“Girls Trip” changed the game for Tiffany Haddish, and now she’s being honored as one of Essence magazine’s “game-changers” at its annual “Black Women in Hollywood” awards.

“Girls Trip” was one of last year’s big hits and made Haddish a breakout star. The comedian is one of four women being honored at the March 1 event in Beverly Hills, California.

“The Chi” creator and “Master of None” star Lena Waithe will also be celebrated; she became the first black woman to win an Emmy for comedy writing last year.

Danai Gurira of “The Walking Dead” stars in the upcoming “Black Panther.” Gurira also created the Tony-nominated “Eclipsed,” among other works. Tessa Thompson broke new ground in her role in last fall’s superhero hit “Thor.”

Essence magazine editor Vanessa De Luca says the honorees are “raising their voices to benefit all women.”
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From: MeNeedIt

Tuesday is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, a U.N.-sponsored annual event.

Female genital mutilation in Africa is an age-old tradition that involves the cutting of the clitoris of young girls and women.

The United Nations estimates at least 200 million girls and women have undergone some form of FGM, including 44 million aged 14 years and younger.

Fifty-year-old Rahma Wako is an activist working to eradicate FGM, 16 years after Kenya banned the practice.

Rhama says she was cut and sewn at the age of six and explains they used a hot iron rod to heat the place where they cut, and it took 40 days to heal. She says for those 40 days she could not go to the toilet properly, and if she lives to be 100 years old she will remember the ordeal.

Six years later, her parents married her to a 70-year-old man.

She says the experience was horrific. She delivered twins nine months later in a near death experience.

Rhama says the babies tore her like a piece of cloth because during the FGM they had sewn her up so tight. She says she required 28 stitches after the birth to heal the wound.

After six months, Rahma was pregnant again with twins. She says she decided to leave her home, Rhama filed for divorce, won the case and had custody of her four children. She swore never to become anyone’s wife again and to become an anti-GM campaigner.

Rhama says she was an outcast in her community, fighting against her own culture and that gave her energy to fight for girls. She says she has prevented many girls from undergoing the cut and suffering all she had experienced.

Rahma has rescued hundreds of girls from undergoing the cut. She travels to areas where the practice is most prevalent. She says more people are starting to slowly shun the practice.

The 2016 UNICEF report said girls and women in 30 countries have been subjected to FGM, more than half from Indonesia, Egypt and Ethiopia.

In Kenya three percent of girls under age 15 have been subjected to FGM. The practice was outlawed in the country in 2001. Those found to be performing FGM can be imprisoned for up to three years.

The practice is usually performed by people who are not trained medical professionals, posing risk of death from excessive bleeding or infection. Later, FGM can cause intense pain during sexual intercourse and complications during deliveries.
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From: MeNeedIt

The private space company SpaceX is scheduled to test launch its largest rocket yet Tuesday, and, if all goes well, it will also send a sports car into orbit around the sun.

​WATCH: Falcon Heavy Test Flight LIVE

The Falcon Heavy rocket is poised to blast off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the same launch pad from which NASA’s Apollo 11 lifted off in 1969 on the first mission that flew astronauts to the moon.

SpaceX CEO Musk told reporters before the launch Tuesday he estimated the success rate at 50 percent.

“I would consider it a win if it just clears the pad and doesn’t blow the pad to smithereens,” he said.

The rocket is equipped with three boosters and 27 engines designed to provide more than 2 million kilograms of thrust. If successful, it will be the most powerful rocket in use today, and the most powerful used since NASA’s Saturn 5 rockets last carried astronauts to the moon 45 years ago.

The Falcon Heavy was first designed to send humans to the moon or Mars, but Musk said Monday it is now being considered as a carrier of equipment and supplies to deep space destinations.

While such test rockets usually use items like steel or concrete slabs as payload, a cherry red Tesla roadster electric sports car has been placed on top of the rocket.

With a mannequin “Starman” sitting at the wheel, the plan is for the car to be set in an orbit around the sun.

In a tweet last month, Musk said he loves the thought of a car driving — apparently endlessly through space and, perhaps being discovered by an alien race millions of years in the future.
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From: MeNeedIt

On this International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, the United Nations is calling for the eradication of the traditional practice, which causes extreme physical and psychological harm to millions of women and girls worldwide.

The United Nations says more than 200 million girls and women in 30 countries are currently living with the harmful and dangerous consequences of female genital mutilation. Young girls between infancy and 15 years of age are subjected to the practice, which mainly occurs in Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The World Health Organization reports FGM confers no benefits, only serious problems, including severe bleeding, infections, complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

Irrefutable evidence exists regarding the many serious life-long health consequences that arise from the procedure. Nevertheless, the WHO reports the practice persists because of myths and misconceptions.

WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said one dangerous myth is that only girls who undergo the procedure can enter womanhood and be considered respectable.

She said people often believe there is little risk of harm for girls and women if female genital mutilation is performed by a doctor or other health care professional.

“This is not the truth.WHO is completely against any health worker helping to do this practice. FGM is a harmful practice and may lead to physical, mental and sexual health complications regardless of who performs it,” said Chaib.

FGM is far from being eradicated. But, Chaib told VOA slow progress is being made in communities around the world. She cites the case of Sudan, a country that has a high level of FGM.

With the help of several U.N. agencies and financing from Britain and Ireland, she said, the practice is becoming more rare in communities across the country.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. stock prices fluctuated wildly Tuesday after regaining ground following a sharply lower open on the heels of selloffs earlier in the day in Asia and Europe.

The volatility continued unabated one day after The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed the most points in one day in its more than 120-year history.

The Dow fell 530 points at the market open and the more broad-based Standard & Poors 500 Index (S&P 500) tumbled 1.3 percent. The technology heavy Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 1.1 percent.

Earlier Tuesday, Asia’s benchmark stock indexes collapsed, as Monday’s massive selloffs on Wall Street rolled across the globe.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index lost as much seven percent of its value at one point during the trading session, before closing at 21,610 points, a loss of nearly five percent.  Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index followed suit, dropping just over five percent in its worst trading day since August 2015.

The benchmark indexes Australia and South Korea also suffered serious losses.

In early Europe trading London’s FTSE 100 was down 3.5 percent at 7,081 points.

Asian markets were caught in the ripple effect of Monday’s 1,175-point loss on the Dow, marking the biggest point decline in history.  The S&P 500 also had a bad day, losing just over four percent to finish at 2,648 points.  

The stock market has now lost about a trillion dollars in value since Friday, when the Dow lost 666 points.  That drop followed a solid jobs report that showed the U.S. economy adding 200 thousand jobs and wages rising at the fastest pace in a decade. The tighter labor market and rising wages prompted investor fears of higher inflation and the possibility that the U.S. Federal Reserve would raise interest rates faster and higher than they have in recent years.

Analysts who spoke with VOA had been expecting a stock market “correction,” a decline of at least 10-percent from the most recent record highs, as a result of the record run-up in stock prices this year.  

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Venezuela’s central bank on Monday announced a devaluation of more than 99 percent of its official exchange rate with a new foreign exchange platform.

The central bank said the first auction of its new DICOM system yielded an exchange rate of 30,987.5 bolivars per euro, equivalent to around 25,000 per dollar.

That is a devaluation of 86.6 percent with respect to the previous DICOM rate and 99.6 percent from the subsidized rate of 10 bolivars per dollar, which was eliminated last week.

The new rate is still dwarfed by the black market rate for greenbacks, currently at 228,000 bolivars per dollar according to website DolarToday, which is used as a reference.

Venezuela is undergoing a major crisis, with quadruple-digit inflation and shortages of food and medicine. Economists consistently describe the 15-year-old currency control system as the principal obstacle to functioning commerce and industry.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

The first trailer of Solo: A Star Wars Story has finally arrived, offering a glimpse of the much-anticipated spinoff plagued by production troubles.

After a 45-second ad for the latest Star Wars film played during Sunday’s Super Bowl, a 90-second teaser trailer premiered Monday on Good Morning, America. The footage showcased a gritty prequel featuring the snazzy interior of a then-new Millennium Falcon, the familiar growl of Chewbacca and a plethora of handsome fur coats.

Though punctuated by the brashness of Alden Ehrenreich’s young Han Solo, the vibe of the trailer is a little chiller than was once forecast for Solo. The initial directors, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street) are known for their irreverent sense of humor, something that first excited many Star Wars fans when the pair was enlisted for the stand-alone installment. 

But Lord and Miller were removed from the film six months into production over what Lucasfilm said were “different creative visions” on the film. Ron Howard was brought in as a replacement in July, and shooting concluded in October.

The trailer for the film, to be released May 25, seemed intent on assuring fans that Solo will be a more typically somber chapter in the science-fiction franchise. Young Solo is shown as an ambitious flyboy who drops out of the fight academy and enlists with a rogue band led by Woody Harrelson’s Tobias Beckett.

