Payment scam victims more likely to be reimbursed

More victims of "push" payment scams will be reimbursed by their bank under agreed new rules.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2XuN7AX

Utah governor calls for even bigger cut in state sales tax as lawmakers get details of new reform plan

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday it is "time to give back to the people of Utah" by shaving the state sales tax rate even lower than what's called for in new tax reform legislation.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2ElE38P

Huawei's full-page WSJ advert: "Don't believe everything you hear"

Chinese tech giant Huawei runs a US newspaper ad telling readers, "don’t believe everything you hear".

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2Xw4MYV

Boy, 14, denies shooting and killing teen during lunch break

A 14-year-old boy accused of shooting and killing a classmate during a lunch break from school has denied a charge of manslaughter.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2Xxg6nB

Police responding to shooting at Orem apartments

Emergency crews are responding to a shooting near the Orem FrontRunner station Thursday evening.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2Ery56e

Social media firms 'must tackle grooming'

Charity demands action after 5,000 online grooming offences were recorded by police in 18 months.

from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2GSnaX6

The 10 best apps to optimize outdoor recreation

As technology integrates itself ever-more into people’s lives, new apps are emerging to make outdoor recreation more accessible and safe. Here are some of the best outdoor recreation apps ready for you to download in 2019.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2BWTUdG

Documents show BYU officer shared other police agencies' reports with school's Honor Code Office

The Department of Public Safety on Thursday released documents related to a former Brigham Young University police lieutenant accused of giving protected police reports to the school's honor code office, among others.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2IIzdba

Teen who hid newborn's body in drawer ordered to continue therapy, probation

A Utah teen who hid her deceased newborn in a drawer last year has been making progress in weekly therapy sessions and will remain on probation for several more months.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2NAIq47

Bitner Road closed in Park City due to 20,000-pound hazmat spill, officials say

Crews have shut down a Park City road after 20,000 pounds of quick-lime spilled onto the road, officials say.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2BYL9Qh

Worksite wellness program encourages Utah teachers to get on the move

It's rare to find teachers who've spent more than 30 years in the classroom, but a dynamite duo in Sandy have found the secret to staying healthy and happy on their campus.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2ECwD2b

Unified officer knocked out during routine traffic stop; man arrested

A Unified police officer was temporarily knocked unconscious Thursday while trying to place a man in handcuffs, according to police.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2Epo4GZ

Eurotunnel challenges 'secretive' Brexit ferry deals

The rail operator Eurotunnel is challenging the government over its no-deal Brexit ferry contracts.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2H8sIvQ

How Botox became a million dollar idea

The BBC's Aaron Heslehurst explains how Botox became a million dollar idea.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2IJqc1D

Bill outlawing abortions solely for Down syndrome diagnosis passes Utah Legislature

A bill banning abortions solely based on a Down syndrome diagnosis passed the Senate without debate Thursday and now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert for his action.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2Hb5dlN

How you could control your world with just your fingertips

Tapping on a keyboard has been the standard way to interact with computers, but that is changing.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2UjqjSZ

Gap to shut shops and hive off Old Navy

The retailer is splitting in two, with the closure of 230 of its namesake stores.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2VtwtQf

Premium Bonds numbers generator Ernie 5 is launched

The first Premium Bond was sold over 60 years ago and now the fifth iteration of the number generator Ernie has been launched.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2HcB5qp

New Ernie, same slim odds of winning

The fifth incarnation - a computer chip the size of a grain of rice - has now drawn its first Premium Bond winners.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2Ny2xQi

Ex-girlfriend arrested in connection with Kearns car fires, police say

An ex-girlfriend has been arrested in connection with a pair of car fires in Kearns earlier this week.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2VsU2IW

Utah House committee endorses bill to target $32.1M for school mental health, support services

The House Education Committee endorsed Thursday HB373, which would appropriate to the State School Board more than $32.1 million ongoing for school support personnel or permit schools to contract with local mental health authorities.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2BXKVc6

Tesla finally offers Model 3 at $35,000

The firm has been trying to hit that price point for the car - its first aimed at a more mass market customer.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2IJpZeD

Chiwetel Ejiofor's Directing Debut Takes Him To Malawi To Capture 'The Wind'

The English actor performed in, directed and wrote the screenplay for The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind. It's based on a memoir by William Kamkwamba, whose ingenuity helped save his village from famine.

(Image credit: Ilze Kitshoff/Netflix)

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2TcruXS
via IFTTT

'Mapplethorpe': A Transgressive Artist Gets An Aggressively Dull Biopic

A bored-seeming Matt Smith plays the famous — and famously provocative — photographer in a plodding film that too-dutifully ticks familiar scenes off the Great Artist Biopic checklist.

