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Barbie’s Japanese distributor apologizes for its parent company’s reaction to Barbenheimer memes

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese distributor of the Warner Bros. movie “Barbie” has apologized for its U.S. parent company’s reaction to social media posts about the “Barbenheimer” blitz that combined images of Barbie and an atomic bomb mushroom cloud. The memes triggered criticisms in Japan for what many described as minimizing nuclear attacks. The movie about the world-famous doll and Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer, a biography of Robert Oppenheimer, who helped develop the weapon, were both released on July 21 in the United States, sparking the Barbenheimer craze for watching both and prompting memes combining the two.Some of the images, which were not created by Warner Bros., showed Margot Robbie, who played Barbie, sitting on the shoulders of Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, with an orange inferno of an atomic blast in the background. The official Barbie account said in response to the combined Barbenheimer meme: “It’s going to be a summer to remember.”In Japan, the only c...

Barbie, Oppenheimer deliver record month for Cineplex theatres

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

TORONTO — Cineplex Inc. says it saw its highest July box office of all time as “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” sent droves to theatres last month.The Toronto-based cinema chain says the record month surpassed $86 million in net box office revenues.July also delivered the company its second highest month on record, trailing December 2015, when “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens” was released.Cineplex attributed much of the month’s lift to “Barbie,” whichgenerated the highest July attendance at its theatres, followed by “Oppenheimer” and “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.”Altogether the company says 6.8 million moviegoers visited its theatres last month and Cineplex also scored its second highest monthly premium box office revenue of all time.The Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling-starring “Barbie” debuted on July 21, the same day as Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer”...

Architect accused in Gilgo Beach serial killings is due back in court

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — Rex Heuermann, the architect accused of murdering at least three women and leaving their bodies along a remote stretch of coastline near Long Island’s Gilgo Beach, is due back in court for the first time since his arraignment.Heuermann is charged with killing Melissa Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Lynn Costello, who disappeared over five months in 2010. Prosecutors also say he’s also suspected in the death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who vanished in 2007.All of the women were sex workers whose remains were discovered near to each other on a barrier island off Long Island’s southern coast.Investigators spent nearly two weeks combing through Heuermann’s home in Massapequa Park, across a bay from where the remains were found.The search included digging up the yard, dismantling a porch and a greenhouse and removing many contents of the house for testing. Heuermann’s wife, Asa Ellerup, told the New York Post that it left the ...

Avion rewards program expands to customers who don’t bank with RBC

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

TORONTO — The Avion rewards program is opening up to people who aren’t clients of Royal Bank of Canada.The Toronto-based bank says Canadians will now be allowed into the free rewards program regardless of where they bank or shop.Avion offers members deals at more than 2,400 online retailers and lets shoppers earn points they can redeem for merchandise and gift cards.The membership level open to customers without RBC products is called Avion Select.Avion Select has most of the program’s core benefits but doesn’t offer cash back or savings on in-store purchases and does not allow users to use points on bills payments and investments.Avion’s expansion comes as companies are beefing up their loyalty programs. Cineplex Inc., Scotiabank and Empire Company Ltd. revamped the Scene program last year and BMO Financial Group announced a deal in June to buy Air Miles in Canada.This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 1, 2023.Companies in this story: (TSX:RY, TSX:BNS, T...

Stock market today: Wall Street edges back from its big rally for the year so far

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

TOKYO — Most stocks are edging back from their big surge following a mixed set of earnings reports from U.S. companies. The S&P 500 was down 0.3% Tuesday, coming off its fifth straight winning month. The Dow was up 60 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq was 0.7% lower. Norwegian Cruise Line tumbled despite reporting stronger profit for the spring than expected. Expectations have been high for it and rivals after its stock soared earlier this year. Worries have been rising about expectations broadly building too high for the market, which saw the S&P 500 surge 19.5% this year through July to a 16-month high.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Wall Street pointed slightly lower early Tuesday as market optimism set off by recent rallies was balanced by lingering worries about inflation. Futures for the Dow Jones industrials ticked down 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the S&P 500 retreated 0.3%.Several reports in the coming week could poke ho...

