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COP30 hosts Brazil on Monday extended negotiations into the night at the UN climate talks as they pushed for a rapid compromise among countries very much at deep odds. Following a difficult first week, Brazil set a deadline for nations to finalize “a significant part” of the negotiations by Tuesday evening for approval the following day.”It’s super difficult as you know… but all involved thought that it’s worth a try” said COP30 President Andre Correa do Lago in the rainforest city of Belem where the talks are underway.Sleepless nights are assured, with Correa do Lago extending the program so negotiators were “able to continue working at night.”They have their work cut out.No progress has been made to reconcile differences over weak climate commitments, insufficient financial pledges and trade measures.China and India are leading a push for COP30 to adopt a decision against unilateral trade barriers, singling out the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) for attack.Tested since 2023 and set to become fully operational in 2026, CBAM targets imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen.The head of China’s COP30 delegation, Li Gao, told AFP last week that nations should “avoid the negative impact of, for example, geopolitical unilateralism or protectionism.”But the EU’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, hit back at attacks over the bloc’s flagship policy and defended carbon pricing as “something that we need”.”We’re not going to be lured into the suggestion that actually CBAM is a unilateral trade measure. And in that realm, we’re also not going to discuss it,” Hoekstra said in a news conference.EU and Chinese officials were due to hold talks later Monday.- Sleepless in Belem -UN climate chief Simon Stiell urged negotiators to tackle “the hardest issues fast” to avoid going into overtime at the summit’s close on Friday.”When these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses. We absolutely cannot afford to waste time on tactical delays or stonewalling,” he said.The COP30 presidency published a memo Sunday evening summarizing the divergent viewpoints and proposing options.Money is again at the heart of the negotiations, after last year’s summit in Baku ended with an agreement for developed countries to provide $300 billion annually in climate finance to poorer nations — a figure criticized as greatly insufficient.Developing countries, especially from Africa, want COP30 to point the finger at developed nations for falling short on providing financing to help adapt to climate change and cut emissions.Another divisive issue was a push by island states — backed by Latin American nations and the EU — for COP30 to respond to the latest projections showing the world will fail to limit warming to 1.5C.But major emerging countries, from China to Saudi Arabia, are wary of any text that implies they are not doing enough to curb climate change.”For Small Island Developing States, 1.5C is not a political slogan. It is a non-negotiable survival threshold for our people, our culture, and our livelihoods,” said Steven Victor, the environment minister of Palau, which is chairing the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).- Fossil fight -Victor told fellow ministers that AOSIS was disappointed over a lack of progress since nations agreed in 2023 at COP28 in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels.Host nation Brazil wants COP30 to send an ambitious signal on fossil fuels, but it remains unclear what form this might take.Even supporters are doubtful that stronger language on fossil fuels could be agreed by all countries at COP30 given fierce opposition from major oil-producing nations, among others.”At the end of the day… it’s about phasing out fossil fuels if we are to solve this problem,” a delegate from a European country supportive of Brazil’s fossil fuel push told AFP.”They are not talking about it in the negotiating rooms. Someone has to do something about it.” Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin urged ministers on Monday to agree to “integrated action plans” for transitioning away from fossil fuels.Alckmin said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva might come to Belem this week, which would be “extremely positive.””Brazil is committed to combating climate change,” he said.ia-ico-alb-lth-np/bjt

Ecuador’s Donald Trump-aligned President Daniel Noboa was dealt a major blow Sunday by voters who spurned his plans for a return of foreign military bases to the country battling rampant cartel violence.Despite opinion polls projecting a comfortable referendum victory for the millennial president, Ecuadorans roundly rejected all four of his proposals.Besides an overwhelming “No” to overturning a ban on foreign military bases, voters also shot down proposals to end public funding for political parties, to reduce the number of lawmakers, and to draft a new constitution. Analysts say Noboa was unable to convince the electorate that his ideas were the best way to deal with what is a very real problem of sky-high crime and murder rates.