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

Unless emissions can be drastically and quickly curbed, efforts by small island nations to adapt to climate change may be in vain, a leader of a group of small island nations said Tuesday.

Hurricanes that hit the Caribbean this year were like nothing seen before, with Hurricane Irma so strong it was picked up by seismic machines that detect earthquake tremors, officials said.

National plans to curb planet-warming emissions, drawn up ahead of the Paris Agreement, currently add up to a projected temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100 — well above the 1 degree Celsius rise already seen.

That may bring climate impacts that are impossible for small island nations to deal with, their leaders warned Tuesday at the U.N. climate talks in Bonn.

If ambition to curb climate remains modest, “have we created a situation for small island developing states where resilience may not necessarily be … achievable?” asked Janine Felson, Belize ambassador to the United Nations and vice chair of the Alliance of Small Island States.

This year, Hurricane Maria destroyed broad swaths of homes and infrastructure on the Caribbean island of Dominica and stripped its trees bare. Barbuda island was left temporarily uninhabitable when Irma whipped through the region.

“In the Caribbean we’re used to hurricanes, but … for the first time we’ve seen storms turbocharge and supersize in a matter of hours,” she said, speaking on the sidelines of the climate talks.

The storms’ impact was “quite apocalyptic,” and magnified the acute vulnerability of small island states, Felson said.

Even so, countries — who are now clear on the risks — can take steps to protect themselves by building structures better able to weather storms, and ensuring policies take into account the rapidly changing climate, she said.

“If we do not know the extent of our vulnerability, then we will not change,” Felson said.

Bouncing back

In Fiji, resilience to the rapidly changing climate is about communities being able to bounce back, rebuild together and become stronger, said Inia Seruiratu, Fiji minister for agriculture, rural and maritime development, and national disaster management.

When Cyclone Winston struck Fiji last year, it caused $100 million in damage to infrastructure alone. Businesses and people’s livelihoods suffered, women and girls became more vulnerable, and school records were lost, Seruiratu said.

“We need to put in place response measures that will allow vulnerable countries to cope with such severities,” he said.

Small island states also need to look at climate risk insurance schemes, and diversify their economies, he said.

“Our dependence on agriculture and tourism makes our economies particularly vulnerable,” he said.

Felson said that international climate funds — including the Green Climate Fund, the Least Developed Countries Fund and the South-South Cooperation Fund on Climate Change — need to better serve the needs of the most vulnerable countries facing climate impacts now.

Countries should also try to tap into the private sector, where much more financing is potentially available, she added.

No fossil fuel

Small island nation campaigners are pushing for countries to immediately phase out existing fossil fuel projects and ban new ones, alongside the overall Paris Agreement commitment to switch to renewable energy by the second half of the century as a way to keep planet-warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.

“We are fighting for our future. We want our children to be able to live where we live, to learn about our traditions, our culture,” said Billy Cava, Pacific coordinator for 350.org, an activist group, as he described changes in his home territory of New Caledonia.

With new coal mines and coal-fired power plants opening in many parts of the world — including a huge new mine planned in Australia — rapidly phasing out all fossil fuels remains a challenge, experts say.

But the stakes are too high to not push for this change, one campaigner from Fiji said.

“We have to move our plantations inland; we have to build back better after storms,” said Alisi Rabukawaqa-Nacewa, the Fiji program coordinator for the Coral Reef Alliance and a member of Pacific Island Represent campaign group.

“But that is not enough. We cannot keep adapting, moving farther and farther inland. What can we do? Build on the top of the mountain, buildings in the sky? No, we need a phase-out of fossil fuels,” she said.
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From: MeNeedIt

“Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda made sandwiches, took selfies and announced a partnership with a nonprofit group for a $2.5 million hurricane recovery fund during a trip Tuesday to Puerto Rico.

Miranda said seven local groups already have received grants from the New York-based Hispanic Federation, which helps Latino agencies. The organization said it will award at least 25 grants ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 for reconstruction projects. A portion of a grant can be used for emergency relief efforts including food, water or shelter, officials said.

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, destroying homes and power lines and leaving tens of thousands of people without work. Nearly 40 of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities are still without power and nearly 20 percent of the island remains without water.

“The road to recovery in Puerto Rico is not a simple one nor is it one that relies solely on aid from the American government on the mainland,” Miranda said. “Together, we will cultivate, fund and execute practical and actionable solutions to kick-start and continue the island’s road to recovery for years to come.”

Miranda also is scheduled to meet with students on Wednesday at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras.
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From: MeNeedIt

Retired Major League Baseball pitcher Roy Halladay was killed Tuesday when his private plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near St. Petersburg, Florida.

