While most United States fast-food employees make well above the national minimum wage, hourly pay varies depending on the chain.
Additional factors for pay variation include franchises in states with higher minimum wage laws and higher compensation for manager positions.
We used self-reported salary information from both Payscale and Glassdoor to take a closer look at what fast-food workers make across the United States, from California's In-and-Out to Culver's in the Midwest.
While dollar menu items are often similar across franchises, equal hourly wages for fast-food workers are not a uniform requirement.
Some fast-food chains are infamous for paying more than others, such as California-based In-and-Out Burger mandating its employees make a whopping $13 an hour. In every chain, assistant manager and manager positions often make more than cashiers or line cooks, but hourly pay also fluctuates depending on state minimum wage laws.
Previous reporting from Business Insider's Kate Taylor in 2016 confirmed that many fast-food chains increased wages, despite the national standard staying the same since 2009. Still $7.25 an hour, almost all fast-food workers earn more than the national minimum wage. Business Insider's Morris Pearl reported how increasing wages is the best way to find more fast-food employees, a tactic other companies such as Disney and Target have used with success.
We took a look at self-reported salaries on both Payscale and Glassdoor and ordered restaurants from highest to lowest hourly pay. For some chains, we only found data from one source.
Keep reading for a look at salaries at 17 popular fast-food chains in the United States.
Employees at McDonald's say they earn around $8 to $9 an hour.
This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence,click here.
Emerging markets are going to be essential for e-commerce growth, as retailers in developed markets may soon reach saturation in terms of consumer growth.
On May 29, 2019, Airbus celebrated its 50th birthday. In the five decades since its founding, Airbus has developed from a fledgling upstart to one of the industry's titans.
Over the past 20 years, the commercial aviation industry has come to be dominated by Airbus and Boeing.
Airbus and Boeing each own roughly half of the global commercial airliner market.
On May 29, 2019, Airbus celebrated its 50th birthday. In the five decades since its founding, Airbus has gone from a fledgling upstart to one of the industry's titans.
In fact, Airbus, along with Boeing, now occupies one half of the global duopoly that dominates commercial airliner production.
The company we know today as Airbus can trace its history back to an agreement signed in July 1967 by the French, German, and British governments to strengthen their cooperation in the field of aviation technology.
Included in the agreement is a clause that called for the governments "to take appropriate measures for the joint development and production of an airbus."
However, the Airbus that we know today would not be formed until May 29, 1969, when the French and German governments agreed to lead a consortium that would produce and sell the A300B airliner.
It was a decision made out of necessity, Richard Aboulafia, an aviation industry analyst for the consulting company Teal Group, told Business Insider.
At the time, American firms like Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Lockheed were growing in strength and influence around the world. European manufacturers, once commercial aviation's leaders in innovation, were feeling the pinch.
The consortium would be based at the headquarters of Sud Aviation in Toulouse, France where it remains today.
Here's a closer look at the past 50 years of Airbus:
By the 1960s, European plane makers had proved they could build really good jetliners. The Brits had planes like the Hawker Siddeley Trident and...
He said he plans to keep his job as a janitor but might scale back his hours.
Halasan, who moved to Canada from the Philippines in 2009, said he plans to use his winnings to take care of his three children and four grandchildren.
Even if you're "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," it can be hard to keep up with their hair changes, especially Kylie Jenner and sister Kim Kardashian. These two love to try out wigs and extensions, switching from long to short hair on the same day. But it wasKardashian's bob haircut, a newer look for the star, that caught our eye today. It's a shorter, angled bob that's longer in the front and shorter in the back. There are zero layers we can see—just perfectly blunt ends evoking envy from everyone craving shorter hair this summer.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
After 15 seasons, the long-running medical drama "Grey's Anatomy" has lost a lot of characters.
Longtime fans of the show know that showrunner Shonda Rhimes has never been afraid to write off a character, whether it be a case-of-the-week patient or a leading doctor. And it's not just that these characters die, it's that they oftentimes pass in devastating, tragic ways that leave viewers heartbroken.
Here is a ranking of some of the most tragic deaths on "Grey's Anatomy." Although the show has many character deaths, this list focuses on some of the most major and memorable ones.
17. Ellis Grey's death set Meredith free.
ABC
Meredith's mom Ellis was always harsh on her daughter, so it seemed like Ellis' death allowed Meredith to move on and live her life without judgment.
Although it was sweet that Ellis' parting words to her daughter were, "You are anything but ordinary," it was too little too late to make this death overly heartbreaking for viewers.
16. Harold O'Malley was just a good guy who couldn't catch a break.
ABC
George O'Malley's dad's death was particularly upsetting because of how it impacted George. The scene in which George is begging his dad, who is on life support, to keep fighting is quite a tear-jerker.
15. Susan Grey didn't deserve the death she got.
ABC
Thatcher Grey's wife and Meredith's stepmom, Susan Grey, died from some complications that resulted from a procedure that was meant to help her with a long-lasting case of the hiccups. The hiccups. Needless to say, her death was surprising and she shouldn't have gone like that.
Tammy Lawrence-Daley, 51, of Wilmington, Delaware, claimed in a Facebook post that she was beaten unconscious during an eight-hour attack at a Dominican Republic resort in January.
She said the incident happened while she was vacationing with her husband and friends at the all-inclusive Majestic Elegance resort in Punta Cana.
She claimed a man in a uniform featuring the resort logo attacked her while she was looking for a snack at 10:30 pm one night.
She said she spent five days in the hospital and now wants to warn other about what happened.
Melting glaciers and warmer oceans will contribute to devastating sea-level rise in the next 80 years. If the worst-case projections are correct, US cities like San Francisco and New York — and their famous landmarks — could be underwater by 2100.
The more scientists study sea-level rise, the more daunting their predictions for coastal cities become.
A few years ago, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the world's sea levels would rise an additional 3 feet by 2100. But earlier this week, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences more than doubled this worst-case estimate, predicting that sea levels could rise by around 6.5 feet in the same time frame.
For coastal cities like New York and San Francisco, this spells bad news for low-lying waterfront neighborhoods — and the many landmarks within them.
Climate Central'sGoogle Earth plug-in shows what US cities would look like in the most extreme cases of sea-level rise. The tool estimates which areas of cities could be underwater by 2100 if sea levels were to rise by 8 feet — the worst-case projectionfrom National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency data.
Here are the major US cities and landmarks that could be underwater in 80 years.
No city is immune to the consequences of a warming world, but a few are more vulnerable than the rest. Sea-level rise is a considerable threat in San Francisco, for example, where some land has begun to sink due to excessive groundwater pumping.
Whether you're a newbie in the kitchen, looking to expand your repertoire of cooking techniques, or just desirous of more recipe options, a good cookbook that spells out the steps involved in preparing the dish is a must-have.
There are some cooks — my mother is one of them — who don't need a cookbook to come up with a delicious recipe because they have the talent and skill to create their own. And then there are cooks like me: easily able to follow a recipe in a cookbook and turn out tasty results, but not so good at thinking up new recipe ideas on my own.
As a result, I own a lot of cookbooks, and when it comes to those books, my preference is the simpler, the better. I don't want to spend too much time figuring out complicated techniques, hunting down exotic ingredients, or hovering over the stove. If you share that kitchen philosophy, we'll explain why you'll enjoy the following five cookbooks, all of which make it easy to turn out delicious results even if you don't possess the skills of a contestant on "Top Chef."
Here are the best cookbooks for beginners in 2019:
You'll learn everything you need to know in the kitchen from "How to Cook Everything: The Basics" including kitchen equipment, basic to advanced techniques, how to design a complete meal, and plenty of tasty recipes.
Wondering what must-have equipment you need for your kitchen? Want to learn how to peel, trim, or dice? Not sure how to crack an egg, roast a chicken, or tell if the meat is done? With "How to Cook Everything: The Basics" you'll learn all of the above, along with much, much more.
Reading this nearly 500-page hardback cookbook, by acclaimed food journalist Mark Bittman, is like taking a class with a helpful cooking instructor. It's filled with photographs that clearly illustrate basic techniques, detailed notes telling you what to do and look for while cooking, helpful tips on how to buy, store, and cook food groups such as grains, seafood, and vegetables, and of course, 185 recipes for everything from side dishes to main courses and desserts.
Publishers Weekly says, "A wonderful book of perfectly simple recipes that every neophyte and experienced cook should have in their kitchen." The Oregonian says, "His five golden rules should be embraced by anyone who spends time in the kitchen."
With an average of 4.6 stars and almost 500 reviews on Amazon, it's clear that plenty of new cooks find the book helpful. One customer sums it up best: "The information really does cover all of the basics. There is information on basic techniques such as how to properly hold your knife, what different methods of cooking (boil, broil, sauté, etc.) are, and how to do them. Information on picking your ingredients to ensure they're fresh and/or ripe along with proper storage of the ingredients and proper cooking temperatures. The recipes vary in difficulty from how to make a very basic guacamole to a more complex braised beef with wine. The skill levels start as basic as how to properly remove rosemary from the stem and progress as the book progresses."
Pros: Very thorough coverage of basic cooking techniques, photos clearly illustrate cooking techniques, helpful tips on shopping and storing
Cons: A few customers complained that the book's binding didn't hold up well
"The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook" teaches you all you need to know about this heart-healthy, weight-busting, delicious, and good-for-you style of eating and cooking.
The Mediterranean diet is a cooking philosophy, method, and group of recipes that center mostly around plants — whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans, and olive oil — with just a little bit of fish or meat to add flavor and protein. The benefits of a Mediterranean diet are well-documented: weight loss, a lowered risk of diabetes and heart disease, stronger bones, better moods, and even reduced risk of cancer.
"The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook," from America's Test Kitchen, briefly covers everything you need to know about the Mediterranean diet, including its history and benefits, the staple foods that make up the diet, its particular food pyramid, how to design a well-balanced meal, and pantry basics to keep on hand, before diving into the heart of the 440-page hardback book (paperback and Kindle versions are also available): 500 recipes with color photos and clear explanations. You'll find chapters on cooking vegetables, grains, soups and salads, seafood and meat, beans, eggs, fruits, and desserts.
Fans of America's Test Kitchen cooking show on public television (as well as the magazines and books) know the recipes are extensively developed and tested by its team of chefs and food experts, and you'll find that meticulousness in this cookbook. While there are many fad diets you can follow, the Mediterranean diet is one that's recommended by many nutritionists and health experts.
The "dishes can easily be integrated into readers' existing menus," Publishers Weekly says, like the "Moroccan-style chicken and lentil soup, tagliatelle with artichokes and Parmesan, and garlicky roasted shrimp with parsley and anise."
The cookbook has a 4.5-star rating and more than 600 reviews on Amazon. One customer writes, "There are two things that make this book stand out. This is much more than a book of recipes. There are useful tips, explanations for why they chose a certain item (e.g., dried beans vs. canned, brand recommendations), and excellent charts that compare different types of legumes or fish or beans."
Pros: A thorough introduction to the Mediterranean diet, plenty of color photos, a wide variety of delicious recipes including some that are vegetarian and gluten-free
Cons: A few buyers complained that the font in the cookbook is too small, others felt that too many recipes required ingredients that weren't easy to find.
If you want to cook fresh, delicious food, but don't have much time to spare, you'll love the many fast, easy, and few-ingredient recipes in "Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast."
Need dinner on the table in a hurry? Don't want to be bothered with recipes that have a dozen or more ingredients? Prefer dishes that are delicious, yet reasonably easy to make? Then you'll definitely want to add "Fresh Food Fast" from Cooking Light magazine to your cookbook collection. This paperback cookbook has more than 250 recipes — many requiring only five ingredients — that go from cupboard to table in 15 minutes or so, meaning you can prepare a healthy and tasty meal at home faster than you can drive through a fast-food joint.
"Cooking Light Fresh Food Fast" gives clear directions and offers plenty of kitchen shortcuts to help you make the most of your time. Recipes cover all the basics: soups and salads, sandwiches, poultry, meat, and seafood, as well as a full chapter on meatless main dishes. There are color photos of every recipe and suggested substitutions for ingredients that might not be easy to find.
The cookbook has a 4.3-star rating and 150 reviews on Amazon. One customer echoes my review: "What I really love about this cookbook is that it doesn't use a ton of ingredients, and the recipes are not super involved and don't take a really long time to prepare."
Pros: Reasonably easy and fast recipes, few ingredients required for many recipes
Cons: Some recipes take longer and require more ingredients. some complained that many recipes call for precut produce or canned produce or similar "convenience" items
Wormtail. Professor Ratigan. The R.O.U.S. Pop culture has given rats a bad rep. And it's understandable why.
Take northeastern India's rat flood. Twice a century, rats swarm when bamboo forests drop about 80 tons of seeds. After they devour the seeds, they devastate local agriculture. In the 1960s, the resulting famine was so bad, it lead to a major political uprising. See the rest of the story at Business Insider
Most people don't think much about hospitals unless they work there or until they end up being treated at one.
But hospitals are a major part of the giant US healthcare industry, with spending on the sector as a whole set to reach nearly 20% of the US economy.
Hospitals have long been a big employer, and it's on the rise, US Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show, with hospitals employing 5.2 million people, according to the most recent data.
People who work in hospitals perform a wide range of jobs, including nurses who take care of patients, lab technologists who run complicated tests to detect disease, and radiology technicians who manage the scans that can help diagnose patients.
Those skilled occupations could explain why hospital workers tend to make more than the average healthcare worker. The average hospital worker made $33 an hour and worked just over 37 hours a week on average, according to preliminary government data from March of this year.
There are about 6,210 hospitals across the US today, according to industry group the American Hospital Association, ranging from nonprofit community ones to for-profit hospitals and hospitals run by state and local governments or the federal government.
Here are some of the more prominent occupations at hospitals, and how much they make:
30. Janitors and cleaners, except maids and housekeeping cleaners, earn a median of $29,820 a year, and there are 73,250 employed in hospitals.
ER Productions Limited/Getty Images
What they do,according to O*NET: Keep buildings in clean and orderly condition. Perform heavy cleaning duties, such as cleaning floors, shampooing rugs, washing walls and glass, and removing rubbish. Duties may include tending furnace and boiler, performing routine maintenance activities, notifying management of need for repairs, and cleaning snow or debris from sidewalk.
29. Orderlies earn a median of $30,200 a year, and there are 39,880 employed in hospitals.
Spotmatik Ltd/Shutterstock
What they do,according to O*NET: Transport patients to areas such as operating rooms or X-ray rooms using wheelchairs, stretchers, or moveable beds. May maintain stocks of supplies or clean and transport equipment.
28. Nursing assistants earn a median of $31,530 a year, and there are 405,340 employed in hospitals.
Getty Images
What they do,according to O*NET: Provide basic patient care under direction of nursing staff. Perform duties such as feed, bathe, dress, groom, or move patients, or change linens. May transfer or transport patients. Includes nursing care attendants, nursing aides, and nursing attendants.
Most of the time, this is a good thing — because Netflix knows exactly what you are watching, it can place shows in progress in the "Continue Watching" section so you can easily pick up where you left off. It also can use shows you have watched to make better recommendations about what you might want to see in the future. See the rest of the story at Business Insider
The renowned American artist Peter Max is reportedly suffering from advanced dementia, and some have called into question the authenticity of his artwork in recent years.
The New York Times published a report on Tuesday alleging that Max hasn't painted in years, and that paintings under his name were actually created entirely by a team of studio painters.
Max's work is a top seller for cruise ship art auction house Park West Gallery.
A Park West Gallery official told INSIDER that it's "completely untrue" that Max hasn't painted in years, and an art lawyer who investigated Max's studio said its production practices met all legal standards.
A renowned 81-year-old artist whose prolific output has long been a staple at cruise ship auctions has advanced dementia, calling into question the authenticity of the work produced under his name in recent years, according to a bombshell New York Times report published Tuesday.
Peter Max's vibrant and psychedelic artwork captured the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and went on to mesmerize Americans in the decades since. But his mental faculties have been diminishing since 2012 and he hasn't created a painting in four years, The Times reported, citing nine people familiar with his condition.See the rest of the story at Business Insider
Pizza Hut's Original Pan Pizza recipe carried the brand through the birth of the internet, the rise of delivery, and the reign of Instagram.
But no further — the chain has finally updated its nearly 40-year-old menu item.
In recent years, Pizza Hut has faced competition from a surging Domino's and younger, sleeker competitors like Blaze and Mod Pizza, which deliver a more personalized experience and more customization options. Newer fast-casual pizza chains also cater to evolving customer tastes with their chic branding, artisanal ingredients, and healthy options.
Pizza Hut's new recipe, which was unveiled on Tuesday, is the culmination of three years of research and a welcome change for an otherwise relatively stagnant brand.
According to a press release from the company, the new recipe is cooked in a "newly engineered" pan that makes for a crispier crust. The sauce and cheese have also been revamped to complement the dough.
To test those claims, I decided to head to one of the few Pizza Huts in Manhattan to give the new recipe a try. Here's what it was like:
I ordered a large Supreme Pan Pizza. It was not a bad-looking pizza, and it was generously adorned with pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and peppers. However, the toppings weren't important — I was there to test the chain's claims about the new sauce, cheese, and crust.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
The new crust was a pleasant light gold and had a touch of oily translucence.
Irene Jiang / Business Insider
The cheese was soft and very, very elastic. Photogenic for a perfect cheese pull.
Two US Air Force F-35s conducted air-to-air combat training against four more stealth fighters this week, and in the process accidentally left behind contrails in the shape of a phallis.
Luke Air Force Base has concluded that the fighters from the 56th Fighter Wing did nothing "nefarious or inappropriate."
Military pilots have left behind a number of penis drawings in the sky, most of which seem to be intentional.
US Air Force F-35s accidentally left behind phallic contrails in the sky after air-to-air combat training this week.
Two of the fifth-generation stealth fighters went head-to-head with four additional F-35s during a simulated dogfight, Luke Air Force Base told Business Insider. See the rest of the story at Business Insider
The larger home, which includes a 200-foot infinity pool and a 12-car garage, sold for $45 million. The smaller one sold for $7.2 million.
The smaller home will house the buyer's staff, according to The Journal.
The Saudi buyer has not been identified, but Variety reported the property was sold to an entity formed by a Pasadena tax attorney known for managing the finances of some of the wealthiest members of the Saudi royal family.
A wealthy Saudi buyer has snapped up two neighboring Los Angeles mansions to create a $52.2 million compound, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The larger home, which has seven bedrooms and about 20,000 square feet of living space, sold for $45 million, making it the most expensive home sold in LA this year, according to The Journal. The four-bedroom, 4,300-square-foot house sold for $7.2 million and will house the buyer's staff.
The buyer from Saudi Arabia has not been identified, but Variety reported the property was sold to an entity formed by a Pasadena tax attorney known for managing the finances of some of the wealthiest members of the Al Saud royal family.
Rayni Williams and Branden Williams of Hilton & Hyland shared the listing for the larger home with Aaron Kirman of Compass, and Kirman also held the listing for the smaller home.
Here's a look inside the $52.2 million compound.
An unidentified Saudi buyer spent $52.2 million on two neighboring homes in the affluent Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Clippers considered buying Kawhi Leonard's personal "Klaw" logo from Nike to woo him in free agency this summer, according to a report from The New York Times.
According to the report, Nike would not be willing to sell the logo to prevent New Balance, Leonard's new sponsor, from using it.
Buying the logo may have also been a violation of NBA rules by the Clippers.
The Clippers are considered by some to be the front-runners to land Leonard, but the Toronto Raptors' Finals run could affect the race.
The Los Angeles Clippers are one of several teams who will be vying for Kawhi Leonard's services in free agency this summer, and they've gone to unusual lengths to gain an advantage.
Oily skin can be a royal pain to manage, especially when it leads to unwanted breakouts, blemishes, and blackheads. But, if you are wondering what actually causes your skin to be grease trap, board-certified dermatologist Dr. Rita Linkner, explained that oily skin usually is the result of when the sebaceous glands (which are microscopic exocrine glands in the skin) are in overdrive and produce too much oil. This can lead to unwanted acne and can clog pores, she said.
However, Dr. Linkner said that there are other factors that can cause oily skin, including genetics, nutritional habits, and oily makeup and skin-care products. See the rest of the story at Business Insider
Netflix released every title that's coming to and leaving the streaming service in June.
New seasons of "Black Mirror," "Dark," "Designated Survivor" (now a Netflix Original series), and "Jessica Jones" are hitting the service.
Some hit animated movies including "Ralph Breaks the Internet" and "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" are coming to Netflix. Other movies also coming to the service include, "Batman Begins," "The Dark Knight," and "Magic Mike."
But some fans will be sad to learn "An Extremely Goofy Movie," "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2," "Legally Blonde," and "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" are leaving.
Here's a list of everything that's coming and going on Netflix in June.
