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“Tron: Ares,” the latest installment in the Disney sci-fi franchise, debuted atop the North American box office, industry estimates showed Sunday, but analysts said its $33.5 million haul was disappointing given its huge budget.”The movie was tracking well, but interest stalled during the last 10 days and the opening dropped,” said David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research. “This is a weak opening for the 3rd episode in a science fiction series.””Tron: Ares” — which stars Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Evan Peters — tells of mankind’s first encounter with artificial intelligence in the real world. Experts and industry press said it cost $180 million to make.In second place at $8 million was another new film, “Roofman,” starring Channing Tatum in the real-life tale of a former soldier-turned-thief who breaks out of prison and finds himself hiding out… in a toy store. Kirsten Dunst co-stars in the Paramount movie.In third place with $6.7 million in ticket sales was Paul Thomas Anderson’s action thriller “One Battle After Another,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn, who are generating early Oscars buzz.DiCaprio stars as a washed-up far-left revolutionary who is dragged back into action to help his daughter, while Penn plays his ruthless military nemesis. The film, loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” also stars Benicio del Toro, Teyana Taylor and Regina Hall.”Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie,” a live-action/animation hybrid based on a popular Netflix children’s series, stayed put in fourth place, with $3.4 million in the United States and Canada.And in fifth place was “Soul on Fire,” based on the true story of a man who survived a childhood accident that left him with severe burns over nearly all of his body and has gone on to be a motivational speaker.Rounding out the top 10 are:”The Conjuring: Last Rites” ($2.9 million)”Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” ($2.3 million)”The Smashing Machine” ($1.8 million)”The Strangers: Chapter 2″ ($1.6 million)”Good Boy” ($1.4 million)

A civil servant for 20-plus years, Mark has been through US government shutdowns before: Congress deadlocks on spending and many federal workers are temporarily forced into unpaid leave.But the current shutdown will be Mark’s last — he’s decided to leave his government job.Mark, who declined to give his last name, said this shutdown is different, describing a Trump administration effort “to vilify and diminish the characteristics of federal employees, to make them appear as if they are unworthy of federal service, and that’s unlike any of my experience as a federal employee.”The latest shutdown comes after Elon Musk, then an ally of President Donald Trump, earlier this year took an ax to the federal workforce, firing tens of thousands of staffers with a mandate from the White House. Trump often speaks disparagingly of a bloated, inefficient government bureaucracy.Mark, an experienced worker in his 50s who dealt with funding for museums, is now looking for a new job.”I think there’s more opportunity outside the federal government right now to do good for our country,” he said.The shutdown started October 1 when Trump’s Republicans and opposition Democrats failed to agree on a temporary spending plan to keep the government funded.Civil servants who are required keep working because they are considered essential — like air traffic controllers — do so without pay.But hundreds of thousands of others are furloughed — forced to take unpaid leave.”It feels terrible,” said Mark, who had just attended a career development seminar for people like him who suddenly have a lot of free time.Another furloughed government worker is Johan Hernandez, a young employee of the Census Bureau who said his approach is to do “one day after another.”Nicole Garcia, whose work was paused at the State Department, said she is frustrated by the shutdown — even if does mean she now has time to take her son to school.- Doubly punished -Yet another furloughed employee, who works at the Small Business Administration, has managed to persuade his bank to freeze his mortgage payments.This worker — who did not want to give their name, like many who spoke to AFP — said it has been difficult to be a civil servant since Trump returned to the White House in January.White House budget director Russell Vought, who has been credited as the mastermind behind the drive to slash the federal workforce, has bragged about causing “traumas” among civil servants.Musk fired people left and right as he ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this year. Other employees were encouraged to leave, or worked for departments which were shuttered almost entirely, like the US Agency for International Development.Now with the shutdown, the US federal workforce faces yet another round of layoffs — which the White House said is already being rolled out.Emily Abraham, a career diplomat who has had posts in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Dominican Republic, had been laid off over the summer but was meant to receive paychecks until November.Now that she has been furloughed due to the shutdown, she receives no pay as she waits to lose her job — what she called “double off” work status.”In addition to not working, now I’m not being paid.””I have three girls, a mortgage to pay, I have a car, all of these things to maintain, but I’m at a point where I will do any job,” Abraham said.She said the job market in Washington is saturated with people laid off from the government.”I know several former senior diplomats who are driving Uber or Lyft as they look for a job,” said Abraham.

