Page 55 – Movie TV Tech Geeks News

Legendary producer Irwin Winkler talks ‘A Life In Movies,’ ‘Rocky,’ and ‘Creed’

Curt Johnson

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May 7, 2019

Legendary producer Irwin Winkler talks ‘A Life In Movies,’ ‘Rocky,’ and ‘Creed’

Anyone who calls themselves a film geek will surely recognize the name of legendary producer Irwin Winkler. Or at least, they will have seen one or more of the many blockbuster movies he has brought to the big screen. He’s a rarity in the industry as he’s lasted over fifty-years outlasting many of his friends and enemies. Just a few of his films include “Rocky,” “Goodfellas,” “Raging Bull,” “The Right Stuff,” ″The Wolf of Wall Street,” and “Creed.”

His films have been nominated for fifty-two Academy Awards (five for Best Picture), and they have won 12. That’s not bad odds when it comes to the Oscars. Usually people in the industry write the big autobiography when they’re career is waning, but Winkler recently had another hit with “Creed II,” and the Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” which brings the gang back together. Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci star in this upcoming Netflix major release.

For all those struggling writer/director/producers out there that have been rejected time after time, Winkler feels your pain and recalls the time he brought a promising script to United Artists. They hated virtually everything about it.

Why should they make a film about a broken-down boxer and his homely girlfriend? There surely was no international market for it. Did it really have to be shot in Philadelphia? And did it have to star some guy named Sylvester? Having someone as determined as Stallone who insisted on directing the script that he had written gave plenty of reason to keep pushing hard.

Winkler insisted. “That’s when you make a movie — when everyone tells you no,” he says, laughing. “If you follow the rules of commerciality, you’re never going to succeed. You’ve got to try something different and always experiment.”

Winkler showed Hollywood that he knew what he was talking about when “Rocky” won the 1977 Oscar for best picture.

Winkler gives an honest look at his best and worst movies in a truly engaging new memoir that I dare you to be able to easily put down, “A Life in Movies: Stories from 50 Years in Hollywood” (Abrams Press).

His book reveals those juicy behind-the-scenes nuggets that film buffs like me love learning about. Naturally, there were some things we were dying to ask Winkler about. He was kind enough to answer them. I was fortunate to have met Winkler back in 2004 when I was developing a project about the “West Memphis Three,” and he was extremely supportive and helped with opening some doors that I would not have otherwise been able to get through. I was surprised that he took my cold call and spent twenty minutes giving me some of the best advice about the business that has saved me a lot of lost time. Being able to interview him about his life in entertainment is a wonderful come back around.

JUST HOW DID HE FILL THE SEATS FOR ROCKY’S FIGHTS

“We couldn’t afford to bring in extras and pay them a regular fee. So I made a deal with the head of the extras guild in Los Angeles. I made a deal that we would hire 25, maybe 30, members of the guild every day. He gave us the OK to fill up the arena with mannequins, and he would allow us to put electric cigarettes in their mouths. I think I said I thought it would cost us more money to build mannequins. Couldn’t we just take people off the street? He was very nice. He said, ‘You’re not going to find people off the street just to sit in an arena.’ He said, ‘You should find someplace where people want to get out.’ I tried to think of something. I said, ‘You know what? Assisted living homes! They got nothing to do all day. They can come and see a movie being shot, which is always a treat. And in order to keep them in their seats, we’ll auction off a television set every hour.’ The only problem is at 4 o’clock, they needed their meds. So we had to send them back.”

IT’S TRUE, ‘CREED’ DOES HAVE TWO ENDINGS

“The studio, when they green-lit the film, did it with the understanding that Creed would win the big fight at the end. Obviously, that’s what the fans would be cheering for. We kind of went along with that, although we always felt that one of the reasons ‘Rocky’ worked was because he lost the fight at the end but he won his self-respect and he won the girl. So as we went along, Ryan Coogler, the director, kept saying, ‘You know, maybe he should lose the fight because basically it’s more honest.’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ The studio said, ‘Wait a minute. That’s not what we agreed to.’ So we said, ‘OK, we’ll have two screenings.’ We went to a multiplex and one theater had one version and another had the other so the audience was basically the same. One started 10 minutes earlier than the other. When we got the audience survey cards back, they were basically the same. So the studio reluctantly agreed to our insisting that we go for the ending where he loses.”

When we interviewed Dolph Lundgren, he mentioned this along with his deleted redemption scene.

MARTIN SCORSESE THREATENED TO LEAVE ‘RAGING BULL’ WHILE EDITING

“Every detail to him is worth committing suicide over. We were under the gun. We had to open in New York on Friday. We were in California. It was Sunday night and we had to finish the movie. I had to get it to the lab and make a print and get it to New York. In the bar scene, a guy walks up to the bar and says, ‘Get me a Cutty Sark.’ Marty said, ‘I can’t hear the words ‘Cutty Sark.’ I said, ‘We’ve been in here for months, nobody can hear anything. We’re deaf.’ I said, ‘It’s midnight. We’re finished. We’re wrapping. The lab is waiting.’ He said, ‘In that case, it’s not a Marty Scorsese movie. I want my name off.’ This is ‘Raging Bull!’ He said, ‘It’s not my movie anymore.’ That’s how specific he is — a word to him is as important as the whole movie.

AN OVERLY EAGER DONALD TRUMP WANTED TO BE IN ‘THE WOLF OF WALL STREET’

“We shot outside Trump Tower. At night, he came by. He said, ‘You should give me a part in this movie.’ And he said, ‘But it can’t be a walk-on.’ That was it. Nothing beyond that. Nothing came of it. But he can’t control himself, obviously. Whatever ridiculous idea, whether it’s getting out of NATO or getting a part in a movie, for him it’s all the same.”

WINKLER TOLD RYAN COOGLER NOT TO DO ‘BLACK PANTHER’ – SOMETIMES YOU ADMIT WHEN YOU’RE WRONG

“I said to him, ‘Ryan, you’re a very, very talented young man. You’ve got a lot to look forward to. Make something very personal. I don’t think a Marvel movie is very personal.’ What I didn’t know was he made it very personal. He was able to do it and I give Marvel a lot of credit. They allowed him to do it and they got the results. But off the cuff, I said, ‘You shouldn’t do that.’ Boy was I wrong.”

Legal junkies rejoice as Court TV is back

Jackie Warner

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May 7, 2019

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Legal junkies rejoice as Court TV is back

After more than a decade on hiatus Court TV is being resurrected as crime story television is on the rise. Cable channels like Oxygen have switched formats to crime stories so the timing couldn’t be better for a comeback.

The channel for legal junkies that thrived during the trial-crazy 1990s comes back from the dead after more than a decade Wednesday amid a crime-story craze that its backers hope will launch it into a long new life.

“The timing could not be better,” said John Alleva, a lawyer and producer on the former Court TV who now is its vice president and managing editor. “The interest in true crime and this type of programming has reached a fever pitch. We’re in a perfect situation.”

The new Court TV, available over the air and on some cable providers depending on the market, will look a lot like the old. The new owners bought Court TV’s name, logo and library, and will revive its practice of airing trials virtually in their entirety for much of the day while talking about trials and all things legal for the rest of the day.

“We’re not jumping in for a minute here, 20 minutes there,” said Scott Tufts, a veteran producer who long coordinated trial coverage for CNN and now joins Alleva as a vice president and managing editor for Court TV. “These are compelling stories of human events that will attract a large, and we believe dedicated audience.”

And one of its former stars, Vinnie Politan, will be the face of the new channel as its primetime anchor.

Like many involved with Court TV, the 54-year-old Politan was a lawyer before he was a journalist, and lives to combine the two specialties, something that the dismantling of the old channel left him unable to do.

court TV back with yodit tewolde vinnie politan seema iyer and julie grant in atlanta office

“I should play you back some of the recordings of my therapy sessions as I tried to recover from it,” Politan said with a laugh. “This is the job I want to do. This is the only job I want to do. So for me, this is like being reborn.”

Politan talked to media outlets from the Court TV studios in Atlanta. He’s spent the last several years there working for the local NBC affiliate, his love of the law limited to segments that lasted little over a minute.

Now, as host of “Closing Arguments” from 6 to 9 p.m. Eastern, he can go long.

“It’s the deep dive,” Politan said. “To be able to get into a story, to follow a story from beginning to end, to own the story is absolutely amazing.”

The original Court TV was launched by a conglomerate of owners in 1991. Its popularity rose during the 1994 Menendez brothers’ trial and soared during its airing of the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial.

Time Warner bought it in 2006, and in 2008 rebranded it as truTV, with an emphasis on reality shows aimed at a younger audience. Its court coverage slowly phased into oblivion.

The most devoted of Court TV’s employees, including Alleva and Politan, had always wanted it back.

The intervening years have seen a popularity surge in podcasts like “Serial,” TV trial reenactments such as “The People v. O.J. Simpson,” and a slew of Netflix crime documentaries including “Making a Murderer.” Katz Networks, a division of the E.W. Scripps Company, which has a long history in journalism, is taking a shot that the public’s interest will take hold for Court TV once again.

The revived channel’s online component will include a livestream of its telecasts, access to its library of older trials, and the ability to quickly catch up with an ongoing trial.

Court TV will seek to lead the national conversation on high-profile cases. Producers plan to go all-in on the forthcoming Harvey Weinstein sexual assault trial, set to start in New York in September.

But smaller cases in far-flung places will be just as essential to its programming.

The channel’s first live coverage inside a courtroom will be the Covington, Georgia, trial of parents charged with the murder of their newborn baby after they had reported him missing in 2017.

“The smaller trials are what really drives Court TV,” Alleva said. “The majority of the trials are going to take place in small places across America.”

vinnie politan discuss court case with court tv yodit Tedwolde and Seema Iyer

Of course, to provide such coverage, judges will need to allow cameras in court in the first place — a fight that for Court TV is both essential to its business model and a matter of principle.

