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JAMESTOWN — Coin-operated telephone boxes, a capital without a cash machine and a local shop with a wooden floor: St Helena is Britain of yesteryear, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

“I don’t think I would fit in the outside world,” said Ivy Robinson, who runs the Wellington House bed and breakfast, complete with a pale blue Georgian facade, in the village-sized capital Jamestown.

The accommodation, attentively run by the fifty-something proprietor, has no internet connection just like all but one of her competitors.

Robinson makes do with a fixed-line telephone to communicate abroad and with the island’s other 4,500 people.

She has not yet got a mobile phone despite St Helena, which lies roughly halfway between Angola and Brazil, getting a mobile network two years ago.

“As the rest of the world looks chained to their iPads, we continue to watch the horizon for passing ships,” said Jeremy Harris, the local director of the National Trust conservation charity.

The boats that occasionally call at the territory set the pace of life on the island, supplying the islanders’ every need. 

From fuel to food, furniture to medication, clothes to vehicles, the arrival of fresh cargo aboard the territory’s maritime link to the outside world via Cape Town was always much anticipated.

Vow of silence

“When you hear the signal that the Royal Mail Ship is leaving, you think ‘oh my goodness’: I am in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean, just thousands of miles from anywhere — what if?” said Lisa Phillips, the island’s governor.

The sense of isolation is compounded by the dearth of information about official matters on the island — all of its elected councillors take a vow of silence to not divulge their discussions in the name of confidentiality.

But times are changing. 

The island now boasts an international airport with a weekly air link to South Africa, and the governor decided in August to relax the councillors’ code of conduct.

Thanks to the new air service, 69-year-old Teddy Fowler was able to return from Britain in time for his mother’s funeral on the island.

But his children, who emigrated to Britain, did not make the journey — the flights were too expensive.

“Even with the plane, it will always be the same for us — the Saints,” he said, using the name for the islanders. “We will still be isolated.”

The airport promises to be a game changer for those who fall ill, permitting aerial medical evacuations for the first time.

Some patients have died aboard the postal ship, which takes six days to reach Cape Town.

The life of a newborn has already been saved thanks to the airport, according to the governor.

But keeping the island supplied with essentials still depends on ocean-bound cargo — as well as patience, planning and a “make do and mend” attitude.

One young “Saint” had to borrow a wedding dress for her big day after the RMS St Helena broke down.

Craig Yon, a diving instructor, waited two-and-a-half months for a spare part for his boat.

‘Embrace the slow pace’

In October, St Helena suffered a shortage of flour — affecting the supply of everyday staples.

“When you want to cook something, and you can’t find all the ingredients, you just have to cook something else,” said Phillips.

Food production on the island, where exposed rockfaces are punctuated by lush forests and meadows, is mainly limited to salad, tomatoes, cucumber, pork and tuna. 

“We embrace the slow place. That’s the key to life on St Helena,” said Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, the curator of the French historical sites on the island where Napoleon was exiled until his death in 1821.

Two centuries on, the defeated emperor is enjoying something of a revival.

Britain’s one-time arch-nemesis has become the island’s foremost draw for history buffs. 

“Whether we like it or not, Napoleon came here, he died here, he is part of our history now. That is a tourist attraction,” said Lawson Henry, a local councillor.

Napoleon’s Longwood home, where he lived behind permanently closed shutters to torment the soldiers assigned to guard him, is now open to visitors.

St Helena is still associated with exile — albeit for the islanders who call it home.

With no industry and underdeveloped agriculture, St Helena’s economy is struggling, with an average annual salary of just £7,280 (8,080 euros).

More than half of the population work abroad at any one time — often with the armed forces on the Falkland Islands or “nearby” Ascension Island — 1,100 kilometres away.

On days when parents feel stressed or depressed, kids are less likely to get homemade food for dinner, a US study suggests. 

Beyond just serving up more fast food and frozen dinners, parents are also more likely to pressure kids to clean their plates on days when they are not in a great mood. 

“One potential explanation for these findings is that parents who have a stressful day at work, school or home or who feel depressed throughout the day may be overwhelmed and not feel like making a family meal, and so they opt for pre-prepared foods and make less homemade foods,” said lead study author Jerica Berge of the University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. 

“In addition, if parents feel stressed or depressed, they may also pressure their children to eat more at the meal because they do not want them to waste food, or because they are worried their child is not getting enough food to eat,” Berge said by e-mail. 

