Latest news with #McGehee
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Advocates lead the fight against human trafficking in Shreveport
SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – Forget what you've seen in the movies, human trafficking doesn't always look like 'Taken.' It can look like a teenager at your child's school in your neighborhood. In most cases, children aren't kidnapped; they're groomed online, slowly and deliberately, until they no longer realize they're in danger. Tips for parents to protect children from human trafficking 'They're being promised things that are never going to happen. That's very attractive to a vulnerable child or a teen, and they think, 'Oh, this sounds great! I'm going to be a model, movie star, or singer,'' explains Laurie McGehee, Executive Director of FREE The Coalition to End Human Trafficking in NWLA. For many survivors, the trauma runs deeper than what's visible, it's not just physical abuse, but a psychological grip that can be nearly impossible to break. 'A lot of people who have been trafficked have been through incredible abuse, and not just physical abuse, but psychological abuse. Just the trauma that they've endured, and the coercion that has happened to them, where their trafficker actually has control over their minds and their bodies. One survivor told me it was like being in prison without the bars,' says McGehee. CPSO juvenile detective shares complexities of fighting human trafficking That kind of deep trauma doesn't disappear overnight, and that's where FREE comes in. They connect survivors with counseling, support, and resources to begin the long process of healing. 'The first thing we want to do is get an advocate in there, someone who is very experienced in talking to young people with trauma, so that we don't re-traumatize or re-victimize as we're talking with them and finding out what has happened,' McGehee explains. FREE doesn't just help survivors heal, they're working to stop trafficking before it starts. In partnership with Caddo Parish Schools, they now provide mandatory training to help teachers and staff recognize the red flags of exploitation. However, it's not just up to law enforcement or educators; every person has a role to play in spotting the warning signs and speaking up. 'Please call. We would rather you call and be wrong than do nothing, and you can always ask law enforcement for a child welfare check,' she says. Louisiana conference tackles human trafficking prevention If a child shows a sudden change in behavior, physical signs of abuse, or a lack of control over their life, don't ignore it. Know the signs and know who to call. If you'd like to learn more, the South-Central United States Human Trafficking Conference, put on by the FREE coalition, begins today at LSU-Shreveport. The two-day event will focus on networking, learning, and empowering the community to better prevent, identify, report, and respond to victims of human trafficking. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What Bill Murray learned from Bing, his 4-legged co-star in ‘The Friend'
A Great Dane named Bing stars in the new movie The Friend, which follows a woman (Naomi Watts) who must take ownership of a dog that her mentor (Bill Murray) leaves her after he dies. What seems like a dark premise offered Watts and Murray a unique opportunity to bond with Bing, both on-screen and when the cameras weren't rolling. Watts told Yahoo Entertainment she had countless positive memories with her four-legged co-star. "He's just pure, solid gold. Every day was a good day with him," she said. "You know what stands out, because it never really happened again? When he got a tummy ache from eating too many treats. That was the only time I saw him feeling low throughout the experience." Murray has worked with animals many times in his career, and he told Yahoo Entertainment that what struck him about Bing was "that he's himself all the time." "He's never anyone else. He's never another animal. ... He's true to his nature all the time, as opposed to a person, who can be one way, then another way, then 300 other ways. He's consistently there," he said. "You can look at him and go, 'OK, I want to be more like him ... where I'm actually the person who I believe I am.'" That's not exactly easy for a human, though, which is what makes Bing so great to work with. "To do that, I've got to sort of eliminate all the debris floating around in my head and my emotions to be inside my skin," Murray said. Scott McGehee and David Siegel, who wrote and directed The Friend, told Yahoo Entertainment that they did a "massive search all over the country" to find Bing, who plays the fictional dog Apollo. They found him in Des Moines, Iowa. "You could see in his face right away, he had an extremely soulful countenance and worked really well with Bill. The only hitch at the time was that he was a little too young,' McGehee said. Bing was just two years old during the casting process, so he still had some of his puppy features, which wouldn't work for The Friend. But the movie was delayed because of the pandemic, giving Bing four years to grow into the role of Apollo. "We just asked Bing to be Bing for the most part, and he was very good at that," McGehee said. Warning: The Friend The Friend is based on a 2018 novel of the same name by Sigrid Nunez. Nunez told McGehee and Siegel that the movie ends about one day before the book does. That's because in the movie, Apollo lives. In Nunez's novel, he dies. In the process of making the movie, McGehee and Siegel discovered a website that people use to check and see if a book or movie contains the death of an animal: But before they knew about that forum, Siegel said they decided that it would seem like "just a drag if he died." Siegel acknowledged, though, that plenty of movies involving dog death did just fine at the box office — I Am Legend and Marley & Me, to name a few. Books like Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows include devastating death scenes, but those books are recommended to children. McGehee and Siegel weren't sure if the age of social media has affected consumers' relationships to seeing dogs die on screen, or if the people who check to see if the dog dies before watching a movie would be the same ones to sit out on classic dog movies, just in case something bad happened. Murray had a theory, though. "I guess if you're not in the mood for it, you know, it's probably a safety measure," he said. "If a dog dies in a movie, is that bad? Well, it's natural. It's sad is what it is. ... You don't want the dog to die, and you're going to cry when the dog dies," he continued. "These are lessons, you know. What do you do when the dog dies? You get another dog. ... What do you do when you lose the game? You play another one." is in theaters nationwide on April 4.
