vox--2020-02-07--Antarctica just set a record high temperature of 64.9 degrees

Antarctica just recorded its hottest temperature on record : 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit ( 18.3°C ) .
The World Meteorological Organization ( WMO ) reported that Esperanza , Argentina ’ s research base on the Trinity Peninsula ( the section closest to South America ) , detected the balmy temperature spike on Thursday .
The previous record , 63.5 degrees , was set in 2015 .
“ The record appears to be likely associated ( in the short term ) with what we call a regional ‘ foehn ’ event over the area : a rapid warming of air coming down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , WMO ’ s weather and climate extremes rapporteur , in a statement .
It ’ s currently summer in the southern hemisphere , and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season .
However , temperatures usually don ’ t get much higher than 50 degrees .
On this rapidly warming planet of ours , the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest .
Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels .
But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years .
That rising heat is particularly worrying because it ’ s fueling loss in the world ’ s largest reservoir of ice : the Antarctic ice sheets .
If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt , it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet .
It ’ s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica ’ s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates .
The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt .
Between 1979 and 2017 , the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold .
This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand .
Last month , 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also detected new cracks in glaciers in Antarctica .
“ Pine Island glacier , like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier , has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years , ” according to the WMO .
The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly .
In 2018 , the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row .
Together , these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world .

The Antarctic region has set another stunningly high temperature record: 69.35 degrees Fahrenheit (20.75°C).
Brazilian scientists detected the balmy temperature on February 9 on Seymour Island, just off the tip of the Trinity Peninsula, the section of Antarctica closest to South America, first reported by The Guardian.
“We are seeing the warming trend in many of the sites we are monitoring, but we have never seen anything like this,” said Carlos Schaefer, a Brazilian government scientist who studies the Antarctic, told The Guardian.
The new record came less than two days after a temperature of 64.9 degrees F (18.3°C) was recorded on the continent — which broke the previous record set in 2015.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported that Esperanza, Argentina’s research base on the Trinity Peninsula, detected the previous balmy temperature spike on February 7. The record prior to that, 63.5 degrees, in 2015.
Esperanza Base at the Northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula reported a daily high temperature of 18.3 °C (65 °F).
If confirmed, then this will be a new all-time record high temperature ever observed anywhere in the continent of Antarctica.https://t.co/MUtjvFTeBa pic.twitter.com/5X26B1is5s — Robert Rohde (@RARohde) February 7, 2020
“The record appears to be likely associated (in the short term) with what we call a regional ‘foehn’ event over the area: a rapid warming of air coming down a slope/mountain,” said Randall Cerveny, WMO’s weather and climate extremes rapporteur, in a statement.
Animation of T850 in °C (temperature at 850hPa) showing this heat wave over the Antarctic Peninsula. This will be followed tomorrow by an interesting foehn event according to GFS. https://t.co/IbZ2KFKuxM pic.twitter.com/J195ZAw1lY — Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) February 7, 2020
Shortly after the heat spike, the European Space Agency reported that a 120 square mile chunk of ice had broken off the the Pine Island Glacier, one of the continent’s most endangered glaciers.
❄ The Pine Island glacier calving event was captured by #Sentinel2  in true colour yesterday, 11 February, where many large icebergs are clearly visible.
Further cracks seemed to have appeared since the last update from 09 February. pic.twitter.com/04D1jwcrxJ — Copernicus EU (@CopernicusEU) February 12, 2020
“Pine Island glacier, like its neighbouring Thwaites Glacier, has been dramatically losing ice over the last 25 years,” according to the WMO.
It’s currently summer in the southern hemisphere, and even icy Antarctica starts to warm up as it receives uninterrupted sunlight through the season. However, temperatures usually don’t get much higher than 50 degrees.
On this rapidly warming planet of ours, the polar regions are heating up faster than the rest. Earth has warmed up by just over 1.8 degrees on average since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, when humans began spewing heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. But the Antarctic Peninsula has warmed by 5.4 degrees in just the last 50 years.
That rising heat is particularly worrying because it’s fueling loss in the world’s largest reservoir of ice: the Antarctic ice sheets. If all the ice in Antarctica were to melt, it would raise global sea levels by 190 feet. It’s hard to know exactly how much Antarctica’s ice is contributing to global sea-level rise right now, but several estimates show that this ice could add upward of 16 inches of sea-level rise by the end of the century based on current rates.
The latest science also shows an acceleration in ice melt. Between 1979 and 2017, the annual rate of ice loss increased sixfold. This cold freshwater flowing into the ocean in turn is influencing weather patterns around the world in ways that scientists are still trying to understand.
Last month, 50-year-old climate activist Lewis Pugh swam in a river formed beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet to highlight the impacts of warming.
The opposite end of the world is also warming rapidly. In 2018, the Arctic experienced its heat wave in winter for the third year in a row. Together, these events show that a lot more heat and change are in store for the coolest parts of the world.


vox--2020-02-07--How the Oscars industrial complex makes the Oscars less diverse

The 2020 Oscar nominations felt , to many , like the return of a trend the awards were supposed to have moved past : a non-diverse slate of nominees .
In the wake of two straight years without any acting nominees of color ( in 2015 and 2016 ) , the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( which oversees the Oscars ) made structural changes to its membership , inviting in thousands of new , younger voters who were notably more diverse than the traditionally older , whiter , maler Oscar voting body .
The Academy remains very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those changes did result in three straight years when the nominations slate was notably more diverse than it had ever been .
More people of color were nominated for and won acting Oscars .
Women and people of color were nominated in the directing category more frequently ( though still all too rarely ) .
The first woman ever was nominated in the Cinematography category .
The 2020 nominations seem to have brought that progress to a screeching halt .
Only one performer of color was nominated across all four acting categories .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite numerous acclaimed films ( and one Best Picture nominee — Greta Gerwig ’ s Little Women ) having been directed by women .
It ’ s entirely possible that the 2020 Oscars will prove to be a notable blip .
Many of the year ’ s less prominent categories are encouragingly more diverse than they ’ ve been in the past .
( The Best Documentary Feature category , for instance , contains four films told in a language other than English and four films with women directors or co-directors . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ also involves numerous diverse contenders being pushed aside in favor of cis , straight white men ( or white women in the case of the acting categories ) .
While many of the nominees are highly deserving by any measure , the picture they paint in aggregate elicits a depressing feeling of a major setback .
Naturally , this problem has led to pushback against the Academy .
But the Academy isn ’ t the only force affecting Oscar outcomes .
Yes , the Academy is the only body that actually votes on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time that voting occurs , many , many other groups have weighed in , and they ’ ve often indirectly winnowed the list down from lots of contenders to a handful .
And throughout that process , more diverse contenders are often shunted aside .
Let ’ s take a look at how this happens with three performers from 2019 films who could have been nominated for the 2020 Oscars but were not , to see how diversity is too often stamped out at every step of the nominations process .
In theory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ least a week ’ s release in a theater in both New York and Los Angeles , and doesn ’ t debut on television , is eligible for an Academy Award .
But , as even the most casual observers will know , it ’ s not remotely true that every movie released in a given year is considered for an Academy Award .
Oscar voters don ’ t have time to watch every movie released in a given year , because nobody does .
So cuts have to be made , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be set .
The most obvious cuts are ones nobody might disagree with — movies with terrible reviews or movies that outright bombed at the box office rarely manage a run at Oscar glory .
Beyond that , it ’ s rare for solidly reviewed movies without raves , or movies that made decent money but didn ’ t become massive hits , to be nominated , especially if they ’ re in genres the Oscars rarely reward ( comedy , horror , superhero films , etc. )
.
Once you factor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ll end up with a list of between 30 and 50 titles , depending on how good mainstream movies were in any given year .
