Month: December 2020

Categories
Business

Restaurant income has fallen, regardless of supply growth

Restaurant revenue has fallen, despite delivery boom

The graph shows the weekly US restaurants

Source: UBS Evidence Lab

U.S. restaurant revenue declines as take-out and delivery contracts fail to make up for lost sales.

UBS Evidence Lab found that restaurant sales fell 69% for the week ended November 29. In the same week, takeaway sales and delivery increased 59%. However, total restaurant revenues remained in the red.

Industry experts predicted winter would further exacerbate restaurants’ problems during the coronavirus pandemic. Cold temperatures mean fewer customers are willing to eat outside, even if the facility provides heat lamps and blankets.

The winter weather has also spurred an increase in new Covid-19 cases, making consumers more cautious about eating and prompting governors and mayors to impose another round of restrictions on restaurants. New York City has once again banned indoor dining, while Los Angeles has suspended personal dining.

The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the shift to food delivery. EMarketer predicts that total third-party digital revenue will more than double this year to $ 44.94 billion.

Investors have closely followed the growth of third party suppliers. DoorDash, which made its public debut in early December, is up 55%. Its $ 50.3 billion market value surpasses that of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Taco Bell owner Yum Brands, and Domino’s Pizza.

However, delivery and takeaway sales won’t be enough to save some restaurants if these sales trends continue. The National Restaurant Association estimates that 110,000 establishments have already closed due to the pandemic. The new Covid bill, passed by Congress late Monday, means restaurants can apply for funding for the paycheck protection program. However, trade groups hope for more targeted help when President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Categories
Health

Who Ought to Get the Covid-19 Vaccine Subsequent? A Debate

Who Should Get the Covid-19 Vaccine Next? A Debate

Bazelon: We need them!

Ezike: Law. However, I think there is a possible problem with the long-term care population. Many of these people may still die for other reasons, but then the conclusion might be, “Grandma got the vaccine and died in the next week.” These are elderly people with comorbidities and their death coincides with time after vaccination but is not caused by the vaccine. However, I think this is going to be confusing for a lot of people. If health care workers get vaccinated and survive, people can gain the confidence to say, “OK, I’m ready now. I stand in line. “I think there will be this big push in the end when people say,” So far, so good. “

Gonsalves: If you follow Peter’s age-based utilitarianism, we should prioritize immunizing the people of the global south. Most of the young people on this planet live there.

Singer: I totally agree. Getting vaccines to the global south should be a very high priority.

Gonsalves: However, for now, most vaccinations are given in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US and Canada. The People’s Vaccine Alliance, which includes Amnesty International and Oxfam, just released a report that says that in 70 lower-income countries, only 1 in 10 people will have access to the vaccine by 2021. We are setting up some sort of medical apartheid in the next few months and even a few years where the virus will be under control in the US, Europe and some other places, but if you come from another country with no proof of immunity and trying to get a student visa to the US, good luck.

Ezike: Think more globally when I think of Nigeria, my father’s birthplace – access to vaccines, access to tests, all of that is limited there. We are not seeing a significant number of deaths in Nigeria and that is a godsend. But if broadcast were widespread, considering how many Nigerians travel overseas, there would be serious repercussions across national borders.

Bazelon: The rich countries seem to be planning to hoard vaccines. The European Union has ordered enough to immunize its residents twice. The UK and United States could each vaccinate four times if the supplies they set up are delivered, and Canada six times, according to a New York Times analysis of data on vaccination contracts. The World Health Organization and others have led an international initiative called Covax, which is providing a billion doses to less wealthy countries. But that’s not enough for a fair distribution.

Gonsalves: Here we go again, right? I mean, I am an epidemiologist. I am also an AIDS activist. And in 1996 a highly active antiretroviral therapy came out, and where did it go? It went to the industrialized north. And within a few years everyone around the world has been asking for it.

Mukherjee: Companies in India manufacture hundreds of millions of doses of Covid vaccines. China and Russia also have vaccines. However, we don’t know if any of these vaccines were tested with the same accuracy as the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. For me, this is the most unfortunate thing about vaccine testing that has happened by far. The only data we have on the Chinese vaccine is from the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, and we don’t know its effectiveness. They say it’s 86 percent; We don’t know real numbers. The Russian vaccine also released very little information. Then there is the AstraZeneca vaccine which has had data problems.

Categories
Politics

‘This simply has to get carried out’: Lawmakers push Trump to signal the reduction invoice.

Jobless Benefits Are Set to Expire as Trump Resists Signing Relief Bill

“Sign the bill, do it, and if the president wants to push for more, let’s do it, too,” said Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican who also appeared on the show.

Another Washington governor, Jay Inslee, said Mr. Trump “has decided to take the entire aid package hostage”. Mr Inslee, a Democrat, announced Sunday that the state would provide $ 54 million to nearly 100,000 people who want to lose unemployment benefits.

Despite harsh criticism of Mr Trump, two elected progressive officials joined the president’s call for greater direct payments. In State of the Union, New York Democrat Jamaal Bowman claimed that after his defeat in November the president “is taking an attitude to make himself and bring himself back as a hero of the American people”. But like Mr. Trump he said, Americans needed more relief.

“It has to be at least $ 2,000, so he has to speak to his Republican friends and say, ‘Give the people the money,” said Cori Bush, Democrat of Missouri, who also called the $ 600 figure “a slap in the face.” “denoted people who suffer.”