“There should be a camera in every courtroom,” Politan said. “These are public courtrooms, it’s our government, no judge or lawyer owns the court.”

The channel has joined media outlets in the legal fight for access to the Weinstein trial.

Seema Iyer, a former New York City prosecutor with an expertise in forensics who has worked as a legal analyst for CNN and MSNBC, will anchor the channel’s daily 3 to 6 p.m. Eastern timeslot.

She said she leapt at the Court TV job for the rare chance it offers her to use her skills to talk to, and help create, viewers as smart and obsessed as the anchors.

“They’ll fact check us,” Iyer said. “We can’t make mistakes.”

She said audiences that knew virtually nothing about DNA during the O.J. Simpson trial in 2019 now have sophisticated knowledge of the science of crime.

At the same time, she said, “CSI” and scores of similar shows have forced prosecutors and journalists alike to “reduce expectations that people have for that sexy type of evidence, because it’s not always there.”

“The good thing is, if there is all that sexy evidence, we have a lot of fun,” Iyer said. “The challenge for us, as anchors, is when the evidence is a little drawn out, it gets boring, that’s when we really have to ratchet up the energy, and the entertainment value.

“Objection!” Politan shouted, interrupting Iyer. “Court TV is never boring.”

Microsoft steps up to protect elections in America with ‘ElectionGuard’

Jeffrey Lang

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May 7, 2019

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Microsoft steps up to protect elections in America with ‘ElectionGuard’

As President Donald Trump had steadily said he believes his good friend Vladimir Putin that Russia never interfered with our 2016 elections, the Pentagon and FBI have warned about their meddling in our 2020 elections. Nothing is being done to protect our election systems, so it’s fallen on private companies like Microsoft to step up and help protect our democracy.

Microsoft has announced an ambitious effort to make voting secure, verifiable and subject to reliable audits by registering ballots in encrypted form so they can be accurately and independently tracked long after they are cast.

Two of the three top U.S elections vendors have expressed interest in potentially incorporating the open-source software into their voting systems.

The software is being developed with Galois, an Oregon-based company separately creating a secure voting system prototype under contract with the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, DARPA. Dubbed “ElectionGuard,” it will be available this summer, Microsoft says, with early prototypes ready to pilot for next year’s U.S. general elections.

CEO Satya Nadella announced the initiative Monday at a developer’s conference in Seattle, saying the software development kit would help “modernize all of the election infrastructure everywhere in the world.”

Three little-known U.S. companies control about 90 percent of the market for election equipment, but have long faced criticism for poor security, antiquated technology and insufficient transparency around their proprietary, black-box voting systems.

Open-source software is inherently more secure because the underlying code is easily scrutinized by outside experts but has been shunned by the dominant vendors whose customers — the nation’s 10,000 election jurisdictions — are mostly strapped for cash.

None offered bids when Travis County, Texas, home to Austin, sought to build a system with the “end-to-end” verification attributes that ElectionGuard promises to deliver.

Two of the leading vendors, Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Nebraska, and Hart InterCivic of Austin, Texas, both expressed interest in partnering with Microsoft for ElectionGuard. A spokeswoman for a third vendor, Dominion Voting Systems of Denver, said the company looks forward to “learning more” about the initiative.

Anyone with an existing voting system or developing a new one will be able to incorporate ElectionGuard — at the state or local level in the U.S. or national level for jurisdictions abroad.

“Once the barrier to entry is low enough, hopefully one of the vendors will go for it, and that will bring the rest of them in quickly enough,” said Dan Wallach, a Rice University computer scientist who assisted Travis County.

“It can be used with a ballot-marking device. It can be used with an optical scanner, on hand-marked paper ballots,” said Josh Benaloh, a senior cryptographer at Microsoft Research and key contributor to the ElectionGuard project. Benaloh helped produce a National Academies of Science report last year that called for an urgent overhaul of the rickety U.S. election system, which Russian hackers infiltrated in 2016 in several states.

That report called for all U.S. elections to be held on human-readable paper ballots by 2020. It also advocated a specific form of routine postelection audits to ensure accurate vote counts — a requirement that “end-to-end’ voting verification satisfies.

Election integrity activist Susan Greenhalgh of the National Election Defense Coalition said she hoped it would encourage innovative thinking at the level elections are actually managed.

“We can’t have faith-based voting anymore,” she said. “This is a great step forward in verifying election results.”

ElectionGuard will let voters confirm that their votes are accurately recorded. Beyond that, the unique coded tracker it produces registers an encrypted version of the vote that keeps the ballot choice itself secret while ensuring votes are accurately counted.

That enables reliable postelection audits and recounts.

It also lets outsiders such as election watchdog groups, political parties, journalists — and voters themselves — verify online that votes are properly counted without being altered.

Microsoft executives say they also plan to build a prototype voting system for reference.

One election official who has been in informal conversations with the ElectionGuard project leaders is Dean Logan, who runs elections for Los Angeles County, the nation’s most populous, and is building an open-source voting system for it.

A spinoff of Galois called Free & Fair developed the sophisticated postelection audits , known as “risk-limiting,” for Colorado, which was the first U.S. state to require the audits recommended in the National Academies of Sciences report.

ElectionGuard is not designed to work with internet voting schemes — which experts consider too easily hackable — and does not currently work with vote-by-mail systems.

ES&S told media outlets that it was excited to partner with Microsoft and “still exploring the potentials” for incorporated the software kit its voting systems.

Hart InterCivic, the No. 3 vendor, said it planned a pilot project with Microsoft to “incorporate ElectionGuard functionality as an additional feature” layered over its core platform.

A spokeswoman for Dominion, the No. 2 vendor, said “We are very interested in learning more about the initiative and being able to review the various prototypes that are being planned, along with hearing more about other federally-supported efforts in the elections space.”

Edgardo Cortés, a former Virginia elections commissioner now with New York University’s Brennan Center, welcomed additional private sector support for election systems.

“I think it’ll take a while to catch on and see how beneficial (ElectionGuard) ends up being,” he said. “But I think it certainly does have a great deal of potential.”

Columbia University will be partnering with Microsoft to audit the pilots.

Microsoft’s Protecting Elections In America Announcement

Today, at the Microsoft Build developer conference, CEO Satya Nadella announced ElectionGuard, a free open-source software development kit (SDK) from our Defending Democracy Program. ElectionGuard will make voting secure, more accessible, and more efficient anywhere it’s used in the United States or in democratic nations around the world. ElectionGuard, developed with the assistance of our partner Galois, will be available starting this summer to election officials and election technology suppliers who can incorporate the technology into voting systems. Among ElectionGuard’s many benefits, it will enable end-to-end verification of elections, open results to third-party organizations for secure validation, and allow individual voters to confirm their votes were correctly counted.

We are also announcing today that we have partnered with major election technology suppliers who are exploring the integration of ElectionGuard into their voting systems. We currently have partnerships with election technology suppliers responsible for more than half of the voting machines sold in the U.S. To help these partners, other vendors and election officials to visualize how ElectionGuard can modernize and secure the vote, we are building a reference voting system, which we will make public later this year, that will showcase the capabilities that ElectionGuard enables.

We believe technology companies have a responsibility to help protect our democratic processes and institutions. Modern technology can be used to ensure the voting process is resilient. At the same time, ElectionGuard is not intended to replace paper ballots but rather to supplement and improve systems that rely on them, and it is not designed to support internet voting. In short, ElectionGuard is a new tool for use by the existing election community and government entities that run elections.

ElectionGuard can be used to build systems with five major benefits that will protect the vote against tampering by anyone, and improve the voting process for citizens and officials:

Verifiable: Allowing voters and third-party organizations to verify election results.

Secure: Built with advanced encryption techniques developed by Microsoft Research.

Auditable: Supporting risk-limiting audits that help assure the accuracy of elections.

Open source: Free and flexible with the ability to be used with off-the-shelf hardware.

Make voting better: Supporting standard accessibility tools and improving the voting experience.

Verifiable

ElectionGuard democratizes the ability to verify election results by enabling direct public confirmation of the accuracy of those results. Voters are able to verify the correct recording of their votes, and anyone – including voters themselves – can verify that all of the recorded votes are correctly counted. As with current election systems, voters will remain unable to disclose their recorded votes to protect their privacy.

ElectionGuard verification is accomplished in two ways.

First, ElectionGuard provides each voter a tracker with a unique code that can be used to follow an encrypted version of the vote through the entire election process via a web portal provided by election authorities. During the process of vote-casting, voters have an optional step that allows them to confirm that their trackers and encrypted votes accurately reflect their selections. But once a vote is cast, neither the tracker nor any data provided through the web portal can be used to reveal the contents of the vote. After the election is complete, the tracker codes can be used by voters to confirm that their votes were not altered or tampered with and that they were properly counted.

Second, ElectionGuard also includes an open specification – or a road map – which allows anyone to write an election verifier. Voters, candidates, news media and any observers can run verifiers of their own or downloaded from sources of their choosing to confirm tabulations are as reported. The combination of the tracker – which allows individual voters to verify that their votes have been accurately recorded – and the verifier – which allows anyone to verify that the recorded votes have been accurately counted – enables full “end-to-end verification” of the correctness of election results. It will not be possible to “hack” the vote without detection.

ElectionGuard provides a complete implementation of end-to-end verifiable elections. It is designed to work with systems that use paper ballots, supplementing today’s tabulation process by providing a means of public verification of the accuracy of reported results.

Secure

To enable these two forms of verification, ElectionGuard uses something called homomorphic encryption – which enables mathematical procedures – like counting – to be done with fully encrypted data. The use of homomorphic encryption in election systems has been pioneered by Microsoft Research under the leadership of Senior Cryptographer Josh Benaloh. With homomorphic encryption, individually encrypted votes can be combined to form an encrypted tabulation of all votes which can then be decrypted to produce an election tally that protects voter privacy. By running an open election verifier, anyone can securely confirm that the encrypted votes have been correctly aggregated and that this encrypted tabulation has been correctly decrypted to produce the final tally. This process allows anyone to verify the correct counting of votes by inspecting the public election record, while keeping voting records secure. The use of homomorphic encryption to enable verification is separate from and in addition to the process of paper ballots counted as an official election tally.

