Toys R Us, a nostalgic favorite even as many shoppers moved to Amazon and huge chains like Walmart, plans to close up to 182 stores, or about 20 percent of its U.S. locations.

The company that once dominated toy sales in the U.S. has been operating under bankruptcy protection since last fall, when it filed for Chapter 11 under the weight of $5 billion in debt. Toys R Us operates about 900 stores in the U.S., including Babies R Us stores.

Loyal fans lamented the closing of their hometown stores. Many said they liked to shop at Toys R Us because of the atmosphere and the variety of toys they found.

“It’s an experience,” said Bryan Likins of Indianapolis, who takes his 4-year-old daughter to Toys R Us. “She likes to walk through the store and point to different toys she liked.”

Likins said he remembered playing with the video games and trying out bikes with his brothers at Toys R Us, and he liked continuing that with his child. He said he shopped on Amazon only for specific items that he wasn’t sure other toy sellers carried.

The store closings will begin in February and the majority of locations identified for closure, which include Babies R Us stores, will go dark by mid-April. At some other locations, Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores will be combined. The bankruptcy court still must sign off on the closings.

Toys R Us wouldn’t say how many jobs were to be cut. It said some employees would be moved to other stores and those who could not be moved would severance pay.

Ease of shopping

Chairman and CEO Dave Brandon said Wednesday that tough decisions were required to save Toys R Us. He acknowledged “operational missteps” during the critical holiday shopping season, when shopping at its stores and online wasn’t as easy as it should have been.

“The actions we are taking are necessary to give us the best chance to emerge from our bankruptcy proceedings as a more viable and competitive company that will provide the level of service and experience you should expect,” he said in a letter to customers.

Gerrick Johnson, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, had estimated that holiday sales at the company’s North America stores were down more than 10 percent. He attributed much of the decline to people’s confusion around the bankruptcy filing and a fear of buying gifts at Toys R Us because they thought they wouldn’t be able to return them if necessary. Johnson also blamed a weak marketing campaign and email promotions that didn’t create a sense of urgency.

Toys R Us, based in Wayne, New Jersey, has struggled with debt since private-equity firms Bain Capital, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust took it private in a $6.6 billion leveraged buyout in 2005. The plan had been to take the company public again, but weak sales have prevented that from happening. With such debt levels, Toys R Us has not had the financial flexibility to invest in its business.

Meanwhile, other stores like Target have been increasing their assortment of toys.

Toys R Us closed its flagship store in Manhattan’s Times Square, a huge tourist destination, about two years ago.

While its sales numbers have been shrinking, Toys R Us still sells about 20 percent of the toys bought in the U.S., according to Stephanie Wissink, an analyst at Jefferies LLC.

Competitive pressures will force the company to examine all its stores, and more will likely be shuttered over the next year or two, Wissink said. Moody’s lead retail analyst Charlie O’Shea said the closings would let Toys R Us “focus all of its operating efforts on only its best locations.”

Ryan McLaine, mother of a 4-year-old boy, is disappointed that her favorite Toys R Us store in Exton, Pennsylvania, was on the list of closures.

“We would always like to reward him. It was always fun to take him to the big store to see what he would like,” she said. “Now, we have to figure out what to do next.”

She said the next closest Toys R Us location is in King of Prussia, and it’s not well-maintained. And she doesn’t like to shop for toys on Amazon.com because she likes to get a reaction from her son before she buys.

A ‘category killer’

Toys R Us reigned supreme in the 1980s and early 1990s, when it was one of the first of the “category killers” — a store totally devoted to one thing: toys. Its scale gave it leverage with toy sellers and it disrupted general merchandise stores and mom-and-pop shops. Children sang along with commercials featuring the mascot, Geoffrey the giraffe.

Now Toys R Us and other category killers like the now-defunct Sports Authority, Borders and Circuit City are being upended by Amazon and online shopping. More than three dozen retailers sought bankruptcy protection last year, due in large part to radical shifts in where people shop, and what they buy.

GlobalData Retail estimates that nearly 14 percent of toy sales were made online in 2016, more than double the level five years ago.

