PR in the Philippines

Moo Deng may have won the hearts of the public, but a large, young penguin in Australia is stirring up some cuteness competition. Commenters on Sea Life Melbourne Aquairum’s Instagram page are doting on the animal, calling him a “fluffy king.” “Pesto is the besto,” wrote another. A third called for the aquarium to start its own live feed for fans to watch him on. Either way, Pesto, a King penguin chick, who was born in January, is stealing hearts as he breaks history as the biggest chick the aquarium has ever seen. Pesto weighs in at 21 kg, or 46 pounds, more than the average King penguin at just nine-months old. Male King penguins typically weigh slightly more than females, but adults of his species typically weigh anywhere from 21-40 pounds. Sea Life attributes his impressive size, in part, to his biological father, Blake—their largest male. But Pesto also has quite the appetite. When Pesto was just six months old, he ate an average of 25 fish per day over four meals, which is double what other adult King penguins at the aquarium get, according to an Instagram reel posted on Sea Life’s page. His parents – some 10 kg, or 22 pounds. Pesto’s growth spurt might soon come to an end. Like all King penguins, he’s expected to grow waterproof feathers soon, which will allow him to forage on his own, but comes at the price of slimming down.  “Average adult king penguin weighs about 11-15kg, so he’s expected to slim down a fair bit with the expectation he’ll land around 15kg [or 33 pounds],” Michaela Smale, a keeper at the aquarium said. From one icon to another—@katyperry come meet Pesto. 🐧💃 Catch this VIP (Very Important Penguin) at SEA LIFE Melbourne 🎶 Pesto’s popularity comes as Moo Deng is also taking the internet by storm, causing the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand to start the process to “immortalize” Moo Deng the hippo as an influx of visitors come for the chance to look at the tiny hippo for themselves. Pesto may have not yet toppled Moo Deng from her stardom, but he’s also become an internet sensation. Fan videos featuring Pesto have garnered up to millions of views on TikTok. Other fans, who post videos of him have garnered millions of views in less than 24 hours. A senior keeper at the zoo says that “Pesto has reached more than 1.9 billion people across the globe,” per an interview with Australia’s news outlet. Pesto is  the only King penguin to hatch at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in the past two years. 

We all value, or claim to value, ideas. We want them in our movies, our books, our music; otherwise, the thinking goes, we’re just ingesting empty calories. But not all ideas are created equal. Sometimes they’re floating too freely within the material to be tethered to any meaningful interpretation; other times they’re so ploddingly instructive that we feel pummeled. The ideas embedded in A Different Man, written and directed by Aaron Schimberg, hover somewhere in the milky middle between being too amorphous and too obvious, though by the end, you will most certainly have gotten the point. Yet this is a movie in which the performers make all the difference—the actors embody the ideas so wholly that the messages layered into the script are just superfluous embroidery. It’s worth seeing A Different Man for the two performances at its heart, given by Adam Pearson and . Stan, at first wearing prosthetic makeup, plays Edward, a struggling actor whose employment consists solely of the occasional workplace-training video. Edward has a rare genetic condition known as Neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow on the skin and in other parts of the body. It affects his facial appearance and his speech, and marks him as “different.” We see one of the clumsy videos in which he’s featured, apparently enacting some kind of by-the-water-cooler fainting spell; his co-workers in the video ostensibly treat him as an individual by condescending to him—exactly the sort of behavior these videos ought to be working against. But in the movie, this video handily makes an important point: this is the sort of behavior Edward has to field every day. No wonder he seems to be shuffling through life, deferential to others almost to the point of obliterating himself. If he can make himself invisible, he won’t have to suffer the cruelty of other humans, both those who mean harm and those who mean well. Edward, who lives in a dismal apartment somewhere in New York (both this flat and this New York somewhat resemble vision in ), has a new and very attractive neighbor, Ingrid. She startles visibly when she first sees him; then she offers friendship, and possibly something more. She’s an aspiring playwright, and Edward talks to her, glumly, about his nearly nonexistent acting career. Her beauty and her brightness seem to make him feel more morose than usual. He’s used to living his life in comparison to others, and it brings him nothing but suffering. Then he’s offered a chance to try an experimental facial reconstruction treatment. It works! His old face gradually peels away—the process resembles the stretching of melted mozzarella, or maybe a time-lapse rendering of one of Francis Bacon’s screaming popes—revealing a very handsome young man beneath. Now Edward can finally find out how the rest of the world lives. He becomes a high-flying real estate honcho, as well as, of course, a success with the ladies. Then Ingrid comes back into his life, in a roundabout way—she of course doesn’t recognize him. And he meets another individual who somewhat