Archives par mot-clé : video prmotions

A celebrity photo, the wrong envelope: the missteps before the Oscars mistake

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One of the two accountants in charge of Oscars vote counting mistakenly handed actor Warren Beatty the wrong envelope for the best picture award, sparking the chaotic ending of the Academy Awards, a spokesman for the accounting firm said Monday.

Beatty was handed the wrong envelope during Sunday night’s show by Brian Cullinan, a managing partner of PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, who heads the firm’s relationship with the Oscars, PwC spokesman Mao-Lin Shen said, declining to elaborate.

When he opened the envelope for the best picture award, a confused Beatty showed it to actress and fellow presenter Faye Dunaway, who proclaimed “La La Land” when the award, in fact, belonged to “Moonlight.” But the two presenters had been reading from a card announcing that Emma Stone was named best actress for her work in “La La Land.”

Moments before the mistake, Cullinan had posted a photo on Twitter of Stone holding her Oscar, but it wasn’t immediately clear if that contributed to him then handing the wrong envelope to Beatty. Cullinan deleted the Stone photo tweet, but Times reporters have seen copies of the tweet accessible on Google’s servers. 

Beyond Oscars' best picture chaos, 'Moonlight' and 'La La Land' disrupt the status quo

Beyond Oscars’ best picture chaos, ‘Moonlight’ and ‘La La Land’ disrupt the status quo

No one who has paid attention to the Academy Awards over the past 89 years has ever seen anything like “Moonlight’s” shocking, exhilarating, stomach-churning come-from-behind Oscar win on Sunday night — a victory that stunned the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers watching around the world.

In…

No one who has paid attention to the Academy Awards over the past 89 years has ever seen anything like “Moonlight’s” shocking, exhilarating, stomach-churning come-from-behind Oscar win on Sunday night — a victory that stunned the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers watching around the world.

In…

(Justin Chang)

After the shocking error was rectified on the stage of the Dolby Theatre, PwC went from being a venerable partner of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a punchline. That was especially true on social media such as Twitter, where the firm repeatedly was lambasted with snide remarks about how it “had only one job” at the Oscars and blew it.

Shen declined comment on whether Cullinan faced any disciplinary action or whether the firm’s contract with the academy might be affected by the mistake.

In any case, PwC’s reputation has taken a hit, at least for now, some analysts said. But PwC’s long-term reputation and brand loyalty among its corporate clients should remain intact — if PwC quickly rectifies what went wrong and tells the whole world about it.

“The spotlight is so big and bright that there is no conceivable way for PwC or the Academy to move forward without being transparent with the public,” said Jeremy Robinson-Leon, chief operating officer of Group Gordon, a public relations and crisis management firm.

Why the Oscars still matter: Academy Awards attendees weigh in

Caption Why the Oscars still matter: Academy Awards attendees weigh in

Staff writer Tre’vell Anderson asks 2017 Academy Awards ceremony attendees to discuss the significance of the Oscars.

Staff writer Tre’vell Anderson asks 2017 Academy Awards ceremony attendees to discuss the significance of the Oscars.

Car bomb

Caption Car bomb

Car bomb

Car bomb

Is it a blocking or charging foul?

Caption Is it a blocking or charging foul?

Key play in Chino Hills-Mater Dei

Key play in Chino Hills-Mater Dei

Weekend Roundup: 7 stories you can't miss

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

ALSO

The Oscar scene inside and outside the Dolby — including that great big gaffe

23 totally awkward Oscar moments

If the L.A. Times hadn’t broken an embargo in 1940, the Oscars envelope mix-up might have never happened

UPDATES:

2:25 p.m.: This article was updated with more details about how the mistake occurred, and a history of similar mix-ups.

12:35 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with Times staff reporting.

A celebrity photo, the wrong envelope: the missteps before the Oscars mistake

Video Marketing, , , ,

One of the two accountants in charge of Oscars vote counting mistakenly handed actor Warren Beatty the wrong envelope for the best picture award, sparking the chaotic ending of the Academy Awards, a spokesman for the accounting firm said Monday.