(Image credit: Samuel Goldwyn Films)

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2GRLxnO
via IFTTT

When Dancers Trip: Gaspar Noé Stages A Visceral But Vacuous Freakout In 'Climax'

A French dance troupe drinks sangria spiked with LSD and descends into carnal violence in a film that turns into "just another Noé freakout, familiar in tone and stylistic tics."

(Image credit: A24)

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2Nyx5By
via IFTTT

Documentary 'Apollo 11' Retells History With Wide Eyes - And A Wider Perspective

Newly restored footage of the historic 1969 moonshot widens the focus to include the hundreds of men and women who made the mission possible.

(Image credit: Neon )

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2GRLuZa
via IFTTT

In 'Transit,' A Man Fleeing Fascists Gets Caught In A Web Of Mistaken Identity

German director Christian Petzold adapts a 1944 Holocaust novel by setting it in the modern day. The result is a haunting and beguiling narrative of 21st-century displacement.

(Image credit: Music Box Films )

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2Nx2e8k
via IFTTT

In 'Greta,' A Magnetic Isabelle Huppert Plays A Deadly Game of Chat-And-Mouse

A young woman (Chloë Grace Moretz) befriends a mysterious older woman (Huppert) in Neil Jordan's weird thriller. As extreme as Greta gets, Huppert "finds careful nuances within the bonkers."

(Image credit: Jonathan Hession/Focus Features)

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2GRMfS0
via IFTTT

Gov. Herbert calls some gay conversion therapy 'barbaric'

Gov. Gary Herbert said Thursday that he backs a legislative push to ban some types of gay conversion therapy that he called "barbaric" but added that defining what constitutes conversion therapy is vital.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2IG1L57

7-year-old dies days after being found unresponsive in home

A 7-year-old boy from Sandy who was found unresponsive in his home earlier this week has died from his injuries, police say.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2VqNMBy

Former Tooele officer charged with engaging in sexual relations with parolee

A former Tooele City police officer accused of having sexual relations with a man on federal parole has been charged.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2Nykm1K

‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ star says she would choose family over Hollywood ‘every time’

‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ star Patricia Heaton said she was surprised how much she liked her kids when she had them, during her keynote at RootsTech in Salt Lake City — the world's largest family history event.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2NyidmE

Utah, Canadian investigation leads to child porn charges against Logan man

An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has lead to child pornography charges against a Logan man.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2IREyx4

YouTube bans comments on videos of children

The streaming platform is disabling comments on videos of children after paedophiles left predatory comments.

from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2tJG21Q

Mozambique files case against Credit Suisse

The Swiss bank has not commented on its role in what has become known as the "tuna bond" loan scandal.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2H4YR7u

'Transit' Offers An Extraordinary Vision Of Nazi-Occupied France

A new film by German director Christian Petzold is set in a suspended-in-time version of the present. Critic Justin Chang calls it "a piercingly sad lament for the lost and forgotten souls of Europe."

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2NxwqAt
via IFTTT

All The Parts Fit Together Like Clockwork On Allison Miller's 'Glitter Wolf'

Miller's band, the sextet Boom Tic Boom, keep good time — and appear to have a good time — on their new album. "You can hear how much her crew enjoy playing this music," critic Kevin Whitehead says.

from Fresh Air : NPR https://ift.tt/2NBcA7s
via IFTTT

'Transit' Offers An Extraordinary Vision Of Nazi-Occupied France

A new film by German director Christian Petzold is set in a suspended-in-time version of the present. Critic Justin Chang calls it "a piercingly sad lament for the lost and forgotten souls of Europe."

from Fresh Air : NPR https://ift.tt/2GRTidr
via IFTTT

Journalist Explains How Mike Pompeo Helps 'Translate Trump' To The World

New York Times Magazine writer Mattathias Schwartz says that when Trump's tweets take our allies by surprise, it's the secretary of state's job to "calm people down."

from Fresh Air : NPR https://ift.tt/2Nyc6yM
via IFTTT

Best headphones: Our top picks for personal listening

Whether you're looking for an over-the-ear, on-ear, or in-ear model, we'll help you find the perfect pair.

from PCWorld https://ift.tt/2NviF5c

Globesweeper review: February's most addictive game is a modernized take on Minesweeper

Tax hike is best way to stop teen vaping, lawmakers hear; bill to test for lead in school water advances

A sales tax increase is the best way to stop teen vaping in Utah, a group told lawmakers Wednesday. And, a bill to test for lead in water at day cares and schools advanced in committee.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2EBgeLq

Toddler tech-timeout: How much screen time should young children have?

