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Crude oil prices reached a 30-month high this week. But the government agency that analyzes and disseminates energy information says the rally may have run its course. The Energy Information Administration predicts U.S. crude prices will stabilize to about 55 dollars a barrel for West Texas Crude and 60 dollars a barrel for Brent Crude, with slightly higher prices for both in 2019. One energy expert disagrees and says oil prices are on their way up. Mil Arcega explains.
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From: MeNeedIt
Following an outcry over a significant disparity in pay between co-stars, Mark Wahlberg agreed Saturday to donate the $1.5 million he earned for reshoots for All the Money in the World to the sexual misconduct defense initiative Time’s Up.
Wahlberg said he’ll donate the money in the name of his co-star, Michelle Williams, who reportedly made less than $1,000 on the reshoots.
“I 100% support the fight for fair pay,” Wahlberg said in a statement.
Williams issued a statement Saturday, saying: “Today isn’t about me. My fellow actresses stood by me and stood up for me, my activist friends taught me to use my voice, and the most powerful men in charge, they listened and they acted.”
She noted that “it takes equal effort and sacrifice” to make a film.
“Today is one of the most indelible days of my life because of Mark Wahlberg, WME (William Morris Endeavor) and a community of women and men who share in this accomplishment.”
The announcement Saturday came after directors and stars, including Jessica Chastain and Judd Apatow, shared their shock at reports of the huge pay disparity for the Ridley Scott film. The 10 days of reshoots were necessary after Kevin Spacey was replaced by Christopher Plummer when accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced against Spacey. USA Today reported Williams was paid less than $1,000 for the 10 days.
Both Williams and Plummer were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances.
Talent agency William Morris Endeavor, which represents both Williams and Wahlberg, said it will donate an additional $500,000 to Time’s Up. The agency said in a statement that wage disparity conversations should continue and “we are committed to being part of the solution.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Tunisia plans to increase aid for poor families by $70.3 million, after nearly a week of protests over austerity measures, an official said Saturday.
“This will concern about 250,000 families,” Mohamed Trabelsi, minister of social affairs, said. “It will help the poor and middle class.”
President Beji Caid Essebsi was also scheduled to visit the poor district of Ettadhamen in the capital, Tunis, which was hit by protests.
Essebsi was set to give a speech and open a cultural center, Reuters reported. It was to be the president’s first visit to the district.
Several hundred protesters took to the streets Saturday in Sidi Bouzid, where a 2011 uprising began, touching off the Arab Spring protests. And on Friday, protesters in cities and towns across the country waved yellow cards — a warning sign to the government — and brandished loaves of bread, a symbol of the day-to-day struggle to afford basic goods.
Anger has been growing since the government introduced price hikes earlier this month, which came atop already soaring inflation.
WATCH: Protests Erupt Again in Tunisia, Cradle of 2011 Arab Spring
Since Monday, security forces have been deployed in Tunis and across the country. Several hundred people have been arrested, including opposition politicians, while dozens have been injured in clashes with police. A 55-year-old man died earlier this week, though the circumstances of his death remained unclear.
The scenes of protest are reminiscent of January 2011, when demonstrations swept across the country, eventually toppling dictator Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali before spreading across the region.
“Why did we do the revolution? For jobs, for freedom and for dignity. We obtained freedom, sure — but we’re going hungry,” unemployed protester Walid Bejaoui said Friday.
One of the main protest organizations is using the Arabic social media hashtag “Fesh Nestannew?” or “What Are We Waiting For?” The group is urging a return to the spirit of the 2011 revolt.
“We believe a dialogue is still possible and reforms are still possible. The yellow card is to say, ‘Attention: Today we have the same demands that we have been having for years. It’s time to tackle the real problems, the economic crisis, the high cost of living,’ ” said Henda Chennaoui, a Fesh Nestannew protester.
The government enacted a new law this month raising taxes to try to cut the deficit, a move largely driven by Tunisia’s obligations to its international creditors, said analyst Max Gallien of the London School of Economics.