Beatty was handed the wrong envelope during Sunday night’s show by Brian Cullinan, a managing partner of PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, who heads the firm’s relationship with the Oscars, PwC spokesman Mao-Lin Shen said, declining to elaborate.

When he opened the envelope for the best picture award, a confused Beatty showed it to actress and fellow presenter Faye Dunaway, who proclaimed “La La Land” when the award, in fact, belonged to “Moonlight.” But the two presenters had been reading from a card announcing that Emma Stone was named best actress for her work in “La La Land.”

Moments before the mistake, Cullinan had posted a photo on Twitter of Stone holding her Oscar, but it wasn’t immediately clear if that contributed to him then handing the wrong envelope to Beatty. Cullinan deleted the Stone photo tweet, but Times reporters have seen copies of the tweet accessible on Google’s servers. 

Beyond Oscars' best picture chaos, 'Moonlight' and 'La La Land' disrupt the status quo

Beyond Oscars’ best picture chaos, ‘Moonlight’ and ‘La La Land’ disrupt the status quo

No one who has paid attention to the Academy Awards over the past 89 years has ever seen anything like “Moonlight’s” shocking, exhilarating, stomach-churning come-from-behind Oscar win on Sunday night — a victory that stunned the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers watching around the world.

In…

No one who has paid attention to the Academy Awards over the past 89 years has ever seen anything like “Moonlight’s” shocking, exhilarating, stomach-churning come-from-behind Oscar win on Sunday night — a victory that stunned the Dolby Theatre audience and viewers watching around the world.

In…

(Justin Chang)

After the shocking error was rectified on the stage of the Dolby Theatre, PwC went from being a venerable partner of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a punchline. That was especially true on social media such as Twitter, where the firm repeatedly was lambasted with snide remarks about how it “had only one job” at the Oscars and blew it.

Shen declined comment on whether Cullinan faced any disciplinary action or whether the firm’s contract with the academy might be affected by the mistake.

In any case, PwC’s reputation has taken a hit, at least for now, some analysts said. But PwC’s long-term reputation and brand loyalty among its corporate clients should remain intact — if PwC quickly rectifies what went wrong and tells the whole world about it.

“The spotlight is so big and bright that there is no conceivable way for PwC or the Academy to move forward without being transparent with the public,” said Jeremy Robinson-Leon, chief operating officer of Group Gordon, a public relations and crisis management firm.

Why the Oscars still matter: Academy Awards attendees weigh in

Caption Why the Oscars still matter: Academy Awards attendees weigh in

Staff writer Tre’vell Anderson asks 2017 Academy Awards ceremony attendees to discuss the significance of the Oscars.

Staff writer Tre’vell Anderson asks 2017 Academy Awards ceremony attendees to discuss the significance of the Oscars.

Car bomb

Caption Car bomb

Car bomb

Car bomb

Is it a blocking or charging foul?

Caption Is it a blocking or charging foul?

Key play in Chino Hills-Mater Dei

Key play in Chino Hills-Mater Dei

Weekend Roundup: 7 stories you can't miss

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

ALSO

The Oscar scene inside and outside the Dolby — including that great big gaffe

23 totally awkward Oscar moments

If the L.A. Times hadn’t broken an embargo in 1940, the Oscars envelope mix-up might have never happened

UPDATES:

2:25 p.m.: This article was updated with more details about how the mistake occurred, and a history of similar mix-ups.

12:35 p.m.: This article was updated throughout with Times staff reporting.

Trump to propose 10 percent spike in defense spending, major cuts to other agencies

Video Marketing, , , ,

President Trump will propose a federal budget that would significantly increase defense-related spending by $54 billion while cutting other federal agencies by the same amount, an administration official said.

The proposal represents a major increase in federal spending related to national security, while other priorities, especially foreign aid, would face massive reductions.

According to the White House, the defense budget would increase by 10 percent. Trump also will request $30 billion in supplementary military spending for fiscal 2017, an administration official said.

But without providing specifics, the administration said that most other discretionary spending programs would be cut to pay for it. Officials singled out foreign aid, one of the smallest parts of the federal budget, saying it would face “large reductions” in spending.

