Tiffany Commits To Sourcing Transparency For Diamonds .18 Carats and Larger

Tiffany & Co appears on AOC frequently, given their significant contributions to wildlife conservation, frequently working with superhuman Doutzen Kroes. Tiffany & Co understands that younger customers have different values from their parents and grandparents, when the topic is inclusivity and responding to our global climate crisis. These younger customers are also concerned about the sourcing of their products in an industry known for some heartless business practices around the world.

The Fifth Avenue jeweler has now committed to full transparency around the origins and ultimately the journey from mining to a sale at Tiffany & Co of all of its diamonds (0.18 and larger.

The diamond’s provenance will be listed directly next to the stone in stores, and a unique serial number, invisible to the naked eye, will be laser-etched on the gem’s surface. By 2020, the jewelry house vows to share the entire craftsmanship journey of each diamond, including cutting and polishing workshops in addition to the mine’s location.

The Fifth Avenue jeweler has now committed to full transparency around the origins and ultimately the journey from mining to a sale at Tiffany & Co of all of its diamonds (0.18 and larger.)

“Through transparency in sourcing and craftsmanship, we hope that people will further understand the important journey of a Tiffany diamond, and its positive impacts around the world,” said Anisa Kamadoli Costa, chief sustainability officer at Tiffany & Co.

Rising Ballet Star Precious Adams Pushes Racial Boundaries With Rigorous Talent + Eloquence

Rising Ballet Star Precious Adams Pushes Racial Boundaries With Rigorous Talent + Eloquence

NOWNESS introduces us to English National Ballet rising star Precious Adams, appearing in a short film by Irish director Leonn Ward. Her film affords the Canton, Michigan-born Adams the visual and audio platform for a “youthful take on the rule-bound etiquette of ballet.”

"When Nowness and the English National Ballet approached me asking if I would like to create a film with Precious Adams, one of the few black rising stars in the world of ballet, I was honoured," explains Ward. "I wanted to create a piece of work that pushes beyond the traditional limitations of ballet. I loved that Precious was a tap dancer before she went onto ballet, so I really wanted to incorporate that into the film and sound. I wanted the film to feel real and honest and reveal Precious in her truest form."

Nancy Pelosi Victorious – Why The California Democrat Was Reelected Speaker of the House

Nancy Pelosi Ready to Be Sworn In Again As Speaker of the House, Jan. 3, 2019

Nancy Pelosi Victorious – Why The California Democrat Was Reelected Speaker of the House

By Kathryn L. Pearson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota . First published on The Conversation.

Despite some brash and not insignificant opposition, California’s Nancy Pelosi is returning to her previous role as speaker of the House.

She will preside over a chamber that is 77 percent male and a Democratic Caucus that is 62 percent male.

When the Democratic Caucus held their leadership election on Nov. 28, Pelosi won the nomination on a 203 to 32 vote, falling 15 votes shy of the 218 she would later need to win the speakership with all members voting.

When a vote was taken on the House floor on Jan. 3, she won by a vote of 220 to 192, with 15 Democrats voting for someone else or voting “present.” The close vote illustrated, once again, Pelosi’s skill in coalition-building and counting votes, but also that some Democrats – particularly new members and those in swing districts – are dissatisfied with her as the party’s standard bearer.

As a political scientist who focuses on gender and party discipline in the House of Representatives, I have studied Pelosi’s leadership and how she was able to hold it for so long.

It’s important to realize that Pelosi’s battle to win over wavering Democrats didn’t begin in November 2018. Rather, it stretches back to when she was first elected to leadership in 2001. Her ongoing ability to rally members of her own party illustrates why she has been among the most successful U.S. House speakers. It also suggests her leadership will help Democrats in Congress as they negotiate with President Trump and Senate Republicans, even if Pelosi remains unpopular in some Democratic members’ districts.

Rising to power

Samar Badawi + Brother Raif Badawi Remain In Saudi Arabia Dhahban Central Prison, As Saudi Arabia Disallows Any Dissent

Samar Badawi + Brother Raif Badawi Remain In Saudi Arabia Dhahban Central Prison, As Saudi Arabia Disallows Any Dissent

Coming to grips with the horrors of Saudi Arabia’s torture of women’s activists at the same time Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud — or MbS — lifted the ban on women driving in the kingdom is no more complicated than following the daily mental machinations of Donald Trump.

