August 11, 2017

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Entertainment August 11, 2017

The Week in Movie News: Here's What You Need to Know

Need a quick recap on the past week in movie news? Here are the highlights:

BIG NEWS

Wonder Woman rumored for Flashpoint: With Wonder Woman now the biggest DC Extended Universe movie at home, there’s no suprise the title superhero will be appearing in many more of the franchise’s installments. Apparently she’ll appear alongside The Flash and Cyborg in the recently announced Flashpoint, too. Read more here.

MUST-WATCH TRAILERS

Mother! teases just enough: Jennifer Lawrence brings her incredible acting chops to a psychological thriller in the trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s latest, which also stars Javier Bardem, Michelle Pfeiffer and Ed Harris. Watch it here:

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Trophy teases a winner: One of the best documentaries of the year, Trophy, finally got a trailer ahead of its release next month. This one will really make you think. Check it out here:

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Wonder looks full of heart: Little Jacob Tremblay stars opposite Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson in Wonder, a movie about a boy with facial differences starting in his first mainstream school. Watch the latest trailer below.

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Business August 11, 2017

North Korea Has Markets Nervous But Not Panicked

Traders and financial professionals work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange ahead of the opening bell on Friday.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

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Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Global stock markets ended their worst week in months amid rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, though U.S. stock indexes steadied on Friday to close up slightly.

Nervous investors drove shares lower earlier in the week, after President Trump declared Tuesday that the U.S. would react with “fire and fury” to further nuclear provocations from North Korea. North Korea responded with threats to launch missiles into the Pacific Ocean near Guam, a U.S. territory.

Amid the hot rhetoric, U.S. stocks sold off sharply on Thursday, with the S&P 500 falling more than 1 percent. By the end of the day nearly $1 trillion in equity had been lost globally. Asian and European stocks continued the sharp decline Friday.

But U.S. stocks regained some lost ground, despite Trump’s comments Friday that U.S. weapons are “locked and loaded,” ready to respond if North Korea acts “unwisely.”

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 14 points, a gain of 0.07 percent, the Nasdaq composite rose nearly 40 points or 0.64 percent and the S&P 500 gained 3 points or 0.13 percent. But for the week the S&P 500 lost 1.3 percent, its worst weekly showing since March.

The North Korea situation isn’t the only thing weighing on stocks. Major U.S. indices had posted record highs in recent weeks. Those highs were supported by strong corporate earnings, but lofty market valuations and a prolonged period without a significant market pullback had some analysts predicting a sell-off.

While stocks have declined this week, the sell-off has not been dramatic. BNY Mellon FX strategist Neil Mellor told Reuters that in recent years, “the market hasn’t really reacted to things on the Korean Peninsula” because in the past “it [has been] largely North Korean sabre-rattling.” But Mellor notes the rhetoric has reached a “different level.”

The Wells Fargo Investment Institute describes the market response, so far, as “tepid.” In a note to investors, Paul Christopher, head global market strategist, and Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation, suggest, “the threat of a nuclear weapon is certainly more serious than previous threats, but that threat also may increase the probability of a diplomatic solution.” They suggest the U.S. and China, a North Korean ally, could work together to de-escalate the situation.

So far the measured decline in global stocks suggests investors buy that scenario.

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Health August 11, 2017

From Alaska To Florida, States Respond To Opioid Crisis With Emergency Declarations

Overdoses from heroin and other opioids have led six states to declare public health emergencies.

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Marianne Williams/Getty Images

Public health officials and others concerned about the nation’s opioid crisis are hailing President Trump’s decision to declare it a national emergency. A Presidential commission on opioids said in its interim report that an emergency declaration would allow the administration to take immediate action and send a message to Congress that more funding is needed.

But while the Trump administration prepares the presidential order, governors in six states have already declared emergencies to deal with opioids. They range from Alaska and Arizona in the West to Florida, Virginia, Maryland and Massachusetts in the East.

In Maryland, where 550 overdose deaths were reported in just the first three months of this year, Gov. Larry Hogan declared opioids a public health emergency in March.

“It’s a call to order and a call to action,” says Clay Stamp, head of Maryland’s Opioid Operational Command Center. Stamp comes to the job with a background as an emergency manager and compares this effort to the state’s response to a hurricane.

“We need all the right people in the room to make sure we can make a decision in time to move people out of harm’s way, shelter them and everything else,” he says. “This is no different.”

Since declaring an emergency, Maryland has tightened practices for those prescribing opioids and received a waiver to allow Medicaid to pay for residential drug treatment.

Massachusetts was the first state to declare opioids a public health emergency in 2014. Then-Gov. Deval Patrick acted on the recommendations of a special task force, says Michael Barnett, an assistant professor of health policy and management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The recommendations were “to open up funding for the Department of Public Health — for instance, to open up more treatment beds, to create funding and make it easier for … first responders to use naloxone, which reverses opioid overdoses in the field,” he says.

Making naloxone freely available and putting it in the hands of more people has helped save lives. That has been one of the most immediate impacts of emergency declarations in states that have issued them.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey declared a public health emergency in June. Will Humble, executive director for the Arizona Public Health Association says with that declaration, the state began gathering badly needed data on the crisis.

