ANDOVER — Perfect late summer weather and the desire to support a good cause helped attract a large crowd to the 26th Hike for Hope walk on Saturday at The Park.
The daylong event kicked off with the annual walk and was followed by a family-friendly festival with live music, games and food trucks. Money raised through the walk supports those facing poverty, homelessness and hunger through programs offered at Lazarus House in Lawrence. Lazarus House, which opened its doors in 1983, has already served more than 30,000 guests in 2024. Among the participants were Micki LeBlanc, 84, and Denise Labrecque, 66, of Salem, N.H., who have raised more than $200,000 since the walk began.
ROME — Italian prosecutors on Saturday requested a six-year prison sentence for right-wing League leader Matteo Salvin i for his decision to prevent more than 100 migrants from landing in Italy when he was interior minister in 2019. If convicted Salvini could be barred from holding government office.
The prosecutors in the city of Palermo have accused Salvini — who’s currently deputy premier and transport minister in the right-wing government led by Giorgia Meloni — of alleged kidnapping for leaving a migrant rescue ship operated by charity Open Arms stranded at sea for 19 days.
During the 2019 standoff, some of the migrants threw themselves overboard in desperation as the captain pleaded for a safe, close port. The remaining 89 people onboard were eventually allowed to disembark in Lampedusa by a court order.
“I would do it all again: defending borders from illegal immigrants is not a crime,” Salvini said on his social media on Saturday.
His lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, will make her defense statement in Palermo on Oct. 18, and a first sentence could come by the end of the month. A conviction – which in Italy is definitive only at the end of a three-stage judicial process — could bar Salvini from holding government office.
Meloni and several ministers of her government expressed solidarity with the League leader, defending his decisions. Since she stepped into power in 2022, Meloni has pledged a crackdown on migration, aiming to deter would-be refugees from paying smugglers to make the dangerous Mediterranean crossing.
“It is incredible that a minister of the Italian Republic risks six years in prison for doing his job defending the nation’s borders, as required by the mandate received from its citizens,” the Italian premier wrote on X.
Salvini maintained a hard line on migration in his tenure as interior minister in the first government of Premier Giuseppe Conte, from 2018-2019.
He imposed a “closed ports” policy under which Italy refused entry to charity ships that rescued migrants in distress across the Mediterranean and repeatedly accused humanitarian organizations of effectively encouraging people smuggling.
Now enjoying the hard-earned spotlight for those leading performances and his fashion-forward looks, Domingo is thinking more intentionally about his off-screen platform. And that call for racial healing has grown more explicit through a new partnership with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
The children’s opportunity nonprofit has long centered antiracism, according to president La June Montgomery Tabron. To help all youth thrive, she said, it’s necessary to address root causes like racial inequity.
In 2017, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation promoted the first National Day of Racial Healing, which is now recognized annually after Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Kellogg leaders hope a “storyteller” like Domingo can encourage year-round racial healing, which the foundation describes as “the practice of reflecting on personal experiences, confronting past wrongs and present consequences, and cultivating trustful relationships.”
“When we look at Colman and his work around just lifting up all of humanity and creating an empathetic response to stories, that’s exactly what the core of racial equity and racial healing is all about,” Tabron told The Associated Press.
Domingo recently discussed the collaboration and “Sing Sing” with AP. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
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A: The more my platform has widened, I thought, “What do you give voice to?” I want to put my voice behind things that are important to me, especially this National Day of Racial Healing.
This is how I become a bit more human. This is how we extend a bit more grace to one another. This is the way that we can actually do the work of healing: to not be angry, to not be polarized, but to find more love and more grace and more dignity in each other’s stories, in each other’s backgrounds, and get to know each other a bit more.
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A: That’s something I learned as an actor and I’ve really put that into my life — to really acknowledge the more complex feelings. Anger is the easiest thing to feel. It only goes one way, really. You can’t really heal from it and find other notes. Something I know that I find useful in my life is to acknowledge every feeling I feel. The quickest thing to feel is anger, but it doesn’t help you grow. All the other complex emotions help you grow.
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A: It’s given me a voice, actually — given me more of my place in the world. I also have work that helps me delve into history, so I have an idea of my identity and who I am and who other people are. I constantly have a curiosity in the world and its people, and I think has made me a bit fuller of a whole human being.
I do that daily with my work, which is such a blessing. I know many people don’t, but they can find tools to do that with dayofracialhealing.org.
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A: The pirouette was a very conscious decision to show who this Black man is on the inside that the world may not see. To see a bit more complexity and tenderness and really deconstruct their ideas of who this Black man is — and who this Black man who is incarcerated is. No one would ever imagine that this man had a dancer inside of him.
For me, that does the work of racial healing. You can see a Black and brown man differently. That’s the work that is happening on a very subtle basis when people experience our film. They see Black and brown men being tender with each other, laughing with each other. Even Black men, we know what’s possible when we’re allowed to be free and be full in our experience.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK (AP) — The notion that online gaming could help players develop charitable habits seemed bold when the anti-poverty nonprofit Comic Relief US tested its own multiverse on the popular world-building app Roblox last year.
As philanthropy wrestles with how to authentically engage new generations of digitally savvy donors, Comic Relief US CEO Alison Moore said it was “audacious” to design an experience that still maintained the “twinkle” of the organization that’s behind entertainment-driven fundraisers like Red Nose Day.
But the launch was successful enough that Comic Relief US is expanding the game this year. Kids Relief’s second annual “Game to Change the World” campaign features a magical new Roblox world, an exclusive virtual concert and a partner in children’s television pioneer Nickelodeon.
The goal is to instill empathy and raise money through a scavenger hunt across various realms, including SpongeBob SquarePants and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Users travel through portals to collect magical tools that will improve their surroundings. The net proceeds from in-game purchases will be donated.
The community-building inherent in collaborative gaming is intended to subtly encourage off-screen acts of kindness.
“It’s a little bit like me helping you, you helping me — all of us together. I love the idea of doing that in a game space,” Moore told The Associated Press. “It’s not meant to be a banner ad or a sign that says, ‘Do Good.’ It’s meant to be emblematic in the gameplay itself.”
Nickelodeon is also promoting an instructional guide for kids to start their own local projects in real life such as backpack drives.
Quests are delivered from wizards voiced by “Doctor Who” icon David Tennant, “Veep” star Tony Hale and “Never Have I Ever” actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan. One wizard invites users to “embark on an enchanted journey to awaken the heart of your community.”
The campaign will culminate in a weekend music festival on Roblox beginning Sept. 13 that features rock band Imagine Dragons, whose lead singer Dan Reynolds has focused his philanthropy on LGBTQ+ causes. Virtual acts also include Conan Gray, Poppy, d4vd and Alexander Stewart — all musical artists who got their big breaks on YouTube.
Moore said she was “blown away” by last year’s numbers. The inaugural game has been played for over 32 billion minutes and one performance received the highest “concert thumbs up rating” ever on Roblox, according to Comic Relief US.
Charitable donations are increasingly being made through gaming, according to business strategist Marcus Howard.
The fit comes naturally, he said, considering that young people value experiences such as gaming over the material possessions that past generations might have bought at a charitable auction.
“It just makes sense,” Howard said.
But he finds that partners must overcome the negative stigma associated with online chat rooms. To its credit, Howard said, Roblox combines the creativity of popular competitor Fortnite with less “toxicity” because of its emphasis on cooperation over competition.
Comic Relief US kept in mind the need to build a game that appeals to both children and their parents, Moore said.
To navigate that tricky balance, the nonprofit has adopted a mindset that she credits Nickelodeon with originating: Include parents in the conversation but speak to their children.
“Good games are good games,” Moore said. “Good games that make me feel good are good things.”
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Ahead of Taylor Swift’s July 14, 2023, concert in Denver, Aditi Desai, chief marketing officer at the Food Bank of the Rockies, got an unusual call. The billionaire pop star wanted to donate tens of thousands of meals to the nonprofit — a philanthropic effort she had repeated, much like her favorite songs, as she traverses the country on her 52-city Eras Tour.
“I was shocked and then thrilled by the news,” Desai said. “When (Swift’s representatives) shared the news, they were so kind, letting us know that Taylor wanted to express her gratitude for the work we do in our community every day.”
Since last March, Swift has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of meals to help feed the growing number of Americans grappling with rising food and housing costs. She chooses to give without celebrity fanfare, and the gifts have been welcomed. But food bank operators say they have provided only temporary relief, as food insecurity has been spiking and federal government COVID-19 aid has ended.
“We got so much support during COVID,” said Jessica Sund, director of development and communications at Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota, which received funding from Swift. “That really helped us not have a horrible situation. But the numbers we’re seeing are so much higher now because of inflation and cost of living, and all of that support is gone.”
Swift’s support has been meaningful, food bank operators say, especially in drawing attention to their crucial service for low- and mid-income people. But food banks, collectively, require billions of dollars in funding per year, said Kyle Waide, CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who is chair of the National Council for Feeding America and whose Georgia food bank is a Swift grantee.
