The
Chauvet cave paintings, discovered in southern France in 1994, are some of the oldest works of art on record. Created more than 30,000 years ago, they are the oldest known paintings and predate written language. The paintings are intricate (e.g., the cave wall shows evidence the artist smoothed the surface before beginning and used etching to convey motion and form). And it provides a literal snapshot of a Europe that no longer exists. Not only are the lower half of a female body, horses and cattle depicted, but also extinct species that coexisted with the artist: mammoths, lions, panthers, bears, rhinos and hyenas.
Welcome to
Overnight News Digest, where the usual crew, consisting of founder Magnifico, regular editors maggiejean, wader, Man Oh Man, side pocket, rfall, and JML9999, alumni editors palantir, Bentliberal, Oke, Interceptor7, jlms qkw, and ScottyUrb, guest editors annetteboardman and Doctor RJ, and current editor-in-chief Neon Vincent, along with anyone else who reads and comments, informs and entertains you with tonight's news.
OND is a regular community feature on Daily Kos, consisting of news stories from around the world, sometimes coupled with a daily theme, original research or commentary. Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00AM Eastern Time.
Please feel free to share your articles and stories in the comments.
From BBC News: 'First human' discovered in Ethiopia
The fossil's teeth are smaller than those of other human relatives
Scientists have unearthed the jawbone of what they claim is one of the very first humans.
The 2.8 million-year-old specimen is 400,000 years older than researchers thought that our kind first emerged.
The discovery in Ethiopia suggests climate change spurred the transition from tree dweller to upright walker.
The head of the research team told BBC News that the find gives the first insight into "the most important transitions in human evolution".
Prof Brian Villmoare of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas said the discovery makes a clear link between an iconic 3.2 million-year-old hominin (human-like primate) discovered in the same area in 1974, called "Lucy".
Could Lucy's kind - which belonged to the species Australopithecus afarensis - have evolved into the very first primitive humans?
"That's what we are arguing," said Prof Villmoare.
From
CBS News:
"Am I normal?" New study on penis size has answers for men
Some good news, guys: A new analysis of penis sizes will help reassure most of you that you're normal, researchers say. Many males worry about their penis size, even when there's no cause for concern. But until now, there has been no formal review of research into penis size and no attempt to develop a system to show the range of sizes of flaccid or erect penises, the researchers said.
The British investigators reviewed 17 published studies that included more than 15,500 men whose penises were measured by health professionals using a standard procedure.
The average length of a flaccid penis was 3.6 inches, the average length of a flaccid stretched penis was 5.3 inches, and the average length of an erect penis was 5.2 inches. Looking at things another way, the average circumference of a flaccid penis was 3.7 inches, and the average circumference of an erect penis was 4.6 inches.
The study, entitled "Am I normal? A systematic review and construction of nomograms for flaccid and erect penis length and circumference," was published online March 3 in the journal BJU International.
From the A.V. Club: Marvel releases new Avengers trailer after fans submit to marketing machine
To promote its movie about a group of superheroes fighting to free humanity from enslavement by a cold, heartless machine, Marvel demanded that fans spend the morning on Twitter, tweeting promotional hashtags to its satisfaction, until it deigned to give them a new trailer.
Anyway, it worked, so now you can see the above clip of Avengers: Age Of Ultron, which builds on previous clips by delving a little more into Ultron’s back story, gives you your first brief glimpse of Vision, brings in a potential romance between Hulk and Black Widow—all the benefits, in other words, that make submitting to a mechanical overlord worth it.
From
SCOTUSblog:
Supreme Court justices divided over ObamaCare subsidies
This courtroom artist rendering shows Michael Carvin, lead attorney for the petitioners, speaking before the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, March 4, 2015. From left are, Justice Elena Kagan, and sitting behind Carvin from left are, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif.
One of the most important functions of oral argument in the Supreme Court is that it can strongly shape the next round: the private deliberations among the nine Justices as they start work on a decision. The much-awaited hearing Wednesday on the stiff new challenge to the Affordable Care Act strongly suggested that Topic A in private could well be: how bad will we make things if we rule against the government?
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who seemed decidedly more sympathetic to the government than might have been expected, worried over a constitutional blow against the states. But even the two Justices most openly sympathetic to the challengers — Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Antonin Scalia — seemed to concede the dire consequences that could follow, by suggesting ways to alleviate it. Alito said the Court could delay its ruling to allow time to adjust, and Scalia said Congress could be counted on to fix it.
