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‘Expend4ables’ back in (lots of) action

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

Barney Ross might not ring the same bells as Rocky Balboa or John Rambo. But one has to give Sylvester Stallone credit for embodying (and creating) yet another character for him to bring to life on screen for his fans to enjoy in his impressive dotage (we can also now count Stallone’s Dwight “The General” Manfredi of “Tulsa King,” an invention of the tireless Taylor Sheridan).Ross is the de facto leader of the elite mercenary group known semi-jokingly as the Expendables. They are often former SAS or Special Forces fighters-turned-guns-for-hire. In this, the fourth installment in the less-than-acclaimed series, Stallone returns along with series regulars Jason Statham as Brit Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren as reformed drunk Gunner Jensen and wrestler Randy Couture as Toll Road. Among the newcomers are Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Easy Day, Megan Fox as Christmas’ romantic partner and fighter Gina, the amazing Thai action star Tony Jaa (“Ong Bak”) as Decha and Andy Garcia as...

Dear Abby: Family support AWOL for expectant wife

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

Dear Abby: My husband and I are expecting our first child this year. I moved to the United States a few years ago to be with him. His family is mostly absent from our lives. I have tried to make an effort with my in-laws, but it’s always met with failure. They make excuses, so we have come to accept that we see them only during holidays. It has put a strain on our marriage.Now that I’m pregnant, and this is her first grandchild, I thought my MIL might like to spend more time together. Unfortunately, the joke is on me because she’s now criticizing me for taking time off work because morning sickness was tough on me. She has made hurtful comments to my husband that have now caused him to treat me with little respect or compassion. I am depressed and wonder if I made a mistake by marrying him and getting pregnant. It takes a village to raise children, and we do not have a village behind us. It sometimes feels like my husband isn’t behind me, either. What do I do...

New Chuck E. Cheese opens in East County

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

SANTEE, Calif. -- Attention parents: a new Chuck E. Cheese has opened in Santee.Kids will be able to be kids at 265 Town Center Parkway, Chuck. E Cheese said on its website. The Santee location opened Monday, but it will have its grand opening on Oct. 12 from 5-7 p.m., according to city officials. 2 San Diego spots rank among top pan dulce places in US: Yelp Chuck E. Cheese is a children’s family entertainment center that is well-known for hosting group events for kids. It features diverse menu options, skill-level arcade games and in-store performances for all ages. Daily hours will be from 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. except on Saturdays, when it opens from 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. The San Diego area is now home to eight Chuck E. Cheese locations with the new Santee opening.

Black teens learn to fly and aim for careers in aviation in the footsteps of Tuskegee Airmen

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — Marie Ronny and Kyan Bovee expect their futures to take off. Literally.The Black teens from Detroit are part of a free program teaching young people how to fly, while exposing them to careers in aviation, an industry in which people of color are traditionally underrepresented. Their classrooms are the skies above Detroit’s Coleman A. Young municipal airport and inside a large hangar there serving as home to the Tuskegee Airmen National Museum.“I want to be a mechanical engineer with a pilot’s license so I can fly my own creations. I want to build planes!” said Ronny, a 16-year-old high school student who earned her pilot’s license this summer.Ronny and Bovee are among nearly 30 high school students in the Tuskegee Airmen Flight Academy this year, where a majority of the class is Black. The program began three decades ago and is designed for youths ages 14 to 19 who want to become professional pilots. It offers flight instruction and ground school classes leading...

Want a place on the UN stage? Leaders of divided nations must first get past this gatekeeper

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — It’s one of the United Nations’ more obscure bodies, with no space to call its own within the riverside headquarters. And there is scant insight into how it decides a question of far-reaching impact: Who gets let through the door?With an anodyne name, the U.N. Credentials Committee has long gone unnoticed; it doesn’t even appear on the U.N.’s own organizational chart of its many agencies, councils, committees and departments. But when it comes to countries riven by political divisions or coups, the nine-member body is the gatekeeper to the world’s stage at the U.N. General Assembly’s annual meeting.Credentialing is a mere formality for universally recognized governments. But leaders of factions within divided nations know that the committee’s decision stands to withhold or bestow some much-desired legitimacy — especially when their claims aren’t necessarily the strongest. So how does the committee decide who speaks for member state...

