Mes: septiembre 2019

The runaway bestseller, “The Help,” is a look back at the relationships between white women and their black maids in Mississippi in the early 1960s. The book was written by Kathryn Stockett, and the film version premieres today. The author has sparked a lot of controversy because she’s white, yet wrote her novel from the perspective of an African-American housekeeper. If that’s not unusual enough, she let her best friend, a relative unknown, direct the film. Stockett’s explosive novel is set against the backdrop of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, a time of segregation and sit-ins, CBS News Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports. It’s the story of a rebellious Southern belle who collaborates with black maids to write a book pulling the covers off the complex, often painful relationships between a pampered, privileged class of white women and the black women who served them. “The Help” has been a bestseller for more than 100 weeks, and the movie has A-list actors, including Viola Davis and Emma Stone. Stockett and the film’s director, Tate Taylor, are lifelong friends who grew up in Jackson, Miss., raised by black housekeepers. “The Help” is her first book and his first major motion picture. Stockett reluctantly showed Taylor her manuscript after 60 literary agents had rejected it. Taylor said of her book, “You think you know your best friend so well, and I...

NEW YORK — DMX and his attorney feel that the artist best expresses himself through his rap songs, even in court. DMX is counting on a little rap to help him beat the rap at his tax evasion sentencing. Attorney Murray Richman said in a court document made public on Monday that he wants to play a few DMX compositions at Thursday’s sentencing in Manhattan for the rapper also known as Earl Simmons. The lawyer said the music will help U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff “understand him genuinely in his voice” since DMX may be too emotional to speak. DMX, 47, has been incarcerated since his bail was revoked in January by Rakoff, who scolded him for failing to obey bail conditions. More in Celebrities DMX, whose hits include “X Gon’ Give it to Ya,” has appreciated his time at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan and is “sober now and invigorated,” Richman wrote. “It was a salvation of sort to shut out the noise,” Richman said. The lawyer sent the judge lyrics to “Slippin'” and “The Convo,” among other compositions. The lyrics to “Slippin'” include lines like, “I’m slippin’, I’m fallin’, I can’t get up,” while “The Convo” includes lines, “Thou shall not steal, but I will to eat. I tried doin’ good, but good’s not too good for me” “It is raw Earl,” the lawyer said. “We are...

(CBS/AP) MANILA, Philippines – Philippine disaster officials were shifting Friday from rescue work to a massive clean-up of the capital following nonstop rains that left tons of muck and debris from floods littering the city. The torrential monsoon rains that began Sunday left at least 60 people dead in the worst flooding in Manila since 2009. More than half of the sprawling metropolis of 12 million was submerged at the peak of the floods, and schools and offices closed for days. About 2.4 million people in Manila and nearby provinces have been affected, forcing more than 360,000 to seek shelter in government-run evacuation centers, the Office of Civil Defense reported Friday. The sun was out for a second day Friday, and residents were hard at work fixing disheveled homes and stores in flood-hit communities that resembled a wasteland covered with mounds of mud-caked garbage. “It’s really an eyesore when we saw it from the helicopter,” said civil defense chief Benito Ramos. “There will be no more rescue. It’s now ‘Operation Cleanup.”‘ He said soldiers will be mobilized to help local authorities collect the debris that have clogged streets and waterways. Some of the displaced in still-crowded evacuation centers have begun to trickle back to their communities, where floodwaters have subsided, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said. Reservists will be assigned to help repack relief supplies for people still in...

(AP) AZAZ, Syria – Residents of this north Syrian border town like to snap photos of their children atop the tank parked downtown, one of more than a dozen captured or destroyed by rebels in the battles last month that “liberated” the area from President Bashar Assad’s army. Across the street in air-conditioned offices once occupied by Assad’s Baath party, a new political order is emerging. Local rebels have formed committees to fix power lines, fire up bakeries and staff the nearby border crossing with Turkey. They also run security patrols and a prison with some 60 captives. Two men were executed by firing squad recently after a judge and Islamic clerics found them guilty of murder. “We run a state system here,” said Samir Hajj Omar, the silver-haired former teacher who heads the rebel political office for Azaz, a town of 35,000. “We’re enforcing the law.” In recent months, Syria’s rebels have extended control over a large swath of territory in the northeastern corner of the country after forcing the army from town after town in a string of bloody street battles. As a result, for the first time in Syria’s 17-month conflict, rebels have a cohesive enclave in which they can move and organize with unprecedented freedom, plus a long stretch of the border with Turkey key for moving out refugees and smuggling in weapons. They also...