Arriving in June:
YouTube/Netflix
Available 6/1/19
"50/50"
"A.I. Artificial Intelligence"
"Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day"
"Arthdal Chronicles" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Batman Begins"
"Cabaret"
"Carrie"
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"
"Dynasty" Season 2
"Good Night, and Good Luck"
"Gran Torino"
"Life in the Doghouse"
"Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa"
"Magic Mike"
"Network"
"Oh, Ramona!" —NETFLIX FILM
"Platoon"
"Prosecuting Evil: The Extraordinary World Of Ben Ferencz"
"Satan & Adam"
"Small Soldiers"
"The Dark Knight"
"The Phantom of the Opera"
"The Space Between Us"
"What a Girl Wants"
Available 6/3/19
"Documentary Now!" Season 3
"Malibu Rescue: The Series" — NETFLIX FAMILY
Available 6/4/19
"Miranda Sings Live…Your Welcome" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Available 6/5/19
"A Silent Voice"
"Black Mirror: Season 5" —NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Dr. Seuss' The Grinch"
Disney
Available 6/6/19
"Alles ist gut" — NETFLIX FILM
"Todos lo saben"
Available 6/7/19
"3%" Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Belmonte"
"The Black Godfather " — NETFLIX FILM
"The Chef Show" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Designated Survivor" Season 3 —NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Elisa & Marcela" — NETFLIX FILM
"I Am Mother" — NETFLIX FILM
"Pachamama" — NETFLIX FAMILY
"Rock My Heart" — NETFLIX FILM
"Super Monsters Monster Pets" — NETFLIX FAMILY
"Tales of the City" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Available 6/8/19
"Berlin, I Love You"
Available 6/11/19
"Ralph Breaks the Internet"
Available 6/12/19
"Jo Koy: Comin' In Hot" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese" — NETFLIX FILM
Available 6/13/19
"The 3rd Eye 2" — NETFLIX FILM
"Jinn" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Kakegurui xx" — NETFLIX ANIME
David Giesbrecht/Netflix
Available 6/14/19
"Aggretsuko" Season 2 — NETFLIX ANIME
"The Alcàsser Murders" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Awake: The Million Dollar Game" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Charité at War" —NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Cinderella Pop " — NETFLIX FILM
"Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce" Season 5
"Leila" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Life Overtakes Me" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Marlon" Season 2
"Marvel's Jessica Jones" Season 3 — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
"Murder Mystery" — NETFLIX FILM
"Unité 42" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Available 6/15/19
"Grey's Anatomy" Season 15
Available 6/16/19
"Cop Car"
Available 6/18/19
"Adam Devine: Best Time of Our Lives" — NETFLIX ORIGINAL
Insider Pickswrites about products and services to help you navigate when shopping online. Insider, Inc. receives a commission from our affiliate partners when you buy through our links, but our reporting and recommendations are always independent and objective.
Philips Hue products make popular deals on Prime Day, especially the company's smart light bulbs that can be controlled via app, Amazon's Alexa, and Google Assistant.
In 2018, Amazon offered the following Philips Hue Prime Day deals $60 off a lighting bundle deal with Echo Dot, $30 off the White and Color Ambiance kit, and $10 off the White Bulb 4-Pack. We expect more of the same in 2019.
No GMOs, no pesticides, no extra chemicals. If you like the effects of CBD and the environment, NuLeaf Naturals premium CBD is the oil for you. Use coupon code DIGG for 25% off.
By 1993, Mario and Sonic were lighting up the video game world. With each new game, their stories grew deeper and their worlds began the expansion that would eventually lead to their inevitable convergence a few decades later. Certainly there was room for another friendly character?
Fall, 1982. A new freshman class arrives at arty, louche and expensive Bennington College. Among the druggies, rebels, heirs and posers: future Gen X literary stars Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis and Jonathan Lethem. What happened over the next four years would spark scandal, myth and some of the authors' greatest novels.
From organizing data to performing complex data analysis, the Epic Excel 2019 Mastery Bundle takes you from the basics to more advanced applications of this business-standard software. The best part? You can pick your own price.
Millions across the world are still afflicted with the pernicious bacterial infection and yet there is still so much about how the disease operates that scientists simply don't know.
On the 20th anniversary of her release from custody, Hollywood's most famous madam invites The Hollywood Reporter to her desert bird sanctuary to spill a wild story, in the process revealing a bizarre and drug-filled lifestyle and zero interest in a post #MeToo image rehab.
We already know not to try to climb trees to escape black bears, but apparently climbing a vertical rock wall (you can do that, right?) won't help you either.
A woman who spent nearly two years in a room with virtually no contact with the outside world testified this week about why she had no choice but to stay put on the orders of a jealous man who has been accused of running a sex cult.
No GMOs, no pesticides, no extra chemicals. If you like the effects of CBD and the environment, NuLeaf Naturals premium CBD is the oil for you. Use coupon code DIGG for 25% off.
The first time a horse ran away with me, I suffered pure glory. I was transported by the sheer speed of the experience. The maniacal balance. The blind righteousness of animal acceleration.
Or the unluckiest, depending on how you look at things. After all, it's not every day that a piece of rebar flies through your windshield and impales your car's headrest.
While certain themes — self-doubt, sexual awakening, familial tension — are recurring, another appeal of the genre is how intently an adolescent character lays claim to their environment, and not just with their actions, but how they choose to present themselves.
Millions of dollars from US university endowments, foundations, and retirement plans have helped fund two billion-dollar Chinese facial recognition startups whose technologies are being used to surveil and profile its own citizens.
We have no idea what a greater position would be compared to transporting the President of the United States, but that's how smooth this guy's maneuvering is.
The Trump administration rolled out a new policy aimed at coercing Mexico into halting the flow of Central American asylum seekers into the United States — a 5 percent tax on Mexican imports rising steadily to 25 percent unless Mexico cracks down on migration.
Sometimes you may think water is still or floating upwards. Your eyes might even trick you to believe that it is moving backwards. But in reality, it's just tricks.
North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States on spying charges, as its leader, Kim Jong-un, has engineered a sweeping purge of the country's top nuclear negotiators after the breakdown of his second summit meeting with President Trump.
A little more than a year ago, I was sitting across from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a Queens diner for an interview. This was before anybody outside of her immediate community in New York City knew her name.
In the span of a minute, this lyrebird has mimicked the calls of birds like the Laughing Kookaburra, the Grey Butcher Bird, the Female Whip Bird, the Noisy Miner and the Pale Headed Rosella, just to name a few.
The net's favorite vlogger/maker/master of sh**ty robots has been pretty candid about her experience going through treatment for a brain tumor, and she's not about to toss out a relic of all that time spent getting better.
School’s out for the summer and tons of high school grads are preparing to leave for college. If that’s you, your kid, or someone who invited you to their grad party, listen up. Futons are the quintessential piece of dorm room furniture that virtually every incoming freshman has under their lofted bed. A dorm is not complete without one.
There are some pretty low-quality futons out there, so don’t waste your time sifting through the ones that won’t last the entire school year. Serta is a brand you can trust and its Chelsea convertible sofa futon is currently on sale at Walmart — you’ll save $85. Read more...
Wireless charging has been around since the late 19th century (shoutout to Nikola Tesla!), but it's only until recently that the biggest tech companies hopped on the bandwagon and started integrating the technology into their products.
Now, almost every phone and tablet are capable of charging without cords, essentially signaling an imminent wireless revolution. Before you know it, the world will be free of pesky wires that always turn into cable spaghetti.
You can take advantage of the convenience wireless charging brings by using a power hub like the AirBase 3-in-1 fast charging dock, which is capable of refueling three Qi-enabled devices all at once. You can pick it up on sale for more than 60% off. Read more...
Lyft's self-driving cars have been picking up passengers around Las Vegas for the past year. This week the autonomous ride service hit 50,000 rides.
The cars are requested through the Lyft app as usual, but are clearly noted as autonomous vehicles. Lyft works with self-driving company Aptiv to offer the service, which charges riders the same as the equivalent usual Lyft ride. A safety driver is still in the car.
At the 50,000 ride marker, Lyft pointed out that its self-driving cars average a 4.97 star rating and 92 percent of riders gave feedback that they felt safe during the ride. For most riders, this was their first time in an autonomous car. Read more...
Many people who have consumed the second season of Fleabag on Amazon were moved to their cores.
Writer, creator, and star of the show, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, makes you question and unpack your thoughts about everything from religion and family, to friendship and love — but she also wears a ridiculously stylish black jumpsuit in Episode 1 that viewers can't stop thinking about.
The flattering jumpsuit, which The Guardian reports is made by the London-based label Love, has wide legs, an open keyhole in back, a high neckline, and a plunging cutout in front. It's almost as good as the season, which Mashable Entertainment Reporter Proma Khosla describes as "some of the best television in history," and for that reason, it's already sold out on the website. Read more...
June is a busy time if you know a dad or a grad, especially if you have both in your life. If you’re at a complete loss for what to gift on Father’s Day or at a graduation party, consider going a personalized, sentimental route.
Shutterfly allows you to create custom products with your own photos on them, and now through June 4, almost everything at Shutterfly is 50% off.
Photo books are a personal favorite because you can really get creative with them. For both my high school and college graduations, my mom created photo books of my senior pictures, and for one of my birthdays my boyfriend at the time made me a photo book filled with pictures of us and poems he wrote. So yeah, you can get as standard or as sappy as you want with these. Read more...
There’s really nothing like a rich, smooth cup of coffee in the morning to kickstart your brain and get you on the move. There’s also nothing like a watery, bland cup of coffee in the morning to subsequently ruin your day and have you shouting at the heavens, “WHY?”
Let’s avoid the latter situation — if you don’t want to drink mud-water every morning for the foreseeable future, you need to be certain that the coffee machine you buy is one with a flawless success rate. Nespresso, which is known for its fantastic coffee-producing products, has a lovely espresso machine on sale on Amazon. But hurry — this is a deal of the day, and it won't last. Read more...
When it comes to buying a new 4K TV, it pays to wait. You might see a tempting offer on the model you have your heart set on, but we always recommend biding your time until the right deal comes along.
If you play your cards right and stay patient, you could save a couple of hundred pounds, or even a bit more, on a new TV. If it's your lucky day and all the stars align perfectly, you could even save over £800 on a 65-Inch 4K TV. That day has come.
The LG 65-Inch UHD 4K HDR Smart LED TV with Freeview Play is now available for just £597. That's a massive reduction of over £800 on the list price of £1399.99. So congratulations if you waited, because this is your reward. Read more...
Something that is often neglected when it comes to gaming is the audio. It's pretty common to see an impressive set up, replete with everything from a gaming chair to a mechanical keyboard, but with no sound system whatsoever.
This needs to change. Audio should not be an afterthought. It should be a priority, always. Powerful audio can completely immerse you in your experience, bringing games, movies, and music to life. Please, the neglect of audio needs to stop.
The way your laptop or desktop PC looks and feels is important, but if it doesn't perform to the standard you expect, it's no good.
This might be difficult to accept, especially if you are kind of deeply in love with your device. If this is the case, you may benefit from a solid state drive from SanDisk. These bad boys have a durable design that's engineered to resist vibration and shock, helping to keep your data safe over time. They also perform up to 20 times faster than a typical hard disk drive, meaning you actually get an overall better computer experience. There's hope for your device yet. Read more...
According to a study published in JAMA Psychiatryusing suicide data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a 13 percent uptick in youth suicides occurred in the three months after the 13 Reasons Why premiere.
As the 2020 candidate pool continues to grow almost by the day, it's never too early to start planning for January 20, 2021 — and the spectacle that comes with a presidential inauguration.
Yes, I know, we've still got the actual election to get through. But, look, the inauguration is a pretty big deal — a huge party, nationally televised — in which backers of the newly sworn-in president still have hope for the coming term and can bask in the celebratory glow of what's to come.
Across his two inaugurations in 2009 and 2013, Barack Obama hosted the likes of Beyonce, Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Kelly Clarkson across multiple events. By comparison, in 2017, Donald Trump had Toby Keith, 3 Doors Down, and The Piano Guys. Read more...
With more Democrats jumping on the "Impeach Trump" bandwagon, House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi took her "hold your damn horses" argument to late night.
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Pelosi had a spirited chat with Kimmel about Robert Mueller's Wednesday statement, the Mueller Report in general, and the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump. Pelosi has been slow-rolling the impeachment argument, and here she explains that she wants to make sure they have an "iron-clad" case.
Pelosi's most compelling point: She thinks Trump wants to be impeached. To Pelosi, the Republican-held Senate would acquit Trump which would make a criminal prosecution, once Trump leaves office less likely. Read more...
Sophie Turner and Jessica Chastain, who star in the latest X-Men origin story Dark Phoenix, are the latest starts to have their knowledge tested by our Know Your Role quiz game.
Turns out, Sophie is an absolute encyclopedia. Good on ya!
X-Men: Dark Phoenix hits UK cinemas June 5. Read more...
Anyone trying to put away five portions of fruit and vegetables every day will know just how hard it is in reality. That is a lot of the good stuff, and sometimes the logistics just don't work. There's not actually that much space left in your bag once you have forced in the fifth banana.
The best way to consume the recommended amount of fruit, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, is to pop them all into a blender or smoothie maker, and knock it back. With the Nutri Ninja blender, you can create smooth and great tasting drinks with all of your favourite ingredients, in just seconds.
The Nutri Ninja blender and smoothie maker is now available for just £59.99 until midnight on May 31. This device is usually priced at £99.99, meaning you save £40 if you act fast. A massive 82 percent of Amazon reviewers give the product five-stars, meaning you can feel pretty confident that this is a device that works. Read more...
Another day, another set of impressive deals. Looking to upgrade your kitchenware? Then look no further, as we have tracked down great deals on top brands like Russell Hobbs and George Foreman.
It's not all about kitchen essentials in this deals round up. We have also lined up a wide range of wearable fitness deals that the health conscious will find hard to ignore. Not only that, but there's also a great selection of speakers, memory cards, and smart home devices up for grabs.
These are the best deals from across the internet for May 31.
Best of the best
Keep a keen eye on these deals, as you won't want to miss out on the chance to grab a bargain set of Sony speakers or a heavily discounted Amazon device. Read more...
Tesla has launched its Model 3 electric sedan in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Ireland, Macau and Hong Kong.
The launch comes less than a month after the company launched the Model 3 in the UK. Now, Tesla's most affordable car is available in all major right-hand drive markets.
We *do not* want to alarm anyone, but Model 3 is now available to order in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland and Macau at https://t.co/8uVlhvzpu5
Swamp Thing leans in on backwoods swampy horror and it works so well.
The first episode of DC’s newest series Swamp Thing premiered on the DC Universe streaming service Friday and it’s a fantastic kick-off to what will hopefully be a weird, exciting, and unsettling series.
Set in a small town in Louisiana, the premiere of Swamp Thing acts as an origin story and sets up a mysterious, deadly threat that looks to be perfectly suited for a man who's been turned into walking vegetation. It takes some of the best aspects of the undeniably bizarre Swamp Thing comics through the years and dives right in, which is all we really want from comic book movies and shows, right? Read more...
It wasn't long ago that the stigma of talking about one's mental health forced many people to stay silent. Now though, messages encouraging people to share their struggles and seek help are widespread, including on Instagram, in public service announcements, and in celebrityinterviews. Even Burger King recently launched a campaign to raise awareness and mark Mental Health Awareness Month.
Yet it's one thing to notice and appreciate this newfound acceptance and another to acknowledge to someone else that you're experiencing a mental health condition or illness. People typically avoid disclosing that information for several reasons, including internalized stigma and shame, fear of rejection, worry about discrimination at work, and uncertainty about whether they need treatment. Read more...
When this reporter some movie fans learned that comedians Ali Wong and Randall Park were teaming up to write and star in a rom-com, the reaction was effectively "inject it directly into my veins."
Their Netflix outing Always Be My Maybe, directed by Fresh Off the Boat's Nahnatchka Khan, doesn't defy genre conventions, but it feels like a triumph nonetheless. The film thrives in embracing its own weirdness and showcasing its writer-stars, which is all we wanted out of it anyway.
Always Be My Maybe is the story of Sasha (Wong) and Marcus (Park), two childhood best friends who reunite over a decade after an awkward sexual encounter. The film forgoes unpacking this in the interest of time; it's right after the sudden death of Marcus's mom, who was more of a mother to Sasha than she ever felt her own was. It dissolves a decade of friendship in mere minutes and ends with Sasha storming out, the sting of a rejected crush erasing any instinct to be there for a grieving friend or keep in touch at all moving forward. Read more...
Amazon also have a ton of Apple products on sale. We all know Apple discount is rare to come by, so take this opportunity to treat yourself. Make a $200 saving on the 12-inch MacBook, or get $125 off the 11-inch iPad Pro.
If you’re at all interested in TVs, you already know that 4K is the way to go. Watching your entertainment in such high resolution is an experience unlike any other, and you can have it all within the comfort of your own home with the right model. LG consistently puts out high-caliber 4K televisions, and you can get one of their highest quality models for a fraction of the price in the PCMag Shop right now.
You'll save a whopping $1,800 on a 55-inch LG OLED E8 Series 4K TV — that’s $800 cheaper that Amazon’s already discounted price. You can also get the 65-inch model for $1,600 off the original listing, which is $600 cheaper than Amazon’s current offer. Read more...
The thing about working in tech is you have to actively keep expanding your skill set and knowledge base to be competitive. With the way in which technology is evolving, remaining stagnant will only cost you bigger and more lucrative career opportunities.
To keep up with the fast-paced industry, you need to constantly learn something new. But that doesn't mean you have to splurge on expensive university courses just to stay ahead of the curve.
The Future-Proof Tech Skills Mastery Bundle will help keep you up to date on what you need to know and give you in-depth knowledge on web development, database management, DevOps, cloud management, and more. Read more...
Oddly we're more comfortable facing the question of who we are as individuals — we're more afraid to reckon with how the collective defines most of who we are or how we act.
But the short hand-drawn game Kids — recently released by Michael Frei and Mario von Rickenbach, the award-winning German duo known for Plug & Play — immerses you in the nature of group dynamics. That doesn't even begin to cover the scope of what Kids captures, though. With a minimalist yet celestial aesthetic, the 15-30 minutes it takes to play feel like a free fall through universal human experiences. Read more...
Chinese phone maker Meizu has a new phone out, and it's one of those devices that makes you wonder whether you've overpaid for your current phone.
The Meizu 16Xs got a 6.2-inch, notchless AMOLED screen with an in-display fingerprint sensor and reasonably sized, symmetrical bezels on top and bottom. On the back, there's a triple, 48/8/5-megapixel camera. The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 chip and has a beefy, 4,000mAh battery.
Most importantly, it all costs just $245 for the 6GB/64GB variant, and $289 for the 6GB/128GB variant.
In an incredible finale, 2019 National Spelling Bee ended with not one but eight co-champions.
At the end of the 17th round, three hours into the Scripps-sponsored competition, longtime announcer Jacques Bailly made a startling declaration: All remaining spellers at end of the final's 20th round would be named a co-champion.
"We are now in uncharted territory. We do have plenty of words remaining on our list, but we'll soon run out of words that could possibly challenge you," Bailly said. "We're throwing the dictionary at you, and you’re showing the dictionary who’s boss."
It became a three-round playoff against the eight remaining spellers, who would each take home a $50,000 prize if they survived at the end of the final, which took place on Thursday. Read more...
The trailer for Pixar's upcoming animated film, which debuted during the first game of the NBA Finals on Thursday, is a "suburban fantasy" which features the voices of Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Octavia Spencer.
Onward "introduces two teenage elf brothers who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there."
It was first teased back in 2017 by director Dan Scanlon, who described the world of Onward as "a mix of the fantastic and the everyday."
"There are mushroom houses that line the streets with satellite dishes sticking out the top of them and a minivan parked in front of each one," he added. "There are no humans... but there are unicorns everywhere. They’re basically rodents, possums eating all the trash out of your bins." Read more...
Calls for Mark Zuckerberg's power to be reined in continue to grow louder – not that it matters.
That much was clear during Facebook's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday, where Zuckerberg faced numerous calls for his power to be checked. On the agenda were four shareholder proposals that called for new checks on Zuckerberg's power:
A proposal calling for more shareholder a power
A proposal calling for an independent board chair (not Zuck)
A proposal which compared Zuckerberg's control of the company to a "dictatorship," for shareholder input in elections to the board of directors
A proposal to explore "strategic alternatives," including breaking up Facebook into separate companies Read more...
Ben & Jerry's, known for creating gloriously chunky ice cream flavors and rarely backing down from taking a stance on social justice issues, wants to start selling CBD-infused ice cream.
The brand announced the upcoming flavor in an Instagram post on Thursday. Although it seems like a dumb marketing ploy following the recent influx of CBD products in recent months, the campaign seems to be more of a political move.
"Currently, the FDA prohibits adding CBD to food and beverages," Ben & Jerry's said in a statement. "But change is on the horizon: They've set a public hearing on the legalization of CBD-infused foods and beverages for May 31, and we've submitted a comment to them in support of legalization." Read more...
Pokémon Detective Pikachu is a 2019 mystery film directed by Rob Letterman. Based on the Pokémon franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri and the 2016 video game Detective Pikachu,[4] it was written by Letterman, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and Derek Connolly, from a story by Hernandez, Samit and Nicole Perlman. The film was produced by Legendary Pictures in association with Toho. It is the first live-action Pokemon film.[5] Ryan Reynolds stars as the voice and facial motion capture of Pikachu, with Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe and Bill Nighy in live-action roles.
Filming took place from January to May 2018 in Colorado, England, and Scotland. It was released in Japan on May 3, 2019,[6][7] and in the United States on May 10, 2019, distributed by Warner Bros. Entertainment in RealD 3D and Dolby Cinema.[8] It is the first Pokémon film to be distributed theatrically in the United States by Warner Bros. since Pokémon 3: The Movie (2000), and with a PG rating from the MPAA, it is also the first Pokémon film released in the United States not to receive a G rating.[9]
Detective Pikachu received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the creature designs and Reynolds' performance, but criticized the plot as being standard.[10][11] The film is the best-reviewed live-action film adaptation of a video game on Rotten Tomatoes. It also received positive grades from audiences polled by CinemaScore and PostTrak.
