Author: Ohart

The Rolling Stones gave their fans some satisfaction on Thursday by releasing a new track “Living in a Ghost Town,” part-recorded during the coronavirus lockdown.   The song, powered by a Keith Richards’ riff and a chanted refrain, comes with a video showing deserted streets and subway stations in London, Los Angeles, Kyoto and other cities.   “So the Stones were in the studio recording some new material before the lockdown and there was one song we thought would resonate through the times that we’re living in right now,” Mick Jagger said in a statement.   “We’ve worked on it in isolation. And here it is … I hope you like it.”   The band said it started recording the track in Los Angeles in 2019. Then, as pandemic restrictions started rolling out across the world, they adjusted some of the lyrics and added other finishing touches to the mix.   In the video, Jagger is seen singing one tweaked line in a plush, wood-paneled room: “Life was so beautiful then we all got locked down. Feel like a ghost, living in a ghost town.”   Keith Richards said the track had been meant for a new album, “then shit hit the fan … Mick and I decided this one really needed to go to work right now.”   The release comes less than a week after the band’s four members performed “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” from their living rooms via a video conference call — part of the global “One World: Together At Home” broadcast brought together by pop icon Lady Gaga.   A string of stars have been heading online to keep their fans entertained during the lockdown.   Bob Dylan has released two tracks in the past month — his first new original material in eight years — including one near 17-minute reflection on the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy titled “Murder Most Foul.”   “Living in a Ghost Town” is released on streaming and download services only. 
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From Sir Barton in 1919 to Justify in 2018 there have been just 13 winners of North America’s Triple Crown, which is made up of the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
 
And all 13 will take to the gate at Churchill Downs on May 2 in a computer-simulated ‘Run for the Roses’ to decide which was the greatest thoroughbred race horse.
 
Horse racing is going online as the coronavirus crisis forces the cancellation or postponement of meetings, including this month’s Grand National in Britain, which was also turned into a virtual race instead.
 
The Grand National organizers also ran a Race of Champions featuring 40 of the best Aintree winners over the years, which was won by Red Rum.
 
“The anticipation of which Triple Crown winner will emerge as the ultimate champion is thrilling,” Bill Carstanjen, CEO of Churchill Downs Incorporated, said on Thursday.
 
The race, which will be carried on NBC, will be the highlight of a virtual Kentucky Derby with Churchill Downs hoping to raise $2 million for COVID-19 emergency relief.
 
“We are proud to use this platform as a force for good by raising money for these worthy COVID-19 emergency initiatives,” Carstanjen said.
 
Data algorithms, including historical handicapping information about each of the 13 horses, will help to determine the probability of their potential finishing positions.
 
With the Kentucky Derby forced from its traditional first Saturday in May by the coronavirus outbreak, the first jewel of horse racing’s real Triple Crown was postponed until Sept. 5.
 