- ‘They don’t care’ -Noboa last year deployed the military to Ecuador’s crime-riddled prisons and streets, and raised taxes to fund his war on drug gangs — also a major focus of US President Trump.Seeking to boost cooperation with Washington, which has been carrying out deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, Noboa proposed reopening a US base at Manta on the Pacific coast.But voters told AFP this was not a problem for the United States to solve.”Does the United States care if our children are robbed on the street? They don’t care,” said Daniela Cordova, a 44-year-old university employee who voted “No” in the referendum.Security “does not depend on a constitution or on military bases”, she added.Political scientist Santiago Cahuasqui from Quito’s Universidad Hemisferios said voters punished Noboa for “grandiose communication that is completely divorced from reality.””There hasn’t been a single result” from Noboa’s heavily-publicized anti-crime campaign, said Andres Delgado, a 23-year-old university student. “In fact, insecurity is getting worse.” He also voted “No.”Ecuadoran security expert Michelle Maffei said it was a mistake to focus on military solutions without the existence of “crime prevention programs or programs to strengthen institutions” that investigate money laundering and other offenses linked to drug trafficking.- ‘Fear of change’  -Presidential spokeswoman Carolina Jaramillo on Monday blamed “a deep fear of change” for Noboa’s referendum defeat.But voters and analysts told AFP it was more a fear of losing rights to a president who has proposed chemical castration for rapists and intelligence operations that require no warrants.”My ‘No’ vote was a rejection of the government for being dictatorial,” said Ximena Martinez, a 29-year-old vendor in Manta.”Why would he (Noboa) bring US military personnel back to Manta after the abuses they committed here?” asked Martinez, referring to reports by rights groups that the base was used in the past as a launchpad for strikes on boats transporting drugs or migrants. Or sometimes fishermen.Ecuadorans “are punishing Noboa’s authoritarian drive,” added Cahuasqui, the political scientist. – Indigenous ‘repression’ -A military crackdown on recent Indigenous protests against the elimination of a diesel subsidy also seemed to have turned the mood against Noboa.In Imbabura province, where Indigenous protesters blocking roads clashed with security forces — leaving at least two dead — more than two-thirds of the population voted “No” to the referendum’s four questions.Norma Navarro, a 73-year-old retiree, said her rejection was informed by “the brutal repression of the Indigenous people.””That’s what hurt me the most,” she told AFP.

A federal judge said Monday that potential government misconduct and investigative missteps could be grounds for dismissal of the criminal case against former FBI chief James Comey, a prominent foe of President Donald Trump.Comey, 64, is one of three vocal Trump critics indicted recently in what has been widely seen as a campaign of retribution against the president’s political opponents.Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, in a blistering 24-page opinion, ordered prosecutors in an extraordinary move to hand over grand jury materials in the case against Comey to his defense team.”The Court recognizes that the relief sought by the defense is rarely granted,” Fitzpatrick said.”However, the record points to a disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps, missteps that led an FBI agent and a prosecutor to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”The judge said the US district attorney who brought the case against Comey — a prosecutor handpicked by Trump — had made “fundamental misstatements of the law that could compromise the integrity of the grand jury process.””Irregularities that occurred before the grand jury, and the manner in which evidence presented to the grand jury was collected and used, may rise to the level of government misconduct resulting in prejudice to Mr Comey,” he said.Grounds may exist to dismiss the indictment because of the handling of grand jury proceedings by the prosecution, the judge said.- ‘Vindictive’ -Comey has filed a separate motion seeking to have the charges thrown out on the grounds they are motivated by the “personal spite” of Trump and constitute a “vindictive and selective prosecution.”New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has also been indicted by the Trump Justice Department, has sought to have her case tossed on the same basis.James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for business fraud, has been indicted in Virginia on one count of bank fraud and a second count of making false statements to a financial institution.Another Trump critic, his former national security advisor John Bolton, has been indicted on 18 counts of transmitting and retaining classified information.Comey was appointed to head the FBI by then-president Barack Obama in 2013 and was fired by Trump in 2017.The charges against Comey came days after Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action against the former FBI director and others he sees as enemies — a stunning departure from the principle that the Justice Department must be free from White House pressure.The 79-year-old Trump — the first convicted felon to serve as US president — hailed the indictment, calling Comey “one of the worst human beings this country has ever been exposed to.”Since taking office in January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.