Auditable

Auditing the outcomes of elections further helps increase public confidence in the outcome as well as improving operational performance of elections. In addition to the public verification enabled by ElectionGuard, the SDK explicitly supports an enhanced form of statistical administrative auditing. Efficient risk-limiting audits are conducted by election officials with the aid of an electronic record of every ballot cast in an election. In this process, ballot records are selected at random and then compared against corresponding paper ballots to confirm that they match. By individually comparing paper against corresponding electronic records, high confidence in an election result can be achieved by examining far fewer ballots than would be necessary by traditional means. The process used by ElectionGuard allows these efficient risk-limiting audits to be publicly observable and verifiable without publishing the full set of electronic vote records.

Open source

The ElectionGuard SDK, as well as components of the reference voting system we’re building, will be released under the MIT Open Source License and made available on GitHub. Microsoft is offering this software to the election industry free of charge and with the intent of election technology vendors adopting components as they see fit. The SDK is designed to be used stand-alone or easily integrated as part of a vendor’s larger system. Because it’s open source, ElectionGuard can be used not just on devices running Windows but on off-the-shelf devices from other major technology companies as well as custom hardware designed by election technology suppliers. We believe this will enable ElectionGuard to be deployed in a variety of ways.

Make voting better

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person on the planet to achieve more, and that commitment extends to those with disabilities who want to exercise their right to vote. Disability advocates we speak with want primary voting systems that are more accessible. The reference voting system we are building will demonstrate how ElectionGuard can be combined with readily available devices to build accessibility into the primary systems everyone uses.

We also wanted to make the whole voting experience easier and more modern for everyone and spent significant time thinking about the challenges people face on election day. One frustration is the difficulty of doing research on candidates and initiatives at the polling place. Our sample reference will showcase how people can make their selections at home, where they can easily research their choices, then bring a QR code to the polling place to scan and pre-populate their ballot.

When it’s time to vote, ElectionGuard supports the use of standard tablets and PCs running a variety of operating systems as a ballot marking device, which can be used to create an interface that looks and feels like modern applications people interact with every day on their phones and tablets. After people make their choices, their selections can be printed on a physical sheet of paper that they can review for accuracy and place in the ballot box as the official record of their vote.

Finally, voters will receive trackers that confirm their votes and can be used to verify that their votes were counted correctly after an election. ElectionGuard can also be used to enable optional scenarios for people to share on social media the fact that they voted, serving as a virtual “I voted” sticker encouraging others to participate in the democratic process.

Partnerships

We are working with a range of election technology suppliers who are excited to explore incorporating ElectionGuard into their current offerings or build new product lines incorporating the technology. These partnerships represent organizations that supply more than half of the voting systems used in the United States today including Democracy Live, Election Systems & Software, Hart InterCivic, BPro, MicroVote, and VotingWorks. We will continue to work with these partners, and any other interested vendors, over the coming months as they evaluate ElectionGuard. The early feedback has been exciting.

The code for ElectionGuard is being built together with our development partner, Galois. We are excited that Galois recently received $10 million in funding from DARPA to build a demonstration voting system to help evaluate secure hardware DARPA researchers are developing as part of a separate DARPA program. The agency views ensuring the integrity and security of the election process as a critical national security concern and plans to implement the ElectionGuard SDK as part of their effort to enable an end-to-end verifiable component in future versions of their demonstration voting system. It is encouraging to see DARPA investing in technology, which will not only find an application in securing the voting process but could contribute to more secure and transparent computing for a variety of devices and applications.

We are also pleased to announce a partnership with Columbia University’s Columbia World Projects. Columbia professors in statistics, political science, computer science, and international and public affairs and Microsoft will be joining forces to bring ElectionGuard to life by piloting the technology in the coming election cycle.

Availability

The ElectionGuard SDK will be available through GitHub beginning this summer. We encourage the election technology community to begin building offerings based on this technology and expect early prototypes using ElectionGuard will be ready for piloting during the 2020 elections in the United States, with significant deployments for subsequent election cycles. Over time we will seek to update and improve the SDK to support additional voting scenarios such as mail-in ballots and ranked choice voting. Microsoft will not charge for using ElectionGuard and will not profit from partnering with election technology suppliers that incorporate it into their products.

Amazon Go takes cash now while San Francisco bans cashless, Google AI I/O

Jeffrey Lang

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May 7, 2019

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Amazon Go takes cash now while San Francisco bans cashless, Google AI I/O

As cashless stores are getting some backlash, Amazon is correcting itself while it takes a step back. It shouldn’t sound like a big deal, but the Amazon Go store will be accepting cash now while San Francisco puts its foot down on cashless stores by banning them.

Amazon launched its high-tech Go convenience store a year ago, where shoppers can pull items off the shelf and walk out.

Now it’s adding a decidedly low-tech feature: accepting cash.

Its new store opening in New York City Tuesday will be the first Amazon Go store to do so. At its other shops, customers can only enter with an app that links to a credit card or an Amazon account.

The company, facing backlash from critics who say cashless stores discriminate against the poor, confirmed last month that it was working on a way to accept paper bill and coins.

In the new store, employee will swipe those who want to pay by cash through the turnstile entrance. After shoppers grab what they want off the shelves, an employee will scan each item with a mobile device and check them out. There still won’t be cash registers in the store.

Cameron Janes, who oversees Amazon’s physical stores, says the way it accepts cash could change in the future, but declined to give details.

“This is how we’re starting,” he says. “We’re going to learn from customers on what works and what doesn’t work and then iterate and improve it over time.”

In recent years, a small but growing number of stores around the country have gone cash-free. But some activists and politicians say that discriminates against people who don’t have a bank account.

Philadelphia became the first city to ban cashless stores earlier this year. New Jersey passed a statewide ban soon after, and similar laws are being considered in New York City and San Francisco.

It’s not clear how many shoppers will skip the app and want to pay by cash at Amazon Go. The New York store, the first in the city, is in Brookfield Place, a high-end shopping mall and office complex that houses a Gucci store and office workers from banks and credit card companies. Amazon expects many of its customers to be workers looking to pick up a lunchtime salad or sandwich, people who live in the area or tourists visiting the nearby World Trade Center.

Amazon didn’t say when its 11 other Go stores will start accepting cash.

san francisco banning cashless stores 2019

San Francisco Bans Cashless Stores

San Francisco is about to require brick-and-mortar retailers to take cash as payment, joining Philadelphia and New Jersey in banning a growing paperless practice that critics say discriminates against low-income people who may not have access to credit cards.

The Board of Supervisors will take up the issue at a meeting Tuesday, and it’s likely to pass because nearly all 11 members are listed as sponsors or co-sponsors.

“I just felt it wasn’t fair that if someone wanted to buy a sandwich in a store, and they had cash, that they would be turned away,” said Supervisor Vallie Brown, who introduced the legislation. “We also have our homeless population. They’re not banked.”

In many ways, the legislation is an easy call for San Francisco officials, who strive to make life more equitable in a city with an enormous wealth gap.

High-paid tech workers who flocked to San Francisco to work for Facebook, Google, Uber and Airbnb may like the ease of paying by credit card, debit card or smartphone. But many low-income people, including more than 4,000 who sleep on San Francisco’s streets every night, likely don’t have money to sustain bank accounts.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 17 percent of African American households and 15 percent of Latino households had no bank account.

Some people also prefer to use cash because they don’t want to leave a digital trail of where they have been and what they have bought.

San Francisco’s legislation requires brick-and-mortar businesses to accept cash for goods and some services. Temporary pop-up stores and internet-only businesses such as ride-hailing companies would be exempt, as would food trucks, which say they lack the resources to handle cash.

Philadelphia and New Jersey passed similar laws this year. Legislation requiring merchants to accept cash also has been introduced in New York City.

The efforts come after the rollout last year of cashless Amazon Go stores, which require customers to scan an app to enter. Whatever items customers take are automatically tallied in a virtual cart and the total charged to a credit card. The retail giant bowed to pressure and agreed to accept cash at more than 30 cashless stores last month, though it has not said when the change will happen.

Though plenty of cheap dim sum spots, taquerias and dive bars take only cash, some retailers argue that not taking cash is safer and more efficient.

Cashless restaurants are clustered in San Francisco’s Financial District and South of Market neighborhoods, where white-collar employees devour upscale salads and protein bowls.

Those now refusing paper money include Bluestone Lane, a New York-based coffee chain, and The Organic Coup, which sells organic fast-food chicken. At Freshroll Vietnamese Rolls & Bowls, which has several lunch spots downtown, signs remind customers of its no-cash policy.

Andy Stone, vice president of brand marketing at Bluestone Lane, said the company “will always comply with the laws of jurisdictions where we operate” and is awaiting the vote.

The other companies did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

Some businesses appear to be getting on board as the backlash grows.

Salad chain Sweetgreen announced last month that it will accept cash at all its restaurants by year’s end, saying going cashless “had the unintended consequence of excluding those who prefer to pay or can only pay with cash.”

The San Francisco Chamber of Commerce did not take a position on the proposal.

google io conference announced new ai products

Google’s AI Goes I/O

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to showcase much-anticipated updates to the company’s hardware lines and artificial intelligence Tuesday during his keynote at the company’s annual I/O conference for software developers.

Google will also likely address privacy updates as concerns about data sharing continue to plague the tech industry. Facebook dedicated much of its own conference last week to addressing privacy.

Rumors suggest that Google may unveil a mid-range Pixel phone as a cheaper option to the flagship model currently on sale for $800.

