Fans crowded outside of the closed courtroom as Britney Spears spoke in front of a judge about the conservatorship she’s been under for 11 years. As her father’s health has dwindled, it has come under close scrutiny.
After
hearing Britney Spears and her parents speak in a rare and secretive joint
court appearance Friday, a judge ordered an expert evaluation in the
conservatorship that for 11 years has put control of much of the 37-year-old
singer’s life in the control of her father.
Only the few left inside
know what the three said in the courtroom that was closed to public and media
shortly after the hearing began. But Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda
Penny wrote in an order afterward that all had agreed on a so-called 730 expert
evaluation, a process usually used to determine the mental health and
competence of a parent in a divorce case.
It is not made clear who
would be examined, and whether it would relate to Spears’ relationship to her
two sons or her parents’ oversight of her.
Spears’ ex-husband Kevin
Federline has custody of their boys, 13-year-old Sean and 12-year-old Jayden,
who have frequent visits with their mother.
Spears’ personal attorney
Samuel D. Ingham rose at the start of the hearing as many reporters and a
handful of fans sat in the audience to say that Spears had requested the
proceedings so she could speak to the court, and asked that the room be cleared
because personal finances and her minor children would be discussed.
Penny agreed, and Spears
and her parents were sneaked in through side doors when the court was empty.
They left the same way, and when the courtroom was reopened the hearing was
over.
For years, Spears has been
publicly silent about the severe restrictions on her decisions put in place by
the conservatorship established in 2008, when she was having serious personal
and psychiatric struggles, many of which played out in public.
Conservatorship, known in
many states as guardianship, is an involuntary status usually reserved for very
elderly or very ill people who are suffering from dementia or otherwise
incapacitated and unable to make decisions for themselves.
Rarely is it used for
people as functional as Spears, who despite further problems — she has said in
interviews that she struggles with bipolar disorder — has seen her career
continue to thrive.
That has brought
speculation that at some point she would ask a judge to end her special status.
Outside the courthouse,
about 20 Spears fans protested with signs that read “Free Britney” and “End the
conservatorship now.”
The appearance of Spears’
66-year-old father Jamie Spears was something of a surprise because he had been
in such ill health in recent months that his daughter put her career on hold,
delaying the start of a Las Vegas residency, so she could be with him.
Spears mother, Lynne
Spears, who is divorced from Jamie Spears since 2002, has had no role in the
conservatorship, but this week got special permission from Penny to be part of
Friday’s hearing. She has sought to have a more active role in her daughter’s
life since her month-long
stay in a mental health facility.
Britney Spears doesn’t
normally attend the hearings on her status.
Her parents’ situations
along with the departure from the case of the lawyer who long served as Jamie
Spears’ co-executor seemed to suggest significant changes might be coming in
the legal arrangement.
But Penny has not
indicated she is inclined to make any major moves and ordered another status
hearing for September 18. Spears won’t have to attend this one.
“Britney is still adjusting to medications,” a source told People of the situation. “It’s a difficult situation for her
and Lynne is in L.A. to help. Lynne wants to be more involved in Britney’s care
because she is her mom. If there is something more they can do for Britney,
Lynne wants to make sure Britney gets that help.”
Sam Lutfi Restraining Order
In the same court building on Wednesday, a judge granted Spears a temporary restraining order against Sam Lutfi, a man who once claimed to be her manager and has been in legal fights with her family for a decade.
Spears alleged that Lutfi
had been sending harassing and threatening texts to Spears’ family, disparaging
them on social media and seeking to undermine her conservatorship.
A judge ordered the
44-year-old Lutfi to stay at least 200 yards from Spears and her family.
Lutfi’s attorney said the
decision was disappointing and violated Lutfi’s constitutional rights.
Filmmakers dream of getting their film into the Cannes Film Festival, but tradition can sometimes get in the way even though time and technology move on. While the scene is all set for the 2019 incarnation of the glitzy film festival which has a star-studded jury including Alejandro González Iñárritu, Elle Fanning, and Yorgos Lanthimos, there will be one noticeable absence. No, not Steven Soderbergh and Martin Scorsese. Netflix will not be there on the red-carpeted stairway of the Palais des Festivals.
Some things have moved forward as history is set to be made with one filmmaker: Mati Diop.
Diop only realized long after her Dakar-set “Atlantics” had been selected to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival that she had made history. Diop, the 36-year-old French-born filmmaker of Senegalese heritage, is the first black woman in competition for Cannes’ top honor, the Palme d’Or.
The 72nd Cannes Film
Festival, which opens Tuesday will feature a lot of familiar faces who have
long made Cannes their home, including Pedro Almodóvar, Ken Loach and Jim
Jarmusch, whose zombie comedy “The Dead Don’t Die” will open the festival and
mark the director’s ninth time in competition in Cannes.
But Cannes is also where a
new cinematic voice can be catapulted onto cinema’s world stage. Diop, who has
made a number of acclaimed shorts and who starred in Claire Denis’ “35 Shots of
Rum,” will make her feature film debut in Cannes. She’s one of four female
directors in the festival’s 21-film main slate, which ties Cannes’ previous
high, in 2011.
“I’ve been through all
kinds of different emotions from the announcement until now,” said Diop by
phone in Paris where she was busy putting the finishing touches on “Atlantics.”
″But it’s very stimulating for me to be part of this specific edition that is
remarkable for its novelty. It’s a selection in which there are more women, in
which there are first feature films, where Africa is represented.
“This gives
me the feeling of being part of some new excitement,” she added. “In a way,
it’s a turning point for the festival.”
Whether this year’s
edition of Cannes will indeed open a new chapter in the prestigious 72-year
history of the French Riviera festival remains to be seen. Certainly, the
tremors of last year’s Cannes — where 82 women protested gender inequality on
the red-carpeted steps of the Palais des Festivals — are still being felt.
One of the primary figures
of that demonstration was Agnes Varda, the French New Wave pioneer who died in March at 90. As a tribute, this
year’s official Cannes poster is a picture of Varda
shooting her first feature, 1955′s “La Pointe Courte,” peering through a raised
camera while standing on the back of a man.
Whether Cannes has done
enough to adjust to the #MeToo era is sure to be a prominent subject throughout
the festival. This year’s selection committee, for the first time, was half
women. Still, some have criticized the festival’s selections —
about 25 percent directed by women, in total — as a slight and unconvincing
improvement. (By comparison, women directed 40 percent of the Berlin Film
Festival’s selections, and 46 percent of those at Sundance.)
“In the time that Agnès
Varda started, it was hard for women to be directors,” Thierry Fremaux,
artistic director of Cannes, told IndieWire. “More and more, it’s not easy, but
it’s easier. We have more female directors in films schools, in universities,
and in the industry. It’s logical that at a film festival like Cannes, we have
had more women over time, because we have paid more attention.”
Tradition and progress are
always in tension at Cannes. For the second straight year, this year’s
in-competition selections will feature no Netflix releases. Alfonso Cuarón’s
“Roma” was last year set to premiere at Cannes before French distributors —
aiming to preserve the country’s theatrical window — pushed the festival to
require that all films up for the Palme d’Or have a release planned in French
theaters. Netflix withdrew its films, including “Roma.” (This year, the
streamer does have one movie, “Wounds,” in the parallel section Directors’
Fortnight.)
Netflix could still be a
presence at Cannes’ film market, the world’s largest. Amazon Studios, which has
released its films first in theaters, will have the first streaming series to
debut at Cannes. The first two episodes of Nicolas Winding Refn’s 10-part crime
drama “Too Old to Die Young” will premiere at the festival.
But some things never
change. Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, will, as he’s done
for decades, be frantically riding a bicycle racing from one screening to the
next in search for the specialty distributor’s next acquisition — and,
hopefully, a seat. “There’s always discovery,” said Bernard.
Sony Pictures Classics has
two films in competition: Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” and Ira Sachs’
“Frankie.” Bernard believes that while the streamers may be deeper pocketed,
those pledging a theatrical release can offer a different kind of prominence.
