The film that unseated "Spirited Away" as the highest-grossing anime film of all timeis finally opening in North American movie theaters friday.
"your name.," a body-swap love story from writer and director Makoto Shinkai, opened on Aug. 26 in Japan before going on to earn more than $328 million worldwide to date.
And it"s done so without an extensive North American release in order to qualify for Oscar eligibility, the film did have a one-week Los Angeles release in December.
The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn."s winner for best animated film is opening Friday on 303 screens.
President Trump Latest News Today 4/3/17 , White House news , Press Briefing with Sean Spicer
Seven stories in the news for Friday, April 7
KREMLIN CALLS U.S. MISSILE ATTACK ON SYRIA AN ILLEGAL AGGRESSION
The Kremlin has reacted to Thursday"s U.S. strike on Syria as an "aggression against sovereign state in violation of international law." The U.S. fired 60 missiles at an air based in central Syria on Thursday evening in retaliation for Tuesday"s deadly chemical attack that killed around 80 people. U.S. President Donald Trump cast the assault as vital to deter future use of poison gas and called on other nations to join in seeking "to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria."
CANADA NOT INVOLVED IN SYRIAN MISSILE STRIKE: OFFICIALS
A spokesperson for National Defence in Ottawa says Canadian Forces personnel were not involved in the American missile strike Thursday on an air base in Syria. Canadian officials also say the federal government will have more to say today about the attack. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier called the chemical attack in Syria which prompted the U.S. assault a "war crime" and that the international community "must stand firmly against such things."
FEDS TO PUSH PROVINCES TO TARGET CHILD CARE DOLLARS
The governing Liberals are going to push the provinces to direct federal child care dollars to families who are in the most in need of help, such as those from low- and modest-income backgrounds. The government"s decision means the Liberals face the possibility of a revolt from the child care sector over their focus on "vulnerable" families, with some groups arguing a more universal approach would yield the greatest results.
INTERNAL TRADE DEAL TO BE UNVEILED
The federal and provincial governments are to announce an internal trade deal today. They hope the deal will create jobs and boost domestic trade, which already accounts for 20 per cent of Canada"s gross domestic product. Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains says the long-awaited deal will also establish a clear process to help provinces and territories regulate the trade of recreational pot.
MAN CHARGED IN SECURITY BREACH AT TORONTO AIRPORT
A 58-year-old American man is expected to attend a bail hearing today after being charged in a security breach at Canada"s busiest airport. Police say the incident at Toronto"s Pearson International Airport involved a suspected improvised explosive device in a suitcase on a United Airlines flight bound for Chicago. Joseph Galaska is charged with one count of mischief.
LATEST JOB NUMBERS OUT TODAY
Statistics Canada will releases its latest jobs report today. the last report showed the national jobless rate sinking to 6.6 per cent in February its lowest level in more than two years. That report was the latest in a line of stronger-than-expected data. Several economists say it shows the country"s economy rebounding from the oil price shock of recent years.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND BUDGET OUT TODAY
The Prince Edward Island government will release its budget for the upcoming fiscal year today. In March, the Liberal government forecasted a $17.9 million deficit for the 2016-17 fiscal year, nearly double the $9.6 million deficit forecast in the most recent budget. It blamed the increase on a $30 million reduction in harmonized sales tax payments from Ottawa and an increase in spending by several departments.
ALSO IN THE NEWS TODAY:
Finance Minister Bill Morneau visits London to promote Canada"s economic partnership with the U.K.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will attend a student skills competition in Dartmouth, N.S.
Elizabeth Wettlaufer, charged in deaths of eight seniors, to appear in a Woodstock, Ont., court by video link.
Bail hearing in Edmonton for Jared Eliasson, charged with attempted murder in a road rage attack in which a woman had both arms broken.
Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz will unveils a commemorative bank note to mark Canada"s 150th anniversary.
Conservative leadership contender Kevin O"Leary addresses the Empire Club of Canada in Toronto.
