Using digital technology to tackle environmental crimes in AfricaFirst Half_1, Orlando City, Enrique, 9, 39th minute. Second Half_None. Goalies_Atlanta, Brad Guzan, Josh Cohen; Orlando City, Pedro Gallese, Javier Otero. Yellow Cards_Williams, Atlanta, 59th. Referee_Armando Villarreal. Assistant Referees_Kathryn Nesbitt, Chris Elliott, Greg Dopka. 4th Official_Pierre-Luc Lauziere. Atlanta_Brad Guzan; Luis Abram, Pedro Amador, Stian Gregersen (Tristan Muyumba, 73rd), Derrick Williams; Ajani Fortune, Saba Lobzhanidze, Dax McCarty (Xande Silva, 69th), Bartosz Slisz; Aleksey Miranchuk, Jamal Thiare (Daniel Rios, 43rd, Ronald Hernandez, 49th). Orlando City_Pedro Gallese; Robin Jansson, Rafael Santos (David Brekalo, 90th+1), Rodrigo Schlegel; Cesar Araujo, Wilder Cartagena, Martin Ojeda, Dagur Dan Thorhallsson (Kyle Smith, 79th), Facundo Torres; Ivan Angulo (Nicolas Lodeiro, 79th), Ramiro Enrique (Luis Muriel, 69th).
“Gladiator II” asks the question: Are you not moderately entertained for roughly 60% of this sequel? Truly, this is a movie dependent on managed expectations and a forgiving attitude toward its tendency to overserve. More of a thrash-and-burn schlock epic than the comparatively restrained 2000 “Gladiator,” also directed by Ridley Scott, the new one recycles a fair bit of the old one’s narrative cries for freedom while tossing in some digital sharks for the flooded Colosseum and a bout of deadly sea-battle theatrics. They really did flood the Colosseum in those days, though no historical evidence suggests shark deployment, real or digital. On the other hand (checks notes), “Gladiator II” is fiction. Screenwriter David Scarpa picks things up 16 years after “Gladiator,” which gave us the noble death of the noble warrior Maximus, shortly after slaying the ignoble emperor and returning Rome to the control of the Senate. Our new hero, Lucius (Paul Mescal), has fled Rome for Numidia, on the North African coast. The time is 200 A.D., and for the corrupt, party-time twins running the empire (Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger), that means invasion time. Pedro Pascal takes the role of Acacius, the deeply conflicted general, sick of war and tired of taking orders from a pair of depraved ferrets. The new film winds around the old one this way: Acacius is married to Lucilla (Connie Nielsen, in a welcome return), daughter of the now-deceased emperor Aurelius and the love of the late Maximus’s life. Enslaved and dragged to Rome to gladiate, the widower Lucius vows revenge on the general whose armies killed his wife. But there are things this angry young phenom must learn, about his ancestry and his destiny. It’s the movie’s worst-kept secret, but there’s a reason he keeps seeing footage of Russell Crowe from the first movie in his fever dreams. Battle follows battle, on the field, in the arena, in the nearest river, wherever, and usually with endless splurches of computer-generated blood. “Gladiator II” essentially bumper-cars its way through the mayhem, pausing for long periods of expository scheming about overthrowing the current regime. The prince of all fixers, a wily operative with interests in both managing gladiators and stocking munitions, goes by the name Macrinus. He’s played by Denzel Washington, who at one point makes a full meal out of pronouncing the word “politics” like it’s a poisoned fig. Also, if you want a masterclass in letting your robes do a lot of your acting for you, watch what Washington does here. He’s more fun than the movie but you can’t have everything. The movie tries everything, all right, and twice. Ridley Scott marshals the chaotic action sequences well enough, though he’s undercut by frenetic cutting rhythms, with that now-familiar, slightly sped-up visual acceleration in frequent use. (Claire Simpson and Sam Restivo are the editors.) Mescal acquits himself well in his first big-budget commercial walloper of an assignment, confined though he is to a narrower range of seething resentments than Crowe’s in the first film. I left thinking about two things: the word “politics” as savored/spit out by Washington, and the innate paradox of how Scott, whose best work over the decades has been wonderful, delivers spectacle. The director and his lavishly talented design team built all the rough-hewn sets with actual tangible materials the massive budget allowed. They took care to find the right locations in Morocco and Malta. Yet when combined in post-production with scads of medium-grade digital effects work in crowd scenes and the like, never mind the sharks, the movie’s a somewhat frustrating amalgam. With an uneven script on top of it, the visual texture of “Gladiator II” grows increasingly less enveloping and atmospherically persuasive, not more. But I hung there, for some of the acting, for some of the callbacks, and for the many individual moments, or single shots, that could only have come from Ridley Scott. And in the end, yes, you too may be moderately entertained. “Gladiator II” — 2.5 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence) Running time: 2:28 How to watch: Premieres in theaters Nov. 21. Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