The amount of time babies and toddlers are spending on screens has some pediatricians and child psychologists calling for a total tech-timeout.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2tJbsFD

BJP-online loves…

World Press Story of the Year nominee Lorenzo Tugnoli
“Working in Yemen is extremely difficult,” says Lorenzo Tugnoli, talking to BJP by phone from Kabul. “It’s a country where you have to navigate through various factions, and there are bureaucratic obstacles on both sides. As an example, it took us months just to get a visa. And even when you get access, you are not allowed to have much time. For example, after long negotiation we were allowed to go to Hodeidah, but they only let us stay for a few days. I look at my pictures in the port: I was there just for half an hour.”

Wafa Ahmed Hathim (25) lost her left leg when a mortar landed on her house in the strategically important Red Sea port of Hudaydah on 8 December—at a time when long-negotiated peace talks were taking place in Sweden. From Yemen Crisis © Lorenzo Tugnoli, Contrasto, for The Washington Post

World Press Story of the Year nominee Pieter Ten Hoopen
“I think that today, we need to be able to tell stories in differently, to be able to connect to as many viewers as we can,” says World Press Story of the Year-nominated Pieter Ten Hoopen. “We’re heading towards a new phase. Before, a single image could become iconic for a whole war, or a situation of despair. Now it’s different, and I think we need to be able to tell stories in a more sensitive way.” Hoopen’s nominated photographs for World Press Story of the Year follow the movement of thousands of Central American migrants who joined a caravan heading to the United States border between October and November 2018.

A girl pick flowers during the day’s walk from Tapanatepec to Niltepec, a distance of 50 km. © Pieter Ten Hoopen, Agence Vu/Civilian Act

World Press Photo of the Year nominee John Moore
On the evening of 12 June 2018, a dozen or so refugees from Central America crossed the Rio Grande river from Mexico, with the hope of making it across the US border. “It was a moonless night, very dark. I could hear them coming,” says John Moore, who was photographing along the border in South Texas. “The border agent shined the spotlight on them. Most of them looked tired, some of them scared.” Among them were Sandra Sanchez and her two-year-old daughter Yanela, who had been travelling from Honduras for a month. Sanchez was the last of the group to be searched, and as soon as she lowered Yanela to the ground, she began to cry.

Yanela, from Honduras, cries as her mother Sandra Sanchez is searched by a US Border Patrol agent, in McAllen, Texas, USA, on 12 June. © John Moore, Getty Images

World Press Photo of the Year nominee Mohammed Badra
It’s the child that’s the really shocking factor in Mohammed Badra’s photograph from Eastern Ghouta, Syria, which has been nominated for the World Press Photo of the Year. Showing victims of a suspected gas attack in hospital on 25 February 2018, the image includes a small boy hooked up to breathing apparatus. “I always use my ethical compass while creating a picture,” Badra tells BJP. “I imagine myself in the injured situation, or imagine that I’m taking a picture of one of my family members. When I see a victim I see myself, because in Douma it could easily be me or anyone next in those positions tomorrow. They are a mirror of our possible future, and this idea terrifies me.”

Wounded people receive treatment after the suspected gas attack on al-Shifunieh, 25 February 2018. © Mohammed Badra, European Pressphoto Agency

World Press Photo of the Year nominee Chris McGrath
“It was a really tough story to cover, because the subject wasn’t there,” says Chris McGrath. “There was so much press there, and everyone was having the same problem.” The story was the disappearance of the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi and the problem was exactly that – a Saudi Arabian journalist, author, and editor, who wrote for The Washington Post, Khashoggi had gone to the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul on 02 October 2018 and vanished. Lurid reports that he’d been killed and dismembered soon circulated, but his body has still not been found and initially, the Saudi Arabian government denied his death. There was, as McGrath says, very little to photograph.

An unidentified man tries to hold back the press on 15 October, as Saudi investigators arrive at the Saudi Arabian Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, amid a growing international backlash to the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. © Chris McGrath, Getty Images

Chobi Mela festival opens in Dhaka, Bangladesh
“Chobi Mela continues the way it began,” writes Shahidul Alam. “Unyielding to power.” He’s referencing the very first Chobi Mela festival, which opened in Dhaka, Bangladesh back in 2000. Alam and Robert Pledge had painstakingly put together an exhibition on Bangladesh’s 1971 war, which a government minister – phoning at midnight – wanted to censor; rather than comply and remove the offending prints, Alam and Pledge moved the entire exhibition to a new venue, which opened at 3pm the next day. But though he doesn’t mention it outright, it’s difficult to read his comments now without also thinking of Alam’s own recent experience, in which he spent 107 days in Dhaka Central Jail last year.