Democrats, who have long been campaigning to increase financial relief spread across the country, plan to hold a vote on Monday to approve a standalone bill that will increase payments to $ 2,000. It’s unclear whether this legislation will stand a chance in the Senate, where Republicans have long been opposed to spending more than $ 1 trillion on pandemic aid.

Pennsylvania Republican Senator Patrick J. Toomey said he would oppose such a move and urged the president to sign the bill, adding that “time is running out”.

“I understand that he wants to be remembered for campaigning for big checks,” Toomey said on Fox News Sunday. “But the danger is that if he allows this to happen, he will be remembered for chaos, misery and erratic behavior.”

Categories
Business

Managing Film Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot Extra Difficult

Managing Movie Superheroes Is About to Get a Lot More Complicated

LOS ANGELES – Walter Hamada is not your typical superhero wrangler.

He doesn’t have a booming fanboy-in-chief personality. His humble home office, at least as it appears on Zoom, illuminates the usual hooded and cape collectibles. Hollywood wasn’t even his first calling: he wanted to be a mechanical engineer.

However, as president of DC Films, 52-year-old Hamada manages the film careers of Wonder Woman, Batman, Cyborg, Flash, Superman, and every other superhero from DC Comics. And the new course he’s set for them is dizzying.

The most expensive DC films (up to four a year, from 2022) are slated to hit theaters, Hamada said. More superhero films (two a year, perhaps with a focus on riskier characters like Batgirl and Static Shock) will be released exclusively on HBO Max, WarnerMedia’s fledgling streaming service.

In addition, DC Films, a Warner Bros. company, will work with filmmakers to develop offshoots – TV series that air on HBO Max and combine with their big-screen endeavors.

“With every movie we watch right now, we think, ‘What’s the potential Max spin-off?'” Hamada said.

If you thought there was a deluge of superheroes before, just wait.

In order for all of the storylines to work, DC Films will introduce film audiences to a comic book concept known as the multiverse: parallel worlds in which different versions of the same character coexist. For example, Warner Bros. will have two different sagas in which Batman – played by two different actors – is shown at the same time.

The complicated plan involves a large increase in production. Last year Warner Bros. made two live-action superhero films, “Joker” and “Shazam!” In 2018 there was only “Aquaman”. All three were hits, which underscores the financial opportunity to do more.

For a variety of reasons, including creative dropouts and management revenue at DC Films (Mr Hamada took over in 2018), Disney-owned Warner Bros. Marvel tracked badly at the box office. Over the past decade, Warner Bros. has sold $ 8 billion in superhero ticket sales worldwide, including $ 36 million from Wonder Woman 1984 over the weekend. Marvel raised $ 20.6 billion.

Suffice it to say that Warner Bros., who invented the big budget superhero film “Superman” in 1978, was under pressure to band together.

Disney succeeds in part because its departments work together in ways that Warner Bros. has never overshadowed. But that is changing. AT&T called for greater cross-company synergies when it acquired WarnerMedia in 2018.

“We were so secret in the past,” said Mr. Hamada. “For example, it was shocking to me how few people at the company were actually allowed to read scripts for the films we make.”

The studios rely more than ever on established characters and brands – especially when their corporate parents set up streaming services. HBO Max has 12.6 million subscriber activations. Netflix has 195 million. How do you please Wall Street and fill the void quickly? You start by making your superheroes work.

This month Disney announced 100 new movies and shows for the next several years, most of which went straight to its Disney + streaming service, which has 87 million subscribers. Marvel has played 11 films and 11 television shows, including WandaVision, which will be released on January 15th, in which Elizabeth Olsen repeats her role as the Scarlet Witch from the Avengers franchise.

Warner Bros. has at least as many comic films in various stages of pregnancy, including a sequel to “Suicide Squad”; “The Batman,” in which Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) plays the Caped Crusader; and “Black Adam” with Dwayne Johnson as the vicious title character.

TV spin-offs of “The Batman” and “The Suicide Squad” go to HBO Max. WarnerMedia’s traditional TV division has around 25 additional live-action and animated superhero shows, including “Superman & Lois,” which will be released in February appear in the CW network.

Sony Pictures Entertainment has its own superhero list with at least two other “Spider-Man” films in the works. “Morbius” with Jared Leto as a pseudovampire; and a sequel to “Venom,” which cost $ 100 million to manufacture in 2018 and grossed $ 856 million worldwide. Sony also has a number of superhero TV shows for Amazon Prime Video.

And don’t forget Valiant Entertainment, which is turning comics like Harbinger about overpowering teenagers into films with partners like Paramount Pictures.

Superheroes have long been Hollywood’s most dependable money-makers, especially when the sale of related goods is involved. (Wonder Woman tiara for cats, on sale for $ 59.50.) But how much fast-paced spandex and computer-generated visual effects can audiences endure?

More than you think, said David A. Gross, who runs Franchise Entertainment Research, a film consultancy. “If the stories are well written and the production values ​​are strong,” he said, “then there will be little evidence of fatigue.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge for Warner Bros. is the recent prioritization of HBO Max. “The risk is that watching these movies first on TV detracts from the entertainment experience and then detracts from value,” Gross said. “For a single film, there is no more profitable business model than a successful theatrical release that creates the greatest possible pop culture event. It’s the locomotive that pulls the entire train: goods, theme park licensing, other revenue. “

On Friday, Warner Bros. released Wonder Woman 1984 in North America, where it raised $ 16.7 million. Citing the coronavirus pandemic (only 39 percent of theaters in the US are open), the studio was simultaneously distributing the film in theaters and on HBO Max. Warner Bros. will release all of its slate for 2021 in the same hybrid fashion.

