"The Interview": Dangerous To Go See?

The premiere of "The Interview" staring Seth Rogen and James Franco has been canceled in New York due to this message sent by the Sony hackers:

“Warning…We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to. Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear.”

This message was emailed to various reporters along with a series of leaks about employee emails, health and financial information. Theses hackers call themselves "Guardians of Peace" and sent that message to people planning to attend screenings of "The Interview" and warning people who live near cinemas to leave home.

Sony Pictures Entertainment told theater owners on Tuesday that it will be supportive of their individual decisions on whether or not to show the film, which is still set for a Christmas release, according to multiple reports. Carmike Cinemas is the first to pull the screenings of the film. This cinema chain is the fourth largest in the country. Regal, AMC, and Cinemark have yet to comment on their plans of showing the film.

The Department of Homeland Security has said that there is no credible intelligence to indicate a threat, but is still investigating the message.

The movie portrays Rogen and Franco as spies set to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The movie shows Kim dying in a gruesome manner, which has been toned down due to the threats.

Missing Marine That Killed 6

Authorities are searching for 35-year-old Bradley William Stone, who they say shot and killed six family members and wounded another Monday in a rampage that left dead bodies in three different homes in Montgomery County, Pa. Stone is a Marine veteran suspected of killing his ex-wife and five of her relatives amid a bitter child custody dispute near Philadelphia. Some schools were closed Tuesday, hospitals and other public places increased security and residents remained on heightened alert, even as officials lifted a shelter-in-place order for parts of Bucks County, where a knife-wielding, fatigue-clad man resembling suspect Stone attempted a carjacking Monday night. The rampage began around 3:30 a.m., when Stone allegedly shot and killed Patricia Flick, the sister of his ex-wife, Nicole Stone, at her home in Souderton, also killing Flick's husband, Aaron Flick, and her 14-year-old daughter, Nina Flick. Her 17-year-old son, Anthony Flick, was receiving treatment at a hospital in Philadelphia for a head wound. Nicole Stone's mother, Joanne Hill, and grandmother Patricia Hill were killed next at their home in nearby Lansdale. Investigators were alerted by a hang-up call to emergency dispatchers. At around 5 a.m., Stone went to Nicole Stone's apartment, located in the Harleysville section of Lower Salford Township, investigators said. Stone broke in through a glass door, shot and killed Nicole Stone, and fled with their two children, the woman's neighbors said. Authorities said Stone then delivered the two children, who were unharmed, to a neighbor in Pennsburg. Stone's vehicle and cell phone have been recovered but no information about where he is going has been recovered. "As I stand here right now, we do not know where he is," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.

Is Ebola Effecting Chocolate Supply?

This Ebola outbreak is expected to have long-lasting, international implications, including its effect on the supply and prices of one of the world's favorite: Chocolate.

West Africa produces about three-quarters of the world's chocolate. Sixty percent of that chocolate comes from Ivory Coast and Ghana. The outbreak of Ebola being so close to these countries have led to concerns that if the disease were to spread into these countries, it could cause a major disruption in cocoa productions and spike the prices of chocolate.

The demand for chocolate has risen over the years, before the Ebola outbreak. The uncertainty about cocoa supplies is causing jitters among chocolate-related industries around the world, and concerns about chocolate prices.

"If prices rise at a greater rate, chocolate manufacturers will pass the increase onto consumers," Andrew Rolle of Juremont, a major Australian importer of chocolate ingredients, told the Sydney Morning Herald. "It's a fragile market there at the best of times. There will be labor issues with the cocoa farmers in the fields, political issues, transport issues with accessing stock through ports."

Most major confectioners in the U.S. are reluctant to talk about how a potential cocoa shortage might directly affect them, however Hershey did offer some perspective, saying the company is in close contact with its cocoa suppliers in West Africa over the Ebola outbreak and its potential impact on cocoa supplies.

"Our suppliers have assured us they will be able to continue to supply our cocoa orders without interruption, even if the disease begins to impact the major cocoa-growing countries in the region," Jeff Beckman, Hershey's director of corporate communications, tells CBS MoneyWatch.

For now, the disease has not effected the cocoa production and operations continue uninterrupted. 

Dumbwaiter Gone Wrong

Brook Baures was a 21-year-old senior and a standout gymnast at Winona State University in Minnesota. December 1, she died of severe head injuries from getting her head caught in  dumbwaiter at a restaurant that she worked at. She was working at a banquet on the second floor that day. If the witness' statements are true, police believe that Baures was the only one that could have pressed the dumbwaiter's control button. They have come the the conclusion that no crime was committed. The autopsy had found that there was "excessive destruction" and concluded that the cause of death was severe head trama. Police believe that her head "was located almost entirely inside the cab of the elevator canted slightly to her right as the cab descended. When the roof of the cab passed the sill of the second floor access, Brooke sustained fatal crushing injuries to her brainstem and cerebellum," according to the autopsy report. I find this shocking in a way. I don't think that she would have gotten caught in there. I don't understand how this happened.

Rated S For "Sexist"

A Swedish video game industry trade organization is hoping to develop a system to label whether or not games promote gender equality. They have been given $36,672 grant by Vinnova, an “innovation agency” funded by the Swedish government, to work with game developers to look at the ways which video games depict gender issues.

According to Per Strömbäck, the organisation's spokesperson,  the Pan European Game Information, or PEGI, rating system has long included a category for “discrimination,” meaning that a “game contains depictions of, or material which may encourage, discrimination.” Sexually offensive or derogatory content has been monitored,however, Strömbäck wrote that there is a greater interest in addressing issues of gender inequality since video games are becoming more popular.

To the critics who think of video games as nothing more than a hobby or a fun diversion, Strömbäck added that his organization views games as “a form of artistic impression … they can be used to describe a vision of society, or a dystopia, or just plain fun.”

“One of the interesting questions we will ask in our concept study for the certification is ‘how is diversity expressed in games without characters, storylines or voice-over?’ Only a minority of games are similar to film and television, most of them have different characteristics, like puzzle, quiz, and word games,” Strömbäck wrote. “Some of our members have done a lot of thinking about these issues and we want to spread that conversation.”

Bad News For Chocolate Lovers-No More Chocolate?

Are we really running out of chocolate? According to major chocolate producers, we are consuming more chocolate than we are producing. In the last year alone, we ate 70,000 metric tons more than it produced.  Seventy percent of the world’s cocoa is produced in the Ivory Coast and Ghana.  However, disease, drought, and farmers wanting to grow more productive crops, like corn and rubber, made growing conditions less than than perfect. 

But there is hope for chocolate!

In Costa Rica, new disease resistant strains of cacao are being developed. Three specific strains are showing promise, not only because of them being resistant to disease but also because they have a better taste than the other strains being developed.

It is still unclear if these new strains can reverse the shortage, however these cacao beans could be a sweet promise for the future.