Features

NEW YORK — Jay-Z led Grammy nominations  on Tuesday with eight nods, followed closely by fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar with seven, in a striking embrace of hip-hop for the music industry’s top prizes.

Jay-Z, who had never before been nominated in a major category as a solo artist, is up for Album of the Year for his “4:44” as well as for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

“4:44” marked a return to music by the 47-year-old Jay-Z after years focused on business ventures. 

The album put on display an unusually vulnerable Jay-Z who acknowledged his infidelity to wife Beyonce, explored his mother’s closet life as a lesbian and tackled the state of US race relations.

Bruno Mars, the fun-loving funk revivalist, also fared well with six nominations including Album of the Year for his “24K Magic”.

“Despacito”, the viral hit that tied for the most weeks ever on top of the US singles chart despite being in Spanish, was nominated both for Record of the Year, which recognises the overall performance, and Song of the Year, which honours the songwriter.

The Recording Academy, which consists of more than 13,000 music professionals, will vote to decide the winners who will be unveiled at the annual Grammys gala on January 28.

The ceremony will take place in New York, Jay-Z’s hometown, to mark the awards’ 60th edition after 14 years in Los Angeles.

The industry was already set to honour Jay-Z at the pre-Grammy party thrown by music executive Clive Davis.

Hip-hop’s emergence as a major force at the Grammys comes after years of criticism about how little the entertainment industry recognizes African American artists.

In the past, only two rap-dominated albums have won Album of the Year.

Two years ago, Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly” — a widely acclaimed album that featured an unofficial anthem of the Black Lives Matter movement — controversially lost to Taylor Swift’s “1989”.

And last year, Adele expressed embarrassment over winning Album of the Year over Beyonce’s experimental and narrative-rich “Lemonade”.

This time, Swift was only nominated in minor categories, although her chart-topping new album “Reputation” came out too late for consideration for Album of the Year.

Ed Sheeran, another favourite for Grammy glory, was also shut out in the major categories.

Among other rappers, Childish Gambino — the stage-name of comedian Donald Glover who infuses funk and psychedelic R&B into his hip-hop — is up for Album of the Year and Record of the Year.

One in five teens are victims of bullying, and these adolescents are about twice as likely to bring guns and knives to school than peers who aren’t bullied, a US study suggests. 

Researchers examined how high school students answered three survey questions: how often they skipped school because they felt unsafe; how often they got in physical fights at school; and how many times they were threatened with a weapon at school. 

“High school students who reported being bullied on school property within the past 12 months were not at increased risk for carrying a weapon to school if they answered ‘no’ to all three of these questions,” said senior study author Dr Andrew Adesman, a researcher at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Centre of New York in Lake Success. 

“Importantly, students who said yes to all three of these physical safety/injury questions were at the greatest risk for carrying a weapon to school,” Adesman said by email. 

For the study, researchers analysed survey responses from a nationally representative sample of more than 15,000 students in grades 9 to 12. 

Overall, about 20 per cent of participants reported being victims of bullying at least once in the past year, and about 4 per cent said they had brought a weapon to school in the past month, researchers report online November 27 in Paediatrics. 

Only 2.5 per cent of the teens who were not bullied brought weapons to school, the study found. 

But about 46 per cent of bullying victims who also reported skipping school, getting in fights and getting threatened by somebody else with a weapon said they had brought a weapon of their own to school. 

Victims of bullying were more than four times as likely to skip school as students who weren’t bullied. When bullying victims did skip school, they were about three times more likely to bring weapons to school than teens who weren’t bullied. 

Bullying victims were more than twice as likely to get in fights at school, and when they did get in fights they were about five times more likely to carry weapons, the study also found. 

Teens who were bullied were more than five times more likely to be threatened with weapons, and when this happened they were almost six times more likely to bring guns or knives to school. 

The study wasn’t a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how being bullied might influence the odds that students would bring weapons to school. 

