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Bruce Willis keeps it casual as he grabs a drink with friends in Malibu
Bruce Willis keeps it casual as he grabs a drink with friends in Malibu – days after it was revealed his Die Hard co-star Clarence Gilyard Jr. passed away
Bruce Willis was spotted grabbing a drink with friends at SunLife Organics in Malibu on Thursday.
The famed actor – who has stepped back from his acting career after his aphasia brain disorder diagnosis – bundled up in a navy zip-up jacket and a black beanie for the outing.
Bruce’s outing comes just days after it was revealed that his Die Hard co-star Clarence Gilyard Jr. passed away at age 66 following a battle with a long illness
Bruce Willis, 67, was spotted grabbing a drink with friends at SunLife Organics in Malibu on Thursday
To wind down and spend some quality time with friends, the 67-year-old Pulp Fiction star wore a white henley shirt and light denim jeans along with a pair of New Balance sneakers.
Gilyard played Theo – an eccentric computer hacker – opposite Willis’ detective John McClane in the 1988 action-thriller film.
Decades later in 2020, he reprized his role as Theo when he appeared with Willis in an Advance Auto Parts video advertising the brand’s DieHard car batteries.
It’s chilly outside! The famed actor bundled up in a navy zip-up jacket and a black beanie for the outing
The ad featured Theo bringing McClane on an adventurous mission to obtain a replacement battery for his car.
The details of his death are not yet clear.
Earlier this month, a fellow actor and his longtime friend Sylvester Stallone said Willis was having a ‘difficult’ time following his aphasia brain disorder diagnosis.
Casual and cool: the Pulp Fiction star wore a white henley shirt and light denim jeans along with a pair of New Balance sneakers.
Eight months ago, the family of the screen icon told fans with a social media post that Willis had been diagnosed with aphasia – a brain condition that affects his ability to understand language – and would subsequently be retiring from acting.
Stallone, 76, – who starred alongside Willis in The Expendables and its same name sequel – told The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month: ‘Bruce is going through some really, really difficult times. So he’s been sort of incommunicado. that kills me. It’s so sad.’
A source told Page Six in March that Willis had been having cognitive issues on the set of his recent films and was unable to remember his lines.
Full of action: Gilyard played Theo – an eccentric computer hacker – opposite Willis’ detective John McClane (shown here) in the 1988 action-thriller film
Bruce Willis was having cognitive issues on the set of his recent films, and was unable to remember his lines before his family stepped in “to take care of him,” a source told Page Six.
In 2020, rumors spread after the retired actor was filming mostly B action movies.
The source revealed that Willis had to use ‘earpieces, hearing things, for them to feed him the lines.
Remembering: On Tuesday, Willis’ Die Hard co-star passed away following a battle with a long illness . Clarence Gilyard Jr. was 66 years old.
Meeting again: In 2020, Gilyard reprized his role as Theo when he appeared with Willis in an Advance Auto Parts video advertising the brand’s DieHard car batteries
‘It was increasingly difficult to have him on screen,’ the source added. ‘It became very apparent that he was having problems, so they’d use body doubles, not just for action [sequences]but for maximizing his screen time.’
The source said that the star’s diagnosis was somewhat of an open secret in Hollywood. ‘He was having cognitive problems, they all knew Bruce was having problems.
‘Everybody knew, the cast and crew. His family has stepped in, they moved in to take care of him.’
Longtime friend: Sylvester Stallone, 76, starred alongside Willis in The Expendables and its same name sequel The Expendables 2
War and adverse weather sets in to keep food prices high
Climate change and the war in Ukraine are set to keep food prices at far higher levels than before the Covid-19 pandemic, despite signs of moderation in global commodity markets, economists and agriculture experts have warned.
Wholesale food prices have stabilized over recent months, raising hopes that the surge in the retail cost of staples such as rice, bread and milk seen in the past two years will diminish in 2023.
The latest update of the food price index of internationally traded agricultural commodities, compiled by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), published on Friday, posted its eighth consecutive monthly decline in November since peaking in March. The November index showed prices were just 0.3 per cent higher than a year earlier.
However, the stabilization in international markets is yet to translate into lower inflation for households around the world.
