Author: Wolf Blitzer
Horror movies are often one-week wonders at the box office, but Ryan Coogler’s“Sinners” is defying the odds and proving to be true event cinema. In its second weekend in theaters, “Sinners” earned $45 million in ticket sales from theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday. That’s down a miniscule 6% from its Easter holiday launch, the smallest drop in any genre since “Avatar” in 2009. Worldwide, “Sinners” has now made $161.6 million.For the industry, the showing proves the film’s reach has broadened beyond horror fans to mainstream audiences wanting to see what the hype is about.…
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Many days over the past two weeks, no one answered the phone at any of U.S. Rep. Scott Perry’s four offices.Perry’s team did not share details about the Republican congressman’s public appearances until they were over. Even supporters who live in Perry’s central Pennsylvania district could not remember the last time he hosted an in-person town hall.No one opened the locked door at his district office in Mechanicsburg last week when an Associated Press reporter rang the bell. A male voice said through the intercom, “I don’t have any public appearance information that I can provide.”…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk spent years building cachet as a business titan and tech visionary, brushing aside critics and skeptics to become the richest person on the planet.But as Musk gained power in Washington in recent months, his popularity has waned, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.Just 33% of U.S. adults have a favorable view of Musk, the chain-saw-wielding, late-night-posting, campaign-hat-wearing public face of President Donald Trump’s efforts to downsize and overhaul the federal government. That share is down from 41% in December. “It was a shame that he crashed and burned…
State lawmakers across the U.S. are pushing to use more taxpayer dollars to pay for private school tuitions and homeschooling expenses even as they try to figure out how to budget in a time of economic uncertainty.A $1 billion-per-year voucher program the Texas Legislature sent to the governor last week and a longshot push in Congress to expand vouchers nationally, including to states that have rejected them, are focusing attention on the issue.In states that already have programs to pay private education costs for most students, the expense has quickly gobbled up more of their budgets as revenue growth has…
Immigration and civil rights advocates have renewed concerns that immigrants detained at Guantanamo Bay are being held in extreme isolation, cut off from meaningful access to legal counsel or candid communication with relatives, according to a new court filing Saturday.In a lawsuit brought on behalf or two Nicaraguan immigrants held at the U.S. Navy base on Cuba, attorneys say there is a climate of “extreme fear and intimidation” that interferes with constitutional rights to due process and legal counsel.The revised lawsuit asks a federal judge in Washington to intervene on behalf of all future immigrants at Guantanamo, which authorities have…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The wife of an active-duty Coast Guardsman was arrested earlier this week by federal immigration authorities inside the family residential section of the U.S. Naval Air Station at Key West, Florida, after she was flagged in a routine security check, officials said Saturday.“The spouse is not a member of the Coast Guard and was detained by Homeland Security Investigations pursuant to a lawful removal order,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Steve Roth in a statement confirming Thursday’s on-base arrest. “The Coast Guard works closely with HSI and others to enforce federal laws, including on immigration.”According to…
A federal judge in west Texas joined other courts in temporarily blocking the deportations of Venezuelan immigrants under an 18th-century wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act.U.S. District Judge David Briones in El Paso, Texas, issued the ruling Friday while he ordered the release of a couple accused of being members of a Venezuelan criminal gang. Briones wrote that government lawyers “have not demonstrated they have any lawful basis” to continue detaining the couple on a suspected alien enemy violation.A message left with an attorney for the couple wasn’t immediately returned Saturday.The couple is accused of being part of…
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have in recent days deported a Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl, separating them indefinitely, and in another case a 2-year-old girl who is a U.S. citizen along with her Honduran-born mother, their lawyers say.Both cases raise questions about who is being deported, and why, and come amid a battle in federal courts over whether President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has gone too far and too quickly at the expense of fundamental rights.Lawyers in the two cases described how their clients were arrested at routine check-ins at ICE offices, given virtually…
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Coal-fired power plants, long an increasingly money-losing proposition in the U.S., are becoming more valuable now that the suddenly strong demand for electricity to run Big Tech’s cloud computing and artificial intelligence applications has set off a full-on sprint to find new energy sources.President Donald Trump — who has pushed for U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market and suggested that coal can help meet surging power demand — is wielding his emergency authority to entice utilities to keep older coal-fired plants online and producing electricity.While some utilities were already delaying the retirement of coal-fired plants,…
Virginia Giuffre, who accused Britain’s Prince Andrew and other influential men of sexually exploiting her as a teenager trafficked by financier Jeffrey Epstein, has died. She was 41.Giuffre died by suicide Friday at her farm in Western Australia, her publicist confirmed.“Virginia was a fierce warrior in the fight against sexual abuse and sex trafficking. She was the light that lifted so many survivors,” her family said in a statement. “Despite all the adversity she faced in her life, she shone so bright. She will be missed beyond measure.”Her publicist Dini von Mueffling described Giuffre as “deeply loving, wise and funny.”“She…