Hasta La Gadget!

This infographic depicts the depressing era of women directors in Hollywood. Created by Indiewire’s Women and Hollywood blog, the image shows that less than 5 percent of major studio feature films were directed by women in the past five years, and only one woman, Anne Fletcher, has directed two features in that time.

Of course, this is something women in Hollywood have known for years. Last year, writer Diablo Cody directed her first film, “Paradise,” and said in an interview, “As a woman you’re still expected to constantly prove yourself, whereas men are allowed to have flops without people blaming it on their gender. If a man has a flop, people will blame it on a variety of factors. But if a woman directs a movie and it doesn’t do well, suddenly it’s because she’s a woman. That’s aggravating to me.”

The latest report on female directors, from Independent Women, found that women account for 26 percent of directors, writers and producers of feature-length independent films; women only comprise 16 percent of the same positions in 2013’s top-grossing films. Take a look at Indiewire’s infographic for more on the sad, sad state of female directors in Hollywood.

Infographic created by Women and Hollywood

Crystal River is a small, sleepy town on Florida’s Nature Coast, known to tourists as one of the best places to swim with manatees. It’s also the site of a series of sting operations in which 18 people were arrested for drug distribution in 2012. Helping the operation was a 27-year-old mother of two named Jaime Seeger, who was a confidential informant essential in providing law enforcement with access to criminal networks.

Six months after the drug bust, Jaime was gunned down in the middle on the night.

Jaime’s mother, Wendy Moore, was with her the night she died and spoke with Lisa Ling for “Our America” about the dangerous work as of untrained, civilian confidential informants. Wendy tells Ling that Jaime had become addicted to the prescription painkillers she was taking for a severe back injury she sustained in a serious car accident in 2006. Then, Jaime made the switch to smoking crack and got swept up in the Crystal River drug culture.

Before too long, Jaime began working for the local sheriff’s department as a C.I., making several controlled drug buys a week and recording the deals for the police with a hidden camera. Wendy isn’t sure exactly why Jaime, a former corrections officer, began working with law enforcement, but expressed concern for her daughter’s safety, especially as rumors on the street spread as to Jamie’s identity and she began receiving death threats.

On July 25, 2012, Wendy’s worst fears were realized.

Jaime had spent the day desperately calling around to buy crack-cocaine to feed her addiction. That night, she finally found some and asked Wendy to ride along with her.

“We were supposed to be going to a gas station,” Wendy tells Ling in the above video. “So I said I’ll go in an get a pop, so it wasn’t like I was going to be there when she did the buy.”

On their way to the gas station, the dealer called to change the meeting location. “He said, ‘I’ll be walking down Crede and you can pick me up,'” Wendy recalls. “He said, ‘Don’t bring your mom.'”

Jaime dropped Wendy off at the gas station. After 20 minutes, Jamie still hasn’t returned and wasn’t answering her cell phone. Then, Wendy saw two unmarked police cars and an ambulance drive by.

“I’m like, ‘Wow, there must be something big going on down that street,'” Wendy says.

She decided to walk over to the commotion, where she noticed the name of the street: Crede, the same street Jaime was told to drive down.

“I start running up that road,” Wendy says.

She was stopped by a sheriff’s deputy, who said that there had been a shooting. “As soon as he said that, my ears started going numb. And he says, ‘It’s my duty to inform you that your daughter is deceased,'” Wendy says. “I just put my head in my hands.”

Jaime isn’t the only confidential informant whose story Ling explored. She also met with a college student named Alex, who went to the extreme to keep his cover, as well as two Argentinian immigrants living in upstate New York, who were also lured into the dangerous world.

“Our America with Lisa Ling” airs Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on OWN.

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One doesn’t typically associate Justice Antonin Scalia with environmental victories, but Monday’s Supreme Court decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency (“UARG”) is just that, albeit with caveats we’ll address below.

Let’s start with the good news. In a 7-2 opinion written by Scalia — and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy, and the court’s four progressives — the court held that the Environmental Protection Agency may regulate the greenhouse gas emissions of any “major emitting facility” already required to receive a permit under the Clean Air Act’s Prevention of Significant Deterioration (“PSD”) program due to its emission of other air pollutants. According to EPA calculations, this reading of the statute covers roughly 83 percent of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions in America.

So, even as this part of the court’s ruling comports only with the EPA’s “fallback” position, this position was still one that Solicitor General Donald Verrilli advanced forcefully in the government’s brief, that drew the most attention during the UARG oral argument earlier this year, and that ultimately led Scalia to concede, while summarizing his UARG decision from the bench, that “E.P.A. is getting almost everything it wanted in this case.” So much for Justice Samuel Alito’s rejoinder in a separate opinion (joined only by Justice Clarence Thomas) that Massachusetts v. EPA — the key case recognizing EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions — was “wrongly decided.” After UARG, Massachusetts v. EPA is still alive and well.

