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The Hit List: Are Cheaper Movie Tickets Coming to a Theater Near You?

In today’s reads: the scramble to win back moviegoers, a rare discovery in one man’s cluttered garage and how to open a wine bottle with your shoe.
Image: A person holds movie tickets inside the box office
A person holds movie tickets inside the box office.Danny Moloshok / Invision / AP file

1. Movie Theater Owners Move to Cut Ticket Price

Will your local movie theater soon slash the price of your big screen ticket? Between admission, popcorn, Twizzlers and Mountain Dew, an average trip to the movies can cost a family of four upward of $100. Given that price tag, it’s not surprising America’s movie audience shrank in 2013. Now, theater owners are toying with the idea of slashing prices one day a week to lure more patrons. The downside? Only one state will be picked to test the change and we don’t know what day of the week yet (no Mondays, please!) Oh well, until the change goes into effect next year, we’ll have to keep company with Orville Redenbacher and Netflix.

2. Save the Elephants!

In an effort to combat elephant poaching, Kenya is turning to high-tech drones to help catch and prosecute poachers. Elephants have been ruthlessly hunted and killed across Africa because of their highly lucrative ivory tusks and a growing demand for ivory in the Far East. While the act of killing an elephant and selling ivory is illegal, it has proven difficult to protect wildlife that roam freely in Kenya’s massive Tsavo National Park. Last year the country lost 302 elephants due to poaching… let’s hope the drones knock that number down to zero.

3. Secret Service Behaving Badly

How is it that certain members of one of the most highly trained and trusted groups of individuals cannot stay out of trouble -- especially when traveling on a presidential trip? We are now learning three of President Obama’s Secret Service members were sent home on Sunday after spending a night drinking in Amsterdam. One of the agents was reportedly found unconscious in the hotel hallway, just hours before Obama was due to arrive. The three agents have been sent home and are now on leave pending an investigation.

4. Oprah Winfrey Comes to a City Near You

Some will be first in line, some will shrug it off, and some may do a little of both. Regardless, brace yourselves, because the Oprah Winfrey experience may be coming your way. The media mogul is hitting the road on an eight-city “The Life You Want” tour – a two-day weekend event featuring a keynote from Winfrey on Fridays and group activities with guest speakers such as “Eat Pray Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert on Saturdays. Tickets start at $99 and go up to $999 for VIP packages. Who knows, maybe everyone in the 18,000-seat arenas will get a car...

5.Ukraine’s “Don’t Give It to a Russian” Sex-Strike

There’s a new round of sanctions in the Ukraine-Crimea-Russia affair, but this time it’s not coming from Putin or Obama. A new campaign launched by activists is asking Ukrainian women to just say no … to Russian men. Their slogan, “Don’t give it to a Russian,” is stamped on T-shirts now for sale on the group’s Facebook page. The founders of the group want to make it clear that they’re not making a joke out of the very serious political issues at hand. Instead, the women are using celibacy, the oldest trick in the book, after diplomacy and protests failed to stop President Putin from annexing Crimea. “Russian women, care to join us,” the group wrote in one Facebook post. “Our men are still at home, but yours appear to be going to war.” How do you say “zinger” in Russian?

6. Extremely Rare Mustang Found Among Clutter In Man’s Garage

You always hear about the junk people keep in their garages, but occasionally if you cut through the clutter and cobwebs, a true treasure will emerge. Take, for instance, Larry Brown of Pennsylvania. When he died, a rare 1969 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 428 Cobra Jet was discovered caked in dust in his garage. The car has all its original parts, hasn’t been driven since the 1970s, and is expected to easily fetch six figures at auction. A nice jump in value from its 1969 purchase price of $5,245.

7. Open a Bottle of Wine … With Your Shoe

Have you ever forgotten a corkscrew and been unable to enjoy a bottle of wine? Well the next time you neglect to pack one for a picnic, the good people at Mirabeau Wine have a solution worth remembering. As long as you have a shoe on hand, and a wall to bang your bottle against, you’re in luck. Stick the base of the bottle in a shoe, pound the sole of the shoe against the nearest wall, and voilà! The science of ‘force’ causes the cork to pop out. You’ll be enjoying your glass of red in no time.