Features

CHURCHILL, Canada — Sprawled on rocky ground far from sea ice, a lone Canadian polar bear sits under a dazzling sun, his white fur utterly useless as camouflage. 

It’s mid-summer on the shores of Hudson Bay and life for the enormous male has been moving in slow motion, far from the prey that keeps him alive: Seals.

This is a critical time for the region’s polar bears.

Every year from late June when the bay ice disappears — shrinking until it dots the blue vastness like scattered confetti — they must move onto shore to begin a period of forced fasting.

But that period is lasting longer and longer as temperatures rise — putting them in danger’s way. 

Once on solid ground, the bears “typically have very few options for food”, explains Geoff York, a biologist with Polar Bear International (PBI).

York, an American, spends several weeks each year in Churchill, a small town on the edge of the Arctic in the northern Canadian province of Manitoba. There he follows the fortunes of the endangered animals.

This is one of the best spots from which to study life on Hudson Bay, though transportation generally requires either an all-terrain vehicle adapted to the rugged tundra, or an inflatable boat for navigating the bay’s waters. 

York invited an AFP team to join him on an expedition in early August.

Near the impressively large male bear lazing in the sun is a pile of fishbones — nowhere near enough to sustain this 3.5-metre, 600-kilo beast.

“There could be a beluga whale carcass they might be able to find, [or a] naive seal near shore, but generally they’re just fasting,” York says.

“They lose nearly a kilogramme of body weight every day that they’re on land.”

Climate warming is affecting the Arctic three times as fast as other parts of the world — even four times, according to some recent studies. So sea ice, the habitat of the polar bear, is gradually disappearing.

A report published two years ago in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested that this trend could lead to the near-extinction of these majestic animals: 1,200 of them were counted on the western shores of Hudson Bay in the 1980s. Today the best estimate is 800.

Summer scarcity

Each summer, sea ice begins melting earlier and earlier, while the first hard freeze of winter comes later and later. Climate change thus threatens the polar bears’ very cycle of life.

They have fewer opportunities to build up their reserves of fat and calories before the period of summer scarcity.

The polar bear — technically known as the Ursus maritimus — is a meticulous carnivore that feeds principally on the white fat that envelops and insulates a seal’s body.

But these days this superpredator of the Arctic sometimes has to feed on seaweed — as a mother and her baby were seen doing not far from the port of Churchill, the self-declared “Polar Bear Capital”.

If female bears go more than 117 days without adequate food, they struggle to nurse their young, said Steve Amstrup, an American who is PBI’s lead scientist. Males, he adds, can go 180 days.

As a result, births have declined, and it has become much rarer for a female to give birth to three cubs, once a common occurrence.

It is a whole ecosystem in decline, and one that 54-year-old York — with his short hair and rectangular glasses — knows by heart after spending more than 20 years roaming the Arctic, first for the ecology organisation WWF and now for PBI.

During a capture in Alaska, a bear sunk its fangs into his leg. 

Another time, while entering what he thought was an abandoned den, he came nose-to-snout with a female. York, normally a quiet man, says he “yelled as loud as I ever have in my life”.

Today, these enormous beasts live a precarious existence.

“Here in Hudson Bay, in the western and southern parts, polar bears are spending up to a month longer on shore than their parents or grandparents did,” York says.

As their physical condition declines, he says, their tolerance for risk rises, and “that might bring them into interaction with people [which] can lead to conflict instead of co-existence”.

Patrolling the town

Binoculars in hand, Ian Van Nest, a provincial conservation officer, keeps an eye out through the day on the rocks surrounding Churchill, where the bears like to hide.

In this town of 800 inhabitants, which is only accessible by air and train but not by any roads, the bears have begun frequenting the local dump, a source of easy — but potentially harmful — food for them.

They could be seen ripping open trash bags, eating plastic or getting their snouts trapped in food tins amid piles of burning waste.

Since then, the town has taken precautions: The dump is now guarded by cameras, fences and patrols.

Across Churchill, people leave cars and houses unlocked in case someone needs to find urgent shelter after an unpleasant encounter with this large land-based carnivore. 

Posted on walls around town are the emergency phone numbers to reach Van Nest or his colleagues. 

When they get an urgent call, they hop in their pickup truck armed with a rifle and a spray can of repellent, wearing protective flak jackets. 

Van Nest, who is bearded and in his 30s, takes the job seriously, given the rising number of polar bears in the area.

Sometimes they can be scared off with just “the horn on your vehicle”, he tells AFP. 

But other times “we might have to get on foot and grab our shotguns and cracker shells,” which issue an explosive sound designed to frighten the animal, “and head onto the rocks and pursue that bear”.

Some areas are watched more closely than others — notably around schools as children are arriving in the morning “to ensure that the kids are going to be safe.”

There have been some close calls, like the time in 2013 when a woman was grievously injured by a bear in front of her house, before a neighbour — clad in pyjamas and slippers — ran out wielding only his snow shovel to scare the animal away.

Sometimes the animals have to be sedated, then winched up by a helicopter to be transported to the north, or kept in a cage until winter, when they can again feed on the bay.

Churchill’s only “prison” is inhabited entirely by bears, a hangar whose 28 cells can fill up in the autumn as the creatures maraud in mass around town while waiting for the ice to re-form in November. 

Planet’s air conditioning

The fate of the polar bear should alarm everyone, says Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at Cornell University who was part of the expedition, because the Arctic is a good “barometer” of the planet’s health.

Since the 1980s, the ice pack in the bay has decreased by nearly 50 per cent in summer, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

“We see the more — the faster — changes here, because it is warming particularly fast,” says Lehner, who is Swiss.

