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WASHINGTON — The United States must employ “all the tools at our disposal” to outcompete China, a top U.S. State Department official said on Monday, as the Biden administration unveiled its budget request for the 2025 fiscal year.

The request includes $4 billion over five years in mandatory funding for this purpose, including $2 billion to create a new international infrastructure fund to provide a credible, reliable alternative to Chinese infrastructure funding, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Rich Verma told a news briefing.

The other $2 billion was earmarked for “game-changing investments” to help Indo-Pacific countries push back against “predatory efforts,” he said, adding that those would include efforts to improve governance and the rule of law.

The State Department requested a separate $4 billion in discretionary funding to cover foreign assistance and diplomatic engagement in the region.

U.S. efforts to fund infrastructure in developing countries have long been dwarfed by China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, a 10-year-old project to build infrastructure and energy networks connecting Asia with Africa and Europe through overland and maritime routes.

According to a report by U.S. researchers last November, Chinese financial institutions lent $1.34 trillion to developing countries from 2000 to 2021.

“We must employ all the tools at our disposal to outcompete China, wherever possible,” Verma said, also referring to China by the initials of its official name, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

He said the request for fiscal 2025 would allow the U.S. “to continue to invest in the foundations of our strength at home, align with like-minded partners to strengthen our shared interests and address the challenges posed by the PRC, and harness those assets to compete with the PRC and defend our interests.”

Verma said the infrastructure fund would support “transformative, quality and sustainable hard infrastructure projects.”

At the 2023 G20 Summit in India, U.S. officials said President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi co-hosted a group of G20 leaders to accelerate investments in high-quality infrastructure projects and development of economic corridors through a Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI).

This came after the Group of Seven rich Western countries’ leaders pledged in 2022 to raise $600 billion in private and public funds over five years to finance needed infrastructure in developing countries and counter the Belt and Road project.

Overseas finance has won Beijing friends across the developing world, while drawing criticism from the West and in some recipient countries, including Sri Lanka and Zambia, that infrastructure projects it funded saddled them with debt they were unable to repay.
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new york — Donald Trump on Monday asked the New York judge overseeing his criminal case on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star to delay the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court finishes reviewing his claim of presidential immunity in a separate case.

The first-ever criminal trial of a former U.S. president is set to begin on March 25 in a New York state court in Manhattan.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsification of business records.

Prosecutors say he directed his former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, to pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier, and then falsely recorded his reimbursement to Cohen as legal expenses.

Trump denies the encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

The move was the latest by Trump seeking to delay the four upcoming criminal trials he faces until closer to, or even after, his expected Nov. 5 election rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments April 25, a month after the scheduled start of jury selection in Trump’s hush money case. It is the first of his four criminal cases slated to go to trial.

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all criminal cases, which he has termed “election interference.”

In their court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers said the outcome of the Supreme Court’s review was relevant to the hush money case because prosecutors were seeking to present evidence of statements Trump made while he was president.

Last month, prosecutors said they planned to introduce evidence of a “pressure campaign” by Trump in 2018 to ensure Cohen did not cooperate with a federal investigation into the payment to Daniels. Cohen pleaded guilty that year to violating campaign finance law.

In their court filing on Monday, Trump’s lawyers called prosecutors’ claim of a pressure campaign “fictitious.” They said Trump’s social media posts about Cohen were “official communications” about “matters of public concern” and thus immune from state prosecution.

“Without immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts, the President’s political opponents will seek to influence and control his or her decisions via de facto extortion,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the charges, declined to comment.

Last year, Trump made a similar argument as part of an unsuccessful push to move the hush money case from state court to federal court. In denying Trump’s request in July 2023, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote that the payment to Daniels “was a purely personal item.”

“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts,” Hellerstein wrote.
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WASHINGTON — Ex-Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro has been ordered to report to prison this month, his lawyers said in a court filing, which could make him the first senior member of the former president’s administration to do so for efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat. 

Navarro, who served as Trump’s trade adviser, is due on March 19 to begin his four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the U.S. House of Representatives committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, his lawyers revealed in a court filing late Sunday. 

They are asking a federal appeals court in Washington to pause the sentence while Navarro appeals his conviction. His defense team indicated they would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene if his request is denied. 

