• Hollywood star Robert De Niro took aim at President Donald Trump's administration's stance on climate change, telling a packed audience in the Middle East that he was visiting from a "backward" country suffering from "temporary insanity." He said that in the country he was describing, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency suggested last week that global warming may be a good thing for humanity. "I am talking about my own country, the United States of America. We don't like to say we are a 'backward' country, so let's just say we're suffering from a case of temporary insanity," he said Sunday at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. De Niro received applause and laughs when he said the U.S. "will eventually cure itself by voting our dangerous leader" out of office.
• Rapper Jay-Z took his star power to a Florida peace rally Saturday in memory of slain teenager Trayvon Martin, who would have turned 23 this month. Area news outlets reported that Jay-Z joined Martin's parents onstage in Miami Gardens at the sixth annual Peace Walk & Peace Talk. The rally honors gun violence victims including Martin, whom Jay-Z described as a beacon of light. Martin, a black 17-year-old, was fatally shot in 2012 in the central Florida town of Sanford by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, setting off a wave of racially charged protests around the nation. Zimmerman was later acquitted of all charges in the shooting. Jay-Z is producing Rest in Power: The Trayvon Martin Story, a documentary set to air on the Paramount Network.
• Patrick Stewart was so inspired by the inventors and inventions being honored by the motion picture academy Saturday night that he offered a spontaneous recitation of a scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The actor hosted the academy's annual Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony, an untelevised dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and he closed the evening by going off-script with Puck's plea in defense of art. Stewart was a gamely host throughout the more than three-hour program, calling the honorees "film magicians" and poking fun at his own lack of high-tech understanding. "I have to tell you, I wouldn't know the difference between a warp-core breach and a space-time continuum if they got into bed with me!" the 77-year-old actor, who played Capt. Jean-Luc Picard on Star Trek: The Next Generation, said to raucous applause. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has singled out scientific contributions for awards since 1931. The Scientific and Technical Awards have had their own dedicated evening since 1977.
A Section on 02/12/2018