And with only five to 10 Best Picture nominees , that field has to be narrowed somehow .
Every year , beginning with the three major film festivals that happen in September — Venice , Telluride , and Toronto — any movie or performer who could have a reasonable chance at an Oscar is ruthlessly scrutinized by an entire industry built up around the Oscars .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by the large group of prognosticators , bloggers , and journalists who make predicting the Oscars their primary beat .
Their job is to figure out which movies released before the September festival season might prove to be Oscar players , and then to sort through the endless list of titles released in the last four months of the year to separate accomplished contenders from those who won ’ t have what it takes to make it to the ceremony .
Film writer Mark Harris , who currently covers the Oscars for Vanity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for over a decade , likens the September festival season to the Iowa caucuses .
Both events happen so early in their respective campaign seasons , that they take on outsized importance and are able to inflate buzz and hype in one direction or another .
And if a performance or film is acclaimed at one of these festivals , by critics or film journalists or Oscar prognosticators , film studios — hungry for scraps of information on which movies to support — shift their plans accordingly .
“ There ’ s so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much hasn ’ t been seen that three people at the Toronto Film Festival saying an actress is a sure bet for a Best Supporting Actress nomination for a movie suddenly assumes wildly inflated importance to the people who will eventually be allocating resources for those campaigns , ” Harris told me .
But if you ’ re an Oscar pundit , trying to predict which movies will perform well often means looking for movies that resemble the ones the Academy has honored before .
And because the Academy has a long history @ @ @ @ @ @ @ white men ( because the Academy has long been dominated by white men ) , an expectation of what sorts of films “ belong ” starts to form .
That can sideline deserving works of different genres or that center on different perspectives .
“ The Academy has done a laudable job diversifying the membership of its voting body over the last few years , but the more difficult job is going to be interrogating how the last 91 years of Oscar canon have told us certain movies are worthier than others , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ awards for the New York Times , told me via email .
“ Dramas are deemed more important than comedies , a whiz-bang war movie is considered to be a more significant directorial achievement than an intimate family drama , and stories by men are more often rewarded than those told by and about women.
” Just look at the case of Lupita Nyong ’ o in Us .
She won more awards from critics organizations than any other Best Actress contender in 2019 — including the Best Actress prize from the prestigious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a good predictor of Oscar glory to come .
But no matter her success with critics , she remained mired in sixth place on GoldDerby ’ s roundup of Oscar prognosticators ’ predictions .
Yes , she was in a horror movie ( typically not an Oscar-friendly genre ) .
But it was a critically beloved horror movie that was also a box office smash , from director Jordan Peele , whose previous horror film ( Get Out ) had been an Oscar contender .
And she was playing two completely different roles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Oscars often go for .
Nevertheless , the prognosticators were right .
Nyong ’ o was not one of the five names read on Oscar nomination morning .
Joyce Eng , of GoldDerby , points to the anti-horror bias in coloring perceptions of Nyong ’ o ’ s work , but she also points to the kinds of roles the Oscars have historically preferred to see women of color play , which rarely involve women in positions of relative power .
“ With Lupita , she won for 12 Years a Slave @ @ @ @ @ @ @ woman ] , and she didn ’ t get in for the awesome Jekyll and Hyde contemporary film , ” Eng says .
Clearly , prognosticators were correct to be skeptical of Nyong ’ o ’ s chances , even at a point when they hadn ’ t seen most of the performances they were predicting over hers .
( Us came out in March of 2019 and was on everyone ’ s radar almost all year , while eventual Best Actress nominee Saoirse Ronan ’ s turn in Little Women didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) But there ’ s a chicken-egg quality to this discussion .
If the people whose job it is to say which movies are serious Oscar contenders had supported Nyong ’ o from the first , would she have been taken more seriously as a contender ?
Or is a horror performance from a woman of color simply so far outside the Oscars ’ comfort zone that these prognosticators were right to say so ?
It ’ s an impossible question to answer , but a few other snubbed performances from 2019 may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this question .
Parasite is a tricky film to prioritize when it comes to choosing which actors to push in an Oscar campaign .
For starters , it ’ s a true ensemble piece , meaning there are no clear distinctions among which performers are lead and which are supporting .
For another , every single actor in it is pitch-perfect , but they probably can ’ t all be nominated .
And for still another , the movie is not in English , which is less of a demerit with Oscars voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stands in the way of a nomination more often than not .
Yet distributor Neon decided to put its primary Oscar efforts behind famed South Korean actor Song Kang-ho in the Supporting Actor category .
As Mr. Kim , the patriarch of a poor family that cons a rich one , he ’ s one of Parasite ’ s most sympathetic characters , and he ’ s played by an actor recognizable to American and British voters , thanks to his previous turns in movies like The Host and Snowpiercer .
Considering Parasite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nomination , it wasn ’ t out of the question that Song would pull out a surprise acting nod , especially after he won at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association .
( A similar turn of events pulled Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira into the 2019 Oscar race for their performances in Roma . )
Oscar prognosticators were skeptical , but Song quickly became one of the main faces of the film on the awards circuit , doing all the glad-handing that is so crucial to an Oscar campaign .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traction as he might have for one simple reason : He couldn ’ t seem to get nominated at any of the important awards preceding the Oscars .
Despite Parasite ’ s consistently strong performance with the assorted precursor awards — the most important of which are the Golden Globes and those given out by Hollywood ’ s many unions — the film didn ’ t receive recognition for any individual performers .
( However , its ensemble cast did win the award for best ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild awards .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ perhaps even more than being favored by prognosticators , has a deleterious effect on a film or performer ’ s Oscar nomination chances .
If you ’ re a tired Academy member trying to figure out which films to prioritize watching over the holidays before your Oscar ballot comes due in early January , well , an organization like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — which votes on the Golden Globes — is right there with a readymade list for you to peruse .
But where just under 8,500 people vote on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Globes .
As a result , the HFPA and other small organizations that hold their awards early in the season have a disproportionate level of influence per member .
“ When it comes to any voting process , I think people like to feel swept up in momentum .
I found it interesting that at the Critics Choice Awards , held just after the Golden Globes , the critics picked so many of the same Globe winners even when there were other contenders they had generally given better reviews to .
I guess @ @ @ @ @ @ @ horse , ” Buchanan said .
The desire to back a winner has felt particularly acute in 2020 , thanks to the Oscar season being hyper-compressed , with barely a month between the Golden Globes ( January 6 ) and the Oscars ( February 9 ) .
Usually , the window runs much closer to six or seven weeks .
“ What are voters actually watching ?
And how much time did they have to watch anything ?
” says Erik Anderson , editor of the site AwardsWatch .
“ If you are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Academy ] , you are not going to have a whole lot of time to watch 35 movies and vote on them .
The voters that do have that time are the ones that don ’ t work that much and they are the old-school voters .
“ In a shortened season , I think it ’ s why we got four movies that have 10 or more nominations [ 1917 , The Irishman , Joker , and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood ] , which has never ever happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did in previous years.
” But whatever the influence that prognosticators and precursors hold , they are not ultimately voting on the Oscars .
And sometimes , the Oscars have only the Oscars to blame for their predominantly white slate .
Right up until the morning of the Oscar nominations on January 13 , prognosticators were expecting a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Jennifer Lopez , in recognition of her turn as a fiercely protective and maternal stripper in the box office hit Hustlers .
She had received nominations from all of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was exactly the type the Oscars love to reward : a big star in a showy role that is at once impeccably performed and a reminder of why she became such a big star in the first place .
And then the Oscars ignored her .
Why ?
“ Hustlers did well at the box office and made over a hundred million dollars .
Critics loved it .
Fans loved it , but it ’ s just another movie that doesn ’ t fit in their typical vision of what an Oscar movie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ men .
