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‘The Nun II’ conjures $32.6M to top box office

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

Bad reviews didn’t scare off moviegoers from buying tickets for ” The Nun II.”The sequel to the 2018 hit, released in 3,728 theaters by Warner Bros., topped the box office in its first weekend in North American theaters earning an estimated $32.6 million, the studio said Sunday.The Herald’s James Verniere said in his review, “The Nun II” is “more like an amusement park ride you did not want to take than a movie.”  Audiences gave it a C+ CinemaScore. But it hardly matters: Horror is perhaps the most reliably critic-proof genre, at least when it comes to opening weekend.The Michael Graves-directed sequel starring Taissa Farmiga and Storm Reid fell far short of the debut for the first film ($53.8 million), but it’s still a solid launch.“The Nun” movies are part of the so-called Conjuring universe, which now has nine films, and $2.1 billion in box office, to its name. The sequel also played well internationally, picking u...

Stars of the Week

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

WEEK 1 STARSDIV. 1• Denzil Pierre ran for 204 yards and a score on 24 carries as Xaverian defeated Everett, 32-21.• Mike Davide ran for 202 yards and four touchdowns as Franklin defeated Wachusett, 36-14.• Devin Carreiro caught eight passes for 142 yards and two scores and also picked off a pair of passes as Haverhill beat Beverly, 27-14.• Cam LaGrassa rushed for 187 yards and three touchdowns as St. John’s Prep built up a big early lead en route to a 41-20 win over Marshfield.• Tate Hoffmeister rushed for 178 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries as Needham defeated Natick, 14-6.• Marshall Rice caught a pair of touchdown passes, a 98-yard kickoff return for a score and a game-saving interception as BC High beat LaSalle, 28-21.• Adrian Rivera ran for 175 yards and two touchdowns as Attleboro defeated Old Rochester, 20-13.• Jayden Abreu threw for 217 yards and three scores as Lawrence defeated Lynn English, 27-0. DIV. 2• Mikey Galligan threw for 250 yards and three touchd...

Red Sox notebook: James Paxton to miss rest of season with right knee inflammation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

James Paxton’s season is officially over, and his Red Sox career might be as well.The veteran left-hander was placed on the 15-day injured list Sunday with right knee inflammation, and Red Sox manager Alex Cora said he will not pitch again for the remainder of the season. The Red Sox originally hoped skipping Paxton’s spot in the rotation and giving him an extra five days rest would help, but in the end they decided it would be best to shut him down.“He’s been barking for a little bit, we tried to push him back to see if he can bounce back but I don’t think it makes sense to push him,” Cora said. “First things first, the player, he’s been through so much throughout his career that at this point with where we’re at it doesn’t make sense.”Nick Pivetta will fill Paxton’s spot in the starting rotation for the remainder of the season.The injury ends a roller coaster season that saw Paxton briefly re-emerge as one of ...

Federal railroad inspectors find alarming number of defects on Union Pacific this summer

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Federal inspectors said they found an alarming number of defects in the locomotives and railcars Union Pacific was using at the world’s largest railyard in western Nebraska this summer, and the railroad was reluctant to fix the problems.Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose wrote a letter to UP’s top three executives Friday expressing his concern that the defects represent a “significant risk to rail safety ” on the Union Pacific railroad.Bose said the 19.93% defect rate on rail cars and the 72.69% rate for locomotives that inspectors found in July and August are both twice the national average. But the letter didn’t detail what kind of defects inspectors found in the Bailey Yard in North Platte, and there are a myriad of federal rules.“The compliance of the rolling stock (freight cars and locomotives) on the UP network is poor, and UP was unwilling or unable to take steps to improve the condition of their equipment,” Bose said in his le...

The death toll from floods in Greece has risen to 15 after 4 more bodies found, authorities say

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — The number of confirmed deaths from recent flooding in central Greece rose to 15 after the bodies of four people previously considered missing were found on Sunday, authorities said.Three of the bodies were located in villages near the city of Karditsa in western Thessaly. They are an 88-year-old woman and her 65-year-old son, who were found in their home, as well as a 58-year-old man whose body was found between two villages.The coast guard said Sunday that the body of a 42-year-old man, missing since Tuesday, was found floating in the sea near the city of Volos. He was last seen in his car unable to control it in raging waters.Greece’s fire service said that since flooding hit central Greece on Tuesday it has evacuated nearly 3,500 people. Rescue efforts continue.The flooding appears to have subsided, although the Pineios river, the major waterway in Thessaly, is rising at its mouth, Fire Service spokesman Yiannis Artopios said Sunday evening.The coast guard ...