Plot In the Pokémon universe, Tim Goodman is a 21-year-old insurance salesman who has given up Pokémon training due to the death of his mother and the absence of his father, Harry. He travels to Ryme City – a metropolis where humans and Pokémon live together as equals – to collect Harry's assets following his apparent death in a car crash. In Harry's apartment, Tim encounters a deerstalker-clad Pikachu that can speak and only he can somehow understand; the pair are then escape from an attack by a party of Aipom[b] under the influence of an "R"-labeled purple gas that Tim accidentally released upon inspection. They take shelter at a café where Pikachu reveals that he is an amnesiac detective who was Harry's police partner, and that they were investigating a case together when Harry disappeared. They look for Lucy Stevens, a fluff columnist and aspiring reporter suspicious of Harry's death, who Tim had previously encountered. She leads Tim and Pikachu to Ryme Wharf and, after interrogating a Mr. Mime there, are directed to an illegal Pokemon fighting arena owned by Sebastian. He demands a rematch with Pikachu, who previously defeated Sebastian's Charizard. Tim attempts to save Pikachu during the rematch however, after Sebastian gives Charizard a dose of the R gas, which is then mishandled by Sebastian and accidentally released into the stadium, causing havoc. Sebastian then tells Tim that he got the R gas from "the doctor."
After confronting police lieutenant Hideo Yoshida about Harry's apparent death and the possibility of his survival, Tim and Pikachu are brought before Ryme City's benefactor Howard Clifford, who reveals to Tim that Harry indeed survived his car crash, which was caused by an attack from a recently escaped Mewtwo, which took him away and left Pikachu with amnesia. Howard warns them of his son, Roger, who he claims is in de facto control of his company and the city. Tim and Pikachu recruit Lucy and her Psyduck on an expedition to the lab facility Harry was investigating, where they learn Sebastian's "doctor" was a researcher aided by Harry, who had been experimenting on Mewtwo, recaptured after escaping 20 years earlier.[c] They are soon attacked by several Greninja who chase them out of the building, but are fended off by Psyduck. They then escape a field of colossal Torterra, but Pikachu is gravely injured. Tim manages to communicate with a Bulbasaur and takes Pikachu to a clearing in the forest where they are greeted by Mewtwo, who heals Pikachu. Mewtwo attempts to reveal its intent, but is captured by Roger. Thinking that he betrayed Harry to a vengeful Mewtwo, Pikachu leaves Tim while the others return to Ryme City to warn Howard. Pikachu comes across the area where Harry's car crash occurred, and finds evidence that the Greninja attacked Harry, not Mewtwo.
Tim reaches Howard, but learns too late that he intends to transfer his consciousnesses into Mewtwo and use his powers to fuse Pokémon with their owners, with the assistance of the R gas. He also learns that "Roger" had actually been a shape-shifting Ditto, with the real Roger having been tied up and hidden. As Howard in Mewtwo's body starts fusing humans with Pokémon, Pikachu arrives and finally summons his electricity powers to battle Mewtwo, fending off Mewtwo long enough for Tim to free Mewtwo from Howard's control. Mewtwo restores everyone to normal while Howard is arrested by the police, and reveals that Harry was in fact fused with Pikachu in order to heal him; the fusion erased Harry's memory while keeping his consciousness within Pikachu. After Mewtwo unfuses them with the help of Tim, a fully revived Harry offers Tim the chance to return home, but Tim decides to stay in order to learn how to become a detective and spend time with him and Pikachu.
Cast Ryan Reynolds as Detective Pikachu, a world-class detective and exceptionally smart Pikachu whom only Tim can understand. Reynolds performed both the voice and facial motion capture for the character. Reynolds also portrays Harry Goodman, Tim's missing father and a veteran Ryme City police detective. Ikue Ōtani provides Detective Pikachu's normal voice as heard by everyone other than Tim. Justice Smith as Tim Goodman, a former Pokémon trainer looking for his missing father; he is also Detective Pikachu's partner, and the only person capable of hearing him speak. Max Fincham portrays a young Tim Goodman. Kathryn Newton as Lucy Stevens, a junior reporter who is accompanied by a Psyduck. Bill Nighy as Howard Clifford, the disabled visionary behind Ryme City and founder of Clifford Enterprises. Ken Watanabe as Detective Hideo Yoshida, a veteran Ryme City police lieutenant and friend of Harry who is accompanied by a Snubbull. Chris Geere as Roger Clifford, Howard's son and president of Clifford Enterprises. Suki Waterhouse as Ms. Norman, a human disguise used by a modified shape-shifting Ditto that is Howard's accomplice. Omar Chaparro as Sebastian, a Pokémon trainer who runs a secret Ryme City Pokémon battle arena who is accompanied by a Charizard. Rita Ora as Dr. Ann Laurent, a scientist for Clifford Enterprises experimenting on Mewtwo. Karan Soni as Jack, Tim's friend who is a Pokémon trainer. Josette Simon as "Grams", Tim's grandmother who took care of him after the death of Tim's mother. Kadiff Kirwan as the Mayor of Ryme City Rina Hoshino and Kotaro Watanabe as Mewtwo (voice) Rachael Lillis as Jigglypuff (archive voice recording) Additionally, Diplo appears as himself, the DJ who performs at Sebastian's Pokémon arena. Ryoma Takeuchi, who provides the Japanese dubbed voice of Tim, has a cameo as a Pokémon trainer in a video Tim watches.
Production Development The film was officially announced in July 2016,[13] although Legendary Pictures were reported to be in talks as early as April of that year.[14] The Pokémon Company and Letterman wanted to adapt Detective Pikachu because of their interest in making a film that focused on another character besides Ash Ketchum, the protagonist of the Pokémon animated TV series. On the premise, Letterman stated, "The Pokémon Company, they've already made many, many movies of Ash, and they came to Legendary with this idea of using a new character. So when I came onboard, I was pitched this character of Detective Pikachu, and I fell in love with the story behind it."[15] The idea of talking Pokémon originated from an early concept for the 1990s TV series, but was scrapped when the original game developer, Game Freak, was unsatisfied with the concept. The idea was revived for the 2016 Detective Pikachu spin-off game.[16] Letterman said that they "spent a year designing all the characters ahead of shooting so that we could get it all right."[17]
Rob Letterman was hired to direct the film on November 30, 2016, and the studio fast-tracked production to start in 2017.[18] On August 16, 2016, Nicole Perlman and Alex Hirsch were in negotiations with Legendary to write the screenplay.[19] Later revisions were provided by Eric Pearson, Thomas McCarthy, Derek Connolly, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit and Letterman.[20] Ultimately, Hernandez, Samit, Letterman, and Connolly received screenplay credit, and with Hernandez, Samit and Perlman receiving "story by" billing.
Casting In November 2017, Justice Smith was cast in the lead human role, with Kathryn Newton added to costar after an intense session of reading and testing actresses opposite Smith. Newton beat out Natalia Dyer, Haley Lu Richardson, and Katherine Langford for the role.[21][22] In December 2017, Ryan Reynolds was cast in the title role, portrayed via motion-capture and voice over.[23] Other actors considered for the role were Danny DeVito, Dwayne Johnson, Mark Wahlberg and Hugh Jackman.[24][25][26] In January 2018, with production commencing, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy and Chris Geere joined the cast,[27][28] in February 2018, Suki Waterhouse and Rita Ora were added as well,[29][30] and in April 2018, Omar Chaparro had been signed.[31] In January 2019, Rob Delaney had previously stated that he had a role,[32] but he does not appear in the final cut of the film.
Filming Principal production began on January 15, 2018, in London, England and Denver, Colorado.[33] Nine days later, Legendary announced that principal photography had officially begun.[34][35] Much of the on set interaction and vocal reference for Pikachu was filled in by Jon Bailey. However, all of his dialogue was dubbed over by Ryan Reynolds.[36] Principal photography concluded on May 1, 2018.[37] Some filming was done at Shepperton Studios, Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, and Minley Woods in Hampshire; rural areas of Colorado, just outside Denver and Colorado Springs; and Scotland.
The film's cinematographer, John Mathieson, noted that, like his other films, Detective Pikachu was shot on traditional film, in contrast to most other contemporary films which are shot digitally. He said the use of traditional film helps make it "look more realistic."[38]
Post-production The film's visual effects were provided by the Moving Picture Company (MPC), Framestore, Image Engine, Rodeo FX, and Instinctual VFX.[39] Much of the visual effects were provided by the same team behind The Jungle Book, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and The Lion King. Letterman compared the visual effects to the character of Rocket Raccoon from Guardians of the Galaxy; "They're technically, some of the most high-end visual effects in the world... It's completely photo-realistic, like they are alive and in the movie." Additional audio recording of a fight between Detective Pikachu and Charizard was recorded at the Pokémon World Championships 2018.[15]
Music Henry Jackman provided the score for the film.[40] Kygo and Rita Ora appear on the soundtrack with the lead single titled "Carry On". The song and the music video were released on April 19, 2019.[41] Japanese hip hop group Honest Boyz also collaborated with Lil Uzi Vert to make another song for the film, titled "Electricity" and produced by Pharrell Williams.[42]
Marketing In early November 2018, with the film in the post-production phase, a screen test was held for an incomplete version of the film, which drew considerably positive reactions from the test audience. Praise was directed towards the script, visual effects, and Reynolds' performance.[43][44]
The film's first official trailer was released on November 12, 2018.[45] Warner Bros. revealed versions of the trailer in English along with dubbed versions in Spanish, French, Italian and German.[46] It soon became the top trending video on YouTube,[47] and a top trending topic on Twitter,[48] while inspiring numerous internet memes and reaction videos.[49] Within 24 hours, the high-concept trailer amassed more than 100 million views across multiple online and social media platforms.[49][50] On YouTube, the English-language trailer garnered over 1 million likes within two days,[51] and 1.22 million likes within five days.[52] On Twitter, it set a new record of over 400,000 mentions on the day of the trailer reveal.[53] A second trailer, featuring an appearance by Mewtwo, was released on February 26, 2019.[54] A day prior to the trailer's release, Ryan Reynolds uploaded a video onto his YouTube channel that features interviews with himself and his wife, Blake Lively.[55] A third trailer was released on April 22, 2019.[56]
On November 30, 2018, Letterman, Smith, and Newton appeared on stage during the Tokyo Comic-Con event.[57]
On May 7, 2019, a Warner Bros. YouTube channel named "Inspector Pikachu" uploaded a video purporting to be a bootleg recording of the film. Spanning nearly 1.75 hours in length, the opening minute shows the production logo sequences followed by a scene from the film featuring Tim Goodman, before spending the remainder of its runtime depicting Pikachu performing aerobics to an upbeat, 1980s-inspired synthwave tune. Reynolds aided in the prank, posting on Twitter as if he was alerting Warner Bros. and the film's official accounts about the alleged bootleg.[58][59][60] The video, which Paul Tassi of Forbes described as "brilliant", received 4.2 million views in less than a day.[58]
Merchandise and other tie-ins On March 15, 2019, it was revealed that Legendary will release a graphic novel based on the film.[61]
Niantic Labs promoted the film through the Pokémon Go app, by featuring, among other things, select Pokémon from the movie appear in the game, including a limited edition "detective" version of Pikachu.[62]
The Pokémon Company released a series of trading cards featuring images from the film, including a limited edition card only available the first weekend of the film's release.[63][64]
Release Initially, Universal Pictures was due to handle distribution outside Japan, while Toho would handle the Japanese distribution.[65] On July 25, 2018, Warner Bros. announced they had taken over worldwide distribution duties (except in Japan and China) from Universal, with the release date unchanged.[66]
When the film's Japanese release was announced on November 29, 2018, Ryoma Takeuchi was confirmed to voice Tim Goodman in the Japanese version.[67] Takeuchi also has a brief cameo appearance in the film itself as a Pokémon trainer.[68] On March 20, 2019, it was confirmed that Marie Iitoyo will voice Lucy Stevens and Ken Watanabe will reprise his role as Detective Yoshida, in the Japanese dub.[69] When the film premiered in Japan on May 3, 2019, Hidetoshi Nishijima was confirmed to have voiced Detective Pikachu in the Japanese dub.[70]
Reception Box office As of May 29, 2019, Pokémon Detective Pikachu has grossed $122.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $238.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $361 million, against a production budget of $150 million.[3]
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Tolkien, Poms and The Hustle, and was projected to gross $50–70 million from 4,202 theaters,[71][2] although the studio was estimating a lower $40 million debut.[72] The film made $20.7 million on its first day, including $5.7 million from Thursday night previews, both records for a film based on a video game.[73] It went on to debut to $54.4 million, finishing second, behind holdover Avengers: Endgame.[74][75] It was the best-ever opening for a video game film, and was also the sixth-highest total for a film that did not debut number one at the box office.[76] In its second weekend the film made $24.8 million, finishing third behind John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Avengers: Endgame,[77] and then made $13.3 million in its third weekend, finishing fourth.[78]
In other territories, the film was projected to debut to $90–120 million from 62 countries, including $40–60 million in China.[79] Prior to its worldwide release, the film grossed $21 million from openings and previews in several international markets, including Japan, through Thursday.[80] The film had an international opening weekend debut of $103 million (and a five-day debut of $112.4 million), dethroning Avengers: Endgame at the top of the international box office.[81] Detective Pikachu topped the international box office again in its second weekend.[82]
In Japan, the film opened at number three (behind Detective Conan: The Fist of Blue Sapphire and Avengers: Endgame), grossing ¥948 million ($8.6 million) in its opening weekend,[83] before topping the box office in its second weekend, with a cumulative ¥1,465,395,700[84] ($13,327,837).[85] In China, Detective Pikachu had an opening day gross of $16.4 million,[86] and topped the box office with a weekend debut of $40.8 million.[80] It topped the Chinese box office again in its second week, with a cumulative $69.3 million.[87] In the United Kingdom, it topped the box office with a £4.9 million ($6.6 million) debut.[88] As of May 26, 2019, the film's largest international markets are China ($84.4 million), Japan ($21.2 million), the United Kingdom ($13.6 million), Mexico ($10.4 million), and Germany ($9.5 million).[89]
Critical response
The design of Detective Pikachu, and Ryan Reynolds' portrayal of the character, received critical praise. As of May 2019, 66% of 262 reviews compiled by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes are positive, and have an average rating of 5.98/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Pokémon Detective Pikachu may not take its wonderfully bizarre premise as far as it could have, but this offbeat adaptation should catch most – if not all – of the franchise's fans."[90] It is the best-reviewed live-action film adaptation of a video game on the website.[91] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, provides a score of 53 out of 100, based on 48 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."[92] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while general audiences polled by PostTrak gave it 4 out of 5 stars.[74]
Scott Mendelson of Forbes called the film "the best video game movie ever" and wrote, "Detective Pikachu works because it's a good movie first and a promising franchise-starter or a brand cash-in second. It's a real film, rooted in character arcs and narrative twists with just enough raw emotion and personal stakes to make the significant special effects moments matter beyond spectacle."[93] CNET's Sean Keane also called the film the best ever based on a video game, calling it an "entertaining romp with plenty of heart," and praising Reynolds.[94]
Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Michael Rechtshaffen said, "Although the script... tends to compartmentalize the comedy, action and emotional bits rather than organically blending them all together, Letterman's energetic direction manages to hold everything aloft."[95] Alonso Duralde's middling review for TheWrap is led by the subheading, "live-action-plus-animation take on the popular game feels both ambitious and lazy, frenzied and sluggish."
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and animal welfare activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, "Sentimental Journey" and "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time" with Les Brown & His Band of Renown. She left Brown to embark on a solo career and recorded more than 650 songs from 1947 to 1967.
Day's film career began during the latter part of the Golden Age of Hollywood with the film Romance on the High Seas (1948), leading to a 20-year career as a motion picture actress. She starred in films of many genres, including musicals, comedies, dramas and thrillers. She played the title role in Calamity Jane (1953) and starred in Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. Her best-known films are those in which she co-starred with Rock Hudson, chief among them 1959's Pillow Talk, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also worked with James Garner on both Move Over, Darling (1963) and The Thrill of It All (1963), and also starred alongside Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Cagney, David Niven, Jack Lemmon, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall and Rod Taylor in various movies. After ending her film career in 1968, only briefly removed from the height of her popularity, she starred in her own sitcom The Doris Day Show (1968–1973).
Day became one of the biggest film stars in the early 1960s, and as of 2012 was one of eight performers to have been the top box-office earner in the United States four times.[1][2] In 2011, she released her 29th studio album My Heart which contained new material and became a UK Top 10 album. She received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Legend Award from the Society of Singers. In 1960, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress,[3] and was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in motion pictures in 1989. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom; this was followed in 2011 by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Career Achievement Award.
Early life Doris Mary Kappelhoff was born on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio,[4] the daughter of Alma Sophia (née Welz; 1895–1976) and William Joseph Kappelhoff (1892–1967). Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a music teacher and choirmaster.[5][6] Her grandparents were all German.[7][8][9] For most of her life, Day reportedly believed she had been born in 1924 and reported her age accordingly; it was not until her 95th birthday – when the Associated Press found her birth certificate, showing a 1922 date of birth – that she learned otherwise.[4]
The youngest of three siblings, she had two older brothers: Richard (who died before her birth) and Paul, two to three years older.[10] Due to her father's alleged infidelity, her parents separated.[2][11] She developed an early interest in dance, and in the mid-1930s formed a dance duo with Jerry Doherty that performed locally in Cincinnati.[12] A car accident on October 13, 1937, injured her right leg and curtailed her prospects as a professional dancer.
Career Early career (1938–1947)
Day at the Aquarium Jazz Club, New York (1946) While recovering from her car accident, Doris started to sing along with the radio and discovered a talent she did not know she had. "During this long, boring period, I used to while away a lot of time listening to the radio, sometimes singing along with the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller", she told A. E. Hotchner, one of her biographers. "But the one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words."[15]
Observing her daughter sing rekindled Alma's interest in show business, and she decided Doris must have singing lessons. She engaged a teacher, Grace Raine.[16] After three lessons, Raine told Alma that young Doris had "tremendous potential"; Raine was so impressed that she gave Doris three lessons a week for the price of one. Years later, Day said that Raine had the biggest effect on her singing style and career.[15]
During the eight months she was taking singing lessons, Doris had her first professional jobs as a vocalist, on the WLW radio program Carlin's Carnival, and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee's Shanghai Inn.[17] During her radio performances, Doris first caught the attention of Barney Rapp, who was looking for a female vocalist and asked if she would like to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 singers when Doris got the job.[18]
While working for Rapp in 1939, she adopted the stage surname "Day", at Rapp's suggestion.[19] Rapp felt that "Kappelhoff" was too long for marquees, and he admired her rendition of the song "Day After Day".[20] After working with Rapp, Day worked with bandleaders Jimmy James,[21] Bob Crosby,[22] and Les Brown.[23] In 1941, Day appeared as a singer in three Soundies with the Les Brown band.[24]
While working with Brown, Day recorded her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey", released in early 1945. It soon became an anthem of the desire of World War II demobilizing troops to return home.[25][26] The song continues to be associated with Day, and she re-recorded it on several occasions, including a version in her 1971 television special.[27] During 1945–46, Day (as vocalist with the Les Brown Band) had six other top ten hits on the Billboard chart: "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time", "'Tain't Me", "Till The End of Time", "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)", "The Whole World is Singing My Song", and "I Got the Sun in the Mornin'".
Early film career (1948–1954) While recovering from her car accident, Doris started to sing along with the radio and discovered a talent she did not know she had. "During this long, boring period, I used to while away a lot of time listening to the radio, sometimes singing along with the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller", she told A. E. Hotchner, one of her biographers. "But the one radio voice I listened to above others belonged to Ella Fitzgerald. There was a quality to her voice that fascinated me, and I'd sing along with her, trying to catch the subtle ways she shaded her voice, the casual yet clean way she sang the words."[15]
Observing her daughter sing rekindled Alma's interest in show business, and she decided Doris must have singing lessons. She engaged a teacher, Grace Raine.[16] After three lessons, Raine told Alma that young Doris had "tremendous potential"; Raine was so impressed that she gave Doris three lessons a week for the price of one. Years later, Day said that Raine had the biggest effect on her singing style and career.[15]
During the eight months she was taking singing lessons, Doris had her first professional jobs as a vocalist, on the WLW radio program Carlin's Carnival, and in a local restaurant, Charlie Yee's Shanghai Inn.[17] During her radio performances, Doris first caught the attention of Barney Rapp, who was looking for a female vocalist and asked if she would like to audition for the job. According to Rapp, he had auditioned about 200 singers when Doris got the job.[18]
While working for Rapp in 1939, she adopted the stage surname "Day", at Rapp's suggestion.[19] Rapp felt that "Kappelhoff" was too long for marquees, and he admired her rendition of the song "Day After Day".[20] After working with Rapp, Day worked with bandleaders Jimmy James,[21] Bob Crosby,[22] and Les Brown.[23] In 1941, Day appeared as a singer in three Soundies with the Les Brown band.[24]
While working with Brown, Day recorded her first hit recording, "Sentimental Journey", released in early 1945. It soon became an anthem of the desire of World War II demobilizing troops to return home.[25][26] The song continues to be associated with Day, and she re-recorded it on several occasions, including a version in her 1971 television special.[27] During 1945–46, Day (as vocalist with the Les Brown Band) had six other top ten hits on the Billboard chart: "My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time", "'Tain't Me", "Till The End of Time", "You Won't Be Satisfied (Until You Break My Heart)", "The Whole World is Singing My Song", and "I Got the Sun in the Mornin'".[28]
Early film career (1948–1954) Main article: Doris Day filmography
Day with Gordon MacRae in Starlift (1951) While singing with the Les Brown band and for nearly two years on Bob Hope's weekly radio program,[14] she toured extensively across the United States.