And I feel like if it was a movie about male strippers fleecing men or even women , then it probably would have done better , ” says GoldDerby ’ s Eng .
It ’ s impossible to say exactly why Lopez wasn ’ t nominated .
For as much as writers like me like to talk about “ the Academy , ” it is , ultimately , just a body made up of individual voters who all have their own reasons for the choices they make .
Ultimately , we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year is another data point that adds up to a fuller picture of what makes an “ Oscar movie.
” And that picture changes from year to year .
Vanity Fair ’ s Harris points out to me that 50 years ago , it was considered an Oscar cliché that women won for playing “ bad girls ” — a.k.a .
sex workers — but in the 21st century , that ’ s no longer a real path to Oscar success .
Similarly , the “ it ’ s time ” narrative , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won before finally takes home the little gold man , is starting to lose its potency , as Glenn Close ( who lost on her seventh attempt at a win in 2019 ) could tell you .
But the ultimate responsibility for the Oscars lies with the Academy itself .
No prognosticator or precursor award can definitively affect the outcome .
And yet they can hope to influence that conversation around the edges , especially early in the awards season , when nobody knows much of anything just yet .
“ Here ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t think it ’ s viable for prognosticators to say anymore , ‘ My job is just to read the tea leaves , ’ because prognosticators , from the minute they start talking , are a tea leaf .
Like , you are part of the system of noise and the buzz and attention that you are professing to solely observe .
There ’ s no way around that , ” Harris says .
“ So if that ’ s true , my feeling is give into it and make better noise .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ as much as you would like to imagine that you ’ re just standing off to one side watching it .
So if you ’ re a part of it , you can no longer say , ‘ Well , my job isn ’ t to move the needle at all.
’ It may not be your job to move the needle , but it is your effect to move the needle.
” The responsibility of diversifying any given year ’ s Oscar slate is on the Academy , ultimately .
But let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conversation doesn ’ t become steadily less diverse as the season winds from the September festivals to the big show .
There are numerous points where someone could stop and say , “ Wait a minute !
This person should be nominated !
” based less on whether their performance seems of a piece with previous Oscar nominees and more on the pure quality of their work .
The 2019– ’ 20 Oscar season might end up being an anomaly — but only if everyone involved in the process has worked to make @ @ @

The 2020 Oscar nominations felt, to many, like the return of a trend the awards were supposed to have moved past: a non-diverse slate of nominees.
In the wake of two straight years without any acting nominees of color (in 2015 and 2016), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (which oversees the Oscars) made structural changes to its membership, inviting in thousands of new, younger voters who were notably more diverse than the traditionally older, whiter, maler Oscar voting body.
The Academy remains very old and white and male, but those changes did result in three straight years when the nominations slate was notably more diverse than it had ever been. More people of color were nominated for and won acting Oscars. Women and people of color were nominated in the directing category more frequently (though still all too rarely). The first woman ever was nominated in the Cinematography category.
The 2020 nominations seem to have brought that progress to a screeching halt. Only one performer of color was nominated across all four acting categories. The directing lineup features no women, despite numerous acclaimed films (and one Best Picture nominee — Greta Gerwig’s Little Women) having been directed by women.
Related The lack of diversity among the 2020 Oscar nominees feels disappointingly familiar
It’s entirely possible that the 2020 Oscars will prove to be a notable blip. Many of the year’s less prominent categories are encouragingly more diverse than they’ve been in the past. (The Best Documentary Feature category, for instance, contains four films told in a language other than English and four films with women directors or co-directors.)
But the story of the 2020 Oscars also involves numerous diverse contenders being pushed aside in favor of cis, straight white men (or white women in the case of the acting categories). While many of the nominees are highly deserving by any measure, the picture they paint in aggregate elicits a depressing feeling of a major setback.
Naturally, this problem has led to pushback against the Academy. But the Academy isn’t the only force affecting Oscar outcomes. Yes, the Academy is the only body that actually votes on who is nominated, but by the time that voting occurs, many, many other groups have weighed in, and they’ve often indirectly winnowed the list down from lots of contenders to a handful. And throughout that process, more diverse contenders are often shunted aside.
Let’s take a look at how this happens with three performers from 2019 films who could have been nominated for the 2020 Oscars but were not, to see how diversity is too often stamped out at every step of the nominations process.
1) Lupita N’yongo, for Us
In theory, every single movie that receives at least a week’s release in a theater in both New York and Los Angeles, and doesn’t debut on television, is eligible for an Academy Award. But, as even the most casual observers will know, it’s not remotely true that every movie released in a given year is considered for an Academy Award. Oscar voters don’t have time to watch every movie released in a given year, because nobody does. So cuts have to be made, and priorities of which movies to watch have to be set.
The most obvious cuts are ones nobody might disagree with — movies with terrible reviews or movies that outright bombed at the box office rarely manage a run at Oscar glory. Beyond that, it’s rare for solidly reviewed movies without raves, or movies that made decent money but didn’t become massive hits, to be nominated, especially if they’re in genres the Oscars rarely reward (comedy, horror, superhero films, etc.).
Once you factor out all of those films, you’ll end up with a list of between 30 and 50 titles, depending on how good mainstream movies were in any given year. And with only five to 10 Best Picture nominees, that field has to be narrowed somehow. Every year, beginning with the three major film festivals that happen in September — Venice, Telluride, and Toronto — any movie or performer who could have a reasonable chance at an Oscar is ruthlessly scrutinized by an entire industry built up around the Oscars.
The first round of this process is driven by the large group of prognosticators, bloggers, and journalists who make predicting the Oscars their primary beat. Their job is to figure out which movies released before the September festival season might prove to be Oscar players, and then to sort through the endless list of titles released in the last four months of the year to separate accomplished contenders from those who won’t have what it takes to make it to the ceremony.
Film writer Mark Harris, who currently covers the Oscars for Vanity Fair and has written about the awards for over a decade, likens the September festival season to the Iowa caucuses. Both events happen so early in their respective campaign seasons, that they take on outsized importance and are able to inflate buzz and hype in one direction or another. And if a performance or film is acclaimed at one of these festivals, by critics or film journalists or Oscar prognosticators, film studios — hungry for scraps of information on which movies to support — shift their plans accordingly.
“There’s so little talk about Oscar movies and so much hasn’t been seen that three people at the Toronto Film Festival saying an actress is a sure bet for a Best Supporting Actress nomination for a movie suddenly assumes wildly inflated importance to the people who will eventually be allocating resources for those campaigns,” Harris told me.
But if you’re an Oscar pundit, trying to predict which movies will perform well often means looking for movies that resemble the ones the Academy has honored before. And because the Academy has a long history of rewarding movies that privilege stories about white men (because the Academy has long been dominated by white men), an expectation of what sorts of films “belong” starts to form. That can sideline deserving works of different genres or that center on different perspectives.
“The Academy has done a laudable job diversifying the membership of its voting body over the last few years, but the more difficult job is going to be interrogating how the last 91 years of Oscar canon have told us certain movies are worthier than others,” Kyle Buchanan, who covers the awards for the New York Times, told me via email. “Dramas are deemed more important than comedies, a whiz-bang war movie is considered to be a more significant directorial achievement than an intimate family drama, and stories by men are more often rewarded than those told by and about women.”
Just look at the case of Lupita Nyong’o in Us. She won more awards from critics organizations than any other Best Actress contender in 2019 — including the Best Actress prize from the prestigious New York Film Critics Circle, typically a good predictor of Oscar glory to come.
But no matter her success with critics, she remained mired in sixth place on GoldDerby’s roundup of Oscar prognosticators’ predictions. Yes, she was in a horror movie (typically not an Oscar-friendly genre). But it was a critically beloved horror movie that was also a box office smash, from director Jordan Peele, whose previous horror film (Get Out) had been an Oscar contender. And she was playing two completely different roles, the sort of showy technical achievement the Oscars often go for.