Jailing the Saudi women activists behind the women driving campaign seems irrational, but only if one fails to understand that machinations are not rational thought processes. Perhaps this is why MbS and Donald Trump have such a lovefest. It takes a self-absorbed schemer to know one, which is precisely why they end up so often hanging out together as the world’s leading autocrats.

Updating AOC two days ago about the jailed women’s activists, I zeroed in on the name Samar Badawi, knowing her to be the sister of jailed liberal blogger Raif Badawi. In 2015 Raif was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes for his writings. After receiving the first 50 lashes — which nearly killed him in front of the entire world — Raif Badawi has languished in Saudi prison.

Women activists arrested in Saudi Arabia include Loujain al-Hathloul, who I considered to be a major face behind the driving ban. Samar Badawi has campaigned for years against the most discriminatory of all the Saudi laws against women’s rights — as if it’s possible to enumerate them in order. Badawi opposes against the male guardianship system, under which women require the permission of a male relative to travel, marry, or work in certain jobs. In this article ‘Saudi Arabia: Where Fathers Rule and Courts Oblige’, Human Rights Watch details the mutual litigation of Badawi and her father against each other.

It was for this work that Samar Badawi received the US State Department International Women of Courage Award in 2012, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. Note that Waleed Abu-al-Khair, Samar’s former husband and Raif Badawi’s lawyer, is also jailed for 15 years.

Israel Proposes Protecting Woolly Mammoth Ivory To Save Commingled Poached Elephant Ivory

Israel Proposes Protecting Woolly Mammoth Ivory To Save Commingled Poached Elephant Ivory

Woolly mammoths are long extinct for a minimum of 10,000 years in most global locations. Initially, many conservationists hoped that the discovery of long-frozen mammoth remains — including their tusks — would take pressure off the poaching of African elephants for their ivory.

It appears that those hopes are now dashed, with an acknowledement that the legal transport of mammoth ivory often moves with its cousin’s ivory as part of the shipment. As a result, Israel has proposed that mammoths become protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, (CITES) closing a loophole in which freshly-slaughtered tusks are transported as legal mammoth ivory. Such a decision would mark the first time an extinct species is listed as protected under Cities.

“They are often intermingled in shipment and retail displays, and are fashioned in a similar style. To the untrained eye it’s very difficult to distinguish between them,” said Iris Ho, senior specialist in wildlife programmes and policy at Humane Society International (HSI). “There is currently no international regulatory regime to track and monitor the commercial trade in mammoth ivory.”

A Move To Make Extinct Woolly Mammoths A Protected Species

Kitty Block, the president of HSI, said in The Guardian: “With ivory traffickers exploiting the long-extinct mammoth so they can further exploit imperilled elephants, nations must unite to end the poaching epidemic and ensure all ivory markets are closed. The time to act is now, before we lose them forever.”

As Saudi Women Activists Suffer Horrific Torture, Kingdom Puts Women In Cockpits + Main Cabin

YASMINE AL-MAYMANY IS AMONG THE CERTIFIED SAUDI WOMEN PILOTS WHO TOLD ALARABIA IN AUGUST 2018 THAT SHE HOPED TO SOON BE IN THE COCKPIT WITH A JOB SANCTIONED BY THE SAUDI GENERAL AUTHORITY OF CIVIL AVIATION.

As Saudi Women Activists Suffer Horrific Torture, Kingdom Puts Women In Cockpits + Main Cabin

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is promising to not only put women in the cockpit as co-pilots but to train them as flight attendants as well. In January, 2018 Eqbal Darandari, a member of the Saudi Shura Council, called on national airlines to empower women by creating jobs. “We’ve seen Saudi women piloting aircraft outside the kingdom. Now it’s time for [Saudi Arabia’s aviation authority] to take the initiative. Saudi women deserve to find work in their own country,” he said at the time. 

Soon Saudi Arabia’s Oxford Aviation Academy opened it doors to women to train them as pilots. Six months later, Flynas, a domestic airline in Saudi Arabia, announced that it would be hiring female flight attendants after proper training. In the new year, a Saudi air hostess will fly this month, in another move forward for the severely-limited in rights Saudi women, writes Vogue Arabia.