“I’ve been running scams on the street since I was 10,” Solo says in voice-over. “I was kicked out of the fly academy for having a mind of my own. I’m going to be a pilot — best in the galaxy.”

Concerns have also been focused on Ehrenreich, who has the unenviable position of following in Harrison Ford’s footsteps in one of the most iconic roles in movies. Before booking the role, Ehrenreich starred in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Hail, Caesar! and Warren Beatty’s Rules Don’t Apply, but The Hollywood Reporter earlier reported that an acting coach was brought in late in the production to aid the actor’s performance.

Instead of focusing solely on Solo, Monday’s trailer promoted the film’s larger ensemble, including Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, Emilia Clarke and Thandie Newton.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax reform could bring almost $2 trillion back to the United States as U.S. firms repatriate cash piles from foreign affiliates, a U.N. report said Monday.

Ending the incentive to hoard cash overseas could produce a stimulus effect in the United States, and Trump has credited the tax reform with spurring a $350 billion investment plan by Apple.

“Now is the perfect time to bring your business, your jobs, and your investments to the United States of America,” Trump told the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.

The reform ends a system whereby companies defer tax on foreign earnings until the funds are repatriated. Instead it treats those earnings as if they were being repatriated, with an 8 percent tax on non-cash assets and a 15.5 percent tax on cash.

“This measure is widely expected to have the most significant and immediate effect on global investment patterns,” said the report by the U.N. trade and development agency UNCTAD.

Big firms had long awaited such a tax break, having last received one in the 2005 U.S. Homeland Investment Act, which brought $300 billion back from abroad, the report said.

Since then, U.S. overseas retained earnings have grown to $3.2 trillion, half of U.S.-owned foreign direct investment, with about $2 trillion in cash. Unlike in 2005, companies are not required to actually repatriate the funds.

The biggest overseas cash hoarders are in the tech sector, with Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Alphabet and Oracle holding $530 billion, a quarter of the total, the report said. Other major cash holders are in pharmaceuticals and engineering.

Almost 40 percent of the funds are located in the United Kingdom or its Caribbean offshore territories such as the British Virgin Islands, UNCTAD said, citing data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Even if the money was not invested in tangible assets, its withdrawal could still have a macroeconomic impact, said Richard Bolwijn, UNCTAD’s head of investment research.

“It’s still a part of … the external sources of finance helping to make up for savings shortfalls in developing countries,” he said.

Much of the impact depends on how other countries react, and there is still uncertainty as the details of the tax bill are clarified. In addition, there are some concerns that the U.S. reforms could violate tax treaties and trade rules, the UNCTAD report said.
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From: MeNeedIt

The annual BMI Latin Awards will honor Luis Fonsi not only for his mega smash “Despacito” but for the string of hits he’s racked up over two decades.

Fonsi is to receive the BMI President’s Award on March 20 in Beverly Hills, California.

BMI says it is honoring Fonsi for being one of the “most influential” Latin music songwriters and also for his humanitarian work. The Puerto Rican singer was involved with helping the island after last year’s devastating hurricane.

“Despacito” was recently nominated for record and song of the year at the Grammys; it features Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber on the remix.
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From: MeNeedIt

U.S. stocks plunged in highly volatile trading on Monday, with both the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials indices slumping more than 4.0 percent, as the Dow notched its biggest intraday decline in history with a nearly 1,600-point drop and Wall Street erased its gains for the year.

The declines for the benchmark S&P500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were the biggest single-day percentage drops since August 2011, a period of stock-market volatility marked by the downgrade of the United States’ credit rating and the eurozone debt crisis, as a pullback from record highs deepened.

The question now for investors, who have ridden a nearly nine-year bull run, is whether this is the long-awaited pullback that paves the way for stocks to again keep rising after finding some value, or the start of a decline that leads to a bear market.

“A lot of people who have been in this market for the past three or four years have never seen this before,” said Dennis Dick, a proprietary trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas.

“The psychology of the market changed today. It’ll take a while to get that psychology back.”

Bulls argue that strong U.S. corporate earnings, including a boost from the Trump administration’s tax cuts, will ultimately support market valuations. Bears, including short sellers that bet on the market decline, say that the market is over-stretched in the context of rising bond yields as central banks withdraw their easy money policies of recent years.

The U.S. stock market has climbed to record peaks since President Donald Trump’s election, on the prospect of tax cuts, corporate deregulation and infrastructure spending, and it remains up 23.8 percent since his victory. Trump has frequently taken credit for the rise of the stock market during his presidency, though the rally and economic recovery began during the Obama administration.