The region is essential to the health of the global climate because the Arctic, he says, effectively provides the planet’s “air conditioning”.

“There’s this important feedback mechanism of sea ice and snow in general,” he says, with frozen areas reflecting 80 per cent of the sun’s rays, providing a cooling effect.

When the Arctic loses its capacity to reflect those rays, he said, there will be consequences for temperatures around the globe.

Thus, when sea ice melts, the much darker ocean’s surface absorbs 80 per cent of the sun’s rays, accelerating the warming trend.

A few years ago, scientists feared that the Arctic’s summer ice pack was rapidly reaching a climatic “tipping point” and, above a certain temperature, would disappear for good.

But more recent studies show the phenomenon could be reversible, Lehner says.

“Should we ever be able to bring temperatures down again, sea ice will come back,” he says.

That said, the impact for now is pervasive. 

“In the Arctic, climate change is impacting all species,” says Jane Waterman, a biologist at the University of Manitoba. “Every single thing is being affected by climate change.”

Permafrost — defined as land that is permanently frozen for two successive years — has begun to melt, and in Churchill the very contours of the land have shifted, damaging rail lines and the habitat of wild species. 

The entire food chain is under threat, with some non-native species, like certain foxes and wolves, appearing for the first time, endangering Arctic species. 

Nothing is safe, says Waterman, from the tiniest bacteria to enormous whales. 

A summer refuge

That includes the beluga whales that migrate each summer — by the tens of thousands — from Arctic waters to the refuge of the Hudson Bay. 

These small white whales are often spotted in the bay’s vast blue waters. 

Swimming in small groups, they like to follow the boats of scientists who have come to study them, seemingly taking pleasure in showing off their large round heads and spouting just feet from captivated observers.

The smallest ones, grey in colour, cling to their mothers’ backs in this estuary, with its relatively warm waters, where they find protection from killer whales and plentiful nourishment.

But there has been “a shift in prey availability for beluga whales in some areas of the Arctic”, explains Valeria Vergara, an Argentine researcher who has spent her life studying the beluga.

As the ice cover shrinks, “there’s less under the surface of the ice for the phytoplankton that in turn will feed the zooplankton that in turn will feed big fish”, says Vergara, who is with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.

The beluga has to dive deeper to find food, and that uses up precious energy.

And another danger lurks: Some climate models suggest that as early as 2030, with the ice fast melting, boats will be able to navigate the Hudson Bay year-round.

Sound pollution is a major problem for the species — known as the “canary of the seas” — whose communication depends on the clicking and whistling sounds it makes. 

The beluga depends on sound-based communication to determine its location, find its way and to locate food, Vergara says. 

Thanks to a hydrophone on the “Beluga Boat” that Vergara uses, humans can monitor the “conversations” of whales far below the surface. 

Vergara, 53, describes their communications as “very complex”, and she can distinguish between the cries made by mother whales keeping in contact with their youngsters.

To the untrained ear, the sound is a cacophony, but clearly that of an animated community. Scientists wonder, however, how much longer such communities will last?

Far from the Arctic ice one lonely beluga became lost in the waters of France’s Seine river before dying in August. And in May a polar bear meandered its way deep into Canada’s south, shocking those who discovered it along the Saint Lawrence River.

NEW YORK — Kanye West has long been one of the entertainment industry’s most polarising figures, but his recent actions including anti-Semitic comments and white supremacist messaging have alienated fans and business partners alike. 

It’s another problematic turn for the rapper and fashion mogul once hailed as an artistic genius, but whose stubborn contrarianism has seen him start conflating hate speech with free speech.

The latest controversies — which erupted during Paris fashion week and after an interview with Fox News — add to his reputation as a chaos agent, one that has tarnished his musical and fashion talent.

The 45-year-old West, who in the past has unironically compared himself to Michelangelo, broke out in 2004 with “The College Dropout”, building a masterful music career that saw him imbue rap with soul and electronic elements to create his lush albums.

His mercurial ways drew some critics but for years his celebrity earned him a pass.

At times his comments garnered him praise for his honesty: in 2005, he called out George W. Bush’s handling of Hurricane Katrina, delivering an urgent plea for help during a televised fundraising concert before saying, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people.”

But in the decades that followed his musings grew increasingly bombastic and controversial.

After the rollercoaster rollout of his album “The Life of Pablo”, West, who has talked openly about struggling with bipolar disorder, suffered a mental breakdown, disappearing from the public eye.

In late 2016 he reemerged, strolling into Trump Tower to meet the then president-elect.

He made waves as a rare celebrity to support the Republican billionaire, whose four years in the White House were mired with repeated accusations of racism and sexism.

In 2018, West met with Trump in Washington for a surreal tete-a-tete that included a hug between the two and an on-camera rant.

And during the 2020 election West, who later legally changed his name to Ye, his longtime nickname, launched his own unsuccessful bid for the American presidency as an independent candidate of the Birthday Party.

‘Attention addict’

Since then West has been crossing line after line.

At Paris’ most recent fashion week he sported a shirt allying with white supremacist rhetoric. Days later his Instagram and Twitter accounts were restricted over anti-Semitic posts.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) hit out at West for having “fomented hatred of Jews”, while many other celebrities decried his words and urged him to stop.

“Kanye West should figure out how to make a point without using anti-Semitism,” the AJC organisation said.

The artist’s already controversial Fox News interview grew even more so after Vice released unaired footage including West comments that were steeped in racist conspiracy theories.

This week, a producer behind the series “The Shop: Uninterrupted” with NBA superstar LeBron James said they were pulling an episode that would have featured West, saying he used the platform to “reiterate more hate speech and extremely dangerous stereotypes”.