Jonathan Cordell, the father of an 8-month-old boy, said he does a lot of price comparisons online, jumping back and forth between Babies R Us and Amazon. But he likes to buy baby clothes at Babies R Us in Queens’ College Point section, which is on the list of stores to be closed.

“I usually take advantage of the price matching. I could find clothing at 50 percent off. You can’t find that on Amazon,” he said.

Toys R Us has been hurt by the shift to mobile devices taking up more play time. Some toy makers have struggled as well, with talk last year about the possibility of a merger between Mattel and Hasbro, the nation’s largest toy makers.

Wissink estimates that Toys R Us accounts for about 11 percent of Mattel’s annual sales and about 9 percent of Hasbro’s annual volume. Shares of Mattel Inc. fell while Hasbro Inc.’s stock was up in afternoon trading.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Virtual reality allows the user to enter a different world through sight and sound. Several researchers and companies are adding a third element to the virtual experience: the sense of touch.

Researchers in haptics, meaning the feeling of touch, are incorporating this sense into virtual reality with real-world applications. 

French company Go Touch VR created a device called VRtouch that straps onto the fingertips. The device applies varying pressure to the fingertips that correlates to what the user is seeing, touching and lifting in the virtual world. 

“That will open enormous possibilities,” said Eric Vezzoli, co-founder of Go Touch VR.

Applications for the touch device include allowing users to undergo training in a safe virtual environment.

Vezzoli said strapping three of the VR touch devices on each hand — the thumb, forefinger and middle finger — are ideal.

“We can use up to six fingers. Why? Because three fingers are enough to manipulate light objects. For example, if you’re writing, you use just three fingers. But (in) VR, there’s no mass, there’s no weight. So, just three fingers is just enough,” Vezzoli said.

Training in virtual reality with the sense of touch may include surgical preparation in a medical procedure or learning in an industrial setting. A different application can be found in the advertising world.

“You can, for example, visit an apartment — virtual apartment. You can open a cabinet. You can touch the bed — feel its softness, and that generates a physical connection with the buyer that can increase the chance of sale,” said Vezzoli.

The company’s clients include the carmaker BMW. Go Touch VR hopes its haptic device will interest content producers, major corporations and the military, as virtual reality is more widely used in the real world.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The American Lung Association says fewer Americans smoke cigarettes now than before tobacco control policies were put in place. 

In its annual report, the ALA says smoking rates among adults and teens are at historic lows. On average, just over 15.5 percent of American adults and eight percent of high school students smoke cigarettes.

The association gets its data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which show the smoking rate declined from 20.9 percent in 2005 to 15.5 percent in 2016. Still, CDC data shows that nearly 38 million American adults continue to smoke. 

“The good news is that these data are consistent with the declines in adult cigarette smoking that we’ve seen for several decades. These findings also show that more people are quitting, and those who continue to smoke are smoking less,” according to Corinne Graffunder, director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health quoted in a news release from the CDC. 

Yet, the American Lung Association finds that certain groups and regions in the United States are disproportionately impacted by tobacco use and exposure to second-hand smoke. Thomas Carr, the ALA’s Director of National Policy who wrote the 2018 report “The State of Tobacco Control,” said poorer Americans, those who are less educated, Native Americans and some ethnic groups have smoking rates that are close to 30 percent or higher. 

“The tobacco industry advertises more to some of these groups and more heavily than others, and you will find in low-income areas, there are sometimes a bigger concentration of tobacco stores and that kind of thing.”

There’s also peer pressure, and when friends or parents smoke, teens tend to take up the habit. Studies show that most people who smoke start before they are 18. Some start as young as age 11 according to The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Carr calls it a pediatric disease. “It starts in your teens and then once you’re hooked, you can’t get off of it.”

The lung association is pushing states to raise the age where young people can legally purchase cigarettes to 21, the minimum age in the United States for purchasing alcohol. The thought is that if middle and high school students can’t get cigarettes, they are less likely to start smoking. “It cuts off access to people 15 to 17 years old. A lot of times they’ll go to their friends who are 18 (and still) in high school, but they’re not as likely to hang around with people who are 19 or 20 or 21.” So far five states — California, Oregon, Maine, Hawaii and New Jersey have raised the age to 21. 