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said Halladay, a former All-Star, was flying a light sport plane called an ICON A5. There was nobody else on board. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Halladay, 40, pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies over a remarkable 16-year career. He twice won the Cy Young Award for being the top pitcher in his league.

Halladay’s achievements included a perfect game — an extremely rare feat, in which a pitcher or pitchers win a game that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base — and a no-hitter for the Phillies in the 2010 playoffs. He also played on eight All-Star teams.

Halladay retired in 2013 because of a back injury.

A statement from the Blue Jays said the organization was “overcome by grief” at the loss of “one of the franchise’s greatest and most respected players” and an “even better human being.”

The Phillies issued a statement saying the team was “numb.”

“There are no words to describe the sadness that the entire Phillies family is feeling over the loss of one of the most respected human beings ever to play the game,” it said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Singer songwriters Rodney Crowell and Kelsea Ballerini and hit country songwriter Ashley Gorley were honored at the ASCAP Country Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday.

Crowell, who announced earlier this year he was cancelling all his 2017 tour dates due to a health issue, was given the Founder’s Award and honored with performances by Keith Urban and Vince Gill. The multiple Grammy Award-winner, who turned 67 this year, announced on Twitter last month that he had been diagnosed with dysautonomia, a disorder of the automatic nervous system.

Crowell said he was very grateful to be a songwriter for so long.

“It’s a gift that we get to do the work that we do to call ourselves artists,” Crowell said.

Gill, who performed “Oklahoma Borderline” and “Till I Gain Control Again,” told the crowd of songwriters about the time that he and Crowell dressed up as women for a music video they did together.

“He looked like Bette Davis on crack cocaine,” Gill joked. “I looked like my granny.”

Ballerini, whose second album “Unapologetically” came out last week, was given the Vanguard Award and performed her song “In Between.” She is also nominated for female vocalist of the year on Wednesday’s Country Music Association Awards.

“Songwriting is my favorite part of what I do,” Ballerini said.

The mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month weighed heavy on the minds of the artists and songwriters Monday night as the Nashville musical community gears up for the CMA Awards.

ASCAP President Paul Williams held a moment of silence for the 58 victims killed in Las Vegas.

“There is no greater challenge for music than diminishing the hatred at the heart of these acts,” Williams said. “But I believe that music and those that make it are up to the task.”

Gorley, who has written hits for Blake Shelton and Thomas Rhett and many more, thanked the first responders who were on the scene of the Vegas shooting and this Sunday’s shooting at a church in Texas.

“All those responders and people who really, really deserve to be celebrated and may not get celebrated the way we do tonight, I just want to celebrate those tonight together,” Gorley said.

Matthew Ramsey, lead singer of the country band Old Dominion, was named country songwriter-artist of the year and the song “Somewhere On a Beach,” which was performed by Dierks Bentley, was named country song of the year.
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From: MeNeedIt

The restive Spanish region of Catalonia faces a potential $500 million financial hit in the fourth quarter as business-related travel dips following the attack in Barcelona and the uncertainty generated by the disputed independence referendum.

In an interview Monday with The Associated Press at the World Travel Market in London, Catalonia’s top tourism official Patrick Torrent said the region will likely see a 10-12 percent fall in tourist numbers during the fourth quarter, which would equate to around 450 million euros. The large bulk of that fall is related to a drop-off in business travel to events such as conventions.

Despite the anticipated fourth-quarter decline, the executive director at the Catalan Tourist Board, said Catalonia is set to see revenues this year outstrip those last year and that the expectation is that revenues will rise again next.

However, more insight will emerge at the turn of the year when the bulk of pre-reservations are made. His staff, he said, are “on alert” about the impact on the main booking season.

The worry among many economists is that deteriorating business environment in Catalonia, which has seen around 1,500 firms move their headquarters out of the region, could worsen further amid all the uncertainty. Credit ratings agency Moody’s has warned that the region’s financial recovery is being jeopardized

“Moody’s believes that the political instability will negatively affect the region’s economy, in particular foreign investor sentiment and the tourism sector, and add pressure to the region’s already weak finances,” it said last week.

The Catalan tourism industry, a key income generator in what is Spain’s richest region, has had a difficult few months. After the August attacks in Barcelona and a nearby town that saw 16 people killed, the region has been embroiled in a battle of wills with Spain over the disputed independence referendum in early October which prompted Madrid to impose direct rule and seek the arrest of members of the Catalan government, including its leader, Carles Puigdemont, who has fled to Brussels.

The impact of the attack in Barcelona on holiday travelers was short-lived, according to Torrent, and “less important” than other cities in Europe, such as Brussels or Paris.

“The perception of Barcelona and Catalonia as a safe destination has not suffered any impact,” he said, noting figures showing tourism numbers higher in September.

