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‘Carmen’ dances around tale of star-crossed lovers

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“Carmen”Rated R. In English and Spanish with subtitles. At the Kendall Square Cinema.Grade: BThis new “Carmen” from choreographer-turned-director Benjamin Millepied is not based on the famous opera by Georges Bizet. The film is based on the source material for the opera, the 1824 poem “The Gypsies” by Alexander Pushkin and “Carmen,” the 1845 novella by Prosper Merimee. The story has been updated by several writers, including Alexander Dinelaris (“Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance”). The new setting is the Mexican-U.S. border and Los Angeles (the film was shot in Australia). It tells the tale of the doomed love affair of Aidan (Paul Mescal), a troubled young man and ex-Marine with PTSD who must flee the scene of a crime involving immigrants, and Carmen (Melissa Barrera, “In the Heights”), a beautiful young immigrant woman, whose mother has died and who seeks her future in the United States. The two meet under violent circumstances, reflected in the stor...

Graham: NBC’s ‘underage’ migrant gaffe reveals fake ID debacle

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

NBC News recently made news of its own when it was forced to retract its investigative story about “Pedro,” whom the network presented as a 16-year-old from Guatemala who got a job cleaning slaughterhouses in Kansas.Pedro was, in fact, 21, and his story was as fake as the documents he got from the criminal network that helped him cross the border and illegally obtain a job. His employer, Packers Sanitation Services Inc. (PSSI), says NBC’s gaffe shows the no-win situation for employers trying to hire immigrant workers and play by the rules — a sentiment echoed by a growing number of immigration and labor experts.The industrial services company provides good-paying jobs for workers with few skills, making it a magnet for immigrants wanting work. But the flood of undocumented migrants and a wave of identity theft and fake IDs has left PSSI and other businesses stranded on the front line of immigrant enforcement.As PSSI said when NBC first aired the erroneous report, this is part of a n...

‘What’s Love Got to Do With It?’ elevates the rom-com

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

MOVIE REVIEW“What’s Love Got to Do with It?”Rated PG-13. At Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond, Methuen 20, and other suburban theaters and on VOD starting May 26.Grade: B+What’s a Richard Curtis-like, “Love Actually”-ish rom-com that you know the ending of in the first five minutes got to with it? It’s not that almost infuriatingly generic pop song title also used for a serious 1993 film about the Tina Tuner-Ike Turner marriage of the same name. But, wait a minute. The cross-cultural romance “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” was directed by Shekhar Kapur of “Elizabeth” (1998) and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2007) with an Academy Award-winning Cate Blanchett. What’s Kapur doing making a rom-com with Lily James of “Cinderella” and “Pam & Tommy” fame? Well, it turns out that “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” is set in part in London and Lahore, Pakistan, which was known as Lahore, British India when Kapur was born there.The film’s title is in part a ...

Dear Abby: She wants to commit, he’s dragging his feet

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

Dear Abby: I’m in love with a man I met online. We have been together three years, and I want us to start talking about our future. He has never been married, but he has been in long-term relationships before.When would be a good time to discuss this with my boyfriend? How would I approach this discussion? Is there anything else we could do like have a commitment ceremony? He’s afraid of being hurt, which is understandable. His ex used him and led him on for eight years. She would say she loved him but never spent any time with him. She’d also go on trips with other men and wouldn’t invite him. I feel horrible that he was treated that way. What can I do to show him I am not her, and that I’m here for the long haul?I have asked him to marry me twice. I’m having plastic surgery next month, and I told him that when I’m healed I am going to ask him once more. I’m excited but scared at the same time because I’m afraid he’s going...

Former FOX 5 anchor Paul Bloom dies

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- Veteran anchor Paul Bloom, who spent many years with FOX 5, died Thursday afternoon, according to his family.His son Richard told FOX 5 that Paul died at home in Las Vegas.Bloom began his legacy in San Diego in the late 1970s, went to Los Angeles for a few years, came back to NBC7 San Diego in the late 1980s and then moved to KUSI and finally arrived at FOX 5. Richard called his father a humble guy, who wouldn't want a big fuss to be made over his death.Bloom was a talented field reporter and loved the crime beat. When he rolled up on a scene with a scanner blaring into his ear, he would hold up four fingers to get the word from officers. It was a code four situation, meaning everything was under control. What series of San Diego-area earthquakes mean for ‘big one’ likelihood At FOX 5, he was game for anything when he filled in many times on our morning show. Richard says his father loved his time with FOX 5.At one point in his San Diego career, Bloom was part of a mo...