Gorillazhave enlisted fellow primate Bonobo and Berlin producer Claptone fora pair of new remixes. They take onHumanztracks Andromeda (which features D.R.A.M.) and We Got the Power (with Noel Gallagher and Savages Jehnny Beth), respectively. Check them out below. Theyd previously shared aNicFanciulliremix ofVince Staples collabAscensionscroll down to hear that too.Humanz is out April 28 (via Parlophone). Yesterday, they sharedLet Me Out, featuringMavis Staples and Pusha T, and Push revealed the albums conceptual roots in an imagined, post-Trump dystopia.
Humanz alsofeatures Popcaan (Saturnz Barz)on a song sinceremixed by Banx & Ranxas well as De La Soul, Benjamin Clementine (Hallelujah Money), Grace Jones, and many others.The night after the LPs announcement, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett performed it at Londons Printworks with many of the albums guests. In June, Gorillaz host the inaugural Demon Dayz festival, which happens in Marsgate, England. The next month, they playat Festival d"t de Qubec, marking their first North American showin seven years.
Read Gorillaz Saw the Future of Pop Narratives on the Pitch, and see where Damon Albarns Blur placed on Pitchforks new feature The 50 Best Britpop Albums.
Tim Tebow hits a home run in Minor league baseball debut!
Matt Harvey and Marcus Stroman pitched well, and the Minnesota Twins are undefeated, but let"s head to the minors to begin our roundup.
We can"t quit you, Tim Tebow.
Look, here"s all I"m going to say after Tebow cracked a home run in his first minor league at-bat for the Columbia Fireflies: I don"t get the people who get so angry about him playing for the New York Mets" low Class A South Atlantic League team. Yes, it"s essentially nothing more than a cheap marketing stunt to sell a few extra jerseys, but the suggestion that he"s costing a more-deserving player a chance at the majors is a pretty weak argument. The Mets" low-A affiliate from 2011 has seen two position players reach the majors -- Darrell Ceciliani and Wilfredo Tovar, and if you"ve heard of those two you"re a diehard"s diehard.
There"s also the argument that Tebow will end up stealing some of the spotlight from actual deserving major league players. As Jayson Stark wrote the other day, baseball is lacking a face of the sport when you consider the only three baseball players to show up in a recent poll of America"s 50 favorite athletes were Derek Jeter (retired), Babe Ruth (dead) and Pete Rose (banned).
While it would be nice if there were a LeBron of baseball, I don"t think it"s essential to the viability or even popularity of the sport. Whether fans will pay more attention to Francisco Lindor or Carlos Correa or Mike Trout or Kris Bryant has nothing to do with Tebow. Blaming the media is also a poor excuse: Fans -- maybe not you -- are interested in Tebow for reasons that I don"t fully understand, but you can"t ignore that many are interested.
As for Tebow the baseball player, no, he"s not a legitimate prospect. After that home run, he struck out three times and grounded out.
Play of the day: Maybe it was just static electricity. So this happened to Yadier Molina:
As funny as it was, it turned out to be crucial play in the St. Louis Cardinals" 6-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs, which explains why Molina wasn"t in a joking mood about it after the game. Asked if he put anything on his chest protector, Molina replied, "That"s a dumb question."
Except it wasn"t a dumb question! It was a very good and obvious question. Matt Szczur reached on the play, Jon Jay followed with a walk and then Kyle Schwarber launched the go-ahead three-run homer off Brett Cecil.
Of course, Cubs fans cried foul. No wonder Molina is so good! He"s doctoring the baseballs for his pitchers! Yes, applying a foreign substance to the ball -- which seemed to be the case here -- is certainly illegal, but it"s also one of those rules that everyone basically ignores, as long as you"re not too obvious about it, like Michael Pineda a few years ago. For example, pitchers often will put a little sunscreen on their forearm to help their grip. Hitters are OK with this, not only because their pitchers are doing the same thing, but because they don"t want pitchers throwing a slippery baseball. Read Mark Saxon"s postgame report and you can see the Cubs weren"t upset, with Schwarber even pointing out catchers often put a little pine tar on their shin guards.