President Donald Trump said Monday he will talk to Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro as Washington’s military buildup stokes tensions, and added that he would be “OK” with US anti-drug strikes inside Mexico. Trump has dramatically increased the number of US forces in the Caribbean to tackle what he calls drug traffickers based in a number of Latin American countries including Venezuela and Mexico.”At a certain period of time, I’ll be talking to him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if he would speak to Maduro, while adding that the Venezuelan president “has not been good to the United States.”Asked if he would rule out US troops on the ground in Venezuela, Trump replied: “No I don’t rule out that, I don’t rule out anything.”We just have to take care of Venezuela,” he added. “They dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country from prisons.”Venezuela has accused Washington of seeking regime change in Caracas with its military build-up including an aircraft carrier group, warships and several stealth jets.Washington accuses of Maduro of leading a “terrorist” drug cartel, a charge he denies.But Trump has also accused Mexico of failing to tackle drug trafficking groups, and stepped up his rhetoric towards the United States’s southern neighbor.”Would I launch strikes in Mexico to stop drugs? It’s OK with me. Whatever we have to do to stop drugs,” Trump said when asked by reporters at the White House whether he would sanction a US counter-drug operation in Mexico.”I didn’t say I’m doing it, but I’d be proud to do it. Because we’re going to save millions of lives by doing it.”

Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement is showing the first signs of turning on its creator. Could it be a Frankenstein moment for the US president?During the course of one frenetic weekend, Trump disowned former MAGA cheerleader Marjorie Taylor Greene and performed a screeching U-turn on the Jeffrey Epstein files.Trump’s meltdown underscores the cracks that have opened in between the right-wing movement and the billionaire founder who has for years ruled it with an iron fist.The turmoil has also punctured the aura of invincibility that Trump and the White House have sought to cultivate since his return to power — raising questions about whether Trump has created a Frankenstein-like monster he can no longer control.”MAGA was my idea,” he protested in an interview with Fox News last week — itself notable as normally pro-Trump host Laura Ingraham confronted him on whether visas for foreign students were “pro-MAGA.””I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else.” – ‘Not America First’ -Not long ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene was perhaps Trump’s biggest booster.As recently as March, the Republican firebrand from Georgia was pictured sporting a red a “Trump Was Right About Everything” baseball cap as the president addressed Congress.But fast forward eight months, and Trump raged that he was no longer backing his once diehard supporter, dubbing her “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” The split came after Greene distanced herself on a host of issues that she shares with other discontented MAGA faithful: affordability, healthcare, Israel, visas for foreign workers and students, and Trump’s focus on foreign policy.Greene hit back, saying on Sunday that Trump’s words had “put my life in danger” and insisting that “I remain America First and America Only!!!”She also highlighted another key issue. “Unfortunately, it has all come down to the Epstein files, and that is shocking,” she told CNN.- ‘Nothing to hide’ -The scandal over the disgraced financier’s sexual abuse has become a seismic fault line for the MAGA movement.In an astonishing reversal on Sunday, Trump suddenly called on Republicans to support a vote in the US House to release files from the investigation into Epstein, saying “we have nothing to hide.” He had previously called on rebels like Greene and fellow MAGA lawmaker Lauren Boebert not to fall into the “trap” of voting for it.Far from any change of heart, however, Trump’s turnaround appeared to be a way of avoiding what would have been the biggest political defeat of his second term so far.Yet the pressure from the issue — which distracted from Trump’s victory lap in ending a record US government shutdown — is unlikely to go away. Anger had already been brewing in the MAGA ranks for months.Conspiracy-minded MAGA faithful were long told by Trump’s supporters that the scandal was a Democratic cover-up — only for Trump’s Justice Department to say in July that effectively there was nothing new in the files.- 2028 looms -Rumbles of MAGA discontent have been growing on other subjects too. The loudest complaints came after Republicans were hammered on the cost of living in off-year elections earlier this month.Sensing trouble, Trump has responded by planning a series of speeches about the economy, including one to a summit hosted by fast food giant McDonald’s on Monday.MAGA ranks have also been split over US media star Tucker Carlson interviewing open white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Key right-wingers were outraged — even as Trump insisted on Sunday that “you can’t tell him who to interview.”While Trump still commands fierce loyalty among many supporters, the splits are only likely to deepen as he enters the lame duck phase of his final term.Eyes are already turning to 2028 — and the battle to be Trump’s true MAGA political heir.Trump’s vice president JD Vance is widely considered the frontrunner, but is viewed in parts of the US right as insufficiently committed to the movement.Could it leave an opportunity for Greene? She has denied any thought of a presidential run — but stranger things have happened in US politics.

