of tens of thousands of agricultural workers, farmers and their families in Iowa and North Carolina.

Since the early 1990s, it has gathered and analyzed detailed information on the health of participants and their families, and their use of pesticides, including glyphosate.

Reuters reported in June how an influential scientist was aware of new AHS data while he was chairing a panel of experts reviewing evidence on glyphosate for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in early 2015.

But since it had not at that time been published, he did not tell the experts panel about it and IARC’s review did not take it into account. 

The publishing of the study Thursday comes more than four years since drafts based on the AHS data on glyphosate and other pesticides were circulating in February and March 2013.

In a summary conclusion of the results, the researchers, led by Laura Beane Freeman, the principal investigator of the AHS at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, reported that among 54,251 (pesticide) applicators in the study, 44,932, or 82.9 percent of them used glyphosate.

“Glyphosate was not statistically significantly associated with cancer at any site,” the conclusion said.

The researchers said they believed the study was the first to report a possible association between glyphosate and AML, but that it could be the result of chance and should be treated with caution.
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From: MeNeedIt

How’s this for awkward? The United States has a delegation at international climate talks in Bonn that will be telling other nations what they should do on a treaty that the president wants no part of.

President Donald Trump has promised to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris climate pact where nations set their own goals to reduce the emissions of heat-trapping gases, but because of legal technicalities America can’t get out until November 2020.

“It’s like having a guest at a dinner party who complains about the food but stays anyway,” said Nigel Purvis, who worked climate issues in the State Department for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and dealt with a similar situation.

In 2001 Purvis was a climate negotiator for the U.S. State Department when the new president, George W. Bush, pulled out of a landmark global warming agreement the previous administration had championed.

The U.S. position is not just awkward, it’s potentially bad for the environment, scientists say.

​Weaker rules

Most of the Bonn meeting will be coming up with rules on how countries report emissions of heat-trapping gases and how transparent they are. The United States used to be the leading force in pushing for tougher rules and more openness, Purvis and other experts said. The rules probably won’t be as strong now, Purvis said.

“If it’s left to Chinese leadership, which is what’s left, you will have less transparency,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology management professor Henry Jacoby, who co-founded the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The United States government is becoming increasingly isolated on climate change. On Tuesday, the Syrian government, mired in war and the last United Nations country not to sign the Paris accord, announced it would sign the pact. That means the United States will be alone when it pulls out.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert responded to the Syrian decision by attacking its government. 

“If the government of Syria cared so much about what was put in the air, then it wouldn’t be gassing its own people,” she said.

In a not-so subtle jab at Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron plans a separate “One Planet Summit” in Paris to push his “Make Our Planet Great Again” agenda on Dec. 12, the anniversary date of the climate accord. He invited more than 100 world leaders to his event, but not Trump. Instead, he invited lower level U.S. diplomats.

“The rest of the world needs to get on and negotiate … and treat the U.S. as more of an observer in the process and the U.S. should act that way,” said Greenpeace International Director Jennifer Morgan, who has been at these negotiations for more than 20 years.

That’s not what the U.S. plans.

​US ‘will engage’

As meetings started Monday, U.S. negotiator Trigg Talley said, “The president has made clear that we will engage countries on energy and climate change related issues and we look forward to working with colleagues and partners to advance the work here over these two weeks and beyond.”

The administration is hosting a panel on “the clean and efficient use of fossil fuels and nuclear power,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah said Tuesday. “It is undeniable that fossil fuels will be used for the foreseeable future, and it is in everyone’s interest that they be efficient and clean.”

Of the major fossil fuels, coal is by far the biggest climate change culprit. In 2014, coal accounted for 46 percent of the globe’s carbon dioxide emissions, but was only 29 percent of its energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency.

Other Americans

Three U.S. governors, some mayors, corporate leaders and students will also be attending the Bonn talks.

“We have one major major player who is on the sidelines,” California Gov. Jerry Brown told The Associated Press. “The rest of us will do everything we can to keep advancing efforts and keep doing what is needed to reduce carbon emissions. There is no time to wait.”

Nashville, Tennessee, Mayor Megan Barry said, “the power lies within cities … we know that we can make a significant difference with or without the federal government.”

If the U.S. remains out of the Paris accord and tries to dismantle President Obama’s initiatives to curb emissions, the Earth will warm by an additional one or two tenths of a degree, said Glen Peters, a Norwegian scientist who is part of the Global Carbon Project.

Scientists say that even a few tenths of a degree of warming can have dramatic impacts on ecosystems and day-to-day life for people.

Purivs said “countries will be frustrated and resentful” toward the Trump administration at the negotiations. But he added: “Many nations will understand the rules of the Paris agreement are going to be more important and more durable than any U.S. administration and there will be a strong desire to get it right.”
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From: MeNeedIt

The mounting allegations of sexual assault involving Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey are taking a mounting toll on his career.

