Latest news with #EyesWideOpen
CairoScene
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CairoScene
French Artist Sarilou Launches ‘Coeur Eternel' Party at CJC May 29th
The party features a lineup of regional and local female artists like Marcelina, Sareena, Contrasté and Femaledjkhaled. May 27, 2025 French alt-pop singer and producer Sarilou is set to launch her femme-fatale party concept, 'Coeur Eternel', at Cairo Jazz Club on Thursday, May 29th. Transforming the iconic Agouza club into her own 'eternal heart' world, Sarilou's party will feature a series of fun immersive installations, live performances, and DJ sets from a roster of regional and local female artists. Featured on the lineup is Lebanese artist Marcelina, who will be making her Egypt debut. Sarilou will be performing her newly-released EP 'Eyes Wide Open', along with a selection of her earliest tracks and some unreleased gems. Based in Paris, Sarilou has built up a reputation as one of the most promising talents in Europe for her volatile, cyberpunk and fairy-like sound, blending industrial textures with high-pitched vocals, reminiscent of global icons like SOPHIE and Cocteau Twins. The lineup will also feature Cairo's selector Sareena, Contrasté, with Femaledjkhaled –one-third of the IASC trio–on closing duties. Doors open at 8 PM. To book your tickets, head to Cairo Jazz Club's official website.
New York Times
30-04-2025
- Business
- New York Times
Andrew Gross, Best-Selling Writer of Thrillers, Is Dead at 72
Andrew Gross, a member of a prominent New York apparel family who abandoned a career in the rag trade to write nearly 20 crime and political thrillers, including five with the fiction juggernaut James Patterson that hit No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list, died on April 9 at his home in Purchase, N.Y. He was 72. The cause was a rare form of bladder cancer, his wife, Lynn Gross, said. In his solo career, Mr. Gross was known for works such as 'Eyes Wide Open' (2011), '15 Seconds' (2012), 'No Way Back' (2013) and 'Everything to Lose' (2014), as well as his popular series featuring the character Ty Hauck, a detective who probes the dark doings behind the mansion gates of Greenwich, Conn. He later turned his sights from high-adrenaline contemporary potboilers, often involving ordinary people sucked into a whirlwind of criminal intrigue, to historical thrillers. His 2016 effort, 'The One Man,' centers on a young Jewish man who escapes the Krakow ghetto early in World War II and later joins an American intelligence effort to rescue a renowned physicist from the Auschwitz concentration camp. Booklist called it 'as moving as it is gripping' in a starred review. Ultimately a prolific writer, Mr. Gross started late: He was in his 40s when he decided to trade the spreadsheets and quarterly reports of the business world for the long, lonely hours of a literary career. Mr. Gross was a grandson of Fred P. Pomerantz, the founder of Leslie Fay Inc., whose dresses and sportswear were being sold in more than 13,000 stores around the country when Mr. Pomerantz died in 1986. For a time, Mr. Gross served as senior corporate vice president of the company, running its sportswear division, as well as president of its Head Sports Wear subsidiary, known for its ski, golf and tennis apparel. He later became a top executive at Le Coq Sportif and Sun Ice, a Canadian sportswear company. Wearying of the corporate world, Mr. Gross decided to perform a career about-face. 'Basically,' he said in a 2015 interview published on the website LinkedIn, 'I came home without a job one night and announced to my wife and three kids that I wanted to write a novel.' Easier said than done. It took three years to write, edit and attempt to sell his first novel, 'Hydra,' a political thriller that was never published. Late in the process, after double-digit rejections, he recalled in a 2017 interview, he was sitting in his den and wondering 'what cliff to drive our S.U.V. off' when he received a call from Mr. Patterson's publisher asking if he would be willing to talk to Mr. Patterson. An editor at the publishing house, he learned, had sent Mr. Gross's manuscript to Mr. Patterson, a veritable fiction factory in human form. (As of this year, he has churned out more than 200 books in various genres, including thrillers and children's books, and sold more than 400 million copies.) Mr. Gross, who spent part of the year in Palm Beach, Fla., recalled in a 2016 interview with The Palm Beach Post that the editor had written on the manuscript, 'This guy does women well!' Mr. Patterson soon invited Mr. Gross to breakfast, telling him that 'he had several projects he wanted to write and not enough time to do them,' Mr. Gross recalled on his professional website. 'I had the incredible foresight to say yes.' Their first book together, '2nd Chance' (2002), was the second installment of Mr. Patterson's highly regarded Women's Murder Club series, about a group of women in San Francisco, including a police detective and a newspaper reporter, who band together to crack murder cases. (In 2007, the series was spun off into a short-lived ABC drama starring Angie Harmon.) To a literary neophyte, Mr. Patterson's tutelage was invaluable, Mr. Gross wrote on his website: 'It was like a combination MFA and MBA rolled into one.' As for the writing itself, 'we always began with a concept and an outline that came from him, which we fleshed out into a detailed chapter-by-chapter outline,' Mr. Gross recalled. 'No writer's block here, the road map was always there.' Thanks to Mr. Patterson's clout, he added, 'my first book was a No. 1 best seller' on the Times list. Howard Andrew Gross was born on May 18, 1952, in Manhattan to Aaron Gross, who ran an active-wear company, and Leslie Fay Pomerantz, whom the family apparel company was named after. After graduating from the Barnard School for Boys, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Mr. Gross enrolled at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he received a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1974. In 1982, he earned a master's degree in business administration from Columbia Business School. His fruitful partnership with Mr. Patterson included 'Lifeguard' (2005), about a Florida lifeguard lured by love into a multimillion-dollar robbery, and 'Judge & Jury' (2006), about an aspiring actress whose life spins out of control after she lands on the jury in the trial of a brutal Mafia don. (The story was inspired by Mr. Gross's own experience as a juror in a mob trial). Mr. Gross struck out on his own in 2007 with 'The Blue Zone,' a novel about a woman whose seemingly perfect life unravels after her father is arrested and charged with laundering money for a drug ring. In addition to his wife of 42 years, Mr. Gross is survived by their daughter, Kristen Gross Magyar; their sons, Matthew and Nicholas; a half sister, Liz Scopinich; and five grandchildren. In 2018, Mr. Gross published what he considered his most personal work, 'Button Man,' about someone from a poor Jewish family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan who fights his way up the ladder in the garment trade only to find himself in a Depression-era standoff with vicious Jewish mobsters. ('Button man' is not an apparel term, he explained in a 2020 video interview, but mob slang for a hit man.) 'It's a tribute to my grandfather,' Mr. Gross told Publishers Weekly, referring to Mr. Pomerantz. 'He was as tough as any gangster you'll read about in the novel. He was single-minded and driven and set a high bar for himself, and he succeeded.'