Ministers took over UN climate negotiations in Brazil Monday as COP30 entered its final stretch, with nations split on key issues and the EU defending a carbon tax criticized by China and others.Ministers arrived and delivered speeches to kickstart the second week of talks in the Amazonian city of Belem, with countries debating language over weak climate commitments, insufficient financial pledges and trade barriers.One of the biggest bones of contention is a flagship European Union policy, dubbed a “carbon tax” on imports.”Pricing carbon is something that we need to pursue with as many as possible, as quickly as possible,” the bloc’s climate commissioner, Wopke Hoekstra, told the gathering.China, India and other allied countries want COP30 to adopt a decision against unilateral trade barriers — a dig at the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).Tested since 2023 and set to become fully operational in 2026, CBAM targets imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen.The head of China’s COP30 delegation, Li Gao, told AFP last week that nations should “avoid the negative impact of, for example, geopolitical unilateralism or protectionism.”EU and Chinese officials are due to hold talks later Monday on the issue, which has dominated discussions among delegates in sweltering Belem.”We’re not going to be lured into the suggestion that actually CBAM is a unilateral trade measure. And in that realm, we’re also not going to discuss it,” Hoekstra said in a news conference.- ‘Cannot afford to waste time’ -COP30 is due to end on Friday but the UN’s annual climate talks usually spill into overtime as exhausted negotiators struggle to find compromises over how to tackle climate change.”There is a huge amount of work ahead for ministers and negotiators. I urge you to get to the hardest issues fast,” UN climate Simon Stiell told the gathering.”When these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses. We absolutely cannot afford to waste time on tactical delays or stonewalling,” he said.Another divisive issue was a push by island states — backed by Latin American nations and the EU — for COP30 to respond to the latest projections showing the world will fail to limit warming to 1.5C.But major emerging countries, from China to Saudi Arabia, are wary of any text that implies they are not doing enough to curb climate change.”For Small Island Developing States, 1.5C is not a political slogan. It is a non-negotiable survival threshold for our people, our culture, and our livelihoods,” said Steven Victor, the environment minister of Palau and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).Victor told fellow ministers that AOSIS was disappointed over a lack of progress since nations agreed in 2023 at COP28 in Dubai to transition away from fossil fuels.Host nation Brazil wants COP30 to send an ambitious signal on fossil fuels, but the form it will take — a UN decision, which requires consensus, or a separate declaration from willing countries — remains unclear.Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Ackmin urged ministers on Monday to agree to “integrated action plans” for transitioning away from fossil fuels.- Money talks -Money is again at the heart of the negotiations, after last year’s summit in Baku ended with an agreement for developed countries to provide $300 billion annually in climate finance to poorer nations — a figure criticized as greatly insufficient.Developing countries, especially from Africa, want COP30 to point the finger at developed nations for falling short on providing financing to help adapt to climate change and cut emissions.The Brazilian COP30 presidency published a memo Sunday evening summarizing these divergent viewpoints and proposing options.”This is the Brazilian presidency setting the table for the end game,” Li Shuo, a climate expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute.Ministers will have to “achieve the very delicate balance between these three pieces,” Li said.ia-ico-alb-lth/des

The US Supreme Court agreed on Monday to weigh in on a policy of turning away migrants before they can cross the US-Mexico border to present an asylum claim.The policy known as “metering” was rescinded by the Biden administration but President Donald Trump is seeking a ruling in the event it may be reinstated.Trump campaigned for president on a promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States.He has taken a number of actions since returning to the White House in January aimed at speeding up deportations and reducing border crossings.The Immigration and Nationality Act allows an “alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States” to apply for asylum.A divided appeals court ruled last year that this applies to potential asylum seekers at ports of entry “whichever side of the border they are standing on.”The Trump administration is asking the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to reject this interpretation.”In ordinary English, a person ‘arrives in’ a country only when he comes within its borders,” Solicitor General John Sauer said in a filing. “An alien thus does not ‘arrive in’ the United States while he is still in Mexico.”Al