He unceremoniously scrapped his partnership with Gap, and German sportswear giant Adidas said it was reconsidering their collaboration that’s been dogged by tensions.

These are only the latest shock-value moves from the rapper who has long fed media cycles with provocation.

Earlier this year, West was banned from posting on Instagram for 24 hours after violating the social network’s harassment policy amid his acrimonious divorce from reality star Kim Kardashian, with whom he has four children.

While in the past some analysts have allowed West benefit of the doubt due to his mental illness, the consensus this time around has emphasised that psychiatric episodes are not an excuse for bigoted behaviour.

In the opinion pages of The New York Times, columnist Charles Blow dubbed the artist “a brooding, narcissistic attention addict and praise junkie”.

“He attends his torture. He curates and employs it. Some of it may come naturally, but some is manufactured, to enlarge the legend.”

WASHINGTON — Women who frequently use chemical hair straightening products could face more than twice the risk of uterine cancer compared to those who never use them, according to a new study published on Monday.

The findings, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, have particular relevance for Black women, who make up a majority of users of straightening products in the United States. 

Scientists lauded the work, calling for action even though more work is required to confirm the conclusions, in what is an understudied area of research.

Lead author Alexandra White, a cancer epidemiologist with the National Institutes of Health led the study, told AFP it grew out of her previous research that found a link between permanent hair dye and straighteners and breast and ovarian cancers.

“We know that these straighteners contain many different chemicals, including endocrine disruptors, and we would expect them to have adverse health effects for hormone sensitive cancers,” she said. 

“That led us to extend our previous work, just focusing on uterine cancer.”

Uterine cancer accounts for three per cent of all new cancers but is the most common cancer of the female reproductive system, with more than 65,000 new cases and 12,500 deaths are expected in 2022.

The outlook is generally good if the cancer is caught early, but treatment often involves removing the uterus, which would preclude child-bearing.

The new paper relied on data from more than 33,000 US women aged 35-74 who took part in the Sister Study, which is led by the government and designed to identify risk factors for cancer and other conditions.

Over the course of 11 years, 378 women developed uterine cancer, which primarily affects tissue lining the uterus called endometrium. Type 1, the most common form of the cancer, is thought to be linked to having too much of the sex hormone oestrogen.

Women who reported using hair straightening products in the past year were almost twice as likely to develop uterine cancer compared to women that never used them, the researchers found.

The link was stronger still for frequent users — defined as more than four uses in the past 12 months. These women had around 2.5 times the risk of developing the cancer compared to women who never used the products.

No similar associations were found for other hair products including dyes, bleach, highlights, or perms.

Brazilian blowouts

“The concern is that there are chemicals in these products that act essentially like oestrogen in the body,” said White, disrupting normal hormonal processes that could influence cancer risk.

A second possibility is that some products include carcinogens, such as formaldehyde, to break the bonds between keratin proteins in hair, which changes its structure and makes it straight.

Though the study did not specifically ask women what products they used, a particular keratin treatment known as “Brazilian blowouts” was popular at the time the women were enrolled for this study, between 2003 and 2009, though its use has decreased since.

White said one of the strengths of the study was that it asked women about the products years before they actually went on to develop cancer, which limits the possibility of people misremembering or wrongly attribute their exposures.

But a key limitation was they weren’t able to collect information on the types of straighteners used or specific brands, which would have further strengthened evidence.

White said more lab work should be done to study the proposed ways the chemicals cause cancer, as well as more population studies that recruit racially diverse populations and capture information on brands.

A related commentary in the journal acknowledged some shortcomings, but said the study added to a “growing body of evidence” that “hair-straightening products are associated with hormone-related cancers in women”, and called for evidence-driven policy changes.

It added that the personal care product industry upheld Eurocentric “racialised standards of beauty” and persistently failed to conform to being transparent about chemical constituents and formulations.

A more modern and luxuriously well-appointed take on the enormous full-size American SUV segment, the third generation Ford Expedition may well be a more sophisticated beast than its predecessors, but is no less powerful, rugged or comfortable.

Inheriting the same twin-turbo 3.5-litre V6 engine that was first introduced late in its immediate predecessor’s lifecycle, the new Expedition also gains a slick and efficient 10-speed automatic gearbox, lower weight aluminium-intensive construction, and more advanced convenience, comfort, infotainment, safety and driver-assistance systems.

Hulking and hunkered

Decisively old school in its size, confident performance, cabin volume, and angularly upright and high riding proportions, the Expedition, however, receives more modern aesthetic details, including its grille design and lighting elements. In terms of broad design strokes, the current Expedition adopts a higher bonnet line and slightly descending, and seemingly lower, roofline, in place of its predecessor’s more urgent design. With its lower bonnet flanks and level roofline, the old Expedition instead sat with greater visual rear heft.

Emanating a greater sense of athletic tension, the old Expedition also featured a bigger – and now less fashionable – glasshouse, for better visibility and an airier interior ambiance. The current model, however, features a higher waistline for a more hunkered down and insulated feel, and employs more sophisticated driver assistance systems, in lieu or its predecessor’s better road views. That said, the newer model is, nevertheless, an improvement in almost every other way, including its higher degree of refinement and interior appointment.

Responsive and vigorous

Positioned under its muscularly sculpted bonnet and enormous chrome grille, the Expedition’s mighty twin-turbo V6 Ecoboost engine well fills in for the big brawny and naturally-aspirated V8 engines employed by rivals and predecessors. A fondly familiar engine, the Expedition’s Ecoboost sees 25BHP and 9lb/ft bumps in application for the luxuriously top of the range Platinum specification model. As such, it produces 400BHP by just 5,000rpm and 479lb/ft at 3,500rpm, of which much is available from low down and across its rev range. 