Torrent said he met up with Alvaro Nadal, the Spanish minister of energy, tourism and digital matters, on Monday for the first time since the triggering of Article 155 of the Spanish Constitution which imposed direct rule on Catalonia.

Torrent said the Spanish government has made no requirements upon him or his staff and that it is “business as usual” until an early Catalan regional election on Dec. 21.

“It’s not intervention. It’s more a kind of coordination,” he said. “It’s easy, it’s not complicated, with good relations without problems, at this moment.”

Before direct rule, Torrent would speak with Spanish tourism officials two or three times a month. Now, it’s that amount of times a week.

Torrent urged all participants in upcoming demonstrations in Catalonia before the election, including one this Saturday, to remain peaceful and law-abiding.

“It’s important to say that our streets are normal, our restaurants are working as usual, our destination is exactly the same situation,” Torrent said.
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From: MeNeedIt

When Koutu Saimon’s son, Wheener, was born almost four months premature and “as small as a mouse,” friends and relatives in Chad turned to the new mother and, with sidelong glances and in hushed voices, whispered to her to get rid of the baby.

“They told me: ‘You need to take him to the river, do an exorcism ritual, leave him there. He’s cursed, it’s a snake child’,” Saimon told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“They would kill a child like that,” she added incredulously, looking at her son.

Wheener, now a lively eight-year-old, squealed with delight upon seeing his teacher, Adoumkidjim Naiban, who founded Chad’s only school for children with learning disabilities, the CESER Center, almost 20 years ago.

Children with disabilities are often neglected across central Africa, where many believe their condition is caused by curses, supernatural forces or as a punishment.

The CESER Center in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, only stays open by combining education with social entrepreneurship.

Almost half of Chad’s 14 million population live below the poverty line and more than 10 percent of children die before their fifth birthday, the charity Save the Children says.

Sales from furniture and leather goods produced by the CESER Center’s 80-plus students, as well as vegetables, eggs and cattle from its farm on the city’s outskirts, help keep it running.

“Sometimes the pupils also take food they grow home to feed their families,” said Naiban, who waives school fees of about 70,000 CFA francs ($125) a year for the poorest families.

Chad, the world’s third least-developed country, is also weighed down by drought and floods, conflict with the militant group Boko Haram and some 400,000 refugees fleeing the Lake Chad basin, Sudan and the Central African Republic.

Government resources are hard-stretched and a domestic law which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities is not effectively enforced, experts say.

Nor has Chad has ratified the 2006 Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which requires governments to promote, protect and ensure human rights for disabled people.

It falls mostly to charities to provide for those with special needs, who often lack basic equipment like corrective glasses or wheelchairs.

‘Snake Children’

Negative beliefs about disability are common in rural communities across the world.

This is partly due to the low levels of education – in Chad, over 90 percent of people cannot read – and because information on the medical causes of disability is not widely available, experts say.

In Chad and other countries in the region, children with disabilities are sometimes called ‘snake children’ because they often find movement difficult, meaning they crawl on the ground for longer than other children.

Like snakes, they are regarded as troublesome, and often killed or abandoned in forests or near river-beds where they are believed to turn back into serpents.

“If they don’t throw them out, they hide them,” said Naiban, who was inspired to start the school after seeing his young disabled niece suffering.

“I wanted to do something to help her,” he said, sitting among stacks of papers, books and musical instruments in his cramped office.

When Naiban realized there was no trained teacher for mentally disabled children in the whole of Chad, he decided to train himself.

A Swiss foundation catering to people with special needs, Les Perce-Neige, hosted him for three months and then provided money to buy land for the school.

But running costs, including salaries for six of his 11 staff who are not paid by the government, proved a challenge.

“Many centers of this type all over the world are forced to close because they run out of funding,” said Koundja Mayoubila, Chad’s program manager for Reach for Change, a Swedish charity which provided entrepreneurial funding and training for Naiban.

Pupils learn sewing, masonry, furniture production and farming in workshops inside the school and on its farm.

After they graduate, they use their skills to earn money, often as tailors, carpenters and on construction sites.

“One even plays in a local orchestra,” said Naiban, who has also set up parents’ groups supporting more than 2,000 children with learning difficulties across the vast central African country.

“We explain to the community: ‘No, it’s a congenital malfunction, the cause is biological — it’s malnutrition, maybe malaria, meningitis,’” he said.

“We explain that it’s not evil spirits, they’re not ‘snake children.’”

For Saimon, the center serves as a lifeline, enabling her to hold down a job in a restaurant while Wheener is at school.

“It’s not easy for us, the mothers especially,” she said, adding that her husband left soon after their son was born. “But with this education, he has a chance to make something of his life.”

($1 = 560.0000 CFA francs)
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From: MeNeedIt