“Everybody has a very
unique thing to offer. We have to offer a theatrical experience, a long run in
the theaters in the U.S., a long run in all of the various windows of the
movie, so that it reaches many more people over the long run,” said Bernard.
“Whereas a lot of the streaming services, it’s a one-and-done proposition.”
This year’s Cannes, where
Alejandro Iñárritu will preside over the jury that will decide the Palme d’Or,
has some of the Hollywood glitz that has perhaps gone wanting in recent years.
Twenty five
years after “Pulp Fiction” won the Palme d’Or, Quentin Tarantino will be back
on the Croisette with his 1969 Los Angeles saga “Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood,” with Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie. The Elton John
biopic “Rocketman” will splash down. “The Dead Don’t Die” will bring Bill
Murray, Tilda Swinton and Adam Driver back to Cannes.
Jarmusch has been coming
to Cannes since 1984′s “Stranger Than Paradise.” For him, the festival has been
a lifeblood to his artistic freedom.
“In the old days, it was
essential for me in my ability to sell the films,” said Jarmusch. “I would
often have them premiere there before all the world sales were made so that was
incredibly helpful which allowed me to continue as I have having creative
control over my films. Cannes is kind of wrapped up in that.”
Other Cannes regulars
include the Dardennes brothers (“The Young Ahmed”), Xavier Dolan (“Matthias and
Maxime”) and Terrence Malick (“A Hidden Life”), the notoriously press-shy
filmmaker whose last Cannes entry, “The Tree of Life,” won the Palme d’Or in
2011.
But part of this year’s
excitement is in the new faces. Among those in competition for the first time
are Mali-born Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables” and China’s Diao Yinan (“The Wild
Goose Lake”). In Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar, American filmmakers
Danielle Lessovitz (“Port Authority”), Annie Silverstein (“Bull”) and Michael
Covino (“The Climb”) will all be screening features for the first time in Cannes.
So will Robert Eggers,
whose 17th century puritan nightmare “The Witch” was an indie hit in 2015,
announcing the arrival of a filmmaker of meticulous period research and genre
ambition. His “The Lighthouse,” playing in Directors’ Fortnight, stars Robert Pattinson
and Willem Dafoe as turn-of-the-century lighthouse keepers. Eggers shot it in
35mm and in black and white using old lenses and old-looking filters.
“It takes place on a
remote and mysterious island off the coast of Maine but there’s a way in which
it should feel ‘once upon a time,’” said Eggers. “Even though it’s rusty,
dusty, crusty, musty and grounded in reality, it still has some things about it
that should feel like a storybook.”
Dappled in sunshine and splendor along the Mediterranean, Cannes can feel like a different kind of storybook, shining a beacon for cinema. The seas are often rough, and always changing.
72nd Cannes Film Festival official poster celebrates filmmaker pioneer Agnes Varda.
Cannes Celebrates Agnes Varda
Agnès, in the
bright sunlight.
All
the way up.
As high as she could go.
Perched on the shoulders of an impassive technician.
Clinging to a camera, which seems to absorb her entirely.
A young woman, aged 26, making her first film.
It is August 1954: we are in the Pointe Courte neighbourhood of Sète, in the
South of France. In the dazzling summer light, Silvia Monfort and Philippe
Noiret explore their fragile love, surrounded by struggling fishermen, bustling
women, children at play and roaming cats. Natural settings, lightweight camera,
shoestring budget: with La Pointe Courte (presented in
Cannes, in a screening on the rue d’Antibes, in 1955), the photographer from
Jean Vilar’s Théâtre National Populaire is paving the way for a young cinema,
of which she will remain the only female director.
Like a
manifesto, this still photo from the set sums up everything about Agnès Varda:
her passion, aplomb, and mischievousness. Ingredients of a free artist, forming
a recipe she never stopped improving. Her 65 years of creativity and
experimentation almost match the age of the Festival de Cannes, who celebrates
each year visions which reveal, dare and rise higher. And who remains keen to
remember.
As she liked
to point out, Agnès Varda is not a woman filmmaker: Agnès Varda is a filmmaker.
She often attended the Festival de Cannes to present her films : 13 times in
the Official Selection. She was also a Jury member in 2005 as well as President
of the Caméra d’or Jury in 2013. When she received the Honorary Palme d’or, in
2015, she evoked “resilience and endurance, more than honour”, and dedicated it
“to all the brave and inventive filmmakers, those who create original cinema,
whether it’s fiction or documentary, who are not in the limelight, but who
carry on.”
Avant-garde
but popular, intimate yet universal, her films have led the way. And so,
perched high on this pyramid, surveying the beach at Cannes, young and eternal,
Agnès Varda will be the inspirational guiding light of this 72nd edition of the Festival!
Many of President Donald Trump supporters know that he has heightened tensions with China by escalating his tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10% to 25%, but they don’t really know what that means. As some of felt the hit in their income, many haven’t but as it continues, they will begin noticing rising prices at Walmart and Target on everything from food to electronics.
As a tool of national
policy, tariffs had long been fading into history, a relic of the 19th and
early 20th centuries that most experts came to see as harmful to all nations
involved. Yet more than any other modern president, Trump has embraced tariffs as a punitive tool —
against Europe, Canada and other key trading partners but especially against China, the second-largest economy after the
U.S.
The Trump administration
asserts, and many independent analysts agree, that Beijing has deployed
predatory tactics to try to give Chinese companies an edge in such advanced
technologies as artificial intelligence, robotics and electric vehicles.
Beijing’s tactics, the U.S. contends, include hacking into U.S. companies’
computers to steal trade secrets, forcing foreign companies to turn over
sensitive technology in exchange for access to China’s markets and unfairly
subsidizing Chinese companies.
Trump has also complained
angrily about America’s gaping trade deficit with China for which he blames weak
and naive negotiating by previous U.S. administrations.
Last July, Trump began
gradually imposing tariffs
on Chinese imports. After Friday’s increase, the administration is now imposing
25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods. Beijing has counterpunched by
taxing $110 billion of American products, focusing on agricultural goods,
notably soybeans, in a calculated effort to inflict pain on Trump supporters in
the farm belt.
Here’s a close look at what tariffs
are and how they work:
WHAT EXACTLY ARE TARIFFS?
Tariffs are a tax on
imports. They are typically charged as a percentage of the transaction price
that a buyer pays a foreign seller. To use a simplistic example (ignoring
real-world minimum amounts subject to tariffs): Say an American retailer buys
100 garden umbrellas from China for $5 apiece — $500 total. And suppose the
U.S. tariff rate for the umbrellas is 6.5 percent. The retailer would have to
pay a $32.50 tariff on the shipment, thereby raising the total price from $500
to $532.50.
In the United States,
tariffs — sometimes also called duties or levies — are collected by Customs and
Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. Proceeds go
to the Treasury. The tariff rates are published by the U.S. International Trade
Commission in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which lists U.S. tariffs on
everything from dried plantains (1.4 percent) to parachutes (3 percent).
Sometimes, the U.S. will
impose additional tariffs on imports that it determines are being sold at
unfairly low prices or are being supported by foreign government subsidies.
WHAT ARE TARIFFS SUPPOSED TO
ACHIEVE?
Two things: Increase
government revenue. And protect domestic industries from foreign competition.
Before the federal income tax was established in 1913, tariffs were a big money
raiser for Washington. From 1790 to 1860, tariffs produced 90 percent of
federal revenue, according to Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College.
By contrast, tariffs in recent years have accounted for only about 1 percent of
federal revenue.
Tariffs are meant to raise
the price of imports or punish foreign countries for unfair trade practices,
like subsidizing their exporters and dumping their goods at unfairly low
prices. They discourage imports by making them costlier. They also reduce
pressure from foreign competition and make it easier for home-grown companies
to raise prices.
As global trade grew after
World War II, tariffs fell out of favor. The formation of the World Trade
Organization and the forging of trade deals like the North American Free Trade
Agreement reduced or eliminated tariffs. The average U.S. tariff is now one of
the lowest in the world: 1.6 percent, the same as the European Union’s, the Pew
Research Center reports.
ARE TARIFFS A SMART POLICY?
Most economists say no.