The lung association issues an annual report to help promote state and federal regulations to make it easier for people who smoke to quit and to help those who don’t smoke not to start. 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Ursula K. Le Guin, the award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her Earthsea books, has died at 88.

Le Guin died suddenly and peacefully Monday at her home in Portland, Oregon, after several weeks of health concerns, her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin said Tuesday.

“She left an extraordinary legacy as an artist and as an advocate of peace and critical thinking and fairness, and she was a great mother and wife as well,” he said.

“Godspeed into the galaxy,” Stephen King tweeted, saying Le Guin was a literary icon, not just a science fiction writer.

Le Guin won an honorary National Book Award in 2014 and warned in her acceptance speech against letting profit define what is considered good literature.

Despite being a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1997 — a rare achievement for a science fiction-fantasy writer — she often criticized the “commercial machinery of bestsellerdom and prizedom.”

“I really don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river,” Le Guin said in the speech. “We who live by writing and publishing want — and should demand — our fair share of the proceeds. But the name of our beautiful reward is not profit. Its name is freedom.”

Le Guin’s first novel was “Roncannon’s World” in 1966 but she gained fame three years later with “The Left Hand of Darkness,” which won the Hugo and Nebula awards — top science fiction prizes — and conjures a radical change in gender roles well before the rise of the transgender community.

The book imagines a future society in which people are equally male and female and also dramatizes the perils of tyranny, violence and conformity.

Her best-known works, the Earthsea books, have sold in the millions worldwide and have been translated into 16 languages. She also produced volumes of short stories, poetry, essays and literature for young adults.

Le Guin’s work also won the Newbery Medal, the top honor for American children’s literature. Last year, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

“I know that I am always called ‘the sci-fi writer.’ Everybody wants to stick me into that one box, while I really live in several boxes,” she told reviewer Mark Wilson of Scifi.com.

Neil Gaiman, a fellow Newbery, Hugo and Nebula recipient, mourned her death on Twitter and called Le Guin “the deepest and smartest of the writers.”

“Her words are always with us. Some of them are written on my soul,” he wrote.

A longtime feminist, Le Guin earned degrees from Radcliffe and Columbia. Her 1983 “Left-Handed Commencement Address” at Mills College was ranked one of the top 100 speeches of the 20th century in a 1999 survey by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and Texas A&M University.

“Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Machoman or serve him?” she told the graduates. “Why should she live her life on his terms? … I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated.”

Born in Berkeley, California, on Oct. 21, 1929, Le Guin described a well-off childhood even during the Depression, with summers in the countryside. Her success followed an early setback: At age 11, she had her first offering rejected by Amazing Stories, the pioneering science fiction magazine.

“During the Second World War, my brothers all went into service and the summers in the Valley became lonely ones, just me and my parents in the old house,” she told sfsite.com, another science fiction website.

“There was no TV then; we turned on the radio once a day to get the war news. Those summers of solitude and silence, a teenager wandering the hills on my own, no company, ‘nothing to do,’ were very important to me. I think I started making my soul then,” she said.

She married Charles Le Guin in Paris in 1953. They moved to Portland and had three children.

Her themes ranged from children’s literature to explorations of Taoism, feminism, anarchy, psychology and sociology to tales of a society where reading and writing are punishable by death and of a scientist who battles aliens to save the world.

Critic Harold Bloom placed her in the pantheon of fantasy writers along with JRR Tolkien.

“Sometimes I think I am just trying to superstitiously avert evil by talking about it,” she told sfsite.com. “Throughout my whole adult life, I have watched us blighting our world irrevocably … ignoring every warning and neglecting every benevolent alternative in pursuit of `growth.’”
…

From: MeNeedIt

You may not know her name, but you know her face.

Connie Sawyer, known in Hollywood as the oldest working actress in show business, has finally ended her career. 

Sawyer died late Monday at her home in Los Angeles at 105.

She began her career as a singer and comedienne on radio, in nightclubs, and vaudeville in the early 1930s. 

When Sawyer became too old to be called a “girl singer,” she began acting in character parts on Broadway and on hundreds of television comedy shows and films, playing little old ladies in such hits as When Harry Met Sally, Dumb and Dumber, and Pineapple Express.