“I think that this government feels that its ability to make its own economic policy or its ability to roll back these austerity reforms is very much limited by the demands of international financial institutions,” he said, “primarily the IMF,” or International Monetary Fund.
The government has condemned the violence but pledged to listen to the protesters.
“No matter what the government undertakes, its top priority — even during tough decisions — is improving the economic and social conditions of the people,” Prime Minister Youssef Chahed told reporters Thursday.
So could the region witness a repeat of 2011, with the protests gaining momentum?
“We’re looking at a different region now. But at the same time, there are similarities: the issue of austerity, of socioeconomic nationalization, of corruption and predation by elites,” analyst Gallien said.
The Tunisian government’s task is to address those deep-rooted problems before the protests spin out of control.
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From: MeNeedIt
A new biography of French first lady Brigitte Macron says her husband penned a racy novel inspired by their early romance, when he was still a teenager and she his married drama teacher.
President Emmanuel Macron, who turned 40 last month, fell for Brigitte during rehearsals for a school play at the Providence high school in Amiens, and defied his parents’ disapproval to pursue the relationship with a woman 24 years his
senior.
The book, “Brigitte Macron, The Liberated Woman”, to be published next week, quotes a family neighbor from Macron’s home town who says she typed up the 300-page manuscript.
“It was a daring novel, a little bit smutty. Of course, the names were not the same but I think he needed to express what he was feeling at the time,” the unnamed neighbor is quoted as saying in excerpts published by Closer magazine.
A spokeswoman for Macron’s office declined to comment.
In the excerpts, the typist said she had not kept a copy of the novel – perhaps sparing the blushes of a leader who has promised to clean up French politics and says he wants to restore the dignity of the presidency.
But Macron would not be the only current French politician to try his hand at adult literature.
In 2011, the prime minister, Edouard Philippe, co-authored ‘Dans l’ombre’ (In the Shadows), a political thriller laced with steamy encounters. The finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has written a novel entitled ‘Le Ministre’ (The Minister), which includes a steamy scene between the minister and his wife in Venice.
Macron’s literary ambitions as a young man are well known and he wrote at least two unpublished works before authoring a book entitled “Revolution” during his election campaign.
He told the weekly magazine Le Point last year that he had not sought a publisher for the earlier works “as I was not happy with them”.
In a separate article for the same magazine, asked by French author Philippe Besson if he regretted not becoming a writer himself, Macron replied: “My life isn’t finished yet.”
From: MeNeedIt
Deadly traffic accidents are more than just individual tragedies. They’re a drag on economic growth in developing countries, according to a new World Bank report.
The study is among the first to show that investing in road safety in low- and middle-income countries would raise national incomes.
Ninety percent of the world’s annual 1.25 million traffic deaths happen in the developing world. The World Health Organization says traffic accidents are the leading cause of death worldwide for people between 15 to 29 years old. That includes crashes that kill pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists.
But the issue does not get much official attention, according to World Bank transportation expert Dipan Bose.
“There is not a lot of political will in many low and middle income countries to take definitive actions to reduce road deaths and injuries,” he said.
Bose co-authored a study focused on five countries: China, India, Thailand, the Philippines and Tanzania. The authors used economic models to estimate what each country’s overall economy would gain over a 24-year period by cutting traffic deaths in half.
“The results were quite startling,” he said.
Thailand would see a 22 percent boost to national income. The country’s high rates of both economic growth and traffic accidents meant it had the most to gain.
Tanzania would gain seven percent. The other countries fell in between.
These kinds of economic gains are “something which no national government can ignore,” Bose said. The report “gives the economic story of why it is important to take strong actions on road safety.”
Enforcing speed limits, helmet and seat belt laws and cutting down on drunk driving are “low-hanging fruit” to reduce traffic injuries, the report says.