Quick spooling and responsive from low-end, the Expedition’s Ecoboost suffers scant little of the lag often associated with turbocharged engines. Swiftly launching the Expedition Platinum’s behemoth-like 2,550kg mass from standstill to 100km/h in approximately 6-seconds, its engine delivers effortlessly confident mid-range, on the move versatility for overtaking and inclines, and builds towards peak power with indefatigable vigour. The Expedition’s smooth and intuitively-shifting 10-speed automatic gearbox’s closely spaced yet wide-ranging ratios meanwhile helps facilitate brisk acceleration, flexibility and efficient — and quiet — motorway cruising.

Heavy-duty comfort

Putting its abundant output down to the road through all four wheels, the Expedition delivers sure-footed road-holding and confident grip, while its rear electronic limited-slip differential works to both improve cornering agility, and on- and off-road traction over loose surfaces. Though large, heavy and comfort-oriented, the Expedition still delivers good off-road potential with its generous 249mm ground clearance facilitating improved off-road angles. Capable of towing up to 4,218kg, the Expedition, meanwhile, accommodates between 591- to 2961-litre of luggage, depending on seat configuration.

Inheriting a sophisticated and space-saving independent rear suspension design from its predecessor, along with adaptive air dampers, the Expedition rides with a greater degree of refined comfort and settled stability than SUVs with a live-axle and leaf-spring set-up. Featuring double wishbone suspension at the front, and well-weighted steering assistance, the Expedition handles with better control and accuracy than expected for its size and weight. Comfortably absorbing bumps and potholes despite firm low profile 285/45R22 tyres, the Expedition was also confidently reassuring at speed.

Enormous and ergonomic

Large, comfortable, smooth riding and extensively well-equipped, the Expedition turns into corners in a tidier fashion than expected. Through corners, it is balanced and contains body lean well for its class. User-friendly and confident, it is also more manoeuvrable than anticipated, but not exactly nimble. Driver assistance features meanwhile include blind spot monitoring, lane keeping and parking assistance, and adaptive stop and go cruise control. With its big footprint, the Expedition also benefits from improved interior space, and comfortably accommodates eight passengers.

With improved space in every direction, but third row headroom, the Expedition’s lower floor, compact rear suspension and sliding middle row seats, nevertheless, allow for better pace for rearmost passengers that do live-axle competitors. With more elegant and user-friendly design and improved refinement, quality and materials, the Expedition’s cavernous cabin makes considerable improvements over its predecessor. Most luxurious in Platinum specification, it also features clear instrumentation, better ergonomics, more sophisticated and generous equipment levels, and a stylish — Jaguar-like — rotary gear selector.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 3.5-litre, all-aluminium, twin-turbocharged, in-line V6-cylinders

Bore x stroke: 92.5 x 86.7mm

Compression ratio: 10:1

Valve-train: 24-valve, DOHC, variable valve timing, direct injection

Gearbox: 10-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Ratios: 1st 4.696; 2nd 2.985; 3rd 2.146; 4th 1.769; 5th 1.52; 6th 1.275; 7th 1.0; 8th 0.854; 9th 0.689; 10th 0.636

Reverse/final drive: 4.866/3.31

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 400 (405) [298] @5,000rpm

Specific power: 114.4BHP/litre

Power-to-weight: 156.8BHP/ton

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 479 (650) @3,500rpm

Specific torque: 185.9Nm/litre

Torque-to-weight: 254.9Nm/ton

0-100km/h: under 6-seconds (estimate)

Minimum fuel requirement: 91RON

Track, F/R: 1,717/1,706mm 

Wheelbase: 3,111.5mm

Overhang, F/R; 970/1,252mm

Ground clearance: 249mm

Approach/break-over/departure angles: 23.3°/21.4°/21.9°

Seating: 8

Luggage volume, behind 1st/2nd/3rd row: 2961-/1800-/591-litres

Fuel capacity: 89-litres

Kerb weight: 2,550kg

Towing maximum, standard/optional: 2993kg/4218kg

Steering: Electric-assisted rack & pinion

Suspension, F/R: Double wishbones/multi-link, anti-roll bars, optional adaptive dampers

Tyres: 285/45R22

According to Jordan’s National Institute of Forensic Medicine, about 600 people attempted suicide in Jordan in 2021. It isn’t easy to imagine what leads a person to contemplate ending their life. In many cases, suicide can be prevented. Learn the risk factors and warning signs.

What can influence a person’s decision to end their life

•Depression and mood disorders: People with depression may report feeling like they’ve lost the ability to imagine a happy future or remember a happy past. Emotional pain can become unbearable. And death seems like the only way to stop it. Death is not their goal, however; ending the pain is 

•Trauma- and stressor-related disorders: This occurs when an individual has difficulty coping with or adjusting to a recent stressor; these events are significant enough to pose a real or imagined threat. A person can feel stuck in the event, It’s not unusual for some people to experience suicidal thoughts. Being surrounded by reminders and flashbacks can take its toll, though. Sometimes, fear and anxiety may feel overwhelming 

•Substance use: Alcohol and drug abuse are second to depression as the most frequent risk factors for suicidal thoughts and attempts. The risks increase if substance use co-occurs with mood disorders or trauma, turning to drugs or alcohol as coping mechanisms. Drugs and alcohol can influence a person who is feeling suicidal, making them more impulsive and likely to act upon their urges than they would be while sober

•Chronic pain and illness: It is common to fall into a bad mental state when dealing with severe physical pain daily. Chronic pain can also lead to disruption in a person’s life, such as unemployment, isolation and sleep disturbances which can contribute to suicidal thoughts or attempts 

•A cry for help: Suicide attempts are not a cry for attention but a cry for help. It is a way to demonstrate to the world just how much a person is hurting. Sadly, these cries for help may end a person’s life if they misjudge the lethality of the suicide tool. Unfortunately, even though suicide is among the leading causes of death, people still fear asking for help or seeking professional treatment due to the stigma toward suicide, especially in Arab societies.