Life Cycle of a Venus © Habiba Nowrose

The Unwanted: homeless in America
It all began in 2014, when Thilde Jensen met two homeless men – Reine and Lost – in Syracuse, New York. They had survived three bitterly cold winters under a small concrete ledge built beneath a highway, where icy winds would whistle relentlessly through the underpass, as if in battle with the roaring traffic overhead. “It blew me away,” says Jensen. “I got drawn into thinking about what it felt like to live outdoors, having done it myself.” The Unwanted was shot over four years, in four American cities – Syracuse, Gallup, Las Vegas, and New Orleans – and completed with the support of a Guggenheim fellowship. Jensen is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to publish a book of the work.

Heather fighting demons. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Q&A: Piero Percoco’s The Rainbow is Underestimated
“I would compare myself to a barracuda, attacking the instant something shiny comes along,” says Piero Percoco. Percoco has never studied photography but, inspired by photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston, he started taking shots with his phone seven years ago and posting them on Instagram. He now has 45.2k followers, and is about to publish his second book with Skinnerboox, The Rainbow is Underestimated – after a successful first outing, Prism Interiors, edited by the respected photographer Jason Fulford.

© Piero Percoco

Tender – In love with contemporary Czech photography
A group show of contemporary Czech photography in New York, Tender is dedicated to work that “registers vulnerabilities of people and their environments – the bruises on the fruit”. The selected photographers include image-makers such as Tereza Zelenková, Vendula Knopová, and Hana Knížová, who adopt widely varying styles but all investigate this idea in their selected work. Zelenková, for example, is showing a project based on the Czech literary classic The Grandma by Božena Němcová, which tells the story of a young woman seduced by a passing soldier, who spends the rest of her days haunting the local woods.

Viktorka © Tereza Zelenková

Berenice Abbott: Portraits of Modernity, on show in Barcelona
“To me photography is a means – perhaps the best means of our age – of widening knowledge of our world. Photography is a method of education, for acquainting people of all ages and conditions with the truth about life today,” wrote photographer Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), in an unpublished text, Statement in Regard to Photography Today, 1946. From portraits of elite avant-garde circles in Paris, to rapidly-changing cityscapes of her New York City, plus a career in science journalism, ideas of modernity pervade Abbott’s legacy. Now, a major exhibition of her work is going show at the Fundación MAPFRE in Barcelona.

Berenice Abbott, Eugène Atget, 1927 © Getty Images/Berenice Abbott

from British Journal of Photography https://ift.tt/2EBzpon
via IFTTT

Resolution calling for constitutional convention passes Utah Senate in close vote

A resolution calling for a convention to consider amendments to the U.S. Constitution that has opposition from both the right and the left barely passed the Senate Wednesday, 16-12.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2SxuaKr

Utah Senate committee gives tentative nod to federal designation in Wasatch canyons

A legislative committee gave unanimous support to the pursuit of a new federal designation for the Wasatch canyons, despite some members expressing reservations and one resident accusing the process of violating state law on a number of fronts.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2XxsyUm

Acer's powerful, kitted-out Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop just dropped under $1,000

Water in schools, child care centers would be regularly tested for lead under Utah bill

Water in Utah schools and child care centers would be regularly tested for lead under a bill approved Tuesday by the House Education Committee.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2GQABGS

Students Against Electronic Vaping says raising sales tax best way to stop teen vaping in Utah

Of the bills presented at the Utah Legislature to help the 'epidemic level' of e-cigarette use, Students Against Electronic Vaping says HB252, which increases the sales tax to match other tobacco products, would be the most effective.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2UkgIeg

Utah Senate passes Student Teacher Success Act, part of Our Schools Now compromise

The Utah Senate passed SB149 Wednesday, a bill that creates a process for disbursing funds set aside at the end of the 2018 legislative session as part of lawmakers' compromise with backers of the Our Schools Now citizen initiative.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2IGTRIL

BJP-online’s month in photobooks

Q&A: Piero Percoco’s The Rainbow is Underestimated
“I would compare myself to a barracuda, attacking the instant something shiny comes along,” says Piero Percoco. Percoco has never studied photography but, inspired by photographers such as Stephen Shore and William Eggleston, he started taking shots with his phone seven years ago and posting them on Instagram. He now has 45.2k followers, and about to publish his second book with Skinnerboox, The Rainbow is Underestimated.