Her performance of the song "Embraceable You" impressed songwriter Jule Styne and his partner, Sammy Cahn, and they recommended her for a role in Romance on the High Seas (1948). Day got the part after auditioning for director Michael Curtiz.[29][30] She was shocked at being offered the role in the film, and admitted to Curtiz that she was a singer without acting experience. But he said he liked that "she was honest", not afraid to admit it, and he wanted someone who "looked like the All-American Girl". Day was the discovery of which Curtiz was most proud of during his career.[31]
The film provided her with a No. 2 hit recording as a soloist, "It's Magic", which followed by two months her first No. 1 hit ("Love Somebody" in 1948) recorded as a duet with Buddy Clark.[32] Day recorded "Someone Like You", before the 1949 film My Dream Is Yours, which featured the song.[33]
In 1950, U.S. servicemen in Korea voted her their favorite star. She continued to make minor and frequently nostalgic period musicals such as On Moonlight Bay, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, and Tea For Two for Warner Brothers.[34][35]
Day with Howard Keel in Calamity Jane (1953) Her most commercially successful film for Warner was I'll See You in My Dreams (1951), which broke box-office records of 20 years. The film is a musical biography of lyricist Gus Kahn. It was Day's fourth film directed by Curtiz.[36] Day appeared as the title character in the comedic western-themed musical, Calamity Jane (1953).[37] A song from the film, "Secret Love", won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Day's fourth No. 1 hit single in the United States.[38]
Between 1950 and 1953, the albums from six of her movie musicals charted in the Top 10, three of them at No. 1. After filming Lucky Me with Bob Cummings and Young at Heart with Frank Sinatra (both 1954), Day chose not to renew her contract with Warner Brothers.[39]
During this period, Day also had her own radio program, The Doris Day Show. It was broadcast on CBS in 1952–1953.[40]
Breakthrough (1955–1958)
Day in the trailer for Love Me or Leave Me (1955) Having become primarily recognized as a musical-comedy actress, Day gradually took on more dramatic roles to broaden her range. Her dramatic star turn as singer Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me (1955), with top billing above James Cagney, received critical and commercial success, becoming Day's biggest hit thus far.[41] Cagney said she had "the ability to project the simple, direct statement of a simple, direct idea without cluttering it", comparing her to Laurette Taylor's Broadway performance in the "Glass Menagerie" (1945), one of the greatest performances by an American actor.[42] Day said it was her best film performance. Producer Joe Pasternak said, "I was stunned that Doris did not get an Oscar nomination."[43] The soundtrack album from that movie was a No. 1 hit.[44][45]
Day starred in Alfred Hitchcock's suspense film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) with James Stewart. She sang two songs in the film, "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)" which won an Academy Award for Best Original Song,[46] and "We'll Love Again". The film was Day's 10th movie to be in the Top 10 at the box office. In 1956, Day played the title role in the thriller/noir Julie with Louis Jourdan.[47]
After three successive dramatic films, Day returned to her musical/comedic roots in 1957's The Pajama Game with John Raitt. The film was based on the Broadway play of the same name.[48] She worked with Paramount Pictures for the comedy Teacher's Pet (1958), alongside Clark Gable and Gig Young.[49] She co-starred with Richard Widmark and Gig Young in the romantic comedy film The Tunnel of Love (1958),[50] but found scant success opposite Jack Lemmon in It Happened to Jane (1959).
Billboard's annual nationwide poll of disc jockeys had ranked Day as the No. 1 female vocalist nine times in ten years (1949 through 1958), but her success and popularity as a singer was now being overshadowed by her box-office appeal.[51]
Box-office success (1959–1968)
Day in a publicity portrait for Midnight Lace (1960) In 1959, Day entered her most successful phase as a film actress with a series of romantic comedies.[52][53] This success began with Pillow Talk (1959), co-starring Rock Hudson who became a lifelong friend, and Tony Randall. Day received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress.[54] It was the only Oscar nomination she received in her career.[55] Day, Hudson, and Randall made two more films together, Lover Come Back (1961) and Send Me No Flowers (1964).[56]
In 1960, she starred with David Niven and Janis Paige in the hit Please Don't Eat the Daisies. In 1962, Day appeared with Cary Grant in the comedy That Touch of Mink, the first film in history ever to gross $1 million at Radio City Music Hall.[citation needed] During 1960 and the 1962 to 1964 period, she ranked number one at the box office, the second woman to be number one four times. She set a record that has yet to be equaled, receiving seven consecutive Laurel Awards as the top female box office star.[57]
Day teamed up with James Garner starting with The Thrill of It All, followed by Move Over, Darling (both 1963).[58] The film's theme song, "Move Over Darling", co-written by her son, reached No. 8 in the UK.[59] In between these comedic roles, Day co-starred with Rex Harrison in the movie thriller Midnight Lace (1960), an updating of the classic stage thriller Gaslight.[60]
By the late 1960s, the sexual revolution of the baby boomer generation had refocused public attitudes about sex. Times changed, but Day's films did not. Day's next film Do Not Disturb (1965) was popular with audiences, but her popularity soon waned. Critics and comics dubbed Day "The World's Oldest Virgin",[61][62] and audiences began to shy away from her films. As a result, she slipped from the list of top box-office stars, last appearing in the top ten in 1966 with the hit film The Glass Bottom Boat. One of the roles she turned down was that of "Mrs. Robinson" in The Graduate, a role that eventually went to Anne Bancroft.[63] In her published memoirs, Day said she had rejected the part on moral grounds: she found the script "vulgar and offensive".[64]
She starred in the western film The Ballad of Josie (1967). That same year, Day recorded The Love Album, although it was not released until 1994.[65] The following year (1968), she starred in the comedy film Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? which centers on the Northeast blackout of November 9, 1965. Her final feature, the comedy With Six You Get Eggroll, was released in 1968.[66]
From 1959 to 1970, Day received nine Laurel Award nominations (and won four times) for best female performance in eight comedies and one drama. From 1959 through 1969, she received six Golden Globe nominations for best female performance in three comedies, one drama (Midnight Lace), one musical (Jumbo), and her television series.[67]
Bankruptcy and television career
On the set of The Doris Day Show After her third husband Martin Melcher died on April 20, 1968, a shocked Day discovered that Melcher and his business partner and "adviser" Jerome Bernard Rosenthal had squandered her earnings, leaving her deeply in debt.[68] Rosenthal had been her attorney since 1949, when he represented her in her uncontested divorce action against her second husband, saxophonist George W. Weidler. Day filed suit against Rosenthal in February 1969, won a successful decision in 1974, but did not receive compensation until a settlement in 1979.[69]
Day also learned to her displeasure that Melcher had committed her to a television series, which became The Doris Day Show.
It was awful. I was really, really not very well when Marty [Melcher] passed away, and the thought of going into TV was overpowering. But he'd signed me up for a series. And then my son Terry [Melcher] took me walking in Beverly Hills and explained that it wasn't nearly the end of it. I had also been signed up for a bunch of TV specials, all without anyone ever asking me.
— Doris Day, OK! magazine, 1996[citation needed] Day hated the idea of performing on television, but felt obligated to do it.[66] The first episode of The Doris Day Show aired on September 24, 1968,[70] and, from 1968 to 1973, employed "Que Sera, Sera" as its theme song. Day persevered (she needed the work to help pay off her debts), but only after CBS ceded creative control to her and her son. The successful show enjoyed a five-year run,[71] and functioned as a curtain raiser for the popular Carol Burnett Show. It is remembered today for its abrupt season-to-season changes in casting and premise.[72]
Day with John Denver on the TV special Doris Day Today (CBS, February 19, 1975)[73] By the end of its run in 1973, public tastes had changed and her firmly established persona was regarded as passé. She largely retired from acting after The Doris Day Show, but did complete two television specials, The Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special (1971)[74] and Doris Day Today (1975),[75] and was a guest on various shows in the 1970s.
In the 1985–86 season, Day hosted her own television talk show, Doris Day's Best Friends, on CBN.[71][76] The network canceled the show after 26 episodes, despite the worldwide publicity it received. Much of that came from her interview with Rock Hudson, in which a visibly ill Hudson was showing the first public symptoms of AIDS; Hudson would die from the syndrome a year later.[77]
1980s and 1990s Day's husband and agent, Martin Melcher, had Beverly Hills lawyer Jerome Rosenthal handle his wife's money since the 1940s.[78] "During that period, Rosenthal committed breaches of professional ethics that are difficult to exaggerate", as one court put it.[79]
In October 1985, the California Supreme Court rejected Rosenthal's appeal of the multimillion-dollar judgment against him for legal malpractice, and upheld conclusions of a trial court and a Court of Appeal[80] that Rosenthal acted improperly.[81] In April 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the lower court's judgment. In June 1987, Rosenthal filed a $30 million lawsuit against lawyers he claimed cheated him out of millions of dollars in real estate investments. He named Day as a co-defendant, describing her as an "unwilling, involuntary plaintiff whose consent cannot be obtained". Rosenthal claimed that millions of dollars Day lost were in real estate sold after Melcher died in 1968, in which Rosenthal asserted that the attorneys gave Day bad advice, telling her to sell, at a loss, three hotels, in Palo Alto, California, Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia, plus some oil leases in Kentucky and Ohio.[82] He claimed he had made the investments under a long-term plan, and did not intend to sell them until they appreciated in value. Two of the hotels sold in 1970 for about $7 million, and their estimated worth in 1986 was $50 million.[83]
Terry Melcher stated that his adoptive father's premature death saved Day from financial ruin. It remains unresolved whether Martin Melcher had himself also been duped.[84] Day stated publicly that she believed her husband innocent of any deliberate wrongdoing, stating that he "simply trusted the wrong person".[85] According to Day's autobiography, as told to A. E. Hotchner, the usually athletic and healthy Martin Melcher had an enlarged heart. Most of the interviews on the subject given to Hotchner (and included in Day's autobiography) paint an unflattering portrait of Melcher. Author David Kaufman asserts that one of Day's costars, actor Louis Jourdan, maintained that Day herself disliked her husband,[86] but Day's public statements regarding Melcher appear to contradict that assertion.[87]
Day was scheduled to present, along with Patrick Swayze and Marvin Hamlisch, the Best Original Score Oscar at the 61st Academy Awards in March 1989 but she suffered a deep leg cut and was unable to attend.[88] She had been walking through the gardens of her hotel when she cut her leg on a sprinkler. The cut required stitches.[89]
Day was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame in 1981 and received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for career achievement in 1989.[90] In 1994, Day's Greatest Hits album became another entry into the British charts.[65] Her cover of "Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" was included in the soundtrack of the Australian film Strictly Ballroom.[91]
2000s Day participated in interviews and celebrations of her birthday with an annual Doris Day music marathon.[92] In July 2008, she appeared on the Southern California radio show of longtime friend and newscaster George Putnam.[93]
Day turned down a tribute offer from the American Film Institute and from the Kennedy Center Honors because they require attendance in person. In 2004, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush for her achievements in the entertainment industry and for her work on behalf of animals.[94] President Bush stated: In the years since, she has kept her fans and shown the breadth of her talent in television and the movies. She starred on screen with leading men from Jimmy Stewart to Ronald Reagan, from Rock Hudson to James Garner. It was a good day for America when Doris Marianne von Kappelhoff of Evanston, Ohio decided to become an entertainer. It was a good day for our fellow creatures when she gave her good heart to the cause of animal welfare. Doris Day is one of the greats, and America will always love its sweetheart.[94]
Columnist Liz Smith and film critic Rex Reed mounted vigorous campaigns to gather support for an Honorary Academy Award for Day to herald her film career and her status as the top female box-office star of all time.[95] According to the Hollywood Reporter in 2015, the Academy offered her the Honorary Oscar multiple times, but she declined as she saw the film industry as a part of her past life.[96] Day received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in Music in 2008, albeit again in absentia.[97]
She received three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards, in 1998, 1999 and 2012, for her recordings of "Sentimental Journey", "Secret Love", and "Que Sera, Sera", respectively.[98] Day was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2007,[99] and in 2010 received the first Legend Award ever presented by the Society of Singers.[65]
2010s Day, aged 89, released My Heart in the United Kingdom on September 5, 2011, her first new album in nearly two decades since the release of The Love Album, which, although recorded in 1967, was not released until 1994.[100] The album is a compilation of previously unreleased recordings produced by Day's son, Terry Melcher, before his death in 2004. Tracks include the 1970s Joe Cocker hit "You Are So Beautiful", the Beach Boys' "Disney Girls" and jazz standards such as "My Buddy", which Day originally sang in her 1951 film I'll See You in My Dreams.[101][102]
After the disc was released in the United States it soon climbed to No. 12 on Amazon's bestseller list, and helped raise funds for the Doris Day Animal League.[103] Day became the oldest artist to score a UK Top 10 with an album featuring new material.[104]
In January 2012, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association presented Day with a Lifetime Achievement Award.[105][106]
In April 2014, Day made an unexpected public appearance to attend the annual Doris Day Animal Foundation benefit. The benefit raises money for her Animal Foundation.[107]
Clint Eastwood offered Day a role in a film he was planning to direct in 2015.[108] Although she reportedly was in talks with Eastwood, her neighbor in Carmel, about a role in the film, she eventually declined.[109]
Day granted ABC a telephone interview on her birthday in 2016, which was accompanied by photos of her life and career.[110]
In a rare interview with The Hollywood Reporter on April 4, 2019, the day after her 97th birthday, Day talked about her work on the Doris Day Animal Foundation, founded in 1978. On the question of what her favorite film was, she answered Calamity Jane: "I was such a tomboy growing up, and she was such a fun character to play. Of course, the music was wonderful, too—'Secret Love,' especially, is such a beautiful song."[111] To commemorate her birthday, her fans gather each year to take part in a three-day party in her hometown of Carmel, California, in late March. The event is also a fundraiser for her Animal Foundation. In 2019, during the event, there was a special screening of her 1959 film Pillow Talk to celebrate its 60th anniversary. About the film, Day stated in the same interview that she "had such fun working with my pal, Rock. We laughed our way through three films we made together and remained great friends. I miss him."[111]
Personal life After her retirement from films, Day lived in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She had many pets and adopted stray animals.[112] She was a lifelong Republican.[113][114] Her only child was music producer and songwriter Terry Melcher, who had a hit in the 1960s with "Hey Little Cobra" under the name the Rip Chords; he died of melanoma in November 2004.[115] Day owned a hotel in Carmel-by-the-Sea called the Cypress Inn which she originally co-owned with her son.[116]
Marriages Day was married four times.[117] From March 1941 to February 1943 she was married to Al Jorden, a trombonist whom she met in Barney Rapp's Band.[118] They had a son Terrence Paul Jorden, later known as Terry Melcher. Her second marriage was to George William Weidler from March 30, 1946, to May 31, 1949, a saxophonist and the brother of actress Virginia Weidler.[118] Weidler and Day met again several years later during a brief reconciliation, and he introduced her to Christian Science.[119]
Day married Martin Melcher on April 3, 1951, her 29th birthday, and this marriage lasted until his death in April 1968.[118] Melcher adopted Day's son Terry, who became a successful musician and record producer under the name Terry Melcher.[120] Martin Melcher produced many of Day's movies. They were both Christian Scientists, resulting in her not seeing a doctor for some time for symptoms which suggested cancer.[121]
Day's fourth marriage was to Barry Comden (1935–2009) from April 14, 1976, until April 2, 1982.[122] He was the maître d'hôtel at one of Day's favorite restaurants. He knew of her great love of dogs and endeared himself to her by giving her a bag of meat scraps and bones on her way out of the restaurant. He later complained that she cared more for her "animal friends" than she did for him.[122]
Death Day died on May 13, 2019, at the age of 97, after having contracted pneumonia. Her death was announced by her charity, the Doris Day Animal Foundation.[123][124][125] Per Day's requests, the Foundation announced that there would be no funeral services, gravesites, or other public memorials.[126][127][128]
Animal welfare activism Day's interest in animal welfare and related issues apparently dated to her teen years. While recovering from an automobile accident, she took her dog Tiny for a walk without a leash. Tiny ran into the street and was killed by a passing car. Day later expressed guilt and loneliness about Tiny's untimely death. In 1971, she co-founded Actors and Others for Animals, and appeared in a series of newspaper advertisements denouncing the wearing of fur, alongside Mary Tyler Moore, Angie Dickinson, and Jayne Meadows.[129]
In 1978, Day founded the Doris Day Pet Foundation, now the Doris Day Animal Foundation (DDAF).[130] A non-profit 501(c)(3) grant-giving public charity, DDAF funds other non-profit causes throughout the US that share DDAF's mission of helping animals and the people who love them. The DDAF continues to operate independently.[131]
To complement the Doris Day Animal Foundation, Day formed the Doris Day Animal League (DDAL) in 1987, a national non-profit citizen's lobbying organization whose mission is to reduce pain and suffering and protect animals through legislative initiatives.[132] Day actively lobbied the United States Congress in support of legislation designed to safeguard animal welfare on a number of occasions and in 1995 she originated the annual Spay Day USA.[133] The DDAL merged into The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in 2006.[134] The HSUS now manages World Spay Day, the annual one-day spay/neuter event that Day originated.[135]
A facility bearing her name, the Doris Day Horse Rescue and Adoption Center, which helps abused and neglected horses, opened in 2011 in Murchison, Texas, on the grounds of an animal sanctuary started by her late friend, author Cleveland Amory.[136] Day contributed $250,000 towards the founding of the center.[137]
Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to 2012's The Avengers, 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, and 2018's Avengers: Infinity War, and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and features an ensemble cast including Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, and Josh Brolin. In the film, the surviving members of the Avengers and their allies work together to reverse the damage caused by Thanos in Infinity War.
The film was announced in October 2014 as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2. The Russo brothers came on board to direct in April 2015, and by May, Markus and McFeely signed on to script the film. In July 2016, Marvel removed the title, referring to it simply as Untitled Avengers film. Filming began in August 2017 at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, shooting back-to-back with Infinity War, and ended in January 2018. Additional filming took place in the Metro and Downtown Atlanta areas and New York. The official title was revealed in December 2018. With an estimated budget of $356 million, it is the third-most expensive film ever made.
Avengers: Endgame was highly anticipated, and Disney backed the film with extensive marketing campaigns. It premiered in Los Angeles on April 22, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 26, 2019, in IMAX and 3D. The film received praise for its direction, acting, musical score, visual effects and emotional weight, with critics lauding its culmination of the 22-film story. It also broke numerous box office records and has grossed over $2.6 billion worldwide, surpassing Infinity War's entire theatrical run in just 11 days and becoming the highest-grossing film of 2019 and the highest-grossing superhero film ever, as well as the second-highest-grossing film of all time.
Plot Twenty-three days after Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to disintegrate half of all life in the universe, Carol Danvers rescues Tony Stark and Nebula from deep space and returns them to Earth. They reunite with the remaining Avengers—Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Rocket, Thor, Natasha Romanoff, and James Rhodes—and find Thanos on an uninhabited planet. They plan to retake and use the Infinity Stones to reverse the disintegrations, but Thanos reveals he destroyed them to prevent further use. An enraged Thor decapitates Thanos.
Five years later, Scott Lang escapes from the quantum realm. He travels to the Avengers compound, where he explains to Romanoff and Rogers that he experienced only five hours while trapped. Theorizing the quantum realm could allow time travel, the three ask Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos' actions in the present, but Stark refuses to help. After talking with his wife, Pepper Potts, Stark relents and works with Banner, who has since merged his intelligence with the Hulk's strength, and the two successfully build a time machine. Banner warns that changing the past does not affect their present and any changes instead create branched alternate realities. He and Rocket go to the Asgardian refugees' new home in Norway—New Asgard—to recruit Thor, now an overweight alcoholic, despondent over his failure to stop Thanos. In Tokyo, Romanoff recruits Clint Barton, now a ruthless vigilante following the disintegration of his family.
Banner, Lang, Rogers, and Stark travel to New York City in 2012. Banner visits the Sanctum Sanctorum and convinces the Ancient One to give him the Time Stone. Rogers successfully retrieves the Mind Stone, but Stark and Lang's attempt to steal the Space Stone goes awry and 2012 Loki manages to escape with it. Rogers and Stark travel to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in 1970, where Stark obtains an earlier version of the Space Stone and encounters his father, Howard, in the process, while Rogers steals several Pym Particles from Hank Pym to return to the present. Rocket and Thor travel to Asgard in 2013, extracting the Reality Stone from Jane Foster and retrieving Thor's hammer, Mjolnir. Nebula and Rhodes travel to Morag in 2014 and steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill can.[N 5] Rhodes returns to the present with the Power Stone, but Nebula is incapacitated when her cybernetic implants link with those of her past self. Through this connection, 2014 Thanos learns of his future success and the Avengers' attempts to undo it. Thanos captures present-Nebula and sends past-Nebula to the present in the former's place. Barton and Romanoff travel to Vormir, where the Soul Stone's keeper, the Red Skull, reveals it can only be acquired by sacrificing someone they love. Romanoff sacrifices herself, allowing Barton to obtain the Soul Stone.
Reuniting in the present, the Avengers fit the Stones into a Stark-created gauntlet, which Banner uses to resurrect all those whom Thanos disintegrated. Past-Nebula uses the time machine to transport past-Thanos and his warship to the present, where he attacks the Avengers' compound, planning to destroy and then rebuild the universe with the Stones. Nebula convinces past-Gamora to betray Thanos and kills her past self. Stark, Rogers, and Thor fight Thanos but are outmatched. Thanos summons his army to devastate the Earth, but a restored Stephen Strange arrives with other sorcerers, the restored Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the armies of Wakanda and Asgard, and the Ravagers to fight Thanos and his army alongside Danvers, who destroys Thanos' warship as she arrives. After overpowering the heroes, Thanos seizes the gauntlet, but Stark steals the Stones back and uses them to disintegrate Thanos and his army. He dies from the energy emitted in the process.