Global stats

•One million people die from suicide each year, according to the World Health Organisation

•Suicide is among the top 20 leading causes of death worldwide, with more deaths due to suicide than to malaria, breast cancer or war and homicide.

How to help someone at risk of suicide

•Paying attention to warning signs of suicide. Most suicidal individuals give warning signs or signals of their intentions. These warning signs include talking about suicide, seeking lethal means, preoccupation with death, feeling helpless, self-loathing, self-hatred, getting affairs in order, saying goodbye, withdrawing from others, self-destructive behaviours and a sudden sense of calm

•Offering help and support: The best way to help a friend or family member is by providing an attentive, empathetic listening ear. Let them know that they’re not alone and that you care

•Getting professional help: Do your best to make sure that they receive professional help

•Following up on treatment, such as ensuring they attend their psychotherapy sessions and take their medications if prescribed by a psychiatrist

•Removing potential means of suicide, such as pills, knives, razors or firearms. If the person is likely to take an overdose, keep medications locked away or administer only as needed

•Continuing your support, even if the suicidal crisis has passed, keep checking on your loved one. Someone can suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts without you knowing. Even if it appears like they have everything to live for, it probably doesn’t feel that way to them. So always remember to be supportive and kind to your loved ones. 

By Sara Mahdawi
Clinical Psychologist 
Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

NEW YORK — Years before Manhattan’s Upper West Side became home to arias and pirouettes, it housed San Juan Hill, a bustling neighbourhood and thriving arts nexus where clubs and dance halls were hatching new musical forms.

But the district was destroyed in the mid-20th century to make way for the shiny new arts complex Lincoln Centre. Now, as the New York Philharmonic prepares to debut its long-planned new performance space there this weekend, the institution is reckoning with its unsavoury beginnings, opening with the commissioned piece “San Juan Hill: A New York Story”.

It was in the San Juan Hill neighbourhood that stride piano innovator James P. Johnson composed the wildly popular “Charleston” dance at the Jungle Cafe club, and jazz piano legend Thelonious Monk — credited with developing bebop — grew up.

But in 1947, New York’s notorious urban planner Robert Moses declared the area — home to thousands of Black and Puerto Rican families, and hundreds of small businesses — a slum district, clearing the way to raze it as part of his grand “urban renewal” campaign that controversially transformed the city.

“What happens to the neighbourhood is what happens to lots of other neighbourhoods — that it sort of stands in the way of some future vision of the city,” said historian Julia Foulkes.

She collaborated with composer and trumpeter Etienne Charles as he created the Philharmonic’s new piece, which places his group Creole Soul in conversation with the symphony.

By mid-century, 18 city blocks had been leveled and thousands of people displaced, as the project to construct the arts campus that would come to house the Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, New York City Ballet and the Juilliard conservatory got under way.

“What’s lost is not only specific blocks and residences, but actually the tenor of a whole area,” said Foulkes, a professor at The New School.

Along with musical elements including ragtime, jazz, calypso, funk and hip hop, Charles’s multimedia work features spoken word, visual projections and first-person accounts of San Juan Hill that document the neighbourhood’s history and pay homage to the music and culture brought to the city by migrants from the south and the Caribbean.

Charles, who is originally from Trinidad and Tobago and studied himself at Juilliard, told AFP he hopes the project will shed light on the mere fact that the neighbourhood — now wiped off the map — existed.

“We have to start valuing people for more than just where they live and the quality of the property that they have, and start looking at their culture and their lineage and their heritage and their history that they are building,” he said.

“It’s always about knowing who was there, and understanding what your relationship to that is.”

Inclusivity

Shanta Thake, the chief artistic officer at Lincoln Centre, said that the commission is part of a broader conversation at the institution, “thinking through what it means to be a civic space, and what it means to hold the city’s stories — and what it also means to have interrupted the city’s stories”.

“For a long time there was a prevailing narrative of ‘Lincoln Centre is the best thing that could have ever happened to this neighbourhood,’” she continued, saying that pieces like Charles’s allow for “really peeling that apart”.

The composer’s piece is the crown jewel of a series of talks and workshops sponsored by the institution exploring culture, gentrification and community activism, Lincoln Centre said.

For years, companies at the complex have been battling criticisms that their offerings are geared toward primarily white, upper-class audiences.

Part of the gut renovation of David Geffen Hall, the Philharmonic’s home, was giving it more accessible airs, with a breezy lobby that opens to the plaza and a sidewalk studio for performances visible from the street.

And tickets to Charles’s show, which includes five movements from the orchestra and debuts October 8, were made available for a choose-what-you-pay fee starting at $5, with some distributed for free.

The composer, who has worked with Lincoln Centre before, said he thinks the complex has made efforts to “ensure that they are inclusive, not only for the audiences, but what they present musically — this piece is an example of that”.

Historian Foulkes recalled Charles telling her his aim was to compose music “that sounds like what if symphony and orchestras had not excluded all of the other music that had been occurring around them”.

“I think that is such a compelling image for where we need to be,” she said.