Another limitation is that researchers relied on teens to truthfully report on their experiences with bullying and weapons, and some youth may have been reluctant to admit they carried weapons, the authors note. 

It’s also possible that other factors beyond bullying might have influenced teens’ decisions about carrying weapons to school, said Melissa Holt, author of an accompanying commentary and a researcher at the Boston University School of Education. 

“Findings from this study do not directly address motivations for weapon carrying,” Holt said by email. 

“They do suggest that bullying victimisation alone is not necessarily associated with increased risk of weapon carrying, but rather other individual (e.g. peer aggression experiences) and contextual factors should be taken into account,” Holt added. 

Still, those three questions about skipping school, fighting or being threatened might be a useful screening tool for finding kids at risk of carrying weapons, Adesman said. 

“The three simple screening questions can help us better identify which students are most likely to carry a weapon to school,” Adesman said. “School personnel, parents and healthcare providers need to be attentive to why some students may be reluctant to attend school and we need to evaluate circumstances whenever a child gets into a fight or is threatened or injured at school.” 

LOS ANGELES — Disney-Pixar’s “Coco” handily won the Thanksgiving holiday box office over the second weekend of Warner Bros.-DC Entertainment’s “Justice League”, with $72.9 million at 3,987 North American sites during the Wednesday-Sunday period, with $50.8 million coming in over the three day weekend.

“Justice League” pulled in $41.1 million at 4,051 locations during the same three days. The superhero action-adventure, the fifth in the DC Extended Universe, has totalled $172 million in its first 10 days.

“Coco” posted for the third-best Thanksgiving holiday opening ever, trailing three other Disney titles — “Frozen” with $93 million in 2013, “Moana” with $82 million in 2017 and “Toy Story 3” with $80 million in 2010.

Audiences surveyed by comScore’s PostTrak gave “Coco” strong ratings with 66 per cent calling it “excellent”, and another 23 per cent rating it “very good”. Surveys also showed 77 per cent of viewers saying they would “definitely recommend” the movie to friends and 20 per cent saying they would watch it again in a theatre.

“Coco”, directed by Lee Unkrich and co-directed by Adrian Molina, is based on the traditions surrounding the Day of the Dead holiday in Mexico and centres on a 12-year-old boy who dreams of becoming a musician and explores his family history in the Land of the Dead. The studio has not released a price for the movie. Disney-Pixar titles are usually budgeted in the $175 million to $200 million range.

“Justice League”, which teams up the DC characters in the same manner as Disney-Marvel’s superheroes, is already in the top 15 of titles released in 2017 and has opened with a B+ CinemaScore. It is been the lowest performer among the DC Extended Universe. “Wonder Woman” grossed $206.3 million in its first 10 days in June and “Suicide Squad” took in $222.6 million in its first 10 days in August 2016.

Gal Gadot stars as Wonder Woman along with Ben Affleck as Batman, Henry Cavill as Superman, Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Ezra Miller as the Flash, and Ray Fisher as Cyborg as the superheroes team up to save the world. Warner Bros. has not disclosed the production cost, which is believed to be as much as $300 million.

Lionsgate’s family drama “Wonder” continued to show impressive traction in third place with about $22.7 million at 3,140 locations for a 10-day total of more than $69 million. The film, which stars Jacob Tremblay as a fifth grader with a facial deformity, has a modest $20 million budget.

Disney-Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” finished fourth with about $16.9 million at 3,281 sites, lifting its 24-day domestic total to $277 million. It’s topped “Despicable Me 3” as the sixth-highest grosser of 2017.

Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express” and Paramount’s “Daddy’s Home 2” came in fifth and six th over the three days, $13.22 and  $13.17 million, respectively. “Orient Express” has totalled $74.2 million domestically in its first 17 days while “Daddy’s Home 2” has earned $72.7 million in the same period.