Google says more than 7,000 developers will attend its annual conference in Mountain View, which is focused on updates for the computer engineers that build apps and services on top of Google technology. I/O has also become a stage to announce new consumer products.

Novak Djokovic supports Justin Gimelstob while Thiem favorites Rafael Nadal

Luka Alario

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May 7, 2019

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Novak Djokovic supports Justin Gimelstob while Thiem favorites Rafael Nadal

Novak Djokovic stepped up to give support to Justin Gimelstob’s eventual return to an influential role in tennis following his recent resignation from the ATP board of directors.

Speaking Monday at the Madrid Open, Djokovic said Gimelstob did the right thing by stepping down after being sentenced in a U.S. court for attacking a former friend.

Djokovic also said he would be OK with soon-to-leave ATP executive chairman and president Chris Kermode seeking a return to that job now that Gimelstob is no longer on the decision-making board that oversees the men’s tennis circuit.

On Sunday in Madrid, Roger Federer suggested that Kermode – whose contract runs out at the end of the year – should perhaps “be put back into the mix”. Asked about this issue on Monday, Djokovic replied: “I actually think that technically he has the right to be a candidate officially for another mandate… if this happens, yeah, why not… I think several companies have been engaged now in the recruiting process, so hopefully we can have quality candidates.”

Gimelstob is an ex-player, coach and TV commentator who pleaded no contest last month and was sentenced to three years of probation, 60 days of community service and a year’s worth of anger management classes. Prosecutors said the 42-year-old American attacked Randall Kaplan as they trick-or-treated with their kids in Los Angeles on Halloween in 2017.

Kermode’s departure at the end of 2019 was announced in March after a vote by the ATP board.

Djokovic called Gimelstob’s resignation, announced last week in a Facebook post, “a wise decision,” adding, “the whole case was just posing so much pressure and obstacles for the tour, in general.”

“It’s unfortunate, because I think he has been probably the biggest asset that players had in the last 10-plus years that he’s been on the tour, representing players,” Djokovic said. “But at the same time, these are kind of unfortunate circumstances, and he needs to go back and deal with that — deal with that case and try to find the right balance and the right state of mind — before he eventually tries to come back.”

Rather than lying low during his final six months on the ATP board, Gimelstob led his fellow player representatives – who include his former Tennis Channel colleague David Egdes – in a controversial vote in Indian Wells to deny a contract renewal to the tour’s president Chris Kermode.

dominic thiem giving bulge support to rafael nadal at madrid open 2019

Dominic Thiem Sees Rafael Nadal As Favorite: Madrid Open 2019

Rafael Nadal hadn’t started the clay-court season with so many setbacks in four years.

Not since 2015 had Nadal arrived at the Madrid Open without having won a title either in Monte Carlo or Barcelona, the tournaments that mark the start of the clay swing in Europe.

That year, Nadal was coming off a series of injuries and ended up not reaching the final of either tournament. He also didn’t win the title in Madrid, Rome and the French Open, dropping out of the top five in the rankings for the first time in a decade.

After a disappointing start to this year, where he is 17-4 overall and without a title, the second-ranked Nadal remains upbeat despite straight-sets defeats in the semifinals at both Monte Carlo and Barcelona — tournaments he has won a record 11 times.

He lost to Italian Fabio Fognini in the semifinals at Monte Carlo, and was almost routed 6-0 in the second set when trailing to Fognini by 5-0 and 40-0.

Then he was beaten by hard-hitting Austrian Dominic Thiem in the Barcelona semifinals.

Still, the 32-year-old Spaniard saw signs of encouragement at finding his rhythm again.

“I really believe that I made very good improvements to create a good base to try to achieve my goals,” he said after losing to Thiem.

Nadal will be trying to win his third straight French Open title — and record-extending 12th overall — at the May 26-June 9 French Open.

Thiem, the runner-up in Madrid to Nadal in 2017 and Alexander Zverev last year, says Nadal is the favorite at any clay-court tournament.

“As long as Rafa is playing, he will always be the No. 1 favorite,” Thiem said on Sunday. “He’s by far the best player ever on this surface.”

Nadal has won a clay-court title in each of the last 15 seasons. The 17-time Grand Slam winner is an eight-time finalist in Madrid, with the last of his five titles coming in 2017.

He was defeated by Thiem in straight sets in the quarterfinals last year — one of Thiem’s four career victories against him on clay.

Nadal will start this year’s campaign against 18-year-old Felix Auger-Aliassime after he beat fellow Canadian Denis Shapovalov 6-2, 7-6 in the first round. Auger-Aliassime is one of the standouts on tour this season, having reached the final in Rio and the semifinals in Miami.

The other half of the Madrid draw has top-seeded Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who will be making his return to clay-court tournaments after two seasons.

The 37-year-old Federer, a three-time champion in Madrid, is preparing to make his first French Open appearance since 2015.

“I have not high expectations in some ways, but at the same time I also know that things are possible,” Federer said Sunday. “I’m happy also that the decision I took last, I guess around December, when I started feeling like I definitely want to do the clay, that it was the right decision.”

The 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer hasn’t played on clay since Rome in 2016, but is looking for his third title of the season to add to his triumphs in Dubai and Miami. The only other player with two titles this season is Thiem, who beat Federer in the Indian Wells final. Federer and Thiem could meet in the quarterfinals in Madrid.

Zverev did not drop his serve en route to winning here last year, but the imposing German is out of form. He has won only eight matches all year and has not won a tournament, losing his only final to Nick Kyrgios in Acapulco.

He will start this year’s tournament against David Ferrer, the veteran Spaniard who is retiring following the tournament in Madrid.

Petra Kvitova will defend her title in the women’s event. The second-seeded Czech is a three-time champion in Madrid and the most successful woman at the tournament with 27 wins and six losses. Naomi Osaka is the top-seeded player this year in Madrid.

Donald Trump’s China Trade War: How it affects all Americans

Politics

Shanka Cheryl

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May 6, 2019

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Donald Trump’s China Trade War: How it affects all Americans

It’s easy for American to forget that Donald Trump has been in a heated trade war with China more than a year now, and it’s gotten even hotter as the president makes a bigger threat. China, in return is letting it be known that they won’t negotiate with a gun held to their head.

In what could be a grim preview of how investors might react to a full-out trade war between the world’s two largest economies, shares in multinational corporations sank Monday after President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on China.

Any damage from higher import taxes would almost certainly ripple outward and affect anyone who buys a refrigerator, a car, an iPhone, or anything else with a computer chip inside. Companies that import goods or parts from China may or may not pass on costs to consumers, but they usually act to offset rising costs somehow, including potential job cuts.

Goldman Sachs doubled the odds of auto tariffs coming this year (to 20, and lessened the odds it gives to a free trade agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

“The President’s willingness to risk a market disruption by threatening an unexpected tariff hike suggests that he might also be willing to risk the disruption that formally proposing auto tariffs or announcing the intent to withdraw from NAFTA might cause,” Goldman Sachs said in research published over the weekend.

The sector hit hardest by escalating trade tensions was technology, particularly companies that make computer chips. Micron Technology Inc., Advance Micro Devices Inc. and Applied Materials Inc. all slid more than 2% by early afternoon, recovering a bit from larger losses. Other chipmakers were not far behind.

According to data provider FactSet, 64.7% of Qualcomm’s revenue comes from China. Broadcom’s Chinese revenue is 48% of its total.

Heavy hitters in the tech sector like Apple Inc., Amazon.com and Alphabet all lost ground. Apple gets nearly one-fifth of its revenue from world’s second largest economy.

But every sector was under pressure Monday, from industrial to retail, and shares that were in retreat Monday tracked closely with its exposure to China.

Wynn Resorts, with a host of casinos and hotels in Macau, gets about 75% of its revenue from China, according to FactSet. Wynn shares tumbled 4.1%.

Chinese companies were not immune to the damage.

Alibaba shares skidded more than 3% and shares in Weibo — China’s version of Twitter — fell more than 5%.

On Sunday, President Trump tweeted that he would raise import taxes on $200 billion in Chinese products to 25% from 10% as of Friday. That’s on top of a 25% duty on another $50 billion of Chinese imports. Beijing has imposed penalties on $110 billion of American goods.

Trump’s announcement caused financial markets to plunge early, starting in Asia. The Shanghai Composite index closed 5.6% lower and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sank 2.9% on Monday.

The Dow fell 300 points at the open of trading, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq sliding 1% each, and while stocks made a comeback, both were still down in the afternoon.

In a note to clients, an analyst for Raymond James said that although Trump has in the past used the threat of more tariffs as negotiating leverage, that doesn’t appear to be the case this time. The analyst wrote that based on the firm’s discussions with trade sources, there is “universal belief” that any potential agreement fell apart in recent days, despite an agreement being close to finished last week.

A spokesman for the Chinese government said its envoys continue to prepare for a trip to the United States for trade talks, although there were concerns in the aftermath of Trump’s tweet that Beijing might back out to avoid looking weak in the face of American pressure.

“The most important near-term indicator to watch will be whether the large delegation of Chinese officials comes to Washington on May 8, as scheduled,” wrote Goldman Sachs analysts. “If they do, this would indicate that they believe a deal is still reasonably likely. In this case, the tariff rate would rise only if the two sides are unable to come to an agreement by Thursday, before the increase takes effect on Friday. Alternatively, if the upcoming visit is canceled, an agreement in the coming week would then seem very unlikely.”

No Preakness for Maximum Security or Luis Saez

Luka Alario

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May 6, 2019

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No Preakness for Maximum Security or Luis Saez

Horse racing hasn’t had this much controversy in a long time, but a muddy track didn’t help matters for Luis Saez and Maximum Security. They won the Kentucky Derby but lost it just as a quick on a technicality, and now Maximum Security is out of the Preakness.

Saez posted an angry tweet after Saturday’s Run for the Roses but then it was deleted within an hour.