Not only drivers at fault
But drivers are only partly responsible for traffic deaths, according to a separate report co-authored by the World Bank and the World Resources Institute. City planners and government officials are responsible for building safety into the transportation system.
“If the system’s not safe – if people don’t have the opportunity to cross the road safely, or drive in a safe vehicle – then a small error can result in a fatality,” said report co-author Anna Bray Sharpin at the World Resources Institute. “And that should not be the case.”
For example, she said, “many cities have applied highway design guidelines even to their city streets.” Wide, multi-lane boulevards are designed for “maximum traffic flow and speed,” but not for cyclists or pedestrians.
“People tend to take risks to try and cross the road,” she said. “And that comes back to this issue of whether this is a personal responsibility, or a co-responsibility between governments and planners and people using the road.”
The report offers guidance for incorporating safety into road design. Public transit, walking and biking lower the number of cars on the road and the number of accidents. Installing sidewalks, raised crosswalks and protected cycle lanes helps keep these road users out of harm’s way. On rural roads, median barriers can reduce head-on collisions.
Bray Sharpin notes that many developing countries are currently planning major road infrastructure projects.
“There’s a window of opportunity now to integrate safety into their planning,” she said. It’s much cheaper than trying to retrofit it later. Plus, once these roads are built, they’ll be around for decades.
If they don’t build in safety now, she added, they will be “locked into their dangerous infrastructure for the very long term.”
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From: MeNeedIt
Researchers say climate change is responsible for the vast majority of green sea turtles in the northern Great Barrier Reef off Australia being female.
Scientists from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the temperature at which turtle eggs incubate determines the sex of hatchlings, and warn that warmer conditions are creating a dangerous gender imbalance.
Almost the entire green turtle population in parts of the northern Great Barrier Reef in Australia is now female. A study of about 200,000 animals in the reef’s northern waters found them to be overwhelmingly female. The research was published in the journal Current Biology. There are concerns that the future of the endangered reptile is increasingly precarious.
In the southern Barrier Reef, where conditions are cooler, about two-thirds are female. Researchers say that while they hope for some milder years to produce more males, they expect temperatures to continue to rise.
One possible solution to the gender imbalance is to put up tents over beaches where turtles nest to give them shade.
Colin Limpus, Queensland chief scientist, says that cloud seeding is another option.
“There is consideration being given to having artificial rain. It is being considered primarily for how we can get the turtles nesting successfully; at the same time it is going to cool the sand and should shift the sex ratio towards an increase in males,” Limpus said.
The green turtle is one of the largest sea turtles and the only herbivore among the different species. They are named for the greenish color of their cartilage and fat, not their shells.
They are classified as endangered, and are threatened by habitat loss, over-harvesting of their eggs, and the hunting of adults.
The Great Barrier Reef stretches for 2,300 kilometers down Australia’s northeast coast. It is home to a spectacular range of wildlife, including more than 130 species of sharks, 500 types of worms and 1,600 varieties of fish.
The reef faces a range of threats from the run-off of pesticides and soil from farms, and warmer ocean temperatures that have caused the mass bleaching of the coral in the past two years.
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From: MeNeedIt
The United States Department of Agriculture reports record harvests of corn and soybeans in the United States in 2017, with stocks overflowing at elevators and storage bins across the country. But as VOA’s Kane Farabaugh reports, record yields don’t necessarily translate into stronger bottom lines for farmers, who increasingly depend on international trade to move their product and improve their prices.
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From: MeNeedIt
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer brokered a $130,000 payment to a porn star to prevent her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Trump, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal.
Trump met Stephanie Clifford, whose goes by the name Stormy Daniels in films, at a golf event in 2006 — a year after Trump’s marriage to his wife, Melania.
According to the Journal’s report, Clifford began talking with ABC News in the fall of 2016 for a story involving an alleged relationship with Trump, but reached a $130,000 deal a month before the election, which prevented her from going public.
Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen arranged for the payment through Clifford’s lawyer, Keith Davidson, the Journal reported.
