Latest news with #StateUniversityofNewYorkatBuffalo
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
House of Cards and 50 Shades sequels director James Foley dies aged 71
Director James Foley, known for helming two Fifty Shades of Grey sequels and 12 episodes of Netflix's Emmy-winning thriller House of Cards, has died at the age of 71. Foley, whose TV and film career spanned more than three decades, died 'peacefully in his sleep earlier this week following a yearslong struggle with brain cancer,' his family told The Hollywood Reporter through a representative. Born on December 28, 1953, in Bay Ridge, New York, Foley graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1978. He then earned an M.F.A. in film studies and production from the University of Southern California. He made his directorial debut in 1984 with the romcom Reckless, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah. That same year, he directed Madonna's 'Dress Me Up' music video, which would become his first of many collaborations with the pop icon. He later directed several of her other music videos, including 'Live to Tell,' 'Papa Don't Preach,' 'True Blue,' 'Who's That Girl' and 'The Look of Love.' In 1986, he went on to direct the crime-thriller At Close Range, which he entered into competition at the 36th Berlin International Film Festival. The movie, featuring Sean Penn and Christopher Walken, earned a nomination for the Golden Bear — the festival's top prize. Foley is also known for directing the 1992 crime-thriller Glengarry Glen Ross, starring Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, Kevin Spacey, the late Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris. Pacino landed a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal of cutthroat real estate agent Richard 'Ricky' Roma in the film. Along the way, he eventually dipped his toes into TV, directing a single 1991 episode of David Lynch's mystery classic Twin Peaks; a 1997 episode of ABC's one-season anthology Gun; and a 2013 episode of the horror series Hannibal. He later reunited with Spacey to direct the actor in 12 episodes of House of Cards, before going on to helm an episode of the mystery sci-fi Wayward Pines and two episodes of the legal drama Billions. His most recent projects were also among his most commercially successful: Fifty Shades Darker (2017) and Fifty Shades Freed (2018), the two sequels in the erotic romance trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey, adapted from E. L. James's book series. Foley is survived by his brother, Kevin; sisters Eileen and Jo Ann; and nephew Quinn, along with their respective spouses. He was preceded in death by his other brother, Gerard.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Democrats demand Senate GOP chair hold hearing on Trump tariff ‘chaos'
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee are demanding that the panel's chair, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), hold a hearing on President Trump's authority to impose tariffs on more than 180 countries, citing the 'economic chaos' caused by Trump's 'lack of a coherent strategy.' 'Tariffs can be critical to grow American industry and promote good manufacturing jobs. But many of the president's tariffs lack a coherent strategy, generating economic chaos and giving giant corporations an excuse to raise prices on Americans,' the Democratic senators wrote in a Sunday letter to Scott. They noted the Republican-controlled Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs has jurisdiction over key aspects of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump has cited as his authority to impose sweeping tariffs. Warren and her colleagues also warned that Trump may grant tariff exemptions to allied business leaders and industry. 'The president's tariffs also raise concerns about whether he will repeat mistakes from his first term in handing out exceptions to well-connected friends or companies at the expense of everyone else,' they wrote. A study by researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Fordham University, University of Oklahoma and Lehigh University published in The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis found that companies that made political contributions and investments to help Republicans before and during Trump's first term were more likely to win tariff exemptions. Meanwhile, companies that supported Democrats were less likely to secure tariff exemptions. Senate Democrats said a hearing in the Banking Committee would help shed more light on Trump's tariff policies. 'We urge you to hold a hearing so the American people can understand the president's plan and how it will affect their economic futures,' they wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Wall Street Journal
01-04-2025
- General
- Wall Street Journal
Would You Pay $500 for Bed Sheets? I Finally Did, and Here's Why
The other day I threw open the windows, ready to spring-clean and flip the mattress. Then I started to strip my bed only to see…sheets shredded by my husband's toenails. How long has this situation been developing? I spend eight hours a day physically interacting with my bedsheets, so how did I miss this? We all have private, recurring bedroom fantasies. Mine is that every night I tuck myself into crisp, unwrinkled, lavender-smelling sheets. But the sad reality is I give my bedsheets no attention—and on the rare occasions I do buy new ones, I get another cheap, $150 set that wrinkles, doesn't wear well and feels limp after the fourth go-round in the laundry. But spring is a season of renewal. Maybe I can change—with help. 'I'll spend money on things for myself—like a $500 pair of boots—so why not on the bedsheets I use every day?' I asked Charles D. Lindsey, an associate professor of marketing at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Lindsey, whose research focuses on how consumers make choices, said it's not unusual for shoppers to spend more money on items other people see. 'Clothing is a very public product, and you get social status from it. There's the emotional satisfaction when someone says, 'I love your sweater,' ' he said. 'But bedding is very private. You may be thinking, 'Oh, that's just something I sleep on.' ' A few centuries ago, I probably would have been more attached to my sheets—if I were lucky enough to have them. Before the 18th century, many people didn't. They didn't even have beds, much less separate rooms for sleeping, said historian Annie Coggan, an associate professor at Pratt Institute School of Design in Brooklyn. 'They slept on the floor or with the servants.' In the American colonies, beds and bedrooms were a symbol of wealth and status. 'In probate inventories of the time, there was a hierarchy of how things were valued,' she added. 'First was the bed linen—because a bedsheet took the most labor if you were weaving it yourself, or else it was imported from England or France, which made it dear. Then it was the table linen and then the rugs.' These days, when an expensive queen-size sheet set with pillow cases costs upward of $500, bed linens would still rank high in the probate inventory of my estate. But my inner cheapskate can't help but wonder: What makes sheets worth more than my $150 set? 'Oh, Michelle, when you have good sheets, it's like having a love affair,' said Tricia Rose, founder of Rough Linen, a sheet maker in San Rafael, Calif., whose Orkney linen queen-size flat sheet is $217. 'In what way?' I asked. 'They absorb moisture so you feel cool and sleep better, they feel fresh on your bed for longer between washes and they will last 10 years if you care for them properly,' she said. Laundering in cold water is easier on the fabric, she says, and 'whisk them from the dryer when they feel faintly damp instead of baking them to death.' 'But what about wrinkling? I can't get the binding on the top sheet to lie flat even if I iron it,' I complained. 'On cheap sheets they sometimes don't take care to cut the fabric with the grain,' she said. Also, high-quality sheets are woven from extra-long strands of cotton or flax fibers, 'which makes the yarn smoother, finer and softer,' said George Matouk Jr., a sheet maker in Fall River, Mass., whose company's signature Lowell queen-size flat sheets cost $549 apiece. 'They're woven from cotton grown in the Nile valley, which has ideal conditions to grow the plants.' My next call was to Manhattan interior designer Gideon Mendelson. 'If I were your client, and I hypothetically had a situation where my husband's toenails shredded the sheets, how would you convince me to buy nice ones instead of cheaping out on them?' I asked. 'First, I would tell you what my mother, who was a designer, would say—that we all should spend on our shoes and our bed linens. Those are the things we experience the most in a day,' he said. Next, he would recommend pedicure tools. 'I hear about toenails, and dry heels, and both are bad for sheets,' he said. 'I often put a nice pumice stone in the bathroom.' 'OK, I'm ready to make the leap—any other advice?' I asked. He recommended choosing a solid color to complement the other textiles in the bedroom. 'Sheets have to fit in with everything else, because they're usually the last element you choose.' 'So, undyed linen,' I said. 'I lean toward a cotton percale myself,' he said. But I prefer the texture of linen—and have long coveted Rough Linen's heavyweight Orkney sheets ('The fabric weighs 8.3 rather than the typical 5.6 ounces per square yard of linen and will last longer,' Rose said). I ordered a nearly $500 set of sheets. They were nice and flat post washing and damp-drying, and after I slept on them—so smooth! so luxurious!—I was a convert. I want these sheets to last forever. So I put a toenail-care kit in the bathroom.
