CNN founder Ted Turner has revealed that he is suffering from Lewy body dementia, the same form of dementia that Robin Williams battled in the last few years of his life.

According to the website for the Lewy Body Dementia Association, LBD affects 1.5 million Americans. It is a progressive neurological disorder that affects a patient’s memory, cognition (especially decision making), mood, behavior and balance and is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s, as Williams’ case was, or bipolar disorder, as Turner’s was.

In an interview with Ted Koppel set to air on “CBS Sunday Morning” this weekend (9 a.m. EDT/PDT), Turner, 79, likened his case to a “mild case of Alzheimer’s … but not nearly as bad … Thank goodness, I don’t have that.” 

Displaying some of the memory problems characterized by LBD, he struggled to remember the name of his disorder,  “I also have got, let’s – the one that’s – I can’t remember the name of it … dementia.”

Turner said it leaves him “tired” and “exhausted,” adding that the other symptom that bothers him most is “forgetfulness.” 

Williams’ case was far more severe, according to his widow, Susan Schneider, who called it “the terrorist inside my husband’s brain.” Worse, they didn’t know what the comedian had in the final year before he died by suicide in August 2014 at age 63.

As early as the fall of 2013, he began displaying what at the time seemed like unrelated symptoms: “Constipation, urinary difficulty, heartburn, sleeplessness and insomnia, and a poor sense of smell — and lots of stress,” according to Schneider. 

There is no definitive test for LDB, according to Rachel Dolhun, a doctor who wrote an explanatory article about the disease on the website of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. Rather, doctors arrive at the diagnosis using a patient’s imaging scans, physical exam, medical history and blood work.

Once diagnosed, cases are usually managed by neurologists. (They may refer patients to cognitive specialists and psychologists to help address the mental symptoms.)

Williams’ LBD diagnosis was only determined after an extensive autopsy, Schneider revealed in an essay in the medical journal Neurology. 

“All four of the doctors I met with afterward and who had reviewed his records indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen,” she recalled. “He had about 40 percent loss of dopamine neurons and almost no neurons were free of Lewy bodies throughout the entire brain and brainstem.”

Schneider said that while anxiety was not new for the actor, who had long suffered from depression, the way he now handled it was “markedly out of character for him,” to the point of alarming her. “Not until after Robin left us would I discover that a sudden and prolonged spike in fear and anxiety can be an early indication of LBD,” she explained.

In the weeks before he was misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s in the summer of 2014, Williams arrived home from a movie shoot like “a 747 coming in with no landing gear.”

In hindsight, she realized that this was the point at which her Julliard-trained, Oscar-winning husband was no longer able to hide his illness.

The Parkinson’s misdiagnosis made things worse because people with LBD respond badly to drugs prescribed for that disorder, Schneider wrote.

“I will never know the true depth of his suffering, nor just how hard he was fighting,” she lamented. “But from where I stood, I saw the bravest man in the world playing the hardest role of his life. Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it.”

 

 

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SAN FRANCISCO — Google CEO Sundar Pichai has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee in November to address concerns over the Internet giant’s business practices. 

The agreement was reached during a private audience with a dozen GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill Friday, where Pichai faced a barrage of questions including on whether Google is biased against conservatives. Google has repeatedly denied any political bias in Internet search results.

“I know many of us have been out to Silicon Valley and spent time with the technology companies that are changing our world. And to date — I think a lot of that progress has been for the better,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said. “But as big tech’s business grows, we have not had enough transparency and that has led to an erosion of trust and perhaps worse — harm to consumers.”

In a statement, Pichai said he met with Republicans and Democrats over two days in discussions he characterized as “constructive and informative.” 

“We remain committed to continuing an active dialogue with members from both sides of the aisle, working proactively with Congress on a variety of issues, explaining how our products help millions of American consumers and businesses, and answering questions as they arise,” Pichai said.

It was a sharp shift in tone for Google and lawmakers. Earlier this month, Google refused to send Pichai or Larry Page, CEO of Google parent-company Alphabet, to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing alongside top executives from Facebook and Twitter on state-sponsored election interference, enraging lawmakers. 

