- Two newcomers fought it out and in a high-priced battle,
“Gone Girl” eked out a win in its debut with $38 million. That was just enough
to edge past fellow newbie “Annabelle,” which banked $37.2 million in a solid
outing but landed in second place, one spot ahead of last weekend’s box office
earnings champion. That would be “The Equalizer,” which tumbled two spots to
third place with $19 million and officially passed the break-even point with
$64.5 million domestically in its first two weeks of release. The same cannot
be said for fourth-place finisher “The Boxtrolls,” which added $12.4 million to
its coffers but has cranked out a mere $32.5 million in two weeks, well shy of
its $60 million budget. Fifth place went to “The Maze Runner,” which brought in
$12 million and has now earned $73.9 million in three weeks. The third newcomer
of the top 10 was “Left Behind,” which bowed to $6.8 million in somewhat
limited release. “This is Where I Leave You” was also left behind, dropping
three spots to seventh with its $4 million weekend that boosted its total
bankroll to $19.8 million after three weeks in theaters. Next on the list was “Dolphin
Tale 2,” the eighth-place movie for the weekend with its $3.5 million in income
and $37.9 total earnings in four weeks. “Guardians of the Galaxy” slotted ninth
with $3 million and has blockbuster-ed its way to $323.4 million in 10 productive
weeks. The top 10’s final spot went to “No Good Deed” with $2.5 million, giving
the horror flick $50.1 million and counting domestically. “A Walk Among the
Tombstones” (No. 11), “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (No. 14) and “Let's Be Cops”
(No. 15) all lost their top 10 spots from last weekend……….
- There are few jobs as overtly terrifying on a daily basis
while simultaneously paying very little as that of a window washer in a major
city. Having that job go horribly wrong as it did in a busy city such as
Oakland, California during the middle of a work day is not what most employees
sign up for, but it was what happened to two window washers. As office workers,
pedestrians hundreds of feet below and motorists passing through the city
looked on, the two window washers did their job high above the ground at 11th and Broadway.
They stopped doing their job when they became stranded on a platform hundreds
of feet in the air outside a high-rise. According to police, the duo became
stuck when their platform became lodged in place, leaving them hanging 19
stories above the ground with no way to get down. The two men waited it out
while emergency crews were called to the scene, but even then it wasn’t clear
how to best save the workers. Oakland Fire Capt. Marshall McKee said emergency
workers had to decide whether to approach the men from above or through a
window near where they were working. “It was a half-hour to get a guy up there
to cut the glass, so the determination was to bring them up to the roof,” McKee
said. To rescue the men, a firefighter channeled his inner Tom Cruise in “Mission:
Impossible” and rappelled to the platform, where he hooked the men up to
harnesses. The workers were then lifted to the roof one at a time and the crowd
below broke out in loud applause. Once the second man was safely on the roof,
the firefighter strolled up the side of the building and into Oakland city
lore. “We train for it all the time,” said McKee. “Just having the ability to
put it to use and have it come out successful — we’re really proud of that.” As
are we all………
- Does corruption know its limits? Of course not, at least
not as far as the International Olympic Committee is concerned. But even the
bribe-loving leaders of the IOC know they can only coax so many cash-strapped
cities around the globe into forking over the perks and benefits in the slow crawl
that is the march to choose the host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Describing the process as a race would
be as much a misnomer as calling the IOC a legit organization with integrity,
so let’s not go there. At this point, there are only two cities left thanks to
Oslo deciding it had better things to spend its money on than bringing the
red-headed stepchild of the Olympic world to town in eight years. The only two
remaining cities aren’t exactly winter sports paradises, unless one considers
Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as places to shred on the slopes or glide
across the ice. Yet even with two unappealing options on the table, the IOC
says it has no plans to reopen the bidding process. "The IOC is sticking
to its commitments," IOC president Thomas Bach told. "We have issued
the invitation for bidding. There is a clear and transparent procedure. We will
follow this procedure with two candidates." The idea of clarity and
transparency in anything the IOC does is humorous, but this time the committee
might not have a choice. Norway’s government smartly declined to provide
financial support, citing concerns over the cost of hosting the games and
proving that the allure of having the eyes of the world on you doesn’t outweigh
the stupidity of spending tens of billions of kroners to make it happen.
Whichever cities remain by the time the final selection is made on July 31,
2015, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the world can only hope that IOC members get
some great perks and bennies from this one……..
- Running for governor of a rough Peruvian jungle state is a tough road
to travel. Doing so without being totally and irrevocably corrupt is even more
difficult, as is being proven by one Manuel Gambini. On the one hand, Gambini
has earned praise for promoting the cultivation of cocoa beans over coca leaves
in a cocaine-producing hotspot, but these days he’s looking a lot less like the
supposed new partner for the world in its fight against the Bolivian marching
powder and a lot more like the stereotypical corrupt politician under
investigation for money laundering. That will happen when you’ve amassed a
mini-fortune on a small mayoral salary. The good news for the childish Gambini
is that he’s merely one of hundreds of candidates in Peru’s local and state
elections suspected of being bankrolled by drug trafficking. There is little
question that drug money polluting politics is a major issue in a country that
became the world's top cocaine producer two years ago and when you reach the
point that you’re being compared to Mexico and Colombia in their heyday, it
might be time to focus on the problem a bit more. . "We are now a
despicable reflection of what Colombia was — and what Mexico is today,"
said Sonia Medina, Peru's public prosecutor for drug enforcement. Gambini’s ties
to the Colombian nose candy are well-known; he’s a former coca farmer who just
happens to be one of at least seven gubernatorial candidates — in a quarter of
Peru's 24 states — under investigation for drug trafficking or related crimes. Peru’s
good news is that its drug scene is less violent than Colombia or Mexico even
though one of every three Peruvian voters lives in a region with candidates
under investigation, on trial or previously convicted of drug-related crimes. Gambini
opportunistically entered the governor's race in adjacent Ucayali state after a
money laundering probe made national headlines, sidelining the incumbent. His
bonafides include being a two-term mayor of Irazola where he was able to turn a
gig running a poor farming district ‘twixt the mountains and the jungle into a
luxurious lifestyle (allegedly) fueled by drug money. Sounds like a wonderful
candidate……….
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