Sony Pictures says it will remove Spacey from its upcoming feature film, All the Money in the World, and replace him with another veteran Oscar winner, Christopher Plummer. Director Ridley Scott is rushing to reshoot the new scenes with Plummer in order to make the film’s scheduled release date of Dec. 22.

Spacey played the late oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the film, which dramatizes the 1973 kidnapping of his grandson, John Paul Getty III, and the elder Getty’s refusal to pay a ransom for his release.

Sony had announced it was pulling All the Money in the World from the upcoming American Film Institute film festival in Los Angeles.

Spacey has suffered a rapid fall from grace since actor Anthony Rapp, who starred in the 2005 musical Rent, accused Spacey of making sexual advances toward him in 1986 when Rapp was 14. Spacey announced he was gay in a statement apologizing to Rapp, while claiming he did not remember the alleged incident.

The actor has since been accused by more than dozen men of either sexually harassing or assaulting them. The allegations have led to his firing from the hit television series House of Cards by the streaming service Netflix, which has also refused to release a film in which Spacey stars as the late American writer and critic Gore Vidal.

The latest accusation against Spacey came Wednesday, when a former television news anchor accused him of sexually molesting her son last year when he was 18. 

Heather Unruh told reporters Wednesday the alleged incident occurred in a restaurant on Nantucket island, a popular Massachusetts tourist spot.

She says a criminal investigation is under way. But Nantucket police will not confirm or deny an investigation, saying Massachusetts law bars them from discussing sexual assault allegations.

British news reports say London police are also looking into an alleged sexual assault there in 2008.
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From: MeNeedIt

The quiz games and ring tosses at factories around Vietnam are more than just amusement; charity workers are using them in their efforts against human trafficking, with the support of foreign governments and corporations.

Factory workers play these games as part of training workshops to raise awareness about trafficking, held by the nonprofit Pacific Links Foundation. The organization partners with multinational companies that buy products from manufacturers in Vietnam, such as Walmart and the makers of Abercrombie & Fitch, Express and Victoria’s Secret.

In the workshops, Vietnamese learn about the tactics of traffickers who target them in industrial parks. It’s a heavy topic, though the instructors bring some levity with the entertainment, which can include prizes for participants who answer quiz questions.

“Through our work with survivors, we’ve seen a growing trend of victims being recruited from industrial zones,” Pacific Links co-founder Diep Vuong said in explaining the foundation’s focus on young people and factory workers, who are susceptible to those who offer dubious work abroad.

She said human trafficking is “stealing the future away from our youth and workers.”

Social responsibility

Victims can be misled by the promise of tantalizing jobs in foreign countries, only to arrive and find that wages are lower than were advertised, passports are confiscated, or they are in insurmountable debt because of travel and agent fees, anti-trafficking activists say.

For companies, participation in campaigns like this has become one way to meet their corporate social responsibility goals.

“Vietnam is a very important sourcing market,” Walmart executive vice president for global leverage Scott Price said at a press conference with Pacific Links Friday. He added, “We ultimately want to be in a place where we are able to prevent forced labor in the first place.”

Walmart is supporting the Pacific Links workshops, which are collectively known as the “FACT” program and were launched in March. Besides contributing money and volunteers, the company sponsors related projects like tuition and bicycles donated to Vietnamese girls to help them stay in school, especially for rural families who sometimes prioritize boys when they cannot afford to educate all their children.

Success stories

Nguyen Le Anh Thu is one of the beneficiaries of these scholarships. She described her earlier struggles, when making a living, rather than school, was the main concern in her family. For $1 or $2 a day, she would help her mother peel fruit for sale and save money for her grandmother’s medication.

“I thought, education is the only way I can get out of poverty,” said Anh Thu, who wins over strangers with her shy pauses and frequent smiles as she practices the English she has now learned.

The idea is to reach out to vulnerable populations before human traffickers do and work with them to achieve more economic stability so that they have less incentive to take illegal jobs abroad.

“Prevention measures, such as monitoring labor recruitment programs, community resilience and economic empowerment, and awareness-raising campaigns, are hugely important to help educate at-risk communities and strengthen their protections against future cases,” said U.S. consul general Mary Tarnowka, whose office in Ho Chi Minh City hosted the conference.

Pacific Links said it works on preventive measures, such as increasing financial literacy so families manage their household budgets consistently, as well as reactive measures, such as sheltering and reintegrating trafficking victims who return to Vietnam. According to the foundation, a worrying aspect of the problem is that many human traffickers used to be victims themselves, meaning they go on to bring more people into the same labor trap that they faced.
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From: MeNeedIt

Country star Keith Urban will debut a new song on the Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday inspired by the allegations of sexual assault and harassment hurled against Harvey Weinstein.