A huge blast at an explosives factory in Tennessee killed 16 people, authorities said Saturday, lowering the toll after locating two people who were previously missing and presumed dead.The explosion Friday in the town of Bucksnort took place at a factory owned by Accurate Energetic Systems, which makes explosives for both military and demolition purposes.The blast destroyed an entire building at the plant’s large campus, shook homes miles away and sent debris flying, news reports said.After initially reporting a toll of 18 people presumed dead, “we have been able to locate and determine the two other folks (were) not on the site,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis said.Their vehicle and personal items were found at the scene, leading to the initial belief they were among the victims.In a statement, the company called the blast “a tragic accident.”But Brice McCracken, an official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, told reporters late Saturday that authorities “are not any closer today to determining the origin and cause of this explosion.”Davis had said earlier in the day: “Can I say we’re going to rule out foul play? We can’t answer that. That might be days or weeks or months before we can do that.”    Authorities were slowly processing the blast scene one foot at a time, the sheriff said, calling in bomb technicians every time they felt there was a risk of danger.DNA testing will be used to identify remains.

Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s “Annie Hall” and her role in “The Godfather” films, has died at age 79.Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which said the actress died Saturday in California.Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in “Annie Hall,” the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer. The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.The actress made her mark co-starring in eight Allen movies, from “Play It Again, Sam” (1972) to “Manhattan” (1979) and “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993).In “The Godfather” films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.Apart from the Allen cannon, fans adored her portrayal as Steve Martin’s wife in 1991 comedy “Father of the Bride,” as the nervous and doting couple plan an extravagant wedding for their daughter.Late in her career, Keaton starred in two movies about aging women: “Book Club” (2018), with its message that love has no age, and “Poms” (2019), the story of a terminally ill woman who moves to a retirement community to die, but winds up forming a cheerleading squad.A BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, Keaton scored Oscar nominations three other times for best actress, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”- ‘Iconoclastic’ -The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, home of the Oscars, said in a tribute to Keaton: “Some actors play emotions. Diane Keaton lived inside them.”In 2017, she was honored with a Life Achievement Award by the American Film Institute, which called Keaton “unconventional, iconoclastic and left-of-center.””I feel so lucky to have spent any time with this marvelous woman, and I’m heartbroken that she is gone,” said actress Andie MacDowell, who starred in “Unstrung Hero” (1995), one of a handful of films Keaton directed.Actress Bette Midler, who starred alongside Keaton in the 1996 comedy “The First Wives Club,” wrote on Instagram that Keaton “was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was…oh, la, lala!”Goldie Hawn, who was also in “The First Wives Club,” said Keaton “left us with a trail of fairy dust, filled with particles of light and memories beyond imagination.”- Infectious -As the Hollywood sexual harassment scandals detonated in late 2017, cascading from producer Harvey Weinstein to heavyweight actors like Kevin Spacey, old accusations of child sex abuse against Allen by his adoptive daughter Dylan resurfaced.”Woody Allen is my friend and I continue to believe him,” Keaton tweeted in January 2018.It was a rare encounter with controversy for the beloved actress.Keaton said she had no “Me Too” complaints despite half a century in the film industry.”Never. Maybe I just wasn’t harassment material,” she told AFP in a 2019 interview.Keaton’s infectious, sunny smile lit up the screen across the decades, and she made popular a quirky and liberating fashion sense first seen in “Annie Hall” that featured oversize hats and the lighthearted use of menswear items.As for aging, Keaton said in the 2019 interview that life actually got easier.”I think so, because what have you got to lose? It’s like it’s the truth. That’s what it is. You face it, we talk about it,” she said.Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, Keaton was romantically involved with Allen, Pacino and Warren Beatty, but never married. “Most people in the movies get married at some point and then they divorce. But I’ve never even got married. I am (a) failure,” she joked.Did she regret it? “I don’t think about it a lot but I’m aware of the fact that I’m unusual in that regard, and maybe I did miss out on something — but then, nobody can have everything, right?” She is survived by her two children, Dexter and Duke.