But there will still be action at a virtual Churchill Downs, with horses like Secretariat and War Admiral going head-to-head.
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Police in the Netherlands have released security camera video showing a thief who stole a prized Vincent van Gogh painting from a Dutch museum late last month.The video of the March 30 theft shows how the perpetrator used a sledgehammer to smash his way through reinforced glass doors at the Singer Laren Museum in Laren, Netherlands, east of Amsterdam.Police hope that publicizing the images will help them track down the thief who stole “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884” while the museum was shut down due to coronavirus containment measures.Police have made no arrests in connection with the theft of the painting, which was on loan from the Groninger Museum when it was stolen, and it remains missing.The 25-by-57-centimeter oil-on-paper painting shows a person standing in a garden surrounded by trees with a church tower in the background.It dates to a time when Van Gogh had moved back to his family in a rural area of the Netherlands and painted the life he saw there, including his famous work “The Potato Eaters”, in mostly somber tones.The exact value of the missing painting is uncertain, but recent Van Gogh paintings have gone for tens of millions of dollars when sold at auction. 
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Shirley Knight, the Kansas-born actress who was nominated for two Oscars early in her career and went on to play an astonishing variety of roles in movies, TV and the stage, has died. She was 83. Knight passed away Wednesday at her daughter’s home in San Marcos, Texas, according to her daughter Kaitlin Hopkins.  Knight’s career carried her from Kansas to Hollywood and then to the New York theater and London and back to Hollywood. She was nominated for two Tonys, winning one. In recent years, she had a recurring role as Phyllis Van de Kamp (the mother-in-law of Marcia Cross’ character) in the long-running ABC show “Desperate Housewives,” gaining one of her many Emmy nominations. Knight’s her first Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress came in just her second screen role, as an Oklahoman in love with a Jewish man in the 1960 film version of William Inges’ play “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.”  FILE – Actresses Jane Fonda, center, Cloris Leachman, left, and Shirley Knight pose as they arrive at a film festival in Rome, Oct. 22, 2007.She was nominated for best supporting actress two years later for her role as the woman seduced and abandoned by Paul Newman in the 1962 film “Sweet Bird of Youth,” based on the Tennessee Williams play.  As success beckoned in 1960, she told columnist Hedda Hopper that she was struggling to keep on an even keel and keep bettering herself as an actress. “So many actors, once they became famous, lose some beautiful inner thing, something they should try hard to keep,” she said. “They begin to think too highly of themselves and success.” For a time, she lived in New York, where she studied with Lee Strasberg. She turned down an offer to play Ophelia to Richard Burton’s Hamlet, preferring to appear on Broadway in 1964 with Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley in Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters,” a play directed by Strasberg. Her beauty helped bring her roles in such films as “The Group” (1966), based on Mary McCarthy’s novel about the lives of a group of college girls, and “Dutchman” (1967), from Amiri Baraka’s explosive one-act play about a middle-class black man and a sexually provocative white woman. After playing a pregnant woman who runs off with a football player in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People,” released in 1969, she wearied of the Hollywood routine, terming the studio bosses “blockheads.” FILE – Tony winners, from left, Edward Herrmann, Carole Bishop, Shirley Knight and Sammy Williams, pose with their awards at the 30th Annual Tony Awards presentations at New York’s Shubert Theatre, April 18, 1976.Knight moved to England with her second husband, British playwright John Hopkins, with whom she had a daughter, Sophie. (Her first husband was producer Gene Persson, father of her older daughter, Kaitlin).  Over the next few years, she raised her daughters and did needlework. But “I decided that acting is what I do best,” she said. The family moved back to the U.S. and she returned to films in “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.” She also appeared in such films as “Endless Love” (as Brooke Shields’ mother), “As Good as It Gets” (as Helen Hunt’s mother) and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.” Tony, Emmy awardsMeanwhile, she thrived on stage and television. She won a Tony award in 1976 as best featured actress in a play for “Kennedy’s Children.” Knight played, in the words of The New York Times review, “a very tart tart with an ambition of gold.” She was nominated for another Tony in 1997 for best actress in Horton Foote’s “The Young Man From Atlanta.” As the Times put it, “the splendid Ms. Knight, who doesn’t waste a single fluttery gesture, brings an Ibsenesque weight to a woman frozen in the role of petulant, spoiled child bride.” Knight became active in television starting in the ’80s and was nominated for Emmys eight times from 1981 to 2006. She won a guest actress Emmy in 1988 for playing Mel Harris’ mother in “Thirtysomething,” and then won two Emmys in the same year, 1995: one for a supporting actress role in the TV drama “Indictment: The McMartin Trial,” and a second for a guest actress role as a murder victim in “NYPD Blue.”Early days She was born Shirley Enola Knight on July 5, 1936, in the Kansas countryside, 10 miles from the town of Lyons. Her family was musical and she learned to sing, tap dance and play instruments. She was the first in her family to enter college, winning a scholarship to a church college in Enid, Oklahoma, then moved to Wichita State University. She appeared in 32 plays in two years and did two seasons of summer stock. She aimed to become an opera singer, then switched to acting when she saw Julie Harris in a touring company of “The Lark.” She traveled west to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Warner Bros. signed her to a contract. 
 