Nevertheless, the prognosticators were right. Nyong’o was not one of the five names read on Oscar nomination morning. Joyce Eng, of GoldDerby, points to the anti-horror bias in coloring perceptions of Nyong’o’s work, but she also points to the kinds of roles the Oscars have historically preferred to see women of color play, which rarely involve women in positions of relative power.
“With Lupita, she won for 12 Years a Slave [in which she played an enslaved woman], and she didn’t get in for the awesome Jekyll and Hyde contemporary film,” Eng says.
Clearly, prognosticators were correct to be skeptical of Nyong’o’s chances, even at a point when they hadn’t seen most of the performances they were predicting over hers. (Us came out in March of 2019 and was on everyone’s radar almost all year, while eventual Best Actress nominee Saoirse Ronan’s turn in Little Women didn’t come out until Christmas Day.)
But there’s a chicken-egg quality to this discussion. If the people whose job it is to say which movies are serious Oscar contenders had supported Nyong’o from the first, would she have been taken more seriously as a contender? Or is a horror performance from a woman of color simply so far outside the Oscars’ comfort zone that these prognosticators were right to say so? It’s an impossible question to answer, but a few other snubbed performances from 2019 may offer further hints toward an answer to this question.
2) Song Kang-ho, for Parasite
Parasite is a tricky film to prioritize when it comes to choosing which actors to push in an Oscar campaign. For starters, it’s a true ensemble piece, meaning there are no clear distinctions among which performers are lead and which are supporting. For another, every single actor in it is pitch-perfect, but they probably can’t all be nominated. And for still another, the movie is not in English, which is less of a demerit with Oscars voters than it used to be but still stands in the way of a nomination more often than not.
Yet distributor Neon decided to put its primary Oscar efforts behind famed South Korean actor Song Kang-ho in the Supporting Actor category. As Mr. Kim, the patriarch of a poor family that cons a rich one, he’s one of Parasite’s most sympathetic characters, and he’s played by an actor recognizable to American and British voters, thanks to his previous turns in movies like The Host and Snowpiercer.
Considering Parasite was likely to receive a Best Picture nomination, it wasn’t out of the question that Song would pull out a surprise acting nod, especially after he won at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. (A similar turn of events pulled Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira into the 2019 Oscar race for their performances in Roma.)
Oscar prognosticators were skeptical, but Song quickly became one of the main faces of the film on the awards circuit, doing all the glad-handing that is so crucial to an Oscar campaign. And yet he simply never gained as much traction as he might have for one simple reason: He couldn’t seem to get nominated at any of the important awards preceding the Oscars.
Despite Parasite’s consistently strong performance with the assorted precursor awards — the most important of which are the Golden Globes and those given out by Hollywood’s many unions — the film didn’t receive recognition for any individual performers. (However, its ensemble cast did win the award for best ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild awards.)
Failing to collect precursor nominations, perhaps even more than being favored by prognosticators, has a deleterious effect on a film or performer’s Oscar nomination chances. If you’re a tired Academy member trying to figure out which films to prioritize watching over the holidays before your Oscar ballot comes due in early January, well, an organization like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association — which votes on the Golden Globes — is right there with a readymade list for you to peruse. But where just under 8,500 people vote on the Oscars, around 90 vote on the Globes. As a result, the HFPA and other small organizations that hold their awards early in the season have a disproportionate level of influence per member.
“When it comes to any voting process, I think people like to feel swept up in momentum. I found it interesting that at the Critics Choice Awards, held just after the Golden Globes, the critics picked so many of the same Globe winners even when there were other contenders they had generally given better reviews to. I guess people just like to back a winning horse,” Buchanan said.
The desire to back a winner has felt particularly acute in 2020, thanks to the Oscar season being hyper-compressed, with barely a month between the Golden Globes (January 6) and the Oscars (February 9). Usually, the window runs much closer to six or seven weeks.
“What are voters actually watching? And how much time did they have to watch anything?” says Erik Anderson, editor of the site AwardsWatch. “If you are a working actor [who’s in the Academy], you are not going to have a whole lot of time to watch 35 movies and vote on them. The voters that do have that time are the ones that don’t work that much and they are the old-school voters.
“In a shortened season, I think it’s why we got four movies that have 10 or more nominations [1917, The Irishman, Joker, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood], which has never ever happened. People saw fewer movies than they did in previous years.”
But whatever the influence that prognosticators and precursors hold, they are not ultimately voting on the Oscars. And sometimes, the Oscars have only the Oscars to blame for their predominantly white slate.
3) Jennifer Lopez, for Hustlers
Right up until the morning of the Oscar nominations on January 13, prognosticators were expecting a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Jennifer Lopez, in recognition of her turn as a fiercely protective and maternal stripper in the box office hit Hustlers. She had received nominations from all of the major precursor awards, and her performance was exactly the type the Oscars love to reward: a big star in a showy role that is at once impeccably performed and a reminder of why she became such a big star in the first place.
And then the Oscars ignored her. Why?
“Hustlers did well at the box office and made over a hundred million dollars. Critics loved it. Fans loved it, but it’s just another movie that doesn’t fit in their typical vision of what an Oscar movie is, because it sees strippers fleecing men. And I feel like if it was a movie about male strippers fleecing men or even women, then it probably would have done better,” says GoldDerby’s Eng.
It’s impossible to say exactly why Lopez wasn’t nominated. For as much as writers like me like to talk about “the Academy,” it is, ultimately, just a body made up of individual voters who all have their own reasons for the choices they make. Ultimately, we can only guess; every new Oscar year is another data point that adds up to a fuller picture of what makes an “Oscar movie.”
And that picture changes from year to year. Vanity Fair’s Harris points out to me that 50 years ago, it was considered an Oscar cliché that women won for playing “bad girls” — a.k.a. sex workers — but in the 21st century, that’s no longer a real path to Oscar success. Similarly, the “it’s time” narrative, when an actor who’s never won before finally takes home the little gold man, is starting to lose its potency, as Glenn Close (who lost on her seventh attempt at a win in 2019) could tell you.
But the ultimate responsibility for the Oscars lies with the Academy itself. No prognosticator or precursor award can definitively affect the outcome. And yet they can hope to influence that conversation around the edges, especially early in the awards season, when nobody knows much of anything just yet.
“Here’s my problem: I don’t think it’s viable for prognosticators to say anymore, ‘My job is just to read the tea leaves,’ because prognosticators, from the minute they start talking, are a tea leaf. Like, you are part of the system of noise and the buzz and attention that you are professing to solely observe. There’s no way around that,” Harris says.
“So if that’s true, my feeling is give into it and make better noise. You have a say in this, as much as you would like to imagine that you’re just standing off to one side watching it. So if you’re a part of it, you can no longer say, ‘Well, my job isn’t to move the needle at all.’ It may not be your job to move the needle, but it is your effect to move the needle.”
The responsibility of diversifying any given year’s Oscar slate is on the Academy, ultimately. But let’s not pretend that the Oscar conversation doesn’t become steadily less diverse as the season winds from the September festivals to the big show. There are numerous points where someone could stop and say, “Wait a minute! This person should be nominated!” based less on whether their performance seems of a piece with previous Oscar nominees and more on the pure quality of their work.
The 2019–’20 Oscar season might end up being an anomaly — but only if everyone involved in the process has worked to make it one.


vox--2020-02-07--Netflix’s excellent Horse Girl looks like a typical quirky indie comedy. It’s more than that.

Every week , new original films debut on Netflix , Hulu , and other streaming services , often to much less fanfare than their big-screen counterparts .
Cinemastream is Vox ’ s series highlighting the most notable of these premieres , in an ongoing effort to keep interesting and easily accessible new films on your radar .
The premise : Sarah ( Alison Brie ) is an ordinary young woman living a very ordinary life : She works at a craft store , loves horses and Zumba , and watches her favorite supernatural procedural at home every night while her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meets a guy she likes and starts to have a frightening dream , her life upends itself entirely .
What it ’ s about : Brie co-wrote the screenplay for Horse Girl with the film ’ s director Jeff Baena , based partly on her own experiences with mental health issues in her family .
Given Sarah ’ s gentle eccentricities , Horse Girl at first feels like just another quirky indie comedy — an impression that the fact it premiered at Sundance , which famously favors quirky indie comedies , did nothing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a movie about two loners who find each other takes a turn into darker and more meaningful territory .
Sarah ’ s mother and grandmother experienced serious mental health struggles , and Sarah is worried that she ’ s going to slip into the same delusions .
And for much of Horse Girl , you ’ re left wondering if maybe she has .
The movie obscures whether what we ’ re seeing is real or if it ’ s inside Sarah ’ s head .
That mirrors her own experiences : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the feeling of losing time .
So Horse Girl unspools as an empathetic , compassionate , and uncommonly thoughtful look into the fear that you ’ re a ticking time bomb , that the illness you saw your loved ones succumb to is going to take you , too , and that nobody will really understand you .
It ’ s a little bit of a thriller , a little bit of a drama , a little bit of a comedy , a little bit of a romance — and wholly its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ currently has a score of 66 on Metacritic .
At Variety , Jessica Kiang writes , “ The transgressiveness of Baena and Brie ’ s strange and sorrowful Horse Girl , is in how it turns the simplistic , inauthentic tweeness of the generic , quirky indie comedy in on itself to produce a rare and piercingly compassionate exploration of the sorts of madness that come from intense loneliness , and the intense loneliness that comes from being regarded as mad.
” How to watch it : Horse Girl is streaming on Netflix @

Every week, new original films debut on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, often to much less fanfare than their big-screen counterparts. Cinemastream is Vox’s series highlighting the most notable of these premieres, in an ongoing effort to keep interesting and easily accessible new films on your radar.
Horse Girl
The premise: Sarah (Alison Brie) is an ordinary young woman living a very ordinary life: She works at a craft store, loves horses and Zumba, and watches her favorite supernatural procedural at home every night while her roommate goes out. But when Sarah meets a guy she likes and starts to have a frightening dream, her life upends itself entirely.
Rating: 4 out of 5 vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
What it’s about: Brie co-wrote the screenplay for Horse Girl with the film’s director Jeff Baena, based partly on her own experiences with mental health issues in her family. Given Sarah’s gentle eccentricities, Horse Girl at first feels like just another quirky indie comedy — an impression that the fact it premiered at Sundance, which famously favors quirky indie comedies, did nothing to dispel.
But what starts out as a movie about two loners who find each other takes a turn into darker and more meaningful territory. Sarah’s mother and grandmother experienced serious mental health struggles, and Sarah is worried that she’s going to slip into the same delusions.
And for much of Horse Girl, you’re left wondering if maybe she has. The movie obscures whether what we’re seeing is real or if it’s inside Sarah’s head. That mirrors her own experiences: confusion, disorientation, paranoia, and the feeling of losing time.
So Horse Girl unspools as an empathetic, compassionate, and uncommonly thoughtful look into the fear that you’re a ticking time bomb, that the illness you saw your loved ones succumb to is going to take you, too, and that nobody will really understand you. It’s a little bit of a thriller, a little bit of a drama, a little bit of a comedy, a little bit of a romance — and wholly its own thing.
Critical reception: Horse Girl currently has a score of 66 on Metacritic. At Variety, Jessica Kiang writes, “The transgressiveness of Baena and Brie’s strange and sorrowful Horse Girl, is in how it turns the simplistic, inauthentic tweeness of the generic, quirky indie comedy in on itself to produce a rare and piercingly compassionate exploration of the sorts of madness that come from intense loneliness, and the intense loneliness that comes from being regarded as mad.”
How to watch it: Horse Girl is streaming on Netflix.


vox--2020-02-07--Warren’s campaign is just the latest to struggle with diversity

Six staffers , all of them women of color , have left Elizabeth Warren ’ s Nevada campaign in recent months , saying that higher-ups treated them like tokens and ignored their concerns .
“ I felt like a problem — like I was there to literally bring color into the space but not the knowledge and voice that comes with it , ” one former field organizer , who asked to remain anonymous , told Politico on Thursday .
“ We all were routinely silenced and not given a meaningful chance on the campaign.
” Warren apologized to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night .
“ I believe these women without any equivocation and I apologize personally that they had a bad experience on the campaign , ” she told MSNBC ’ s Chris Hayes .
“ I take responsibility for this , and I ’ m working with my team to address these concerns.
” The reports come at a difficult time for the Warren campaign .
After a third-place finish in the Iowa caucus , some say the senator is being eclipsed in media coverage by Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well as former Vice President Joe Biden , though he came in fourth .
Warren also continues to face questions about “ electability ” that her male opponents haven ’ t always faced , with commentator Donny Deutsch opining that there was “ a certain stridentness ” to the senator that prevents her from connecting with voters .
The former staffers , one of whom still plans to vote for Warren , told Politico they didn ’ t want to hurt her candidacy .
But they spoke out because what they experienced is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shows the need for large-scale change .
Their words are a reminder that while Democratic candidates in 2020 may want to project the image of a diverse campaign staff , they may not yet understand how to build campaigns that give everyone a voice .
Women staffers of color point to problems with the Warren campaign Six women staffers of color have left Warren ’ s Nevada campaign since November , Politico reports , out of a total team of about 70 people .
Three spoke to Politico ’ s Alex Thompson about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was employed with Nevada for Warren , there was definitely something wrong with the culture , ” Megan Lewis , a field organizer who left the campaign in December , told Thompson .
“ I filed a complaint with HR , but the follow-up I received left me feeling as though I needed to make myself smaller or change who I was to fit into the office culture.
” The other two organizers , who spoke anonymously , reported similar problems .
They said they were not sure whom they would be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 22 .
Lewis , for her part , said she planned to caucus for Warren .
But she said it was important to speak out because too frequently , experiences like hers are ignored because of worries about damaging the larger cause .
“ Every election will always be the most important election of our lifetimes , ” she told Politico .
“ Organizing culture needs to change because the fact is our well-being is more important than any election.
” Lack of diversity at all levels points to a broader problem Indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a larger pattern across campaigns .
Increasingly , Democratic presidential candidates know they need to reach out to voters of color — but those candidates , especially those who are white , don ’ t always know how to do so .
In 2015 , Hillary Clinton was criticized for a post on her website titled “ 7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.
” Many pointed out that Clinton , a white woman , did not actually have much in common with many Latinx grandparents in this country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” This election cycle , the Buttigieg campaign was criticized for using a stock photo of a Kenyan woman to illustrate its plan to fight racism in the US , as the New York Times reported in November .
And in January , current and former staffers of color on the Buttigieg campaign told the Times that senior campaign officials had ignored their ideas and concerns , and that they felt they were employed to meet diversity targets .
Biden , meanwhile , claimed in December to have “ the most diverse staff @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not release numbers to back it up .
When it comes to questions about staff diversity , Warren may be held to a higher standard than her white male opponents .
Her campaign has made representation of people from marginalized groups a focus from the beginning — she has promised , for example , that if elected , she will go to the White House Rose Garden every year to read the names of transgender women of color who have been killed .
So if her campaign fails to listen to its own @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going against one of its core messages .
Having a diverse staff isn ’ t just about having a certain percentage of people of color , say those who have worked on or advised campaigns .
