Anti-overdose drug buprenorphine given to few Americans with opioid addiction

By HealthDay News

A new study found that only 47% of participants were prescribed buprenorphine, and the rate was even lower (about 30%) for opioid users who also misuse other substances such as alcohol, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines or cocaine. 

Photo by Tmeers91/Wikimedia Commons

A potentially lifesaving drug that reduces overdose risk is prescribed to less than half of Americans treated for opioid addiction, a new study finds.

This underuse of buprenorphine is "equivalent to giving those with advanced cancer a less aggressive treatment," said senior investigator Dr. Laura Bierut. She is a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

"It seems obvious to many of us that we should be giving the most aggressive and effective treatments to those who are most seriously ill," Bierut added in a university news release.

For the study, Bierut and her colleagues analyzed health insurance data on about 180,000 people nationwide treated for opioid use disorder from 2011 to 2016. Only 47% of them were prescribed buprenorphine, and the rate was even lower (about 30%) for opioid users who also misuse other substances such as alcohol, methamphetamine, benzodiazepines or cocaine.

RELATED Only 1 in 4 people with opioid use disorder in U.S. receive medication, study finds

The study was published online recently in JAMA Network Open.

"It's concerning that the majority of people misusing multiple substances don't appear to be getting the lifesaving medication they really need," said study co-author Dr. Kevin Xu, a resident physician in the university's psychiatry department.

"While the data we analyzed predates COVID-19, the pandemic saw an escalation in overdoses, yet we're still not seeing many eligible patients get buprenorphine prescriptions," Xu noted.

RELATED  ERs can boost efforts to stamp out opioid addiction, study suggests

The data the researchers analyzed are a few years old, Bierut said. "But we think this information can be extrapolated to what's happening now because even more people using opioids -- or using opioids as well as other substances -- are showing up in emergency departments today. The problem has only gotten worse during the COVID-19 pandemic," she added.

Nearly 107,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses from early 2021 through early 2022, compared with 70,237 drug overdose deaths in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are a number of possible reasons for the low rate of buprenorphine prescriptions among people treated for opioid addiction, according to Xu.

RELATED Study: Opioid addiction treatment in jail reduces re-arrest risk after release

Buprenorphine itself is an opioid, which may make doctors hesitant to prescribe it to people with opioid addiction. Buprenorphine can be taken at home and does not require daily trips to a clinic, but that lack of supervision could also affect decisions about prescribing it. Another reason may be insufficient data about the drug's effectiveness in those who misuse multiple substances.

But such concerns appear to be unfounded, Xu said.

"Buprenorphine appears to be a safe opioid," he noted. "It's specifically designed to be different from other opioid drugs in that it won't cause a user to stop breathing, which pretty much every other type of opioid will do. That means it can be taken safely at home, which is very helpful, even essential, to recovery."

More information

There's more on opioid addiction at the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Female House Democrats condemn criminalizing women's reproductive health


Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other House Democrats speak during a press conference on the House steps Friday after the Senate failed to codify Roe vs. Wade earlier this week. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

May 13 (UPI) -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday joined female Democratic members of Congress in passionate defense abortion and reproductive rights, urging Americans to politically mobilize beginning this weekend.

"As Republicans seek to control and criminalize women's reproductive health freedoms, Democrats are fighting to enshrine Roe vs. Wade into law," Pelosi said during a news conference on the steps of the House of Representatives.

She said Republicans in the Senate lined up in lockstep with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and former President Donald Trump to vote to "rip away the constitutional right to health freedom for American women."

Pelosi said Republicans want a nationwide ban on abortion. And she asserted they won't stop with stripping abortion rights away from millions of American women.

"Make no mistake. Once Republicans shred long-standing precedent and privacy rights, they intend to wage an all-out assault on more of our rights, including access to contraception and marriage equality," Pelosi said.

Rep. Barbara Lee, D.-Calif., said rallies for abortion rights will be held this weekend on the National Mall in Washington D.C., and in cities across the country.