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Many who shelter at home during the coronavirus pandemic feel isolated and distressed, especially those with mental health issues. According to a spokesman for the Disaster Distress Helpline, the federally funded hotline has seen 891% more calls this spring than last. Psychologists recommend a variety of coping mechanisms, such as exercising, drawing or gardening, for those who feel cooped up, fearful about the future and about the well-being of loved ones. VOA’s Penelope Poulou follows one such person, who finds solace in baking. 
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All it took was a few sturdy swings with a sledgehammer and a prized painting by Vincent van Gogh was gone.A Dutch crime-busting television show has aired security camera footage showing how an art thief smashed his way through reinforced glass doors at a museum in the early hours of March 30. He later hurried out through the museum gift shop with a Vincent van Gogh painting tucked under his right arm and the sledgehammer in his left hand.Police hope that publicizing the images will help them track down the thief who stole Van Gogh’s “The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884″ from the Singer Laren Museum while it was shut down due to coronavirus containment measures.Nobody has been arrested in the theft and the painting, which was on loan from another Dutch museum when it was stolen, is still missing.Police withheld other footage from inside the museum in Laren, a town east of Amsterdam, to protect their investigation. They also did not air video from outside the museum of the thief leaving.More than 40 new tips streamed in from the public as a result of the show, police spokesman Joost Lanshage said Wednesday, adding that it’s not clear if the thief acted alone. Police are also seeking information about a white van shown on footage driving past the museum.  The 25-by-57-centimeter (10-by-22-inch) oil-on-paper painting shows a person standing in a garden surrounded by trees with a church tower in the background.”It looks like they very deliberately targeted this one Van Gogh painting,” another police spokeswoman, Maren Wonder, told the Opsporing Verzocht show in the Tuesday night broadcast.  The artwork dates to a time when the artist had moved back to his family in a rural area of the Netherlands and painted the life he saw there, including his famous work “The Potato Eaters,” in mostly somber tones.Wonder said investigators want to hear from any potential witnesses who saw the thief arrive outside the museum on a motorcycle. She also wants museum visitors to share with police any photos or video they took in the museum in the days before it closed down, to see if anyone was casing the museum before the theft.”People can help if they now realize that another visitor was behaving suspiciously,” she said. “It would be very helpful if visitors to the museum have photos or video recordings with other people in them.” 
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Quarantine and lockdowns in many U.S. states has moved life online including the search for love and companionship. For now, that will ha to be virtual… using dating apps. Karina Bafradzhian investigated dating during a pandemic.  
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Italian restaurateur Sirio Maccioni, who opened the celebrated French restaurant Le Cirque and watched it grow into arguably Manhattan’s favorite dining room of the rich and famous, has died in Italy. He was 88.Maccioni’s son, Mauro, told The Associated Press that his father died in the family’s villa in Tuscany early Monday. He had suffered from the effects of a stroke and Alzheimer’s disease, the son said. Le Cirque was famed for its decadent Grand Marnier souffles and terrines of rabbit rillette. The starry guest list included Frank Sinatra, Henry Kissinger, Princess Grace, Bill Blass, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, Diana Ross and Nancy and Ronald Reagan. Le Cirque opened in 1974 at the Mayfair Hotel. “We weren’t really prepared, but the rest is history. We were the first ‘place to be seen’ that also had good food,” Maccioni told The AP in 2000. The restaurant moved and reopened as Le Cirque 2000 in 1997 in the New York Palace Hotel. In 2006, Le Cirque moved again and opened on East 58th Street. In 2017, the restaurant filed for bankruptcy. Le Cirque has branches in Las Vegas, Dubai and India. The restaurant received a four-star review from the New York Times in 1987, which was renewed in 1997. The Times gave it two stars in 2006 and three stars in 2008. The newspaper downgraded the restaurant to a single star in 2012.  Mayor Rudolph Giuliani once recognized it as being one of the city’s most glamorous and hospitable restaurants. The James Beard Foundation gave Maccioni its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014. “I consider myself a working restaurateur, but I’m proud to be called elite,” Maccioni told The AP. “I encourage all my people to be elite; be an elite dishwasher. Being elite means being the best.” He and his restaurant helped launch the careers of many illustrious chefs, including Daniel Boulud, David Bouley, Terrance Brennan, Alain Sailhac, Rick Moonen and Jacques Torres. Maccioni, born and raised in Italy, was forced to go to work after his father was killed during World War II. He worked in hotels and restaurants in France, Switzerland and Germany before moving to the United States in 1956. “I didn’t do this out of inspiration or desperation. I realized very early that I couldn’t afford to be young,” he said. “I did completely give my life to this business. Is it worth it? Maybe not. But I had no choice, and I’ve never felt exploited.” He attended Hunter College during the day. At night, he worked at The Colony, one of New York’s trendiest restaurants, where Frank Sinatra, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, and Aristotle Onassis frequently dined. After a few years, he moved to a club at the Pierre Hotel before opening Le Cirque. He is survived by his wife, Egidiana, and their three sons, Mario, Marco and Mauro.  
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Michelle Obama launched a series of online video readings for kids with the classic picture book “The Gruffalo,” which the former first lady called the story of a mouse who uses his “wit and imagination” to get the best of a fox and other would-be predators.  “Mondays with Michelle Obama” is part of the PBS KIDS Read-Along series, and will continue through May 11. It can be seen at noon EDT on the Facebook and YouTube pages of PBS KIDS and the Facebook page of Obama’s publisher, Penguin Random House. The livestream of Obama reading “The Gruffalo” quickly received tens of thousands of likes on Facebook.Other celebrities who have given readings during the coronavirus pandemic include Jimmy Fallon, Jennifer Garner and Demi Lovato, who also read ‘The Gruffalo’ 
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Artist, adventurer and celebrated wildlife photographer Peter Beard was found dead in woods near his cliff-side home at the tip of Long Island nearly a month after his family reported him missing. He was 82. “He died where he lived: in nature,” his family said in a statement posted on Beard’s website  Sunday night. In recent years, the once-swashbuckling explorer had developed dementia and had at least one stroke, according to the New York Times. His family confirmed that a body found Sunday in Camp Hero State Park in Montauk was Beard’s. Beard’s cause of death was not immediately released by officials. A phone message was left with East Hampton Police. FILE – Peter Beard and his wife, Nejma, attend a benefit in Water Mill, New York, July 28, 2018.”Peter defined what it means to be open: open to new ideas, new encounters, new people, new ways of living and being,” his family said in its statement. “Always insatiably curious, he pursued his passions without restraints and perceived reality through a unique lens.” Beard was renowned for his photos of African wildlife, taken in the decades when he lived and worked at his tent camp in Kenya. His best-known work was “The End of the Game,” published in 1965. It documented the beauty and romance of Africa and the tragedy of its endangered wildlife, especially the elephant. He also photographed women in magazine fashion shoots and had well-documented romances with many of them, including Candice Bergen and Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, according to the New York Times. He was married for a time to model Cheryl Tiegs and was friends with Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Salvador Dali and the Rolling Stones. Beard was born into a wealthy family in Manhattan in 1938 and graduated in 1961 from Yale, where he studied with the artist Josef Albers and art historian Vincent Scully. After graduation, he traveled to Denmark and met and photographed Karen Blixen, who had written the memoir “Out of Africa” under the pen name Isak Dinesen. He later bought 45 acres abutting the African coffee farm where Blixen had lived. Beard is survived by his wife Nejma Beard, and daughter Zara. 
 
