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NEW YORK — In the winter of 1789, around the time George Washington was elected the country’s first president, a Boston-based printer quietly launched another American institution.

William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, published anonymously by Isaiah Thomas & Company, is widely cited as something momentous: the first American novel.

Around 100 pages long, Brown’s narrative tells of two young New Englanders whose love affair abruptly and tragically ends when they learn a shocking secret that makes their relationship unbearable. The dedication page, addressed to the “Young Ladies of United Columbia” (the United States), promised an exposé of “the Fatal consequences of Seduction” and a prescription for the “Economy of Human Life.”

Outside of Boston society, though, few would have known or cared whether The Power of Sympathy marked any kind of literary milestone.

“If you picked 10 random citizens, I doubt it would have mattered to any of them,” says David Lawrimore, an associate professor of English at the University of Idaho who has written often about early U.S. literature. “Most people weren’t thinking about the first American novel.”

What the first American novel was like

Subtitled The Triumph of Nature. Founded in Truth, Brown’s book is in many ways characteristic of the era, whether its epistolary format, its Anglicized prose, its unidentified author, or its pious message. But The Power of Sympathy also includes themes that reflected the aspirations and anxieties of a young country and still resonate now.

Dana McClain, an assistant professor of English at Holy Family University, notes that Brown was an outspoken Federalist, believing in a strong national government, and shared his contemporaries’ preoccupation with forging how a stable republican citizenry. The letters in The Power of Sympathy include reflections on class, temperament and the differences between North and South, notably the “aristocratic temper” of Southern slaveholders that endangered “domestic quietude,” as if anticipating the next century’s Civil War.

Like many other early American writers, fiction and nonfiction, Brown tied the behavior of women to the fate of the larger society. The novel’s correspondents fret about the destabilizing “power of pleasure” and how female envy “inundates the land with a flood of scandal.” Virtue is likened to a “mighty river” that “fertilizes the country through which it passes and increases in magnitude and force until it empty itself into the ocean.”

Brown also examines at length the ways novels might be a path to corruption or a vehicle to uplift, mirroring current debates over the banning and restrictions of books in schools and libraries.

“Most of the novels with which our female libraries are overrun are built upon on a foundation not always placed on strict morality, and in the pursuit of of objects not always probable or praiseworthy,” one of Brown’s characters warns. “Novels, not regulated on the chaste principles of true friendship, rational love, and connubial duty, appear to me totally unfit to form the minds of women, of friends, or of wives.”

Brown was likely more interested in shaping minds than in literary glory.

“The Great American Novel” is a favorite catchphrase but wasn’t coined until the 1860s. During Brown’s lifetime, novels were a relatively crude art form and were valued mostly for satire, light entertainment or moral instruction. Few writers identified themselves as “novelists”: Brown was known as a poet, and essayist and the composer of an opera.

Even he recognized the book’s lower stature, writing in the novel’s preface: “This species of writing hath not been received with universal approbation.”

How it became considered the first

The Power of Sympathy was commonly cited as the first American novel in the 1800s, but few bothered debating it until the 20th century. Scholars then agreed that honors should belong to the first written and published in the United States by an author born and still residing in the country.

Those guidelines disqualified such earlier works as Charlotte Ramsay Lennox’s The Life of Harriot Stuart and Thomas Atwood Digges’ Adventures of Alonso.

Another contender was Father Bombo’s Pilgrimage to Mecca, a prose adventure by college students Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Philip Freneau, both of whom went on to prominent public careers. Written around 1770, the manuscript was later believed lost and wasn’t published in full until 1975.

Brown’s novel was unexamined for so long that only in the late 19th century did the public even discover he had written it. Many had credited the Boston poet Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, whose family had endured a scandal similar to the one in The Power of Sympathy.

In 1894-95, editor Arthur W. Brayley of the Bostonian serialized the novel in his magazine, identifying Morton as the author. But after being contacted by Brown’s niece, Rebecca Vollentine Thompson, Brayley published a lengthy correction, titled “The Real Author of the Power of Sympathy.”

Thompson herself added a preface to a 1900 reissue, noting that Brown was close to Morton’s family and alleging that the publication had been “suppressed” because Brown had bared an “unfortunate scandal.”

A clockmaker’s son, Brown was a Boston native, likely born in 1765. He was well-read, connected, culturally conservative and politically minded; one of his first published writings was an unflattering poem about Daniel Shays, the namesake for the 1786-87 rebellion of impoverished Revolutionary War veterans in Massachusetts. Brown is also the author of several posthumous releases, including the play The Treason of Arnold and the novel Ira and Isabella.

