Ry Guy's News!

TMNT, the CGI-animated re-start of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, scored a weekend-best $25.5 million at the box office, Exhibitor Relations Co. estimates said.

The fourth "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film to reach the big screen, and a throwback to this earlier, more serious vision of the four sewer samurais.

After two weekends at number one, the battle-tested 300 slipped to second, with a still-sizeable $20.5 million. All told, the manly man epic has bench-pressed $162.4 million, the year's biggest gross to date.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, way back in the 1980s, were an experiment borne out of boredom with the mainstream comic world, created by comic greats Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a rebellious backlash to the silliness that dominated their world at that time.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Minnesota National Guard Sgt. Greg Riewer, 28, nicknamed Smiley by his family in Frazee because of his quiet nature, was killed in Iraq while on patrol Friday near Fallujah.

He was with soldiers from the Bemidji-based Company A, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb, Col. Kevin Gutknecht, a Guard spokesman, said. Two other Minnesota National Guard soldiers were injured in the attack.

A 1997 graduate of Frazee High School, near Detroit Lakes, Riewer enlisted shortly after graduating. He was single and had five sisters and seven brothers, one of whom, Andrew, is serving in the same unit, Gutknecht said.

Major General Larry Shellito, the adjutant general of Minnesota, says the loss of Sergeant Riewer is a tragedy. He says Riewer was proudly serving his state and nation in a combat zone when he was taken.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A 19-year-old Texas A&M University student was killed by her ex-boyfriend, who then dismembered and burned her body on a patio grill, authorities said Saturday.

Investigators say Timothy Wayne Shepherd, 27, confessed Wednesday to strangling Tynesha Stewart because he was angry she had begun a new relationship.

Officials first thought Shepherd had disposed of the body in a large commercial trash bin that had since been emptied, launching a heated debate over whether the Sheriff's Department should conduct a massive and expensive search of area landfills for Stewart's remains.

"I just don't know what to think about it," said Louis Evans, whose balcony faces Shepherd's enclave in northern Houston. "I thought he was a nice normal person. I guess you never know what your neighbors are doing."

Shepherd, who is charged with murder, is being held on $250,000 bond.

Thomas, the sheriff, said Stewart's family had requested privacy and would not respond to media inquiries.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Iran seizes 15 sailors and marines at gunpoint and do not know of their location, British officials said.

Iran has claimed the sailors confessed to illegally entering Iranian waters, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair disputed the claim that the 15 were in Iranian territorial waters at the time they were seized on Friday.

"It simply is not true that they went into Iranian territorial waters," Blair told reporters in Berlin.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted during a trip to the Middle East that the Britons be released, saying "we all fully trust the British" account.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin, said Sunday that his band is working on a new album featuring what he called a quintessential song that everybody should hear "before we die."

Though Chris and his Coldplay bandmates are yet to discuss when the fourth LP will be released, Gwyneth Paltrow said husband, Martin, is working hard and fans won't be disappointed.

The band said it plans to return to the studio after a two-year hiatus to record an album that will have a different sound from "X&Y," which has sold more than 2 million copies since it was released in 2005.

"I don't think the album will come out soon, but I think it's going to be their best one. It's going to be insane.� Paltrow said.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A teenage drunken driver was sentenced Friday to two years in jail and 23 years on probation for a crash that killed two of her friends and seriously injured another.

Heather Ann Tucci, 18, of White Bear Lake, must abstain from alcohol and drugs during her probation. If she relapses during those 23 years, she faces up to five years in prison.

Tucci pleaded guilty Jan. 8 to two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and one count of criminal vehicular operation causing substantial bodily harm in connection with the accident on Aug. 19.

Tucci had a blood-alcohol level of 0.12 percent.

"Yes, it's my fault because I was the driver," Tucci wrote in a message on the social networking Web site MySpace.com. But she also said her dead friends "knew what they were getting into.�

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A homeless man who admitted molesting a 12-year-old autistic boy on a St. Paul park bench was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison.

Charles J. Sathers, 59, admitted that he engaged in oral sex with the boy in Nov., at Kellogg Park.

Several passersby saw the incident, and one of them called police. Witnesses who reported the assault told police they couldn't believe their eyes.

The boy, who was spending time in the park while his father worked, told the police that Sathers made him do it.

"The courts made the right decision," the father, who asked not to be named to protect the identity of his son, said. "I left it up to the criminal justice system."

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eight Afghan civilians were killed and 25 others wounded Sunday in Kabul, Afghanistan, when suspected Taliban gunmen attacked a convoy of the U.S.-led military coalition, the U.S. military said.

According to the coalition, the attack was a "complex ambush" with the convoy coming under small-arms fire from several directions after the initial bombing in Nangarhar province, near Jalalabad.

The civilian death toll was revised down from 16, the Combined Joint Task Force 76 said, according to the Defense Department Web site.

"We regret the death of innocent Afghan citizens as a result of the Taliban extremists' cowardly act," said Lt. Col. David Accetta.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 6:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The top two Democratic presidential contenders fought Sunday for the support of African-American voters in Selma, Alabama.

Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke at churches on the 42nd anniversary of the 1965 Selma voting rights march.

Obama won a standing ovation as he paid homage to the "giants" who led the civil rights movement and called for a younger generation to carry on the cause.

Clinton earned a similarly enthusiastic reception at the First Baptist Church nearby.

After their speeches, Obama and Clinton greeted each other at a rally re-enacting part of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

Posted by Ryan Zickermann at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)