WarnerMedia provided only vague information about the performance of the sequel to HBO Max, saying in a press release that “millions” of subscribers saw it on Friday. Andy Forssell, general manager of WarnerMedia, said the film “exceeded our expectations for all major measurement and subscriber metrics.”

So far, “Wonder Woman 1984” has raised $ 85 million worldwide, with $ 68.3 million from overseas cinemas where HBO Max does not yet exist. The Gal Gadot film, directed by Patty Jenkins, cost at least $ 200 million and an estimated $ 100 million to be marketed worldwide. It received much lower ratings than its series predecessor.

Toby Emmerich, president of the Warner Bros. Pictures Group, said Sunday that he “sped up” a third Wonder Woman film. “Our real Wonder Women – Gal and Patty – will return to complete the long-planned theater trilogy,” said Emmerich.

Mr. Hamada rose to power through New Line, a Warner Bros. division that primarily produces horror films and mid-budget comedies. Among other things, he worked with filmmaker James Wan and others to make “The Conjuring” (2013) a “world” with six films and worldwide ticket sales of $ 1.8 billion. (“The Incantation: The Devil Made Me Do It” is out in June.)

“In studio meetings, a lot of the time executives repeat slogans and it becomes a joke,” said Wan. “Walt always brings something constructive, useful and important to the table. He speaks to me in a language that I understand. “

When Mr. Hamada joined DC Films in 2018, the department was in dire need of stability.

Two horribly expensive films, “Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice” (2016) and “Justice League” (2017), both directed by Zack Snyder, have been judged by critics to be almost unobservable. Ben Affleck, who played Batman in the films, wanted to go ahead and complicate plans for the sequel. At the same time, filmmakers were developing other DC films that had nothing to do with the existing storylines – and actually contradicting some of them.

Mr. Hamada and Mr. Emmerich had two options: to find out how the different storylines and character incarnations could coexist or start over.

The answer is the multiverse. In a nutshell, this means that some characters (Wonder Woman, as portrayed by Ms. Gadot, for example) will continue their adventures on Earth 1, while new incarnations (Mr. Pattinson as “The Batman”) will populate Earth 2 .

“The Flash,” a film set to hit theaters in 2022, will link the two universes and show two Batmans, with Mr. Affleck returning as one and Michael Keaton as the other. Mr. Keaton played Batman in 1989 and 1992.

To complicate matters, HBO Max gave Mr. Snyder more than $ 70 million to re-cut and add new footage to his Justice League. Mr. Snyder and Warner Bros. had argued over his original vision, which the studio viewed as overly bleak, leading to re-recordings being performed by another director, Joss Whedon. (That didn’t go well, either.) “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” now running for four hours, will hit HBO Max in segments in March.

For now, at least, Mr. Snyder is not part of DC Films’ new draft. Studio managers describe his HBO Max project as a dead end – a road that leads nowhere.

The multiverse concept has proven its worth on television, but it is a risky strategy for big screens. These films need to attract the broadest possible audience to justify their cost, and being too sensitive to comic book nerds can be an aversion. New actors can take on a character; James Bond is the best example. But do several Gothams turn in theaters?

“I don’t think anyone else has ever tried this,” Hamada said. “But the audience is high enough to understand. If we make good films, they will fit. “

Categories
Health

Play These Video games Digitally – The New York Instances

Play These Games Digitally - The New York Times

At best, good video calls are a mediocre substitute for real interaction. What if they are bad? You can be really bad. If your Thanksgiving Zoom family has been focused on melting toddlers and bored teenagers, maybe it is time to add a little friendly competition to the mix.

Online games allow near and far to engage with a common goal, which in turn creates a sense of togetherness – a feeling everyone wants these days.

Here is a selection of digital games and apps that gamers of all ages can enjoy.

“A boring video call is even more boring for kids,” said Max Tuchman, CEO and co-founder of Caribu, a video calling app specially designed for children. During the call, kids and adults can interact with on-screen games like tic-tac-toe, word search, memory matching cards, and math challenges. Caribu also has a library of books that open on your screen and adults and children can read together. The unlimited offer ($ 9.99 per month) is a family plan, meaning distant cousins ​​and grandparents can interact with a single membership.

If your family already has a wide variety of online games to choose from, then you should also download Bunch. This free app overlay video chat windows with existing games so you can talk about trash while playing Uno, Minecraft or Scrabble.

If some of your crew have game consoles and others use computers, consider a Jackbox Party Pack that allows you to play between eight players on a range of devices. Only one family member needs to purchase the party package, which ranges from $ 13.99 to $ 23.99. Packs have five games that you can play an unlimited number of times.

While playing trivia games with his family, Teddy Phillips found that most of them were severely lacking in representation. “All of the classic BET movies, none of them were ever in those categories,” he said. Phillips, 32, who lives in Seattle and works as a cybersecurity engineer, shot the game For The Culture, highlighting black culture and history. It is designed to be played in person but also works well via video chat.

Mr. Phillips also recently published For La Cultura, which shows the culture and history of Latinx. Because the culture is so diverse, Mr. Phillips sought help from Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Central American friends to make sure the game tells everyone’s story. Both For The Culture and For La Cultura are free with in-app purchases.

For families who are not particularly familiar with computers, a hosted Zoom game, where a game master leads and officiates, can be a good option.