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A Japanese infectious disease expert says he does not think it is likely the Tokyo Olympic games will be held at its rescheduled date next year because of what he foresees as the lingering threat of the coronavirus.Speaking in an interview via teleconference Monday at the Foreign Correspondents club of Japan, Kobe University Infectious Diseases Professor Kentaro Iwata said because the Olympics involve bringing in athletes and spectators from all over the world, there is too much of a risk in restarting a COVID-19 outbreak.Iwata said holding the Olympics is a matter of both Japan getting the virus under control, and then the rest of the world doing the same. He said unless they totally alter the format, such as having no audience or limited participation, he was very pessimistic, even if a vaccine is developed by then.Japan’s organizing committee, along with the International Olympic Committee, moved the summer games to next year because of the Pandemic. The Associated Press reports the CEO of Japan’s organizing committee, Toshiro Muto had also expressed reservations about the games being held next year.The Olympics routinely draw about 11,000 athletes plus “Paralympians” as well as staff, coaches and trainers. Thousands of foreign visitors also attend. 
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Bob Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to his 1960s classic “The Times They Are A-Changin'” are going up for sale with a $2.2 million asking price in what could mark a world record for rock lyrics.Gary Zimet, owner of Los Angeles-based autograph dealers Moments in Time, said on Sunday the one-page sheet of lyrics, written in a notebook and with changes and scribbles, was originally owned by Dylan’s current manager, Jeff Rosen, and was now being sold by an anonymous private collector.”It’s not an auction. It’s a private sale. First come, first served,” Zimet told Reuters.Dylan’s handwritten lyrics to “Like a Rolling Stone” fetched a world-record $2 million when they were sold at auction by Sotheby’s in New York in 2014.”The Times They Are A-Changin’,” written by Dylan in 1963 and released on his 1964 album of the same name, is regarded as one of the most iconic protest songs of the 1960s.Zimet said he was also selling the lyrics of two other Dylan songs – his 1965 track “Subterranean Homesick Blues” for $1.2 million, and 1969 ballad “Lay Lady Lay” for $650,000.”They are not quite as important, as iconic,” said Zimet, explaining the lower prices. “‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ is certainly a major, major song but not in the same league as ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’.”The lyrics to popular songs, especially when handwritten and with scratched-out ideas or doodles, have become some of the most sought-after items for collectors of celebrity memorabilia.Don McLean’s 16-page draft for “American Pie” fetched $1.2 million in 2015, while Paul McCartney’s scribbled partial lyrics for a recording of “Hey Jude” sold for $910,000 at an online auction earlier this month.Dylan, 78, last month released his first original music in eight years with a 17-minute song called “Murder Most Foul” that was inspired by the 1963 assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. In 2016, Dylan became the only singer-songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. 
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Lady Gaga urged people weathering the coronavirus pandemic to find a way to smile through the pain, while Stevie Wonder encouraged viewers to lean on one another as the superstars kicked off Saturday’s all-star event aimed at fighting the coronavirus and celebrating health care workers on the front lines.The two-hour TV special “One World: Together At Home,” curated by Gaga, was the second part of an eight-hour event supporting the World Health Organization alongside advocacy organization Global Citizen.“I care so much about the medical workers that are putting their lives at risk for us,” said Gaga, who performed Nat King Cole’s version of the song “Smile.”Wonder performed “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers — who died on March 30 — while playing piano. He told viewers: “During hardships like this we have to lean on each other for help.”Paul McCartney sang the Beatles’ “Lady Madonna” and talked about the work his mother did as a nurse, while photos of health care workers were shown on the screen.“One World: Together At Home,” airing simultaneously on ABC, NBC, CBS, iHeartMedia and Bell Media networks, is being hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel. It featured stars appearing in intimate settings, beamed virtually to the world.Colbert told viewers to “take out their wallets and put them away.” Kimmel added that over $50 million had already been raised to help those during the worldly crisis.Earlier in the day, a six-hour streaming event featuring Andra Day, Niall Horan, Kesha, Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Heidi Klum and Jason Segel aired on digital platforms as part of the “One World: Together At Home” event.“It’s Kesha from quarantine day 500. I miss my fans so much,” Kesha said, sitting in front of her fireplace as her cat made noises in the background. “I know that there’s so many people working and not sleeping and sacrificing so much to help figure this out for everyone and I just think the vulnerability of us all as human beings right now is really showing a really beautiful side to humanity.”After thanking those working on the front lines, she said: “I’m going to do the main thing I know how to do, which is play some music and hopefully this will just brighten your day, maybe just a little bit. That’s my goal.”The event will also include performances and appearances by The Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Billie Eilish, Jennifer Lopez, David and Victoria Beckham, Alicia Keys, Ellen DeGeneres, Pharrell Williams, Eddie Vedder, Kerry Washington, Celine Dion, Lizzo, J Balvin and Andrea Bocelli.World renowned pianist Lang Lang, country singer Maren Morris, rock performer Hozier, British star Rita Ora and Emirati singer Hussain Al Jassmi also performed during the early part of the special, which included videos focused on health care workers on the front lines fighting the spreading coronavirus. It also aired a package of people getting married — some in front of their homes, others inside — during the pandemic. 
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Gene Shay, a folk DJ who spent a half-century on the Philadelphia airwaves and helped promote the careers of Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and countless others, has died of complications of the coronavirus.Shay, 85, who had been hospitalized in recent weeks, died Friday, according to WXPN-FM station manager Roger LaMay. His weekly “Folk Show” ran on various stations in the city from 1968-2015, the last 20 of them at WXPN.”He was a giant in terms of his impact on artists and the music. And to do it for close to 60 years is extraordinary,” LaMay said.Shay, being introduced into the Philadelphia Music Alliance Walk of Fame by David Bromberg in 2013, said he put unknown talent on the air in the hope they could find an audience and perhaps a record deal.”I play people who have a glint of something, some spark . . . (and) just let them play good music where other people can hear them,” Shay said. “That is one of the great joys of my life.”Shay also helped start the popular Philadelphia Folk Festival, where he long served as emcee, and the organization that runs it, the Philadelphia Folksong Society.Shay’s daughter, Rachel Vaughn, told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Saturday that Shay died at Lankenau Medical Center in Wynnewood.Shay, born Ivan Shaner, joined WRTI at Temple University in 1962 and later worked at many of the city’s top stations. He also worked a day job much of his life as an ad man, and according to the Music Alliance wrote the original radio commercials for Woodstock.He famously brought Dylan to town for a show at the Philadelphia Ethical Society in May 1963, before the release of Dylan’s second album. About 45 people turned out and Dylan made $150, Shay often recalled.Shay’s wife, Gloria Shaner, died in 2018. He lived in Lower Merion and is also survived by another daughter. His WXPN colleagues did not know if he had ever legally changed his name.”He was so generous in spirit,” LaMay said. “I loved the guy.”
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Esports, organized video gaming, is finding a new role in the COVID-19 pandemic, as people locked down at home try to keep up their competitive skills.  Mike O’Sullivan reports that students at two California colleges meet online weekly in virtual competitions, staying in training while staying at home.
