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Millard: ‘Flash mob’ retail theft closes stores, funds cartels

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

“This is crazy,” said Noel Escobar as he pulled out his mobile phone and started filming thieves ransacking the Nordstrom store at Topanga Mall in Los Angeles.His video showed a gang in masks and hoodies breaking open glass displays and grabbing clothes, purses and luxury goods. The band of thieves barged out of mall doors while a security guard watched nearby.“This is nuts,” Escobar muttered as they fled.The scene is hardly unique in America in 2023. Near Charlotte, N.C., hammer-wielding thugs recently bashed in a Kohl’s jewelry display in broad daylight. In Glendale, Calif., 30 robbers committed a “flash mob burglary” at a Yves Saint Laurent store, stealing $300,000 in merchandise.All told, shoplifting mobs and smash-and-grab robbers are costing retailers $100 billion in losses in what law enforcement calls organized retail crime (ORC). Shoplifting today isn’t teenagers sticking a few beers in their jackets or stealing party supplies at the Food King. Instead, many robberies are e...

Hurricane Lee charges over Atlantic waters as a Category 5 storm, approaching the Caribbean

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Hurricane Lee whirled through open waters toward the northeast Caribbean late Thursday becoming the first Category 5 storm of the Atlantic season.Lee was not expected to make landfall although forecasters said tropical storm conditions are possible on some islands. Meteorologists said it was too early to provide details on potential rainfall and wind gusts.The Category 5 hurricane was located about 705 miles (1,135 kilometers) east of the northern Leeward Islands. It had winds of up to 160 miles per hour (260 kilometers per hour) and was moving west-northwest at 14 mph (22 kph).The storm was expected to remain a major hurricane into next week.“Lee continues to strengthen at an exceptional rate,” the National Hurricane Center said.U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday was given the hurricane’s latest trajectory and details of preparations underway by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which deployed unidentified assets to...

“Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” well-acted winner

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

A tender and well-acted romance-cum-coming-of-age story, “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” is the tale of two young men facing daunting challenges growing up in El Paso, Texas in the late 1980s. Aristotle Mendoza (tall newcomer Max Pelayo) is a lanky loner with anger issues. His parents Liliana (Mexican acting royalty Veronica Falcon) and Jaime (ditto for Eugenio Derbez, “Instructions Not Included”) are humble, hard-working folk. They do not want to discuss Ari’s older brother Bernardo, who is in jail for something we will learn about later. Ari likes Batman, the Hulk and Spider-Man. In other words, he’s into “the dark.” The more sensitive, cheerful and outgoing Dante Quintero (Reese Gonzalez) has been raised by a father named Sam (Kevin Alejandro), who is a professor of literature, and a glamorous and expressive mother named Soledad (Eva Longoria).Aristotle aka Ari and Dante meet at a public pool, where the less beefy Dante teaches the long and ...

Hankinson: FEMA $$ is for disaster-stricken Americans

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

Federal spending is hard enough to keep track of at the best of times, but the Biden administration is highly adept at hiding how they fund their open-borders agenda. In a cynical budget negotiation tactic, the White house is now trying to push through a $40 billion “supplemental” funding bill that holds bailout money for FEMA hostage to sending billions more to Ukraine with insufficient accountability.It gets worse. If the White House tactic works, and Congress coughs up enough aid to Ukraine that rescue money for FEMA can get through, hundreds of millions of that funding won’t go to disaster-afflicted Americans, but to providing housing, food, health care and transportation for illegal immigrants through grants to activist NGOs and “sanctuary” cities.That’s right. Even though FEMA grants are meant to help taxpaying Americans prepare for and cope with hurricanes, fires and floods, the Biden administration has used these same funds to pay activist NGOs to settle migrants illegally i...

U.S. gets stark closeup in ‘American: An Odyssey to 1947’

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

“Oppenheimer” fans might take a look at a non-fiction study of the period spanned in Christopher Nolan’s surprise hit. A somewhat convoluted, but valuable “odyssey,” to be sure, Danny Wu’s award-winning documentary “American: An Odyssey to 1947” tells three true stories. One is of the whirlwind known as Orson Welles, the “boy wonder” from Kenosha, who terrorized the nation with a 1938 “reality radio” broadcast based on H.G. Wells’ alien invasion classic “The War of the Worlds,” and went on to direct at age 25 the 1941 release “Citizen Kane,” one of the best films ever made. In addition to archival footage of Welles and his co-workers, we get interviews with actor and Welles’ biographer Simon Callow and Boston-born former actor and Welles’ authority Richard France.Interwoven with the tale of Welles, Japanese-American Howard Kakita appears on screen to tell his own story of how he and his older brother were sent to Japan to visit an ailing grandfather jus...