The magazine’s website writes that Flynas will also hire women as co-pilots. “The move aims to enable Saudi women to have a greater role in supporting the Kingdom’s economy,” stated Bander Al-Mohanna, CEO of Flynas.

Ashley Graham Covers ELLE US February 2019, Talking A Marriage With Endless Sex + Faith In God

Ashley Graham Covers ELLE US February 2019, Talking A Marriage With Endless Sex + Faith In God

Ashley Graham covers the February 2019 issue of ELLE US, styled by Anna Trevelyan for images by Carin Backoff./ Hair by Ben Skervin; makeup George Sandev

Graham, now 31, has moved light years from her discovery at the Oak View Mall in her hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska. In the years since, Graham is widely known as an advocate for body confidence and inclusive sizing in the fashion industry. Graham blitzed into the 2016 Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue as its first curvy model. After all, men notoriously prefer women with curves, right?

In her ELLE interview with Allie Jones, Ashley Graham makes it totally clear that she’s just getting started.

She’s launched her own podcast, "Pretty Big Deal;" has begun filming the feel-good talk show "Fearless," for Ellen DeGeneres’s digital network; and has become the newly minted host as well as an executive producer of American Beauty Star, Lifetime’s reality-competition show that pits top hair and makeup artists against each other in a series of challenges, à la Project Runway. “There was only one person we wanted to host the new season of American Beauty Star, and that was Ashley Graham,” says Gena McCarthy, executive vice president and head of programming for Lifetime Unscripted and FYI. “Her charisma and confidence are unmatched, and her infectious personality is always inspiring.” Graham’s co–executive producer Ross Elliot sums it up thusly: “It’s the Oprah factor.”

Eye: Amber Valletta Wears Agnona's SS 2019 Vicuña Fabric Collection, Lensed By Ezra Petronio

Eye: Amber Valletta Wears Agnona's SS 2019 Vicuña Fabric Collection, Lensed By Ezra Petronio

Supermodel Amber Valletta showcases key looks from Agnona’s Spring/Summer 2019 collection, lensed by Ezra Petronio.

Designer Simon Holloway dedicated the collection to artist American Joan Jonas, 82, previously honored in an exhibition at London’s Tate Modern. In this film, we see Jonas at work in New York.

Peru’s Vicuña Fabric Is Worth Its Weight In Gold

Key items in Agnona’s spring 2019 collection were made in vicuña, one of two wild South American camelids living in the high alpine areas of the Andes. Vicuña, along with the guanaco, is a relative of the llama. It’s believed to be the wild ancestor of domesticated alpacas, and it remains wild today.

Nearly hunted to extinction in the late 1980’s, the vicuña herds made a slow, steady comeback and are expanding today in the wild. Driven largely by their father’s adoration of the wool product, Sergio and Pier Luigi Loro Piana, the co-CEOs of Loro Piana, the Italian mill that was a part of the mid-century ‘Made in Italy’ movement and would eventually grow into one of the world’s largest producers of cashmere — and its biggest supplier of vicuña.

The fibers are collected using the chacu method of the Incas—a half-religious ceremony where the local community forms a human chain around the animals, slowly closing the circumference of their circle for shearing. An adult vicuna produces only about a pound of fiber a year, producing a cloth so fine it was considered to be cloth of gold, writes BofF.

For The Incas, Vicuñas Had Strong, Spiritual Powers

Eye: Dear Helena, Ashley, Chiara, Monica + | In Posing For Dolce & Gabbana Sp 2019 Campaign, Do You Give The Brand Cover?

Eye: Dear Helena, Ashley, Chiara, Monica + | In Posing For Dolce & Gabbana Sp 2019 Campaign, Do You Give The Brand Cover?

Some of AOC’s favorite models and talents led by Helena Christensen, Ashley Graham, Monica Belluci, Eva Herzigova, Karen Elson, Chiara Scelsi and more are supported by photographers including Angelo Pennetta, Luca & Alessandro Morelli, Giuseppe Tornatore, Branislav Simoncik, Franco Pagetti, Bruce Gilden and Alex Majoli in celebrating Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring 2019 ad campaign.

