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Review: ‘Expend4bles’ is aggressively, loudly mediocre

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

By Jocelyn Noveck | Associated PressIt’s a throwaway line, but maybe a bit too meaningful, under the circumstances. “Gravity is setting in,” says Barney, Sylvester Stallone’s aging character in “Expend4bles,” when someone asks how he’s doing.Indeed. Gravity is setting in throughout “Expend4bles,” a movie whose most enticing mystery is not the secret identity of its shadowy villain, but how you pronounce the film’s title. Are we supposed to enunciate the mid-word numeral, or is it merely visual? Is this what stands for a smart new spin on a tired franchise? Will we soon have “My Big F4t Greek Wedding”? Are these questions supposed to distract us from how stunningly mediocre the film is?Perhaps we digress. This is, obviously, the fourth “Expendables” film, but our considered scientific opinion is that you needn’t see the first three to catch up. True, there’s no explanatory intro, but if yo...

Four-bedroom home sells for $2.3 million in Dublin

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

5120 Persimmon Drive – Google Street ViewThe spacious property located in the 5100 block of Persimmon Drive in Dublin was sold on Aug. 4, 2023. The $2,300,000 purchase price works out to $730 per square foot. The house, built in 1999, has an interior space of 3,151 square feet. This two-story house provides a generous living space with its four bedrooms and four bathrooms. Additionally, the house includes a three-car garage, offering generous space for vehicles and storage requirements.These nearby houses have also recently changed hands:A 3,678-square-foot home on the 4700 block of Woodrose Circle in Dublin sold in November 2022, for $2,275,000, a price per square foot of $619. The home has 6 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms.In March 2023, a 4,002-square-foot home on Woodrose Circle in Dublin sold for $2,375,000, a price per square foot of $593. The home has 5 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.On Aspen Street, Dublin, in June 2023, a 2,460-square-foot home was sold for $2,035,000, a price per squar...

Opinion: Gun violence is causing an anxiety crisis. How to help your kids

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

I remember my first experience with an active shooter. Last summer, I was on the rooftop terrace of a hotel where I was attending a work conference. A hotel employee arrived, breathless, and told us we couldn’t leave. Downstairs in the lobby, there was a man with a gun. We locked the doors and waited in silence until word came that the shooter had been apprehended.That was the first time I felt my fear surge due to a gun threat. But it wasn’t the last. In the 10 months since then, I experienced two more active shooter incidents, each more frightening than the last.These experiences have had a significant impact on me. As a pediatrician for 20 years, I know the signs of anxiety and trauma in kids. Now, I see them in myself. I hesitate to commute to my office in Midtown Atlanta, where I experienced the second and third events. I say no to most concerts, festivals and even movies in theaters because large public gatherings make me nervous. When I drop my kids off at school,...

Review: ‘It Lives Inside’ is an innovative if imperfect film

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

By Lindsey Bahr | Associated PressA beautiful Indian American teen, Samidha (Megan Suri), just wants to fit in with her suburban classmates in the new horror ” It Lives Inside.” But there’s a demon at large and it’s not hormones or puberty — it’s a literal monster that will maim and kill you and anyone who tries to help in this grisly, if imperfect, metaphor for the immigrant experience.It’s the feature debut of Bishal Dutta, who co-wrote the film with Ashish Mehta, and crafts an effectively menacing PG-13 rated nail-biter centered around the interesting and conflicting dynamics of an Indian American family. The mom, Poorna (Neeru Bajwa) is determined to keep up with the traditions of the country they left behind. Samidha – sorry, Sam — would rather not, which her dad supports, in theory. She shaves her arms in the morning and posts a Kardashian-level selfie with a carefully chosen filter. She “forgets” the lunch her mother has p...

Opinion: What Democrats do first in good faith, GOP repeats in bad faith

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

If there was any doubt that the Republican House was no more sophisticated than a preschool playground, last week’s opening of an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden settled it with a nasty kick of sand in Democrats’ face.How else can you describe the pretext for this fishing expedition other than “You started it”? If our guy got embroiled in impeachment and protracted legal proceedings during election season, well then, damn it, so will yours.Whereas Democrats began the first Trump impeachment inquiry after it was revealed that he tried to extort a political favor from the president of Ukraine in exchange for military aid, and the second impeachment after an insurrection, the Biden inquiry is proceeding with no clear evidence of any misdeeds by the president.This is just the latest asymmetric tit-for-tat by Republicans.Even many Republicans in Congress don’t buy into this kind of baloney, as we’ve learned from a series of Washington confessionals and from several Republica...

