from The Big Think

Why the number 137 is one of the greatest mysteries in physics

Famous physicists like Richard Feynman think 137 holds the answers to the Universe.

by PAUL RATNER

• The fine structure constant has mystified scientists since the 1800s.
• The number 1/137 might hold the clues to the Grand Unified Theory.
• Relativity, electromagnetism and quantum mechanics are unified by the number.

from SPACE

RIP, Kepler: NASA’s Revolutionary Planet-Hunting Telescope Runs Out of Fuel

The most prolific planet-hunting machine in history has signed off.

NASA’s Kepler space telescope, which has discovered 70 percent of the 3,800 confirmed alien worlds to date, has run out of fuel, agency officials announced today (Oct. 30). Kepler can no longer reorient itself to study cosmic objects or beam its data home to Earth, so the legendary instrument’s in-space work is done after nearly a decade.

And that work has been transformative. [Kepler’s 7 Greatest Exoplanet Discoveries]

“Kepler has taught us that planets are ubiquitous and incredibly diverse,” Kepler project scientist Jessie Dotson, who’s based at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, told Space.com. “It’s changed how we look at the night sky.”

[ click to continue reading at SPACE.com ]

from The LA Times

Love those heehaws and snorts, but Death Valley aims to become a ‘no-burro zone’

By LOUIS SAHAGUN

As the sun set on a landscape of scruffy mountains and sweeping plains, 20 wild burros watched Mark Meyers with ears erect.

They had reason to be quizzical: Meyers and his hired hands were building traps around their muddy watering hole.

Amid the clatter of hammers and occasional heehaws and snorts in a remote corner of Death Valley National Park, Meyers called out to the descendants of pack animals used by miners and prospectors more than a century ago.

“Don’t worry. You’ll be all right.”

Federal officials have charged Meyers with safely capturing the roughly 2,500 to 4,000 wild burros said to be roaming the 3.4-million-acre park as quickly as possible for transport to adoptive homes and sanctuaries across the nation.

As of Oct. 22 — six days into the campaign — the team had snared 28.

The image of the burro as the grizzled sourdough’s faithful beast of burden contrasts, officials say, with the reality that they breed prolifically and out-compete native vegetarians — stately bighorn sheep, tiny kangaroo rats and bulky chuckwalla lizards — by devouring and trampling available greenery.

“Burros are not part of the natural California desert ecosystem,” said Mike Reynolds, superintendent of Death Valley National Park.

Burro roundups are nothing new in Death Valley, where the hardy and remarkably adaptive animals have come to dominate contoured badlands and carpet life-giving seeps and springs with their droppings. The most recent was in 2005.

But officials hope a five-year agreement signed by the National Park Service and Meyers’ nonprofit Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue may amount to the last large-scale roundup conducted in the park, where 20-mule teams once pulled wagons loaded with borax.

[ click to continue reading at LAT ]

from The Drive

5,000-Year-Old Version of a Toy Car Found in Archeological Dig in Turkey

It’s not Hot Wheels or Matchbox. In fact, it predates those by several millennia.

BY JUSTIN HUGHES

Many gearheads grew up playing with toy cars. Loyalties to Hot Wheels or Matchbox were as divisive as those between Ford and Chevy are today. But kids have been fascinated by wheels since long before these companies—or even the car itself—existed. An archeological dig in Turkey has revealed that our fascination with toy wheels goes back at least 5,000 years, reports the International Business Times.

The ongoing excavation of the ancient city of Sogmatar, in modern-day Turkey, has dug up some children’s toys. The big surprise was the discovery of a small earthen carriage toy. Even back in the time of Moses (who is said to have sought refuge in Sogtamar after escaping Egypt), kids played with toy cars—or, at least, the equivalent of them back in the day.

“In one of these tombs, we found a four-wheeled miniature horse carriage, a children’s toy, as well as a rattle with a bird motif,” assistant professor Yusuf Albayrak of Turkey’s Harran University told the International Business Times. “Children’s toys were buried in children’s tombs. We thus know that rattles existed for children 5,000 years ago.”