Since March Michael Wade, a recent Richmond-based MBA graduate. Va. Developed and hosted Trivia Throwdown Online, a zoom-based trivia game that teams up families for a Family Feud vs Jeopardy-style match. “It’s based on the idea of ​​how we get people to connect and work together,” he said.

Mr Wade writes age-specific questions, which means grandma and your tween niece both have an equal chance of getting a pop culture question right. Prices for family, nonprofit, and corporate events vary, but the average event for up to 30 people costs around $ 300.

Matt Hendricks, a games expert who owns the Thirsty Dice game store and cafe in Philadelphia, has also taken his game hosting business online and charges around $ 270 (depending on group size). Recently, an art-based game called Duplicate has been particularly popular. The game is based on collaboration between small groups, which “makes people feel like they are together,” he said. This is the key to making everyone feel like a winner.

Categories
Business

Marvel Girl 1984 opening weekend results in fast-tracked third movie

'Wonder Woman 1984' reviews: What critics are saying

Gal Gadot plays Wonder Woman in “Wonder Woman 1984”.

Warner bros.

“Wonder Woman 1984” hit theaters on Christmas Day, securing the highest box office opening of any domestic film since the coronavirus pandemic crippled the entertainment industry in mid-March.

On Sunday, Warner Bros. announced that the film was worth $ 16.7 million in the United States and Canada. “Wonder Woman 1984” was one of the first major Hollywood blockbusters to be released in theaters and streaming on the same day.

Simultaneous release should accommodate a limited number of open theaters, limited seating capacity, and a broad public that continues to be afraid of returning to theaters.

Warner & Bros. mom AT&T said Sunday that nearly half of HBO Max subscribers saw “Wonder Woman 1984” on Christmas Day. Retail subscribers are those who purchase the streaming service directly, not through a cable or other streaming subscription.

As of October, HBO Max had around 3.6 million direct retail customers. It is unclear how many additional subscribers the company gained prior to the release of Wonder Woman 1984 on the platform.

“Wonder Woman 1984 broke records in the first 24 hours of service and exceeded our expectations for all major ad and subscriber metrics. The interest and momentum we’re seeing suggest this is likely well beyond the weekend will continue, “said Andy Forssell, executive vice president and general manager of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer division. “In these very difficult times, it was nice to give families the opportunity to enjoy this uplifting movie at home where going to the theater wasn’t an option.”

The movie’s box office hit prompted the studio to accelerate a third installment in the Wonder Woman franchise, the company said. It’s written and directed by Patty Jenkins, who directed the previous two films and made it clear to the New York Times last week that she wouldn’t be returning to the franchise if a theatrical model wasn’t possible for the film.

At the beginning of the weekend, analysts weren’t sure the film could top the nearly $ 10 million that “The Croods: A New Age” had secured on the opening weekend during Thanksgiving. There were concerns that HBO Max audience numbers could be grossly cannibalizing ticket sales.

Despite the gross grossing, fans and critics are concerned about Warner Bros.’s DC Extended Universe.

A week before its US debut, Wonder Woman 1984 had a rating of 88% “Fresh” out of 92 reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes review page. As of Sunday afternoon, that score dropped from 285 ratings to 65%.

While the film’s star, Gal Gadot, received widespread acclaim, the film itself has been condemned for its poor story, plot inconsistencies, and inferior CGI.

For comparison, the first Wonder Woman movie released in 2017 scored 93%, the highest of any movie in the DC Extended Universe. Private watch parties and large format screens like IMAX and Dolby were the most popular way for moviegoers to see the latest movie over the vacation weekend, the company said.

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Dreamworks Animation, the studio behind The Croods: A New Age, and Rotten Tomatoes.

Correction: Warner Bros. mom AT&T said Sunday that nearly half of HBO Max subscribers saw “Wonder Woman 1984” on Christmas Day.

Categories
World News

E.U.’s Mass Vaccination Marketing campaign Begins, With Nursing Houses as Focus

E.U.’s Mass Vaccination Campaign Starts, With Nursing Homes as Focus

BERLIN – From nursing homes in France to hospitals in Poland, older Europeans and the workers who care for them rolled up their sleeves on Sunday to receive coronavirus vaccination shots as part of a campaign to protect more than 450 million people across the European Union.

The vaccinations offered a rare respite as the continent grappled with one of its most precarious moments since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Despite national bans, restrictions on movement, closings of restaurants and cancellations of Christmas gatherings, the virus has haunted Europe into the dark winter months. The spread of a more contagious variant of the virus in the UK has caused such an alarm that much of continental Europe closed its borders to travelers from the country, effectively quarantining the nation as a whole.

In Germany, a nursing home in eastern Saxony-Anhalt did not wait for the planned introduction of the vaccination campaign across the European Union on Sunday and vaccinated a 101-year-old woman and dozens of other residents and employees on Saturday. Hours after the cans arrived. People were also vaccinated in Hungary and Slovakia on Saturday.

Early Sunday, dozens of minivans carrying coolers filled with dry ice to keep the doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine from rising above minus 70 degrees Celsius fanned out into nursing homes across the German capital as part of the vaccination wave. The rollout comes as Europe’s largest nation is facing its deadliest phase since the pandemic began.

With nearly 1,000 deaths per day in Germany in the week before Christmas, a crematorium in the Saxon state was in operation around the clock to keep up.

“I’ve never seen it so badly,” said Eveline Müller, the director of the facility in the city of Görlitz.