Sawyer never retired and said she never wanted to be a star — just a working actress who could always get a paycheck.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The Trump administration is set to announce a raft of trade decisions over the next months, ranging from curbs on foreign imports of steel and aluminum to steps to clamp down on China’s alleged theft of intellectual property.

U.S. President Donald Trump has stressed his “America First” agenda in his first year in office and called for fairer, more reciprocal trade. He has blamed globalization for ravaging American manufacturing jobs as companies sought to reduce labor costs by relocating to Mexico and elsewhere.

Imported washing machines, solar panels

In its first major trade decision of the year, the administration slapped steep tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels, boosting Whirlpool Corp. and dealing a setback to the renewable energy industry.

Monday’s decision imposed a 20 percent tariff on the first 1.2 million imported large residential washers in the first year, and a 50 percent tariff on machines above that number. The tariff declines to 16 percent and 40 percent respectively in the third year.

The move punishes Samsung Electronics, which recently began washer production in South Carolina, and LG Electronics, which is building a plant in Tennessee.

The U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association on Tuesday warned that Trump’s move to slap 30 percent tariffs on imported panels would kill tens of thousands of jobs, raise the cost of going solar and quash billions of dollars of investment.

South Korea could push back by launching a complaint through the Geneva-based World Trade Organization, but that is likely to take years. Seoul could also raise it during current negotiations with the United States on modifying the U.S.-South Korea free-trade agreement, known as KORUS.

Steel

The U.S. Commerce Department sent its recommendations on ways to curb foreign steel imports to the White House on January 11. The report followed Trump’s decision, made several months after he took office, to open a Section 232 investigation (from Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962) into whether steel imports threaten U.S. national security.

Trump has 90 days to decide on any potential action. He has promised that any actions will protect steelworkers from imports. Curbing excess steel production in China, which now supplies half of the world’s steel, would be a key goal of any action. Broad tariffs could, however, also affect steelmakers in Europe, Japan, South Korea and Turkey.

It is unclear when the decision on steel imports will be announced.

Aluminum

The Commerce Department has sent Trump the results of its national security investigation into aluminum imports. That Section 232 probe could see broad import restrictions imposed on lightweight metal. The White House has been debating whether to order broad tariffs or quotas on steel and aluminum, pitting administration officials who favor aggressive restrictions against those who favor a more cautious approach to avoid a run-up in prices.

It is unclear when Trump will make his decision.

​Intellectual property

Trump and his trade advisers are currently considering penalizing China under Section 301 of the 1974 trade law for its alleged theft of American intellectual property.

The 301 investigation would allow Trump to impose retaliatory tariffs on Chinese goods or other trade sanctions until China changes its policies.

Trump told Reuters in an interview on January 17 that he was considering imposing a big “fine” against China, but he did not elaborate on his answer.

U.S. businesses say they lose hundreds of billions of dollars in technology and millions of jobs to Chinese firms that have stolen ideas and software or forced them to turn over intellectual property as part of doing business in China.

A White House official told Reuters January 19 that Trump was particularly focused on the 301 investigation because it was “systemic” and covered a large swath of American businesses.

China could retaliate by weighing whether the actions are in line with WTO rules while ratcheting up pressure on U.S. businesses — for example, by buying from a European company such as Airbus instead of Boeing.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Hugh Masekela, the trumpeter, composer and anti-apartheid activist known as the “father of South African jazz” has died at the age of 78 in Johannesburg.

A statement by released by his family Tuesday said Masekela, affectionately called “Bra Hugh,” passed away “after a protracted and courageous battle with prostate cancer.” He announced last October that he was being treated for the disease, which was first diagnosed in 2008. 

Masekela’s five-decade career began in earnest in the 1950s, when he helped create the Johannesburg jazz scene as a member of the bebop sextet Jazz Epistles, but fled South Africa in the 1960s to spend the next three decades in exile.

He befriended American singer and activist Harry Belafonte, and he increasingly used his music to protest the indignities and repression of white-minority rule in his homeland. Among his better known protest tunes were “Soweto Blues,” and “Bring Him Back Home,” an anthem demanding the release of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela from prison. 