Sony Classics saw stellar returns from its platform release of coming-of-age drama “Call Me by Your Name” with $404,874 at four venues in Los Angeles and New York since its Friday launch for an impressive per-screen average of $101,219. That is the best limited opening of 2017, topping the “Lady Bird” launch with $364,437 on four screens, and the highest since “La La Land” opened with $881,104 at five venues last December.

Focus Features’ “Darkest Hour”, starring Oldman as Winston Churchill, opened strongly with a $248,000 at four theatres for the five days. The well-reviewed film — which centres on Chruchill’s early days as prime minister in 1940 with a possible Nazi invasion of Britain looming — is playing at the Arclight and Landmark in Los Angeles and the Union Square and Lincoln Plaza in New York City.

The holiday weekend is one of the busiest moviegoing periods of the year. According to comScore, this year’s five-day Thanksgiving weekend saw total grosses his $268 million — $7.5 million better than last year’s when “Moana” opened with $82 million, and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” taking in $65 million in its second weekend.

In its power and its beauty, “The Breadwinner’ reminds us that animation can be every bit as much of a medium for adults as it is for children.

Set in Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul in 2001, the waning days of Taliban rule, “The Breadwinner” does have an 11-year-old girl as its protagonist, but that is the only childish thing about it.

Rather, “The Breadwinners” is unexpectedly tough-minded in its depiction of the harsh excesses of life under the Taliban, detailing the reign of terror that resulted from civil society being under the thumb of arrogant religious police.

Though director Nora Twomey’s name may not be well known, devotees of animation will be more than familiar with her background and her credits.

Along with Tomm Moore and Paul Young, Twomey founded the Kilkenny, Ireland-based Cartoon Saloon, and was a key player in the group’s pair of brilliant, Oscar-nominated features, “The Secret of Kells” and “Song of the Sea”.

Though it’s set in dusty Kabul and not emerald Ireland, “Breadwinner” shares with its predecessors a vivid sense of a very specific culture as well as a gift for strikingly beautiful visuals.

Kabul may not sound like a likely site for luminous images, but Twomey and her team, led by art directors Reza Riahi and Ciaran Duffy, show us a city of captivating sandstone-hued houses where colourful flowers and teeming markets come to bright and convincing life.

Working from the young-adult novel by Deborah Ellis, screenwriter Anita Doron introduces us to intrepid Parvana (voiced by Saara Chaudry), a young girl who does not like to be told what she cannot do.

Parvana is encountered sitting on the ground with her father, Nurullah (Ali Badshah), in front of a small space in the Kabul bazaar where they are selling some of their few remaining possessions so that their family can buy food.

A master storyteller who fills in Parvana (and the audience) on Afghanistan’s troubled past, Nurulluh believes deeply that “stories remain in our hearts when all else is gone”, though Parvana, at least initially, remains sceptical as to their value.

The father and daughter are suddenly confronted by two aggressive members of the Taliban who back off only when Nurullah demonstrates that he is an army veteran who has paid a steep price for his service.

Back home, mother Fattema (Laara Sadiq) and older sister Soraya (Shaista Latif) worry about the fate of the family, which includes a young toddler, but things are about to get worse.

The Taliban track Nurullah down to his house and roughly arrest him for no apparent reason, carting him off to a grim prison at the edge of town. Because of the oppressive, misogynistic nature of Taliban rule, that situation puts the family in a terrible position.

Women are not allowed on the streets without male guardians, and store owners will not sell to unaccompanied females. When Fattema defies this ban and goes out in an attempt to visit her husband and see what his situation is, things get even uglier. She is savagely beaten by a Taliban operative and barely makes it home.

With the family’s very survival at stake, Parvana takes the extreme step of cutting off her hair, donning clothes belonging to a brother who has died, and going out into the world to become the breadwinner of the title.

Collaborating with Shauzia (Soma Chhaya), a friend from school who has done the same thing, the two girls discover that “when you are a boy you can go anywhere you like”. But even with that advantage, with the Taliban in charge life is always precarious.