The Tweet pointed to the second race at Churchill Downs on May 1 as a similar incident to that which occurred in the Derby.

In that second-level claiming event for $30,000, the eventual winner was behind the leader around the far turn, then came off the rail and squeezed a horse who had to check back out of it. No objections or inquiries were raised on that day.

“I think this was intentional,” the Saez Tweet states, “and the Stewards don’t do nothing. Oh come on, really…”

Maximum Security’s owner said Monday he will not run the horse in the middle jewel of the Triple Crown and will appeal the disqualification as Derby winner.

Gary West told media outlets by phone there is “really no need, not having an opportunity to run for the Triple Crown to run a horse back in two weeks.”

The 1 1/8-mile Preakness is May 18 at Pimlico Race Course. Though shorter than the Kentucky Derby, the race requires a quick turnaround. West didn’t want to burden his colt with the Triple Crown off the table.

Maximum Security is scheduled to leave Churchill Downs on Monday and arrive Tuesday at Monmouth Park, where trainer Jason Servis is based, the New Jersey track said.

“The horse will be better off long term with the rest,” West said. “He ran a really good and a really hard race on Saturday.

“Really, there are a lot of other Grade 1 races the rest of the year for 3-year-olds. So we’ll let him gather himself and point to one of the other races. I don’t know which one that will be, but it will definitely not be the Preakness.”

maximum security wins kentucky derby in mud but disqualified for country house

Maximum Security, the first to finish the muddy race by 1 ¾ lengths on Saturday, became the first Derby winner to be disqualified for interference. After an objection by two riders, stewards ruled the colt swerved out and impeded the path of several horses between the far and final turns. Country House, a 65-1 shot, was elevated to first.

Country House’s status for the Preakness is unclear. That race would mark his fourth start in eight weeks.

Trainer Bill Mott has said there’s no rush to decide on whether he’ll run in Baltimore. But he acknowledged the race’s importance and added, “The challenge of the Triple Crown is that there’s three races really close together, and it takes a champion.”

The only other Derby disqualification was in 1968, and long after the race. First-place finisher Dancer’s Image tested positive for a prohibited medication, and Kentucky racing officials ordered the purse money to be redistributed. Forward Pass got the winner’s share. A subsequent court challenge upheld the stewards’ decision.

West has said he realizes the appeals process will take “months, if not years.” He remains bothered that he was denied his request to view replays with stewards after the race.

“There’s an extreme lack of transparency with the stewards,” he said. “They will not talk to us until Thursday. So we didn’t have any choice but to file an appeal. And we’ll see where that goes.”

Maximum Security was placed 17th of 19 horses after starting as the 9-2 second betting choice, ending his four-race winning streak.

Stewards cited the rule that calls for disqualification if a “leading horse or any other horse in a race swerves or is ridden to either side so as to interfere with, intimidate, or impede any other horse or jockey.”

Chief steward Barbara Borden said in a news conference she and two other stewards interviewed riders and studied video replays during a 22-minute review after the finish. The stewards did not take questions from reporters.

Google pushing AI Assistant to rival Amazon Alexa plus Donald Trump’s Facebook fury

Jeffrey Lang

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May 6, 2019

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Google pushing AI Assistant to rival Amazon Alexa plus Donald Trump’s Facebook fury

Google is stepping up its AI Assistant technology, making it central to all platforms to get a jump on Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri. President Donald Trump was angered when Facebook banned some of his extremist supporters and is threatening to monitor social media now.

When Google launched its now distinctive digital assistant in 2016, it was already in danger of being an also-ran.

At the time, Amazon had been selling its Echo smart speaker, powered by its Alexa voice assistant, for more than a year. Apple’s Siri was already five years old and familiar to most iPhone users. Google’s main entry in the field up to that point was Google Now, a phone-bound app that took voice commands but didn’t answer back.

Now the Google Assistant — known primarily as the voice of the Google Home smart speaker — is increasingly central to Google’s new products. And even though it remains commercially overshadowed by Alexa, it keeps pushing the boundaries of what artificial intelligence can accomplish in everyday settings.

For instance, Google last year announced an Assistant service called Duplex, which it said can actually call up restaurants and make reservations for you. Duplex isn’t yet widely available yet outside of Google’s own Pixel phones in the U.S. Alexa and Siri so far offer nothing similar.

Google is expected to announce updates and expansions to its AI Assistant at its annual developer conference Tuesday.

Although voice assistants have spread across smartphones and into cars and offices, they’re currently most commonly found in the home, where people tend to use them with smart speakers for simple activities such as playing music, setting timers and checking the weather. Amazon’s Echo devices maintain a strong lead in the market, according to eMarketer ; the firm estimates that 63% of all U.S. smart speaker users will talk to an Amazon device this year, compared to 31% that will use Google. Apple’s HomePod is a mere afterthought, lumped in the “other” category which has a combined 12%.

More broadly, though, the competition is much more difficult to assess. Google claims the Assistant is now available across more than a billion devices, although many of those are smartphones whose owners may never have uttered the Assistant’s wake-up phrase, “OK Google.”

Amazon and Google may one-up each other on different metrics, but the real measurement is how well they’ve achieved those own goal, said Gartner analyst Werner Goertz.

Amazon’s deep ties in shopping make Alexa the go-to assistant for adding items to your grocery list or putting in a quick re-order of dish soap. Google’s decades of deep search technology make it the leader in looking up or answering questions you might have and personalizing its responses based on what else Google knows about you from your previous searches, your movements or your web browsing.

All that, of course, reinforces Google’s key advertising business, which is based on showing you ads targeted to your interests.

At first, the Assistant on Home mostly just acted as a vocal search engine; it could also carry out a few additional tasks like starting your Spotify playlists. Over time, however, it has added dozens of languages, partnered with more than 1,500 smart home companies to control lights, locks and TVs and learned to identify members of any given household by voice.

It’s also expanded the number of apps and other companies it works with and moved into Google Maps as a way to send text messages while driving.

Both Google and Amazon plan further expansions. Last year, Amazon unveiled a number of home gadgets with Alexa built in, including a “smart” microwave. At the CES gadget show this year, it showed off a phone-connected device that brings Alexa to cars.

Google countered with updates to its expanding Android Auto system, which got Assistant capability last year.

As Assistant and Alexa get smarter, faster and more personalized, analysts expect their reach to become broader and more ubiquitous. The speakers, said eMarketer analyst Victoria Petrock, are “getting people used to talking to their devices.” Eventually, she says, if you can speak to your microwave and TV and lights directly, you won’t need the speakers — except maybe to play music.

In these emerging areas Google is hoping to outflank rivals with its strong inroads with Android smartphones and cars. But it faces competition in many of these areas not just from Amazon, but also Apple and Microsoft.

Google I/O kicks off at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Mountain View, California. The company is expected to announce a less expensive Pixel phone and updates to its smart home devices.

donald trump will monitor social media now after facebook ban

Donald Trump Goes After Facebook Ban

President Donald Trump criticized social media companies after Facebook banned a number of extremist figures, declaring that he was “monitoring and watching, closely!!”

Trump, who tweeted and re-tweeted complaints Friday and Saturday, said he would “monitor the censorship of AMERICAN CITIZENS on social media platforms.” He has previously asserted that social media companies exhibit bias against conservatives, something the companies have rejected as untrue.

The president’s comments came after Facebook this week banned Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and other extremists, saying they violated its ban on “dangerous individuals.” The company also removed right-wing personalities Paul Nehlen, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer, along with Jones’ site, Infowars, which often posts conspiracy theories. The latest bans apply both to Facebook’s main service and to Instagram and extend to fan pages and other related accounts.

Facebook’s move signaled renewed effort by the social media giant to remove people and groups promoting objectionable material such as hate, racism and anti-Semitism. The company said it has “always banned” people or groups that proclaim a violent or hateful mission or are engaged in acts of hate or violence, regardless of political ideology.

On Twitter, Trump cited a number of individuals he said were being unfairly treated by social media companies, including Watson and actor James Woods. He insisted it was “getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!”

Woods, one of Hollywood’s most outspoken conservatives, has had his Twitter account locked. Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said Woods will need to delete a tweet that violated Twitter rules before he can be reinstated.

Trump tweeted: “How can it be possible that James Woods (and many others), a strong but responsible Conservative Voice, is banned from Twitter? Social Media & Fake News Media, together with their partner, the Democrat Party, have no idea the problems they are causing for themselves. VERY UNFAIR!”

Rosborough said Twitter enforces its rules “impartially for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation.”

Trump, who uses Twitter extensively to push his message, recently met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at the White House after attacking the company and complaining that it was not treating him well because he was a Republican. He later described it as a “great meeting.”

The president had more than social media on his mind Saturday. Trump also tweeted that he was holding out hopes for a deal with North Korea on its nuclear program, as well as improved relations with Russia, now that he feels the special counsel investigation is behind him.

2019 Hottest Best Bet Summer Movie Guide

George Cando

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May 6, 2019

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2019 Hottest Best Bet Summer Movie Guide

Summer movies start in May (although Marvel likes to get going in April with blockbusters like “Avengers: Endgame) and Movie TV Tech Geeks has broken down a month-by-month guide of what’s playing at the theaters, and even what’s happening on Netflix, from the biggest blockbusters to the smallest indies.

Not all are going to be great, but here’s every single film that you can choose from and decide for yourself.

chris hemsworth men in black movie images 2019

MAY

“Long Shot” (May 3) —A childhood crush gets a second chance when a presidential hopeful (Charlize Theron) hires a speechwriter (Seth Rogen) who she used to babysit in this raucous comedy.

“Uglydolls” (May 3) —The popular toys are voiced by some of music’s biggest stars, including Kelly Clarkson and Pitbull, in this animated family film.

“Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile” (May 3) — Zac Efron plays Ted Bundy in this unconventional look at the serial killer through the eyes of an ex-girlfriend (Lily Collins) witnessing his downfall in this Netflix drama. Also in select theaters.