As the stock market fell on Monday, the White House said the fundamentals of the U.S. economy are strong. U.S. economic growth was running at a 2.6 annualized rate in the fourth quarter last year and the unemployment rate is at a 17-year low of 4.1 percent.

On Monday, the financial, health care and industrial sectors fell the most, but declines were spread broadly as all major 11 S&P sectors dropped at least 1.7 percent. All 30 of the blue-chip Dow industrial components finished negative.

With Monday’s declines, the S&P 500 erased its gains for 2018 and is now down 0.9 percent in 2018. The Dow is down 1.5 percent for the year.

The market’s pullback comes amid concerns about rising bond yields and higher inflation which were heightened following Friday’s January U.S. jobs report that also prompted worries that the Federal Reserve will raise rates at a faster pace than expected this year.

“The market has had an incredible run,” said Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist At JonesTrading In Greenwich, Connecticut.

“We have an environment where interest rates are rising. We have a stronger economy so the Fed should continue to tighten … You’re seeing real changes occur and different investments are adjusting to that,” O’Rourke said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,175.21 points, or 4.6 percent, to 24,345.75, the S&P 500 lost 113.19 points, or 4.10 percent, to 2,648.94 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 273.42 points, or 3.78 percent, to 6,967.53.

The S&P 500 ended 7.8 percent down from its record high on Jan. 26, with the Dow down 8.5 percent over that time. The declines come after the Dow and S&P posted their biggest weekly percentage drops since January 2016, and the Nasdaq posted its biggest weekly drop since February 2016.

Even with the sharp declines, stocks finished above their lows touched during the session.

At one point, the Dow fell 6.3 percent or 1,597 points, the biggest one-day points loss ever, as it fell through both the 25,000 and 24,000 levels during trading. Traders speculated that the breaching of technical levels prompted a frenzy of automated selling.

“It doesn’t look like people are working their orders — the programs are trading this,” Dan Ryan, who works on the New York Stock Exchange floor for E&J Securities, said as he was leaving work for the day.

Investors also unloaded riskier corporate bonds during the Wall Street rout. Exchange-traded funds that focus on junk bonds suffered a third day of losses. BlackRock’s iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond ETF, which has about $16 billion in assets, fell 0.6 percent to its lowest share price since December 2016.

The CBOE Volatility index, the closely followed measure of expected near-term stock market volatility, jumped 20 points to 30.71, its highest level since August 2015.

“One thing is that going into the last week or so, investor bullishness was in the top decile of its historical range, which suggests that investors were pretty optimistic, with high expectations and largely complacent,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer with Cresset Wealth Advisors in Chicago. “There’s kind of an emotional reversal that’s going on.”

About 11.5 billion shares changed hands in U.S. exchanges, well above the 7.6 billion daily average over the last 20 sessions.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a 8.64-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 6.92-to-1 ratio favored decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 1 new 52-week highs and 38 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 17 new highs and 164 new lows.
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From: MeNeedIt

This year’s Oscar nominees in the Best Actress and Supporting Actress categories play complex and empowered women. Their critical acclaim and success at the box office points to the power of female characters in the narrative coming out of Hollywood these days. 

In the Oscar-nominated drama “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” Mildred Hayes, played by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand, plays a mother whose daughter was brutally murdered. Frustrated by police inactivity searching for the murderer, Mildred leases three large billboards by the side of the road criticizing the local police department and its chief, Sheriff Bill Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson. 

The film, one of nine nominees for Best Picture, combines nuanced characters with stinging social commentary. Partly consumed by his terminal cancer Willoughby has fallen into a comfortable slump — getting by at work and avoiding difficult cases, while his naive, racist deputy Jason Dixon, played by Oscar nominee Sam Rockwell, “is too busy torturing black folks than solving actual crimes,” Mildred says.

The billboards cause havoc in the small town of Ebbing, where many of the residents find Mildred’s confrontational manner a bit too harsh to their sensibilities. But the billboards are there to stay and ultimately mobilize the police into action. 

In her Oscar-nominated performance, McDormand portrays Hayes as a no-nonsense, tough as nails, justice-seeking grieving mother.

“Mildred was the main protagonist in the story,” McDormand said. “I haven’t had many chances to do this as an actor. I had a lot of supporting roles to mostly male protagonists in my career, but after doing it, I don’t really want to go back.” 

Director Martin McDonagh is no stranger to dark comedies with heavy emotional undertones.

“I wrote it for Frances,” he said.” It had to be somebody who wasn’t going to sentimentalize the character.” 