[Budget breakdown: What the Obama White House wants to spend money on]

It is the first indication of spending priorities by the new administration, with the president set to arrive on Capitol Hill on Tuesday night for a speech to a joint session of Congress. But the full budget negotiations between Trump and Congress will not be complete for many months.

In a statement at the White House on Monday morning, Trump said that his budget would put “America first” by focusing on defense, law enforcement and veterans using money previously spent abroad.

“We are going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable to the people,” he said. “We can do so much more with the money we spend.”

[Analysis: The U.S. foreign-aid budget, visualized]

The White House did not specify how Trump’s budget would address mandatory spending or taxes, promising that those details would come later. The vast majority of federal spending comes from programs Trump can’t touch with his budget. Social Security costs totaled about $910 billion last year, and Medicare outpaced defense spending with a total cost of $588 billion. Medicaid, interest payments on debt and miscellaneous costs made up an additional $1.2 trillion.

White House officials declined to answer questions about the president’s priorities on a host of other fiscal issues, including infrastructure improvements and plans to pay for a wall between the United States and Mexico. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), emphasized that the priorities outlined Monday do not reflect policy on broader fiscal issues, which he said will be addressed later.

“We are taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars,” Mulvaney told reporters. “A full budget will contain the entire spectrum of what the president has proposed.”

Defense spending accounts for almost the same proportion of the federal budget as all non-discretionary domestic spending, meaning that the Trump administration’s proposal will result in a roughly 10 percent across-the-board cut in all other federal spending programs.

Budgets for most federal agencies would be reduced substantially, said an OMB official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to discuss the proposal.

The announcement marks the beginning of a process in which the OMB will coordinate with agencies to flesh out the plan.

Trump said his budget, which will be submitted to Congress next month, will propose “historic” increases in spending to bolster the country’s “depleted military,” and he said it will support law enforcement in an effort to reduce crime.

[Trump team plans for infrastructure ‘task force’ to advance top spending priority]

Trump noted that the country faces an urgent infrastructure problem, which he promised during the campaign that he would address with a $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan. Although the administration has not yet outlined whether infrastructure will be part of Trump’s budget proposal, the president spoke about it at length before a gathering of governors at the White House on Monday.

“We’re going to make it easier for states to invest in infrastructure,” he said. “We spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, and we have potholes all over our highways and our roads.”

He added: “Infrastructure, we’re going to start spending on infrastructure — big.”

Republicans in Congress expect that the details released this week will be the first elements of a broader budget that will be rolled out next month. The Trump administration is expected to release a pared-down “skinny budget” the week of March 13 and a fuller list of requests by the end of March or early April, said multiple Republican congressional aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the process.

Democrats have warned that under the current circumstances, Trump would be hard-pressed to make significant cuts to domestic programs without significantly reducing some government services. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday that the scant details the Trump administration released probably would lead to cuts to widely used programs.

“A cut this steep almost certainly means cuts to agencies that protect consumers from Wall Street excess and protect clean air and water,” Schumer said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added that deep reductions could have a major effect on programs that keep the American workforce competitive.

“A $54 billion cut will do far-reaching and long-lasting damage to our ability to meet the needs of the American people and win the jobs of the future,” she said in a statement. “The President is surrendering America’s leadership in innovation, education, science and clean energy.”

Individual agencies were expected to begin the customary process of sending budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year to the White House beginning Monday, the aides said. The OMB will then begin drafting an official request for fiscal 2018 and submit it to Congress in the coming weeks.

Congress typically does not agree with the White House budget in full, even when the president and congressional leaders represent the same party. Republican leaders have not yet said when they will release their budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) told members at a GOP retreat in Philadelphia in January that he expects to act by July on a 2018 budget proposal that will lay out major spending cuts and begin the process of rewriting the tax code.

Philip Rucker and Ana Swanson contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Trump to propose 10 percent spike in defense spending, major cuts to other agencies

Video Marketing, , , ,

President Trump will propose a federal budget that would significantly increase defense-related spending by $54 billion while cutting other federal agencies by the same amount, an administration official said.

The proposal represents a major increase in federal spending related to national security, while other priorities, especially foreign aid, would face massive reductions.

According to the White House, the defense budget would increase by 10 percent. Trump also will request $30 billion in supplementary military spending for fiscal 2017, an administration official said.