One minute Maria was selling tamales from her food cart in Chicago’s West Side. The next, her son told AFP, she was bundled into a van, the latest victim of President Donald Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigrants.Maria’s family was left to pick up the pieces, removing her cart, food containers and umbrella before launching a frantic search for the Mexican-born mother of seven who has lived in the United States for two decades, albeit undocumented.By Saturday morning, 24 hours after her arrest, her family had still learned “nothing” about her status from US Immigration and Customs Enforcemnt (ICE), the federal agency conducting aggressive raids in and around the nation’s third largest city.”It could be days, it could be months, it could be years, or we may never see her again,” Eduardo Santoyo, 22, said of his mother.Maria’s detention in broad daylight — witnesses posted video online — fit a recent pattern: Agents swoop in without warning, snatch an unsuspecting resident and drive off, with relatives left to panic over the fate of their loved ones.”What are we going to tell my sister?” Santayo asked, refering to his mother’s youngest child, who is only six years old.Anguish colored the faces of Maria’s son and another daughter, age 16, as they stepped in to continue running the tamale cart in the very spot where their mother was taken into custody.This week saw scores of immigration detentions in Chicago, many of which only came to light after witnesses posted footage of the arrests on social media.Alerts about raids are popping up regularly online as activist groups warn residents about sweeps in Latino-heavy neighborhoods like Cicero, Little Village and Pilsen.Migrants reportedly have been detained at Chicago-area construction sites, near a university building, along strip malls and outside schools.A local television producer, who holds US citizenship, was arrested by federal agents during immigration enforcement operations on Chicago’s North Side, her employer WGN said. She was later released.Federal agents also targeted rideshare drivers in a sweep Friday at O’Hare International Airport, resulting in 12 arrests, according to local reports.- ‘It could be anyone’ -While protesters have been beaten, tear-gassed and arrested in recent weeks at an ICE facility in the suburb of Broadview, anti-immigration unrest across the rest of the city has been sporadic. But the impact of the raids has been nothing less than chilling.”You may not see a raid,  but this is affecting our community,” said Casey Caballero, 37, a self-described soccer mom from Lombard who is married to a naturalized US citizen.Caballero and others accuse immigratiom agents of discriminatory racial profiling.Santoyo has US citizenship, but expressed anger and fear that such status may matter little if agents are doing what he suspects: targeting people because of the color of their skin and the language they speak.”That’s racism,” he said. “If they come after me, I have papers, but how would they know that?”Another tamale street vendor not far from Maria’s cart said she had heard of her detention and quickly teared up over what happened.”It could be anyone” swept up in the raids, she told AFP.A heavily tattooed man, who said he was driving past when Maria was taken into custody, expressed outrage at the operation, noting she had been serving food to the community for years.Nae Campbell, a longtime customer, recalled how this “good woman” could be found vending year-round, whether in searing heat or Chicago’s famously bitter cold.As for the raids, Campbell called them “the most…inhumane gesture I’ve ever seen.””People have taken root here, they have families here now” and federal agents “basically just stripped them from their life. That’s crazy,” the 32-year-old hospital worker said.But Campbell, who drove across the city for Maria’s goods, said she had faith that the vendor’s family would be supported.”The community is definitely going to rally around them.”