"We're not going to be denied the right to make decisions about our own bodies," Lee said. adding that no Republican senator voted to consider legislation that protects "our rights to make our own reproductive health decisions."

A Senate vote to codify Roe vs. Wade into federal law lost 51-49 with every Democrat except West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin voting for abortion rights, while every Republican voted against those rights for women.

Lee said that for many women, the impending loss of abortion rights is personal.

"I've personally experienced the fear, the stigma, the trauma, the despair of being denied care that you need," she said.

Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., who co-chairs the Pro-Choice Caucus with Lee, urged everyone to mobilize and rally politically starting with the weekend rallies.

"It's the beginning of the march to the November elections," Lee said.

She said the 218-211 House vote to pass the Women's Health Protection Act and put Roe vs. Wade abortion rights into federal law was the most support for abortion rights ever in Congress.

Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York said that a Republican minority has worked for decades to roll back the rights of women. She said that minority has worked systematically to politicize the Supreme Court by packing it with "activist ideologues."

British court rules calling man 'bald' amounted to sexual harassment

A British court ruled Wednesday that a supervisor sexually harassed an employee by calling him bald. File Photo by Activedia/Pixabay

May 13 (UPI) -- In Britain, calling a man bald can now be classified as sexual harassment, an employment tribunal ruled Wednesday.

The tribunal said calling a man bald was akin to commenting on the size of woman's breasts, based on case law dating back to 1995. The case involved Tony Finn, an electrician at British Bung Manufacturing, who was threatened by his shift supervisor, Jamie King, and called a "bald" expletive.

Finn was eventually fired in 2019. 

The tribunal said the insult violated Finn's "dignity, it created an intimidating environment for him, it was done for that purpose, and it related to the claimant's sex."

Employment judge Jonathan Brain said he believed the comment was made as a form of intimidation.

"It is much more likely that a person on the receiving end of a comment such as that which was made in [that] case would be female," Brain said, according to the Evening Standard. "So too, it is much more likely that a person on the receiving end of a remark such as that made by Mr. King would be male."

Finn also won claims of unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal along with sexual harassment. The court did not agree on his claims of age discrimination. The tribunal will determine compensation at a later date.

USA 

ER wait times longer for Hispanic people with chest pain, study finds

Hispanic patients with potential heart problems wait longer for care in hospital emergency rooms, according to a new study.

 Photo by paulbr75/Pixabay

May 13 (UPI) -- Hispanic adults in the United States who visit hospital emergency rooms complaining of chest pain wait longer to receive treatment than those of other racial and ethnic groups, a study presented Friday found.

Nationally, people of Hispanic descent waited 39% longer than people of all other races or ethnicities to be taken care of by healthcare professionals in emergency rooms, according to data presented Friday during a meeting of researchers hosted by the American Heart Association.

This included longer waits for further testing, 24-hour observation, hospital admission or ER discharge, the researchers said.

On average, Hispanic adults wait 99 minutes for these and other services compared with an average of 71 minutes for those of other races and ethnicities, according to the researchers.

RELATED Pandemic's unequal toll on people of color underlines U.S. health inequities

Although Hispanic adults were admitted to the hospital slightly more often than people of all other races or ethnicities, they waited nearly twice as long as others -- 86 minutes versus 44 minutes -- for that, the data showed.

Hispanic people represented less than 5% of all people who arrived in the ER complaining of chest pain during the study's one-year period, and they tended to be younger and have lower blood pressure than others, the researchers said.

In addition, Hispanic people were nearly three times more likely than people from any other racial or ethnic groups to be uninsured, and Hispanic women were 58% more likely to visit the ER with chest pain than Hispanic men, according to the researchers.

RELATED Heart health rises with education, but not for all races, study suggests

"Even with continued efforts to eliminate disparities and achieve health equity, our research confirms Hispanic people continue to face significant barriers to health care," Dr. Katiria Pintor Jimenez, a co-author of the study, said in a press release.