But without providing specifics, the administration said that most other discretionary spending programs would be cut to pay for it. Officials singled out foreign aid, one of the smallest parts of the federal budget, saying it would face “large reductions” in spending.

[Budget breakdown: What the Obama White House wants to spend money on]

It is the first indication of spending priorities by the new administration, with the president set to arrive on Capitol Hill on Tuesday night for a speech to a joint session of Congress. But the full budget negotiations between Trump and Congress will not be complete for many months.

In a statement at the White House on Monday morning, Trump said that his budget would put “America first” by focusing on defense, law enforcement and veterans using money previously spent abroad.

“We are going to do more with less and make the government lean and accountable to the people,” he said. “We can do so much more with the money we spend.”

[Analysis: The U.S. foreign-aid budget, visualized]

The White House did not specify how Trump’s budget would address mandatory spending or taxes, promising that those details would come later. The vast majority of federal spending comes from programs Trump can’t touch with his budget. Social Security costs totaled about $910 billion last year, and Medicare outpaced defense spending with a total cost of $588 billion. Medicaid, interest payments on debt and miscellaneous costs made up an additional $1.2 trillion.

White House officials declined to answer questions about the president’s priorities on a host of other fiscal issues, including infrastructure improvements and plans to pay for a wall between the United States and Mexico. Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), emphasized that the priorities outlined Monday do not reflect policy on broader fiscal issues, which he said will be addressed later.

“We are taking his words and turning them into policies and dollars,” Mulvaney told reporters. “A full budget will contain the entire spectrum of what the president has proposed.”

Defense spending accounts for almost the same proportion of the federal budget as all non-discretionary domestic spending, meaning that the Trump administration’s proposal will result in a roughly 10 percent across-the-board cut in all other federal spending programs.

Budgets for most federal agencies would be reduced substantially, said an OMB official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to discuss the proposal.

The announcement marks the beginning of a process in which the OMB will coordinate with agencies to flesh out the plan.

Trump said his budget, which will be submitted to Congress next month, will propose “historic” increases in spending to bolster the country’s “depleted military,” and he said it will support law enforcement in an effort to reduce crime.

[Trump team plans for infrastructure ‘task force’ to advance top spending priority]

Trump noted that the country faces an urgent infrastructure problem, which he promised during the campaign that he would address with a $1 trillion infrastructure spending plan. Although the administration has not yet outlined whether infrastructure will be part of Trump’s budget proposal, the president spoke about it at length before a gathering of governors at the White House on Monday.

“We’re going to make it easier for states to invest in infrastructure,” he said. “We spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, and we have potholes all over our highways and our roads.”

He added: “Infrastructure, we’re going to start spending on infrastructure — big.”

Republicans in Congress expect that the details released this week will be the first elements of a broader budget that will be rolled out next month. The Trump administration is expected to release a pared-down “skinny budget” the week of March 13 and a fuller list of requests by the end of March or early April, said multiple Republican congressional aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the process.

Democrats have warned that under the current circumstances, Trump would be hard-pressed to make significant cuts to domestic programs without significantly reducing some government services. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Monday that the scant details the Trump administration released probably would lead to cuts to widely used programs.

“A cut this steep almost certainly means cuts to agencies that protect consumers from Wall Street excess and protect clean air and water,” Schumer said.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added that deep reductions could have a major effect on programs that keep the American workforce competitive.

“A $54 billion cut will do far-reaching and long-lasting damage to our ability to meet the needs of the American people and win the jobs of the future,” she said in a statement. “The President is surrendering America’s leadership in innovation, education, science and clean energy.”

Individual agencies were expected to begin the customary process of sending budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year to the White House beginning Monday, the aides said. The OMB will then begin drafting an official request for fiscal 2018 and submit it to Congress in the coming weeks.

Congress typically does not agree with the White House budget in full, even when the president and congressional leaders represent the same party. Republican leaders have not yet said when they will release their budget blueprint for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.) told members at a GOP retreat in Philadelphia in January that he expects to act by July on a 2018 budget proposal that will lay out major spending cuts and begin the process of rewriting the tax code.

Philip Rucker and Ana Swanson contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Caribbean News Now!