Following Stark's funeral, Thor appoints Valkyrie as the ruler of New Asgard and joins the Guardians of the Galaxy, while Quill plans to search for 2014 Gamora. Rogers returns the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir to their original places in time and remains in the past to live with Peggy Carter. In the present, an elderly Rogers passes on his shield and mantle to Sam Wilson.
Cast Cast Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark / Iron Man: The benefactor and member of the Avengers who aids them by using electromechanical suits of armor of his own making.[4][5] According to directors Joe and Anthony Russo, Downey was one of the few actors to read the entire screenplay for the film.[6] Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely knew that the film would inevitably feature Stark's death both as a "[move] to selflessness" and as an end to the "chapter" Stark started. They felt that his death was earned after granting him "the perfect retirement life," adding, "That's the life he's been striving for...They got married, they had a kid, it was great. It's a good death. It doesn't feel like a tragedy. It feels like a heroic, finished life."[7] Joe Russo explained that Stark "always knew he was going to die because he could never reconcile that notion in himself of not protecting the universe," and added that Stark was the most defiant among the Avengers since "Stark is the most formidable of all of them...because of his heart."[8] The Russos sought Downey's approval for Stark's arc, which they had developed since Captain America: Civil War (2016).[9] Stark having no dialogue during his death scene was Downey's idea.[8] Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America: The leader of the Avengers. A World War II veteran, he was enhanced to the peak of human physicality by an experimental serum and frozen in suspended animation before waking up in the modern world.[10] Markus described Rogers as someone who is "moving toward some sort of enlightened self-interest." Both he and McFeely knew he was going to get "the dance" he promised Peggy Carter in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), with McFeely saying, "He's postponed a life in order to fulfill his duty. That's why I didn't think we were ever going to kill him. Because that's not the arc. The arc is, I finally get to put my shield down because I've earned that."[7] Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner / Hulk: An Avenger and genius scientist who, because of exposure to gamma radiation, possesses enhanced strength and a monstrous appearance.[11] In this film, Banner has managed to balance his two sides with gamma experimentation, enabling him to combine his intelligence with the Hulk's strength and physical stature,[12] based on the "Professor Hulk" comic book identity.[13] This concludes a character arc that was established in Thor: Ragnarok and continued in Avengers: Infinity War.[14] Chris Hemsworth as Thor: An Avenger and the king of New Asgard, based on the Norse mythological deity of the same name.[10] Thor now wields a mystical axe known as Stormbreaker, after the destruction of his hammer, Mjolnir, in Thor: Ragnarok.[15] In the film, Thor has become an overweight, drunken ruler of Asgard's refugees in Tønsberg, Norway. Referencing this drastic character change, Hemsworth said, "I just had an opinion. I wanted to do something different this time. Each film I've wanted to, in particular, the last couple, and they were on board," and added, "We shot for many hours and days and discussed how far could we push (Thor) and what we could do different."[16] Anthony Russo added, "Even though there's a lot of fun to be had in the movie with his physical condition, it's not a gag. It's a manifestation of where he is on a character level, and we think it's one of the most relatable aspects of him. I mean, it's a very common sort of response to depression and pain."[17] Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow: A highly trained spy, Avenger, and former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.[18][5] At the beginning of the film, Romanoff continues to command several teams from around the galaxy in the Avengers headquarters, which Joe Russo explained was stemmed from her inability to move on from their failure to stop Thanos, saying, "she's doing everything she can to try and hold the community together...She's the watcher on the wall still."[19] On the decision for Romanoff to sacrifice herself for Barton to acquire the Soul Stone to bring back everyone, Joe Russo stated that it was part of a larger theme exploring the desire to sacrifice, compared to the desire to protect in Infinity War; he says, "When she gets to that [Soul Stone] scene, I think she understands that the only way to bring the community back is for her to sacrifice herself."[19] McFeely stated, "Her journey, in our minds, had come to an end if she could get the Avengers back. She comes from such an abusive, terrible, mind-control background, so when she gets to Vormir and she has a chance to get the family back, that's a thing she would trade for."[7] To prepare for the film, Johansson underwent a high-intensity workout regimen, which included plyometrics, Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics, as well as a time-restricted eating diet; all are under the supervision of her longtime trainer, Eric Johnson, who she had worked with since Iron Man 2 (2010), the film which introduced her character.[20] Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton / Hawkeye: A master archer, Avenger, and former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who has become a vigilante known as Ronin, following the disappearance of his family.[21][22][23] McFeely described Barton's dark turn as "a good example of people who had much stronger stories after the Snap."[7] The film's cold open, which features the disintegration of Barton's family, was initially supposed to be in Infinity War following Thanos' snap, however it was moved to Endgame instead, with Markus explaining that it was "going to blunt the brutality of what [Thanos] did."[7] Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes / War Machine: A former officer in the U.S. Air Force and Avenger who operates the War Machine armor.[24] Cheadle described Rhodes' newfound belonging as an Avenger as "not so much straddling one foot in the military. He's much more on the side of The Avengers than he was prior."[25] This is reflected on Rhodes' more instinctive and realist worldview in the midst of encountering the fantastic, with Cheadle explaining, "He's definitely got some 'what-the-eff-is-happening' [attitude,] more than maybe the rest of them do, given his background. But it's a trial by fire, and he's quickly adapted to what [the threat] is, rather than what he wishes it were."[25] Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man: An Avenger and former petty criminal who acquired a suit that allows him to shrink or grow in scale and increase in strength.[5] Lang is portrayed by twins Bazlo and Loen LeClair as a baby, by Jackson A. Dunn at age 12, and by Lee Moore at age 89.[26] This was Moore's final film before his death in August 2018.[27] Markus explained that adding Lang helped with implementing time travel into the film, saying, "we had access to him in the second movie, and the fact that he was bringing a whole subset of technology that did have something to do with a different concept of time was like a birthday present."[28] Brie Larson as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel: An ex-U.S. Air Force pilot and new Avenger whose DNA was altered during an accident, imbuing her with superhuman strength, energy projection, and flight.[29][30] Markus stated that Danvers' powers are on a scale that has not previously existed in the MCU and likened her personality to Rogers', "which is sort of a person who's right and knows they're right and doesn't really want to hear it when you tell them they're wrong".[31] Danvers has little screen time in the film, which McFeely reasoned as "not the story we're trying to tell — it's the original Avengers dealing with loss and coming to a conclusion, and she's the new, fresh blood."[7] Larson filmed her scenes for Endgame before beginning work on her solo film Captain Marvel, which was released first. Captain Marvel directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck were present for the filming of her scenes in Endgame and gave Danvers' characterization in the film their blessing.[32] Karen Gillan as Nebula: A former member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, Avenger, and adopted daughter of Thanos who was raised with Gamora as siblings.[33] After being previously featured as an antagonist or an anti-hero in previous MCU films, Nebula undergoes a redemption arc in the film where she makes amends for her past actions, including an encounter with a past version of herself, with Gillan adding, "[She's] staring her former self in the face and it's really clear how far she's come from that angry, bitter and twisted person. She's starting to connect with other people and find some level of forgiveness."[34] Gillan guessed that Nebula would play a prominent role in the film when she realized that Infinity War and Endgame would be adapted from The Infinity Gauntlet, which she had previously read when she was initially cast as Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).[34] Gillan shared several scenes with Downey in the film's opening, and the two improvised most of their scenes together.[34] Danai Gurira as Okoye: A Wakandan traditionalist from the Border Tribe who is the head of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda's all-female special forces and T'Challa's bodyguards.[35] Benedict Wong as Wong: A Master of the Mystic Arts tasked with protecting some of Kamar-Taj's most valuable relics and books.[36] Jon Favreau as Harold "Happy" Hogan: The former head of security for Stark Industries and Tony Stark's driver and bodyguard.[37] Bradley Cooper as Rocket: A former member of the Guardians of the Galaxy and now Avenger who is a genetically-engineered raccoon-based bounty hunter, mercenary, and master of weapons and battle tactics.[38] Sean Gunn was again the stand-in for Rocket during filming, with his acting and expressions serving as motion reference for the character.[39] Rocket's appearance in the film continues a story arc that was established by Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director and Endgame executive producer James Gunn in the first two Guardians of the Galaxy films, was continued in Infinity War and Endgame, and will conclude in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.[40] Gwyneth Paltrow as Virginia "Pepper" Potts: Stark's wife and the CEO of Stark Industries[37] who wears a powered exosuit of armor made for her by Stark.[41][42] Paltrow said this would be her final major appearance in the MCU.[43] Josh Brolin as Thanos: An intergalactic warlord from Titan who collected the six Infinity Stones to impose his will on all life in the universe.[44][45] Joe Russo said that after Thanos was successful in Avengers: Infinity War, he is now "done. He did it. He's retired."[46] Markus and McFeely had difficulty in factoring the older, post-Infinity War, Thanos into the film due to the character already possessing the Infinity Stones, until executive producer Trinh Tran suggested that they kill Thanos in the film's first act.[7] Markus explained that the character's early death "reinforced Thanos's agenda. He was done...it was like, 'If I've got to die, I can die now.'"[7] In addition to providing the voice for the character, Brolin performed motion capture on set.[47] Several actors whose characters died during the events of Infinity War reprise their roles in Endgame, including Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange,[48] Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther,[49] Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man,[50] Zoe Saldana as Gamora,[51] Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne / Wasp,[52] Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch,[53] Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon,[54] Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier,[55] Tom Hiddleston as Loki,[56] Pom Klementieff as Mantis,[57] Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer,[58] Letitia Wright as Shuri,[59] Michael Douglas as Hank Pym,[60] Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne,[61] Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill,[26] Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton,[61] Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw, Vin Diesel as Groot,[26] Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord,[53] Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Michael James Shaw as Corvus Glaive, and Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian.[26] Monique Ganderton provides the motion capture performance for Proxima Midnight, having previously played the role with Carrie Coon.[26]
Also reprising their roles from previous MCU films, including characters who died before the events of Infinity War, are Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Rene Russo as Frigga, John Slattery as Howard Stark, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Taika Waititi as Korg, Angela Bassett as Ramonda,[62] William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross,[62] Winston Duke as M'Baku,[63] Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell, Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow,[64] Jacob Batalon as Ned, Robert Redford (in his final role before retiring from acting) as Alexander Pierce, Ross Marquand as Red Skull,[62] Kerry Condon as the voice of Stark's suit A.I. F.R.I.D.A.Y,[65] Callan Mulvey as Jack Rollins,[61] and Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener.[61] Sean Gunn reprised his role as Kraglin Obfonteri, though it is uncertain if footage of his appearance was used.[66] Natalie Portman appears as Jane Foster through the use of a deleted scene from Thor: The Dark World and new voice over that Portman recorded for when Foster appears talking in the distance.[67] James D'Arcy reprises his role as Edwin Jarvis from the MCU television series Agent Carter, marking the first time a character introduced in an MCU television series appears in an MCU film.[68]
Additionally, Hiroyuki Sanada portrays Akihiko, a Yakuza boss operating in Tokyo who opposes Barton.[69][70] Alexandra Rabe portrays Morgan Stark, Tony and Pepper's daughter.[71] Katherine Langford was cast to portray an older Morgan, but her scene was deleted from the film.[72][73] Emma Fuhrmann portrays present-day Cassie Lang, Scott's daughter.[74] Avengers co-creator Stan Lee has a posthumous cameo in the film, appearing digitally de-aged as a car driver in 1970; this is his final cameo appearance in film.[75] Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown cameo as a storage facility guard and a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, respectively.[61] Co-director Joe Russo (credited as Gozie Agbo) has a cameo appearance as a gay man grieving the sudden loss of a loved one, which is the first time an openly homosexual character has been portrayed in an MCU film.[76] Joe's daughters Ava and Lia respectively portray Barton's daughter Lila and a fan of Hulk. Thanos creator Jim Starlin also appears as a grieving man.[77] The character Howard the Duck appears in a non-speaking cameo.[78]
Production n October 2014, Marvel announced a two-part sequel to Age of Ultron, titled Avengers: Infinity War. Part 1 was scheduled to be released on May 4, 2018, with Part 2 scheduled for May 3, 2019.[79][80] In April 2015, Marvel announced that Anthony and Joe Russo would direct both parts of Avengers: Infinity War,[81] with back-to-back filming expected to begin in 2016.[82] Also in the month, Kevin Feige said the films were titled as two parts of a single film "because they [have] such shared elements", but he would not actually describe them as "one story that's cut in half. I would say it's going to be two distinct movies."[83] By May 2015, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely signed on to write the screenplays for both parts of the film.[84] The following May, the Russos revealed that they would be retitling the two films, to further remove the misconception that the films were one large film split in two, with Joe stating, "The intention is we will change [the titles], we just haven't come up with [them] yet."[85] In July 2016, Marvel removed the film's title, simply referring to it as Untitled Avengers film.[86] Feige and the Russo brothers indicated the title was being withheld because it would give away plot details for this film and Infinity War.[87][88]
Principal photography began on August 10, 2017,[89] under the working title Mary Lou 2,[90] at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia,[91] with Trent Opaloch serving as director of photography.[92] The film, along with Infinity War, were shot using IMAX/Arri 2D cameras, thus marking the first time that a Hollywood feature film was shot entirely with IMAX digital cameras.[93] Also in the month, filming occurred in The Gulch area of Downtown Atlanta, near the Five Points MARTA station, and Piedmont Park.[94] Feige explained that the films were originally scheduled to be filmed simultaneously but were ultimately shot back-to-back, as "It became too complicated to cross-board them like that, and we found ourselves—again, something would always pay the price. We wanted to be able to focus and shoot one movie and then focus and shoot another movie."[95] Anthony Russo originally felt it made more sense to shoot the films simultaneously due to financial and logistical reasons considering the large number of cast members, even though each part is its own distinct film,[96] and suggested that "some days we'll be shooting the first movie and some days we'll be shooting the second movie. Just jumping back and forth."[92] Production wrapped on January 11, 2018,[97] although additional filming took place in Dutchess and Ulster counties in New York in June 2018.[98] Reshoots began by September 7, 2018,[99] and concluded on October 12, 2018.[100] More reshoots occurred in January 2019.[101] Evans and Hemsworth each earned $15 million for the film.[102]
On December 7, 2018, with the release of the film's first trailer, the title was revealed to be Avengers: Endgame, while also moving its release date in the United States to April 26, 2019.[103] Visual effects for the film were created by Industrial Light & Magic, Weta Digital, DNEG, Framestore, Cinesite, Digital Domain, Rise, Lola VFX, Cantina Creative, Capital T, Technicolor VFX, and Territory Studio.[104] As with previous MCU films, Lola once again worked on the de-aging sequences. The 1970 New Jersey sequences featuring a young Hank Pym referenced Michael Douglas' appearance in The Streets of San Francisco.[105] Jeffrey Ford and Matthew Schmidt served as the film's editors.[106]
Music In June 2016, Alan Silvestri, who composed the score for The Avengers, was revealed to be returning to score both Infinity War and Endgame.[107] The Russos started working with Silvestri on the Endgame score in early November 2018,[108] and it was completed in late March 2019.[109] Silvestri described the score as having the most versatile tone of the franchise, ranging from "thunderous percussion and powerful brass" for the action sequences to minimalist, jazz-inspired music for Ant-Man and the quantum realm. Silvestri reprises his themes from the previous Avengers films and Captain America: The First Avenger, such as material he wrote for Thanos and the Infinity Stones in Infinity War. He found writing the music to end Captain America's story poignant, since he had "been on this journey with him since the beginning".[110] The film's score also uses Christophe Beck's Ant-Man theme, Michael Giacchino's Doctor Strange theme, and Pinar Toprak's Captain Marvel theme.[26] Additionally, the songs "Come and Get Your Love" by Redbone and "It's Been a Long, Long Time" by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn are used, after previously being heard in Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, respectively.[111][112] A soundtrack album featuring Silvestri's score was released by Hollywood Records digitally on April 26, 2019, with a physical release on May 24.
Marketing The marketing campaign for Endgame is the largest for any Marvel Studios film, surpassing $200 million and beating Infinity War's $150 million campaign.[114] Promotional partners include Stand Up to Cancer, Mastercard, Ulta Beauty, the Audi e-tron GT Concept car (which is also featured in the film),[115] McDonald's, GEICO, Coca-Cola, Google, General Mills, Hertz, Ziploc, Oppo, and Synchrony Financial.[114]
A year prior to the film's release, Germain Lussier of io9 spoke on the approach Marvel might have to take in marketing the film, given the end of Infinity War, which sees many established characters die. He questioned if those characters would appear on posters and in toy campaigns and if the actors portraying them would participate in press events leading up to the film's release. Lussier felt Disney and Marvel could focus on the original Avengers team members, who make up the majority of the living characters, but noted it would be more beneficial to show the return of the dead characters, which would "build a mystery and curiosity about how they come back. It could create a whole new level of interest about the film while having all the stars front and center, as they should be".[116]
In June 2018, Feige spoke to this, stating that these dead characters would not be featured in any marketing for the film, though the decision regarding that could change.[117] He presented a behind-the-scenes video from the film at CineEurope,[118][119] and said that the official marketing campaign for the film would begin at the end of 2018 with the announcement of the film's title then.[120] In early December 2018, ahead of the first trailer's release, Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter spoke to the "fevered anticipation" surrounding it. McMillan felt what was so remarkable about the anticipation, was that it was mostly "fan-created, without noticeable direction from Marvel or the filmmakers involved" and that the amount of knowledge surrounding the film without any type of promotion was "a kind of brand awareness that most studios would kill for". Because of this, McMillan urged Marvel not to release any trailers for the film since "the advanced level of enthusiasm that's already out there for the movie... is only likely to build as it gets closer to" the film's release. That said, he added that the eventual release of the trailer would take away the "Schrödinger's cat-esque position... it currently enjoys" as it was "almost guaranteed to disappoint fans, who have by this point built up their own personal trailers filled with whatever moments are essential to their enjoyment of a good teaser".[121]
The first trailer for the film was released on December 7, 2018.[122] Dustin Sandoval, vice president of digital marketing for Marvel Studios, stated the marketing team "actively made the choice not to include the title or hashtag of the movie in our trailer posts so fans could see it at the end reveal without it being spoiled".[123] Richard Newby, also of The Hollywood Reporter felt, while not much new was revealed in the trailer, it "offers a somber glimpse of a universe made unrecognizable" and lets the viewer "sit, rightfully so, with the ending of Avengers: Infinity War and our questions of loss". Newby also noted how the trailer "calls back to beginnings of the MCU... [as] the visual language used in the trailer does a great service by highlighting these characters' humble beginnings", and concluded it leaves viewers with "just as many questions as we had before".[122] Austen Goslin of Polygon pointed out that the title not only references a line Doctor Strange tells Tony Stark in Infinity War, but also a line spoken by Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Goslin, who felt this was "probably [not] an accident", said, "The scene surrounding this line in Age of Ultron is one of the most important ones in the movie. Things look dark, and the group of heroes face an enemy they don't think they can defeat." As such, the Endgame trailer "mirrors this perfectly" and "shows us that the Avengers' two most prominent characters are who they've always been: Iron Man, a pessimist who keeps fighting no matter how hopeless things look, and Captain America, an optimist who believes that nothing is hopeless when the world's heroes fight together".[124] The trailer was viewed 289 million times in its first 24 hours, becoming the most viewed trailer in that time period, surpassing the record of Avengers: Infinity War (230 million views). The trailer also set a record for Twitter conversation for a film trailer in the first 24 hours generating 549,000 mentions.[125] By January 3, 2019, BoxOffice revealed their "Trailer Impact" metric service indicated approximately 77–78% of people surveyed who viewed the Endgame trailer in the past three weeks expressed interest in seeing the film. In the three weeks it was measured by "Trailer Impact", it was number one for all, and had the top two percent of respondents express interest in seeing the film since the service's introduction in March 2018.[126]
The second trailer for the film, along with the theatrical release poster, was released on March 14, 2019. The poster, featuring 13 characters, had 12 of those actors listed on the top-billing, with Danai Gurira excluded. Despite Gurira's name appearing in the poster's bottom billing block along with Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, and Gwyneth Paltrow (none of whom were featured on the poster), her exclusion in the top billing prompted criticism from fans.[35][127] Petrana Radulovic of Polygon noted how an actor is credited on the poster "is a complex process" and "the omission of Gurira in the top billing was less of a conscious decision than the ramifications of dealing with agents, fees, and movie star demands."[35] However, later in the day Marvel Studios released an updated poster with Gurira's name in the top billing.[35][127] The second trailer was viewed 268 million times in the first 24 hours, becoming the second most viewed trailer in that time period, behind the film's first trailer.[128]
Release Theatrical Avengers: Endgame had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Convention Center on April 22, 2019.[129][130] Disney converted the convention center's Hall K for the film's premiere, working with Dolby and QSC Audio to install a 70 foot (21 metres) screen, Dolby Vision projectors, and a Dolby Atmos sound system. The convention center also held the premiere's red carpet arrival and after party.[130] It was released in China, Australia, and other parts of Asia and Europe on April 24, 2019,[131][132] in the United Kingdom on April 25,[133] in the United States and India on April 26, [57][103] and Russia on April 29[134] in IMAX and 3D.[135][136] It was originally scheduled to be released in the United States on May 3, 2019.[79][80] As reported by Radio Liberty, it was alleged that, in Russia, the Russian Government controversially ordered to postpone the film's release in the country in order to promote Russian-produced films.[137]
Following the release of the first trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home on May 6, 2019, Marvel began showing it at the end of Endgame showings, with a message from that film's star Holland telling the audience to stay until the end of the credits to see it.[138]
Home media Avengers: Endgame will stream exclusively on Disney+ starting December 11, 2019.
