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Michael Jai White saddles up for ‘Outlaw Johnny Black’

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

As the writer, director and star of “Outlaw Johnny Black,” Michael Jai White revives the Hollywood Western of the 1970s Blaxploitation era.As a cowboy who pretends to be a preacher in order to avenge his father’s death and deal justice to a greedy land baron, White, 55, specifically nods to the light-hearted Sidney Poitier-Harry Belafonte ‘70s Western “Buck and the Preacher Man.”But isn’t White, who had a hit with “Black Dynamite,” another Blaxploitation riff, gambling with a Western?“I love Westerns. I think when they’re done right, people respond,” White, who has an exemption during the actors’ strike to promote his independent movie, said in a Zoom interview. “One of my favorites is ‘Unforgiven’ but I always intended on doing a Western in the Blaxploitation era, kind of harken back to that.“Just like with ‘Black Dynamite,’ this is a look back at movies set up to be circa 1972-73, that kind of thing. I guess if you look at the Duffer Brothers, they brought back the ‘80s with...

New hire eager for a promotion before Day 1 on job

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

Q. I’m extending an offer to a candidate soon. They’re a perfect fit for the job, but I know a promotion is on her mind. And she hasn’t even started yet. How can I manage her expectations that she needs to learn this job first before advancing?A. It’s a Catch-22 — terrific that you have an ambitious new hire who’s a perfect fit as you say and you don’t want to diminish her motivation and ambition. I’d meet with her in the beginning to set goals for the year and outline the path to promotion and what type of skills need to be developed and metrics/goals that need to be met for that to potentially happen. This way, she has a clearly defined road map, but is also aware of what needs to be accomplished.You may or may not want to include a timeline. She may be on the fast track so a promotion two years from now may occur sooner than that; or there may be budgetary constraints so you may say one year but a year from now, it may not be possib...

Editorial: JP Progressives are wearing blinders

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

The truth is endangered, especially on the Boston City Council.That’s why we must address the Jamaica Plain Progressives’ flawed support Sunday of District 6 Councilor Kendra Lara on the eve of Tuesday’s preliminary election.It’s a fact that members of the JPP went rogue and helped fund Lara’s independent crash analysis, as first reported in the Herald. It’s also true they did so without informing group leadership as Lara’s endorsement was being considered.It’s clear Lara is desperately trying to control the narrative so she can keep her job that will pay $115,000 next year. Her case remains in a court of law, but she doesn’t have time for courts. She wants her accident adjudicated in the court of public opinion.That cannot go unchallenged.Lara is accused of speeding on June 30. The officer who wrote the report said Lara had been traveling at least 53.41 mph, and as fast as 59.29 mph, at the point of impact.She is accused of cras...

Moore: Biden’s killing American dream of homeownership

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

In boasting about Bidenomics two weeks ago in Milwaukee, President Joe Biden declared that his policies are “restoring the American dream.” Then he went into his creepy whispering mode and assured us “it’s working.”Huh?Isn’t a big aspiration of the American dream owning a home? Biden keeps making first-time homeownership harder for young families for two reasons. One is that the overall jump in inflation and the slower increase in wages and salaries means that homes are more expensive. High home prices benefit those who already own their homes, but much of the increased value is due to general inflation, which reached a high of 9% last year and hurts everyone.A bigger killer for first-time homebuyers has been the steady rise in mortgage rates under Biden. When he came into office, the mortgage rate was 2.9% nationally. Now it is 7.1%, thanks in no small part to the Federal Reserve’s 11 interest rate increases prompted by the $6 trillion Bide...

Dear Abby: Teen’s antics leave bad taste with grandma

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

Dear Abby: I generally have an excellent relationship with my 14-year-old granddaughter. However, she thinks it’s funny to tell me outrageous lies with a straight face to see if she can get me to believe them. She laughs when I am unsure of whether she is telling the truth.Once she told me her family was going to Hawaii for a month (she lives with her father rather than with my daughter, so I’m not privy to his plans). Another time, she jerked her arms around and said she has “tics.” When I asked what she was talking about, she announced she had Tourette’s syndrome.Both were untrue. I had epilepsy as a teenager, so I’m especially sensitive about a grandchild developing a neurological condition at the age I was. It felt like a cruel thing for her to do to me, and I was not amused. When I told her I didn’t like it, she giggled and said, “Oh, Grandma!”I had arranged for her to do weekly yard work for me, but now I’m having sec...

