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Column: Should movie theaters provide intermissions, even if filmmakers don’t?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

Michael Phillips | (TNS) Chicago Tribune“Killers of the Flower Moon” is not short, nor should it be. At 3 hours, 26 minutes, it casts a spell, dark and mournful but alive.It may look like a certain kind of movie epic, especially as the trailers market it. But director/co-screenwriter Martin Scorsese’s cinematic lament for the Osage Nation during the oil boom in Oklahoma a century ago — when dozens of wealthy Osage were being murdered before the newly created FBI took an interest — relies on quiet, tense exchanges behind closed doors. This isn’t a triumphal story. It’s a story of greed, racism and harsh 20th-century history.Would the movie work better, and attract bigger audiences, especially in the 50-year-old bladder demographic, with an intermission?A handful of U.S. movie theater exhibitors recently went rogue and put in their own intermission — and then retracted it on orders from the “Killer of the Flower Moon” backers Apple Original Films in collaboration with Paramount. (Appl...

After Massachusetts field hockey player is injured by boy’s shot, team captain tells the MIAA that ‘boys do not belong in girls’ sports’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

A high school field hockey captain is telling the MIAA that the state athletic association “needs to do better” and should create a league for just boys after her teammate was seriously injured by a boy’s shot during a playoff game last week.The Swampscott High School boy player’s shot struck a Dighton-Rehoboth High School player in the face, sending her to the hospital with significant facial and dental injuries, according to officials. The “traumatic” incident led to shrieks and tears all over the field hockey pitch.The viral shot from the male player is now leading to calls for gender rule changes for high school sports, especially when it comes to girls’ field hockey.In Massachusetts, a boy can play on a girls’ team if that sport is not offered in the school for the boy.“I understand that the MIAA is adhering to the Massachusetts Equal Rights Amendment, but continuously using the law as a scapegoat for criticism and issues re...

Inside Katie Porter's home, 4 a.m. economics lessons and her daughter's own whiteboard

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

Katie Porter has been campaigning across California as part of her effort to be elected U.S. Senator, but she says life as a single mother to her three children keeps her just as busy. In late October, Porter rushed home to Orange County for a local campaign rally as well as to do some fall decorating at her home with her kids. What the crowd of over 200 at the rally may not have known is that Porter arrived home late from Washington, D.C. the night before and then went on to stay up late helping her son.“My teenage son needed help with his AP Macroeconomics homework, so I spent about 2 to 4 a.m. refreshing my memory about the aggregate demand and aggregate supply curve and I could only hope the homework was mostly just for credit and not for correctness because I was struggling, as that was 6 a.m. East Coast time by the time I got to bed.” Barbara Lee hits California Senate opponents Schiff, Porter on Santos expulsion vote She says she likely only got about four hours o...

CRTC allows smaller internet companies to sell service over telecoms’ fibre networks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

TORONTO — Canada’s national telecommunications regulator says it will allow independent competitors to sell internet services over the large telephone companies’ fibre networks in Ontario and Quebec. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced the decision Monday at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto amid an ongoing review of third-party access to fibre networks in the hope of boosting competition and lowering prices for customers.In March, the CRTC announced it would lower some wholesale internet rates by 10 per cent as it launched its review into the rates that smaller competitors pay the major telecom companies for access to their networks. It included an expedited probe of whether big carriers should provide smaller competitors with access to their fibre-to-the-home networks.The CRTC says its review found there has been a significant competitive decline in Ontario and Quebec, where independent internet providers currently serve 47 pe...

Chile says Cuban athletes who reportedly deserted at Pan American Games haven’t requested asylum

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile’s government said Monday that it has received no requests for asylum from six Cuban athletes who reportedly abandoned their visiting national team after participating in the Pan American Games that ended over the weekend.Camila Vallejo, a Chilean government spokesperson, said “so far, none of these athletes have made any kind of request” to authorities. Deputy Interior Minister Manuel Monsalve cautioned against calling the situation a defection, saying that the athletes are lawfully in the country for up to three months.The alleged desertion involves five members of Cuba’s female field hockey team and one male track-and-field athlete, and was first reported by Cuban journalist Francys Romero. Romero wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday that the five hockey team players “left the accommodations around noon” after losing 3-0 against Uruguay. The sixth athlete who left was said to be a man who won a bronze medal in the 400-meter hurdles....

