Government figures show that on average, Latinas in the United States are paid 54 cents for every dollar that a white, non-Hispanic male makes.

That means it takes Latinas one year, 10 months and 20 days to match the yearly income of those male workers.

A coalition of nongovernmental organizations is marking the Latina Women’s Equal Pay Day on Wednesday, highlighting the day on the calendar when the average Latina, working both 2018 and 2019, matches the 2018 income by white men.

Jasmine Tucker, director of research at the National Women’s Law Center, said the numbers are “outrageous” and “devastating” because the trend has remained unaltered for decades, making it impossible for these families to build wealth through generations.

Latino males are paid 65 cents for every dollar paid to white, non-Hispanic men, according to federal statistics. The wage gap is greatest for foreign-born Latinas, who are paid just 38 cents to the dollar.

Latinas “are facing this double whammy of racism and sexism combined,” Tucker said. Even “when they are getting higher levels of education they are still getting paid less.”

Monica Ramirez, founder and president of Justice for Migrant Women, said the 12 million Latinas who work full time in the United States include about 2 million domestic workers and 1 million farmworkers, two of the most vulnerable groups.

Paola Hernandez, a member of UFW Foundation who has been a farmworker in Washington state for the past 30 years, said her male counterparts usually get paid higher.

“They are seen as stronger and more able to operate heavy machinery. A woman is never allowed to operate a tractor,” said the 54-year old Mexican immigrant who aspires to get a job as a cashier next year.

Activists: Tough fight under Trump

Experts and activists say the wage gap can be narrowed by strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage and passing equal pay laws. But they say it’s been an uphill fight under President Donald Trump.

A spokesperson for the Labor Department rejected that premise Tuesday, saying the Trump administration has awarded almost $300 million during the last two years for expanding access to skills training and apprenticeship opportunities in non-traditional industries, with the goal of empowering women.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn clashed over Brexit in the first televised debate Tuesday, ahead of the December 12 election. Both men faced laughter and heckling from the audience, and polls show much of the voting public appeared unimpressed by the debate.

Recent polls give Johnson’s Conservatives a lead of between 8 and 12 percentage points over Labour, which still may not be enough to give the prime minister a parliamentary majority.

Boris Johnson’s campaign promise

During the debate, Johnson promised to end what he called the ‘national misery’ of Brexit, and said a Conservative government would leave the European Union in January – adding that reaching a trade deal with the EU would be easy.

“We have ample time to do a fantastic free trade deal with our friends and partners in the EU because we’re already in a state of perfect alignment, both for tariffs and for quotas,” Johnson told the audience in Salford, Manchester.

He said a win for his Labour opponents would see more Brexit confusion.

“We don’t know on which side Mr. Corbyn would campaign. Is he going to campaign for leave or remain?”

Jeremy Corbyn’s policy

Corbyn insisted his policy is clear: to negotiate a better Brexit deal. “Three months to negotiate, six months for a referendum, and that will bring that process to an end,” the Labour leader said.

He accused Johnson of planning to sell out Britain’s National Health Service, the NHS. “What we know of the government’s proposals, what we know of what Mr. Johnson has done, is a series of secret meetings with the United States in which they were proposing to open up our NHS markets, as they call them, to American companies,” he said.

Johnson insists Britain’s National Health Service won’t be on the table in any U.S. trade deal.

Views on climate and environment

Both men agreed climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing the country.

“I think it’s a colossal issue for the entire world, and the UK is meeting that challenge with the most far-reaching ambition to get to carbon neutral by 2050. And I know you don’t want me to say this, but we need to get Brexit done in order to deliver on those priorities,” Johnson told the audience.

His Labour opponent pledged to go further on environmental issues.

“This is the most massive issue facing the whole world,” Corbyn said. “When the poorest people in the poorest countries lose out because of flooding and unusual weather patterns, when we have unusual weather patterns in this country, when we have extreme levels of air pollution, we have to have a green industrial revolution where we invest for the future in sustainable industries and jobs and prevent the continuing damage to our natural world and our environment.”

Voters appear unimpressed

After the debate, polls showed the public was evenly divided over who emerged victorious – and many were unimpressed. “I didn’t think anyone won, I didn’t think it was very meaningful, or kind of, revealing debate at all,” said Emily, a voter from Kent in southeast England. “It was pretty underwhelming all-round really,” said London resident James Davies.

There was anger among other opposition parties over their exclusion from the debate. The Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party launched a failed court case against the host broadcaster ITV to try to force them to include smaller parties.

Jo Swinson, the leader of the Liberal Democrats criticized the debate format Wednesday. “I think people at home will be forgiven for thinking, surely we deserve better than this. There was a huge gap in that debate. Both of them want Brexit and yet the voice of remain wasn’t there,” he said.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon leader renewed her party’s pitch for independence. “It really underlines the importance for Scotland of getting our future out of the hands of Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, a broken Westminster system and taking our future into our own hands,” Sturgeon said Wednesday.

Both leaders pledged big increases in spending on health, education, and tackling climate change. But in reality, Brexit will still likely dominate the next parliament, says analyst Ian Bond of the Center for European Reform.

“If we leave the EU on 31st January, then we will have several more years of uncertainty while we negotiate the future trade deal with the EU.”

Whoever becomes Britain’s next Prime Minister, their time in office will likely still be defined by Brexit.

 

Israeli kingmaker politician Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday refused to endorse a candidate for prime minister, blaming both the contenders engaged in a tense standoff that has paralyzed Israeli politics and pushing the country toward a likely third election in less than a year.

Lieberman’s comments came ahead of a midnight deadline for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rival, Benny Gantz, to form a coalition. Without Lieberman, Gantz appears unable to secure the required majority in parliament to be prime minister.

If Israel is forced into a third election, it would be entering uncharted waters, with opinion polls already predicting a very similar deadlock. But a new campaign could benefit the embattled Netanyahu, who is expected to be indicted on corruption charges in the coming weeks. Netanyahu would be best-positioned to fight any charges from the prime minister’s office.