The film has received seven Oscar nominations, including two for supporting actors Rockwell and Harrelson as the two police officers reckoning with the undaunted Mildred. 

“The Shape of Water”

Guillermo Del Toro’s fantasy drama “The Shape of Water,” nominated for 13 Oscars, offers a visceral love story and also a nuanced social commentary. Set in early 1960s Baltimore at the height of the Cold War, two cleaning women, played by lead actress Sally Hawkins as mute Elisa Esposito, and supporting actress Octavia Spencer as her friend and co-worker Zelda Fuller, pull night shifts at a secret government laboratory. When an ancient male amphibian is brought in for experiments, Elisa is drawn to him. Gradually, they fall in love. 

Del Toro pits three underdog characters — disabled Elisa; Zelda, an African American; and Giles, a gay man and Elisa’s roommate — against a white sadistic security agent, who is using the amphibian creature for experiments. The film, a serious contender for Best Picture and Best Director, is a visceral fantasy and a dark romance. 

This is not the first time Del Toro shows a conventional-looking monster as the victim of corrupt men. The cinematography shifts from subdued dark colors to vivid aquatic ones that match the majestic merman gleaming in luminous hues of emerald and aquamarine. The romance is mainly expressed through gestures and eye contact and is reminiscent of silent-era films. 

Hawkins delivers a superb performance as the delicate but brave Elisa, who stands up to the menacing Richard Strickland, played by Michael Shannon. Says Spencer about her co-star: “This tiny character in Elisa is without a voice, but she’s got a big heart. It radiates on the screen.”

Elisa hatches a plan that frees the merman from the clutches of the evil security agent. 

Both female characters have received Oscar nominations — Hawkins for Best Actress and Spencer for Supporting Actress. Richard Jenkins, who plays Giles, has also received an Oscar nomination for supporting actor.

“When I wrote “The Shape of Water,” Del Toro said, I wanted one character to be made by three actors. Octavia, Richard and Sally are a single character. I wanted to have characters that are marginal, and yet they get together, and they give the finger to the man.” (defy the powerful).

“Lady Bird”

“Lady Bird” is another Oscar front-runner, nominated for five Oscars. This is a heart-warming, coming-of-age film about a high school senior resenting her Catholic high school and dreaming of adventure, love and independence. 

The film’s achievement lies in the tender storytelling by Oscar-nominated director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig, and in its great cast — particularly its mother-daughter ensemble, played by Oscar-nominated actress Saoirce Roman as Lady Bird, and Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf as her mother. 

This loving, antagonistic relationship, spontaneous and honest, will resonate with many mothers and daughters that age.
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From: MeNeedIt

The underdog Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots 41-33 in Minneapolis, Minnesota to win the 52nd edition of the U.S. National Football League’s annual Super Bowl championship.

The win gave the Eagles, representing the National Football Conference, their first-ever Super Bowl trophy after two previous appearances. 

Eagles quarterback Nick Foles, who was a backup this season until star quarterback Carson Wentz suffered a season-ending knee injury in week 14, was named the game’s Most Valuable Player, throwing for three touchdowns and 341 meters, including a touchdown pass to receiver Zach Ertz late in the fourth quarter that gave the Eagles the lead for good. Foles even caught a touchdown pass on a trick play in the second quarter, making him the first player in Super Bowl history to both throw for and catch a touchdown in the same game.

The Eagles lost the 1981 Super Bowl to the Oakland Raiders and the 2005 game to New England. The franchise’s last NFL championship came in 1960 — seven years before the first Super Bowl game.

The Patriots, guided by future Hall-of-Fame head coach Bill Belichick and future Hall-of-Fame quarterback Tom Brady, were seeking their second consecutive Vince Lombardi trophy and their sixth overall in Brady’s 16 seasons with New England.

The 40-year-old Brady, a three-time Super Bowl MVP, shredded Philadelphia’s defensive secondary for a playoff record 462 meters and three touchdowns, and was poised to lead New England on another game-winning drive after the Eagles’s final touchdown. But Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham stripped Brady of the ball and teammate Derek Barnett recovered it.

The game saw a record 1,052 meters of offense by both teams.

After Philadelphia rookie place-kicker Jake Elliot hit a 46-yard field goal to put the Eagles ahead 41-33 with just over a minute left in regulation, Brady stepped on the field for one last drive to potentially send the game into overtime. But a final deep pass to the end zone fell incomplete as time ran out.

Brady says he plans to return next year to try for a seventh title. Foles will likely return to a backup role under Wentz, one of the game’s rising stars.
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From: MeNeedIt