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The organizers of the annual Santa Fe Indian Market have selected a new executive director, marking the first time in the history of the Southwestern Association of Indian Arts that a Native American woman will lead the organization.  The association announced the appointment of Kim Peone on Thursday. She was among four finalists chosen from more than 70 applicants.  “Peone’s 30 years of experience in Indian Country, astute business and financial background, as well as great managerial and leadership skills were a perfect fit for SWAIA’s needs going forward,” board chair Tom Teegarden said in a statement.A member of the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington, Peone lives in Santa Fe. She has served tribes and tribal entities in numerous professional capacities. Most recently, she was the chief executive and financial officer of a tribal corporation in Washington state.Described as the world’s biggest and most prestigious Indian art event, the Santa Fe Indian Market began in 1922. This year’s event was canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak.Board member and artist Traci Rabbit said it was a tough decision to call off this year’s market given the effects on artists and the $165 million impact that the event has on northern New Mexico’s economy.”We must move forward, and I am confident Kim’s background and abilities will successfully lead SWAIA into the future,” Rabbit said. “There are many challenges ahead for organizations like SWAIA, and the board is committed to ensure that its legacy and influence will not only withstand those challenges, but emerge stronger with lessons learned.”
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MANCHESTER/TENNESSEE — Two professors at Middle Tennessee State University are helping indigenous filmmakers in Brazil tell the story of their efforts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a news release from the school.The professors previously created a film with the indigenous Kayapó people about the descent of the Star Goddess and the origin of agriculture. Then Richard Pace, with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, helped write a grant request for National Geographic, according to the release. That resulted in about $70,000 in funding for Kayapó filmmaker Pat-i and his colleagues for a project called “Indigenous Filmmaker Warriors in Defense of Biocultural Conservation.” It will consist of two short films and a film series for social media that will document the struggles of the Kayapó to protect the rainforest, according to the release.Paul Chilsen, associate professor of video and film production at MTSU’s Department of Media Arts, is also involved in the project. He hopes to travel to Brazil this summer to conduct workshops in writing for film, operating cameras, designing sets and costumes, and acting. “They want to speak to an outside world in a language that the outside world understands,” Chilsen said in the news release. “The language of the screen is a global language.” 
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Brian Dennehy, the burly actor who started in films as a macho heavy and later in his career won plaudits for his stage work in plays by William Shakespeare, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill and Arthur Miller, has died. He was 81. Dennehy died Wednesday night of natural causes in New Haven, Connecticut, according to Kate Cafaro of ICM Partners, the actor’s representatives. Known for his broad frame, booming voice and ability to play good guys and bad guys with equal aplomb, Dennehy won two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe and was nominated for six Emmys. He was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010. Actor called ‘a colossus’Tributes came from Hollywood and Broadway, including from Lin-Manuel Miranda, who said he saw Dennehy twice onstage and called the actor “a colossus.” Actor Michael McKean said Dennehy was “brilliant and versatile, a powerhouse actor and a very nice man as well.” Dana Delany, who appeared in a movie with Dennehy, said: “They don’t make his kind anymore.” Among his 40-odd films, he played a sheriff who jailed Rambo in “First Blood,” a serial killer in “To Catch a Killer,” and a corrupt sheriff gunned down by Kevin Kline in “Silverado.” He also had some benign roles: the bartender who consoles Dudley Moore in “10” and the levelheaded leader of aliens in “Cocoon” and its sequel. Eventually Dennehy wearied of the studio life. “Movies used to be fun,” he observed in an interview. “They took care of you, first-class. Those days are gone.” Dennehy had a long connection with Chicago’s Goodman Theater, which had a reputation for heavy drama. He appeared in Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo” in 1986 and later Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” at far lower salaries than he earned in Hollywood. In 1990 he played the role of Hickey in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Iceman Cometh,” a play he reprised at the Goodman with Nathan Lane in 2012 and in Brooklyn in 2013. Played Willy LomanIn 1998, Dennehy appeared on Broadway in the classic role of Willy Loman, the worn-out hustler in Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” and won the Tony for his performance.  “What this actor goes for is close to an everyman quality, with a grand emotional expansiveness that matches his monumental physique,” wrote Ben Brantley in his review of the play for The New York Times. “Yet these emotions ring so unerringly true that Mr. Dennehy seems to kidnap you by force, trapping you inside Willy’s psyche.” He was awarded another Tony in 2003 for his role in O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night.” At the podium, after thanking his family, co-stars and producers and complementing his competitors, he said: “The words of Eugene O’Neill — they’ve got to be heard. They’ve got to be heard, and heard and heard. And thank you so much for giving us the chance to enunciate them.” Started acting at age 14Dennehy was born July 9, 1938, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the first of three sons. His venture into acting began when he was 14 in New York City and a student at a Brooklyn high school. He acted the title role in “Macbeth.” He played football on a scholarship at Columbia University, and he served five years in the U.S. Marines. Back in New York City in 1965, he pursued acting while working at side jobs. “I learned first-hand how a truck driver lives, what a bartender does, how a salesman thinks,” he told The New York Times in 1989. “I had to make a life inside those jobs, not just pretend.” His parents — Ed Dennehy, an editor for The Associated Press in New York, and Hannah Dennehy, a nurse — could never understand why his son chose to act. “Anyone raised in a first or second generation immigrant family knows that you are expected to advance the ball down the field,” Dennehy told Columbia College Today in 1999. “Acting didn’t qualify in any way.” First movie was ‘Semi-Tough’The 6-foot-3-inch Dennehy went to Hollywood for his first movie, “Semi-Tough” starring Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson. Dennehy was paid $10,000 a week for 10 week’s work, which he thought “looked like it was all the money in the world.” Among his films: “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” “Foul Play,” “Little Miss Marker,” “Split Image,” “Gorky Park,” “Legal Eagles,” “Miles from Home,” “Return to Snowy River,” “Presumed Innocent,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Assault on Precinct 13.” He played the father of Chris Farley’s titular character in the 1995 comedy “Tommy Boy.” He played serial murderer John Wayne Gacy in the 1991 TV movie “To Catch a Killer” and union leader Jackie Presser in the HBO special “Teamster Boss” a year later. “I try to play villains as if they’re good guys and good guys as if they’re villains,” he said in 1992 He worked deep into his 70s, in such projects as SundanceTV’s “Hap and Leonard,” the film “The Seagull” with Elisabeth Moss and Annette Bening and the play “Endgame” by Samuel Beckett at the Long Wharf Theatre. His last foray on Broadway was in “Love Letters” opposite Mia Farrow in 2014.He is survived by his second wife, costume designer Jennifer Arnott and their two children, Cormac and Sarah. He also is survived by three daughters — Elizabeth, Kathleen and Deirdre — from a previous marriage to Judith Scheff. 
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Cinematographer Allen Daviau, who shot three of Steven Spielberg’s films including “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” has died. A representative from the American Society of Cinematographers said Wednesday that Daviau died Tuesday at age 77.  A five-time Oscar nominee, Daviau was also behind the camera on “Empire of the Sun,” “Bugsy,” “The Color Purple,” “Avalon” and “Defending Your Life.” Daviau started his career alongside Spielberg. One of his earliest credits was on Spielberg’s short film “Amblin,” from 1968.  “He will be remembered fondly for his sense of humor, his taste for the best of foods and his laugh that unmistakably marked his presence from far away,” ASC president Kees van Oostrum wrote in an email to members Wednesday. 
 
