Latest news with #chatting
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why in the World Was John Fetterman Dining With Steve Bannon?
Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was spotted Monday night chatting with Steve Bannon, according to Politico Playbook. Fetterman, who has displayed his own dramatic rightward shift, was reportedly dining at a top MAGA hangout near Capitol Hill with Breitbart's Matthew Boyle, when the conservative news site's old director wandered up and spoke to the pair for roughly 20 minutes. Bannon took over Breitbart in 2012, and directed the site to publish patently pugnacious rhetoric and conspiracy theories cooked up by far-right activists and white supremacists. In 2016, Bannon stepped down to join Trump's presidential campaign as its CEO, and went on to mastermind the authoritarian MAGA movement. Fetterman broke with his party yet again on Monday to condemn the anti-ICE protesters in Los Angeles. 'I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that. This is anarchy and true chaos,' he wrote in a post on X. 'My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement,' he added. Bannon has a slightly different view of the unrest in Los Angeles, which has been spurred on by Donald Trump's decision to deploy the National Guard, and now the Marines. 'We're in the Third World War,' he said in an interview published on Monday. 'And it's a battlefield that's everywhere, including in downtown Los Angeles.' Last month, a damning report said that some of Fetterman's staff were concerned about his increasingly erratic behavior, and Republican lawmakers flocked to support the Democratic senator with whom they'd inexplicably come to agree. Fetterman was one of the more than two dozen Democrats to support the Laken Riley Act, which would, among other things, allow the government to detain undocumented immigrants accused of committing nonviolent crimes.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Love Is Blind': How A Small Town In Sweden Took On One Of Netflix's Biggest Franchises
EXCLUSIVE: Around one hour's drive from Stockholm in the Swedish countryside, the small town of Strängnäs has recently found its place on the cultural map as the home of numerous versions of Netflix's Love is Blind. Although he's not in Sweden looking for love, Netflix EMEA chief Larry Tanz finds himself in the famous pods chatting with Deadline about this little known hub from which the streamer executes one of its biggest global franchises, and the new versions just keep on coming. More from Deadline Beaten Up By Trio Of Teenagers, John Mulaney Finds Solace In Bone Thugs-N-Harmony On 'Everybody's Live' Season Finale Lindsay Lohan Doesn't Want To Make Netflix Rom-Coms "Forever" Netflix Unveils K-Drama 'Notes From The Last Row' Starring Choi Min-sik, Choi Hyun-wook & Huh Joon-ho Tanz is in Sweden for the first time visiting the Polish Love is Blind, the sixth version to have filmed at the hub, with The Netherlands due next and Sweden, Germany, France, Italy and the UK having come before them. The colossal number of versions currently filming in Strängnäs mean that the town is occupied with a crew of hundreds of people for around 40 weeks of the year. When he zooms out and considers how far the franchise has come, Tanz, who oversees thousands of hours of Netflix programming per year in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says this was never part of the plan. 'We didn't set out to do this,' he tells Deadline. 'We're not in the formats business. We didn't approach it saying, 'Hey, let's find a format and then put it in a bunch of countries'.' Instead, Tanz stresses that unscripted juggernauts like Love is Blind, Rhythm and Flow and Too Hot To Handle have arrived slowly and organically via local commissioning teams, who he deems 'the powers that be.' These teams have to make their case to Tanz and his Netflix EMEA HQ team in Amsterdam for why a local version of Love is Blind would work in that particular nation. While this rollout has sped up of late, it is not a given that every pitch for a new version will automatically be given the greenlight. 'I am looking at Love is Blind and thinking about what is good sequencing and what is a good arrangement of production,' adds Tanz. 'How can we launch in different countries in a way that is best for each of those countries? That also makes sense in the bigger picture because we put all of these on Netflix all over the world. They're not happening in a vacuum in their own country.' If you're reading this article, you probably know the Love is Blind drill. The series follows men and women hoping to find love as they first meet in walled pods where they can't see each other and decide after several dates whether the power of their connection is strong enough to take the plunge and get married. The show then moves to them seeing each other for the first time, meeting families and other contestants, then deciding whether to get married in final episodes that range from the dramatic to the exceedingly dramatic. In the U.S., the show has aired for eight seasons and more than 100 episodes, while there are now 10 local versions and counting, making Love is Blind Netflix's biggest non-fiction entertainment franchise. A gargantuan effort is required to produce each version from Strängnäs, Tanz says. The set spans 6,500 meters with 20 pods and nearly 60 cameras capturing contestants' every move. A rigorous editing process is then required to locate the fun, heartwarming stories from the dull ones that are tossed aside on the cutting room floor. And that's before the show even relocates to other locations, bringing extreme logistical challenges in and of itself. 