Tariffs raise the cost of imports for people and companies that need to buy
them. And by reducing competitive pressure, they give U.S. producers leeway to
raise prices, too. That’s good for those producers but bad for almost everyone
else.
Rising costs especially
hurt consumers and companies that rely on imported parts. Some U.S. companies
that buy steel, for example, complain that Trump’s tariffs on imported steel
leave them at a competitive disadvantage. Their foreign rivals can buy steel
more cheaply and offer lower-priced goods.
In 2002, President George
W. Bush’s administration placed tariffs on imported steel. A study financed by
steel-consuming businesses found that the tariffs cost 200,000 American jobs
that year.
More broadly, trade
restrictions make an economy less efficient. With lesser competition from
abroad, domestic companies lose the incentive to increase efficiency or to
focus on what they do best.
Ticketholders for the first commercial space flight should be getting excited as billionaire Richard Branson had gotten another step closer to space tourism. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is heading to court again for another tweet storm he created. This time he called the wrong man a ‘pedo.’
Space Tourism Moves Forward
Branson is moving Virgin Galactic’s winged passenger rocket and more than 100 employees from California to a remote commercial launch and landing facility in southern New Mexico, bringing his space-tourism dream a step closer to reality.
Branson said Friday at a
news conference that Virgin Galactic’s development and testing program has
advanced enough to make the move to the custom-tailored hangar and runway at
the taxpayer-financed Spaceport America facility near the town of Truth or
Consequences.
Virgin Galactic CEO George
Whitesides said a small number of flight tests are pending. He declined to set
a specific deadline for the first commercial flight.
An interior cabin for the company’s
space rocket is being tested, and pilots and engineers are among the employees
relocating from California to New Mexico. The move to New Mexico puts the
company in the “home stretch,” Whitesides said.
The manufacturing of the
space vehicles by a sister enterprise, The Spaceship Company, will remain based
in the community of Mojave, California.
Taxpayers invested over
$200 million in Spaceport America after Branson and then-Gov. Bill Richardson,
a Democrat, pitched the plan for the facility, with Virgin Galactic as the
anchor tenant.
Virgin Galactic’s
spaceship development has taken far longer than expected and had a major
setback when the company’s first experimental craft broke apart during a 2014
test flight, killing the co-pilot.
Branson thanked New Mexico
politicians and residents for their patience over the past decade. He said he
believes space tourism — once aloft — is likely to bring about profound change.
“Our future success as a
species rests on the planetary perspective,” Branson said. “The perspective
that we know comes sharply into focus when that planet is viewed from the black
sky of space.”
Branson described a vision
of hotels in space and a network of spaceports allowing supersonic,
transcontinental travel anywhere on earth within a few hours. He indicated,
however, that building financial viability comes first.
“We need the financial
impetus to be able to do all that,” he said. “If the space program is
successful as I think … then the sky is the limit.”
In February, a new version
of Virgin Galactic’s winged craft SpaceShipTwo soared at three times the speed
of sound to an altitude of nearly 56 miles (99 kilometers) in a test flight
over Southern California, as a crew member soaked in the experience.
On Friday, that crew
member, Beth Moses, recounted her voyage into weightlessness and the visual
spectacle of pitch-black space and the earth below.
“Everything is silent and
still and you can unstrap and float about the cabin,” she said. “Pictures do
not do the view from space justice. … I will be able to see it forever.”
The company’s current
spaceship doesn’t launch from the ground. It is carried under a special plane
to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,240 meters) before detaching and
igniting its rocket engine.
“Release is like freefall
at an amusement park, except it keeps going,” Moses said. “And then the rocket
motor lights. Before you know it, you’re supersonic.”
The craft coasts to the
top of its climb before gradually descending to earth, stabilized by
“feathering” technology in which twin tails rotate upward to increase drag on
the way to a runway landing.
Branson previously has
said he would like to make his first suborbital flight this year as one of the
venture’s first passengers on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon
landing on July 20. But he made no mention of timelines on Friday.
Pressed on the timeframe,
Whitesides said he anticipates the first commercial flight within a year.
Three people with future
space-flight reservations were in the audience.
“They’ve been patient
too,” Branson said. “Space is hard.”
Hundreds of potential
customers have committed as much as $250,000 up front for rides in Virgin’s
six-passenger rocket, which is about the size of an executive jet.
Space tourism has not been
a complete novelty since millionaire U.S. engineer Dennis Tito in 2001 paid $20
million to join a Russian space mission to the International Space Station.
Branson’s goal has been to “democratize” space by opening travel up to more and
more people.
The endeavor began in 2004
when Branson announced the founding of Virgin Galactic in the heady days after
the flights of SpaceShipOne, the first privately financed manned spacecraft
that made three flights into space.
Space sector analyst Adam
Jonas, a managing director of equity research at Morgan Stanley, said Branson’s
venture could have an outsized impact in the age of social media on how the
public visualizes space as a domain for scientific and commercial exploration.
“You bring them back to
earth and they explain what they saw — that’s a story, put through the velocity
of social media, people want to hear,” he said. “Sometimes you need some
distance to gain a perspective, seeing the earth from space, seeing how thin
that layer of atmosphere is that protects us.”
Branson’s plans have
gradually advanced amid a broader surge in private investment in space
technology with cost-saving innovations in reusable rockets and microsatellite
technology.
Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos
announced Thursday that his space company Blue Origin will send a robotic
spaceship to the moon with aspirations for another ship that could bring people
there along the same timeframe as NASA’s proposed 2024 return. Bezos has
provided no details about launch dates.
Elon Musk (left), Vernon Unsworth (right)
Elon Musk ‘pedophile’ comment trial
Tesla CEO
Elon Musk will have to go to trial to defend himself for mocking a British
diver as a pedophile in a verbal sparring match that unfolded last summer after
the underwater rescue of youth soccer players trapped in a Thailand cave.
A federal court judge in
Los Angeles set an Oct. 22 trial date in a Friday court filing that rejected
Musk’s attempt to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed by British
diver Vernon Unsworth.
Musk called Unsworth a
“pedo” in a July 15 post on this Twitter account after Unsworth, in an interview
with CNN, dismissed Musk’s attempts to help rescue the soccer players as a “PR
stunt.” Unsworth also derided
the submarine that Musk had built for a rescue mission, prompting Musk to lash
back on this Twitter account, which had 22.5 million followers at the time
Musk contended his insult
was protected from legal action, but the judge overseeing the case disagreed. Defamation
law doesn’t apply
to opinions or derogatory hyperbole, and Judge Wilson concluded
that Musk’s case would be stronger if he’d simply tweeted an insult. But Musk
“did not call [Unsworth] a ‘pedo guy’ and leave it there,” writes Wilson.
“Rather, he made follow-up statements indicating that he believed his
statements to be true.” That included the emails to BuzzFeed, where Musk
“purported to convey actual facts and even suggested that the BuzzFeed reporter
call people in Thailand to confirm his narrative.”
Unsworth is
seeking more than $75,000 in damages from Musk, a multibillionaire. The suit
also seeks a court order prohibiting Musk from making any further disparaging
comments.
This is the second time in
less than a year that Musk’s free-wheeling
comments on Twitter have saddled him with legal headaches.
Last year, Musk and Tesla reached a $40 million settlement of allegations that he misled investors with a tweet declaring he had secured financing for a buyout of the electric car maker. He then had to go to court earlier this year to defend himself against assertions that he had violated an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission about his tweeting.
Dominic Thiem might have ousted Roger Federer from the Madrid Open 2019 Friday, but Novak Djokovic ousted him the following day. Now he’ll face Stefanos Tsitsipas in the final. Nadal lost to Tsitsipas 4-6, 6-2, 3-6.
Djokovic got the win he needed to boost his confidence on clay. He defeated an in-form Dominic Thiem 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) Saturday to reach the Madrid Open final for the third time, while Kiki Bertens beat two-time Madrid champion Simona Halep 6-4, 6-4 to take the women’s title.
“Dominic is one of the
best tennis players in the world at this moment, especially on this surface, so
this was a very big win for me,” the top-ranked Djokovic said.
