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REVIEW: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is an adaptation worthy of Judy Blume

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

There’s lot of movies made for boys. The coming-of-age genre is filled with hundreds of examples, like Dune, the Perks of Being a Wallflower, or Harry Potter. While there are some cinematic examples of coming-of-age films for girls, there’s much more to be found in the world of literature. And a beloved author by the name of Judy Blume has many such examples.Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon, Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret Simon, and Benny Safdie as Herb Simon in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Photo Credit: Dana HawleyAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is one such example of her work, directed and adapted to film here by Kelly Fremon Craig (who previously made the Edge of Seventeen). It tells the tale of an 11 year old girl called Margaret (played by Abby Ryder Fortson from Ant-Man). She and her family have recently moved from the bustling NYC to the quiet suburbs of New Jersey. She’s always been a little confused about her religion, growing up with a ...

4 men charged in Dovercourt Village shooting death

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

Four men in their 20s are under arrest in connection with the shooting death of a 24-year-old in Toronto’s Dovercourt Village two weeks ago.Police were called to the Bloor Street West and Concord Avenue area near Ossington Station just after 10:30 p.m. on April 14 for reports of gunshots.When officers arrived on the scene they located a man suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene.The victim was later identified as 24-year-old Munawar Warsama of Toronto.On Thursday, police arrested 21-year-old Deniell McKenzie, 24-year-old Duan Julien, 23-year-old Matthew Phillips-Downey, and 25-year-old Daniel Lara-Orellana – all of Toronto. All four are facing a charge of second-degree murder.

Telegram CEO claims complying with Brazil order impossible

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

SAO PAULO (AP) — Telegram’s CEO said Thursday that the social media company will appeal a Brazilian judge’s decision to block access to its platform in Brazil for failing to hand over data on neo-Nazi activity. He claimed compliance was “technologically impossible.” In a statement posted to his Telegram account, Pavel Durov said that when local laws or unfeasible requirements counter his company’s mission — “to preserve privacy and freedom of speech around the world” — it sometimes has to quit markets.Telegram has been blocked in the past by governments, including Iran, China and Russia, while in the latter country. Kremlin partisans have employed it as a digital weapon in President Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest in Ukraine.Durov said the Brazilian federal judge who ordered the suspension Wednesday “requested data that is technologically impossible for us to obtain.” He claimed to be defending Brazilian users’ “right to private communication” bu...

Gillum trial: Official says PR firm was active in campaign

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A former campaign official for the Florida Democrat who nearly beat Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2018 testified Thursday that a public relations agency owner charged alongside the former candidate was actively involved in the campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts.Federal prosecutors rested their public corruption case around noon against former Tallahassee mayor and 2018 gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum and P&P Communications owner Sharon Lettman-Hicks, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. They are charged with illegally soliciting campaign donations and routing them to their own accounts.Gillum’s attorneys rested their case without calling any witnesses, but attorneys for Lettman-Hicks called three. One of those witnesses was former state Rep. Alan Williams, who is now a deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He testified that he joined Gillum’s gubernatorial campaign after the primary, though...

Ed Sheeran, on guitar, gets musical with a New York jury

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — In a packed New York courtroom, Ed Sheeran picked up his guitar Thursday and launched into a tune that has him locked in a copyright dispute over Marvin Gaye’s soul classic “Let’s Get it On” as the only audience that mattered — a jury — looked on.Sheeran was an hour into testimony in Manhattan federal court when his lawyer, Ilene Farkas, pressed him to tell how he came to write “Thinking Out Loud” a decade ago.He reached back, grabbed his guitar from a rack behind the witness stand and explained that writing a song was second nature to him. He said he used his own version of phonetics to create songs so quickly that he could write up to nine in a day. Even last weekend, Sheeran claimed, he wrote 10 songs.Then he sang just a few words of the pivotal tune, bringing smiles to the faces of some of the spectators in the courtroom of Judge Louis L. Stanton.“I’m singing out loud,” he sang, loud enough to be heard but not raising decibels in the court...