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom’s Fright Fest takes aim at your worst phobias

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

Hundreds of dry cornstalks rustled in the wind as workers made the final push on Wednesday to transform Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo into Fright Fest, one of the premier haunted attractions in Northern California.Boasting five scare houses and five walk-through scare zones the park, after dark is not for the faint of heart. Daytime activities for all ages include Kids Boo Fest, with Halloween fun for the little ghouls and ghosts including a kid’s foam party, and Oktoberfest with an array of German fare and lively entertainment. As the sun sets the monsters are “Unleashed” in a new show offered with Fright Fest admission and recommended for those 13 and older.Senior Supervisor Max Cohen helps attach flags in front of cornstalks as the helps get the kid’s area ready for Boo Fest at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo on Wednesday. (Chris Riley/Times-Herald) “We are incredibly excited to unleash a Fright Fest event that leads the way in bringing terrifying scares for ...

Marin real estate: Median home price drops to $1.51 million

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

The median price of a detached home in Marin has fallen to $1.51 million, a year-over-year decline of 11%, according to new data from the county assessor’s office.The data are based on market activity for August. For condominiums and townhomes, the median price fell to $794,000 last month, down 9% from $875,000 the previous August.Despite the price declines and higher interest rates, 52% of the homes sold in Marin last month went for above the asking price, said Naomi Thorne, a Coldwell Banker Realty agent whose office is in Greenbrae. The figure is nearly unchanged from August 2022, she said.Thorne said the price reductions tend to come with less desirable homes, but those in excellent condition are still drawing multiple offers. She was the listing agent for a four-bedroom home on Orange Blossom Lane in Terra Linda that sold last month for $1.51 million, right at the county median.“People are still out, they’re still ready and willing to compete for the right house,” she said. “Th...

Legal fights over California’s homeless camps expand to Supreme Court

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

By Jeanne Kuang, CalMattersFed up with homeless encampments, California local officials are seeking guidance from the nation’s most powerful judges.In a legal brief filed Tuesday with the U.S. Supreme Court, the California State Association of Counties and League of California Cities told the justices that a string of federal court rulings over the last five years that restrict cities’ abilities to sweep camps and order residents off the streets have made addressing health and safety concerns “unworkable.”“The State of California and its cities and counties are engaged in unprecedented efforts to address homelessness through the creation of significant new policy initiatives and funding investments,” the league and association wrote. “However, camping ordinances can be a useful tool in appropriate circumstances in addressing the complex conditions that exist in our homeless populations.”California cities made a similar appeal in 2019, but the court declined to hear that case.It all ...

USC’s oldest-living football player and his ‘magical’ 100th birthday

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

Bruce Gelker can’t remember most things. But he always remembered George Tirebiter.The origins of USC’s first mascot are notoriously ambiguous, but the 100-year-old Gelker would tell it to his grandsons Garrett and Garth as such: While a football player at USC in the 1940s, he’d see this random mutt that showed up on campus, hunting cars down the street and gnawing at their tires. Known, hereafter, as George Tirebiter, commemorated with a statue on campus.The level of detail he was able to recall – down to knowing ol’ George liked to scratch his right ear and not his left – always stunned Garrett and Garth. Because Gelker’s short-term memory was all but gone, taking with it much of the vibrant man his grandsons called a father figure.The onset of Gelker’s dementia was excruciating, and painful, as anyone with loved ones with aging minds can understand. Three years ago, worried for his safety, his wife, Lisa, moved Gelker to Silverado, an assisted-living and memory care facility for ...

Mom arrested after 5 pounds of heroin found hidden in a diaper bag

Published Mon, 23 Dec 2024 17:16:13 GMT

A 38-year-old woman who was driving with her 5-year-old daughter was arrested on Tuesday, Sept. 19, after U.S. Border Patrol agents said they found 5.4 pounds of heroin concealed in a diaper bag in her pickup during a traffic stop near Temecula.The unidentified woman was driving a Ford pickup north on the 15 Freeway near an immigration checkpoint when agents pulled her over. Agents searched the truck and found four cellophane-wrapped bundles in the bag, a news release said.“Drug trafficking organizations will go to great lengths to smuggle their dangerous cargo through the United States, even when it means endangering the lives of young children,” Chief Patrol Agent Patricia D. McGurk-Daniel said in a written statement.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | Ex-California deputy re-arrested in drugs case and bail increased to $5 million Crime and Public Safety | Symptoms of a drug overdose — and how you can respond Crime and Public Safety | ...