Tag: Whos

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Entertainment

Wait, Who’s Quick, Who’s Livid?

Wait, Who’s Fast, Who’s Furious?

The “Fast & Furious” films were about street racing at some point, a long time ago. They still include cars moving at breakneck speeds, but only as a component in a blockbuster machine that routinely includes high-profile espionage, military-grade shootings, multi-million dollar bank heists, and villainous plans for global annihilation. You’ve had more in common with James Bond or Mission: Impossible lately than with Gone in 60 Seconds.

As the films have grown bigger and more spectacular, their ensemble has also swelled and broadened, and with the latest issue, F9, the list of marquee names makes “Game of Thrones” look like “Waiting for Godot”. This is made difficult by the franchise’s tendency to mix characters in and out of the troupe without warning or explanation – actors are often written out and then written back in, or killed and then suddenly resuscitated. It can be very, very hard to keep track of who is who and what your business is.

Since “F9” hits theaters this weekend, here’s a handy cast explainer to keep you up to date.

At the heart of the series, Dom is a world-weary, corona-drinking street racer and car hijacker with an obsessive devotion to his family and a tense relationship with the law. He first appeared in “The Fast and the Furious” (2001, the movie that started it all) as a little Los Angeles crook with a heart of gold and has gradually become something of a freelance secret agent and globetrotter. trotting supercop. In “The Fate of the Furious” (2017) it was revealed that he had a young son.

Brian, the hero of the original series, was a police officer who went undercover as a road racer to kidnap Dom and his kidnappers. When it came time to make the arrest, Brian chose to let Dom escape, and the two have been like brothers ever since. Paul Walker died in a car accident in 2013, but instead of killing him, the films wrote Brian into peaceful retirement. He was most recently seen in the closing moments of “Furious 7” (2015), which literally ride into the sunset.

Dom’s wife and accomplice Letty was killed at the beginning of the fourth film, “Fast & Furious” (2009), after she had a conflict with a master criminal. In “Fast & Furious 6” (2013), however, it turned out that she had survived the attempted murder – albeit with severe amnesia, which temporarily led her to team up with the bad guys. At the end of the film she realized her mistake and has been back with Dom and his companions ever since.

Roman, one of Brian’s childhood friends, was featured in “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003, the first sequel) as the silver-tongued Lothario who sits sensationally behind the wheel. Since he was called in to help with a bank robbery in “Fast Five” (2011), he’s been a mainstay of Dom’s crew and usually serves as a comic relief.

Like Roman, Tej first appeared in “2 Fast 2 Furious” and has been a regular series since “Fast Five”. He’s the crew’s gifted computer hacker, handling communications, tech, and surveillance, even though he’s ready to drive or fight if necessary. Tej and Roman have a friendly rivalry and are constantly teasing each other.

Dwayne Johnson made his debut on “Fast Five” as the beefy diplomatic security agent Luke Hobbs, the antagonist who tries to thwart Dom and his crew’s robbery schemes. After all, Dom and his friends won him over and since “Fast & Furious 6” he has been their frequent teammate and friend. Most recently he was seen in the series spin-off “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw” (2019).

Dom’s sister Mia was Brian’s love interest in “The Fast and the Furious” and she continued to accompany him on his adventures. After giving birth to their first child on “Furious 7”, she and Brian retired and are back for “F9” after being sidelined in “The Fate of the Furious”.

Han, a Korean road racer living in Japan, starred in the series’ third film, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and was killed in a car accident during the finale. In the next three sequels, however, he showed himself to be alive and well, as they obviously took place chronologically before the third film. To add to the confusion, his accidental death was rewritten as murder in “Furious 7”, using a mixture of archive footage and new footage. And now he is alive again in “F9”, for reasons that have not yet been clarified.

As the femme fatale on “Fast & Furious,” Gisele was inducted into the crew on “Fast Five” when she began a romantic relationship with Han. She died in “Fast & Furious 6” and sacrificed herself during the action-packed climax to save Han. She hasn’t been brought back to life – yet.