The annual funding shortfall between what is needed in food assistance and what is provided by the federal government is roughly $33 billion, according to Feeding America, a network of food banks, pantries, and local meal programs.
“At a macro level, food banks are certainly facing lots of pressure right now, mainly because of just the extraordinary level of demand that’s out in the community,” Waide said.
Typically, according to Feeding America, food banks rely on individual and corporate donations, contributions from local farmers and retailers, and federal aid programs to sustain operations.
The self-described “tortured poet,” who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, has a history of supporting emergency relief causes. Swift’s charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was set up to respond to flooding that struck the region in 2010. She gave $1 million to the community foundation’s Tennessee Emergency Response Fund last year.
Food banks fortunate enough to receive a slice of her wealth have praised the pop star for highlighting their efforts to reduce hunger amid inflation, rising food and energy costs, and increased demand for their services. At least 49 million Americans rely on food from food banks and other charities. Young people, who make up a large portion of Swift’s audience, are increasingly affected by food insecurity. More than half of those ages 18 to 34 said rising food costs were chief among their biggest financial worries.
Swift’s public relations team declined to comment about her food bank donations. Grantees said they were asked not to disclose the amount of the gifts. However, Desai said the contribution allowed the food bank to purchase enough food for 75,000 meals. Typically, the food bank can provide about three meals for every $1 donated, she said.
Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota was able to purchase 30,000 meals with its donation, according to Jessica Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications. Food banks can purchase anywhere from two to 10 meals per dollar donated, she said.
“It really does range dramatically from food bank to food bank,” Sund said.
At Channel One, it usually costs about $8 million a year to keep shelves stocked with enough food to support roughly 300,000 visits from people in 14 counties.
Swift’s gifts seem to amount to a tiny percentage of the revenue earned from the tour and her personal wealth. Nevertheless, many of her food bank grantees consider the exposure that she gives them priceless.
Her donation provided the kind of media attention that Food Bank of the Rockies could never afford, Desai said. “We saw rapid increases in ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on the social media post announcing the gift, with exponentially more engagement than we typically receive,” Desai said.
Some food banks said they saw a bump in small donations in response to the press coverage. It was short-lived, and most continue to be challenged by high demand for their services as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.
Channel One is seeing an increase in individuals and families reaching out for the first time as they realize they can no longer afford to buy food on their own, Sund said. Currently, the organization receives 10,000 visits to its on-site food shelf in Rochester, Minnesota, which is roughly a 50 percent increase from last year, she said.
Sund and other food bank leaders point to inflation and the lack of affordable housing as contributing to increased demand. The end of government pandemic relief funding has exacerbated these issues, they said. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit program for low-income families. Lawmakers allowed the policy to expire at the end of 2021. Similarly, temporary benefit increases for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired in March 2023.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley also received a gift from Swift during the U.S. leg of her tour. The organization had heard that Swift was donating to food banks and reached out to her press team about a month ahead of her performances in Santa Clara last July, said Shobana Gubbi, chief philanthropy officer at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
“A day before the concert, they just called us,” she said.
Gubbi declined to provide further details about the donation, saying only that the organization was grateful for the gift and for Swift “shining a light” on food insecurity. However, the situation on the ground has not greatly improved. The Silicon Valley region has been deeply affected by layoffs within the tech sector that have resulted in less giving, even from those who are still employed, Gubbi said. People are fearful about job security and are giving less; and when those donations decline, it also means less money from corporate matches, Gubbi added.
In response, Second Harvest is tightening its budget and keeping staff small, she said. The rations of food have also been downsized; rather than providing gallons of milk, the bank is now handing out half gallons and giving meats, eggs, and dairy on alternating weeks, she said. Some weeks people receive meats, and on others they may only get dairy and eggs, Gubbi explained. The organization is currently serving 500,000 people a month, roughly the same as during the peak of the pandemic.
“At the moment we are having a lot of challenges in terms of getting support from the community,” she said.
_________
Stephanie Beasley is a senior writer at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Ahead of Taylor Swift’s July 14, 2023, concert in Denver, Aditi Desai, chief marketing officer at the Food Bank of the Rockies, got an unusual call. The billionaire pop star wanted to donate tens of thousands of meals to the nonprofit — a philanthropic effort she had repeated, much like her favorite songs, as she traverses the country on her 52-city Eras Tour.
“I was shocked and then thrilled by the news,” Desai said. “When (Swift’s representatives) shared the news, they were so kind, letting us know that Taylor wanted to express her gratitude for the work we do in our community every day.”
Since last March, Swift has donated the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of meals to help feed the growing number of Americans grappling with rising food and housing costs. She chooses to give without celebrity fanfare, and the gifts have been welcomed. But food bank operators say they have provided only temporary relief, as food insecurity has been spiking and federal government COVID-19 aid has ended.
“We got so much support during COVID,” said Jessica Sund, director of development and communications at Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota, which received funding from Swift. “That really helped us not have a horrible situation. But the numbers we’re seeing are so much higher now because of inflation and cost of living, and all of that support is gone.”
Swift’s support has been meaningful, food bank operators say, especially in drawing attention to their crucial service for low- and mid-income people. But food banks, collectively, require billions of dollars in funding per year, said Kyle Waide, CEO of Atlanta Community Food Bank, who is chair of the National Council for Feeding America and whose Georgia food bank is a Swift grantee.
The annual funding shortfall between what is needed in food assistance and what is provided by the federal government is roughly $33 billion, according to Feeding America, a network of food banks, pantries, and local meal programs.
“At a macro level, food banks are certainly facing lots of pressure right now, mainly because of just the extraordinary level of demand that’s out in the community,” Waide said.
Typically, according to Feeding America, food banks rely on individual and corporate donations, contributions from local farmers and retailers, and federal aid programs to sustain operations.
The self-described “tortured poet,” who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, has a history of supporting emergency relief causes. Swift’s charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was set up to respond to flooding that struck the region in 2010. She gave $1 million to the community foundation’s Tennessee Emergency Response Fund last year.
Food banks fortunate enough to receive a slice of her wealth have praised the pop star for highlighting their efforts to reduce hunger amid inflation, rising food and energy costs, and increased demand for their services. At least 49 million Americans rely on food from food banks and other charities. Young people, who make up a large portion of Swift’s audience, are increasingly affected by food insecurity. More than half of those ages 18 to 34 said rising food costs were chief among their biggest financial worries.
Swift’s public relations team declined to comment about her food bank donations. Grantees said they were asked not to disclose the amount of the gifts. However, Desai said the contribution allowed the food bank to purchase enough food for 75,000 meals. Typically, the food bank can provide about three meals for every $1 donated, she said.
Channel One Regional Food Bank of Minnesota was able to purchase 30,000 meals with its donation, according to Jessica Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications. Food banks can purchase anywhere from two to 10 meals per dollar donated, she said.
“It really does range dramatically from food bank to food bank,” Sund said.
At Channel One, it usually costs about $8 million a year to keep shelves stocked with enough food to support roughly 300,000 visits from people in 14 counties.
Swift’s gifts seem to amount to a tiny percentage of the revenue earned from the tour and her personal wealth. Nevertheless, many of her food bank grantees consider the exposure that she gives them priceless.
Her donation provided the kind of media attention that Food Bank of the Rockies could never afford, Desai said. “We saw rapid increases in ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ on the social media post announcing the gift, with exponentially more engagement than we typically receive,” Desai said.
Some food banks said they saw a bump in small donations in response to the press coverage. It was short-lived, and most continue to be challenged by high demand for their services as more Americans struggle to make ends meet.
Channel One is seeing an increase in individuals and families reaching out for the first time as they realize they can no longer afford to buy food on their own, Sund said. Currently, the organization receives 10,000 visits to its on-site food shelf in Rochester, Minnesota, which is roughly a 50 percent increase from last year, she said.
Sund and other food bank leaders point to inflation and the lack of affordable housing as contributing to increased demand. The end of government pandemic relief funding has exacerbated these issues, they said. In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, the federal government expanded the Child Tax Credit program for low-income families. Lawmakers allowed the policy to expire at the end of 2021. Similarly, temporary benefit increases for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program expired in March 2023.
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley also received a gift from Swift during the U.S. leg of her tour. The organization had heard that Swift was donating to food banks and reached out to her press team about a month ahead of her performances in Santa Clara last July, said Shobana Gubbi, chief philanthropy officer at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
“A day before the concert, they just called us,” she said.
Gubbi declined to provide further details about the donation, saying only that the organization was grateful for the gift and for Swift “shining a light” on food insecurity. However, the situation on the ground has not greatly improved. The Silicon Valley region has been deeply affected by layoffs within the tech sector that have resulted in less giving, even from those who are still employed, Gubbi said. People are fearful about job security and are giving less; and when those donations decline, it also means less money from corporate matches, Gubbi added.