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With the Tour de France pushed back to a late August start, race director Christian Prudhomme is hoping cycling’s showcase event can help bring back a sense of normality to a nation reeling from the coronavirus pandemic.Organizers on Wednesday announced new dates of Aug. 29-Sept. 20 for the race, a day after it was postponed. And Prudhomme is still optimistic that the three-week event will be able to feature its usual scenes of thousands of fans packed along the route each day.”Lots of people smiling, getting back to the lives we love,” Prudhomme told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “Usually we like to complain and moan about things. Then, when they’re gone we realize what we’re missing. The Tour de France will likely be the first big sporting event of 2020. So there will be fervor and enthusiasm.”Prudhomme said organizers opted against having the start in early August, saying it was wiser to push back “as far away as possible from the pandemic” in the hope that social distancing restrictions will have eased. While there is a big gaping hole in the global sporting calendar for the coming months, the schedule in France is suddenly looking very busy. The start of the Tour in Nice overlaps with the end of the European Athletics Championships, which are still set to be held in Paris from Aug. 25-30. The Tour then ends on Paris’ famed Champs-Élysées avenue on the same day the rescheduled French Open tennis tournament starts a few miles away at Roland Garros.”A magnificent Indian Summer,” Prudhomme said.A cooler one than Tour riders are used to, as well. The temperatures in September aren’t likely to be as hot as in July, meaning riders may have a bit more energy on those tough mountain climbs.  
“Of course that’s totally possible, because in mid-September there won’t be a heatwave up in the Alps,” Prudhomme said.The Tour was set to start on June 27, but those plans were scrapped on Tuesday because of coronavirus restrictions. The International Cycling Union announced the Tour’s new dates on Wednesday. It also said the Giro d’Italia and the Spanish Vuelta, cycling’s two other Grand Tours, will take place after the French race. “The Tour has never started later than July 13 since (it began) in 1903,” Prudhomme said.
British rider Geraint Thomas, the 2018 champion, said it’s crucial for cycling that its flagship event is able to take place.”A big reason why a lot of the teams are in the sport is because of the Tour, because of the coverage you get from it, it’s so big,” Thomas told the AP. “The fact that it’s got a good chance of going ahead is great news.”The UCI also announced that the dates for the world championships will still take place Sept. 20-27. That will be followed by the Giro, initially scheduled for May, and the Spanish Vuelta, which is also owned by ASO and had been set to run from Aug. 14-Sept. 6.No official new dates have been given for those two races.All the prestigious one-day road classics, including the Paris-Roubaix over the cobblestones, the Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Milan–San Remo, will go ahead but dates are yet to be decided.”I’m really happy to finally have a calendar,” said French cyclist Julian Alaphilippe, who led last year’s Tour for long spells before finishing fifth. “It’s a light at the end of the tunnel, which is something good for the morale in times like these … It gives you an extra boost to work harder in order to be fit for when the moment will come.”Prudhomme said riders will need two months to prepare for the Tour, including one or two races warm-up races. The postponed Criterium du Dauphiné could move to early August and be shortened from eight days to five or six, he said, with extra climbs to prepare riders for the Tour.
Racing without fans lining the roads and mountain passes of France is an option which has prompted debate, and will continue to do so while distancing requirements are still in place.”Of course we’ll respect the guidelines from the health minister,” Prudhomme said. “Logic states that there will be less people on the roads during that period, less tourists, less children on school holidays.”Postponing the initial Tour dates became inevitable when French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday that all public events with large crowds would be canceled until at least mid-July. He extended France’s lockdown to at least May 11.The race draws in hundreds of riders and team staff from around the world. Borders would have to be open so racers like last year’s winner — Colombian rider Egan Bernal — can take part.
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Renowned sculptor and painter Glenna Goodacre, who created the Vietnam Women’s Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C, has died at age 80.Family members say Goodacre died of natural causes Monday night at her Santa Fe home. Born in Lubbock, Texas, Goodacre was known mainly for her sculptures. Her work included the Irish Memorial in Philadelphia and the Sacagawea Dollar Coin. She is survived by her husband, two children and five grandchildren. Funeral plans weren’t immediately available.  
 