Complicity Among Creatives

We don’t have the answers to any key questions around the participation of these creatives in the Dolce & Gabbana campaign — except to say that we wouldn’t participate in the campaign in any way. That’s a tough decision to make in a world that feels increasingly politically correct, a world where disagreement and debate is not tolerated by either demanding progressives or right-wing conservatives. So unlike many voices, AOC won’t criticize talents using their gifts on behalf of the Dolce & Gabbana brand.

Caught in our own concerns about the intolerance of politically-correct, progressive demands, we also acknowledge the reality of a world marching towards intolerance generally. This right-wing intolerance derides women’s rights or even our intelligence, gay rights, protecting the environment and a host of other values that the fashion industry theoretically embraces.

Kim Kardashian Hawks Dolce & Gabbana, Then Pulls Instagram Story As Confused Followers Express Dismay

Kim Kardashian Hawks Dolce & Gabbana, Then Pulls Instagram Story As Confused Followers Express Dismay

Talent mogul Kim Kardashian had the equivalent of a senior moment, rushing to produce an Instagram Story praising Italian luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana’s big box of goodies sent her by the controversial luxury brand. In the short clip, the KKW Beauty mogul pans across several sequinned tuxedo jackets while narrating, “So I come home to these amazing, huge Dolce & Gabbana boxes”.

By now Kardashian knows that her every move is under the microscope, leaving people confused that days after announcing that she and husband Kanye West are expecting a fourth child via IVF, she would use her reputation to advance a brand that advocated against IVF, saying “We oppose gay adoptions. The only family is the traditional one…. No chemical offsprings and rented uterus: life has a natural flow, there are things that should not be changed.”

Kardashian pulled her Insta Story within hours, but one wonders exactly what she was thinking. AOC doesn’t disparage Kim Kardashian in any way. We’re not KK haters but admirers of her frankly prodigious business talents and ability to live in the limelight 24/7. But surely Kardashian knows that the Dolce & Gabbana brand is newly-toxic, yet again over its controversial antics and subsequent cancellation of their late fall 2018 Shanghai show.

In reality, the Dolce & Gabbana brand is aligned far closer to the Trumplandia values embraced by her husband Kanye West than her own more progressive ones. One wonders if Kanye told the DG boys to send over the loot, so Kim could hawk it. How much $$$ was it worth to all parties involved.

Laetitia Wright Tops 2018 Box Office $$$ | Research Bashes Myth About Women Actors + Film Profits | Lina Iris Viktor Settles W/Kendrick Lamar

Laetitia Wright Tops 2018 Box Office $$$ | Research Bashes Myth About Women Actors + Film Profits | Lina Iris Viktor Settles W/Kendrick Lamar

1) Guyanese actor Laetitia Wright topped the Hollywood $$$ charts in 2018, with Fandango crowning her the Highest Box Office Earning Actor of 2018. The list was compiled based on domestic box office earnings, and Wright ran away with the title with an easy $1.55 billion in revenue. via Marie Claire

Wright’s films tallied by Fandango:

Black Panther ($700,059,566)

Avengers: Infinity War ($678,815,482)

Ready Player One ($137,690,172)

The Commuter ($36,343,858)

2) Movies Starring Women Earn More Than Male-Led Films New York Times

Creative Artists Agency and shift7, a company started by Megan Smith, the 3rd Chief Technology Officer of the US and Assistant to the President in the Obama administration, has blown a hole in the common Hollywood truism that women’led films perform poorly at the box office. Studying  the top movies from 2014 to 2017 , reality is that films starring women earned more than male-led films. Budget was not a determining factor. Whether the budget was $10 million or $100 million, women delivered box office cash.

Saoirse Ronan Talks Living In A Brexit World, Lensed By Erik Madigan Heck For Harper's Bazaar UK February 2019

Saorise Ronan Talks Living In A Brexit World, Lensed By Erik Madigan Heck For Harper's Bazaar UK February 2019

Actor Saorise Ronan is styled by Leith Clark in ‘The Queen & I’ , promoting Ronan’s current role as Mary Queen of Scots. Photographer Erik Madigan Heck is behind the lens at Hammond Castle Museum in Glouster, Mass USA for a story in Harper’s Bazaar UK February 2019./ Makeup by Sam Addington; hair by Jordan M

Nominated for Oscars in ‘Atonement’, ‘Brooklyn’, and ‘Lady Bird’ at age 13, Saoirse Ronan assumes her role as the Queen who might have been at age 24. Ronan talks to Erica Wagner about British monarchs, Irish borders and whether history will repeat itself in the age of Brexit As for the expected #MeToo convo, Ronan, the actor credits her mother, who was very involved in the development of her acting career, as keeping her safe.