BMI country songwriter of the year Ross Copperman said that the widening sexual harassment crisis that has developed after multiple women accused the top producer and film executive inspired him to write a song and record it with Urban.

“We actually wrote a song three weeks ago called Female,” Copperman said during the red carpet Tuesday for the annual BMI Country Awards. “It’s from the Weinstein announcement. We’re in a room and we’re like, ‘What can we do about this?’ And that’s the one thing we can do is write songs.”

Urban, who was honored by BMI for his philanthropy, said the song was so important that he immediately recorded it.

“I think it’s just time for a recalibrating of the past, you know? Things have been a certain way for a long, long time, and I think you’re seeing a turning of the tide for that,” Urban said. “This song just spoke to me. I just wanted to get in and record it right away.”

Urban, who is married to actress Nicole Kidman, said as a father and a husband, the topic has struck him.

“I am surrounded by females in my life. I grew up in a house with boys, no sisters. Now I am in a house that’s all girls. So this song speaks to me on a lot of levels,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

For every era of film in the last half-century, there’s a memorable Donald Sutherland role.

Whether it’s his breakthrough performance in “The Dirty Dozen,” his portrayal of a demented arsonist in “Backdraft” or playing a ruthless president in “The Hunger Games” films, Sutherland’s career spans roughly 140 films in every genre, his performances tinged with wit, charm, and often a hint of unpredictability.

None, however, have earned Sutherland an Academy Award, let alone a nomination. That will change Saturday when Sutherland receives an honorary Oscar at the film academy’s ninth annual Governors Awards ceremony.

Although Sutherland has known about the honor for weeks, it doesn’t mean he isn’t feeling some jitters.

“It had never occurred to me not even remotely … that people would think to honor me in such a way,” Sutherland said during a recent interview.

“It’s a dinner,” he said of the ceremony, “and if you think I’m going to eat, you’re nuts.”

He likened the experience to carrying the flag of his native Canada in the Vancouver Olympics in 2010 and trying to keep up with the pageantry of the moment. ”All I could think of in the middle of it was that I wished that my mother, who had been dead for probably 20 years, could see me now,” he said. “And I feel kind of that way. I wish Brian Hutton were alive and could see me now.”

Hutton directed Sutherland in 1970’s “Kelly’s Heroes,” in which he played Sergeant Oddball. He said to this day, the character remains the role he hears about most from fans.

Sutherland is the best-known recipient of this year’s honorary Oscars honorees, which include director Agnes Varda, writer-director Charles Burnett and cinematographer Owen Roizman. None of the honorees have worked together, but Sutherland and Roizman share something in common – bouts with polio when they were young.

Raised in a small town in Nova Scotia, Canada, Sutherland said his sights were always set on acting. His father wanted him to have a more practical career and steered him toward electrical engineering. That was never appealing to Sutherland, who instead took the advice of his acting instructors to focus on his performances.   

When Sutherland takes on a role, even if it’s a small one, he said it stays inside him forever. That includes his turn as X in “JFK,” whom he played for a day, as well as roles he’s spent much longer on, such as the damaged father in “Ordinary People.”

The actor remains busy, and said his character from his upcoming film “The Leisure Seeker,” is “running around like crazy inside me.” Sutherland stars opposite Helen Mirren as a couple on an epic road trip in their RV.

At 82, Sutherland has no intention of slowing down. Asked if he finds the roles for older actors fulfilling, Sutherland said, “Hey, as an actor, I can walk onto a scene, say hello (makes gargling noises) crash onto the floor and have a heart attack and that’s enough.”

“Except that it hurts my shoulder,” he said. “Truly, my shoulders are in terrible trouble because I die a lot – and I’m cramming for my finals.”

Not that Sutherland would have any regrets if his last performance included his final breath.

“I’m really hoping that in some movie I’m doing, I die but I die, me, Donald, and they’re able to use my funeral and the coffin,” Sutherland said. “That would be absolutely ideal. I would love that.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt

A Senate committee on Wednesday narrowly backed President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the next NASA chief.

Republicans on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee used their slender majority to overcome objections from Democrats to advance the selection of Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma. The party-line vote was 14-13.

Bridenstine, 42, is serving his third term representing a conservative district in northeast Oklahoma. Democrats criticized past comments he made dismissive of global warming as a man-made problem. They also voiced concern about Bridenstine’s harsh criticisms of Democratic lawmakers and fellow Republicans over the years, and questioned whether he would keep the space agency from being mired in political battles.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, said the job on NASA administrator is one of the most challenging positions in the federal government, and required a strong scientific and technical background. He said the next administrator “must not be political.”

“It is a position where failure of leadership quite literally means the difference between life and death,” Nelson said.

Bridenstine appeared before the committee last week and promised to run the space agency on a consensus agenda driven by science.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood are celebrating their 10-year anniversary — as hosts of the Country Music Association Awards.