On Friday morning, when the Justices start their private conversation on the case of King v. Burwell, what those three said in public in an eighty-four-minute hearing Wednesday could set the tone, and the public signs were that the tone could be mostly favorable to the government — that is, the chances seemed greater for a ruling salvaging a nationwide subsidy system that makes the new health care insurance exchanges actually work in an economic sense, thus keeping it alive.
From
The Guardian:
Discrimination in Ferguson: full extent of police bias laid bare in damning report
The full extent of the racial persecution of black residents in Ferguson, Missouri, by the city’s overwhelmingly white law enforcement authorities was disclosed on Wednesday in a damning report by the US Department of Justice.
Ferguson’s police department and court system “reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias”, the 105-page study found, adding that “discriminatory intent” among city officials – several of whom were found to have sent racist emails – was partly to blame.
Unveiling the report at a press conference in Washington, the US attorney general, Eric Holder, blamed Ferguson police for creating a “toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment” that had been set off “like a powder keg” by a white officer shooting dead an unarmed black 18-year-old.
“It is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action,” said Holder. “Let me be clear: the United States Department of Justice reserves all its rights and abilities to force compliance and implement basic change. Nothing is off the table.”
From PBS documentary series
Frontline:
How the DOJ Reforms a Police Department Like Ferguson
The Justice Department made 26 recommendations for reform in Ferguson and will insist on a court-enforced agreement to make those changes. The next step for Ferguson will be to decide whether to negotiate or fight federal officials in court. That process can take months, or even years.
Some departments, like Newark, have cooperated with federal authorities. In July 2014, the Justice Department found that Newark police had a pattern or practice of disproportionately stopping and arresting black residents and using excessive force against them. It found that 75 percent of the stops by NPD officers had no justifiable basis, and that some officers stole citizens’ property and money.
The city moved quickly to cooperate with the DOJ, announcing that it would enter into an agreement on the same day federal investigators released their findings.
Others have fought back. In North Carolina’s Alamance County, Justice Department officials found a pattern or practice of discriminatory treatment by police — in targeting, stops, searches and arrests — of Latino residents. The department refused to cooperate during the investigation, and has refuted the charges.
From
ABC News:
DOJ Will Not Charge Darren Wilson in Michael Brown Shooting
The department of Justice announced today that police officer Darren Wilson will not be charged in the death of Michael Brown.
"There is no evidence upon which prosecutors can rely to disprove Wilson's stated subjective belief that he feared for his safety," the DOJ criminal report said.
According to the report, Wilson "saw Brown reach his right hand under his t-shirt into what appeared to be his waistband."
Accounts that Brown put his hands up are "inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence," the report says.
Witness accounts were "inconsistent" and "changed over time," it also said.
From
CNN:
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea attacked with razor blade
U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert was attacked in Seoul, possibly by more than one person, according to U.S. government sources in the U.S. and South Korea. He is in stable condition, according to a U.S. embassy spokesperson.
Lippert was injured by a small razor blade, according to Seoul police. His injuries are not life threatening, according to Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman. He received injuries on his right cheek and hand at about 5.42 p.m. ET, according to South Korean police.
"The President called U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, Mark Lippert, to tell him that he and his wife Robyn are in his thoughts and prayers, and to wish him the very best for a speedy recovery," said Bernadette Meehan, National Security Council spokesperson.
According to South Korea's YTN news channel, Lippert was about to deliver a speech at a breakfast being held at Sejong Hall in Seoul. The report says nothing specific about the attack, only that yelling was heard and then the bloodied ambassador was taken to hospital. The YTN report also says a suspect identified by last name "Kim" was detained. The suspect -- believed to be in his 50s -- is detained and currently under investigation.
From the
Montgomery Advertiser:
Same-sex marriages on hold following Ala. high court ruling
The Alabama Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered probate judges in the state to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses, creating a potential constitutional crisis in the state.
U.S. District Judge Ginny Granade struck down the state's 1998 and 2006 same-sex marriage bans in two separate decisions late last month, saying they violated same-sex couples' 14th Amendment equal protection and due process rights. However, the Alabama Supreme Court, writing that "state courts may interpret United States Constitution from, and even contrary to, federal courts," ruled that the bans were not intended to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples.