In a statement to the Journal, Cohen did not address his role in negotiating the supposed payment but said Trump denies any such relationship with Clifford. Clifford has previously denied an alleged relationship with Trump.
On Friday afternoon, the White House issued a statement calling the Journal’s story “old, recycled reports, which were published and strongly denied prior to the election.”
Cohen also accused the Journal of perpetuating “a false narrative for over a year.”
Just days before the 2016 election, the Journal published a story stating that the National Enquirer — run by David Pecker, a fervid supporter of Trump — had paid $150,000 to silence former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal about a sexual relationship she allegedly had with Trump a decade ago.
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From: MeNeedIt
Americans may love Oprah Winfrey, but most don’t want the chat show queen to run for president, although if she did she would beat Donald Trump, a poll revealed Friday.
Winfrey’s rousing speech at Sunday’s Golden Globe Awards ceremony ignited speculation that the billionaire entertainment mogul, the first black woman to own a television network, is harboring Oval Office ambitions.
Sixty-four percent of respondents have a favorable view of Winfrey, including 43 percent of Trump supporters, according to the NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist survey.
But when asked if they wanted Winfrey to run in 2020, only 35 percent said yes. A majority — 54 percent — said no and 11 percent said they were unsure.
Yet if a hypothetical presidential head-to-head was held today, 50 percent of national registered voters said they would vote in Winfrey as a Democrat. Only 39 percent said they would return Trump to office.
Voters were predictably split along party lines. Ninety-one percent of Democrats backed Winfrey. Eighty-five percent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump.
While there is little indication that 63-year-old Winfrey wants the job, Hollywood’s loathing of Trump and Democrats’ bafflement that a reality TV star could win with no previous government experience has fueled talk of finding their own celebrity candidate.
Trump said Tuesday he doubted Winfrey would run, but if she did, he would win.
The survey was carried out among 1,350 adults earlier this week, after Oprah’s speech made headlines. The poll carried a margin of error of 2.7 percent and three percent among registered voters.
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From: MeNeedIt
General Motors Co is seeking U.S. government approval for a fully autonomous car — one without a steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator pedal — to enter the automaker’s first commercial ride-sharing fleet in 2019, executives said.
For passengers who cannot open doors, the Cruise AV — a rebranded version of GM’s Chevrolet Bolt EV — has even been designed to perform that task. It will have other accommodations for hearing and visually impaired customers.
This will be one of the first self-driving vehicles in commercial passenger service and among the first to do away with manual controls for steering, brakes and throttle. What is the driver’s seat in the Bolt EV will become the front left passenger seat in the Cruise AV, GM said.
Company President Dan Ammann told reporters GM had filed on Thursday for government approval to deploy the “first production-ready vehicle designed from the start without a steering wheel, pedals or other unnecessary manual controls.”
GM is part of a growing throng of vehicle manufacturers, technology companies and tech startups seeking to develop so-called robo-taxis over the next three years in North America, Europe and Asia. Most of those companies have one or more partners.
On Friday, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirmed GM had petitioned for approval to operate up to 2,500 vehicles without steering wheels or human drivers.
“Safety is the [Transportation] department’s top priority. The department will review this petition and give it careful consideration,” the agency said in a statement.
Ford Motor Co said on Tuesday it will partner with delivery service Postmates Inc as the automaker starts testing ways to transport people, food and packages this spring in its self-driving cars, which are being developed by Ford’s Argo unit.
Other companies, from Uber Technologies Inc to Alphabet Inc’s Waymo, have been testing self-driving vehicle prototypes in limited ride-sharing applications, but have been less explicit than GM in announcing plans for commercial robo-taxi services.
GM executives said the automaker has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to allow 16 alterations to existing vehicle safety rules — such as having an airbag in what would normally be the driver’s seat, but without a steering wheel — to enable the deployment of the Cruise AV.
The automaker would then need to obtain similar approval from individual U.S. states. GM executives said seven U.S. states already allow the alterations sought by the automaker.