'It really is kind of like three or four shows in one,' says Tanz. 'You have the dating and pods, then we have to get everybody out without having them meet each other or talk to each other and then there's living together and then there's wedding planning. We have a big footprint here [in Strängnäs] and an impressive set up but this really is just part one of four. You have to think about things like the logistics of filming an outdoor wedding in Sweden in May, or finding a tropical location near a northern European country.' He pays tribute to the editors, who take a light touch approach but nonetheless have to trawl through an unwieldy amount of footage. 'The social experiment is produced but everything that happens inside is real,' he adds. 'Like anything in the unscripted space we're not deciding who's going to say what or who's going to fall in love or out of love with whom. There's a real time element, which is very challenging.' Each local version is made in consultation with the Netflix U.S. team and while there is plenty for local producers to learn from, the American Love is Blind has found itself in hot water of late after a string of lawsuits were brought against Netflix and the show's producers over complaints ranging from mistreatment, emotional distress and labor law violations. The whole debacle has kickstarted a debate across the Atlantic over duty of care in reality TV. While Tanz is not involved with the U.S. version and can't comment on the lawsuits, he says 'one of the benefits of the hub model is to have consistency and apply learnings from one to the next.' He uses examples ranging from duty of care practices to the UK team bringing in a fire drill procedure that has since been used in other versions. Espresso, fika and alpine motifs Multiple Love is Blind seasons may be produced from the same place via this 'hubbing' strategy, which has become more commonplace in recent years as unscripted shows go global (Both The Traitors U.S. and UK are produced from a Scottish castle, for example), but Tanz stresses that the set is torn down and built back up again to adapt to different cultures every time a new version arrives. Local Swedish crews work with producers and commissioners from each particular nation in order to tailor the set's culture, vibe and look. 'The Germans had a sort of alpine motif and then for the last Swedish season there's this beautiful view of Stockholm in the background,' says Tanz. The Swedes were also responsible for introducing fika AKA Swedish 'coffee and cake' culture to filming, while Tanz jokes that the Italian crew refused to roll cameras without their espresso machines and the French 'evolved the whole catering approach with a starter and a dessert.' On a more serious note, each version has to account for the social mores unique to that particular culture. This is evidenced by Love is Blind: Habibi, the Arabic version, which is filmed in Lebanon rather than Sweden but still falls within Tanz's remit. In Habibi, for example, the couples do not share a hotel room together before they get married, while an Imam is brought in to help with the engagement and wedding process. 'An executive asked whether [Love is Blind: Habibi] would work and our Arabic executive explained that it's actually pretty common in their culture for people to be set up and go on a path to being married without having dated or lived together,' adds Tanz. 'Those aspects are what we really hone in on, making it culturally specific. It's really fun to see these different conversations.' Tanz provides other examples of cultural dividers between versions, such as how the Swedish couples always 'stick together and pair off' once they've matched up while in the UK 'the love triangle concept is more common.' This, in fact, provided high drama in the first UK season when contestants Sam, Nicole and Benaiah found themselves in such a triangle. 'Someone one day will do their dissertation on cultural norms, dating and marriage and by that point there will be like 30 seasons of Love is Blind and they will be able to analyze why Germans like talking about horoscopes, or why some countries like to talk about romantic things in their very first conversation,' adds Tanz. He returns to these cultural norms and specificities frequently when talking up the desire for more local versions of Love is Blind rather than just relying on the American original to pull in punters from around the world. The eureka moment came when conversations began over the British version several years back. Tanz explains: 'A long time ago the U.S. version was the 'Global English language version' and then someone said, 'This would be great in the UK' but then someone else said, 'We already have Love is Blind U.S., and it's popular in the UK'. But the thing is it's not very British. We knew there was a really British version of this, and that comes down to the casting.' While each Love is Blind version is of course 'not happening in a vacuum,' Tanz says the ratings still skew local. 