"Traditional-marriage laws do not discriminate based on gender: All men and all women are equally entitled to enter the institution of marriage," the justices wrote. "Only by redefining the term "marriage" to mean something it is not (and in the process assuming an answer as part of the question), can this statement be challenged. Put in the negative, traditional-marriage laws do not discriminate on the basis of gender because all men and all women are equally restricted to marriage between the opposite sexes. "
The opinion echoed many arguments previously made by Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who has fought same-sex marriage in the state. The opinion gave other probate judges five days to explain to the court why they should not have to discontinue the practice.
From
Reuters:
'It was him' Boston bomber's lawyers admit guilt, focus on brother
A lawyer for the accused Boston Marathon bomber said at the start of his trial that their client bore responsibility for the attacks that killed three people and injured 264 with a blunt admission: "It was him."
But Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a secondary player in the April 15, 2013 bombings at the famous race and the fatal shooting days later of a police officer, defense attorney Judith Clarke said in her opening argument in U.S. District Court in Boston. She indicated that the 21-year-old's older brother, Tamerlan, was the prime mover.
The defense strategy, which did not include a move to change Tsarnaev's not-guilty plea, appeared aimed at sparing Tsarnaev from the death penalty. If he is convicted, the jury will decide whether he is executed or gets life in prison without possibility of parole.
From
Vice News:
Drug Lord Known as 'Z-42' Is Second Mexican Capo to Fall In Less Than a Week
The leader of the Zetas drug cartel, Omar Trevino Morales, known as Z-42, was detained after a surveillance operation in the northern industrial city of Monterrey Wednesday.
Omar Treviño Morales, the leader of the Zetas cartel, was captured by security forces early Wednesday in the city of Monterrey, the second high-profile kingpin capture in Mexico in less than a week.
The arrest came early Wednesday in the wealthy San Pedro Garza Garcia suburb of Monterrey, without a single shot fired, authorities said.
Treviño Morales, known by his codename "Z-42," took over the Zetas leadership after the arrest of his older brother, Miguel Angel Morales, also known as Z-40, in July 2013.
His arrest may offer a further boost to President Enrique Peña Nieto's government as the president wraps up his trip to the UK. Last Friday, Mexican authorities caught Knights Templar leader Servando Gomez Martinez, also known as "La Tuta," in an operation in Morelia, Michoacan.
From
Al Jazeera:
Nemtsov murder stirs fears of violent nationalism in Putin’s Russia
Thousands converged Sunday in central Moscow to mourn veteran liberal politician and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov who was assassinated on Friday.
The assassination of Boris Nemtsov had already spawned dozens of conspiracy theories by the time the former deputy prime minister was laid to rest on Tuesday. As thousands gathered for his public memorial in Moscow, everyone from President Vladimir Putin to the CIA and Chechen rebels had been implicated in rumors circulating over pro-Kremlin airwaves or in opposition circles. “In lawless Russia, any theory can seem plausible,” said Nina Khrushcheva, a Russia expert at the New School in New York.
Nemtsov — a retired politician and one of the last opposition leaders left in the country — was walking with his girlfriend, Anna Duritskaya, across a bridge in the shadow of St. Basil’s Cathedral shortly before midnight on Friday when an unknown assailant emerged from a stairwell behind them and shot him at least four times in the back, according to Duritskaya’s account. The attacker then jumped into a white car and was driven away, said the 23-year-old, who escaped unscathed.
Nemtsov's murder was the latest and arguably highest-profile in a string of assassinations of Kremlin critics during Vladimir Putin's 15 years in power. Sensing a pattern, Nemtsov’s allies, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saw no other explanation than that Putin or the Russian security services (FSB) either ordered or sanctioned the hit on Nemtsov — who in recent days had delivered biting criticism of the president's meddling in Ukraine and his handling of the Russian economic crisis. In comments that some have dubbed eerily prophetic, Nemtsov told the Financial Times last week that Putin was a “totally amoral human being,” and “more dangerous than the Soviets.” On Friday, just hours before he died, Nemtsov announced that he was preparing to release “documentary” proof that Russian soldiers were fighting with Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebels (Putin has vehemently denied sending any regular forces or weapons to Ukraine).