The fifth-seeded Thiem,
who beat Roger Federer in the quarterfinals, had won two straight against
Djokovic and was trying to make his third straight Madrid final following
losses to Rafael Nadal in 2017 and Alexander Zverev in 2018. The Austrian was
also attempting to become the first player to win three titles this season,
adding to triumphs in Indian Wells and Barcelona.
“I thought he was the
favorite coming into this match because of his win in Barcelona and the way he
played winning against Roger yesterday,” said Djokovic, who will face either
Nadal or Stefanos Tsitsipas, who play later Saturday.
It will be the second
final of the season for Djokovic, who began the year by winning the Australian
Open.
“I was still kind of
trying to find my best game on clay,” Djokovic said. “These are exactly the
matches that I need. I’m very, very pleased with this win.”
A victory on Sunday will
give Djokovic his 33rd Masters 1000 title, tying Nadal for most all time.
BERTENS WINS
Last year’s runner-up
Bertens defeated Halep for her second title of the year, adding to her victory
in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The seventh-ranked Dutch
became the first woman to win the Madrid title without dropping a set. She had
victories over three Grand Slam champions in the Spanish capital — Jelena
Ostapenko, Sloane Stephens and Petra Kvitova. Bertens lost to Kvitova in last
year’s final.
Halep, winner in Madrid in
2016 and 2017, lost the chance to take over the No. 1 ranking from Naomi Osaka.
DJOKOVIC ON TOP
Djokovic, who won in
Madrid in 2011 and 2016, had played only four sets in the Spanish capital this
week ahead of the semifinals. He didn’t play his quarterfinal match because
Marin Cilic withdrew with food poisoning.
Thiem got off to a good
start by breaking Djokovic in the third game of the match, but the Serb quickly
got back on serve and then cruised in the opening tiebreaker, dropping only two
points.
Thiem converted one of his
many break opportunities to go 4-2 ahead in the second set, but again Djokovic
quickly recovered, breaking back in the following game. The two exchanged two
more breaks late in the set, and Djokovic eventually prevailed in the deciding
tiebreaker.
“I think that to beat these players, Novak, or Rafa, you need to have this little luck, this momentum going for you, and that was not the case today,” Thiem said. “Some break points for me were a little bit unlucky and some of them I missed, which I usually don’t do.”
Rafael Nadal Beaten By Stefanos Tsitsipas
Rafael Nadal’s slump on clay continued with a 6-4, 2-6, 6-3
loss to ninth-ranked Stefanos Tsitsipas of Greece in the semifinals of the
Madrid Open on Saturday.
It was the third straight semifinal elimination for Nadal, adding to his
worst start to the clay swing since 2015.
Tsitsipas will try to win his third title of the year in a final against
top-ranked Novak Djokovic, who defeated Dominic Thiem 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) and will
have a chance to tie Nadal for the most titles in Master 1000 tournaments with
33.
In the women’s final, Kiki Bertens beat two-time Madrid champion Simona
Halep 6-4, 6-4.
Nadal, still seeking his first title of the season, had also failed to make
it to the final in Monte Carlo and Barcelona, tournaments he had won the last
three consecutive seasons.
The 20-year-old Tsitsipas converted on his fourth match point to close out
the victory against the second-ranked Nadal on the Magic Box center court.
Roger Federer Heading To Italian
Open 2019
Roger
Federer has added the Italian Open to his schedule.
A day after his three-set
loss to Dominic Thiem in the Madrid Open quarterfinals, Federer announced his
plans in an Instagram video on Saturday.
Federer says, “Hello
everybody. Just finished speaking to the team and happy to say I’m coming back
to Rome to play in Italy. Can’t wait. It’s so exciting. It’s been too long.
I’ll see you there. Ciao tutti. Bye bye.”
The Italian Open starts on
Sunday and Federer has a first-round bye as the No. 3 seed. He’ll open against
either 37th-ranked Frances Tiafoe or 75th-ranked Joao Sousa.
Federer is a
four-time runner-up at the Italian Open, which he’s never won, making it one of
the few significant trophies the 20-time Grand Slam winner hasn’t claimed.
He skipped the clay swing
the past two years to remain fit for the rest of the season. He decided to
return this year in preparation for his first French Open appearance since
2015.
New
mothers are going through a lot right now. Their whole world has turned
upside down – for the good. Now they are coming to terms with their new
life. Learning what their new normal is.
The
new mom has many needs at this time. Some of them she doesn’t even know
how to express. She has a lot of emotions going through her system. Wonder and excitement of a new baby.
Even
though you’ve planned for this baby and knew it was coming into your life –
you’re really not prepared for everything that entails. Especially, the lack of
sleep. Everyone talks about it, but until you’ve gone through it, you just don’t
realize how it takes a toll on your body, mind and soul.
Here are some perfect gift ideas for
new moms whether on Mother’s Day or any time of the year. You know she deserves
it:
1. Sleeping aids
New
moms are sleep deprived the first few years after they have a baby – especially
when the baby is a newborn. They nap when baby naps and then don’t sleep
that well even during the night. Always
keeping an ear out for when the baby needs them to get up and take care of
them.
Anything
to help new moms relax and sleep during the night will be appreciated.
Sleeping aids could be anything from masks
to white noise machines. Even lullabies for babies.
2. Pampering Products
New
mom bodies have gone through a huge change. Being able to pamper yourself
and appreciate the changes is essential for new moms to learn to love their new
self. Help them make this beautiful transition. You can give her lotions, bath and body spa sets, lavender pillows or
even a foot bath machine.
When
giving this type of present make sure you think about what stage the new mom is
at. She will not be able to use bath salts or bubble bath right after she
gives birth. But a soothing lotion would
be a welcomed gift.
3. Food Gifts
Any
type of food gift will not go to waste. Some days new moms struggle all
throughout the day and then when it comes to dinner – they are exhausted from
their new role.
Freezer
meals, a snack pack, an edible fruit bouquet or a gift basket full of food will come in handy
during these times. And let’s face it, as a new mom these days are often
when you first bring your baby home. Get
her something that will be used.
4. Personalized Gifts
As
a new parent she’ll be proud being a mom. She is sentimental and wants to
experience the joy of her new role. You can honor it by getting her a personalized gift.
There
are many options to choose from – picture frames with poems, birthstone
jewelry, blankets with their children’s name and birth date printed on them and
a hand print kit. This is the type of gift that will be cherished and
kept forever.
5. New Mom Mugs
If
your new mom is a coffee or tea drinker, she will enjoy getting a new mug to add to her collection. You
can get her one that has a fun saying like, “I’m a mom – what’s your
superpower?”
Or
there are several ways to add images to mugs. This is a thoughtful gift
that she will appreciate and cherish forever.
6. Inspirational Gifts
New
moms are going through a lot and sometimes she needs so inspiration. There are
plenty of ways to offer inspiration and
motivation.
You
can get her a book with inspirational stories, wall prints or a thoughtful
letter that you write. She will appreciate the thought that you took.
7. Baby Items
You
might not think this would be a good one, but her baby is growing and needs new
clothes often. Not only that, but the seasons change and with it she’ll
have to buy the baby clothes that match the weather. Getting a baby
outfit is a great gift to give.
Perhaps a new mom’s survival kit. Collect a whole bunch of different items that she’ll need – medicine, teething tablets, diapers, wipes, and teething toys are just a few.
8. Picture Frames
Another
wonderful present is a picture frame or a
digital one. Fill the frame with pictures of her new baby and she will enjoy
this thoughtful gift.
They
even have different shaped picture frames or cubes. Add variety, so that
she can take them to work and be able to look at them on her desk.
9. Flowers
Quite
honestly if you’ve got a baby, you’re probably not thinking about things like flowers. But for someone to give them
to you on Mother’s Day is a great gift.
They
have so many different colors and types of flowers. Purchase a set of
flowers that has a baby shoe as a vase to make it stand out.
10. Cozy Throw Blankets
Getting
up multiple times a night comes with the territory of having a baby. Sometimes
they’ll wake up and need the comfort of mom. Help her cuddle her new bundle of
joy with a throw blanket she can use
while rocking her baby.