Lieberman, who heads a small secular, ultranationalist party, triggered the September election after refusing to join Netanyahu’s traditional allies of hard-line and religious parties following earlier elections in April. The do-over vote left Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Blue and White party both short of a required majority in the 120-seat parliament without Lieberman’s support.

Lieberman, who hails from the former Soviet Union, has objected to the outsize influence of ultra-Orthodox religious parties and has urged Netanyahu and Gantz to join him in a unity government as a way out of the stalemate. But Gantz and Netanyahu have refused to bend on their core conditions for such an arrangement.

After weeks of negotiations, Lieberman told reporters he wouldn’t align with either party on its own.

“I made every effort. I turned over every stone,” he said. “There were no significant gaps, they were mainly personal gaps and after it all, at least for now, it seems we are heading for another election.”

Lieberman said he objected to Netanyahu’s alliance with “messianic” religious parties, while he also accused Gantz of reaching out to religious parties and not negotiating in good faith.

“Who is to blame in this situation? Both parties together” he said. “There was an impressive blame game from both parties, but at the end it was a blame game, with no real will to take tough and dramatic decisions.”

Gantz was given the opportunity to form a government last month after Netanyahu failed in the task.

A former military chief, Gantz has a midnight deadline to present a potential coalition government. If he fails, as expected, the country enters the final 21-day period for any candidate to present a majority before new elections are called.

But after weeks of failed talks, the odds of any candidate succeeding in forming a government appear low.

Both Gantz and Netanyahu have expressed a willingness to sit together in a unity government. But they could not agree on a power-sharing agreement.

Gantz’s Blue and White party refuses to sit under Netanyahu while he faces such serious legal problems. Netanyahu refused to drop his alliance with smaller nationalist and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

A dizzying array of mediations and creative political machinations failed to break new ground and a Netanyahu-Gantz meeting late Tuesday night produced no headway, resulting in just more mudslinging.

With hours to go before Gantz’s deadline, Netanyahu called upon Gantz to join him in forming a unity government.

“I think we must not drag this country into another election,” he said at a Likud faction meeting. “There are amendments that need to be done, there are reforms that need to be done, but at this moment we must do one thing: form a unity government.”

Netanyahu has lambasted Gantz and his fellow former military chiefs in Blue and White for dangling the prospect of a minority government in which Arab lawmakers would provide outside support without officially joining the coalition.

His comments have drawn accusations of racism and incitement, including a speech by Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, who criticized Netanyahu’s “ugly” comments about Arabs.

A minority government could end Netanyahu’s decade-long grip on power. But the hard-line Lieberman ruled out any alliance with the Arab lawmakers.

Barring a last-minute development, it looks like Gantz will be forced to inform Israel’s president that he has no government to present — just as Netanyahu did before him — setting off the final 21-day period before new elections are called. The past two have been inconclusive and polls indicate the result of a third will not differ significantly.

“The truth must be said: Netanyahu is rejecting unity and will do anything to deteriorate us to a third election within a year,” Gantz wrote on Facebook. “I am ready to make compromises for the benefit of the citizens of Israel but not to cave on our core principles.”

Looming above the entire process is the long-expected announcement on Netanyahu’s corruption indictment that could remove him from the equation and potentially provide a long-sought way out of the impasse.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has recommended that Netanyahu be indicted on fraud, breach of trust and bribery charges in three separate cases. His final ruling has long been anticipated and is expected in the coming weeks, perhaps sooner. Though Netanyahu will not be compelled by law to step down immediately, it will certainly harden the opposition’s stance.

Rising regional tensions could also force the sides into compromise.

Israel carried out a wide-scale offensive against Iranian targets in Syria early on Wednesday in response to rocket attacks against it. Eleven people were reported killed, including seven non-Syrians who were most likely Iranian.

Israeli security officials expect Iran to respond, which could set off a direct confrontation, a week after the most intense fighting in Gaza in years. Against such a backdrop, the prospect of another dreaded election would weigh heavily on an already weary public.

Rivlin, among many others, has pleaded with the sides to find some sort of compromise to avoid another costly and divisive election campaign and even offered a power-sharing plan in which Gantz and Netanyahu would rotate as prime ministers. But among their other difference, they failed to agree on who would go first.

Pope Francis arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday to begin a tour of Thailand and Japan, beginning a mission to boost the morale of those countries’ tiny minority Catholic communities and speak about issues of concern including human trafficking and peacemaking.

He is expected to highlight his admiration in Thailand for the community’s missionary ancestors who brought the faith to this Buddhist nation centuries ago and endured bouts of persecution as recently as the 1940s.

Francis was greeted by Surayud Chulanont, former prime minister and head of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s Privy Council.

His warmest welcome, however, came from his second cousin, Sister Ana Rosa Sivori, who has been a missionary in Thailand since the 1960s and will serve as his translator during his time here. On stepping down from the plane, the first thing Francis did – even before his official welcome from Surayud – was to hug his cousin.

He also met about a dozen children in traditional hilltribe attire. One wearing an elaborate headdress came forward with a huge smile on her face and hugged him. He also received an artillery salute.

Francis’ three-day visit to Thailand, followed by three days in Japan, will be a welcome break for the 82-year-old pope. He is enduring fresh opposition from Catholic conservatives in the U.S. over his just-concluded meeting on the Amazon as well as a new financial scandal at home.

Leaving those concerns behind, Francis will meet with Thailand’s supreme Buddhist leader, Thai authorities as well as all the Catholic bishops of Asia _ a rare chance for him to address some of the major challenges facing the Catholic Church in the region and the men responsible for dealing with them.

On the eve of the trip, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said interfaith relations and emphasizing the dignity of every person are likely to be raised.

Francis has made the fight against human trafficking a hallmark of his papacy. He is expected to raise this issue in Thailand, which is a key transit point for victims of human trafficking, forced labor and the sex trade.