"Chest pain is one of the most common symptoms of presentation in the emergency room,' said Pintor Jimenez, an internal medicine resident at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta.

Racial and ethnic health care disparities contribute greatly to overall health, risk for death and healthcare costs related to heart disease and stroke, research indicates.

RELATED Sex, racial disparities found in cardiac rehab referral

Heart disease is the leading cause of death across almost all ethnic groups in the United States, including Hispanic people who represent the largest and fastest growing ethnic population nationally, according to the American Heart Association.

The findings of this study are based on an analysis of more than 11,000 medical records of people arriving at the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta n 2020 with a chief symptom of chest pain, the researchers said.


"Our findings suggest that Hispanic people with chest pain may experience unwarranted delays in the emergency department and in receiving overall medical care in the hospital," Pintor said.

"Contributing factors in delayed care among Hispanic people may include language barriers, cultural values and behavior, immigration status, the lack of health insurance or a lack of Hispanic healthcare professionals who can better promote healthcare equity," she said.

Marcos victory opens old wounds for martial law victims in Philippines

Boni Ilagan was arrested and tortured during the martial law era under Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos. His sister Rizalina, whose name is inscribed on a memorial wall in Manila, was also arrested and disappeared.

 Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI

MANILA, May 13 (UPI) -- As Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. was closing in on the presidency of the Philippines earlier this week, playwright Boni Ilagan thought back to a morning almost 50 years ago.

Ilagan, then a 23-year-old student activist, was on the run from Bongbong's father -- dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. -- who had declared martial law and was hunting down political opponents and dissidents.

In April 1974, Ilagan's luck ran out. An intelligence unit burst into the safe house where he and his fellow publishers of an underground newspaper were hiding.

"They started the torture right there in the house," Ilagan, now 70, told UPI. "I think they wanted us to be demoralized immediately, so that we could offer no resistance."

For the next two years, he was held prisoner at Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police in Manila. Ilagan's captors burned his feet with a flat iron. They made him lie between two cots, suspended by only his head and feet, and beat him when he sagged or fell -- the torturers called it "San Juanico Bridge," named after a span Marcos built as a gift for his wife Imelda, now 92 years old.

Iligan's voice caught as he described how interrogators forced a stick into his penis, trying to get him to talk.

"It took a long time before I was able to share the details of this," he said. "I was in denial."

RELATED The rise and fall -- and rise again -- of the Philippines' Marcos family

According to Amnesty International, the Marcos administration detained 70,000 people on charges of subversion, tortured 34,000 and "salvaged" 3,240 -- a euphemism for extrajudicial killings.

Ilagan's sister Rizalina was also arrested and "disappeared" in 1977, her name inscribed on a memorial wall that Boni visited after casting his vote on Monday.

With the presumptive victory of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the presidential election -- he won by a landslide of more than 16 million votes, according to still-unofficial results -- the memories of those dark years have grown closer than ever.

"It's unimaginable," Ilagan said. 'It's like a nightmare that I thought had been lost forever and now has been revived."

Another student activist, Neri Colmenares, was just 18 when he was arrested in 1978. He would spend a total of four years in prison, subject to frequent beatings and electric shocks.

However, Colmenares said it was the mental torture -- such as being forced to play Russian roulette with a loaded revolver -- that was worse.

"After three days of beatings, your body is so numb that no more pain can be added," he told UPI. "It was the mental torture that actually broke a lot of activists. I always say that it is probably because the mind is limitless. Therefore, the pain is limitless."

Both men have been active in keeping the memory of the martial law era alive and warning of the dangers of returning the Marcos clan to power.

Ilagan, a renowned playwright whose works portrayed the human rights violations of the Marcos dictatorship, is one of the leaders of the activist group Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law.

Colmenares, a 62-year-old human rights lawyer and former congressman, ran an unsuccessful campaign for a Senate seat this week on a ticket closely allied with Leni Robredo, the main opponent of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the presidential race.

