by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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ENTERTAINMENT AND CULTURE NEWS:
JAMES BOND - From BBC: The life of Sean Connery in pictures. The great Scottish actor, Oscar winner, and James Bond legend died Sat., Oct. 31st, 2020 at the age of 90.
MOVIES - From YahooEntertainment: Actor-director Jon Abrahams talks about he and Anna Faris' notorious sex scene in the horror-parody film, "Scary Movie" (2000).
SCANDAL - From Deadline: Actress Lori Loughlin entered the Federal Correctional Institute in Dublin, CA Friday morning (Oct. 30th) to begin serving her two-month prison sentence for her part in the college admissions bribery scandal.
POLITICS-CELEBRITY - From YahooNews: "Celebrity vetting" and $265 million public campaign to “defeat despair” around the coronavirus was planned partly around the politically tinged theme that “helping the president will help the country.”
From YahooEntertainment: Apparently, Grammy-winner Billie Eilish was among the celebrities vetted to "defeat despair." But she was ultimately deemed to be "destroying our country and everything we care about."
MOVIES - From ShadowandAct: Oscar-nominee Daniel Kaluuya ("Get Out") gives insight on his directorial debut, a live-action film based on the PBS children's series, "Barney."
SCANDAL-PORN - From Deadline: Legendary porn movie star, Ron Jeremy, will face seven new sexual assault charges in addition to the 30 he was already facing before today's announcement. Jeremy is accused of various sexual assault charges levied by multiple women, including one minor, and go back as far as 1996. Some accusations against Jeremy were not converted into criminal counts because they fall outside the statute of limitations.
MOVIES - From Deadline: The fifth film in the "Insidious" film franchise will move forward with series star, actor Patrick Wilson, making his directorial debut.
TELEVISION - From Deadline: The CW announces the premiere dates for its 2020-21 broadcast schedule.
TELEVISION - From YahooAVClub: Starz announces the premiere date of "American Gods" Season 3 (Jan. 10th, 2021) and releases a letter from "American Gods" author, Neil Gaiman.
BUSINESS - From Deadline: Layoffs at NBCUniversal's TV and streaming units to begin in November.
STREAMING - From Deadline: Here are more outtakes from "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" - the Holocaust testimony.
SPORTS - From YahooSports: The Los Angeles Dodgers (National League) are the 2020 World Series Champions of Major League Baseball. They beat the American League's Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 of the series, 3 to 1. This is the Dodgers first World Series title since 1988.
MOVIES - From YahooEntertainment: Judith O'Dea remembers her role as "Barbra" in the seminal horror film, "Night of the Living Dead."
BLM - From Variety: LeBron James' SpringHill Company and CNN Films will produce “Dreamland: The Rise and Fall of Black Wall Street,” a documentary examining the violent events of late May and June 1921 in Tulsa, Okla., that led to a slaughter of hundreds of the city’s African American residents.
AWARDS - From THR: The entire cast of Aaron Sorkin's period film, "The Trial of the Chicago 7," will be pushed for awards in the "supporting actor" categories. That strategy was used by the film, "Spotlight," which earned two of its actors "best supporting actor" Oscar nominations.
MOVIES - From Deadline: MGM has won the rights via auction to partner with "black-ish" creator, Kenya Barris, on a biographical film about the late, great stand-up comic and actor, Richard Pryor.
BOX OFFICE - From Deadline: The winner of the 10/23 to 10/25/2020 weekend box office is "Honest Thief" with an estimated take of 2.35 million dollars.
MOVIES - From YahooEntertainment: Actress Yeardley Smith remembers the "bonkers" production that was Stephen King's 1986 film, "Maximum Overdrive." Yeardley is now best known as the voice of "Lisa Simpson" on the long-running animated series, "The Simpsons."
RELIGION-CATHOLICISM - From APNews: Pope Francis on Sunday named 13 new cardinals, including Washington D.C. Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who would become the first Black U.S. prelate to earn the coveted red hat.
CELEBRITY - From THR: There was an auction of the estate of the legendary Paramount Pictures boss and film producer, the late Robert Evans. The sales added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars, including almost half a million for a collection of Helmut Newton photographs.
POLITICS - From YahooEntertainment: Film actress and Emmy-winning television star, Jennifer Aniston ("Friends") endorses Vice-President Joe Biden for president while throwing shade at clown presidential candidate, Kanye West.
STREAMING-POLITICS - From HuffPost: Even if you don't have Amazon, you can still see that notorious scene starring President Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, from "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm."
OBITS:
From BBC: The Scottish actor and film producer, Sean Connery, has died at the age of 90, Saturday, October 31, 2020. Connery was best known for playing seminal secret agent and spy, James Bond, Agent 007, in seven films over a 21 year period, beginning with "Dr. No." in 1962 and ending with "Never Say Never Again" in 1983. Connery also won a "Best Supporting Actor" Oscar for his role in the 1987 film, "The Untouchables."
