Yet again, Real Madrid has made it past the group stage of the Champions League. For the 25th straight time, the Spanish powerhouse will be playing in the competition’s knockout rounds. Madrid comfortably defeated Sheriff 3-0 on Wednesday to secure its place in the round of 16 with one game to spare in Group D. A draw at home against Inter Milan in the last round will guarantee first place for Carlo Ancelotti’s team. Read:Man City vs PSG: Champions League match preview, team news, prediction “We continue along the right path. I like the way we are playing,” Ancelotti said. “The squad is in good shape, everyone is strong physically. It’s important for us to finish top and we’ll be looking to end our group campaign the way we began it.” David Alaba, Toni Kroos and Karim Benzema scored to help the Spanish team advance. The result eliminated Sheriff, the Moldovan league club that is debuting in the group stage. Sheriff had stunned Madrid with a win in the Spanish capital in their first game. It was the fifth consecutive win in all competitions for Madrid, which reached 12 points from five matches, two points more than second-place Inter, which has also advanced. Inter beat last-place Shakhtar 2-0 at home earlier Wednesday. Sheriff stayed on six points but is assured a top-three finish. Sheriff could have advanced with a win against Madrid if Inter lost to Shakhtar. It started its first group-stage campaign with consecutive wins before losing two straight to Inter. Sheriff entered the match against Madrid having won 12 of its last 13 home games in all competitions, with 10 clean sheets. It had scored in 11 of its last 12 European matches this season. Read:Champions League: Carrick thrust into limelight at Man U Madrid, a record 13-time European champion, has reached the knockout stage every time since the 1997-98 season. It failed to qualify for the competition in 1996-97, but it also qualified to the knockout rounds in the previous year. It is the 19th consecutive time Madrid made it to the last 16, since that round was introduced in 2003-04. Madrid, coming off consecutive wins over Shakhtar, dominated from the start against Sheriff, controlling possession and creating the most significant scoring chances. Alaba put Madrid ahead with a free kick that deflected off a defender before going into the net in the 30th minute. Kroos added to the lead in first-half stoppage time with a shot from outside the area that hit the crossbar and bounced just over the goal line. Benzema, who had a goal disallowed for offside in the 10th, scored the third with a strike in the 55th.

Actor Alec Baldwin fired a prop gun on the set of a Western and killed the cinematographer, officials said. The director of the movie was wounded, and authorities are investigating what happened. Halyna Hutchins, cinematographer on “Rust,” and director Joel Souza were shot Thursday in the desert on the southern outskirts of Santa Fe. A spokesperson for Baldwin said there was an accident involving the misfire of a prop gun with blanks. Santa Fe County Sheriff's spokesman Juan Rios said detectives were investigating what type of projectile was discharged and how. No immediate charges were filed. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported Baldwin of was seen Thursday outside the sheriff’s office in tears, but attempts to get comment from him were unsuccessful. The 63-year-old actor is known for his roles in “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October” as well as his impression of former President Donald Trump on “Saturday Night Live.” Prop guns fire blanks, gunpowder charges that produce a flash and a bang but not a hard projectile. But when the trigger is pulled, the paper or plastic wadding is ejected from the barrel with enough force that it can be lethal at close range, as proved to be the case in the death of an actor in 1984. In another on-set accident in 1993, the actor Brandon Lee was killed after a bullet was left in a prop gun. Read:India's anti-narcotics police raid Shah Rukh Khan's house Hutchins, 42, was airlifted to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Souza, 48, was taken by ambulance to a medical center. “The details are unclear at this moment, but we are working to learn more, and we support a full investigation into this tragic event,” International Cinematographers Guild president John Lindley and executive director Rebecca Rhine said in a statement. Sheriff’s deputies responded about 2 p.m. to the movie set at the Bonanza Creek Ranch after 911 calls described a person being shot there, said Rios, the sheriff’s spokesman. The ranch has been used in dozens of films, including the recent Tom Hanks Western “News of the World.” “This investigation remains open and active,” Rios said in a statement. “No charges have been filed in regard to this incident. Witnesses continue to be interviewed by detectives.” Hutchins, a 2015 graduate of the American Film Institute, worked as director of photography on the 2020 action film “Archenemy,” starring Joe Manganiello. She was named a “rising star” by American Cinematographer in 2019. “I’m so sad about losing Halyna. And so infuriated that this could happen on a set,” said “Archenemy” director Adam Egypt Mortimer on Twitter. “She was a brilliant talent who was absolutely committed to art and to film.” Manganiello called Hutchins “an incredible talent” and “a great person” on his Instagram account. He said he was lucky to have worked with her. Hutchins had Ukrainian citizenship, according to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko. The country's consulate in San Francisco is clarifying what happened and is working together with law enforcement offici Baldwin teamed up as a producer previously with Souza on the 2019 film, “Crown Vic,” which starred Thomas Jane as a veteran Los Angeles police officer on a manhunt for two violent bank robbers. Souza's first credited film, 2010’s “Hanna’s Gold,” was a treasure hunt adventure featuring Luke Perry. Read:Russian filmmakers land after shoot aboard space station Production was halted on “Rust.” The movie is about a 13-year-old boy who is left to fend for himself and his younger brother following the death of their parents in 1880s' Kansas, according to the Internet Movie Database website. The teen goes on the run with his long-estranged grandfather (played by Baldwin) after the boy is sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher. In 1993, Brandon Lee, son of martial arts star Bruce Lee, died after being hit by a .44-caliber slug while filming a death scene for the movie “The Crow.” The gun was supposed to have fired a blank, but an autopsy turned up a bullet lodged near his spine.  A Twitter account run by Lee's sister Shannon said: “Our hearts go out to the family of Halyna Hutchins and to Joel Souza and all involved in the incident on ‘Rust.’ No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.” In 1984, actor Jon-Erik Hexum died after shooting himself in the head with a prop gun blank while pretending to play Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum on the set of the television series “Cover Up.”