Francis is also expected to encourage the Catholic community, which represents just 0.58 percent of its 69 million people, as well as encourage the largely Buddhist country to continue welcoming migrants and showing tolerance to people of other faiths. That message is also intended to reach the country’s small Muslim community amid a persistent insurgency in the far south bordering Malaysia.

Thirty-five years after St. John Paul II became the first pope to visit Thailand, Francis is marking the 350th anniversary of the creation of a stable apostolic vicariate in Thailand, then known as Siam, after Dominican missionaries first brought the faith in 1567, followed by members of Francis’ own Jesuit order.

Francis will pray at the tomb of Nicholas Bunkerd Kitbamrung, known as the Rev. Benedikto Chunkim, who became the first martyred priest of modern Thailand when he was killed in 1944. Francis is also likely to refer to seven other martyrs killed in 1940 as a nationalistic government sought to convert all Thais to Buddhists.

In the morning ahead of the Pope’s arrival, members of the Catholic community continued preparations for his activities

At the National Stadium, where Francis will be celebrating Mass before tens of thousands of people, students gathered with their band instruments for a costume rehearsal as their parents looked on with excitement.

Eight-year-old Jiraroj Panyam, who will be playing the saxophone, said he hoped to tell the pope to “keep on working hard, have faith and be cheerful.”

“I think this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for anyone, not just him, but for everyone no matter what nationality or religion they are,” said Mongkol Devapradipa, whose son will also be performing on Thursday.

The U.S. military said Wednesday two of its service members were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, however preliminary reports do not indicate it was caused by enemy fire, according to an official announcement.

The latest fatalities bring the number of American soldiers killed this year in war-related activities in Afghanistan to at least 18.

Earlier, the Taliban insurgency claimed its fighters shot down a U.S. military Chinook helicopter in the eastern Afghan province of Logar.

A Taliban spokesman said the helicopter was sent to raid an insurgent base in the area.

It was difficult to ascertain from independent sources whether the insurgent group was referring to the same incident. Taliban battlefield claims of attacks on U.S.-led foreign forces in Afghanistan are often inflated.

Separately, an overnight Taliban raid on a military base in northern Kunduz province has killed at least 13 Afghan forces and wounded several others. Afghan media reported the attack occurred in the Imam Sahib district.

The Taliban took responsibility for carrying out the deadly attack, saying insurgent fighters also seized military equipment from the base.

The violence comes a day after a high-profile prisoner swap between the insurgents and the United States that freed two foreign hostages, including an American, in return for three senior insurgent detainees.  

The two university professors, Kevin King and his Australian colleague, Timothy John Weeks, had been held hostage by the Taliban since August 2016. They were teaching at Kabul’s American University of Afghanistan before being kidnapped at gunpoint from near their campus.

U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon Sondland on Wednesday will be the most high-profile witness to appear before the U.S. House of Representatives as it holds public hearings on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.

Sondland is set to testify in the morning, followed by career Pentagon official Laura Cooper and Undersecretary of State David Hale Wednesday afternoon. Former White House adviser Fiona Hill and career foreign service officer David Holmes are to testify Thursday.

On Tuesday Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council’s top Ukraine expert, former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former NSC official Tim Morrison testified.

All nine have testified previously in closed-door hearings about Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, who had served as a board member of a Ukraine natural gas company, and probe a discredited conspiracy theory regarding the 2016 president election. Three of the nine listened in on the July 25 phone conversation between Trump and Ukraine’s president.

Democrats hope the hearings will sway public opinion in favor of impeachment.  Republicans have used them to discredit the impeachment proceedings and poke holes in the witnesses’ testimony.

Here is what you need to know about the witnesses Wednesday and Thursday and their role in the Ukraine affair.

Gordon Sondland

As President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland was in frequent contact with Trump and other administration officials about Ukraine policy. On July 26, the day after Trump and the Ukrainian president Zelenskiy spoke by phone, Sondland and Trump had their own  phone conversation during which the president was overheard asking whether Ukraine would “do the investigation” he had asked for.  A wealthy hotel magnate, Sondland gave $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.  In March 2018, Trump picked him as his ambassador to the European Union.  He was confirmed by the Senate in July.

Laura Cooper

Laura Cooper is a career Pentagon official responsible for policy on Russia, Ukraine and other nations in that region. Cooper first joined the Department of Defense in 2001. She held a series of posts at the Pentagon before being named the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia. In that capacity, she met with Volker in late August to discuss the frozen Ukrainian aid and was told by Volker that the hold might be lifted if Ukraine was willing to issue a statement disavowing election interference and vowing to prosecute anyone engaged in interference.  Cooper later told impeachment investigators that she and others had expressed concerns about the legality of withholding congressionally authorized funds for Ukraine

David Hale

As under secretary of state for Political Affairs, David Hale is the State Department’s No. 3 official, a position to which Trump named him in 2018.   A graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Hale joined the foreign service in 1984 and holds the rank of career ambassador.  In early March, he traveled to Ukraine where he asked then Ambassador Marie Yovanovich to extend her diplomatic term by one year and stay in the country through 2020.  Later, when Rudy Giuliani, the president’s point man on Ukraine, launched a smear campaign to oust Yovanovitch, Hale instructed a subordinate, George Kent, to “keep [your] head down.”  Hale testified behind closed doors this month about the State Department’s handling of the former ambassador’s recall.

Fiona Hill

A British-born American foreign affairs expert, Fiona Hill served as the National Security Council’s top Russia expert until June. The first former White House official to testify in the House impeachment inquiry, Hill told investigators in October that Yovanovitch’s removal was the “result of the campaign that Mr. Giuliani had set in motion” and that she had personally been the target of similar smear campaigns.  Hill also testified about a July 10 White House meeting between U.S. and Ukrainian officials at which Sondland announced that “we have an agreement with the chief of staff for a meeting (between Trump and Zelenskiy) if these investigations in the energy sector start.”