Masekela scored an international number-one hit in 1968 with the breezy tune “Grazing in the Grass.” He later collaborated with American pop star Paul Simon in the 1980s. He was briefly married in the 1960s to Miriam Makeba, the legendary South African singer and activist.

South African President Jacob Zuma praised Masekela in a statement Tuesday, saying he “kept the torch of freedom alive” through his music, and that “his contribution to the struggle for liberation will never be forgotten.”

Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa wrote on Twitter that “Bra Hugh was one of the great architects of Afro-Jazz and he uplifted the soul of our nation through his timeless music.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Polo Ralph Lauren unveiled Team USA’s Olympic parade uniforms Monday and social media haters can leave the ugly sweater jokes back in Sochi.

Roundly mocked in 2014 for a chaotic, patchwork cardigan sweater, the brand went classic red, white and blue this time around for the opening ceremony and white for the closing parade of athletes in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Both have a cozy bit of technology built in to keep athletes extra warm. 

Athletes will be treated to stretchy skinny jeans and a far less busily designed sweater for opening, with a stretch knit pant – think structured sweat pant – for closing. The jeans have moto-inspired seaming. Accessories include a navy wool ski hat and USA-themed navy bandanna. On the athletes’ feet will be brown suede mountaineering boots with red laces for the outdoor opening.

And then there are the gloves. They’re more Ralph than Ralph himself, a Western style in suede with fringe in rawhide brown and decorated in hand-beaded Olympic rings and an American flag. They’re lined in white and fit over the wrists. Warm, yes. Yee haw! Lasso not included.

David Lauren, the youngest son of the brand’s namesake and the company’s chief innovation officer, was proud of the technology for the tri-colored parkas in mostly navy blue and the bombers for the end of the Winter Games.

In a process developed exclusively for the brand, the heating system is made of electronic printed conductive inks in silver and black in the shape of an America flag and bonded to the interior backs of the jackets, he said. Athletes can control basic settings using their cellphones for up to five hours of heat on high and up to 11 hours on low, fully charged.

A limited number were released for sale to fans and were selling quickly, Lauren said. All garments are American made.

The brand has been the official outfitter of the U.S. Olympic Committee and Team USA since 2008. The uniforms will also be worn by the Paralympic Games teams. 

“Every season we learn from the athletes,” Lauren said. “We work very closely with them, where we find out what makes them comfortable as they’re walking out on this amazing stage in front of the entire world.”

The story Lauren is trying to tell this time around is a celebration of the past, he said, “so we have gloves inspired by the frontier movement, we have jeans that celebrate another era of American entrepreneurship and jackets that heat up, which show that America is continuing to evolve.”

The jacket technology displays the temperature inside the garment to help the athletes decide on settings. 

The company was looking to display a boldness in the looks this year. It was about comfort, however, as opposed to playing into the tumultuous politics of the last year.

And what does Lauren say to critics who have poked fun in the past? 

“We’re very proud to work with Team USA,” he said. “This year we’re excited to say that most of the outfits have already sold out.”

Enthusiasts can buy pieces online and in a handful of Ralph Lauren stores around the country, including a customizable ski hat, Lauren said. A portion of proceeds will be donated to athletes’ training.

The uniforms were modeled in a Polo Ralph Lauren store in downtown Manhattan by sister-brother, Lauren-sponsored ice dancing team Maia and Alex Shibutani. 

“The jacket is going to be perfect for the cold weather,” Alex said. “We love the jacket especially.”

Maia was impressed by the stretch in the jeans. 

“I’m going to be wearing these all the time, definitely.”

And those gloves?

“There’s some nice detailing,” Alex offered. “There’s ‘Polo’ right there on the side.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Uganda’s cancer patients can finally breathe a sigh of relief after the country got a new cobalt-60 radiation treatment machine. But, health officials say this may not be enough because of an ever increasing number of cancer cases in the country. Halima Athumani reports for VOA from Kampala.
…

From: MeNeedIt

A trade group representing U.S. auto parts makers on Monday urged the Trump administration to adopt NAFTA automotive rules that cover research, engineering, design and software development work as part of North American regional value content goals.