“I want to thank Sundar for taking time out of his schedule to be with us. I should note that Sundar was scheduled to be in Asia this week but he canceled that trip to be here today,” McCarthy said. “This is the start of a conversation that I believe is long overdue — and that responsibility falls on both sides.”

More: Google CEO Sundar Pichai bound for Washington as Trump takes aim at search engine

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The private ​meeting in McCarthy’s office comes the same week that Google’s chief privacy officer, ​Keith Enright​, ​was ​grilled by lawmakers at a Senate online privacy hearing on the company exploring a new search product for China, which it hasn’t launched. 

​Censorship charges against left-leaning Silicon Valley have been raised in multiple hearings on Capitol Hill and have become come a conservative rallying cry ahead of the midterm elections. They are also the subject of a new documentary, “The Creepy Line,” by conservative author Peter Schweizer. A recent poll from the Media Research Center conducted by McLaughlin & Associates found that 65 percent of self-described conservatives believe that social media companies intentionally censor the political right. 

Until recently lawmakers had focused their criticism on another tech giant, Facebook, after a series of privacy blunders and the unchecked spread of online propaganda by Russia agents during and after the 2016 presidential election.​

Now Google, which dominates the search business around the world and whose YouTube video service has come under fire for spreading disinformation and conspiracy theories, faces tougher scrutiny of its business practices and new threats of regulation.

Google was frequent​ly mentioned ​during a meeting Tuesday with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and state law enforcement officials exploring potential antitrust and data privacy investigations.

Attacks on Google have escalated in recent weeks. Trump and other prominent Republicans have accused Google and other tech companies ​of suppressing and censoring conservative voices and viewpoints. Last month, Trump claimed search results for “Trump News” were “RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD​.”​ 

McCarthy had also chastised Google for search results, tweeting that results that incorrectly said the ideology of the California Republican Party included “Nazism” were a “disgrace.” Google blamed “vandalism” at Wikipedia.

Google says it does not rank search results to manipulate political sentiment.​ But last week the “Wall Street Journal” reported that ​Google employees debated ways to alter search results to direct users to pro-immigration organizations and to contact lawmakers and government agencies after Trump’s immigration travel ban against predominantly Muslim countries. And right-wing news site Breitbart obtained an internal video following Trump’s election in 2016 in which executives of Google parent Alphabet expressed dismay at the outcome, adding new fuel to charges by the political right that Google is biased against conservatives.

McCarthy, who has increased his criticism of Google in recent weeks, took aim at Google again when it failed to send Alphabet CEO Larry Page or Pichai to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on state-sponsored election interference. Google had offered to send Kent Walker, its senior vice president for global affairs and a point person on election interference, but the offer was rejected by the committee. Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey took questions from senators at the hearing next to an empty chair marked “Google.”

Dan Schnur, professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communications, says Google blundered by not showing up for the Senate hearing but says the company realized that “at some point they were going to have to kiss the ring.”

“In Washington you do get a second chance to make a first impression,” Schnur said. “Even if there are some hard feelings, if they present themselves in a cooperative manner going forward, they should be just fine.”

 

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Vanilla prices have climbed so high it’s worth more by weight than silver. This increase in price has to do with a number of factors, including vanilla bean theft, complex pollination, extreme weather, and the rise of the “all natural” food movement. All of these variables combined to create the perfect recipe for a very expensive spice. Following is the transcript of the video.

Narrator: You might think of vanilla as basic. The word is even used to mean boring, average, or basic.

Student: Why do we have to go all vanilla on this song? See what we need is my chocolate thunder.

Narrator: But vanilla may not always be so run of the mill. Vanilla prices have climbed so high it’s worth more by weight than silver, and that high price tag could be bad news for lovers of ice cream, yogurt, chocolate, and even perfumes.

One reason vanilla has gotten so expensive is, it’s hard to grow. Vanilla vines take two to four years to fully mature, and their flowers only bloom for one day of the year. In order for the plants to produce beans, they have to be pollinated that day. In most places where vanilla is grown, it isn’t a native plant, and there aren’t bugs or birds capable of pollinating the flowers. Vanilla is native to Mexico, but deforestation there has greatly reduced its natural habitat. In Madagascar, where over 80% of vanilla is produced, the flowers have to be pollinated by hand. The pods need several months to cure after harvesting. The whole process is time-consuming and labor-intensive. But the record high price of vanilla also has to do with changes in the vanilla market.