US education chief considers new ways to discourage college admissions preference for kids of alumni

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s education chief said he’s open to using “whatever levers” are available — including federal money — to discourage colleges from giving admissions preference to the children of alumni and donors.In an interview with The Associated Press, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said legacy admissions must be revisited for the sake of diversity on campuses following the recent Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. In a step beyond his previous comments, Cardona said he would consider taking stronger action to deter the practice.“I would be interested in pulling whatever levers I can pull as secretary of Education to ensure that, especially if we’re giving out financial aid and loans, that we’re doing it for institutions that are providing value,” Cardona said Wednesday. He made the remark when asked about using federal money as a carrot or rod on legacy admissions.Legacy admissions, long seen as a perk for the white and wealthy at selective...

Top warming talks official hopes for ‘course correction’ and praises small steps in climate efforts

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A top official helping to oversee upcoming international climate negotiations hopes to prove critics wrong — and surprise them with a “course correction” for an ever-warming world.But don’t expect that big a turn.Adnan Amin, the CEO and No. 2 official at the upcoming Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai in late November and December, said he also knows what activists, critics and the head of the United Nations really want — a phase-out of fossil fuels that cause climate change. He said it looks unlikely. Yet Amin said that while an agreement ridding the world of fossil fuels doesn’t look likely, a “phase-down of fossil fuels is inevitable.” In an interview with The Associated Press, Amin demonstrated how the leadership of the climate talks is trying to thread a moving diplomatic needle and praised steps in a decarbonizing direction, however small. Amin’s boss, the COP28 president, is an oil executive; Amin was the founding director of the U.N.’s r...

A rare Truman Capote story from the early 1950s is being published for the first time

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Along with such classics as “In Cold Blood” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Truman Capote had a history of work left uncompleted and unpublished.Capote, who died in 1984 shortly before his 60th birthday, spent much of his latter years struggling to write his planned Proustian masterpiece “Answered Prayers,” of which only excerpts were released. As a young man, he wrote a novel about a love affair between a socialite and a parking lot attendant that was published posthumously under the title “Summer Crossing.”Shorter work, too, was sometimes abandoned, including a piece released this week for the first time.Capote was in his mid-20s and a rising star when he moved from New York City to Taormina, Sicily, in 1950 and settled in a scenic villa named Fontana Vecchia, once occupied by D.H. Lawrence. Acclaimed for his debut novel, “Other Voices, Other Rooms,” and for his eerie short story “Miriam,” Capote would describe the move to Europe as a needed escape from the Ame...

Back at old job, Anthony Mackie lends star power to New Orleans’ post-Ida roof repair effort

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Movie star Anthony Mackie was back in his home town — and back at an old job — as he took part in a program to repair roofs damaged by natural disasters for people who aren’t financially or physically able to get the work done themselves.The New Orleans-born Mackie, perhaps best known as the new Captain America in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, pitched in earlier this month with members of the nonprofit Rebuilding Together New Orleans and roofing manufacturer GAF at the home of 81-year-old veteran Joe Capers.Blue-tarped roofs are still part of the landscape in New Orleans more than two years after Hurricane Ida struck in 2021. The work on Capers’ property marked the ongoing program’s 500th home roof repair in the Gulf of Mexico region, according to GAF. “It takes a lot of pressure off of me, because it’s been a hard road,” Capers said outside his home, where Mackie and the GAF workers had gathered on Sept. 12. Capers said his applications for hel...

Tropical storm warning issued for US East Coast with landfall expected in North Carolina on Friday

Published Thu, 26 Dec 2024 16:12:09 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — A storm churning in waters off the eastern U.S. has increased to tropical storm strength and is forecast to reach the North Carolina coast Friday morning, the National Hurricane Center said.The storm was off the coast of South Carolina and North Carolina late Thursday with top sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). A storm surge watch was in effect, with surges between 3 and 5 feet (91 centimeters to 1.5 meters) forecast for parts of North Carolina, the center reported.As of Thursday night, the storm was located about 355 miles (570 kilometers) southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, and about 395 miles (635 kilometers) south Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and moving north at 3 mph (6 kph), the center said.Though the system had reached tropical storm strength, it was yet to be given a name and the center was still referring to it as Potential Tropical Cyclone Sixteen on Thursday night. The hurricane center defines a potential tropical cyclone as a disturbance posing a thr...