Even if this does happen over time, costs are likely to remain well above pre-pandemic levels as the war and weather events limit producers’ ability to take advantage of higher prices by increasing supply.
“Normally the cure for high prices is high prices,” said Carlos Mera, senior analyst at Rabobank. “We do see a weakness in demand, but production has not been very elastic.”
After several years of bumper crops thanks to favorable weather conditions, grain prices firmed up during the pandemic because of hoarding by consumers, companies and governments. Even before Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, which caused prices to spike because of the importance of both countries in producing commodities such as wheat, persistent droughts in key growing regions had pushed prices higher.
Both the Ukraine conflict, which has raised the cost of fossil fuels and energy-intensive fertilizer production, and the third year of the La Niña weather phenomenon — the cause of severe droughts in the US, Argentina and Europe — have hit farmers, curbing their ability to increase output.
“The supply response has been slow. Farmers around the world are applying less fertilizer, and in places like Africa, this will lead to lower production,” said Josef Schmidhuber, deputy director of trade and markets at the FAO, which expected grain production to be lower next year than in previous years.
The FAO is also concerned that there could be a global rice shortage next year if producers fail to find enough fertiliser.
“A fall in global cereal production for the current agricultural year, and input cost pressures, will keep food prices elevated in the near future,” said Ervin Prifti, senior economist at the IMF.
Fertiliser prices started soaring even before the war as Russia curtailed supplies of gas, the main feedstock, to Europe last year. Prices of potash jumped after Western governments imposed sanctions against Belarus, one of the world’s largest producers of the crop nutrient, after Minsk violently quashed anti-government protesters.
Although costs have fallen back from the peak, prices remain high by historical standards and data from consultancy CRU show fertilizer remains unaffordable for many.
Russia’s invasion has affected three Ukrainian crop cycles so far. The 2021 harvest was prevented from leaving the country once the war broke out. The 2022 crops faced harvest and infrastructure issues, with key areas becoming war zones. Next year’s crop yields are expected to fall sharply.
“That’s equivalent to three back-to-back droughts,” said Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the IFPRI food security think-tank and former chief economist at the US Department of Agriculture.
The prospect of higher global wholesale food prices comes as most countries around the world are struggling with increased consumer food price inflation. Across the G7, food costs for consumers have risen by 12.7 per cent on average over the past year. Many middle income and developing countries have reported even higher numbers — from more than 40 per cent in Hungary to nearly 100 per cent in Turkey.
“It may take up to two more quarters before we see reductions in domestic food inflation,” Prifti said.
Katharine Neiss, chief European economist for PGIM Fixed Income, a fund manager, said lower wholesale prices would not feed through into retail costs quickly as food production was very energy intensive, with the impact of higher oil and gas prices resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lingering.
Consumers in emerging markets and developing economies, who typically spend a relatively large proportion of their income on food, are particularly exposed.
Many countries in Africa and the Middle East are reliant on the Black Sea region for imports and tend to have weaker and more volatile currencies. Most global food commodity transactions are priced in dollars, potentially amplifying the effect of higher costs on domestic food prices.
Although the extension in November of the Black Sea grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, which ensures at least some of the country’s food commodities reach international customers, has lowered the risk
Kansas Governor Laura Kelly wants a food tax axed next legislative session
TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNW) – Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has called on the legislature to completely eliminate the state sales tax on groceries, diapers, and feminine hygiene products when they return for the 2023 session.
Last year, the legislature passed a bill that would drop the tax to 4% and 2% the following year. It would be completely gone in 2025. The plan will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2023. Currently, the state has the second-highest sales tax on groceries, sitting at 6.5%.
“We have ‘Axed the Food Tax’ and are putting money back in Kansans’ pockets,” Kelly said in a statement. “Kansans will see the savings very soon, but we can do more. When the Kansas Legislature comes back in January, I will push again for the complete and immediate elimination of the state’s sales tax on groceries.”
The Kansas Department of Revenue (KDOR) published its notice to initiate those changes.
The informational notice can be found here, and the sales tax publication can be found here. Retailers with questions about implementation can contact the Kansas Department of Revenue’s Tax Assistance Center at 785-368-8222.