© Piero Percoco

The Town of Tomorrow: 50 Years of Thamesmead
In the mid-1960s, vast blocks of concrete began to rise out of London’s Erith marshes on the south bank of the River Thames. 50 years on, a new book celebrates one of London’s most famous social housing projects as it gears up for another bold redevelopment. “It’s a crazy place,” says Tara Darby, who has photographed the estate and its inhabitants in images run alongside archive shots of the development. “Because of its geographical location it feels like you’re on the edge of London, but then coupled with that you get this amazing feeling of nature.

Olushola with his family at Lesnes Abbey with South Thamesmead in the distance © Tara Darby

Private Reality: A Diary of a Teenage Boy in 1976
It’s the summer of 1976 in Weymouth, England, and 19-year-old Iain McKell is working the length of a busy seafront with two cameras strung round his neck. One is for his summer job, selling portraits to sunburnt holidaymakers for £1.50 a print. The other is for a personal project, which now – 43 years later – is on its way to being published as a book, Private Reality: A Diary of a Teenage Boy. His friends had no idea what he was doing, he says, but then to some extent neither did he. “We were all partying and having fun, but somehow, I had my eye on the prize,” he says.

© Iain McKell

Shortlist announced for MACK’s First Book Award
Themes of cultural identity and political conflict prevail in the shortlist for the 2019 MACK First Book Award, which was put out to an open call for the first time this year. The shortlisted photographers are: E2-E4 by Jacob Clayton; Turunc by Solene Gun; Oobanken by Jerome Ming; 1972 by Rachel Monosov & Admire Kamudzengerere; The Buzzer by Miguel Proença; June by Tereza Cervenova; Flattened in Time and Space by Angelo Vignali; Alexander by Michal Siarek; Czarna Madonna (Black Madonna) by Jagoda Wisniewska; and Days by Alia Zapparova.

Image courtesy of the artists and MACK

Q&A: Paul Thulin’s Pine Tree Ballads
In the early 1900s, Paul Thulin’s great-grandfather settled on the coast of Maine, reminded of his homeland of Sweden. Thulin’s family has returned to Gray’s Point each summer ever since, and Thulin has been working on a project there, Pine Tree Ballads, for over a decade. Initially inspired by his grandfather’s photographs, he hopes it has “a subtext of struggle and hope that mirrors my narrative sense of self and heritage”, adding: “All moments in time are decisive moments.”

From Pine Tree Ballads © Paul Thulin

Radici by Fabrizio Albertini
Fabrizio Albertini’s latest project began in his vegetable garden. “It was a stream of consciousness that lasted for a couple of years, from 2015 to 2017. I started taking pictures in my garden,” he says, “I was looking for something close to me”. He’s just published the project as a book with Witty Kiwi, giving it the title Radici, which means “roots” in Italian, “like the ones in my guardian”. But the project developed into an exploration of roots in a personal sense too. The book includes archival images found in a museum in Cannobina Valley, where Albertini’s mother grew up.

Radici © Fabrizio Albertini

The Unwanted: homeless in America
“If we don’t look at them, or if we try to sanitise it, then it’s not honest to this brutal experience of being homeless,” says Danish photographer Thilde Jensen, who is currently raising funds to publish a four year project on homelessness shot in four American cities – Syracuse, Gallup, Las Vegas, and New Orleans. “I hope that the photographs help shed light on this experience, and these people who are out there, and I hope it does it in an honest way that gives the viewer some of the experience. I hope it lets you, even for a short period of time, feel that this could be your life.”

Sammy falling down. Gallup, New Mexico, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Q&A: Manfred Heiting, photobook expert
Starting to collect photobooks in the 1970s, Manfred Heiting amassed one of the world’s best libraries – but last year it was consumed by the California wildfires. As Steidl publishes his latest book, Czech and Slovak Photo Publications, 1918-1989, BJP catches up with him. “Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918, and 1989 was the days of the Velvet Revolution and the end of the communist regime. In some way the photobooks published there after 1989 became like all Western photobooks, and lost most of their local identity and quality – they may have been made more for ‘us’ than for ‘them’,” he says.

Spread from Czech and Slovak Photo Publications, 1918-1989, edited by Manfred Heiting and published by Steidl www.steidl.de

Jasper by Matthew Genitempo
Photographed in the forests and mountains of the Ozarks, Matthew Genitempo’s first book, Jasper, published by Twin Palms, is a poetic exploration of the American landscape and the people who seek peace within its grasp. “I was making photographs of the American Southwest, and Jasper [named after the town in Arkansas where many of the pictures were made] began when I abandoned all that work,” he says. “I had been making photographs that were preconceived, but I wanted to make pictures that were leading with my eyes and my instincts.