Now, if the Cubs had lost the game ...
Well, we know Yasiel Puig can hit 85-mph fastballs up in the zone. OK, it was Jered Weaver pitching and Jered Weaver doesn"t exactly throw hard. Still, it"s always fun when Puig is doing something good, and maybe his second career two-homer game -- and first since 2013 -- will get him going this year after a slow start in 2016, when he had a .650 OPS through May with 42 strikeouts and just nine walks. He was criticized for not having any plan at the plate, and it showed in that strikeout-to-walk ratio. He also drew two walks on Thursday, which is maybe just as important a takeaway as the two home runs. I"m not quite ready to give up on a healthy Puig putting up numbers that will makes Dodgers fans happy.
You don"t see this every day, but you may see it again. In spring training, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Michael Lorenzen talked about his desire to be a two-way player and manager Bryan Price suggested he"d use the reliever as a pinch-hitter at times. That plan came together when Lorenzen became the first pitcher with a pinch-hit homer since Micah Owings in 2009. It was also a big home run, giving the Reds a 5-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh. Lorenzen hit .250 (9-for-36) when he started 21 times as a rookie in 2015, but batted just five times last year -- his one hit was a home run.
Even if he can rake a bit, the difficulty will be finding situations in which to deploy him, since he has developed into the Reds" top setup guy. Price clearly didn"t intend to use Lorenzen on Thursday after he had pitched on Monday and Wednesday, plus there were two outs and nobody on when he batted. If a pinch-hitter were needed to lead off an inning, Price may have used a position player more likely to get on base. At the least, in these days of short benches, and especially in the National League, where you need more pinch-hitters, having a pitcher you can use off the bench is a nice weapon to have.
Mariners fans walk to edge of cliff, decide not to jump. Trailing 2-1 in the sixth, the Seattle Mariners were staring at a season-opening four-game sweep to the Houston Astros, but they tied the game that inning and then won it with two runs in the ninth off Astros closer Ken Giles. That means I can"t use this factoid: Ten teams in the division era (since 1969) had started 0-4 or worse and made the playoffs, the last being the 2012 Atlanta Braves, who started 0-4. The 2011 Tampa Bay Rays started 0-6 and still won 91 games and made the playoffs. Tricked you! I used it anyway.
As they say, there"s no such thing as bad publicity.
After becoming the subject of ridicule following an opening weekend in the U.K. in which it attracted a solitary cinemagoer (a debut of $8.20), the Shia LaBeouf starrerMan Down experienced something of a midweek surge.
As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, two additional tickets had been sold at the one theater showing the film (and only once a day), the Reel Cinema in the town ofBurnley. This figure had reportedly risen to five by Wednesday evening.
THR has since learned that the theater"s final screening on Thursday attracted a few more punters.
"There were about eight of us in there," says Andrew Robinson, a Burnley resident who went to the 12:20 p.m. showing with his daughter, Amy. In fact, it was his daughter who was behind the visit, not the international media attention.
"She"s a big fan of Shia LaBeouf," he tells THR. "She saw him doing one of his performance art things in Liverpool."
As for the film, Robinson didn"t think it warranted the negative press. "I had a quick look at the reviews and wasn"t expecting much. But it was quite good," he says.
It should be noted that Man Down"s rather limited release a considerable factor in its low box-office haul can be explained by its simultaneous on-demand availability by U.K. distributors Signature Entertainment. Such token theatrical showings can boost digital downloads and help generate reviews. Sadly there"s no way of seeing how the film which also stars Gary Oldman, Jai Courtney and Kate Mara did online, with digital downloads not released by distributors.
while man down was generating countless headlines, its main star seemed to have other things on his mind. According to TMZ, LaBeouf was thrown out of an L.A. bowling alley Wednesday eveningafter calling a bartender a "fingracist."
