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Here’s how to decorate for Halloween, according to scare professionals

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

From their nightmare factory in Greeley, Colorado, husband-and-wife team Ed Edmunds and Marsha Taub-Edmunds have been making elaborate monsters and masks for more than four decades.Their company, Distortions Unlimited, then dispatches the creepy cast of artfully crafted characters — like animatronic circus clowns, life-sized werewolves, and a toothy 11-foot-tall “Sleeping Giant” — to commercial haunted houses, theme parks and corn mazes.But during the COVID-19 pandemic, an interesting trend emerged: Homeowners began taking an interest in the Hollywood-quality monsters and props and incorporating them into their own front-yard haunts. Direct-to-consumer sales in the past few years have shot up by roughly 200%, Taub-Edmunds estimates. Each one costs anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.“People weren’t able to go to haunted houses during COVID, and they weren’t handing out candy, so they really got into the spirit of decorating,” she said.Retail stores got ...

An end in sight? Striking writers and Hollywood studios resume negotiations for a second day

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood studios and striking screenwriters resumed talks Thursday that could potentially put an end to the nearly five-month dispute that has brought many film and television productions to a halt.In a rare joint statement issued Wednesday night, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the industry’s studios, streaming services and production companies in union negotiations, and the Writers Guild of America, said that they’d met for bargaining Wednesday and would continue Thursday. Present at the meeting were a group of top entertainment CEOs including Disney’s Bob Iger, Warner Bros. Discovery’s David Zaslav, Universal’s Donna Langley and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. The four are likely to be present at the talks Thursday as well. On Wednesday, CNBC reporter David Faber wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the writers and AMPTP were “near” an agreement and “hope to fi...

Clarification: US-Philanthropy-Gates-Foundation story

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — In a story published September 20, 2023, The Associated Press reported on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s $200 million pledge to groups supporting women’s health. The story should have made clear that Unitaid does not manufacture health products itself but rather funds health projects, including manufacturing health products.Thalia Beaty, The Associated Press

Mexico president says he’ll skip APEC summit in November in San Francisco

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said on Thursday that he will skip the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco because his country “has no relations” with Peru. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has claimed previously that Peru’s current government was installed by a coup and that he still considers ousted president Pedro Castillo to be the country’s legitimate leader. Both countries have recalled their ambassadors following those comments. It would not be the first time that López Obrador has skipped international meetings in the United States because of who else was or wasn’t invited. Last year, he skipped the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles because Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited.Leaders from around the Pacific rim are scheduled to attend the 21-member APEC forum scheduled for Nov. 11-17.López Obrador’s comments were the most forceful indication yet that he doesn’t recognize current Peruvian President Dina B...

9 deputies charged in death of man beaten in Memphis jail, including 2 for second-degree murder

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Two Memphis jail deputies have been charged with second-degree murder in the death of a Black man who was having a psychotic episode and died in custody last fall after jailers punched, kicked and kneeled on his back during a confrontation, according to court documents released Thursday. The indictments show that Stevon Jones and Courtney Parham have also been charged with aggravated assault while acting in concert with others in the death of 33-year-old Gershun Freeman. Jones faces an additional count of assault. Meanwhile, seven other deputies have been charged with aggravated assault resulting in the death of another. Those officers include: Jeffrey Gibson, Anthony Howell, Damian Cooper, Ebonee Davis, Lareko Donwel Elliot and Chelsey Duckett. One officer’s name was redacted.The grand jury made the indictments Tuesday and warrants were issued Wednesday. All of the deputies have been placed on administrative leave. Online records do not show if the eight...