"I was competing against Marcos more than I was competing for my senatorial position," Colmenares said. "Because among the candidates, I think I'm the only one who was tortured and arrested during Marcos era, so I felt a personal obligation."

Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has never apologized or admitted to any wrongdoing from the two decades of rule that saw his family plunder up to $10 billion from the country. Instead, he ran on a campaign slogan of "together we will rise again" and praised his dictator father as a "political genius."

Meanwhile, opponents have been faced with a "firehose of disinformation," according to fact-checking group Tsek.ph, much of which has set out to rehabilitate the family's image and cast the Marcos era as a kind of golden age of the Philippines.

"Marcos has been exceptionally effective in using disinformation spread on social media to rebrand his family's history and create a devoted following," Liz Derr, founder of TrollExposer, a U.S.-based organization that roots out accounts and groups responsible for fake news on Facebook, told UPI.

"He has conditioned his followers to be impervious to fact checking and reliable sources," Derr said.

One widespread myth, used to explain the notorious kleptocracy's wealth, claims that Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was paid thousands of tons of gold when he worked as a lawyer for the descendants of a Philippine royal family.

Other accounts claim that only terrorists were arrested under martial law -- not activists or critics such as Ilagan and Colmenares. The lies are especially targeted at voters too young to have firsthand memories of the Marcos era, which ended when he was driven into exile by a popular uprising in 1986.

"I felt some resentment against the young people for believing," Ilagan said. "But I realized it was not their fault. It was the fault of our government, our institutions who failed to ensure that the lessons of history, especially during martial law, were taught."

"My main obligation is to tell people my story," Ilagan said. "So I tell my story. And I tell the story of my sister."

Missing Picasso painting spotted in Philippines home of Imelda Marcos


A 'missing' Picasso painting worth an estimated £125million has been spotted hanging in the home of Imelda Marco, mother of new Philippines President Ferdinand Jr

Imelda is known to have owned the painting, which was bought with wealth plundered from the Philippines during her husband's dictatorship

May 13 (UPI) -- A Pablo Picasso painting bought by late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. and his wife Imelda, or a copy of it, has been spotted in her home eight years after it had been selected to be seized by the country's government.

The surrealist painting Reclining Woman VI, which depicts a nude woman lying on a couch, was seen in footage that aired Tuesday from the local station TV Patrol as Imelda Marcos celebrated her son Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s presidential election win.

The painting, described as "priceless" by The Art Newspaper, is one of more than 200 purchased by the Marcos family with up to $10 billion stolen from the government during the late patriarch's two decades leading the country.

Marcos Sr. was ousted from power in 1986 and the family lived in exile in Hawaii before later returning to the country.

His son won a landslide presidential election Monday over current vice-president, Leni Robredo, to succeed Rodrigo Duterte after his constitutionally mandated single term.

After the government of Marcos Sr., the country created the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) to recover the stolen money and the lavish goods purchased with it, though The New York Times has reported that many of the works are suspected of being fake.

The painting was believed to have been seized in 2014 and placed into the custody of the National Museum, the institution's director-general Jeremy Barns told the news site Rappler.

However, he admitted that the acknowledgment receipt lists its title as "Picasso Replica Bass Strokes" and not "Pablo Picasso Reclining Women VI."

Former PCGG chairman Andy Bautista tweeted this week that the Reclining Woman VI had also been seen in a 2019 documentary about the Marcos family titled "The Kingmaker."

According to The Art Newspaper, the appearance of the painting in the documentary had again prompted officials to look for the painting.

Ruben Carranza, a former commissioner for the PCGG, told The Guardian it was unclear if the Reclining Woman VI seen this week was the real Picasso painting.

But Bautista told Rappler he felt confident the one that the government had seized was a fake.

"Mrs. Marcos has had a habit of buying fake paintings, as well as lending fake paintings for display," Carranza said.