THR has reached out to both Reel Cinema and Signature Entertainment to get Man Down"s final U.K. box-office figures. Both declined to speak.
John Glenn American Hero 1921-2016 PBS Documentary
Dreams of flying over congested roadways often involve exotic technology like self-flying electric planes, but a startup called Voomdoesn"t want to wait. "We can do it now with existing platforms and technologiestoday"s helicopters, internet tech, apps, dispatch algorithms," says Voom"s CEO Uma Subramanian. The startup, backed by aerospace giant Airbus, just began its flight-sharing service in Brazil"s sprawling metropolis of So Paulo.At least for the people who can afford to. Even with the goal of reducing helicopter ride prices by 80%, a trip fromSo Paulo"scity center to the airport will still cost from three to five times as much as a cab fare (500-750 reals, $160 to $240), according to Subramanian. "Initially this is more of an executive product," she says though claims that improved routing algorithms will allow more people to ride and keep bringing prices down. Depending on the model, helicopters can take three to five passengers at once. (Voom provides the software and services, not the choppers.)
Voom plans to expand to other Brazilian cities first, then to Latin American neighbors such as Mexico City, Bogot, and Buenos Aires, Argentina. The next step will be to similar cities in Asia, such as Jakarta, Indonesia, and Manila, Philippines. Los Angeles would be a good candidate, says Subramanian, but regulations over noise pollution will make it tougher to get started. By then, perhaps this sci-fi autonomous craft (like Airbus"s own Vahana) will be available. "When future technologies come about, we will be ready," says Subramanian.
Lance Stephenson 12 Points/1 Fight Full Highlights (4/4/2017)
Lance Stephenson addresses the media at Bankers Life Fieldhouse on March 31, 2017 after signing with Indiana. Clark Wade/IndyStar
Indiana Pacer Lance Stephenson meets with the media after resigning with the team that originally drafted him in 2010. Stephenson talked for about 15 minutes Friday, March 31, 2017, afternoon at Bankers Life Fieldhouse before rejoining his original NBA team.(Photo: Matt Kryger/IndyStar)Buy Photo
INDIANAPOLIS Hes talking about his parents. They live in Las Vegas now. Wont be moving back to Indianapolis, to the south-side home they shared with him the last time Lance Stephenson played for the Indiana Pacers.
Theyre not going to be following me everywhere, Stephenson was saying Friday from Bankers Life Fieldhouse, where he was makinga pit stopbefore joining sorry, rejoining the Pacers on Saturday in Cleveland.
When Stephenson first arrived here in 2011, Larry Birds 2010 NBA draft second-round flier soon becoming the franchises most exciting and exhausting player, his parents followed him from New York City to Wanamaker. They cooked for him, cleaned for him, shopped for him. He was 20.
Stephensons first two career points, a pair of free throws, came in a 110-108 loss to Phoenix on Feb. 27, 2011. Bernadette and Lance Stephenson Sr. were sitting courtside at Bankers Life. After each free throw, Lance Sr. threw confetti into the air.
No confetti this time. No parents, either.
I"m on my own now, Lance was saying Friday. Im a big guy, Im a big boy now.
Now hes talking about his daughter. Shes 8. Her names Liara. The news broke Wednesday that Lance Stephenson, who had been out of work since the Minnesota Timberwolves bid him adieu March 18, was returning to the Pacers. Before Lance could tell his daughter, his daughter told him.
Daddy, she said, you know you"re back on the Pacers?
How do you know? Lance told her. Ive not even told you yet.
It begged the question, so on Friday I asked it:
Lance? How did your 8-year-old daughter find out?
Hes shaking his head. Says something about the internet.
Kids these days, he says.
They grow up fast. Dont they?
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Lance Stephenson sounds different, looks different. A changed man? Well see. His first game back is Sunday against the Cavaliers, against LeBron James, the superstar Lance famously tried to freak out during the 2014 playoffs.
