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Vassilieva will play Jessica. Tracy will portray Agent Chad Grant. Character descriptions are being kept under wraps.
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MUMBAI :Actress Akanksha Puri has been winning the hearts of the fans over the time with her amazing contribution; she is no doubt one of the major head turners coming from south industry who is known not only for her amazing acting but also for her looks.
Over the time she has been blessing the internet feed with some of the hot pictures which are indeed grabbing the attention of the fans and ruling the hearts of million, having said that today let us have a look at some of the hot of pictures of the actress which are grabbing the attention and are getting some jaw dropping reaction from the fans.
Looking at these pictures one thing is for sure that actress Akanksha Puri is one of the major head turners coming from acting space who definitely knows the right formula to set the internet on fire, she is indeed ruling the hearts with these hot pictures, we really cannot take our eyes off these beautiful pictures of the actress and would have to see more of the actress in the upcoming days.
What are your views on the actress and how will you rate in terms of hotness, do let us know in the comment section below.
For more news from the world of Bollywood, digital and television, keep reading Tellychakkar
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Screen Australia has revealed that over AUD$2 million ($1.36 million) is being used to fund two documentaries through its Commissioned Program and six projects through its Producer Program.
Among the new projects funded through the Producer Program is This is Us, a 30-minute documentary about the Australian Women’s Football team, which went from striking for equal pay to co-hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023.
Other documentary films and series from the Producer Program are Aquarius, about the radical ten-day Nimbin Aquarius Festival in 1973, in which idealists faced down police interference, drugs and personal drama; Ellis Park, about Australian musician Warren Ellis and his wildlife sanctuary in Sumatra; Never Get Busted!, about former Texas narcotics officer Barry Cooper, who turned against the police force to expose crooked cops and corruption; Rewards for the Tribe, about the collaboration between two acclaimed Australian contemporary dance companies; and Welcome to Babel, about the life and work of Chinese-Australian artist Jiawei Shen.
Through the Commissioned Program, the two funded projects are Life on the Hospital Frontline (w.t.) and The Way We Wore. The former explores the challenges faced by the Australian public health system by going behind the scenes at one of the country’s busiest public hospitals. The Way We Wore, meanwhile, provides a definitive history of the Australian fashion industry.
Screen Australia’s Commissioned Program is designed to support the production of quality projects for television broadcast, SVOD or similar. Projects must offer a compelling vision with a clear cultural value and have a local presale with a minimum license fee at application stage.
The Producer Program is designed to give producers the foundational funding required to leverage their projects creatively and commercially. It must have a clear path to audience, but marketplace attachment is not required at the application stage.
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Amazon Studios is launching Amazon MGM Studios Distribution, a division that will distribute Amazon originals in addition to MGM’s current and library titles.
The division will be helmed by Chris Ottinger, who has led the distribution team at MGM for more than a decade. Ottinger will report to Brad Beale, VP of worldwide licensing and distribution at Amazon and MGM Studios, who reports to Jen Salke, head of Amazon and MGM Studios.
Film titles to be distributed include 7500, All the Old Knives, Bliss, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, Coming 2 America, I Want You Back, The Tender Bar, The Tomorrow War, The Voyeurs and Without Remorse. Television titles include Goliath, Hunters and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Ottinger will manage the distribution team, which will oversee the licensing of Amazon original titles as well as MGM new-release and library movies and series such as film franchises James Bond, Rocky and Creed, and series The Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings, Fargo and the upcoming Hotel Cocaine from MGM+.
Salke said, “The launch of Amazon MGM Studios Distribution reinforces our commitment to bringing the very best content to audiences everywhere worldwide. With the integration of MGM, we wanted to take advantage of the existing team to expand our business in ways that will greatly benefit our customers around the world.”
Ottinger said, “Pioneering the distribution of Amazon originals for Amazon Studios is an exciting opportunity to bring fresh, never-before available quality content to audiences around the globe. In doing so, we will break through the current sales mold by creating custom packages that will fulfill our client’s individual content needs.”
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Paramount Network has revealed that Yellowstone will be ending after the conclusion of its fifth season, but it will be followed by a new sequel, set to debut in December.
Like the original series, the new expansion in the Yellowstone franchise comes from Taylor Sheridan (Wind River, Hell or High Water, Sicario). It will pick up where the original series leaves off.
