The votes are in and the moment is here: the Academy is set to reveal the nominations for this year’s Oscars, with “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners” expected to top the list. Experts predict that the acclaimed hits, both from Warner Bros, could each rack up a dozen or more nods for Hollywood’s grandest awards ceremony — from best picture and best actor to the new best casting prize.Some even suggest that the films could tie — or even break — the all-time record of nominations for a single film, jointly held by “All About Eve,” “Titanic” and “La La Land” at 14.It is rare for a single Hollywood studio to have the two clear Oscar frontrunners, and it ironically comes in what could be Warner Bros’ swansong year as an independent distributor.Warner Bros is the target of a fierce bidding war between Paramount Skydance and Netflix.”Sinners,” a blues-inflected period horror film about the segregated US South, comes from “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler.It is expected to land a best actor nomination for Michael B. Jordan, who plays two twins battling vampires and racists in 1930s Mississippi, plus everything from screenplay to score.For Variety awards expert Clayton Davis, the nominations record is within reach for “Sinners.” Coogler is “rewriting the math entirely,” and could enter “a statistical stratosphere no filmmaker has ever touched,” Davis wrote.But so far this awards season, Paul Thomas Anderson — whose formidable, eclectic filmography runs from “Boogie Nights” to “There Will Be Blood” — has won almost every prize going for “One Battle After Another.”A zany thriller about a retired revolutionary looking for his teen daughter against a wild backdrop of radical violence, immigration raids and white supremacists, it broke the all-time record for nominations by Hollywood’s actors guild.Former best actor Oscar winner Leonardo DiCaprio is all but certain to secure his seventh acting nomination from the Academy.Netflix has its own hopefuls in Guillermo del Toro’s monster horror flick “Frankenstein,” tragic Western pioneer drama “Train Dreams” and animated musical sensation “KPop Demon Hunters.”- Best casting -“Hamnet,” a tragic literary adaptation that imagines William Shakespeare coping with the death of his son, is likely to land a bagful of nominations.Jessie Buckley, who plays the Bard’s long-suffering wife Agnes, appears a lock for a best actress nomination.She is likely to be joined by Emma Stone playing an alien — or is she? — in conspiracy theorist drama “Bugonia,” and Norwegian actress Renate Reinsve in arthouse darling “Sentimental Value.”With the Academy’s overseas voter base rapidly expanding, “Sentimental Value” is one of a trio of non-English-language films that could contend for best picture.Along with Persian-language Palme d’Or winner “It Was Just An Accident,” there is also Brazil’s “The Secret Agent,” though “space feels limited” for all three to make the list, wrote Davis.”The Secret Agent” star Wagner Moura, playing a scientist on the run from Brazil’s 1970s dictatorship, is expected to vie with DiCaprio and Jordan for best actor.But that category’s frontrunner is Timothee Chalamet, whose turn in “Marty Supreme” as a bratty, talented and fiercely ambitious ping pong player in 1950s New York has already won a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award and more.This year sees the introduction of a new Oscar for best casting, honoring the experts who attach actors to projects long before future blockbusters or indie hits begin production.With no precedent, it is unclear what exactly voters will be looking for. “Is it star power? Ensemble cohesion? Finding a discovery?” asked Davis.The nominations will be unveiled Thursday at 5:30 am (1330 GMT) in Los Angeles, with the 98th Oscars ceremony to follow on March 15.

Madeline Marchiano realizes that this winter’s runaway heating prices mean she can’t afford to raise her thermostat enough to warm her entire South Philadelphia rowhouse.So Marchiano, who also lacks the budget to replace drafty old windows, avoids the colder rooms.The heating bill is yet another cost pressure facing many Americans like Marchiano, who says prices are “outrageous” for groceries and other staples.”I try to survive,” said the 61-year-old, who lives on a fixed income. “Like everyone else, I worry about bills.”Even before winter started, consumer advocates sounded the alarm on higher heating costs in light of torrid electricity demand growth and costly revamps of pipes and other infrastructure that have led to utility rate hikes.US households are expected to spend $995 on heating this winter, an increase of 9.2 percent from last year, according to a December forecast from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA).Of course, the final tally will depend on the weather. So far, the 2025-26 season has been a bear in Philadelphia, with forecasts of an arctic blast and a potential blizzard expected to boost usage further.Through mid-January, the average temperature in Philadelphia was 36.2, the sixth coldest since the year 2000 and about six degrees colder than the winter of 2023-24, said Chad Merrill, a meteorologist at Accuweather.- Assistance programs -Pennsylvania bars utilities from shutting off low-income consumers during the winter months. But consumers who fall behind can face a shutoff once the moratorium ends at the end of March.”It catches up to you,” Luz Laboy, who assists low-income consumers through a maze of assistance programs, said of consumers who don’t pay winter bills. She works at Hunting Park Neighborhood Advisory Committee, an NGO in North Philadelphia.Qualifying consumers are eligible for federal assistance through the US Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which pays an annual stipend, as well as crisis funding that provides grants of up to $1,000.Other Pennsylvania programs allow consumers with large balances to establish a monthly payment plan or to apply to repair broken radiators.Jose Rosario, 75, a retiree who lives on his monthly Social Security check of $1,038 and pays $375 to rent his basement apartment, came to the NGO for help completing his LIHEAP application and managing a $4,000 gas balance.Also there was Linda Croskey, who has borrowed heaters from her sister after her nearly 70-year-old system broke down. Staffers at the NGO think a replacement is likely given the age of the equipment.Croskey, 61, made too much income in prior years for LIHEAP. But she spent much of last year taking care of her husband, who suffered a stroke, meaning she made less in her job as an insurance broker.”It is what it is, I am not mad about anything,” she said. “I just hope to have heat.”