From Jasper © Matthew Genitempo

David Denil’s Let Us Not Fall Asleep While Walking
Travelling to Kiev in the wake of protest, revolution and civil war, Belgian photographer David Denil set about documenting the aftermath of conflict in the minds of ordinary people, still coming to terms with the country’s sharp divisions. The resulting series, Let Us Not Fall Asleep While Walking, departs from journalistic record, instead attempting to depict “the psychological state of this Ukraine looking at its future while haunted by its past and memory,” he says. “The images are metaphorical representations from the everyday life encountered where time seems frozen but dreams of hope still linger.”

From Let Us Not Fall Asleep While Walking © David Denil

from British Journal of Photography https://ift.tt/2T7F5zy
via IFTTT

Take control of your finances and save 80% on a lifetime subscription to Kualto

Upgrade speeds without sacrificing storage space: A massive 960GB Crucial SSD is just $96 today

Women Show The Faces Of War In 'The Huntress'

Kate Quinn's new thriller puts women's experiences front and center in the story of a former Soviet "Night Witch" pilot chasing down an escaped Nazi known as The Huntress in the years after the war.

(Image credit: )

from Arts & Life : NPR https://ift.tt/2VpRlrN
via IFTTT

'Your voice deserves a place at the table': 2020 presidential candidate Julian Castro speaks to Utah students

Julian Castro, a 2020 presidential candidate, appealed to Hispanic high school and university students Wednesday, encouraging those who would be of age by the election to vote for him.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2TjcIh7

US economic growth continues to slow

Weaker consumer spending weighed on growth during the fourth quarter of 2018.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2GQtaPY

Prosecutors clear Utah police officer in deadly shooting

Prosecutors have cleared a Utah police officer in the deadly shooting of a man who authorities say refused to surrender weapons and fired shots.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2tLNv09

World Press Photo of the Year nominee Mohammed Badra

Back in 2011, Mohammed Badra was studying architecture at Damascus University, a 20-minute drive from his native Douma. Then war broke out in Syria and he was forced to abandon his studies, initially becoming a first-responder for the Syrian Red Crescent, and then starting to take photographs of the conflict. “Taking a picture is documenting history,” he says simply. “I am an architecture student, I was pushed into photography.”

In 2015 Badra joined EPA [European Pressphoto Agency], working under Oliver Weiken and starting to focus in on images of children. Children are “the biggest losers in this war” he says, and there are many caught up in the crossfire, with the UN estimating that some 500,000 are currently living in 16 besieged areas in Syria.

And it’s the child that’s the really shocking factor in Badra’s photograph from Eastern Ghouta, which has been nominated for the World Press Photo of the Year. Showing victims of a suspected gas attack in hospital on 25 February 2018, the image includes a small boy hooked up to breathing apparatus.

“I always use my ethical compass while creating a picture,” Badra tells BJP. “I imagine myself in the injured situation, or imagine that I’m taking a picture of one of my family members. When I see a victim, I see myself, because in Douma it could easily be me or anyone next in those positions tomorrow. They are a mirror of our possible future, and this idea terrifies me.”

The suspected gas attack is controversial, particularly as using chemical weapons is outlawed. That there was an attack seems undeniable, with the Syrian American Medical Society confirming it treated 16 patients – including six children – for “symptoms indicative to exposure to chemical compounds”. But who is responsible is a moot point, with the Syrian government consistently denying it is using chemical weapons, and with Syrian President Assad’s backers, the Russian government, accusing rebels of using them as a “provocation”. 

Badra notes that “each person has his private opinion”, and acknowledges that “I am one of the victims”, but adds that: “We know the victims, and we know the criminals, all of us know!”

“It’s very clear actually,” he continues. “Eastern Ghouta was besieged by the Syrian forces, and the bombing campaign started on Ghouta during the [UN] ceasefire. News reports always say different things, but I don’t think it is fair to take hundreds of reports saying that the Assad regime did that, and compare them to a few reports saying something different. I believe that the world knows the culprit – a world that can send space stations to faraway planets to take pictures must have pictures of warplanes dropping bombs and barrels.

“Because I am a Syrian national, because I am one of the victims, because I’ve listened to thousands of testimonies, and because of the collective knowledge of how dictatorships deal with the people they oppress, I have built my own opinion around what happened,” he concludes.