It ’ s about who ’ s actually calling the shots .
“ In most presidential campaigns , the diversity ends where the real money begins , ” Chuck Rocha , head of the consulting firm Solidarity Strategies , told Politico last year .
“ It ’ s a good first step to put people of color @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really running the campaign ?
The consultants and advisers who make all the real financial decisions , and this group normally is very old , male , and pale.
” As of last year , six of the Democratic campaigns for president were run by people of color .
That includes the Warren campaign , headed by Roger Lau , the first Asian American campaign manager for a major Democratic candidate .
But diversity is also about whose voice is heard at all levels of the campaign .
For example , Juan Rodriguez @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harris , told Politico last year that the senator was “ ensuring that her campaign not only employs people from diverse backgrounds but makes them key decision-makers.
” For the Warren staffers who ’ ve left in recent months , it seems that wasn ’ t the case .
Warren also still faces questions around her handling of her own background .
The senator has previously claimed Native American ancestry , saying her mother is part Cherokee .
But she is not an enrolled member of any Cherokee tribe , and her ancestors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Cherokee or other tribes .
Warren has apologized and said she should not have identified as Native American , but to some critics , her apologies have been unsatisfying .
There ’ s also the fact that Warren is a woman , someone who has faced marginalization , though not the same kind or degree that women of color in America have faced .
Progressives sometimes expect white women to be more sensitive to racism than white men .
“ Most of us continue to see white women through the lens of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told Vox in 2018 .
“ This allows for us to be optimistic about the possibility that their gendered oppression will allow for them to find common cause with other dispossessed groups.
” When that doesn ’ t happen , it can be doubly disappointing .
The field of Democratic candidates is overwhelmingly white In general , the Warren campaign has struggled at times when it comes to voters of color .
In a nationwide poll of black voters conducted in January , 48 percent said they would vote for Biden if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said they ’ d cast their votes for Sanders , and just 9 percent picked Warren .
Sanders in particular has made gains among black and Latinx voters after having difficulty appealing to them in 2016 , and a more diverse staff may be part of the reason .
Among women of color in Nevada specifically , a recent poll showed 24 percent supporting Biden , 22 percent supporting Sanders , and just 10 percent supporting Warren .
A full 22 percent of those polled , however , were still undecided .
Reports @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of color are unlikely to help those numbers .
But overall , concerns about diversity in campaigns also point to something larger : When Democrats go to the polls this winter , they will still have to choose among a field that ’ s overwhelmingly white .
Harris , the most prominent woman of color in the race , dropped out in December .
And as Shamira Ibrahim wrote at Vox , it wasn ’ t always clear where she stood on issues important to many black voters , like criminal justice reform @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidate can build a diverse staff , and , as the former Warren staffers ’ experience makes clear , the way to do that is not to hire people of color simply for optics without listening to what they have to say .
Warren has promised to do better , and there is space for her and others to do so .
But if women voters of color are choosing among Warren , Sanders , Biden , and Buttigieg in the weeks and months ahead , there ’ s one choice they won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ representation comes from the very top .

Six staffers, all of them women of color, have left Elizabeth Warren’s Nevada campaign in recent months, saying that higher-ups treated them like tokens and ignored their concerns.
“I felt like a problem — like I was there to literally bring color into the space but not the knowledge and voice that comes with it,” one former field organizer, who asked to remain anonymous, told Politico on Thursday. “We all were routinely silenced and not given a meaningful chance on the campaign.”
Warren apologized to the women in an MSNBC interview on Thursday night. “I believe these women without any equivocation and I apologize personally that they had a bad experience on the campaign,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “I take responsibility for this, and I’m working with my team to address these concerns.”
The reports come at a difficult time for the Warren campaign. After a third-place finish in the Iowa caucus, some say the senator is being eclipsed in media coverage by Sen. Bernie Sanders and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — as well as former Vice President Joe Biden, though he came in fourth. Warren also continues to face questions about “electability” that her male opponents haven’t always faced, with commentator Donny Deutsch opining that there was “a certain stridentness” to the senator that prevents her from connecting with voters.
The former staffers, one of whom still plans to vote for Warren, told Politico they didn’t want to hurt her candidacy. But they spoke out because what they experienced is all too common on political campaigns and shows the need for large-scale change. Their words are a reminder that while Democratic candidates in 2020 may want to project the image of a diverse campaign staff, they may not yet understand how to build campaigns that give everyone a voice.
Women staffers of color point to problems with the Warren campaign
Six women staffers of color have left Warren’s Nevada campaign since November, Politico reports, out of a total team of about 70 people. Three spoke to Politico’s Alex Thompson about their experiences.
“During the time I was employed with Nevada for Warren, there was definitely something wrong with the culture,” Megan Lewis, a field organizer who left the campaign in December, told Thompson. “I filed a complaint with HR, but the follow-up I received left me feeling as though I needed to make myself smaller or change who I was to fit into the office culture.”
The other two organizers, who spoke anonymously, reported similar problems. They said they were not sure whom they would be supporting in the Nevada caucuses on February 22.
Lewis, for her part, said she planned to caucus for Warren. But she said it was important to speak out because too frequently, experiences like hers are ignored because of worries about damaging the larger cause.
“Every election will always be the most important election of our lifetimes,” she told Politico. “Organizing culture needs to change because the fact is our well-being is more important than any election.”
Lack of diversity at all levels points to a broader problem
Indeed, the staffers’ reports are part of a larger pattern across campaigns. Increasingly, Democratic presidential candidates know they need to reach out to voters of color — but those candidates, especially those who are white, don’t always know how to do so.
In 2015, Hillary Clinton was criticized for a post on her website titled “7 things Hillary Clinton has in common with your abuela.” Many pointed out that Clinton, a white woman, did not actually have much in common with many Latinx grandparents in this country. Some accused Clinton of “Hispandering.”
This election cycle, the Buttigieg campaign was criticized for using a stock photo of a Kenyan woman to illustrate its plan to fight racism in the US, as the New York Times reported in November. And in January, current and former staffers of color on the Buttigieg campaign told the Times that senior campaign officials had ignored their ideas and concerns, and that they felt they were employed to meet diversity targets.
Biden, meanwhile, claimed in December to have “the most diverse staff of anybody running,” but would not release numbers to back it up.
When it comes to questions about staff diversity, Warren may be held to a higher standard than her white male opponents. Her campaign has made representation of people from marginalized groups a focus from the beginning — she has promised, for example, that if elected, she will go to the White House Rose Garden every year to read the names of transgender women of color who have been killed. So if her campaign fails to listen to its own staffers of color, it’s going against one of its core messages.
Having a diverse staff isn’t just about having a certain percentage of people of color, say those who have worked on or advised campaigns. It’s about who’s actually calling the shots. “In most presidential campaigns, the diversity ends where the real money begins,” Chuck Rocha, head of the consulting firm Solidarity Strategies, told Politico last year. “It’s a good first step to put people of color in leadership positions. But who is really running the campaign? The consultants and advisers who make all the real financial decisions, and this group normally is very old, male, and pale.”
As of last year, six of the Democratic campaigns for president were run by people of color. That includes the Warren campaign, headed by Roger Lau, the first Asian American campaign manager for a major Democratic candidate.
But diversity is also about whose voice is heard at all levels of the campaign. For example, Juan Rodriguez, then campaign manager for Sen. Kamala Harris, told Politico last year that the senator was “ensuring that her campaign not only employs people from diverse backgrounds but makes them key decision-makers.”
For the Warren staffers who’ve left in recent months, it seems that wasn’t the case.
Warren also still faces questions around her handling of her own background. The senator has previously claimed Native American ancestry, saying her mother is part Cherokee. But she is not an enrolled member of any Cherokee tribe, and her ancestors do not appear on official records of the Cherokee or other tribes. Warren has apologized and said she should not have identified as Native American, but to some critics, her apologies have been unsatisfying.
