'Don't Look Up' director Adam McKay pledges to donate USD 4M toward climate emergency fund

Washington [US], September 20: Filmmaker Adam McKay, who directed the disaster-inspired apocalyptic political satire 'Don't Look Up' has taken another public step in the fight against climate change.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, on Tuesday, McKay announced that he has pledged USD 4 million to the Climate Emergency Fund, which gives out grants to environmental activists. The outlet has reported that a long-time activist himself, this is McKay's largest donation ever, on any issue, as well as the largest personal donation in Climate Emergency Fund history.

He has also joined the board of directors of the Climate Emergency Fund, where he will help support strategic decision-making and fundraising. In a statement, McKay said, "The Climate Emergency Fund is unique in their commitment to funding civil, non-violent, disruptive activism. We are past time for politeness, past time for baby steps. I am proud to support their efforts and call on others to join me in doing everything we can to stave off the rapidly worsening impact of the climate crisis."

The filmmaker's donation will allow Climate Emergency Fund to continue its support of the disruptive-action protests in the U.S. and beyond, investing in groups that are dedicated to spurring elected leaders into taking immediate action to avert climate disaster. Directed by McKay, 'Don't Look Up', which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence and Cate Blanchett among others, is an allegorical movie that is a satire on climate change. The film centrally revolves around the story of two astronomers who discover that a comet is approaching Earth which would lead to the total destruction of life. They are on a mission to warn a narcissistic U.S. president and her son, as well as a pair of jaded news anchors that the Earth is about to get shattered by this comet.

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Priyanka Chopra gives empowering speech at UN General Assembly; Check out what she said

New York [US], September 20: Actress Priyanka Chopra addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday and spoke in depth about the problems the world is facing currently.

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She said that the world needs "global solidarity" now more than ever as she took the centre stage. Priyanka Chopra met Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai as well and emphasized the adverse after-effects of COVID-19 during her address.

She said, "As countries continue to struggle from the devastative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the climate crisis upends the lives and livelihoods, as conflicts rage, and as poverty displacement, hunger, and inequalities destroy the very foundation of the more just world that we have fought for such a long time." She added, "and as we all know, all is not well with the world. But these crises did not happen by chance, but they can be fixed with a plan. We have that plan. The UN-Sustainable Goals, a to-do list for the world."

Priyanka took to Instagram to express gratitude and wrote, "Walking through the gates of the United Nations this morning to speak at UNGA for the second time, as a proud representative of @unicef, gave me real pause." She then emphasized the importance of sustainable development in the modern age. She wrote, "At the top of this year's agenda are the Sustainable Development Goals. Today was all about action, ambition, and hope. It was about what we must do together to make the SDGs a reality, and we don't have a moment to lose. A special thank you to Secretary-General @antonioguterres for having me today."

It's important to mention here that Priyanka is the UNICEF global goodwill ambassador. She has been working with the organisation for more than a decade now.

Meanwhile, as far as films are concerned, Priyanka will be seen in international projects such as 'It's All Coming Back To Me', and the series 'Citadel'. Produced by Russo Brothers, 'Citadel' will hit OTT on Prime Video. The upcoming sci-fi drama series is being directed by Patrick Morgan and stars Richard Madden alongside Priyanka.

In Bollywood, she will be starring with Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif in Farhan Akhtar's 'Jee Le Zaraa', which promises to be another tale of friendship following the lineage of 'Dil Chahta Hai' and 'Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara', both of which have become cult classics over the years. 'Jee Le Zaraa' is reportedly going on the floors around September 2022 and will be ready for release in the summer of 2023.

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Nvidia unveils latest RTX 4090, RTX 4080 GPUs

Washington [US], September 20: Following months of rumours and some recent teases, American multinational technology company Nvidia has officially announced its RTX 40-series GPUs which include the RTX 4090 and RTX 4080.

According to The Verge, the RTX 4090 arrives on October 12th priced at USD 1,599, with the RTX 4080 priced starting at USD 899 and available in November. Both are powered by Nvidia's next-gen Ada Lovelace architecture. The RTX 4090 is the top-end card for the Ada Lovelace generation. It will ship with a massive 24GB of GDDR6X memory. Nvidia claims its 2-4x faster than the RTX 3090 Ti, and it will consume the same amount of power as that previous generation card. Inside the giant RTX 4090, there are 16,384 CUDA Cores, a base clock of 2.23GHz that boosts up to 2.52GHz, 1,321 Tensor-TFLOPs, 191 RT-TFLOPs, and 83 Shader-TFLOPs.

Nvidia is actually offering the RTX 4080 in two models, one with 12GB of GDDR6X memory and another with 16GB of GDDR6X memory, and Nvidia claims its 2-4x faster than the existing RTX 3080 Ti. The 12GB model will start at USD 899 and include 7,680 CUDA Cores, 7,680 CUDA Cores, a 2.31GHz base clock that boosts up to 2.61GHz, 639 Tensor-TFLOPs, 92 RT-TFLOPs, and 40 Shader-TFLOPs, reported The Verge. The 16GB model of the RTX 4080 isn't just a bump to memory, though. Priced starting at USD 1,199, it's more powerful, with 9,728 CUDA Cores, a base clock of 2.21GHz that boosts up to 2.51GHz, 780 Tensor-TFLOPs, 113 RT-TFLOPs, and 49 Shader-TFLOPs of power. The 12GB RTX 4080 model will require a 700-watt power supply, with the 16GB model needing at least 750 watts. Both RTX 4080 models will launch in November.

As per The Verge, all three of these RTX 40-series cards will include new Nvidia ShadowPlay support to capture gameplay at up to 8K resolution at 60 FPS in HDR. Nvidia is also using its latest Encoders (NVENC) with support for AV1 encoding and improved efficiency for livestreams using AV1.

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