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Review: A filmmaker confronts her pedophile grandfather in the HBO documentary ‘Great Photo, Lovely Life’

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

Nina Metz | (TNS) Chicago TribuneEarly in the HBO documentary “Great Photo, Lovely Life,” filmmaker and photojournalist Amanda Mustard says she always knew her grandfather was “creepy” and that “some things happened.” But she didn’t know the details of his pedophilia. “And now that I’m looking closer and finding concrete rape charges that he managed to kind of weasel out of, it’s just scratching the surface. I just need to keep looking. Maybe I can hold him accountable.”Her extraordinary film is subtitled “Facing a Family’s Secrets,” and that’s what she’s after. Her grandfather is William Flickinger, a retired chiropractor she interviews before his death — as well as others including her mother, who was both victim and enabler — to get at the truth.In his assisted living community, everyone comments on what a nice person Flickinger is. Then a woman stops by their table. “I hope you are being a good boy,” she jokes. But there’s an edge to their exchange. Maybe it’s not a joke. When s...

'No further threat,' Sheriff says after massive police response to shooting at UNLV, campus being evacuated

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) -- Las Vegas police are reporting a suspect in the UNLV campus shooting Wednesday is dead and police are evacuating one building at a time. Sheriff Kevin McMahill said there is no further threat to campus. Metropolitan police responded to reports of an active shooter at the UNLV campus at around 11:45 a.m. and said "There appears to be multiple victims at this time." Northbound 1-15 is closed from Blue Diamond to Charleston, state police said. Maryland Parkway is closed to traffic near UNLV and drivers are urged to stay away from the area. Director of University Police Services Southern Command Adam Garcia was joined by Sheriff Kevin McMahill to provide an update on the situation. Sheriff McMahill said there is no information on any motive from the shooter. He said there were victims taken to multiple area hospitals, but there is currently no information on the number.Police said they would be providing an update on victims shortly. Garcia said all NSHE campuses in...

Meet the candidates seeking to be national chief of the Assembly of First Nations

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

OTTAWA — The Assembly of First Nations is choosing a new national chief as part of its three-day special assembly in Ottawa.There were six candidates competing to lead the Assembly of First Nations, a political advocacy organization representing more than 600 First Nations across Canada.The first round of voting did not produce a winner and the two lowest-ranking candidates, Reginald Bellerose and Craig Makinaw, were dropped from the second ballot Wednesday afternoon.Here are the four remaining candidates competing to be the assembly’s chief advocate. Sheila North: North, a former grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak and an advocate for missing and murdered Indigenous women, is running on a platform promising to prioritize respecting the inherent rights of First Nations. North has also said the assembly itself needs to improve and act in the best interest of the chiefs it represents.David Pratt: Pratt currently serves as the vice-chief for the Federation of Sovereign...

Suspended Florida prosecutor tells state Supreme Court that DeSantis exceeded his authority

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis exceeded his authority when he removed a Democratic prosecutor from her elected office after a teenager fatally shot a girl and a news reporter, her attorney told the Supreme Court on Wednesday.The state constitution only allows for the suspension of an elected official for egregious misconduct, and Monique Worrell was simply doing her job as she sees fit — not anything illegal or negligent — when DeSantis suspended her, said her lawyer, Laura Ferguson.“It is the voters, not the governor, to whom Ms. Worrell is accountable,” Ferguson said.But an attorney for DeSantis said Worrell’s history of failing to prosecute crimes committed by minors and in not seeking mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes put the public in danger in her central Florida district. Statistics show that Orlando and the surrounding area were grossly underperforming compared with other prosecutorial districts in the state, lawyer Jeffrey DeSousa said. If...

Movie Review: In ‘Poor Things,’ Emma Stone takes an unusual path to enlightenment

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

It is sickly hilarious to make a movie in which so much consensual sex is had, often so gleefully, that is not the least bit sexy. Though Bella Baxter’s insatiable libido might be her guiding light at first in “Poor Things,” sexual liberation (or “furious jumping,” as she calls it) is only part of this fantastical, anarchic journey to consciousness.Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his star, Emma Stone, have a good and strange thing going whether she’s playing a striving scullery maid who works her way into the favor of Queen Anne, or a re-animated Victorian woman finding independence. Stone helps make his black humor more accessible, and he creates unorthodox opportunities for her to play and stretch. We, the audience, are the benefactors.“Poor Things” was not a whole cloth invention. It is an adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s 1992 novel, done by “The Favourite” screenwriter Tony McNamara whose edges and wit haven’t dulled and in fact flourishes outside the cruelty of the previous film. D...

