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Hollywood strike impacting San Diego Comic-Con

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- The actor and writer strike has now shutdown nearly all productions in Hollywood. This is all happening with Comic-Con trying to figure out what their convention will look like after most major studios pulled out. “It’s a very dire situation and once the writers struck, you know, it kind of shut the town down,” said SAG actor Mark Christopher Lawrence. Hollywood actors to go on strike beginning Friday Lawrence has been acting for over 30 years with parts in "Terminator 2" and "Seinfeld.' Tens of thousands of jobs are now simply on hold as negotiations hit a major impasse. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers say they were offering pay raises, healthcare options and new Artificial Intelligence (AI) deals that would protect actors.However, SAG-AFTRA unions rejected the offer, saying it was outrageous. “AI-- you can take my image and create another project without me, and the producers are saying they can take my image without paying me any additional...

Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz will meet in the Wimbledon final

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

WIMBLEDON, England (AP) — This was the moment. If Novak Djokovic was going to be stopped in the Wimbledon semifinals, if his much younger and harder-hitting opponent, Jannik Sinner, was going to turn things around Friday, the monumental comeback required would need to start immediately.Djokovic knew it. Sinner knew it. The 15,000 or so Centre Court spectators knew it.After taking the first two sets, Djokovic trailed 5-4 in the third, and a flubbed forehand made the game score 15-40 as he served. Two chances for Sinner to finally break. Two chances for him to actually take a set. Djokovic hit a fault, which drew some sounds of approval from the stands. Djokovic sarcastically used his racket and the ball to applaud the noise-makers, then flashed a thumbs up.He can back up any such bravado. Djokovic simply does not lose at the All England Club lately. Or at any Grand Slam tournament, for that matter. So he calmly collected the next four points to claim that game, looked toward the crow...

Sheepherder is severely injured when black bear attacks him in Colorado wilderness

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

DENVER (AP) — A black bear attacked a sheepherder in the Colorado mountains, leaving the 35-year-old man severely injured with bites to his head and other wounds, wildlife officials said. The bear suspected of attacking him was later killed. The attack, the first reported in Colorado this year, happened early Tuesday in the Weiminuche Wilderness in the San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado, the state Parks and Wildlife department said in a news release. The man awoke to a disturbance between the bear and his sheep at about 1 a.m. and fired a rifle at the bear before being attacked, the agency said. The man was bitten on the head and had wounds to an arm and hand, officials said.After managing to return to his tent and contact his cousin, he was airlifted to one hospital and then another for surgery, it said. He was released on Wednesday.He worked for a rancher who had a permit to allow sheep to graze in the remote area, the agency said, a common summer practice with live...

Tunisians gather in front of TVs to watch Ons Jabeur at Wimbledon and escape the heat outside

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — In Tunisia, there’s no better way to escape the intense heatwave than to head inside and watch Wimbledon on TV when Ons Jabeur is playing.The 28-year-old Jabeur, the only Arab woman and only North African woman to participate in a Grand Slam tennis final, will again play for the Wimbledon championship on Saturday — a year after losing in the title match at the All England Club.“Ons has brought us a lot of joy,” Ameur Ben Ahmed told The Associated Press. “She makes us momentarily forget the difficulties of everyday life in these times of crisis and shortages.”Tunisians are in need of hope as their economy teeters toward collapse, with high debt, inflation and joblessness along with worsening political and social tensions. Despite the heatwave that has been raging in the country for several days, many Tunisians have been deserting the beaches to follow Jabeur’s matches, either on giant screens in cafes or in hotel lounges.Jabeur reached tw...

How Lisa Marie Presley’s weight-loss surgery contributed to her death

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

Lisa Marie Presley died after developing a small bowel obstruction, a severe complication of bariatric surgery years ago, according to an autopsy report released Thursday. Experts say these types of complications are a known but rare risk after having weight-loss surgery. Here’s what to know:WHAT HAPPENED TO LISA MARIE PRESLEY?The 54-year-old singer-songwriter and daughter of Elvis Presley was rushed to a Los Angeles-area hospital on Jan. 12 after being found unresponsive at home and died hours later.The cause of death was from complications of a small bowel obstruction tied to previous bariatric surgery, the autopsy showed. Portions of Presley’s bowel became trapped, or “strangulated,” from scar tissue that formed following surgery, and she also had developed a severe buildup of acids in her blood.WHAT IS BARIATRIC SURGERY? HOW COMMON IS IT?Bariatric surgeries are operations performed on the stomach or intestines to spur weight loss. They’re usually done in cases of moderate or sev...