"The fact that she's now displaying it just shows not just the duplicity of Mrs. Marcos ... it shows this really, absolutely uncaring attitude for Filipinos."

9 in 10 women in U.S. say distance limits access to abortion services, survey finds


A new survey indicates that access to abortion services in the United States is already limited, even before apparent efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade in the Supreme Court.

 Photo by Fibonacci Blue/Wikimedia Commons


May 13 (UPI) -- Almost 90% of women in the United States say they live too far from the nearest abortion to clinic to access the procedure and other women's healthcare services, according to the results of a survey published Friday found.

Among nearly 900 respondents from all 50 states and Washington, D.C., 89% cited distance as a "barrier" to accessing abortion services, the data published Friday by JAMA Network Open showed.

Up to 80% of respondents said they had to set aside funds to cover travel expenses in order to obtain abortion services, the researchers said.

"Abortion care is healthcare [and] abortion care, like all pregnancy-related care, is often out of reach for many people living in rural parts of the country," Ushma Upadhyay, a co-author of the study, told UPI in an email.

RELATED Abortion pills are safe without ultrasounds, medical exams, study shows

"And there is a great need to ensure that all pregnant people can access safe pregnancy-related healthcare regardless of the state they live in," said Upadhyay, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California-San Francisco.

Access to abortion services nationally is affected by laws in many states that limit the number of clinics that can offer the procedure and place restrictions on when the controversial procedure can be performed.

Given that it appears that the conservative-majority Supreme Court appears poised to strike down Roe vs. Wade -- the case that effectively legalized abortion in the United States -- in the near future, access could be even more limited, according to Upadhyay.

RELATED Demand for abortion-inducing medication spiked after Texas' near-total ban

On Wednesday, the Senate failed to pass a proposal to safeguard legalized abortion nationwide by enshrining the practice in federal law.

As of 2017, nearly 90% of counties in the United States did not have a clinic that offered abortion services, a recent report found.

For this study, Upadhyay and her colleagues surveyed 856 pregnant people who were considering undergoing an abortion.

RELATED  Menstrual cycle irregularity may impact abortion access, study finds

Among the respondents, 27% lived within 5 miles of a clinic that offered abortion services, while 44% lived within 24 miles of a facility, the data showed.

Just under 10% of the respondents lived 25 to 49 miles from a clinic, while 19% lived 50 miles or more from the nearest facility, the researchers said.

Of those who lived 25 to 49 miles from the nearest clinic, 81% said they needed to set aside funds for travel expenses to receive care, according to the researchers.

Among respondents who lived 50 miles or more from the nearest facility, 76% indicated they needed to set aside funds for travel expenses to receive care, the data showed.


"We hope our research demonstrates to policymakers the potential impact of banning abortion," Upadhyay said.

"A state-level abortion ban will push some people into having abortions later in pregnancy and force others to carry unwanted pregnancies to term -- this will have dire consequences for individuals and their families," she said.

DECRIMINALIZE DRUGS

Detention of WNBA’s Griner in Moscow extended by 1 month

1 of 4

WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner leaves a courtroom after a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Friday, May 13, 2022. Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was detained at the Moscow airport in February after vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis were allegedly found in her luggage, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. 

(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)

MOSCOW (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner had her pre-trial detention in Russia extended by one month Friday, her lawyer said.

Alexander Boykov told The Associated Press he thinks the relatively short extension indicated that Griner’s case would go to trial soon. The 31-year-old American basketball player has been in custody for nearly three months.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, was detained at a Moscow airport in February after vape cartridges containing oil derived from cannabis were allegedly found in her luggage. She faces drug smuggling charges that carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

Griner appeared for the brief hearing at a court outside Moscow handcuffed, wearing an orange hoodie and holding her face down. She did not express “any complaints about the detention conditions,” Boykov said.

The Biden administration says Griner is being wrongfully detained. The WNBA and U.S. officials have worked toward her release, without visible progress.