'The main audience is watching their own [local] version. There are big fans who watch all of them and talk about all of them but overwhelmingly the Dutch audience is connecting with the Dutch Love is Blind, the Swedish with the Swedish Love is Blind, and so on.' So Netflix may not be 'in the formats business' per se, but Tanz acknowledges that franchises like Love is Blind are not going anywhere anytime soon. 'What's great about them is we just get better at understanding how to produce them and what audiences are going to respond to,' he adds, wrapping up before heading on a tour of the Strängnäs set. 'If we didn't have these franchises, and we were making great, original, local ideas in every country, that could work too. But when we find these things that are so powerful that different countries and different audiences feel like it's their story, or their show, I mean that just speaks to the strength of the idea. Love is Blind is one of those special things.' 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Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Crews clean up mess left by lightning strike
Crews are cleaning up a home that was hit by lightning last night. 'The house shook, it was like a bomb going off.' Bill Grooten says his next-door neighbor's home got hit by lightning on Blue Water Circle. 'We were just chatting and then that storm hit, holy gees.' The homeowner told us he was inside his Waterford Lakes residence when lightning struck, prompting him to run outside for safety. Overwhelmed by the experience, he was unable to speak on camera. Drone 9 showed us extensive damage, so we decided to talk to experts about how to protect your home from lightning fires like this one. 'The only thing you can do for a direct strike is install lightning rods. They're placed on the apex of the roof, they're low profile,' said William Burden of WB Lightning Rods. Burden continues, 'The rods are around 12 inches tall and cost several thousand dollars. They're hooked up to a heavy copper conductor cable that runs through all of them. They go straight to the ground, 10 feet deep into the ground, in various locations.' 'To be directly hit by lightning is relatively rare, but lightning hitting your home can also do a lot of damage,' says Channel 9's Certified Chief Meteorologist Tom Terry. He further states that power companies can install surge arrestor devices on meters to stop surges from entering a home. 'And then if it gets past that, that's where your power strips come in. Make sure you have all your electronics hooked up to these.' Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Billy Woods' New Album Explores What We Fear and Why
On a late spring afternoon (that doesn't feel like April), Prospect Heights' Leland Eating and Drinking House is pretty empty. Four people are sitting at tables in the upscale cafe, chatting over a playlist of early '00s hits from artists like Ashanti. Eventually, Billy Woods arrives wearing a Black jacket, black shirt, and jeans. He says he's feeling under the weather after several European show dates. Crosscontinental tours are becoming common fare for Woods, the Brooklyn-based rapper boasting one of rap's elite pens. He's been rapping since the '00s, but caught a stride with early '10s albums like, becoming a darling of underground rap heads and steadily elevating his penmanship on recent projects like Church (with Messiah Musik), Maps (with Kenny Segal), Aethiopes (fully produced by Preservation), as well as his duo with partner-in-rhyme ELUCID, which releases under the name Armand Hammer. The two collaborated on 2021's Haram with The Alchemist and We Sell Diabetic Test Strips in 2023. More from Rolling Stone The Best of SXSW Day Two: Billy Woods, Jack's Mannequin, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, and More billy woods' 'Maps' is the Kind of Album That's Designed to Get You Lost Billy Woods' 'Sauvage' Evokes the Unease of Living in 2022 New York Now he's set to release Golliwog, his first solo project in five years. Over a sandwich and chips, Woods tells me about the new project that he's meticulously crafted over the last several years. Initially, the plan was to work on a new Armand Hammer project, but ELUCID was working on his album Revelator, freeing Woods up to pursue his first solo project since 2019's Terror Management. He utilized his ever-growing network to procure beats, prioritizing production that gave off the vibe of a horror movie score. Sometimes, like with the Conductor Williams-produced 'Star87,' he found something in a beat pack that fit his preference. Other times, like on 'All These Worlds Are Yours,' he says he worked with producer DJ Haram to turn an 'ethereal' Shabaka Hutchings beat that reminded him of a rainforest into 'nanobots just flying in and eating this rainforest up.' Other Golliwog production credits include the Alchemist, Kenny Segal, EL-P, Preservation, Messiah Musik, Sadhugold, Ant of Atmosphere, and Steel Tipped Dove. 'I knew it was my first multiple producer product in a long time,' he says. 'I knew that I had more connections than ever before. So, I tried to cast a wide net.' He made 22 songs for the 18-track album, eschewing his normal 'tunnel vision' writing process to take his time and write an average of just one or two songs per month. 