Lawsuit: California prisons target ‘foreign-born’ inmates

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s corrections agency routinely refers inmates who appear to be “foreign-born” to federal immigration authorities even if they are U.S. citizens and lawful residents, with some improperly detained by the government for weeks after their sentences, said a lawsuit filed in state court Thursday.The lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Foundation of Northern California also says that inmates singled out as being born outside the U.S. are denied access to rehabilitative programs. Lawyers representing former and current inmates said in a news release announcing the lawsuit that California’s policies and practices target immigrants and refugees based on place of birth, race and other prohibited classifications. Corrections officials refer hundreds of people each year to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, for possible deportation, even those born in the U.S., the lawsuit states. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabil...

A timeline of the deadly stabbing rampage at James Smith Cree Nation in Saskatchewan

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

JAMES SMITH CREE NATION, SASKATCHEWAN — Eleven people were killed and 17 were injured during a stabbing rampage on the James Smith Cree Nation and in the nearby village of Weldon, Sask., last year. Myles Sanderson, who police say carried out the attacks, later died in police custody. RCMP have released more details about how the attacks unfolded. Here is a timeline:Thursday, Sept. 1: Myles Sanderson arrives at James Smith Cree Nation and sells cocaine.Friday, Sept. 2:Sanderson assaults a woman who is driving him around. He and his brother Damien Sanderson continue to sell cocaine. Saturday, Sept. 3:12:00 a.m. — The brothers get into a fight with a man, which police believe is drug-related. No one is seriously injured. 4:03 a.m. — A person calls RCMP saying Damien Sanderson has stolen a vehicle on the First Nation and may be impaired. 4:15 a.m. — Two Mounties respond and look for Damien Sanderson. There is a warrant out for his arrest for a previous assault.5:35 a.m. — Police find th...

Vermont passes bills aimed at protecting abortion pills

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

The Vermont Legislature passed reproductive and gender-affirming health care bills on Thursday with a late addition aimed at protecting access to a medication widely used in abortions even if the U.S. Food and Drug Administration withdraws its approval of the pill, mifepristone. The bills protect providers from discipline for providing legally protected reproductive and gender affirming health care services. Legislators recently tacked on medicated abortion to the definition of legally protected reproductive health care services, and believe the state is the first to do so. In the identical bills passed by the House and Senate, “reproductive health care services” includes “medication that was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for termination of a pregnancy as of January 1, 2023, regardless of the medication’s current FDA approval status.”Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court preserved women’s access to the drug, rejecting lower-court restrictions while a lawsuit continue...

Migration crisis as hundreds stranded at Peru-Chile border

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A migration crisis at the border between Chile and Peru intensified Thursday as hundreds of people remained stranded, unable to cross into Peru in an effort to return to their home country of Venezuela.The mostly Venezuelan migrants are seeking to cross into Peru to continue on to their home country but Peru isn’t allowing them to enter because they lack documents.While stalled at the border of the two South American countries, the migrants face the inhospitable climate that characterizes the Atacama Desert, one of the driest on the planet, with extremely hot days and intensely cold nights. Some have improvised tents with blankets but they lack water and other basic services.A group of migrants ran through the desert toward Peru, but they were turned back by Peruvian officers. Some women complained and demanded that the government of President Gabriel Boric provide a bus for them to travel to Venezuela.Images showed migrants shoving Peruvian border patrol offi...

Trump lawyer questions E. Jean Carroll at rape lawsuit trial

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:27:20 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyer sought Thursday to pick apart a decades-old rape claim against the former president, questioning why accuser E. Jean Carroll did not scream or seek help when Trump allegedly attacked her in a department store.But Carroll, a writer and former advice columnist, rebuffed the suggestion that rape victims are supposed to act a certain way, saying such thinking deters women from coming forward.“I’m telling you, he raped me, whether I screamed or not,” Carroll said, her voice rising and breaking, at the federal civil trial in New York.Carroll, who is suing Trump over the alleged assault, claims he raped her in a dressing room at the posh Manhattan store in 1996. She did not go to police and said she only told two close friends at the time.Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina suggested her claims strained credulity, contending that she only came forward in 2019 — midway through Trump’s presidency — because of her disdain for his politics and b...