Video Marketing, , , ,

facebook_video.jpg

By Mitch Carson

With the new Facebook video updates, it is quite evident that Facebook is going big on videos this year. The social media network has released four major updates that make watching videos more flexible and engaging. The rate at which new video features are being released is tremendous. Hardly a month goes by before you hear of a new Facebook update.

mitch_carson.jpg

Mitch Carson has been a pitchman on Home Shopping Network, CBS Radio host, and is the CEO of Impact Products Marketing in Los Angeles, CA. Reach him at mitch@mitchcarson.com or http://www.mitchcarson.com

Some of the latest video updates include minimizing your videos to a “picture-in-picture view” as you scroll through your news feeds as well as an autoplay sound that “fades in and out”. Facebook has also inaugurated a bigger format where you can watch vertical videos using either an Android or iOS device. For large screen lovers, an app for television is expected to be released anytime from now.

A study done by Facebook shows that users are posting 75% more videos on the platform than they did a year ago. US was the leading country, posting 94% more videos than before. As if that wasn’t enough, the report showed that more business brands are uploading videos on Facebook than on YouTube. This proves that with every update, Facebook videos are getting more engaging day-in-day-out.

Every business has the potential to benefit from posting videos ads. Online videos connect more deeply with your target audience as well as drive a lot of traffic to your website. Posting video ads on one of the biggest social media platforms in the world, like Facebook, makes it even better. Millions of users around the world use Facebook on a daily basis. This makes it an ideal platform to reach a lot of potential customers at once.

The new features come with new possibilities for business owners and marketers.

Staying on top of the different options and tools of internet marketing is imperative for a business owner who wants to up their video marketing game. Facebook videos are known to get more organic reach, and every business owner should consider taking advantage of the benefits that come with them. Below is a list of the latest Facebook video updates and how they can help improve profits for your business.

The “Watch and Scroll” Feature

Let’s face it, we sometimes find ourselves in a situation where we want to watch a video on Facebook and continue scrolling through our news feed at the same time. With the new “watch and scroll” feature, you can now minimize a video that you are watching to a picture-in-picture view. The video will continue playing at the corner of your screen as you scroll through posts. You can also opt to move the video to any corner of your choice. If you are using an Android mobile device, the video can continue playing even after exiting the Facebook app.

This new feature will bump up the viewing numbers. As a business owner, you can take advantage of the increased viewership of Facebook videos to advertise your products and services.

Video app for Television

Many Facebook users have been requesting for more options to watch their videos. Well, their outcries were heard loud and clear because Facebook is ready to launch a new app for TV. The app will be available at app stores for several TVs including Samsung, Apple and Amazon Fire TV among other upcoming platforms. The app is meant to enhance enjoying Facebook videos on a much bigger screen. It is an advancement of a previous feature where you could only stream online videos from Facebook to TV.

This app will allow you to watch videos that are shared by pages and friends you follow, recommended videos, and top live videos trending around the globe. You can also save videos to watch later.

Facebook users are going crazy about this update, and so are business owners. This is because of the elevated views of Facebook video ads.


Bringing Sound to Videos

Previously, videos on the news feed played without sound. You were required to tap on a video for you to hear the sound. As more users watch videos on their devices, they have come to expect sound on a video when their volume is on. After several positive feedbacks on this issue, Facebook has not failed to deliver. The new video update makes the sound fade in and out as you scroll through videos in your news feed.

If your volume is off, then the videos will not play with sound. Moreover, if you do not want videos to play with sound, there is a disable button for this feature in the “Settings.” To ensure that everybody utilizes this feature, Facebook has sent in-product messages to its users and guidelines on how to use it.

Users will always appreciate having control of their features. This flexibility feature will make a lot of people choose Facebook as their number one social media platform for watching their favorite videos.

The Vertical Video Update

With a recent update, Facebook made the vertical videos look more appealing and easier to use. Testing for this update started as far as last year, and people liked it. The update involves improving the aestheticism and size of the preview of vertical videos on your news feed. This update is available for Android and iOS users and will be integrated to other platforms soon.

