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We’re less than a week away from the announcement of the nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards, and things are looking good for many front runners, but not so great for our chances for a diverse field of nominees. With women shut out of the Golden Globes and DGAs and the BAFTAs giving us a shockingly and completely white slate of nominees, it’s up to the Oscars to hopefully get some new, diverse blood in.

Let’s look at the big categories and who we think will, and should get nominations, and what that could mean.

Best Supporting Actress:

If there’s an award that already seems sewn up, it’s this one. Laura Dern, BAFTA, and SAG nominee and Golden Globe Winner feels all but anointed to be nominated, and to win, for her work in Marriage Story, which is fine. She’s great in the role but I still think Jennifer Lopez deserves it for Hustlers. Lopez is pretty certain to get a nomination (at least I hope she is), but the remainder of the field is anyone’s guess.

I think Scarlett Johansson might get in there for her work in JoJo Rabbit, and maybe SAG nominee and BAFTA double nominees Margot Robbie for either Bombshell or Once Upon a Tim in Hollywood … even if neither of those performances is particularly fantastic. Maybe Annette Benning for The Report or Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell, who both got Golden Globe noms, will sneak in.

But we’d love to see Zhao Shuzhen of The Farewell or Da’Vine Joy Randolph of Dolomite is My Name to get more diversity on the list and change things up and the odds say that might happen.

Best Supporting Actor:

This is another one that many feel is a forgone conclusion: It’s Brad Pitt’s year and he’ll be nominated and win not so much for his work in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but for being, well, Brad Pitt. Who will join him in the race? We’ll probably get a double Irishman bill with nods of Joe Pesci and Al Pacino, and Tom Hanks also seems like a shoo-in for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

But, ugh, this list though is even whiter than best supporting actress. Could we break the monotony and get Jamie Foxx in there for Just Mercy, as we saw with the SAG awards or even Song Kang Ho of Parasite? Taika Watiti for Jojo Rabbit? Or will it go to a fifth white guy, like Anthony Hopkins in The Two Popes?

Best Actress

Again, and sadly, it’s felt like this one has had a predictable frontrunner for a while in the “awards narratives” but there’s more room here for some upsets. Renee Zellweger will get nominated for Judy even though no one really saw it. And the initial shortlist looks to be an embarrassment of skinny blonde ladies: ScarJo for Marriage Story, Charlize Theron for Bombshell (even though no one is seeing the movie either) and, maybe most deservedly, Saoirse Ronan for Little Women.

But we hope the Oscars find a spot for Globe-winner Awkwafina for The Farewell rather than Charlize. Lupita Nyong’o of Us and Cynthia Erivo of Harriet were both nominated for the SAG best actress award so it’s totally possible to nominate more than one woman of color for an award!

Best Actor

This category is insanely stacked this year – which says a lot about the male-dominated stories Hollywood’s old guard was into and it’s kind of depressing. We’rel looking at for sure nominations for Joaquin Phoenix for Joker (sigh), Adam Driver for Marriage Story (yes!) and our old friend Leonardo DiCaprio for OUATIH (snore). Who could come in and shake this up? Well, Taron Eggerton’s great turn in Rocketman has momentum coming off his Globe win and SAG and BAFTA nominations … but the fifth SAG nominee was Christian Bale and do we really want an entirely white slate here? Or Johnathan Pryce like the BAFTAs?

No! Let’s hope Eddie Murphy gets on for Dolomite is my Name, Antonio Banderas for Pain and Glory. I’ll take either of those over Robert DiNiro again. Or maybe Adam Sandler will surprise us all with a nom for Uncut Gems.

Best Director

This is the category with the most potential to give us an incredibly infuriating set of nominees. We could very well end up with the following five: Quentin Tarantino for OUATIH, Martin Scorsese for The Irishman, Noah Baumbach for Marriage Story, Sam Mendes for 1917 and Todd Haynes for Joker and please god NO.

Let me live in the alternate, happier world where the list looks more like the Directors Guild nominees with spots for Bong Joon Ho for Parasite, Taika Waititi for Jojo Rabbit. Let’s get Greta Gerwig, Lulu Wang, Marielle Heller or Lorene Scafaria in! So many great films this year were directed by women and we will all be rightfully outraged if we don’t get at least one on the director nomination list.