David Holmes

A career foreign service officer, Holmes has been the political counselor at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv since August 2017. In that capacity, he serves as the senior political and political adviser to the ambassador and has attended many meetings with Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian officials. Holmes is the diplomat who overheard a phone conversation between Sondland and Trump the day after Trump pressed Zelenskiy to carry out corruption investigations. During the call, Holmes testified last week, Trump asked Sondland, “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” According to Holmes’ testimony, he heard Sondland reply that “he’s gonna do it” and that Zelenskiy would do “anything you ask him to.” The account establishes a direct link between Trump and the Ukraine pressure campaign.

Tom Hanks has never played a superhero. But when the actor recently donned a very simple cardigan sweater, and the slacks to go with it, he felt like one.

“I felt like Batman. It felt like I was wearing the cape and the cowl of the Dark Knight detective,” Hanks says. “There’s only one person you can be when you put those things on, and that’s Fred Rogers.”

Since it was first announced, Hanks’ casting as the beloved children’s television host in “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” has had the feeling of kismet. Here was an actor nearly synonymous with affability, with “niceness,” playing one of the friendliest faces to ever flicker across a TV screen. Hanks might as well have been answering a Bat Signal in the sky.

But as inevitable as Hanks playing Mr. Rogers may have seemed, it never would have happened without Marielle Heller, the filmmaker of the literary forger drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and the `70s coming of age tale “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” The film’s script, by Noah Harpster and Micah Fitzerman-Blue, had been floating around for years before Heller got attached. Hanks had already passed on it, more than once.

“I didn’t pass on you,” Hanks said in an interview alongside Heller. “I just passed on a thing.”

It would probably please Mr. Rogers that the first big-screen fiction film about him was based, from the start, on a newfound friendship. Hanks and Heller met at a backyard birthday party for Hanks’ son Colin. Hanks had just read a New York Times article about female filmmakers and mentioned it to Heller after learning she was a director.

“And she said, `I’m in it,”’ recalls Hanks. “And I said, `Well, of course you are and I have to remove my shoe from my mouth.”

Hanks, newly resolved to work more with female directors, promised to watch “Diary of a Teenage Girl.”

“I thought, `Sure, Tom Hanks. I’m sure you’ll run right out and watch my movie,”’ says Heller. “And you did!”

Within days, Hanks called to set up a meeting, and that led to “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” Sony Pictures releases it in theaters this weekend. Based loosely on an Esquire Magazine article by Tom Junod, the film’s protagonist is a New York journalist named Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys) assigned to profile Rogers. Heller and Hanks view Rogers as the movie’s antagonist — the agent of change in Lloyd’s life, whose sincerity and caring disarm the cynical reporter.

Getting close to Rogers also altered Hanks and Heller. The production had the blessing of Joanne Rogers, Fred’s widow, and much of it was shot on location in Pittsburgh. Hanks wore Rogers’ old ties. He swam the same laps in a local pool. They collectively tried to live the kindness preached by Rogers, an ordained Presbyterian minister. The movie impresses the point that Rogers wasn’t a saint; he had to work at being good.

“At one point early on, Tom said to me, `I get the feeling none of us are going to be the same after making this movie,”’ Heller says.

That meant trying to slow down not just the tempo of the scenes but the entire workings of a movie set. Heller’s son, 2-years-old when they started, was often on set, and occasionally in the director’s chair. Heller shortened the day-to-day schedule so that everyone, including herself, could be home by their children’s bedtime on most nights.

“For me, as a mom of a little kid, that’s the difference between being able to keep making movies or not being able to keep making movies,” says Heller. “How do we think about our humanity while making movies? Would Fred Rogers have wanted us to make a movie about him where we all abandoned our kids in order to make the movie? I don’t think so.”

Both were relatively new disciples to Rogers. As a kid, the 40-year-old Marin County-raised Heller dismissed him as too schmaltzy. But now a parent, she found herself gravitating toward Mr. Rogers as a guide to explaining the world to her son. Hanks, 63, hadn’t raised his four now-grown children watching “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” so the dozens of hours he spent watching it to prepare for the role was eye-opening.

“I almost feel silly talking about it,” says Hanks. “This movie has actually made me think a lot about myself as a man and a father. When I saw Mari, I said, `Hey, thanks putting me in this movie, because you kind of changed my life, boss.”’

For Hanks, the greatest lesson from playing Rogers has to do with listening. As an actor and a celebrity, it’s part of his job to be entertaining, to be glib. And he is extraordinarily good at it. Few people in person live up to their reputation more than Hanks does, who began the interview delighted at the idea of drinking from “a box of water.” Quietude doesn’t exactly come naturally, nor would most around Hanks want it to.

“There is a thing that I do: W-A-I-T. It stands for `Why Am I Talking?”’ explains Hanks. “I wrote that down in a notebook that I keep to remind myself that listening, for me anyway, is a disciplinary art. I have to force myself to listen because I love the sound of my own voice and because I’m a movie star I’ve been infantilized by everybody I come across who says I’m just wonderful. `Look at you! You can stand up so good and you can eat with a fork! What a special, special, special movie star you are!”’

Slowing down took effort for Hanks, and for Rhys. At one point, they met to rehearse a lengthy scene at Rhys’ New York apartment. “I said, `Are you as exhausted by this as I am?”’ says Hanks. “He said, `Tom, I’m confounded by how much silence we have to have in this movie.”’

The movie called on Hanks to learn how to earnestly — not out of habit — ask questions like “How are you?” Heller would tell Hanks to thank Lloyd, “but this time mean it.” In her three richly textured films, Heller has shown an uncommon talent for coaxing three-dimensional performances out of her actors, including Melissa McCarthy and Bel Powley, that radiate humanity and humor while omitting sentimentality.

