Category Archives: Isabella Halili

Coachella takes over weekend

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Coachella begins today, April 14, 2017 in Indio, Calif. It’s an annual festival that celebrates music, food, art, and humanity. Coachella celebrates music from multiple genres — rock, indie, hiphop, and electronic dance music. This year it will be featuring artists such as  Kendrick Lamar and Lady Gaga.

This festival originated in 1993, when it was just a concert in protest to venues controlled by Ticketmaster. The actual Coachella festival started in October 1999 by Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen. It has now become an internationally known music and arts festival with celebrities attending this three-day event.

There’s food to be eaten, music to be heard, and art to be admired at Coachella. More than 100 food vendors and well over 100 well-known and emerging music artists attract individuals from all ages to hang out and even sleepover in the Colorado Desert.

Not a lot of coverage from any news media outlets have been given to Coachella. There has been advertising and a few articles from the Los Angeles Times and ABC News to inform readers about this legendary event.

I think most coverage will be done during the festival and after the weekend is finished. There will most likely be articles about who performed, how they performed, and updates on what celebrities attended the music and arts festival.

Rolling Loud festival in jeopardy

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Miami’s Bayfront Park is planned to be the home of the new hip-hop music festival Rolling Loud. Headliners, such as Kendrick Lamar, Future and Lil Wayne, are planned to perform in early May.

The entertainment agency, Dope Entertainment, that is producing the music festival is continuing to act as if the festival is still on, although there is talk the public agency that manages Bayfront Park is considering cancelling the event.

The initial discussion of cancelling the festival started with Frank Carollo, chairman of the Bayfront Park Management Trust, since the event was approved without his knowing or the consent of the board.

There will be a meeting held on April 11, where the trust will be voting whether to cancel the music festival or not.

As of now, Rolling Loud has not broken any rules of its agreement, so it’s harder for the committee to cancel the event .

Miami residents have always complained about the noise and trash that the electronic dance music festival Ultra brings downtown and don’t want another weekend filled with noisy music festival-goers dirtying up the city.

The Miami Herald has done a sufficient job on reporting about this music festival. It has discussed both parties’ concerns and the logistics behind music festivals. As of right now, this story only pertains to the Miami area, but if the festival is to be cancelled, there is going to need to be more coverage so that the public knows.

Live action Lion King in the works

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By ISABELLA HALILI

“The Lion King” is one of Disney’s most beloved storylines. It’s originally an animated musical movie that has been adapted for the theater stage and is now going to be Disney’s newest computer graphics project.

Pre-production for Disney’s live-action remake of “The Lion King” has been in the works for a couple of months now, but the production team has just announced that director Jon Favreau’s top choice to voice the character of Nala is Beyonce.

The film has already cast the voice of Simba to the Golden Globe winner and star of the television series “Atlanta,” Donald Glover and also the voice of Scar to the original voice James Earl Jones.

The original movie premiered in 1994 and, with the inclusion of the Broadway stage adaptation, “The Lion King” is still the top grossed film in the world.

There has been no recent update as to when this remake will arrive in theaters, but it is a much anticipated film for Disney.

Articles from Variety and Time have been written revolving around the casting of the film, but there has been no recent updates as to when production will start or when then the film is expected to hit the theaters.

There needs to be more news media coverage as soon as production does start.

Ultra takes over downtown Miami

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By ISABELLA HALILI

This weekend Miami will be hosting the annual Ultra Music Festival as it comes back to Miami for the 18th time.

This electronic dance music festival started in Miami in 1999 by two entrepreneurs, Russell Faibisch and Alex Omes. The first festival they ever hosted was only one day, but now the organization has grown to host three full days of music.

Construction for this massive event started on Wednesday and has caused much distraction in downtown Miami since then. There has been many complaints from Miamians asking Ultra to find a better, less distracting venue.

Although there are many who have complained, locals acknowledge the fact that the Ultra Music Festival is economically beneficial to the city. It causes international attention and it’s always a sold out event.

Most locals who don’t attend the event just choose to flee the downtown area for the weekend.

The Miami Herald wrote about Miami’s mixed feelings about the festival. How it’s a real distraction to people who work and live downtown, but how this festival does end up benefiting the city more than distracting it. The Miami New Times came out with an article to help drivers in Miami avoid traffic, but also wrote about the lineup of the festival. Sun Sentinel wrote an article about the addition of trains to transport music festival goers.

I think the news media based in Miami has made a big deal to note that the Ultra Music Festival is in town this week. They are giving free publicity to this music festival, while also giving publicity to their own city, which in the end will only benefit the city as a whole.

Pope considers married men as priests

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Pope Francis has been known to be one of the more progressive popes that have lead the Catholic Church. He has been trying his best to lead the church to a more modern and up-to-date place.

He speaks openly about his acceptance of homosexuality and his understanding of why abortions can sometimes be necessary, but his most recent comment will put one of the strictest rules of the Catholic Church into question.

In an interview, Francis said he is considering letting married men become ordained priests. He said this new rule would be quite beneficial to rural areas that have very few priests. Right now, he knows he will not be completely removing the rule of celibacy.

There has been a growing issue of getting young people to fully commit to a vocation to the Church, and so this is why Francis is open to changing such strict rules.

This new type of priest would be called  a “viri probati,” which comes from the Latin meaning “man that is proven.”

The Associated Press did the original article about the statement from Francis. TIME magazine then did an article covering this topic. I think they could have down more news media coverage on this topic targeting the youth, but also it is a sensitive subject since it does deal with religion.

So with that taken into consideration, I feel they did a fare amount of coverage on this sort of topic.

Hackathon focuses on abortion rights

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Hackathons are usually held as competitions to see what developers can create the newest and best app, but this weekend it’s a for a much greater cause.