Navarro, 74, was found guilty of contempt of Congress last September for refusing to turn over documents or sit for an interview with the Democratic-led House committee that investigated the Capitol riot, a failed attempt by Trump supporters to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. He was sentenced in January. 

Navarro, a China hawk who also advised Trump on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has claimed Trump invoked the legal doctrine of executive privilege, which shields some presidential records and communications from disclosure.  

A federal judge found that Trump had not formerly invoked the privilege. 

Steve Bannon, a one-time top strategist to Trump, was also sentenced to four months in prison for defying a subpoena from the January 6 panel, but a judge has allowed him to remain free while he appeals.
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NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss.

Trump, in a call-in interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” was asked about his comments last week that seemed to voice opposition to a bill being advanced by Congress that would effectively ban TikTok and other ByteDance apps from the Apple and Google app stores as well as U.S. web hosting services.

“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump told the hosts. “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”

“When I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size,” he added. “I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook’s role during the 2020 election, which he still refuses to concede he lost to President Joe Biden. That includes at least $400 million that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife donated to two nonprofit organizations that distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The donations — which were fully permitted under campaign finance law — went to pay for things like equipment to process mail ballots and drive-thru voting locations.

TikTok, a video-sharing app, has emerged as a major issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S., most of whom skew younger — a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to court ahead of November’s general election. Younger voters have become especially hard for campaigns to reach as they gravitate away from traditional platforms like cable television.

Biden’s 2024 campaign officially joined TikTok last month, even though he has expressed his own national security concerns over the platform, banned it on federal devices and on Friday endorsed the legislation that could lead to its ban.

The bill passed unanimously by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee calls on China’s ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or effectively face a U.S. ban. Top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, support the bill. Johnson has indicated it will soon come up for a full vote in the House.

As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok through an executive order that called “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” a threat to “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.” The courts, however, blocked the action after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.

Pressed on whether he still believed the app posed a national security risk, Trump said Monday: “I do believe it. And we have to very much go into privacy and make sure that we are protecting the American people’s privacy and data rights.”

“But,” he went on to say, “you have that problem with Facebook and lots of other companies, too.” Some American companies, he charged, are “not so American. They deal in China. And if China wants anything from them they will give it. So that’s a national security risk also.”

Biden in 2022 banned the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.

He also recently signed an executive order that allows the Department of Justice and other federal agencies to take steps to prevent the large-scale transfer of Americans’ personal data to what the White House calls “countries of concern,” including China.

Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.

Trump had first voiced support for the app in a post on his Truth Social site last week. “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better,” he wrote. “They are a true Enemy of the People!”

Trump, in the interview, said he had not discussed the company with Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and a major GOP donor. Trump said the two had recently met “very briefly” but that Yass “never mentioned TikTok.”

Trump also confirmed he met last week with Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who has increasingly aligned himself with conservative politics. Trump said he didn’t know whether Musk would end up supporting his campaign, noting they “obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric cars,” which Trump has railed against.
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NEW YORK — Sen. Bob Menendez and his wife pleaded not guilty on Monday to new obstruction of justice charges in a New York court.

The new charges were in a rewritten indictment returned last week against the Democrat in Manhattan federal court.

“Once again, not guilty your honor,” Menendez responded after Judge Sidney H. Stein asked him to enter a plea at a 20-minute hearing. Menendez had previously pleaded not guilty to charges in October.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, entered the pleas to the indictment containing new charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. Afterward, they briefly spoke to one another before leaving the courtroom together.

The couple is charged with conspiring with three businessmen to accept bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for the senator’s help in projects pursued by the businessmen.

Two of the three businessmen they allegedly conspired with also entered not guilty pleas on Monday. A third, Jose Uribe, pleaded guilty two weeks ago to bribery charges and agreed to testify against the others at a trial set for May 6.

The new allegations — part of what is now an 18-count indictment — are related to gifts prosecutors say the couple received from Uribe.

According to the indictment, Menendez caused his lawyer to falsely tell prosecutors overseeing the investigation that he was unaware that another of his business associates had helped his wife make a $23,000 mortgage payment on her New Jersey home. It said Nadine Menendez caused her lawyer to tell prosecutors last August that the mortgage payment and funds provided by Uribe for a Mercedes-Benz were loans when she knew they were bribes.