[ click to continue reading at The Drive ]

from DEADLINE

[ click to read at DEADLINE ]

from The Guardian

click to visit at Powell’s

[ click to get at Powell’s ]

from The New York Post

This week’s must-read books

Katerina
James Frey (Gallery/Scout Press)
Set in 1992 Paris and 2018 Los Angeles, a love story between a young writer and a young model, both on the verge of fame. Twenty-five years later, the writer receives an anonymous message that draws him back to that relationship and all the magic of that earlier time.

[ click to continue reading at NYP ]

from Science News

Conflict reigns over the history and origins of money

Thousands of years ago, money was a means of debt payment, archaeologists and anthropologists say

BY BRUCE BOWER

Wherever you go, money talks. And it has for a long time.

Sadly, though, money has been mum about its origins. For such a central element of our lives, money’s ancient roots and the reasons for its invention are unclear.

As cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin multiply into a flock of digital apparitions, researchers are still battling over how and where money came to be. And some draw fascinating parallels between the latest, buzzworthy cryptocurrencies, which require only a virtual wallet, and a type of money developed by one Micronesian island community that wouldn’t fit in anyone’s wallet, pocket or purse.

When it comes to money’s origins, though, conflict reigns. Economists have held one view of money’s origins for hundreds of years. But a growing number of anthropologists and archaeologists, holding a revisionist view, say that economists’ standard story is bankrupt.

Economists and revisionists alike agree that an object defined as money works in four ways: First, it serves as a means for exchanging goods and services. Currency enables payment of debts. It represents a general measure of value, making it possible to calculate prices of all sorts of items. And, finally, money can be stored as a wealth reserve.

From there, the two groups split. Mainstream economists assume that bartering of goods and services inspired money’s invention. Anthropologists and archaeologists contend that early states invented currency as a means of debt payment.

“Much academic work assumes that [monetary systems] arose in nation-states within the last 200 to 400 years,” says sociocultural anthropologist Daniel Souleles of Copenhagen Business School in Frederiksberg. But financialized transactions and debt show up in lots of places much further back in time.

Recent research from the Americas adds new questions to the debate. These investigations suggest that money independently appeared for different reasons and assumed different tangible forms in many parts of the world, starting thousands of years ago.

[ click to continue reading at Science News ]

from DEADLINE

[ click to view at DEADLINE ]

from WFSB

Taco Bell voted best Mexican restaurant in the country

ST. LOUIS (KMOV.com) — The Harris Poll, a nationwide customer survey of their favorite brands, has released its 2018 results.

The poll surveyed more than 77,000 customers in the U.S. on more than 3,000 brands to find which companies are the favorites among consumers.

Respondents weighed in on everything from printers to pizza, and the results are surprising. Here are some of consumers’ top choices.

Best Mexican Restaurant: Taco Bell

The after-hours crowd is still probably Taco Bell’s biggest customer base, but the company has grown its popularity through creative ads like the Nacho Fries conspiracy theory movie trailers starring Josh Duhamel and a strong social media presence.

The company has 7,000 locations and does nearly $2 billion in revenue.

[ click to continue reading at WFSB ]

from DEADLINE

Sam And Aaron Taylor-Johnson Breathe Fire Into James Frey’s Controversial Addiction Memoir ‘A Million Little Pieces’

by Mike Fleming Jr

Entertainment One

A Million Little Pieces is as raw, bloody and messy as James Frey wrote it. With the startling intensity he shocked Toronto with in Nocturnal Animals two years ago, Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays Frey through his evolution from a hopeless, cornered animal descending down a drug-induced death spiral to someone who pulls out of the nosedive after reluctantly embracing help from a group of fellow addicts to create distance from the seduction of crack cocaine and hard liquor ravaging his body.

The right filmmaker came along when the Taylor-Johnsons came knocking. Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson had been an inseparable couple since she cast him in her directorial debut, 2009’s Nowhere Boy, as a young John Lennon. They liked the idea of pulling something more modest together, after the miserable time Sam had directing the first Fifty Shades of Grey movie. She’d been expecting to make a trilogy out of E.L. James’s erotic fiction series, but even though her first chapter grossed $571 million, she withdrew. Speculation was that the unprecedented level of creative control Universal offered James, a first-time novelist, in order to beat out the offers pouring in from other studios, caused issues.

