Nicola Coughlan speaks about Bridgerton’s “color-blind” casting considerations

Nicola Coughlan hopes Bridgerton will forever help change the way people think about contemporary pieces.

The actress, who appears as Penelope Featherington on the hit Netflix drama series, appeared on UK talk show This Morning on Tuesday January 12th. During the visit, Nicola explained her conversation with the co-star Adjoa Andoh helped her understand the importance of how her show treated people of color.

“I’m talking to Adjoa Andoh … who is brilliant as Lady Danbury,” she said. “I said, ‘Color blind casting, it’s great, it’s absolutely the right thing.’ And she said, “Well, in a way, it’s not because it kills the race and the struggles of people.” And I thought, that had never crossed my mind, and I think the world we made have is a completely reinterpreted world, a fantasy. “

Regardless of how it came to be what it is, Nicola is proud that the audience clearly embraced the vision of the show, which is based on the book series by Julia Quinn and also stars Regé-Jean page as Simon, the Duke of Hastings and Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton.

“I would tell people, ‘You can watch Game of Thrones and completely undo your disbelief that there are dragons in this world,'” she continued. “For Bridgerton, you can undo your disbelief that we have a black queen and a black duke, and they’re the most amazing actors.”

The US requires damaging Covid assessments for incoming worldwide air journey

Passengers arrive on a flight from London under new restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at JFK International Airport in New York on December 21, 2020.

Eduardo Munoz | Reuters

The U.S. will soon require passengers to show they recently tested negative for Covid-19 before flying into the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

The move, which aims to contain the spread of the disease, comes because new infections have set records.

Starting January 26, arriving travelers must test negative for Covid-19 within three days of their flight to the United States, according to the CDC.

“Testing doesn’t eliminate all risks, but when combined with staying at home and everyday precautions like wearing masks and social distancing, travel can be made safer, healthier, and more responsible by reducing its spread on airplanes, airports, and travel destinations “said CDC director Robert Redfield in a press release.

The agency last month called for negative Covid tests for travelers flying out of the UK, as a contagious virus strain was found there, but has now been found in the US

International air travel remains extremely depressed due to the virus and travel restrictions that keep many foreigners from entering the US

According to Airlines for America, a trade group that represents most of the major U.S. airlines, international air arrivals were down 76% year over year in December, while arrivals from non-citizens were down 83%.

Delta Air Lines announced Tuesday that travelers booked on international flights to the United States by February 9 will forego fare differences if they want to fly before January 26, when the new requirement goes into effect. The tickets should have been bought on Tuesday or earlier.

Automobile public sale firm KAR is 100% digital years forward of schedule

An Indiana-based auction house emerges as a technology company amid the coronavirus pandemic, and the disruption caused by the global health crisis has turned a three-year process into an overnight success.

KAR Auction Services, based near Indianapolis, has made a name for itself in the used car auction business.

As pandemic lockdown made more businesses rely on remote work and citizens to shop online last year, the company digitally shut down auction services in April, CEO Jim Hallett told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Tuesday.

“We wanted to go 100% digital in the next two or three years,” he said in a “Mad Money” interview. “We basically got it taken care of in two or three weeks, and frankly, it exceeded our expectations.”

The process of digitizing the auction house began about five years ago, and by 2019 three out of five auto sales that KAR enabled were on the internet, Hallett said.

The company doubled in both the digital and dealer-to-dealer markets with the purchase of BacklotCars, an online dealer-to-dealer vehicle wholesale platform, for $ 425 million last September. BacklotCars serves dealerships in 46 states across the country. Dealer-to-dealer transactions are a key business for KAR, and Hallett announced that up to 15 million cars are auctioned annually under this umbrella.

By facilitating online auctions, buyers will have access to more inventory than is available in their local market, while sellers will have access to a larger buyer base, Hallett said. KAR serves 150,000 registered buyers in the US As of July, the company said it was facing a shortage of used cars in the wholesale market.

“All in all, it has been a win-win and our dealers are very pleased and satisfied with the performance of the digital model,” said Hallett.

