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Louis Gossett Jr., Oscar-winning star, Dies at 87

(CTN News) – Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win an Oscar for supporting actor and an Emmy for his role in the pioneering television miniseries “Roots,” died. He was 87.

Louis Gossett’s cousin, Neal L. Gossett, confirmed his death to CBS News. The Associated Press reported that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed.

“We hate to inform you that our loving father passed away this morning. We’d want to express our gratitude to everyone who has sent their condolences during this difficult time. Please respect the family’s privacy during this difficult time,” his family stated on Friday.

Louis Gossett always conceived of his early career as a reverse Cinderella narrative, with success finding him at a young age and propelling him ahead to his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

He received his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while recovering from an injury that kept him off the basketball team.

“I was hooked—and so was my audience,” he writes in his 2010 biography, “An Actor and a Gentleman.”

His English teacher encouraged him to go to Manhattan to audition for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at sixteen.

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”

Louis Gossett went to New York University on a basketball and acting scholarship. He quickly began performing and singing on television shows presented by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen.

Louis Gossett became friends with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau, and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio led by Frank Silvera.

Gossett garnered critical praise in 1959 for his performance in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” alongside Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Diana Sands.

“I am privileged to have worked with Sidney Poitier, Diana Sands, and Ruby Dee. In 2020, Louis Gossett told CBS News, “What a pleasure.” “Showed me what was good and evil. They taught me about it. I fell in love. It’s in my bloodstream.

Gossett later became a Broadway star, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” opposite Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.

In 1961, Gossett made his first trip to Hollywood to work on the film adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had negative memories of the trip, including staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the only places that allowed Black people.

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood to play a prominent role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-television film, alongside Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter, and Patrick O’Neal.

This time, Gossett was lodged at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Universal Studios had hired him a convertible. After picking up the automobile, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer, who ordered him to turn off the radio and raise the car’s roof before allowing him to go.

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s police, who forced him to lean against the car and open the trunk while they called the auto rental business before releasing him.

“Something has happened to my system. You know, you have to look over and be cautious. Because that sensation harmed me,” Louis Gossett explained in 2020. “So, when do they say Black lives matter? All lives matter, because they not only harmed me, but also themselves.”

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who informed him that he had violated a rule barring walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m.

Two other cops came, and Louis Gossett stated that he had been shackled to a tree and in handcuffs for three hours. He was eventually set free when the original police car returned.

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he said. “But it was not going to destroy me.”

Gossett claimed that in the late 1990s, he was stopped by police on Pacific Coast Highway while driving his refurbished 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The police informed him he resembled someone they were looking for, but he recognized Gossett and departed.

He formed the Eracism Foundation to assist in creating a world free of racism.

Gossett made several guest appearances on shows such as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud,” and a noteworthy performance with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.”

Gossett was partying with Mamas and Papas members in August 1969 when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He went home first to shower and change clothes. As he was about to depart, he saw a news flash on TV regarding Tate’s murder. That night, Charles Manson’s associates murdered her and several others.

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he stated in an email.

Louis Cameron Louis Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood to parents Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He eventually added Jr. to his name in honor of his father.

Gossett made his television debut as Fiddler in the historic 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which exposed slavery’s miseries. The large cast includes Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton, and John Amos.

In 1983, Louis Gossett became the third Black actor to receive an Oscar nomination in the supporting actor category. He told CBS News that he didn’t realize he’d won for his role as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” which starred Richard Gere and Debra Winger.

“My agent slapped me in the breast and told me, ‘They mentioned your name!’ And I had to look at him because I thought I was sleeping,” added Gossett, who won a Golden Globe for her performance. “I turned around, and there was applause. This was not meant to be possible. So that is a piece of history.

Gossett stated that the triumph enabled him to select “good parts” in future films. In 2020, he told CBS News that he considers his long career “a blessing” and plans to stay in the industry for as long as possible.

“As long as I’m here, there is a job to do for the benefit of us all, for what it’s worth,” he told the crowd.

Gossett starred in television films such as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House,” “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.” He plays an unyielding patriarch in the 2023 version of “The Color Purple.”

After winning the Oscar, Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for several years. He went to rehab and was diagnosed with toxic mold illness, which he attributed to his Malibu home.

In 2010, Gossett revealed he had prostate cancer, which he stated was detected early. In 2020, he was hospitalized for COVID-19.

He is survived by two sons: Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef he adopted after witnessing the 7-year-old in a TV piece on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is Robert Gossett, an actor.

Louis Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second marriage, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975, as did his third, to actor Cyndi James-Reese, in 1992.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli, To repay $6.4 Million

Washington — The Supreme Court rejected Martin Shkreli’s appeal on Monday, after he was branded “Pharma Bro” for raising the price of a lifesaving prescription.

Martin appealed a decision to repay $64.6 million in profits he and his former company earned after monopolizing the pharmaceutical market and dramatically raising its price. His lawyers claimed the money went to his company rather than him personally.

The justices did not explain their reasoning, as is customary, and there were no notable dissents.

Prosecutors, conversely, claimed that the firm had promised to pay $40 million in a settlement and that because Martin orchestrated the plan, he should be held accountable for returning profits.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Martin was also forced to forfeit the Wu-Tang Clan’s unreleased album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” which has been dubbed the world’s rarest musical album. The multiplatinum hip-hop group auctioned off a single copy of the record in 2015, stipulating that it not be used commercially.

Shkreli was convicted of lying to investors and defrauding them of millions of dollars in two unsuccessful hedge funds he managed. Shkreli was the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals (later Vyera), which hiked the price of Daraprim from $13.50 to $750 per pill after acquiring exclusive rights to the decades-old medicine in 2015. It cures a rare parasite condition that affects pregnant women, cancer patients, and HIV patients.

shkreli

He defended the choice as an example of capitalism in action, claiming that insurance and other programs ensured that those in need of Daraprim would eventually receive it. However, the move prompted criticism, from the medical community to Congress.

Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From ‘Pharma Bro’ Martin Shkreli

Attorney Thomas Huff said the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling was upsetting, but the high court could still overturn a lower court judgment that allowed the $64 million penalty order even though Shkreli had not personally received the money.

“If and when the Supreme Court does so, Mr. Shkreli will have a strong argument for modifying the order accordingly,” he told reporters.

Shkreli was freed from prison in 2022 after serving most of his seven-year sentence.

SOURCE | AP