But while Badra draws on his experience of Syria and Assad to inform both his opinions and his photography, he says that there isn’t a big difference between what he shoots and what foreign photojournalists shoot – other than the fact that he can get access to what’s going on.

“It’s not about being a local or a foreigner, it’s about how to capture the moment and understand the atmosphere,” he says. “About how the photographer can make a connection with the victims, read their eyes. Local photographers are maybe closer to the people more than foreigners. But there are so many foreign photographers that make great coverage, because of their fresh eyes.

“I support having both local and foreign coverage, but it was under siege,” he adds. “You need to ask the ones who prevented foreigners from getting inside, the ones who besieged the city.”

www.epa.eu/photographers/mohammed-badra www.worldpressphoto.org

from British Journal of Photography https://ift.tt/2H77Xk3
via IFTTT

Utah GOP reps vote no, state's only Democrat says yes on universal background checks

Utah's only Democrat in Congress voted in support of the bill the U.S. House passed Wednesday requiring background checks on all gun sales, while the state's three Republicans voted against it.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2GQQOfl

'Useless slimming pills face fake Amazon reviews' fine

A company that sold "ineffective" fat-fighting herbal supplements is facing a $12.8m (£9.6m) fine.

from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2IIAxL1

Tan France: 'Why I don't knock fast fashion'

Queer Eye's Tan France gives his tips for dressing sustainably and explains why he understands the appeal of fast fashion.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2El8sEk

Google must provide details on Nest microphone error

Three US senators write to Google, asking questions about the hidden microphone in Nest devices.

from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2BUG7o0

Body of missing teen discovered; police treating death as supicious

Officers with the Unified Police Department found the body of a missing teen in a field Wednesday night.

from KSL / Utah / Local Stories https://ift.tt/2BTknIY

Merger could close Fox's mints factory in Leicester

Confectionery has been made at the Leicester factory for more than a century.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2XvLDGw

Aston Martin shares dive by 18% on losses

The luxury car maker plunged into loss as a result of the cost of its stock market flotation.

from BBC News - Business https://ift.tt/2H7yzSb

The Unwanted: homeless in America

“Given my own life story, maybe I have a bit more of an understanding of what it means to be forced out, to be on the edge of society,” says Thilde Jensen, who lived in a tent in the woods for 18 months back in 2004. “I was homeless too for a while, but for different reasons.”

At the age of 30, Jensen had developed severe Environmental Illness, also known as Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. The symptoms are wide-ranging, and can include headache, fatigue, nausea, and respiratory problems, caused by a severe sensitivity to chemical exposure – be it perfumes, detergent, or even synthetic fabrics and plastic.

Jensen wore a respirator for seven years, and was unable use her phone or laptop because she also became sensitive to electronics. For the first year and a half Jensen lived in her tent, or in the desert under the open sky. Eventually, she found an alternative treatment from Canada that targeted the illness through the brain, and in 2013 published her first book, The Canaries, about people who suffer from Environmental Illness.

“It was very disabling” says the Danish photographer over the phone from upstate New York, where she now lives in a straw-built house in the countryside. Jensen has recovered, but has to take precautions in her lifestyle, particularly when travelling. Ironically, perhaps, these factors also made it easier to photograph homeless people than many others for her next project, because they live outside and don’t use fragrances or detergents she could be sensitive to.

Titled The Unwanted, her forthcoming book is also all too relevant now, with numbers of people without homes thought to be soaring around the world. Accurate statistics are hard to collate, but in the UK, the number of people who declared themselves homeless hit a record high in 2018, and reported rates of homelessness in other countries in Europe are also rising. Jensen’s photographs were taken in the United States, but speak to the parallel experiences of over 100 million individuals worldwide, as estimated by the UN.

Bobby dragging his blanket to untangle the energy fields. Homeless for 13 years. Las-Vegas, Nevada, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

It all began in 2014, when Jensen met two homeless men – Reine and Lost – in Syracuse, New York. They had survived three bitterly cold winters under a small concrete ledge built beneath a highway, where icy winds would whistle relentlessly through the underpass, as if in battle with the roaring traffic overhead. “It blew me away,” says Jensen. “I got drawn into thinking about what it felt like to live outdoors, having done it myself.”

The Unwanted was shot over four years, in four American cities – Syracuse, Gallup, Las Vegas, and New Orleans – and completed with the support of a Guggenheim fellowship. Jensen is currently raising funds on Kickstarter to publish a book of the work, which will include 120 colour images, as well as a poem by Gregory George – a homeless man she met in New Orleans – and an essay by respected photography critic Gerry Badger.