“Today’s news on Brittney Griner was not unexpected, and the WNBA continues to work with the U.S. government to get BG home safely and as soon as possible,” the basketball league said in a statement.

Hours after the extension, the Mercury star’s agent Lindsay Kagawa Colas tweeted that Griner’s team expects the government “to use all options available to immediately and safely bring Griner home.”

State Dept spokesman Ned Price said diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow spoke with Griner on Friday and reported she “is doing as well as can be expected in these circumstances.”

Russian officials have described Griner’s case as a criminal offense without making any political associations. But Moscow’s war in Ukraine has brought U.S.-Russia relations to the lowest level since the Cold War.

Despite the strain, Russia and the United States carried out an unexpected prisoner exchange last month — trading former Marine Trevor Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

While the U.S. does not typically embrace such exchanges, it made the deal in part because Yaroshenko had already served a long portion of his sentence.

The Russians may consider Griner someone who could figure into another such exchange.

The State Department last week said it now regards Griner as wrongfully detained, a change in classification that suggests the U.S. government will be more active in trying to secure her release even while the legal case plays out.

The status change places her case under the purview of the department’s Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs, which is responsible for negotiating for the release of hostages and Americans considered wrongfully detained.

Also working on the case now is a center led by Bill Richardson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who helped secure the release of multiple hostages and detainees, including Reed.

It’s not entirely clear why the U.S. government, which for weeks had been more circumspect in its approach, reclassified Griner as a wrongful detainee. But under federal law, there are a number of factors that go into such a characterization, including if the detention is based on being an American or if the detainee has been denied due process

Besides Griner, another American regarded as unjustly detained in Russia is Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan. Whelan was arrested in December 2018 while visiting for a friend’s wedding and was later sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage-related charges his family has said are bogus.

RIP
Actor Fred Ward, of ‘Tremors,’ ‘The Right Stuff’ fame, dies

By MARK KENNEDY

 Fred Ward, a cast member in "30 Minutes or Less," poses at the premiere of the film in Los Angeles on Aug. 8, 2011. Ward, a veteran actor who brought a gruff tenderness to tough-guy roles in such films as “The Right Stuff,” “The Player” and “Tremors,” died Sunday, May 8, his publicist Ron Hofmann said Friday, May 13, 2022. He was 79. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Fred Ward, a veteran actor who brought a gruff tenderness to tough-guy roles in such films as “The Right Stuff,” “The Player” and “Tremors,” has died. He was 79.

Ward died Sunday, his publicist Ron Hofmann said Friday. No cause or place of death was disclosed per the family’s wishes.

Ward earned a Golden Globe and shared the Venice Film Festival ensemble prize for his performance in Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts,” and played the title character in “Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.” He also reached new heights playing Mercury 7 astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom in 1983′s Academy Award-nominated film “The Right Stuff.”

“Devastated to learn about the passing of my friend, Fred Ward,” tweeted actor Matthew Modine, who co-starred with Ward in “Short Cuts” and Alan Rudolph’s “Equinox.” “A tough façade covering emotions as deep as the Pacific Ocean. Godspeed amigo.”

A former boxer, lumberjack in Alaska and short-order cook who served in the U.S. Air Force, Ward was a San Diego native who was part Cherokee. One early big role was alongside Clint Eastwood in 1979’s “Escape From Alcatraz.”

“I mourn the loss of Fred Ward, who was so kind to me when we worked together on ‘Remo Williams,’” actor Kate Mulgrew tweeted. “Decent and modest and utterly professional, he disarmed with a smile that was at once warm and mischievous.”

Ward’s other roles included a rumpled cop chasing a psychotic criminal played by Alec Baldwin in George Armitage’s “Miami Blues.” He was a formidable and intimidating father to both Freddie Prinze Jr.’s character in “Summer Catch” and David Spade’s title character in “Joe Dirt.”