Otro Lado, an immigration rights group representing asylum seekers, welcomed the Supreme Court decision to hear the case.”Our immigration laws require the government to inspect and process people seeking asylum at ports of entry and allow them to pursue their legal claims in the United States,” it said in a statement.”The government’s turnback policy was an illegal scheme to circumvent these requirements by physically blocking asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry and preventing them from crossing the border to seek protection,” Al Otro Lado said.Vulnerable families, children, and adults fleeing persecution were stranded in perilous conditions where they faced violent assault, kidnapping, and death, the group added.The Trump administration announced last month that it would drastically cut back the number of refugees to be accepted annually by the United States to a record low and give priority to white South Africans.Under the new policy, the United States would welcome 7,500 refugees in fiscal 2026, down from more than 100,000 a year under Democratic president Joe Biden.

More than 22 million people, many of them children, could die preventable deaths by 2030 due to aid cuts by the United States and European countries, new research said Monday.The findings are an update of a study earlier this year that said President Donald Trump’s sweeping reductions in assistance, including the dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), could lead to 14 million additional deaths.The new research, seen by AFP, takes into account reductions in all official development assistance as Britain, France and Germany also slash their aid to the developing world.”It is the first time in the last 30 years that France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States are all cutting aid at the same time,” said one of the new research’s authors, Gonzalo Fanjul, policy and development director at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).”The European countries do not compare with the US, but when you combine all of them, the blow to the global aid system is extraordinary. It’s absolutely unprecedented,” he told AFP.The research by authors from Spain, Brazil and Mozambique was submitted Monday to The Lancet Global Health and is awaiting peer review.The research is based off data on how aid in the past has reduced deaths, especially in preventable areas such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.In a scenario in which aid cuts turn out to be severe, the new research expects 22.6 million excess deaths by 2030, including 5.4 million children under the age of five.The researchers gave a range of 16.3-29.3 million deaths to account for uncertainties, including which programs will be cut and whether there are external shocks such as wars, economic downturns or climate-related disasters.A milder defunding scenario would see 9.4 million excess deaths, the research said.- Major donors cut at once -Trump, in a cost-cutting spree advised by the world’s richest person Elon Musk, soon after taking office slashed foreign assistance by more than 80 percent and shut down USAID, which was the world’s largest aid agency and handled $35 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that aid did not serve core US interests, pointing in part to how aid recipient nations have voted against the United States at the United Nations, and called instead for assistance with clear and narrow aims.Testifying before Congress, Rubio denied any deaths from US aid cuts and accused critics of being beneficiaries of an “NGO industrial complex.”Instead of seeking to fill the gap, Britain, France and Germany have also cut aid owing to budgetary pressure at home and decisions to focus more on defense spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Among top donors of official development assistance, only Japan’s assistance has remained relatively steady over the past two years.Beyond the immediate ends to projects, the study said that cuts would have knock-on effects by tearing down institutional capacities “painstakingly built over decades of international cooperation.”Fanjul acknowledged a need for countries to transition from the existing setup, especially their reliance on international HIV/AIDS funding.”The problem has been the speed and the brutality of the process. In six months, we are experiencing a process that should have taken over a decade” or more, he said.Davide Rasella, the principal investigator on the latest research, put aid budgets in comparison by noting that the Trump administration has promised $20 billion to prop up Argentina.”In the world context these amounts of money are nothing huge,” Rasella said.Policymakers “change budgets and they really have no perception how many lives are at stake,” he said.The research was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Spain’s science ministry.A Rockefeller Foundation spokesperson said the New York-based philanthropy will “look forward to the publication of the peer-reviewed numbers, which will make even clearer the human cost of inaction and the profound opportunity we have to save lives.” “This data is an urgent alarm for the world.”