In response, Second Harvest is tightening its budget and keeping staff small, she said. The rations of food have also been downsized; rather than providing gallons of milk, the bank is now handing out half gallons and giving meats, eggs, and dairy on alternating weeks, she said. Some weeks people receive meats, and on others they may only get dairy and eggs, Gubbi explained. The organization is currently serving 500,000 people a month, roughly the same as during the peak of the pandemic.
“At the moment we are having a lot of challenges in terms of getting support from the community,” she said.
_________
Stephanie Beasley is a senior writer at the Chronicle of Philanthropy, where you can read the full article. This article was provided to The Associated Press by the Chronicle of Philanthropy as part of a partnership to cover philanthropy and nonprofits supported by the Lilly Endowment. The Chronicle is solely responsible for the content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.
Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.
“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.
CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.
In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.
“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.
Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”
Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.
Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.
“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.
CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.
In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.
“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.
Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”
Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.
Art historian and curator John Byck has been named the Marica F. and Jan T. Vilcek Associate Curator in the Department of Arms and Armor
NEW YORK, August 13, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Philanthropists Marica F. and Jan T. Vilcek have endowed a curatorial position in the Department of Arms and Armor at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The position, “The Marica F. and Jan. T. Vilcek Associate Curator,” follows in the philanthropists’ tradition of supporting the work of art historians at The Met and other institutions through fellowships, scholarships, and endowments.
Marica Vilcek is a cofounder and vice chair of the Vilcek Foundation. An art historian, she began her career at the Slovak National Gallery in 1960. In spring 1965, she began her career in New York, first as a volunteer in the library of the Brooklyn Museum before joining the Watson Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in September of that year. Vilcek’s appointment at The Met would be the start of a 32-year career at the Museum. In 2012, she was elected an honorary trustee there, a title she has held since.
Vilcek’s career and legacy with The Met has been a driving force behind the Vilcek Foundation and the Vilceks’ own philanthropic work to support young artists and arts professionals.
Art historian and curator John Byck was named the Marica F. and Jan T. Vilcek Associate Curator in the Department of Arms and Armor at The Met in February 2024. He joined the Department of Arms and Armor at The Met in September 2015.
Since 2015, Byck has established himself as a leading authority in the art and history of antique American and European firearms and edged weapons, publishing and lecturing extensively on those topics and curating multiple exhibitions, including The Art of London Firearms, and Japanese Arms and Armor from the Collection of John and Etsuko Morris, and co-curated Emperors, Artists & Inventors: Transformative Gifts of Fine Arms and Armor. His contributions to other exhibitions and catalogs, installations in the permanent galleries, and over 20 acquisitions have had a transformative impact on the presentation of arms at The Met and to the boundaries of the Arms and Armor permanent collection.
Most recently, in May 2024, Byck delivered an invited lecture at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, England, detailing new discoveries made about the Department’s exceptional group of firearms decorated by Tiffany & Co. in the 1880s–90s, reflecting on new research he developed as part of his work on The Met’s exhibition, Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co.(June 9–October 20, 2024). While abroad, he also led a travel program for the Friends of Arms and Armor in the United Kingdom centering upon behind-the-scenes visits to preeminent public and private arms and armor collections. He recently installed three important objects newly loaned from two private collections in the Robert M. Lee Gallery of American Arms.
Byck completed his undergraduate degree in American history and classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006. While pursuing his studies, he began taking art history courses, which ignited a passion for the subject. He subsequently interned at Christie’s auction house and enrolled at the Institute of Fine Arts (IFA) at New York University, earning his master’s and PhD degrees from the IFA in 2010 and 2015, respectively.
While at the IFA, his research focused on Medieval and Renaissance prints and drawings. He began his career at The Met in 2009 as an intern in the Department of Drawings and Prints before taking on roles as a research assistant under several curators in that department, positions he held from September 2009 through August 2015.
Byck’s scholarship and broad range of research interests attracted the attention of Pierre Terjanian, then the Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Curator in Charge of Arms and Armor, who hired Byck in 2015. Pivoting into the arms and armor field, Byck was inspired by the Department’s diverse collection. He quickly applied his expertise in design, metalwork, decorative arts, and history to undertake new interdisciplinary research projects; he has since developed important projects, scholarship, and publications for the Department of Arms and Armor in collaboration with colleagues across the Museum as well as with external partners.
Byck’s passionate exploration and in-depth scholarship align with Marica Vilcek’s own career in the arts and art history; this is in parallel with the lineage of many of the curators and art historians Vilcek has supported through her mentorship and patronage. The Vilcek Foundation is delighted at his appointment as the Marica F. and Jan T. Vilcek Associate Curator, and we look forward to what comes next for this promising young museum professional.
The Vilcek Foundation
The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in the United States and fosters appreciation for the arts and sciences. The foundation was established in 2000 by Jan and Marica Vilcek, immigrants from the former Czechoslovakia. The mission of the foundation was inspired by the couple’s respective careers in biomedical science and art history. Since 2000, the foundation has awarded over $7 million in prizes to foreign-born individuals and has supported organizations with over $6 million in grants.
The Vilcek Foundation is a private operating foundation, a federally tax-exempt nonprofit organization under IRS Section 501(c)(3). To learn more, please visit vilcek.org.
BRASILIA, Brazil — Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest slowed by nearly half compared to the year before, according to government satellite data released Wednesday. It’s the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement.
In the past 12 months, the Amazon rainforest lost 4,300 square kilometers (1,700 square miles), an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. That’s a nearly 46% decrease compared to the previous period. Brazil’s deforestation surveillance year runs from August 1 to July 30.
Still, much remains to be done to end the destruction and the month of July showed a 33% increase in tree cutting over July 2023. A strike by officials at federal environmental agencies contributed to this surge, said João Paulo Capobianco, executive secretary for the Environment Ministry, during a press conference in Brasília.
The figures are preliminary and come from the Deter satellite system, managed by the National Institute for Space Research and used by environmental law enforcement agencies to detect deforestation in real-time. The most accurate deforestation calculations are usually released in November.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged “deforestation zero” by 2030. His current term ends in January 2027. Amazon deforestation has steeply declined since the end of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s rule in 2022. Under that government, forest loss reached a 15-year high.
About two-thirds of the Amazon lies within Brazil. It remains the world’s largest rainforest, covering an area twice the size of India. The Amazon absorbs large amounts of carbon dioxide, preventing the climate from warming even faster than it would otherwise. It also holds about 20% of the world’s fresh water, and biodiversity that scientists have not yet come close to understanding, including at least 16,000 tree species.
During this same period, deforestation in Brazil´s vast savannah, known as the Cerrado, increased by 9%. The native vegetation loss reached 7,015 square kilometers (2,708 square miles) – an area 63% larger than the destruction in the Amazon.
The Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse savannah, but less of it enjoys protected status than the rainforest to its north. Brazil´s boom in soybeans, the country’s second-largest export, have largely come from privately-owned areas in the Cerrado.
“The Cerrado has become a ‘sacrificed biome.’ Its topography lends itself to mechanized, large-scale commodity production,” Isabel Figueiredo, a spokesperson with the nonprofit Society, Population and Nature Institute told The Associated Press. Both Brazilians and the international community are more concerned about forests than savanna and open landscapes, she said, even though these ecosystems are also extremely biodiverse and essential for climate balance.
To control deforestation in the long term, monitoring, such as with satellites, and law enforcement are not enough, said Paulo Barreto via email, a researcher with the nonprofit Amazon Institute of People and the Environment. New protected areas are needed, both within and outside Indigenous territory, as well as more transparency so that slaughterhouses track where their cattle are coming from. Cattle ranching is the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon. Degraded pasture lands also need to be replanted as forest, Barreto said, and there must be stricter rules for the financial sector to prevent the funding of deforestation.
Interviewed in in Brasilia, Environment and Climate Change Minister Marina Silva conceded said that so far, law enforcement has been the main tool against deforestation, but government action must and will be broader. “From now on, we need to combine continued law enforcement with support for sustainable productive activities, which is one of the pillars of our plan.”
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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
KANAIO, Hawaii (AP) — Fear. Anxiety. Anger. Depression. Overwhelmed.
Janice Dapitan began her second counseling session by writing those words on a whiteboard, reflecting what she felt in that moment. The day fire destroyed her hometown of Lahaina — and the struggles that have followed for nearly a year — still haunted her.
The fire killed her uncle. It burned the homes of seven family members. Her daughter narrowly escaped the blaze with her two children, but lost her house and moved to Las Vegas. The house Dapitan shares with her husband, Kalani, survived, but now it overlooks the burn zone. The view is a painful, constant reminder that the life they’d known is gone.
“There are so many triggers,” she said on a blustery July day. Her long black braids fell over a tank top with the word “Lahaina” printed in gold. “We can be okay today, and tomorrow it could be different. Everything is uncertain. Every day is a different challenge. We want to stay joyful, but it’s a process.”
Janice Dapitan, left, cries during an interview with husband Kalani, right, following an equine therapy session at the Spirit Horse Ranch, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
One year after the Maui fires, thousands of residents share Dapitan’s struggle. They grieve the losses of loved ones and generational homes. They are haunted by their traumatic escapes and even by the guilt of surviving. They’ve endured months of instability — switching hotel rooms, schools and jobs. An estimated 1,500 families have left Maui, forced to start over thousands of miles from home.