The start to life in the Champions League couldn't be going much better for Moldovan club Sheriff. Sébastien Thill scored a 90th-minute winner as the newcomers stunned Real Madrid 2-1 at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on Tuesday. Thill netted with a powerful shot into the top corner from the edge of the area to give Sheriff its second consecutive victory. It leads Group D with six points, three more than Madrid and five more than both Shakhtar Donetsk and Inter Milan, which drew 0-0 in Ukraine in the other group match. Sheriff beat Shakhtar Donetsk 2-0 in its opener at home, while Madrid won 1-0 at Inter. Read:Messi scores superb 1st goal for PSG in 2-0 win against City “For us this is a dream come true to have won here," Sheriff captain Frank Castañeda said. "We’re so happy, and just enjoying it. We have full faith in what we’ve been doing and things are going well for us. We didn’t just come here to sit around, we know how good our players are and luckily for us Madrid weren’t able to take their chances and we took ours.” Sheriff is the first club from the Moldovan league to qualify for the group stage of the Champions League, although it is based in the breakaway region of Transnistria, a self-proclaimed independent nation which isn’t recognized by any United Nations member state. The club founded just over two decades ago is funded by the Sheriff company, which runs large parts of the economy in Transnistria and has strong political ties. “We were unlucky,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said. “Everything went their way and nothing went our way. More than concerned, we are sad. We lost because of details." The visitors had rarely threatened until opening the scoring after a breakaway in the 25th, with Jasurbek Yakhshiboev finding the far corner with a firm header past Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. A mistake by Courtois a few minutes later while trying to move the ball up the field nearly gave Sheriff another goal, with Yakhshiboev’s shot missing just wide of the post. Read:PSG vs. Man City: Preview and Prediction Benzema, Vinícius Júnior, and Eden Hazard all had scoring chances as Madrid kept pressuring, but failed to capitalize on them while Sheriff threatened on counterattacks. Sheriff goalkeeper Giorgos Athanasiadis was named the player of the match for helping stop a Madrid attack that had more than 30 attempts. "This is soccer,” Madrid midfielder Casemiro said. “We were in control during the entire match and had many scoring chances. They had only two and scored twice.” Benzema equalized from the penalty spot in the 65th after a controversial foul on Vinícius Júnior as he tried to get past a defender inside the area. The referee initially let play continue but awarded the penalty after checking the video review. Less than 10 minutes later, Sheriff had a potential winner by substitute Bruno called back for offside, but Thill still secured the victory near the end with a booming first-timer that hit the upper corner of the net. “We played a really good game,” said Thill, who became the first player from Luxembourg to score a goal in the Champions League. "The side were so brave with how we played and luckily enough I was able to score a bit of a stunner.” Sheriff players celebrated loudly after the final whistle as many Madrid fans jeered their team after its second consecutive setback at the Bernabéu. Read:Arsenal vs. Tottenham 2021: Match Preview and Prediction Madrid had won five in a row in all competitions before being held by Villarreal to a scoreless home draw in the Spanish league last weekend. The Spanish powerhouse has won only five of its last 13 European games at home. Madrid is back at the Bernabéu this season after playing at the smaller Alfredo Di Stéfano Stadium in its training center during the pandemic. Ancelotti made four changes at once after the equalizer, with Luka Modric and Toni Kroos among those coming off the bench. Madrid next visits Shakhtar Donetsk, while Sheriff plays at Inter Milan.

Authorities in the San Francisco Bay Area are calling a shooting that left five dead during a Halloween party at an Airbnb rental a “bloodbath,” where several partygoers were armed and some showed up looking for trouble.