Jensen was keen to shoot in Las Vegas, because she saw the city as a paradigm of capitalist America, and knew there was large homeless population there. But funding was tight, so over four one-month stints, lived out of her car without shower or laundry facilities. After a while, Jensen felt that people were beginning to look at her differently. “I was starting to be treated like someone who was not desired, who was unwanted,” she says. “I got yelled at by a guard in a parking lot”.

Jensen explains how our daily routines like showering, getting dressed, or choosing what to have for breakfast all subtly contribute to a sense of our identity. “When that disappears it gets harder and harder to keep together who you really are,” she notes.

Over the four years she spent photographing and building relationships, Jensen became close with her subjects, and says she misses them now. “I think there is an honest, raw, human nakedness to people on the street,” she says. “When everything is stripped away, when you don’t have material goods, when your titles are gone, you’re just left with you. There was a realness to the interactions I had.”

Bobby’s feet. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Sammy falling down. Gallup, New Mexico, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

But shooting vulnerable people can also invite criticism. It raises questions of whether the images are exploitative, or if the photographer truly has the license or full consent. “I think there is a fine balance, but it’s important to look,” says Jensen. “If we don’t look at them, or if we try to sanitise it, then it’s not honest to this brutal experience of being homeless.

“I didn’t want to romanticise it, or show it in a way that I felt wasn’t truthful,” she continues, using Diane Arbus as an example of a photographer who was criticised for taking images that some regard as voyeuristic from a point of privilege. “I’ve always felt that to her, they were not freaks, no more than she herself was a freak. It goes back to how we take photographs of other people. There is some part of it that is a self portrait. I can’t photograph someone who I can’t feel.”

During The Canaries project, when Jensen was running back and forth between the camera and her bathtub – naked with a respirator attached to her head – she thought back to Arbus’ photographs of the nudist camp. “The behind the scenes of those photographs would be equally interesting, because Arbus herself was walking around naked with a camera around her neck,” she laughs.

“There has to be a side of me that can understand the people I photograph. I think the licence comes from that – from being human, being open enough to have an extreme level of intimacy that allows you to feel other people and hold them in a photographic embrace. I don’t ever feel like I’m above anything that I photograph.”

Still, Jensen recognises that when she was homeless, as such, it was in a different context to the people she photographed – her life’s outcome could have been entirely different if she hadn’t had the means to support herself through her illness. “It all comes down to poverty,” she says. “Mental health and substance abuse aren’t reasons alone to become homeless.”

And though these problems were common among people she met, she adds that it was difficult to know whether their mental health issues had contributed to their homelessness, or a side effect of living on the street, “an escape to deal with the pain”.

Everyone had a different story, but one of the more common narratives Jensen encountered involved prison. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and some of those who are discharged get sent straight to a homeless shelter. On top of not having a permanent home, or a valid form of identification, a criminal record makes it even harder to get a job.

“I think a lot of people end up on the street because of neglect – whether it’s from society or from friends and family,” says Jensen. As someone who has experience of living in solitude, Jensen knows the importance of human contact and attention, and on the street, she found that it could be transformative. At first, some of her subjects were visibly agitated by her presence, but by the end they were “like different people,” she says, greeting her with hugs.

“Human connection is key for all of us. If we can create a society that treats the most vulnerable in our society better, we all benefit from that,” says Jensen. “I hope that the photographs help shed light on this experience, and these people who are out there, and I hope it does it in an honest way that gives the viewer some of the experience. I hope it lets you, even for a short period of time, feel that this could be your life.”

http://thildejensen.com Thilde Jensen is currently raising funds to publish The Unwanted https://ift.tt/2Ua0HYo

Joe walking to the shelter in winter. Syracuse, New York, 2015. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Cindy with her wig. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Cindy’s wig on bush. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Heather fighting demons. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Street diamonds. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Skinny, with crystal pipe. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Skinny hiding under his blanket in the morning. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2016. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Pigeons fighting over food scraps. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Mytay, Payday Loans. Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

James’ ashtray next to his stacked cardboard bed, where he has found shelter the last few years. Syracuse, New York, 2014. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Homeless camp in winter by Destiny USA Mall. Syracuse, New, York, 2015. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

‘What they did to me can never happen again.’ 2. Syracuse, New York, 2015. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

‘What they did to me can never happen again.’ Syracuse, New York, 2015. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

Gareth walking all the way home to Kentucky. Route 66, Arizona, 2017. From The Unwanted © Thilde Jensen

from British Journal of Photography https://ift.tt/2C0yTyF
via IFTTT