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  IMAGE SOURCE, SONY PICTURES The latest instalment of the Spider-Man franchise has become the first pandemic-era movie to make more than $1bn (£750m) at the global box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home also took the title of highest-grossing film of 2021. It beat out Chinese-made Korean War epic The Battle of Lake Changjin, which has grossed more than $905m worldwide. The last movie to gross more than $1bn was 2019's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, according to media data analytics firm Comscore. No other Hollywood production has come near to reaching that box office milestone since the pandemic began two years ago. Over the weekend, global box office takings for the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film reached $1.05bn. The co-production between Sony and Disney hit its milestone less than two weeks after its premier even as the Omicron variant of Covid-19 has spread rapidly around the world, raising fresh concerns about indoor events. The film has not been released in China, whic...

  ISLAMABAD -- Militants targeted an army post in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border, killing a soldier in a firefight overnight, Pakistan's military said. The attack took place in the Shewa area of the district of North Waziristan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the army said in a statement Saturday. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The military said that during an intense exchange of gunfire a soldier was killed. It said a search of the area was being carried out to find the militants. No additional details were released. North Waziristan served as a militant stronghold for decades. The military carried out a full-fledged offensive in the region after an army run school was attacked in December 2014 in the provincial capital of Peshawar. The attack killed more than 150 people, mostly schoolchildren.