Iowa to pay $10 million to siblings of adopted teen girl who died of starvation in 2017

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

Iowa will pay $10 million to the siblings of an adopted 16-year-old girl who weighed just 56 pounds (25 kilograms) when she died of starvation in 2017, according to a state board that approved the settlement Monday. Sabrina Ray was severely malnourished when authorities found her body at her home in Perry, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Des Moines. She lived with three other adoptive siblings as well as foster siblings. Her adoptive parents, Misty Jo Bousman Ray and Marc Ray, were convicted of kidnapping and child endangerment in her death and received lengthy prison sentences.Two of Sabrina Ray’s siblings, former foster care children who were also adopted by the Rays, sued the state, claiming authorities failed to protect them from severe physical abuse, torture and neglect. The siblings — identified only by initials in their lawsuit — had pushed for $50 million each but settled for $5 million apiece after mediation. “In short, the amount of abuse committed by th...

Conservative push to expand carbon tax carve out fails, as Bloc sides with Liberals

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

A Conservative motion to expand a carve-out from carbon pricing to all forms of home heating failed to pass the House of Commons on Monday, despite surprising support from the New Democrats. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party backed the motion, but Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet had told reporters ahead of question period that his MPs would vote against it.The opposition motion was defeated by a vote of 186 to 135, with the Block and Liberals voting against it.The motion came about 10 days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suddenly announced a temporary, three-year pause from the carbon price for people who use home heating oil. The Liberals said the change comes as the cost of heating oil soared and people were struggling to pay to replace it with alternatives such as heat pumps.They also increased the amount of grant money available to help low- and moderate-income Canadians replace oil furnaces with electric heat pumps, and said the pause gives people more tim...

Canadian poet Rupi Kaur declines White House invitation over Gaza

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

TORONTO — Canadian poet Rupi Kaur says she’s turned down an invitation from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration because she opposes his government’s response to the Israel-Gaza war.Kaur says in an Instagram post that the administration invited her to Vice-President Kamala Harris’s Diwali celebration. She writes that she won’t attend because the U.S. government is funding Israel’s bombardment of Gaza.Kaur says she can’t accept an invitation from “an institution that supports the collective punishment of a trapped civilian population.”More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry there.The war broke out after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel last month, leaving upwards of 1,400 people dead.This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2023.The Canadian Press<!– Photo: 20231106161116-6549583542...

Feds put $5M toward security for community groups who fear hate-motivated crimes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

OTTAWA — Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc says the government is spending $5 million on private security and other safety measures for community groups worried about an increase in hate-fuelled violence. LeBlanc says the added funding is a response to mounting concerns MPs have been hearing from constituents who say they fear for their safety as a result of recent international events.He offered no other specifics, but the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has sparked protests across Canada — and fear in both Jewish and Muslim communities. The funding, which has been added to an existing security infrastructure program, will allow community organizations apply for things like temporary private security services. The eligibility rules have also been expanded to allow access for daycare facilities, community centres and office buildings used by vulnerable communities. In the meantime, LeBlanc says he’s working with police and the security intelligence service to ensure ...

Protesters calling for Gaza cease-fire block road at Tacoma port while military cargo ship docks

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:34:11 GMT

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) — Hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters calling for a cease-fire in Gaza blocked traffic Monday at the Port of Tacoma, where a military supply ship had recently arrived.Organizers said they opposed the Israel-Hamas war and targeted the vessel — the Cape Orlando — based on confidential information that it was to be loaded with weapons bound for Israel.Those claims could not immediately be corroborated. In an emailed statement, Air Force Lt. Col. Bryon J. McGarry, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, confirmed that the vessel is under the control of the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command and is supporting the movement of U.S. military cargo.“Due to operations security, DoD does not provide transit or movement details or information regarding the cargo embarked on vessels of this kind,” McGarry said.The Cape Orlando drew similar protests in Oakland, California, where it docked on Friday before it sailed to Tacoma. About 300 protesters delayed its departur...