Best Picture

This one is tricky because the new standard of up to ten nominees means that there’s the potential for a lot of surprises on this list—and a lot of foregone conclusions as well. Here’s what I think/hope we’ll see on the list: 1917, Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Parasite, Marriage Story, The Irishman, Little Women, Jojo Rabbit, and yes … Joker. There’s still room for or Knives Out or even Ford v. Ferrari to get on here, which both just scored Producers Guild nominations, but we’ll have to see how it works out. I hope The Farewell makes it on.

We’ll see what makes it on the list soon enough when the nominations are announced next Monday, January 13th. The Oscars themselves will air on ABC on Sunday, February 9th.

(Image: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences)

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With the dawning of a new decade, Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, the largest historic civil rights and urban advocacy organization, is fully aware of the myriad of formidable challenges facing African Americans – and the nation. However, he didn’t expect that America would be on the brink of another war just two days into 2020.

As the recipient of BLACK ENTERPRISE’s Xcel Awards at the 2019 Black Men Xcel Summit for redefining the civil rights for the 21st century, Morial shared his views with BE on that threat and a range of other issues, including the presidential election, voting rights, 2020 Census, entrepreneurship and race relations. A common thread through his responses; Urging African Americans to remain “woke and aware” – and when possible, take action.

The following is the excerpts from the interview:

BE: First, I want to start by gaining your impressions of the escalating tensions between the US and Iran.

People of the United States do not want another war. They do not want to fight these proxy wars over what is going on in the Middle East. And the challenge has been we are now almost 20 years into the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Our soldiers have been through two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight tours of duty. And we have spent trillions and trillions of dollars that could have been spent on critical infrastructure, invested in our schools, invested in the eradication of poverty.

Congress is going to have to put up a block on this. The Obama administration had sought a way forward with Iran, with a nuclear deal, which may have been controversial in some quarters but was designed to de-escalate tensions. The Trump administration has not articulated or advanced a strategy with respect to Iran and now has engaged with combative action, which is designed to create retaliatory measures. People need to resist now, and not be mulled and lulled like they were with the Iraq war.

2019 National Urban League Annual Press Conference July 2019 (Facebook/National Urban League)

The 2020 CENSUS AND VOTER PARTICIPATION

BE: As we look at other issues, what are NUL’s priorities for 2020?

The National Urban League’s priorities are one, making sure we do everything in our power so that the 2020 Census does not undercut anybody and the black community is fully counted because the ramifications of a low count will affect us for an entire decade.

The second thing we’ve got to do is ensure that everyone is registered, educated, motivated to vote in the fall, and combined with that, aggressively resist African American voter suppression. Whether it comes from state legislature, judicial decisions, Russian interference, we have to vocally and physically resist any voter suppression, and make sure that everyone votes in 2020.

To me, those are the Urban League’s two tasks. We are in discussions with the Congressional Black Caucus and the civil rights community so that those priorities are going to be the black community’s priorities.

BE: In terms of the Census, how do you ensure as many African Americans as possible are counted as well as understand its importance?

The US census Bureau was underfunded by the Trump Administration. We’ve aggressively advocated that Congress add additional money for the Census, and on three occasions, it has done that. [US Senate Minority Leader] Charles Schumer led an effort to ensure that they’d have additional [funding for] marketing and communications. The second thing we have done is continue The Census Black Roundtable with 50 to 60 African American civil rights groups and professional associations. What we’re doing is trying to mobilize everyone to make sure that all of us are talking, messaging and educating people that this census includes online and telephone options to fill out the form in addition to the paper form and door knocking folks are doing.

BE: Is part of the electoral thrust trying to get the Voting Rights Advancement Act passed through the Republican-controlled Senate and signed by the president?

That’s why we have to vote because the Senate may not be inclined to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act or may pass a watered-down version. We have to educate our community that that’s why we have to vote not only for president but for members of the United States Senate, members of the House, mayors, county commissioners, council members, officeholders across the board. We have got to understand that our power lies in the vote, and when we turned out in large numbers in large numbers in Louisiana and Kentucky [in 2019], it affected the outcomes of those huge elections.