For the study, researchers observed 150 children ages 5 to 7 years at home with their families and used several methods to assess how parents’ moods influenced what foods went on the table. 

Among other things, researchers did home visits to observe meal planning and preparation and examined data from food diaries, surveys and interviews. 

Most of the adult participants were mothers (35 years old on average). More than half worked at least part-time, and 61 per cent of them had no more than a high school diploma. 

Approximately half of the mothers were married, and 64 per cent of the households had two parents. 

More than two-thirds of the families had a household income of less than $35,000 a year. 

Overall, stress levels were low and depression was uncommon, the researchers report online November 21 in Paediatrics. 

However, their statistical analysis found that each one-unit increase in stress levels or depression was associated with a small decrease in the proportion of dinners that included homemade foods, the study found. 

With each one-unit increase in stress levels, parents were also 45 per cent more likely to pressure kids to eat. Each one-unit increase in depression, meanwhile, was linked to 42 per cent higher odds that parents would pressure kids to clean their plates. 

The study was small, and it was not a controlled experiment designed to prove whether or how parents’ mood or mental health influences what kids eat. 

Even so, it offers fresh evidence of the connection between stress and eating behaviours, said Nancy Zucker, a psychologist and eating disorders specialist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. 

“It is really tough to make homemade cooking a priority when one is overwhelmed,” Zucker, who wasn’t involved in the study, said by e-mail. 

Just knowing that stress or depression might lead to less healthy meals is not enough on its own to help parents change what they put on the table, Zucker added. To change, parents need support, she said. 

“To the extent that families can have a greater sense of community — cooking with each other, getting young children to feel part of the meal process — can help take away some of the demands and the loneliness that may arise from a stressful, depressing day,” Zucker said. 

Planning ahead may also help, said Myles Faith, a psychology researcher at the University at Buffalo in New York who was not involved in the study. 

This might include tuning in to certain times of the day or week when stress levels or depression peak, and then choosing different times to make grocery lists, go shopping and prepare meals, Faith said by e-mail. 

“It may be better to get all meal decisions set up in advance so that healthier feeding routines become more automatic and require less mental energy the moment kids charge to the dinner table,” Faith advised. 

LONDON — People who drink three to four cups of coffee a day are more likely to see health benefits than harm, experiencing lower risks of premature death and heart disease than those who abstain, scientists said on Wednesday. 

The research, which collated evidence from more than 200 previous studies, also found coffee consumption was linked to lower risks of diabetes, liver disease, dementia and some cancers. 

Three or four cups a day confer the greatest benefit, the scientists said, except for women who are pregnant or who have a higher risk of suffering fractures. 

Coffee is one of the most commonly consumed drinks worldwide. To better understand its effects on health, Robin Poole, a public health specialist at Britain’s University of Southampton, led a research team in an “umbrella review” of 201 studies based on observational research and 17 studies based on clinical trials across all countries and all settings. 

“Umbrella reviews” synthesise previous pooled analyses to give a clearer summary of diverse research on a particular topic. 

“Coffee drinking appears safe within usual patterns of consumption,” Pool’s team concluded in their research, published in the BMJ British medical journal late on Wednesday.

Drinking coffee was consistently linked with a lower risk of death from all causes and from heart disease. The largest reduction in relative risk of premature death is seen in people consuming three cups a day, compared with non-coffee drinkers. 

Drinking more than three cups a day was not linked to harm, but the beneficial effects were less pronounced. 

Coffee was also associated with a lower risk of several cancers, including prostate, endometrial, skin and liver cancer, as well as type 2 diabetes, gallstones and gout, the researchers said. The greatest benefit was seen for liver conditions such as cirrhosis of the liver. 

Poole’s team noted that because their review included mainly observational data, no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. But they said their findings support other recent reviews and studies of coffee intake. 

 Shaming kids about their weight does not encourage them to shed excess weight, US doctors warn. 

In fact, it often has the opposite effect and contributes to behaviours like binge eating, inactivity, social isolation, and avoidance of routine medical checkups, the American Academy of Paediatrics and the Obesity Society advise in a joint policy statement. 

“Keep it positive. We know that making change is tough, and patients will likely have trouble initially meeting some of their goals, but we can learn from these challenges and go from there,” said Dr Stephen Pont, lead author of the statement and founding chair of the AAP Section on Obesity Executive Committee. 