“I’m sort of like the authenticity police,” says Heller. “I’m there to make sure what we’re capturing is true. So much of my job is to be the one on set going, `Did I feel that? Did it feel true?”’

In Hanks’ Mr. Rogers, Heller wasn’t interested in an impression. A wig and some eyebrows were OK, but that was it. And, of course, the cardigan. The first time Hanks stepped onto set at WQED’s Fred Rogers Studio in character, sweater-to-sneakers, Heller says, “the room gasped.”

“It was like coming in as Elvis into Graceland,” says Hanks, a little sheepishly. “I had no sense of self. I really felt like I was having an out-of-body experience of watching this other guy be Fred Rogers.”

Having recently explained death to her now 5-year-old son, Heller was concerned he’d be confused. She didn’t have to worry.

“He said, `Mom, I know that’s Tom Hanks,”’ says Heller, laughing.

Hanks smiles. “Hip kid, man.”

On their way out of the interview, Heller leans against Hanks and says how much she enjoys talking about the film with him. He’s preoccupied with Heller’s batting average as a director. “Mari `three-for-three Heller,” he says, liking the sound of it. He turns to her. “You know” Hanks says, “none of these movies should have worked.” They walk out arm in arm.

Shinzo Abe entered the history books as Japan’s longest-serving premier on Wednesday, but many of his ambitious goals, including a constitutional revision to strengthen the military, appear far from reach.

Wednesday marks Abe’s 2,887th day in office, topping the record previously set by Taro Katsura, a revered politician who served three times between 1901 and 1913.

The 65-year-old is also the second-longest-serving leader of the Group of Seven major economies behind only German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been in office since 2005.

Abe’s grip on power remains firm as he passes the landmark, with his tenure likely to last until at least September 2021 and no clear successor yet on the horizon.

But the premier has plenty of unfinished business, saying earlier this year after a cabinet reshuffle that he hoped to “take on the challenge to create a new country.”

He has reiterated his long-cherished ambition of revising Japan’s post-war constitution to change the status of the country’s Self Defense Forces.

But opposition parties have refused to move forward with procedures for the revision, and Abe has seen his reputation tarnished by the resignation of two cabinet ministers and a cronyism scandal.

‘No strong rivals’

He is currently mired in a row over inviting too many of his supporters to a costly cherry blossom viewing party, forcing the government to scrap the annual event next year.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday to mark the record, he was peppered with questions about the latest scandal, which shows little sign of going away.

Despite recent missteps, however, experts say Abe’s ruling coalition faces no major threats in parliament, and there are no obvious pretenders to his office.

“There seem to be no strong rivals inside the LDP, and the prime minister’s political foundation inside the party is stable,” said the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun.

An NHK poll this month showed support for his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) at a solid 36.8 percent, dwarfing the 6.3-percent support for the largest opposition Constitutional Democratic Party.

Nearly 38 percent said they did not support any particular party.

‘Ambitious goals’

With his place in the history books secure, Abe is expected to focus on several difficult goals in coming years, experts say: the constitutional revision, the release of Japanese kidnapped by North Korea, and the resolution of a long-standing territorial dispute with Russia.

“Definitely, Prime Minister Abe will go down in history,” said Shinichi Nishikawa, professor of political science at Meiji University in Tokyo.

“But the chances of achieving his ambitious goals are very, very slim,” Nishikawa told AFP.

Abe became Japan’s youngest prime minister when he took office in 2006 at the age of 52, but he resigned after just a year, hit by scandals and debilitated by health issues.

In 2012, he returned to office on a pledge to revive Japan’s economy with his growth blitz, known as “Abenomics.”

He has pushed ahead with policy reforms intended to boost the country’s flagging birth rate, including by increasing access to pre-schools for toddlers.

He has also prioritized forging a close personal relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump in a bid to strengthen the key alliance with Washington that guarantees Japan’s security.
 

Country vocal group Lady Antebellum know how to move people to tears with their songs and their newest record feels as vulnerable and honest as a therapy session.

The trio of Charles Kelley, Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood are known for their heartfelt harmonies and emotional resonance on songs like the Grammy-winning “Need You Now,” but on their new album, “Ocean,” they looked inward at their own relationships.

“It’s been inspiring to watch that honesty come out,” said Haywood. “It’s been exciting for this season for us to be very self-aware and be vulnerable, be courageous and not be afraid and not have any fear to say those things.”

Kelley co-wrote “Be Patient with My Love” after feeling like he was letting his emotions get in the way of his relationships, saying things he didn’t mean to his wife, and not taking care of his spiritual health.

“That was kind of my first time I’ve really been really honest with myself on a song,” Kelley said. “My wife, when I played it for her, she was really proud of that. It’s nothing new to us. There’s a lot of that, say something you didn’t mean, wake up the next day, apologize, move on. Seven months later, back in the same spot.”

On “What I’m Leaving For,” the trio, who all have kids, address how it feels to leave children behind when they travel so much, something that Scott, whose parents are also well-known touring artists, knows intimately.

“I was that kid that we sing about and now I’m that mom,” Scott said, who has three girls. “My husband is a full-time dad at home and I travel.”

In the music video for the title track, Scott was moved to tears as she sang the lyrics about wanting to drown yourself in someone that’s emotionally unavailable. Her vocal delivery feels so lonely and lost as she pleads for a human connection.

“There are so many people hurting, myself included,” Scott said. “I just feel like this world we live in, we’re one of the most stressed-out cultures. It’s talked about in just about every headline you see…. That’s what this is about and that’s what I am seeing resonate with people.”

The record also includes a contribution from their longtime friend, songwriter and producer busbee, who died in September at the age of 43. He produced their last record, “Heart Break” in 2017 and co-wrote their single “You Look Good,” from that album. The band and busbee wrote an uplifting banjo-laden jam called “Alright,” which is how the band wants to remember him.

“He was such a light. He was this big tall guy with so much love to give,” Scott said. “It’s just talking about how no matter what happens, that it’s going to be alright and that this is life is beautiful. It’s so encouraging.”    