His unofficial standing as “America’s First Novelist” did not lead to broader fame. The novel, currently in print through a 1996 edition from Penguin Classics, remains more of interest to specialists and antiquarians than to general readers.

Brown was not yet 30 when he died in North Carolina, in 1793, from what is believed to be malaria. He apparently never married or had children. No memorials or other historical sites are dedicated to him. No literary societies have been formed in his name.

His burial site is unknown.
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NEW YORK — Robert Towne, the Oscar-winning screenplay writer of “Shampoo,” “The Last Detail” and other acclaimed films whose work on “Chinatown” became a model of the art form and helped define the jaded allure of his native Los Angeles, has died. He was 89.

Towne died Monday surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles, said publicist Carri McClure. She declined to comment on a cause of death.

In an industry that gave birth to rueful jokes about the writer’s status, Towne for a time held prestige comparable to the actors and directors he worked with.

Through his friendships with two of the biggest stars of the 1960s and ’70s, Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, he wrote or co-wrote some of the signature films of an era when artists held an unusual level of creative control.

The rare “auteur” among screen writers, Towne managed to bring a highly personal and influential vision of Los Angeles onto the screen.

“It’s a city that’s so illusory,” Towne told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview. “It’s the westernmost west of America. It’s a sort of place of last resort. It’s a place where, in a word, people go to make their dreams come true. And they’re forever disappointed.”

Recognizable around Hollywood for his high forehead and full beard, Towne won an Academy Award for “Chinatown” and was nominated three other times, for “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo” and “Greystoke.” In 1997, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of America.

“His life, like the characters he created, was incisive, iconoclastic and entirely (original),” said “Shampoo” actor Lee Grant on X.

Towne’s success came after a long stretch of working in television, including “The Man from U.N.C.L.E” and “The Lloyd Bridges Show,” and on low-budget movies for “B” producer Roger Corman. In a classic show business story, he owed his breakthrough in part to his psychiatrist, through whom he met Beatty, a fellow patient. As Beatty worked on “Bonnie and Clyde,” he brought in Towne for revisions of the Robert Benton-David Newman script and had him on the set while the movie was filmed in Texas.

Towne’s contributions were uncredited for “Bonnie and Clyde,” the landmark crime film released in 1967, and for years he was a favorite ghost writer. He helped out on “The Godfather,” “The Parallax View” and “Heaven Can Wait” among others and referred to himself as a “relief pitcher who could come in for an inning, not pitch the whole game.”

But Towne was credited by name for Nicholson’s macho “The Last Detail” and Beatty’s sex comedy “Shampoo” and was immortalized by “Chinatown,” the 1974 thriller set during the Great Depression.

“Chinatown” was directed by Roman Polanski and starred Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes, a private detective asked to follow the husband of Evelyn Mulwray (played by Faye Dunaway). The husband is chief engineer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and Gittes finds himself caught in a chaotic spiral of corruption and violence, embodied by Evelyn’s ruthless father, Noah Cross (John Huston).

Influenced by the fiction of Raymond Chandler, Towne resurrected the menace and mood of a classic Los Angeles film noir but cast Gittes’ labyrinthine odyssey across a grander and more insidious portrait of Southern California. Clues accumulate into a timeless detective tale and lead helplessly to tragedy, summed up by one of the most repeated lines in movie history, words of grim fatalism a devastated Gittes receives from his partner Lawrence Walsh (Joe Mantell): “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.”
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McAllen, Texas — A judge blasted efforts by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to shutter one of the oldest and largest migrant shelters on the U.S.-Mexico border in a scathing ruling Tuesday, accusing the Republican of “outrageous” conduct over his claims that the shelter encourages migrants to enter the country illegally.

Judge Francisco X. Dominguez ruled that Paxton’s attempts to enforce a subpoena for records of migrants who have been served at Annunciation House in the past few years violated the El Paso shelter’s constitutional rights. The judge’s ruling prevents Paxton from seeking the records and protects the shelter from what Dominguez called “harassment and overreaching” by Paxton’s office.

Paxton’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but the state is expected to appeal.

Annunciation House is one of several nonprofit groups that help migrants from which Paxton’s office has sought information in recent months. Team Brownsville, which assists migrants who are dropped off by federal agents in the border city of Brownsville, received a letter demanding documents in May. Paxton is also suing Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley seeking testimony.

Dominguez wrote that he previously expressed concern that Paxton’s office had not identified which laws Annunciation House was allegedly breaking.

“The record before this Court makes clear that the Texas Attorney General’s use of the request to examine documents from Annunciation House was a pretext to justify its harassment of Annunciation House employees and the persons seeking refuge,” he wrote.