President Donald Trump said Saturday he had issued an order for the military to be paid next week despite the ongoing government shutdown during which many civil servants are working without salaries.Trump said he had ordered Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth “to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th” as he again blamed Democrats for the funding deadlock now in its second week.”I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. With no end in sight for the shutdown, both political parties are blaming the other for the crisis, and Trump’s message Saturday was another salvo in the political feud.The standoff means that hundreds of thousands of government workers have been put on temporary unpaid leave or deemed essential and ordered to work without pay. About 1.3 million active-duty military personnel had been set to miss their pay next Wednesday — something that has not happened in any of the US government shutdowns through modern history.Trump’s announcement on ensuring military pay came after the White House said Friday it had begun mass layoffs of federal workers, as the president sought to amp up pressure on Democrats.Trump’s budget chief Russ Vought said the administration was following through on threats to fire some of the 750,000 public servants placed on enforced leave.It plans to lay off some 4,000 workers across several government agencies, according to a court filing seeking to block the action.”Republicans would rather see thousands of Americans lose their jobs than sit down and negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government,” top US Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.Unions representing 800,000 government employees asked a federal judge in San Francisco for an emergency order to halt the firings, ahead of a hearing set for October 16 on their legality.Nonessential government work stopped after the September 30 deadline for Congress to pass a new funding bill, with Senate Democrats repeatedly blocking a Republican resolution to reopen federal agencies since then. Republicans are proposing an extension of the current budget, with the same spending levels, while Democrats are calling for an extension of subsidies for health insurance for low-income households. Several Democratic votes are required to pass a budget, despite the Republican majority. But Trump has rejected any negotiations with the opposition on health issues without reopening the federal government as a prerequisite.With a prolonged shutdown looking more likely each day, members of Congress have been looking to Trump to step in and break the deadlock.But the president has been largely tuned out, with his focus on the Gaza ceasefire deal and sending federal troops to bolster his mass deportation drive in Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Portland.

Actress Diane Keaton, known for her Oscar-winning performance in 1977’s “Annie Hall” and her role in “The Godfather” films, has died at age 79, People magazine reported Saturday.Details were not immediately available and Keaton’s loved ones have asked for privacy, a family spokesperson told People, which confirmed that the actress died in California.Keaton was a frequent collaborator of director Woody Allen, portraying the titular character in “Annie Hall,” the charming girlfriend of Allen’s comic Alvy Singer. The film also garnered Oscars for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, cementing Keaton’s place as one of the industry’s top actresses and an offbeat style icon as well.She made a total of eight films with Allen, including 1979’s “Manhattan.”A BAFTA and Golden Globe winner, Keaton scored Oscar nominations three other times for best actress, for “Reds,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Something’s Gotta Give.”In “The Godfather” films, she played Kay Adams, the girlfriend and eventual wife of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone.Born Diane Hall in Los Angeles on January 5, 1946, Keaton was romantically involved with Allen, Pacino and Warren Beatty, but never married. She is survived by her two children, Dexter and Duke.

Eighteen people are presumed dead after a huge blast at an explosives factory in Tennessee, officials said Saturday.”We can assume that they are deceased at this time,” Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis told a news conference, referring to 18 people missing since the explosion Friday in the town of Bucksnort.The factory owned by Accurate Energetic Systems made explosives for both military and demolition purposes.The blast destroyed an entire building at the plant’s large campus, shook homes miles away and sent debris flying, news reports said.Davis said DNA testing will be used to identify remains.”But we’re going to have to slow walk that because of the scene, the way that the scene is,” Davis said.In a statement, the company called the blast “a tragic accident.” But Davis said: “Can I say we’re going to rule out foul play? We can’t answer that. That might be days or weeks or months before we can do that.”    He said staff from several federal agencies including the FBI have been sent to the blast site to help with the investigation.