Menendez said in a statement last week that prosecutors have “long known that I learned of and helped repay loans — not bribes — that had been provided to my wife.”

After his fall arrest, Menendez, 70, was forced to relinquish his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but said he would not resign from Congress.
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«Виїхати на підконтрольну Україні територію вдалося родинам з п’ятьма дітьми, а також 18-річній сироті»
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Одна жінка була поранена у Вовчанську, ще троє чоловіків – у селі Куп’янського району
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За даними слідства, жінка збирала дані для Федеральної служби безпеки РФ у Вінницькій області
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Стрічка режисера Мстислава Чернова «20 днів у Маріуполі» стала третім українським фільмом, номінованим на найпрестижнішу нагороду, і першим, який здобув золоту статуетку
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CHARLESTON, W.Va — Democrat Kayla Young and Republican Patricia Rucker frequently clash on abortion rights and just about everything else in West Virginia’s Legislature, but they agree on one thing: Too few of their colleagues are women, and it’s hurting the state.

“There are exceptions to every single rule, but I think in general, men do kind of see this as their field,” said Rucker, part of the GOP’s Senate supermajority that passed one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans while Young — the lone Democratic woman elected to the House — opposed it.

Nearly 130 years since the first three women were elected to state legislative offices in the U.S., women remain massively underrepresented in state legislatures.

In 10 states, women make up less than 25% of their state legislatures, according to Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics. West Virginia is at the very bottom of that list, having just 16 women in its 134-member Legislature, or just under 12%. That’s compared with Nevada, where women occupy just over 60% of state legislative seats. Similarly low numbers can be found in the nearby southern states of Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Louisiana.

“It’s absolutely wild to know that more than 50 percent of the population of West Virginia are women, and sometimes I’m the only woman that’s on a committee, period,” said Young, currently the only woman on the House Artificial Intelligence Committee and was one of just two on the House Judiciary Committee when it greenlighted the state’s near total abortion ban.

The numbers of women filling legislative seats across the U.S. have remained low despite women registering and voting at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980 — and across virtually every demographic, including race, education level and socioeconomic status.

For the last three decades, voters have demonstrated a willingness to cast ballots for women. But they didn’t have the opportunity to do so because women weren’t running, said Jennifer Lawless, chair of the politics department at the University of Virginia.

“The gender gap in political ambition is just as large now as it was then,” said Lawless, adding that women are much less likely to get recruited to run for office or think they’re qualified to run in what they perceive as a hostile political environment.

And those running in southern, conservative states — still mostly Democratic women, data show — aren’t winning as those states continue to overwhelmingly elect Republicans.

In 2022, 39 women ran as their party’s nominee for state legislative seats in West Virginia, and 26 were Democrats. Only two of the Democratic candidates won, compared to 11 out of 13 of the Republicans.

Debbie Walsh, director of Rutgers’ Center for American Women in Politics, said there’s more money, infrastructure and support for recruiting and running Democratic female candidates. The Republican Party often shies away from talking about what is labeled or dismissed as “identity politics,'” she said.

“It’s a belief in a kind of meritocracy and, ‘the best candidate will rise. And if it’s a woman, great.’ They don’t say, ‘We don’t want women, but if it’s a man, that’s fine, too,'” she said. “There’s no sort of value in and of itself seen in the diversity.”

Larissa Martinez, founder and president of Women’s Public Leadership Network, one of only a few right-leaning U.S. organizations solely supporting female candidates, said identity politics within the GOP is a big hurdle to her work. Part of her organization’s slogan is, “we are pro-women without being anti-man.”

In 2020, small-town public school teacher Amy Grady pulled off a huge political upset when she defeated then-Senate President Mitch Carmichael in West Virginia’s Republican primary, following back-to-back years of strikes in which school employees packed into the state Capitol.

Carmichael took in more than $127,000 in contributions compared to Grady’s self-funded war chest of just over $2,000. Still, Grady won by fewer than 1,000 votes.

“It’s just you’re told constantly, ‘You can’t, you can’t, you can’t do it,'” said Grady, who has now risen through the ranks to become chair of the Senate Education Committee. “And it’s just like, why give it a shot?”

Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver says she didn’t have many resources when she first raised her hand to run for political office. She had to rely on grassroots activism and organizing to win her 2022 election.

Yet securing the seat was just part of the battle. Oliver, a 41-year-old Black Democratic woman, is frequently tasked with providing the only outside perspective inside for the Republican supermajority Legislature.

“They don’t have any incentive to listen to me, but I view my seat as disruption and give you a perspective that you may not have heard before,” she said.

Many male-dominant statehouses have enacted strict abortion bans in GOP-controlled states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. For many female lawmakers, this trend has meant sharing deeply personal stories surrounding abortion and childbirth.

In South Carolina, the abortion debate resulted in an unlikely coalition of women banding together to filibuster a near-total abortion ban. The five female senators — three Republicans, two Democrats and one independent — quickly became known as the “sister senators” as they took turns describing pregnancy complications, the dangers surrounding limited access to contraceptives and the reproductive system.

Their actions were met with praise from national leaders, but at home, the consequences have been swift. The Republican women received censures and promises of primary challenges in this year’s elections.

Women also have championed gun policy, education, health care, and housing proposals.

Recently, some states have allowed candidates to make childcare an allowable expense for campaign finance purposes. Young was the sponsor of her state’s law — one of her priorities during her first session in the Capitol in the minority party.

During Young’s first term in office, she relied on a family member who would care for her two young children while he was at the state Capitol. But she was left without a solution last year when that caregiver passed away unexpectedly days before the session. Her husband, who works in television production, had to stay home and didn’t work for two months, meaning the family lost out on his income.

Young’s bill won the vote of Rucker, the first Hispanic woman elected to the West Virginia Senate. She too has had to juggle the challenges of being a working mom. She left her job as a teacher to homeschool her five children, and the family relied on her husband’s salary as a pediatric nurse to make ends meet.

“I ran for office because I feel like having that voice is actually really important — someone who lives paycheck to paycheck,” said Rucker, a first-generation U.S. citizen who made the difficult decision to pull her kids. “I’m not here because of a title, I’m not here because of a position, I’m here to do my job, and I want to do the best I can.”
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Los Angeles — “Oppenheimer,” a solemn three-hour biopic that became an unlikely billion-dollar box-office sensation, was crowned best picture at a 96th Academy Awards that doubled as a coronation for Christopher Nolan.

After passing over arguably Hollywood’s foremost big-screen auteur for years, the Oscars made up for lost time by heaping seven awards on Nolan’s blockbuster biopic, including best actor for Cillian Murphy, best supporting actor for Robert Downey Jr. and best director for Nolan.

In anointing “Oppenheimer,” the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences did something it hasn’t done for more than a decade: hand its top prize to a widely seen, big-budget studio film. In a film industry where a cape, dinosaur or Tom Cruise has often been a requirement for such box office, “Oppenheimer” brought droves of moviegoers to theaters with a complex, fission-filled drama about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the creation of the atomic bomb.

“For better or worse, we’re all living in Robert Oppenheimer’s world,” said Murphy in his acceptance speech. “I’d like to dedicate this to the peacemakers.” 

As a film heavy with unease for human capacity for mass destruction, “Oppenheimer” also emerged – even over its partner in cultural phenomenon, “Barbie” – as a fittingly foreboding film for times rife with cataclysm, man-made or not. Sunday’s Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles unfolded against the backdrop of wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and with a potentially momentous U.S. election on the horizon.

The most closely watched contest of the Academy Awards went to Emma Stone, who won best best actress for her performance as Bella Baxter in “Poor Things.”

In what was seen as the night’s most nail-biting category, Stone won over Lily Gladstone of “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Gladstone would have become the first Native American to win an Academy Award.

Instead, Oscar voters couldn’t resist the full-bodied extremes of Stone’s “Poor Things” performance. The win for Stone, her second best actress Oscar following her 2019 win for “La La Land,” confirmed the 35-year-old as arguably the preeminent big-screen actress of her generation. The list of women to win best actress two or more times is illustrious, including Katherine Hepburn, Frances McDormand, Ingrid Bergman and Bette Davis.