Dear Abby: Group outing makes introvert cringe

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

Dear Abby: I am in a group of friends who are mainly from the same country. We bond pretty well and occasionally spend time together. We mostly communicate by text in a chat group. Once in a while I get messages from them — mostly greetings or chats about general stuff, but nothing personal.I’m an introvert, so I’m comfortable with the level of closeness we have right now. I don’t crave deeper connections with them, and I’m happy with how things are. If I have the chance to get together, I do my best to see them for meals or other activities.In a few weeks, there is a plan for us to do an outdoor activity that requires an overnight stay. I’m not excited about it. It makes me nervous to think about spending that much time with people who are not my family. I don’t mind having lunch and chitchatting all afternoon, but being around them for more than 24 hours feels like too much to handle.I tried hinting that I’m not interested by saying ...

Stock market today: Asian shares track decline on Wall St as Japan cuts GDP estimate for 2nd quarter

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

NEW YORK — Shares fell Friday in Asia after Japan reported its economy grew less than earlier estimated in the last quarter. Oil prices declined, while U.S. futures edged higher. Japan, the world’s third largest economy, grew at a 4.8% annual pace in the April-June quarter, below the earlier estimate of 6% growth, according to data released Friday. Much of that growth was driven by exports, which rose nearly 13%, while private consumption fell 2.2% on weak investment spending. A separate report showed that wages declined in July for the 16th straight month, falling 2.5% from a year earlier. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.9% to 32,681.31, while the Kospi in Seoul lost 0.4% to 2,537.69. Hong Kong’s markets were closed due to a tropical storm. The Shanghai Composite index pulled back 0.5% to 3,105.54, while the S&/ASX 200 fell 0.4% to 7,154.50. On Thursday, Wall Street slipped in mixed trading Thursday as the threat of high interest rates continues to dog Big Tech s...

Is it India? Is it Bharat? Speculations abound as government pushes for the country’s Sanskrit name

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

NEW DELHI (AP) — It began with a dinner invitation. How it ends could affect more than a billion people. State-issued invites sent to guests of this week’s G20 meeting referred to India’s president, Droupadi Murmu, as “President of Bharat.” Suddenly, in many circles, the question was everywhere: Would the country of more than 1.4 billion now be called by its ancient Sanskrit name?Since then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’s ministers, his Hindu nationalist supporters, Bollywood stars and cricketers have made similar public proclamations: India should officially be rebranded as Bharat.India is known by two names: India, used worldwide, and the Sanskrit and Hindi nomenclature of “Bharat.” Now, Modi’s government is signaling that Indians should shed the name India and instead call their country Bharat.The possibility is resonating with Hindu nationalists who form the prime minister’s core vote base. Their stated reason: the name “India” is tied to colonialism and slavery, a sentim...

Massachusetts investigates teen’s death as company pulls spicy One Chip Challenge from store shelves

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — The maker of an extremely spicy tortilla chip said Thursday it is working to remove the product from stores as Massachusetts authorities investigate the death of a teen whose family pointed to the One Chip Challenge popularized as a dare on social media as a contributing factor.The cause of Harris Wolobah’s death on Sept. 1 has yet to be determined and an autopsy is pending, but the 14-year-old’s family blamed the challenge. Since his death, Texas-based manufacturer Paqui has asked retailers to stop selling the individually wrapped chips, a step 7-Eleven has already taken.A vigil for the teen is planned for Friday evening at a park in Worcester in central Massachusetts.The One Chip Challenge chip sells for about $10 and comes wrapped in a sealed foil pouch that is enclosed in a coffin-shaped cardboard box. The package warns the chip is made for the “vengeful pleasure of intense heat and pain,” is intended for adults and should be kept out of reach...

America’s retired North Korea intelligence officer offers a parting message on the nuclear threat

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:15:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The founder of North Korea’s ruling dynasty, an isolationist totalitarian leader named Kim Il Sung, was still building some of the country’s first nuclear facilities when Syd Seiler arrived on the Korean Peninsula as a young U.S. military intelligence officer. Over the four decades since, Seiler has watched closely as Kim, his son and now his grandson have clung to their nuclear program and developed the potential to lob nuclear warheads at the U.S. and its allies if they choose. Now Seiler is freshly retired after decades of advising presidents, military commanders and diplomats, making reported secret trips to North Korea and serving as a lead negotiator on talks to contain its nuclear program. And he has a parting message to American leaders: Don’t be discouraged.North Korea’s fiery rounds of missile test launches are no reason to give up on the international sanctions and pressure, or to simply accept that the ruling Kim family is now a nuclear-arme...