As
you can see there are tons of options for what to get a new mom for Mother’s
Day. Experiencing her first one is a memory that she will always treasure.
As America continues figuring out what to do with social media platforms like Facebook, France is already stepping with new rules that CEO Mark Zuckerberg seems to be happy with. Co-founder Chris Hughes made news when he called for the company to be broken up as it’s gotten too big.
France welcomed Zuckerberg to Paris on Friday with the threat of sweeping new regulations against his social media behemoth — and Zuckerberg himself called that proposal a good thing.
With his
company under fire on multiple fronts, Zuckerberg came to France to show that
Facebook is working hard to limit violent extremism and hate speech shared
online.
But a group
of French
regulators and experts who spent weeks inside Facebook facilities in Paris,
Dublin and Barcelona as part of a pilot cooperation project say the company
still isn’t working hard enough on that front and governments need to step in.
Zuckerberg’s
visit came amid concerns about hate speech and disinformation around this
month’s May 23-26 European Parliament elections, which are taking place in all
of the European Union’s 28 nations.
Just before
Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, the 10 officials
released a report calling for laws allowing the French government to
investigate and fine social networks that don’t take responsibility for the
content that makes them money.
The
regulators recommended legally requiring a “duty of care” for big social
networks, meaning they should moderate hate speech published on their
platforms. The regulators say any new law should respect freedom of expression,
but did not explain how Facebook should balance those responsibilities in
practice.
To an
average user, the problem seems intractable. Mass shootings are being
live-streamed and online mobs are spreading rumors that lead to deadly
violence. Facebook is even inadvertently creating celebratory videos using
extremist content and auto-generating business pages for the likes of Islamic
State militants and al-Qaida.
The French
government wants the legislation to serve as a model for a Europe-wide
management of social networks — and Zuckerberg does, too.
“We can make
progress on enforcing the rules, but at some level the question of what speech
should be acceptable and what is harmful needs to be defined by regulation, by
thoughtful governments that have a robust democratic process,” Zuckerberg told
reporters after meeting with Macron at the Elysee presidential palace.
The ideas
about better regulation stemmed from a pilot project between Facebook and
France, and Zuckerberg said he’s “encouraged and optimistic” about the result.
He said
France’s proposals are preferable to the mass control in authoritarian
countries.
Other
Facebook executives also praised the French ideas as better for companies like
Facebook than tougher legislation in countries like Germany and Australia.
Germany introduced a law in 2017 requiring social media companies to censor
extremist content such as hate speech or face big fines while Australia passed
legislation in April that could result in social media executives being
imprisoned if they don’t quickly remove violent content.
The French
proposals still lacked crucial details and need to go through a legislative
process.
“It’s going
to be hard for us, there are going to be things in there we disagree with,
that’s natural,” Zuckerberg said. “But in order for people to trust the internet
overall and over time, there needs to be the right regulation put in place.”
The French
officials praised Facebook for hiring more people and using artificial
intelligence to track down and crack down on dangerous content. But they said
Facebook didn’t provide the French officials enough information about its
algorithms to judge whether they were working, and that a “lack of transparency
… justifies an intervention of public authorities.”
The
regulators acknowledged that their research didn’t address violent content
shared on private chat groups or encrypted apps, or on groups like 4chan or
8chan, where criminals, extremists and those concerned about privacy are
increasingly turning to communicate.
Facebook
said Zuckerberg was in France as part of meetings around Europe to discuss
future regulation of the internet.
Next week,
the leaders of France and New Zealand will meet tech leaders in Paris for a
summit seeking to ban acts of violent extremism and terrorism from being shown
online.
Facebook has
faced multiple challenges over privacy and security lapses and accusations of
endangering democracy — and it came under criticism this week from its own
co-founder, Chris Hughes.
Hughes said
in a New York Times opinion piece that it’s time to break up Facebook. He says
Zuckerberg has turned the social media giant into an innovation-suffocating
monopoly and lamented the company’s “slow response to Russian agents, violent
rhetoric and fake news.”
Time To Break Up Facebook
Facebook
co-founder Chris Hughes says it’s time to break
up the social media behemoth.
In a New York Times opinion piece published
Thursday, Hughes said CEO Mark Zuckerberg has turned Facebook into an
innovation-suffocating monopoly.
Hughes
called Zuckerberg’s power “unprecedented and un-American” and said his
co-founder’s focus on growth “led him to sacrifice security and civility for
clicks.”
Hughes
roomed with Zuckerberg at Harvard and left Facebook in 2007 to campaign for
Barack Obama. Hughes said he no longer has any ownership in Facebook or any
other social media company.
“I feel a
sense of anger and responsibility,” he wrote, lamenting the company’s “slow
response to Russian agents, violent rhetoric and fake news.”
Facebook has
been under fire for an ever-expanding list of privacy and security lapses and for
endangering democracy by failing to effectively combat the proliferation of
misinformation and hate speech by extremist groups.
Facebook’s
chief spokesman, Nick Clegg, responded to Hughes’ criticisms with a statement
saying, “you don’t enforce accountability by calling for the breakup of a
successful American company. Accountability of tech companies can only be
achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet.
That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for.”
Zuckerberg
has been vague, however, on exactly what kind of regulation he favors.
Critics
including Hughes believe Facebook has acquired too much power to continue
intact. Hughes’ call echoes a proposal by Democratic
presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, who also wants to splinter Amazon and
Google into separate companies.
In the
opinion piece, Hughes called Facebook a monopoly that should be forced to spin
off WhatsApp and Instagram, with future acquisitions banned for several years.
Hughes also
called for a new federal agency to regulate tech companies whose “first mandate
is to protect privacy.”
Debate has
begun on a federal privacy protection bill. California has a law that takes
effect in January and European Union privacy rules are now a year old.
Meanwhile,
Facebook faces a fine of as much as $5 billion
from the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations. But critics say the
amount is but a slap on the wrist for a company that had $55.8 billion in
revenue last year.
Hughes says
he liquidated his Facebook shares in 2012, the year he became publisher of The
New Republic. He said he does not invest in any social media companies.
Last year,
Hughes published a book advocating a universal basic income. In 2017, Forbes
put his net worth at more than $400 million.
Rebel Wilson was able to use her law degree (yes, she has earned one) to keep her latest film “The Hustle” from getting that dreaded ‘R’ rating that can keep some people away. Even though the humor is rather tame, you realize that Hollywood still views female comedy much differently from men’s comedy. A man can use many forms of expression to discuss his ‘junk,’ but when women do, the MPAA people get squirmy. Sadly, “The Hustle” isn’t a very good film, and after watching it, I was left wondering was it all worth fighting for, but when you’re the producer, it’s your baby, and you’ll fight hard for it as Wilson did.
Wilson had to fight to make sure she and Anne Hathaway could make the same kind of risque jokes their male counterparts do and not have their new film “The Hustle” get classified as R-rated.
Wilson, who is a producer and stars in the “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” remake, fought back last year when the film received an R-rating. The rating was appealed, and “The Hustle” is in theaters now as a PG-13 release. I would suggest renting this one instead. I’m a huge Rebel Wilson fan, but I can’t honestly say with good conscience that you should spend your money to see “The Hustle.” Wait until it hits Netflix in a couple of months and judge for yourself.
“I felt like
it was so unfair to force cuts of jokes from coming out of our two mouths when
much ruder content was in male-driven PG-13 films,” Wilson told media outlets.
“When I put my arguments forth, analyzing other male-driven films like
‘Anchorman’ or last year’s ‘Jumanji’ you can see that you know what’s in our
film is probably less than what’s in some of those male-driven comedies.”
Hathaway
agreed, saying the entire culture of a film is more important than just casting
actresses in starring roles.
“It’s not
enough to just put two women in the in the lead of the film. Then the culture
that surrounds those two women told us, ‘Oh you can’t be funny in that way,’”
Hathaway said. “Even though there was a norm established … in the world
saying when men say these sort of things it’s appropriate for teenagers. But
when women say these sort of things, no that’s unexpected that’s too, that’s
too new. That’s too different.”