Saorise Ronan On #MeToo

“I don’t know what would have happened if she [Ronan’s mother] hadn’t been around,” Ronan tells Wagner . “I’m sure I would have been exposed to that quite a bit, but she just protected me from all that.”

“I wasn’t unaware that there were people in the industry who abused their power, or who were seedy or untrustworthy,” she explains. “But because of her I was never a victim and I’m very, very thankful.”

Relating to Mary Queen of Scots in a Brexit Moment

Perhaps this is the perfect moment, as we teeter on the brink of Brexit, to consider Mary and her place in history. Born in Scotland, raised in France, with a claim to the English throne: monarch, woman, wife, mother – of a son, James, who would finally unite the two kingdoms of Scotland and England – she was a woman with a multiplicity of identities. We seem to be living in a time when people are being pushed into describing themselves as one thing and one thing only: British or European, to take just a single example. Ronan’s portrait of Mary is of someone who didn’t see those choices as necessary; the pressures came from outside, not from within. 

Not Your Typical Bloody Scene in a Movie

Saorise Ronan Talks Living In A Brexit World, Lensed By Erik Madigan Heck For Harper's Bazaar UK February 2019

Only 1 out of 36 Newly Elected Female Representatives In Congress Is Republican – Here’s Why It Matters

Photo by Alondra Olivas on Unsplash

Only 1 out of 36 Newly Elected Female Representatives In Congress Is Republican – Here’s Why It Matters

By Malliga Och, Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Languages, Idaho State University.. First published on The Conversation.

(Note from Anne. As a progressive Democrat, these views may not coincide with my own, based on my extensive research on Republican women voters. I share the research from Baylor University because as a Christian University — unlike a liberal media resource like The Atlantic— the conclusions are more difficult to condemn. Also, personal interviews were part of the Baylor study, which concluded that “Value gender traditionalism, feeling that men are better suited for politics and should earn more than women; women should provide primary child care; and working women are deficient as mothers” is a core belief among Trump voters, including Trump’s Republican women voters.“ This article is factually correct in its assertions and Och’s arguments, which is why I’ve published it on AOC. I admit also that I am actively involved in trying to recruit Republican women and registered Independent women to the Democratic party by acting in good faith. )

The 116th Congress will be the most diverse in U.S. history: 126 women will take office, including 43 women of color. Yet, as many have noted, this new diversity is confined to one side of the aisle.

The number of Republican women in Congress is actually dropping from 23 to 13. Only one out of 36 freshman female representatives is a Republican. So while 2018 certainly was the Year of the Woman, Republican women are watching from the sidelines.

Whether you are progressive or conservative, this is bad news. As political scientists, we strongly believe that both democracy and feminism work best when there is a critical mass of women in each major political party. A democracy should reflect the diversity of its society. Considering that women make up over half of the U.S. population but only 23 percent of Congress, American democracy already under represents women. For Republican women, the mismatch is even more pronounced.

Nearly half of all women in this country regularly vote for Republican candidates. For example, Donald Trump won 41 percent of the female vote in 2016 and Mitt Romney won 44 percent in 2012. Yet the overall numbers of Republican women candidates and elected women has stagnated at around 15 percent for the past two decades and is now declining.

This is important for many reasons.

Laura Dern's Big Little Truths Are Revealed, Lensed By Julia Hetta For Vanity Fair February 2019

Laura Dern's Big Little Truths Are Revealed, Lensed By Julia Hetta For Vanity Fair February 2019

Actor Laura Dern, 51, plays the high-strung Monterey mom Renata in ‘Big Little Lies’ , and the slow evolution of her character suits Dern just fine. “I’ve never gravitated towards scripts where there’s profound change,” she told Vanity Fair. “I’m interested in incremental growth…and it’s so obvious to me how vulnerable Renata is because you can feel her being like — ‘You’re. Going. To. Listen. To. Me.’ — Nobody has to work that hard if they’re really being listened to.”