(iStock/Steve Debenport)

“I WANT TO SEE A BLACK PERSON ON THE TICKET”

BE: Now that the field of Democratic presidential candidates is becoming less diverse, what impact will that development have on your messaging for voter registration and involvement? Is there a push to ensure as we go through the primary process and pick the nominee that you advocate for a diverse ticket? Are such factors important?

All of the above in the short run. Cory Booker remains in the running. And I’m hoping Deval Patrick will go on to do well. However, my personal voter feeling is that I want to see a black person on the ticket if the nominee is a white person. I want to see a black person in the No. 2 position. I don’t express an opinion right now as to who that might be. There are many qualified people who could play that role. The Democratic coalition has to reflect diversity.

BE: So how do you combat voter suppression at the polls?

Our role is going to be to publish a message that people need to resist voter suppression, and then we need to be well-educated about what the Russians did in 2016. They ran their own suppression campaign online talking about the black community, letting trolls pose as Black Lives Matter activists. We’ve got to be really woke and aware.

BE: The Trump Administration has revealed plans to alter the Community Reinvestment Act. How has NUL addressed these proposed changes?

So the Community Reinvestment Act is an economic civil rights law. It mandates that banks make loans and investments [as well as engage in] philanthropy within communities where their depositors are located. The proposed changes seek to de-emphasize mortgage lending to people of color with low and moderate incomes. The changes appear to allow banks to take credit for, for example, things that we understand to be gentrification. In other words, the investment in a luxury apartment complex that’s located in a distressed community reinvestment area.

Those are the concerns that we have. This is a complicated thing. We’re continuing to study it. We’re preparing a formal comment that we will have some time soon. We’ve got to be proactive in it. We’re going to propose advanced criticisms and recommend changes to the Community Reinvestment Act. But, people need to be highly aware that it was one of the tools that advanced, along with the affordable housing goals of Fannie Mae, an increase in black home ownership in the 1960s when it was 40% to the year of 2000 when it was 50%. Now, due to the Great Recession, It’s gone all the way back trending towards 40%. And black home ownership could plunge to the middle 30s.

(iStock/pixelfit)

WE NEED Large BLACK BUSINESSES TO SOLVE WEALTH GAP

BE: Shifting to wealth creation through entrepreneurship, how can we significantly grow black-owned businesses in 2020?

The paramount issue for black-owned businesses today is access to capital, and that problem has not been solved. I believe it is an issue for which we need presidential leadership that will make it a priority and use the tools of the federal government to leverage the private sector. I mean there is a lot more risked capital out there interested in supporting African American businesses but the focus is still paltry and low.

I don’t think we have the right mechanism. We need new approaches. I think one approach would be to take [Minority Business Development Agency], elevate it, make its leader an assistant secretary of Commerce and increase its funding. MBDA has been historically underfunded for 20 years.

We cannot solve the racial wealth gap unless we try to build black businesses of scale in the United States. I had an extremely aggressive strategy when I was Mayor in New Orleans related to African American Businesses. I probably created 20 to 25 black millionaires. Some of these folks are still in business today. Several of them took one opportunity in New Orleans and built it into businesses that are doing business all over the country. You need leadership from the top that says black business growth and development is in the best interest of the economy.

BE: From your vantage point, where does the nation stand in terms of race relations today?

I am deeply concerned about the direction of race relations in this country and the rise of white nationalism. That’s the premise as a philosophy and an ideology, and we all have to resist it with our voices. We have to join others because hate crimes are on the rise, racial incidents, religious bigotry is on the rise in this country and it is absolutely unacceptable. When it’s anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT, anti-black anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, its fruit of the same wicked, poisonous tree. Whether it’s the NYPD or the FBI, they have to treat hate crimes for what they are and not just conduct investigations, but do arrests and prosecutions. When the public sees people taking a perps walk because they’ve been charged with hate crimes, I think that the message is going to be much stronger. So we will continue to work with black, brown, Muslims, Jewish, Latino colleagues. We will continue to stand up. We will continue to speak out.