DARPA, the main research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, is funding researchers to develop wearable devices that would have military applications such as using the mind to control unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs, commonly known as drones. Instead of using brain implants to achieve this, DARPA is looking for non-invasive to minutely invasive ways of interfacing with the machine. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee got a close-up look at one team’s work at Rice University

 

Google’s head of philanthropy says the company is having “a lot of conversations” internally amid worries about the tech giant’s bottomless appetite for consumer data and how it uses its algorithms.
                   
Vice President Jacqueline Fuller wouldn’t comment on specific data privacy controversies dogging Google lately, but says she shares other concerns many have about Big Tech. Cyberbullying. Hate speech amplified online. The impact of artificial intelligence on everything, from jobs to warfare.
                   
“As a consumer myself, as part of the general public, as a mother, it’s very important to understand what am I seeing, what are my children seeing,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press in Paris, where she announced new grant winners Tuesday for projects aimed at teaching digital skills to poor, immigrant, rural or elderly users.
                   
The philanthropic arm she runs, Google.org, is like the company’s conscience, spending $100 million a year on non-profit groups that use technology to try to counteract problems the tech world is accused of creating, abetting or exacerbating.
                  
“Across the world we want to make sure we’re a responsible citizen,” she said.
But can Google’s do-good arm make up for everything else? At least it’s trying, she argues.
                   `
“The company is having a lot of conversations around things like access to information and access to data and making sure there’s no algorithmic bias,” she said.
                  
Public outrage has grown over Google’s use of consumer data and domination of the online search market, with governments stepping up scrutiny of the company.
                   
Just in the past week, nine groups called for the U.S. government to block Google’s $2.1 billion acquisition of fitness-gadget maker Fitbit, citing privacy and antitrust concerns. Then Google came under fire for a partnership with U.S. health care system Ascension that the Wall Street Journal says gives the search giant access to thousands of patient health records without doctors’ knowledge. Both companies say the deal is compliant with health-privacy law.
                   
Fuller wouldn’t comment specifically on either case, but said, “We take our users’ trust very seriously.”
                   
She also insisted that the company has a very “vibrant discussion” internally about sexual misconduct, human rights and other problems that have tarnished Google’s reputation.
                   
Its philanthropic arm is focused lately on using artificial intelligence to help society, for example by providing better access to health care and more effective emergency services. It’s also working on ways to limit the damage of the breakneck developments of AI, notably after employee departures and public pressure over a Pentagon contract pushed the company to pledge it wouldn’t use AI in weapons development.
                   
Among projects Google.org is funding are those that help users create and share digital resumes or map job opportunities, as the company tries to figure out “how can we anticipate some of the impacts of AI in an economy, and understand how can we make sure that everyone has access to jobs that are not only interesting now but jobs that are going to be here in the future,” Fuller said.
                   
Google is also holding a competition this year in Europe for projects on “how we can keep children safe,” she said.
                   
Digital literacy is crucial, she said: “All of us need to discern what is truthful of what I see online. How do I ask the questions of who is sponsoring this content.”
                   
In Paris, Fuller announced the winners of Google.org’s latest “Impact Challenge,” contests it holds around the world for non-profits using technology for good. Ten groups won grants worth a total of 3 million euros for projects helping the millions of people in France who lack the basic digital skills that are increasingly crucial for everything from paying taxes to finding a job.
                   
Despite its philanthropic efforts, Google’s critics remain legion _ even within the tech universe.
                   
Former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris argues technology is shortening our attention spans and pushing people toward more extreme views. He couldn’t get Google to tackle these problems when he was there, so he quit and is pushing for change through his Center for Human Technologies.
                   
He says companies like Google won’t change voluntarily but that the tech world has undergone a “sea change” in awareness of problems it’s caused, thanks in part to pressure from a frustrated public.

 

Poland’s prime minister set out plans on Tuesday to strengthen the state’s role in the economy and deepen an overhaul of the justice system that has put Warsaw on a collision course with its European Union partners.

Mateusz Morawiecki said the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party would continue increasing welfare spending and the share of Polish capital in domestic companies, underlining its break with the free-market reforms of liberal governments before it.

“Neoliberals have fueled a sense of confusion in our value system. Many people were led to believe that the state is a ball and chain,” he said in a policy speech to parliament after an Oct. 13 election that gave PiS four more years in power.

“Extremes are not good. We are building a normal state.”

Morawiecki spoke repeatedly of a return to “normality,” referring both to PiS’s economic policies and its conservative vision of the traditional family which has won over voters but has been criticized by opponents for encouraging homophobia.

He promised new welfare programs to help families with at least three children and the elderly.

In separate comments, PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said: “Our society… must be based on the Polish family, the family in its traditional sense. A family which takes the form of a relationship between a man and a woman.”

Opposition lawmakers criticized PiS’s vision of normality.

“The desire for normality means the rule of law and economic prudence, and you break those principles day after day,” said Grzegorz Schetyna, leader of the largest opposition party, Civic Platform.

Morawiecki’s government won a vote of confidence in a late-evening session on Tuesday, with 237 deputies out of 454 lending him their support.

Concerns over rule of law

Since returning to power in 2015, PiS has introduced changes to how courts are run and altered some of the rules governing the Constitutional Tribunal and the Supreme Court.

The European Commission, the EU executive, responded by launching legal action over reforms which it says threaten the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.

The European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that it was up to Poland’s Supreme Court to decide on the independence of the Disciplinary Chamber and the National Judiciary Council, offering some criteria on adherence to EU law.

Morawiecki gave no details of the next steps PiS plans to take in its reforms of the judiciary. The party says further reforms are intended to make the court system more efficient but opponents say the reforms made so far have politicized it.

PiS has said it will keep a balanced budget in 2020, benefiting from one-off revenues and fast economic growth, although some economists say such plans are too ambitious at a time when the European economy is slowing down.

