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At Knock Shrine, Biden meets priest who gave Beau last rites

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

KNOCK, Ireland (AP) — President Joe Biden was moved to tears on Friday during a stop at a Catholic shrine when he discovered that a chaplain working there had performed last rites on his late son Beau Biden. Knock Shrine is a pilgrimage site where, according to Catholic lore, the saints Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist appeared near a stone wall in 1879. Biden touched the remaining old wall, and toured the site with priest Father Richard Gibbons.Gibbons said he discovered earlier in the day that the Father Frank O’Grady working at the site was the same one who’d performed last rites, a ceremony in the Catholic faith that spiritually prepares people for death, for Beau. It’s common in the Catholic faith for priests to move around to different posts during their lives in the church. O’Grady is a former U.S. Army chaplain and was formerly assigned to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where Beau died in 2015 from brain cancer at the age...

Clint Eastwood set to direct ‘Juror No. 2’ for Warner Bros.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Clint Eastwood is getting back in the director’s chair. The “Unforgiven” and “Gran Torino” filmmaker is set to direct the legal drama “Juror No. 2″ for his longtime studio, Warner Bros., a person close to the production who requested anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to comment publicly confirmed Friday. The film will be Eastwood’s first since 2021’s neo-Western “Cry Macho,” which also marked his return to the screen as an actor. With production on “Juror No. 2” to begin in June, Eastwood will be 93 when he steps on set. Nicholas Hoult and Toni Collette are in early talks to potentially star in the film, written by Jonathan Abrams, about a murder trial wherein a juror discovers he may have played a role in the victim’s death. In an interview in 2014 with The Associated Press, Eastwood, said the reason for his career longevity was that “I never let the old man in.” “There are so many different stories to tell out there,” said ...

Jessica Chastain returns to theater with ‘A Doll’s House’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

New York (AP) — Jessica Chastain counts her performance as Nora in the current Broadway revival of “A Doll’s House” to be one of the “hardest things” she has ever done.Coming from the actor who has played televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker and country singer Tammy Wynette, that’s saying a lot.The two-hour play was so emotionally draining to perform, she said, that she wanted to skip the final bow.“I’ve come out for the curtain call, not ready for the curtain call, and that’s been difficult,” Chastain said.But after speaking with director Jamie Lloyd, she rallied and decided it was important for the audience.“There are times I go out there and I’m like, trying to hold it together. And I’m still feeling like the play course through my veins,” she said.The Oscar-winning actor is currently appearing in a limited run of the groundbreaking 1879 Henrik Ibsen play that challenged the sacredness of marriage, gender roles, and women’s rights. It was so controversial for its time that...

Residents in Fort Lauderdale assess damage caused by historic floods

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

First responders are still on alert as they answer calls as parts of Fort Lauderdale remain waterlogged, though Friday was finally a day with no rain.“My car has literally floated away,” said a person on a video recording the scene on a cell phone, recorded Wednesday night.An Edgewood neighborhood is still under water Friday afternoon. John Foreman told 7News that he and his friends rescued 20 people from flooded homes in this community.“There was about 4 feet of water in the houses,” Foreman said. “It was above the couches and the beds. There was no place that wasn’t wet, and people were freezing.”With so much water remaining, so does the trauma from that torrential downpour.“Terrible. It’s a nightmare,” said a woman. “We have a flooded house over here, and over here we have no electricity. This whole street is no electricity. I am shaking now.”Those just now coming back to survey the damage are stunned.“This is insa...

South Florida floods: FLL reopens as residents clean up mess

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Fort Lauderdale’s airport reopened Friday morning, two days after an unprecedented deluge left planes and travelers stranded, as residents in the city’s hardest hit neighborhoods began the slow process of cleaning up the mess left behind.Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport shut down Wednesday evening as a storm dumped more than 2 feet (60 centimeters) of rain. Airport officials completed final inspections after sunrise Friday and resumed operations at 9 a.m. By the afternoon, airport operations were slowly returning to normal, but the almost two-day closure was still affecting some passengers.One of them was Michael Clement, a Baptist minister from Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Clement’s congregation, which he has served for 40 years, paid for him and his wife, Ariel, to visit their son, a missionary, who lives with his wife and three children in Sao Gabriel, Brazil, a small town in that nation’s deep south.They set out Thursday, f...