The ‘Jurassic Park, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’, and yes— ‘Blue Velver’ star covers the February 2019 issue of Vanity Fair Magazine, lensed by Julia Hutta with styling by Samira Nasr., choosing Balenciaga, Maison ALAÏA and more. Sloane Crosley conducts the interview.

Like every actor in ‘Big Little Lies’, Dern gushes about the project, saying “I feel such sisterhood with the girls — we deeply love each other, and for Reese [Witherspoon] and Nicole [Kidman] and I particularly, all having done this since we were teenagers and never having acted with so many women, it’s amazing.”

Madonna Kicks Off 50th Anniversary Stonewall Inn LBGTQ Gay Rights Events

Madonna launched her role as an ambassador for the 50th anniversary celebrations commemorating riots at New York’s Greenwich Village Stonewall Inn with a New Years Eve drop-in.

Accompanied by her son David Banda on acoustic guitar, the pop star welcomed 2019 in the iconic bar that jump-started the modern LBGTQ movement. Madonna led the crowd in a sing-along of "Like a Prayer" and covered Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love."

"I stand here proudly at the place where pride began, the legendary Stonewall Inn, on the birth of a new year," she said. "We come together tonight to celebrate 50 years of revolution.”

The singer called for peace and understanding in her speech, saying, “If we truly took the time to get to know one another we would find that we all bleed the same color and we all need to love and be loved. Let’s remember who and what we are fighting for — ourselves, for each other, but truly and most importantly, what are we fighting for? Let’s take a minute to reflect on how we can bring more love and peace into 2019, let’s look at how we can bring random acts of kindness. Maybe we can find an opening to bring the light in. Are you ready to do that?"

Can GirlForward's Superior Program Structure For Refugee Girls Be Applied To American Girls?

Can GirlForward's Superior Program Structure For Refugee Girls Be Applied To American Girls?

The Austin, Texas branch of Girl Forward, a nonprofit founded in Chicago in 2011, is run exclusively by millennial women for high-school age refugee girls. Politico profiled the group in November 2018, landing in Austin. because Texas is second only to California in its refugee population.

GirlForward is predicated on the notion that refugee girls face particular hardships due not only to the tumultuous circumstances of their upbringing and relocation but also their gender. “Oftentimes, our girls haven’t been able to pursue education in the same way their brothers have,” Shannon Elder, 24, GirlForward’s Austin development manager, observes. “In countries of conflict, girls’ access to education can be much more limited than it is for boys,” said Arielle Levin, who runs the mentorship program. GirlForward recruits refugees through Austin nonprofits, schools, and word of mouth. It tries specifically to recruit the oldest daughter in a family, reasoning that they are usually shouldered with the heaviest burdens. “A lot of my family don’t speak English,” said Storai Rana, an 18-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, “so there was so many responsibilities of things I had to do. Like I had go to the bank, to the market,” she said.

Girl Forward attempts to help its girls lead lead full and rich lives, moving behind tangible tools like opening a checking account or learning how to use the local library.

Fatima Mirzakhail, an 18-year-old refugee, told Politico’s Ethan Epstein that her initial optimism on arriving in America and leaving her war-torn country of Afghanistan soon evaporated. “In Afghanistan I felt like I was in a box, and I couldn’t fly anywhere.” Fatima explained. Her expectations that life in America would be so different soon evaporated. Before becoming part of Girl Forward, “I was crying all the time, hating myself,” she said.  Now Fatima is blossoming “planning on attending a local community college next year before transferring to UT. “

Jane Fonda Chosen For Producers Guild of America's 2019 Stanley Kramer Award On Jan. 19 in Beverly Hills

Jane Fonda Chosen For Producers Guild of America's 2019 Stanley Kramer Award On Jan. 19 in Beverly Hills

Two-time Oscar winner, producer and activist Jane Fonda will receive the Producers Guild of America’s 2019 Stanley Kramer Award at the 30th annual Producers Guild Awards on Jan. 19 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Fonda is the second individual, sharing the honor with Sean Penn in 2010, to receive the recognition. The award is usually given to a film, like  ‘Get Out’ in 2018 and ‘Loving’ in 2017, and its producers as an achievement or contribution that illuminates and raises public awareness of important social issues.

Jane’s contributions are many, but they include celebrating her 80th birthday last December by raising $1.3 million to lower the teen pregnancy rate and improve the overall health and well-being of young people in the state of Georgia, and the Women's Media Center, which she co-founded with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan to make women and girls more visible and powerful in media. 