MUMBAI — India’s Bollywood film industry, long part of the cultural fabric of the movie-mad country of 1.4 billion people, is facing its biggest-ever crisis as streaming services and non-Hindi language rivals steal its sparkle.

The South Asian giant churns out on average around 1,600 films each year, more than any other country, traditionally headlined by glitzy Bollywood, with fans worshipping movie stars like gods and crowds thronging premieres.

But now cinemas have fallen quiet, even in Bollywood’s nerve centre of Mumbai, with box-office receipts plunging since Covid curbs were lifted.

“This is the worst crisis ever faced,” veteran Mumbai theatre owner Manoj Desai told AFP. Some screenings were cancelled as the “public was not there”.

The usually bankable megastar Akshay Kumar had three back-to-back films tank. Fellow A-lister Aamir Khan, the face of some of India’s most successful films, failed to entice audiences with the “Forrest Gump” remake “Laal Singh Chaddha”.

Of the more than 50 Bollywood films released in the past year — fewer than normal because of the pandemic — just one-fifth have met or surpassed revenue targets, said media analyst Karan Taurani of Elara Capital. Pre-pandemic it was 50 per cent.

In contrast, several Telugu-language aka Tollywood movies — a south Indian competitor to Hindi-language Bollywood — have soared to the top.

Embarrassingly, around half the box-office takings for Hindi-language films from January 2021 to August this year were dubbed southern offerings, said State Bank of India’s chief economic adviser Soumya Kanti Ghosh in a recent report.

“Bollywood, after decades of storytelling... seems to be at an inflection point unlike any other disruption it has faced before,” Ghosh wrote.

‘Out-of-touch’

Bollywood, like other movie industries, has been hurt by streaming’s rise, which started before the pandemic but took off when millions of Indians were forced indoors. 

Around half of India’s population has access to the internet and streaming services, including international players such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ Hotstar have 96 million subscriptions, according to a government estimate.

Some films released during the Covid shutdown went straight to these platforms, while others hit small screens just weeks after debuting in theatres.

With streaming monthly subscriptions lower or comparable to the cost of one ticket — 100-200 rupees ($1.20-$2.50) at single-screen cinemas and higher at multiplexes — price-sensitive audiences were avoiding theatres, analysts said.

Times have been so hard that INOX and PVR, two of India’s biggest multiplex operators, announced their merger in March to “create scale”.

Subscribers were meanwhile exposed to local and global streaming content, including southern Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada-language films that already had legions of devoted local fans.

“Regional cinema was not travelling beyond its borders. But now suddenly everyone was watching Malayalam cinema or Maharashtrian cinema and then you realise that... there are filmmakers who are telling more interesting stories,” film critic Raja Sen said.

“Then they see a Hindi blockbuster coming out with a star which is just like a rethread of a story they’ve heard a million times, then they’re not so impressed anymore.”

Critics also accused Bollywood of making niche or elitist films that do not resonate in a country where 70 per cent of the population lives outside cities.

Aamir Khan admitted during media interviews for “Laal Singh Chaddha” that Hindi filmmakers’ “choice of what is relevant to them is perhaps not so relevant to a larger audience”.

At the same time, Tollywood mega-smash hits “Pushpa: The Rise” and “RRR” highlighted the heroics of common people while treating audiences to larger-than-life visual spectacles with catchy song-and-dance routines.

Such formulas have long been a Bollywood mainstay but film critics say the southern challengers were doing it bigger and better.

“To get people to cinemas we need to create an experience for storytelling that cannot be replicated at home,” multi-theatre operator and trade analyst Akshaye Rathi said.

“What we need to do is respect their time, money and effort. And whenever we do that, for a particular movie, they come out in big numbers.”

Wake-up call

Ensuring box-office success by having a star as your protagonist was now no longer guaranteed, said Taurani, who described Bollywood’s recent struggles as “alarming”.

“I think audiences obviously want the star, but the audience wants the star to feature in a film which has got compelling content,” he added.

Kumar — nicknamed a “one-man industry” for being so prolific — said he was going back to the drawing board.

“If my films are not working, it is our fault, it is my fault. I have to make the changes, I have to understand what the audience wants,” the Indian Express reported Kumar as saying in August.

Boycott

Adding to Bollywood’s woes have been repeated social media campaigns against certain films by Hindu right-wingers, including the “Forrest Gump” remake.

Most recently, there were calls for new release “Brahmastra” to be boycotted over star Ranbir Kapoor’s beef-eating comments some years ago. Cows are considered sacred by Hindus.

But while creating unwelcome noise, analysts say there appeared to be no material impact on box-office returns. “Brahmastra” has in fact done well.

The real issue, movie-goers told AFP outside one cinema in Mumbai, was that many Bollywood films were simply not good enough.

“The story should be good [and] the content should be good, so that people want to watch,” said student Preeti Sawant, 22.

“So that’s why people are not coming to watch movies.”

PARIS — Research about what is healthy comes so thick and fast — red meat can appear good for you one week, stroke-inducing the next — that a confused public often struggles to keep up.

But a massive new review published on Monday aims to look beyond the latest study by evaluating the available evidence on a range of health topics and giving it a star rating.

The US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which has become a global reference for health statistics, analysed the existing research in 180 areas to find out how much a particular risk factor, such as smoking, is linked to a health outcome, such as lung cancer.

The connection between smoking and lung cancer was given the highest five-star rating, as was the link between high blood pressure and heart disease, which means that the evidence is solid and unlikely to change in the future.

However, nearly two thirds of the risk-outcome relationships received only one or two stars, suggesting that the proof for a lot of widely believed health advice is weaker than might have been thought.