From the
Wall Street Journal:
For the First Time in 30 Years, Unemployment Fell in Every State in 2014
Unemployment fell in every state and the nation’s capital last year—something that hadn’t happened since 1984.
The broad decline, revealed in a Labor Department report Wednesday, offers the latest sign the labor market recovery kicked into a higher gear in 2014. The declines varied broadly.
Unemployment fell the most in Illinois, where the rate dropped 2 percentage points from the prior year to an average 7.1%. The rate declined by 1.8 points in Colorado, North Carolina and Ohio.
North Dakota, at the center of the nation’s energy boom of the past few years, had the lowest jobless rate of any state at 2.8% last year.
Unemployment across the entire U.S. fell 1.2 points to 6.2% last year.
From the
New York Times:
In Eye of Economic Storm, the Fed Blinked
When Ben S. Bernanke walked into the Federal Reserve’s ornate boardroom in December 2009, the officials who were gathered around the long table gave the Fed’s chairman a standing ovation.
Mr. Bernanke had just been crowned Person of the Year by Time magazine. The recession had ended, unemployment had crested and Mr. Bernanke was widely regarded as singularly responsible.
But the return to normalcy that Mr. Bernanke and his committee began to chart at that end-of-the-year meeting soon proved premature. The Fed had arrested the financial crisis, but the moment would also turn out to be the beginning of a yearslong series of failures to provide a sufficiently large dose of stimulus to restore the battered American economy to its previous health.
Transcripts the Fed released on Wednesday of its 2009 policy meetings show that Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues had a relatively clear understanding of the depth of the nation’s economic problems. But they were hobbled by doubts about the Fed’s ability to do more and by concerns about the potential political and economic consequences.
From the
Los Angeles Times:
Etsy, website where 20 million a year buy artsy goods, crafts IPO plan
Etsy Inc., an online shop where people sell artsy goods, filed on Wednesday to go public.
The nearly 10-year-old start-up, based in Brooklyn, N.Y., said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it’s seeking to raise $100 million in an initial public offering of its stock. The figure is typically a placeholder value used to set filing fees. On the private market, Etsy was valued at more than $600 million back in 2012, according to media reports at the time.
Etsy has separated itself from Amazon, EBay, Alibaba and other online marketplaces by catering to mostly women sellers who handmake their crafts and clothing. The small-scale approach means Etsy moves fewer goods -- about $2 billion worth of stuff in 2014. But it is growing rapidly, with about 20 million buyers and more than 1.3 million sellers in 2014.
Driven by listing fees and commission on sales, revenue has climbed to almost $109 million in 2014, nearly doubling from $55 million in 2012.
From the
Washington Post:
Hospitals in Los Angeles, Connecticut say patients were exposed to infections through contaminated medical scopes
Two hospitals on opposite sides of the country announced on Wednesday that hundreds of patients have either been infected by or exposed to deadly strains of bacteria that may be resistant to some drugs.
Officials at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut said at a news conference that they had contacted 281 patients who may have been exposed to a dangerous type of E. coli that is resistant to some drugs, according to the local NBC affiliate. The exposure came through a medical scope that is used to diagnose pancreatic and bile duct cancer, according to the station.
A similar issue was reported Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where officials announced that four patients had been infected by a superbug with another 64 people potentially exposed to the dangerous bacteria, according to the Los Angeles Times. The problem was traced to a single scope, according to a statement from Cedars-Sinai.
From
ESPN:
Pay cut coming for Peyton Manning
Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos are near agreement on a new contract for the 2015 season in which the five-time NFL MVP will take a $4 million pay cut to provide more cash for the team to do business on the free-agent market, which opens with the new league year Tuesday.
Manning will make $15 million in base salary in 2015, league and team sources said, down from the $19 million he was scheduled to earn.
The contract will not be final until Manning passes a physical exam, which he is expected to take within 24 hours, sources said. Other minor details on the contract also are being finalized, a team source said.
If the deal is finalized and signed, it will be Manning's 18th NFL season since the Indianapolis Colts selected him as the first pick in the 1998 NFL draft. He missed the 2011 season with a neck injury.
Manning informed Broncos general manager John Elway on Feb. 12 that he was physically and mentally prepared to play the 2015 season after undergoing a comprehensive workout regimen and evaluation with noted performance trainer Mackie Shilstone.