The United States marks 22 years since 9/11, from ground zero to Alaska

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.Commemorations stretch from the attack sites — at New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — to Alaska and beyond. President Joe Biden is due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage.His visit, en route to Washington, D.C., from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote. The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.On that day, “we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling — that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help,” said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland Count...

Stock market today: Asian shares mostly higher as investors await US inflation, China economic data

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

Stock prices were mostly higher in Asia on Monday as investors awaited U.S. inflation figures and China’s latest economic data. Benchmarks fell in Hong Kong and Tokyo but rose in Shanghai, Sydney and Seoul. A surge in oil prices has added to worries that inflation may not be waning as hoped in the U.S and other major economies. That could lead the Federal Reserve and other central banks to keep interest rates higher for longer, which would hurt prices for shares and other investments. Over the weekend, China reported a slight increase in its own inflation data, suggesting deflationary pressures seen as a sign of weakness in its slowing economy might be easing. The government is due to report industrial output for August later in the week. “We expect inflation to rebound further over the coming months, as policy support drives a modest recovery in China’s economic momentum,” Zichun Huang of Capital Economics said in a commentary.The Shanghai Composite index gained 0.6% to 3,133.85, w...

Lahaina’s fire-stricken Filipino residents are key to tourism and local culture. Will they stay?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

LAHAINA, Hawaii (AP) — Ambulance and fire truck sirens wailed outside as Elsie Rosales stripped linens from king-sized mattresses at a beachfront resort in Lahaina.She tried to focus on the work, but was beset by dread: Had a wildfire taken the home she scrimped to buy on a housekeeper’s wages?It had. And now Rosales, like many other Filipino housekeepers used to cleaning hotels, is living in one with her family, a poignant example of how the deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has afflicted Maui’s heavily Filipino population.“All our hard work burned,” Rosales told The Associated Press in an interview conducted in Ilocano, her native language. “There is nothing left.”The disaster has prompted fears about what will become of Lahaina’s community and character as it rebuilds. Many are concerned residents like Rosales won’t be able to afford to live in Lahaina after the community is rebuilt, and that affluent outsiders seeking a home in the oceanfront town will price them ou...

Patients need doctors who look like them. Can medicine diversify without affirmative action?

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Dr. Starling Tolliver knew she wanted to become a doctor. Yet, as a Black girl growing up in Akron, Ohio, it was a dream that felt out of reach.She rarely saw doctors who looked like her. As a child, she experienced severe hair loss, and struggled to find a dermatologist who could help. Tolliver made a pact with two childhood best friends to become doctors who would care for Black and underserved communities like their own. Now 30, she is in her final year of dermatology residency at Wayne State University in Detroit. She plans to spend her career caring for the body’s largest organ, where differences in melanin give humans the skin colors underpinning the construct of race. In dermatology, only 3% of U.S. doctors are Black.Despite her success, the girls’ pact remains unfulfilled. While her friend Charmaine became a nurse, Maria, who wanted to become a pediatrician, was killed in their hometown at the age of 19. Her friend’s death only strengthened her res...

What to know about the Morocco earthquake and the efforts to help

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:46:54 GMT

An earthquake has sown destruction and devastation in Morocco, where death and injury counts continue to rise as rescue crews dig out people both alive and dead in villages that were reduced to rubble.Law enforcement and aid workers — both Moroccan and international — have arrived in the region south of Marrakech that was hardest hit by the magnitude-6.8 tremor Friday night and several aftershocks. Residents await food, water and electricity, and giant boulders now block steep mountain roads.Here’s what you need to know:WHAT ARE THE AREAS MOST AFFECTED?The epicenter was high in the Atlas Mountains about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Marrakech in Al Haouz province.The region is largely rural, made up of red-rock mountains, picturesque gorges and glistening streams and lakes. For residents like Hamid Idsalah, a 72-year-old mountain guide from the Ouargane Valley, it is unclear what the future holds.Idsalah relies on Moroccan and foreign tourists who visit the region due to its pro...