Ousmane Sawadogo, his wives and children recently fled their village in northern Burkina Faso because of growing extremist violence. After walking 200 kilometers (124 miles) to the regional city of Kaya, they now forage for wild leaves to survive.

“What we need now is food. Everything else can wait,” Sawadogo told the United Nations World Food Program. “Once we get food then we will worry about clothes.”

The U.N. on Tuesday said a humanitarian crisis is growing in West Africa’s arid Sahel region where insecurity linked to growing extremist attacks has forced more than 860,000 people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to flee their homes.

Nearly half a million people have been displaced this year in Burkina Faso alone as the landlocked country becomes the new hunting ground for extremists linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaida.

Burkina Faso saw more attacks in the first half of this year than it did in all of 2018.

“A dramatic human crisis is unfolding in Burkina Faso that has disrupted the lives of millions,” the WFP’s executive director, David Beasley, said in a statement. “A third of the country is now a conflict zone.”

WFP teams are seeing malnutrition levels “pushed well past emergency thresholds,” he said. “This means young children and new mothers are on the brink. If the world is serious about saving lives, the time to act is now.”

Farmers have been forced to abandon their fields. As communities take in displaced people, already stretched resources are further depleted.

“You are looking at a situation that is developing into something really severe, I would even say dire,” WFP regional spokesman George Fominyen told The Associated Press. “We don’t know how long this situation will go on. That’s why we are raising this alarm.”

WFP is assisting more than 2.6 million people in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. It said $150 million is urgently needed in a region where some 20 million people live in conflict-affected areas.

“The main trigger here is conflict,” Fominyen said. “Then you are talking about it happening in a place that in itself already has a lot of problems” such as drought, poverty, weak government, unemployment and lack of social services.
Extremists exploit those troubles while wary communities turn on each other amid allegations of supporting the jihadists. The violence limits humanitarian access to people in need and the poverty contributes to the violence, Fominyen said.

The response to the crisis cannot just be about security, he warned. It also must address the root causes and offer viable alternatives to joining extremist groups.

 

Thousands of teachers wearing red have surrounded the Indiana Statehouse for a rally calling for further increasing teacher pay in the biggest such protest in the state amid a wave of educator activism across the country.

Teacher unions says about half of Indiana’s nearly 300 school districts are closed while their teachers attend Tuesday’s rally while legislators gather for 2020 session organization meetings.

Math teacher Angela Cooper says she traveled with more than 40 teachers from far southern Indiana for the rally. Cooper says she’s worried that low pay is causing many new teachers to leave for other jobs.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and leaders of the GOP-dominated Legislature have avoided direct criticism of teachers, but don’t expect to take action on further boosting school funding until at least 2021.

 

India’s Parliament on Tuesday debated the toxic air threatening the lives of the capital region’s 48 million people, with opposition leaders demanding the creation of a parliamentary panel to remedy the situation on a long-term basis.
                   
In unprecedented discussions of the issue, the leader of the opposition Congress party, Manish Tewari, said the federal government has let the country’s top court take the initiative in deciding how to combat the problem.
                   
Air pollution in northern India peaks in the winter due to smoke from agricultural fires. The smoke mixes with vehicle emissions and construction dust. Earlier this month, the air quality index in New Delhi exceeded 500, about 10 times the recommended maximum.
                   
On Tuesday, strong winds brought the level down to 249, according to the state-run Central Pollution Control Board.
                   
Tewari and Pinaki Mishra, a lawmaker from the Biju Janata Dal party, demanded that the government give incentives to farmers and provide machines to remove farm stubble to stop the practice of burning fields before planting new crops.
                   
Mishra also demanded a ban on poor-quality firecrackers with high sulfur content. Millions of Hindus use fireworks during weddings and religious festivals throughout the year.
                  

South Korean and U.S. officials broke off talks on Tuesday aimed at settling the cost burden for Seoul of hosting the U.S. military, South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said, amid a public backlash over a U.S. demand for a sharp increase in the bill.

Officials had resumed a planned two-day negotiation on Monday, trying to narrow a $4 billion gap in what they believe South Korea should contribute for the cost of stationing U.S. troops in the country for next year.

“Our position is that it should be within the mutually acceptable Special Measures Agreement (SMA) framework that has been agreed upon by South Korea and the U.S. for the past 28 years,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said, referring to the cost-sharing deal’s official name.

“The U.S. believes that the share of defense spending should be increased significantly by creating a new category,” the ministry said in a statement.

Negotiators left the table after only about one hour of discussions while the talks were scheduled throughout the day, South Korean media reported, citing unnamed foreign ministry officials.

South Korean lawmakers have said U.S. officials had demanded up to $5 billion a year, more than five times the 1.04 trillion won ($896 million) Seoul agreed to pay this year for hosting the 28,500 troops.

U.S. officials have not publicly confirmed the number, but Trump has previously said the U.S. military presence in and around South Korea was “$5 billion worth of protection.”

The negotiations are taking place as U.S. efforts to reach an agreement with North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs appear stalled, ahead of a year-end deadline from Pyongyang for the U.S. to shift its approach.

Lee Hye-hoon, head of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee, said in a radio interview on Tuesday the U.S. ambassador to South Korea talked to her at length earlier this month about how Seoul had been only paying one-fifth what it should have been paying for the cost of stationing U.S. troops.

Under South Korean law, the military cost-sharing deal must be approved by parliament.

Ruling party lawmakers have said this week they will “refuse to ratify any excessive outcome of the current negotiations” that deviate from the established principle and structure of the agreements for about 30 years.

Trump has long railed against what he says are inadequate contributions from allies towards defense costs. The United States is due to begin separate negotiations for new defense cost-sharing deals with Japan, Germany and NATO next year.

Novel drugs may offer fresh ways to reduce heart risks beyond the usual medicines to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

One new study found that heart attack survivors benefited from a medicine long used to treat gout. Several experimental drugs also showed early promise for interfering with heart-harmful genes without modifying the genes themselves – in one case, with treatment just twice a year.