Ramsey, a world-famous super hacker who was saved from being kidnapped by Dom and his crew in the middle of “Furious 7”, has since been a regular guest on the series helping the team with computer problems. Tej and Roman constantly vie to win their affection.

Sean, the hero of Tokyo Drift, is a clumsy young street racer who hopes to avoid juvenile sentences by disembarking to his father in Japan. Aside from a brief cameo on “Furious 7”, he hasn’t appeared in any “Fast” film since, but surprisingly he’s back for “F9”.

As a top-secret government official with seemingly unlimited resources, Mr. Nobody hired Dom and his crew to save the world in “Furious 7” and again in “Fate of the Furious”. Think of it as the M to Dom’s James Bond.

Shaw, another hero-turned-villain, tried to wipe out Dom’s crew in “Furious 7” before teaming up with them in “The Fate of the Furious”. Most recently he played in the series spin-off “Hobbs & Shaw” and only has a small cameo in “F9”.

Deckard’s cockney-heavy mother Magdalene appeared in “The Fate of the Furious” to help Dom. She was last seen in “Hobbs & Shaw” while in prison.

Deckard’s brother Owen, meanwhile, was the villain who terrorized the crew in “Fast & Furious 6” and chased them across London before he was thrown from a plane in the middle of takeoff. He survived this fall and came to the aid of Deckard (and Dom) in “The Fate of the Furious”.

Cipher is reputedly the most talented and terrifying hacker in the world, so much so that even the notorious Anonymous collective is afraid to mess with her. In “The Fate of the Furious” she tries to start a nuclear war by holding Dom’s young son hostage and killing the baby’s mother in the process. She returns – apparently again as a villain – in “F9”.

A newcomer to the saga. Jakob is Dom’s never-before-mentioned brother and of course the main opponent of “F9”.

Dom’s love interest when Lotty was believed dead was Elena a police officer in Rio who was tapped by Hobbs for help on “Fast Five”. She had Dom’s baby without his knowing it, and was killed by Cipher shortly after telling him the news in “The Fate of the Furious”.

Persevering comic buddies Tego and Rico have accompanied each other on several of Dom’s jobs and usually show up once or twice per film for a few prat cases.

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Politics

Biden’s Local weather Summit: What to Watch For and Who’s Attending

Biden's Climate Summit: What to Watch For and Who's Attending

President Biden’s climate summit began on Thursday, Earth Day, and will feature a number of high-profile speakers and attendees, including leaders – and Pope Francis. Here is a breakdown of the Biden Administration’s biggest names and goals.

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris opened the summit at 8 a.m. with remarks highlighting the importance of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Pope Francis will speak later Thursday.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and David Malpass, the President of the World Bank, who recently expressed his support for a zero carbon future, will attend a morning session on financing solutions to climate change. In the afternoon, speakers will highlight climate work at the local level and discuss the security challenges of global warming.

The summit will resume on Friday. John Kerry, Mr. Biden’s Chief Climate Envoy, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a session on the importance of technological innovation in reducing carbon emissions. In a later session on the economic benefits of tackling climate change, Microsoft founder Bill Gates will speak as the founder of Breakthrough Energy, a mutual fund that supports projects to reduce carbon emissions.

President Xi Jinping of China, America’s greatest rival on the world stage, is attending the virtual summit. This also applies to Presidents Vladimir V. Putin from Russia and Jair Bolsonaro from Brazil, with whom the Biden government is trying to negotiate a plan to protect the Amazon rainforest.

A number of prominent American allies will be in attendance, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Other key participants include Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga – leaders from whom the Biden government has sought to make commitments to reduce carbon emissions.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico also attend. The White House has invited more than 40 world leaders in total.

Mr Biden announced that the United States intends to cut emissions to warm the planet in half by the end of the decade, a goal that will require Americans to change the way they drive, heat their homes and manufacture goods.

The new American target nearly doubles the Obama administration’s promise, and the Biden administration hopes the announcement will push other nations to accomplish their own goals.

