Veteran Hollywood producer and executive Allison Shearmur, who produced the Hunger Games movie, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the upcoming Solo: A Star Wars Story is dead.

She died on Friday at UCLA Medical Center here after a battle with lung cancer. She was 54, reports variety.com.

Shearmur worked as an executive at Disney, Universal, Paramount and Lionsgate before becoming a producer in 2011.

Her producing credits included Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, Cinderella, Nerve and the upcoming The One and Only Ivan. She was an executive producer on Power Rangers, What to Expect When You’re Expecting and Abduction and a co-producer on the upcoming Chaos Walking.

She was an executive producer on the 2017 television movie Dirty Dancing through her Allison Shearmur Productions company.

She joined Lionsgate as president of motion picture production in 2008 and oversaw the first two Hunger Games movies, then executive produced the final two.

She is survived by her husband and composer Ed Shearmur; her daughter, Imogen; her son Anthony, her parents Martin and Rhoda Brecker, her sister Jodi and Fred Proust (Jodi’s husband); her brother John and Heather Brecker (John’s wife), her sister Lisa and Alan Hartstein (Lisa’s husband). She also leaves behind seven nieces and nephews.

International Women cricketer Harmanpreet Kaur, who became an overnight sensation after her sensational knock against Australia in the semi-finals of WWC2017, is facing a googly from the Indian Railways.

Harmanpreet, who rose to fame with her unbeaten 175 runs, is facing a tough phase of her life in terms of the job. With her splendid performance in WWC 2017, Kaur was offered the DSP job in Punjab police. To take the offer, Harman resigned from her post in the Western Railway. The vice-captain of Indian women cricket team had been associated with Railways since last three years. And when she was offered the position in Railways, she had signed a 5-year contract.

However, Railways is not accepting her resignation. Not just that, but from the moment she had accepted the DSP role, Kaur has not been paid any salary since the last five months.

Now the Chief Minister of Punjab had urged the Indian Railway to release the Women’s World Cup star so that she can officially join the Punjab police.

“I have already written to the Railways twice and hope that she would be relieved soon so that she could join Punjab Police as a DSP at the earliest,” Amarinder told media.

Earlier, while talking to The Indian Express, Harmanpreet Kaur said, “I worked for three years with the Railways. But, they are asking for the salary of five years to waive off the bond and relieve me. After the World cup, it has been five months that I have not been paid any salary. I am jobless. I am neither getting any salary from Railways nor from the Punjab government.”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to some reporter (to raise the issue) but thought that I should not be mistaken as if I am speaking against the Railways. Railways were my last hope and had given me a job when Punjab government had turned down my request. I hope, the Railways will give me the bond waiver so that I can go to my home state. I think there is a rule that bond gets shifted when you change one government job to other. Punjab Chief Minister has taken up my case three to four times, but nothing has happened so far,” Kaur added.

Meanwhile, Anil Kumar Gupta General Manager of Western Railway also issued a statement on the issue, which says, “The Railway Board recruits people under sports quota and there is a condition of five-year bond. In case they want to leave earlier (than five years) they have to reimburse the salary of five years. If they deposit the amount, they are allowed to go.”

Harmanpreet has been selected in the women’s squad for South Africa tour and she will begin her training camp from January 24.

A Canadian jury has found three former rail workers not guilty of criminal negligence for their connection to the Lac-Megantic disaster that killed 47 persons five years ago, a media report said.

On July 6, 2013, a runaway train filled with petroleum crude oil derailed in Quebec town when the unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2 per cent grade from Nantes, the BBC said.

It resulted in fire and explosion of multiple tank cars that destroyed more than 30 buildings in the Lac-Megantic town’s centre, roughly half of the downtown area, making it the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history.

At least 39 of the remaining buildings had to be demolished due to petroleum contamination, initial newspaper reports had described a one-km blast radius.

The trial began on October 2, 2013, in a Quebec Superior Court and locomotive engineer Tom Harding, traffic controller Richard Labrie and manager of train operations Jean Demaitre were charged in 2014 with criminal negligence causing death, the BBC said.