The untitled sequel will make its debut on Paramount Network in December and later on Paramount+.
Season five of Yellowstone returns in November on Paramount Network, followed by Paramount+. The first part of the fifth season garnered over 17 million total viewers across the U.S.
Yellowstone and its new sequel are produced by MTV Entertainment Studios and 101 Studios.
“Yellowstone has been the cornerstone on which we have launched an entire universe of global hits—from 1883 to Tulsa King—and I am confident our Yellowstone sequel will be another big hit, thanks to the brilliant creative mind of Taylor Sheridan and our incredible casts who bring these shows to life,” said Chris McCarthy, president, and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios.
David Glasser, CEO of 101 Studios, added, “The Dutton story continues, picking up where Yellowstone leaves off in another epic tale. We are thrilled to bring this new journey to audiences around the world.”
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Ampere Analysis is reporting that the rate of TV commissioning in the U.S. dropped significantly in the second half of last year and continues to remain low in 2023, with effects to be felt in early 2024.
The downturn is most significant for scripted content, the findings show, with scripted TV commissions in the last three quarters down by 24 percent year-on-year—with overall volumes even lower than during the Covid pandemic. However, Ampere believes that the resulting content deficit has created opportunities for those in a position to invest.
Low commissioning now will create a future content deficit, the firm explains, with the slowdown likely to show its effects in Q3 2023 and beyond.
Ampere outlines two possible scenarios: one is if commissioning rates recover soon, audiences will see between 5 percent and 7 percent fewer scripted releases each quarter between now and Q2 2024, when the effects will ease. In the second scenario, if commissioning continues at current levels, audiences will start to feel a much greater impact towards the end of this year, with 16 percent fewer releases expected in Q4 2023 and 20 percent fewer from Q2 2024 onward.
Fred Black, research manager at Ampere Analysis, commented: “Scripted commissions at flagship SVOD services are definitely feeling the impact of budget cuts—and the studios aren’t only cutting back at their streaming platforms, with pay-TV networks like TBS, FX, OWN, Freeform, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, BET and AMC all reducing Scripted commissions by over 50 percent when comparing the past nine months with the previous period. There’s one big exception, however: Amazon, which is capitalizing on cutbacks made by rivals by increasing commissions of comedy and sci-fi and fantasy shows. Investing in scripted commissions now can pay off doubly for those willing to gamble, as the extra commissions will hit the market just as the output of original content from rivals drops to its lowest levels early next year.”
The decline of unscripted commissions was severe across SVOD and pay TV; however, SVOD services have been the biggest loser, with commissions down 33 percent over the last nine months versus the same period in the previous year, with 151 fewer titles commissioned. AVOD and FAST commissioners have provided a bright spot, with 83 unscripted commissions over the period, 6 percent of all unscripted activity in the U.S. in that time.
Black added: “While the commissioning cutbacks in unscripted content at the dominant pay-TV and SVOD platforms have been severe, there is a sense of balance being restored after a significant pandemic peak. Covid-19 saw unscripted commissions soar out of necessity due to production complications and then continue at a high level due to a surprisingly enthusiastic audience. What we’re seeing now is a course correction. Unscripted commissions in the U.S. were down 16 percent over the last three quarters compared to the previous year, but compare it to the same period in 2019 and early 2020, and the drop is only 1 percent. There’s also optimism in the growing number of commissions from AVOD and FAST platforms, showing that while some SVOD services may have over-leveraged on unscripted content, there are plenty of nascent players still investing.”
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Progress in reducing deaths during pregnancy and childbirth and among newborn infants has stalled since 2015, and over 60 countries are on track to miss 2030 targets at current rates, a World Health Organization report released on Tuesday found.
The COVID-19 pandemic, poverty, and worsening humanitarian crises have strained already pressured healthcare systems, the U.N. agency said in a statement.
Annually since 2015 there have been about 290,000 maternal deaths, 1.9 million stillbirths, and 2.3 million newborn deaths within a month after birth, the report said.
The combined total represents one death every seven seconds, “mostly from preventable or treatable causes if proper care was available,” the WHO said.
Countries need to ramp up investment in primary care to see different results, said Anshu Banerjee, the WHO’s director of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and ageing.
More than 190 countries backed a plan in 2014 to cut rates of stillbirth and preventable deaths among infants, and subsequently set up global targets such as reducing the maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births.
