USA DAWN: NEWS AND UPDATES

As Rhode Island's most famous lighthouse keeper, Lewis saved a number of lives from drowning, including the two soldiers that inspired the doodle. Today’s Google doodle marks the 175th birthday of Ida Lewis, a lighthouse keeper once hailed as “America’s Bravest Woman” for the numerous lives she saved from drowning. As the owner of the Lime Rock Lighthouse in Rhode Island, Google says Idawalley Zorada Lewis made her first save at the age of 12 and continued braving into the Newport harbor’s dangerous, cold waters to save drowning men and women all the way into her sixties. From the Google Doodle Blog: A lighthouse keeper required unwavering courage, sheer physical strength, constant diligence, and a willingness to put one’s own life on the line. Ida was so dedicated that supposedly she would rush into inclement weather without shoes or coat so as not a waste a single second. Her life and legacy were not only an honor to research and illustrate, but trul...

'Get Out' image courtesy of Blumhouse, QC Entertainment and Universal Jordan Peele's  Get Out  is yet another directorial debut by a known actor that has snagged strong reviews and superb buzz. In that sense, it's little different from the likes of Sarah Polley's  Away From Her , Ben Affleck's  Gone Baby Gone  and Lake Bell's  In A World . It also shares something rather rare with Robert Redford's  Ordinary People  in that it's going to be a big box office win as well as a critical darling. Blumhouse and QC Entertainment's comic thriller just snagged $10.842 million on its opening day, basically doubling its $5m production budget. It's just getting started, but  Get Out  is going to make a lot more than Stanley Tucci and Scott Campell's  Big Night  or Drew Barrymore's  Whip It . The grimly topical "social thriller," courtesy of Universal/Comcast Corp., about a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya) taking a we...

Summit With an estimated $60 million budget,  Rock Dog  might be the most expensive animated movie ever to be financed by a Chinese company, but it's not clear looking at it where much of the money went. Aside from an opening sequence that's hand-drawn and vastly superior to what follows, it's an ugly looking movie that constantly reuses character models so that, for instance, multiple sheep characters look exactly the same, and multiple wolf characters merely appear to have had their proportions adjusted to differentiate them. Maybe it cost that much because it was made in Texas, and features high-profile voice talents like Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard and Matt Dillon. Or licensing Foo Fighters songs costs just that much. Regardless, it was not money well spent: in China, the movie fell victim to feuding movie theater chains, and it made only around $7.8 million. Like  The Great Wall , this was a movie conceived to appeal to China and Ame...

BRIDGEPORT, Connecticut (WABC) -- An Amber Alert issued out of Connecticut for a 6-year-old girl and her father has been canceled after both were taken into custody. Pennsylvania State Police said Aylin Sofia Hernandez and Oscar Hernandez were found on I-99 in State College. Connecticut State Police issued the Amber Alert for Aylin Sofia Hernandez, who was not at the scene of a double stabbing in Bridgeport. Oscar Hernandez is a suspect in the case. Picture of Aylin: 6-year-old Aylin Hernandez (Connecticut State Police) Here is a look at the official Amber Alert poster that was issued: Police responded to a home around 3 a.m. in Bridgeport where they found two people stabbed, according to the Bridgeport Police Department. Bridgeport Police Chief Armando said that Aylin's mother died and another woman was injured in the attack, which occurred when the two came home and an argument ensued. Aylin's mother lived in the house with the suspect and their...

The industry has finally seen the light... at least, that's one way to interpret Future's second major-label release in the span of two weeks. That second album,  HNDRXX , is   the "album I always wanted to make," he wrote in an Instagram post and, as its famous features including Rihanna and The Weeknd seem to show, is said to be more radio-ready than last week's  FUTURE . And get this: There are already unconfirmed reports that the Atlanta rapper and his label Epic will follow up this second release with a  third  album. While this windfall means plenty of new Future for fans to digest, it also begs a question: What does this disruption to old release strategies suggest about the present and future of the industry? After years of pushback, the suits in the c-suites may be ready to take their lead from the streets by flooding the market with product. Multiple releases within short windows — traditionally viewed skeptically by an industry w...

Jason Miller/Getty Images It was set up (as always) to be one of the NBA's most exciting regular-season days. And the Cleveland Cavaliers traded for—wait for it—absolutely nobody. It was a relatively quiet trade deadline across the Association, with the defending champions choosing to stand pat. No Carmelo Anthony-Kevin Love swap. No playmaker. Nothing. "We tried a lot of things that didn't work," Cavs general manager David Griffin said, per Joe Vardon of Cleveland.com. "It is what it is. But we're really, really comfortable with the group we had. We were not going to do anything of any significance." With a 40-16 record to lead the Eastern Conference, the Cavaliers felt no need to pull off a blockbuster deal. Everyone in the East is still looking up to them, not vice versa. Despite remaining silent, don't think the Cavs had a bad day. Several factors leading up to the deadline, including the day itself, have Cleveland primed to impro...