Sam had been captivated by Frey’s memoir since she read it shortly after its publication, when she was known for her eye as a still photographer, and before she ever made her feature debut. “I loved the way it was told,” she remembers. “90 miles an hour is a good way to describe the ferocity and pace of his writing. I remember feeling exhausted and elated at the end, thinking it would make an amazing movie. Later, I’d hear or read that some other filmmaker signed on and I’d feel a twinge of jealousy.”

After they met, she gave it to Aaron, who devoured it. He says: “The journey of redemption, the light at the end of the tunnel, and the rhythm James put into his writing which provides such energy, it made us want to try and translate that into a character on screen.”

[ click to read full article at DEADLINE ]

from Vanity Fair

Sam Taylor-Johnson on “the Dream” of Directing Husband Aaron in A Million Little Pieces

The adaptation of James Frey’s book—debuting at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday—is the couple’s first collaboration since Nowhere Boy.

by JULIE MILLER

Jeff Gros

Since making 2009’s brilliant John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, director Sam Taylor-Johnson and actor Aaron Taylor-Johnson had been looking for an excuse to work together again.

But their personal collaborations complicated reunion possibilities for several years. Sam and Aaron fell in love after making the movie, got married, and had two daughters. (Sam also has two older daughters from her first marriage.) Rather than leave the kids in the care of strangers, husband and wife took turns making movies—with Sam adapting E.L. James’s bodice-ripping best-seller Fifty Shades of Grey into an artful blockbuster; and Aaron cycling through genres in Anna Karenina,Godzilla, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Nocturnal Animals.

Last year, though, the stars finally re-aligned for the Taylor-Johnsons. Sam signed on to direct an adaptation of James Frey’s 2003 book, A Million Little Pieces. And Aaron coincidentally had a gap in his schedule.

“The minute I knew he was available, it was clear that Aaron would be James. Absolutely, without question,” Sam said in an interview ahead of A Million Little Pieces’ premiere at the Toronto Film Festival. “I think it was serendipitous timing that he was available, the book rights were available, and the timing was perfect. . . . This was the dream since we first worked together. After [Nowhere Boy], we would both go to work on different projects, and I’d say, in my mind, ‘I’m leaving the best actor at home.’”

[ click to continue reading at VF ]

from The Hollywood Reporter

Burt Reynolds, Movie Star Who Played It for Grins, Dies at 82

by Mike Barnes

The ex-jock from Florida starred in ‘Deliverance’ and ‘Boogie Nights’ but preferred making such populist, fun fare as ‘Smokey and the Bandit,’ ‘The Cannonball Run’ and ‘Starting Over.’

Burt Reynolds, the charismatic star of such films as Deliverance, The Longest Yard and Smokey and the Bandit who set out to have as much fun as possible on and off the screen — and wildly succeeded — has died. He was 82.

Reynolds, who received an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of porn director Jack Horner in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997) and was the No. 1 box-office attraction for a five-year stretch starting in the late 1970s, died Thursday morning at Jupiter Medical Center in Florida, his manager, Erik Kritzer, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Always with a wink, Reynolds shined in many action films (often doing his own stunts) and in such romantic comedies as Starting Over (1979) opposite Jill Clayburgh and Candice Bergen; The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) with Dolly Parton; Best Friends (1982) with Goldie Hawn; and, quite aptly, The Man Who Loved Women (1983) with Julie Andrews.

Though beloved by audiences for his brand of frivolous, good-ol’-boy fare, the playful Reynolds rarely was embraced by critics. The first time he saw himself in Boogie Nights, he was so unhappy he fired his agent. (He went on to win a Golden Globe but lost out in the Oscar supporting actor race to Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting, a bitter disappointment for him.)

[ click to continue reading at THR ]

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from The New York Times

The Best Sport for a Longer Life? Try Tennis

People who played tennis, badminton or soccer tended to live longer than those who cycled, swam or jogged.

By Gretchen Reynolds

Playing tennis and other sports that are social might add years to your life, according to a new epidemiological study of Danish men and women.