Challenges and a to-do list: Five takeaways from the Conservative party convention

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

OTTAWA — Federal Conservatives left their party’s policy convention in Quebec City feeling a somewhat unfamiliar sensation: Celebration. Party members, MPs and insiders say the chance for a return to power feels within reach. Unity is also becoming more evident under Pierre Poilievre, elected leader a year ago.With a mood buoyed by rising poll numbers and a sense of momentum, the challenge ahead, some say, is how to sustain the feeling, given the next general election could be years away.The Canadian Press put that question to strategists, MPs and party supporters at the convention. Five takeaways on what Conservatives say they need to do next:Stick to the scriptKeeping the focus on affordability is the most important thing, insiders and caucus members say.Poilievre dedicated his more than hour-long convention speech to the issue, and there’s a feeling that after years of delivering a hard economic message, it has finally clicked.Conservatives believe it’s a core t...

House committee chairman says Sen. Tuberville is ‘paralyzing’ the Pentagon by blocking promotions

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is slamming a fellow Republican in the Senate for waging an unprecedented attempt to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions.Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is “paralyzing the Department of Defense.”“The idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months, I understand maybe promotions, but nominations,” McCaul said. He added, “I think that is a national security problem and a national security issue. And I really wish he would reconsider this.”Tuberville’s move has forced less experienced leaders into top jobs and raised concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness. Defense officials say Tuberville is jeopardizing American national security. Senators in both parties, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, also have criticized Tuberv...

A boat capsizing in north-central Nigeria killed at least 24 people. Dozens of others are missing

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A boat capsized in north-central Nigeria early Sunday, killing at least two dozen people and leaving many others missing amid a frantic rescue effort, emergency officials said.The victims, mostly women and children, drowned while travelling on the wooden boat in the Nigerian state of Niger in the Mokwa district. The boat was carrying more than 100 passengers, according to Zainab Sulaiman, head of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency in the state, suggesting that the death toll could be much higher as local divers searched for survivors.“So far, they retrieved 24 corpses … and rescued 30 people,” Sulaiman told The Associated Press. The capsizing on the Niger River happened in the Gbajibo community, located 251 kilometers (156 miles) from Minna, the state capital.Boat disasters are common in many remote communities across the West African nation where locally made vessels are commonly used for transport. Most incidents are attributed to overloading amid...

Paper ballots are good, but accurately hand-counting them all is next to impossible

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

(The Conversation) - Among people, mostly Republicans, who remain the most suspicious of the 2020 presidential election results, there’s something of a movement to return to the days when election ballots in the United States were counted by hand. One 67,000-person county in Georgia recently required a hand count of all ballots, for instance. But they, and others seeking similar changes around the country, are likely to find themselves disappointed – either by failure to mandate hand-counting or by how election results are handled if they succeed.Requiring hand-counting of all ballots would take elections back many decades to practices that were common in the mid-1800s. In that era, political parties produced a variety of paper “tickets” that were counted at polling places on election night. When states started taking responsibility for producing ballots in the late 19th century, automated machines began to be used for both casting and tabulating votes.In a 1930s review of...

GoGo YumYum delivers new ice cream truck business model in Central Texas

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:43 GMT

ROUND ROCK, Texas (KXAN) -- There's a new kind of ice cream truck rolling around Central Texas.Tanya Rosenzweig is the owner of the GoGo YumYum, a Round Rock-based ice cream truck that launched in June and has revamped the ice cream truck model to focus on requested stops, deliveries and truck rentals for events. Rosenzweig, a graphic designer by trade, said she wanted to preserve the nostalgia of the ice cream truck experience while revitalizing its operations."The world today is different. People don't really hang outside the way that they used to," she said. "There was an opportunity that I saw there, with starting an ice cream truck that was more updated."The truck -- lovingly named Round Rocky Road, or "Rocky" for short -- is adorned with bright, neon colors to help it stand out while driving around. In blending the old school nostalgia with the modern age, GoGo YumYum still operates the classic treats people might know and love, such as SpongeBob or Spider-Man face pops along ...