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Comelec exempts 48 projects from election banGoldman Sachs BDC, Inc. ( NYSE:GSBD – Get Free Report ) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, November 7th, Zacks Dividends reports. Investors of record on Tuesday, December 31st will be paid a dividend of 0.45 per share by the financial services provider on Monday, January 27th. This represents a $1.80 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 14.07%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, December 31st. Goldman Sachs BDC has a payout ratio of 102.9% meaning the company cannot currently cover its dividend with earnings alone and is relying on its balance sheet to cover its dividend payments. Research analysts expect Goldman Sachs BDC to earn $1.83 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.80 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 98.4%. Goldman Sachs BDC Price Performance Shares of GSBD opened at $12.79 on Friday. Goldman Sachs BDC has a 12 month low of $12.65 and a 12 month high of $15.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.26 and a quick ratio of 1.26. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $13.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $14.01. The company has a market cap of $1.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.27 and a beta of 1.06. Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Separately, StockNews.com raised Goldman Sachs BDC from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 8th. Get Our Latest Analysis on GSBD About Goldman Sachs BDC ( Get Free Report ) Goldman Sachs BDC, Inc is a business development company specializing in middle market and mezzanine investment in private companies. It seeks to make capital appreciation through direct originations of secured debt, senior secured debt, junior secured debt, including first lien, first lien/last-out unitranche and second lien debt, unsecured debt, including mezzanine debt and, to a lesser extent, investments in equities. Featured Articles Receive News & Ratings for Goldman Sachs BDC Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Goldman Sachs BDC and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .
By JILL COLVIN NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump wants to turn the lights out on daylight saving time. In a post on his social media site Friday, Trump said his party would try to end the practice when he returns to office. “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” he wrote. Setting clocks forward one hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall is intended to maximize daylight during summer months, but has long been subject to scrutiny. Daylight saving time was first adopted as a wartime measure in 1942. Lawmakers have occasionally proposed getting rid of the time change altogether. The most prominent recent attempt, a now-stalled bipartisan bill named the Sunshine Protection Act , had proposed making daylight saving time permanent. The measure was sponsored by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio , whom Trump has tapped to helm the State Department. Related Articles National Politics | Ruling by a conservative Supreme Court could help blue states resist Trump policies National Politics | A nonprofit leader, a social worker: Here are the stories of the people on Biden’s clemency list National Politics | Nancy Pelosi hospitalized after she ‘sustained an injury’ on official trip to Luxembourg National Politics | Veteran Daniel Penny, acquitted in NYC subway chokehold, will join Trump’s suite at football game National Politics | About 3 in 10 are highly confident in Trump on Cabinet, spending or military oversight: AP-NORC poll “Changing the clock twice a year is outdated and unnecessary,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said as the Senate voted in favor of the measure. Health experts have said that lawmakers have it backward and that standard time should be made permanent. Some health groups , including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have said that it’s time to do away with time switches and that sticking with standard time aligns better with the sun — and human biology. Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do, the date that clocks are changed varies, creating a complicated tapestry of changing time differences. Arizona and Hawaii don’t change their clocks at all.