The digital process has made the business more efficient, Hallet said, and the company’s cost of sales has decreased in recent years. In the quarter ended September 30, KAR saw its cost of sales decrease nearly 20%, according to Factset, followed by a decrease of around 23% last year.

In the first nine months of 2020, KAR saw sales drop 21% to around $ 1.66 million as the country battled the pandemic. Sales fell by double digits for seven quarters.

Cramer found the company’s workforce is now below 10,000 (up from 15,400 in April), suggesting that the gross margin, or the amount of capital a company retains for every dollar of sales, has increased.

Despite the downsizing caused by the online transition, Hallet expects the company to regain jobs as its digital business grows.

“If you become a digital company and continue to innovate, we will bring additional talent back into the market so we can support this digital platform and any digital acquisitions we have focused on going forward,” he said.

Since the start of the new year, KAR stocks have risen 11.50%, closing Tuesday’s session at $ 20.75 within the dollar of pre-pandemic price levels.

KAR stock was down nearly 15% in 2020 as the market rebounded from the coronavirus-induced shutdown in the first quarter of last year. The stock has more than doubled from its pandemic lows of less than $ 10 per share.

Tyler Perry’s “The Haves And The Have Nots” formally ends with Season 8

#Roommates, if you’re a fan of OWN’s long-running hit series “The Haves And The Have Nots,” we have bad news. It has just been confirmed that creator Tyler Perry’s popular family drama series is officially ending after its eighth season.

@Deadline reports that OWN Network recently spread the news that Tyler Perry’s “The Have And The Have Nots” will finally end after eight seasons and 196 episodes. The final episode will air in May, following the mid-season finale that airs this week.

“The Haves And Have Nots” is the final Tyler Perry series on OWN as part of Perry’s deal, which ended in March 2019. The series premiered in May 2013 as the network’s first script drama and one of the network’s highest rated shows. During the run, the series averaged nearly 3 million viewers and consistently ranked in the top 2 cable series among African American women and total viewers for all seven seasons.

Released a statement on the show’s final season, Oprah Winfrey said:

“The Haves and the Have Nots” was the first script-drama we aired on OWN, and to say it started from the day it blew up is an understatement. It is all thanks to the creativity and very vivid imagination of one man, a man I refer to as my ‘big little brother’ Tyler Perry. I thank Tyler, the incredible cast, the tireless crew, and every single viewer who watched with bated breath every week and tweeted with us for the past eight years. I’ll be watching with all of you this final season. “

“The Haves and the Have Nots” revolves around the intricate dynamic between the rich and powerful Cryer and Harrington families and the hired help working for them in their opulent mansions. The series stars are John Schneider, Tika Sumpter, Angela Robinson, Renee Lawless, Crystal Fox, Peter Parros, Tyler Lepley, Gavin Houston, Aaron O’Connell, Brett Davis and Brock Yurich.

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Dr. Fauci warns South Africa the Covid pressure may pose a menace to antibodies

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, sits before a Senate Working and Retirement Committee hearing on Health Education in Washington, DC, USA on Wednesday, September 23, 2020.

Graeme Jennings | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A mutant and more infectious strain of coronavirus, first identified in South Africa, is “disruptive” and could pose a threat to antibody treatments used to prevent people from getting seriously ill with Covid-19, said White House Health Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Tuesday.

New strains of coronavirus, first identified in the UK and South Africa, have raised some concerns among scientists that the mutated variants are highly infectious, although they do not appear to be any more deadly compared to previous strains.

So far, health experts have said there is no evidence that mutations change the effectiveness of current vaccines. However, there are concerns that variant 501Y.V2 found in South Africa may be more resistant to monoclonal antibodies, which has helped some people fight the virus when given early in their infection.

Speaking to health experts in South Africa, Fauci said preliminary data showed there was “a greater threat” that the strain was dodging some of the safeguards antibody treatments offer.

“It could have some impact on the protection of the monoclonal antibodies and maybe even the vaccine. We don’t know,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, during a question and answer session at Schmidt Futures. Forum on Readiness.

He added that researchers in laboratories at the National Institutes of Health and across the country are quickly trying to determine the possible effects of the strain found in South Africa.