For example, evidence for a connection between eating a lot of unprocessed red meat and having a stroke was given just one star, meaning there was “no evidence of an association”, the study said.

The links between red meat and colon cancer, breast cancer, ischaemic heart disease and diabetes were all given two stars.

Christopher Murray, IHME director and a senior author of several of the “Burden of Proof” studies published in the journal Nature Medicine, said he was “very surprised at how many of the diet risk-outcome relationships are relatively weak”.

Murray told a press conference that the meta-analysis was prompted by concern that “everyone follows the latest published study”, even though the results often “swing from one end to the other”.

The researchers looked at the existing research on the subjects, crunched the numbers to find consistency, then asked “what is the most conservative interpretation of the evidence?” Murray said.

What about vegetables?

The researchers investigated how eating more vegetables affected a range of health outcomes, looking at 50 studies encompassing 4.6 million participants across 34 countries.

Increasing the amount of vegetables people eat from zero to four a day led to a 23 per cent decline in the risk of ischaemic stroke, with the connection getting three stars, IHME epidemiologist and study co-author Jeffrey Stanaway said.

The link between eating vegetables and type two diabetes received only one star.

But “even under the most conservative interpretation of the evidence, vegetable consumption is significantly associated with reduced chronic disease risk”, Stanaway said.

Experts not involved in the research called it interesting, but warned against over simplification.

Kevin McConway, a statistician at the UK’s Open University, worried that “a great deal is inevitably lost” when complex studies were boiled down to a star rating.

Duane Mellor, a dietician at the UK’s Aston University, said the red meat research was “not that surprising” because it focused on unprocessed products.

“Typically it is intake of processed red meat, such as bacon and sausages, which have been associated with a higher risk of disease, which these papers did not report on,” he said.

The IHME said it plans to update its findings as new research comes in, hoping the new tool will guide the choices of the public and policymakers. 

It will also soon release findings about other health relationships including those involving alcohol, air pollution and further dietary factors.

SAN FRANCISCO/PARIS — It’s not all sunsets and selfie smiles — people are flocking to a new social network app that calls on users to share true glimpses of their lives rather than cherry-picked moments.

Once a day, BeReal simultaneously prompts users to take photos of what they are doing, giving them two minutes. The app uses front and rear facing cameras on phones, putting shared “selfies” into context.

The app shuns software filters that add glossy special effects or touch-up effects.

The approach is a sharp contrast to the carefully cultivated images common on Instagram and Facebook that often focus on parties, holidays, fancy food and perfect weather.

“The ideal of BeReal is you are just in a moment — where are you and what are you doing right now,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University school of information studies in the United States.

“Our lived lives, not our best lives — maybe you are walking the dog or in your pajamas eating cereal.”

Launched two years ago by French entrepreneurs, BeReal has seen its popularity surge in recent months.

It was the most downloaded app in the United States at start of September, and ranked among the top three in Britain and France, according to figures provided by market tracker Data.ai.

BeReal has been downloaded nearly 35 million times worldwide and is proving popular with Gen Z, people born between the late 1990s and about 2010, Data.ai figures showed.

“It does seem to have really taken off as the next potential social media application,” Stromer-Galley said of BeReal, though cautioning that the same was once said for ephemeral photo sharing app Snapchat.

BeReal creator Alexis Barreyat was at a mountain bike event when it struck him how social media users focused more on perfecting content than what was happening around them, according to venture capitalist Jean de La Rochebrochard, who invested in the startup.

“While he was in the moment, he was surprised to see so many influencers busy staging their life with multiples shots, stories, trying out dozens of filters while completely missing the show,” the investor wrote in a blog.

“It was even making some of them and their audience miserable.”

Done with perfect

BeReal’s rise in popularity signals that people are tired of polished online images that don’t reflect actual life, Creative Strategies tech analyst Carolina Milanesi told AFP.

“I think the younger generation is done with fake and perfect, because life isn’t,” Milanesi said.

“Gen Z seems a bit of a sweet spot; the fact they want to be who they are and they want to be portraying how real life is and how they navigate through it.”

One BeReal user posted a playful video of her scrambling about her home in a frenzy to stage a flattering photo with just two minutes to get ready. Another lamented on Twitter about a friend abruptly ending a phone call to take a selfie after getting a BeReal alert.

“The app is called BeReal NOT wait until I think I look cute enough to post,” read a tweet by the account of @garrett_parker1.

It remains to be seen whether BeReal’s popularity will endure.

“It is not quite clear what there is to stick around for after you get the voyeurism of seeing other people’s lived experiences,” Stromer-Galley said.

BeReal’s use of front and back smartphone cameras also raises questions of privacy and risk of stalkers or hackers.

“Let’s say the back camera shows a friend or your children or where you live — or your desk or computer screen at work,” Stromer-Galley said.

LinkIn profiles show that BeReal, which has not been granting media interviews, was founded by Barreyat and Kevin Perreau, and has 126 employees.

Instagram told AFP it has worked internally on a BeReal-like prototype feature but is not testing it.

Introduced in 2018, the second generation Nissan Leaf is a more powerful, more economical and more conventionally styled successor to the car that arguably most popularised the EV. If not as fashionable as Tesla’s pricey luxury electric cars, the first generation Leaf’s achievement was in being an attainably down-to-earth and practical daily drive EV. In doing so, it clocked up 283,000 sales during 2010-2018. Meanwhile, the second generation Leaf still holds up well, even as the compact family EV segment expands with new entrants.