From the
Des Moines Register:
NTSB considers reopening Buddy Holly crash case
It was labeled "the day the music died," but speculation has lived on about the cause of the airplane crash near Clear Lake that killed rock 'n' roll legend Buddy Holly and three others in 1959.
The Civil Aeronautics Board ruled on Sept. 23, 1959, that the crash's cause was pilot error and deficiencies in the weather briefing to the pilot. But 56 years later, officials with the National Transportation Safety Board say its cold case unit is considering reopening the investigation.
L.J. Coon, a New England man who describes himself as a retired pilot, aircraft dispatcher and Federal Aviation Administration test proctor, petitioned the NTSB to look at several possible contributing factors that may clear the name of pilot Roger Peterson, who died in the crash at age 21.
You have gotten our attention," the NTSB wrote to Coon in a Feb. 19, 2015, email, promising to look into information that he provided. A decision on whether to reopen the case could take several weeks.
From
The Daily Beast:
The Pickup Artist Too Sleazy for Pickup Artists
John Mulvehill allegedly masturbated on a woman and was kicked out of his community for it. Now he's back with a new name and a new company.
John Mulvehill (pickup handle JMULV) is the 31-year-old founder and senior executive coach of Efficient Pickup, a company that claims to cut through the all the self-help gibberish prevailing in the pickup industry to get its customers “real results” with the ladies. Mulvehill says his methods differ from the rest of the pickup community’s, which came under intense scrutiny this year when Julien Blanc’s misogynistic teachings got him and his employer, Real Social Dynamics (RSD), banned from several countries ... Among his fellow PUAs, Mulvehill was known for making T-shirts to celebrate his lay count, specifically the milestones of bedding 150 women in 2012. He now claims to have had sex with over 350 women.
And his tactics aren’t subtle. Unlike the downright strange strategies used by Blanc, like choking women, shoving their heads in his crotch, and calling them dogs, Mulvehill uses a tried-and-true “no means yes” style.
According to a number of posts since deleted from RSD’s forum but available via The Wayback Machine, Mulvehill was working as an assistant for RSD instructors in 2013. On one night in May, as part of his routine, Mulvehill walked a reluctant young woman from Caesar’s Palace to his car, according to an arrest report. Once there, according to the report, the Casanova pulled her into the back seat of his black Pontiac, then locked the doors so she couldn’t escape and tossed away her phone so she couldn’t continue to text her friends.
“She kept telling him she wanted to leave,” the arrest report says. Mulvehill somehow took that as a sign to pull down his pants, and tell her to watch as he masturbated, while trying to grope her breasts and kiss her, according to the alleged victim. When the girl’s friends found her, they banged on Mulvehill’s car window and she got out.
From
The Atlantic:
Television Loves Female Presidents, as Long as They're Republican
From left to right: Cherry Jones as President Allison Taylor of '24,' Julia Louis-Dreyfus as President Selina Meyer of 'Veep,' and Geena Davis as President Mackenzie Allen in 'Commander in Chief'
With many expecting Hillary Clinton to announce her candidacy for the 2016 race, the possibility of a female president in the U.S. looms large ... Although a 2007 Gallup poll found that 88 percent of Americans said they'd vote for a well-qualified female candidate, a 2015 Pew study found that just four in 10 Americans said they hoped to see a woman president in their lifetime—with the numbers diverging dramatically along gender and party lines.
Fictional portrayals of female presidents have therefore been meticulously crafted to avoid alienating audiences. Two trends immediately emerge after judging the small sample size of onscreen female presidents: Not one is an obvious Democrat, despite polls revealing Democrats are most enthusiastic about the idea of a female commander in chief. And only one seems to have been elected entirely on her own merits—the others were all either part of political dynasties or were vice presidents who filled vacancies when the need arose ... In an electorate where women are more likely than men to vote Democratic, why would all of the female TV presidents be Republican or centrist? The short answer is: It's not a conspiracy. Showrunners and writers serve three masters when creating a show, says the producer Tom Nunan. They have to figure out what provides the most conflict in a series, what's the most unpredictable thing a show can do, and what might be predictive about culture. A Republican female president adds an element of unpredictability that wouldn't be achieved by writing a carbon copy of Hillary Clinton or Senator Elizabeth Warren.