Wilson said
the film is more than just a gender-flipped remake of the 1988 comedy starring
Michael Caine and Steve Martin. It gave her and Hathaway a chance to tackle
contemporary issues facing women.
“The idea
just seems really justified right now … with the Me Too movement. This wasn’t
just a case of, ‘Oh let’s just gender flip ‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,’” Wilson
said. “This was a case of, well oh yeah, it really does make sense that now
women can get back at dirty rotten men who have been conning them for years.”
Despite
tackling systemic issues women face, both Hathaway and Wilson say “The Hustle”
remains a broad comedy.
Honestly, the movie’s a classic so you’re not going to be better,” she
said of “Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels.” “And I have to say, with “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” they were playing into women’s romantic ideas about men
and they were kind of taking advantage of silly women — we’re taking advantage
of men who have actively harmful ideas of what women are. So I do think maybe,
in that sense, it’s a little more pointed.”
“I’m so
happy right now to put something light out into the world, to put something out
there that you can just laugh,” Hathaway said. “Grab your favorite people and
go and just get that warm feel good feeling.”
“Sometimes
… movies have more serious messages and this definitely has a few subtle, you
know, female empowerment messages, but not so subtle, I guess.”
“But it’s
all within like the world of fun,” Hathaway added.
“Right now we’re in a moment where [women] are dressing for ourselves,
but I know when I first started I thought I had to dress in a way that was more
polished and feminine,” she explained. “And the way I really liked to dress was
just more for myself. But now we’re able to just dress much more in the way
that we all want.”
Most people only know how to go to YouTube to use the play and stop button in the video player for watching movies. There is more to it than knowing these two functions. YouTube is like a complex video application equipped with a comprehensive range of functions for watching and posting videos. It is up to you to go play around with these functionalities to learn them.
Learning these YouTube hacks will
make you an advanced user and improve your user experience. The following are 7
hacks you should learn to use on YouTube.
Convert a Video to GIF
It would be a good idea to convert a big movie into a GIF and then download to your computer instead of downloading it directly in the traditional video format. To convert your movie to GIF, just do a quick search on Google with ‘convert video to gif’ and you’ll find plenty of free sites to do that..
Share a Video Starting at a Specified Time
Did you know you can share a
video starting at a certain time? To do so, you will have to click the Share
button below the video player. When a window pop up, check the Start at
checkbox at the bottom and enter the start time in hours: minutes: seconds. You
can also pause the video at the start at the time and then click the Share
button so that the field will be auto-filled with the start time. It will
display a share link which allows the video to start at the specified time.
Accessing a Transcript in a YouTube Video
YouTube automatically generates a
transcript for every video that is uploaded. So, if you can’t hear something
clear in the video and want to know the actual word that is spoken, simply
click on the three dots button under the video player and choose Open
Transcript. The transcript will appear on the right of the video player along
with the time in which the words are spoken. This is also a great way for you
to get a free transcript for your video in case you don’t want to hire a
transcription service. You can go through the generated transcript to make
edits and then re-upload it to your YouTube video.
Create a Playlist of Your Favorite Videos
On YouTube, you can create a
playlist of your favourite videos so that you don’t have to keep going to your
account history to search for them. If you want to create a playlist, visit the
page of the video you want to add and click the + button to select the playlist
you want to add the video. You can manage your playlist from your YouTube account.
The playlist can be used for saving videos that you want to watch later.
Remove Ads in Videos
YouTube always display ads in the video which can be annoying to some users. There are many ways to not see the ads such as skip ads, click the small x button, click the I don’t wish to see this ad again and fill out a questionnaire or subscribe to the YouTube Red membership. You can also install a third party ad blocker software like AdGuard to block all ads in the videos. It is easy to learn how to stop pop ups with the AdGuard programme. When you launch the software, you immediately know how to use it. Look to the left and click on Ad Blocker and you will find a list of different types of filters where you can enter URL you don’t want to block ad.
Create a Custom URL
YouTube allows selected members
to create a custom URL for the videos. Some of the requirements you need to fulfil
are having 100 subscribers, an account is at least 30 days old, photo uploaded
in profile and art uploaded in your channel. If you meet the requirements, you
can click on Advanced in your account settings. There is a prompt that will ask
you to claim your custom URL. It will require you to agree to a term of
service. There is no way to change your URL afterwards so make sure you confirm
it is the URL you want before you click the Change URL button.
Add Clickable CTA in Your Video
YouTube allows you to add
clickable call to actions links in your video. To do this, you will have to use
the built-in video editor to add an end screen. In your account, go to Video
Manager>Edit> Edit Screen & Annotations. In the editor, you can
choose from different end screen templates. You can customize where you want to
send the viewers by clicking on the Add element button.
While “Iron Man 3” may have gotten hate from some Marvel fans, the way that is spun the Mandarin character around created quite a shift in how they would be approaching supervillains. If you look at how the box office numbers jumped in the films coming after “Iron Man 3” more fans proved to like it. Many thought that some of the weakest aspects of their films were its villains even though they were played by amazing actors like Tim Roth and Christopher Eccleston. It wasn’t the acting that was the problem, it’s that the Marvel villains weren’t nearly as well developed so they were less memorable.
Nearly all Marvel fans would agree that Iron Man’s arch-villain in the comics is The Mandarin. An Asian villain, presumably Chinese (unless Disney is afraid that would offend China which would block it from that lucrative market). So in this racially-sensitive society featuring a stereotype character is a no-no. The Mandarin in the comics is as stereotypical as you can get from his name alone. So Marvel/Disney needed to get around that and maybe mix in some real-world issues like terrorism and extremism. And despite the idea of aliens existing after the first Avengers film, Marvel still went for the more grounded approach. Thus ticking off fans.
I think most
of us can agree that “Iron Man 3’s” Mandarin turning point created the more
developed and interesting villain in the MCU. Would we have gotten such great
rounded out rivals like Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan) or the Vultue (Michael
Keaton). These were villains who we understand and we knew what their
motivations were. While having a villain be a villain works fine in horror
film, it doesn’t work in Marvel’s world. We fans demand a lot, and that demand
has really given us some great films all the way up to “Avengers: Endgame.”
Marvel, you can thank us with more great films.
Yes, I know
that partway through “Iron Man 3” we found out that Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was
a fraud (he was actually Trevor Slattery, a drunken Brit actor hired by Aldrich
Killian (Guy Pearce) to take on a terrorist person to mask his illegal human
experiments.
Interestingly, the Mandarin didn’t end there as in “Thor: The Dark World” blu-ray, Slattery does come face to face with the actual Mandarin in a high-security prison. This Mandarin was not liking what Slattery has been doing with his reputation.
It might be
hard to remember, but Iron Man wasn’t even one of the bigger Marvel superheroes
making the Mandarin just as unknown.
So, who is The Mandarin exactly apart from the character we’ve seen in Iron Man 3? He’s a powerful villain of descended from Genghis Khan. He would probably be just one of many Asian warlords if not for his Ten Rings of Power which are alien in origin that he acquired from a crashed alien ship. Asian warlord and ten alien rings. The primary ideas for The Mandarin. If today’s audience ever saw the 60s cartoon, a whole lot of people would be offended. So in “Iron Man 3,” we get Sir Ben Kingsley. A Caucasian version of the villain apparently invested in oriental culture. Good enough. He was seen wearing ten rings. Correct so far and his portrayal before the second act was very convincing. Great. Then we find out he was nothing more than a goofy actor hired to portray the part. A great twist for casual audiences but terribly disappointing for those in the know.
Looking back now, I’ll admit to being one of the disappointed fans and that the film was somehow Disneyfied when they involved a child in Tony Stark’s adventure. But Iron Man 3 was entertaining at best and it has grown on me. As a consolation to fans, Marvel Studios gave us a short film called All Hail the King (above) where Ben Kingsley’s character was freed from jail by the men of the real Mandarin. The follow-up to this remained in limbo for years, perhaps to be forgotten.
The real
news here however, is that we will ‘eventually’ get a real Mandarin according
to Marvel Studios big boss Kevin Feige. He may make an appearance somewhere
during the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Given that aliens are
an established fact, The Mandarin’s alien rings no longer seem outlandish and
if Marvel plays its cards right, the racial stereotype should no longer matter.