More than 350,000 people in the 27 countries of the European Union have died of Covid-19 since the first death was recorded in France on February 15. For many countries the worst days have come in recent weeks. In Poland, November was the deadliest month since the end of World War II.

While doctors have learned to better care for Covid-19 patients, effective medical treatment remains difficult to achieve. So the rapid development of vaccines is being celebrated not only as a remarkable scientific achievement, but also as a hope for a world that is off its axis.

However, the joy that greeted the news of successful vaccine candidates in November was tempered when its launch in the UK and United States highlighted the challenges ahead.

Vaccination campaigns in Russia and China use products that have not passed the same regulatory hurdles as the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna that are currently being rolled out in the West.

Mexico became the first country in Latin America to start vaccinating its population on Friday. And regulators in India are expected to approve the use of a vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University soon.

By the New Year, the greatest vaccination effort in human history is expected to be in full swing. However, supply bottlenecks, logistical hurdles, misinformation, public skepticism, and the scale of the effort make it an uphill battle against an ever-evolving virus.

While experts said there was no evidence that any known variant would affect the effectiveness of vaccines in individuals, they said more study was needed. And the higher the infection rate, the more urgent vaccination is.

The new variant is spreading in the UK with such ferocity that there is a growing debate over whether to give more people a single dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine, which is about 50 percent effective at preventing disease, rather than one fewer people taking the two doses are required for levels of protection estimated at 95 percent.

Still, the launch of the vaccine was celebrated across Europe.

“Today we turn the page in a difficult year,” wrote the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Twitter. “The vaccine # COVID19 was delivered to all EU countries.”

Updated

Apr. 27, 2020 at 1:48 am ET

The Greeks call their vaccination campaign “Operation Freedom”. As in much of Europe, there is great skepticism about coronavirus vaccines, and the slogan aims to influence indecisive people.

For Italians – whose suffering served as a warning to the world at the start of the pandemic and whose current death toll is again among the worst in Europe – a 29-year-old nurse stood up to take the first shot.

“It’s the beginning of the end,” said nurse Claudia Alivernini after she was vaccinated early that morning at Spallanzani Hospital in Rome.

“We health workers believe in science, we believe in this vaccine, it is important to be vaccinated for ourselves, for those around us, for our loved ones, the community and our patients,” she said.

The Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte celebrated this moment.

“Today Italy is waking up again. It’s #VaccineDay, ”he wrote on Twitter. “This date will stay with us forever.”

For some countries, the first vaccinations offer a chance of some sort of reimbursement for errors made during the first wave of the pandemic.

In the spring, when the virus entered nursing homes in France, the crisis remained in the shadows until deaths reached levels that could no longer be ignored. There was therefore a symbolic response when the residents of nursing homes were selected to receive the first vaccinations in the country.

In Spain, where more than 16,000 people died in nursing homes in the first three months of the pandemic, the vaccination campaign should also begin in a nursing home in the city of Guadalajara.

European Union member states showed solidarity by waiting for the bloc’s regulator, the European Medical Association, to approve the vaccine before embarking on coordinated national campaigns. But how these will develop in individual countries is likely to vary.

All EU Member States have national health systems so people are vaccinated for free. But just as hospitals in poorer member states like Bulgaria and Romania have been overwhelmed by the recent virus wave, networks in these countries will face challenges in distributing vaccines.

While each nation determines how their campaign will be conducted, the first phase generally focuses on those most at risk of exposure and most likely to experience serious health problems – healthcare workers and the oldest citizens.

Most Member States have announced that the vaccine will reach the general public by spring and a return to a sense of normalcy could hardly come too soon.

France was among the first nations in Europe to introduce a second lockdown in October, and while it has started lifting the restrictions, the reopening has not come as quickly as many had hoped.

Museums, theaters, and cinemas, originally scheduled to reopen on December 15, will remain closed, and there is a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. across the country. The lights in the trees along the Champs-Élysées in Paris still twinkle every night, but no vacation shoppers or tourists are there to bask in their glory.

Chairs stacked in empty bars, restaurants and cafes are a reminder of the absence in 2020.

Nathalie and Adrien Delgado, a Parisian couple in their fifties, said they would get vaccinated as soon as possible. “It’s an act of citizenship,” said Ms. Delgado, who celebrated Christmas with the couple’s two children in Paris instead of visiting their mother. “It’s not even for me, but it’s the only way to stop the virus.”

Others weren’t so sure.

Sandra Frutuoso, a 27-year-old housekeeper who had also canceled plans to visit her family in Portugal, said she feared the disease – her husband was infected and has since recovered – but will not be vaccinated for “long”.

“You did it too quickly,” she said. “I’m concerned that the side effects could be worse for someone my age than the Covid itself.”

Germans’ willingness to get vaccinated has also decreased in recent months, and the government hopes that adoption will increase with the introduction of the vaccines.

When asked last week how long it could be before life could return to normal, Ugur Sahin, co-founder of BioNTech, warned that despite immunization, the virus would persist for the rest of the decade.

“We need a new definition of” normal, “” he told reporters, though he added that with adequate vaccinations, lockdowns could end as early as next year.

“This year we won’t have any control over the number of infections,” said Sahin, “but we have to be sure that we have enough vaccines next year to make it normal.”

Melissa Eddy reported from Berlin and Marc Santora from London. The reporting was written by Aurelien Breeden from Paris, Niki Kitsantonis from London, Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome, Raphael Minder from Madrid and Monika Pronczuk from Brussels.