The tragedy began when the fire broke out in the main locomotive after Harding had parked the train in the village of Nantes and left for the night to sleep.

Firefighters extinguished the flames and turned off the engine, which cut the air brakes.

An hour later, the train rolled into downtown Lac-Megantic and derailed, exploding in a huge blaze.

Harding admitted that he only applied seven handbrakes and did not fully test them before leaving the train.

The prosecution argued more handbrakes would have stopped the train from moving.

Under Canada’s criminal code, the charge carries a potential life sentence. All three pleaded not guilty.

The jurors listened to hours of technical testimony from train specialists, heard audio recordings from the incident and listened to former rail employees testify that the company had no budget for training and placed little importance on safety, according to CBC.

The twelve men and women on the jury began deliberating on January 11.

On January 16, Quebec Superior Court Justice Gaetan Dumas sent them back into deliberations after they told him they were at an impasse.

They deliberated for eight days, at one point asking the judge for clarification on “marked difference”, which the behaviour of the accused would have to be noticeably different from a colleague in a similar circumstance.

When the verdict was finally read on Friday, the CBC reported that all those in the courtroom let out a loud gasp.

Lawyers for the accused had argued that many factors were out of their control that contributed to the disaster, including a culture at Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) of relaxed standards and insufficient training.

MMA also failed to heed a Transportation Safety Board’s report that said the rail line running from Nantes to Lac-Megantic was the second steepest of any stretch of track in Canada, the BBC said.

The Canadian Transportation Agency suspended MMA’s licence after the accident.

Actor Rajeev Khandelwal, who is debuting in the web series space with Haq Se, says his decisions or choices are not governed by the popular perception of him.

Rajeev is a popular face who has worked in televisions shows and films. Why did he take up a digital show?

“Well, my decisions or choices are not governed by the popular perception about me. I take my own calls and go by my instincts and actually gone through by my instincts all through my career,” Rajeev told IANS on the phone from Mumbai.

The actor says the response from the audience does not change his way of thinking.

“So, if I am popular in a certain medium and doing certain things and if I am getting a certain kind of reaction from the audience, I would not change the course of my thinking. I want to think independently about each project and not get influenced by the what the world thinks about me,” he added.

ALT Balaji’s upcoming digital show Haq Se also features actress Surveen Chawla. The series revolves around four blood-bound sisters with four passionate dreams, all yearning for one thing: fulfillment.

It is a modern-day story of dreams, desires, love, war and the eternal pursuit of happiness, set against the beauty and unsettling unrest of Kashmir.

After three months of investigation, police have learned more about Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock: He was a high-stakes gambler on a losing streak, obsessed with cleanliness, possibly bipolar and was having difficulties with his live-in girlfriend.

But hundreds of interviews and thousands of pieces of evidence have not answered the key question: Why did Paddock open fire from his high-rise hotel suite, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800 others in the deadliest shooting in modern US history?

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo released a preliminary report yesterday on the October 1 attack on an outdoor concert staged from a room at the Mandalay Bay casino-hotel and said he did not expect criminal charges to be filed against Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, who had been named as the only person of interest in the case.

Investigators believe Paddock acted alone and did not leave a suicide note or manifesto before he was found dead in the room.

Weeks before the shooting, the couple stayed at Mandalay Bay together but Paddock was acting strangely, Danley told investigators.

She remembered him constantly looking out the windows overlooking an area where the concert would be held the next month. He moved from window to window to see the site from different angles, the report said.

Paddock had become “distant” in the year before the shooting and their relationship was no longer intimate, Danley said during an interview with investigators. She described him as germophobic and said he had strong reactions to smells.

Paddock, who fatally shot himself in his hotel room, had told friends and relatives that he always felt ill, in pain and fatigued.

His doctor thought he may have had bipolar disorder but told police that Paddock refused to discuss the possibility, the report said. The doctor offered him antidepressants, but Paddock accepted only a prescription for anxiety medication.

Paddock was fearful of medication and often refused to take it, the doctor told investigators.

