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Hollywood’s feast and famine before Thanksgiving, as ‘Hunger Games’ prequel tops box office

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” topped the North American box office in its first weekend in theaters with $44 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.It was a busy weekend at the multiplex, leading into the often lucrative Thanksgiving corridor. And while there was plenty to choose from at the buffet, not everything could be a hit. Audiences had “The Marvels,” which plummeted in its second weekend, as well as the nationwide debuts of the family-friendly “Trolls World Tour,” Taika Waititi’s soccer comedy “Next Goal Wins” and the R-rated slasher “Thanksgiving” all in wide release.“The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” is an interesting case study for a franchise that’s been dormant for 8 years and is testing the waters for a new era. Its $44 million from 3,776 locations, including 1,610 premium screens, marks a low for films carrying “The Hunger Games” in the title. The four Jennifer Lawrence films all broke $100 million in their first w...

DeSantis won’t condemn Musk for endorsing an antisemitic post. ‘I did not see the comment,’ he says

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is refusing to condemn Elon Musk ‘s post endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory, maintaining Sunday that he wasn’t familiar with the post despite it prompting major companies to pull advertising from the billionaire’s X social media platform. “I did not see the comment,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “And so, I know that Elon has had a target on his back ever since he purchased Twitter because I think he’s taking it in a direction that a lot of people who are used to controlling the narrative don’t like.”Musk has sparked outcry with a recent tweet responding to a user who accused Jews of hating white people and for professing a general indifference to antisemitism. “You have said the actual truth,” Musk tweeted in a reply Wednesday. IBM, Disney and other major advertisers have since pulled funding from X, a major blow as the platform formerly kn...

Ben Dunne, an Irish supermarket heir who survived an IRA kidnapping and a scandal, dies at 74

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Ben Dunne, an Irish business tycoon who survived a kidnapping by the IRA and later triggered a scandal that shook the cozy world of Ireland’s politics, has died. He was 74.Dunne’s son Robert confirmed his death to the news website Extra.ie. Irish media reported that the elder Dunn died of a heart attack Saturday during a trip to Dubai. Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the sudden death of an Irish citizen in Dubai and was providing consular assistance.The Cork-born retail baron’s name was one of the most ubiquitous in Ireland thanks to the supermarket chain Dunnes Stores, founded by his father, and the Ben Dunne Gyms fitness centers.In 1981, masked gunmen from the Irish Republican Army kidnapped Dunne as he was on his way to open a store in Northern Ireland. He was released a week later, reportedly after a ransom was paid.In 1992 he was arrested in Florida after threatening to jump from a 17th floor hotel balcony in Orlando and charged with c...

Public sector strike: Quebec government calls on unions to submit counter-offer

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

MONTREAL — Quebec’s treasury board president is imploring unionized workers to table a counter-offer to the government’s last contract proposal ahead of this week’s planned, provincewide  public sector strikes.Sonia LeBel published a short video on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying the province’s last offer was a serious one and merited a counter-proposal, but the unions have not submitted a reply.The province is negotiating with unions representing some 600,000 public sector workers over new contracts and teachers, nurses, health care workers, junior college professors and other public sector employees will be on strike at various times during the next week.Last month unions rejected Quebec’s latest contract offer for all employees — a 10.3-per-cent salary increase over five years and a one-time payment of $1,000 to each worker, up slightly from the nine per cent over the same term offered last December.The government has said the offer was serious ...

Why you may not be fully compensated if an airline loses your luggage

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

A Toronto woman is likely out thousands of dollars in compensation after WestJet mistakenly sent her luggage thousands of miles in the opposite direction.Lorraine Pederson says after landing in Winnipeg without her luggage for a two-week work trip she was shocked to learn just where it actually turned up.“The bag tag clearly shows that it’s going from Toronto to Winnipeg on a West Jet flight,” Pederson tells CityNews. “Thank goodness I put this magic little air tag in it. This air tag within an hour pinged that it was in Kingston, Jamaica.”When she contacted the airline about the location of her luggage, she was told that wasn’t possible as there were no WestJet flights that had left Toronto for Jamaica that day.“They kept saying it wasn’t their fault, they didn’t get it there because they didn’t fly in,” said Pederson. “I had to call Kingston airport and discover that it went in on a Swoop flight.”Screen shot showing the location of Lorrain...