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday that Qatar will be allowed to build an air force facility at Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho that will house F-15 fighter jets and pilots.The announcement comes soon after President Donald Trump signed an executive order vowing to defend the Gulf Arab state against attacks, following Israeli air strikes targeting Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital Doha.”We’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emiri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Air Base in Idaho,” Hegseth said at the Pentagon, with Qatari Defense Minister Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani at his side.”The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots to enhance our combined training” as well as “increase lethality, interoperability,” he said.”It’s just another example of our partnership. And I hope you know, your excellency, that you can count on us.”The Idaho base currently also hosts a fighter jet squadron from Singapore, according to its website.Hegseth also thanked Qatar for its “substantial role” as a mediator in the talks that led to a truce and hostage-prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, and its assistance in securing the release of a US citizen from Afghanistan.The Qatari minister hailed the “strong, enduring partnership” and “deep defense relationship” shared by the two countries. The Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is Washington’s largest military facility in the Middle East.Trump’s close relationship with the leaders of Qatar has raised eyebrows, especially over its gift to the US president of a Boeing 747 to be used as Air Force One.Though the Idaho facility for Qatar had apparently been in the works since the last administration of Democrat Joe Biden, the deal prompted some hand-wringing on social media, including from far-right activist Laura Loomer, usually a Trump ally.”Never thought I’d see Republicans give terror financing Muslims from Qatar a MILITARY BASE on US soil so they can murder Americans,” Loomer wrote on X.Hegseth, who never said it was a base, later wrote on the platform: “Qatar will not have their own base in the United States — nor anything like a base. We control the existing base, like we do with all partners.”

Film buffs sit snugly in cars watching a drive-in movie, munching popcorn on a lovely recent fall night.Michelle Hutson, 52, has been coming to the Family Drive-In since childhood, enjoying what is now a dying form of quintessentially American entertainment.With a sigh, she notes she might soon see the last picture show as the nearly 70-year-old outdoor theater — one of the few remaining drive-ins in the Washington area — is on its way out, too.”I’m about to be a grandma again for the second time. And it’s heartbreaking to know that she may not be able to experience that,” Hutson said.The owners of the land under the Family Drive-In announced a few months ago they want to sell it, asking $1.5 million, said theater owner Andrew Thomas.If he bought the land at that price, it would mean a mortgage payment three times what he pays now in rent, Thomas told AFP.”It’s just not feasible for the business.”He launched a crowd-funding drive last month to save the theater and so far has raised around $30,000.”It’s overwhelming, in such a good way, that people care that much. Even in times of economic uncertainty, it means that this is a thing for them that’s worth saving, and I agree with them,” he said.”We have an opportunity to preserve a piece of history,” said the 40-year-old.- Attendance down -Drive-in theaters are a throwback to another era in a country where cars are king. In their heyday in the 1950s there were more than 4,000 in America — but now only 300 or so remain, said Gary Rhodes, a movie historian.They have died off because more people watch television at home and urban development has made the land needed for a drive-in theater very expensive, Rhodes said.Drive-ins enjoyed a spike in popularity during the Covid pandemic, as people avoided crowded places like indoor movie theaters, but now “attendance is still going down,” Rhodes said.”I would say the majority of the drive-ins that are left in the world are there because the owner keeps it there. It’s for the love of the business that they’re there,” said D. Edward Vogel, co-owner of a drive-in and vice president of the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association.”Unfortunately, we are reaching a point where a lot of them want to retire,” he said.Because of TV streaming platforms and other factors, he said, “in my take of things, it’s going to be a very rough road to hoe now.”To try to keep drive-in theaters alive, his association created a web site that seeks to match drive-in owners who want out with potential buyers who want in.  “We’ve been inspired by some brand new owners that understood the risk and came up to the challenge, and are determined to maintain a drive-in theater business,” said Vogel.”That’s really what’s breathing faith into the fact that this can continue.”Mike White and Melissa Sims are examples of these new entrepreneurs. They invested $500,000 to open a brand new drive-in in Louisiana and it is scheduled to open this autumn.They have had to postpone the big day several times because of delays getting permits and other problems.”We quizzed a lot of people before we started, and 99 percent of the people that we talked to said sure, they’d be glad to go,” White said.”For me, drive-ins represent a time that my family was was brought together and was doing things together,” said Sims.”That’s what it would bring back to this community.”