News of her death was posted to the Instagram  page of Harry Connick Jr., who is married to her daughter, Jill Connick.  
 
“I lost my mother, hero and best friend,” her daughter said in a statement. “My heart is completely broken. She was one of the most celebrated artists of all time, and yet she always said that her greatest pieces were her two children. I will miss her love, laughter and humor.”
 
She is survived by her husband, children and five grandchildren.
 
She was warm, caring, funny, positive and driven,” said her son, Tim.She loved to encourage and support our adventures in life, especially travel, career and of course, artistic ambition. I was fortunate to be her son.”  
 
Funeral plans weren’t immediately available.
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Germany is offering to help rebuild parts of Notre Dame in Paris, a year after the famous cathedral was heavily damaged by fire. Officials suggested Wednesday that German craftsmen could remake some of the large clerestory windows located far above eye level and designed to let light and air into the cathedral. The German government said three glass-makers that conduct restoration work for cathedrals in Germany could offer “great expertise” to their French colleagues. Germany’s minister for culture, Monika Gruetters, said her country would shoulder the costs.  
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U.S. movie theater operators, who were forced to shut their doors in March to help slow the coronavirus spread, are aiming to welcome back crowds across the country by late July for a belated kickoff to the summer movie season.
 
Ahead of that, operators are considering a transition period when they open some locations in parts of the United States where the novel coronavirus outbreak is receding fastest. That could start as early as mid-June, said Patrick Corcoran, spokesman for the National Association of Theatre Owners, though he called any timeline “very tentative.”
 
The timing will depend on guidance from health authorities, he said.
 
Among the challenges theaters face are making sure filmgoers feel comfortable gathering in groups and having a variety of appealing movies. Hollywood studios are unlikely to release big-budget films when they cannot mount a nationwide release. Blockbusters such as Walt Disney Co’s “Mulan” and “Wonder Woman 1984” from AT&T Inc’s Warner Bros are currently scheduled for late July and August.
 
“There are two schools of thought,” Corcoran said. “People will be very tense and careful and nervous, or people will just be desperate to get out of the house. It’s going to probably be a mixture.”
 
During their first weeks back in business, theaters likely will show classic movies or films that were playing in March when theaters went dark, Corcoran said.
 