Projections indicate the need to accelerate progress in order to meet those targets, according to the report, which could help save at least 7.8 million lives by 2030 if they are met.
Progress was faster between 2000 and 2010 than at any time since, the report showed, blaming funding shortfalls among the primary reasons. Only 12% of 106 reporting countries have fully-financed maternal and newborn health plans, it said.
The report also found that only 61% of reporting countries have systems for keeping track of stillbirths.
The report found that 10 countries with the highest maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths account for 60% of all such deaths globally.
India, Nigeria and Pakistan led that list in 2020, according to the report.
(Reporting by Aditya Samal in Bengaluru; Editing by Nancy Lapid and Bill Berkrot)
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Salman Khan death threat: Mumbai Police has issued a lookout circular (LOC) against a man accused of sending threatening email to actor Salman Khan. The suspect is a resident of Haryana and is pursuing medical studies in the UK. He had allegedly emailed threatening messages to the ‘Dabangg’ star in the name of gangster Goldy Brar in March. Following this, the Bollywood superstar was provided Y+ security.
Salman, who has been receiving death threats for a long time now, recently opened up about how he is dealing with it. During an appearance at India TV’ show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’, Salman told Rajat Sharma, “Security is better than insecurity. Yes security is there. Now it is not possible to ride a bicycle on the road and go alone anywhere. And more than that, now I have this problem that when I am in traffic, then there is so much security, vehicles creating inconvenience to other people. They also give me a look. And my poor fans. There is a serious threat that’s why there is security,” he said.
“I am doing whatever I have been told. There is a dialogue ‘Kisi Ka Bhai Kisi Ki Jaan’ ‘they have to be lucky 100 times, I have to be lucky once’. So, I got to be very careful,” he added. The actor admitted that he often gets scared seeing “so many guns ” around him. “I am going everywhere with full security. I know whatever is going to happen will happen no matter what you do. I believe that (points towards god) that he is there. It is not that I will start roaming freely, it is not like that. Now there are so many Sheras around me, so many guns are going around with me that I am myself scared these days,” Salman shared.
On March 18, the Bandra police registered an FIR (first information report) against three persons — gangsters Bishnoi, Brar and one Rohit — for allegedly sending a threatening e-mail to Khan’s office. The FIR was registered on the basis of a police complaint lodged by one Prashant Gunjalkar, who according to cops, frequently visits the Bandra-based residence of the popular filmstar and runs an artist management company.
When Gunjalkar was present in Khan’s office on Saturday afternoon, he noticed an email had come from the ID “Rohit Garg”, the official said quoting the FIR. The e-mail stated Khan must have seen the interview given recently to a news channel by Bishnoi, and if not, he should see it. Addressing Gunjalkar, it said if Khan wants to close the matter, he should talk face-to-face with Goldy bhai, adding “there is still time but agli bar, jhatka dekhne ko milega” (next time he will receive shock). The FIR was registered under sections 120-B (punishment for criminal conspiracy), 506-II (punishment for criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) under the Indian Penal Code.
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WASHINGTON — Boiled down, President Biden’s argument for running for a second term rather than ceding the ground to the next generation is that he is the Democrat most assured of beating former President Donald J. Trump next year.
But a striking new poll challenged that case in a way that had much of the capital buzzing the last couple of days. Taken at face value, the poll showed Mr. Biden trailing Mr. Trump by six percentage points in a theoretical rematch, raising the question of whether the president is as well positioned as he maintains.
No single poll means all that much, especially so early in an election cycle, and the president’s strategists as well as some independent analysts questioned its methodology. But even if it is an outlier, other recent surveys have indicated that the race is effectively tied, with either Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump holding narrow leads within the margin of error. Taken together, they suggest that the president opens the 2024 campaign facing enormous challenges with no guarantee of victory over Mr. Trump.
The data has left many Democrats feeling anywhere from queasy to alarmed. Mr. Biden’s case for being the pair of safe hands at a volatile moment is undermined in their view if a president who passed major legislation and presides over the lowest unemployment in generations cannot outperform a twice-impeached challenger who instigated an insurrection, has been indicted on multiple felonies, is on civil trial accused of rape and faces more potential criminal charges in the months to come.