Now, on to the bad news. By a narrow 5-4 vote, the court’s conservatives concluded that the Clean Air Act neither compels nor permits the EPA to adopt an interpretation of the act that triggers the PSD program’s permitting requirements solely because of its greenhouse gas emissions. The PSD program requires stationary sources with emissions of over 100 or 250 tons per year (depending on the type of facility) of “any air pollutant” to obtain a permit before construction or modification. In this part of the court’s opinion — and despite the broad language chosen by Congress (“any air pollutant”) and the court’s previous decision in Massachusetts v. EPA — the court’s conservatives concluded that the phrase “any air pollutant” does not include greenhouse gases for purposes of triggering the PSD program and that EPA’s attempt to tailor the related statutory thresholds to cover the largest emitters of greenhouse gases was impermissible.

While this 5-4 ruling on a key issue is disappointing, it is important again to recognize that the government still won much more than it lost in this case. Put another way, if the government had prevailed in full, the PSD program would have covered approximately 86 percent of stationary sources of greenhouse gases. With Scalia’s split decision in UARG, the PSD program will cover 83 percent of the problem — only 3 percent less than would have been covered in a total victory for the Obama administration. Industry challengers were hoping for 0 percent.

Looking ahead, the big question environmentalists and industry watchers might ask is how today’s ruling will affect subsequent challenges to EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Here again the message is basically positive: Massachusetts v. EPA stands, and the court has reaffirmed EPA’s regulatory authority.

But there are a couple of caveats. First, the court’s willingness to find the Clean Air Act’s text of “any air pollutant” ambiguous — despite both the term’s capacious definition and its acceptance in Massachusetts v. EPA — will be cited by industry challengers as evidence that EPA’s authority is limited when it comes to regulating greenhouse gases. In effect, that would be an argument that greenhouse gases are somehow separate and unequal pollutants for purposes of the Clean Air Act. Massachusetts v. EPA makes it clear that this isn’t true, but some of the language in Scalia’s opinion may inspire other last-ditch efforts by industry groups to undermine the government’s authority to address the gravest environmental challenge of our time. Second, in rejecting EPA’s attempt to keep faith with the act’s text and underlying purpose by adjusting the PSD program’s numerical threshold requirements, Scalia appears to define “reasonable” merely in terms of how much the interpretation would increase EPA’s regulatory authority — the more authority for the EPA, the less reasonable the interpretation (or, at least, so some challengers may argue). Again, industry will take heart in the limits drawn by Scalia’s decision and emphasize them in future cases.

Both industry and environmental organizations declared victory on Monday and with some justification for each position. But if industry is being honest, on the core issue in UARG, they won 3 percent of what they asked for and lost the other 97 percent.

Environmentalists will take that outcome any time.

Originally published at at grist.org and cross-posted at Text & History.

This is Kathy Holick. She’s a dance-aholic; and if you saw her boogie, you’d be sure to crack a smile.

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Holick is a crossing guard in the Newtown, Connecticut, village of Sandy Hook. But directing traffic is just one of the ways she’s is making an impact in her community.

According to the Hartford Courant, Holick — who dances while directing traffic near Newtown High School — has become a symbol of hope and positivity in Sandy Hook.

“She takes her responsibility seriously but has fun in the process,” longtime Newtown resident John Bergquist told the Courant. “Everyone seems to love her and she has put smiles on many faces. If she was directing traffic in any town across the country she would deserve praise and attention for the unique approach to her job. But someone who stands out for her kindness is especially meaningful in a community that is still healing from a massive trauma.”

In 2012, the country mourned with Sandy Hook after a 20-year-old man went on a shooting rampage in the local elementary school, killing 20 children and 6 adults.

“It is just so inspiring to see someone who is a point of light that reminds us to be positive, to treat each other with love and compassion, and that there’s still a lot of good in our community and elsewhere. She gives us hope and leaves us with a smile every day,” Bergquist said of the cheerful crossing guard.

Holick, a 47-year-old grandmother, hasn’t limited her campaign of positivity to the roads. She’s even taken to social media to spread cheer, sharing funny photographs and inspiring words through a public Facebook page.

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As for what keeps that smile on her face and the bounce in her step, Holick told Newtown Patch: “I think of my family and friends to start me off. Upcoming events to get the extra burst and them I think of the children who wave to me with such joy, from buses and cars. Then I throw some music on from my phone that’s in my shirt pocket, and groove to the beat.”

Groove on, Kathy. Groove on.

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SAO PAULO (AP) — Jozy Altidore will miss the United States’ World Cup game against Germany on Thursday because of his strained left hamstring.

The forward was injured in the Americans’ opening 2-1 win against Ghana on June 16 and didn’t play in Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Portugal. U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann said Tuesday that if the Americans qualify for the knockout stage, “we’ll have a good chance to have him back again.”

Germany has four points and leads Group G on goal difference over the U.S. Portugal and Ghana, who also play Thursday, have one point apiece.