Author: Ohart

The women’s Champions League is beginning to step out of the shadow of its male counterpart with the ultimate aim of being as much of a must-see and commercially-attractive event, a UEFA official told Reuters on Tuesday.

This season’s final in Budapest will be the first time the showpiece, in its current format, will be held in a different city to the men’s Champions League final.

The decision was taken to allow the pinnacle of women’s club football (called soccer in the U.S.) in Europe to have its own spotlight and not be overshadowed by the men’s edition, which is one of the most viewed annual TV events in the world, surpassing the Super Bowl.

The sponsorship and broadcast rights to the women’s final are currently sold by UEFA, with the previous rounds being managed by the clubs themselves.

However, Kayleigh Grieve, marketing manager for women’s football at European soccer’s governing body, said the ultimate aim was to part-centralize the rights-selling process to give the game the platform it deserves.

“We’re looking at that first step of bringing centralization back to the quarter-finals to final and hope that may shape up the process,” Grieve said on the sidelines of the Leaders XX Think Tank, held at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium.

“But certainly broadcast will help us build more of the story of the Champions League because now putting it in a city is one thing, but we essentially drop in a match a year and try and grow an audience for it and we’ve not really told them anything about the lead-up to that and built the interest and built the heroes of the matches, built the star players.

“We essentially want to get in a position where we can do that and that people at least recognize some of the names of the players and some of the clubs.”

A spokesman for UEFA later told Reuters that plans to further centralize the broadcasting rights were an “ideal world scenario” and had not yet been broached with clubs.

Unique sponsors

The 2018 final was held in Kyiv’s Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium, where Olympique Lyonnais beat VfL Wolfsburg 4-1 to win their third successive Champions League title — two days before Real Madrid achieved that feat in the men’s edition.

The match attendance, however, was 14,237, the lowest for the women’s final for four years.

With a bigger push from sponsors specifically invested in women’s football, Grieve believed that number could see a big increase.

“It’s just about making sure we present the competition as a strong product and bring in unique sponsors to the women’s side,” she said. “So we’ve unbundled that from the men’s side and we’re selling that in its own right.

“The partners previously were just given the women’s rights which meant they hadn’t committed their budgets to it, they hadn’t got anything committed to the activation of the rights so it was just left languishing. They maybe took a few tickets, came to a few games but there was no activation around it.

“So at least this time if they do come on the program, it will be because they specifically paid for it, which means they will specifically activate around it.”

International plans

UEFA oversaw a record-breaking Women’s European Championship last year, hosted and won by the Netherlands, in terms of attendances, TV viewers and online interactions.

Grieve said it was a distinct possibility that future editions of the women’s World Cup or Euros could one day be as big as the respective men’s tournaments.

“I understand the sentiment of it,” she said. “They [FIFA] probably won’t be far off. From what I’ve seen of the predictions of next year’s Women’s World Cup, is that they are going to eclipse a number of men’s competitions — maybe not their own yet, but they are getting there.

“I don’t see why it can’t be as big, especially at a national team competition when you really tap into national pride, national interest and all those stories. … So from a World Cup or Euros perspective, I can see those competitions being massive.”

World soccer body FIFA’s governing council is still pondering proposals for a global women’s nations league and an impatiently-awaited Club World Cup.

With UEFA appointing former world player of the year Nadine Kessler as their first head of women’s football last year, the European body has the chance to lead the way for the women’s game.
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Italian actress Asia Argento, an outspoken advocate in the movement against sexual harassment, denied on Tuesday ever having had sexual relations with Jimmy Bennett, an actor who the New York Times reported had accused her of sexual assault.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Bennett had accused Argento of sexually assaulting him in 2013 when he was 17 and she was 37. Argento agreed to pay him $380,000 after he asked for $3.5 million, the paper said.

“I am deeply shocked and hurt by having read news that is absolutely false. I have never had any sexual relationship with Bennett,” Argento said in an emailed statement distributed by her Italian lawyer.

In her first public comments since the article, Argento said she had been linked to Bennett over several years “by friendship only.”

Representatives for Bennett did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter.

A spokesperson for the New York Times told Reuters: “We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting, which was based on verified documents and multiple sources.”