There’s also the fact that Warren is a woman, someone who has faced marginalization, though not the same kind or degree that women of color in America have faced. Progressives sometimes expect white women to be more sensitive to racism than white men.
“Most of us continue to see white women through the lens of gender,” historian Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers told Vox in 2018. “This allows for us to be optimistic about the possibility that their gendered oppression will allow for them to find common cause with other dispossessed groups.”
When that doesn’t happen, it can be doubly disappointing.
The field of Democratic candidates is overwhelmingly white
In general, the Warren campaign has struggled at times when it comes to voters of color. In a nationwide poll of black voters conducted in January, 48 percent said they would vote for Biden if the primary were held tomorrow, 20 percent said they’d cast their votes for Sanders, and just 9 percent picked Warren. Sanders in particular has made gains among black and Latinx voters after having difficulty appealing to them in 2016, and a more diverse staff may be part of the reason.
Among women of color in Nevada specifically, a recent poll showed 24 percent supporting Biden, 22 percent supporting Sanders, and just 10 percent supporting Warren. A full 22 percent of those polled, however, were still undecided.
Reports that Warren’s campaign tokenized staffers of color are unlikely to help those numbers. But overall, concerns about diversity in campaigns also point to something larger: When Democrats go to the polls this winter, they will still have to choose among a field that’s overwhelmingly white. Harris, the most prominent woman of color in the race, dropped out in December. And as Shamira Ibrahim wrote at Vox, it wasn’t always clear where she stood on issues important to many black voters, like criminal justice reform and health care.
Certainly a white candidate can build a diverse staff, and, as the former Warren staffers’ experience makes clear, the way to do that is not to hire people of color simply for optics without listening to what they have to say. Warren has promised to do better, and there is space for her and others to do so.
But if women voters of color are choosing among Warren, Sanders, Biden, and Buttigieg in the weeks and months ahead, there’s one choice they won’t have: a campaign where representation comes from the very top.


vox--2020-02-07--New York sues the Trump administration over denying residents access to Global Entry

The state of New York announced Friday that it will sue the Trump administration over its decision to block New Yorkers from enrolling in Global Entry and other programs that offer faster processing for pre-vetted travelers , calling the move “ political retribution ” for the state ’ s sanctuary policies .
Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli had told reporters on Thursday that New York ’ s Green Light Law — which offers state driver ’ s licenses to unauthorized immigrants — prevents the agency from accessing Department of Motor Vehicles records .
Those records , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ New Yorkers for “ Trusted Traveler ” programs like Global Entry , which is for international travelers arriving in the US .
Cuccinelli said that the policy change , first announced on Fox News ’ s Tucker Carlson Tonight , was in the interest of public safety .
Since federal law enforcement officers can no longer access the data they need to ensure that an applicant is indeed a Trusted Traveler , terrorists and other criminals could go undetected .
But New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Friday that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the policy change : “ This is political retribution , plain and simple , and while the president may want to punish New York for standing up to his xenophobic policies , we will not back down , ” she said , adding that preventing New Yorkers from accessing Trusted Traveler programs would not only inconvenience travelers , but also harm the state ’ s economy .
The new policy will only affect New York residents .
They will be able to maintain their Trusted Traveler status until it expires , but no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ applications to renew that status will be approved .
Those who have pending applications for Trusted Traveler status will also be rejected and their application fees will be reimbursed , according to DHS .
Other Democrats have also called the new restrictions a form of retaliation against New York ’ s sanctuary state laws .
“ The Trump Administration ’ s ban on all New Yorkers applying for Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler programs is a purely punitive move that has nothing to do with security , ” Rep. Bennie Thompson , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Security , said in a statement Thursday .
“ It is clearly a blatant attempt by the White House to score political points and perpetuate a partisan fight with New York elected officials.
” The Green Light Law took effect in December , allowing unauthorized immigrants to apply for state driver ’ s licenses as well as preventing state DMV officials from handing over any of its database information to federal authorities absent a court order .
Dozens of other states have enacted similar laws offering driver ’ s licenses to unauthorized immigrants @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a blanket prohibition on accessing DMV records .
California , Connecticut , Nevada , Utah , Colorado , New Mexico , Washington , Illinois , Vermont , Maryland , Delaware , Hawaii , and Oregon , as well as Puerto Rico and Washington , DC , already offer driver ’ s licenses to unauthorized immigrants — meaning that roughly 5.3 million unauthorized immigrants nationwide are eligible to get one , according to 2017 estimates .
New Jersey also recently passed a similar law .
Immigrant advocates continue to lobby other states to pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Minnesota , North Carolina , Texas , and Massachusetts , which first proposed such legislation 15 years ago .
Research suggests that making driver ’ s licenses available to unauthorized immigrants improves safety .
Obtaining a license requires testing and training on road safety , as well as proof that an applicant can get auto insurance .
Drivers with licenses are also more willing to cooperate with law enforcement , reducing burdens on police forces .
A 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal found that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ license law in 2015 , hit-and-runs dropped between 7 percent and 10 percent on average — amounting to roughly 4,000 fewer such accidents annually .
Such policies also have financial benefits , both for local governments and for drivers .
The Fiscal Policy Institute found in 2017 that state and county governments could collect about $ 57 million in annual revenue , as well as $ 26 million in one-time revenues , by issuing 150,000 driver ’ s licenses to unauthorized immigrants in New York City .
The researchers also determined that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
An analysis conducted by New York City also found that having a driver ’ s license provides additional financial stability for families and increases employment opportunities for unauthorized immigrants .
Having a car allows them to look for jobs and housing that are not located near public transportation .
It also helps shield them from deportation .
If a police officer pulls over an unauthorized immigrant driving without a license , they could be referred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to removal proceedings .
Why the administration cares so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ green card holders , and citizens of 11 other countries — Argentina , India , Colombia , the UK , Germany , Panama , Singapore , South Korea , Switzerland , Taiwan , and Mexico — can qualify for Global Entry .
The application requirements differ by country , but US citizens and green card holders can apply if they pay a $ 100 fee and provide a valid passport and another form of identification , such as a driver ’ s license or state ID that includes proof of residence .
They @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get fingerprinted , and pass a background check .
The Homeland Security Department says that an applicant might be denied if they have been convicted of any crime , have pending criminal charges , or have outstanding warrants , as well as if they have violated any immigration laws or are found to be inadmissible to the US .
DMV records help US Customs and Border Protection conduct a background check on applicants : They contain information to verify identity , residence , and biographical data provided by applicants , as well as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the same criminal records in New York criminal court databases , with the exception of non-criminal driving offenses , such as running a stoplight , speeding , making an illegal turn , or having parking meter violations .
But the agency can ’ t verify other information provided by applicants without the DMV records , Theresa Cardinal Brown , the director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center , tweeted Thursday .
“ [ T ] he inability of CBP to now access and validate any of this basic information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very difficult , if not impossible , to conduct the necessary criminal and background checks that are the foundation of trusted traveler programs , ” she said .
“ So DHS does have valid concerns with the severe and categorical restriction on access to DMV data in the NY state law that would impede its border and law enforcement functions outside of immigration enforcement.
” But experts said there are also costs to limiting Global Entry access in New York , which has some of the busiest airports nationwide : DHS says that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ programs is a privilege — one that it can take away if they no longer comply with security standards .
Aside from Global Entry , the affected programs include Nexus , which is for travelers entering the US from Canada by plane , land border , or sea ; Sentri , which is for travelers entering the US from Canada and Mexico via plane or a land border ; and the Free and Secure Trade program , which is for truck drivers entering and exiting the US from Canada and Mexico .