One of the many wild boars roaming the Fukushima evacuation zone (via University of Georgia)

Nearly a decade after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, wildlife populations are thriving in areas of the prefecture uninhabited by humans.

A camera study by the University of Georgia collected more than 267,000 photos and recorded 20-plus species in various parts of the landscape.

The findings—including wild boar, Japanese hare, macaques, pheasant, fox and its relative the racoon dog—were published Monday in the Journal of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

Scientists and laypeople alike are understandably curious about the status of flora and fauna after a nuclear accident like those in Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Well, thanks to a similar camera study in Ukraine last year, UGA has some answers.

“Our results represent the first evidence that numerous species of wildlife are now abundant throughout the Fukushima Evacuation Zone, despite the presence of radiological contamination,” according to UGA wildlife biologist James Beasley, an associate professor at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.

The team identified three research zones, as previously established by the Japanese government after the 2011 accident:

• Highest level of contamination—humans excluded
• Intermediate level of contamination—humans restricted
• Very low (“background” levels of contamination—humans inhabited

For 120 days, cameras captured 46,000-plus images of wild boar from 106 sites.

The creatures, often in conflict with humans, were most frequently photographed in empty areas of Fukushima: More than 26,000 snapshots of the swine came from the uninhabited zone (versus 20,000 in total between the restricted and inhabited regions).

Other species such as racoons, Japanese marten, and monkeys were also seen in higher numbers in the uninhabited and restricted regions.

“This research makes an important contribution because it examines radiological impacts to populations of wildlife, whereas most previous studies have looked for effects to individual animals,” Thomas Hinton, a professor at the Institute of Environmental Radioactivity at Fukushima University, said.

Taking into consideration other variables (distance to road, time of activity [based on cameras’ date/time stamps], vegetation, etc.), the team found that extent of human activity, elevation, and habitat type—not radiation levels—were primary factors in population growth.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident—the most severe since 1986’s Chernobyl disaster—was started by the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

Radiation released into the atmosphere forced some 154,000 residents to leave nearby communities and created a 20-kilometer (12.5-mile) evacuation zone around the Fukushima plant.

An ongoing intensive cleanup program to decontaminate affected areas and decommission the plant is estimated to take up to 40 years.

More on Geek.com:

• New Snake-Like Bot to Probe Innards of Fukushima Reactor
• Chernobyl Vodka Made in Exclusion Zone Coming Soon
• Google AI Lets Anyone Track Global Wildlife

Comedian George Lopez has responded to Iran’s call to assassinate President Donald J. Trump by saying “We’ll do it for half”.

The 58-year-old comic has now come under fire about the Instagram post about the purported bounty on the President’s head.  The bounty all stems from the recent killing of the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani who was targeted by a U.S. airstrike this past Friday.

A eulogist during the Iranian general’s funeral reportedly told the crowd that if each of the country’s 80 million citizens contributed $1 there could be an $80 million-dollar reward for “anyone who brings us [Trump’s] head”

Republican and Conservative commentator’s have been decrying the remarks by the comedian asking that the secret service look into the social post.

“Sick: George Lopez just publicly said he would kill the President of the United States for 40 million dollars,” wrote Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Twitter. “Why are Hollywood leftists obsessed with killing the president? Hey, @SecretService—this might be worth looking into.”

Kathy Griffin, a celebrity-comedian, that once posed with a picture of a fake severed Trump head responded to the criticism of Lopez an defended him

“Calm down Trump cult!” Griffin wrote. “[Lopez] is a professional comedian and…OH F*** OFF. THIS JOKE IS HILARIOUS & you all know it.”

Trump ordered the drone strike on Soleimani after saying the U.S. had “very major” and credible intelligence that he was planning to kill American’s residents abroad. Soleimani was in charge of the Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps that specialized in unconventional warfare and military intelligence operations.

“For years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its ruthless Quds Force under Soleimani’s leadership has targeted, injured and murdered hundreds of American civilians and servicemen,” Trump said, citing recent attacks in Iraq, including “rocket strikes that killed an American and injured four American servicemen very badly, as well as a violent assault on our embassy in Baghdad.”