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US stocks ring in 2017 with gains as energy companies rise

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NewsHubU. S. stock indexes are jumping on the first trading day of 2017. Energy companies are climbing with the price of oil, while banks are advancing thanks to a bump in interest rates. Those two sectors had the biggest gains in the market last year.
KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average leaped 120 points, or 0.6 percent, to 19,882 as of 10:45 a.m. Eastern time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 18 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,256. The Nasdaq composite added 49 points, or 0.9 percent, to 5,432. The Russell 2000 index, which tracks small-company stocks, jumped 10 points, or 0.7 percent, to 1,367. The Russell rose almost 20 percent last year and did far better than indexes focused on larger companies. U. S. stocks are coming off a three-day losing streak.
OIL: Benchmark U. S. crude gained 90 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $54.62 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, rose 95 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $57.77 a barrel in London. That sent energy companies higher. Marathon Petroleum surged $3.53, or 7 percent, to $53.88 and Halliburton added $1.93, or 3.6 percent, to $56.02.
Natural gas companies dropped as natural gas futures dropped 7.8 percent. Southwestern Energy lost 62 cents, or 5.7 percent, to $10.20 and Cabot Oil & Gas gave up 97 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $22.39.
BONDS: Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.49 percent from 2.43 percent late Friday. Higher bond yields are linked to higher interest rates, and bank stocks made big gains. Citigroup rose $1.47, or 2.5 percent, to $60.90 and Morgan Stanley picked up $1.12, or 2.7 percent, to $43.37. Banks and energy companies both climbed more than 20 percent last year.
Utility companies fell, and real estate investment trusts and companies that make and sell household goods made far smaller gains than the rest of the market. Those stocks are often compared to bonds because they pay large dividends, but the jump in yields Tuesday encouraged investors to look elsewhere.
COPY THAT: Xerox surged 85 cents, or 14.8 percent, to $6.60 after it split itself in two, a move the company announced almost a year ago. The original Xerox kept its printer and copier business. The second company will focus on business process outsourcing, providing payment processing and other services. Xerox will receive $1.8 billion in cash.
The new company, Conduent Inc., now trades under the ticker symbol “CNDT. ” That stock lost 72 cents, or 4.8 percent, to $14.18 in early trading.
MANUFACTURING ACTION: The manufacturing sector continued its recovery and ended 2016 on a strong note. The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index rose to 54.7 in December, its highest reading of the year. That was the fourth straight month of expansion and the ninth out of the last 10. The result was a bit stronger than analysts expected.
MISSING 2016: Graphics processor maker Nvidia couldn’t break out of a recent slump. The stock more than tripled in value last year, but hit a wall in the final days of trading. The stock slid $2.47, or 2.3 percent, to $104.27. It’s down 11 percent since Dec. 27.
DOUBLE CLICKED: Technology stocks also traded higher. Facebook added $2.39, or 2.1 percent, to $117.44 and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, rose $16.20, or 2 percent, to $808.65. On Monday Alphabet announced a partnership with Fiat Chrysler. The companies will work together on a connected car system. Fiat Chrysler stock picked up 49 cents, or 5.3 percent, to $9.61.
CURRENCIES: The dollar jumped to 118.36 yen from 116.78 yen. The euro slumped to $1.0366 from $1.0531.
OVERSEAS: The FTSE 100 index in Britain rose 0.7 percent to another all-time high. The French CAC 40 added 0.5 percent. Germany’s DAX inched up 0.1 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 0.7 percent and the Kospi in South Korea rose 0.9 percent. Tokyo’s stock market remained closed for the New Year’s holiday.

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‘Facebook bill’ passes first reading

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NewsHubThe Removal of Criminally Offensive Content from the Internet bill – dubbed the “Facebook bill” – passed its first reading on Tuesday morning in the Knesset plenum. Social media platforms may be required by court orders to remove content deemed as criminal by the state.
The bill – which was drafted by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked – would empower Israeli Administrative Courts to issue orders to remove online content at the request of state prosecutors.
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“The Facebook bill was brought into the world as a result of last year’s wave of terror and the Palestinian incitement against the State of Israel which sparked it; That is the sole issue this bill seeks to address,” a representative of Shaked told The Jerusalem Post.
According to the bill, court orders would be able to target content that “the very posting of is a criminal offense, and whose public visibility has a real potential to put personal, public and national security at risk.” While both conditions need to be met for a court to issue the order, the state would be able to request these orders without giving social media platforms the ability to reply in court, based on classified evidence or evidence that would not be considered admissible in other cases.
Since the bill’s first draft, Erdan has backed down from his original aspiration of seeing content completely removed from the Internet on demand. The current bill only goes as far as to demand that posts are removed from visibility in Israel, as is Facebook’s existing policy on such cases.
“The bill includes various instructions and limitations in order to prevent damage to freedom of speech while also allowing the law enforcement agencies to work more efficiently on the matter,” the introduction to the bill stated.
The bill’s name has since been changed from the Removal of Terror-Inciting Content from Social Media bill to the Removal of Criminally Offensive Content from the Internet bill, in what some consider an appeasement of companies like Google, Twitter and mainly Facebook, which Erdan has personally attacked in the past.
Others, however, believe that the new name and the vague language of the bill itself make it too general and an actual risk to freedom of speech, despite what the ministers have claimed.
“The operative clauses of this bill would enable the removal of legitimate content, as they only include vague and general terms – such as ‘danger to the public or nation’ – that can be interpreted very broadly,” MeyTal Greiver-Schwartz, vice president of community relations and regulations at the Israel Internet Association, told Post .
Greiver-Schwartz cited an incident in which Israeli-Beduin blogger Anas Abu Dabas posted satirical comment on Facebook regarding the wildfires that raged through Israel during December. Abu Dabas was arrested and interrogated by the police for three days on suspicion of incitement and his posts were immediately deleted by Facebook at the request of the police. While the police eventually released Abu Dabas with no criminal charges and concluded that the posts were satire, the posts remain blocked.
“While the ministers might talk to the media exclusively about incitement and terrorism prevention, the actual wording of the bill is broad enough to include posts that have nothing to do with incitement. The bill’s new name only emphasizes the bill’s attitude towards posts that are not considered incitement,” Greiver-Schwartz told the Post.
“There will always be those who would come out against any blessed initiative. This bill seeks to tackle online incitement and any other forces interpretation of the bill is at the sole responsibility of the interpreted,” Shaked’s representative told the Post.
The Israel Internet Association also doubts the bill’s effectiveness in truly combating incitement and terrorism.
“The ‘Facebook bill’ is not an effective tool in combating online incitement. It will only block content from Israeli eyes and Israeli computers, while the rest of the world will still be exposed to it,” said Greiver-Schwartz.
Indeed, posts that Facebook already blocks at the request of the Israeli authorities or due to users’ complaint are still visible by users in the West Bank or users who bounce their IP address through proxies outside of Israel.
“If this bill was truly an effective tool in combating terrorism, then the small sacrifice would be worth it, but this bill isn’t that. The best way to achieve this goal is by cooperation with the social media giants, not through legislation and regulation,” Greiver-Schwartz said.
Throughout 2016, the Israeli authorities have submitted almost a thousand requests to remove posts from Facebook, 71% of which received positive responses and were removed by the social media giant. Shaked and Erdan were not satisfied with those statistics, however, and sought broader power to remove the content.
“At Facebook, nothing is more important than community safety, and we work hard to keep people safe. We have zero tolerance for terrorists, praise for their acts and incitement to real-world violence. We work aggressively to remove it from our platform as soon as we become aware of it,” a representative of Facebook in Israel said, following the bill’s approval by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation last month.
“Facebook hopes to continue a constructive dialogue with the Israeli government and other stakeholders. We hope that this will include careful consideration of the implications of this bill for Israeli democracy, freedom of speech, the open Internet and the dynamism of the Israeli Internet sector,” the representative added.
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Bradford Bulls: Former Super League champions liquidated

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NewsHubFormer Super League champions Bradford Bulls have been liquidated after the club’s administrator rejected a bid to save the club.
The Bulls entered administration for a third time in four years in November.
The administrators hoped to have a deal agreed by Christmas but turned down a bid from a consortium on 29 December.
Despite the liquidation, the Rugby Football League has confirmed that a new Bradford side could compete in the Championship in 2017.
The new Bradford team would start the season, which gets under way on the first weekend of February, with a 12-point deficit.
The RFL said in a statement: “To clarify the next steps for all concerned, the independent RFL board has met to determine how the future of professional rugby league in Bradford can move forward in 2017.
“While a number of alternatives were considered the board were most mindful of the planning already undertaken by all other clubs in the competition structure, the season tickets already purchased and the players and staff who will now be seeking employment in and around the sport in 2017.
“Accordingly the board has agreed that the wider interests of the sport is best satisfied if it offers a place in the Championship to any new club in Bradford and that such a club start the 2017 season on minus 12 points.
“Any interested parties should contact the RFL directly. ”
Bradford Bulls general manager Stuart Duffy told BBC Radio Leeds: “The Rugby Football League have said they have contingency plans in place and someone could buy the club from the liquidators but at the moment everybody has been made redundant.
“I’m hopeful something comes of this but in what league I don’t know.
“Everyone is very disappointed because we were led to believe that things would come to a successful conclusion today. Nobody has been paid their wages for December and we had been hoping to be paid tomorrow, so this is a bombshell.
“This is a nightmare for everybody involved. ”
The RFL said it intends to “offer support to all staff and players who have had their employment terminated”.
Bradford Bulls were one of the most iconic names – and clubs – within British rugby league, having led the way when the sport switched to summer in 1996.
However, the Bulls’ downfall has been swift. In March 2012 they revealed a £1m shortfall and the club was placed in administration in June. That August, Bradford Bulls Holdings Limited was sold to OK Bulls limited, a consortium led by local businessman Omar Khan.
In 2014 a second administration followed, along with a six-point penalty deduction, and they were relegated from Super League at the end of the season.
Despite reaching the Million Pound Game in 2015, the Bulls lost to Wakefield and failed to reclaim their top-tier status.
In 2016 they failed to reach ‘The Qualifiers’ altogether, finishing fifth in the Championship.
James Deighton, rugby league producer for BBC Radio Leeds:
“It’s an incredibly sad day for the sport both locally, and nationally, with the news of the Bulls’ downfall. We can only hope that there’s a will, and a way, to attempt to reform the club as happened in the 1960s.
“Having said that, when you consider that the recent administration is the club’s third in four years, today’s news may be an inevitable consequence of the instability at Odsal of late.
“There was a large window in time during which the Bulls led and everyone else tried to follow – however, the path that the club has trodden in recent years will be one that others will look to avoid.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Super League has been the poorer for the Bulls’ relegation in 2014, and the sport will be the poorer for the club’s demise in January 2017. ”
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Stocks storm into 2017 as Trump rally resumes

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NewsHubWall Street kicked off the new year on Tuesday with the Dow jumping another 150 points. The index is now just about 100 points away from the 20,000 milestone.
The inaugural rally of 2017 represents a continuation of the post-election euphoria that invaded financial markets nearly two months ago. The Dow is up nearly 1,600 points since Trump’s surprising defeat of Hillary Clinton.
“The New Year has started with a bang,” Fawad Razaqzada, technical analyst at FOREX.com, wrote in a note.
Related: Dow finishes wild 2016 with 13% gain
After going nearly straight up after the election, the markets paused during the final two weeks of 2016. The Dow seemed to run into a wall as it approached 20,000, though it did end the wild year with a strong 13% gain.
Investors remain encouraged by Trump’s promises to slash taxes , roll back regulation and unleash a wave of infrastructure spending. Wall Street is betting these stimulus plans will help American businesses and translate to higher stock prices.
Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group, cited Trump’s deregulation efforts as a bullish force for stocks in 2017.
“The biggest beneficiary may be small businesses who’ve experienced death by a thousand regulatory cuts over the past 8 years,” Boockvar wrote.
The positive start to 2017 stands in stark contrast with last year. The Dow plummeted 1,079 points in the first week of 2016 — the worst five-day start to a year on record — over fears about the crash in oil prices and China’s economic slowdown.
Flash forward 12 months and both of those concerns have reversed. Global stocks rallied overnight after a closely-watched manufacturing index in China showed the fastest rate of improvement since January 2013.
Likewise, oil prices popped 2.5% on Tuesday to $55 a barrel — hitting the highest level in a year and a half. Crude continues to rally around hopes that OPEC’s agreement to limit oil production will ease the epic glut that caused prices to plunge two years ago.
Energy stocks led the stock market higher on Tuesday, with names like Marathon Petroleum ( MPC ) and Transocean ( RIG ) climbing more than 6% apiece.
Not even another Trump threat against a prominent American business could slow stocks down.
General Motors ( GM ) shares actually rose nearly 2% on Tuesday after Trump warned the auto maker to make its Chevrolet Cruze in the U. S. or face a heavy tax. GM responded by stressing that the sedan model of the Cruze is manufactured in Ohio, while the hatchback version sold mostly overseas is made in Mexico.
Related: Biggest threats to the Trump rally
Despite the bullish action in 2017’s first trading day, analysts warn the Trump rally does face several threats in the coming months.
Trump’s stance on trade was the No. 1 concern cited by market strategists surveyed by CNNMoney. The fear is that Trump’s anti-trade campaign talk could translate into protectionist policies that hurt the economy.
Another source of concern: the Trump rally has made U. S. stocks more expensive. And if Trump’s stimulus agenda faces any setbacks in Congress, it could be met with big disappointment on Wall Street.
“For now, investors may be wise to curb their enthusiasm until we have stronger evidence that Washington will actually implement a pro-growth agenda,” David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds, wrote in a note.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger makes debut as host of 'New Celebrity Apprentice'

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NewsHub“You are terminated! ” But also, you know, “Get to the choppa! ”
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new catchphrase was finally revealed on Monday’s season premiere of the “New Celebrity Apprentice,” and while we worried about how the action star would find a replacement for Donald Trump’s signature “You’re fired” line — he actually found two!
WATCH: Arnold Schwarzenegger Says He Definitely Would’ve Run for President This Year if He Was Allowed
The 69-year-old actor spoke his famous lines after narrowing down the chopping block to “Jersey Shore’s” Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Porsha Williams and TV host Carrie Keagan.
“I really thought that Carrie, you participated the least in the whole thing. Maybe you’ve watched previous shows, [referring to former “Apprentice” host Donald Trump’s run on the reality series] and those that were quiet stayed on for a longer period of time, but that’s not the way I handle things. Who is taking the most risk, is who it really comes down to. So therefore, Carrie, you are terminated,” Schwarzenegger said in true “Terminator” fashion, before tacking on another gem from “Predator”: “Now, get to the choppa. ”
ET caught up with the former California governor in November, where he dished on taking on Trump’s famous role as the 70-year-old businessman takes on the Oval Office.
WATCH: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Son Joseph Baena Recreates Iconic ‘Terminator 2’ Scene and It’s Totally Badass!
“I’ve been governor twice in California, and now to go and go to this is terrific for me. And for him, it’s great to go from this to politics,” Schwarzenegger said. “The bottom line is, the country, America, where do you have the possibilities to do that many things? Only in America. ”
“This is a whole new challenge — something that I’ve never done before, so this is really wonderful,” he continued. “And I think with the characters that they’ve picked there will be major drama. ”
The “New Celebrity Apprentice” premieres airs Mondays on NBC.

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Ryan Gosling Pays Tribute to Debbie Reynolds at Palm Springs Gala: ‘Her Work Is an Inspiration’

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NewsHubThe Palm Springs Convention Center was atwitter Monday evening as movie stars, Hollywood moguls and cinema aficionados filed inside for the start of the 28th annual Palm Springs Film Festival opening night gala, which kicks off the buzzy 12-day desert fest, a key stop on the Oscar season trail.
Glitz and glamour filled the decked-out, floral-filled room, with stars honored for their performances in 2016 films favored for serious Academy Awards contention.
While accepting the Career Achievement Award, “20th Century Women” star Annette Bening declared, “acting is the work of intimacy.” Given that collective closeness, it was only fitting that Ryan Gosling , who accepted the Vanguard Award for “La La Land” alongside director Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz , took a moment to acknowledge the recent passing of Debbie Reynolds , crediting her performance in “Singin’ in the Rain” as a major artistic influence in the creation of Chazelle’s 2017 nod to old Hollywood musicals.
“I wish I could have said this in person but I’d like to thank Debbie Reynolds,” said Gosling. “Her work is an inspiration.”
“Entertainment Tonight” alum Mary Hart hosted the event, with PSIFF chairman of the board Harold Matzner on hand to welcome the guests, who dined on short ribs and a dessert aptly named “At the Movies” on the menu: vanilla panna cotta, topped with crunchy Milk Dud chocolate mousse, caramel corn and movie candies.
“Loving” director Jeff Nichols and actor Joel Edgerton presented Ruth Negga with the Rising Star award for her lead role in Nichols’ historical drama, chronicling the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case that made interracial marriage legal in the United States. Edgerton praised Negga’s “perfect” performance, describing her as “truth where the ‘t’ is silent.” In turn, Negga called Edgerton “the most excellent partner in this endeavor.”
Janelle Monae expressed similar love and admiration for Breakthrough Performance award recipient Mahershala Ali , Monae’s fellow cast member in both “Moonlight” and “Hidden Figures.”
“Mahershala humanized his character in a way that we have not seen before onscreen,” said Monae of Ali’s role in “Moonlight.” Ali, who toiled for over two decades as a relative unknown in films such as “The Place Beyond the Pines” and television’s “Treme” and “House of Cards,” thanked his father, himself an actor, for teaching him the value of “hunger, patience, persistence … and introducing me to the arts and the inherent struggle.”
It was an “emotional” night for “Lion” actress and International Star Award recipient Nicole Kidman , who last attended the gala 12 years ago, and waxed nostalgic about having taken as her date her “papa who was alive then.” She shared words of wisdom from her “Eyes Wide Shut” director, the late Stanley Kubrick, who told Kidman, “You are a character actress. You must find characters to play.”
“I took his advice,” said Kidman, “and I want to find characters — that is my drive, to find the great character roles.”
Exclusive Portraits From Palm Springs Film Festival Awards Gala
Other highlights of the night included the acceptance speech of “Jackie” star and Desert Palm Achievement Award (Actress) recipient Natalie Portman , who relayed a moving, poignant story about her near penniless grandmother emigrating from Eastern Europe to Palestine before Israel gained statehood in 1948 and she was forced to share one dress with her roommate; Sir Ben Kingsley feting Casey Affleck with the Desert Palm Achievement Award (Actor) for his devastating turn as an alcoholic janitor in “Manchester by the Sea,” a movie, said Affleck, “about showing up for the people we love”; and Spotlight Award honoree Andrew Garfield (“Hacksaw Ridge”), who thanked Icon Award honoree Tom Hanks for being his primary inspiration in becoming an actor.
“There’s a man in the room responsible for me becoming an actor and he doesn’t know it,” said Garfield. “I can’t express in words what your work in ‘Big’ and ‘Joe Versus the Volcano’ did for me. I bow very deeply to you.”
Later in the evening, “Hidden Figures” producer Pharrell Williams cued the audience to “make some noise for the female achievements” and “Arrival” star Amy Adams , honored with the Chairman’s Award, called director Denis Villeneuve “a visionary, a compassionate and generous director who elevates everyone around him.”
Accepting the Icon Award, Hanks was quick to quip about the gala’s lengthy running time.
“It’s been a long night for any 501c,” joked the “Sully” star, who went on to thank the producers, directors, costume designers, and screenwriters with whom he’s worked over the span of his Oscar-winning career, before personally thanking Garfield, “who finally saw to it that Palm Springs International Film Fest shows some love for ‘Joe Versus the Volcano.’”

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No one else will write about Carrie Fisher as well as she wrote about herself It's time for more men to try shared parental leave

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NewsHubCarrie Fisher was a writer and performer who found worldwide stardom as Princess Leia in Star Wars (1977), released when she was just 19. It was her first leading role, after a striking cameo in Shampoo (1975), and she reprised the part in two sequels in the 1980s, and a further two made this decade.
Fisher would later say that Star Wars had inadvertently “tricked” her into celebrity; that she had been a bookish teenager, more interested in writing than performing, and had she known how famous the film would make her, she would have turned it down.
Yet stardom was the family business. Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, had also achieved international fame aged 19, for her first leading role (in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain ), and her daughter was surrounded by almost impossibly famous people since birth.
To create a single iconic screen characterisation – as Fisher did with Princess Leia – is more than most performers hope to achieve. It does not denigrate Fisher’s work in other fields to acknowledge the scale of Star Wars ’ cultural impact, given that she made a significant contribution to its popularity.
It is also not true to imply, as some have, that she achieved little else as a performer after the original Star Wars trilogy. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The ‘Burbs, and When Harry Met Sally… (both 1989) are fine films, great examples of their respective genres, and Fisher is extremely good in all three of them. She might never have played the female lead in a film as successful as Star Wars again – but for decades after she did, neither did anyone else.
In 1987, Fisher published Postcards from the Edge , a novel that drew on her own life as second generation Hollywood Royalty. When her book became a film, Fisher wrote the screenplay, and many expected her to also play the lead, Suzanne. The role instead went to Meryl Streep, who was nominated for an Oscar. When asked why she didn’t take the part herself, Fisher was clear that she didn’t want to, insisting: “I’ve already played Suzanne.”
From then on, Fisher’s acting work, such as playing a therapist in the first Austin Powers (1997) or her Emmy-nominated turn in 30 Rock (2007), took its cues from her own writing. It played on her fame, public persona and known interests and passions, including her work with mental health organisations – an intertwining of her life and art that continued for the rest of her life.
In parallel to performing, and a continuing career as a novelist, the success of the Postcards film made Fisher an in-demand Hollywood screenwriter. This was largely “polishing” – for payment but without credit – scripts attributed to other hands. A comprehensive list of these screenplays is inherently difficult to compile, but her uncredited work is acknowledged to be seen in Hook (1991), Sister Act (1992), The Wedding Singer (1998) and several Star Wars films in which she did not appear.
She did receive credit for her episode of Star Wars creator George Lucas’ Young Indiana Jones television series. (It depicted the teenage Indiana’s affair with Mata Hari, was directed by Nicolas Roeg, and is as odd as that description makes it sound.)
In 2001, she wrote and received credit for the screenplay for These Old Broads , a celebration of women in Hollywood in the generation above her. It starred Shirley MacLaine (who had played Suzanne’s mother in Postcards from the Edge ) and Elizabeth Taylor, the woman for whom her father, Eddie Fisher, left her mother in 1959.
Her most recent book, The Princess Diarist , published in November this year, was a volume based on diaries she had kept while making Star Wars. Witty and emotionally complex, it provoked headlines by confirming longstanding rumours about her on-set affair with Harrison Ford, and was accompanied by an international signing tour, from which she was returning when she was taken ill.
On the London leg of her tour, a friend of mine found himself roughly in the middle of the long, long queue of people wanting a few moments with her. As his turn approached, she shot him a wicked look: “I’ll do you before my break,” she said. “And then during my break, I’ll do you. A girl has to relax somehow.” My friend – not easily embarrassed and far from a blushing novitiate – turned crimson and was reduced to monosyllables, to Fisher’s great, cackling delight. She then posed with him for a picture in which both are beaming. Like a Colette or even an Anaïs Nin, her public life had become as much her art form as her performances and writing.
It is her writing that should be a lasting memorial. Others could perhaps have played Princess Leia nearly as well, but only Carrie Fisher could have written Postcards from the Edge or her one-woman show and subsequent memoir Wishful Drinking. The next few days will be filled with tributes to her, including this one, but all will be insufficient. No one else will ever write about Carrie Fisher as well as she wrote about herself.
“It’s not often that government legislation kick-starts a revolution,” Nick Clegg, the then deputy prime minister, wrote in 2014. “Yet our Children and Families Act . does just that.” The act’s most significant policy was shared parental leave (SPL), which allows parents to divide a 50-week allocation of leave however they choose. Finally, here was a system no longer built “on the 1950s assumption that when a child is born, Mum stays home while Dad goes out to work”.
Yet it turns out that the revolution wasn’t kick-started: it was given a very gentle nudge instead. In August, HM Revenue & Customs said in response to a Freedom of Information request that only 3,000 new parents – roughly 4 per cent of eligible couples – were claiming SPL in the first quarter of 2016. The government, despite Clegg’s fanfare, had predicted an equally modest take-up of between 2 and 8 per cent.
Why are the overwhelming majority of dads still choosing to go back to work after one or two weeks and leave mums holding the baby? I puzzled over this during the three months I took off this year to look after our son, John, who was then seven months old, and our daughter, Verette, then two. It was an opportunity to redress the imbalance of responsibility at home; to bond with my baby son; to give my wife, Claire, a chance to get back into her career. There was no reason not to do it.
Yet as I chatted to other new or expectant mothers, my contribution – minor, in the scheme of things: I did not have to put my body through hell, or cope alone with the hardest, early months of babyhood – was often met with amazement and admiration, to Claire’s annoyance (that I should be treated as some paragon of virtue) and my embarrassment. The mums would round on their partners – “What do you think about that?” – who would hem and haw and say it sounded like a great idea and they would definitely consider it next time, depending on various variables, and did you hear that the guy who played R2-D2 just died, and can I get anyone a drink?
A survey commissioned by the Southbank Centre for its Being a Man festival in November suggested some reasons why this might be. Of the fathers who chose not to take SPL, 68 per cent did so for financial reasons and 40 per cent felt that their employer wouldn’t support their request for time off. And many of those who took SPL still feared some negative associations: 51 per cent said that they risked being viewed as “less of a man”.
The financial worries are understandable. SPL includes nine months of statutory pay (£139.58 a week) and while most employers have a maternity package, many give fathers nothing at all on top. So checking your bank account becomes a progressively dispiriting and, I admit, emasculating experience – and in relationships in which the man is the primary breadwinner (I’m not), there’s a disincentive for him to take unpaid, or poorly paid, leave.
However – as pointed out by the Conservative MP Maria Miller at the Being a Man festival – a third of British working mothers are the main breadwinner in their family. “What I find surprising,” she said, “is that you haven’t seen their partners taking parental leave when the financial repercussions won’t have been so acute. It really is down to social pressures.”
Those pressures, I think, manifest themselves not in the pub (masculinity and hands-on fatherhood are no longer seen as mutually exclusive) but in the workplace, where concerns about being considered “less of a man” bleed into worries about career prospects.
I spoke to a father (he did not want to be named) who “had conversations with people in the company that you wouldn’t dream of having with a woman about to go on maternity leave. To have a chat with someone a lot more senior than you who’s saying, ‘You know what, it’s difficult. Maybe you could consider not doing this’ – the power imbalance is very awkward and it makes you feel extremely insecure.”
The situation isn’t helped by the way many people still believe that shared parental leave is a request that can be turned down. It is, in fact, a legal right. Employers are reluctant to advertise the SPL scheme but the convenient excuse that they “haven’t got to grips with it yet” won’t wash for much longer. The odd thing about all this is that the scheme did not alter the maximum length of time a couple can take between them – a year – so there is no net loss of working hours. Businesses are used to women disappearing and returning. Why is it so much harder to make the same arrangements for men?
The highs of my time at home (developing elaborate peekaboo routines with John) were obvious. But the lows were just as valuable: the slow-release panic of a day with a toddler, a baby and no plans; the emotional trauma of “settling” your child in nursery; the pressure of organising meals and keeping on top of endlessly self-generating laundry. I understood some of what Claire had gone through and the scales of our relationship gradually tipped back towards equilibrium.
So how do we speed up the glacial rate of change? “There might be a benefit of having a period of shared parental leave which is solely and exclusively for dads to take,” Miller said. Sweden, for instance, offers 16 months of paid parental leave with a three-month “use it or lose it” quota for fathers. If we are serious about “kick-starting a revolution” and pushing gender equality forward in both the home and the workplace, men need leave that is theirs and theirs alone.