Second time style

Becoming the world’s best selling EV, despite its snouty front and bulging headlight style, the first generation Leaf’s quirky design, however, gives way to an unequivocally better looking machine, that is the current generation model. Seemingly looking to broaden the Leaf’s appeal beyond the EV faithful, the handsome second generation Leaf adopts a more conventional, but more aesthetically appealing style. With a sleeker silhouette, more muscular body surfacing, boomerang-like rear lights, tailgate spoiler and rakish hatch angle, the new Leaf has distinctly sportier stance than its predecessor.

Undoubtedly better looking, with its more dramatic heavily browed horizontal headlights and modern V-motion corporate grille design, the second generation Leaf is, meanwhile, powered by an improved version of its predecessor’s electric motor, under its ridged bonnet. Driving the front wheels through a single-speed automatic gearbox, the second generation Leaf also features 40kWh lithium-ion battery pack, rather than 30kWh, and gains 40BHP and 16lb/ft torque. Producing 147BHP at 3283-9795rpm and 236lb/ft throughout a broad and versatile 0-3283rpm band, the Leaf unleashes its full torque with muscular immediacy.

Confident climber

With brief front wheel squeal as pedal slams metal from standstill, the Leaf is reasonably quick through 0-100km/h in 7.9-seconds. Its generous electric motor torque, meanwhile, lends itself to flexible on the move acceleration at low and medium speeds. However, with a single speed automatic transmission, the Leaf’s acceleration rate drops at higher speeds, and limits top speed to just 144km/h. Confident and seamlessly smooth through sustained and sporty hillclimb driving, the Leaf’s claimed 270km combined single charge range, however, noticeably drops under such demanding conditions.

Less efficient at speed or on inclines, the Leaf — like most EVs — is better suited for slower stop and go city driving, in contrast to combustion engine cars. Anecdotally, it proved quite efficient when driven gently on country lanes and highway. Meanwhile, 21-hour domestic electric supply charging time is unequivocally inconvenient, but is more manageably reduced to 7.5-hours using a dedicated wall charger. Non-domestic high capacity top-up charging meanwhile takes 40-60 minutes from warning light to 80 per cent, where available. Far better, this, however, cannot compete with conveniently quick petrol fill-ups.

Settled and smooth

Topping up power by scavenging kinetic energy when driving, the Leaf’s regenerative braking system features different resistance levels, including more natural light resistance and more efficient but un-intuitively heavy off-accelerator resistance. The accelerator pedal also features an E-pedal mode, where acceleration and regenerative control are modulated from the same pedal. Not immediately intuitive, the E-pedal takes some getting used to, but for sudden hard or effective emergency braking, the conventional brakes remain necessary. The leaf’s electric steering is, meanwhile, light and accurate, but with less road feel than hydraulic-assistance.

Heavier than combustion engine competitors, the 1,580kg Leaf’s heavy battery pack is positioned under the cabin floor for better weighting and a lower centre of gravity to improve agility and reduce cornering body roll. Stable and settled on highway and in town, the Leaf drives with a noticeable lower weight concentration through corners, but with front-biased weighting, is still slightly susceptible to mild under-steer when pushed too hard into tight corners. That said, its selective braking Trace Control torque vectoring system reduces this tendency and enhances agility.

Quiet comfort

Comfortably smooth riding, the Leaf is forgiving over most road imperfection, but can feel slightly firm over jagged or sudden bumps and cracks. Well-insulated for vibration and harshness, it is quiet inside, with little driveline noise bar a distant electric motor whine, which lends a modicum of the visceral connection often absent from many EVs. Inside, the Leaf has a somewhat premium ambiance, with good quality fit, finish and materials and well-presented controls, Its flat-bottom steering wheel and pod-like gear selector meanwhile provide a hint of sportiness.

Reasonably well spaced inside for its segment and with good 435-litre luggage volume, the Leaf provides comfortable front seating. But with a large rearview mirror, and thick A-pillars and front-side pillars, taller driver tend to hunker down and lean around for long distance and front-side visibility. Similarly the Leaf’s under-floor batteries and descending roofline affect headroom for tall rear passengers. Generous standard and optional convenience, infotainment, safety and driver assistance features meanwhile include Intelligent Emergency Braking with Pedestrian Recognition, lane departure warning and intervention, blindspot warning, cross-traffic alert and six airbags.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: Front-mounted 80kW AC synchronous electric motor

Battery: 40kwh lithium-ion

Gearbox: 1-speed automatic, front-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 147 (150) [110] @3,283-9,795rpm

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 236 [320] @0-3,283rpm

0-100km/h: 7.9-seconds

Top speed: 144km/h

Range, city/combined: 415/270km*

Range, NEDC: 378km**

Battery charging time, domestic supply 10A domestic/32A, 7kW charger: 21-/7.5-hours***

Battery charging time, high capacity 50kW charger: 40-60 minutes****

Height: 1,540mm

Width: 1,788mm

Length: 4,490mm

Wheelbase: 2,700mm

Track, F/R: 1,530/1,545mm

Ground clearance: 150mm

Aerodynamic drag co-efficient: 0.28

Kerb weight: 1,580kg

Headroom, F/R: 1,046/947mm

Legroom, F/R: 1,069/850mm

Hip room, F/R: 1,313/1,270mm

Shoulder room, F/R: 1,379/1,333mm

Luggage volume: 435-liters

Steering: Speed sensitive, electric-assisted

Turning circle: 11-metres

Suspension, F/R: MacPherson struts/torsion bar, anti-roll bars

Brakes, F/R: Ventilated discs, regenerative braking

Tyres: 215/50R17

*Light Vehicles Test Procedure

**New European Driving Cycle

***From low battery alert to 100 per cent

**** From low battery alert to 80 per cent