Films about monsters, residential schools among those with Canadian links at Sundance

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

A horror film about a rampaging monster and a documentary about missing residential schoolchildren are among the projects with Canadian ties heading to the Sundance Film Festival.Organizers announced 82 feature-length films, including several involving Canadians, bound for the Park City, Utah festival set for Jan. 18 to 28.They include Toronto director Chris Nash’s horror film “In A Violent Nature,” about an undead monster that goes on a killing spree in the remote wilderness.In the competitive documentary category, California-raised Julian Brave NoiseCat directs “Sugarcane,” which investigates the history of an Indigenous residential school in British Columbia.“Kidnapping Inc.,” billed as a co-production from Canada, Haiti and France, follows two bumbling kidnappers who find themselves wrapped up in a political conspiracy.And the Winnipeg-shot “Winner,” directed and co-written by U.S. filmmaker Susanna Fogel, is based on the tru...

Australian Parliament rushes through laws that could see detention of freed dangerous migrants

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Australian government Wednesday rushed legislation through Parliament that could place behind bars some migrants who were freed after the High Court ruled their indefinite detention was unconstitutional.The House of Representatives voted 68 to 59 on Wednesday night to create so-called community safety orders. The vote came a day after the Senate passed the same legislation.Immigration Minister Andrew Giles will now be able to apply to a judge to imprison for up to three years migrants with criminal records for violent or sexual offenses because they pose an unacceptable risk to the public.“We’ve already begun preparations to ensure that we can do all that we can as quickly as we can,” Giles said before the draft legislation became law.“The preventative detention regime would allow for the court to detain the worst of the worst offenders,” he added.Giles declined to say how many of 148 migrants freed starting last month who for various reasons can’t be ...

Trainers at New Jersey police seminar disparaged women, made ‘inappropriate’ remarks, officials say

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A police training seminar in New Jersey included instructors making lewd comments about women, encouraging officers to pull people over for no reason and showing a photo of an ape after talking about pulling over a 75-year-old Black man, according to a new report from the state comptroller. The six-day seminar in October 2021 was conducted by a New Jersey-based law enforcement training company called Street Cop, a privately run firm that bills itself as one of the largest in the country, according to the 43-page report. Some 1,000 officers from around the country, including about 240 from New Jersey, attended the seminar, primarily funded by taxpayers, the comptroller found. The report paints a critical portrait of the training and comes at at time of increased scrutiny on law enforcement after high-profile civilian deaths while in police custody, including Tyre Nichols, George Floyd and others. It also comes after nearly a decade of initiatives in the state aim...

Connie Walker’s Pulitzer-winning podcast ‘Stolen’ won’t be renewed on Spotify

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

Canadian journalist Connie Walker says she’d love to find a new home for her Pulitzer Prize-winning podcast after Spotify decided not to renew it. “Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s” began as an investigation into the abuse her father suffered at a residential school.It took home the Pulitzer’s audio reporting award and the Peabody’s podcast award earlier this year.A Spotify spokesperson says in a statement that “Stolen” will complete its current season and the audio streaming platform will work with the podcast team to “ensure a smooth transition for wherever the series goes next.”Spotify also cancelled another acclaimed podcast produced by Gimlet Media, “Heavyweight,” hosted by U.S.-Canadian writer Jonathan Goldstein.Walker thanked all listeners and supporters of her podcast in a social media post and said her team was grateful to have had the space to tell Indigenous stories.“We’d love to find a new home ...

Senior UN official denounces ‘blatant disregard’ in Israel-Hamas war after many UN sites are hit

Published Sun, 29 Dec 2024 11:53:25 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees told The Associated Press on Wednesday there is no safe haven in besieged Gaza for civilians — not even in U.N. shelters and so-called “safe zones” designated by Israel.Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, also known as UNRWA, said in an interview with the AP that since the outbreak if the Israel-Hamas war, more than 80 U.N. facilities in the Gaza Strip have been hit. During the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel, the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children. Israel responded with an aerial bombardment and ground offensive inside Gaza that has so far killed more than 16,200 people in the enclave, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.The U.N. facilities hit “directly or indirect...