The study found that adults who reported frequently participating in tennis or other racket and team sports lived longer than people who were sedentary. But they also lived longer than people who took part in reliably healthy but often solitary activities such as jogging, swimming and cycling.

The results raise interesting questions about the role that social interactions might play in augmenting the benefits of exercise.

At this point, no one doubts that being physically active improves our health and can extend our longevity. Multiple, recent epidemiological studies have pinpointed links between regular exercise and longer lives in men and women.

[ click to continue reading at NYT ]

from Phys.org

Going up! Japan to test mini ‘space elevator’

A Japanese team working to develop a “space elevator” will conduct a first trial this month, blasting off a miniature version on satellites to test the technology.

The test equipment, produced by researchers at Shizuoka University, will hitch a ride on an H-2B rocket being launched by Japan’s space agency from southern island of Tanegashima next week.

The test involves a miniature elevator stand-in—a box just six centimetres (2.4 inches) long, three centimetres wide, and three centimetres high.

If all goes well, it will provide proof of concept by moving along a 10-metre cable suspended in space between two mini satellites that will keep it taut.

The mini-elevator will travel along the cable from a container in one of the satellites.

[ click to continue reading at phys.org ]

from BBC

Brazil museum fire: Funding cuts blamed as icon is gutted

Officials in Brazil have blamed lack of funding for a huge fire that has ravaged the country’s National Museum.

One of the largest anthropology and natural history collections in the Americas was almost totally destroyed in Sunday’s fire in Rio de Janeiro.

This included the 12,000-year-old remains of a woman known as “Luzia” – the oldest discovered in Latin America.

There had also been a string of complaints about the dilapidated state of the 200-year-old museum.

“We never had adequate support,” its deputy director said after the fire.

Experts had warned for years of a serious fire risk to the building

[ click to continue reading at BBC ]

from artnet

Sotheby’s Is Selling the World’s First Movie Poster, Which Promoted a Premiere Only 30 People Attended

The poster is an important piece of cinematic history.

by Sarah Cascone

Henri Brispot, Cinématographe Lumière (1896). This poster was created for the Lumière Brothers on the occasion of the world’s first-ever public film screening. It is thought to be the world’s first movie poster. Courtesy of Sotheby’s London.

The world’s first public movie screening was a far cry from today’s red carpet premieres, with just 30 people in attendance for an event that lasted some 20 minutes at a Parisian cafe on December 28, 1895. Now, Sotheby’s is auctioning the poster for that event, held by filmmaker brothers Auguste Lumière and Louis Jean Lumière. It is likely the first film poster ever made.

The design by artist Henri Brispot is one of 164 rare film posters for sale in an online auction held by Sotheby’s London beginning August 28. The poster, which optimistically predicted a much larger crowd than the premiere actually received, carries a pre-sale estimate of £40,000 to £60,000 ($50,830 to $76,240). The auction house calls it “the ultimate collector’s poster,” adding that “this exceptionally rare piece has only surfaced a few times.”

The sale runs through September 4 and also includes rare film posters from the James Bond series, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, and King Kong, among other classic movies.

[ click to continue reading at artnet ]

from The New Yorker

No One Is Safer. No One Is Served.

An immigrant family hides from Donald Trump in a Connecticut church.

By Dave Eggers

The legendary Chicago oral historian and moral force Studs Terkel once said, “There is a decency in the American people and a native intelligence—providing they have the facts, providing they have the information.” During a lifetime of listening to Americans, Terkel came to believe that, when Americans have the information, they do the right thing.

So here is the information:

For a hundred and fifty-eight days, Malik Naveed bin Rehman, Zahida Altaf, and their five-year-old daughter, Roniya, have been living in the basement of the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, Connecticut. There is an electronic bracelet attached to Malik’s ankle, which provides his real-time location to ice authorities. On a recent Saturday morning, Malik showed me the plastic bracelet, which looks like a snug black shackle. Though ice authorities can send pre-recorded messages to him through the bracelet, he said that they prefer to call him on his cell phone, usually between 2 and 5 a.m. “Malik? Are you there?” they ask. He is convinced they do this to prevent the family from sleeping through the night.

