The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.” Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile. Ukrainian military officials said the missile that hit Dnipro had reached a speed of Mach 11 and carried six nonnuclear warheads each releasing six submunitions. Speaking Friday to military and weapons industries officials, Putin said Russia is launching production of the Oreshnik. “No one in the world has such weapons,” he said with a thin smile. “Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development." But he added, "we have this system now. And this is important.” Testing the missile will continue, “including in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia,” Putin said, noting there is ”a stockpile of such systems ready for use.” Putin said that while it isn’t an intercontinental missile, it’s so powerful that the use of several of them fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads, echoing Putin's claim that even with conventional warheads, “the massive use of the weapon would be comparable in effect to the use of nuclear weapons.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia. "The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement. “These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orbán said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.” Orbán cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said. Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.” At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.” He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine. Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv. In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said. Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile. Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad. The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik. Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said.. Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.
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As “ Wicked ” gets ready to take theaters by storm this weekend, many online are pointing to the Hollywood adaptation of the hit broadway musical as having an added political significance just 18 days after Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the Presidential election. While he was a guest on an upcoming episode of IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit podcast , “ Wicked ” director Jon M. Chu acknowledged the politics of the story of the Wizard of Oz (Jeff Goldblum) and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West ( Cynthia Erivo ), joking, “A charismatic leader who gaslights a community that this woman is wicked just because she’s standing up for a marginalized group of people in the society, how could that be [political]?” Chu embraces that his movie will take on a new layer of meaning for many audience members after the re-election of Trump, but noted that impact is in part because politics has been baked into “Wicked” since its inception. Gregory Maguire’s 1995 book “Wicked” is a meditation on resisting fascist movements, a not-so-subtle theme that carried into its musical adaptation by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. A major underlying storyline of “Wicked” is how leaders, who claim to have the people’s best interest at heart, attack the educated — represented by professor Dr. Dillamond, a talking goat voiced by Peter Dinklage — as they try to rewrite the history of animals and humans co-existence in an effort to strip the animals of their rights, and demonize them as the source of the people’s problems. Through this lens, Chu acknowledged his film is prophetic, but only because the underlying IP is prophetic. Chu argued the original “ Wizard of Oz ” movie — released on the heels of the 1930s Dust Bowl (the drought-stricken storms of the Depression), during the rise of fascism, and on the eve of World War II — has always spoken to America in a time of transition. He personally experienced it at two very different political moments that “Wicked” entered his life. “When I saw it in 2002, I was in college, so I was still growing up,” said Chu while on the podcast. “I was seeing the world for the first time a year after 9/11, we’re going into war, America’s in transition, and everything is scary all around. And when in scary situations, people go towards strongmen who just take the reins.” Chu first saw the original staged musical in the Bay Area, where he grew up, before it hit Broadway to become a $6 billion global sensation. It would come back around to him 18 years later, now a successful Hollywood director being approached about helming its big screen adaptation. “I got this movie when we were in [COVID] lockdown,” said Chu. “So at that moment, those words ‘Defying Gravity,’ [Elphaba’s gravity-defying musical number after learning the truth about the Wizard], when she says, ‘Something has changed within me, something’s not the same, I’m through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game,’ to me, I felt like the whole world feels like this.” Chu does see “Wicked” through the eyes of being the son of immigrants. Chu’s mother was born in Taiwan, his father in Sichuan, China. He brings this perspective to all of his projects, and it’s a big reason Lin-Manuel Miranda selected the “ Crazy Rich Asians ” director to adapt “ In the Heights ,” a musical about Miranda’s Dominican and Puerto Rican immigrant neighborhood of Washington Heights. “The American fairy tale, they always say it’s put together with American parts: Resilience, self-reliance, and optimism, and I love that as the starting point [for ‘Wicked’],” said Chu, who personally draws inspiration from Elphaba’s “Defying Gravity” musical and metaphysical response to learning the truth about the Wizard at the end of the first movie, but part of what he finds moving about it is the underlying hard question of that moment. “The storyteller has been unveiled and now the story we’re sitting in, we’re wondering, ‘Was this ever true?’ Is the yellow brick road that my parents talked to us plenty times about in the ‘Wizard of Oz,’ when I was growing up as immigrants, was that a real thing? Or maybe it was never made for us?” For Chu, Elphaba’s discovery that there is no wizard who is going to fix all our problems naturally leads to an important realization: “We’ll have to fix them ourselves.” Chu went on to explain, “It’s not even about the truth... It’s when you find out the truth, when you wake up, what are you going to do? What’s your decision? Are you an Elphaba, or are you a Glinda (Ariana Grande)?” That that’s where the first of two “Wicked” movies leaves off will feel eerily prescient for many in the audience, who Chu knows will feel as if we are politically at the same crossroads as the two best friends just days after the election. “I’ve thought a lot about this, the timeless thing about it, that never ends, is the resilience of human beings and what we can do, and what we can get through. Because when the path doesn’t seem like ours, we always rise above and sometimes we even find that we could fly,” said Chu. “That is what we need now more than ever. I didn’t know that that’s what was happening, but that is kind of the process and tradition of freedom.” In acknowledging the film will play differently for many after the election — and likely knowing the film will need both red and blue state audiences to embrace its universal messages to dominate the box office, as is being predicted — Chu said he thinks Glinda and Elphaba, the two roommates who hate each other before forming a sisterly bond, only to be forced apart by the politics of Oz — could serve as a model. “Technology has brought us all into the same dorm room,” Chu said, drawing an analogy. “We’re suddenly all roommates, and we are not alike, and that person’s messy, and that person smells, and that person does this, and ‘holy shit, we have to get along.’ And now it’s like college, the only way to actually find peace between us is maybe yell at each other, maybe say the things that we need to say, and actually forgive each other and give some grace, because the only way out is through, and so this has so many ties to where we’re at right now. Look for IndieWire’s Toolkit upcoming episode with Jon M. Chu’s on Spotify and Apple Podcasts .President-elect Donald Trump called his meeting with Justin Trudeau productive and says the prime minister made a commitment to work with the United States to end the drug crisis amid the threat of stiff tariffs. Trudeau flew to Florida Friday evening to attend a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump's transition team is based. The in-person meeting came at the end of a rocky week in which Trump threatened to impose stiff tariffs on all imports from Canada and Mexico, unless the two countries stop illegal border crossings and prevent illicit drugs from entering the U.S. In a post on Truth Social, Trump says he and Trudeau discussed the drug crisis, particularly fentanyl, illegal immigration, as well as trade, energy and the Arctic. Trump's post did not directly mention tariffs. Trudeau told reporters in West Palm Beach Saturday morning that he had an excellent conversation with Trump’s transition team. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2024. The Canadian Press
Kansas City Chiefs back to winning ways against Carolina PanthersInside the Gaetz ethics report, a trove of new details alleging payments for sex and drug useNot so long ago, you needed only the major over-the-air networks and a few cable channels to watch virtually any significant sporting event. No longer. Decisions by the NFL, NBA and other leagues have left fans reaching into their pockets to pay for subscriptions to a handful of streaming services, incurring costs they never needed to worry about just three years ago. And, for some, that trend will continue on Christmas, when Netflix will televise NFL games for the first time. The streaming giant, which has more than 270 million subscribers, made a big splash by paying $150 million to acquire rights to two Christmas NFL games: Kansas City-Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. and Baltimore-Houston at 4:30 p.m. CBS will produce both games but Netflix will use announcers from CBS, NBC, Fox, NFL Network and ESPN. Three CBS announcers — Ian Eagle and studio analysts Nate Burleson and J.J. Watt — will call the Chiefs-Steelers game. NBC’s Noah Eagle will call the Ravens-Texans game with Fox’s Greg Olsen. Netflix began dabbling in outside-the-box sports programming earlier this year, including a tennis exhibition between Spain’s two biggest tennis stars, Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz. A Nov. 14 Mike Tyson-Jake Paul fight was marred by technical errors and freezing, but Netflix has assured the NFL that won’t happen on Christmas. Per the Associated Press, the Tyson bout peaked at 65 million concurrent streams, including 38 million concurrent streams in the United States. Nearly 85,000 viewers logged problems with outages or streaming before and during the fight, per the website Down Detector. Netflix is the nation’s most profitable streaming service; in the first quarter of this year, it reported revenue of $9.4 billion and net income of $2.3 billion. A Netflix standard plan costs $6.99 per month with ads and $15.49 per month without ads. Besides landing two NFL games, Netflix made another big splash this week, landing rights to the 2027 and 2031 Women’s World Cup. Beyond Netflix, an update on what streaming services you’ll need to have access to all major sports between now and the end of next year: Amazon Prime Video — Cost: $14.99 per month or $139 per year. — What’s offered: If you prefer to spend on just one streaming service, this probably has become the most essential one for sports fans. Amazon is carrying a third season of “Thursday Night Football” and also acquired rights to a Saturday wild-card playoff game that streamed on Peacock last season. Amazon will carry Thursday NFL games again next season, including a Christmas night game. Al Michaels, 80 is expected to return on play-by-play. Also, Amazon is spending $1.8 billion annually for an NBA and WNBA package beginning in 2025-26. That Amazon NBA package includes six conference finals over 11 years, the NBA’s in-season tournament, the play-in games, a Friday night double-header and Thursday night games after NFL