In other states — including those that stipulate a car must have a licensed human driver — GM will work with regulators to change or get a waiver from existing rules.
The company declined to identify the first states in which it plans to launch the vehicle or say when it would begin testing.
GM wants to control its own self-driving fleet partly because of the tremendous revenue potential it sees in selling related services, from e-commerce to infotainment, to consumers riding in those vehicles.
At a Nov. 30 briefing in San Francisco, GM’s Ammann told investors the lifetime revenue generation of one of its self-driving cars could eventually be “several hundred thousands of dollars.” That compares with the $30,000 on average that GM collects today for one of its vehicles, mostly derived from the initial sale.
GM’s Cruise AV is equipped with the automaker’s fourth-generation self-driving software and hardware, including 21 radars, 16 cameras and five lidars — sensing devices that use laser light to help autonomous cars “see” nearby objects and obstacles.
The Cruise AV will be able to operate in hands-free mode only in premapped urban areas.
GM’s prototype self-driving vehicles have been developed in San Francisco by Cruise Automation, the onetime startup that GM acquired in March 2016 for a reported $1 billion.
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From: MeNeedIt
To his toolbox of Botox, fillers and plastic surgery, cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Murad Alam has added a new, low-cost, noninvasive anti-aging treatment: facial yoga.
Dermatologists measured improvements in the appearance of the faces of a small group of middle-age women after they did half an hour of daily face-toning exercises for eight weeks, followed by alternate-day exercises for another 12 weeks.
The results surprised lead author Alam, vice chair and professor of dermatology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
“In fact, the results were stronger than I expected,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s really a win-win for patients.”
Participants included 27 women between 40 and 65, though only 16 completed the full course. It began with two 90-minute muscle-resistant facial exercise-training sessions led by co-author Gary Sikorski of Happy Face Yoga in Providence, Rhode Island.
Participants learned to perform cheek pushups and eye-bag removers, among other exercises. Then they practiced at home.
Improvements noted
Dermatologists looking at unmarked before-and-after photos saw improvements in upper cheek and lower cheek fullness, and they estimated the average age of women who stuck with the program as significantly younger at the end than at the start.
The average estimated age dropped almost three years, from nearly 51 years to 48 years.
Participants also rated themselves as more satisfied with the appearance of their faces at the study’s end, Alam and colleagues reported in JAMA Dermatology.
“Now there is some evidence that facial exercises may improve facial appearance and reduce some visible signs of aging,” Alam said. “Assuming the findings are confirmed in a larger study, individuals now have a low-cost, non-toxic way of looking younger or augmenting other cosmetic or anti-aging treatments they may be seeking.”
The exercises enlarge and strengthen facial muscles to firm and tone the face, giving it a younger appearance, he said.
Happy Face sells instructional worksheets — promising smoother skin, firmed cheeks and raised eyelids — for $19.95. DVDs cost $24.95.
Some skepticism
But not all dermatologists are rushing to promote the videos or the exercises.
Dr. John Chi, a plastic surgeon and professor at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, said the study raises more questions than it answers.
“The jury is still out on whether or not facial yoga is effective in reversing the signs of aging,” he said in an email.
Chi, who was not involved with the study, said he would recommend facial yoga to patients who found it relaxing and enjoyable but not for the purpose of facial rejuvenation.
“While the premise of facial exercises to improve the facial appearance or reverse signs of aging is an appealing one, there is little evidence to suggest that there is any benefit in this regard,” he said.
Chi said facial yoga had not been rigorously examined in peer-reviewed scientific studies. Asked whether procedures such as face-lifts, Botox and fillers had been rigorously examined in peer-reviewed studies, he replied: “Great question. Attempts to do so have been made in the scientific literature with variable levels of scientific rigor.”
Alam agrees that his study raises additional research questions, such as whether the exercises would work for men and how much time people need to commit to doing the exercises for them to be optimally effective. He would like to see a larger study.
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From: MeNeedIt