“Also, we know that children with obesity are more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety so we want to be extra mindful to focus on positive reinforcement and not negative reinforcement when encouraging behaviour change,” Pont, of Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, said by e-mail. 

Keeping children from feeling stigmatised may also mean talking to them about what they see in the movies and on television, a separate study in the same issue of Paediatrics suggests. The authors of the study analysed kids’ movies and found that most of the movies stigmatised weight. 

Obesity is the most common chronic health problem among US children, doctors note in the policy statement. One in three kids between the ages of 2 and 19 are overweight or obese. 

Stigma and discrimination can add to their health problems and harm their quality of life, making them feel isolated, embarrassed and sad. Excess weight alone can be a predictor for victimisation and bullying. 

Physicians must take a lead role in educating children and families about how to help children achieve a healthy weight without making kids feel stigmatised for their size, doctors argue in the statement. 

Kids who feel stigmatised often are victims of teasing, bullying and harassment in school. Many children who see doctors about their weight report being bullied in the past year, and it’s not uncommon for kids to report this going on for more than five years. 

“While there has been substantial attention to medical treatment and intervention for obesity in youth, the social and emotional impact of body weight – like stigma and bullying – often get neglected,” said Rebecca Puhl, a fellow at the Obesity Society and deputy director of the Rudd Centre for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut in Hartford. 

There are ways paediatricians can speak to parents and children about weight that are supportive and encouraging instead of sounding unintentionally judgemental, Puhl said by email. 

For starters, they can talk about “children with obesity” instead of “obese children” to emphasise that this is a medical condition. Using neutral terms like “weight” instead of negative terms like “fat” or “obese” can also help, Puhl said. 

This goes for parents, too. 

“Parents need to think carefully before having conversations about weight,” Puhl added. “As much as possible, parents should focus their comments on health and health behaviours, identifying ways that they and their children can practice healthier behaviours together as a family.” 

For the study of how weight is treated in kids’ movies, researchers analysed 31 films released from 2006 to 2010. Every film showed obesity-promoting behaviours, like characters with unhealthy foods, huge portions, sugary beverages and lots of screen time. 

Most of the movies also stigmatised weight, with verbal insults about body size, for example. 

These scenes may be hard to avoid, but parents can use them as teachable moments, said senior study author Dr Eliana Perrin, who did the study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is now director of the Centre for Childhood Obesity Research at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. 

When parents do watch with kids, they might say something like, “We all laughed when so-and-so was made fun of, but I was thinking it really wasn’t funny for her, was it?” Perrin suggested. 

“In our family, I’d like us to be friends with people and kind to people no matter what their size,” Perrin added. “Children with obesity are smart, fun, athletic and hard-working.” 

LOS ANGELES — Kendall Jenner topped a list on Tuesday of the world’s highest paid models, edging Gisele Bundchen out of the No.1 spot for the first time in 15 years in a ranking that reflected the growing power of social media influencers.

Ashley Graham became the first plus-size woman to make the annual Forbes list of top earning models, ranked in 10th place with an estimated income of $5.5 million between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017.

Jenner, 22, the half sister of Kim Kardashian, earned an estimated $22 million for the year thanks both to her runway fashion jobs and an 84 million Instagram following that helped her launch her own clothing line and win deals with the likes of Adidas and Estee Lauder, Forbes said.

Brazil’s Bundchen, 37, who has held the top spot since 2002, was ranked second this year with an estimated $17.5 million, Forbes said.

Chrissy Teigen joined the Forbes list for the first time, taking the No.3 spot with estimated earnings of $13.5 million. Teigen, 31, the wife of singer John Legend, is also prolific on Twitter and Instagram and has deals with brands like Smirnoff to boost her earnings from fashion.

Graham, 30, an outspoken advocate for body activism, in 2016 became the first size 16 model to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. 

Her fashion lines with Dressbarn, H&M and Swimsuits For All helped get her on the Forbes list for the first time in her 16-year modelling career.

“With social media, there are more opportunities to create your own content and use your voice,” Ivan Bart, president of IMG Models told Forbes. “The stars are using it.”

Forbes said that the world’s 10 highest-paid models banked a cumulative $109.5 million for the year, before taxes and fees. It estimated earnings from income from cosmetics, fragrance and other contracts based on interviews with managers, agents and brand executives.

LOS ANGELES — Warner Bros.-DC’s costly “Justice League” has dominated the North American box office, but fallen well short of expectations with a $93.8 million opening weekend at 4,051 locations, according to data released on Monday.

