Bruce Willis wraps up movie shoot in rural Georgia
WARWICK, Ga. — Actor Bruce Willis has finished shooting scenes for a new movie set in rural southwest Georgia.
The star of “Die Hard” and “Pulp Fiction” spent about a week filming in the area of Crisp and Ben Hill counties, WALB-TV reported. The movie is an action film called “Reactor.”
Producer Alexander Kane, who lives in Fitzgerald, called Willis a “stand-up American genuine guy” who fits right in when he comes to Georgia.
“He likes golf and outdoors and he enjoys the local dining, he likes the cuisine,” Kane said. “If he was to buy a home in south Georgia, he would fit right in with the rest of us.”
Kane says the movie could have a $2 million impact on local economies, and rural Georgia will be well represented onscreen. The story of the film is set in Fitzgerald.
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WASHINGTON — Union activist Terrence Wise recalls being laughed at when he began pushing for a national $15 per hour minimum wage almost a decade ago. Nearly a year into the pandemic, the idea isn’t so funny.
The coronavirus has renewed focus on challenges facing hourly employees who have continued working in grocery stores, gas stations and other in-person locations even as much of the workforce has shifted to virtual environments. President Joe Biden has responded by including a provision in the massive pandemic relief bill that would more than double the minimum wage from the current $7.25 to $15 per hour.
But the effort is facing an unexpected roadblock: Biden himself. The president has seemingly undermined the push to raise the minimum wage by acknowledging its dim prospects in Congress, where it faces political opposition and procedural hurdles.
That’s frustrating to activists like Wise, who worry their victory is being snatched away at the last minute despite an administration that’s otherwise an outspoken ally.
“To have it this close on the doorstep, they need to get it done,” said Wise, a 41-year-old department manager at a McDonald’s in Kansas City and a national leader of Fight for 15, an organized labor movement. “They need to feel the pressure.”
The minimum wage debate highlights one of the central tensions emerging in the early days of Biden’s presidency. He won the White House with pledges to respond to the pandemic with a barrage of liberal policy proposals. But as a 36year veteran of the Senate, Biden is particularly attuned to the political dynamics on Capitol Hill and can be blunt in his assessments.
“I don’t think it’s going to survive,” Biden recently told CBS News, referring to the minimum wage hike.
There’s a certain political realism in Biden’s remark.
With the Senate evenly divided, the proposal doesn’t have the 60 votes needed to make it to the floor on its own. Democrats could use an arcane budgetary procedure that would attach the minimum wage to the pandemic response bill and allow it to pass with a simple majority vote.
But even that’s not easy. Some moderate Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, have expressed either outright opposition to the hike or said it shouldn’t be included in the pandemic legislation.
The Senate’s parliamentarian may further complicate things with a ruling that the minimum wage measure can’t be included in the pandemic bill.
For now, the measure’s most progressive Senate backers aren’t openly pressuring Biden to step up his campaign for a higher minimum wage.
Bernie Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, has said he’s largely focused on winning approval from the parliamentarian to tack the provision onto the pandemic bill. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who like Sanders challenged Biden from the left for the Democratic nomination, has only tweeted that Democrats should “right this wrong.”
Some activists, however, are encouraging Biden to be more aggressive.
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said Biden has a “mandate” to ensure the minimum wage increases, noting that minority Americans were “the first to go back to jobs, first to get infected, first to get sick, first to die” during the pandemic.
American tennis player Nicole Gibbs announced her retirement Monday on social media and said she plans to enroll in law school this fall.
Gibbs, 27, is No. 172 in the WTA Tour rankings.
She achieved a career high of No. 68 in 2016.
The Cincinnati native and former NCAA singles champion at Stanford recovered from a bout with oral cancer in 2019. Gibbs reached the third round at the 2014 U.S. Open and 2017 Australian Open.