Intercut with this realistic present-day narrative, “Breadwinner” shows us a story Parvana is telling her toddler brother, a fable, shown in playful, cutout animation, concerning a boy who takes on an evil Elephant King in order to save his village from starvation.

With Parvana’s tale echoing the main narrative, this film is very much about the importance of story for survival.

A work of striking beauty and affecting emotional heft enhanced by an Afghan-themed score by Mychael Danna & Jeff Danna, “The Breadwinner” reminds us yet again that the best of animation takes us anywhere at any time and makes us believe.

LOS ANGELES — Meghan Markle says acting will take a back seat when she marries Prince Harry, following the example of screen icon Grace Kelly who abandoned Hollywood to marry into royalty.

The 36-year-old has starred in legal drama “Suits” since 2011, but is likely to shed many outside interests as she joins the British royal family following the couple’s engagement announcement, according to observers.

Markle confirmed in an interview with the BBC she would be giving up acting and would focus much of her attention on the causes that are important to her.

“I don’t see it as giving anything up. I see it as a change. It’s a new chapter,” she said.

Markle and Harry, 33, will wed in spring next year, 62 years after silver screen icon Kelly abandoned her glittering career to marry Monaco’s Prince Rainier III.

Hollywood branding expert Jeetendr Sehdev pointed out however that Markle is not in the same league as the Oscar-winning star of 1950s Hitchcock thrillers “Dial M for Murder”, “Rear Window” and “To Catch a Thief”.

“Americans who have heard of Meghan will remember her as a working TV actor rather than an celebrity or a Hollywood star,” Sehdev, bestselling author of “The Kim Kardashian Principle”, told AFP.

He added that Britain’s first mixed-race royal could nevertheless inspire the British TV industry to create more leading roles for actors of colour. 

“Meghan Markle is the face of the modern princess and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t keep working in TV after her marriage. The palace will likely have a say in any of her future career choices and roles.”

Reform too far?

But royal writer Catriona Harve-Jenner said in a commentary for British lifestyle magazine Cosmopolitan that Markle had made the right decision in shedding her acting ambitions.

“Being a senior member of the royal family is a full-time job, and it requires those who do it to patron charities, represent the UK on an international scale and generally maintain the traditions of the royal family,” said Harve-Jenner. 

“How would she balance all that with a full-time acting role on ‘Suits?’”

Markle will be the first American welcomed into the royals since Wallis Simpson — famously also a divorcee — but will probably not, in fact, be a princess.

What is far more likely, say experts, is that the couple become a duke and duchess, like William and Kate.

As well as starring as paralegal Rachel Zane on “Suits”, Markle is an entrepreneur, activist, blogger and fashion designer and would probably be expected to drop many of those pursuits too, to focus on royal activities. 

The actress appears to already be winding down her workload, having shut down her lifestyle website, “The Tig”, in recent months. 

Sarika Bose, a lecturer in Victorian literature at the University of British Columbia and a royal expert, said times had changed since Kelly was forced to choose between career and family life.

But she added that having a working actress in the fold may, yet, be a modernising reform too far for the British throne, which dates back to the merger of England and Scotland in the early 18th century. 

‘Very charismatic’

“Although British society and the monarchy have changed greatly over the last few decades, there are still possible assumptions people might impose on Ms Markle which are conflated with her acting roles, her life as a celebrity and her public role as a member of the royal family,” she told AFP. 

Bose said she expected Markle to follow other members of the family in pursuing charitable activities. 

“Well before meeting Prince Harry, Markle already demonstrated a serious interest and commitment to social justice initiatives, as a World Vision global ambassador and an advocate for political participation and leadership for women through the United Nations,” she said.

“These activities provide her with both experience and credibility as a patron of causes when she becomes a member of the royal family.” 

The daughter of an African-American mother and white American father of Dutch and Irish descent, Markle’s parents divorced when she was aged six.

She has half-siblings on her father’s side, and grew up in Los Angeles, attending a girls’ Roman Catholic school there.