It is a decidedly gloomy result for the tentpole, which had been forecast by the studio just prior to the weekend to open in the $110 million range. Instead, “Justice League” is launching with only the eighth largest opening of 2017. It is not even in the top 50 domestic openings of all time, ranking 53rd behind “Fast and Furious 6”.

“For every macro budget superhero movie the stakes are incredibly high and with that comes an enormous pressure to exceed all expectations and for DC, this has never been more true,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst with comScore. “In the wake of the much-needed home run that was ‘Wonder Woman,’ the momentum was with the brand and great expectations placed on the very broad shoulders of ‘Justice League’ to keep that train moving.”

Dergarabedian noted that the movie will gross $285 million worldwide this weekend and that initial reception among audiences is positive. The overall CinemaScore was B+ with males comprising 58 per cent of the audience while females gave the movie an A-, as did moviegoers under 25.

“With the rightfully heightened expectations for a movie of this magnitude comes a greater scrutiny of both the quality of the movie as determined by critics and of course the profitability of the film, but the ultimate arbiter are moviegoers who seem to have found the concept and the event nature of the film enough to get them out to the movie theater even if the overall North American opening weekend number may be less than many expected,” Dergarabedian said.

Jeff Goldstein, Warner Bros. domestic distribution president, said there were several positive signs such as a 28 per cent hike in business from Friday to Saturday and the start of Thanksgiving vacations this week.

“The movie is on a path different from what we were hoping but we’re optimistic going into the Thanksgiving holiday,” he added. “There will be 35 per cent of schoolchildren out of school on Monday and Tuesday and 75 per cent out on Wednesday.”

“Justice League” had been on track for an opening weekend of $110 million since late October. Stakes are particularly high for Warner Bros., which has not revealed the cost of “Justice League” — estimated to be as much as $300 million. The movie is the fifth instalment of its DC Extended Universe, aimed at duplicating the success of Disney-Marvel’s interconnected franchises. And it is by far the lowest launch, trailing “Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice” ($166 million); “Suicide Squad” ($133 million); “Man of Steel” ($116 million); and “Wonder Woman” ($103 million).

The six films that have cracked the $100 million opening mark this year are Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at $174.8 million, Disney-Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” at $146.5 million, Warner-New Line’s “It” at $123.4 million, Disney-Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” at $122.7 million, Sony-Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming” at $117 million and Warner-DC’s “Wonder Woman” at $103.3 million. Universal’s “Fate of the Furious” took in $98.8 million in April for the seventh-best launch of 2017.

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. Amy Adams, Amber Heard, Jeremy Irons, J.K. Simmons, and Willem Dafoe also appear. Zack Snyder began shooting “Justice League” in April of 2016, from a script by Chris Terrio. Joss Whedon — director of Disney-Marvel’s two “Avengers” movies — assumed directing duties following the tragic suicide of Snyder’s daughter in March.

Reviewers have not been impressed with “Justice League”, which carries a 40 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Its opening comes two weeks after Disney-Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” debuted above forecasts with a $122.7 million opening weekend in what was the fourth-biggest launch of the year.

Lionsgate’s family drama “Wonder” provided positive news for the weekend, opening far above expectations with $27.5 million at 3,096 sites — three times the level prior to the weekend. “Wonder”, starring Jacob Tremblay as a fifth grader with a facial deformity, received an A+ CinemaScore with an audience that was 68 per cent female and 66 per cent over 25. Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson star as the parents.

Production companies include Mandeville Films, Walden Media, Participant Media and TIK Films. Critics have embraced “Wonder” with an 84 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Producer Todd Lieberman told Variety that “Wonder” outperformed estimates due to the strong underlying popularity of R.J. Palacio’s 2012 novel and impressive participation by school groups. “The book has sold over 8 million copies and so many kids are reading it,” he added.

Producer Todd Lieberman credited Lionsgate with making an astute counterprogramming scheduling move and added, “ The timing was great because people really want a feel-good movie.”

“Thor: Ragnarok” followed in third with $21.7 million at 4,080 venues for a 17-day domestic total of $247.3 million. Paramount’s second weekend of “Daddy’s Home 2” finished fourth with $14.4 million at 3,575 sites, followed by Fox’s second weekend of “Murder on the Orient Express” with $13.8 million at 3,354 locations.