“Oh, boy, this is really overwhelming,” said Stone. 

Nolan has had many movies in the Oscar mix before, including “Inception,” “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Knight.” But his win Sunday for direction is the first Academy Award for the 53-year-old filmmaker.

In his acceptance speech, Nolan noted cinema is just over a hundred years old. 

“We don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here,” said Nolan. “But to think that I’m a meaningful part of it means the world to me.”

Protest and politics intruded on an election-year Academy Awards on Sunday, where demonstrations for Gaza raged outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and awards went to “Oppenheimer,” “The Zone of Interest” and “20 Days in Mariupol.” 

Sunday’s broadcast, hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, had plenty of razzle dazzle, including a sprawling song-and-dance rendition of the “Barbie” hit “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling, with an assist on guitar by Slash. A sea of Kens swarmed the stage. 

The lead winner, as expected was “Oppenheimer,” the blockbuster biopic. Though not quite the clean sweep that some expected, “Oppenheimer” was overpowering all competition — including its release-date companion, “Barbie” — winning awards for its cinematography, editing, score and Robert Downey Jr.’s supporting performance. 

Downey, nominated twice before (for “Chaplin” and “Tropic Thunder”), notched his first Oscar, crowning the illustrious second act of his up-and-down career. 

“I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order,” said Downey, the son of filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. 

“Barbie,” last year’s biggest box-office hit with more than $1.4 billion in ticket sales, didn’t win an award until almost three hours into the ceremony. It won best song (sorry, Ken) for Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For?” It’s their second Oscar, two years after winning for their James Bond theme, “No Time to Die.” 

But after an awards season that stayed largely inside a Hollywood bubble, geopolitics played a prominent role. Protests over Israel’s war in Gaza snarled traffic around the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, slowing stars’ arrival on the red carpet and turning the Oscar spotlight toward the ongoing conflict. Some protesters shouted “Shame!” at those trying to reach the awards. 

Jonathan Glazer, the British filmmaker whose chilling Auschwitz drama “The Zone of Interest” won best international film, drew connections between the dehumanization depicted in his film and today. 

“Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

The war in Gaza was on the minds of many attendees, as was the war in Ukraine. A year after “Navalny” won the same award, Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol,” a harrowing chronicle of the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, won best documentary. The win, a first for The Associated Press and PBS’ “Frontline,” came as the war in Ukraine passed the two-year mark with no signs of abating. 

Mstyslav Chernov, the Ukrainian filmmaker and AP journalist whose hometown was bombed the day he learned of his Oscar nomination, spoke forcefully about Russia’s invasion. 

“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history,” said Chernov. “And I’m honored. Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film. I wish to be able to exchange this (for) Russia never attacking Ukraine.”

In the early going, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Frankenstein-riff “Poor Things” ran away with three prizes for its sumptuous craft, including awards for production design, makeup and hairstyling and costume design. 

Kimmel, hosting the ABC telecast for the fourth time, opened the awards with a monologue that drew a few cold looks (from Downey, Sandra Hüller and Messi, the dog from best-picture nominee “Anatomy of a Fall”). But Kimmel, emphasizing Hollywood as “a union town” following 2023’s actor and writer strikes, drew a standing ovation for bringing out teamsters and behind-the-scenes workers — who are now entering their own labor negotiations. 

The night’s first award was one of its most predictable: Da’Vine Joy Randolph for best supporting actress, for her performance in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.” An emotional Randolph was accompanied to the stage by her “Holdovers” co-star Paul Giamatti.

“For so long I’ve always wanted to be different,” said Randolph. “And now I realize I just need to be myself.” 

Though Randolph’s win was widely expected, an upset quickly followed. Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Boy and the Heron” won for best animated feature, a surprise over the slightly favored “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.” Miyazaki, the 83-year-old Japanese anime master who came out of retirement to make “The Boy and the Heron,” didn’t attend the ceremony. He also didn’t attend the 2003 Oscars when his “Spirited Away” won the same award. 

Best original screenplay went to “Anatomy of a Fall,” which, like “Barbie,” was penned by a couple: director Justine Triet and Arthur Harari. “This will help me through my midlife crisis, I think,” said Triet. 

In adapted screenplay, where “Barbie” was nominated — and where some suspected Greta Gerwig would win after being overlooked for director — the Oscar went to Cord Jefferson, who wrote and directed his feature film debut “American Fiction.” He pleaded for executives to take risks on young filmmakers like himself.

“Instead of making a $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies,” said Jefferson, previously an award-winning TV writer. 

The Oscars belonged largely to theatrical-first films. Though it came into the awards with 19 nominations, Netflix was a bit player. Its lone win came for live action short: Wes Anderson’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” based on the story by Roald Dahl.

While “Barbie” bested (and helped lift) “Oppenheimer” at the box office, it took a back seat to Nolan’s film at the Oscars. Gerwig was notably overlooked for best director, sparking an outcry that some, even Hillary Clinton, said mimicked the patriarchy parodied in the film.
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Kansas City, Missouri — Some of the people who attended the near-record cold Kansas City Chiefs playoff game in January had to undergo amputations after suffering frostbite, a Missouri hospital said Friday.

Research Medical Center didn’t provide exact numbers but said in a statement that it treated dozens of people who had experienced frostbite during an 11-day cold snap in January. Twelve of those people — including some who were at the Jan. 13 game — had to undergo amputations involving mostly fingers and toes. And the hospital said more surgeries are expected over the next two to four weeks as “injuries evolve.”

The University of Kansas hospital said it also treated frostbite victims after the game but didn’t report any amputations.

The temperature for the Dolphins-Chiefs wild-card playoff game was minus 20 Celsius, and wind gusts made for a windchill of minus 33 C. That shattered the record for the coldest game in Arrowhead Stadium history, which had been minus 17 C, set in a 1983 game against Denver and matched in 2016 against Tennessee.

The wild-card game was played the same day the Buffalo Bills were supposed to host the Pittsburgh Steelers, but that game was pushed back a day because a blizzard dumped more than half a meter of snow in New York and made traveling to the game too dangerous.

The game in Kansas City went on as scheduled because the frigid weather didn’t present similar problems getting to Arrowhead Stadium, even though the National Weather Service warned of “dangerously cold” windchills.

Frostbite can occur on exposed skin within 30 minutes, Dr. Megan Garcia, the medical director of the Grossman Burn Center at Research, said in a statement that answered one of the top questions she is asked. The timing can be even shorter if there is a windchill, she said.

Fans were allowed to bring heated blankets into the stadium and small pieces of cardboard to place under their feet on the cold concrete.

The coldest game in NFL history remains minus 25 C for the 1967 NFL championship, when the Packers beat the Cowboys at Lambeau Field in a game that came to be known as the Ice Bowl. The windchill that day was minus minus 44 C.

The Chiefs didn’t immediately respond to email messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.
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Beijing, China — Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries, or ZPMC, said on Sunday its cranes do not pose a cybersecurity threat, after U.S. congressional committees questioned the Chinese state-owned company’s work on cranes bound for the United States.

The House of Representatives’ security panels, scrutinizing ZPMC’s installation of Swiss engineering group ABB’s equipment onto U.S.-bound ship-to-shore cranes, in January invited ABB executives to public hearings to clarify its relationship with ZPMC, which they said raised “significant concerns.”

“ZPMC takes the U.S. concerns seriously and believes that these reports can easily mislead the public without sufficient factual review,” it said in a filing, referring to the probe by the Homeland Security and Strategic Competition committees.

“The cranes provided by ZPMC do not pose a cybersecurity risk to any ports,” it said.

ABB has said it sold its control and electrification equipment to many crane manufacturers, including Chinese companies, which in turn sold cranes directly to U.S. ports.

The U.S. and China, the world’s biggest economies, frequently accuse each other of cyberattacks and industrial espionage. Washington this year said it had disrupted a Chinese cyber-spying operation targeting U.S. infrastructure and was investigating Chinese vehicle imports for national security risks. It previously barred Chinese telecom companies.

ZPMC said the cranes it supplies are used in ports around the world, including the United States, and comply with international standards and applicable laws and regulations.

Listed on the Shanghai stock exchange, ZPMC is one of the largest port machinery manufacturers in the world, owning a fleet of more than 20 transportation vessels, according to its website.