After graduating from Northwestern University’s School of Communication in 2003, Markle appeared on more than a dozen TV shows including “CSI: NY” “Knight Rider” and “Fringe”.

She became more high-profile when she began appearing in “Suits” and secured a small role in the movie “Horrible Bosses” (2011).

Clarence Moye, TV editor at Awards Daily, described Markle as a “very charismatic” actress and said he was disappointed that she appeared to be set on conforming to tradition.

“It would be interesting to see a modern woman continuing her career... but it’s not where she seems to be headed,” he said.

Agriculture could go organic worldwide if we slashed food waste and stopped using so much cropland to feed livestock, a new study finds.

The analysis, published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that it will take several strategies operating at once to feed the growing human population in a more sustainable way — and some of those strategies may require people to shift their dietary patterns, too.

The world’s population is expected to hit 9.8 billion by 2050, which means an extra 2 billion or so mouths to feed. This will require increasing agricultural output by an additional 50 per cent, the study authors wrote — which is made an even greater challenge as dietary patterns have been changing and the demand for meat has been rising. (Raising livestock leaves a large carbon and water footprint relative to growing plant-based foods.) All of this puts an additional strain on an already taxed environment.

“It is, therefore, crucial to curb the negative environmental impacts of agriculture, while ensuring that the same quantity of food can be delivered,” the study authors wrote.

Experts have thrown out several strategies to deal with the impending food security problem, without coming to a clear agreement on which one would be best. Among the options: improving efficiencies in producing crops and using resources; reducing food waste; cutting down the animal products we eat; or resorting to more organic agriculture.

“Organic agriculture is one concrete, but controversial, suggestion for improving the sustainability of food systems,” the study authors wrote. 

“It refrains from using synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, promotes crop rotations and focuses on soil fertility and closed nutrient cycles.”

Regardless of whether organic fruits, vegetables and other crops are better for you, there’s evidence showing they may be better for the environment. Since organically grown crops can’t use synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, it means that less excess nitrogen acidifies the soil and ends up in waterways, or escapes into the air as a greenhouse gas. It also means no man-made pesticides, meaning fewer chemicals in the local environment and less risk to insect biodiversity — which is important because many insects are crucial players in their local ecosystems.

But those benefits are offset somewhat by what’s known as the yield gap: the idea that organic crops require more land because their yields are lower than the fertiliser-fed, pesticide-protected conventional crops — potentially resulting in some extra deforestation. Still, could organic crops allow future food needs to be met with less environmental impact?

“Because of the yield gap, there are opposing voices that say it’s not possible… [and] there are proponents that say this yield gap is not really important and one could overcome it,” said lead author Adrian Muller, an environmental systems scientist at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland. 

“We just wanted to look at it from a food-systems perspective, because we think only looking at the yield gap is not enough. It is important to really look at production and consumption together and to see what organic agriculture can contribute on such a food-systems level.”

To find out, Muller and colleagues developed models based on data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, looking at the effects that going organic would have under different scenarios, modulating the severity of climate change, the amount of food waste and the share of crops used to feed livestock instead of people, for example.

The researchers found that the human population’s needs could be fully met by all-organic agriculture — but only if food waste was cut in half and the competing feed sources for livestock were eliminated altogether. Since that would seriously scale back the amount of livestock, that might be a hard sell with today’s meat-filled diets.

Muller said a more feasible solution might be one where organic crops make up about 50 per cent of crops, food waste is cut by half, and the competing feed sources are cut by half (allowing for more acreage to grow human food).

“We need to utilise all the potential strategies we have, without supporting one extreme and leaving out other approaches,” he said.

Getting to that point may still be a challenge. Organic crops make up a tiny fraction of agriculture overall, nowhere near that 50 per cent target. But there are some things that can be done now, Muller pointed out, such as putting an extra “nitrogen tax” on producers so that the environmental cost of excess fertiliser becomes an economic one.

“I think we are moving in the right direction,” Muller said, “and as an optimist I think, yeah, somehow, it will work”.