Search is halted for fishermen
Search is halted for fishermen
SEATTLE (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Sunday for four men missing from a fishing trawler off the Washington coast, saying it’s unlikely the men are still alive.
Rescue crews searched through the night after an early Saturday distress signal from the 70-foot Lady Cecelia led them to a debris field, an empty lifeboat and an oil sheen several miles off the coast. By Sunday morning, crews in Coast Guard cutters and an MH-60 helicopter had covered 640 square miles, Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said.
“We have searched far beyond what the capacity of somebody to survive in these conditions might be,” he said.
Coast Guard officials are unsure what happened to the Lady Cecelia. Eggert said he had no details on the debris found off the coast, or whether the vessel was still intact. The lifeboat found by rescuers had no identifying marks, but Eggert said it’s very likely the raft was from the Lady Cecelia.
The Coast Guard identified the four men as Dave Nichols, 42, and Jason Bjaranson, 38, of Warrenton, Ore.; Chris Langel, 25, of Kaukauna, Wis.; and Luke Jensen, 22, of Ilwaco, Wash.
Fannie, Freddie CEO pay limited
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government says it will cap pay for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac chief executives at $500,000 per year and eliminate annual bonuses for all employees.
The changes come after Congress pressured the government to stop big payouts at the bailed-out mortgage giants. The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government agency that oversees Fannie and Freddie, also said Friday that it would cut pay for roughly 50 other executives at the two companies. Those employees are still eligible to earn salaries above the cap.
The pay and bonus structure of the government-controlled mortgage giants came under fire this fall after it was revealed that 12 executives got $35.4 million in salary and bonuses in 2009 and 2010. Fannie’s chief executive, Michael J. Williams, received about $9.3 million for the two years. Freddie’s chief executive, Edward Haldeman Jr., was paid $7.8 million.
NASA specialist sues over ouster
LOS ANGELES (AP) — NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has landed robotic explorers on the surface of Mars, sent probes to outer planets and operates a worldwide network of antennas that communicates with interplanetary spacecraft. Its latest mission is to defend itself in a workplace lawsuit filed by a former computer specialist who claims he was laid off for promoting his views on intelligent design.
Trial in the case begins today in Los Angeles Superior Court.
David Coppedge worked as a “team lead” on the Cassini mission exploring Saturn and its many moons. He lost his “team lead” title in 2009 and was let go last year. JPL denies any discrimination.
Mom says family kicked off flight
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island family traveling with two toddlers was removed from a JetBlue flight after their 2-year-old daughter refused to sit in her seat on a flight to Boston.
JetBlue said the captain returned the plane to the gate on Feb.18 in Turks and Caicos after customers refused to comply with instructions from a crew member for “a prolonged period of time.”
Dr. Colette Vieau said that when her 2-year-old daughter Natalie wouldn’t sit, she and her husband buckled her seat belt and held her in place. The family was kicked off the plane anyway, Vieau said.
“We were holding them down with all of our might, seat belt on. And I said, ‘We have them seated. Can we go now?’ She said the pilot’s made a decision to turn the plane around,” Vieau told the station.
She also said she offered to hold the girl on her lap to calm her. But the Federal Aviation Administration requires children sit in their own seat after their second birthday.
There were no other flights that night, and the family spent $2,000 on a hotel and rebooking their flight home, Vieau said. She did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press on Friday.
JetBlue said in a statement that its planes cannot take off until passengers are seated with their seat belts fastened. The captain decided to remove the customers for safety reasons, the statement said.
JetBlue on Friday also wrote about seat belt safety in a blog post that cited the incident.
’Lorax’ trumps ’John Carter’ with $39.1M weekend
LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Dr. Seuss’ the Lorax” has easily beaten Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “John Carter” at the weekend box office.
Studio estimates Sunday put Universal Pictures’ “The Lorax” at No. 1 for the second-straight weekend as the animated adventure based on the children’s book took in $39.1 million. That raised its 10-day domestic total to $122 million, making “The Lorax” the top-grossing movie released this year.
“John Carter,” based on “Tarzan” creator Burroughs’ tales of the interplanetary adventurer, opened in second-place with $30.6 million. That’s an awful start given the whopping $250 million that Disney reportedly spent to make “John Carter,” which also earned generally poor reviews that will hurt its long-term prospects.
The movie’s salvation could come overseas, where “John Carter” opened in 55 markets with $70.6 million, giving it a worldwide total of $101.2 million.
The stronger international business helps, but that worldwide total still pales compared to global debuts of $200 million and up for many modern blockbusters.
“We would have hoped for more considering the larger economics of the film but are still encouraged with how it’s been received by audiences that have seen it and hope to see that generate positive word of mouth for the balance of the run,” said Dave Hollis, Disney’s head of distribution.
The Warner Bros. teen comedy “Project X” held up well in its second weekend with $11.6 million to finish at No. 3 and raise its domestic haul to $40.1 million.
Elizabeth Olsen’s horror tale “Silent House,” released by Open Road Films, opened modestly at No. 4 with $7 million. Olsen plays a young woman terrorized inside her family’s spooky summer home.
Eddie Murphy’s comedy “A Thousand Words,” a leftover shot in 2008 and finally dumped into theaters by distributor Paramount, was a dud at No. 6 with just $6.4 million.
The movie features Murphy as a fast-talking literary agent and neglectful family man who gets a lesson on the important things in life after discovering he has only a thousand words left to utter before he dies.
“A Thousand Words” was so bad it had a perfect score on the film critic site Rottentomatoes.com: all of the 37 reviews compiled there for the movie were negative.
“John Carter” at least managed 49 percent favorable notices of the 170 reviews compiled there. That’s still not a recipe for staying power at the box office, particularly with such a bad opening in the United States.
“If you just take the domestic number, it’s not a very pretty picture,” said Paul Dergarabedian, analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. “But if you look at the worldwide opening weekend of a hundred million dollars, that’s pretty solid.”
“John Carter” casts “Friday Night Lights” co-star Taylor Kitsch in the title role as a 19th century Civil War veteran whisked away to Mars, where he falls for a beautiful princess and becomes a hero in the red planet’s own civil war.
Disney executives noted that the movie had a 25 percent uptick in domestic business from opening day Friday to Saturday, saying it was a sign that audiences were talking up “John Carter” to friends.
But the movie drew only 41 percent of its viewers from the under-25 crowd, indicating that Hollywood’s key audience of young action fans was not interested.
Overall domestic business rose again as studios continued their 2012 box-office roll. Revenues totaled $140.5 million, up 8.7 percent from the same weekend last year, according to Hollywood.com.
Receipts have climbed every weekend this year, with domestic revenues inching above $2 billion so far in 2012, an 18 percent increase over last year’s.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday