Trump Postpones New Trade Tariffs on China
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Day: February 24, 2019
The Oscars, or Academy Awards, the highest honors in the movie industry, will be handed out at a ceremony on Sunday in Hollywood. Following is a list of nominations in key categories:
Best Picture
“A Star is Born”
“Vice”
“Roma”
“Green Book”
“BlacKkKlansman”
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
“Black Panther”
“The Favourite”
Best Actor
Bradley Cooper – “A Star is Born”
Rami Malek – “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Christian Bale – “Vice”
Viggo Mortensen – “Green Book”
Willem Dafoe – “At Eternity’s Gate”
Best Actress
Lady Gaga – “A Star is Born”
Glenn Close – “The Wife”
Olivia Colman – “The Favourite”
Melissa McCarthy – “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Yalitza Aparicio – “Roma”
Best Director
Alfonso Cuaron – “Roma”
Spike Lee – “BlacKkKlansman”
Adam McKay – “Vice”
Yorgos Lanthimos – “The Favourite”
Pawel Pawlikowski – “Cold War”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali – “Green Book”
Adam Driver – “BlacKkKlansman”
Richard E. Grant – “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Sam Rockwell – “Vice”
Sam Elliott – “A Star is Born”
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – “Vice”
Regina King – “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Emma Stone – “The Favourite”
Rachel Weisz – “The Favourite”
Marina de Tavira – “Roma”
Best Original Screenplay
“The Favourite”
“First Reformed”
“Roma”
“Green Book”
“Vice”
Best Adapted Screenplay
“BlacKkKlansman”
“If Beale Street Could Talk”
“A Star is Born”
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
Best Animated Film
“Incredibles 2”
“Isle of Dogs”
“Ralph Breaks the Internet”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
“Mirai”
Best Documentary Film
“RBG”
“Free Solo”
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”
“Of Fathers and Sons”
“Minding the Gap”
Best Foreign Language Film
“Capernaum” – Lebanon
“Never Look Away” – Germany
“Shoplifters” – Japan
“Roma” – Mexico
“Cold War” – Poland
Best Original Song
“All the Stars” – “Black Panther”
“I’ll Fight” – “RBG”
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” – “Mary Poppins Returns”
“Shallow” – “A Star is Born”
“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” – “The Ballad of
Buster Scruggs”
Actor Terrence Howard, who plays the father of Jussie Smollett’s character on “Empire,” has expressed support for his fellow cast member amid allegations that Smollett staged a racist, anti-gay attack on himself.
Howard, who plays music mogul Lucious Lyon on the Fox television series, took to Instagram and posted a video of Smollett holding a giggling baby boy with the message: “All your lil homies got you… We love the hell outta you.”
The post on Saturday came a day after “Empire” producers announced that Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon, would be removed from the final two episodes of the season, saying cast and crew were affected and they made the move “to avoid further disruption on the set.”
The series, which is on a midseason break, returns March 13 with nine episodes. Seven episodes were already completed before Smollett was charged last week with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly filing a false police report.
Police say Smollett, who is black and gay, claimed two masked men attacked him last month in downtown Chicago, hurling slurs and looping a rope around his neck. Investigators say he planned the hoax, soliciting the help of a friend and the friend’s brother, because he was unhappy with his salary and wanted to promote his career.
Smollett denies the allegations.
Some “Empire” cast members posted supportive messages on social media after Smollett claimed he was attacked. Fox also publicly supported Smollett after the initial claims.
Howard’s post generated more than 385,000 views by midday Sunday and countless comments, both critical and supportive.
In response to one of the critics, Howard wrote: “sorry you feel that way but that’s the only Jussie that I know. The Jussie that I know could never even conceive of something so unconscious and ugly. His innocence or judgement is not for any of us to decide. Stay in your lane and my lane is empathy and love and compassion for someone that I’ve called my son for 5 years. It’s God’s job to judge and it is ours to love and hope, especially for those that we claim to have loved. There’s nothing more harmful than a fake friend! Real talk.”
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Some fun and interesting facts about Tuesday’s nominations for the 91st Academy Awards:
-After more than 30 years and some two dozen films, Spike Lee received his first Academy Award nomination for best director for “BlacKkKlansman.” It’s also the first time one of his movies has been nominated for best picture.
-Glenn Close’s best actress nomination for “The Wife” is her seventh, and could finally mean her first Oscar. She has more nominations without a win than any other living actor or actress.
-“Black Panther” is the first Marvel movie – and the first superhero film of any kind – to be nominated for best picture. Its $700 million box-office take is more than the earnings of the other seven best-picture nominees combined.
- “Roma” is the first Netflix film to be nominated for best picture.
- Sam Elliott’s first Oscar nomination – for best supporting actor in “A Star Is Born” – comes 50 years after his first acting credit, on the TV series “Judd, for the Defense.”
-Rami Malek, nominated for playing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is the only first-time Oscar nominee among the men up for best actor. He’s up against multiple nominees Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Viggo Mortensen and Willem Dafoe.
- Yalitza Aparicio’s nomination for “Roma” comes in her first role as an actress.
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This is the second of Hollywood’s four versions of “A Star Is Born,” to get a best picture nomination, along with the 1937 original. The 1954 and 1976 versions each got several Oscar nominations, but not for best picture.
- No women were nominated for best director this year. The number of female directorial nominees in the 91-year history of the Oscars remains five.
- Eighty-seven countries submitted movies to be considered for best foreign language film. Five got nominations : Germany, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico and Poland.
- Bob Hope hosted the Oscars a record 19 times. No one is scheduled to host this year’s ceremony.
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As Iran marked the 40th anniversary of its Islamic Revolution, a white-turbaned Shiite cleric at one commemoration targeted President Hassan Rouhani, a fellow clergyman, with this sign: “You who are the cause of inflation; we hope you won’t last until spring.”
Already lashed by criticism over his collapsing nuclear deal and renewed tensions with the U.S., the relatively moderate Rouhani faces anger from clerics, hard-line forces and an ever-growing disaffected public that now threatens his position.
Iranian presidents typically see their popularity erode during their second four-year terms, but analysts say Rouhani is particularly vulnerable because of the economic crisis assailing the country’s rial currency, which has hurt ordinary Iranians and emboldened critics to openly call for his ouster.
Though such a move only has happened once in the Islamic Republic’s four-decade history, the popular discontent heard on streets throughout Iran now could make it possible.
“I don’t care who is in the presidential palace: a cleric, a general or anybody else,” said Qassim Abhari, who sells hats and socks on the streets of Tehran. “We need someone who creates jobs and firmly pushes the brake pedal on rising prices.”
It’s been a long fall for Rouhani, who secured the 2015 nuclear deal after two years in office and won the praise of Iranians, who flooded the streets to celebrate it. Under the deal, Iran limited its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
But the benefits of the deal never reached much of the Iranian public. Even before President Donald Trump pulled America from the accord in May, uncertainty over its future caused the rial to crater, fueling sporadic, nationwide protests.
Now the rial is dropping again, down to 133,000 to $1. It had been 32,000 to the dollar at the time of the deal. On social media, hard-liners share price lists showing food staples like beans, rice and tomato paste rising as much as 238 percent.
Hard-liners stopped parliament speaker Ali Larijani, an ally of Rouhani, from addressing a crowd in Karaj, only 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of Tehran. Rouhani’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, typically collected, appeared visibly frustrated at times during a recent security conference in Munich.
Hassan Abbasi, a retired general in Iran’s hard-line Revolutionary Guard, which answers to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gave a speech after Karaj saying he believed people will spit on Rouhani, Larijani and Zarif in the streets over the nuclear deal after they leave office. He said they are “shivering” over the accord’s collapse.
“Mr. Hassan Rouhani, Mr. Zarif and Mr. Larijani, go to hell,” Abbasi said to applause.
Tension between hard-liners and more-moderate forces within Iran are nothing new. The Islamic Republic’s political structure muddles who wields power between paramilitary forces within the Guard and the country’s civilian government. Reformist President Mohammad Khatami faced similar pressures in his second term, which then gave way to hard-line populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But Khatami didn’t face the same grinding economic pressure, or an American president like Donald Trump, whose administration has taken a maximalist approach toward pressuring Tehran. Analysts say that only further weakens Rouhani’s hand.
“You, Mr. President, have only 15 to 20 percent of the power” within Iran’s government, the pro-Rouhani daily newspaper Jomhouri Eslami said in a January editorial. “You cannot run the country with this amount of power and be accountable for all its difficulties and problems.”
Rouhani himself seemed to acknowledge the pressure he faces during a visit to the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday.
“Presidential elections happen every four year,” he said. “When people voted for a particular viewpoint, all should go after that and support” it.
Nine hard-line lawmakers have put forward a measure to disqualify Rouhani as president. His dismissal would require two-thirds of parliament’s 290 members, but there is a precedent. In 1981, parliament disqualified the liberal Abolhassan Banisadr as president, and then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini dismissed him.
Iranian law also allows Rouhani to resign, and criminal charges could push him from his post. His brother, Hossein Fereidoun, is on trial over corruption charges that his supporters call politically motivated.
Mahmoud Vaezi, a spokesman for Rouhani, on Wednesday dismissed those pursuing impeachment as belonging to “a group in parliament that opposes everything.” However, they aren’t the only source of pressure.
Reformists, those who want to change Iran’s political system from the inside, have grown increasingly disenchanted with Rouhani over his inability to end the house arrests of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi. Rouhani ran for election in 2013 and 2017 promising to free the two leaders of the 2009 Green Movement.
Meanwhile, hard-line clerics have opposed his administration’s efforts to join international anti-money-laundering conventions, fearing that could cut off support to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and others. State television, long controlled by hard-liners, has played up speeches by military officials and increasingly airs segments glorifying those who fought in the 1980s war in Iraq.
“When Rouhani will not be in power, people will choose his alternative,” said hard-line lawmaker and cleric Mojtaba Zolnouri, who signed onto the Rouhani impeachment effort. “Whoever people choose, we welcome.”