According to Nunan, the vast majority of writers are left-leaning and usually create characters that represent the opposite of their own political beliefs. Because there have only been so few female presidents on TV, it appears to be merely a coincidence that most of them have been Republican. The nature of the show matters too: Party affiliation is presumably more important for a drama like The West Wing that touches on actual politics, as opposed to the more soap-operaesque plots of Scandal and Commander in Chief. Veep, meanwhile, makes a conscious effort to leave Selina's party deliberately ambiguous. In an interview with Politico, the show’s creator Armando Ianucci said “I don’t want to get bogged down in party politics and make it a comedy about being a Democrat or being a Republican."
From
Variety:
Pilots Turn Up the Volume on Minority Actors This Season
ABC knew going in to the casting process for its drama pilot “Runner” that it was looking for a Latino leading man, as specified in the script. But the female lead role had no racial or ethnic specificity. Paula Patton, an African-American actress, landed the role of a woman whose life is ripped apart when she learns her husband, played by Adam Rodriguez, is wrapped up in a Mexican gun-running cartel.
“Runner” is but one example this pilot season of a surge of minority actors landing starring roles in prospective new series. Industry insiders say there’s an undeniable openness to African-American, Latino and Asian thesps on the heels of the success ABC and Fox have had with shows led by diverse casts.
TV executives have talked for years about the need for the airwaves to reflect the growing cultural diversity of America. But the 2014-15 television season has marked a turning point in the embrace of diversity as a business strategy. Fox has fielded the biggest network TV hit in years with “Empire,” a soap with a largely African-American cast. ABC has scored with Viola Davis leading “How to Get Away With Murder” and the family comedies “Blackish” and “Fresh Off the Boat.”
Such hits prove that broadcast TV in particular can no longer afford to ignore the value of discrete racial and ethnic groups. The role of “How to Get Away With Murder’s” Annalise Keating was not specifically envisioned for an African-American actress, but the casting of Davis undoubtedly helped generate sampling among black viewers — a demographic group that has boosted the overall turnout for the show.
From
/Film:
Academy Considers Going Back to Five Best Picture Nominees
After five to ten years of five to ten Best Picture nominees, the Oscars are eyeing a return to old ways. The Academy reportedly wants to shrink the Best Picture pool back down to five nominees.
The rule limiting nominees to five had been in place since the mid-1940s, but was changed in 2009 to include 10 nominees, and then again in 2011 to include 5-10 nominees. Now it might change again ... The main arguments are that increasing the number of Best Picture nominees has weakened the “prestige” of a Best Picture nomination, and that the larger field hasn’t really helped ratings for the annual Oscars telecast.
The 2009 change was driven in a large part by the outrage following the Academy’s failure to nominate Christopher Nolan’s much-loved The Dark Knight for Best Picture. The thinking was that a wider net would have room for films like The Dark Knight, which would in turn attract more viewers.
However, the strategy hasn’t worked out as planned. Instead of nominating popular favorites like The Dark Knight, the Academy has used the opportunity to nominate even more arthouse films. American Sniper was the only non-indie of this year’s eight nominees, as well as the only one to crack nine figures at the U.S. box office. Moreover, the Academy hasn’t actually hit ten nominees any of the years with a variable field. (We had 8 this year, as mentioned above, and 9 in each of the three previous years.) Meanwhile, viewership hasn’t gone up. In fact, this year’s broadcast was down 15% from last year’s.
From
Ars Technica:
“HBO Now” coming this spring for $15 per month, with Apple as launch partner
A source speaking to the International Business Times said that HBO will launch its standalone streaming service, called HBO Now, for $15 per month this spring with the premier of Game of Thrones. The company is also working with Apple to make Apple TV one of the launch partners for the service, the sources said.
HBO’s standalone streaming service has been greatly anticipated. For a monthly fee, viewers will be able to get HBO content without having to pay for an entire cable package. HBO’s long-standing relationship with pay-TV packages has prevented it from capturing key audiences, including younger people who may have never paid for TV service before and watch most of their entertainment online. HBO currently has a streaming service called HBO Go, but a bundled TV package is required for access ... At $15 per month, the service will be priced similarly to what consumers pay to add HBO onto their cable packages. The International Business Times estimates that an online streaming version of HBO could capture up to 70 million customers who currently con’t subscribe to a pay-TV service.