“Who it’s hitting, where it’s hitting, who is doing the prescribing, what portion of it are fentanyl and heroin and what portion are prescribed pills,” he says. “And, as you get that more complete information, it allows you to craft better public policy.”

In Florida, the emergency declaration issued in May enabled Gov. Rick Scott to quickly allocate some $27 million in federal funds for drug treatment and prevention.

Palm Beach County, Fla., saw nearly 600 fatal overdoses last year, mostly related to opioids. Alton Taylor, executive director of the county’s Drug Abuse Foundation says although the emergency declaration was welcome, Palm Beach County and the rest of the state still don’t have enough publicly-funded beds available to treat people with opioid addictions.

“Today as I’m talking to you, we have over 200 people on a waiting list,” he says. “These are people where we’ve done a clinical assessment of them and determined them to be in need of that service.”

Despite the emergency declaration, Florida, unlike some other states, hasn’t tapped Medicaid to help pay for drug treatment. Taylor says he’s hopeful President Trump’s emergency declaration, when finalized, will free up more money to treat people in recovery from opioid addictions.

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Entertainment August 11, 2017

Angelique Kidjo Has Been Waiting A Long Time To Sing This Song

Angelique Kidjo lends her Grammy-winning voice to a new song that protests child marriage.

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When three-time Grammy-winning singer Angelique Kidjo was a 12-year-old schoolgirl in her native Benin, her best friend suddenly disappeared from school. Kidjo went to her friend’s house and asked her father what had happened. The reason shocked Kidjo: Her friend Awaawou had become a child bride, and that meant that her friend’s education — and her girlhood — were at an end.

That was about 35 years ago. But according to UNICEF, one in 10 girls in Benin still marries before the age of 15, and in Central and Western Africa, 41 percent of all girls marry before they turn 18. Marrying — and having children — at a young age leads to increased risks of domestic abuse and of dying due to childbirth complications. Since child brides often cease their education, they also lack the skills to earn a living later on.

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Now Kidjo, who is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, has collaborated with eight musical colleagues and UNICEF to sing out against child marriage, with a refrain that goes “A little girl is still a child. She cannot be a mother or a bride. Let her grow up to live a fulfilling life. Say NO to child marriage!” The message is serious but the music has a get-up-and-dance vibe.

In addition to being on YouTube and social media, the song is being broadcast several times a day on Beninese TV and more than 40 local radio stations reaching into remote areas.

We spoke to Kidjo about the song and her advocacy for girls and women. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview Highlights

What happened to your friend?

She lived across the street from my house. We played together, we laughed together and then one day I waited for her to walk to school together, but she didn’t come. Then when I went to school, she wasn’t there, either. I went to her family to ask. They told me she was married! I was so angry!

Five years later I saw her, but when I tried to talk to her, she said she could not talk to me. She was so ashamed of not finishing school. She wasn’t the happy person I remembered. She was no longer cracking jokes; it was as if the light in her was shattered. She had two children, and she looked like she was 40. I went home and I cried.

What did this experience teach you about child marriage?

This said to me this is not a good tradition. How can you think that marrying your child at 12 can be good for her? When you finish elementary school and you start going to junior high, you’re no longer a child, but you are also not yet an adult. Women staying in school is crucial for their future, so stopping child marriage is crucial. And I was very vocal about it from the age of 12.

And now you’re vocal about it with a song. How did it come about?

I have been waiting for so long to do this. I started seeing the weakness in having a program [against child marriage] in just English or French because the [people] in the villages may not speak English or French. So the announcements and marketing have to be done in the local languages. That is why we decided we were going to use the main languages of the different parts of the countries [Benin, Burkina-Faso, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo].

You and your colleagues sing in seven local African languages, including Fon, Goun, Bariba, Yoruba, Mahi, Sahoue and Mina — with a refrain in French. How did that collaboration work?

I wrote my part [in Fon, the national language spoken in Benin and also in Togo and Nigeria, as well as the refrain in French] then sent it to Zeynab Abib [a popular singer in Benin with whom Kidjo co-wrote the song], and we went back and forth with each other and with the other performers, who were coming from different regions [where the different languages are spoken].

The group of nine singers is a mix of women and men.

We have to solve the problem without a gender agenda — women and men need to hear this message.

Can one song make a difference?

Silence is what has allowed child marriage to continue. I think the first impact of this song is that the silence has been broken on the subject. So from the north to the south to the west and to the east — the song is going to the villages and saying this tradition is not right. It is communicating that to men and women, boys and girls. And when someone asks questions in school about what happened to a girl who is no longer coming to class, they can get answers and they can become agents of change.

What has been the response so far to the song?

We already have a million people in Africa who have commented on or “liked” the song on my Facebook page. And we are all of us planning on performing the song live in a concert in Benin.

Diane Cole writes for many publications, including The Wall Street Journal and The Jewish Week, and is book columnist for The Psychotherapy Networker. She is the author of the memoir After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges. Her website is dianejcole.com.

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