The duo has hosted the show consecutively since 2008, and they return Wednesday for the 2017 CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

While Underwood and Paisley plan to tell jokes, watch performances and hand out awards, they also want to honor the 58 people who were killed at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month.

“We can’t ignore that, but at the same time, I think it’s our job to use this as something that’s uplifting. This show can be a combination of entertainment and therapy to some degree, and it feels like we’re going to do our best to honor those we’ve lost and also sing this music at the top of our lungs,” Paisley said.

Jason Aldean was performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on Oct. 1 when a gunman fired on the crowd from a hotel room. Nearly 500 people were injured.

Underwood said country music wants to pay tribute to the victims and their families.

“You just want to be respectful and do it right. They’re a part of our country music family and we want the families to know that we care a lot,” she said.

Underwood will wear several hats during the show as host, performer and nominee. Last year she ended Miranda Lambert’s six-year streak as female vocalist of the year. Both singers are nominated for the award this year, along with Reba McEntire, Maren Morris and Kelsea Ballerini.

Nominees for the show’s top prize, entertainer of the year, include Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, Eric Church and last year’s winner, Garth Brooks. Stapleton, Urban, Church, Thomas Rhett and Dierks Bentley are up for male vocalist of the year.

Sam Hunt’s Body Like a Back Road, which set a record for the most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot country songs chart with 34, is nominated for single of the year and song of the year, a songwriter’s award. In the latter category, Hunt will compete with Taylor Swift, who wrote Little Big Town’s No. 1 hit Better Man.

Little Big Town is among the country stars set to perform during the three-hour show. Others include Brooks, Stapleton, Bryan, Lambert, Thomas Rhett and pop singer Pink.

The night will feature a number of collaborative performances, including Faith Hill and Tim McGraw, Ballerini and McEntire, Maren Morris and Niall Horan of One Direction, Paisley and Kane Brown, and Bentley and Rascal Flatts.

Underwood said she’s most excited to see Alan Jackson, the artist she first saw live.

“I love it when legendary artists like him perform on the CMAs. I think in our world today and even in country music, it’s kind of like … ‘Who’s new? Who’s hot? Who can we get for the show?’ And it’s nice when you can have somebody that can go up there and show us how it’s all done,” she said.

But Paisley said Underwood will have the night’s brightest performance.

“I’m telling you if that’s not the No. 1 most-talked about thing the next day, then I will be as wrong as I’ve ever been,” he said.

Urban will kick off the CMA Awards, airing live on ABC at 8 p.m. Eastern, with a performance featuring Church, Lady Antebellum and Darius Rucker. Brothers Osborne, Jon Pardi and Old Dominion will also perform.
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From: MeNeedIt

Sean Combs says he was only joking when he announced over the weekend that he had changed his nickname from Diddy to Love, as in Brother Love.

The rapper and producer took to Twitter and Instagram to set the record straight after he says he learned “you cannot play around with the internet.” He says Love is one of his “alter egos.” Combs’ other nicknames over the years include Puff Daddy, Puffy, P. Diddy and Diddy. He now says he’ll answer to any of those names and also Love.

That’s the opposite of what he said in a video posted on his 48th birthday Saturday. He told fans in that message that was going by “Love, a.k.a. Brother Love” and wouldn’t answer to anything else.
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From: MeNeedIt

Inflation in Venezuela’s crisis-hit economy was 826 percent in the 10 months to October and may end 2017 above 1,400 percent, the opposition-controlled National Assembly said Friday.

The government stopped releasing price data more than a year ago but congress has published its own figures since January and they have been close to private economists’ estimates.

As well as the alarming Jan-Oct cumulative rise, the legislative body, which has been sidelined by President Nicolas Maduro’s government, put monthly inflation at 45.5 percent for October, compared with 36.3 percent in September.

Opponents say Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, have wrecked a once-prosperous economy with 18 years of state-led socialist policies from nationalizations to currency controls.

The government says it is victim of an “economic war” including speculation and hoarding by pro-opposition businessmen, combined with U.S. sanctions and the fall in global oil prices from mid-2014. OPEC member Venezuela relies on crude oil for more than 95 percent of its export revenues.

Prices in Venezuela, which has long had one of the highest inflation rates in the world, rose 180.9 percent in 2015 and 274 percent in 2016, according to official figures, although many economists believe the real data was worse.

Announcing the October calculations, opposition lawmaker Angel Alvarado told the National Assembly that inflation next year could reach 12,000 percent.

“This is dramatic, this is Venezuelans’ big problem, it’s what keeps workers awake at night, it’s what’s killing the people with hunger,” Alvarado said.

In a research note this week, New York-based Torino Capital estimated Venezuela’s 2017 inflation would be 1,032 percent.

A central bank spokeswoman could not provide official data.
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From: MeNeedIt