Malik and Zahida are a middle-aged couple, originally from Pakistan, who have been in the United States for almost twenty years. They arrived as asylum seekers in 2000, and the first two attorneys they hired both absconded with their money—more than sixteen thousand dollars in total—and were later prosecuted for fraud. Over subsequent years, Malik and Zahida consulted eight more attorneys. In 2008, immigration officials denied their asylum application. They filed an appeal, which was rejected in 2010. Immigration officials then began court proceedings to remove them from the United States.

[ click to continue reading at The New Yorker ]

from Esquire

The Best Books of 2018 (So Far)

Get your to-read list ready: 2018 is already a good year for reading.

BY ANGELA LEDGERWOOD

We may live in challenging times, and there’s no better escape than through a good book. From new novels from beloved writers to compelling non-fiction examinations of our modern world, 2018 has already delivered some excellent reads.

KATERINA BY JAMES FREY

Would you respond to a cryptic Facebook message from an unrecognized user? Forty-two-year-old novelist-turned-screenwriter Jay does. He’s ambivalent about the messages at first, but their familiar tone piques his interest and reminds him of someone important from his past. Thus, begins this sexy and electric novel that flips between modern-day Los Angeles and Paris in 1992—back when Jay was 21 and burning with the desire to make art that was going to change the world. Frey, perhaps best known for his controversial book A Million Little Pieces, has penned a compulsive novel that speaks directly to the scandal that blew up his own life.

CLICK TO BUY KATERINA on Amazon

[ click to read the rest of the Best 2018 Books at Esquire ]

from Fox News

Neil Simon dead at 91

By Tyler McCarthy

(Getty Images)

Prolific American playwright Neil Simon has died at age 91.

Regarded as the first playwright to have a Broadway theater named after him, Simon’s work dates back to “Come Blow Your Horn” in 1961 followed closely in 1963 with the success of his play “Barefoot in the Park.” Since then, he’s won Tony Awards for shows “The Odd Couple,” “Biloxi Blues” and “Lost in Yonkers.”

In total, Simon wrote more than 30 plays and earned 17 Tony nominations with three wins. He also won a Tony for special achievement as well as a Pulitzer and the Mark Twain prize for humor. Of note is the fact that he had one Broadway season in 1966 in which four of his plays were running simultaneously: “Barefoot in the Park”; “The Odd Couple”; “Sweet Charity”; and “The Star-Spangled Girl.”

[ click to continue reading at Fox News ]

from Earn The Necklace

TIFF 2018: 5 Drama Films That Explore the Human Condition

By: Naveen Rao

Sam Taylor Johnson with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Billy Bob Thornton (Photo: Instagram/samtaylorjohnson)

Even if they are from another part of the world and in another language, drama films moveus. Why? Because as humans, we share many of the same emotions and desires. The TIFF 2018 drama section is full of movies based on riveting stories about people caught up in harsh and even tragic circumstances beyond their control. We bring you five TIFF Festival films that will tug at your heart strings and leave a mark on your memory.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2018 is just around the corner, and the buzz is spreading fast that it’s going to be an exciting event. While films of all genres will be screened at the festival, people are eager to know which films will be shown in the “drama” section.

This year, there are fantastic films from all over the world that have entered the drama section and festival-goers will be hard pressed to choose which ones to watch in the limited time they have.

#1] A Million Little Pieces

Director – Sam Taylor-Johnson

Country – USA

James Frey’s controversial bestseller A Million Little Pieces gets the big screen treatment by director Sam Taylor-Johnson.

The film tells the story of an alcoholic crack addict (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) who finds some peace in the company of a former crime lord (Billy Bob Thornton) and a former sex worker (Odessa Young).

It is a harrowing ride into the deepest darkest corners of a drug addict’s psyche and the devastation caused by drug addiction.

It’s a tale about the loss of one’s self-esteem and character but also of hope and the journey towards renewal. The protagonist finds his calling as a writer but only after he picks up the pieces of his shattered self.