More than 300 developers and activists will come together at the Abortion Access Hackathon. It is a two-day coding marathon in San Francisco that is aiming to find technology-based solutions to support women’s health care providers who fear the new decisions under the Trump Administration.

The organizers of this event have no set game plan, but are thinking of creating an app that educates people on abortion access laws in their state or developing an Uber-like app that will drive women who need it to abortion clinics.

Many abortion providers have financial support, but lack basic operational tools, such as data management and cybersecurity. This event is crucial so to help abortion providers with these issues, but to also shine light on the more relevant issue of Republicans in Congress initiating the defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Although this event is only taking place in California, organizers hope the ideas that come out of this event spread across the country, especially to states that have stricter abortion laws.

A number of women’s health blogs and online magazines have covered this event idea in the past week. TIME also wrote an article discussing the importance of this event. It was smart of the Los Angeles Times to write about this event as well, since it is taking place in California. Teen Vogue is trying to get the young adults more active in political issues by publishing an article about this hackathon as well.

I think there was a wide variety of audiences that were reached with all these different publications and all did a great job on getting the public more involved with political matters.

News media say ‘protect trans kids’

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s administration took back a policy that allowed transgender children in public schools to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender they identify with. This policy originated in then-President Obama’s administration to protect trans kids on a federal level.

Now that this policy has been taken away, it is up to state government to manage the safety of transgender individuals.

The U.S. Supreme Court in March will be hearing a case that’s result will affect the future of the transgender community. The case involves a 17-year-old who is fighting to use the boy’s restroom at his public school in Virginia.

Without Obama’s reasoning, Title IX, all previous cases involving transgender people and bathrooms are being brought into legal questioning.

Many news media outlets, such as the Huffington Post and the Guardian covered this major event by Trump’s administration. Both articles stressed that it’s up to the public to educate itself and to stand up for minority groups whose voices cannot be heard.

Celebrities and other social media influencers responded to this event on Instagram and Twitter by posting a picture of the words “protect trans kids.” This small act done by many people quickly spread the word.

I think there is an under representation on the issue at hand in the news media.

It is a new world for DNA editing

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By ISABELLA HALILI

The Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., a research center that is associated with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now has the rights to a powerful gene-editing technique, a technology worth billions of dollars, that has the potential to change the medical and agricultural world.

The birthplace of this gene-editing technique developed at the University of California at Berkeley, but this past Wednesday, the federal Patent and Trademark Office made the decision to issue over a dozen patents regarding this technique  to the Broad Institute. They did so because to the extent of their knowledge, they believed the inventions brought by these two institutions were irrelevant to each other.

Although the rights were accredited to the Broad Institute, the ruling now allows the University of California at Berkeley to own the rights to the use of Crispr on all types of cells. These new patents mean that all companies that want to use Crispr in the medical, agricultural, or any other field will potentially need to apply for a usage license from both the University of California at Berkeley and the Broad Institute.

The technique is called the Crispr technique, and it can be used to modify the DNA in the cells of humans, animals and plants. Biologists are most intrigued by the possibilities

Crispr has the potential for development of new disease treatments. This technique makes the altering of DNA in human embryos possible. These means it is now possible to edit out genes that could cause serious diseases in an infant.

National Public Radio and the New York Times were the only major publications to make an effort to cover this topic. Both were written from a scientific standpoint, explaining what gene-editing means for the future of medicine.

Tommy Hilfiger takes on Los Angeles

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Only a day before New York Fashion Week began, fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger decided to hold a fashion event of his own in Los Angeles. It showcased a modernized late 90’s and early 2000’s style of oversized sports jerseys, cropped sweatshirts, patched up jeans, and leather shorts.

The show was centered around their reveal of Hilfiger’s new collaboration line with supermodel, Gigi Hadid for the next fashion season. More designers have recently decided to bring shows to the Los Angeles area for the extra space and laid-back vibe the city can bring to a show.

Many news media outlets such as The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Vogue reported about this event. Vogue focused on the fashion, while the New York Times focused on all sorts of fashion events happening in Los Angeles this week.

Not only well known celebrities, such as Gigi Hadid, Lady Gaga, and Fergie were at this event, but also social media personalities like Cameron Dallas and Nash Grier were able to attend the show.

Along with his runway surprise, Hilfiger hosted a carnival-styled festival called Tommyland to celebrate the new collection. Industry professionals and consumers partied together with food trucks, pop-up shops and carnival rides. Fergie performed for the crown of about 3,000 guests at this carnival.

Nordstrom drops Ivanka Trump products

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By ISABELLA HALILI

Nordstrom is a luxury department store that has removed the Ivanka Trump brand online and in stores. It claims to have made this decision based off the brand’s poor performance in recent months.

Nordstrom hopes that its decision to sell or not to sell Ms. Trump’s brand, now and in the future, is no indication of its political affiliation. It’s all business. If the store keeps buying products that don’t sell, that money just goes to waste.

Poor performance is not the only factor in the ending of Ms. Trump’s brand in Nordstrom stores. The initial move to end the brand’s appearance in stores came from the public. The campaign called #GrabYourWallet made a huge effort in making this possible. This campaign encourages shoppers to boycott any products that have any tie to President Trump or his family.

Shannon Coulter, the co-founder of the campaign, said that supporting certain brands that have ties to President Trump are in turn supporting him.

Nordstrom is not the only business to pull products from its stores. Macy’s is another department store that decided back in 2015 to stop selling President Trump’s dress shirts after he used rude language to generalize about Mexican immigrants.

I don’t think it’s a company’s duty to take a political stance in any situation, but at the place we are now as a country, it’s hard for them not to take one.