Ward played President Ronald Reagan in the 2009 Cold War espionage thriller “Farewell” and had a supporting role in the 2013 action flick “2 Guns,” starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

In the horror-comedy “Tremors,” Ward paired with Kevin Bacon to play a pair of repairmen who end up saving a hardscrabble Nevada desert community beset by giant underground snakes.

With the sexually charged, NC-17 “Henry & June,” Ward showed more than just grit. Based on the book by Anais Nin and directed by Philip Kaufman, Ward played novelist Henry Miller, opposite Nin and his wife, June. “My rear end seemed to have something to do with (that rating),” he told The Washington Post.

He also reteamed with Altman for the part of a studio security chief in the director’s 1992 Hollywood satire “The Player,” and played a union activist and Meryl Streep’s workmate in Mike Nichols’ “Silkwood” in 1983.

Ward demonstrated his comedy chops playing a terrorist intent on blowing up the Academy Awards in “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult” in 1994.

On the small screen, he had recurring roles on NBC’s “ER” playing the father of Maura Tierney’s Abby Lockhart in 2006-2007 and guest starred on such series as “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Leverage” and “United States of Tara.” Ward most recently appeared in the second season of HBO’s “True Detective” as the retired cop father of Colin Farrell’s Detective Ray Velcoro.

Ward is survived by his wife of 27 years, Marie-France Ward and his son, Django Ward.

 

13. Cast a Deadly Spell (1991 TV Movie)

R | 96 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Horror

 6.4

 

 Rate

In a fantastical 40's where magic is used by everyone, a hard-boiled detective investigates the theft of a mystical tome.

Director: Martin Campbell | Stars: Fred Ward, David Warner, Julianne Moore, Clancy Brown

Votes: 3,750

I simply can not believe the rating this gem has. Everything below 8 is blasphemy. It's sad that this movie never had theatrical release and was never released on DVD or BR either. It was distributed only as VHS for video stores and because of that it didn't have a chance to reach wider audience and rise to popularity it deserves.

Everything in it is between very good and perfect. Considering relatively low budget of about 6 million, HBO did fantastic job with production. Movie is directed by Martin Campbell, man responsible for Golden Eye, Mask of Zorro and Casino Royale, and Joseph Dougherty (Pretty Little Liars) wrote one of the most original scripts I ever had luck to see.

Movie combines 40's Film Noir with supernatural horror of 80's and well-measured humour. It is based on Lovecraft mythos, but unlike most of movies based of Lovecraft that rape his stories, this one is not adaptation, but an original story inspired by Lovecraft, which skillfully includes parts of Lovecraft's mythos into noir crime mystery.

!!! SPOILER ALERT !!!

Fred Ward, in style of Bogart, plays former cop, now private detective, who is, in LA at the end of 40's, hired to find stolen Necronomicon, book that possess power to unlock interdimensional gate and let Great Old Ones back on Earth. Great Old Ones are very powerful demonic beings who once ruled the Earth. Most known are Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth and, of course, Cthulhu. It is interesting that, unlike most movies with supernatural plot, magic here is not secret skill reserved for few and kept in secret from public, but the most common everyday tool used by all. Same applies for supernatural beings, so we have zombies as bodyguards, and in jail we can see some vampires and werewolves. But non of that is shown in usual glamorous and mystical way full of stunning special effects. It's all incorporated in film noir style and shown as common and normal, so you won't have a feeling that you watch fantasy movie, but just usual 40's crime noir.

Directing is great, there are some beautiful shots you should not miss, and lines are true masterpiece. Script is so well written that I am sure it would be great literature for reading even without seeing the movie.

"My name is Lovecraft and I'm the guy who knows. Just about the only guy who knows it all and is still breathing. It started that night and it started with a woman. It always starts with a woman." And the woman is Julianne Moore, charming as always and one more good reason to see this film.

9/10

2022 IIHF World Championship: 'Like a World Cup without Germany or Brazil'

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to a ban on its teams and athletes from competition. The impact of Russia's absence will be undeniable at this year's IIHF World Championship — and this may not just be a one-off.