But lately, Dapitan has enjoyed some relief, thanks to an equine-assisted therapy program at the Spirit Horse Ranch in Maui’s rural upcountry, an hour’s drive from Lahaina.
“The connection with the horses is different than connecting with machines or humans,” said Dapitan. “It’s almost like instant healing.”
After large-scale disasters, restoring a community’s mental wellness is as important as rebuilding infrastructure, experts say. And just as constructing an entire town can take years, so can healing its residents.
“We can be so focused on the bricks-and-mortar rebuild — because that’s challenging enough as it is — that we don’t create space for that healing,” said Jolie Wills, a cognitive scientist who led the mental health response for the Red Cross after the 2010 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand.
While some survivors need professional support to overcome their trauma, a lot of recovery can happen outside of a clinic’s walls. Maui residents have leaned on programs that help them reconnect — to themselves, their community, land and culture.
Horses to process trauma
After writing down her words, Dapitan sat on a folding chair inside a horse corral. A few feet away, Maverick, a 22-year-old Tennessee Walker rolled in the dirt.
Janice Dapitan brushes a horse named Maverick during a philanthropy-supported equine therapy program at the Spirit Horse Ranch, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
The program’s founder, Paige DePonte, sat in front of her and began a technique called brainspotting. She moved a small wand in front of Dapitan’s eyes to stimulate certain eye movements believed to help the brain process trauma. Later, Dapitan approached Maverick. She brushed his dark mane. After leading him once around the corral, she stopped, rested her arms over his back, and began to cry.
“He just lets you lean on him,” she said. “I can feel myself healing because somebody is at least letting me lean on them.”
For her husband Kalani, the ranch’s quiet isolation, tucked on a hillside overlooking Maui’s south coast, gives him space to process what has happened. “Before we even met the horses, I was in tears,” he said. “The peacefulness really breaks your walls down.”
Kalani Dapitan talks to a horse named Missy during a philanthropy-supported equine therapy session at the Spirit Horse Ranch, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
Equine-assisted therapy participants don’t typically ride horses, but the animals’ presence alone can soothe people as they face their trauma. They might brush, walk and even talk to the animals, or the horses might just be nearby as facilitators take them through other methods of counseling or psychotherapy.
“Horses are incredible healers,” said DePonte, who started the program on her family’s cattle ranch in 2021 after observing the transformational effect the animals had on her own trauma recovery. “They are in a place of coherence all the time, not thinking about tomorrow, not thinking about yesterday.”
The program, now supported by grants from the Hawaii Community Foundation, Maui United Way, and other private donors, has provided more than 1,300 sessions for impacted residents.
Dapitan had already begun therapy before the fire to recover from a previous trauma, but she said time at the ranch feels different. “I think I got the most out of the horses in two days versus the year that I’ve been having regular counseling.”
Healing through connection
Holistic programs like these have helped meet the overwhelming need for support services after the Aug. 8, 2023 fire that killed at least 102 people and displaced 12,000.
On top of the harrowing experiences of losing homes and loved ones, survivors are stressed and exhausted from the volatility of daily life — moving hotel rooms, changing schools, losing income.
“It’s been a pretty significant impact on people’s mental health,” said Tia Hartsock, director of Hawaii’s office of wellness and resilience. “Navigating bureaucratic systems while in a traumatic response has been very challenging.”
Kalani Dapitan reaches to pet a horse named Missy during an equine therapy session at the Spirit Horse Ranch, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
In a Hawaii Department of Health survey of affected families two months after the fire, almost three-quarters of respondents said at least one person in their household had felt nervous, anxious or depressed in the preceding two weeks. At the six-month anniversary, more than half of survivors and one-third of all Maui residents surveyed by the University of Hawaii reported feeling depressive symptoms.
That’s expected after a disaster of such scale, said Wills, calling it “very normal reactions to a very abnormal situation.”
Providers, nonprofits, philanthropic groups and the government collaborated to reduce barriers to mental health treatment, like paying for people’s therapy sessions and staffing shelters and FEMA events with mental health practitioners.
But they knew residents also needed other options. “Clinical support wasn’t necessarily going to be right for everyone,” said Justina Acevedo-Cross, senior program manager at the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Numerous public and private funders are supporting programs that re-engage residents with land and people, which Hartsock calls “unbelievably helpful in the healing.”
Several are rooted in Native Hawaiian healing practices. Cultural practitioners with the organization Hui Ho’omalu offer lomilomi, or Hawaiian massage. Those sessions typically lead into kukakuka, or deep conversation, with Native Hawaiians trained in mental health support.
Impacted families also maintain taro patches, restore native plants and take cultural classes on protected land stewarded by the organization Ka’ehu. Aviva Libitsky and her son Nakana, 7, volunteer there at least once a week, scooping invasive snails out of kalo pools and cleaning litter from the shoreline.
Libitsky felt anxious for months after fleeing the Lahaina fire and losing the home she’d lived in since 2010. Working on the land calms her. “It helps you channel that frenetic energy and put it toward something useful.”
The Spirit Horse Ranch founder Paige DePonte walks with Maverick, one of the horses at her equine-assisted trauma-informed care facility, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
She and Nakana recently learned how to weave bracelets from the leaves of hala trees at one of Ka’ehu’s cultural workshops. They’ve gone to Spirit Horse Ranch, too. “We just focus on new opportunities, creating new memories.”
A new wave of need
As Maui enters its second year of recovery, providers are preparing for a new wave of people to seek help.
The last families are moving out of hotels and into the interim housing meant to carry them over until Lahaina rebuilds. That sudden stillness can trigger bigger emotions, said Acevedo-Cross. “They’re able to feel a bit more.”
Many who weren’t directly affected by the fires are now experiencing its impacts, as rents skyrocket, tourism jobs disappear, and friends and family move away.
For some, healing won’t come until Lahaina is rebuilt and the community can return home.
Janice Dapitan, right, wipes away tears during a session, part of a philanthropy-supported equine therapy program, with Paige DePonte as a horse named Maverick stands nearby at the Spirit Horse Ranch, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Kula, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
“We don’t have a hometown anymore,” said Kalani Dapitan. He misses his friends and family, and most of all his daughter. He worries constantly about what will happen to Lahaina, especially as a Native Hawaiian. “We’re unsure of our future, how our cultural aspect is going to pan out.”
With so much still uncertain, time at Spirit Horse Ranch helps the Dapitans stay present.
At the end of her session, Janice returned to the whiteboard to write the words that summed up her feelings. “Relaxed,” she wrote, and looked up. “That’s all.”
_____________
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
KANAIO, Hawaii — Fear. Anxiety. Anger. Depression. Overwhelmed.
Janice Dapitan began her second counseling session by writing those words on a whiteboard, reflecting what she felt in that moment. The day fire destroyed her hometown of Lahaina — and the struggles that have followed for nearly a year — still haunted her.
The fire killed her uncle. It burned the homes of seven family members. Her daughter narrowly escaped the blaze with her two children, but lost her house and moved to Las Vegas. The house Dapitan shares with her husband, Kalani, survived, but now it overlooks the burn zone. The view is a painful, constant reminder that the life they’d known is gone.
“There are so many triggers,” she said on a blustery July day. Her long black braids fell over a tank top with the word “Lahaina” printed in gold. “We can be okay today, and tomorrow it could be different. Everything is uncertain. Every day is a different challenge. We want to stay joyful, but it’s a process.”
One year after the Maui fires, thousands of residents share Dapitan’s struggle. They grieve the losses of loved ones and generational homes. They are haunted by their traumatic escapes and even by the guilt of surviving. They’ve endured months of instability — switching hotel rooms, schools and jobs. An estimated 1,500 families have left Maui, forced to start over thousands of miles from home.
But lately, Dapitan has enjoyed some relief, thanks to an equine-assisted therapy program at the Spirit Horse Ranch in Maui’s rural upcountry, an hour’s drive from Lahaina.
“The connection with the horses is different than connecting with machines or humans,” said Dapitan. “It’s almost like instant healing.”
After large-scale disasters, restoring a community’s mental wellness is as important as rebuilding infrastructure, experts say. And just as constructing an entire town can take years, so can healing its residents.
“We can be so focused on the bricks-and-mortar rebuild — because that’s challenging enough as it is — that we don’t create space for that healing,” said Jolie Wills, a cognitive scientist who led the mental health response for the Red Cross after the 2010 Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand.
While some survivors need professional support to overcome their trauma, a lot of recovery can happen outside of a clinic’s walls. Maui residents have leaned on programs that help them reconnect — to themselves, their community, land and culture.
After writing down her words, Dapitan sat on a folding chair inside a horse corral. A few feet away, Maverick, a 22-year-old Tennessee Walker rolled in the dirt.