The 64-year-old retired accountant and real estate investor had lost a “significant amount of wealth” since September 2015, which led to “bouts of depression,” the sheriff has said. Paddock had paid off his gambling debts before the shooting, according to the report.

Danley was in the Philippines at the time of the shooting. In the days before the attack, Paddock sent her a USD 100,000 wire transfer. She has said she found that odd and thought he might have been breaking up with her when he sent her the money and told her to use it to buy a home for her family there.

During an interview with the FBI after she returned from the Philippines, Danley volunteered that investigators would find her fingerprints on bullets used during the attack because she would sometimes help Paddock load high-volume ammunition magazines, according to FBI warrant documents.

Investigators found 23 rifles and a handgun in his hotel suite and more than a dozen of the rifles were fitted with “bump stock” devices that allowed rapid-fire shooting similar to fully automatic weapons. Dozens of guns were strewn around the room, some left inside a bassinet.

In their report, police released never-before-seen photos from inside the hotel suite, including one shot through a broken window, showing the concert venue still littered with personal belongings left when thousands ran to escape the hail of bullets raining from above.

Paddock fired more than 1,100 bullets, mostly from two windows on the 32nd floor of the hotel, into a crowd of 22,000 people attending the Route 91 Harvest Festival music below, Lombardo has said.

That includes about 200 shots fired through his hotel room door into a hallway where an unarmed hotel security guard was wounded in the leg and a maintenance engineer took cover.

Prior to the attack, Paddock had researched SWAT tactics and searched online for other potential public targets, including in Chicago, Boston and Santa Monica, California, the sheriff said. His research also sought the number of attendees at other concerts in Las Vegas and the size of the crowds at Santa Monica’s beach. Among his searches was “do police use explosives,” the report said.

After the phenomenal run of ‘Fukrey Returns’ at the box office, Excel Entertainment will kickstart 2018 with their first release ‘3 Storeys’ this year.

2017 proved to be a good year for Excel Entertainment, as the production house scored a hattrick with Raees, Inside Edge and Fukrey Returns. The Ritesh Sidhwani and Farhan Akhtar led production house will now begin the year with ‘3 Storeys’.

Starring an ensemble cast of Renuka Shahane, Sharman Joshi, Pulkit Samrat, Richa Chadha, Masumeh Makhija, amongst others, the teaser of the thriller piques our interest in every manner to witness the mysteries of the characters’ lives unfold.

Showcasing the interconnected lives of the leading characters, the teaser promises an interesting watch. The teaser unveiled the never seen before looks of the actors. While Pulkit Samrat was suited up, Richa Chadha donned a traditional avatar all decked up.

The film also proves to be the debuting platform for young talents Aisha Ahmed and Ankit Rathi.

However, Renuka Shahane stole the show with her surprising look. The actress is seen sporting short grey hair and is dressed in a Catholic attire with fluffy makeup.

Apart from the thriller, Excel Entertainment provides an interesting line up with ‘Akshay Kumar starrer ‘Gold’ and the Zoya Akhtar directorial ‘Gully Boy’ starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt.

‘3 Storeys’ is directed by debutante director Arjun Mukherjee, who has had a history of AD filmmaking.

Produced by Priya Sreedharan, Ritesh Sidhwani, and Farhan Akhtar, the story promises to make you wonder about people’s ‘real’ faces. The film, helmed by Arjun Mukherjee, is set in a middle-class chawl and closely looks at a few intricately intertwined lives.

3 Storeys, presented by B4U Motion Pictures, releases on February 16, 2018.

On Wednesday, South African cricketer JP Duminy wrote history by scoring 37 runs in just one over.

Duminy was playing for his team Cape Cobras in a momentum one-day cup match when he rattled leg-spinner Eddie Leie bowling by scoring 37 runs in an over and by doing so he also broke the Proteas List A record for most runs scored in a single over.

The Cobras were chasing the mediocre score of 240 by opposition Knights. JP Duminy’s team was dominating the match at 208 for 2 when it started in 36th over. The South Africa player was batting at the score of 34 runs off 30 balls.