- Middle-class hit -Laboy said this winter’s number of applicants for LIHEAP is about the same as last year, but the process has been more fraught. “It is a lot more stressful this year,” said Laboy, noting the program was delayed by the US government shutdown.US President Donald Trump’s administration eliminated the Washington LIHEAP staff in the spring and had initially sought to zero out funding. But Congress ultimately maintained funding for the program.Seth Blumsack, a professor of energy and environmental economics at Pennsylvania State University, tied this winter’s increase in natural gas prices mainly to costs associated with replacing aging infrastructure. This is also a factor behind higher electricity rates, although a bigger driver is the growth of energy-guzzling data centers, he said.”Electricity demand in the US is increasing…in ways we have not seen in decades,” said Blumsack, who pointed to the retirements of older generation units as another factor.The issue resonates with Pennsylvania lawmakers like Representative Heather Boyd. Boyd’s most recent electric and gas bill was for $860, up from $660 the prior month, for a 1,400 square foot home in suburban Philadelphia, she said at a hearing Tuesday on energy affordability.”When I can’t pay that, my community can’t pay that,” she said.The cost-of-living struggle means “it’s not just the poorest families” strained by higher heating prices,” said NEADA executive director Mark Wolfe. “It’s affecting middle-class families, which is why it’s becoming a political issue.”

If there’s one material that defines modern life more than any other, it’s plastic: present from the moment we’re born in newborn stool, in product packaging, in the soil beneath our feet and the air we breathe.Hard as it is to imagine, it wasn’t always thus — and doesn’t have to remain this way, argues Judith Enck in her new book, “The Problem with Plastics.””Half of all plastic ever produced was since 2007,” the year the iPhone debuted, she told AFP in an interview.”We have a fighting chance to reduce plastics because it’s very much a contemporary issue.”Enck, a former senior environment official under Barack Obama, is clear-eyed about the challenges posed by the “rabidly anti-environmental” President Donald Trump.Last year, the administration helped derail a global plastics treaty and reversed a phase-out of single-use plastics in national parks.Nevertheless, she sees momentum building at the state and local level — hailing, for example, New Jersey’s “Skip the Stuff” law enacted this week, which requires restaurants to provide single-use cutlery only upon request, a measure shown to significantly reduce waste.- ‘Myth’ of plastic recycling – Enck’s book traces the history of plastic: from its earliest incarnation in 1909, when Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland invented Bakelite, through the “myth” of plastic recycling promoted by industry from the mid-20th century onward.Along the way, Enck argues that responsibility for the crisis has been systematically shifted onto consumers, even as plastic production continues to soar.”In the United States, only five to six percent of plastics actually get recycled,” she notes. Unlike metal, paper or glass, consumer plastics are made up of thousands of different types, or polymers, making large-scale recycling economically unviable.Early advertising campaigns helped popularize terms like “litterbug,” while today the focus has shifted to “chemical recycling,” promoted by industry as a way to break plastics down into their basic building blocks. Dig deeper, though, and this too is a “false solution,” Enck said: a report by the Beyond Plastics nonprofit she leads found just 11 such facilities handling about one percent of US plastic waste — three of which have since shut down.Around 33 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean every year, “the equivalent of two large garbage trucks filled with plastic being dumped into the ocean every minute.” Microplastics, along with ultra-tiny nanoplastics, can kill or severely sicken marine life before entering the food web and ultimately ending up on our plates.Research into the health effects is ongoing, and some findings are contested. But a 2024 study found that people with microplastics in their heart arteries face an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and premature death.For those living in the shadow of the expanding petrochemical industry, the impacts of toxic emissions have long been felt. Nowhere is this more evident than Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley,” where cancer rates are seven times the national average.”Our zip code is dictating our health, and plastics therefore are a major environmental justice issue, because these are communities of color and low-income communities,” Enck said.- No to shaming – The recent surge in plastic production, she argues, is driven by a “glut” of gas generated since the mid-2000s by the hydraulic fracturing industry, which has sought new markets for its product even as it fuels climate change.It may be easy to lose hope, but Enck says it is not too late to make a difference — pointing to a twofold approach that combines personal action with collective pressure. Her book is replete with advice on how to organize, lobby local governments and advance model legislation.While Enck would prefer consumers shop at stores that sell toiletry refills, ditch plastic coffee pods and take other steps, she acknowledges that such choices are not yet realistic for many people.”I am not into plastic shaming,” she said. “We don’t have a lot of choice when we go to the supermarket, so you do the best you can. But what we really need is systemic change — and what I mean by that is new laws that require less plastic.”