The program’s founder, Paige DePonte, sat in front of her and began a technique called brainspotting. She moved a small wand in front of Dapitan’s eyes to stimulate certain eye movements believed to help the brain process trauma. Later, Dapitan approached Maverick. She brushed his dark mane. After leading him once around the corral, she stopped, rested her arms over his back, and began to cry.
“He just lets you lean on him,” she said. “I can feel myself healing because somebody is at least letting me lean on them.”
For her husband Kalani, the ranch’s quiet isolation, tucked on a hillside overlooking Maui’s south coast, gives him space to process what has happened. “Before we even met the horses, I was in tears,” he said. “The peacefulness really breaks your walls down.”
Equine-assisted therapy participants don’t typically ride horses, but the animals’ presence alone can soothe people as they face their trauma. They might brush, walk and even talk to the animals, or the horses might just be nearby as facilitators take them through other methods of counseling or psychotherapy.
“Horses are incredible healers,” said DePonte, who started the program on her family’s cattle ranch in 2021 after observing the transformational effect the animals had on her own trauma recovery. “They are in a place of coherence all the time, not thinking about tomorrow, not thinking about yesterday.”
The program, now supported by grants from the Hawaii Community Foundation, Maui United Way, and other private donors, has provided more than 1,300 sessions for impacted residents.
Dapitan had already begun therapy before the fire to recover from a previous trauma, but she said time at the ranch feels different. “I think I got the most out of the horses in two days versus the year that I’ve been having regular counseling.”
Holistic programs like these have helped meet the overwhelming need for support services after the Aug. 8, 2023 fire that killed at least 102 people and displaced 12,000.
On top of the harrowing experiences of losing homes and loved ones, survivors are stressed and exhausted from the volatility of daily life — moving hotel rooms, changing schools, losing income.
“It’s been a pretty significant impact on people’s mental health,” said Tia Hartsock, director of Hawaii’s office of wellness and resilience. “Navigating bureaucratic systems while in a traumatic response has been very challenging.”
In a Hawaii Department of Health survey of affected families two months after the fire, almost three-quarters of respondents said at least one person in their household had felt nervous, anxious or depressed in the preceding two weeks. At the six-month anniversary, more than half of survivors and one-third of all Maui residents surveyed by the University of Hawaii reported feeling depressive symptoms.
That’s expected after a disaster of such scale, said Wills, calling it “very normal reactions to a very abnormal situation.”
Providers, nonprofits, philanthropic groups and the government collaborated to reduce barriers to mental health treatment, like paying for people’s therapy sessions and staffing shelters and FEMA events with mental health practitioners.
But they knew residents also needed other options. “Clinical support wasn’t necessarily going to be right for everyone,” said Justina Acevedo-Cross, senior program manager at the Hawaii Community Foundation.
Numerous public and private funders are supporting programs that re-engage residents with land and people, which Hartsock calls “unbelievably helpful in the healing.”
Several are rooted in Native Hawaiian healing practices. Cultural practitioners with the organization Hui Ho’omalu offer lomilomi, or Hawaiian massage. Those sessions typically lead into kukakuka, or deep conversation, with Native Hawaiians trained in mental health support.
Impacted families also maintain taro patches, restore native plants and take cultural classes on protected land stewarded by the organization Ka’ehu. Aviva Libitsky and her son Nakana, 7, volunteer there at least once a week, scooping invasive snails out of kalo pools and cleaning litter from the shoreline.
Libitsky felt anxious for months after fleeing the Lahaina fire and losing the home she’d lived in since 2010. Working on the land calms her. “It helps you channel that frenetic energy and put it toward something useful.”
She and Nakana recently learned how to weave bracelets from the leaves of hala trees at one of Ka’ehu’s cultural workshops. They’ve gone to Spirit Horse Ranch, too. “We just focus on new opportunities, creating new memories.”
As Maui enters its second year of recovery, providers are preparing for a new wave of people to seek help.
The last families are moving out of hotels and into the interim housing meant to carry them over until Lahaina rebuilds. That sudden stillness can trigger bigger emotions, said Acevedo-Cross. “They’re able to feel a bit more.”
Many who weren’t directly affected by the fires are now experiencing its impacts, as rents skyrocket, tourism jobs disappear, and friends and family move away.
For some, healing won’t come until Lahaina is rebuilt and the community can return home.
“We don’t have a hometown anymore,” said Kalani Dapitan. He misses his friends and family, and most of all his daughter. He worries constantly about what will happen to Lahaina, especially as a Native Hawaiian. “We’re unsure of our future, how our cultural aspect is going to pan out.”
With so much still uncertain, time at Spirit Horse Ranch helps the Dapitans stay present.
At the end of her session, Janice returned to the whiteboard to write the words that summed up her feelings. “Relaxed,” she wrote, and looked up. “That’s all.”
_____________
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK (AP) — YouTube’s biggest star MrBeast is facing complaints about the safety of contestants from the preliminary round of his ambitious “Beast Games” game show, which boasts 1,000 competitors hoping for a $5 million grand prize.
Some contestants complained online and to other YouTube influencers that they lacked regular access to food, water and medication during early production at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and that some competitors were injured during the production.
A spokesperson for MrBeast said his team is reviewing the process and soliciting attendees’ feedback ahead of the next phase of production in Toronto.
The stakes for “Beast Games” aren’t just high for the contestants, but for MrBeast himself, whose real name Jimmy Donaldson, as well as the recipients of his brand of “stunt philanthropy” that often entails direct gifts of cash or even houses. The complaints about the “Beast Games” production coincide with Donaldson’s acknowledgement this week that he used racial and homophobic slurs years ago in recordings he made as a teenager.
The show, which has already been picked up by Amazon Prime Video to air in 240 countries, is part of Donaldson’s cultural expansion beyond YouTube — where his channel has 307 million subscribers, including countless young consumers who already purchase his Feastables line of candy or the burgers that bear his name.
“My goal is to make the greatest show possible and prove YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms,” Donaldson said in a March press release from Amazon.
Donaldson’s companies cast 2,000 people to take part in an initial tryout of sorts at Allegiant Stadium in July, with 1,000 of them presumably advancing to the actual show. Amazon Prime Video was not involved and did not respond to a request for comment.
A MrBeast spokesperson said Friday that the promotional video shoot was “unfortunately complicated” by extreme weather, the widespread CrowdStrike outage that wreaked global technological havoc and “other unexpected logistical and communications issues.”
We “have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
MrBeast offered eliminated contestants $1,000 upon leaving the competition and the spokesperson said most of those who remain in contention are ready to keep going.
Some contestants expected challenges similar to those from the dystopian Netflix show “Squid Game,” a fictional series — and eventual reality game show — where deeply indebted people compete for millions in high-stakes children’s games.
The Associated Press reached out to several contestants about “Beast Games,” but most either did not respond or declined to speak on the record because they had signed nondisclosure agreements.
Scott Leopold, a 53-year-old father from Austin, Texas, told the AP he thought he was competing in the actual “Beast Games,” not a precursor to the show. He said he felt deceived about his chances of winning and that the competition in Las Vegas would not stream on Amazon Prime Video.
He said that Donaldson should not be “villainized” but added that “an apology would go a long way.”
“All I can conclude is that he was in over his head,” Leopold said. “There were too many people, and I don’t think he knew how to handle the situation.”
Nancy Libby, a Navy veteran from California who said she was one of the last people eliminated, told AP that she applied after seeing a casting call on Facebook. Her daughters watch MrBeast videos, she said, and she’d already planned to take off work anyway.
On-set conditions met her expectations. Libby said she was instructed by recruiters beforehand to watch previous MrBeast challenges to gain some understanding of the experience. Because of that, she said, she was unsurprised by meals of oatmeal and nights spent sleeping on the floor.
Libby said that “crowd control” was an issue at times and that more staffing could help ensure competitors do not injure their counterparts. But Libby said the MrBeast team appeared to take safety seriously and that she only witnessed rude behavior from outside contractors.
“Sometimes when you run things that are first of their kind, things come up that you can’t foresee,” Libby said. “I think that the template was there for a really good competition.”
MrBeast has also previously had some contentious relationships with its contractors. One of Donaldson’s companies sued and then was countersued by a vendor they worked with on the “MrBeast Burger” that got widely panned.
Fans have also previously complained about not receiving merchandise they ordered from MrBeast or receiving the wrong items or wrong sizes. A vendor working with MrBeast to ship some of those orders acknowledged in an online post last year that they’d let the fan down.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Bloomberg’s organization Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $600 million to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools to help secure their future economic stability.
Speaking in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, an organization that advocates for African American physicians, Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, pointed to the closure in the last century of all but four historically Black medical schools, despite the well-documented impact that Black doctors have on improving health outcomes for Black patients.
“Lack of funding and support driven probably in no small part by prejudice and racism, have forced many to close their doors,” Bloomberg said of those medical schools. “We cannot allow that to happen again, and this gift will help ensure it doesn’t.”
Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared with white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing the representation among doctors is one solution that could disrupt these long-standing inequities. In 2022, only 6% of U.S. physicians were Black, even though Black Americans represent 13% of the population. Almost half of Black physicians graduate from the four historically Black medical schools, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically Black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.