In 36th over, the ball was given to spinner Eddie Leie and Duminy was on the strike. Duminy hit maximum for first four balls, then on next ball he stole two runs, the next ball was a no ball on which the 33-year-old smashed a four and on the last ball, Duminy hit a six. With his six on the last ball, Duminy wrote his name in history as the second batsman who had scored maximum runs in the first class cricket.

The first spot is reserved by Zimbabwe’s Elton Chigumbura who had scored 39 runs against Bangladesh’s Alauddin Babu in the Dhaka Premier League in the year 2013.

While talking to ESPNCricinfo after finishing unbeaten on 70 off just 37 balls, Duminy said, “It is not every day you get the opportunity, so of course I was trying to go for the six sixes in an over.”

“I initially thought it was all about the bonus point. I looked up at the scoreboard and we needed 35 with four overs still to go to get the bonus point, so I just decided to take Eddie on. I was striking the ball really cleanly, and when the first two went for six, I figured I might as well give it a full go now because regardless whether I get out we would still have secured the bonus point. It was enjoyable.” he added.

Actor Ryan Coogler has compared the Black Panther movie to a James Bond film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

“When I first started talking to Marvel, one thing they were interested in was for Panther to be their version of James Bond, which I thought was incredibly interesting and exciting. It was a really outside-of-the-box way to look at T’Challa,” Coogler told Total Film magazine.

He added: “There are some Bond films that I really, really like, and it gave me the opportunity to go watch some other ones.”

The movie is based around the first ever black superhero in mainstream American comics who was created by legendary Marvel Comics writer Stan Lee and the equally iconic artist-and-writer Jack Kirby and first appeared in ‘Fantastic Four #52’ back in 1966, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

The motion picture is expected to expand on the storyline that was first introduced in “Captain America: Civil War” of how T’Challa becomes the superhero.

T’Challa’s father T’Chaka is king of the African nation Wakanda and has the ceremonial title Black Panther as the chief of the Panther Tribe, but is killed when a bomb goes off at the UN, making his son the Black Panther.

The film stars Lupita Nyong’o, Letitia Wright, Forest Whitaker, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis.

“Black Panther” is slated to release in February.

UPPSC Prelims results 2017 have been declared on the official website uppsc.up.nic.in. Candidates trying to check the their UPPCS results 2017 have to visit the official website and fill the blank space with the asked information including roll number, registration number, date of birth and other required information.

Candidates trying to get their UPPSC’s Combined State/Upper Subordinate Services Main 2017 examination results have to follow the instructions mentioned on the UPPCS Allahabad official website.

It has been informed by the Uttar Pradesh Public Service Commission (UPPSC) that about 4.5 lakh filled the registration form and around 2.5 lakh candidates entered the examination hall.

This time UPPSC has planned to fill 677 seats with this examination.

A court here on Saturday awarded the death sentence to all six convicts in the honour killings of three Dalit youths in Ahmednagar in 2013.

The Nashik District Sessions Court had pronounced the six guilty and acquitted one in the case, on Monday in its much-anticipated verdict.

Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said the convicts have also been ordered to pay a fine of Rs 20,000 each and directed the government to compensate the victims’ families, though some compensation has already been paid.

Those who have been awarded the capital punishment include: Popat V. Darandale, Ganesh P. Darandale, Prakash V. Darandale, Ramesh V. Darandale, Ashok Nawagire and Sandeep Kurhe.

The Dalit youths, including Sachin Gharu, were hacked to death in Sonai village by Popat V. Darandale, the father of a girl with whom Gharu had fallen in love. The others convicted include her brother Ganesh, other relatives and friends of the family.

One of the co-accused in the case Ashok R. Phalke was acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.

Karan Johar’s upcoming rom-com flick, Dhadak, featuring Ishaan Khattar and Janhvi Kapoor in the lead roles is now all set to release on July 20, courtesy of the producer himself.

Karan, who will be launching the two star kids (Janhvi and Ishaan) in Bollywood, took to his Twitter and Instagram account to officially announce the release date of the film.