This year, Fonda starred in the summer box office hit ‘Book Club’ and was the subject of the HBO documentary ‘Jane Fonda in Five Acts’, chronicling her life and her activism. Next month the fifth season of her comedy series ‘Grace and Frankie’, which she executive produces and stars in, will begin streaming on Netflix.

Ancient DNA Changes Everything We Know About The Evolution of Elephants

A study by Meyer et al reconfigures the elephant family tree, placing the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) closer to the African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis), than to the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), which was once thought to be its closest living relative. Image credit: Asier Larramendi Eskorza / Julie McMahon.

Ancient DNA Changes Everything We Know About The Evolution of Elephants

By Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand. First published on The Conversation Africa.

For a long time, zoologists assumed that there were only two species of elephant: one Asian and one African. Then genetic analyses suggested that the African Elephant could be divided into two distinct species, the African Forest and African Savannah elephants.

Now a new elephant has been added to the mix. The palaeoloxodon antiquus has been extinct for 120 000 years. This elephant roamed Europe and western Asia during the last ice age, about 400 000 years ago. A study of its DNA shows that this supposedly European animal is actually the African forest elephants’ closest relative. Another study by the same team found that at a genetic level, it may even have more in common with the modern African forest elephant than the African savannah elephant.

This study changes everything we thought we knew about the evolutionary history and ancestry of modern elephants and their closest relatives. It also shows that the African elephant’s lineage was not confined to Africa; the animals actually went out of the continent, which we didn’t know before. It roamed Europe and – through a lot of interbreeding – left its genetic mark far from its original stomping grounds.

The new find, based on DNA from fossils found in Germany, may also shed light on a DNA discrepancy that has puzzled scientists for some time.

Are CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS Made In USA Rifles The Top Gun Used To Poach Big Game In Africa?

Kathi Lee Austin of ConflictAwareness.org

Are CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS Made In USA Rifles The Top Gun Used To Poach Big Game In Africa?

Now that all the holiday food is settling into our fat cells for a long winter's nap, and Trump has pissed all over our country in the worst Christmas Day message I've ever heard, let me begin by saying that I did not just like the FB page for “CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS,” rifles, thinking that my closest friends might have a total meltdown.

If I liked the company, them this post would tag their wall, but then I would be bringing down a hornet's nest of gun lovers on my wall, and -- in retrospect -- I don't really want to do that. Elephant killer Donald Trump Jr -- or just 'Junior' as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls him -- would probably show up in person to give us all a big lecture on the thrill of killing wild beasts. Speaking of wild beasts, his father is absolutely behaving like one. Sorry, I digress.

However, this New York Times article How Did Rifles With an American Stamp End Up in the Hands of African Poachers? hit me between the eyes this morning, and they were barely open. NOTHING IS DEFINITE YET, and of course, the gun manufacturer 'CZ-USA' denies, denies, denies that they have anything to do with the reality that their rifles -- not the ones manufactured by their parent company in the Czech Republic -- are being investigated as being the #1 rifle poachers are using to kill the elephants, rhinos, lions, tigers -- you name it -- in Africa.

Like somehow “CZ-USA, Kansas City, KS,” got carved into the metal. It's a branding mistake. You know . . . like Trump makes major branding mistakes every day. This is just all about bad marketing.

While this is not a girl's only investigation, one lady in particular is in the lead: Kathi Lynn Austin.

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

SC Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Votes Against Trump Immigration Rules After Cancer Surgery

As the Trump wrecking machine increasingly rattles much of America, progressives, Democrats and centrists alike got an unexpected blow in the gut on Friday with news that beloved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 85, was in surgery at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. Notorious RBG, as the pop icon Justice is called, is recovering from her third bout with cancer with the removal of two nodules from her left lung.

Sloan Kettering doctors insist that Ginsburg’s lung cancer did not spread to other areas of her body, leaving weeping Americans believing that she will make a full recovery.

Weeks ago, Ginsburg fell in her office, fracturing several ribs. During her treatment, scans revealed the cancerous growths. Even cancer surgery didn’t get in the Supreme’s way, as Her Honor cast a deciding vote from her hospital bed against US President Donald Trump’s attempts to place new restrictions on migrants seeking asylum in the US.