Besides, why not call an Asian villain, The Mandarin?
Feige confirmed that Slattery’s face to face with the Mandarin is canon and the real one is waiting to strike back. With Iron Man gone, who exactly would the Mandarin fight again. Maybe he’ll play a part in “Shang-Chi,” Marvel’s first Asian starring superhero film. We’ve heard it rumored that Mandarin could be Shang-Chi’s daddy. This coming together makes the most sense bringing those Ten Rings that first appeared in “Iron Man” into that film.
I’m sure I’m
not alone in this but, isn’t it a bit late? The Mandarin is Iron Man’s
arch-villain and Iron Man is no longer with us unless they have an idea for a
replacement. Not pushing through with “Iron Man 4” during Phase 3 was a missed
opportunity. Then again, the way “Iron Man 3” ended, they seem to have really
planned to cap off a trilogy.
It will take
some work for Marvel to approach the original Mandarin in today’s hypersensitive
world, but I have to give “Iron Man 3” their due for giving a deconstructed
look at the character along with the stereotypes expected from movie
terrorists.
The 2019 Madrid Open just lost Roger Federer in the quarterfinals while a struggling Rafael Nadal is pushing forward against Stan Wawrinka looking to hit the semi-finals. Nadal did beat Wawrinka 6-1, 6-2 moving him into the semi-finals against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Roger
Federer wasted two match points in a 3-6, 7-6 (11), 6-4 loss to Dominic Thiem
in the quarterfinals of the Madrid Open on Friday.
The
fifth-seeded Thiem outlasted Federer in the second-set tiebreaker and broke him
twice in the third set to close out the match in more than two hours.
Thiem, the
runner-up in Madrid the last two seasons, will next face top-ranked
Novak Djokovic, who didn’t have to play his quarterfinal after Marin Cilic
withdrew because of food poisoning.
Federer had
saved two match points himself in a difficult three-set
win over Gael Monfils on Thursday. The Madrid Open was his first clay-court
tournament in three years.
The
fourth-seeded Federer skipped the clay swing the past two seasons to remain fit
for the rest of the season. He decided to return this year in preparation for
his first French Open appearance since 2015.
Federer was
trying to win his third Madrid title, and first since 2012. He has already won
hard-court titles this season in Dubai and Miami.
Thiem has a
chance to win his third title of the year after victories in Barcelona and
Indian Wells, where he defeated Federer in a three-set final.
On the
women’s side, Simona Halep made it back to the Madrid final for the first time
since 2017 with a 6-2, 6-7 (2), 6-0 win over unseeded Belinda Bencic.
The French
Open champion can surpass Naomi Osaka for the No. 1 ranking if she wins
Saturday’s final in the Spanish capital.
The other
semifinal will be played between Sloane Stephens and Kiki Bertens, last year’s
runner-up.
The
37-year-old Federer got off to a great start against Thiem at the Magic Box
center court, breaking the Austrian’s serve early and cruising to a first-set
win. He squandered five break points in the second, and then had match points
at 8-7 and 10-9 in the tiebreaker before Thiem forced the deciding set by
converting his sixth set point.
Thiem broke
Federer for the first time in the third game of the third set, converting on
his ninth break opportunity of the match. Federer got back on serve at 4-4, but
started his next game 0-40 and couldn’t recover. Thiem then served out for the
victory, converting on his second match point.
Thiem has
won the last two matches he played against Djokovic, who got the day off
because of Cilic’s withdrawal.
“It was
supposed to be definitely a good match,” said Djokovic, who has played only
four sets this week. “I went back on the court, trained for another hour and
got a good sweat in. Happy that I’m going to be fresh for my semifinal.”
The
top-seeded Serb is seeking a third Madrid Open title, and his second of the
season after winning the Australian Open.
Rafael Nadal Going Strong: Madrid Open Quarter Finals
Rafael Nadal
was concerned going into his first match at the Madrid Open, but he’s already
into his quarter-final match against Stan Wawrinka, so all is well in Rafa
land.
“Personally,
I’m feeling very well, which is the most important thing besides anything else.
And from
that base, I think that I can achieve anything, as I said yesterday, I don’t
need to repeat it again. First of all, you have to be good emotionally. You need
to have the energy to be able to go forward. Right now I have it, I have the
joy, I have the energy to be able to do it.
And after
all, you have to go through a process, you need to give yourself some time. I’m
not a big believer that things click night to day. I think that things change
step by step and more when you come from a complicated process like the one
that I have experienced.
And for me,
there is a really key thing, which is stability. I think that I have again the
stability. I have been able to play two matches pretty solid. I haven’t done
super good things, but I haven’t committed any errors.
This is the
base of my game. From that base, I have to just keep on going, keep on
improving, keep going ahead, keep adding ingredients to the game I have right
now, which is quite good. If I manage to add the proper ingredients quickly, I
will be ready to compete for both this week and next week in Rome, too.”
He lost
practice time ahead of the tournament because of a stomach virus and didn’t
know exactly how his body would react when he stepped onto the “Magic Box”
center court on Wednesday.
But despite
the lack of preparation and the physical toll of the illness, Nadal cruised to
a 6-3, 6-3 win over Canadian teenager Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the third
round in the Spanish capital.
Playing only
a few days after falling ill, Nadal lost only four points on his serve in the
first set and broke Auger-Aliassime three times in the second.
“I’ve had
this stomach virus for a few days so this was a very important match for me,”
the second-ranked Spaniard said. “I’ve been improving but obviously the body
remains a bit debilitated for a while. I’m very happy with the victory. It was
very important.”
Nadal is
trying to rebound from consecutive eliminations in the semifinals of both Monte
Carlo and Barcelona, which marked his worst start to the clay-court season in
four years.
“The
important thing is to win, you know, especially given what’s happened in the
last three days,” he said. “In general, it’s a day to be very satisfied, very
happy.”
A five-time
champion in Madrid, Nadal will next face American Frances Tiafoe, who defeated
Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
“He is
playing really well,” Nadal said of Tiafoe. “He has that drive and energy and it
will be a good test for me and an opportunity for me to play a tough match and
to keep improving.”
The
18-year-old Auger-Aliassime is having his breakthrough season on tour, having
moved to 30th in the rankings after reaching the final in Rio and the semifinals
in Miami.
He converted
on his only break opportunity of the match late in the second set, but Nadal
broke right back to close out the match at the “Magic Box” center court. The
17-time Grand Slam champion converted four of his 10 break opportunities, with
the last one coming on his sixth-match point of the final game.
Earlier,
Juan Martin Del Potro squandered a match point in a 6-3, 2-6, 7-5 loss to Laslo
Djere in his second tournament since injuring his knee in October. Del Potro
converted only two of his 11 break opportunities, failing to capitalize on the
match point at 5-4 in the final set. The Argentine had last played in Delray
Beach in February, losing in the quarterfinals.
Stan
Wawrinka defeated Guido Pella 6-3, 6-4 and will face Kei Nishikori, who got
past Bolivian qualifier Hugo Dellien 7-5, 7-5.
Fabio
Fognini beat John Millman 6-2, 6-2, while Gael Monfils edged Marton Fucsovics
1-6, 6-4, 6-2. Estoril Open champion Stefanos Tsitsipas defeated Adrian
Mannarino 6-2, 7-5.
On the
women’s side, top-ranked Naomi Osaka reached the quarterfinals with a
straight-set win over Aliaksandra Sasnovich and will next face Belinda Bencic,
who dropped only two games in her victory over Kateryna Kozlova.
“I’m at a
really good place right now,” Osaka said. “I feel like I’m having fun playing
tennis again, which is always a good thing for me and I always play well if I
have that mentality.”
Sloane
Stephens needed three sets to defeat Saisai Zheng, while third-seeded Simona
Halep routed Viktoria Kuzmova 6-0, 6-0.
“I think
everything went very well for me to today,” said Halep, a two-time champion in
Madrid. “I felt the ball, every single shot.”