[ click to continue reading at EarnTheNecklace.com ]

from The Las Vegas Review-Journal

Robin Leach dies, host of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,’ celebrity columnist

By John Katsilometes

Robin Leach, a celebrity columnist and television host who famously signed off each episode of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” with his signature catchphrase of “Champagne wishes and caviar dreams,” died Friday. He was 76.

Robin Leach spent most of the last two decades chronicling star-studded events around town, most recently for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and before that for the Las Vegas Sun and publications in the Greenspun Media Group.

He was known for his grandiose personality, seemingly tireless coverage of the Las Vegas celebrity scene and similarly passionate contributions to local charities — most notably the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

Born in London on Aug. 29, 1941, Robin Douglas Leach knew he wanted to be a journalist when he was just 10 years old. As a student at Harrow County School for Boys, he began sending weekly dispatches about goings-on there to the editor of the local newspaper, The Harrow Observer. The paper published the stories and hired him after he graduated. He was 15. He later worked at the Daily Mail in London, where he became the publication’s youngest Page One editor at age 18.

After moving to New York, Leach wrote for several publications, including the New York Daily News, Ladies Home Journal and People magazine, authoring its first 11 cover stories.

His big break came in 1984 with the debut of “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous,” a syndicated program he created with legendary television producer Al Masini. The syndicated show focused on celebrities’ lavish homes and favorite destinations. Many pop-culture observers point to “Lifestyles,” which ran from 1984 to 1995, as a turning point that opened the door for other celebrity-centric reality shows, including “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.”

[ click to read full article at LVRJ ]

from artnet

Who Won Damien Hirst’s Instagram Caption Contest? The Vulgarian Who Aimed the Crudest, Most Concise Insult at the Artist

The artist went with brevity—and irreverence—in choosing the winner of a “Veil Painting” print.

by Sarah Cascone

It’s official: Damien Hirst admits he’s a “twat.” Or, at least, that’s the irreverent caption the artist has selected to win his self-staged Instagram contest giving away a print of one of his “Veil Paintings.”

“I’ve read so many replies to my dumbass competition I’m losing my fucking marbles, what was I thinking having a fucking competition anyway!?” the artist wrote in a comment on the original post, which has some 32,967 likes and over 10,400 comments. The photograph shows the artist in his studio, clad only in a pair of bright pink underwear, matching socks, and black crocks emblazoned “Damien.” The contest was announced on June 26.

The winner, who goes by the username @beigebrick, is identified on their profile picture as a UK-based visual artist. “In the end I had to pick it as the winner because of its simplicity,” Hirst admitted. “And because if you can’t laugh at yourself you’re fucked.”

As of press time, @beigebrick had not commented on the victory, or on whether or not they are a fan of Hirst.

[ click to continue reading at artnet ]

from USA Today

Prisoners nationwide go on strike to protest ‘modern-day slavery’

by Dalvin Brown

Prison inmates nationwide, seeking to put pressure on the country’s penal system, began a two-week strike on Tuesday.

The strike was timed to begin on the anniversary of the killing of jailed African American activist George Jackson. He was killed by a guard in 1971 after taking guards and two inmates hostage in a bid to escape from San Quentin State Prison in California.

The final day of the strike — Sept. 9 — also carries symbolism. That’s the day in 1971 that the Attica Prison riots began in New York, eventually leaving more than 40 people dead when police stormed in to re-take the facility.

Prisoners leading the protests say the strike is aimed at ending what they call “modern-day slavery.” Inmates complain they are paid pennies on the dollar per hour for labor.

This is made legal by an exemption in the 13th Amendment which allows involuntary servitude for those who convicted of crimes in the United States.

The event is spearheaded by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, a network of imprisoned prisoner rights advocates based out of Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina and supported by the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a prisoner-led trade group.

[ click to continue reading at USAT ]

My first tour in awhile – looking forward to seeing you all again….

Click here to pick up a copy of KATERINA – bring it to a reading and I’ll sign it for you.

from France 24

‘Twelve Apostles’ help migrants cross Mexico

© AFP | Undocumented migrants climb on a train known as “La Bestia” (The Beast), in the town of Las Patronas in Mexico’s Veracruz state hoping to reach the US

CÓRDOBA (MEXICO) (AFP) – It is pouring rain, but Norma Romero is standing by the train tracks as she does every night, ready to hand food to migrants crossing Mexico on the freight train known as “The Beast.”

