By Sandy Cohen, Entertainment Writer
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) --The president of Women in Film is done talking about diversity and wage equality.
It's time for action, said Cathy Schulman, Oscar-winning producer of "Crash."
"No more talking about it. No more dealing with it as only philanthropy," Schulman told guests Friday at Women in Film's ninth annual pre-Oscars cocktail party. "This is a business issue. Movies and television for women and girls make money."
More than a dozen women nominated for Academy Awards this year attended the private event at Hyde Sunset Kitchen + Cocktails in West Hollywood, California, where Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Lawrence renewed their call for wage equality for women.
Besides Lawrence, other Oscar nominees in attendance included supporting-actress favorite Alicia Vikander ("The Danish Girl") and Jennifer Jason Leigh ("The Hateful Eight"), screenwriters Emma Donoghue ("Room") and Andrea Berloff ("Straight Outta Compton"), songwriter Diane Warren and costume designer Sandy Powell ("Carol" and "Cinderella"), who wore flame-red hair, silver platform sneakers and a tuxedo tailcoat over a T-shirt that read, "Straight Outta Brixton."
Arquette, who raised the issue of equal pay for women during last year's Oscar show when she accepted the supporting actress award, also announced the launch of a new change.org petition (www.change.org/era ) to support an equal-rights amendment to the Constitution.
"Be careful of your lawmakers," she said, "because your rights depend on who's in office at any given time, unless you have a constitutional amendment."
Lawrence, who penned an essay about wage equality for Lena Dunham's online newsletter last fall, pledged Friday to sign the petition.
"I love that she stood up," Lawrence said. "We're starting a conversation. We're getting a dialogue going … Equal pay for women!"
California governor signs law to protect children from social media addiction
California will make it illegal for social media platforms to knowingly provide addictive feeds to children without parental consent beginning in 2027 under a new law Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Friday.
California follows New York state, which passed a law earlier this year allowing parents to block their kids from getting social media posts suggested by a platform's algorithm. Utah has passed laws in recent years aimed at limiting children's access to social media, but they have faced challenges in court.
The California law will take effect in a state home to some of the largest technology companies in the world. Similar proposals have failed to pass in recent years, but Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law in 2022 barring online platforms from using users' personal information in ways that could harm children. It is part of a growing push in states across the country to try to address the impacts of social media on the well-being of children.
"Every parent knows the harm social media addiction can inflict on their children — isolation from human contact, stress and anxiety, and endless hours wasted late into the night," Newsom said in a statement. "With this bill, California is helping protect children and teenagers from purposely designed features that feed these destructive habits."
The law bans platforms from sending notifications without permission from parents to minors between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m., and between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays from September through May, when children are typically in school. The legislation also makes platforms set children's accounts to private by default.
Opponents of the legislation say it could inadvertently prevent adults from accessing content if they cannot verify their... Read More