Reception Box office As of May 29, 2019, Avengers: Endgame has grossed $806.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $1.887 billion in other territories, for a worldwide total of $2.695 billion.[3] It is the highest-grossing film of 2019, as well as the highest-grossing superhero film of all time, highest-grossing film based on a comic book, second-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide and in the United States and Canada, as well as the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time worldwide when adjusted for inflation. It is also the highest-grossing MCU film alongside the highest-grossing Marvel film and the highest-grossing film worldwide released by Walt Disney Studios.[140]
The film had a worldwide opening of $1.2 billion, the biggest of all time and nearly double Infinity War's previous record of $640.5 million.[141] It was also the fastest film ever to eclipse the $1 billion and $1.5 billion mark, doing so in just five days and eight days respectively (less than half what it took Infinity War).[142] Deadline Hollywood estimated the film would break-even just five days after its release, which is "unheard of for a major studio tentpole during its opening weekend". The website estimated it would turn a net profit of $600–650 million, accounting for production budgets, P&A, talent participations and other costs, with box office grosses and ancillary revenues from home media.[143] On May 4, the film's earnings at the global box office passed the entire theatrical run of Infinity War and became the fastest film to ever gross $2 billion worldwide, amassing the amount in only 11 days (beating Avatar that did so in 47 days).[140] It also became the fifth film in cinematic history to surpass the threshold (after Avatar, Titanic, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Infinity War).[144] It also became the second film in cinematic history to surpass the threshold of grossing $2.5 billion worldwide (after Avatar).
Pre-sale records In late December 2018, Endgame was named the second-most anticipated 2019 film by IMDb behind Captain Marvel, the most anticipated blockbuster of 2019 according to the ticketing service Fandango,[145] and the most anticipated overall film by Atom Tickets.[146]
Due to the high demand when pre-sale tickets became available in the U.S. on April 2, 2019, customers on both Atom Tickets and Fandango experienced long wait times and system delays, while AMC Theatres' website and app crashed completely for several hours. The same day, Fandango announced the film became its top-selling pre-sale title for the first 24 hours, topping Star Wars: The Force Awakens' previous record in just six hours. Atom said the film was also the website's best selling first-day film (outselling Aquaman by four times), and Regal Cinemas reported that Endgame had sold more tickets in its first eight hours than Infinity War did in its entire first week.[147][148] The film grossed $120–140 million in pre-sales alone.[134] The day prior to the film's release, Fandango announced it was its biggest pre-selling title of all time, beating The Force Awakens, with over 8,000 sold out showtimes across the country.[149]
In India, the film sold one million tickets in just one day for the English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu language screenings; 18 tickets were sold every second.[134] In China, pre-sale tickets became available on April 12 and sold a record one million tickets in just six hours, outselling Infinity War's first 24 hour total within the first hour,[150] and made $114.5 million (RMB 770 million) just from pre-sales.
United States and Canada
Chart of the North American box office gross of Avengers: Endgame against the four highest-grossing films in the market. On April 4, industry tracking projected the film would gross $200–250 million domestically during its opening weekend, although some insiders saw those figures as conservative and expected a $260–300 million-debut.[152][153] By the week of its release, domestic estimates had risen to $260–270 million, with some insiders still suggesting a $300 million debut was possible. The film played in 4,662 theaters, 410 of which were in IMAX; it is the widest release ever, surpassing the record of Despicable Me 3's 4,529 theaters.[134][154] Avengers: Endgame earned $357.1 million in its opening weekend, breaking Infinity War's record by nearly $100 million. It also set records for Friday ($157.5 million, including $60 million from Thursday night previews), Saturday ($109.3 million) and Sunday ($90.4 million) totals, as well as was more of a total gross alone than the previous box office high of all films combined ($314 million).[142] The film then made $36.9 million on Monday and $33.1 million on Tuesday, both the third-highest of all time.[155][156] In its second weekend the film made $147.4 million (the second-best sophomore frame ever) for a 10-day total of $621.3 million. It was the fastest film to ever pass the $600 million milestone, beating The Force Awakens' 12 days and less than half the 26 days it took Infinity War.[157] The following week, the film grossed $64.8 million, the fourth-best third weekend ever. It also passed the $700 million mark, tying The Force Awakens' record of 16 days.[158] Endgame was finally dethroned in its fourth weekend by newcomer John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, however its $29.3 million was enough for it to pass Avatar as the second-highest grossing film ever domestically.[159] It made $17.2 million the following weekend (and a total of $22.3 million over the four-day Memorial Day frame), crossing the $800 million threshold domestically.
Other territories Internationally, Endgame was projected to gross around $680 million over its first five days for a global debut of $850–950 million.[154][161][134] The film was initially projected to gross $250–280 million in China in its opening weekend,[134] but made a record $107.5 million (RMB 719 million) in the country on its first day, including $28.2 million (RMB 189 million) from midnight, 3 AM and 6 AM screenings, beating The Fate of the Furious' previous record of $9.1 million. Due to the record-breaking first day, partnered with word of mouth (with a 9.1 on local review aggregator Douban and a 9.3 on ticket website Maoyan), debut projections were increased to over $300 million.[151] Overall, the film made $169 million on the first day from international countries, the highest total of all time. Its largest markets after China were India ($9 million), South Korea ($8.4 million; the largest non-holiday single day gross ever), Australia ($7.1 million), France ($6 million) and Italy ($5.8 million).[141] Like domestically, the film ended up over-performing and debuted to $866.5 million overseas. Not only was it the highest foreign amount ever, but it was single-handedly more than Infinity War's global opening of $640 million. Its largest markets, every one of which set the record for best-ever opening in the country, were China ($330.5 million; RMB 2.22 billion), the United Kingdom ($53.8 million), South Korea ($47.4 million), Mexico ($33.1 million), Australia ($30.8 million), Brazil ($26 million), Spain ($13.3 million), Japan ($13 million)[141] and Vietnam ($10 million).[162] It also made $21.6 million over its first four days in Russia after a delay of its premiere that was caused by the Russian government.[137][163][164]
In its first week, the film's top five largest international markets were China ($459.4 million), the United Kingdom ($68.2 million), South Korea ($60.3 million), Mexico ($48.6 million), and India ($40.9 million).[165] A week after its release, it became the highest-grossing foreign film of all time in China[166] and India.[167] In its second weekend the film's running total passed $1.569 billion from international markets, passing Titanic as the second-highest film overseas of all time.[144]
Critical response
The performances of (top, L to R) Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, (bottom, L to R) Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner as the original six Avengers were widely praised by critics.[168] On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% approval rating based on 461 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Exciting, entertaining, and emotionally impactful, Avengers: Endgame does whatever it takes to deliver a satisfying finale to Marvel's epic Infinity Saga."[169] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 78 out of 100 based on 57 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[170] Audiences polled for CinemaScore gave the film a rare "A+" grade, the third Marvel film to earn the score after The Avengers and Black Panther, while those at PostTrak gave it 5 out of 5 stars and a "definite recommend" of 85%.[142]
Writing for NPR, Glen Weldon gave the film a positive review and found the film to be a worthy sequel to its predecessor, stating, "The Russos' decision to stick close to the experiences of the remaining Avengers proves a rewarding one, as they've expressly constructed the film as an extended victory lap for the Marvel Cinematic Universe writ large. Got a favorite character from any Marvel movie over the past decade, no matter how obscure? Prepare to get serviced, fan."[171] Peter Travers in his review for Rolling Stone magazine gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, saying "You don't have to make jokes about the clichéd time travel plot — the film is ready, willing and able to make its own, with Back to the Future coming in for a serious ribbing."[172] Peter Debruge of Variety wrote, "After the must-see showdown that was Infinity War, the Russo brothers deliver a more fan-facing three-hour followup, rewarding loyalty to Marvel Cinematic Universe.[173] J.R. Kinnard of PopMatters wrote "Big budget action filmmaking doesn't get much better than this."[174] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter said, "[W]hat comes across most strongly here, oddly enough for an effects-driven comic-book-derived film, is the character acting, especially from Downey, Ruffalo, Evans, Hemsworth, Brolin and Paul Rudd".[175] Richard Roeper, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film four stars and called it "the undisputed champion [of the MCU] when it comes to emotional punch". Roeper went on to praise the "funny, well-paced, smart, expertly rendered screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, crisp direction from Anthony Russo and Joe Russo..., and the universally stellar performances [of the cast]."[176]
The New York Times reviewer A. O. Scott gave the film a positive though guarded review, stating, "Endgame is a monument to adequacy, a fitting capstone to an enterprise that figured out how to be good enough for enough people enough of the time. Not that it's really over, of course: Disney and Marvel are still working out new wrinkles in the time-money continuum. But the Russos do provide the sense of an ending, a chance to appreciate what has been done before the timelines reset and we all get back to work."[177] Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Avengers: Endgame achieves and earns its climactic surge of feeling, even as it falls just short of real catharsis".[178]
Some have noted the film as a notable improvement over its predecessor, Avengers: Infinity War, such as Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com, who stated that Endgame is "a more patient, focused film [than Infinity War], even as its plot draws in elements of a dozen other movies."[179] Matt Zoller Seitz, also of RogerEbert.com, gave the film a positive assessment as compared with Infinity War, which he considered "too crowded, too rushed and yet too long". Seitz stated that Endgame is "a heartfelt and satisfying experience", along with being a "surprisingly relaxed, character-driven, self-aware yet sincere comedy [for] two-thirds of [the film]. Much of the script suggests a laid-back Richard Linklater movie with superheroes".[180]
Richard Brody, writing for The New Yorker, was more critical of the film, opining that the good acting was not matched by comparable skill from the directors. He said: "The Russos have peculiarly little sense of visual pleasure, little sense of beauty, little sense of metaphor, little aptitude for texture or composition; their spectacular conceit is purely one of scale, which is why their finest moments are quiet and dramatic ones".[181] Anthony Lane of The New Yorker gave the film a compromising review, finding it to be overdeveloped and overwrought, stating: "The one thing you do need to know about Avengers: Endgame is that it runs for a little over three hours, and that you can easily duck out during the middle hour, do some shopping, and slip back into your seat for the climax. You won't have missed a thing.
* Two US Air Force F-35s conducted air-to-air combat training against four more stealth fighters this week, and in the process accidentally left behind contrails in the shape of a phallis. * Luke Air Force Base has concluded that the fighters from the 56th Fighter Wing did nothing "nefarious or inappropriate." * Military pilots have left behind a number of penis drawings in the sky, most of which seem to be intentional.
US Air Force F-35s accidentally left behind phallic contrails in the sky after air-to-air combat training this week.
Two of the fifth-generation stealth fighters went head-to-head with four additional F-35s during a simulated dogfight, Luke Air Force Base told Business Insider.
In the wake of the mock air battle, the contrails looked decidedly like a penis. Media observers out in Arizona said it "vaguely resembles the male anatomy."
* Donald Trump has welcomed Tokyo's order for the stealth fighter, but it is likely to trigger a response from Beijing * Deal to buy 105 of the advanced fighters will greatly expand Japan's capabilities in the South China Sea
Japan's decision to buy 105 F-35 Lightning jet fighters from the United States may further fuel the arms race in Asia, analysts have warned.
The deal, first announced in December, was confirmed on Monday during US President Donald Trump's four-day state visit to Japan.
Japan "has just announced its intent to purchase 105 brand new F-35 stealth aircraft. Stealth, because, the fact is you can't see them", Trump said at Japan's Akasaka Palace. "This purchase would give Japan the largest F-35 fleet of any US ally."
WNU Editor: China has been engaged in one of the largest military buildups and modernizations in history, but Japan is to be blamed for an arms race because they are buying 105 F-35 fighters? Who are these analyst?
The most survivable leg of the U.S. strategic nuclear Triad of bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) are the submarines. Ballistic missile submarines are the last best line of deterrence and defense to defeat surprise nuclear attack.
Today, U.S. strategic bombers and ICBMs have never been more vulnerable to a surprise attack. U.S. strategic bomber bases are reduced from 45 during the Cold War to just three today. Unlike Cold War readiness, today no U.S. strategic bombers are nuclear-armed on strip alert, ready to fly on short-warning. Even North Korea could destroy all U.S. B-52 and B-2 bombers by surprise nuclear attack on their three bases at Minot AFB (North Dakota), Whiteman AFB (Missouri), and Barksdale AFB (Louisiana).
The Columbia-class submarines will serve more than 40 years and carry hundreds of nuclear warheads to sea at a time.
A U.S. shipyard has cut first steel for the first in a new class of nuclear-powered ballistic missiles submarines. Huntington Ingalls Industries has begun construction of USS Columbia, lead ship of the class set to enter service in 2031. Columbia (illustrated in the above image) and her sister ships will form the seaborne leg of the so-called U.S. nuclear triad, sailing the oceans of the world undetected for months at a time to form a powerful deterrent against surprise nuclear attack.
In "The Case for Space" --- Robert Zubrin's refreshingly candid, excellent new book, the longtime space advocate argues that the U.S. needs to get to work deploying both ASATs (anti-satellite weapons) and fighter satellites in Earth orbit. His book's plea comes when addressing how to best ensure that we as a nation are able to develop and use our near-Earth space environment.
As Zubrin adroitly and succinctly insists in his book, "We must seek to totally outgun [potential adversaries] by obtaining a radical technological advantage. This can be done by achieving space supremacy."
Zubrin argues that if the Axis powers had merely had reconnaissance satellites during World War II, and the Allies had no space-based assets, then the Battle of the Atlantic would have gone to the U-boats and Britain would ultimately have fallen. The U.S. would have lost the Battle of Midway and the Japanese would have destroyed what remained of the U.S. Navy after Pearl Harbor, he writes. This one element of space power, notes Zubrin, would have been enough to win the war.
Pyongyang has reportedly executed several high-ranking officials who were blamed for the collapse of the Hanoi summit between North Korea's Kim Jong-un and US President Trump pic.twitter.com/bXtj5V0QM8
30 years after People's Liberation Army tanks and troops crushed China's fledgling pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, public discussion about what happened remains taboo https://t.co/e9tNVuAWZvpic.twitter.com/MPZqhryIxI
The former leader of the U.S. government's top-secret UFO program has stories to tell, and he is sharing some of them for the first time in a new documentary.
Intelligence officer Luis Elizondo served as the former director of the Pentagon's Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), an initiative launched in 2007 to study reports of UFO encounters. Elizondo departed the agency in 2011; in 2017, he spoke with reporters at The New York Times, confirming the existence of the shadowy agency and describing its mission.
WNU Editor: Earlier this week the former officials from the U.S. government admitted that UFOs exist, and in response there was very little if any news coverage. WHT!!!!
Fighters loyal to Libya's U.N.-backed government (GNA) fire guns during clashes with forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar on the outskirts of Tripoli, Libya May 25, 2019. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, incensed by a surge of illegal immigrants across the southern border, vowed on Thursday to impose a tariff on all goods coming from Mexico starting at 5% and ratcheting higher until the flow of border-crossers ceases.
Trump's move was a dramatic escalation of his battle to control a tide of illegal immigrants that has increased despite his efforts to build a border wall and take other steps.
Trump said in a statement the tariffs would start at 5% on June 10 and increase monthly until reaching 25% on Oct. 1, unless Mexico takes steps to halt the thousands of people crossing from Central America through Mexico to the U.S. border.
WNU Editor: You know that there is a crisis at the border when you read reports like this one from El Paso today .... Border agents apprehend more than 1,000 migrants in record roundup (NBC). As for the tariffs. A 25% tariff on Mexican goods will no longer make that country competitive in the U.S. market. The impact will be massive on the Mexican economy, and for those who have invested heavily in Mexico on the expectation that they will have access to U.S. markets.
More News On President Trump Threatening To Impose Tariffs On All Goods From Mexico If It Does Not Stop The Flow Of Migrants
Update: Mexican President wants a meeting on Friday to resolve this issue. Wow. That was quick.
JUST IN: Mexico's President Lopez Obrador asks Trump to have U.S. officials meet with the Mexican foreign minister in Washington on Friday to seek a solution that benefits both nations https://t.co/FqaPR9apcmpic.twitter.com/onyEIhklic
Kim Hyok Chol, North Korea's special representative for U.S. affairs, leaves the Government Guesthouse in Hanoi, Vietnam, February 23, 2019. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, its special envoy to the United States, and foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, holding them responsible for its collapse, a South Korean newspaper reported on Friday.
Kim Yong Chol, a senior official who had been U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's counterpart in the run-up to the summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, is also said to have been subjected to forced labor and ideological education, the Chosun Ilbo reported.
US federal prosecutors file court document naming President of Honduras @JuanOrlandoH as target of investigation by @DEAHQ for "large-scale drug-trafficking and money laundering activities." pic.twitter.com/wp62DMPrB2
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández is one of the main targets of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation into "large-scale drug-trafficking and money laundering activities" related to the "importation of cocaine into the United States," according to a court filing.
The document, filed Thursday, states the DEA has been investigating Hernández and eight others since 2013. Hernández became president in January 2014.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Talks between government and opposition representatives aimed at resolving Venezuela's political crisis have ended without agreement.
The talks in Norway were the first between the two sides since National Assembly Speaker Juan Guaidó declared himself interim leader in January, arguing that President Nicolás Maduro's re-election was fraudulent.
Despite the lack of progress both sides said they wanted to continue the talks.
Volodymyr Zelensky shows his filled in ballot to the media at the Maritime Institute voting station in Kyiv, Ukraine, on April 21, 2019. Photo: AFP/Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto
The Obama-era geopolitics of the West goose-stepping to erect an iron curtain between Kiev and Moscow is no longer there.
Once you have scrambled the eggs, you'd better learn to like scrambled eggs. There are lessons learned and the behavior has changed. Resolving the Ukraine crisis poses such a predicament.
However, in life everything is possible. With the election of Volodymyr Zelenskiy as the new president in Ukraine, things have become somewhat easier for Moscow and Kiev to recapture a past that can never quite be the same again.
With 20/20 hindsight, Moscow was quietly pleased with the outcome of the Ukraine elections on April 21, which catapulted Zelenskiy to power with an overwhelming mandate of 73% of the votes. There were significant undercurrents.
WNU Editor: The German and French governments are also sensing change is in the air, and they want to get involved .... Germany's Maas hopes for peace in eastern Ukraine under new leader (DW). What's my take. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy won the election on the promise of ending the war and forging better relations with Moscow. His mandate was supported by 73% of the electorate, with support from the Russian-Ukrainian regions reaching almost 90%. He better not disappoint his supporters.
* Rare earth minerals are commonly used in high-tech devices, automotives, clean energy and defense. * About 35% of global reserves are in China, the most in the world, and the country is a mining machine, producing 70% of total rare earths in 2018. * U.S. consumption of rare earth compounds and metals relies heavily on imports, which rose to $160 million in 2018. Eighty percent were from China.
China's threat to curb exports of rare earth minerals to the United States could move the needle in an escalating trade war as the world's two largest economies continue to jockey for leverage.
The official newspaper of the Communist Party of China explicitly warned the U.S. on Wednesday that China would cut off rare earth minerals as a countermeasure in the escalated trade battle.
Iraq's President Barham Salih arrives to attend the meeting for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Arab and Islamic summits in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia May 30, 2019. The Presidency of the Republic of Iraq Office/Handout via REUTERS
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia convened emergency Arab summits on Thursday to deliver a strong message to Iran over regional security after recent attacks on Gulf oil assets, as American officials said a U.S. military deployment had deterred Tehran.
Saudi King Salman told a Gulf Arab meeting, ahead of a separate Arab summit, that Iran's development of nuclear and missile capabilities and its threatening of global oil supplies posed a risk to regional and international security.
"It must be said that the absence of a severe and firm stance towards the subversive actions of the Iranian regime in the region caused it to go too far, as we see today," he said.
* Propaganda footage reveals China has been urging war with the U.S. for a year * State media said last April Beijing would fight Washington 'till the end at all cost' * 'We want this unprecedented "epic trade war" to reach all Americans,' it added * Yesterday China hinted the trade war with the U.S. could lead to real war * A Beijing minister accused Washington of 'naked economic terrorism' today
China has accused the United States of 'naked economic terrorism' today as Beijing stepped up the rhetoric in their tariff war.
But it turns out the Communist Party has been determined to ramp up the country's trade battle with Washington for more than a year.
A propaganda video from China revealed that Beijing vowed to 'fight until the end' and 'at all cost' from as early as last April when the trade war sprouted.
WNU Editor: Here is a good article on why China does not have the resources to win in a protracted trade war .... Does China have enough US dollars to survive the US trade war? (SCMP). As for the above propaganda video .... expect more in the coming months.
The US military's top general said Wednesday that Chinese President Xi Jingping reneged on promises not to militarize the South China Sea and called for "collective action" to hold Beijing responsible.
General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was not calling for military action, but stressed that there was a need to enforce international laws.
"The fall of 2016, President Xi Jinping promised President Obama that they would not militarize the islands. So what we see today are 10,000-foot runways, ammunition storage facilities, routine deployment of missile defense capabilities, aviation capabilities, and so forth," he said in a talk on US security and defense at the Brooking institution.
"So clearly they have walked away from that committment."
WNU Editor: Sadly .... my commentary in this 2015 post has been proven right .... The U.S. Retreats From The South China Sea (December 1, 2015). Beijing did sense a lack of focus from the White House at this time. Made promises that they were never going to respect, and then took advantage of it. Flash forward to today. The problem is bigger, and it is not President Trump's problem.