resembles the man he used to be, but only physically. Oswald (Adam Pearson) is a jaunty Brit who favors pocket squares and bright, patterned shirts. He’s a charmer—everyone loves him, especially women. In him, Edward sees the man he, with his old face, might have been. Oswald represents both a rebuke and a missed opportunity. And when he appears, the film suddenly levitates. Schimberg has worked with Pearson before, in his 2019 film Chained for Life. (Moviegoers might also know the actor from his appearance in haunting parable of loneliness .) Schimberg was so inspired by Pearson’s confidence and charm that he wrote the part of Oswald specifically for him, and the moment he shows up, a light turns on: Edward, in his old persona, has invited our pity, and probably gotten it. Oswald brushes right past the idea of pity—we’re so drawn to him that we can’t even imagine feeling it. That right there is a lot for a movie, and for two actors, to carry. Stan is terrific as the eternally surly Edward: his handsome pout, post-transformation, isn’t something that gives us pleasure. If anything, it makes us wish we could have the old Edward back, who at least had some shambling charm. And Pearson is off the charts as Oswald: he swaggers through the movie like its dazzling, unofficial mayor, meeting and greeting and encouraging openness, rather than closure, in the world around him. The dynamic between Oswald and Edward is rich territory by itself. The problem is that Schimberg keeps adding layers of plot to drive his points home, instead of just stepping back to let his characters do their thing. The movie sends us home with a message—let’s say it’s something along the lines of “Think hard about how you view others who are different”—even as the actors open out another way of thinking: Since we’re all individuals anyway, why see differences as differences at all? That’s an idea that goes beyond our concept of what an “idea” even is. It’s a basic tenet of living—or at least it ought to be.

New York magazine has placed its highly regarded Washington correspondent, Olivia Nuzzi, on leave after she disclosed a personal relationship with a former reporting subject, a breach of the publication’s ethical guidelines. The newsletter Status, , and The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, have identified Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the individual involved with Nuzzi. New York magazine and Nuzzi have not confirmed Kennedy’s involvement, and Kennedy has stated that he has only met her once. This revelation is significant for both the magazine and Nuzzi, whose article about Donald Trump, “Peering into Donald Trump’s Ear, and Soul,” was featured on its most recent cover. In a message to its readers published late Thursday, New York stated that had it been aware of the relationship, Nuzzi would not have been permitted to cover the presidential campaign. New York has indicated that an internal review of Nuzzi’s work has not uncovered any inaccuracies or evidence of bias, but that Nuzzi is on leave while a more comprehensive third-party review is conducted. “We regret this violation of our readers’ trust,” the magazine said, and a spokeswoman declined further comment. A spokesperson for Kennedy, who is married to the actress Cheryl Hines, did not immediately respond to a message from The Associated Press. Nuzzi stated in a statement to Status that in early 2024, the nature of some communication between herself and a former reporting subject shifted to a personal level. “During that time, I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source,” she said. “The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I’ve disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York.” It remains unclear how and when Nuzzi’s superiors at the magazine became aware of the relationship. Nuzzi authored a piece that was published last November, “The Mind-Bending Politics of RFK Jr.’s Spoiler Campaign,” where she detailed a harrowing car ride and brief hike with Kennedy and his dogs while interviewing him. Kennedy's name surfaced in a podcast discussion in The New York Times where Nuzzi, Frank Bruni and Joe Klein analyzed the state of the campaign at the time. “We’re forgetting or purposefully ignoring something rather important about this election: It’s not a two-man race. It’s a three-man race,” Nuzzi said, noting that at the time Kennedy was “polling competitively.” Status quoted a representative for Kennedy as saying, “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in her life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

Taiwan’s Constitutional Court has affirmed the legality of the death penalty while imposing restrictions on its use, striking a balance between maintaining its deterrent effect and preventing abuse. In its decision on Friday, the court upheld the constitutionality of capital punishment but limited its application to only the most serious offenses, emphasizing the need for enhanced safeguards. This ruling reflects a compromise between international calls for abolition and domestic support for harsh punishments to deter crime. The announcement follows a challenge by approximately three dozen individuals on death row, who argue that the penalty violates Taiwan’s constitution. Executions are typically carried out by hanging, although the law permits lethal injections. While not a member of the United Nations, Taiwan, a democratically governed island, voluntarily adheres to international norms. In 2009, lawmakers ratified the U.N.’s two covenants on human rights, one of