“People ask me, ‘Are you worried about this?’ These are not the things I worry about, but the things I take very seriously, “said Fauci.

As viruses spread, they are expected to mutate over time as the peaks on their surfaces change, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 501Y.V2 variant takes its name from the N501Y mutation in the spike protein, which the virus uses to enter cells in the body.

This mutation can also be seen in the UK health authorities identified in December known as B.1.1.7. While both variants found in the UK and South Africa shared the N501Y mutation, they are different, according to the World Health Organization.

Fauci previously said that the mutated Covid-19 variations could pose a risk to the coronavirus therapeutics. Unlike vaccines, which trigger an immune response that attacks different parts of the virus, monoclonal antibodies target a very specific component, Fauci told California Governor Gavin Newsom in late December.

Dave Ricks, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly, told CNBC on Tuesday that he expected the company’s monoclonal antibody treatment to be effective against the UK-found variant, although the one in South Africa could pose further challenges. Eli Lilly’s drug received emergency approval in the US in November, followed by another drug from Regeneron.

“The South African variant … is cause for concern. It has more dramatic mutations to the spike protein that these antibody drugs target,” Ricks told Squawk Box. “In theory, it could evade our drugs.”

The CDC has not yet identified any strains of the 501Y.V2 variant in the US, although the agency has found at least 72 cases with the B.1.1.7 strain found in the UK as of Monday, according to the CDC.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt and Kevin Stankiewicz contributed to this report.

Walmart clients do not anticipate a fast financial restoration, says prime executives

Shoppers wear masks while shopping at a Walmart store in Bradford, Pennsylvania on July 20, 2020.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Janey Whiteside, Walmart’s chief customer officer, said Tuesday that many of its customers are not expecting the economy to recover quickly from the pandemic.

Nearly half of customers surveyed in November said Walmart were concerned about the current health of the economy, she said at the National Retail Federation’s virtual conference. She said 40% said they did not expect a “quick recovery”.

“Our main Walmart customer is absolutely not immune to the economic slowdown, and may even be disproportionately affected,” she said, noting that the pandemic has divided society as it has not hit some industries such as hospitality and others.

Walmart’s sales and earnings have increased during the pandemic as customers turned to its 4,700+ U.S. stores and website for groceries, hair colors, puzzles, and more. Revenue from the same store increased 6.4% for the third fiscal quarter ended October 31, and US e-commerce revenue increased 79% year over year. The company has yet to report its results for the fourth quarter of the Christmas shopping season.

However, according to Whiteside, the company finds that customers are feeling financially troubled trying to put groceries on the table and juggle other expenses such as school supplies for their children. She said, “Taking care of this group of customers who need us more than ever is the fuel that keeps Walmart going.”

“We know they continue to look for ways to save money on basic items. Whether you’re moving from a national brand to a private brand, look for small pack sizes and cherry picking deals when they’re available.” said she said. “We also know that they continue to make sure they don’t have to forego experiences for their families, so take a look at where to balance the wallet.”

On Monday, Walmart announced that it had created a fintech start-up with the venture capital firm Ribbit Capital. It didn’t say what services it could launch, but said they’ll be affordable. Walmart already offers some financial products like prepaid debit cards for customers with bad credit or no relationship with a bank.

Walmart’s plan to open health clinics is also geared towards affordability. The clinics offer lower prices that are listed in advance and can be paid out of pocket, e.g. E.g. $ 30 for an annual examination or $ 45 for a consultation session.

“In these times when everyone has so much on their minds, we also know that it is also important to save time and lift that cognitive burden on people,” she said.

Trump warns that impeachment over rioting within the Capitol poses an “huge risk” to the US

President Donald Trump doubled up on Tuesday over the incendiary rhetoric that sparked the Capitol riot, giving dire warnings that it would be dangerous for the United States to be charged for his conduct.

Trump also claimed that his inflammatory comments at a rally shortly before thousands of his supporters marched into the convention halls on Wednesday were not harmful.

“People thought what I said was perfectly appropriate,” Trump told reporters when asked what his personal responsibility was for the violence.

The uprising came after he and his family members rallied to urge supporters to fight him to undo the victory of Joe Biden’s electoral college.