“In fact, the record before the Court now establishes that the Attorney General was seeking evidence of alleged criminal activity all along,” Dominguez continued. “This is outrageous and intolerable.”

Paxton alleged that by providing shelter to migrants regardless of their legal status, Annunciation House was facilitating illegal immigration and human smuggling, and operating a stash house.

State officials visited the El Paso shelter in early February demanding immediate access to records — including medical and immigration documents — of migrants who had received services there since 2022. Officials from Annunciation House, a Catholic nonprofit that oversees a network of shelters, said they were willing to comply but needed time to determine what they could legally share without violating their clients’ constitutional rights.

Investigators who sought to access records the day after requesting entry were not allowed inside the shelter. Jerry Wesevich, the attorney representing Annunciation House, said that corporations under the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment are protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

Wesevich expressed relief after the ruling and said it could affect other organizations. He also questioned why Paxton wanted to close the shelter.

“All that’s going to mean is more people in El Paso streets. Who does that help? All it does is provide a narrative of chaos on the border, which is a narrative that some people politically want to promote,” Wesevich said.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have approved another Alzheimer’s drug that can modestly slow the disease, providing a new option for patients in the early stages of the incurable, memory-destroying ailment. 

The Food and Drug Administration approved Eli Lilly’s Kisunla on Tuesday for mild or early cases of dementia caused by Alzheimer’s. It’s only the second drug that’s been convincingly shown to delay cognitive decline in patients, following last year’s approval of a similar drug from Japanese drugmaker Eisai. 

The delay seen with both drugs amounts to a matter of months — about seven months, in the case of Lilly’s drug. Patients and their families will have to weigh that benefit against the downsides, including regular IV infusions and potentially dangerous side effects like brain swelling. 

Physicians who treat Alzheimer’s say the approval is an important step after decades of failed experimental treatments. 

“I’m thrilled to have different options to help my patients,” said Dr. Suzanne Schindler, a neurologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s been difficult as a dementia specialist — I diagnose my patients with Alzheimer’s and then every year I see them get worse and they progress until they die.” 

Both Kisunla and the Japanese drug, Leqembi, are laboratory-made antibodies, administered by IV, that target one contributor to Alzheimer’s: sticky amyloid plaque buildup in the brain. Questions remain about which patients should get the drugs and how long they might benefit. 

The new drug’s approval was expected after an outside panel of FDA advisers unanimously voted in favor of its benefits at a public meeting last month. That endorsement came despite several questions from FDA reviewers about how Lilly studied the drug, including allowing patients to discontinue treatment after their plaque reached very low levels. 

Costs will vary by patient, based on how long they take the drug, Lilly said. The company also said a year’s worth of therapy would cost $32,000 — more than the $26,500 price of a year’s worth of Leqembi. 

The FDA’s prescribing information tells doctors they can consider stopping the drug after confirming via brain scans that patients have minimal plaque. 

More than 6 million Americans have Alzheimer’s. Only those with early or mild disease will be eligible for the new drug, and an even smaller subset are likely to undergo the multistep process needed to get a prescription. 

The FDA approved Kisunla, known chemically as donanemab, based on results from an 18-month study in which patients given the treatment declined about 22% more slowly in terms of memory and cognitive ability than those who received a dummy infusion. 

The main safety issue was brain swelling and bleeding, a problem common to all plaque-targeting drugs. The rates reported in Lilly’s study, including 20% of patients with microbleeds, were slightly higher than those reported with competitor Leqembi. However, the two drugs were tested in slightly different types of patients, which experts say makes it difficult to compare the drugs’ safety. 

Kisunla is infused once a month compared to Leqembi’s twice-a-month regimen, which could make things easier for caregivers who bring their loved ones to a hospital or clinic for treatment.
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Перед затвердженням Державною регуляторною службою України проєкт наказу з усіма змінами буде винесено на суспільне обговорення
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«У 51-річної жінки – співробітниці одного з підприємств, що було під ударом ворога – легкі тілесні ушкодження та гостра реакція на стрес»
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BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS — Two exiled Hong Kong activists say bounties imposed on them last year are causing fear and anxiety as they conduct their advocacy work from U.S. soil amid concerns for their safety.

Anna Kwok expected to face retaliation from the Hong Kong government when she became the executive director of the Washington-based advocacy organization Hong Kong Democracy Council in November 2022. Hong Kong authorities imposed a bounty on her and seven others on July 3, 2023.

Frances Hui, who is the policy and advocacy coordinator for the U.S.-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, was one of an additional five who had bounties imposed on them in December.

The 13 are accused of violating a controversial national security law that went into effect in the former British colony in July 2020.