which advocates for the abolition of the death penalty. U.K. Prime Minister visited Taiwan as recently as 2018 to advocate against capital punishment. There have been only two executions since the ruling Democratic Progressive Party took power in 2016, and none since April 2020. The Constitutional Court upheld capital punishment for serious drug cases in 1999 but in recent years its rulings have led to significant change in Taiwan. A decision in 2017 led to Taiwan becoming the first place in Asia to allow same-sex marriage. A May poll by the Taiwanese Public Opinion Foundation found that a majority of respondents favor retaining capital punishment. The opposition Kuomintang strongly supports the penalty, while the ruling DPP says the issue should be handled carefully, leading to calls for it to take a clearer stance. “The government has never clearly stated its stance, but the DPP has been relatively in favor of abolishing capital punishment,” said Lin Hsinyi, executive director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. The DPP retained the presidency but lost its parliamentary majority in , and has been facing increasing legislative challenges from the Kuomintang and its allies. More than 70% of countries around the world have abolished capital punishment in law or practice, according to the US-based Death Penalty Information Center, which monitors the use of the punishment. Amnesty International says some countries in Asia still have capital punishment on the books but have not executed anyone over the past 10 years, including South Korea and Sri Lanka, according to Amnesty. Countries in Asia that retain the death penalty for ordinary citizens include Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, according to the rights group. Iran carried out the most executions of any nation around the world last year, with more than 850 people put to death, Amnesty says. The top two countries in Asia for executions last year were Bangladesh and Singapore, with five each, it said, adding it had no data from secretive North Korea, which is suspected of carrying out several executions.

A new study by British and American scientists has found that tidal action beneath the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica will "inexorably" accelerate melting this century. The researchers warn that this faster melting could destabilize the entire West Antarctic ice sheet, leading to its eventual collapse. This massive glacier, roughly the size of Florida, is of particular interest to scientists due to its rapid rate of change and the significant impact its loss would have on sea levels, earning it the nickname "Doomsday Glacier." It also acts as an anchor holding back the West Antarctic ice sheet. Over 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick in some areas, Thwaites has been likened to a . Were it to collapse, sea levels would rise by 65 centimeters (26 inches). This is a significant amount, considering oceans are currently rising 4.6 millimeters a year. But if it led to the eventual loss of the entire ice sheet, sea levels would rise 3.3 meters. While some computer models suggest that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement may mitigate the glacier’s retreat, the outlook for the glacier remains "grim," according to a report by the (ITGC), a project that includes researchers from the British Antarctic Survey, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council. Thwaites has been retreating for over 80 years, but this process has accelerated in the past 30 years, according to Rob Larter, a marine geophysicist who contributed to the research. "Our findings indicate it is set to retreat further and faster." The new research also indicates that other dynamics currently not incorporated into large-scale models could speed up its demise.  Using a torpedo-shaped robot, scientists have determined that the underside of Thwaites is insulated by a thin layer of cold water. However, in areas where the parts of the glacier lift off the seabed and the ice begins to float, tidal action is pumping warmer sea water, at high pressure, as far as 10 kilometers under the ice. This process disrupts that insulating layer and will likely significantly speed up the rate at which the grounding zone—the area where the glacier sits on the seabed—retreats. A similar process has been observed on glaciers in Greenland. The group also identified a worst-case scenario in which 100-meter-or-higher ice cliffs at the front of Thwaites are formed and then rapidly calve off icebergs, causing runaway glacial retreat that could raise sea levels by tens of centimeters in this century. However, the researchers said it’s too early to know if such scenarios are likely. A key unanswered question is whether the loss of Thwaites Glacier is already irreversible. Heavy snowfalls, for example, regularly occur in the Antarctic and help replenish ice loss, Michelle Maclennan, a climate scientist with the University of Colorado at Boulder, explained during a news briefing. "The problem though is that we have this imbalance: There is more ice loss occurring than snowfall can compensate for,” she said.  Increased moisture in the planet’s atmosphere, caused by global warming evaporating ocean waters, could result in more Antarctic snow—at least for a while. At a certain point, though, that’s expected to switch over to rain and surface melting on the ice, creating a situation where the glacier is melting from above and below. How fast that happens depends in part on nations' progress to slow climate change.