That could mean reviving a beloved musical such as “Grease” or running a marathon of “Back to the Future” or “Harry Potter” movies, said Brock Bagby, executive vice president of Missouri-based B&B Theatres, which operates 400 screens in seven states.
 
Executives are brainstorming ways to draw audiences, such as staging a costume contest around a “Harry Potter” film or serving butterbeer, Potter’s favorite beverage, Bagby said. Not on the agenda are “sad or very heavy dramas,” he said.
 
“We want the movies we bring back to bring joy to people,” Bagby said.
 
Operators also are debating how visible to be with steps such as extra cleaning, “whether it makes people comfortable or more nervous,” Corcoran said. “There’s always a delicate dance with any kind of precaution like that.”
 
Theaters owners likely will look at restaurants and bars for clues on how people are reacting. Safety measures may vary at different cinema locations depending on local guidance, he added.
 
Bagby said B&B’s locations will implement social distancing if authorities recommend it. In the weekend before theaters closed, the company cut auditorium capacity by 50% to leave room between seats and had “zero issues,” he said. Customers adhered to the practice and some showtimes sold out at half-full, he said.
 
During the shutdown, theater chains and independent operators have been trying to tap government assistance or other financing to stay afloat. Cinemark Holdings Inc, for example, said on Monday it had raised $250 million through a sale of debt.
 
Getting a full slate of Hollywood movies back on the calendar depends not just on the United States. Studios will need receipts from around the globe to support their most expensive films, said Chris Aronson, president of film distribution at ViacomCBS Inc’s Paramount Pictures.
 
Paramount currently plans to release animated family film “Sponge Bob: Sponge on the Run” on July 31. The studio moved another summer flick, “Top Gun: Maverick,” to December.
 
In China, the world’s second-largest movie market, authorities re-opened theaters in March following an extended closure, but abruptly shut them two weeks later without explanation.
 
“If there is great uncertainty in major parts of the world,” Aronson said, “I think there are going to be issues opening major films.”
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Listeners are mourning the coronavirus death of legendary Jamaican radio broadcaster Gil Bailey.  Media outlets say he died of complications from the virus at age 84 on Monday in New York, where he was championed as the voice of Jamaican and Caribbean radio for five decades. Bailey’s Saturday radio program was a must listen in the metropolitan New York area, including New Jersey and Connecticut, which has a large Jamaican and Caribbean community.  Since last July, Bailey also hosted a YouTube program, where he showcased West Indian music of all forms, including calypso and gospel. Bailey was considered a pioneer among radio personalities, many of whom followed his format of using entertainment to inform the Caribbean community in greater New York.  Jamaica’s Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sports, Olivia Grange, expressed her condolences, saying she was a friend of Bailey’s and worked with him for years in promoting Jamaica. 
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British racing legend Stirling Moss, regarded as the greatest Formula One driver of all time who was never able to win a world championship, has died in London at 90.His wife said he had been suffering from an unspecified long illness and died after taking, in her words, “one lap too many.”  Moss was known by friends, fans, and fellow competitors as “Mr. Motor Racing”, winning more than 212 of the more than 500 races he entered, including 16 Formula One victories. But he always found a Formula One world championship elusive – usually finishing a close second or third.Moss’ parents were both competitive drivers and he joined them after World War II – earning a reputation as “a win at all costs” driver that almost cost him his life.He broke both legs and injured his spine in a 1960 crash, and barely escaped death two years later when driving without a seat belt, after he slammed into a hill during a Formula One race in Goodwood, England.Moss was partially paralyzed for six months and permanently damaged his eyesight and reflexes.The 1962 crash prompted him to retire from competition. “I knew that if I didn’t get out, I’d kill myself and maybe somebody else,” Moss said.  He became a successful businessman, dealing in real estate and working as a consultant to car companies.Queen Elizabeth knighted Moss in 2000. 
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Arne Wilhelmsen, a founder of Royal Caribbean Cruises who helped shape the modern cruise industry, has died. He was 90.The Miami-based company said in a statement that Wilhelmsen died Saturday in Palma, Spain. No cause of death was given.As a member of the company’s board for three decades, Wilhelmsen saw the potential for the cruise industry to become one of the fastest growing segments of the vacation industry. He helped shift the hub of the industry to warm weathered places like South Florida, instead of transportation centers like New York.He also believed in building bigger and more efficient ships. Royal Caribbean now has 61 ships, including some of the largest cruise liners in the world.”At a time when the rest of the world thought cruising was a niche use for old transatlantic liners, Arne was already seeing glimmers of the growth that was possible,” said Richard Fain, RCL’s chairman and CEO. “He had a vision of the modern cruise industry when the ‘industry’ might have been a dozen used ships, total.”Wilhelmsen was born in Oslo, Norway in 1929. After earning an MBA at Harvard University, he worked as a chartering assistant for Norway’s EB Lund & Co. and later as a shipbroker in New York. In 1954, he joined his family’s shipping concern, Anders Wilhelmsen & Co AS, and became its president in 1961.He helped establish Royal Caribbean in 1968 with his family’s company, along with two other Norwegian shipping companies. In 2003, he stepped down from the board and was succeeded by his son, Alex.No further details on survivors was listed in the company’s statement, and a company representative did not immediately respond to an email inquiry.
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