In his comments before leaving for Texas on Tuesday, Trump re-used the language that critics said was fueling the mob, describing the proposed impeachment by the Democrat-run house as “truly a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in politics.”

“It’s ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous,” Trump said in his first comments to the media since the uprising that killed a Capitol policeman and killed at least four other people.

“This impeachment is causing tremendous anger, and you are doing it, and it is really a terrible thing that you are doing,” Trump said, apparently blaming reporters for his impeachment.

“To the [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi and [Senate Democratic leader] Chuck Schumer, to continue down this path, I think this poses a tremendous danger to our country and causes tremendous anger, “he said.

The president added: “I don’t want violence.”

“In that regard, we don’t want violence, we absolutely don’t want violence,” Trump said.

However, he did not expressly condemn the actions of his supporters in the Capitol, who were motivated to protest against the confirmation of Biden’s election as the next president by Congress and to prevent it.

Schumer later said: “Donald Trump should not stay in office one day, and what we saw in his statement today is evidence of that.”

Trump, who has been banned from a number of social media platforms for his comments since last week, also said in his comments, “I think Big Tech made a terrible mistake.”

In an obvious reference to his ban on Twitter and elsewhere, Trump said it was “very, very bad for our country and that is causing others to do the same”.

“And it creates a lot of problems and a lot of dangers. Big mistake. You shouldn’t do it,” said the president.

“But there is always a backlash when they do that. I’ve never seen as much trouble as I see now, and that’s a terrible thing.”

When asked if he would step down before his term expires next week, Trump did not respond.

Trump’s impending impeachment, like his first, stems directly from his actions to prevent the Biden from becoming president.

The House Democrats first indicted Trump in late 2019 for pressuring the President of Ukraine this summer to announce that the country was investigating Biden and his son Hunter for alleged wrongdoing. While relying on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump presented military aid to Ukraine, which was fighting pro-Russian forces, even though the aid had already been approved by Congress.

Three members of Trump’s cabinet resigned after Wednesday’s unrest: Minister of Transportation Elaine Chao, Minister of Education Betsy DeVos and Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

The hours of chaos at the Capitol interrupted that certification with a joint congressional session, but Biden’s election was confirmed early Thursday in a process overseen by Vice President Mike Pence.

The District of Columbia attorney general said Monday he would investigate whether Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., the President’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, and Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., Were charged with inciting insurrection with theirs Statements under criminal charges to be indicted At the rally in the White House shortly before Trump, the supporters invaded the Capitol.

Kevin McCarthy, Chairman of the Minority House, R-Calif., Reportedly told GOP caucus members that Trump had some responsibility for the insurrection on the same day.

Smallville’s Tom Welling and spouse Jessica predict child # 2

The Welling family has some great news.

Hosted during the January 12th episode of the Inside of You podcast Michael Rosenbaum uncovered Tom Welling and Jessica Rose Lee Welling are expecting their second child.

Michael once congratulated Tom on “another child on the way”. At first Tom played shyly and asked, “What? I do?” But Michael later noticed he was hearing the news directly from Jessica, which resulted in Tom calling for his wife.

“You lying bastard,” Michael quipped at his former Smallville co-star. “But you do! Another one is coming!”

Details, including the child’s gender and due date, were not disclosed.

Tom and Jessica are already proud parents of the 2-year-old Thomson Wylde Welling, whom they greeted on January 5, 2019. While Tom tends to keep his personal life private, he shared a little about his firstborn and found the toddler to be “weird”.

“He’s a good, cute, fun kid,” said the Clark Kent star. “He makes me laugh all the time.”

Trump comes out of hiding to threaten America with violence

Trump falsely claimed that Pelosi and Schumer are putting the country at risk by re-indicting him while indicating that more violence is coming.