From Variety: American screenwriter and television producer, William Blinn, has died at the age of 83, Thursday, October 22, 2020. Blinn won two Emmy Awards, one for writing the TV movie, "Brian's Song" (1971) and one for writing the ABC TV miniseries, "Roots" (1977), which he shared with writer, the late Ernest Kinoy. Blinn also co-wrote Prince's film, "Purple Rain" (1984).
From CDC: The Centers for Disease Control has a "COVID Data Tracker."
From YahooNews: Why does COVID-19 kill some people and hardly affects others?
From YahooNews: Yahoo has a dedicated page of links updating news about COVID-19.
From Deadline: The news site "Deadline" has a dedicated page for news about coronavirus and the film, TV, and entertainment industries.
From TheNewYorker: The venerable magazine has a dedicate COVID-19 page free to all readers.
From YahooNews: Re: the federal government's response to COVID-19: What if the most important election of our lifetime was the last one - 2016?
From YahooLife: What is "happy hypoxia?" And do you have this COVID-19 symptom?
From JuanCole: Remember when President Donald went crazy and suggested that we ingest household cleaning supplies and UV light to fight COVID-19. Here is the video and commentary from Juan Cole.
From TheIntercept: The federal government has ramped up security and police-related spending in response to the COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic, including issuing contracts for riot gear, disclosures show. The purchase orders include requests for disposable cuffs, gas masks, ballistic helmets, and riot gloves...
From TheAtlantic: The Coronavirus Was an Emergency Until Trump Found Out Who Was Dying. The pandemic has exposed the bitter terms of our racial contract, which deems certain lives of greater value than others.
From ProPublica: Hospital's Secret COVID-19 Policy Separated Native American Mothers From Their Newborns
From TheGuardian: More than 20 million Americans could have contracted COVID-19, experts say.
From RSN/WashPost: The COVID-19 mutation that has taken over the world.
7/13 - From YahooSports: Maybe a pandemic means that there will not be college football this fall.
7/13- From YahooNews: The CDC adds four new symptoms (including nausea and purple or blue lesions on feet and toes) to the list of COVID-19 symptoms.
7/19 - From YahooFinance: Harvard Public Health professor Dr. Howard Koh says the U.S. "needs to regroup" to find COVID-19.
7/22 - From YahooNews: A public health employee predicted Florida's coronavirus catastrophe — then she was fired.
7/22 - From YahooLifestyle: Florida mom loses son, 20, to coronavirus, and then days later, her daughter.
7/23 - From TheWrap: The site has a list of movie and TV stars, entertainment and sports figures who have tested positive for COVID-19
From Bloomberg: Will the COVID-19 pandemic turn Millennials into socialists?
7/27 - From CNN: Chief of critical care at Baltimore's Mercy Medical Center, Dr. Joseph Costa, passes away due to Covid-19 complications... after treating the hospital's sickest COVID-19 patients. He was 56 and leaves behind family, including a husband of 28 years.
7/31 - From Slate: COVID-19 is airborne - for reals!
8/9 - From YahooAFP: According to the real-time tally kept by John Hopkins University, the United States has hit 5 million cases of COVID-19.
8/16 - From Truthout: COVID Deaths Continue to Surge in Countries Led by Far Right Authoritarians
9/19 - From WashPost: U.S. coronavirus death toll reaches 200,000
9/23 - From CNBC: Mark Cuban, who owns the NBA's Dallas Mavericks and star of ABC's "Shark Tank," suggests that every household in American get a $1000 check every two weeks for the next two months.
9/28 - From Deadline: John Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker reports that over 1 million people have died of COVID-19 worldwide.
10/2 - From YahooNews: President Donald and the First Lady have tested positive for COVID-19.
10/26 - From YahooFinance: Walmart CEO detects a new wave a panic buying as consumers stock up for another surge in coronavirus cases.
10/31 - From Reuters: The United States set a new all-time high for coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period on Friday, reporting just over 100,000 new infections to surpass the record total of 91,000 posted a day earlier, according to a Reuters tally.
BLACK LIVES MATTER:
From RSN: Judge's Blistering Opinion Says Courts Have Placed Police Beyond Accountability
From TheGuardian: Yusef Salaam, one of the "Central Park Five," says in an interview, "Trump would have had me hanging from a tree in Central Park."
From NPR: Prosecutors' plea deal required drug suspect to name Breonna Taylor a "co-defendant."
From ChicagoSunTimes: Rev. Jesse Jackson: America has millions of people in poverty because Americans choose not to demand the policies that would lift them out of poverty.
From APNews: No one will be held accountable for the killing of Louisville African-American resident, Breonna Taylor.
From Channel4: Revealed: Trump campaign strategy to deter millions of Black Americans from voting in 2016
From GuardianUK: California is going to consider paying reparations to the descendants of African slaves after adopting a landmark law to study and to develop proposals around the issue.
From TheRoot: What to Do When Your Country Turns Into a Dumpster Fire
From Vox: It's True: 1 in 1,000 Black Americans Have Died in the Covid-19 Pandemic
From CBS: Breonna Taylor's boyfriend certain cops didn't identify themselves