From the above video updates, it is evident that Facebook is investing on its videos. It is innovating its video products at a staggering rate, to the amazement and excitement of business owners and marketers everywhere in the world. With every update, the social network platform gets better and more people continue to join to enjoy the advantages. As a business owner, you can benefit from the numbers on Facebook by choosing to advertise via video ads. With great video advertising on Facebook, people will buy your products and services, and this will make you remarkable profits.

You can make your videos appealing to users by inspiring them, entertaining them, interactively educating them, and creating playlists. You can also choose to add featured videos that are more prominent. These videos are placed above the “about” section on your Facebook page.

The Latest: Trump to sign new travel order on Wednesday

Video Marketing, , , ,

WASHINGTON — The Latest news on President Donald Trump (all times local):

11 p.m.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new refugee and immigration executive order on Wednesday, one day after addressing lawmakers at a joint session of Congress.

That’s according to a senior administration official.

Trump initially planned to sign the new order last week, but spokesman Sean Spicer said the president was holding off “to make sure that when we execute this, it’s done in a manner that’s flawless.”

The president’s initial order temporarily halting all entries into the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries was blocked by a federal judge. Trump has vigorously criticized the decision.

The administration official was not authorized to discuss the rollout of the new order publicly and insisted on anonymity.

__By Julie Pace

___

10:50 p.m.

The White House is preparing to propose boosting defense spending and slashing funding for longtime Republican targets like the Environmental Protection Agency.

Those changes are part of a set of marching orders to agencies as the White House prepares its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

President Donald Trump’s proposal for the 2018 budget year will be sent to agencies Monday. An administration official says it won’t make significant changes to Social Security or Medicare. The official, as well as Capitol Hill aides, are confirming details of the upcoming blueprint on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information and a sensitive process.

Trump’s first major fiscal marker will land in the agencies one day before his first address to a joint session of Congress.

—By Julie Pace

___

9:15 p.m.

The White House is moving to propose slashing cuts to longtime Republican targets like the Environmental Protection Agency in a set of marching orders to agencies as it prepares its budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Capitol Hill aides say the White House budget office on Monday will send agencies proposed levels for the 2018 budget year. The aides are speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information and a sensitive process.

The Pentagon is due for a huge boost, but many nondefense agencies and foreign aid programs are facing cuts. The specific numbers aren’t final and agencies will have a chance to argue against the cuts.

Trump’s budget is expected in mid-March. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told Fox News on Sunday that the first Trump budget won’t cut popular benefit programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

—By Andrew Taylor

___

8 p.m.

President Donald Trump is toasting the nation’s governors at the White House, joking with them “it’s such an easy job.”

Trump is welcoming 46 governors and their spouses for the annual black-tie ball at the White House. It’s the first major social event under the Trump administration.

The president will be meeting with the governors on Monday at the White House. He says “perhaps health care will come up,” a nod to the effort in Congress to repeal and replace the sweeping health care law approved under former President Barack Obama.

Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and the chairman of the National Governors Association, led the governors in a toast of Trump.

___

7 p.m.

President Donald Trump’s choice to be secretary of the Navy, businessman Philip Bilden, says he is withdrawing from consideration for the post, citing concerns about privacy and separating himself from his business interests.

Bilden’s withdrawal raises similar issues to that of Vincent Viola, Trump’s nominee for Army secretary who stepped aside earlier this month.

Bilden was an intelligence officer in the Army Reserve from 1986-1996. He relocated to Hong Kong to set up an Asian presence for HarbourVest Partners LLC, a global private equity management firm. Bilden recently retired from HarbourVest Partners after 25 years.

In a statement released by the Pentagon, Bilden says he determined that he will not be able to satisfy the Office of Government Ethics requirements without what he calls “undue disruption and materially adverse divestment of my family’s private financial interests.”

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says in a statement that he will make a recommendation to Trump for a nominee in the coming days.

___

12:30 p.m.

The White House is dodging questions about whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions should consider withdrawing from the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

A prominent Republican, California Rep. Darrell Issa, has called for a special prosecutor and said it would be improper for Sessions to lead the investigation as the nation’s chief law enforcement official. Sessions was an early supporter of President Donald Trump’s candidacy.