The proposal from the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association (MEMA) was sent to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer as a sixth round of negotiations to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement began in Montreal.

U.S. demands for sweeping changes to automotive content rules are among the most contentious issues in the NAFTA talks, including a requirement that half the value of all North American vehicles come from the United States and a far higher content requirement of 85 percent from North America.

Canada and Mexico have said the U.S. targets are unworkable, but have not responded with counter-proposals.

They are expected to do so at the Montreal talks ending Jan 29. Lack of progress in bridging the gap on autos could jeopardize the negotiations and increase the chances that President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to seek a U.S. withdrawal from NAFTA.

The U.S. auto industry, including MEMA and trade groups representing Detroit and foreign-brand automakers, have largely sided with Canada and Mexico in arguing that the U.S. proposals would hurt the industry’s competitiveness.

The MEMA letter to Lighthizer makes no mention of the proposed U.S. and regional content targets, and focuses instead on recommendations that its members believe will help retain and grow automotive jobs in the United States.

“We think it lines up very well with the president’s initiatives and his stated goals for NAFTA and other free trade agreements,” Ann Wilson, MEMA’s senior vice president of government affairs, told Reuters. “What we have been trying to do is find other ways of getting to the president’s objectives without getting to a 50 percent domestic requirement.”

Counting the well-paid engineering, design, research and software development as part of a vehicle’s value content would provide an incentive for companies to retain jobs doing this work now largely done in the United States.

The proposal also urges the Trump administration to preserve “tariff-shifting” for automotive parts as a means to retain the higher value-added work being done on sophisticated automotive electronics and other systems.

Currently, companies that import components and materials into North America and convert them into automotive parts can “shift,” or apply, NAFTA tariff-free benefits to such inputs.

For example, off-the-shelf electronics parts from Asia such as lidar and radar units, cameras, sensors and circuit boards currently gain this benefit as they are assembled into vehicle crash avoidance systems. Steel tubing converted to fuel injectors also can gain such benefits.

But the current USTR autos proposal would require that virtually all components be subject to a “tracing list” to verify their North American origin so they can count toward regional value targets.

The tracing list would be expanded to steel, glass, plastic resins and other materials, under the proposal.

Industry executives have argued that these requirements are likely to push auto and parts companies to source more products outside the region and simply pay the low 2.5 percent U.S. tariffs on many parts.

MEMA also urged Lighthizer to negotiate an agreement that provides incentives to U.S. companies to train and expand the U.S. workforce, as parts companies struggle to fill open positions amid rising retirements. The group also urged that aftermarket parts be subject to the same NAFTA rules as original equipment parts.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing, winner of the National Book Award for fiction, is now a nominee for the National Book Critics Circle prize.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is comprised of around 1,000 critics and book review editors.
…

From: MeNeedIt

The World Health Organization’s director general is calling on its 192 member states to adopt universal health care as the best way of guaranteeing health for all.

This is the first time Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has addressed the 34-member executive board since assuming his post in July as the first African head of the World Health Organization. And the former Ethiopian health minister was not shy about touting his accomplishments during his first six months in office.

He said a plan to transform the WHO into a stronger, more relevant organization has been developed. Tedros proudly noted he had achieved gender parity in the WHO’s top ranks, with women outnumbering men.

Tedros said the WHO has built strong political momentum on non-communicable diseases and tuberculosis, and that a new initiative to combat the health effects of climate change in small island developing states has been launched. He appeared most enthusiastic about his vision to achieve health for all.

“At least half the world’s population still lacks access to essential health services. And almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty every year because of out-of-pocket health spending. This must end,” he said.

Tedros said recent visits to Kenya, Madagascar and Rwanda convinced him that universal health coverage is not a pipe dream. He said all three countries are creating affordable health care systems.

“I am more convinced than ever that UHC [universal health care] is not only the best investment in a healthier world, it is also the best investment in a safer world. As you have heard me say, universal health coverage and health security are two sides of the same coin,” he said.

The WHO chief said he hoped to advance this issue at the World Health Assembly in May. He said he would ask as many countries as possible to make commitments at the WHA regarding the action they will take toward achieving universal health coverage at home.
…

From: MeNeedIt