Private bill signings likely show DeSantis’ media strategy

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a restrictive abortion bill at an evangelical church before enthusiastic supporters in one of Florida’s largest media markets.But that was last year, when DeSantis banned abortions after 15 weeks.This year DeSantis signed an even more restrictive bill, banning abortion after six weeks, in the privacy of his office on Thursday just before midnight. There was no throng of supporters to celebrate, no packs of reporters throwing out scores of questions and documenting the moment and no television cameras — and Tallahassee is one of the state’s smallest media markets.It’s at least the third major piece of conservative legislation the prospective presidential candidate has signed in private this year with no advance media notice, following bills to allow legal gun owners to carry concealed weapons without a permit and to expand Florida’s school voucher program.Doing so might reflect more his attitude towa...

Crews battle multiple brush fires around Massachusetts

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

NORTHBOROUGH, MASS. (WHDH) – Multiple brush fires sent smoke and flames into the sky and drew emergency responses in communities including Northborough, Hopkinton and Clinton on Friday. Crews were in Northborough as of around 2:30 p.m. in the Mount Pisgah area, according to police, who asked community members to avoid the area in a message on Twitter. https://twitter.com/NorthboroughPD/status/1646943516327550976Overhead, SKY7-HD captured video of flames as fire crews could be seen nearby. Elsewhere, Massachusetts State Police said its personnel were on scene at a brush fire affecting traffic on the Mass. Pike in Hopkinton as of around 4 p.m. Police asked motorists to avoid the area, warning of “significant delays.”Crews could be seen pouring water off the Pike onto smoke and flames in Hopkinton shortly before 4 p.m. Though some traffic was getting by, heavy backups could be seen in the area.Another fire was burning as of around 4 p.m. near the Clinton/Ster...

Nets Notebook: No awkward feeling with Seth Curry and Doc Rivers after 76ers-Nets trade

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

Nets reserve guard Seth Curry says there’s no awkward feeling between him and Doc Rivers, even though Rivers is his father-in-law, head-coaching a Sixers team that traded Curry to Brooklyn in the deal that sent James Harden to Philadelphia.“Nothing awkward at all. Part of the business,” Curry said after Nets practice at the HSS Training Facility on Friday. “I understand the decision and everything that went into it. Nothing out of the ordinary.”Curry said he hasn’t spoken to Rivers since the two teams last played in the April 9 regular-season finale at Barclays Center. He said he’s not interested in sticking it to Rivers with a good playoff game specifically — but that he is interested in playing well against his former team and the Sixers fans he once played for.“It’s nothing about him personally. I just enjoy going back there,” Curry said. “It’s a hostile environment playing against my former team. I thi...

Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge the favorite in his Boston Marathon debut

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya has been the world’s best marathon runner for nearly a decade but there is a glaring omission in his resplendent resume.Kipchoge will look to secure his 13th Abbott World Marathon Majors victory when he makes his BAA debut in the 127th running of Boston Marathon on Monday morning.“I am aiming for a win but with this course it is possible to come in all over here,” said Kipchoge during a gathering of the elite men’s and women’s professional athletes on Friday morning at the Fairmont Copley.“Boston is the oldest marathon around. Boston is the test in the sport of running and that is why I am here.”Kipchoge has competed in four straight Summer Olympic Games and he became the third marathoner to capture back-to-back gold medals with wins at Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.Kipchoge captured gold at the Tokyo Olympics with a winning time of 2:08:38 on Aug., 8, 2021. He returned to Japan and set the course record, winning in 2:02:40 at the Tokyo Marathon on March 6, 2022.K...

‘Barry’ review: The jig is up for Bill Hader’s hitman in the final season — or is it?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:25:09 GMT

Nina Metz | Chicago TribuneThe fourth and final season of HBO’s “Barry” returns with its title character, the ex-Marine turned hitman (turned actor, turned abusive boyfriend), behind bars and about to go down for at least one of his crimes. Everything’s come to a head. Or has it?The show’s co-creators Alec Berg and Bill Hader (Hader also stars) keep us guessing while exploring a larger, tantalizing theme: Can you ever really start over — whether that means mending a toxic relationship, or going legit, or simply running away from your past? Maybe it’s an impossibility in the end. We are who we are. You can never right these kinds of wrongs.Barry has always been an elusive character, both self-hating and entitled, and one of the show’s strengths is how well it captures that inner chaos and shame. He’s incapable of real honesty, even with the man in the mirror, which has led to all kinds of erratic behavior. He thought acting might give him something — truth, relief, a sense of self — ...