Deputy White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is steering clear of directly answering whether the former Alabama senator should step aside from overseeing the bureau’s investigation.

She tells ABC’s “This Week” that congressional committees need to complete their own investigations, and then it would be appropriate to discuss Sessions’ role.

But those are separate reviews, independent of the FBI’s work.

___

12:15 p.m.

The White House says that when President Donald Trump skips the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, expect him to spend that Saturday night in April “focused on what he can to do to help better America.”

The dinner attracts politicians, journalists and celebrities and is typically attended by the president, who’s often roasted.

Trump isn’t saying why he won’t be there. He has railed against “the fake news media,” saying it is “the enemy of the American people.”

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says it’s “kind of naive of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that tension isn’t there.”

She tells ABC’s “This Week” that Trump wasn’t elected “to spend his time with reporters and celebrities.”

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

How Mahershala Ali Overcame a Difficult Childhood, Found Islam and Won an Oscar

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Despite over a decade of strong work under his belt, Mahershala Ali has finally ascended to mainstream stardom with his Oscar-winning performance in Moonlight.

Just days after his wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Bari Najma, Ali took home the prize for Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards on Sunday.

His turn as the kindhearted drug dealer Juan has earned Ali his first Academy Award nomination, and after taking home the equivalent prize at the SAG awards, he emerged as an Oscar favorite.

Mahershala Ali wins Best Supporting Actor at the 89th Academy Awards.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

In his SAG acceptance speech, which came on the heels of President Trump’s controversial immigration ban, Ali gave rare insight into his personal life as he delivered a powerful critique of religious persecution:

“What I think I learned from working on Moonlight is you see what happens when you persecute people,” he said. “They fold into themselves. What I was so thankful about in having the opportunity to play Juan was playing a gentleman who saw a young man folding into himself as a result of the persecution of his community, taking that opportunity to uplift him, and tell him that he mattered and that he was okay and accept him. And I hope that we do a better job of that.”

While Ali credited the role for opening his eyes to the consequences of repression, he could have been speaking from personal experience. A natural introvert who battled depression throughout his youth, Ali remembers “folding into himself” not unlike the character he protects in Moonlight. Other themes, like Juan’s drug dealing to make ends meet, also had real-life significance for the actor.

A Melancholy Youth

 “I was borderline depressed for years,” Ali told The Hollywood Reporter in a candid interview. Those feelings took hold after his parents split up. His dad left the family when Ali was 3 to pursue a career in dance. “There was a sadness over me, a melancholy. That’s always been a part of me — those are some of the things that lead you to the arts,” he added.

Ali, whose birth name is Mahershalalhashbaz Gilmore, was born in Oakland, California in 1974. He grew up about 5 miles away from Oakland in the safer neighborhood of Hayward. His grandmother was an ordained Baptist minister — a position his mother would hold later in life — and he was raised in a strict, religious household. His father, however, was an agnostic, and the two remained close after the divorce.  

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His mom remarried, but even with his stepdad’s salary and his mom’s earnings as a part-time hairdresser, the family struggled to get by. “Like so many families, we were dealing with limited means. We weren’t poor at all, but we had some challenging times financially,” he told THR. “When my stepdad got laid off … we were really trying to find our footing for a couple of years.”

There was also tension with his step-dad, who came into his life when he was around 9 or 10 years old. A disciplinarian who towered over him at 6’6″, he and Ali often butted heads. Still, the actor credits his stepdad with keeping him from getting in trouble. “My mom and stepdad were strict,” he told THR. “I couldn’t date, I couldn’t go out. And I was a kid who was never good at just taking no for an answer. I needed to understand why. And sometimes they weren’t interested in explaining.”

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Always athletic, Ali found refuge in sports. He was a standout playing basketball and racing his bike with the neighborhood kids, but even then he never quite fit in. “First I started in BMX racing, and later got into basketball and all this stuff. I never really related to that whole thing about beating someone else, that’s just not my spirit,” he told Death, Sex and Money. Comparing himself to an older cousin who became a professional BMX biker, Ali told THR, “He was aggressive to the point of being a daredevil, but seeing that — and seeing the results of an approach that felt hypermasculine — scared me. I found myself frozen between those two places, trying to find the balance.”