Tampere's Nokia Arena (pictured) and the Helsinki Ice Hall are the venues for the 2022 Worlds

When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine just four days after the "Russian Olympic Committee" (ROC) lost the gold medal game in men's ice hockey at the 2022 Winter Olympics, the consequences stretched far beyond the doping scandal the country's athletes have been plagued with in recent years.

When the ROC team lost to Finland in Beijing this past February, or four years earlier when the "Olympic Athletes from Russia” won gold, nobody was under any illusions as to who these players were and who they really represented. This was despite a ban on using the Russian flag or uniforms due to sanctions imposed after the McLaren Report revealed evidence of state-sponsored doping in the country.

This year, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has gone much further, banning Russia and Belarus from all competitions. The tournament in Finland gets underway on Friday.

"We were incredibly shocked to see the images that have come out of Ukraine," IIHF President Luc Tardif said in a statement announcing the move back in February. "I have been in close contact with the Ice Hockey Federation of Ukraine, and we hope for all Ukrainians that this conflict can be resolved in a peaceful way and without the need for further violence," he added.
'Politics and sport go hand in hand'

The IIHF's move was the "only reasonable decision," according to Szymon Szemberg, managing director of the Alliance of European Hockey Clubs (ECH).

"To have Russia in the WM (World Championship) — with their war of aggression, genocide and war crimes, also adding the very close links between the Russian ice hockey federation, KHL to Putin and the Kremlin — would have been unthinkable," Szemberg told DW.

Hockey historian Andrew Podnieks, who has written more than 100 books on the subject, concurs.

"Politics and sport do go hand in hand," Podnieks told DW. "The IIHF cannot help Ukraine win the war. It is a hockey organization, and it is doing the only thing it can do to support Ukraine and to show disgust for the invasion... The morality of sport is far more important than having one team or another compete in an event."

The "Olympic Athletes from Russia" won the gold medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang

The IIHF's move to suspend the two countries came at lightning-like speed in comparison to how it handled last year's World Championship. The organization took weeks to decide to withdraw Belarus' right to cohost the tournament as a result of strongman Alexander Lukashenko's bloody crackdown on demonstrations against his disputed reelection in August 2020.

The IIHF has also withdrawn Russia's right to host next year's World Juniors and followed that up by stripping it of next year's men's World Championship, which was to have been hosted by Vladimir Putin's hometown, St. Petersburg.
'Like a World Cup without Germany or Brazil'

Now, for the first time in decades, hockey fans will watch a World Championship that from a purely sporting point of view can only be made poorer by the lack of a Russian entry, argues Szemberg.

"It has a substantial sporting impact, which is obvious as Russia is one of the leading hockey nations," he said. "One perennial medal contender will not play. This is like, say, the FIFA World Cup without Germany or Brazil."

Canada arrive in Finland as defending champions looking to win a 28th title

After all, since the Soviet Union first competed in (and won) the Worlds in 1954, it and later Russia, have won a total of 27 gold medals – a record matched only by Canada.

The best of a bad situation

On the other hand, Podnieks stresses that by excluding the two countries, the IIHF has made the best out of a bad situation.

"If Russia and Belarus were at the tournament, it would cause a huge controversy and much of the conversation around the tournament would be about their participation," he said. "By not having them here, it strengthens an event where, because of events, there could be no normal."

Now, Canada (2nd-ranked team) will have the chance to claim the record it shares with Russia (3rd) outright — at a 16-team tournament where Russia is replaced by 13th-ranked France, and Austria (17th) take to the ice in place of Belarus (14th).

And with no apparent end to the war in Ukraine in sight, one has to wonder whether the absence of Russia at the Ice Hockey World Championship will be something fans will have to get used to in the years to come.

However, as Szemberg, who is also a former IIHF communications director noted: "Canada was gone from the IIHF Worlds 1970 through 1976, and the hockey world survived."

Edited by: Jonathan Harding