China has its own definition of what's fair and what's not fair among countries, according to author William J. Holstein. Collage: Asia Times/Patrick Dunne
The author's Introduction to a new book detailing how Xi Jinping targets the US with his 'China dream'
"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
—Sun Tzu, author, The Art of War
Australians are engaged in a highly emotional debate about China's influence in their lives. A book by Clive Hamilton entitled, Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia, describes how the Beijing government and Communist Party are systematically attempting to influence Australian policies and cultural life. Hamilton calls it "rot at the heart of the Australian democracy." The Australians may now understand what China is attempting to do in their country.
Read more .... WNU Editor: One of the top abusers of stealing technology has been Huawei .... Huawei "Spent All Their Resources Stealing", Stunning New Exposé Shows (Zero Hedge). But the bigger story is not China stealing secrets. The bigger story is how China is trying to influence foreign governments. This blog has mentioned more than once that while all the political and media attention has been on Russia trying to influence the American process, the Russians are pikers when compared to what China has (and is doing) right now.
"The U.S. government has provided no evidence to show that Huawei is a security threat": Huawei Chief Legal Officer Song Liuping announces the filing of a motion for summary judgment to end the unfair treatment of the tech giant. #HuaweiFacts
* Huawei claimed US Congress did not provide evidence to support restrictions * Legal officer Song Liuping hopes the ban will be declared 'unconstitutional' * The tech giant has become the world leader in telecom networking equipment * The 5G market is believed to be the future of high-speed telecommunications * China and the US are involved in a trade dispute and tariff war since last July
Huawei has today filed a request asking a US court to throw out a legislation that bars federal agencies from buying its products.
Song Liuping, the firm's legal officer, said the company was due to file the motion for summary judgment on Tuesday.
The company is asking the US to scrap section 889 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which prohibits executive government agencies from procuring equipment from Huawei and its rival ZTE.
WNU Editor: This company is screwed. They will get markets in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. But in the markets that count .... North America, Europe, etc., they are doomed.
* Acting Secretary of Defense Pat Shanahan downplays concerns that the U.S.-China trade war will further complicate defense discussions with Beijing. * Shanahan, who is on an eight-day trip to Asia, says he will meet with his Chinese counterpart this week amid trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. * "Trade runs a separate track, and we'll solve that. It is too important not to solve," Shanahan tells reporters traveling with him Wednesday. "I don't believe [it will] spill over into our dialogue and discussion on defense."
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan on Wednesday downplayed concerns that the U.S.-China trade war would further complicate defense discussions between Washington and Beijing.
"Trade runs a separate track, and we'll solve that. It is too important not to solve," Shanahan told reporters traveling with him. "I don't believe [it will] spill over into our dialogue and discussion on defense."
Shanahan, who embarked on an eight-day trip to Asia on Tuesday, said he would meet with his Chinese counterpart this week amid trade tensions between the world's two largest economies. The meeting between Shanahan and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe is expected to take place on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore.
China is by far the world's largest exporter of rare earth minerals, producing more than 95 per cent of the chemical elements used worldwide, or 120,000 tonnes every year
* Pentagon sends report to Congress on 'rare earth' minerals, almost all of which are imported from China * Chinese state media warned the U.S. not to underestimate Beijing's capabilities * It used a diplomatic term usually reserved by officials to signal the start of a war * It also said it wouldn't be hard for Beijing to make a decision over rumored ban * 'It's unarguable that the U.S. depends highly on the global supply chain,' it wrote * The minerals are used in high technology applications vital to everyday life, from nuclear reactors to medical scanners
The U.S. Defense Department has submitted a report to Congress on rare earth minerals as it looks to reduce American reliance on China, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, amid mounting concern in Washington about Beijing's role as a supplier.
Although the Pentagon did not provide details of the report, it said it was tied to a federal program designed to bolster domestic production capabilities by offering 'tailored' economic incentives.
The move came hours after China hinted that a trade war with the U.S. could lead to real war with a coded warning as it threatens to stop exporting essential 'rare earth' minerals.
* "We advise the U.S. side not to underestimate the Chinese side's ability to safeguard its development rights and interests. Don't say we didn't warn you!" the People's Daily said in a commentary titled "United States, don't underestimate China's ability to strike back." * The phrase "Don't say we didn't warn you" has been used by the People's Daily in 1962 before China's border war with India and ahead of the 1979 China-Vietnam War. * China threatened it would cut off rare earth minerals as a countermeasure in the escalated trade battle. The materials are crucial to the production of iPhones, electric vehicles and advanced precision weapons
The biggest Chinese newspaper explicitly warned the U.S. on Wednesday that China would cut off rare earth minerals as a countermeasure in the escalated trade battle, using a history-laden expression the publication has used ahead of full-on wars.
"We advise the U.S. side not to underestimate the Chinese side's ability to safeguard its development rights and interests. Don't say we didn't warn you!" the People's Daily said in a commentary titled "United States, don't underestimate China's ability to strike back." The publication is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China.
President said ship bearing the name of his nemesis was blocked during Japan visit 'because they thought I didn't like him'
Donald Trump has confirmed that a warship named after his Republican nemesis, the late Arizona senator John McCain, was intentionally hidden from his view during his visit to a naval base in Japan this week.
The president confirmed that the ship had been intentionally hidden, saying someone had taken measures "because they thought I didn't like [McCain]".
The Wall Street Journal cited an email dated 15 May from an official at the US Indo-Pacific Command to US navy and air force officials which said the USS John McCain "needs to be out of sight" during Trump's Memorial Day visit to Yokosuka base on Tuesday, the final day of his state visit to Japan.
The email asked officials to "please confirm" that directive "will be satisfied".
WNU Editor: President Trump was not aware of this, nor was the Acting Secretary of Defense. But they are going to be blamed for it. As for the ship itself, it was not covered during President Trump's visit.
More News On The White House Wanting The Name Of The USS McCain Covered During President Trump's Trip To The Port
Riyadh pins drone attacks on oil pumping stations in Saudi Arabia and sabotage of oil tankers off UAE's coast on Iran.
Arab leaders have gathered in Saudi Arabia for a three-day emergency summit following attacks on Gulf oil assets this month which Riyadh pins on Tehran.
Thursday's events come after Saudi Arabia accused Iran of ordering drone attacks on oil pumping stations in the kingdom, which were claimed by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi group, and the sabotage of oil tankers off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Thousands of air, sea, and land troops took part in the exercises across the entire island. The drills took place amidst what Taiwan says is increasing military intimidation from China.
An AH-1W attack helicopter releases flares during the live fire Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) invading the island, in Pingtung, Taiwan May 30, 2019. (Reuters/T. Siu)
Taiwan held major military drills on Thursday, meant to mimic an invading Chinese force. The country's air, sea, and land troops took part in the exercise designed to showcase the breadth of their capabilities in the event of an attack from across the Taiwan Strait.
"The military force of the Chinese Communist Party has continued to expand, without giving up the use of force to invade Taiwan," Defense Minister Yen The-fa told reporters.
Yen said China intends to "destroy regional stability and cross-strait security".
ONCE THE most popular PC-based game, Ragnarok Online has today morphed into a mobile version with a more user-friendly interface but keeping the same cute graphics and captivating sound effects.
Now called Ragnarok M: Eternal Love, it comes as an app for both Android and iOS devices.
Google Play states that the Android version has been downloaded and installed more than a million times while the iOS version was named Game of the Day earlier this month.
Like the original game, Ragnarok M: Eternal Love is an open world mobile MMORPG (massively multi-players online role-playing game). It is based on Ragnarok Online 2003 and has inherited the Ragnarok legacy that drew the attention of millions of fans around the world.
The game comes with new and fuller 3D art that enhances its classic style and has introduced beautiful designs for the cities of Prontera, Geffen, Payon and several others.
You can interact with many characters and pets and use gear to enhance their characters' performance.
When Rangnarok Online was a PC game, players had to labour to battle monsters for experience points to increase the level and performance of their characters. Players also had to use their mouse pointers and a lot of key combinations to control their characters to attack monsters. These days the interface is optimised for touchscreen with shortcuts for easier game control.
The new mobile version makes the life of players much easier. For example, instead of having to kill massive number of monsters, the game provides a lot of quests for players to complete to gain experience points for levelling up their characters.
While carrying out the quests, you will get to learn epic stories within Rune Midgard through a non-linear narration. Each NPC character in the game has a unique story to discover.
And instead of having to manually control your characters to do the repetitive tasks of killing monsters to gain experience points, you can enjoy the new auto attack mode of the game.
The auto attack mode lets you select the two skill you consider most effective for killing monsters on a particular map. Then, you choose the type of monsters and activate the auto attack function. You simply need to plan ahead on how to use the skills in the auto attack mode to best kill and to prevent your own characters from getting killed.
Your character can get killed when its health point or HP has run out after being attacked by monsters. In the past, replenishing the HP points was a big deal. You would need help from a character capable of healing you. But now, the game developer provides an NPC character at almost every map to "heal" you. You simply need to get to her in time before your character gets killed.
The game also provides certain types of "foods" for your characters to take to automatically replenish their HP points and SP points. The SP or spell points are used for casting magic skills. The foods can also replenish the SP points for you.
There are five different main classes of characters for you to start with, namely Acolyte, Archer, Mage, Merchant, Swordsman and Thief. Each class can be further developed into two higher classes. For example, the Mage can develop into a Wizard and later a High Wizard after the character has earned up to 40 levels of each job.
And the new game is actually a dual RPG system. While you are building a character like a Mage, the game also lets you build the experience of the character as an adventure. All game characters are adventures whose experience and levels can increase by earning experience points for finishing certain tasks. For example, when you meet a new NPC character or kill a monster or find a new map, you will earn adventure points for increasing the adventure level. When your adventure level rises up to certain level, you can perform some tests to increase the adventure class after which your character will have higher performance and more adventure skills for the benefit of the main character.
Ragnarok Online used to have game servers in Thailand but the Ragnarok M has global servers with a channel for players in Thailand.
The game is free to play. But you can buy premium service or game money currency, Zeny, and Big Cat coins from the global service provider via local partners, mobile operators AIS, dtac and TrueMove H and as well as Thai e-wall service providers, such as True Money Wallet, mPay by Razer and Rabbit LINE Pay.
When you buy a premium service for Bt279 a month, you will receive a lot of benefits. For example, you will get an extra auto battle slot for adding one more skill and your characters can level up much faster. The Big Cat coins can be used to buy a lot of things necessary for increasing your character performance while the Zeny can be used to buy items and foods for your character.
The game can be played on an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet. I tested it on iPad Pro 12.9 inch. The game ran smoothly and thanks to a large display like a real notebook display, the game was much easier to play as I could see all the details easily.
>> Seller: Gravity Interactive, Inc.
>> Size: 2.1 GB
>> Category: Games
>> Compatibility: Requires iOS 7.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
>> Languages: English
>> Age Rating: Rated 12+ for Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity
Seoul, May 27, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — GRAVITY Co., Ltd. (NasdaqGM: GRVY) ("Gravity" or "Company"), a developer and publisher of online and mobile games based in South Korea, today announced that Ragnarok M: Eternal Love (locally named Ragnarok Masters in Japan) will be published by GungHo Online Entertainment Inc, ("GungHo") the licensee of Ragnarok Online in Japan. GungHo has announced that the game is expecting to be released in 2019 and the official release date will be noticed soon.
In advance of the official release, GungHo will be undertaking the Client Connection Test for Android from May 28 to May 30.
Ragnarok M: Eternal Love has achieved more than 24 million downloads all over the world – including Taiwan, Korea, Southeast Asia, North America, South America, and Oceania. The game has taken the number one slot in the Google Play and Apple App Store's top grossing listings across the globe.
Based in Korea, Gravity is a developer and publisher of online and mobile games. Gravity's principal product, Ragnarok Online, is a popular online game in many markets, including Japan and Taiwan, and is currently commercially offered in 83 markets and countries. For more information about Gravity, please visit http://www.gravity.co.kr.
Forward-Looking Statements:
Certain statements in this press release may include, in addition to historical information, "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe-harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, such as "may," "will," "expect," "intend," "estimate," "anticipate," "believe", "project," or "continue" or the negative thereof or other similar words, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Investors should consider the information contained in our submissions and filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"), including our annual report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2017 on Form 20-F, together with such other documents that we may submit to or file with the SEC from time to time, on Form 6-K. The forward-looking statements speak only as of this press release and we assume no duty to update them to reflect new, changing or unanticipated events or circumstances.
Contact:
Mr. Heung Gon KimChief Financial OfficerGravity Co., Ltd.Email: kheung@gravity.co.kr
IR UnitMs. Sang Eun SungMs. Minji OhGravity Co., Ltd.Email: ir@gravity.co.kr Telephone: 82-2-2132-7800
Lately, people love to brag how long they can go without eating. Jack Dorsey is as famous for skipping food all weekend as he is for being the CEO of Twitter. Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews says intermittent fasting, or forgoing meals for lengths at a time, helps him maintain that enviable six pack.
Proponents believe the practice improves heart health and may even lower cancer risk, but many use intermittent fasting as a weight-loss tool.
Are any of these claims legit, and more importantly, should you try it?
How long should you fast?
The concept calls for going extended periods of time without eating, and people generally follow three common fasting schedules:
Alternate-day fasting entails switching from days without food restrictions and days that include one meal that provides about 25 percent of your daily calorie needs, according to Harvard Health Publications. For example, you might eat one 700-calorie meal on Monday and resume your normal diet on Tuesday.
Whole-day fasting is also known as the 5:2 fasting schedule, which means you eat roughly 500-calories two days a week. The other five days have no food restrictions.
Time-restricted fasting is typically following in a 16:8 format, meaning you only eat for 8 hours throughout the day and fast for 16. For example, noon to 8 p.m. is a good guide as many people only eat lunch and dinner.
Everyone's preferred fasting schedule will vary, but New York-based Alexandra Sowa, M.D., says it's best to start slow with just a 12-hour fast. If that's not unbearable, move onto a 16-hour fast several times a week.
"If you like it then see how you do extending it to 24-hour fast," she tells Men's Health.
What happens to your body when you fast?
There's not a lot of evidence to show exactly what happens when we fast, says Nathalie Sessions, R.D., at Houston Methodist.
"There's only been a few viable scientific studies that have been done with humans on intermittent fasting," she tells Men's Health.
Most research has been conducted in animals, and human bodies don't function in the same way.
Many theorize that giving your body a break from eating helps your body repair damaged cells, a process known as autophagy, says Sowa. However, most of this research has been conducted in mice, so the science isn't 100 percent clear.
However, there is evidence that fasting lowers insulin levels, according to Sowa. Healthy adults experienced a decline in insulin levels after fasting, according to a 2005 study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Insulin, a hormone made by the pancreas, regulates blood sugar and other hormones. Too much insulin has been linked to obesity and health conditions like heart disease.
How much weight can you lose while fasting?
Let's be clear about one thing: intermittent fasting doesn't guarantee weight loss. In theory, you'll consume less calories because you're eating fewer meals, but it's entirely possible to overeat while fasting.
You don't want to gorge on a burger, fries, and shake right after fasting, says Sowa.
"In order to continue the benefits of the fast you want to choose foods that will not spike your insulin," she says.
She recommends eating foods that are high in fiber and protein, like leafy green vegetables, eggs, and chicken.
Research about intermittent fasting for weight loss is mixed.
"Some studies have demonstrated that it can result in as much as a 7 percent weight loss in body weight," says Sessions.
However, a randomized clinical trial of obese adults showed that intermittent fasting was no better than standard calorie restriction, according to a 2017 paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
What can you eat or drink while fasting?
Very little, according to Sowa. Generally, you'll want to stick to water or beverages that have virtually zero calories, like black coffee.
You may have seen people adding butter or MCT oil to coffee, and these are actually okay in small quantities because they don't have protein or carbs, says Sowa.
If you just can't stomach black coffee, she recommends adding a tablespoon of full-fat whipping cream to your coffee.
"That will allow most people to stay in a technically fasted state," she says. Just don't go overboard.
"If you're drinking a ton of whole fat whipping cream or eating a lot of butter you're not going to lose weight," she says.
Aim for no more than two tablespoons per day.
Should I try intermittent fasting?
Sessions says this plan probably works best for people who are regimented and says yo-yo dieters will likely have a hard time fasting. The best way to lose weight is by finding something you can stick to.
"The long-term key to weight loss is to establish a lifestyle that you can sustain," says Sessions.
If you think this will work for you, it's best to work with a doctor or dietitian who can ensure you're getting enough nutrients.
If your body is a machine, then your metabolism is its operating system: It takes whatever you input (food, drink, hours of sleep) and runs it through a process so that you can function. Download a bunch of junk and it runs poorly. Upgrade your daily habits and you're running at the highest efficiency.
But also understand that one hour at the gym does not a high-performance fat-thermogenesis machine make. If you want to lose weight—and keep it off—you have to maintain an optimized metabolism all day long. Turn to this collection of the latest research to amplify your fat burn from wake-up to wind-down.
Tea Up
Along with coffee, tea is a rich source of antioxidants. One study published in the Journal of Research in Medical Sciences found that people with type 2 diabetes who drank four cups of green tea daily lost more weight and reduced their blood pressure more than those who drank no tea. The scientists think catechins, antioxidants inherent in green tea, may increase metabolism.
Eat Breakfast
The meal may inactivate genes involved in fat metabolism and encourage the body to burn more carbs during a workout later in the day, found a 2018 study by the University of Bath. Breakfast also raises your resting metabolic rate more than eating the same foods at dinnertime, according to a separate study by Italian scientists.
Drink a Little Water—a Lot
Athletes on high-protein diets may show signs of metabolism-stalling dehydration. So drink up: More water may help your body break down fats more efficiently, leading to weight loss, found a review of animal studies in Frontiers in Nutrition. And drink from a smaller cup—the walk to the fountain will boost your workday activity.
Get Spicy
Try seasoning your morning oatmeal or shake with cinnamon. The spice may help activate thermogenesis (the production of heat by metabolism), found a 2017 test-tube study in Metabolism. It's great on a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich on toasted whole wheat, too.
Eat Dinner at Lunch
Per an Italian study published in PLOS One, participants who ate the bulk of their calories at dinner were twice as likely to be obese as those who ate their larger meals earlier in the day. The scientists speculate that this style of eating may sync up more naturally with circadian rhythms, which contribute to metabolic function.
Don't Have Accidental Brunch
Men who ate larger meals less frequently throughout the day had better appetite control and a higher resting metabolic rate than those who ate the same number of calories but spread out during the day, reported a PLOS One study by Dutch scientists. Look for self-limiting snacks like one piece of fruit (apple, pear) instead of large bags or tubs, which often lead to overeating.
Go Back to Iodized Salt
Sea salt does not usually contain iodine, a nutrient essential for helping your thyroid keep your metabolism functioning well. Aim for 150 micrograms of iodine daily. That's about ½ teaspoon of iodized salt, but you can also find iodine in fish, dairy, fruits, and vegetables.
Spin Your Wheels (Not Metaphorically)
A 2018 University of Copenhagen study comparing cyclists with lifters found that the bike riders had higher levels of the metabolism-boosting hormone FGF21 after training. Cap off your regular workout session on an AirBike.
Enter Burst Mode
Italian scientists found that high-intensity interval resistance training (HIRT) increased the number of calories participants burned afterward when compared with traditional resistance training. Try this workout from the study: 6 reps, 20 seconds rest, 2 or 3 reps, 20 seconds rest, 2 or 3 reps. Do 3 exercises total with 2 minutes and 30 seconds of rest in between sets for a total of 8 sets.
Strengthen your bones
A 2017 study by Canadian scientists found that people who had more of the bone hormone osteocalcin in their bloodstream had a greater ability to metabolize sugar and fat. Foods that may raise that hormone: broccoli, onions, salmon, and olive oil.
Impose a Curfew
Even if you've implemented all the tips on these pages thus far, sleeping poorly may undo your hard work. Numerous studies have shown that losing sleep can alter glucose metabolism and regulatory hormones, both of which are vital for a properly functioning metabolism.
Put Your Phone to Bed, Too
After-dark Instagram scrolling doesn't just disrupt your sleep; it may also make you fat. The blue light your devices emit can increase insulin resistance, making it more difficult for your body to clear glucose from your bloodstream, found a Northwestern University study.
A new report in Scientific American says the satiating diet may be an easier way to lose weight than the keto diet.
It consists of foods that provide high-nutrient-content while also being super filling and satisfying.
According to one study, the satiating diet helped participants lose weight while feeling fuller.
If you've tried the keto diet, you're familiar with how restrictive it can be (it's why, despite its weight loss benefits, keto can be hard to stick to).
Now, there's a new buzzy diet trend, called the satiating diet, that's touted to have similar benefits to keto, but without excluding entire food groups like carbs.
According to a report in Scientific American, the "satiating diet" has been shown to help people manage their weight and health, by using of "healthy foods that are especially satiating; that is, foods that create feelings of fullness and satisfaction." Sounds good, right?
The author of the report, Shirin Panahi, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher of physical education and kinesiology at Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada, says that includes foods that are high in protein (like lean meat and fish) and high in fiber (like whole grains, fruits and vegetables), as well as healthy fats (like those found in avocados, for example), probiotic-rich dairy products, and capsaicin, the substance that makes peppers spicy (and is known to satisfy hunger).
The whole idea of the satiating diet is that no food group is totally off-limits, but you should be focusing on foods that provide high-nutrient content while being super filling at the same time so you don't feel deprived.
"What's so special about these foods [is] that each of them possesses specific characteristics that benefit our health either by decreasing hunger, reducing body fat, lowering blood sugar, improving blood pressure or increasing metabolism," Panahi says.
And eating this way all the time could be a simple way to maintain a healthy weight. According to a 2017 study in the British Journal of Nutrition in which participants followed either the satiating diet (eating 20 to 25 percent protein, 45-50 percent carbs and 30-35 percent fats) or a normal diet (eating 10 to 15 percent protein, 55-60 percent carbs and 30 percent fats), those on the satiating plan lost more weight and body fat, felt fuller and were better able to stick to the diet, which is really half the battle.