In the 1980s, cheaper artificial vanilla overtook the market. Vanilla farmers cut back production because they weren’t making enough money. But around 2011, demand for real vanilla rose again. Big companies were joining the all-natural trend, pledging to eliminate artificial flavorings from their products, but it’s taken a while for the vanilla farmers to get back in the game and they don’t all want to.

Growing vanilla is a stressful and volatile business because there is such high demand, vanilla beans are a target for theft. After working hard to cultivate their crops some farmers have their beans stolen. As the stolen beans move up the supply chain, they get mixed in with legally purchased beans making it difficult for buyers to know which are which. The prevent theft, farmers pick the beans before they’re ripe and unripe beans means lower quality vanilla.

Farmers also try to prevent theft by branding their vanilla crops with a metal pronged brand. That way buyers can identify what farm the vanilla came from.

Farmers also run the risk of having their crops destroyed by extreme weather events. Cyclones are common in Madagascar and climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of those storms. If a cyclone were to wipe out vanilla crops next year, it would take until at least 2022 for new plants to start producing beans, and farmers might not want to take that risk. So the supply could continue to drop even further.

The once basic, boring vanilla may wind up becoming a rare sought-after delicacy.

The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday voted to send the nomination of President Donald Trump’s US Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh to the full Senate for consideration, with one hold-out Republican calling for an FBI probe into sexual assault allegations against the nominee before a final vote is held.

The panel moved the federal judge’s nomination to the full Senate on a party-line vote of 11-10, with all Republicans in support, and all Democrats opposed.

The vote came just a day after Republicans heard testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teens. Kavanaugh denied the accusation.

The concerns expressed by Republican Senator Jeff Flake could imperil the nomination if an FBI investigation is not launched.

More soon…

Fossils of a new, giant species of dinosaur have been discovered in South Africa, a study published Thursday reports.

The creature, which lived some 200 million years ago, was about twice the size of a modern-day African elephant. It was also the largest land animal alive on the planet at that time, according to the study.

Known by the Latin name Ledumahadi mafube, it weighed over 26,000 pounds and stood about 13 feet high at the hips. 

Although it isn’t the biggest dinosaur ever found, “It’s the first true giant that evolves in a long line of dinosaurs called sauropod dinosaurs, said study co-author Jonah Choiniere, a paleontologist at the University of the Witwatersrand, in a statement.

Sauropods, weighing up to 66 tons, include well-known species like the brontosaurus.  Thus, this part of South Africa was the origin of all the giant dinosaurs that evolved later, Choiniere said.

The new dino is a close relative of other massive dinosaurs from Argentina that lived at about the same time, which reinforces the idea that the supercontinent Pangaea was still assembled at that time. “It shows how easily dinosaurs could have walked from Johannesburg to Buenos Aires at that time,” said Choiniere.

This particular animal was likely about 14 years old when it died.

The dinosaur’s name is Sesotho for “a giant thunderclap at dawn.” Sesotho is one of South Africa’s 11 official languages.

The discovery of the dinosaur underscores how important South African paleontology is to the world, according to South Africa’s minister of science and technology Mmamoloko Kubayi-Ngubane.

“Not only does our country hold the cradle of humankind, but we also have fossils that help us understand the rise of the gigantic dinosaurs,” she said.

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Biology.

 

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Police in Lansing, Illinois removed a Halloween decoration that appeared to depict a black man being lynched after photos of the display sparked social media backlash.

Toya Griffin said her daughter first spotted the figure — a black mannequin hanging from a tree with its hands and ankles tied — while they were talking on the phone, according to the Times of Northwest Indiana.

“It’s a shocking feeling to see something like that. It represents a feeling. It represents a belief. It represents a harsh time in history that affected everybody,” Griffin told the Times. “If you see something like that, it brings a fear and it brings emotions.”

Griffin said in a Facebook post Wednesday that she notified police, who initially told her they didn’t see anything wrong with the display.

Will Ruth III, 24, said he saw Griffin’s posts about the incident and drove over to the home to see the display for himself. Ruth expressed concern that the display, which was across the street from a park and near a school, could be seen by children.