#6monthstoDHADAK #dhadak releasing 20th JULY 2018! Directed by @ShashankKhaitan and PRESENTING #janhvi and #Ishaan @DharmaMovies @ZeeStudios_ @apoorvamehta18 pic.x.com/ECM0IYFOUo

— Karan Johar (@karanjohar) January 20, 2018

Dhadak is official remake of hit Marathi film, Sairat, and marks the official debut of Sridevi’s daughter Janhvi and Ishaan’s second feature film after Beyond the Clouds.

Dhadak has raised all eyebrows ever since the release of the first look of the lead actors and for their fresh pairing. The film has become one of the most awaited films of 2018 and apparently fans are eagerly waiting to watch this film on the big screen.

Directed by Shashank Khaitan. Dhadak is scheduled to release on July 20, 2018.

Twitter has identified an additional 1,062 accounts associated with the Russia-backed Internet Research Agency (IRA) accused of interfering with the 2016 US presidential election.

This brings IRA-linked accounts to a total of 3,814 that posted 175,993 tweets, approximately 8.4 per cent of which were election-related, the micro-blogging platform said in a blog post on Saturday.

“We are emailing notifications to 677,775 people in the US who followed one of these accounts or retweeted or liked a Tweet from these accounts during the election period,” Twitter said, adding that it has already suspended these accounts.

Twitter has told a US Senate committee that the micro-blogging platform is working towards alerting its users who may have seen Kremlin-linked advertisements during the 2016 election.

Appearing before the US Commerce, Science and Technology Committee this week, Carlos Monje, Twitter’s Director of US Public Policy, said Twitter would ‘inform individually’ everyone who saw tweets from accounts linked to IRA.

Monje, along with officials from Facebook and Google-owned YouTube, testified before the committee about how Twitter is combating terror-related content on its platform.

“We have also provided Congress with the results of our supplemental analysis into activity believed to be automated, election-related activity originating out of Russia during the election period,” Twitter said.

Through its supplemental analysis, Twitter has also identified 13,512 additional accounts, for a total of 50,258 automated accounts that it identified as Russian-linked and tweeting election-related content during the election period.

“With our current capabilities, we detect and block approximately 523,000 suspicious logins daily for being generated through automation,” Twitter posted.

In December 2017, its systems identified and challenged more than 6.4 million suspicious accounts globally per week — a 60 per cent increase in its detection rate from October 2017.

“We have developed new techniques for identifying malicious automation (such as near-instantaneous replies to tweets, non-random Tweet timing, and coordinated engagement),” the company said.

Since June 2017, Twitter has removed more than 220,000 applications in violation of its rules, collectively responsible for more than 2.2 billion low-quality tweets.

In 2018, Twitter aims to invest further in machine-learning capabilities that help it detect and mitigate the effect on users of fake, coordinated, and automated account activity.

Fashion designer turned film director Tom Ford likes to be in control of everything and says he only wants to work on original scripts.

“I don’t like to not be in control. So, if it’s controlled by somebody else and if I don’t own the underlying material, I don’t even want to read the script,” Ford said in a statement.

“It doesn’t matter then how enticing it is as I don’t want it. So I take it on me to develop it, to find the right thing,” he added.

After a long career in fashion, Ford made his debut as a director in 2009 with “A Single Man”. He followed it up with his second feature in 2016 with “Nocturnal Animals”, which will premiere in India on Sony Le PLEX HD on Sunday.

Adequate efforts were not made to examine key prosecution witnesses in the five 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases in which the Delhi High Court issued show cause notices to those acquitted asking them why re-trial should not be ordered, the Supreme Court said on Friday.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra perused the records and said summon was issued to the main prosecution witness only once during the trial and upon non-appearance, the recording of evidence was closed.

The bench, also comprising Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, was hearing the appeal of former Delhi MLA Mahender Singh Yadav against the High Court order of March 29 last year by which show cause notices were issued to him and other acquitted persons in five anti-Sikh riots cases.

Besides Yadav, show cause notices were issued to 10 other acquitted persons including former councillor Balwan Khokhar on the complaints filed regarding rioting incidents on November 1 and 2, 1984 in Delhi Cantonment area.