Lance blew in LeBrons ear during Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals, the weirdest moment of a weird four seasons Lance spentin Indianapolis, going from the end of the bench to serious All-Star consideration in 2014. Hed gallop down the court on his make-believe pony, slapping at his thigh. Hed talk trash to opponents, steal rebounds from teammates, be involved in some way we still dont know how in the Pacers meltdown in 2014.
That season the Pacers had the NBAs best record at 35-9 when something, maybe everything, went wrong. They went 21-17 the rest of the way, made it to the conference finals anyway, then lost in six games to LeBron"sMiami Heat.
That was the year, a veteran no longer on that team told me, there were five crazy things going on in the locker room and Lance was involved in all five.
Lance Stephenson sounds different now. Matured. Humbled. Like I said: Well see. But failure can do that to a person,if the person learns from it. And Lance has tried.
Ive been on so many teams, Lance was saying Friday of his three years since leaving as a free agent in 2014, it felt like seven years ago. Ive been in five different places since I left here. It makes you stronger, it makes you smarter, and it humbles you also.
INSIDER: Desperate Pacers add Lance Stephenson
The Pacers offered him five years and $44 million in 2014, butStephenson chose Charlottes offer of three years and $27 million. He left Larry Birds protective cocoon, struck out on his own, and struck out. After averaging 13.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.6 assists here in 2014, he plummeted to 8.2 ppg, 4.5 rpg and 3.9 apg in 2015 at Charlotte.
The Hornets traded him to the Los Angeles Clippers, who traded him to Memphis, who let him go after the 2016 season. New Orleans signed him before this season, then released him after six games. Minnesota signed him to a 10-day contract, then a second 10-day contract, but not a third.
It was a sheepish Lance Stephenson who met the media Friday.
I wish, he said, referring to his 2014 departure for Charlotte, I would have just stayed home.
***
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FILE Pacers guard Lance Stephenson was a key figure in the team"s run to the Eastern Conference Finals in 2014.(Photo: Matt Kryger / IndyStar)
Lance Stephenson saves the Indiana Pacers.
Hows that for a story? It mighthappen. Mightnot, of course. Its possible he will never again be the triple-double threathe was in 2014. After shooting 35.2 percent on 3-pointers in his final season in Indiana, Stephenson has labored at 25.1 percent since. Theres a reason he has played for five NBA teams since 2015, and a run of injuries isonly part of it.
But what if he rediscovers his shothere? The Pacers signed him not to sell tickets the season is 76 games old but to win games. Their starting lineup is set at four positions, everything but shooting guard, where theyve tried Monta Ellis (too old), Glenn Robinson III (too inexperienced) and C.J. Miles (too inconsistent). Can Lance Stephenson get back into game shape and be the spark that gets this reeling team into the playoffs?
Well. It would be a great story.
The Pacers brought back Lance for his moxie as much as anything. The Pacers are poised, but not passionate. They arent necessarily soft, but they are absolutely not hard.
We have a lot of quiet guys, Paul George told IndyStar Pacers Insider Nate Taylor on Friday in Toronto, hours before the Pacers last game without Lance. A lot of guys that arent talkative or keep to themselves. It will be good to have a guy like Lance in our bunch. We all missed that edge that he brought. He lit a fire under me every night.
MORE:"If Lance had to do it all over again, he wouldn"t have left Pacers"
Pacers coach Nate McMillan acknowledged having no idea how Lance will play. But he knows how Lance will compete.
This happening so late in the season, what can you expect? We dont know, McMillan told Taylor. (But) he will be a guy that we know will help and bring some fight.
The Pacers, who recently alternated wins and losses for a franchise-record 15 games and have dropped four of five entering Friday in Toronto, can use some fight. The Pacers, who have fallen from sixth in the Eastto the eighth and final playoff spot just one game ahead of the ninth-place Bulls can use some fire.
The Pacers can use some Lance Stephenson. Hes no longer a man-child of 20, but a man of 26. His parents have moved out. His daughter is growing up.
The time for confetti and childish things are over.