He said six or seven neighbors gathered in front of the home, talking with the homeowner or viewing the display. A Facebook live video of the decoration and a confrontation with the homeowner posted by Ruth has been viewed more than 61,000 times.

“She told me that she personally didn’t feel like it was anything wrong the hanging, that she had black people in her family,” Ruth said. “To me, that wasn’t a really great excuse at all.”

When the police arrived, Ruth said the woman’s story changed.

Police who spoke with the homeowner said the mannequin originally had a “Jason style” mask on, which had recently been stolen, according to a press release from the Lansing Illinois Police Department. Officers said they confirmed this detail with several neighbors. Without the mask, all that remained on the head was a black plastic bag.

At the end of Ruth’s nearly 30-minute long video, police can be seen taking down the display. But police maintain that the decoration, which was being described as “offensive,” was not intended to cause harm.

“Our investigation into this incident revealed no malicious intent and that this was simply a Halloween decoration that had been vandalized,” the press release stated.

More: Is it OK for a white kid to dress up as Moana for Halloween? And other cultural appropriation questions

More: Sexy ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Halloween costume pulled after sparking online outrage

Follow N’dea Yancey-Bragg on Twitter: @NdeaYanceyBragg

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A hacker gained access to nearly 50 million Facebook user accounts by exploiting a weakness in the social network’s systems, Facebook said on Friday.

News of the cyber attack — which appears to be one of the most significant in Facebook’s history — sent shares of the company down roughly 3% in midday trading on Friday, adding to the pile of woes currently weighing on the company.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted a conference call with journalists shortly after the news was announced, underscoring the severity of the situation.

“We do not yet know whether these accounts were misused but we are continuing to look into this and will update when we learn more,” Zuckerberg said in a blog post published on Friday.

The Silicon Valley tech firm said it discovered on Tuesday that an unknown attacker, or attackers, had taken advantage of a security flaw to take over users’ accounts. The flaw was related to the “View As” feature that lets people see what their own profile looks like through the eyes of another user, Facebook explained.

“This allowed them to steal Facebook access tokens which they could then use to take over people’s accounts,” Facebook’s VP of Product Management Guy Rosen wrote in a separate blog post.

“Access tokens are the equivalent of digital keys that keep people logged in to Facebook so they don’t need to re-enter their password every time they use the app.”

Facebook says it’s not yet clear who is behind the attack.

On the conference call, Rosen said that there was no evidence that users’ private messages had been compromised, but cautioned that that could change as the process continues. It’s also not clear on what grounds people were targered, or why.

The revelation comes a day after a famous Taiwanese hacker publicly declared plans to delete Zuckerberg’s Facebook account and to livestream the feat. Facebook representatives said on the conference call that they did not believe the cyber attack was related to the Tawainese hacker.

You know what they say: Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And in her latest music video, Tiffany Young, of Girls’ Generation fame, puts a playboy ex-lover on blast for playing games and breaking hearts — but not before getting her own sweet revenge first.

The cinematic visual for “Teach You” — featuring multiple sets, costume changes, a dreamy color palette, and a dramatic conclusion — is an ode to some of Young’s favorite Korean dramas. And it should come as no surprise that the K-Pop queen is serving glamour while warning future suitors with a sly smile, “If you mess with me you get hurt.”

The sultry video also serves as a mini Girls’ Generation reunion, with Young’s former bandmates Sooyoung and Hyoyeon appearing alongside her at the salon as she laments her unfaithful boyfriend (played by Saturday Night Live Korea‘s Kwon Hyuksoo).

Co-written by Young, “Teach You” is more than a revenge anthem with a catchy hook; it’s a personal song about dealing with toxic relationships, from the initial rage to the lingering disappointment. But more importantly, it’s a tale of a woman harnessing her power and persevering in the face of a toxic man.

“It’s all about noticing the wrong signs in a relationship and letting the ladies know it’s okay to stand up for yourself,” Young said of her new single in a press release. “Don’t be pushed around, don’t be fooled — you should know better as a woman to teach a man that he needs to treat you right.”

And, spoiler alert, sometimes that lesson really burns.