“Wine Country” (May 8 theaters, May 10 Netflix) — Amy Poehler has assembled the Avengers of comedy, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Paula Pell, Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer, in this Netflix film about a heightened 50th birthday trip to Napa.

“The Hustle” (May 10) —Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson put a female spin on “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.”

“Detective Pikachu” (May 10) — Ryan Reynolds lends his voice to the cuddly yellow Pokemon in this live-action mystery.

“John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” (May 17) — Everyone’s favorite assassin is back and this time the Keanu Reeves character has a $14 million price on his head.

“The Souvenir” (May 17) — Tilda Swinton co-stars in this Sundance breakout about a young film student who gets wrapped up in a fraught relationship.

“Aladdin” (May 24) — This live-action reboot of the animated classic from director Guy Ritchie finds Will Smith in the role of the Genie.

“Booksmart” (May 24) — Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein star as overachieving high school students who decide to break the rules for once one epic night in this SXSW breakout comedy.

“Brightburn” (May 24) — This James Gunn-produced thriller with Elizabeth Banks puts a sinister spin on a classic superhero tale. What if the alien child who crash lands on earth isn’t actually good?

“Godzilla: King of the Monsters” (May 31) — “Stranger Things” breakout Millie Bobby Brown makes her big screen debut alongside Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga and O’Shea Jackson.”

“Ma” (May 31) — Octavia Spencer terrorizes some young kids in this thriller from “The Help” director Tate Taylor.

“Rocketman” (May 31) — Taron Egerton uses his own voice to play Elton John in this fantasy musical biopic, with Jamie Bell and Richard Madden.

ALSO PLAYING:

“Knock Down the House” (May 1 on Netflix and in select theaters); “The Last Summer” (May 3 on Netflix); “Non-Fiction” (May 3); “Ask Dr. Ruth” (May 3); “The Intruder” (May 3); “El Chicano” (May 3); “Tolkien” (May 10); “Charlie Says” (May 10); “The Biggest Little Farm” (May 10); “Poms” (May 10); “All Is True” (May 10); “My Son” (May 10); “All Creatures Here Below” (May 17); “Trial by Fire” (May 17); “A Violent Separation” (May 17); “See You Yesterday” (May 17 on Netflix); “A Dog’s Journey” (May 17); “The Sun is Also a Star” (May 17); “The Tomorrow Man” (May 22); “Halston” (May 24); “Echo in the Canyon” (May 24); “Isabelle” (May 24); “The Poison Rose” (May 24); “The Perfection” (May 24 on Netflix); “Rim of the World” (May 24 on Netflix); “Always Be My Maybe” (May 29 in theaters, May 31 on Netflix); “Domino” (May 31).

JUNE

“Dark Phoenix” (June 7) — Sophie Turner’s Jean Grey gets the spotlight in this X-Men sequel set a decade after the events of “X-Men: Apocalypse.”

“Late Night” (June 7) — Mindy Kaling wrote and stars in this comedy about an aspiring comedy writer who gets the dream job on the writing staff of Emma Thompson’s late night show.

“The Last Black Man in San Francisco” (June 7) — A gem of a film about legacy, gentrification and the meaning of “home.”

“The Secret Life of Pets 2” (June 7) — Harrison Ford makes his animation debut alongside Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Patton Oswalt and Dana Carvey in this sequel to the immensely popular first film.

“Men in Black: International” (June 14) — Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth take up the mantle of this franchise with “Straight Outta Compton” director F. Gary Gray at the helm.

“Shaft” (June 14) — Samuel L. Jackson returns to the role of John Shaft II in this Tim Story-directed film about his FBI agent son, John “JJ” Shaft Jr., played by Jessie Usher.

“The Dead Don’t Die” (June 14) — Jim Jarmusch brought together a starry cast, including Adam Driver, Bill Murray, Selena Gomez and Tilda Swinton, for this zombie comedy.

“Murder Mystery” (June 14) — Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler re-team for this film about a cop and his wife who become suspects in the murder of a billionaire.

“Child’s Play” (June 21) — Mark Hamill lends his vocal talents to the voice of the demonic doll Chucky in this reboot of the 1988 horror film, with Aubrey Plaza and Brian Tyree Henry.

“Toy Story 4” (June 21) — Woody, Buzz and Bo Peep are back with old and new pals, like Forky, in this sure-to-be emotional sequel about everyone’s favorite sentient toys.

“Annabelle Comes Home” (June 28) — In this third “Annabelle” film Ed and Lorraine Warren’s daughter (Mckenna Grace) and her baby-sitters are the targets of the murderous doll.

“Yesterday” (June 28) — A freak accident ends up erasing The Beatles and their music from the world’s memory except for the one struggling musician who uses it to his advantage in this charmer from director Danny Boyle.

ALSO PLAYING:

“I Am Mother” (June 7 on Netflix); “The Black Godfather” (June 7 on Netflix and in theaters); “This One’s For the Ladies” (June 7); “Burn Your Maps” (June 7); “Katie Says Goodbye” (June 7); “Papi Chulo” (June 7); “Pavarotti” (June 7); “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese” (June 12 in theaters and on Netflix); “American Woman” (June 14); “Being Frank” (June 14); “Daughter of the Wolf” (June 14); “Deep Murder” (June 14); “Hampstead (June 14); Wild Rose” (June 14); “Beats” (June 19 on Netflix); “The Edge of Democracy” (June 19 in theaters and on Netflix); “Anna” (June 21); “Nightmare Cinema” (June 21); “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am” (June 21); “Killers Anonymous” (June 28); “Maiden” (June 28)

JULY

“Spider-Man: Far From Home” (July 2) — There is life after “Avengers: Endgame” for Peter Parker (Tom Holland) on a school trip to Europe, where Jake Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio complicates things.

“Midsommar” (July 3) —“Hereditary” director Ari Aster is back to scare audiences again with this film about a couple vacationing in a Swedish village with possible cult tendencies.

“Ophelia” (June 28) —The women of “Hamlet” take center stage in this film with Daisy Ridley and Naomi Watts.

“21 Bridges” (July 12) — Chadwick Boseman puts down his “Black Panther” suit to play a disgraced NY detective pursuing a cop killer in this gritty thriller with Taylor Kitsch and Stephan James.

“Stuber” (July 12) — A ride-share driver played by Kumail Nanjiani gets in over his head when he takes a cop (Dave Bautista) on pursuit as a passenger in this comedy.

“The Farewell” (July 12) — This Sundance phenomenon stars Awkwafina in a rare dramatic role as one part of a Chinese American family that decides to lie to their grandmother about her terminal diagnosis.

“The Lion King” (July 19) —Jon Favreau’s hyper-realistic CG update of the animated classic featuring the voices of Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Seth Rogen and James Earl Jones, returning as Mufasa.

“David Crosby: Remember My Name” (July 19) — A documentary about the singer-songwriter.

“The Great Hack” (July 24) —This documentary takes a close look at the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (July 26) —Quentin Tarantino takes audiences back to Charles Manson-era Hollywood in this film about an actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), his stuntman (Brad Pitt) and neighbor Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie).

“Brahms: The Boy II” (July 26) — An unsuspecting young family moves into the Heelshire Mansion and gets to meet Brahms in this sequel to the 2016 film, with Katie Holmes.

“Dora and the Lost City of Gold” (July 31) —A live-action family adventure based on the animated series with Eva Longoria, Eugenio Derbez and Isabel Moner as Dora.

ALSO PLAYING:

“Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love” (July 5); “The Return of Martin Guerre” (July 5); “Phil” (July 5); “Armstrong” (July 12); “Crawl” (July 12); “Lying & Stealing” (July 12); “Summer Night” (July 12); The Art of Self Defense (July 12); “Above the Shadows” (July 19); “Sword of Trust” (July 19); “Astronaut” (July 26); Mike Wallace is Here (July 26); “Skin” (July 26).

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw Jason Statham Dwayne Johnson movie images 2019.

AUGUST

“Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” (Aug. 2) — The first “Fast & Furious” spinoff focuses on Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham’s characters as they try to combat Idris Elba and help Shaw’s sister (Vanessa Kirby). Expect equal amounts quips and muscles.

“Luce” (Aug. 2) — The parents of an adopted teenager and model student start to question everything after reading a disturbing essay he wrote. With Naomi Watts and Octavia Spencer.

“The Kitchen” (Aug. 9) —When their husbands are arrested by the FBI, Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss have to run the Hell’s Kitchen organized crime scenes in the 1970s in this film loosely based on a comic.

“Brian Banks” (Aug. 9) — The true story of a high school football star (Aldis Hodge) with a promising future at USC who is wrongly convicted for a crime and spends years in jail. Greg Kinnear co-stars as one of the people who tries to help.

“In The Shadow of the Moon” (Aug. 9) — Set in Chicago, a detective is searching for a serial killer who murders based on the lunar cycle. With Boyd Holbrook and Michael C. Hall.

“Blinded by the Light” (Aug. 14) —A teenager in the U.K. in 1987 finds solace in the music of Bruce Springsteen in this film based on journalist Sarfraz Manzoor’s memoir.

“Good Boys” (Aug. 16) —From producer Seth Rogen, this raunchy comedy follows three sixth grade boys who ditch school one day.

“Where’d You Go, Bernadette” (Aug. 16) —Filmmaker Richard Linklater adapts Marla Semple’s bestseller about a woman (Cate Blanchett) who perplexes her family when she suddenly disappears.

“The Informer” (Aug. 16) —A former criminal played by Joel Kinnaman is working undercover for the FBI when a dicey job takes him back to his old prison in this adaptation of the novel “Three Seconds.”

“Brittany Runs a Marathon (Aug. 23) —Jillian Bell plays a woman who attempts to change her messy, party-girl life around by starting to run in this charming Sundance acquisition.

“Angel Has Fallen” (Aug. 23) — Gerard Butler is back for a third time as unlucky secret service agent Mike Banning. Now there’s a problem on Air Force One, but Harrison Ford is not involved.