Categories
Entertainment

‘Surprise Lady 1984’ Evaluation: It’s Not About What We Deserve

‘Wonder Woman 1984’ Review: It’s Not About What We Deserve

When Wonder Woman first hit the silver screen in 2017, the possibilities for the character were endless. After 76 years without a blockbuster to call herself – she tried comics in 1941, bracelets flashed – she had made it and became a sensation at the box office. And yay! The films love sex pot vixens who vamp in fetish clothes (meow) and nice girls who simulate in their wings. So it was a relief that Wonder Woman wasn’t. She was poised, powerful, and slightly charming, and even if the movie was fun with her, it took her character, her powerful sword, and her cultural significance seriously.

The first film is set largely during World War I, which sets a high bar for the scope and importance of future adventures. The title of the sequel, “Wonder Woman 1984”, suggests that some juicy Orwellian intrigue is on the horizon. Will Wonder Woman, aka Diana Prince (Gal Gadot), kidnap a Soviet cruise missile and throw gummy bears at Ronald Reagan? As it turns out, the year is mostly an excuse to pile ponytails, fanny packs, and nostalgic nods on the kind of Hollywood blowouts that boast cartoonish violence and die-hard macho guys. What is Wonder Woman doing in these combative, recycled digs? Who knows? Clearly not the filmmakers.

Patty Jenkins is behind the camera again, but this time without the confidence. Certainly some of the problems can be traced back to the uninteresting choppy script, a jumble of silly jokes, narrative clichés and dubious politics. (It was written by Jenkins, Geoff Johns, and Dave Callaham.) There is a mystical artifact; an evildoer seeking world domination (bonus: he is a bad father); and one of those comic wallflowers that transforms into a sexy super villain – the usual. It’s a lot of unoriginality, but the used parts aren’t what Wonder Woman 1984 sunk. Familiarity, after all, is one of the foundations (and joys) of movie genres and franchises.

What matters is how awkwardly those elements – the heroes and villains, the jokes and action sequences – are put together. For starters, as is the case with many contemporary images, this one begins better than it ends. (It plays like an elevator seat, everything set up without delivery.) It begins with a leisurely look back at Diana’s princess childhood during a kind of Olympics in Amazonia, with aerobics and tight, muscular thighs on thundering horses. That game in the past may have been required for viewers who haven’t seen the first movie. But in the context of the rest of this film, it resonates like a one-hit band that opens up with their only claim to fame.

Eventually the film comes to its 1984 deal and the pace drifts into lethargy. The story contains many things and characters, but with no purpose or urgency. (It could have used more of the signature electric cello that helped juice up the action of the first film and give it a signature hook.) Kristen Wiig has fun as a wallflower, but Pedro Pascal is badly abused as the villain du Jour . Wonder Woman’s great love, Steve (Chris Pine), also materializes inexplicably, much like Patrick Swayze in “Ghost”, although the details remain blurry. Pine gives the film the heart (and panache) as well as the emotional expressiveness necessary given Gadot’s narrow reach.

On her debut super-outing, Gadot was the shaky axis in a movie that sometimes ran smoothly despite her. She was convincing and also charming because the character was also wild and unworldly. This Diana was also a hawk, which goes with the mythological territory, although history gave her a justification in the form of an adversary, Ares, the god of war. We have to stop him, she told the ruler of the Amazons, also known as Mama. It is “our supremacy,” stressed Diana, embracing the interventionist belief that has long defined American cinema. But until she drives through the Middle East in the sequel, this ideological creed looks like an assertion of power.

Although there is no official war in 1984, Jenkins et al. have to cause trouble, a commitment that leads to scenes that feel like busy work. The film oscillates between hand-to-hand combat (and hand-to-paw) and large-scale choreographed chaos with flying bodies, trucks and so on whirling around in a mall and elsewhere. During a fight, Wonder Woman pauses to utter anti-gun rhetoric, a disingenuous statement that includes all the guns and ammunition in the two films. As before, Jenkins lowers the camera in the best moments so you can admire Wonder Woman sliding and sweeping the floor, her long legs mowing the enemy.

Ultimately, this film never makes it clear why Wonder Woman is back in action beyond the obvious commercial needs. It goes without saying that franchises are started to do banking, etc., but the best chapters have life, personality, a reason to be and a fight. They expand the mythologies of their characters and use the past to explore the present. Three years ago, Wonder Woman showed up amid a reckoning of male abuse and power. The timing was random, but it also made the character feel meaningful. In 2017, when Wonder Woman was done saving the world, her horizons seemed limitless. I didn’t expect their next big adult battle to take place in the mall.

Wonder Woman 1984
Rated PG-13 for comic strip violence. Running time: 2 hours 31 minutes. Watch on HBO Max.

Categories
Business

Battered Turkish Financial system Places a Highly effective Erdogan to the Check

Battered Turkish Economy Puts a Powerful Erdogan to the Test

ISTANBUL – Affected by the restrictions on his tobacco shop, Ozgur Akbas helped organize a demonstration in Istanbul last month to protest the rules he called unfair and imposed on traders during the pandemic.

“There are a lot of friends who have made,” he said in an interview. “And some are on the verge of suicide.”

The Turks struggled with a falling currency and double-digit inflation for two years when the pandemic broke out in March, greatly worsening the country’s deep recession. Nine months later, when a second wave of the virus swept through Turkey, there are signs that a significant segment of the population is overwhelmed by debt and is increasingly starving.