Yemen’s Houthi rebels hijack an Israeli-linked ship in the Red Sea and take 25 crew members hostage

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

JERUSALEM (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels seized an Israeli-linked cargo ship in a crucial Red Sea shipping route on Sunday, officials said, taking over two dozen crew members hostage and raising fears that regional tensions heightened over the Israel-Hamas war were playing out on a new maritime front. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and took the crew as hostages. The group warned that it would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. “All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including B...

Weekend Break: Junior Chefs Kitchen

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

Join WGN's Christine Flores where she visits Junior Chefs Kitchen.For more, visit: Junior Chefs Kitchen | The Joy of Kids CookingLove the WGN Morning News? We love you, too. And you can have all the hijinks delivered to your inbox every weekday morning. Sign up and subscribe to our WGN Morning News newsletter.

Hulk Hogan's son arrested for DUI in Florida, police say

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

CLEARWATER, Fla. (WFLA) — Nick Hogan, son of the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, was arrested in Clearwater on a charge of driving under the influence, according to police.Officers were conducting a stop at around 1:15 a.m. Saturday morning when they spotted a Dodge Ram that was approaching them in a separate lane, an arrest affidavit explains.An officer used his flashlight to signal to Nick Hogan, whose legal name is Nicholas Bollea, that he move another lane over and slow down, but police say that he did neither. We're expecting the first El Niño winter in 5 years. What will be different? The Clearwater Police Department said another officer detected that the vehicle was speeding at 51 mph in a 40-mph on his in-car radar.When Bollea was pulled over for a violation of the Move Over Law, officers said he showed signs of impairment, saying he was swaying and unsteady, and had a "strong odor of an alcoholic beverage" and bloodshot, glassy eyes.According to police, he refused to take a ...

Who won Miss Universe? Sheynnis Palacios, the first to wear the crown from Nicaragua

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — Miss Nicaragua Sheynnis Palacios won the Miss Universe competition late Saturday night in El Salvador, the first to wear the crown from her country.Palacios is a 23-year-old communicologist, who said she wants to work to promote mental health after suffering debilitating bouts of anxiety herself.Miss Thailand, Anntonia Porsild, was first runner-up and Miss Australia, Moraya Wilson, the second runner-up.Eighty-four women competed for the crown in the 72nd edition of the competition.Palacios appeared to secure the win when she confidently answered the question of which woman's shoes would she like to spend a year in by saying Mary Wollstonecraft, the 18th-century English writer and philosopher. Wollstonecraft was an advocate of women’s rights and is considered one of the forerunners of feminism. It’s the first El Niño winter in 5 years. What will be different? Palacios said she wants to work to close the salary gap between the genders so that women c...

Why is Thanksgiving celebrated on Thursdays?

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:01:14 GMT

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) -- Thanksgiving is a week away, and millions of Americans are heading to the grocery stores to prepare for their feasts on that Thursday. Thanksgiving always falls on the fourth Thursday of November -- but why?According to the Old Farmer's Almanac, we don't know the actual day on which the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621, though we know it took place in mid-October instead of November.The Old Almanac states that beginning in 1668, Nov. 25 was the "legal" day of Thanksgiving, but that only lasted five years. Thanksgiving shutdown sets up nightmare scenario for travels According to the Old Almanac, Thursday may have been designated "to distance the event from the Sabbath day among the Puritan colonists." It also states that Thursday was also a lecture day in New England and ministers would give sermons every Thursday afternoon.Then, during George Washington's first term as president, he proclaimed Thursday, Nov. 26, 1789, as a "Day of Publick...