Pathways Alliance watching Trans Mountain’s latest hurdles with dismay

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

CALGARY — The group behind a proposed carbon capture and storage network for Alberta’s oilsands is watching the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion’s latest regulatory hurdles with dismay.The Pathways Alliance, a consortium of Canada’s biggest oilsands companies, wants to get its proposed $16.5-billion carbon pipeline and underground storage hub up and running in northern Alberta by 2030.The project is key to the oilsands industry’s commitment to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from production by 2050. But Pathways president Kendall Dilling says the latest challenges affecting the Trans Mountain pipeline project show how hard it is to get major infrastructure projects across the finish line in this country.The Crown corporation that owns Trans Mountain has run into fresh construction issues in British Columbia, and a B.C. First Nation is opposing the company’s efforts to modify the pipeline’s route as a result.The Trans Mountain project, w...

Tropical storm warning issued for US East Coast ahead of potential cyclone, forecasters say

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

MIAMI (AP) — A tropical storm warning was issued Thursday from coastal North Carolina to Delaware ahead of a potential tropical cyclone that’s headed toward the East Coast.The National Hurricane Center announced “Potential Tropical Cyclone Sixteen” on Thursday morning. The disturbance was located about 370 miles (595 kilometers) southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, forecasters said, and moving north at 9 mph (15 kph). Maximum sustained winds were 35 mph (55 kph).The hurricane center defines a potential tropical cyclone as a disturbance that poses a threat for tropical storm or hurricane conditions to land within 48 hours. The current system could reach the North Carolina coast around Friday night or early Saturday.The tropical storm warning is in effect from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Fenwick Island, Delaware. It also includes the Chesapeake Bay south of Smith Point, and Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.Virginia emergency management officials warned of heavy rain, high wind...

Senate confirms new army chief as one senator’s objection holds up other military nominations

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is confirming three of the Pentagon’s top leaders, filling the posts after monthslong delays and as a Republican senator is still holding up hundreds of other nominations and promotions for military officers. Gen. Randy George was confirmed as Army Chief of Staff on Thursday, and Gen. Eric Smith is expected to be confirmed as commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps by Thursday afternoon. On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed Gen. CQ Brown as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, putting him in place to succeed Gen. Mark Milley when he retires at the end of the month. Democrats are still trying to maneuver around holds placed on more than 300 nominations by Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville over the Pentagon’s abortion policy. Tuberville has been blocking the Senate from the routine process of approving the military nominations in groups, forcing Democrats to bring the nominations up one by one — a process that could take months and delay other priorities....

Bodycam footage of Elijah McClain’s death presented in trial of 2 officers charged with homicide

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

BRIGHTON, Colo. (AP) — A police lieutenant testified Thursday on how body cameras collect “digital evidence” as prosecutors called their first witness in the trial of two Denver-area police officers over the death of Elijah McClain, a Black man who alongside George Floyd and others was raised up by protesters as a searing example of excessive force used against people of color.It’s the first of several trials stemming from McClain’s death in 2019 after officers in the suburb of Aurora put him in a neck hold and paramedics injected him with the powerful sedative ketamine. Officials have determined the sedative played a key role in McClain’s death, and police are now banned from using that type of neck hold.McClain, a 23-year-old massage therapist, was stopped while walking home from a convenience store after a 911 caller reported him as “sketchy.” If prosecutors can convince jurors the stop was unjustified, that would undermine any argument that McClain’s injuries were a result...

A new breed of leaders are atop the largest US unions today. Here are some faces to know

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 13:35:59 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — There will be no Emmy Awards tonight and there are thousands of auto workers on picket lines in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio in a seemingly rapid reemergence of organized labor this year. Unions have nowhere near the pull, or members, that they did decades ago, yet something has changed. There’s no single explanation, but the boiling point we’re seeing today comes amid soaring costs of living and a widening gap between what workers and top executives are paid. Thousands of workers who were asked to make sacrifices during the pandemic even as corporate profits soared are now asking for a bigger piece of the pie. Those demands have sparked grassroots organizing efforts across the country in the last year. And some of the nation’s largest unions have simultaneously been at the center of heated contract negotiations — with writers and actors hitting Hollywood picket lines, unionized auto workers striking at Detroit’s Big Three and UPS reaching a new deal to av...