Pianist André Watts dies at age 77 of prostate cancer

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) — Pianist André Watts, whose televised debut with the New York Philharmonic as a 16-year-old in 1963 launched an international career of more than a half-century, has died. He was 77.Watts died Wednesday at his home in Bloomington of prostate cancer, his manager, Linda Marder, said Friday. Watts joined the faculty of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2004. He said in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.Watts won a Philadelphia Orchestra student competition and debuted when he was 10 in a children’s concert on Jan. 12, 1957, performing the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto in D major.He studied under Genia Robinor and made his New York Philharmonic debut in a Young People’s Concert led by music director Leonard Bernstein on Jan. 12, 1963, a program televised three days later on CBS.“Now we come to a young man who is so remarkable that I am tempted to give him a tremendous buildup, but I’d almost rather not so that yo...

Indiana police ask state to revoke license of treatment center where 3 patients died within a week

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

MISHAWAKA, Ind. (AP) — Northern Indiana police have asked state officials to revoke the license of an addiction treatment center where three patients recently died within a week, saying that the less than year-old center is endangering its residents and placing a strain on law enforcement.The St. Joseph County Police Department said in a letter to state officials that Sheriff Bill Redman wants the Indiana Division of Mental Health and Addiction to investigate Praxis Landmark Recovery’s 160-bed facility and requests that its license be revoked, the South Bend Tribune reported.“The facility is a large drain on our county first responder resources and is harmful to its patients and our community,” county police spokesman Troy Warner wrote to Jay Chaudhary, director of the state office.The request for state action comes as county police and the coroner’s office are investigating three deaths and two suspected overdoses in the past two weeks at the all-male drug and alcohol r...

Canada set to end domestic subsidies for unabated fossil-fuel production

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

OTTAWA — The Liberal government is expected next week to finally fulfil a promise Canada made 14 years ago to end federal subsidies that aid in the production of fossil fuels.Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the policy directive will be similar to the one last year ending most of Canada’s public financing for international fossil-fuel projects.That means going forward, fossil-fuel projects could only receive federal funding if the government could square them with Canada’s climate commitments.Guilbeault says he won’t end subsidies for clean technology, such as carbon capture and storage systems, that help reduce or eliminate emissions from fossil-fuel production.G20 nations collectively promised in 2009 to start removing government dollars from projects that pull oil, gas and coal out of the ground.The Liberals at first promised to do it by 2025 but then moved the deadline up to the end of this year.This report by The Canadian Press was first published J...

Canadian Rangers to help evacuate Quebec Cree communities threatened by wildfires

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

MONTREAL — Ottawa is deploying Canadian Rangers to help evacuate northern Quebec communities threatened by wildfires.Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair said today the government will also help fly people to safety.Quebec’s forest fire agency says there are 134 wildfires burning in the province, including 93 in the zone that includes several Cree communities. Canadian Rangers are part of the Canadian Army Reserve who live in remote, isolated and coastal regions of the country.The Grand Council of the Crees said Thursday that several coastal communities in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory were in pre-evacuation mode due to fires that were causing poor air quality and cutting off road access.The Cree nation of Eastmain, on the east coast of James Bay, declared a state of emergency late Thursday due to the fires and urged all residents to prepare for a full evacuation. The Cree Health Board reported that the communities of Nemaska, Waskaganish and Wemindji had also st...

Mexican president continues attacking opposition candidate, despite electoral agency’s order to stop

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:36:15 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president plowed ahead with attacks against the opposition front-runner for the 2024 presidential elections Friday, despite a ruling by electoral authorities that he has been violating equity and neutrality rules with such comments.President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spent weeks using his morning press briefing to criticize Xóchitl Gálvez, a plain-talking senator and former indigenous affairs official. López Obrador is barred from running again after the end of his six-year term, and Gálvez hasn’t been nominated yet by opposition parties, but she has been gaining momentum.The complaints commission of the National Electoral Institute ruled late Thursday that López Obrador’s remarks “apparently violated the principles of equity, neutrality impartiality,” and ordered the president to “avoid commenting on electoral matters.”López Obrador claimed Friday that electoral authorities “are trying to silence me” and violate his freedom of exp...