Despite being mentally prepared, Hui and Kwok said they felt shocked when the Hong Kong government issued arrest warrants and bounties worth $127,635 for them and the other overseas Hong Kong activists last year. Hui said the bounty felt like “a death certificate” as it confirmed she would not be able to set foot in Hong Kong again.

“After learning about the bounty imposed against me, I suddenly felt like everything was out of my control because I could no longer get in touch with my family and close people in Hong Kong,” she said, adding that the event pushed her life onto a completely different path.

“I’m officially a wanted fugitive, and whoever in Hong Kong is associated with me will get into trouble,” Hui told VOA by phone.

While Hui described the experience as “jarring and shocking,” Kwok said she didn’t realize how the bounties could affect her until her bank account in Hong Kong was frozen.

“At first, I was surprised for only 10 seconds and immediately went into work mode, thinking about how to use this incident to advance our advocacy agenda in media interviews,” said Kwok.

“When I checked my Hong Kong bank account at 11 p.m. on July 3, 2023, I noticed my asserts were frozen and I suddenly realized the real-life implications of the bounty on my head,” Kwok told VOA by phone.

These activists “betrayed their country, betrayed Hong Kong, disregarded the interests of Hong Kong people, and continue to endanger national security even when abroad,” the chief superintendent of Hong Kong’s National Security Department, Li Kwai-wah, said at a December 14 press conference.

Eric Lai, a research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law in the United States, said the Hong Kong government hopes to create a chilling effect that will further disconnect people in Hong Kong from overseas activists by issuing arrest warrants and bounties.

“It’s a silencing tactic to both people around the bounty holders and the bounty holders themselves,” he told VOA by phone, adding that it is part of the Hong Kong government’s efforts to surveil, harass and intimidate political dissidents in exile.

In addition to imposing bounties on more than a dozen activists, Hong Kong authorities canceled the passports of overseas activists last month. In the U.K., three men were charged in May with spying on members of the Hong Kong diaspora community on behalf of the territory’s intelligence service.

Threat to mental health, personal safety

Apart from targeting overseas activists, Hong Kong authorities have interrogated family members of the activists, including Hui’s mother and Kwok’s brothers and parents.

Hui said the interrogations of her family members made her realize that her activism abroad could affect those who are still in Hong Kong. She said that is one way that Hong Kong authorities have limited her freedom.

“It’s a very lonely experience to know that whatever I do could be connected to people who are associated with me; but I also know that if I stop my activism now, that’s exactly what the Chinese Communist Party would want, to intimidate and silence me,” she said.

In addition to the sense of loneliness, Hui said the bounty has increased her fear of threats to her safety.

“I have become extra cautious about talking to people, even those in the Hong Kong diaspora community, and my heightened sensitivity toward security issues has also contributed to my increased level of anxiety,” she said, adding that she is trying hard not to let fear dictate her advocacy work.

As for Kwok, the fear for her safety became real when she began to receive death threats shortly before leaders convened for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, held in November in San Francisco. At the time, she was planning to attend protest rallies against Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“I started receiving death threats and threats of raping me in my inbox, and those accounts are not afraid of using brutal language or insinuating physical harm against me,” she told VOA. She said the messages would appear in her inbox in a coordinated fashion.

While she was shocked about the explicitness of those threats, she tried to take steps to rein in her fear, including maintaining regular contact with close friends, playing with her cats or diving into the world of fiction.

These steps “help to assure me that things are okay and I’m doing something impactful, which is an important realization to me,” Kwok said.

Despite their efforts to overcome the fear created by the bounties, Hui and Kwok say the Hong Kong government’s efforts to launch transnational repression are a threat to the entire diaspora community.

“I think my personal experience shows that there are still many gaps in implementing protection mechanisms against transnational repression in many countries,” Kwok said, adding that the moves initiated by Hong Kong authorities are damaging trust within the diaspora community.

While Hong Kong authorities try to isolate some overseas activists, Hui said she will continue to concentrate her advocacy efforts on speaking up for activists who have been imprisoned in Hong Kong.

“There is a sense of mission for me, and I hope I can continue to advocate for those who can’t,” she said.

In response to criticisms made by the activists, the Hong Kong government said the extraterritorial effect of the national security law is fully in line with the principles of international law and common practices adopted by several countries.

“Absconders should not think they can evade criminal liability by absconding from Hong Kong, [because] ultimately, they will be held accountable for their acts constituting serious offences endangering national security and be sanctioned by law,” a Hong Kong government spokesperson told VOA in a written response.
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«З 08:00 до 13:00 – дві черги, в інші години доби – три черги відключень одночасно»
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Суд визнав його винним у посяганні на територіальну цілісність і недоторканність України та колабораційній діяльності
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