In a few minutes, hundreds of undocumented migrants chasing the American dream will ride by atop the train as it passes through her village, Cordoba, crossing the eastern state of Veracruz on its way to the United States.

Romero is part of a group of 12 women who pass bottled water and bags of food up to the migrants to help them on their dangerous journey.

For years, she thought the men clinging to the cars were Mexicans train-hopping their way to another town instead of taking the bus.

Then one day “The Beast” ground to a halt in Cordoba, and the men jumped to the ground and begged her for help.

“They had Central American accents,” says Romero, 48.

“They were hungry. I had some bread and milk I’d just bought, and they asked me if they could have it.”

When she got home, she told her mother the story, and the two decided to cook the clandestine travelers a meal.

That was 23 years ago.

Every day since, Romero and a group of like-minded women dubbed “The 12 Apostles” have handed out food to the migrants to help them flee the poverty and gang violence ravaging their home countries.

[ click to continue reading at France 24 ]

from Der Spiegel

‘I Am Very Aware of the Danger’

Aryana Sayeed, 33, is the only internationally known pop act in Afghanistan. She is adored by youth — and hunted by the Taliban.

By Susanne Koelbl

DER SPIEGEL: You’re beautiful, successful and independent — and, as a result, religious leaders would like to see you dead. How do you live with the fear?

Sayeed: During my time as a juror on the “Afghan Star” and “Voice of Afghanistan” talent shows, the death threats were the worst. Five mullahs issued a fatwa against me on TV, on a religious talk show, saying, “Whoever brings this woman’s head will ascend to heaven immediately.” While we were shooting, extremists killed eight colleagues in an attack on Tolo TV, which produces these programs. I’m still getting goose bumps.

DER SPIEGEL: Where does the hatred come from?

Sayeed: Radical mullahs say, “This woman comes from Europe and wants to put ideas into your women’s heads.” I teach women their right to be strong, to become independent, to stand up against injustice. But many men want to keep them as cleaners and baby machines, so they promise young men 72 virgins in paradise to blow themselves up to prevent the women from freeing themselves. It’s brainwashing.

DER SPIEGEL: Who wants 72 virgins?

Sayeed: The extremists play with the sexual frustration of young men. On the streets of Afghanistan, 99 percent of the passersby are men. When a woman in burka walks down the street, men stare at her bare hands and feet because the only women they usually deal with are their mothers and sisters. The young people are so hungry, so thirsty to catch even a glimpse of a woman.

DER SPIEGEL: Two years ago, tens of thousands of young men from Afghanistan came to Germany as refugees. How worried should parents be when their daughter becomes friends with a young Afghan?

Sayeed: The absolute majority of Afghans are innocent, decent people who would never harm anyone.

[ click to continue reading at Der Spiegel ]

from Deadline

David Dastmalchian & Rhys Wakefield Join Hulu’s Femme Fatale Pilot ‘Reprisal’ From Warren Littlefield & A+E Studios

by Denise Petski

Photos courtesy of Persona PR/ICM Partners

David Dastmalchian (MacGyver, Twin Peaks) and Rhys Wakefield (True Detective, The Purge) are set as series regulars opposite Abigail Spencer and Mena Massoud in Hulu drama pilot Reprisal, from Warren Littlefield and A+E Studios.

Dastmalchian recently wrapped production on the upcoming film adaptation of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, and Netflix’s Bird Box opposite Sandra Bullock and Sarah Paulson. He has also been cast for a key role in upcoming feature Die in a Gunfight, opposite Josh Hutcherson, Helen Hunt, Olivia Munn, and Kaya Scodelario, as well as psycho-thriller The Killing Kind,alongside Aaron Paul and Jane Lynch. His recent credits include Ant-Man and the Wasp, Blade Runner 2049 and recurring roles on MacGyver and Twin Peaks among others. Dastmalchian is represented by Hansen, Jacobson Teller Hoberman.

[ click to read full article at Deadline ]