The service will likely be available on other platforms as well, but “Apple has been most aggressive in courting HBO in a bid to add the service to Apple TV,” the International Business Times' sources said.
From
Rolling Stone:
As Nasty as They Wanna Be: The 20 Dirtiest Album Covers of All Time
Years ago, before American society had achieved full pornofication, the raciest image in a teenager's room might be an album cover. And many musicians (and record-company art departments) had figured out that an easy way to goose sales was to slap a photo of a half-naked girl on the cover, until the borderline between "sexy" and "sexist" was obliterated. But these 20 covers went above and beyond the normal level of titillation, overloading a nation's brain cells with an unusual level of nudity, kinkiness, or general raunch (and so many of them duly got censored). Without apology: 20 of the dirtiest album covers ever.
From
Billboard:
Pitbull & Ne-Yo Enter Hot 100 Top 10; Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars No. 1 Again
Mark Ronson's "Uptown Funk!," featuring Bruno Mars, tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a ninth week, while Pitbull and Ne-Yo's "Time of Our Lives" reaches the top 10, jumping 11-10.
As we do each Wednesday, let's run down the key numbers in the top 10 on the sales/airplay/streaming-based Hot 100.
"Funk!," released on RCA Records, logs a ninth week atop the Digital Songs chart with 240,000 downloads sold (down 7 percent) in the week ending March 1, according to Nielsen Music. It leads Streaming Songs (18.8 million U.S. streams, down 5 percent) and the subscription services-based On-Demand Songs (5.2 million, down 3 percent) for a seventh week each. On Radio Songs, "Funk" reigns for a fifth week with a 2 percent lift to 189.8 million in all-format audience.
From
Newsweek:
Condom Sales Skyrocket in South Korea as Adultery Is Decriminalized
[Last] Thursday, a court in South Korea overruled a law that has criminalized adultery in the nation since 1953, and now contraceptive makers are struggling to meet a surge in demand for morning-after pills and condoms, Reuters reports.
The law was overturned by majority rule, with seven of the nine judges on the panel declaring it unconstitutional. The BBC reports that those convicted under the law since 2008 may be eligible to have their cases reconsidered.
The six-decade-old law, which made infidelity an offense that brought prison time, had initially been instituted as a measure to help women defend themselves in marriage, as divorce was rare at the time. Park Han-Chul, the presiding judge in the case, cited shifting views of individual sexual rights as the motive for lifting the ban.
From
Cosmo:
Why I'm Grateful for the Guy Who Dumped Me With a Text
Dating is hard in your 20s, I know. But trust me when I tell you that dating in your 20s as a single mom is harder. There seemed to be only two types of men: the man who ran the other direction, and the man who said he loved children, wanted children, of course was mature enough to understand my life ... and ran the other direction. So when I met Nick* at a 5-year-old's birthday party and he asked for my number, I thought I'd found something really special. Our kids were dressed as superheroes and we both had tattoos; it seemed like enough for coffee, at least. He called that night to schedule a date and reiterate how stoked he was to meet me and how he couldn't wait to see me again.
Coffee was nice, so it turned into a long walk through the neighborhood that wound back through the streets to my front stoop. We sat on the steps and talked about everything I had never been able to share on a date before. We talked about our exes, our custody arrangements, our lawyers. We gossiped about the preschool teacher and commiserated about the price of rent in good school districts. He asked if I wanted more children, and for the first time, it didn't feel like test question. As the sun set, I grabbed some beer from the fridge and we talked about our lives outside of parenting too. He was a talented artist in the movie industry. I was (still am) a writer trying to find my niche. He laughed at my jokes and said I was beautiful. Sunset beers turned into takeout dinner, turned into wine and a movie, turned into spending the rest of the night together. Naked.
He dumped me with a text message before noon the next day: Eve, I can no longer continue seeing you.
I had thought when he rushed off early it was to get to work. Now, I'm not so sure, but I'll never know. A text message?! Had I imagined the last 24 hours? I cried really hard, and then so much harder that I had to pull my car to the side of the road. It felt worse than all the other times it hadn't worked out, because it had felt so perfect — he'd laughed at my jokes! We had things in common! I went over every detail again and again. What had I said or done or not said or not done that proved, again, that I was unworthy of love? Right then, in my car, I decided to stop dating. Like totally, completely, stop dating.