The donations will more than double the size of three of the medical schools’ endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said. Donations to endowments are invested with the annual returns going into an organization’s budget. Endowments can reduce financial pressure and, depending on restrictions, offer nonprofits more funds for discretionary spending.
The commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Bloomberg made in July to Johns Hopkins University that will mean most medical students there will no longer pay tuition. The four historically Black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest gifts to their endowments will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative.
The initiative, named after the community that was destroyed during the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma more than 100 years ago, was initially part of Bloomberg’s campaign as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020. After he withdrew from the race, he asked his philanthropy to pursue efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap and so far, it has committed $896 million, including this latest gift to the medical schools, Ezediaro said.
In 2020, Bloomberg granted the same medicals schools a total of $100 million that mostly went to reducing the debt load of enrolled students, who schools said were in serious danger of not continuing because of the financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we talked about helping to secure and support the next generation of Black doctors, we meant that literally,” Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that gift relieved $100,000 on average in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift has helped her school significantly increase its fundraising.
“But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we’ve been very vocal about that. And he heard us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
In January, the Lilly Endowment gave $100 million to The United Negro College Fund toward a pooled endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, received a $100 million donation from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, chairman of Greenleaf Trust.
Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the gift to Spelman was the largest single donation to an HBCU that she was aware of, speaking before Bloomberg Philanthropies announcement Tuesday.
Smith authored a 2021 report on the financial disparities between HBCUs and other higher education institutions, including the failure of many states to fulfill their promises to fund historically Black land grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic gifts have played an important role in sustaining HBCUs, and pointed to the billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 as setting off a new chain reaction of support from other large donors.
“Donations that have followed are the type of momentum and support that institutions need in this moment,” Smith said.
Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she felt “relief,” when she heard about the gifts to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs meant to support inclusion and equity at schools, she anticipates that the four schools will play an even larger role in training and increasing the number of Black physicians.
“This opportunity and this investment affects not only just those four institutions, but that affects our country. It affects the nation’s health,” she said.
Dr. William Ross, an orthopedic surgeon from Atlanta and a graduate of Meharry Medical College, has been coming to the National Medical Association conferences since he was a child with his father, who was also a physician. He said he could testify to the high quality of education at the schools, despite the bare minimum of resources and facilities.
“If we are as individuals to overcome health care disparities, it really does take in collaboration between folks who have funding and those who need funding and a willingness to share that funding,” he said in New York.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who researches racial disparities in treatment, said more investment and investment in earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of Black students who decide to pursue medicine.
He said he also believes the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to rectify historic discrimination and racial inequities does have an impact on student choices.
“It’s hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about going into this space to see some of that backlash and pursue it,” he said. “Again, I think we get into this spiral where in five to 10 years we’re going to see a concerning drop in the numbers of diverse people in our field.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK — Michael Bloomberg’s organization Bloomberg Philanthropies is announcing a $600 million gift to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools.
Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and the billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, will make the announcement Tuesday in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, an organization that advocates for African American physicians.
“This gift will empower new generations of Black doctors to create a healthier and more equitable future for our country,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared with white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing the representation among doctors is one solution that could disrupt these long-standing inequities. In 2022, only 6% of U.S. physicians were Black, even though Black Americans represent 13% of the population.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically Black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.
The donations will more than double the size of three of the medical schools’ endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
The commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Bloomberg made in July to Johns Hopkins University that will mean most medical students there will no longer pay tuition. The four historically Black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest gifts to their endowments will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative.
The initiative, named after the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma more than 100 years ago, was initially part of Bloomberg’s campaign as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020. After he withdrew from the race, he asked his philanthropy to pursue efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap and so far, it has committed $896 million, including this latest gift to the medical schools, Ezediaro said.
In 2020, Bloomberg granted the same medicals schools a total of $100 million that mostly went to reducing the debt load of enrolled students, who schools said were in serious danger of not continuing because of the financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we talked about helping to secure and support the next generation of Black doctors, we meant that literally,” Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that gift relieved $100,000 on average in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift has helped her school significantly increase its fundraising.
“But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we’ve been very vocal about that. And he heard us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
In January, the Lilly Endowment gave $100 million to The United Negro College Fund toward a pooled endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, received a $100 million donation from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, chairman of Greenleaf Trust.
Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the gift to Spelman was the largest single donation to an HBCU that she was aware of, speaking before Bloomberg Philanthropies announcement Tuesday.
Smith authored a 2021 report on the financial disparities between HBCUs and other higher education institutions, including the failure of many states to fulfill their promises to fund historically Black land grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic gifts have played an important role in sustaining HBCUs, and pointed to the billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 as setting off a new chain reaction of support from other large donors.
“Donations that have followed are the type of momentum and support that institutions need in this moment,” Smith said.
Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she felt “relief,” when she heard about the gifts to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court’s decision striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs meant to support inclusion and equity at schools, she anticipates that the four schools will play an even larger role in training and increasing the number of Black physicians.
“This opportunity and this investment affects not only just those four institutions, but that affects our country. It affects the nation’s health,” she said.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who researches racial disparities in treatment, said more investment and investment in earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of Black students who decide to pursue medicine.
He said he also believes the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to rectify historic discrimination and racial inequities does have an impact on student choices.
“It’s hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about going into this space to see some of that backlash and pursue it,” he said. “Again, I think we get into this spiral where in five to 10 years we’re going to see a concerning drop in the numbers of diverse people in our field.”
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and non-profits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
LAHAINA, Hawaii — Josephine Fraser worried her young family’s next home would be a tent.
Fraser and her partner, their two sons and their dog had moved nine times in as many months, from one hotel room to another, since the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century razed her hometown of Lahaina, on Maui. They would sometimes get just 24 hours to relocate, with no immediate word where they were headed.
Now, the Red Cross was warning that the hotel shelter program would soon end and Fraser was having trouble explaining to her 3-year-old why they couldn’t just go home.
“He just kept asking, ‘Why?’” she said. “It really broke me.”
Like Fraser, thousands on Maui have faced a year of anxious uncertainty since the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfire brought apocalyptic scenes of destruction to Lahaina, the historic former capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, forcing some survivors to flee into the ocean. The fire killed at least 102 people and displaced 12,000.
Government and nonprofit groups have offered temporary solutions for displaced residents, including providing hotel rooms, leasing apartments, assembling prefabricated homes and paying people to take in loved ones.
Disaster housing experts say the effort, expected to cost more than $500 million over two years, has been unprecedented in its cooperation among federal, state, county and philanthropic organizations toward keeping the community together.
But on a tourism-dependent island where affordable homes were in short supply even before the fire, a housing market squeezed by vacation rentals is undermining attempts to find long-term shelter for survivors even a year later.
Just about all of the 8,000 survivors put up in hotels have been moved into other accommodations, but many of those are pricey condos once rented to visitors, and they aren’t near residents’ jobs or their children’s schools.
Work to finish developments of temporary homes has been slowed by the difficulty of clearing toxic debris, obtaining materials from thousands of miles away, blasting and grading volcanic rock and installing water, sewer and electricity lines.
Members of at least 1,500 households have already left for other islands or states, some estimates say. Locals fear more will depart if they can’t find stable, affordable, convenient housing.
That’s particularly painful for Hawaii, where leaders have long worried the islands are losing their culture as housing costs fuel an exodus of Native Hawaiian and other local-born residents.
“You start to change the fabric of Hawaii,” said Kuhio Lewis, chief executive of the nonprofit Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, which is involved in housing survivors. “That’s what’s at stake, is the future of who Hawaii is.”
Gov. Josh Green told The Associated Press in an interview that the state is building transitional and long-term housing, changing laws to convert 7,000 vacation rentals to long-term rentals and swiftly settling lawsuits by fire survivors so plaintiffs can get the money they need to start rebuilding.
“Will some people leave? Of course,” Green said. “But most will stay, and they’ll really be able to stay if they get their settlements and can invest in their new houses.”
The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement is building 16 modular units in Lahaina and 50 in Kahului, about an hour away, which kept Fraser and her family from winding up in a tent. In May, they moved into the first unit completed in Kahului, a small, white structure with two bedrooms and one bathroom.
The neighborhood remains a dusty construction site. The location is not convenient for her job as a manager at a hotel restaurant in Lahaina, but Fraser, 22, is grateful. She can cook for her kids and they can play outside.
“Everyone’s choice is to move out of Lahaina, to move off-island, to move to the mainland, and that’s not something that we want to do,” she said. “Lahaina is our home.”
Lahaina’s plight highlights an important question as human-caused climate change increases the severity and frequency of natural disasters: How far should governments go to try to keep communities together after such calamities?
Shannon Van Zandt, with the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University, said it’s a worthy goal. Being a part of a community that supports its members is important not only to their livelihoods but their mental health, she said.
Jennifer Gray Thompson, the CEO of nonprofit fire-recovery initiative After The Fire, said she has worked in 18 counties that have suffered massive wildfires since 2017, when she herself lived through blazes that ripped through Northern California’s wine country.