season ends, plus some exclusive playoff games. Also, Amazon’s NBA deal includes 30 regular-season WNBA games annually, a first-round WNBA playoff series each season, seven semifinals and three WNBA Finals series over 11 years. Beyond the NFL and the NBA, Amazon also has NASCAR races, NHL games in Canada and Champions League soccer in England, Italy and Germany. And at some point in 2025, Amazon will begin streaming FanDuel Sports Network cablecasts of some NBA and MLB teams, including the Heat and Marlins. Everyone, including Amazon subscribers, will be required to pay an additional undetermined fee to access Amazon’s streaming of local NBA and MLB games. Netflix, Amazon and Disney are the only streaming services with more than 200 million subscribers. But many of those subscribers have Amazon subscriptions primarily as a purchase platform, rather than for the programming content. As perspective, 33 million U.S. homes now have cable television and only 13 million have satellite service, mostly DirecTV or Dish Network. ESPN Plus — Cost: $11.99 per month or $119.99 a year. There’s also a bundle of ESPN Plus, Disney Plus and Hulu for $15 a month, with all three streaming services carrying ads in that package. — What’s offered: Many of the marquee events on ESPN Plus also air on ESPN or ABC, but there are exceptions. ESPN had one exclusive NFL game this season: Chargers at Arizona on Oct. 21. ESPN Plus has a full slate of exclusive NHL games and select WNBA games, plus international soccer events including the EFL Championship, U.S. Open Cup and Bundesliga; Ivy League, Big Sky and Atlantic 10 conference sports; some ACC and SEC football and basketball games that aren’t picked up by ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU; and select golf and tennis events. ESPN Plus allows subscribers to purchase UFC play-per-view events and access an extensive archive of on-demand content, including the entire 30 for 30 series and game replays. Apple — Cost: $9.99 per month. — What’s offered: Apple, which produces more original non-sports content than most streamers, owns rights to Major League Soccer and Friday night MLB games. MLS Season Pass — which carries the league’s matches on TVs, phones and other devices — costs $13 per month or $79 for the season if you’re already a subscriber to the Apple TV Plus streaming service. If you don’t subscribe to Apple TV Plus, MLS Season Pass costs $15 a month or $99 for the season. Apple also has carried several sports documentary series, including The Dynasty: New England Patriots; Messi Meets America; Real Madrid: Until the End and Stephen Curry: Underrated. Peacock — Cost: $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year. — What’s offered: Besides simulcasting NBC’s sports coverage (including all its NFL games), the network has acquired enough exclusive sports content to make itself more important for fans. Though NBC’s streaming service won’t have an exclusive NFL playoff game again this season, it had exclusive rights to the Eagles-Packers game from Brazil in Week 1. Meanwhile, NBC’s new NBA deal, which begins in 2025-26, will give Peacock an exclusive Monday night double-header and two Tuesday night NBA games, one of which will air on your local NBC affiliate. On Tuesdays beginning in the 2025-26 season, NBC plans to carry one NBA game at 8 p.m. that will air in the Eastern and Central Time zones on NBC affiliates and one game at 11 p.m. that will air in the Mountain and Western Time zones. Both games also will stream on Peacock, meaning viewers in the East will be able to watch the Western game on Peacock and vice versa. Peacock already owned exclusive rights to one Notre Dame game and a few Big Ten football games each season; Premier League soccer and select cycling, motorsports, golf, college basketball and rugby events. Peacock also streams some Olympic events that aren’t on NBC or NBC-owned cable networks. YouTube TV — Cost: $82.99 per month. — What’s offered: The streaming service is paying about $2 billion annually for NFL Sunday Ticket, the out-of-market NFL service which was carried on DirecTV before last season. (DirecTV still owns licensing rights for restaurants and sports bars.) YouTube has changed the price of Sunday Ticket depending on the time of year; before the season, it cost $449 for a standalone subscription through YouTube Primetime Channels. For an additional $40, subscribers can add NFL RedZone, which shows highlights from all Sunday NFL games. Next year’s prices haven’t been determined. Paramount Plus — Cost: $8 per month, or $13.00 per month for the Showtime plan, which includes access to Showtime’s live sports coverage, such as boxing and MMA. Those are also available as annual packages for $60 and $120, respectively. — What’s offered: Besides all CBS Sports programming, Paramount exclusively carries than 360 matches per year from Brazil’s Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A soccer league, as well as all matches from the Italian Serie A league. Other exclusive programming includes the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Europa Conference League and soccer matches from the NWSL, FAWSL, and AFA. Paramount Plus also live streams the Masters (including coverage that’s not on CBS), PGA Tour event, the Argentine Primera Division and programming from CBS Sports HQ, which streams sports news content 24 hours per day. Bundle options In May, Comcast (which owns Peacock) announced it would offer its broadband customers a bundle of Peacock, Netflix and Apple Plus for $15 per month. Venu, a new sports streaming joint venture, planned to charge $42.99 per month for access to all sports programming from ABC/ESPN/ESPN Plus, as well as Fox and Turner Sports. But a federal judge blocked the planned launch of Venu, with a trial scheduled for February. Meanwhile, ESPN plans to launch a direct-to-consumer service at some point next year, which will allow viewers to cancel their cable or satellite subscriptions and receive all ESPN programming if they chose. The cost reportedly will be $30 or so a month. ©2024 Miami Herald. Visit miamiherald.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
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