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‘Blue Beetle’ actors may be sidelined by the strike, but their director is keeping focus on them

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a normal summer, Friday’s arrival of “Blue Beetle,” the first DC superhero movie to feature a Latino lead, would be a splashy, triumphant moment for its filmmakers and stars. But with actors and screenwriters on strike, the film’s promotional campaign has been without its lead cast.That’s left director Ángel Manuel Soto as the main voice promoting the film, a rare big-budget summer movie highlighting Latinos and Latino culture. Soto has taken the burden in stride and found clever ways to spotlight his cast.At a film screening this week, Soto and his wife held a picture of “Blue Beetle” star Xolo Maridueña over their faces as photographers snapped them. For a series of promotional interviews, he wore a special shirt with the film’s Latino cast represented as Mexican Loteria cards, a clever homage for a movie infused with Latino music and culture.While Soto acknowledges some initial disappointment with the timing of the strike and his movi...

Wildfire evacuations ordered for thousands of people in West Kelowna, B.C.

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

Hundreds of properties were ordered to evacuate late Thursday under threat from a wildfire near the city of West Kelowna, B.C., which has been placed under a state of emergency.Central Okanagan Emergency Operations ordered the evacuation of close to a thousand homes, representing about 2,500 people, with thousands of other properties placed on alert and residents warned to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice.“Tactical evacuation is already underway,” the operations centre said in a statement, adding that residents subject to the evacuation orders must leave immediately.Jason Brolund, chief of the West Kelowna fire department, said the evacuation order area was likely to grow Thursday night.“I don’t want people to panic, but I always want people to take it seriously,” Brolund said at a press conference Thursday evening.About 6,000 other properties were already on evacuation alert due to the out-of-control McDougall Creek wildfire, which began Tu...

China’s Xi calls for measures to mitigate disastrous flooding amid economic slowdown

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for measures to mitigate the effects of this year’s disastrous flooding which has left scores dead and inflicted massive damage on crops, homes and infrastructure, including in and around Beijing. At least 90 rivers have risen above warning levels and 24 have already overflowed their banks, according to state media, threatening a vast area in northeastern China with flooding, including the Songliao Basin north of the capital, which encompasses more than 1.2 million square kilometers (482,200 square miles) with a population of almost 100 million.“As China is still in the main flood season, rainstorms, floods, typhoons and other disasters still occur frequently in many places across the country,” the Xinhua News Agency said, summarizing conclusions of Thursday’s meeting of the party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee presided over by President Xi. Participants “urged relevant localities and departments to always priori...

Firefighters are trying to put out a peatland fire threatening homes on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

PALEMBANG, Indonesia (AP) — Firefighters on Friday were trying to put out a peatland fire on Indonesia’s Sumatra Island that was growing in size near a dense residential area.The effort is made difficult by the limited firefighting equipment and distant water source, a one-hour trip to the fire’s location in the area of Pulau Negara village in South Sumatra province.Local residents are helping the firefighters since the fire is burning near their homes. The number of homes at risk was not immediately available.The fire started in bushes and trees Wednesday and was burning close to a highway that connects the Ogan Ilir district capital to Palembang, the capital city of South Sumatra province.“The local joint task force is trying to prevent the fire from spreading to the toll road causing dense smog,” said Haniman, an official from the firefighting task force.Indonesia’s forest and land fires are an annual problem that strains relations with neighboring countries. The smok...

Migos’ Quavo releases ‘Rocket Power,’ his first solo album since Takeoff’s death

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Migos rapper Quavo has released his second solo album, “Rocket Power,” which includes two tracks with his late bandmate Takeoff.It is Quavo’s first full-length release since Takeoff was fatally shot outside a private party at a downtown Houston bowling alley in 2022. The pair join forces on the tracks “Patty Cake” and “Back Where It Begins,” which also features Future.“Rocket Power,” was scheduled to be released two weeks ago, but was delayed to “run some more tests before the rocket is ready to launch,” Quavo wrote on Instagram.Little was known about the album prior to its release. In late May, Quavo teased “Rocket Power” on Instagram, writing, “This album is for the Rocket our true fans and also this is my therapy. This is album is a true reflection of how I feel right now. Sometimes I’m Good, sometimes I’m Down, sometimes I’m Disappointed, sometimes I fall apart but then I ALWAYS find my strength again.”“Rocket Power” follows Quavo’s solo debut albu...