'This is the first record [in a while] where it was up to me how fast I was going to move,' he says. Several artists feature on the project, including Backwoodz mates ELUCID, Cavalier, as well as Mascara, Despot, and Yolanda Watson. Golliwog reexplores a story he wrote as a child about an evil Golliwog. Woods says he's always been fascinated by horror story collections, citing Mariana Enríquez's Things We Lost in the Fire and Stephen King's Cat's Eye — the latter threads together short stories with a cat who finds themselves in every story. In his new work, Woods casts the racist, rag-doll-like caricature known as a Golliwog as the connecting overseer of the project. Though dark, searing production permeates the album, he says there's no overarching theme or thesis, with each song unfurling a unique terror. 'Misery,' the project's first single, depicts a toxic infatuation with a married woman, which takes a vampiric swerve at the end: 'Ragged holes in my throat, but I love to see those lips shiny with blood,' Woods rhymes. 'BLK ZMBY' sounds like a pessimistic depiction of African people from slaveship to a tool of capitalism. On 'Born Alone,' over doleful piano, Woods portrays the precarity of life in the streets, where he wears clean socks just in case calamity strikes — we don't often consider our fashion choices as commentary on impending death. On 'Cold Sweat,' he plunges us into a nightmare where the 'hallway was barely lit, air thick with dread / it's a room full of record execs on the other end and you dancin' on the desk.' Throughout Golliwog, horror is at the beholder's behest. Some people find vampires horrific, while others have trepidation about young Black artists dancing for boardrooms of white record executives. Songs like 'All These Worlds Are Yours' utilize pitched-down voices for ghoulish effect, but laid-bare bars like, 'today I watched a man die in a hole from the comfort of my home / the drone flew real low, no rush, real slow' from 'All These Worlds Are Yours' jar a listener despite his intentionally flat delivery. Woods says moments like that demonstrate his straightforwardness as a songwriter, which belies the popular conception that he's an 'abstract' lyricist. 'I think it can be an easy take at times,' he says. 'It's just funny that that will be a thing that people hang their hats on. Because some of the stuff is very straightforward. And I also do a lot of storytelling in my music as compared to lots of [rappers] — even those who I like — who haven't done a linear story in their music in five or 10 years.' He references the story he tells on 'BLK XMAS' with Bruiser Wolf, where neighbors get evicted and residents parse through their left-behind belongings; there's no layered double-meaning, just a story including the lamentation, 'How you gon' put folks out a week before Christmas — and they got kids? Them people sick in the head, it's sickenin'.' He rhymes about headless dolls in a pile of junk; in this horror story, the toys aren't supernatural, they're a sobering glimpse of a treacherous rental market. On Golliwog, systems often play the boogieman. 'I think a lot of horror is social commentary [on] what people are scared of,' Woods says. He gives an example of Rosemary's Baby, which is about 'an evil cult manipulating this woman to have their baby,' but also speaks to a woman being stripped of her humanity in a misogynistic society. He also references Toni Morrison's Beloved. Reductively, it's about a haunted house, but more aptly, it's a portrait of slavery. 'I think that when something is well written enough or hits enough different points of social commentary, people try to move it out of that [horror] space and it becomes a thriller or whatever, which is fine,' Woods resolves. 'But all of these [works of art] ultimately are about the same sorts of things.' And though Golliwog's sonic universe is a fantastic netherworld, Woods occasionally makes a real-life cameo to address some things. On 'Make No Mistake,' he sarcastically raps, 'When they say it's off beat, that's how I know I got them on skates,' referencing a common criticism of his unconventional delivery, which often prioritizes inflection and emphasis over earworm melodies. He jokes that the criticism reminds him of coming to America from Zimbabwe in 1989 and being told he was 'trying to be white' for raising his hand in school. Woods sees both close-minded kids and rap detractors as potential peer pressure he knows better than to feed into. 'Having already dealt with those ideas when I was a little kid, I don't pay them any mind now,' he says. 'Now [my] fan base has grown in a bigger position and people want to be like, 'You just talking. It's offbeat…' I'm not concerned. I've been doing this a long time. If you don't like it, you don't like it.' But to Woods' satisfaction, many enjoy the music that he and his Backwoodz studios peers have created over the years. He says he's 'so happy and proud' of what the label has become. 'Sometimes I think about it, I'm like, 'Damn, okay.' At this point, [we're] one of the indie rap labels that you could be like, 'Yeah, they do interesting shit, man.' Not even rap. We put out an experimental jazz record last year,' he says, referencing the band ØKSE's eponymous debut. He also notes that the label, which began in 2003, had success last year despite no release from the 'tentpoles' like himself, ELUCID, or Armand Hammer. Projects like Cavalier's two albums, and ShrapKnel (the duo of Curly Castro and PremRock) kept the flag waving for Backwoodz as a home for talented indie acts, genre be damned. And, along with being an artist and label head, Woods is delving into book writing with a memoir that he says has been 'challenging.' The book will chronicle his parents, as well as his winding journey from childhood into young adulthood. 