Staying Out of Trouble

As he got older, Ali began to witness the effects of race and poverty on his community. “I started seeing cousins go to jail for armed robbery, drugs,” he told THR. “My friend’s mom was a drug dealer, but I didn’t know she was a drug dealer. Drugs were a way for people to support themselves without advertising it. It was done covertly. Today, we are used to seeing all these chains and these cars, when a lot of times it was done discreetly and to support someone’s income.”

While the people he saw get involved with drugs were “normal, solid, good people,” the repercussions of that lifestyle were clear. “I had a few friends killed, not in Hayward but in Oakland,” he told the magazine. “It was tough. I saw so many people who had some form of genius that I admired, athletic or academic or artistic. And in the circumstances of life, they embraced a path that guided them to some form of mediocrity. And that scared me, to see guys five years older than me, that I totally looked up to and admired, and then at some point they were still hanging out at the high school, not really doing anything.”

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More than any of the drug violence or crime, Ali remembers being affected by the AIDs epidemic, which struck many of his father’s friends in the musical theater scene. “I saw a lot of guys die from AIDS, people I was close to,” he added. “I’ve seen more people die from that than from gun violence. Every year, there were friends that my dad had, 28 or 29 years old, who died.”

Those experiences with loss weighed heavily on Ali. He developed insomnia and began spending sleepless nights planning his escape from the trappings that caught up to his peers. Eventually, he discovered that putting his thoughts on paper helped him cope, and those writings formed the foundation for his burgeoning love for the arts.

But at the same time, his relationship with his parents began to sour.  “At a certain point, my mom just didn’t know me. There were years when we didn’t talk,” he told THR. The riff began around the age of 18, and eventually led to Ali moving in with his grandparents. “It’s not that [my parents] didn’t believe in me; they didn’t understand,” he added. “It all goes to trying to accept each other’s points of view and coexist.”

From Hoops to the Stage

It was Ali’s love of sports that led him to acting. He won a basketball scholarship to Saint Mary’s College in 1992, where he met a professor named Rebecca Engle who asked him to try out for Othello. He ended up passing over Othello for a role in Spunk — a play his father had taken him to see as a kid. Every night, the performance received a standing ovation. “That was the trigger for me: when I felt that was the only thing I could do, and if I did anything else I wouldn’t be on track,” he told THR. “It was therapeutic to get down to the seeds of other people’s dysfunction, with the goal to crack it open and shed light on it.”

Not long after Ali had found this new purpose in life, his father died from an ongoing illness. “He wasn’t well before he passed. . . . When he wasn’t well, I would perform,” he told Vanity Fair. Still, Ali regrets that his dad never got to see him on stage. “I finally had something that he could deeply connect with, where there would have been a real sense of pride, and he never, ever saw me act,” Ali told THR. It was also around this time that he began to explore his spirituality. Realizing his religious identity had always been tied to his mother’s beliefs, he started exploring other ways of thinking.

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Finding Love and Faith  

When he met his wife Amatus in graduate school, they were both going through a spiritual awakening. An undergrad studying experimental theater, Amatus was questioning her belief in Islam just as Ali was opening himself to it. “I was looking for my anchor or the thing to bring structure to my spiritual walk,” he told the magazine. “She was almost coming out of it, and I was going into it.” The first time he joined her at mosque, he broke down in tears during the sermon despite not understanding the Arabic words.

He felt compelled to return a week later over Christmas break and again wept openly during the sermon. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it,” he said. “It was beyond explanation. There was this connection that pierced through it all for me. And I felt like I was in the right place.” That same night he pledged himself to Islam.

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During his SAG acceptance speech, Ali recalled how difficult it was telling his mom about the conversion. In fact, it took about 10 or 12 years before she was able to embrace him as a Muslim. Now, Ali and his mom “are in an extraordinary positive place,” and he credits the reconciliation to their mutual understanding, love and acceptance.

With his career taking off and his wife pregnant with their first child, Ali remains the same thoughtful, reflective person, striving to better himself. “We all have to do work to be our best selves, to civilize ourselves in the way we see fit,” he tells THR. “I’m dealing with the things that keep me from being the fullest person I can be.”