“Official Secrets” (Aug. 23) — Keira Knightley plays a whistleblower in this political thriller from Gavin Hood.

ALSO PLAYING:

“Love, Antosha” (Aug. 2); “A Score to Settle” (Aug. 2); “The Nightingale” (Aug. 2); “One Child Nation” (Aug. 9); “Corporate Animals” (Aug. 9); “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark” (Aug. 9); “The Angry Birds Movie 2” (Aug 14); “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” (Aug. 16); “The Tracker” (Aug. 16); “Driven” (Aug 16); “Freaks” (Aug. 23); “Angel of Mine” (Aug. 30); “PLAYMOBIL” (Aug. 30).

Correction: “Driven” release date updated.

Donald Trump’s economic, Vladimir Putin myths continue

Shanka Cheryl

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May 6, 2019

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Donald Trump’s economic, Vladimir Putin myths continue

President Donald Trump continues declaring statistics that have no factual nature about the economy, Vladimir Putin, and Robert Mueller’s Russia report. In a tweet, he declared that he’s had the most successful two years of any president while claiming that Democrats have stolen his past two years in office. He tried having it both ways, but here are the facts on his latest claims.

Trump repeatedly asserted that the U.S. economy is perhaps the best “ever” and insisted that last quarter’s gross domestic product was the highest in 14 years. Neither claim is true.

The president bragged the U.S. has more people working than ever before, skimming over the fact that the raw numbers are due to population increases.

The misstatements came as the “no-collusion” chorus also sang loudly this past week, led by Trump with Russian President Vladimir Putin chiming in. That gave rise to substantial misrepresentations of what the special counsel’s Russia investigation actually found.

In the Democratic presidential campaign, Joe Biden went beyond the facts on Trump’s tax cuts, claiming falsely that “all of it went to folks at the top.”

Looking Deep At Donald Trump’s Claims:

UNEMPLOYMENT

TRUMP: “We have more people working right now than ever in the history of our country.” — interview Thursday with Fox News.

THE FACTS: It’s true that more people are working now, but that is driven by population growth. A more relevant measure is the proportion of Americans with jobs, and that is still far below record highs.

According to Labor Department data, 60.6 percent of people in the United States 16 years and older were working in April. That’s below the all-time high of 64.7 percent in April 2000, though higher than the 59.9 percent when Trump was inaugurated in January 2017.

On Friday, the Labor Department reported that the unemployment rate dropped last month to 3.6% from 3.8%. That drop reflected a healthy economy for sure, but also an increase in the number of Americans who stopped looking for work.

ECONOMY

TRUMP: “I think we have the best economy we’ve ever had.”— interview Thursday with Fox News.

TRUMP: “It’s probably the best economy we’ve ever had.” — interview Wednesday with Fox Business News.

TRUMP: “Fact is, every economic aspect of our Country is the best it has ever been!” — tweet on April 29.

THE FACTS: The economy is solid but not one of the best in history.

The economy expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the first quarter of this year. That growth was the highest in just four years for the first quarter.

In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, a level it has not yet reached on an annual basis under Trump. Growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.

While the economy has shown strength, it grew 2.9% in 2018 – the same pace it reached in 2015 — and simply hasn’t hit historically high growth rates.

The economic expansion began under President Barack Obama in mid-2009.

GDP

TRUMP: “We just did 3.2 … 3.2 is a number that they haven’t hit in 14 years.” — interview Wednesday with Fox Business News.

THE FACTS: First-quarter growth of 3.2% in the gross domestic product is nowhere close to the best in 14 years, by any measure. It’s only the best since last year, surpassed in the second and third quarters with rates of 4.2% and 3.4% respectively.

Perhaps he meant to say it was the best first-quarter growth in 14 years. But that’s not right, either. It’s the best in four years.

The economy grew by 3.3% in the first quarter of 2015. So Obama has a better first-quarter record than Trump to date.

WAGES

TRUMP: “Wages are rising fastest for the lowest-income Americans.” — Wisconsin rally on April 27.

THE FACTS: This is true, though he’s claiming credit for a trend that predates his presidency.

Some of the gains also reflect higher minimum wages passed at the state and local level; the Trump administration opposes an increase to the federal minimum wage.

With the unemployment rate at 3.6 %, the lowest since December 1969, employers are struggling to fill jobs. Despite all the talk of robots and automation, thousands of restaurants, warehouses, and retail stores still need workers.

They are offering higher wages and have pushed up pay for the lowest-paid one-quarter of workers more quickly than for everyone else since 2015. In March, the poorest 25% saw their paychecks increase 4.4% from a year earlier, compared with 3% for the richest one quarter.

JOE BIDEN ON TAX CUTS

BIDEN: “There’s a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it? Of course not. Of course not. All of it went to folks at the top and corporations that pay no taxes.” — Pittsburgh rally on April 29.

THE FACTS: Not true. While Trump’s tax cut did skew to the wealthy, most middle-income taxpayers saw a tax cut this year, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The average taxpayer received a tax cut of about $1,600 in 2018, the center calculates, with two-thirds of U.S. taxpayers getting a cut and about 6 percent paying more.

RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

PUTIN on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: “A mountain gave birth to a mouse.” — remarks Tuesday, echoed in a phone call with Trump on Friday.

THE FACTS: Some might say this is a mouse that roared.

The investigation produced charges against nearly three dozen people, among them senior Trump campaign operatives and 25 Russians, as it shed light on a brazen Russian assault on the American political system.

The investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia and it reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice. Yet it described his campaign as eager to exploit the release of hacked Democratic emails to hurt rival Hillary Clinton and it exposed lies by Trump aides aimed at covering up their Russia-related contacts.

The Russians caught up in the investigation were charged either with hacking into Democratic accounts or orchestrating a social media campaign to spread disinformation on the internet.

COLLUSION, COLLUSION, COLLUSION

TRUMP on Democrats: “Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? — tweet Sunday.

TRUMP: “The Mueller Report strongly stated that there was No Collusion with Russia (of course) and, in fact, they were rebuffed … at every turn in attempts to gain access.” — tweets Thursday.

ATTORNEY GENERAL WILLIAM BARR: “The evidence is now that the president was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians and accused of being treasonous. … Two years of his administration have been dominated by allegations that have now been proven false.” — Senate hearing Wednesday.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Mr. Mueller and his team concluded there was no collusion.” — Senate hearing.

THE FACTS: This refrain about the Mueller report stating there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign is wrong.

Trump’s assertion that his campaign denied all access to Russians is false. The Mueller report and other scrutiny revealed a multitude of meetings with Russians. Among them: Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer who had promised dirt on Clinton.

On collusion, Mueller said he did not assess whether that occurred because it is not a legal term.

He looked into a potential criminal conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign and said the investigation did not collect sufficient evidence to establish criminal charges on that front.

Mueller noted some Trump campaign officials had declined to testify under the Fifth Amendment or had provided false or incomplete testimony, making it difficult to get a complete picture of what happened during the 2016 campaign. The special counsel wrote that he “cannot rule out the possibility” that unavailable information could have cast a different light on the investigation’s findings.

FULL COOPERATION

BARR, speaking of Trump: “He fully cooperated.” — Senate hearing.

THE FACTS: It’s highly questionable to say Trump was fully cooperative in the Russia investigation.

Trump declined to sit for an interview with Mueller’s team, gave written answers that investigators described as “inadequate” and “incomplete,” said more than 30 times that he could not remember something he was asked about in writing, and — according to the report — tried to get aides to fire Mueller or otherwise shut or limit the inquiry.

In the end, the Mueller report found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia but left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice.

OBSTRUCTION

GRAHAM: “As to obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller left it to Mr. Barr to decide after two years, and all this time. He said, ‘Mr. Barr, you decide.’ Mr. Barr did.” — Senate hearing.

THE FACTS: Not true. Mueller did not ask Barr to rule on whether Trump’s efforts to undermine the special counsel’s Russia investigation had obstructed justice.

According to the report, Mueller’s team declined to make a prosecutorial judgment on whether to charge partly because of a Justice Department legal opinion that said sitting presidents shouldn’t be indicted.

As a result, the report factually laid out instances in which Trump might have obstructed justice, specifically leaving it open for Congress to take up the matter or for prosecutors to do so once Trump leaves office.

Barr wrote in a March 24 letter that he ultimately decided, as attorney general, that the evidence developed by Mueller was “not sufficient” to establish, for the purposes of prosecution, that Trump committed obstruction of justice.

Barr subsequently acknowledged that he had not talked directly to Mueller about making that ruling and did not know whether Mueller agreed with him.

VENEZUELA

TRUMP says Putin “is not looking at all to get involved in Venezuela, other than he’d like to see something positive happen for Venezuela.” — remarks to reporters Friday after speaking with Putin on the phone.

THE FACTS: Putin is already deeply involved in Venezuela as U.S.-supported Juan Guaido, opposition leader of the National Assembly, challenges President Nicolas Maduro’s embattled government.

Russia has a political, military and economic alliance with Venezuela over many years and is helping to support Maduro’s hold on power.

The Russians have provided Venezuela with substantial assistance, including an air defense system and help circumventing U.S. sanctions on its oil industry.

“Russia is now so deeply invested in the Maduro regime that the only realistic option is to double down,” said Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Moscow Center.

NATO

TRUMP: “We’re getting ripped off on military, NATO. I’m all for NATO. But you know, we’re paying for almost 100 percent of defending Europe.” — Wisconsin rally on April 27.

THE FACTS: The U.S. is not paying “almost 100 percent” the cost of defending Europe.

NATO does have a shared budget to which each member makes contributions based on the size of its economy. The United States, with the biggest economy, pays the biggest share, about 22 percent.

Four European members — Germany, France, Britain and Italy — combined pay nearly 44 percent of the total. The money, about $3 billion, runs NATO’s headquarters and covers certain other civilian and military costs.