The High Court had sought their responses as to why the cases, in which the accused were acquitted, be not re-opened and re-tried.

“Let this matter be listed for final disposal on March 21. The counsel for the petitioner shall intimate the High Court about the order passed by us today,” the top court said.

Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for Delhi Police, said the CBI was pursuing the cases and the agency was needed to be made a party in the appeal.

The bench said that let the probe agency file the plea seeking impleadment as a party in the case.

Senior advocate H S Phoolka, representing riots victims said that in all the five cases, accused were acquitted as adequate efforts were not made to ensure that key prosecution witnesses appear and depose.

“The complaints disclose horrifying crimes against humanity. These point out that male members of one community were singled out for elimination. These suggest that these were no ordinary crimes, or simple murders (if ever a murder could be termed as simple). Treated as individual cases, while the culprits got away scot free, everybody else, the police, the prosecutors, even the courts, appear to have failed the victims, and, most importantly society.

“Perhaps, had these terrible offences in 1984 been punished and the offenders brought to book, the history of crime in this country may have been different. We are of the view that if we fail to take action even now, we would be miserably failing in our constitutional duty as well as in discharging judicial function,” the High Court had said.

It had issued suo motu directions to “secure ends of justice” after perusing the trial court records regarding the acquittal of accused in five different cases in 1986 relating to killing of Sikhs during the riots which broke out a day after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984.

The US government officially shutdown today for the first time in five years after lawmakers failed to agree on a spending deal. Congress didn’t pass the budget before the midnight Friday deadline which paved the way for shutdown.

US President Donald Trump blamed Democrats for the shutdown which comes exactly a year after he was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States.

The shutdown began at 12:01 am (local time) soon after the Senate rejected a short-term spending bill to keep federal government running. The bill was passed by the House on Thursday.

The White House has issued a statement and blamed Senate Democrats for blocking a bill to avert a shutdown. The statement further added that the White House will not negotiate on immigration – a key demand of Democrats.

“We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands,” the statement said.

This is part of the Democrats strategy to force President Trump and the Republicans to negotiate with them on illegal immigrants who are facing deportation.

Following the shutdown, only essential services and military operations will continue, while hundreds of thousands of US government defence workers, park rangers and business regulators are temporarily out of work.

In a tweet, the US Embassy in India said that the American Center and the American Center Library are closed and will remain closed until further notice.

A last minute meeting between US President Donald Trump and top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer to avert a government shutdown due to lack of funds, had failed after the two leaders continued to “have a good number of differences”.

The meeting was held at the request of Trump as part of his efforts to reach a deal with Democrats on at least a short-term extension of government funding, which needs Congressional approval and the current authorisation ended on Friday.

In the absence of such an authorisation, functioning of the federal government has come to a standstill, with hundreds and thousands of its employees forced to stop working at stay at home without pay.

The last time that a government shutdown happened was in 2013. It was for more than a fortnight.

(With PTI inputs)

Global data storage company Western Digital on Friday announced that it is expanding its portfolio for enterprise customers with a new, mid-range series of 4TB, 6TB and 8TB hard drives.

The new products help corporate data centres having data-set sizes smaller than ones in hyper-scale environments to harness the power of data in applications such as analytics and distributed file systems, the company said in a statement.

“Our new enterprise solutions blend the technology and total cost of ownership of Western Digital’s capacity enterprise product line will allow OEMs to offer data centres a solution to keep Big Data on-premises, rather than transition entirely to the Cloud,” Brendan Collins, Vice President of Marketing, Devices Business Unit at Western Digital, said in a statement.

Available immediately for qualification, the new “Ultrastar 7K6”, supporting 4TB and 6TB capacity points, utilises a new four-disk, enterprise class and air-based design.

The company claims that its new products provide up to 12 per cent faster performance than the prior generation Ultrastar 7K6000 and is designed for traditional storage and server applications as well as distributed and scalable computing, including block-and-file storage architecture.

Later this quarter, the company will deliver an Ultrastar 7K8 8TB solution, which is based on an air-based design and is the ninth generation of the company’s 5-disk platform.