Categories
Health

U.S. joins 13 different nations in criticizing WHO’s China Covid report

U.S. joins 13 other nations in criticizing WHO's China Covid report

This photo taken on Feb. 17, 2020 shows medical workers working at an exhibition center that has been converted into a hospital in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei Province.

STR | AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON – The United States on Tuesday signed a joint statement with 13 other nations criticizing the World Health Organization’s long-awaited report on the origins of Covid-19.

In a joint statement, the governments of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States wrote that the report “has been significantly delayed and there was no access to complete original data and samples. “

“In the event of a major outbreak of an unknown pandemic pathogen, rapid, independent, expert-led and unhindered origin assessment is critical to better prepare our employees, our public health facilities, our industries and our governments for a successful response to it Outbreak and prevent future pandemics, “the joint statement said.

“In the future, WHO and all Member States must reassign themselves to access, transparency and timeliness,” the group added.

The WHO’s 120-page report, published Tuesday and produced by a team of international scientists, helped improve the scientific community’s understanding of the deadly virus that was conquering the globe, but it fell short of a full assessment back.

“We have not yet found the source of the virus and we must continue to follow science and leave no stone unturned,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a press conference on Tuesday.

“Finding the source of a virus takes time and we owe it to the world to find the source so we can take action together to reduce the risk of its recurrence. No single research trip can provide all the answers,” he added .

At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the Biden administration is still examining the WHO report, adding that the results are “partial and incomplete”.

“The report lacks critical data, information and access. It presents a partial and incomplete picture,” said Psaki. “There is a second phase in this process that we believe should be led by international and independent experts. They should have full access to data,” she added.

Psaki criticized Beijing’s lack of transparency when asked about China’s participation in the WHO report, which was attended by at least 17 experts.

“Well, they weren’t transparent. They didn’t provide any underlying data. That is certainly not a cooperation,” she said.

Categories
Entertainment

In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Discovered an Escape From Covid. Who’s Jealous?

In Australia, Hollywood Stars Have Found an Escape From Covid. Who’s Jealous?

MELBOURNE, Australia – In the photo posted on Instagram, actors Chris Hemsworth, Idris Elba and Matt Damon, all wearing 1980s style sweats, hug each other. You are maskless. Touch. Happy even. The headline reads: “A little 80s themed party never hurt!”

Your outraged fans peppered the post with comments. What about the pandemic? Social distancing? Masks? We are still suffering from a pandemic that has all but crippled the travel industry and prevented most people from casually flying on vacation to paradise.

However, the Hollywood Brigade was in Australia, a country where coronavirus has been effectively eradicated, allowing officials to relax restrictions on most gatherings, including parties (with dancing and finger food). Due to the near-lack of the virus and generous subsidies from the Australian government, the country’s film industry has been buzzing at an enviable pace for months compared to other regions.

Australia has managed to lure several Hollywood directors and actors into continuing film production. In fact, many celebrities including Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa McCarthy found freedom from the pandemic there.

One person wrote on Mr. Hemsworth’s Instagram post, “Before you comment, remember that not everyone lives in America.”

Although the accelerated pace of vaccination in the United States has raised hopes of returning to some semblance of normality by summer, the country is still the world leader in the number of coronavirus cases and deaths. The cinemas only reopened in New York City last week. Some fans are cautiously sneaking back while others are still cautious about contracting the virus.

But thousands of kilometers away, many stars who appear on the big screens can frolic or film on location in Australia. (Mr. Hemsworth is a fixture himself – he moved back to Australia in 2017 after several years in Los Angeles.) In the US, where hundreds still die every day, some fans watched jealously.

“These Hollywood stars have been transported to another world where the world’s problems don’t exist,” said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University in New York. He added that the temporary exodus from the United States revealed another disintegration of the myth that Hollywood was the endgame for celebrities.

Australia has become a “hip place” that “fabulous people want to go,” said Professor Thompson. “If you’re trying to be a star, you have to go to the west coast to make your bones.” When you become “a really big star” you are buying property in an exotic location like Australia, he added.