AP News Summary at 7:00 a.m. ESTNone
The swift collapse, after 54 years, of Syria's al-Assad dynasty has just transformed the Middle East's geopolitical landscape. The lightning offensive by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia took all of Syria's neighbours -- and everyone else -- by surprise. The news that President Bashar al-Assad had fled to Russia confirms the one binding truth about wars: unintended consequences can extend far beyond the theatre of battle. The Oct 7, 2023, attack that Hamas carried out against Israeli civilian communities bordering Gaza triggered earthquakes across the Middle East. Israel's ruthless offensive to destroy Hamas in Gaza and in Lebanon against Hezbollah practically obliterated Iran's "axis of resistance", while the United States and the United Kingdom pummelled the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on international shipping. Syria's civil war began in 2011 when the Assad regime crushed peaceful "Arab Spring" protests. But the fighting largely subsided after 2015, when Russia's intervention, together with assistance from Iran and Hezbollah, turned the war in Mr Assad's favour. Today, with Iran's proxies destroyed and Russia's war-fighting capabilities drained by its Ukraine quagmire, the rebels saw their chance. With Turkish assistance, and apparently Qatar's as well, the rebels easily overran the regime's surprisingly thin defences, and Mr Assad's army capitulated without a battle. After Mr Assad's Iranian and Russian patrons hastily evacuated their forces and left him to his fate, a regime built on torture and mass slaughter no longer inspired fear. The end of Iran's alliance with Syria, its main stronghold in the Arab world, will reshape the regional balance of power. As Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former Iranian vice president, put it two days before Mr Assad fled, the Syrian government's fall "would be one of the most significant events in the history of the Middle East ... Resistance in the region would be left without support. Israel would become the dominant force". The name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stands for the liberation of the Levant, which in the early Caliphate's political lexicon comprises Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. But Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the HTS leader, has tried to project an image of a new kind of Islamist. He seems to have drawn the necessary lessons from the failures of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) and now sees himself as a pragmatist who aspires only to bring about the "liberation of Syria from its oppressive regime". A sign of this new pragmatism is Mr Jolani's instructions to his men to allow Syria's prime minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, to continue to run public institutions until they are formally handed over. IS would have carried out mass executions of soldiers and officials. Still, Mr Jolani leads a hard-line Islamist organisation. Those who expect that Turkey may temper HTS's extremism assume that Mr Jolani would be an obedient soldier of Turkey. In any case, Mr Jolani faces powerful political constraints. He must reckon with myriad rival militias that united just to topple Mr Assad and also with the Kurdish forces who rushed to take control of more parts of eastern Syria while under attack from Turkish forces in the north. To Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the ambitions of Syria's Kurds threaten to spur nationalist subversion within Turkey's own Kurdish communities. In 2019, Mr Erdogan sent his army to establish a 30-kilometre-wide "security zone" in northern Syria and push Kurdish fighters away from the Turkish border, an area where the Kurds had seized the opportunity of the civil war to consolidate an autonomous enclave. Mr Jolani now must work hard to find a compromise between the Kurds' desire to maintain their autonomy and Turkey's ambitions to keep them away from the border area. Will Mr Erdogan tolerate Kurdish territorial gains that he sees as a threat to Turkey's national security? Will Mr Jolani, who aspires to nationwide support, allow Turkey to wage war against the Kurds while he tries to form a governing coalition with them and uphold Syria's territorial sovereignty? Notwithstanding his chronic conflict with Syria's Kurds, Mr Erdogan views Mr Assad's fall as a grand achievement. He was ecstatic in following the rebel forces' advance. "Idlib, Hama, Homs, and the target, of course, is Damascus. ... Our wish is that this march in Syria continues without incident," he said after last Friday's prayers in Istanbul. For years, Mr Erdogan and his Qatari allies have been supporting Islamist groups throughout the Middle East. He saw himself in competition with the Iranians on what model of Islamic democracy should prevail in Muslim lands: the Shia fundamentalist brand or Turkey's more moderate form. Now he believes he has won the opportunity to shape such a model close to home. Although Syria's rebels have much to thank Israel for in creating the conditions for their success, Israel harbours no illusions about its new neighbours. Mr Jolani was born in Syria's Golan Heights (hence the name Jolani), which Israel captured in the 1967 war, and whose annexation and sovereignty was recognised by US President Donald Trump in 2019. With the rebel march on Damascus, Israel lost no time in deploying combat units along the Syrian border. Israel is concerned about potential spillovers of armed groups into the Golan Heights and attempts to attack Druze villages on the Syrian side of the border, whose residents have relatives in villages on the Israeli side. With the memory of Oct 7 still raw everywhere in Israel, there is no complacency about weapons stockpiles in the hands of Islamists on the border. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hubris should not be underestimated. If the Syrian tyranny collapsed, why not try to topple Iran's as well? Already, Mr Netanyahu could not resist the temptation of going beyond mere defensive measures: arguing that the 1974 agreement that regulated the separation of forces between Israel and Syria had collapsed, he ordered Israeli troops to seize control of the Syrian part of Mount Hermon, as well as the buffer zone in Syria's sovereign territory and the dominant positions adjacent to it. Key US allies in the region are similarly worried. They, too, would have liked to see Mr Assad remain in power, fearing that an Islamist-controlled Syria could become a haven for terrorism. In their view, Mr Assad was a known quantity -- and better than an Islamist rebel-led government, however moderate it claims to be. But now Mr Assad is gone. The Middle East is again in a state of dramatic flux that calls for everybody, winners and losers alike, to recalibrate their policies. ©2024 Project Syndicate Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, is Vice President of the Toledo International Center for Peace and the author of 'Prophets Without Honor: The 2000 Camp David Summit and the End of the Two-State Solution' (Oxford University Press, 2022).