Category: BUSINESS

“Yellowstone” chronicles the Dutton family, owners of the largest ranch in the U.S., led by John Dutton, played by Kevin Costner before his departure before Season 5’s Part 2. The series, which has become one of the most popular shows on TV in recent years, follows the family as they battle to maintain the land, “amid shifting alliances, unsolved murders, open wounds and hard-earned respect,” according to Paramount.

The second half of Season 5 consists of six episodes that follow the Dutton family as they face “new challenges in the aftermath of a tragedy that rocks them to their foundations and creates a dangerous power vacuum in the state of Montana,” according to NBC.

If you’ve been planning to binge Season 5 Part 2 of “Yellowstone,” here’s what to know.

The dapper British actor has been ubiquitous in recent years, with dynamic turns opposite Florence Pugh (“The Wonder”) and Anya Taylor-Joy (“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga”), and plum roles in TNT’s “The Lazarus Project” and HBO’s “C.B. Strike: The Ink Black Heart.” But it’s his scene-stealing work in erotic thriller “Black Bag” (in theaters now) that could book him on the fast train to stardom, playing an MI6 lothario named Freddie Smalls who gets entangled in a game of deception with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett’s married spies.

“Freddie seemed very spicy and that’s always interesting,” Burke says on an early morning call from the U.K., where he’s performing onstage with Blanchett in Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull.” The bewhiskered London native says he’s never had an experience quite like these last few weeks, juggling interviews during the day and shows at night.

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“It’s quite a heavy year, but luckily, I’m having a great time,” Burke says. To relax each morning before the chaos ensues, “I tend to do Wordle, but then someone told me that you shouldn’t look at your phone for an hour after you wake up. So now I’m just waiting to do Wordle.”

In Quaid’s new action movie “Novocaine,” his character Nate Caine is a guy who, because of a rare genetic condition, cannot feel pain. At a bar on a first date, he runs into an old bully who reveals to his crush Sherry (Amber Midthunder) that Nate was called “Novocaine” in eighth grade.

Sherry think it’s pretty cool. In reality, Quaid, the son of Hollywood icons Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, “wasn’t too proud” of his actual eighth-grade nickname.

“All the middle-school boys called me ‘Jackoff,’ just to get under my skin,” he says. And unlike “Novocaine,” it’s “definitely not a good superhero name.” (Quaid recently shared a picture of himself from those days on his Instagram.)

The Duttons are all over the place, and not just physically, in Season 2 of “Yellowstone” prequel “1923”.

The harsh weather along with external and internal threats present new challenges for the ancestors of the Duttons from “Yellowstone,” Cara and Jacob Dutton (Helen Mirren and Harrison Ford). While Cara managed to ward off a deadly intruder, it wasn’t without incident with one dead and Elizabeth Dutton (Michelle Randolph) getting painful preventive injections for rabies due to the rabid wolf encounter. Jacob manages to return from Bozeman safely despite a blizzard, but with an injured Zane (Brian Geraghty), who needs a surgery to remove excessive liquid buildup in his skull.

On the other hand, Spencer Dutton (Brandon Sklenar) is still on the road in Texas and has not yet arrived back at the ranch. His wife Alexandra (Julia Schlaepfer), meanwhile, has arrived in America and after harrowing experience with immigration at Ellis Island, she appears to be on her way to Billings from New York. Whether she makes it safely remains to be seen.

Constructor: Prasanna Keshava

Editor: Anna Gundlach

What I Learned from Today’s Puzzle

• SURF (32A: Drop in and ride the barrel, at the beach) I know what surfing is … and that’s the extent of my knowledge about this water sport (other than things I’ve previously learned from crossword puzzles). I was grateful for the “at the beach” hint, which helped me deduce that “drop in” and “ride the barrel” are SURF lingo. To “drop in” means to catch a wave that another surfer is already riding. As you might imagine, basic SURF etiquette says not to do this, as you could ruin the person’s wave. The “barrel” refers to the inside tube or curl of the wave. To “ride the barrel” is to SURF inside this wave curl. I’m sure I haven’t done the best job of explaining this, so I recommend watching the linked video if you want to know more.
• WIFE (30D: Jessica Betts, to Niecy Nash) Actress Niecy Nash and singer Jessica Betts married in August of 2020.

In Hackman’s will — obtained by USA TODAY from his probate case in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Friday — the Oscar-winning actor named Arakawa (referred to in the document as Betsy Arakawa Hackman) as the personal representative of his estate and the recipient of his “entire estate” in her role as the successor trustee of the Gene Hackman Living Trust.

Arakawa’s will details that her estate would go to the trustee for Hackman’s trust, should her husband outlive her.

Both estates will now go into a trust. Without trust documents, it is unclear how Hackman’s assets will be divided and among whom.

The dog, Zinfandel (nicknamed Zinna), likely died from dehydration and starvation, according to a necropsy report obtained by the Associated Press and ABC News on Friday. The AP cites the New Mexico Department of Agriculture’s Veterinary Diagnostic Services as the source of the report, while ABC News sourced the report from Santa Fe Animal Control.

USA TODAY has reached out to the Department of Agriculture and Santa Fe Animal Control for more information.

The 12-year-old Australian Kelpie mix’s stomach was mostly empty, with the exception of “small amounts of hair and bile,” the news outlets reported. The report also said there was no evidence of infectious disease, trauma or poisoning, per the AP and ABC News.