Thompson has never before seen the Federal Emergency Management Agency invest so heavily in keeping a community together, she said.
“Maui is the first one I’ve ever seen the federal government fully listen to the community … and actually really try to do what they were asking, which was to keep people on the island,” she said.
FEMA has focused on providing rentals for survivors who did not have insurance coverage for fire losses. The agency is directly leasing homes for more than 1,200 households and giving subsidies to 500 others to use on their own. Many of the rentals are in Kihei, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Lahaina.
Still, the approach has proved tricky partly because vacation rentals and timeshares are one-quarter of the housing supply.
In October, FEMA raised its rates by 75% to entice landlords to rent to locals. The agency is now paying $3,000 per month for a one-bedroom and more than $5,100 for a three-bedroom. People seeking housing on their own say that has inflated the rental market more.
Frustration over the prevalence of vacation rentals after the fire prompted Maui’s mayor to propose eliminating them in areas zoned for apartments. The measure is still under consideration.
FEMA also is constructing 169 modular homes next to a similar site being built in Lahaina by the state and the Hawaii Community Foundation. Residents begin moving into FEMA’s development in October. The $115 million project next to it will provide 450 homes for people who aren’t eligible for FEMA; the first families arrive in the coming weeks. Residents begin moving into FEMA’s development in October.
Bob Fenton, FEMA’s regional administrator, told the AP the agency is even paying for survivors to fly elsewhere to live temporarily and to return when housing is ready.
“Our goal is the community’s goal,” Fenton said. “We’ve tried to do everything we can to support that.”
Lucy Reardon lost the home her grandfather passed down to her and her brother. When July came, she was still living in a hotel with her partner and two children. She twice declined offers from FEMA to move off the island temporarily and provide her a car, she said, because her grandfather would have wanted her to stay.
Finally, the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement moved her and her family into a two-bedroom apartment in West Maui, in the same building as her brother and his family.
“To get that phone call was like somebody reaching out with light,” Reardon said. Her daughter will be able to start kindergarten with her cousins at the school she would have attended before the fire.
The council also is paying people who take in displaced loved ones, providing $500 a month per guest. That has been helpful for Tamara Akiona, who bought a small condo in central Maui with her husband after she lost the multigenerational home where she lived with 10 family members in Lahaina. The money has covered food and other costs since they took in her uncle, Ron Sambrano.
“Without my family, I’d probably be living on the beach or under a bridge or something,” Sambrano said.
With stable housing, Fraser’s family can begin finding a routine once again. She works during the day while her partner watches their sons. She returns to do dinner and baths before he leaves for his night shift as a restaurant server.
“It’s awesome to have a roof, somewhere to call home,” Fraser said. “At least for now, until we go back into Lahaina.”
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McAvoy reported from Honolulu. Freelance journalist Mengshin Lin shot drone video accompanying this story.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK — YouTube’s biggest star MrBeast is facing complaints about the safety of contestants from the preliminary round of his ambitious “Beast Games” game show, which boasts 1,000 competitors hoping for a $5 million grand prize.
Some contestants complained online and to other YouTube influencers that they lacked regular access to food, water and medication during early production at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and that some competitors were injured during the production.
A spokesperson for MrBeast said his team is reviewing the process and soliciting attendees’ feedback ahead of the next phase of production in Toronto.
The stakes for “Beast Games” aren’t just high for the contestants, but for MrBeast himself, whose real name Jimmy Donaldson, as well as the recipients of his brand of “stunt philanthropy” that often entails direct gifts of cash or even houses. The complaints about the “Beast Games” production coincide with Donaldson’s acknowledgement this week that he used racial and homophobic slurs years ago in recordings he made as a teenager.
The show, which has already been picked up by Amazon Prime Video to air in 240 countries, is part of Donaldson’s cultural expansion beyond YouTube — where his channel has 307 million subscribers, including countless young consumers who already purchase his Feastables line of candy or the burgers that bear his name.
“My goal is to make the greatest show possible and prove YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms,” Donaldson said in a March press release from Amazon.
Donaldson’s companies cast 2,000 people to take part in an initial tryout of sorts at Allegiant Stadium in July, with 1,000 of them presumably advancing to the actual show. Amazon Prime Video was not involved and did not respond to a request for comment.
A MrBeast spokesperson said Friday that the promotional video shoot was “unfortunately complicated” by extreme weather, the widespread CrowdStrike outage that wreaked global technological havoc and “other unexpected logistical and communications issues.”
We “have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
MrBeast offered eliminated contestants $1,000 upon leaving the competition and the spokesperson said most of those who remain in contention are ready to keep going.
Some contestants expected challenges similar to those from the dystopian Netflix show “Squid Game,” a fictional series — and eventual reality game show — where deeply indebted people compete for millions in high-stakes children’s games.
The Associated Press reached out to several contestants about “Beast Games,” but most either did not respond or declined to speak on the record because they had signed nondisclosure agreements.
Scott Leopold, a 53-year-old father from Austin, Texas, told the AP he thought he was competing in the actual “Beast Games,” not a precursor to the show. He said he felt deceived about his chances of winning and that the competition in Las Vegas would not stream on Amazon Prime Video.
He said that Donaldson should not be “villainized” but added that “an apology would go a long way.”
“All I can conclude is that he was in over his head,” Leopold said. “There were too many people, and I don’t think he knew how to handle the situation.”
Nancy Libby, a Navy veteran from California who said she was one of the last people eliminated, told AP that she applied after seeing a casting call on Facebook. Her daughters watch MrBeast videos, she said, and she’d already planned to take off work anyway.
On-set conditions met her expectations. Libby said she was instructed by recruiters beforehand to watch previous MrBeast challenges to gain some understanding of the experience. Because of that, she said, she was unsurprised by meals of oatmeal and nights spent sleeping on the floor.
Libby said that “crowd control” was an issue at times and that more staffing could help ensure competitors do not injure their counterparts. But Libby said the MrBeast team appeared to take safety seriously and that she only witnessed rude behavior from outside contractors.
“Sometimes when you run things that are first of their kind, things come up that you can’t foresee,” Libby said. “I think that the template was there for a really good competition.”
MrBeast has also previously had some contentious relationships with its contractors. One of Donaldson’s companies sued and then was countersued by a vendor they worked with on the “MrBeast Burger” that got widely panned.
Fans have also previously complained about not receiving merchandise they ordered from MrBeast or receiving the wrong items or wrong sizes. A vendor working with MrBeast to ship some of those orders acknowledged in an online post last year that they’d let the fan down.
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK — YouTube’s biggest star MrBeast is facing complaints about the safety of contestants from the preliminary round of his ambitious “Beast Games” game show, which boasts 1,000 competitors hoping for a $5 million grand prize.
Some contestants complained online and to other YouTube influencers that they lacked regular access to food, water and medication during early production at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and that some competitors were injured during the production.
A spokesperson for MrBeast said his team is reviewing the process and soliciting attendees’ feedback ahead of the next phase of production in Toronto.
The stakes for “Beast Games” aren’t just high for the contestants, but for MrBeast himself, whose real name Jimmy Donaldson, as well as the recipients of his brand of “stunt philanthropy” that often entails direct gifts of cash or even houses. The complaints about the “Beast Games” production coincide with Donaldson’s acknowledgement this week that he used racial and homophobic slurs years ago in recordings he made as a teenager.
The show, which has already been picked up by Amazon Prime Video to air in 240 countries, is part of Donaldson’s cultural expansion beyond YouTube — where his channel has 307 million subscribers, including countless young consumers who already purchase his Feastables line of candy or the burgers that bear his name.
“My goal is to make the greatest show possible and prove YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms,” Donaldson said in a March press release from Amazon.
Donaldson’s companies cast 2,000 people to take part in an initial tryout of sorts at Allegiant Stadium in July, with 1,000 of them presumably advancing to the actual show. Amazon Prime Video was not involved and did not respond to a request for comment.
A MrBeast spokesperson said Friday that the promotional video shoot was “unfortunately complicated” by extreme weather, the widespread CrowdStrike outage that wreaked global technological havoc and “other unexpected logistical and communications issues.”
We “have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
MrBeast offered eliminated contestants $1,000 upon leaving the competition and most of those who remain in contention are ready to keep going, the spokesperson said.
Some contestants expected challenges similar to those from the dystopian Netflix show “Squid Game,” a fictional series — and eventual reality game show — where deeply indebted people compete for millions in high-stakes children’s games.
The Associated Press reached out to three contestants about “Beast Games,” but they either did not respond or declined to speak on the record because they had signed nondisclosure agreements. A fourth spoke about feeling deceived about the contest.
Scott Leopold, a 53-year-old father from Austin, Texas, told the AP he thought he was competing in the actual “Beast Games,” not a precursor to the show. He said he felt deceived about his chances of winning and that the competition in Las Vegas would not stream on Amazon Prime Video.
He said that Donaldson should not be “villainized” but added that “an apology would go a long way.”