Former President Donald Trump has vowed to reinstate his travel ban that barred people from some predominantly Muslim countries and expand it to prevent refugees from war-torn Gaza from entering the U.S. “I will ban refugee resettlement from terror infested areas like the Gaza Strip, and we will seal our border and bring back the travel ban,” Trump said Thursday evening in Washington at an event alongside Republican donor and billionaire Miriam Adelson. “Remember the famous travel ban? We didn’t take people from certain areas of the world,” Trump added “We’re not taking them from infested countries.” Trump initially put in place a version of his travel ban—one of the signature measures of his presidency—a week after taking office, triggering chaos at airports and sparking protests. Judges blocked the initial ban but changes to the policy eventually led to it being upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected claims that it targeted Muslims. The Republican presidential nominee’s remarks came at an event focused on combating antisemitism, as he sought to enhance his outreach to Jewish voters before November’s election against Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent. Throughout the speech, Trump frequently suggested his backing for Israel should result in better political support among Jewish Americans. He repeatedly complained he had not “been treated right” because polls showed a majority of Jewish Americans supported his opponent, and said that he believed “Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss” in the presidential election. “There’s no way that I should be getting 40% of the vote—I’m the one who is protecting you,” Trump said. Trump at one point suggested that Israel itself should defeat Harris.  “More than any people on Earth, Israel has to defeat her,” he said.  The former president added that Israel’s very existence could hinge on the election: “If I don’t win, I believe Israel will be eradicated,” he said. Trump has repeatedly come under criticism for remarks asserting that American Jews ought to be unquestioningly supportive of the Israeli government. In an interview in March, Trump accused Jewish people who support Democrats of hating their religion and Israel. Trump has sought to seize on divisions among Democrats over Israel’s war against Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the U.S. and European Union. In a July radio interview, Trump attacked Harris, saying she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and that she had appeared annoyed during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. When the radio host criticized Harris’ husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, calling him a “crappy Jew,” Trump responded “yeah.” Emhoff is the first Jewish spouse of a U.S. president or vice president and has been a vocal advocate against antisemitism, including leading the administration’s strategy on the issue. After Trump’s speech on Thursday night, Amy Spitalnick, chief executive officer of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs issued a rebuke of his remarks. “Trump continues to label Jews who don’t support him as disloyal and crazy, to play into dangerous dual loyalty tropes, and to blame Jews for a potential electoral loss,” she said. “At the same time, he continues to normalize antisemitic extremism.”  Trump has drawn criticism for interactions with antisemites and white supremacists, including a dinner at Mar-a-Lago in November 2022 with Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier. A Pew Research Center survey conducted from Aug. 26 to Sept. 2 found 65% of Jewish registered voters support or are leaning toward Harris, with 34% for Trump. The war in Gaza has presented a challenge for Harris, with progressives and younger voters critical of President Joe Biden’s support for Israel. Harris, while backing Israel’s right to defend itself has expressed more empathy for Palestinian suffering than Biden during the war.