Rouhani’s four-year term runs until 2021. But Tehran-based political-economic analyst Saeed Leilaz echoed the sentiments of many in saying the next few weeks could prove crucial to the embattled president. Some have suggested even ending the position of president and returning to a parliamentary system.
“In the spring, parallel with intensifying pressures and problems, Rouhani may resign or the (government’s) structure may change,” he said.
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The United States has a long tradition of recognizing foreign figures by naming streets after them. Often that’s done at the request of an immigrant community with a significant presence in the area. That’s the case along of stretch of Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue in New York City, which has been renamed after the founder of modern Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. VOA reporter Aunshuman Apte attended the naming ceremony and has this report.
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One of the unintended consequences of the space race is the amount of junk that’s now floating around our planet. Most of it is little stuff, but even something as small as a screw can do a lot of damage when it’s moving at 17,000 kilometers per hour. That’s why there are now plans to clean up the mess. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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Two years after his “Moonlight” triumphed on the eve of the Oscars, Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of the James Baldwin novel “If Beale Street Could Talk” Saturday topped the 34th Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning best film, best director and best supporting female for Regina King.
The Spirit Awards, always a casual preamble to Sunday’s Academy Awards, featured a few things the Oscars don’t have: a host (actress Aubrey Plaza) and female filmmaker nominees, including Tamara Jenkins (“Private Life”), Debra Granik (“Leave No Trace”) and Lynne Ramsey (“You Were Never Really Here”).
But as much as the afternoon belonged to women, Jenkins’ lyrical period drama emerged the biggest winner two years after his “Moonlight” won at the Spirits and (despite a touch of trouble with the envelopes) at the Oscars. Given his fellow nominees, even Jenkins was sheepish about it.
“I’m not gonna lie, man,” said Jenkins accepting the directing award. “I didn’t want to win this.”
Jenkins used his speech to instead largely urge more movies to be made with female directors and specifically credited the Scottish filmmaker Ramsey — who encouraged Jenkins as a film student — for inspiration.
“This award has your DNA in it,” Jenkins said.
Female filmmakers honored
“Leave No Trace” and “You Were Never Really Here” won other awards, though. “You Were Never Really Here” won for its editing. Granik was honored with the Spirits’ second annual Bonnie Award, a grant for midcareer female directors. The audience gave her a standing ovation.
“I wasn’t expecting such a love bomb,” a clearly moved Granik said.
A day before many expect her to finally win her first Academy Award, best female lead went to Glenn Close for her performance in “The Wife.” Close was accompanied everywhere by her loyal white Havanese dog Pip: on the awards’ “blue carpet,” on stage with her, and backstage speaking to reporters. While Close accepted her award, Pip rolled on his back alongside her.
“I hope you don’t mind Pippy came up here with me,” Close said. “He’s my date.”
Fewer Oscar contenders
This year’s Spirits included fewer Oscar contenders than usual, which meant a chance, as Plaza said, for the Spirits to get back to their roots and honor “the movies that are too good to be seen.”
Their best-picture winner has often predicted Oscar-winners, including “Moonlight,” ″Spotlight,” ″Birdman” and “12 Years a Slave.” But last year Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” took the Spirits’ top honor before Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape of Water” won at the Academy Awards. This year, “Beale Street” is nominated for three Oscars but not best picture.
King, though, is the front-runner for best supporting actress.
“If you haven’t seen it, go see it,” said King of “Beale Street” before chuckling. “I’m still promoting.”
Smaller-budget films
The Spirit Awards limit nominees to films with budgets of $20 million and less, eliminating bigger budget contenders like “Black Panther” and “A Star Is Born.” They also focus on American movies, limiting Oscar nominees like “Roma” and “The Favourite” to the best international film category, which Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” won.
Cuaron, whose film is favored to become the first foreign language film to win best picture Sunday, said he believes cinema is growing more diverse, “and that will make this category irrelevant.”
Ethan Hawke won best male lead for “First Reformed,” an award collected for the absent actor by his co-star, Amanda Seyfried.
Marielle Heller’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” took awards for both Richard E. Grant’s supporting performance and best screenplay for Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Witty. Holofcener called up Heller to join them on stage.
Best first feature went to Boots Riley’s madcap political satirical “Sorry to Bother You.” In his acceptance speech, Riley, a longtime musician making his directorial debut, spoke out against U.S. involvement in Venezuela. He said film is growing more socially conscious.
“There are real movements out there happening on the streets,” Riley said. “Rightly so, film is responding to that.”
Other awards
Other awards included best documentary for the Oscar-snubbed Fred Rogers documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”; best first screenplay went to the comedian-turned-director Bo Burnham for “Eighth Grade”; Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria” won the Robert Altman ensemble award and best cinematography; and the micro-budget “En El Septimo Dia” won the Spirits’ John Cassavetes Award, which honors movies made for less than $500,000.
In her opening monologue, Plaza tweaked the Oscars: “The network’s first choice was no one, but they were already booked for tomorrow.”
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