CBC
04-04-2025
- Business
- CBC
Low diamond prices raises risk of early closure of N.W.T. mines, experts say
Social Sharing All of the N.W.T.'s diamond mines are reporting millions of dollars in losses from last year as they deal with inflation and slumping diamond prices. With just a short time left in the lifespan of the three mines and more potential economic turbulence ahead, experts believe there is risk the mines could close — and leave the territory with no economic replacement plan — earlier than expected. Rio Tinto reported its Diavik diamond mine experienced a $127 million loss in 2024, Burgundy reported that Ekati saw a $94.7 million loss, and Gahcho Kué's minority stake owner Mountain Province reported a $81 million loss. Graeme Clinton is a Yellowknife economist and the owner of the firm Impact Economics. He also authored the Eyes Wide Open report published last winter, which painted a grim picture of the territory's economic future once the mines close. "I don't think nearly enough is made of the state of the markets which are most important to our economy," said Clinton. "These low prices could very well mean an early closure" at all three mines, he said. Clinton said there's no indication the mines will be closing early and he doesn't want to alarm people but he said the low prices are something the public should be aware of because closure could mean the loss of over 1,000 jobs, both directly and indirectly. He said that remediation also won't offer nearly as much employment as the operating mines will. "It's not like Giant Mine where there's going to be a 25-year legacy," he said. Heather Exner-Pirot is a senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa. Her research focuses on the Arctic and natural resources. She said her husband works for Gahcho Kué, and that there's fear among workers about what the slumping prices mean. Exner-Pirot also said the price of diamonds is important, whether the mines close early or operate until their intended lifespan is over. That's because if diamond prices remain low, the territory will continue to get fewer royalty payments. What are the mines saying? Diavik's closure is scheduled for the first quarter of 2026, Ekati is expected to operate until 2029 — although there's been some discussion on its lifespan extending — and Gahcho Kué is expected to operate until about 2030. Rio Tinto says part of the financial losses in 2024 were impacted by the tragic Fort Smith plane incident, the end of surface-level mining at the A21 pit in 2023, as well as weather and geotechnical issues. "We are constantly reviewing and managing our costs and expenditures to ensure we run a safe and profitable operation," reads a statement from Matthew Breen, Diavik's chief operating officer. Ariella Calin, a spokesperson for Burgundy, wrote in an email that "2024 was extremely challenging for Ekati due to historic low rough diamond prices with no relief on costs." Calin wrote the mine was also impacted by production being lower due to the ramping down of the Sable open pit and preparing for the new Point Lake open pit. "Even though we are operating in one of the most expensive jurisdictions globally, we are optimistic about the future of Ekati well into the mid-2030s. We will continue to work with our local government, suppliers and communities to help build a sustainable future for the mine for other generations." CBC News reached out to Gahcho Kue's minority owner Mountain Province and majority owner DeBeers. Neither responded by deadline. Why are the prices so low? Paul Zimnisky, an independent diamond industry analyst, said the overall diamond market has been challenging for the entire supply chain over the last two years. Zimnisky said lab-grown diamonds only represented about one per cent of the market 10 years ago, but five years ago it grew to about 10 per cent and now — it's over 20 per cent. He said another factor impacting the low prices is that demand for diamonds from China — which was the second largest consumer of diamonds — has gone down by as much as 50 per cent from pre-pandemic levels. What does the future look like? Karen Costello, the executive director of the N.W.T. and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, said a big fear for the mines were the tariffs. Zimnisky said looking forward, the tariffs could complicate supply chains and inflation could impact consumer spending overall. But he said if the U.S. ends up benefiting in the medium-term, it could help with the global consumer diamond demand. "Overall, I would speculate that a lot of countries will cut or reduce their levies on the U.S. in the coming days and a lot of this will simmer down," he wrote in a follow-up email. Zimnisky said the markets have recently been showing some promising signs in consumer spending on diamonds, which could be good news for the territory's mines. But even with a bounce back in diamond prices some experts, like Exner-Pirot, say it doesn't change the territory's fortune as the mines heads toward closure date with no industry ready to replace them.