MetroPoll Research, a respected polling organization, found in a recent survey that 25 percent of respondents said they couldn’t meet their basic needs. Mr Akbas said he sees it with his customers every day.

“People are at the point of explosion,” he said.

For President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had drawn attention to himself this year with an aggressive foreign policy and military interventions at home and abroad, things suddenly came to a head in November.

The government admitted it had underestimated the scale of the Turkish coronavirus outbreak by not recording asymptomatic cases, and new data showed record rates of infection in the country.

The Turkish lira was hit by a record devaluation – a fall of more than 30 percent against the dollar this year – and foreign exchange reserves were depleted. Coupled with double-digit inflation, the country is now facing a balance of payments crisis, Moody’s Investor Service said recently.

The crisis comes as Mr Erdogan will lose a powerful ally when President Trump leaves office next month. Turkey is already facing sanctions from the United States for the purchase of a Russian anti-missile defense system and the European Union for gas drilling in waters claimed by Cyprus. Mr. Trump was instrumental in halting Washington sanctions by this month.

Mr. Erdogan was slow in congratulating President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on his victory. Analysts believe that a Biden government will tighten Mr Erdogan’s moving balance sheet on human rights and democratic standards.

To cope with the changing Turkish economy, Mr Erdogan recently moved with a ruthlessness that is usually carefully hidden. He appointed a new head of the central bank, and when Mr Erdogan’s finance minister, who is also his son-in-law and heir, resigned, the president surprised many by accepting the resignation and replacing him.

Then the president promised economic and judicial reforms, and even gave the option to release political prisoners – something some in his own party advocate to improve relations with Europe and the United States.

In mid-December, Mr Erdogan announced a new aid package to surprise small businesses and traders for three months. Last weekend he went to a bakery to do some shopping to help out the dealers.

However, critics have described Mr Erdogan’s various maneuvers as too little, too late.

Former Treasury Secretary Berat Albayrak may have been a convenient scapegoat – little is known about what really happened in the presidential palace – but his dramatic fall from grace and total disappearance from public life suggest a more serious course correction. It seems that the economic crisis and the consequences for Mr Erdogan’s own fate have become primary concerns.

Updated

Dec. Dec. 27, 2020 at 11:08 am ET

Mehmet Ali Kulat, who conducts opinion polls for political parties, including Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, said the president is closely monitoring the polls.

“What he’s paying special attention to is how things affect society,” said Kulat.

Recent opinion polls show that Mr Erdogan’s AK party has fallen to its lowest level in the 19 years in which it was at the forefront of Turkish politics and, according to MetroPoll, is around 30 percent. This figure suggests that the party’s alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party would not secure Mr Erdogan the 50 percent of the vote required to win a presidential election.

“The next elections are not a big deal,” said Asli Aydintasbas, Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There’s a good chance he’ll lose if he doesn’t either expand his coalition or manage to reach people who voted for the opposition.”

“His chances of being re-elected are under 50 percent,” she said. “So finally,” she added, the question is, “is he smart enough?”

The MetroPoll poll found that the majority of Mr Erdogan’s supporters and 63 percent of respondents overall believe that Turkey is going in a worse rather than a better direction.

These numbers are confirmed by what aid organizations see on the ground.

Hacer Foggo, founder of the Deep Poverty Network, a group that helps street vendors and informal workers, said she had never seen a plight like this in her nearly 20 years working to tackle urban poverty in Turkey.

When the first lockdown began in March, she received calls from people begging for help with feeding their families. Street vendors and scrap collectors were particularly hard hit.

“When they say there is no food at home, it means there is no food at the neighbour’s either,” she said.

Their network has helped 2,500 families in Istanbul and matched donors with families to help them purchase food and diapers for children. Her voice cracked when she described a mother who said her baby got a size smaller in diapers.

“A baby should be gaining weight, not getting smaller,” said Ms. Foggo. Other women were unable to breastfeed because they lacked food, and more people were forced to look for food that was already scarce in the trash.

“I’m 52 years old and this is the biggest crisis I’ve ever seen,” she said.

The economic problems started before the pandemic, she said, but she blamed local and national governments for lacking a strategy to tackle growing poverty and failing to improve social services.

Indeed, the economic boom came after Mr Erdogan tightened his reins on the country, including the economy, by gaining far-reaching new powers under a new presidential system launched in 2018. International observers cite these changes as the main reason for their concern about the country’s economic collapse.

“Turkey’s weak and deteriorating governance is a major credit weakness that underpinned our decision to downgrade Turkey by several notches since the presidential system was launched in mid-2018,” Moody’s said in a report earlier this month.

Mr Akbas, the trader who runs the tobacco shop, described two elderly customers who came to his store for a day last week in an affluent part of the capital, Ankara, to illustrate how inflation has shot people up.

A woman asked if she could buy a single egg. The second woman, who had become tidy, asked if he had free bread. Stunned, he filled a bag for her.

“Retirees are in a very bad position,” he said. “What I hear from people is, ‘Enough is enough. We made it up to our necks, we can’t make any money, ”and the 70- and 80-year-olds say they will throw themselves on the street.

Categories
Politics

Trump pardons 15, together with folks convicted in Mueller probe

Trump pardons 15, including people convicted in Mueller probe

President Donald Trump on Tuesday apologized to 15 people, including two men convicted in the investigation by Special Envoy Robert Mueller and four former Blackwater US guards convicted of the 2007 murders of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

Others who received pardons included two former Republican congressmen who admitted to having committed financial crimes.