TSA @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to go through shorter security lines at the airport , isn ’ t affected .
Cuccinelli said New York was reintroducing one of the security vulnerabilities that made 9/11 possible : the “ failure of information-sharing across entities of government.
” “ President Trump certainly made it clear that if sanctuary city politicians won ’ t keep their people safe , we ’ ll do the best we can to keep them safe , ” he said .
New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo , however , framed the move as a form @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for refusing to fall in line ” with the administration ’ s immigration agenda in a statement Friday .
“ There is no rational basis for this politically motivated ban , and we are taking legal action to stop the federal government from inconveniencing New Yorkers to score political points , ” he said .
It ’ s just one of many instances in which the Trump administration has targeted sanctuary cities and states .
The administration has also tried to withhold federal law enforcement grants from them and to vacate California ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ failed ) .

The state of New York announced Friday that it will sue the Trump administration over its decision to block New Yorkers from enrolling in Global Entry and other programs that offer faster processing for pre-vetted travelers, calling the move “political retribution” for the state’s sanctuary policies.
Acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli had told reporters on Thursday that New York’s Green Light Law — which offers state driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants — prevents the agency from accessing Department of Motor Vehicles records. Those records, he said, are essential to appropriately vet New Yorkers for “Trusted Traveler” programs like Global Entry, which is for international travelers arriving in the US.
Cuccinelli said that the policy change, first announced on Fox News’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, was in the interest of public safety. Since federal law enforcement officers can no longer access the data they need to ensure that an applicant is indeed a Trusted Traveler, terrorists and other criminals could go undetected.
But New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Friday that there was a more sinister motive behind the policy change: “This is political retribution, plain and simple, and while the president may want to punish New York for standing up to his xenophobic policies, we will not back down,” she said, adding that preventing New Yorkers from accessing Trusted Traveler programs would not only inconvenience travelers, but also harm the state’s economy.
Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, however, didn’t back down:
I made clear to the Governor yesterday that suspending Trusted Traveler Programs for NY had nothing to do with drivers licenses and everything to do with the breakdown in information sharing. My response to the press conference. pic.twitter.com/kzzZ18p1sc — Acting Secretary Chad Wolf (@DHS_Wolf) February 7, 2020
The new policy will only affect New York residents. They will be able to maintain their Trusted Traveler status until it expires, but no new applications for Trusted Traveler status or applications to renew that status will be approved. Those who have pending applications for Trusted Traveler status will also be rejected and their application fees will be reimbursed, according to DHS.
Other Democrats have also called the new restrictions a form of retaliation against New York’s sanctuary state laws.
“The Trump Administration’s ban on all New Yorkers applying for Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler programs is a purely punitive move that has nothing to do with security,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security, said in a statement Thursday. “It is clearly a blatant attempt by the White House to score political points and perpetuate a partisan fight with New York elected officials.”
New York’s Green Light Law
The Green Light Law took effect in December, allowing unauthorized immigrants to apply for state driver’s licenses as well as preventing state DMV officials from handing over any of its database information to federal authorities absent a court order.
Dozens of other states have enacted similar laws offering driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants, but none of them include such a blanket prohibition on accessing DMV records.
California, Connecticut, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Illinois, Vermont, Maryland, Delaware, Hawaii, and Oregon, as well as Puerto Rico and Washington, DC, already offer driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants — meaning that roughly 5.3 million unauthorized immigrants nationwide are eligible to get one, according to 2017 estimates. New Jersey also recently passed a similar law.
Immigrant advocates continue to lobby other states to pass similar laws, including Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Texas, and Massachusetts, which first proposed such legislation 15 years ago.
Research suggests that making driver’s licenses available to unauthorized immigrants improves safety. Obtaining a license requires testing and training on road safety, as well as proof that an applicant can get auto insurance. Drivers with licenses are also more willing to cooperate with law enforcement, reducing burdens on police forces.
A 2016 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal found that after California implemented its driver’s license law in 2015, hit-and-runs dropped between 7 percent and 10 percent on average — amounting to roughly 4,000 fewer such accidents annually.
Such policies also have financial benefits, both for local governments and for drivers. The Fiscal Policy Institute found in 2017 that state and county governments could collect about $57 million in annual revenue, as well as $26 million in one-time revenues, by issuing 150,000 driver’s licenses to unauthorized immigrants in New York City. The researchers also determined that it would likely lower auto insurance premiums overall.
An analysis conducted by New York City also found that having a driver’s license provides additional financial stability for families and increases employment opportunities for unauthorized immigrants. Having a car allows them to look for jobs and housing that are not located near public transportation.
It also helps shield them from deportation. If a police officer pulls over an unauthorized immigrant driving without a license, they could be referred to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sent to removal proceedings.
Why the administration cares so much about DMV records
US citizens, green card holders, and citizens of 11 other countries — Argentina, India, Colombia, the UK, Germany, Panama, Singapore, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Mexico — can qualify for Global Entry.
The application requirements differ by country, but US citizens and green card holders can apply if they pay a $100 fee and provide a valid passport and another form of identification, such as a driver’s license or state ID that includes proof of residence. They must also be interviewed in person, get fingerprinted, and pass a background check.
The Homeland Security Department says that an applicant might be denied if they have been convicted of any crime, have pending criminal charges, or have outstanding warrants, as well as if they have violated any immigration laws or are found to be inadmissible to the US.
DMV records help US Customs and Border Protection conduct a background check on applicants: They contain information to verify identity, residence, and biographical data provided by applicants, as well as criminal records.
The agency can access the same criminal records in New York criminal court databases, with the exception of non-criminal driving offenses, such as running a stoplight, speeding, making an illegal turn, or having parking meter violations. But the agency can’t verify other information provided by applicants without the DMV records, Theresa Cardinal Brown, the director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, tweeted Thursday.
“[T]he inability of CBP to now access and validate any of this basic information for New York residents would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to conduct the necessary criminal and background checks that are the foundation of trusted traveler programs,” she said. “So DHS does have valid concerns with the severe and categorical restriction on access to DMV data in the NY state law that would impede its border and law enforcement functions outside of immigration enforcement.”
But experts said there are also costs to limiting Global Entry access in New York, which has some of the busiest airports nationwide:
Agree. This makes all air travelers less safe. Bunches known and unknown travelers into same queue, hurting everyone's security. I was Chief of Staff at @CBP when we launched Global Entry. Best crime fighting took in the skies. https://t.co/iRsiSzfwFJ — Marco Lopez (@1marcolopez) February 6, 2020
The potential political motivations
DHS says that New Yorkers’ access to Trusted Traveler programs is a privilege — one that it can take away if they no longer comply with security standards.
Aside from Global Entry, the affected programs include Nexus, which is for travelers entering the US from Canada by plane, land border, or sea; Sentri, which is for travelers entering the US from Canada and Mexico via plane or a land border; and the Free and Secure Trade program, which is for truck drivers entering and exiting the US from Canada and Mexico. TSA PreCheck, a program that allows travelers to go through shorter security lines at the airport, isn’t affected.
Cuccinelli said New York was reintroducing one of the security vulnerabilities that made 9/11 possible: the “failure of information-sharing across entities of government.”
“President Trump certainly made it clear that if sanctuary city politicians won’t keep their people safe, we’ll do the best we can to keep them safe,” he said.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, however, framed the move as a form of “extortion” and “punishment for refusing to fall in line” with the administration’s immigration agenda in a statement Friday.
“There is no rational basis for this politically motivated ban, and we are taking legal action to stop the federal government from inconveniencing New Yorkers to score political points,” he said.
It’s just one of many instances in which the Trump administration has targeted sanctuary cities and states. The administration has also tried to withhold federal law enforcement grants from them and to vacate California’s sanctuary laws (but has mostly failed).