Of course, one successful study (which was also small, with only 69 male participants) doesn't mean the satiating diet will work for everyone. But it sounds like a smart way to eat for overall health—whether you're trying to lose weight or not.
Kristin Canning Kristin Canning is the associate editor at Women's Health, where she covers fitness, health, mental health, sex and relationships, nutrition, active travel and wellness entrepreneurs.
(BERLIN) — Mike Pompeo is making his first visit to Germany as secretary of state at the start of a four-nation European trip as tensions rise between the U.S. and Iran.
Pompeo was set to meet Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on Friday before continuing to Switzerland, which has long represented Washington’s interests in Tehran and has in the past been an intermediary between the two.
Germany is one of the signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that is trying to keep it alive after the U.S. withdrew last year.
Pompeo’s stop in Berlin makes up for a visit that he abruptly called off in early May to fly to Iraq. He is also traveling to the Netherlands and Britain.
(BUDAPEST, Hungary) — Hungarian police have detained the captain of a cruise ship that collided with a sightseeing boat packed with South Korean tourists, causing it to sink quickly in the Danube River, as loved ones of the missing and dead were expected to arrive Friday in Budapest.
Seven people are confirmed dead and seven have been rescued, while 21 people remain missing in the waters.
A South Korean group on a package tour of Europe — including 30 tourists, two guides and a photographer— were on an hour-long sightseeing tour of Budapest when their boat collided with a Viking cruise ship during a downpour Wednesday evening.
Nineteen South Koreans and two Hungarian crew members — the captain and his assistant — remain missing.
The boat’s sinking has touched a nerve in South Korea, where many are still traumatized over a 2014 ferry sinking that killed more than 300 people, mostly students.
Survivors have given accounts saying they were lucky to grab onto a drifting lifeboat Wednesday evening while looking in horror as others around them struggled in the dark, rainy waters, shouting for help.
Their small sightseeing boat had almost finished its tour and was almost at a stop when the larger cruise ship hit it under a bridge near the riverbank parliament building, a city landmark. They said about 20 people were on the deck taking photographs or preparing to disembark. The others were in the cabin.
“I saw that big cruise ship coming closer to us but I had never imagined it would ram our boat,” said a 31-year-old South Korean surnamed Jeong. She was quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.
Jeong said she and others on the deck were thrown into the cold Danube waters by the impact of the collision. Police said it took only seven seconds for the boat to overturn and sink.
She said she saw a lifeboat drifting close by and managed to seize hold of it, also throwing a rope to another tourist surnamed Yoon.
“Our boat was turned over in an instant and began sinking,” Yoon, 32, told Yonhap. “All those on the deck fell into water and I think those staying in the cabin on the first floor couldn’t probably get out of the ship swiftly.”
Rescue crews were looking for the missing people, but operations have been hampered by the rain and the fast flow of the rising Danube. The search for the 21 missing extended far downstream, even into Serbia, where the Danube goes after leaving Hungary.
Meanwhile, crews also prepared to raise the sunken boat. Officials have said that due to heavy currents it could take days to recover the 70-year-old boat, which was built in the former Soviet Union.
Police, who launched a criminal investigation into the incident, said late Thursday that they had detained and questioned the Ukrainian captain of the larger vessel.
The 64-year-old man is suspected of endangering water transport leading to a deadly mass accident. In line with Hungarian laws, the suspect was identified only as Yuriy C., referencing his first name and the initial letter of his last name. Police proposed the arrest of the Odessa resident, described earlier by police as an experienced sailor.
A cargo ship loaded with 69 containers of garbage left the Philippines Friday for Vancouver, Canada amid an escalating diplomat row over international trash exports, Reuters reports.
The refuse return follows Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign to get Ottawa to agree take back its waste, and makes good on threats he issued last week to return the rubbish and dump it in Canadian waters if the country refused.
Canada missed a May 15 deadline to take back truckloads of garbage it sent to the Philippines from 2013 to 2014. The junk, which includes household garbage like plastic bags, bottles, diapers and newspapers, was mislabelled plastic for recycling.
In 2016, a court in the Philippines declared the import of 2,400 tonnes of waste from Canada illegal, according to Reuters.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin posted a picture of the departing trash ship with a message reading “Baaaaaaaaa bye” on Twitter.
Mark Johnson, spokesperson for Canada’s environment and climate change ministry, said, “The government of Canada is taking all the necessary measures to ensure safe and environmentally sound transport, handling and disposal of the waste in Canada.”
Earlier this month, the Philippines called for its ambassadors and consuls in Canada to return home over the trash dispute. Duterte’s spokesperson, Salvador Panelo, said he hopes the diplomatic relationship will normalize, according to Reuters.
Countries in Southeast Asia are increasingly pushing back on developed nations’ trash shipments. Malaysia announced last week that it had begun sending non-recyclable plastic back to the countries it came from.
For years, China accepted the majority of the world’s plastic waste, but last year, Beijing announced a ban amid environmental concerns.
It may sound strange now, but when Liu Heung Shing went to China to cover the Tiananmen Square protests, he did it so he could have a rest.
In 1989, he was a photographer for the Associated Press stationed in Seoul, where his daily grind was photographing South Korea’s own pro-democracy student demonstrators, whose running battles with the police were then far more vicious than in neighboring China.
Liu spent his time dodging hurled paving stones and tear gas canisters, peering down his lens through prescription goggles, clothes saturated with noxious fumes. “I’d walk into the office and everyone would start coughing and sneezing,” he tells TIME with a grin in his Shanghai apartment.
And so Liu didn’t mind his reassignment to the Chinese capital, where many international journalists had already left, thinking the peaceful demonstrations demanding political reform were winding down after more than two months.
Liu wandered the docile protest sites, capturing students cooking noodles, writing poetry and dancing to pass the time. It was only when a faux Statue of Liberty dubbed the “Goddess of Democracy” was erected in the square, staring down Mao Zedong’s portrait hanging over the adjacent Forbidden City, that he knew a tipping point had been reached.
“I told my colleagues, ‘If you understand anything about China, the Communists will never allow this,’” he says.
Liu Heung Shing A young couple on a bicycle hide from Chinese soldiers in a tank overhead during the Tiananmen Square protests that were crushed June 4, 1989.
The paving stones and tear gas that Liu left behind in Seoul were replaced by bullets and tanks in the bloody crackdown that followed — the 30th anniversary of which falls on June 4. Estimates for the number killed range from a few hundred to several thousand.
Tiananmen, of course, is not the only sensitive anniversary this year: There is a collective intake of breath in China whenever the year ends in nine. So many of the nation’s defining moments fall when one decade teeters before the next.
This year also marked a full century since the anti-imperialist May 4 Movement, 70 years since Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic, 60 years since the Dalai Lama fled Chinese occupation, 40 years since Deng Xiaoping launched his economic reform and opening up, and ten years since deadly riots rocked the country’s restive Xinjiang province.
Liu has probably witnessed as much of China’s modern history firsthand as anyone alive. His first assignment was covering Mao’s funeral for TIME in 1976 — “I failed miserably,” he laughs — and he later recorded China’s rapid industrialization and fitful democracy struggle through the rapidly changing lives of ordinary people.
Now 68, Liu opened his own gallery, the Shanghai Center of Photography, in 2015, and is preparing to publish a compendium of his work: A Life in a Sea of Red, spanning his experiences covering China and Russia from 1976 to 2016. It’s a germane moment to peer back at the divergent fates of history’s foremost communist superpowers: China’s export-driven revival versus the Soviet Union’s chaotic collapse, whose specter still haunts leaders in Beijing. “They worry if the economy goes south they must be wary of what happened in Russia,” says Liu.
Courtesy of Liu Heung Shing The cover of Liu Heung Shing’s new book featuring his photographs of China and Russia from 1976 to 2016.
Liu can draw on a far broader range of perspectives; he worked stints in India and Pakistan, covered Sri Lanka’s civil war and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. But being born in British-controlled Hong Kong in 1951, just two years after the communist victory that forced his parents to flee the mainland, Liu’s life was always entwined with China.
He was sent back to China’s southern city of Fuzhou for school during the Great Leap Forward — Mao’s demented industrialization experiment that led some 40 million people to starve to death. Even at six years old, Liu and his classmates were conscripted to collect rocks for construction projects and to kill pests. “I would swat a lot of flies at home, collect them in a matchbox and then hand it to my teacher,” he recalls.
Yet that childlike zeal failed to win over Liu’s teachers, who were obliged to score every student on their “political behavior.” No matter how zealously he heaved rocks or belted out patriotic songs, Liu was never given higher than a “c” grade, owing to his parents’ bourgeoisie pre-revolution credentials. “That was my first lesson in politics,” he says.
Liu’s education with a camera didn’t begin until after he had graduated high school back in Hong Kong and traveled to the U.S. to enroll in NYU’s Hunter College in 1974. After taking a course taught by photography great Gjon Mili, Liu was invited by his new mentor to take an internship at Life Magazine.
Mili was wholly disinterested in the technology of cameras and lenses, recalls Liu, instead making his students pore over contact sheets to understand lighting and composition. “He was very clear to the class [about] what was photography, what was not photography,” says Liu. “He understood that the shutter makes this medium unique.”
They were lessons that helped Liu capture his most famous shot — Mikhail Gorbachev slamming shut his resignation speech that marked the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the departing leader’s hand slightly blurred. Liu was the only photographer present and says it was a deliberate though risky decision to dial back his shutter to one 30th of a second to inject some dynamism.
“I thought in order to capture that history — the end of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 — I needed to show the speech still moving,” he says. Liu had been warned by a KGB stooge not to take any photographs, so knew he only had one chance to capture the moment, and received a punch in the back for his troubles. “When I left the Kremlin the Soviet flag was coming down and Russian flag going up.”
That iconic shot was part of a collection covering the Soviet Union’s demise and the preceding coup attempt that won Liu and his AP colleagues the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for News Photography. But it is China that forms the bulk of Liu’s oeuvre: whether peasants flinging harvested cabbages onto a truck, a young communist joyously gulping Coca-Cola, or a Beijing property tycoon draped over her latest skyscraper rooftop.
Liu Heung Shing A young man holds a glass bottle of Coca-Cola, which had just resumed production in China, outside the Forbidden City, Beijing, 1981.
But turning the pages of Liu’s new book, which won’t be published in mainland China due to strict censorship, the events of 1989 stand out. Liu captured some of the most infamous images of the carnage — protesters sleeping in the square, confronting soldiers, cowering in an underpass while a tank rumbles overhead. He also played a small but vital role in helping his AP colleague Jeff Widener take the epoch-defining image of a solitary figure in white shirt, shopping bags in hand, staring down a row of armed vehicles.
Bound to his desk on editing duties, Liu dispatched Widener — who was new to China — to the Beijing Hotel overlooking the square. “I said, ‘you need one 400 mm lens, one camera body and one lens doubler,’ which effectively made it a 800 mm lens,” recalls Liu. A few hours later, Widener was calling the office to say, “I’m not sure how sharp it is, but I think I’ve got something,” says Liu
Liu told Widener not to risk taking the film himself but to instead send a “pigeon” — one of the bevy of Western students hanging around Beijing at the time. Soon a tall blonde guy with a ponytail and backpack arrived at the door and handed Liu an envelope.
Of the three photographs Widener snapped of “tank man,” only one was usable, dispatched electronically via the 9 rmb ($2.40) per minute telephone link with AP’s Tokyo bureau that Liu insisted was kept live for the duration of the protests. “If we hung up I didn’t know if we could ever get it back,” he says.
The next day Widener’s “tank man” appeared on nearly every front page across the world — a symbol of peaceful defiance, an individual pushed by hardship to the edge of reason, who had simply had enough, standing tall against armor-plated tyranny.
Jeff Widener—AP A Chinese man stands alone to block a line of tanks heading east on Beijing’s Cangan Blvd. in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989. The man, calling for an end to the recent violence and bloodshed against pro-democracy demonstrators, was pulled away by bystanders, and the tanks continued on their way.
That those events of 1989 didn’t spark a collapse like that which gripped Eastern Europe has been pored over by historians every since. Having witnessed the inefficiencies and crumbling infrastructure antecedent to the Soviet demise, Liu attributes the difference to economics. The Soviet empire had once wielded economic heft to rival the U.S. but was in precipitous decline; China was finally dragging itself out of collectivized penury.
A key to Beijing’s survival was the huge ethnic Chinese diaspora who spied the potential to make money. “Without Hong Kong and all the other overseas Chinese putting the first investment into China, reform couldn’t have taken off,” says Liu.
In 1979, at the outset of reform and opening, Liu was among a group of journalists taken down to the village of Shenzhen opposite Hong Kong, where a new Special Economic Zone was planned. Standing in rice fields, officials laid out grand plans for hotels, ports and highways. “‘I still remember that we journalists looked at each other and said, ‘yeah, right,” he laughs.
The success of Shenzhen surpassed everyone’s expectation: a 12 million-strong megacity with a GDP of $411 billion last year — riches that surpass Miami and now even neighboring Hong Kong.
But China’s seismic economic progress also casts its aborted push for democracy and human rights into sharp focus. The world’s most populous country may not have experienced another massacre of the scale Liu witnessed in Tiananmen, but the fate of around a million ethnic Uighur Muslims currently imprisoned without charge in “reeducation” concentration camps in China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang is a comparable abomination. Activists, lawyers and journalists are also routinely detained and censorship rife.
Although Liu is concerned by ramped up controls, he sees it as part of a shifting dialectic that has always governed his life in China. From being forced to recite Maoist poetry in a barbershop during the Cultural Revolution, to seeing demands for universal suffrage openly scrawled on the Democracy Wall protests of the late 1970s, to the abolition of presidential term limits under current leader Xi Jinping, Chinese politics has always ebbed between hope and frustration.
“Maybe people are slightly impatient,” says Liu, “but I don’t think the pendulum of opening up is any less than the early 2000s.”
(CARACAS, Venezuela) — The Univision television network said Thursday that it has recovered the video of a contentious interview with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that was confiscated after he cut it short, angered by critical questions from journalist Jorge Ramos.
Ramos said the recovery of the video was “a real triumph against censorship” and that it was returned by “confidential sources” who cannot be named out of concern for their safety.
On its website, Spanish-language Univision showed an excerpt of the 17-minute interview in late February in the presidential palace in Caracas. Ramos said the video will be broadcast in full on Sunday.
The journalist and his team were deported from Venezuela after Maduro abruptly ended the interview. Ramos, one of the most influential Spanish-speaking journalists in the United States, had said shortly afterward that Maduro cut short the interview when he was shown a video on an iPad shot a day earlier of young Venezuelans eating food scraps out of the back of a garbage truck.
In the interview excerpt shown Thursday, Ramos offers to hand over a list of what he says are more than 400 “political prisoners” in Venezuela. Maduro refuses to take the list, denies there are political prisoners in Venezuela and says Ramos is trying to provoke him.
The interview came at a particularly tense time in Venezuela, where Maduro is locked in a power struggle with opposition leader Juan Guaidó for control of a country that has suffered from a humanitarian crisis for years.
North Korea executed its former top nuclear envoy with the U.S. along with four other foreign ministry officials in March after a failed summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump in Vietnam, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.
Kim Hyok Chol, who led working-level negotiations for the February summit in Hanoi, was executed by firing squad after being charged with espionage for allegedly being co-opted by the U.S., the newspaper said, citing an unidentified source. The move was part of an internal purge Kim undertook after the summit broke down without any deal, it said.
Previous reports in South Korea media about senior North Korean officials being executed have proven false. Speculation has swirled for months about the fate of Kim Hyok Chol, who hasn’t received any mentions in state media reports.
Talks between the U.S. and North Korea have stalled since the Vietnam summit, with no plans for them to get underway. Stephen Biegun, the Trump administration’s nuclear envoy to North Korea and Kim Hyok Chol’s counterpart, plans to meet with Japanese and South Korean negotiators this weekend in Singapore.
The February summit in Hanoi abruptly collapsed, with Trump calling off the talks. Analysts said Kim may have overplayed his hand by seeking too much sanctions relief and offering too few nuclear disarmament steps in return.
A career diplomat known for his expertise in nuclear deterrence against the U.S., Kim Hyok Chol’s appointment earlier this year as Biegun’s counterpart surprised North Korea watchers. One South Korean TV outlet drew a circle around him in a video from a White House meeting between Trump and North Korean officials, asking who he was.
Kim Jong Un’s top aide Kim Yong Chol is reportedly undergoing hard labor, according to the South Korean newspaper report.
(PARIS) — Paris City Hall wants to name a small plaza after Princess Diana, at the site of the 1997 car crash that killed the cherished British royal.
The site already holds a golden flame-shaped monument in her honor, adjacent to the Alma Tunnel where the accident occurred.
The plaza is currently named after opera singer Maria Callas. A city hall official said Thursday that the city council will vote next month on a measure to rename it after Diana. The city noted that Callas already has a nearby avenue named after her, and that the city wants to honor Diana for her humanitarian work.
The 36-year-old princess, her boyfriend and driver died after their Mercedes crashed into a concrete pillar in the tunnel.
Sandra Muller, the woman who kickstarted France’s #MeToo movement, appeared in court in Paris Wednesday, accused of defaming the man whom she said sexually harassed her.
Muller, a New-York based French journalist accused French TV executive Eric Brion of making sexually explicit remarks to her in October 2017, in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. She sent a tweet that said, “You too, can share and give the name and details of any sexual harassment you have experienced in the workplace,” with #balancetonporc (squeal on your pig).
A few hours later, she posted another tweet about how Brion had humiliated her and quoted his alleged crude comments about her body.
In December 2017, Brion wrote a column in the Le Monde newspaper admitted making “inappropriate remarks” to Muller at a cocktail party, “but only once.” Weeks later, Brion decided to launch legal action against her. He is now seeking $55,000 in damages, $17,000 in legal fees and demands that Muller delete the tweet mentioning his name.
At Wednesday’s hearing, lawyers said that he had “never admitted to harassing anyone,” but he did apologize for his clumsy or inappropriate flirtation, the BBCreported.
Brion’s lawyer Marie Burguburu told the court, “He said that one evening he tried to flirt with Sandra Muller as he liked her […] This is his right to flirt,” she said.
Muller’s lawyer Francis Szpiner responded in court, “If you do not feel that when a man stands in front of you and makes such a proposal, it’s offensive, I’m sorry for you. But, today a majority of women and men think it is.”
One million women experienced sexist insults in 2017, according report by France’s High Council for Gender Equality (HCE), which was the first major investigation into sexism in France. But these instances were rarely reported to the police, with the report finding official complaints were filed in only 3% of cases in 2017.
Thousands of women joined Muller’s call to expose the people who sexually harassed or assaulted them. One year after tweeting #BalanceTonPorc, more than 1 million tweets carried the hashtag, France24 reported.
Muller was one of a number women named as TIME’s “Person of the Year” in 2017 for her role in leading the #MeToo movement. Also named were actresses Ashley Judd and Alyssa Milano, and singer Taylor Swift, who shed light on sexual harassment and abuse by sharing their own experiences.
In court, Muller said: “[I] started a movement that spread through all levels of society” and that she wants things to change so that “sexist insults, whatever they are, are finally taken seriously”.
(JOHANNESBURG) — Mozambique says it needs $3.2 billion to recover from a pair of powerful tropical cyclones that ripped into the southern African nation earlier this year and left hundreds dead, raising alarm about the effects of climate change on coastal nations.
That’s according to a government assessment supported by the World Bank, United Nations and European Union for a global pledging conference that begins on Friday.
Some aid workers fear the worst is yet to come. The storms wiped out crops on the eve of harvest in one of the world’s least developed countries, and many people must rely on food aid well into next year. More than 1.3 million people are said to require emergency food assistance.
Cyclones Idai and Kenneth killed more than 650 people in Mozambique, plus hundreds of others in Zimbabwe and Malawi. A final death toll may never be known as some bodies were washed away.
It was the first time in recorded history that two tropical cyclones struck Mozambique in a single season, with one making landfall farther north than ever recorded. The country’s 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) Indian Ocean coastline is one of the world’s most vulnerable to global warming .
The cyclones will worsen poverty in the region and recovery will be “extremely challenging,” the government assessment says.
“It’s getting worse with time, steadily,” Mahmoud Shabeeb, spokesman with the aid organization CARE, told The Associated Press, saying the next harvest season isn’t until March of next year. “If people receive assistance, they eat. If not, they don’t eat.”
Cyclone Idai in mid-March brought widespread flooding that created an “inland ocean” and left panicked residents clinging to rooftops and trees for days across central Mozambique, the country’s breadbasket. In the region’s main city of Beira , population roughly 500,000, many rooftops were peeled away.
Six weeks later Kenneth arrived in the northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, shocking residents who had never experienced such a powerful storm. A long swathe of coastal communities was destroyed, and some areas are still difficult or impossible to reach.
“The sound was like a pack of angry wolves,” Ahmad Baroudi, a spokesman with the aid group Save the Children, told the AP after visiting devastated Ibo island and hearing accounts of the storm. Residents told him how they had struggled to put one foot in front of the other in the hurricane-force winds, and how everyone — even those not thought to be religious — were praying.
The cyclones’ effects on children have been widespread, Baroudi said. Fewer are going to school. Some are exposed to abuse and neglect. Some must work or engage in “survival sex.” Many are drinking unsafe water. Livelihoods have been destroyed.
“This response is surprisingly underfunded,” he said. Just 30% of the U.N. humanitarian appeal for Mozambique has come in. “This (pledging) conference comes really at a crucial time.”
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