The research was featured at an American Heart Association conference ending Monday in Philadelphia.

“There’s a lot of excitement” about the new gene-targeting medicines, especially because they seem to last so long, said Dr. Karol Watson, of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Scientists have been exploring gene therapy – altering DNA – to attack the root cause of many diseases. The new drugs essentially accomplish the same thing without tampering with genes, said the University of Pennsylvania’s Dr. Daniel Rader, who has consulted for some makers of these drugs.

The medicines work by silencing or blocking messages that genes give to cells to make proteins that can do harm, such as allowing cholesterol to accumulate. The first few of these “RNA-interference” drugs recently were approved for other conditions, and research is also targeting heart disease.

Farthest along is inclisiran, tested in 1,561 people with heart disease from clogged arteries who still had high LDL, the bad form of cholesterol, despite taking standard drugs. They were given a shot of inclisiran or a dummy drug when they joined the study, three months later and then every six months.

The drug lowered LDL by 56% without serious side effects. More testing will show whether it also lowers heart attacks and other problems, not just cholesterol. Inclisiran’s maker, The Medicines Company, plans to seek federal approval for it later this year.

Two other RNA interference drugs aim at a different target – triglycerides, another fat in the blood that’s elevated in one quarter of Americans. Treatments include very low-fat diets, weight loss, fish oil and drugs, but doctors say more and better therapies are needed.

Each RNA interference drug was tested at various doses in 40 people. A single shot lowered triglycerides by 30% to 67%, and the benefit lasted for at least four months. The studies were just intended to show safety; Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals is developing both drugs.

Other research found new benefits from older drugs. AstraZeneca’s Farxiga, originally developed to treat diabetes, also lowered the risk of heart problems in heart failure patients who did not have diabetes. Among 2,605 of such patients treated for 18 months, about 9% of those on Farxiga had worsening heart failure or heart-related death versus nearly 13% of those not given the drug. That worked out to a 27% lower risk, without extra serious side effects.

Surprising benefits also were seen in a Canadian study of the decades-old gout drug. The anti-inflammatory drug colchicine – sold as Colcrys, Mitigare and in generic form – was tested in 4,745 people who recently had a heart attack.

After about two years, colchicine users had a 23% lower risk of suffering a new heart attack, heart-related death, stroke, cardiac arrest or urgent need for an artery-opening procedure compared with a group given dummy pills. The benefit came mostly from preventing strokes and artery-opening procedures, and some heart doctors would rather have seen more difference in heart attacks and deaths.

Colchicine is being tested in several other studies, and more evidence is needed before using it routinely to lower heart risks, Dr. L. Kristin Newby of Duke University wrote in a commentary published with the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, a Northwestern University cardiologist and program chief for the heart conference, was more supportive.

“When you have a safe drug that’s easily available, it’s going to be hard to hold this one back,” he said.

Sources close to the Taliban say three high-ranking commanders who have been held in Afghanistan are in Qatar awaiting release in exchange for two long-time Western captives of the insurgent group.

The sources said the commanders were flown to Doha on Monday awaiting the swap with American Kevin King and Australian Timothy Weeks, two professors at the American University in Kabul.  King and Weeks were kidnapped in August 2016 outside American University’s campus.

The Taliban trio includes Anas Haqqani, whose older brother is the leader of the notorious Taliban-affiliated terror network that bears their name. Anas Haqqani, along with Taliban commanders Haji Mali Khan and Hafiz Rashid, have been detained by the Afghan government since 2014.  

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced the prisoner swap last week, in order to facilitate direct peace talks with Afghanistan’s former hardline rulers.  The Taliban has waged a deadly insurgent campaign since the Taliban was overthrown by U.S.-led forces for harboring al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.  

The Taliban sources say the prisoners will be exchanged sometime Tuesday.  

Nigeria’s decision to close land border trade to stop smuggling is affecting regional trade and prices of goods being forced through already bogged-down water ports.  Nigeria’s neighbors argue it’s against the principles of free trade but Nigerian rice farmers have welcomed the move to support local industry. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.

 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he is canceling one of four sanctions waivers that had allowed foreign companies to work with Iran’s civilian nuclear program without U.S. penalties. Pompeo also warned Iran’s leadership not to crack down on protests that recent fuel price increases have sparked.

The waivers are among the last remaining components of the 2015 nuclear deal the Trump administration withdrew from last year.

Pompeo said the waiver for Iran’s once-secret Fordow site will be eliminated Dec. 15. Iran recently announced it would resume uranium enrichment at the fortified facility, which is built into a mountain.

“The right amount of uranium enrichment for the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism is zero,” he said. “There is no legitimate reason for Iran to resume enrichment at this previously clandestine site. Iran should reverse its activity there immediately.”

Iran hawks in Congress have been pressing Pompeo to eliminate all the waivers but have most strenuously objected to the one that allowed Russian, Chinese and European companies to work at Fordow. The waivers for Fordow as well as the Bushehr nuclear power station, the Arak heavy water plant and the Tehran Research Reactor were last extended in late October.

Nuclear deal critics, including Trump allies like Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas and GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have long argued that the waivers should be revoked because they give Iran access to technology that could be used for weapons. In particular, they have targeted a waiver that allows conversion work at the once-secret Fordow.

They had announced plans to introduce legislation requiring the administration to cancel the waivers.

Deal supporters say the waivers give international experts a valuable window into Iran’s atomic program that might otherwise not exist. They also say some of the work, particularly at the Tehran reactor on nuclear isotopes that can be used in medicine, is humanitarian in nature.

The protests around Iran have led to a curtailment in Iranians’ internet access, and some of them have been met with violent responses.

Pompeo said Iran “must cease violence against its own people and must immediately restore the ability of all Iranians to access a free and open internet. The world is watching.”