“It definitely feels like a time machine,” said Ms. Portman, who called from Sydney, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel in December. “It’s so different, all animals are different, all trees are different, I even mean the birds, there are multicolored parrots that fly around like pigeons,” she added. “It’s wild.”

A spokeswoman said the government helped 22 international productions bring hundreds of millions into the local economy. Paul Fletcher, Federal Minister of Communications, said: “There is no doubt that this is a very significant increase over previous activity.”

But even as celebrities dress up and pose on social media, some Australians grumble that the country’s strategy to fight the virus has stranded tens of thousands of citizens overseas. The strict border measures have also contributed to a shortage of agricultural labor.

Exceptions have been made for tennis players who participated in the Australian Open last month, as well as for the staff who run the tournament. The presence of Hollywood’s rich and famous has further angered critics who see a clear bend of the rules for those with money and power.

“Everyone knows that there seem to be separate rules for anyone who is a celebrity or has money,” said Daniel Tusia, an Australian who was stuck overseas with his family for several months last year. “There are still a lot of people who couldn’t get home, who don’t fall into that category and who are still stranded,” he added.

In a statement emailed, the Australian Border Force said travel exemptions for film and television productions have been considered “if there is evidence of the economic benefits the production will bring to Australia and support from the relevant government agency . “

A year ago, Hollywood Everyone’s Tom Hanks made the threat of the pandemic all too real when he and wife Rita Wilson tested positive for the coronavirus in Queensland, Australia while filming an unnamed Elvis biopic. Her illness made a personal threat, the seriousness of which was only just beginning to crystallize at this time.

But in May, Australia appeared to be well on its way to quelling the first wave of the virus, and the soap opera “Neighbors” was one of the first scripted TV series in the world to resume production. The federal government has allocated more than $ 400 million to international productions, which, along with existing subsidies, gives film and television producers a discount of up to 30 percent for filming in the country.

More than 20 international productions including Thor: Love and Thunder, a Marvel film with Hemsworth, Damon, Portman, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson and Bale; “Three Thousand Years of Longing,” a fantasy romance with Mr. Elba and Tilda Swinton; and Joe Exotic, a spin-off of the podcast that preceded the popular Netflix series Tiger King, which stars Saturday Night Live actress Kate McKinnon as Big Cat enthusiast Carole Baskin all filmed either in production or in preparation next year.

Ron Howard directs Thirteen Lives, a dramatization of the Thai rescue of a football team from a Queensland cave in 2018 (the Australian coast is a good proxy for the tropics). And later that year, Julia Roberts and George Clooney will arrive in the same state to direct Ticket to Paradise, a romantic comedy.

Although a number of American temporary employment stars have landed in the country, some like Ms. McCarthy, who was originally in Australia to work on “Nine Perfect Strangers,” have decided to shoot more projects, according to industry representatives. “Oh the birds!” she raved in a YouTube video. “I love seeing a spider the size of my head.”

Others, like Zac Efron, appear to have settled here permanently.

His Instagram is flush with Australiana: Here he is in a hammock in the desert of the red earth, seems to be participating in an indigenous ceremony or is wearing the Australian cowboy hat, an Akubra. Last year, Mr. Efron even got what an Adelaide barber called a “mullet,” a vicious hairstyle popular in Australia.

“Home, sweet home,” he captioned a picture of himself in front of a $ 100,000 motor home.

Chances are the stars will keep popping up. They were seen camping under the stars as they went to dinner without a mask and partied (yes, like it was 1989). Mr Damon said in January that Australia was definitely a “happy country”.

But locals in Byron Bay – the seaside town that has gone from hippie to glitter in recent years – have complained that the influx of stars over the past year has changed the city beyond repair.

“The actors and the famous people are the tip of the iceberg,” said James McMillan, a local artist and director of the Byron Bay Surf Festival. He added that the large cohort of production workers from Melbourne and Sydney had priced locals out of real estate.

“It has definitely changed more than it has ever done in the past 12 months,” added McMillan, who has lived in Byron Bay for two decades. “People have stars in their eyes.”