In college, I stood on the frontlines fighting for women’s rights never thinking that there would come a time when they would actually be in danger. We felt safe knowing that the Supreme Court had passed Roe v. Wade so, we as women, had a say over our bodies. Now, men in power have decided to force the Supreme Court’s hand on Roe v. Wade with the ‘heartbeat’ bill that is growing steadily in power.
Whether you are for or against abortion, this isn’t what this case is about. It is about having the right over our own bodies. If this was a law telling men what they could and couldn’t do with their bodies, do you really think it would get this far?
Here’s everything you need to know in case you’ve been distracted.
The bills
prohibit abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. But reproductive
rights advocates and doctors say the laws, which prohibit abortion before many
women know they are pregnant, amount to a near-total ban on the procedure.
“It’s
basically a forced pregnancy bill. It’s a health care ban bill,” said Dr.
Krystal Redman, the executive director of Spark Reproductive Justice Now, a group that
works on reproductive rights and other issues for women of color and queer and
trans people in the South.
The bill
also includes a penalty for those who perform abortions of up to 10 years in
prison. It doesn’t explicitly exempt women who perform their own abortions with
drugs, leading to speculation about whether they would also be subject to
criminal charges. Some have suggested that it could even lead to murder
charges for women who have abortions — but other experts say the consequences
are far from clear.
The rise of
heartbeat bills in 2019 is a sign of where the abortion debate is today. A few
years ago, such bans were considered too extreme even by some anti-abortion
groups, said Rachel Sussman, the national director of state policy and advocacy
at Planned Parenthood Action Fund.
But with Donald Trump in the White House and Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, abortion opponents around the country are eager to challenge Roe v. Wade. Banning abortion just six weeks into pregnancy may be a way to do that.
Heartbeat bills ban abortion very early in pregnancy
Heartbeat
bills around the country are based on model legislation written by Faith2Action, which bills itself as “the nation’s
largest network of pro-family groups.”
“While not
the beginning of life, the heartbeat is the universally recognized indicator of
life,” the group states in an FAQ on
its website.
The model
legislation says that if a patient is seeking an abortion, the doctor must use
“standard medical practice” to determine whether the fetus has a heartbeat. If
a heartbeat is present, the doctor is prohibited from performing an abortion,
unless it is necessary to save the mother’s life or “to prevent a serious risk
of the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
The
legislation does not include an exception for rape or incest. “No other law
allows for the killing of an innocent child for the crime of his or her
father,” the Faith2Action FAQ states.
The bills do
not cite a specific gestational time limit for abortions, which has led to some
debate. Reproductive rights groups say the bills amount to a ban on abortion at
about six weeks’ gestation. That’s when a doctor can detect “a flicker of cardiac
motion” on a transvaginal ultrasound, according to Dr. Catherine Romanos, a
doctor who performs abortions in Ohio and a fellow with the group Physicians
for Reproductive Health.
Six weeks’
gestation is just shortly after most pregnant women miss their first period,
meaning many women don’t know they are pregnant at this stage.
Some
reproductive rights groups argue that the term “heartbeat” bill is a misnomer,
since the fetus does not yet have a heart at six weeks’ gestation — the cardiac
activity detectable at that time comes from tissue called the fetal pole,
as OB-GYN Jen Gunter has written. Planned Parenthood refers
to the bills as six-week bans.
Meanwhile,
some supporters of the bills argue that they might allow abortion slightly
later in pregnancy than six weeks. The Ohio heartbeat bill, signed into law in April,
does not specifically require a transvaginal ultrasound, said Jamieson Gordon,
director of communications and marketing at Ohio Right to Life. Some doctors,
she said, might choose to perform an abdominal ultrasound instead, and such a
test cannot detect a heartbeat until around eight to 12 weeks’ gestation.
In Ohio, the
precise requirements for determining the presence of a heartbeat will be up to
the Ohio Department of Health. But, said Romanos, the law, which is slated to
take effect later this year if not challenged by the court, will likely ban
nearly all abortions in the state.
“There will
a small minority of people who know their body really well” and immediately
recognize they are pregnant who will be able to get an abortion under the new
law, Romanos said. They will also need to be able to travel to a clinic and get
together the money for the procedure within the time allowed. The law carves
out an exception if a patient’s life is in danger, but not for a pregnancy
resulting from rape or incest.
In all other
cases, abortion will be illegal in Ohio. “It’ll be really devastating to
people,” Romanos said. “It’s patient abandonment.”
The recently
signed Georgia law does include exceptions for
rape and incest, as well as for medical emergencies. But the law will hurt patients
in Georgia, which has some of the highest rates of maternal
mortality in the country, said Redman, the Spark
Reproductive Justice Now executive director.
“People are
dying because of the maternal health here in Georgia,” she said. “The fact that
we’re eliminating a health care option, a service, will do a disservice to
Georgians,” especially black, queer, and low-income people who are
disproportionately likely to seek abortion care.
Unlike other
Georgia laws, the bill doesn’t include language explicitly exempting women who
terminate their own pregnancies from the penalties meant to apply to doctors.
Elizabeth Nash, senior state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, said
it wasn’t clear if women would ultimately be prosecuted. Legal challenges once
the ban is implemented in January 2020 will determine the reach of the bill,
she said.
“[The bill]
was set up thinking you would have some sort of physician person, either
providing a pregnant person with medicine or some medication or doing surgical
abortions,” she said. “It doesn’t seem to take into account necessarily what
happens if the patient self-manages an abortion.”
Some have
suggested even bigger ramifications: Because the bill gives “full legal
recognition” to “unborn children,” Mark Joseph Stern wrote for Slate, the law
could allow women who terminate pregnancies to be charged with murder.
Nash said it
may be too early to make these kinds of assumptions. “It seems to be a stretch
to what’s actually in the law and I’m really confused as to whether or not this
would be possible,” she said.
The bills have proliferated since Trump took office. Their
backers are aiming at Roe
v. Wade.
The first
bill based on Faith2Action’s model legislation was introduced in Ohio in 2011.
It didn’t pass. While similar laws successfully passed in North Dakota and Arkansas in
2013, heartbeat bills were not embraced by all anti-abortion groups.Ohio Right to Life was neutral on the
issue until 2018, preferring to back less sweeping restrictions like a 20-week ban. “We are proponents of the incremental approach,” Gordon
said.
But since
the election of Trump, who promised to appoint Supreme Court justices to
overturn Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion groups have been backing more restrictive laws.
“State
legislators around the country are taking signals from Trump being in the White
House and Kavanaugh being on the court that being radical and pushing
legislation that really puts lives and health at risk is something they should
be pursuing,” Sussman said.
“Heartbeat”
bills began to proliferate at the state level last year, with Iowa passing its version in May.
And for Ohio
Right to Life, the incremental approach had been so successful — the 20-week
ban and a ban on a common second-trimester
abortion method recently became law — that a heartbeat bill
was now “the next incremental step,” Gordon said. The group threw its support
behind the bill in December.
Similar
bills have passed in Kentucky and Mississippi in recent months. The North Dakota, Arkansas, Iowa,
and Kentucky bans
have been blocked by courts, and Mississippi’s ban is being challenged.
The laws in Ohio and
Georgia are likely to see legal challenges as well.
But a court
battle is precisely what some supporters of the bills are hoping for. Some
legislators backing the heartbeat bills have said they see them as potential
challenges to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that prohibits states from
banning abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb. A heartbeat bill,
whether it bans abortion at six or 12 weeks, falls well before that limit.
Sponsors of
the Iowa law were explicit about their desire to challenge Roe. “The science and technology have
significantly advanced since 1973,” said Iowa state Rep. Shannon
Lundgren, the floor manager of the bill, in 2018. “It is time
for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue of life.”
In Ohio,
“we’re just trying to pass pro-life legislation that will save lives,” Gordon
said, “but also if it ends up being a good vehicle to overturn Roe v.
Wade, we would be
thrilled about that as well.”
Meanwhile,
heartbeat bills may already be affecting patients, even though none have
actually taken effect.
“I think people are already confused,” Romanos said. “I worry that there are patients that heard about the bans passing and now just aren’t seeking care that they otherwise would seek because they think abortion is illegal already.”