Video:

Trump threatens the country by claiming Pelosi and Schumer are endangering the nation by prosecuting him again. pic.twitter.com/47Y9dhqTzO

– Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) January 12, 2021

Trump told reporters outside the White House, “In this regard, we want no violence, never violence, absolutely no violence, and the impeachment is truly a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in political history. It’s ridiculous, it’s utterly ridiculous, this impeachment is causing a lot of trouble and you are doing it, and it really is a terrible thing that you are doing. If Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer continue on this path, I believe it will mean enormous danger to our country and enormous anger. I don’t want violence, thank you very much. “

Trump didn’t tell his followers to stay away from DC. He made no promises that anyone who practices violence would be arrested and prosecuted. He made no promises to increase security around the Capitol or to do everything in his power to keep people safe.

Donald Trump is hoping for more violence again.

Trump does not utter the words violence, but the statements he adds to these allegations suggest that he is promoting a dangerous situation that he plans to use to blame Democrats for indicting him again. Trump must be charged and banned from ever serving in a federal office for continuing to fuel the flames of violence and division.

For more discussions on this story, join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC groups.

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Mr. Easley is the Founder / Executive Editor, White House Press Pool, and a Congressional Correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a bachelor’s degree in political science. His thesis focused on public order with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and professional memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and the American Political Science Association

CDC extends eligibility to anybody aged 65 or over

The Trump administration on Tuesday issued new guidelines extending coronavirus vaccine eligibility to anyone aged 65 and over, as well as those with comorbid conditions such as diabetes.

States’ focus on vaccinating health care workers and nursing homes has created a bottleneck, a senior administrative official told CNBC, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the official announcement.

“States are being told immediately that they need to expand to include those over 65 as well as those under 65 with comorbid conditions,” the official said.

The government will also stop holding back millions of doses reserved for the second round of Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines, the official said, adding that they had released doses that were held in reserve Sunday.

“The states should not wait to complete the prioritization of phase 1a before moving on to broader categories of eligibility,” said Azar on Tuesday the new guidelines. “Think of it like getting on a plane. You may have a sequential order in which you board people. But you don’t wait for literally every person in a group to board before moving on to the next . “

Approximately 53 million Americans aged 65 and over and 110 million people aged 16 to 64 with comorbid conditions can now get the vaccine if each state applies guidelines according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team announced Friday that his administration plans to release all cans held in reserve.

The Trump administration is expected to announce the change at a press conference Tuesday with representatives from Operation Warp Speed, the White House’s vaccination program.

US surgeon general Jerome Adams also confirmed the changes in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday morning.

“We will have clear instructions from the CDC to the governors that they should vaccinate people 65 years of age and older and those under 64 years of age with chronic illness,” he said.

US officials are trying to speed up the pace of vaccinations after a slower-than-expected rollout.

As of Monday morning, more than 25.4 million doses had been distributed in the US, but just over 8.9 million shots had been administered according to CDC data. The number is a far cry from the federal government’s goal of vaccinating 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 and 50 million Americans by the end of this month.

State and local health officials have said they are strapped for cash. They blame insufficient funding and inconsistent communication from the federal government for the slow roll-out.

Democrats and some public health experts have criticized the government for the slow pace. In a letter Monday, Senate Democrats urged the government to make changes, saying it “failed” states by not providing detailed guidance on how to effectively distribute the doses.

The US “cannot afford to have this vaccination campaign continue to be hampered by the lack of planning, communication and leadership we have seen so far,” wrote Chuck Schumer, chairman of the Senate minority, and 44 other Democrats. “The metric that matters, and where we are clearly moving too slowly, is vaccines in weapons.”

In an attempt to speed up the pace of vaccinations, the Secretary for Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, and the Commissioner for Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, last week urged states to start vaccinating lower priority groups against Covid-19.

The CDC recommends immunizing health care workers and nursing homes first, but states are free to distribute the vaccine at their discretion. Hahn told reporters that states should give shots to groups that “make sense” such as the elderly, people with pre-existing conditions, police, fire departments and other key workers.

“We heard in the press that some people said, ‘OK, I’m waiting for all of my healthcare workers to be vaccinated. We have a vaccine intake of around 35%.’ I think it makes sense to “extend this to other groups,” said Hahn on Friday. “I would strongly encourage states to give the states the opportunity to be more expansive about who they can give the vaccine to.”

It is unclear whether increasing the eligibility will accelerate the pace of vaccinations. Some states, including Texas and Florida, have already expanded their eligibility criteria.