“All I can conclude is that he was in over his head,” Leopold said. “There were too many people, and I don’t think he knew how to handle the situation.”
MrBeast has also previously had some contentious relationships with its contractors. One of Donaldson’s companies sued and then was countersued by a vendor they worked with on the “MrBeast Burger” that got widely panned.
Fans have also previously complained about not receiving merchandise they ordered from MrBeast or receiving the wrong items or wrong sizes. A vendor working with MrBeast to ship some of those orders acknowledged in an online post last year that they’d let the fan down.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
NEW YORK — YouTube’s biggest star MrBeast is facing complaints about the safety of contestants from the preliminary round of his ambitious “Beast Games” game show, which boasts 1,000 competitors hoping for a $5 million grand prize.
Some contestants complained online and to other YouTube influencers that they lacked regular access to food, water and medication during early production at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, and that some competitors were injured during the production.
A spokesperson for MrBeast said his team is reviewing the process and soliciting attendees’ feedback ahead of the next phase of production in Toronto.
The stakes for “Beast Games” aren’t just high for the contestants, but for MrBeast himself, whose real name Jimmy Donaldson, as well as the recipients of his brand of “stunt philanthropy” that often entails direct gifts of cash or even houses. The complaints about the “Beast Games” production coincide with Donaldson’s acknowledgement this week that he used racial and homophobic slurs years ago in recordings he made as a teenager.
The show, which has already been picked up by Amazon Prime Video to air in 240 countries, is part of Donaldson’s cultural expansion beyond YouTube — where his channel has 307 million subscribers, including countless young consumers who already purchase his Feastables line of candy or the burgers that bear his name.
“My goal is to make the greatest show possible and prove YouTubers and creators can succeed on other platforms,” Donaldson said in a March press release from Amazon.
Donaldson’s companies cast 2,000 people to take part in an initial tryout of sorts at Allegiant Stadium in July, with 1,000 of them presumably advancing to the actual show. Amazon Prime Video was not involved and did not respond to a request for comment.
A MrBeast spokesperson said Friday that the promotional video shoot was “unfortunately complicated” by extreme weather, the widespread CrowdStrike outage that wreaked global technological havoc and “other unexpected logistical and communications issues.”
We “have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
MrBeast offered eliminated contestants $1,000 upon leaving the competition and most of those who remain in contention are ready to keep going, the spokesperson said.
Some contestants expected challenges similar to those from the dystopian Netflix show “Squid Game,” a fictional series — and eventual reality game show — where deeply indebted people compete for millions in high-stakes children’s games.
The Associated Press reached out to three contestants about “Beast Games,” but they either did not respond or declined to speak on the record because they had signed nondisclosure agreements. A fourth spoke about feeling deceived about the contest.
Scott Leopold, a 53-year-old father from Austin, Texas, told the AP he thought he was competing in the actual “Beast Games,” not a precursor to the show. He said he felt deceived about his chances of winning and that the competition in Las Vegas would not stream on Amazon Prime Video.
He said that Donaldson should not be “villainized” but added that “an apology would go a long way.”
“All I can conclude is that he was in over his head,” Leopold said. “There were too many people, and I don’t think he knew how to handle the situation.”
MrBeast has also previously had some contentious relationships with its contractors. One of Donaldson’s companies sued and then was countersued by a vendor they worked with on the “MrBeast Burger” that got widely panned.
Fans have also previously complained about not receiving merchandise they ordered from MrBeast or receiving the wrong items or wrong sizes. A vendor working with MrBeast to ship some of those orders acknowledged in an online post last year that they’d let the fan down.
___
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Billions of dollars have been spent on efforts to get homeless people off the streets in California, but outdated computer systems with error-filled data are all too often unable to provide even basic information like where a shelter bed is open on any given night, inefficiencies that can lead to dire consequences.
The problem is especially acute in Los Angeles, where more than 45,000 people — many suffering from serious mental illness, substance addictions or both — live in litter-strewn encampments that have spread into virtually every neighborhood, and where rows of rusting RVs line entire blocks.
Even in the state that is home to Silicon Valley, technology has not kept up with the long-running crisis. In an age when anyone can book a hotel room or rent a car with a few strokes on a mobile phone, no system exists that provides a comprehensive listing of available shelter beds in Los Angeles County, home to more than 1 in 5 unhoused people in the U.S.
Mark Goldin, chief technology officer for Better Angels United, a nonprofit group, described L.A.’s technology as “systems that don’t talk to one another, lack of accurate data, nobody on the same page about what’s real and isn’t real.”
The systems can’t answer “exactly how many people are out there at any given time. Where are they?” he said.
The ramifications for people living on the streets could mean whether someone sleeps another night outside or not, a distinction that can be life-threatening.
“They are not getting the services to the people at the time that those people either need the service, or are mentally ready to accept the services,” said Adam Miller, a tech entrepreneur and CEO of Better Angels.
The problems were evident at a filthy encampment in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood, where Sara Reyes, executive director of SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition, led volunteers distributing water, socks and food to homeless people, including one who appeared unconscious.
She gave out postcards with the address of a nearby church where the coalition provides hot food and services. A small dog bolted out of a tent, frantically barking, while a disheveled man wearing a jacket on a blistering hot day shuffled by a stained mattress.
At the end of the visit Reyes began typing notes into her mobile phone, which would later be retyped into a coalition spreadsheet and eventually copied again into a federal database.
“Anytime you move it from one medium to another, you can have data loss. We know we are not always getting the full picture,” Reyes said. The “victims are the people the system is supposed to serve.”
The technology has sputtered while the homeless population has soared. Some ask how can you combat a problem without reliable data to know what the scope is? An annual tally of homeless people in the city recently found a slight decline in the population, but some experts question the accuracy of the data, and tents and encampments can be seen just about everywhere.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has pinpointed shortcomings with technology as among the obstacles she faces in homelessness programs and has described the city’s efforts to slow the crisis as “building the plane while flying it.”
There is currently no uniform practice for caseworkers to collect and enter information into databases on the homeless people they interview, including notes taken on paper. The result: Information can be lost or recorded incorrectly, and it becomes quickly outdated with the lag time between interviews and when it’s entered into a database.
The main federal data system, known as the Homeless Management Information System, or HMIS, was designed as a desktop application, making it difficult to operate on a mobile phone.
“One of the reasons the data is so bad is because what the case managers do by necessity is they take notes, either on their phones or on scrap pieces of paper or they just try to remember it, and they don’t typically input it until they get back to their desk” hours, days, a week or even longer afterward, Miller said.
Every organization that coordinates services for homeless people uses an HMIS program to comply with data collection and reporting standards mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the systems are not all compatible.
Sam Matonik, associate director of data at L.A.-based People Assisting the Homeless, a major service provider, said his organization is among those that must reenter data because Los Angeles County uses a proprietary data system that does not talk to the HMIS system.
“Once you’re manually double-entering things, it opens the door for all sorts of errors,” Matonik said. “Small numerical errors are the difference between somebody having shelter and not.”
Bevin Kuhn, acting deputy chief of analytics for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, the agency that coordinates homeless housing and services in Los Angeles County, said work is underway to create a database of 23,000 beds by the end of the year as part of technology upgrades.
For case managers, “just seeing … the general bed availability is challenging,” Kuhn said.
Among other changes is a reboot of the HMIS system to make it more compatible with mobile apps and developing a way to measure if timely data is being entered by case workers, Kuhn said.
It’s not uncommon for a field worker to encounter a homeless person in crisis who needs immediate attention, which can create delays in collecting data. Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority aims for data to be entered in the system within 72 hours, but that benchmark is not always met.
In hopes of filling the void, Better Angels assembled a team experienced in building large-scale software applications. They are constructing a mobile-friendly prototype for outreach workers — to be donated to participating groups in Los Angeles County — that will be followed by systems for shelter operators and a comprehensive shelter bed database.
Since homeless people are transient and difficult to locate for follow-up services, one feature would create a map of places where an individual had been encountered, allowing case managers to narrow the search.
Services are often available, but the problem is linking them with a homeless person in real time. So, a data profile would show services the individual received in the past, medical issues and make it easy to contact health workers, if needed.
As a secondary benefit — if enough agencies and providers agree to participate — the software could produce analytical information and data visualizations, spotlighting where homeless people are moving around the county, or concentrations of where homeless people have gathered.
One key goal for the prototypes: ease of use even for workers with scant digital literacy. Information entered into the app would be immediately unloaded to the database, eliminating the need for redundant reentries while keeping information up to date.
Time is often critical. Once a shelter bed is located, there is a 48-hour window for the spot to be claimed, which Reyes says happens only about half the time. The technology is so inadequate, the coalition sometimes doesn’t learn a spot is open until it has expired.
She has been impressed with the speed of the Better Angels app, which is in testing, and believes it would cut down on the number of people who miss the housing window, as well as create more reliability for people trying to obtain services.
“I’m hoping Better Angels helps us put the human back into this whole situation,” Reyes said.
