BOSTON – Beautiful Charlotte is a happy, smiley, 14-month-old baby. She lights up watching Cocomelon on TV. Mom Emily says she’s always like this; a dream come true. But protecting this precious
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Global pop sensation Blackpink have been chosen as Time magazine’s 2022 Entertainer of the Year, making the four-woman band the second K-pop artists to earn the title, after BTS in 2020.
Selected by YG Entertainment, a big South Korean record label that screens performers for star quality and trains them intensively, the quartet – Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé – found international stardom quickly after their 2016 debut.
Their first LP, “The Album,” sold more than one million copies in less than a month after its 2020 release.
In a Time feature marking the Entertainer of the Year award, the group revisited their journey, from playing at Coachella in 2019 to performing “Pink Venom” at the VMAs earlier this year.
“We put in a lot of work so we could look like superwomen,” rapper Jennie told Time. “We’re very normal girls, at the end of the day.”
Talking about their success – and the pressures that come with it – Jennie said the band perform from the heart.
“If we consider this in the business way, we wouldn’t be able to do this,” she said.
Part of the group’s global success comes from their cosmopolitan backgrounds. Singer Rosé, who was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, called it “a plus” in the studio that they’re all from “different cultures.”
Jennie was born in South Korea but grew up in New Zealand, while dancer Lisa is from Thailand. Singer Jisoo is the only one of the group born and raised in South Korea.
Blackpink currently are performing across Europe until the end of the year as part of their “Born Pink” world tour, which kicked off in October.
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Nadia Nadim — the soccer player who fled Afghanistan when she was younger — speaks to CNN about the prospects for the women’s game in the country under Taliban rule one year on from their takeover of the country.
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It’s a good day for OPEC.
Data published Monday by the oil cartel show its members have largely complied with an agreement to slash production.
The confirmation caps a remarkable year for OPEC, which was forced to devise a plan to boost prices after they fell to $26 per barrel in February 2016.
The price collapse — to levels not seen since 2003 — was caused by months of growing oversupply, slowing demand from China and a decision by Western powers to lift Iran’s nuclear sanctions.
Since then, the market has mounted a stunning turnaround, with crude prices doubling to trade at $53.50 per barrel.
Here’s how major oil producers worked together to push prices higher:
OPEC deal
OPEC agreed major production cuts in November, hoping to tame the global oil oversupply and support prices.
The news of the deal immediately boosted prices by 9%.
Investors cheered even more after several non-OPEC producers, including Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan, joined the effort to restrain supply.
Crucially, the deal has stuck. The OPEC report published Monday showed that its members have — for the most part — fulfilled their pledges to slash production. The International Energy Agency agrees: It estimated OPEC compliance for January at 90%.
UAE energy minister Suhail Al Mazrouei told CNNMoney on Monday that the results were even better than he had expected.
The production cuts total 1.8 million barrels per day and are scheduled to run for six months.
Related: OPEC has pulled off one of its ‘deepest’ production cuts
Investors upbeat
The OPEC deal took months to negotiate, and investors really, really like it. The number of hedge funds and other institutional investors that are betting on higher prices hit a record in January, according to OPEC.
The widespread optimism is helping to fuel price increases.
Higher demand
The latest data from OPEC and the IEA show that global demand for oil was higher than expected in 2016, thanks to stronger economic growth, higher vehicle sales and colder than expected weather in the final quarter of the year.
Demand is set to grow further in 2017 to an average of 95.8 million barrels a day, compared 94.6 million barrels per day in 2016.
The IEA said that if OPEC sticks to its agreement, the global oil glut that has plagued markets for three years will finally disappear in 2017.
Saudi oil minister: I don’t lose sleep over shale
What’s next?
Despite the stunning growth, analysts caution that prices may not go much higher.
That’s because higher oil prices are likely to lure American shale producers back into the market. The total number of active oil rigs in the U.S. stood at 591 last week, according to data from Baker Hughes. That’s 152 more than a year ago.
U.S. crude stockpiles swelled in January to nearly 200 million barrels above their five-year average, according to the OPEC report.
“This vast increase in inventories is a result of a strong supply response from the U.S. shale producers, who were not involved in the OPEC agreement and who have instead been using the resultant price rally to increase output,” said Fiona Cincotta, an analyst at City Index.
More supply could once again put OPEC under pressure.
CNNMoney (London) First published February 13, 2017: 9:13 AM ET
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BOSTON – Beautiful Charlotte is a happy, smiley, 14-month-old baby. She lights up watching Cocomelon on TV. Mom Emily says she’s always like this; a dream come true. But protecting this precious baby from rampant RSV this season has been a nightmare for the mother.
“I’m literally traumatized. There’s not a time that goes by I don’t think about that. It’s so scary,” said Emily Sauro, emotionally.
Charlotte was only seven weeks old last October, when the respiratory virus brought them to the emergency department. Emily knew what to look for after her older son suffered RSV in the past. With Charlotte, the mother said they were about to be discharged, when her baby stopped breathing.
“I just remember looking down and seeing her like that and screaming. Then there were just a million people everywhere,” she recalled.
Charlotte spent two and a half weeks in the pediatric ICU at UMass Memorial Medical Center.
“They’re hooked up to a million machines. That breathing sounds like taking their last breath, it’s the only way I can describe it,” Emily said sadly.
In the year since, Charlotte still requires a nebulizer treatment or inhaler twice daily. She can’t go to daycare, and the family still takes a lot of precautions at their home in Grafton.
“When your newborn is not breathing in your arms, it feels like forever,” the mother added.
As cases surge heading into the holidays, she urges new parents to stay vigilant. Be the squeaky wheel if you suspect something isn’t right. No one knows your baby like you.
Emily said, “It can be all OK one second and furthest thing from it the next.”
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