“The poll demonstrates that the president still has work to do, not only in convincing the American people that he’s up for the job that he wishes to complete,” said Donna Brazile, a former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee who said she lost sleep over the “ominous signs” in the latest survey results. “More importantly, it’s a good forecast of the challenges he will face in rebuilding the remarkable coalition that elected him in 2020.”
“I don’t think that they should panic because you can’t panic after one poll,” said Ms. Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000. A survey is “just one gauge” among many on the long road to the voting booth. “But it’s an important barometer of where the electorate is today, some 547 days away from the November 2024 election.”
The survey by The Washington Post and ABC News found that the president’s approval rating has slipped to 36 percent and that Mr. Trump would beat him by 44 percent to 38 percent if the election were held today. Just as worrisome for Democrats, respondents considered Mr. Trump, 76, more physically and mentally fit than Mr. Biden, 80, and concluded that the former president managed the economy better than the incumbent has.
Critics of the poll disparaged it for including all adults in its sample of 1,006, rather than just registered voters, and maintained that its results among subgroups like young people, independents, Hispanics and Black Americans were simply not credible.
“The poll really is trash, and I don’t say that lightly because I’ve had respect for their polling in the past,” said Cornell Belcher, who was President Barack Obama’s pollster. “However, their methodological decision here is problematic,” he added of the way the survey was constructed.
Others cautioned against overanalyzing data this early, noting that anything can happen in the next 18 months and recalling that projections based on polling — or misinterpretations of polling — proved to be poor predictors in recent cycles, including the 2022 midterm elections when a forecast “red wave” did not materialize.
“Polls in May 2024 will be of dubious value,” said David Plouffe, who was Mr. Obama’s campaign manager. “Polls in May 2023 are worth as much as Theranos stock.”
The White House expressed no concern over the latest surveys. “President Biden’s average job approval is higher now than in early November when poll-based reporting widely prophesied a supposedly inevitable red wave that never arrived,” said Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman.
Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the fledgling Biden campaign, said the president would win on issues like lowering prescription drugs and protecting Social Security. “Americans voted for Joe Biden’s America in 2020 and 2022, and regardless of what today’s Beltway insider says, they will again in 2024,” he said.
While not predictive, recent surveys provide a foundational baseline at the start of a race potentially between two universally known figures, foreshadowing a campaign without a clear front-runner. Polls by Yahoo News, The Wall Street Journal and Morning Consult have found the president slightly ahead while surveys by The Economist and the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies found him tied or trailing by several points. Mr. Biden faces similarly mixed results against Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the strongest challenger to Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination.
The results point to a calcification in American politics where the leaders of both parties have a similarly sized core of support among voters not open to the other side regardless of developments in the news. The days when presidents could enjoy approval ratings above 50 percent or double-digit leads over challengers for any sustained period of time appear to be long over. And so if widespread support is no longer achievable, the challenge for Mr. Biden is to reassemble the coalition that provided him a 4.5-percentage-point victory nearly three years ago.
Mr. Biden has dismissed the importance of polls, saying that he is no different from other presidents at this point in their terms. “Every major one who won re-election, their polling numbers were where mine are now,” he told Stephanie Ruhle on “The 11th Hour” on MSNBC on Friday.
But in fact, only two of the past 13 presidents had approval ratings lower than Mr. Biden has at this point, according to an aggregate compilation by FiveThirtyEight.com — Mr. Trump and Jimmy Carter, both of whom lost re-election. More encouraging for Mr. Biden is the example of Ronald Reagan, who was just one-tenth of a point above where the current president is at this stage of his presidency, but came back to win a landslide re-election in 1984.
Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant, said it was telling that Mr. Biden was essentially tied or behind “a former president carrying more baggage than a loaded 747” and warned Democrats against complacency.
“Democrats are in denial if they think Biden cannot lose to Trump in 2024,” he said. “Trump can most certainly win. Joe Biden is asking the country to elect a candidate who will be 82 years old, who has clearly lost a step, running with a vice president whom almost no one in either party thinks is ready for prime time.”
The Post-ABC poll and other surveys contain grim news for Republicans as well. While Mr. Trump leads or keeps relatively even with the president, he may have a ceiling beyond which he cannot rise, while Mr. Biden can still win over ambivalent independents who dislike the former president, analysts said.
“While the poll is not great news for Biden, it’s not great news for the Republicans either,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “Only about a third say they are strong supporters for Biden, DeSantis and Trump. It feels more unsettled than anything else.”