ABB generates 16% of its sales from China, second only to the U.S. market at 24%.
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Los Angeles — Hollywood’s glitterati gather on Sunday to celebrate the best performances in film at the annual Academy Awards, a ceremony expected to turn into a toast to blockbuster atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer.”

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returns for the fourth time to emcee the film industry’s highest honors from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

“Oppenheimer,” the three-hour drama directed by Christopher Nolan, leads the field with 13 nominations. The movie is the frontrunner to win the prestigious best picture prize, capping its sweep of other major awards this year.

“If the best picture isn’t ‘Oppenheimer,’ it will be one of the biggest upsets, if not the biggest upset, in the history of the Oscars,” said Scott Feinberg, executive editor for awards at The Hollywood Reporter.

After 2023 was marred by actors and writers strikes, the Oscars give Hollywood a chance to celebrate two global hits. “Oppenheimer” and feminist doll adventure “Barbie,” another best picture nominee, brought in a combined $2.4 billion in a summer box office battle dubbed “Barbenheimer.”

Oscar producers said they have planned unannounced cameos and other surprises to entertain audiences at home.

“My biggest hope is that they go through a range of emotions with us, that they feel happiness and joy, that we maybe make them shed a tear,” Executive Producer Raj Kapoor said. “And then they somehow feel connected and inspired to also live their dreams.”

Supporting actor nominee Ryan Gosling will sing the ’80s-style rock anthem “I’m Just Ken” from “Barbie.” Members of the Osage Nation will perform the nominated “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” from “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

Cillian Murphy, the Irish actor who played physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer as he led the race to build the first atomic bomb, is considered the favorite for best actor. Murphy’s main competition, according to awards pundits, is “The Holdovers” star Paul Giamatti.

Best actress may go to Lily Gladstone of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the real-life story about a murder plot to take over lucrative Osage oil rights in 1920s Oklahoma. If she prevails, Gladstone would be the first Native American actress to win an acting Oscar.

Gladstone’s rivals include previous Oscar winner Emma Stone, nominated this year for playing a woman revived from the dead in the dark and wacky comedy “Poor Things.”

The supporting actor race features “Oppenheimer” star Robert Downey Jr., who played the scientist’s professional nemesis, and Sterling K. Brown from “American Fiction.”

Da’Vine Joy Randolph, praised for her role as a grieving mother in “The Holdovers,” vies for best supporting actress against Danielle Brooks from “The Color Purple” and others.

“Barbie,” last year’s No. 1 film with $1.4 billion in global ticket sales, may be shut out of the top awards. Billie Eilish’s “Barbie” ballad “What Was I Made For?” is likely to win the original song prize, Feinberg said, and could snag the awards for costumes and production design.

For Nolan, the night could bring his first directing Oscar, as well as the award for adapted screenplay. The director of “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Inception” and other acclaimed films has never had a movie win best picture.

The ceremony may end with “the industry-wide coronation for Christopher Nolan,” Feinberg said. With “Oppenheimer,” “he has he has made his best possible argument yet for why he is worthy of this recognition.”
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Washington — The U.S. military said on Sunday it has carried out an operation in Haiti to airlift non-essential embassy personnel from the country and added U.S. forces bolster embassy security, as Caribbean nation reels under a state of emergency.

The operation was the latest sign of Haiti’s troubles as gang violence threatens to bring down the government and has led thousands to flee their homes.

“This airlift of personnel into and out of the embassy is consistent with our standard practice for embassy security augmentation worldwide, and no Haitians were on board the military aircraft,” the U.S. military’s Southern Command said in a statement.

Haiti entered a state of emergency last Sunday after fighting escalated while Prime Minister Ariel Henry was in Nairobi seeking a deal for the long-delayed U.N.-backed mission.

Kenya announced last year it would lead the force but months of domestic legal wrangling have effectively placed the mission on hold.

On Saturday, the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto about the Haiti crisis and the two men underscored their commitment to a multinational security mission to restore order.

In Southern Command’s statement, it said Washington remained committed to those goals.

“Our embassy remains focused on advancing U.S. government efforts to support the Haitian people, including mobilizing support for the Haitian National Police, expediting the deployment of the United Nations-authorized Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and accelerating a peaceful transition of power via free and fair elections,” it said.
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