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© Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2016/12/no-one-else-will-write-about-carrie-fisher-well-she-wrote-about-herself
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Tyler Perry calls backlash over all-white cast on his new TLC show is 'reverse racism'

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NewsHubTyler Perry is known for creating opportunities for black actors. But recently the African-American filmmaker weathered a backlash for assembling an all-white starring cast for the TLC drama series “Too Close to Home. ”
Perry rejects the criticism, much of it on social media. Some questioned his casting choices, with one calling the show an “all time low” for the producer when the series aired this year.
But by the end of the season, those harsh words turned mostly into praise of the series.
“That’s totally reverse racism, because it was coming from African-American people,” said Perry, speaking with The Associated Press in his office at Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.
“I don’t know if it was because they thought I should only be giving jobs to black people. Well, I think that’s ridiculous. If you look at the hundreds of black people I’ve given jobs to and even the ones I’ve made millionaires, people of color, I just think it’s unfair. ”
These days, the 47-year-old Perry is more color-blind than ever. He said his years traveling the globe and interacting with people of varying cultures while working his ventures including his “Madea” stage play production tours have helped him see things through a different lens.
“I’m just finding out more as I travel the country and world, the more I meet people, we’re all the same,” he said. “We all got the same dramas. So I’m not seeing color as much as I did anymore in the sense of our stories. Our stories are so similar. ”
The second half of the first season of Perry’s newest drama — “Too Close to Home” — premieres Jan. 4 on TLC.
The first-ever scripted series for the TLC network, it tells of a young woman named Anna who is forced to flee Washington, D. C., after a political scandal involving her affair with the U. S. president. A woman of modest beginnings, Anna finds refuge from the national headlines in the only place she can: the trailer park community in her hometown of Happy, Alabama, she once eagerly left behind.
“Too Close to Home” stars Danielle Savre (Anna), Kelly Sullivan (Bonnie, Anna’s sister) and Brock O’Hurn (Brody). Heather Locklear returns to television as the president’s scorned first lady and Matt Battaglia as president.
Following the criticism of Perry for having an all-white starring case, Savre was nervous heading into the first season — never mind that the wider cast beyond its white stars is diverse. And once the show was approved for eight more episodes, she felt more at ease.
“We were scared and just really wanted this to work out,” she said. “The nerves are still there, because we want it to be really good. It’s being nervous and excitement at the same time. ”
The series resumes by introducing several dramatic plot lines. Some power players in the nation’s capital are still hunting for Anna, a love triangle causes a rift between Anna and her sister Bonnie, and Bonnie also unveils a family secret — their father molested them.
“I’m sitting back like, ‘Wow, now I know why I left,'” Savre said of her character. “But I don’t have anywhere else to go. I really don’t have a choice. So I’m just taking it all in. You get to see why all of us are really messed up. ”
Perry was initially hesitant to create a new show when he got a call from David Zaslav, the president of Discovery Communications — which owns the TLC network. But once the filmmaker began creating some of the characters in the writing process, he felt more confident about moving forward with the project. On the series, he’s the writer, director and producer.
In writing the script, Perry offers a glimpse of his own experiences of once living in a trailer park community with other relatives in a small Louisiana town.
“I know that world very well,” said Perry. “The same stories I’m relating to and telling, it could be anyone black or white. I’m not trying to the shine a light on a certain stereotype or certain people in a trailer park. It’s my own experiences from having spent time and sleeping there. “

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© Source: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/01/03/tyler-perry-calls-backlash-over-all-white-cast-on-his-new-tlc-show-is-reverse-racism.html
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Band of Brothers is a wartime epic that touches on eternity It's time for more men to try shared parental leave