Australia PM: US effort to extradite Assange not worth it

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expressed frustration at the United States’ continuing efforts to extradite WikiLeaks founder and Australian citizen Julian Assange, saying: “There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration.”Albanese’s comments Friday in an Australian Broadcasting Corp. interview appeared to escalate diplomatic pressure on the United States to drop the charges against the 51-year-old Assange, who has spent four years in Britain’s Belmarsh Prison fighting extradition to the United States.Before that, Assange had taken asylum for seven years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.Albanese said Assange’s case had to be examined in terms of whether the time Assange had “effectively served” was in excess of what would be “reasonable” if the allegations against him were proved.“I just say that enough is enough. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration,” Albanese said.“I know it’s frustrating, I share the frustr...

8 fatally shot in Serbian town day after 9 killed at school

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — A shooter killed at least eight people and wounded 13 in a drive-by attack late Thursday in Serbia’s second such mass killing in two days, state television reported.The attacker shot randomly at people near the town of Mladenovac, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, RTS reported early Friday. Police were looking for a 21-year-old suspect who fled after the attack, the report said.The shooting came a day after a 13-year-old boy used his father’s guns to kill eight fellow students and a guard at a school in Belgrade.The bloodshed sent shockwaves through a Balkan nation scarred by wars but unused to mass murders.Though Serbia is awash with weapons left over from the wars of the 1990s, mass shootings are extremely rare. Wednesday’s school shooting was the first in the country’s modern history. The last mass shooting before this week was in 2013, when a war veteran killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.Serbian Interior Min...

Biden sends wife Jill to King Charles’ coronation Saturday

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jill Biden has celebrated the athleticism of wounded service members with Prince Harry, discussed the value of early childhood education with Princess Kate and sipped tea poured by Queen Elizabeth II. Now the first lady is back in London for another royal engagement. President Joe Biden has dispatched his wife to represent the United States at Saturday’s coronation of King Charles III, the late queen’s eldest son. No American president has ever attended a British coronation.“Headed to the U.K. for the Coronation of King Charles III – the first in 70 years!,” Jill Biden tweeted before her flight Thursday to London. “It’s an honor to represent the United States for this historic moment and celebrate the special relationship between our countries.” Jill Biden was just 2 years old when Elizabeth was crowned in June 1953. She held the throne for seven decades until her death last September at age 96.While in London, Jill Biden will engage in some soft ...

Dog Show 101: What’s what at the Westminster Kennel Club

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — To the casual viewer, competing at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show might look pretty simple: Get a dog. Groom it. Pose it. Lead it around a ring. But there’s a lot more than that to getting to and exhibiting in the United States’ most prestigious canine event, now in its 147th year. So here are the ins and outs of the show, which starts Saturday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. HOW MANY DOGS COMPETE? Twenty-five hundred dogs from 210 different breeds and varieties signed up to vie for the best in show trophy that gets awarded Tuesday night. (Varieties are subsets of breeds. Think smooth, longhaired and wirehaired dachshunds.) Hailing from 49 states and 13 countries, contestants range from tiny Chihuahuas to giant Great Danes. They include familiar breeds like Labrador retrievers, rarities such as the sloughi, and a newcomer, the bracco Italiano. Agility and obedience contests Saturday involve a few hundred more dogs, i...

Stock market today: Asia mixed after Wall St sinks

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:56:50 GMT

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets were mixed Friday after Wall Street sank on worries about the health of U.S. banks that are under pressure from interest rate hikes.Shanghai declined while Hong Kong and Sydney advanced. Markets in Japan and South Korea were closed for holidays. Oil prices advanced.Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.7% on Thursday as investors worried about the health of banks following three high-profile failures in the United States and one in Switzerland. Shares of PacWest Bancorp, a target of investor scrutiny, tumbled 50.6%. The bank said it was considering options and has been approached by potential partners and investors.Investors are watching what steps authorities might take to “limit further contagion risks,” Yeap Jun Rong of IG said in a report. “Any inaction over the weekend could translate to a more downbeat risk environment to start next week.”The Shanghai Composite Index shed 0.7% to 3,326.18 while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gain...