Sony’s opening of its faith-based animated drama “The Star” came in above expectations in sixth place with $9.8 million at 2,837 sites. The film — which tells the Nativity story through the eyes of talking animals — is co-financed by Walden Media and received an A CinemaScore.

STXfilms’ third weekend of “A Bad Moms Christmas” followed in seventh with $7 million at 2,948 locations to push its 19-day domestic total to more than $50 million. The original “Bad Moms” grossed $113 million.

A24’s third weekend of Saoirse Ronan’s comedy-drama “Lady Bird” moved up from 10th to eighth place with $2.5 million at 253 sites as the distributor added 201 locations. A24 plans to further expand the coming-of-age movie, which marks Greta Gerwig’s feature directorial debut, over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Fox Searchlight’s second weekend of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” cracked the top 10 with $1.1 million at 53 venues following its stellar limited launch last weekend. Followed by “Jigsaw” ($1.1 million).

Overall business topped $200 million for the weekend — a robust 27.8 per cent gain over the same weekend a year ago. The year-to-date deficit dropped from 5 per cent to 4.3 per cent in one week with the current 2017 total at 9.39 billion, according to comScore.

PARIS — It is November 22, 2028, and Sarah, a young mother, gives her two children a kiss goodbye before buckling them into the driverless car that will bring them to school.

Sarah does not have a car and has no plans to buy one. Living in a suburb, she has run the numbers and the result is clear: It is much cheaper to order a car only when she needs one.

The “robo-taxi” has also made her life easier, but only after such vehicles upended the business models which carmakers had relied on for decades.

The revolution is already under way, with every major brand racing to create autonomous electric cars and trucks that will always be just a few clicks of a smartphone away.

Fully electric cars are expected to make up 12 per cent of the global market in 2025, before jumping to 34 per cent in 2030 and 90 per cent by 2050, analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecast last month.

Adapt or perish

The motivations are clear: Smog is becoming a serious menace in cities around the world, with China in particular demanding cleaner vehicles for its rapidly growing market.

Traffic jams are also eating up hours of commuters’ time, meaning car ownership is already no longer a given for many city dwellers.

And carmakers have nimble new rivals: Apple, Google and Tesla — which last week unveiled an all-electric semi truck — see a chance to dominate a market that will soon depend as much on software as on engineering.

Industry chiefs aren’t waiting: France’s PSA is betting on car-sharing and other “services” with its Free2Move division, which it hopes will let it get back into the huge US market.

In Germany, Daimler is working with Bosch to develop self-driving electric cars that could be on the road by the early 2020s, and has already launched its own car-sharing service, Car2Go, in some two dozen cities worldwide. 

Its German rival Volkswagen (VW) has created Moia, a “social movement” unit exploring e-shuttles, ride pooling and car hailing.

“Even if in the future not everyone is going to own a car, with Moia we’re trying to make sure everyone will be a client of ours one way or another,” VW’s chief Matthias Mueller said.

Robo-taxis could generate 40 per cent of auto industry profits by 2030, according to German consulting firm Roland Berger, which expects demand for private vehicles to drop 30 per cent in the period.

And industry experts warn that the automakers which fail to adapt to the shift risk might not survive. 

Lagging behind Asia

But that means investing billions in batteries, charging infrastructure and autonomous driving technologies with little prospect of seeing a payoff anytime soon.

VW announced on Friday a plan to spend 34 billion euros ($40 billion) over the next five years on hybrid and electric cars and services in a bid to “reinvent” the automobile.

But for now, so-called “zero emission” vehicles remain a tough sell: Renault’s Zoe range of electric cars, which is has offered since 2012, made up just 1 per cent of its sales last year.

Its chief, Carlos Ghosn, is hoping that figure will reach 5 per cent by 2022.

The contest will be costly for all automakers, with PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimating that production costs for the next generation of electric cars will be 20 per cent higher than traditional models, while warning of “serious problems” for returns on investment.

“The speed” of the shift toward an electric future “will have to be taken on by all automotive companies,” PSA’s Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said at the Frankfurt auto show in September.

Yet, Western carmakers and government officials already fear they are lagging behind Asian rivals, with China in particular making headway on electric motors and batteries.

That led the EU Commission to urge the creation of an “Airbus for batteries”, with European companies joining forces for large-scale battery production.

“This technology is too important to import it from overseas,” the commission’s vice president charge of energy, Maros Sefcovic, warned.