Hoffman funeral attracts big stars
Hoffman funeral attracts big stars
NEW YORK (AP) — Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Ethan Hawke, Brian Dennehey, Amy Adams and Ellen Burstyn were among the stars who paid their respects Friday at a private funeral for Philip Seymour Hoffman that combined sadness and humor to honor an actor widely considered among the best of his generation.
The coffin holding Hoffman’s body was brought out of the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola by pallbearers and put in a hearse as family and guests began to stream out Friday afternoon. Streep hugged Diane Sawyer as they left.
“He left an enormous amount of love behind. It’s a terrible loss,” said Jose Rivera, a playwright whose work has been produced by Hoffman’s LAByrinth Theatre Company.
He said the service was loving and simple, with people sharing their memories of Hoffman and laughing. “It was quite beautiful and heartfelt and sincere, and everybody had a lot to remember, in terms of Phil,” Rivera said.
The list of mourners also included Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Joaquin Phoenix, Louis C.K., Mary Louise Parker, John Slattery, Laura Linney, Jerry Stiller, Chris Rock, Marisa Tomei, Spike Lee and Sawyer’s husband, the director Mike Nichols. Playwright David Bar Katz, who found Hoffman’s body, was visibly upset as he arrived.
“Phil was a lovely guy, a great artist,” said Lee, who directed Hoffman in “The 25th Hour.” “I was only able to work with him one time, but I love him and, a big loss, a big loss.”
Stocks post gain following declines
Associated Press
As comebacks go, this one was a couple of days in the making.
On Friday, the U.S. stock market rebounded from a deep slump earlier in the week to muster the first positive five-day stretch after three weeks of declines.
The day’s modest gains added to a strong finish for stocks a day earlier, enough for the Dow Jones industrial average to eke out a 0.6 percent gain for the week, while the S&P 500 index finished up 0.8 percent. Both are still down for the year.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 165.55 points, or 1.1 percent, to 15,794.08. The Standard &Poor’s 500 rose 23.59 points, or 1.3 percent, to 1,797.02. The Nasdaq composite increased 68.74 points, or 1.7 percent, to 4,125.86.
Expedia led the gains in the S&P 500 index, surging 14 percent after reporting that its profit and revenue jumped as hotel bookings increased.
Friday’s rally didn’t seem likely to happen as the day got going.
A widely anticipated jobs report from the Labor Department showed U.S. employers added 113,000 jobs last month, less than the average monthly gain of 194,000 in 2013.
This followed December’s tepid increase of just 75,000.
The overall payroll figure disappointed markets, and index futures fell before regular stock trading began. Stocks moved higher in mid-morning trading as investors dug deeper into the details of the report, which also showed that manufacturers, construction firms and mining and drilling companies added 76,000 jobs combined, a strong showing.
New storm hits Pacific Northwest
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A second winter storm in two days is bearing down on Oregon and southwestern Washington, this one topped with ice that could make highways more treacherous in some areas and knock out electricity.
Snowfall starting late in the morning Friday will be widespread, dropping a foot or more in mountainous parts of southern Oregon and 2 to 8 inches in western Oregon valleys that got slammed Thursday, the National Weather Service said.
Many school districts in the region canceled classes for a second day Friday. Portland International Airport reported nine flights cancelled but said most flights were expected to continue.
The snow was expected to turn to freezing rain Friday night and Saturday in many areas, especially the southern and central Willamette Valley and the Pacific coast. That will turn roadways icy and increase the possibility of power lines drooping and falling, resulting in outages, forecasters warned.
The first storm dropped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Pacific Northwest and left one person dead in a massive Interstate 5 pileup in southwest Washington. It also closed schools and offices.
The snowstorm caused a string of car crashes on I-5 near Albany, Ore., essentially closing the highway there for five hours, the Oregon Transportation Department said.
Utility crews chip away at outages
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A small army of electricity restoration crews labored Friday to reconnect nearly 300,000 customers in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and utility companies warned some will have to wait several more days.
The lion’s share of the outages remained in the Philadelphia suburbs, where many schools were closed for a third day, and a PECO spokesman said work was continuing around the clock. PECO accounted for about 250,000 outages late Friday afternoon.
“That number is coming down throughout the course of the day,” said PECO spokesman Fred Maher. “We are preparing people for the fact that some folks will be without power over the weekend.”
Severe cold weather that gripped the mid-Atlantic on Friday was expected to remain in place for days, and forecasters said light snow was possible over the weekend.
Utility companies reported about 280,000 customers without power in Pennsylvania — most of them in the five-county Philadelphia area. In Maryland, service has been restored to all but about 16,000 homes and businesses.
There has been progress — more than a million total outages had been attributed to the storm.
Systems engineer John Bowman said he has been buying $6 packages of firewood at a neighborhood hardware store, planning to burn them in the coming days to keep the temperature in his Downingtown home high enough to prevent damage to water pipes. He said he was told it may be Sunday before his power is restored.
“With the way the sun’s been warming up the house, I don’t want to use those rations yet,” Bowman said.
Rachel Ezekiel Fishbein of Elkins Park lost power before dawn Wednesday, a day after she spent about $300 on groceries in anticipation of the storm. Although she tried to save some perishables by packing them outside in a cooler in the snow, she wasn’t optimistic on Friday morning.
“I’m thinking that most of that food has probably gone bad by now,” Fishbein said from her sister-in-law’s house.
Authorities urged people to be careful when using space heaters and other methods to heat their homes. The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency said four confirmed cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, and a fifth suspected case, were reported at a hospital in the Philadelphia suburbs on Wednesday night.
The Bucks County Courier Times also reported that one person was taken to a hospital by helicopter and several others were sickened in a carbon monoxide incident Thursday night in the suburban town of Horsham. The paper also reported a fire emergency call Thursday from someone who took his barbecue grill inside for warmth.
Amtrak restored full service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg on Friday morning after tracks were cleared of fallen trees and debris.
The storm that generated headaches for motorists and homeowners also created a boom in business for Amspacher Tree Service in York, where the ice coated snowy trees and forced down branches. The company was concentrating on getting trees off of homes and cars, and telling customers their crews will return later to clean it all up.
“We’re going pretty crazy,” said Louanna Amspacher. “We went from a dozen calls a day, at most, to a hundred calls.”