Author: Rahul M

The BJP’s “open door policy”, aimed to expand its footprint across Maharashtra by inducting not only the Opposition leaders but also those from its allies, has heightened tensions among the ruling Mahayuti partners just ahead of the local body polls.This came to the fore Tuesday when the ministers of the Shiv Sena, barring party chief Eknath Shinde, skipped the weekly Cabinet meeting. They instead met Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis later to complain against state BJP chief Ravindra Chavan’s “aggressive overdrive” to wean away their leaders. Arguing that the Sena had done the same in the past, Fadnavis reportedly told the…

Bill Inoshita/CBS Contains spoilers for “NCIS” Season 23, Episode 6 — “Page-Turner” Tim McGee (Sean Murray) is in a whole world of trouble in “Page-Turner.” Kidnapped and held hostage while on tour promoting the latest entry in his “Deep Six” series of books (which he wrote under the pen name Thom E. Gemcity), he starts hallucinating about the characters he’s created. His vision of the acrobatic Knightingdale (the “Deep Six” version of Katrina Law’s Jessica Knight) may trigger some déjà vu among fans. If you’ve been wondering why the whole thing feels…

A day after the Palghar lynching row forced the ruling BJP in Maharashtra to stay his induction into the party, Kashinath Chaudhari, former NCP(SP) leader and Palghar Zilla Parishad member, said Tuesday that he was being “unfairly targeted” and that his family was facing the “brunt of political conspiracy against him”.The BJP’s Monday move came just a day after it inducted Chaudhari into its fold, leading to attacks from the Opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) alliance, which raked up the former’s earlier bid to call him a “key accused” in the lynching of two sadhus and their driver in Palghar…

TOKYO (AP) — Firefighters were battling an out-of-control fire Wednesday morning that has burned through a neighborhood in southwestern Japan and forced more than 170 people to evacuate.At least 170 homes have been damaged and a man in his 70s was unaccounted for, Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency said. The fire started during strong winds Tuesday evening near a fishing port in the city of Oita and spread to a forest. Oita is on the southern island of Kyushu. One resident told Kyodo News Agency she quickly fled without many of her belongings because the fire “spread in the…

Olivia Wong/Getty Images When Glen Powell heard that director Edgar Wright was sitting in an auditorium getting ready to watch “Hit Man,” the movie he starred in from 2023, he wrote him a text message saying (via The Wrap), “Consider this my audition tape.” The movie was one reason that Wright loved the idea of casting Powell as everyman Ben Richards in the filmmaker’s next movie, “The Running Man” (see Looper’s review here). There was just one problem: he needed Stephen King, the writer of the book the movie is…

The U.K. plans to pass one of the world’s most sweeping anti-ticket-scalping measures, banning the resale of music, comedy, theater and sports tickets for profit.After an open letter from artists like Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, Radiohead and the Cure urging Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ban the practice, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will announce a plan to cap ticket resales at face value (with minimal fees).They estimate the move could lower ticket prices by around 37 pounds ($49), saving fans around 112 million pounds ($147 million) per year. Fans will still be able to sell tickets…

Universal Pictures It’s been three full decades since author Gregory Maguire released his game-changing book “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” So what does Maguire think of the blockbuster musical and film franchise that followed?  So what does Maguire think? In an interview with CBS News in November 2024, shortly before “Wicked: Part One” hit theaters, Maguire said this of the film: “It will change the trajectories of imaginative children’s lives. They will take from it and they will build on it. And I wouldn’t be surprised…

John Medland/CBS Contains spoilers for “Boston Blue” Season 1, Episode 5 — “Suffer The Children” Having ended up in Boston, Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) usually solves made-up crimes on “Boston Blue” with new partner Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green). But in “Suffer the Children,” the show takes advantage of its New England setting (although the “Blue Bloods” spinoff is mostly not actually filmed there) to investigate a fictionalized version of a real-life case that’s been bedeviling Beantown since the 1990s.  In real life, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was robbed on March 18,…

Universal Pictures Thanks to the influx of movies that go directly to various streaming services and a generally crowded market, it can be absurdly easy to miss great releases. One such movie, which you should definitely check out on Amazon Prime Video now, is “Drop,” the 2025 thriller starring “The White Lotus” star Meghann Fahy and “It Ends With Us” veteran Brandon Sklenar. Directed by Christopher Landon, who was previously known for funny horror flicks like “Happy Death Day,” “Drop” has a pretty simple premise. What if a single mom, Violet…

OGIJO, Nigeria — The Nigerian town of Ogijo has more lead recycling factories than anywhere else in Africa. When we arrived, a sky the color of a tobacco stain hung over the town.Factories belched smoke over neighborhoods. And not just from chimneys. The metal roofs had eroded, leaving holes for smoke to escape.The government has never had a comprehensive lead-testing program here, even as residents complained of headaches, stomach pain and fatigue — common lead poisoning symptoms.Lead screening is expensive, and Nigeria already struggles to build hospitals and pay for programs such as malaria treatment.So we commissioned our own testing.A…