'My parents being where they were from and who they were from,' he explains. 'And then ending up moving to Zimbabwe right after the revolution, [the] first 10 years of Zimbabwean independence and then living there for that time and coming back and forth to New York in the eighties and Jamaica, and then coming back here and being rudely thrust into life in the nineties DC area. Yeah, all of that's interesting enough, but more interesting really than anything to do with rapping.' He says he's 'pretty close' to turning in the book. In the meantime, he's set to drop Golliwog, a project that uses horror to put up a funhouse mirror to society. The album is laden with social commentary, but Woods isn't overestimating its potential impact. While noting the figurative 'beginning of the Fourth Reich' in America he says, 'I would not have this hubris to say what I can do about' the state of the world 'on an artistic level,' though he values art for connecting 'as human beings across time and space and experiences.' He adds, 'When I read Dostoevsky, I live in a world that he couldn't have imagined and he lived in a world which I have never seen, but I can connect to their ideas that can connect to my experience, and enrichen my understanding of the human condition and of myself and of the world.' That's exactly what many would say about Woods' work. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
Time of India
24-04-2025
- Time of India
Woman posing as IAS & gynaec dupes Pune bizman of Rs6.2L
Pune: A vehicle spare parts businessman (33) was allegedly duped of Rs6.2 lakh by a woman posing as an IAS officer as well as a gynaecologist in an online matrimonial fraud since Oct 31 last year. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The businessman on Wednesday registered a complaint with the Wanowrie police in this regard. The victim initially filed a complaint application with the city cybercrime police, and after verification, an FIR relating to cheating was registered. According to police, the businessman uploaded his profile on a matrimonial site. "He contacted a woman who claimed to be a gynaecologist and expressed interest in her profile. The duo then shared their profiles and started chatting on social media," an officer from Wanowrie police said. "The woman told him about her parents, who were also doctors and had passed away during Covid. She also mentioned that her married brother and sisters were also doctors. Initially, the woman lured the victim to transfer Rs12,000 urgently with the promise that she would repay the money by Nov 10. The businessman, however, did not give her the money," he said. Later, the woman expressed interest in his marriage proposal. She then informed him she was selected as an IAS officer by securing AIR 451 in the UPSC exam. "She also claimed that she was appointed as an assistant collector of Chinchwada in Indore, where she was undergoing training," the officer said. The woman then sent him the examination result and a parcel of 2kg of sweets to show that she was an IAS officer. "This helped the woman gain the businessman's confidence. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now She wooed him into transferring Rs6.2 lakh to her in 60 transactions. The businessman also sent her an iPhone worth Rs70,000. The victim later realised he was tricked after the woman stopped communicating with him and switched off her phone," he added. Pune: A vehicle spare parts businessman (33) was allegedly duped of Rs6.2 lakh by a woman posing as an IAS officer as well as a gynaecologist in an online matrimonial fraud since Oct 31 last year. The businessman on Wednesday registered a complaint with the Wanowrie police in this regard. The victim initially filed a complaint application with the city cybercrime police, and after verification, an FIR relating to cheating was registered. According to police, the businessman uploaded his profile on a matrimonial site. "He contacted a woman who claimed to be a gynaecologist and expressed interest in her profile. The duo then shared their profiles and started chatting on social media," an officer from Wanowrie police said. "The woman told him about her parents, who were also doctors and had passed away during Covid. She also mentioned that her married brother and sisters were also doctors. Initially, the woman lured the victim to transfer Rs12,000 urgently with the promise that she would repay the money by Nov 10. The businessman, however, did not give her the money," he said. Later, the woman expressed interest in his marriage proposal. She then informed him she was selected as an IAS officer by securing AIR 451 in the UPSC exam. "She also claimed that she was appointed as an assistant collector of Chinchwada in Indore, where she was undergoing training," the officer said. The woman then sent him the examination result and a parcel of 2kg of sweets to show that she was an IAS officer. "This helped the woman gain the businessman's confidence. She wooed him into transferring Rs6.2 lakh to her in 60 transactions. The businessman also sent her an iPhone worth Rs70,000. The victim later realised he was tricked after the woman stopped communicating with him and switched off her phone," he added.