Defending Europe involves far more than that fund. The primary cost of doing so would come from each member country’s military budget, as the alliance operates under a mutual defense treaty.

The U.S. is the largest military spender but others in the alliance obviously have armed forces, too. The notion that almost all costs would fall to the U.S. is false.

In fact, NATO’s Article 5, calling for allies to act if one is attacked, has only been invoked once, and it was on behalf of the U.S., after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Madonna honored at GLAAD awards as 50th Pride anniversary nears

Jackie Warner

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May 5, 2019

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Madonna honored at GLAAD awards as 50th Pride anniversary nears

It’s been a minute, but Madonna is back with her fourteenth album “Madame X,” and as a strident pioneer for gay rights, accepted the Advocate for Change Award at the 2019 GLAAD Media Awards with a rousing speech that went from playful to emotional, bringing the audience to its feet.

The 60-year-old pop icon turned heads as she walked to her table at the Hilton Midtown in New York on Saturday night, before taking the stage to celebrate her three decades of advocacy work in the LGBTQ community.

“Why have I always fought for change? That’s a hard question to answer. It’s like trying to explain the importance of reading or the need to love. Growing up I always felt like an outsider, like I didn’t fit in. It wasn’t because I didn’t shave under my armpits, I just didn’t fit in, OK,” she said. “The first gay man I ever met was named Christopher Flynn. He was my ballet teacher in high school and he was the first person that believed in me, that made me feel special as a dancer, as an artist and as a human being. I know this sounds trivial and superficial, but he was the first man to tell me I was beautiful.”

Madonna went on to say Flynn took her to her first gay club in Detroit, and that the evening changed her life.

“For the first time I saw men kissing men, girls dressed like boys, boys wearing hot pants, insane, incredible dancing and a kind of freedom and joy and happiness that I had never seen before,” she said. “I finally felt like I was not alone, that it was OK to be different and to not be like everybody else. And that after all, I was not a freak. I felt at home, and it gave me hope.”

Madonna also said Flynn pushed her to leave Michigan and go to New York to pursue her dreams. And when she arrived in the Big Apple in 1977, she was in awe with all New York had to offer — diversity, creativity — but she also learned about the AIDS epidemic.

“The plague that moved in like a black cloud over New York City and in a blink of an eye,” she said and snapped her fingers, “took out all of my friends.”

“After I lost my best friend and roommate Martin Burgoyne and then Keith Haring — happy birthday Keith — I decided to take up the bull horn and really fight back,” she added.

Madonna, teary-eyed from her seat, received the award from Anderson Cooper, Mykki Blanco and Rosie O’Donnell, who gave a powerful speech about how Madonna helped her become more comfortable in her own skin.

“So here I was — VG, very gay — dating a man and I went to Madonna for advice,” said O’Donnell, who co-starred in 1992′s “A League of Their Own” with the singer. “I was questioning and unsure, my gay life was blossoming but I didn’t quite know what to do. And she told me, ‘Rosie, just follow your heart’ — advice I still follow to this day.”

The multi-hour GLAAD event also gave awards to Andy Cohen, the FX series “Pose” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story,” Samantha Bee, the film “Boy Erased,” CNN’s Don Lemon and R&B singer Janelle Monae. The event will air on Logo on May 12.

Despite winning seven Grammys, two Golden Globes and countless other honors, Madonna said getting GLAAD’s Advocate for Change Award has a special place in her heart.

“Because it’s recognition of years and years of work that I’ve done over three decades. It’s not anything superficial,” Madonna said in an interview with media outlets after receiving her honor. “It means something to me because I put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into all the work that I’ve done over the years advocating for change.”

Madonna will release her 14th album, “Madame X,” on June 14. It was inspired from living in Lisbon, Portugal, for the last few years and includes collaborations with Colombian singer Maluma, Migos rapper Quavo, Brazilian singer Anitta, and singer-rapper-songwriter Swae Lee of the duo Rae Sremmurd.

She released an anthemic new song “I Rise” this week. The mid-tempo, Auto-tuned number features inspirational lyrics, as well as an audio sample from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School school shooting survivor Emma González. “There’s nothing you can do to me that hasn’t been done,” Madonna sings. “Not bulletproof, shouldn’t have to run from a gun/River of tears ran dry, let ’em run/No game that you can play with me, I ain’t one.”

The singer said of the song, “I wrote ‘I Rise’ as a way of giving a voice to all marginalized people who feel they don’t have the opportunity to speak their mind. This year is the 50th anniversary of Pride and I hope this song encourages all individuals to be who they are, to speak their minds and to love themselves.”

She performed another track “Medellín” with Maluma Wednesday at the Billboard Music Awards with the help of a few holograms. Maluma will also appear on another track titled “Bitch I’m Loca.” Madonna plans to release “Crave,” featuring Swae Lee and produced by Mike Dean, on May 10, “Future,” featuring Quavo, on May 17 and “Dark Ballet” on June 7.

The album also features the track “Batuka,” co-written by Madonna’s 13-year-old son, David Banda.

“That was a family affair — the call and response song,” Madonna said. ”(David) likes to take more of the credit than the rest of my children. It’s always fun to work with my kids, especially David.”

Rafael Nadal ready to attack Madrid Open after setbacks plus Berrettini vs Garin

Luka Alario

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May 5, 2019

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Rafael Nadal ready to attack Madrid Open after setbacks plus Berrettini vs Garin

Rafael Nadal’s tennis career has been full of injuries and setbacks, but that has never kept Rafa from coming back time and again. He’s still ranked number 2, and as always, he’s not ready to count himself out at the 2019 Madrid Open.

Nadal hadn’t started the clay-court season with these many setbacks in four years. Not since 2015 had Nadal arrived at the Madrid Open without having won a title either in Monte Carlo or in Barcelona, the tournaments that mark the start of clay swing in Europe.

That year, Nadal was coming off a series of injuries and ended not reaching the final of either tournament. He also didn’t win the title in Madrid, Rome, and the French Open, dropping out of the top five in the rankings for the first time in a decade.

Now things are different, though. Despite the disappointing results, the second-ranked Nadal says there is no reason for concern.

“My confidence is back,” Nadal said after the semifinal loss to Dominic Thiem in Barcelona, which ended his run of three straight titles in the tournament. “I really believe that I made very good improvements to create a good base to try to achieve my goals during the next couple of weeks.”

Nadal will be trying to win his third straight French Open title — and 12th overall — at Roland Garros in June.

He lost to Fabio Fognini in the semifinals at Monte Carlo, where he also had won three titles in a row. The only other time Nadal hadn’t won either in Monte Carlo or in Barcelona was in 2014.

“Against Fognini I played the worst match probably in 14 years on clay. (Against Thiem) I played a good match. I was competitive and I enjoyed the match. I really felt competitive for the first time in a way that I want to feel myself. I am happy and I am confident that I made a big improvement.”

The 17-time Grand Slam winner has won a clay-court title in each of the last 15 seasons. He is an eight-time finalist in Madrid, with his last of five titles coming in 2017. He was defeated by Thiem in the quarterfinals last year.

rafael nadal ready to attack after setbacks 2019 images

Nadal will start this year’s campaign against the winner of the match between young Canadians Felix Auger-Aliassime or Denis Shapovalov, a semifinalist last year. Auger-Aliassime is one of the sensations on tour this season, having reached the final in Rio and the semifinals in Miami.

The other half of the Madrid draw has top-seeded Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, who will be making his return to clay-court tournaments after two seasons. The 37-year-old Federer, a three-time champion in Madrid, is preparing to make his first French Open appearance since 2015.

Federer hasn’t played on clay since Rome in 2016, but is looking for his third title of the season to add to his triumphs in Dubai and Miami. The only other player with two titles this season is Thiem, who beat Federer in the Indian Wells final. Federer and Thiem could meet in the quarterfinals in Madrid.

The defending champion in Madrid is Alexander Zverev, the German who did not drop his serve in his winning campaign last year. He will start this year’s tournament against David Ferrer, the veteran Spaniard who is retiring following the tournament in Madrid.

Petra Kvitova will defend her title in the women’s side. The second-seeded Czech is a three-time champion in Madrid and the tournament’s most successful women’s player with 27 wins and six losses. Naomi Osaka is the top-seed player this year in Madrid.

Matteo Berrettini ready to take on christian garin at munich open final 2019

Matteo Berrettini Ready For Christian Garin In Munich Open Final

Matteo Berrettini will play Cristian Garin of Chile in the final of the Munich Open after beating fourth-seeded Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-2 in their rain-postponed semifinal on Sunday.

The 37th-ranked Berrettini converted three of his four break opportunities to beat Bautista Agut in 1 hour and ten minutes, and the Italian has a few hours to recover before facing Garin, ranked No. 47, in the decider.

Garin ousted No. 3 Alexander Zverev — the two-time defending champion — on Friday before beating third-seeded Marco Cecchinato in Saturday’s semifinal.

Garin, winner of his maiden ATP title in Houston last month, has never played Berrettini on the tour.

Petra Kvitova beats Sofia Kenin At Madrid Open

Petra Kvitova opened her title defense in the Madrid Open by dispatching Sofia Kenin of the United States 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday.

The second-seeded Kvitova, a three-time champion in Madrid, is coming off a title in Stuttgart and is the only woman to win two tournaments this season.

Kvitova is the most successful women’s player in Madrid with 27 wins and only six losses. Her other titles in the Spanish capital came in 2011 and 2015.

Seventh-seeded Kiki Bertens opened with a 6-3, 6-2 win over Katerina Siniakova, while eighth-seeded Andrea Petkovic lost to Polana Hercog 4-6, 7-6 (1), 6-1.

Top-seeded Naomi Osaka makes her debut on Sunday against Dominika Cibulkova.

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Matteo Berrettini Ready For Christian Garin In Munich Open Final

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