DETROIT (Reuters) – The United Auto Workers' tentative contract with Ford Motor Co looked assured of ratification on Sunday night after receiving overwhelming support at two major union locals, UAW officials said.

An astounding 90 percent vote in favor of the new pact at the Kansas City Assembly Plant in Missouri plant on Sunday night pushed the overall vote in favor of the new deal to 62 percent.

With more than two-thirds of the votes cast, "yes" votes on the new contract total 14,845 with 9,076 against ratification, according to a union online posting.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A young killer whale that wandered far up an Alaska river with two adult companions has been found dead near the river's mouth, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Sunday.

Discovery of the dead juvenile means that all three of the whales discovered swimming in fresh water in southwestern Alaska's Nushagak River have died.

The young whale had been swimming with two adult females as many as 30 miles into the Nushagak River, according to NOAA. The whales spent at least three weeks in the river and all had a filmy coating on their skin, a sign of stress from being outside their saltwater habitat, NOAA said.

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ALBANY, New York (Reuters) – New York State's second largest union, the Public Employees Federation (PEF), on Sunday ratified a tentative contract with the state in a bid to avert the layoffs of thousands of workers.

Governor Andrew Cuomo called on the union's Executive Board to approve the four-year contract at a meeting in Albany on Monday and set up a revote for its more than 55,000 members.

"We hope that the leadership as a whole moves for a revote and the membership is governed by the needs of the collective and ratify the contract," Cuomo said in a statement.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – When Diane McEachern ventured out onto the foggy western Alaska tundra a week ago to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, she had no idea her tiny demonstration would go viral.

McEachern, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska campus in Bethel, snapped a portrait of herself, accompanied by her three dogs, holding a hand-printed cardboard sign that read: "Occupy the Tundra."

She was kneeling on the frost-covered ground and dressed in proper Alaska gear for the season, including a borrowed musk-ox wool scarf to ward off the chill.

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LOS ANGELES – Some “Footloose” teenagers will make their moves on the boxing robots of “Real Steel” this weekend. Yet Paramount’s updated version of the 1984 mega-hit will have to really shake it to beat “Steel’s” expected second-weekend take of $ 17 million.

The original “Footloose,” starring Kevin Bacon as a renegade teen who wants to bring his dance skills to a small town, was the seventh highest grossing film released that year. The new version updates the stars and the music, but the story of local values vs. personal expression is basically the same.

Weekend audiences will be horrified by yet more images of the `80s as Universal’s reimagining of “The Thing” creeps into theaters with a likely debut in the low-teens. The original 1951 version about a group of scientists who are stalked by an angry alien while trapped in Antarctica was updated in 1982 by revered horror director John Carpenter.

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