Man Booker Prize long list features 4 Irish writers, 4 debut novelists

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Author Sebastian Barry, who has received four previous nominations for the Man Booker Prize and twice been short-listed for it, was one of four Irish writers to make the long list Tuesday for the prestigious award.Barry is up this year for his novel “Old God’s Time,” about a retired police detective who gets dragged back into a cold case investigation of a murdered priest suspected of sexually abusing children.Twelve other writers, including four debut novelists and two prior Man Booker nominees, are up for the 50,000 pound ($64,000) prize. The authors are from seven different countries on four continents. “All 13 novels cast new light on what it means to exist in our time, and they do so in original and thrilling ways,” said Esi Edugyan, chair of the judges. “Their range is vast, both in subject and form: they shocked us, made us laugh, filled us with anguish, but above all they stayed with us.”The award recognizes the best in long fiction published in the...

The first generation of solar panels will wear out. A recycling industry is taking shape

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

Sunlight beats down on a graveyard for dead solar panels in Yuma, Arizona, hundreds stacked in neat piles, waiting for their next life. The great majority of worn and damaged panels are still dumped in landfills. But with more and more piling up, many people know that needs to change.In this desert city where Arizona, California, Sonora and Baja California meet, North America’s first utility-scale solar panel recycling plant has opened to address what founders of We Recycle Solar call a “tsunami” of solar waste. Plans to address climate change rely on massively scaling up clean, solar electricity.The panels, stacked and banded, come here from the company’s main collection warehouse in Hackettstown, New Jersey, plus six other locations across the country.Workers maneuver the stacks into the sprawling 75,000 square foot facility on forklifts, then gently lift each out by hand to begin separating by brand and model. Some only have a few cracks in their glass, sometimes from storm...

National Bank to buy the Canadian branch of SVB’s commercial loan portfolio

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

MONTREAL — National Bank of Canada says it will acquire the Canadian branch of Silicon Valley Bank’s commercial loan portfolio.The Montreal-based bank says the portfolio it will nab is made up of about $1 billion in loan commitments, of which $325 million are outstanding.Much of the portfolio is focused on the technology, life science and global fund banking sectors and will be integrated into National Bank’s technology and innovation banking group.The bank says the deal is subject to closing conditions and must be approved by the Ontario Superior Court, which is supervising the wind up of Silicon Valley Bank in Canada.National Bank says the deal will likely close in the coming weeks and is not expected to have a material impact on its results.Silicon Valley Bank, a U.S. financial firm favoured by startups, failed earlier this year, when its clients rushed to withdraw billions of dollars as they feared for the organization’s solvency.This report by The Canadian Press was...

Palestinian opens fire in Israeli settlement near Jerusalem, wounding 4 before being killed

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (AP) — A Palestinian gunman opened fire in an Israeli settlement east of Jerusalem on Tuesday, wounding at least four people before being shot and killed, Israeli police said. The shooting outside a shopping mall in the sprawling Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, in the occupied West Bank, was the latest in the most violent stretch of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the territory in nearly two decades. The Palestinian assailant, dressed as a security guard, was shot and killed by an off-duty Israeli police officer who had heard gunshots and rushed to the scene. The Israeli police said the attacker wounded four civilians, who were in light to moderate condition.Fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank intensified early last year when Israel launched near-nightly raids into Palestinian areas in the West Bank in response to a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.The violence has spiked this year, with more than 150 Palestinians...

Jury begins weighing death penalty or life in prison for Pittsburgh synagogue shooter

Published Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:00:43 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A jury is deliberating whether the man who killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue should receive the death penalty or life in prison without parole. Robert Bowers perpetrated the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history when he stormed the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018 and opened fire, killing members of three congregations who had gathered for Sabbath worship and study. The same jury that convicted Bowers in June on 63 criminal counts began deliberating his sentence Tuesday morning. In closing arguments Monday, prosecutors said the 50-year-old truck driver was clearly motivated by religious hatred, reminding jurors that Bowers had spread antisemitic content online before the attack and has since expressed pride in the killings. They urged jurors to impose a death sentence.Bowers’ lawyers asked jurors to spare his life, asserting that he acted out of a delusional belief that Jewish people were helping to bring about a genocide of white people. They said he...