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NewsHubWith Christmas coming, my younger daughter and I, the fanatical pacesetters in a whole family of binge-watchers, are deciding whether our number-one rerun for the season will be The West Wing or Band of Brothers. To qualify for the winter spot, the chosen show has be: a) big, b) great and c) full of groovy people. Nice as it would be to have The West Wing remind us that American presidential politics is not necessarily a madhouse after all, we seem to be favouring, at the moment, Band of Brothers , not having seen enough of Damian Lewis lately, except dressed as Henry VIII and treating women badly: not something he is plausible at doing. We have discussed watching Homeland again, but in that one the gorgeous Damian goes missing halfway through, hanged from a crane because the locals think that ginger hair is an insult to the Prophet, or something like that.
Personally, if I were given my choice of long-term Christmas viewing, I would put the 1980 miniseries Shogun back on screen and let it stay there until I croaked, but the women in my family are all too aware that my reasons for loving the show include the opalescent presence of Yoko Shimada. Long ago, in Japan, I did the tea ceremony with her and it was like dancing with Rita Hayworth, slowed down by a thousand times. In Play All , my book about binge-watching, I picked the BBC’s I, Claudius as the possible true ancestor of the box-set-binge phenomenon, but I now think that Shogun was the more likely progenitor. It had everything, including the unprecedented spectacle of Toshiro Mifune being subtle. (Which genius was it who said that “Toshiro Mifune” sounded like “no smoking” in Japanese?)
Whatever: Shogun ’s vast format fed a new hunger and it led us to the satisfaction we can get now only when Joffrey, the nasty boy-king in Game of Thrones , ponces about lethally for months on end before he gets it in the neck. We’d be watching it again this time if we hadn’t only just finished watching it again last time.
But no, it has to be Band of Brothers. You know something is on an epic scale when even a small piece of it breathes open space, which is to say that it touches on eternity. The little scene where Malarkey picks up the laundry parcels for the missing men takes me back to a time when the fathers of my generation were risking their lives. But I never had to explain that to my children because the show explained it better than I could. To have seen at least part of a time when popular entertainment has become so substantial is a great privilege, and I bless it without reserve. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to start dropping hints about how much I’d like to see Westworld.
“It’s not often that government legislation kick-starts a revolution,” Nick Clegg, the then deputy prime minister, wrote in 2014. “Yet our Children and Families Act . does just that.” The act’s most significant policy was shared parental leave (SPL), which allows parents to divide a 50-week allocation of leave however they choose. Finally, here was a system no longer built “on the 1950s assumption that when a child is born, Mum stays home while Dad goes out to work”.
Yet it turns out that the revolution wasn’t kick-started: it was given a very gentle nudge instead. In August, HM Revenue & Customs said in response to a Freedom of Information request that only 3,000 new parents – roughly 4 per cent of eligible couples – were claiming SPL in the first quarter of 2016. The government, despite Clegg’s fanfare, had predicted an equally modest take-up of between 2 and 8 per cent.
Why are the overwhelming majority of dads still choosing to go back to work after one or two weeks and leave mums holding the baby? I puzzled over this during the three months I took off this year to look after our son, John, who was then seven months old, and our daughter, Verette, then two. It was an opportunity to redress the imbalance of responsibility at home; to bond with my baby son; to give my wife, Claire, a chance to get back into her career. There was no reason not to do it.
Yet as I chatted to other new or expectant mothers, my contribution – minor, in the scheme of things: I did not have to put my body through hell, or cope alone with the hardest, early months of babyhood – was often met with amazement and admiration, to Claire’s annoyance (that I should be treated as some paragon of virtue) and my embarrassment. The mums would round on their partners – “What do you think about that?” – who would hem and haw and say it sounded like a great idea and they would definitely consider it next time, depending on various variables, and did you hear that the guy who played R2-D2 just died, and can I get anyone a drink?
A survey commissioned by the Southbank Centre for its Being a Man festival in November suggested some reasons why this might be. Of the fathers who chose not to take SPL, 68 per cent did so for financial reasons and 40 per cent felt that their employer wouldn’t support their request for time off. And many of those who took SPL still feared some negative associations: 51 per cent said that they risked being viewed as “less of a man”.
The financial worries are understandable. SPL includes nine months of statutory pay (£139.58 a week) and while most employers have a maternity package, many give fathers nothing at all on top. So checking your bank account becomes a progressively dispiriting and, I admit, emasculating experience – and in relationships in which the man is the primary breadwinner (I’m not), there’s a disincentive for him to take unpaid, or poorly paid, leave.
However – as pointed out by the Conservative MP Maria Miller at the Being a Man festival – a third of British working mothers are the main breadwinner in their family. “What I find surprising,” she said, “is that you haven’t seen their partners taking parental leave when the financial repercussions won’t have been so acute. It really is down to social pressures.”
Those pressures, I think, manifest themselves not in the pub (masculinity and hands-on fatherhood are no longer seen as mutually exclusive) but in the workplace, where concerns about being considered “less of a man” bleed into worries about career prospects.
I spoke to a father (he did not want to be named) who “had conversations with people in the company that you wouldn’t dream of having with a woman about to go on maternity leave. To have a chat with someone a lot more senior than you who’s saying, ‘You know what, it’s difficult. Maybe you could consider not doing this’ – the power imbalance is very awkward and it makes you feel extremely insecure.”
The situation isn’t helped by the way many people still believe that shared parental leave is a request that can be turned down. It is, in fact, a legal right. Employers are reluctant to advertise the SPL scheme but the convenient excuse that they “haven’t got to grips with it yet” won’t wash for much longer. The odd thing about all this is that the scheme did not alter the maximum length of time a couple can take between them – a year – so there is no net loss of working hours. Businesses are used to women disappearing and returning. Why is it so much harder to make the same arrangements for men?
The highs of my time at home (developing elaborate peekaboo routines with John) were obvious. But the lows were just as valuable: the slow-release panic of a day with a toddler, a baby and no plans; the emotional trauma of “settling” your child in nursery; the pressure of organising meals and keeping on top of endlessly self-generating laundry. I understood some of what Claire had gone through and the scales of our relationship gradually tipped back towards equilibrium.
So how do we speed up the glacial rate of change? “There might be a benefit of having a period of shared parental leave which is solely and exclusively for dads to take,” Miller said. Sweden, for instance, offers 16 months of paid parental leave with a three-month “use it or lose it” quota for fathers. If we are serious about “kick-starting a revolution” and pushing gender equality forward in both the home and the workplace, men need leave that is theirs and theirs alone.

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© Source: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2016/12/band-brothers-wartime-epic-touches-eternity
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Watch skiiers light up the hill at Nub's Nob Torch Light Parade

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NewsHubHARBOR SPRINGS, MI – Skiiers at Nub’s Nob saluted the new year with the ski resort’s annual Torch Light Parade on Saturday, Dec. 31.
Nub’s Nob – S.8 EP.6 – This Is What We Do. Torch Light Parade from Nub’s Nob Webcasts on Vimeo.
The annual tradition has been happening for at least 57 years, according to general manager Jim Bartlett.
About 50 skiiers and snowboarders took part in the parade, which is made possible by each person carrying road flares to light up the path as they weave down the hill.
The tradition began as a fun way for people staying at the resort to celebrate the new year, and kept on happening even after the resort got rid of its lodging.

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© Source: http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2017/01/watch_skiiers_light_up_during.html
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