She said that the real choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, should it come to that, would force ambivalent Democrats and independents to come off the fence. “I noticed more softness among Democrats, but I have no doubt that no matter what skepticism Democrats tell pollsters right now, they are going to vote for Joe Biden,” she said.
Stuart Stevens, who ran Mitt Romney’s campaign against Mr. Obama in 2012 and is a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, noted that the Republican establishment worries that the former president cannot win even though he leads in some polls. “We seem to be in this weird moment when Republican elite are panicked that Trump can’t beat Biden,” he said. “I think that’s because they know that Trump is deeply flawed.”
David Axelrod, the former Obama senior adviser who was on the other side of that race from Mr. Stevens, agreed with his assessment. “What Biden has that no one else does is a record of having beaten Trump, which weighs heavily in conversations among Democrats about the race,” Mr. Axelrod said. “He also has a record to run on and a party out of the mainstream on some important issues to run against, with a deeply flawed front-runner.”
“The worry for Democrats is that the re-elect is subject to a lot of variables Biden can’t entirely control — including his own health and aging process,” Mr. Axelrod added. “Any setback will exacerbate public concerns already apparent in the polls about his condition and ability to handle four more years.”
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[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for NCIS: Hawai’i Season 2 Episode 20 “Nightwatch Two.”]
Was Kacy Season 1 sometimes tough to watch? Yes. Did we just want our favorite NCIS: Hawai’i couple to get it together? Yes. Well, fortunately, Lucy (Yasmine Al-Bustami) and Kate (Tori Anderson) have done just that in Season 2.
And in the latest episode, they’re celebrating an anniversary … sort of. As Lucy explains, after Kate finds a cupcake with “Happy Anniversary” on it in the fridge, she’s superstitious about real dates and anniversaries but she loves her and them and wants to celebrate their awesomeness as a couple and how far they’ve come. So, she picked a random day — the same one she’s on night watch — for just that.
Their plans are interrupted by a call (which leads to a case), but the end of the episode does see them at a bar, recreating the night they first met. Kate was in town for a meeting, the two flirted, and the rest is history (but this time includes Lucy stealing a fry). It’s the perfect non-anniversary, Kate says.
“Anything with Tori, I’ll just say, is always so fun to play,” Al-Bustami tells TV Insider. “We actually spoke about that on the day of [filming that scene] whenever it was just the two of us. And I just asked her, ‘What are your favorite scenes to film?’ And she was like, ‘I really do like when it’s just two people. You can just focus on the other person.’”
And while Al-Bustami does enjoy the group scenes, which they do have quite a lot of, “it really is refreshing whenever you get to just do you and another person, especially when it’s not crime solving, which is why it’s always so fun to play with Tori just because I get the emotional stuff with her,” she explains. “That was fun to play in this scene especially because since it is a recreation, it’s the trying to be how we used to be and playing all of that out. But then clearly obviously we have a relationship now and just seeing the transformation from where I know Kate was to where Kate is and the fact that she even wants to do this is, I just think it’s so adorable and it’s so cute and Lucy loves that.”
And here’s a fun behind-the-scenes anecdote: It was while filming that scene that they found out NCIS: Hawai’i had been renewed for Season 3. “They made a huge announcement. That was cool,” Al-Bustami shares. “That was fun to get to hear that with everybody.”
Before that fun, sweet moment, however, Lucy spends the episode very much wrapped up in the case. While on night watch, she receives a call from a man, Joe, who says he killed someone. But in putting the pieces together, she realizes he was only protecting himself from someone who had been about to kill him. As for the person manipulating the others involved in a robbery, well, Lucy, takes him down in a cool fight scene on a boat. (Kate shoots him before he can reach for his gun at the end.)
Karen Neal/CBS
Filming that fight scene “was a blast. That was so much fun and everyone was such a trooper,” Al-Bustami raves. “It was really hot that day and all of us were obviously wearing all our clothes and gear and everything, but everyone was awesome and because of all that space that you saw, which was none, and because we were on location, it really did take everyone — the crew, the camera team, the fight coordinators, the other actors — coming together and just making sure that everyone felt safe and everyone knew what they were doing. It was hard, but everyone was so proud of it just because we all knew all the work and the coordination it took to do everything.”
And as we see, it paid off!
NCIS: Hawai’i, Mondays, 10/9c, CBS
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