Trump also commuted all or some of the criminal convictions of five other people as the president is nearing his final month in office.

One such person, Philip Esformes, owner of a health facility in South Florida, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September 2019 for “the largest healthcare fraud ever indicted by the Justice Department”. Esformes, 52, is now being released from prison for Trump’s action.

Trump, who has sharply criticized Muller’s investigation into his 2016 campaign and its contacts with Russians, apologized to his former campaign foreign policy advisor, George Papadopoulos, who was convicted of making false statements during the investigation.

George Papadopoulos, former member of the foreign affairs committee of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, poses for a picture before a television interview in New York, New York, the United States, on March 26, 2019.

Carlo Allegri | Reuters

“Today’s apology helps correct the injustice that Mueller’s team has done to so many people,” Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement to Papadopoulous.

The president also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney and Dutch national who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Mueller investigation. Van der Zwaan was the first person convicted in the investigation and was sentenced to 30 days in prison in 2018.

Alex van der Zwaan leaves the U.S. District Court after his conviction in Washington on April 3, 2018.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Four former Blackwater security companies, Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, who received pardons, opened fire on and around Nisur Square in Baghdad on September 16, 2007. According to the Justice Department, 14 civilians were killed, including two women and two boys, ages 11 and 9. At least 17 other victims were injured.

Slatten, who was convicted of murder, was released “without provocation,” according to the Justice Department. He has served a life sentence.

The other three men were convicted of manslaughter and other charges and were sentenced to 15 years in prison again last year, half of their original sentences.

In a statement, McEnany said that “the pardon for these four veterans has broad support from the public, including Pete Hegseth, a Fox News employee and a number of GOP Congressmen.

“In addition, prosecutors recently announced – more than 10 years after the incident – that the leading Iraqi investigator was heavily relied on by prosecutors to verify that there were no insurgent victims and to gather evidence , possibly had ties to insurgent groups herself, “McEnany said in her statement.

Other pardons include former California Congressman Duncan Hunter and New Yorker Chris Collins.

Former U.S. Representative Chris Collins (R-NY) is leaving federal court in New York City on October 1, 2019.

Drew Angerer | Getty Images

Collins, who last year pleaded guilty to crimes related to his son pointing to nonpublic information about a pharmaceutical company’s failed drug trial, was the first member of Congress to endorse Trump’s campaign as president in 2015. He served a 26-month sentence in October.

Hunter pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds in 2019 along with his wife, who together converted and stole more than $ 250,000 over several years. He was due to serve an 11 month sentence next month.

Another fallen GOP member of Congress, Steve Stockman of Texas, had the remainder of his 10-year prison sentence for misusing donations that were converted by the President. Stockman, 64, had served more than two years in that tenure and signed Covid-19 that year.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Condemned many of the pardons in a damning statement.

“I doubt government contractors who slaughtered civilians or slaughtered corrupt friends of Congress had the founders in mind when drafting the pardon,” said Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Most despicable is that President Trump is twisting that presidential power to reward allies who have broken the law about his conduct,” he said. “Donald Trump is leaving the presidency as he accepted it: without a hint of respect for the constitution and as a complete shame for his office.”

Trump also pardoned two former U.S. border guards, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, for their convictions for shooting and wounding an unarmed illegal alien who traded 700 pounds of marijuana in 2005. President George W. Bush had their sentences converted from 11 and 11 years to 12 years in 2009.

The pardons come after Trump refused to admit he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, whose victory was confirmed by the electoral college last week. Trump’s loss sparked immediate speculation that he would reward allies and others with executive grace actions in his final weeks at the White House.

Trump has been particularly stingy when it comes to granting executive grace, which includes pardons and commutations, compared to previous presidents.

As of Tuesday, Trump had issued just 28 pardons and commuted the criminal convictions of 16 other people, a significantly lower rate than other one-year presidents, according to the Justice Department.

Trump’s pardons included those on financial scammer Michael Milken; Press Baron Conrad Black; former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arapaio, convicted of contempt of court; Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former advisor to ex-Vice President Dick Cheney on obstruction of justice; Conservative Gadfly Dinesh D’Souza for Campaign Submission Fraud; and Ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik for Tax and Other Crimes.

In November, Trump apologized to his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, for making false statements to FBI agents.

In July, Trump commuted the 40-month sentence of Republican adviser Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress.

Among the beneficiaries of his commutation was former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell an appointment to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when that president became president.

Trump previously apologized for several deaths, including early 20th century black boxing champion Jack Johnson for the crime of crossing the state line with his white girlfriend and Susan B. Anthony, the 19th suffragette, who was charged with illegal elections was convicted.

Trump also pardoned the late scientist Zay Jeffries, who was convicted of anticompetitive behavior by Sherman in 1948 for violating the antitrust law. That year, President Harry Truman awarded him the President’s Medal of Merit for his work during World War II, which included contributions to the Manhattan Project.

Trump pardoned Alice Marie Johnson, a woman convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine, in August. The president had commuted Johnson’s life sentence two years earlier after lobbying reality TV star Kim Kardashian West on her behalf.

The only other president with a term in office in the past 30 years, Trump’s Republican compatriot George HW Bush, pardoned 74 people by comparison and issued commutations for three more.

Obama, who served two terms before Trump, pardoned 212 people, or more than six times the number Trump pardoned in half that time. Obama commuted the sentences of more than 1,700 people.

The last Republican to serve two terms, George W. Bush, pardoned 189 people and commuted 11 sentences.