The UN’s climate chief urged ministers on Monday to avoid any “stonewalling” and speed up negotiations at COP30 talks in Brazil, with nations divided on key issues with five days left in the gathering.Ministers have started to arrive to take over negotiations in the second week of talks in the Amazonian city of Belem, with countries debating language over weak climate commitments, insufficient financial pledges and trade barriers.COP30 is due to end on Friday but the UN’s annual climate talks usually spill into overtime as exhausted negotiators struggle to find compromises over how to tackle climate change.”There is a huge amount of work ahead for ministers and negotiators. I urge you to get to the hardest issues fast,” UN climate Simon Stiell told the gathering. “I urge you to get to the hardest issues fast.””When these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses. We absolutely cannot afford to waste time on tactical delays or stonewalling,” he said.Three issues were blocking progress after a week of talks in the Amazonian city.China, India and other allied countries want COP30 to adopt a decision against unilateral trade barriers — a dig at the European Union’s “carbon tax” on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminum and fertilizers.Meanwhile, island states vulnerable to rising seas — backed by Latin American countries and the EU — believe it is crucial for COP30 to respond to the latest projections showing the world will fail to limit warming to 1.5C and step up their climate commitments.But major emerging countries, from China to Saudi Arabia, do not want a text that implies they are not doing enough to curb climate change.The third point of contention is a bid by developing countries, especially from Africa, to point the finger at developed nations for falling short on providing financing to help adapt to climate change and cut emissions.The Brazilian presidency published a memo Sunday evening summarizing these divergent viewpoints and proposing options, some of which are contradictory.”This is the Brazilian presidency setting the table for the end game,” Li Shuo, a climate expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute.Ministers will have to “achieve the very delicate balance between these three pieces,” Li said.

US actor Tom Cruise received an honorary Oscar on Sunday evening, the first golden statue of his decades-long career, to a standing ovation from Hollywood’s elite.To the sound of the “Mission Impossible” theme tune, a hallmark of the 63-year-old actor’s career, Cruise took to the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to applause from peers including Colin Farrell and Emilio Estevez, with whom he has shared the screen, and the renowned Steven Spielberg, who directed him in “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds.”Cruise, a four-time Oscar nominee, has never won the award and spoke of his love for cinema in a heartfelt speech.He praised the big screen as a place that sparks “a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world.”The honorary Oscars, awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, celebrate cinema legends for their careers and contributions to the film industry.Cruise’s award was presented by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who directed him in the upcoming film “Judy.””Writing a four-minute speech to celebrate Tom Cruise’s 45-year career is what is known, in this town, as a mission impossible,” Inarritu joked.”Tonight, we celebrate. We celebrate not just a filmography, we celebrate a lifetime of work,” Inarritu said, adding that working with Cruise, he saw the actor perform his most dangerous stunt yet: “This man ate more chili than any Mexican.”The Academy also presented honorary Oscars that evening to actor Debbie Allen who starred in “Fame,” production designer Wynn Thomas, and country singer Dolly Parton, honored for her humanitarian work.