Rosalynn Carter marks 96th birthday at home with the former president, butterflies and ice cream

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Rosalynn Carter will celebrate her 96th birthday at home Friday with her husband, former President Jimmy Carter, and other family members, while the surrounding community of Plains, Georgia, honors the former first lady’s years of public health advocacy.The latest milestone comes as Rosalynn Carter navigates dementia and the former president, now 98, continues to receive hospice care. Yet they remain together in the same small town where they were born, married and that anchored Jimmy Carter’s victorious 1976 presidential campaign.Rosalynn will have a quiet birthday celebration, according to The Carter Center, the human rights organization the pair opened in Atlanta after losing his 1980 reelection bid. She plans to eat cupcakes and peanut butter ice cream, nodding to the couple’s experience as Georgia peanut farmers, which became part of their political branding. She also will release butterflies in the Carters’ garden; her love of butterflies trace...

Michigan judge to hear final day of testimony before sentencing school shooter

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

PONTIAC, Mich. (AP) — A judge will hear a fourth and final day of testimony Friday to determine whether a teenager will get a life sentence for the fatal shooting of four students at a Michigan school in 2021.An immediate decision is not expected. Prosecutors are planning to counter claims made by a psychologist who said Ethan Crumbley was like a “feral child” and mentally ill when he attacked students and staff at Oxford High School.Crumbley, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder, terrorism and other crimes. His attorneys are arguing he can be rehabilitated while in prison and should receive a sentence giving him an opportunity for parole some day.“Ethan’s brain is still maturing,” psychologist Colin King said on Aug. 1.Because of his age — 15 at the time of the shooting — the teen can’t automatically be given life sentence. Oakland County Judge Kwame Rowe must consider his maturity, mental health, tumultuous family life and other factors set by the U.S. Supreme Court.Rowe still can ord...

In Hawaii, concerns over ‘climate gentrification’ rise after devastating Maui fires

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

Kim Cuevas-Reyes, a 38-year-old cellphone store owner, snuck into Lahaina last Friday to see the remnants of her home with her own eyes. She took backroads and walked. What she saw stunned her. “When you step into the house, it’s like an inch or two of ash. There is nothing,” she said, adding that she hopes to stay and rebuild her home and destroyed business and is in touch with the insurance company. More than 3,000 buildings in Lahaina were damaged by fire, smoke or both. Insured property losses alone already total some $3.2 billion, according to Karen Clark & Company, a prominent disaster and risk modeling firm.With a housing crisis that has priced out many Native Hawaiians as well as families that have been there for decades, concerns are rising that the state could become the latest example of “climate gentrification,” when it becomes harder for local people to afford housing in safer areas after a climate-amped disaster.It’s a term Jesse Keenan, an associate pr...

Olympic champ Tori Bowie’s mental health struggles were no secret inside track’s tight-knit family

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — Olympic gold medalist Tori Bowie’s autopsy included an easy-to-overlook, one-line notation beneath the heading “Medical History:” Bipolar disorder.Around track circles, where the champion sprinter’s absence is hitting particularly hard heading into Saturday’s opening in Hungary of the first world championships since her death, Bowie’s mental health struggles were more than an afterthought.They were a stark reality during training over the years. They also revealed themselves in the Florida neighborhood where police found her body days after the 32-year-old, who was eight months pregnant, died due to what the coroner said were complications of childbirth.“It’s not that she slipped through the cracks,” her one-time coach, Al Joyner, told The Associated Press. “I think people didn’t take it seriously enough.”Bipolar disorder, a mental-health condition that causes extreme mood swings, can be treatable with medication and counseling. However, t he National Instit...

Millions of old analog photos are sitting in storage. Digitizing them can unlock countless memories

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 14:24:13 GMT

This may seem like a sad story because it begins with a boy with few memories of his father, who died when he was 7 years old. It’s why Mitch Goldstone cherishes his only picture with his dad — a snapshot at Disneyland taken during the late 1960s, when the concept of people reflexively reaching for smartphone cameras in their pockets could only happen in Tomorrowland.But this story, and the personal stories that follow, aren’t sad at all. And a half-century later and more, Goldstone has done something with that memory. He is pursuing a career focused on the joy of rediscovery. He and his longtime partner, Carl Berman, run ScanMyPhotos, part of a niche industry that specializes in turning the billions of analog slides, undeveloped negatives and printed pictures taken in the pre-smartphone era into digital treasure chests filled with memories that had been forgotten.“There’s nothing else like it, there are so few businesses doing something that makes people cry when they g...