Argento said in her statement that Bennett had “unexpectedly made an exorbitant request of money” to her following her media exposure in the accusations of sexual misconduct against movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Argento was one of the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein. She told The New Yorker magazine last October that he had raped her during the Cannes festival in 1997 when she was 21. Since that interview, she has become an outspoken advocate in the #MeToo social media movement against sexual harassment.

She said in her statement that she and her then-boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, had “decided to deal compassionately with Bennett’s demand for help and give it to him.”

“Anthony personally undertook to help Bennett economically, upon the condition that we would no longer suffer any further intrusions in our life,” she added.

Bourdain killed himself in June.

Argento said she would oppose the “false allegations” against her and would assume “all necessary initiatives for my protection before all competent venues.”

 
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The Eagles’ greatest hits album has moonwalked past Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to become history’s best-selling album of all-time in the U.S.

 

The Recording Industry Association of America told The Associated Press on Monday that the Eagles’ album — “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975” — is now certified 38x platinum, which means sales and streams of the album have reached 38 million copies.

 

The album was released in 1976 and pushes Jackson’s “Thriller,” which is 33x platinum, to second place.

 

RIAA also said that the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” released in 1977, is now 26x platinum and makes it the third best-selling album of all-time.

The last time RIAA tallied sales for the Eagles’ greatest hits album was in 2006, when it said it was 29x platinum. Sales and streams for “Thriller” were last updated last year.

 

“We are grateful for our families, our management, our crew, the people at radio and, most of all, the loyal fans who have stuck with us through the ups and downs of 46 years. It’s been quite a ride,” Don Henley said in a statement.

 

RIAA’s platinum status was once equivalent to selling one million albums or songs, but in 2013 the company began incorporating streaming from YouTube, Spotify and other digital music services to determine certification for albums and songs.

 

Now 1,500 streams of an album is equivalent to an album sale. Also, 10 song downloads (equals) 1 album sale.

 

The Eagles, who formed in Los Angeles in the early 1970s, mastered the mix of rock ‘n’ roll and country music, and the band’s hits — including “Hotel California” and “Take It Easy” — became part of the soundtrack of that decade. They broke up in 1980, coming back together 14 years later with Henley and Glenn Frey being the only remaining original members. Frey died in 2016, but the Grammy-winning band remains on tour.

 

The band was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 2016.
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MTV is launching its first-ever midterm election drive to encourage young people to register and vote, hoping fans make voting a communal effort with their friends.

The youth-centric network will first publicize the effort Monday at its annual Video Music Awards being held at Radio City Music Hall.

 

The effort hearkens back to MTV’s “Choose or Lose” campaign when Bill Clinton was first elected in 1992. The interest in social activism this year among its audience convinced MTV to target the issue in a non-presidential election year, said Chris McCarthy, network president. Voter turnout in those years is typically depressed, particularly among young people.

 

MTV designed its campaign around the concept of shared experiences after noting the importance young people place in them, he said. For example, it is working with the Ford Foundation on a mobile unit where people can register, then check whether their friends are registered and encourage them to do so if they aren’t.

 

The network is also looking to host some 1,000 parties of different sizes across the country on election day, including larger ones with the participation of yet-to-be-named musicians.

 

“Voting is important,” McCarthy said. “It matters. But voting with a friend matters even more.”

 

MTV isn’t the cultural force that it once was. But McCarthy has engineered a turnaround in the network’s fortunes this past year, betting on reality shows and familiar brands. The network’s audience has also aged somewhat, enough so that 86 percent of its typical viewer at any time is 18 or over, or voting age.

 

MTV is only the latest group to commit to turning out the youth vote in November. Liberal activist and billionaire Tom Steyer has promised to spend at least $31 million on voter organization, believed to be the largest campaign ever targeted to young people. Activists seeking gun control legislation are making similar efforts, buoyed by the work of students following the Parkland school shooting in Florida.

 

MTV isn’t saying how much it will spend on its campaign, called “+1thevote” in a reference to the phrase for bringing a guest to a concert.

 

While the other groups are clearly invested in trying to change Republican control of Congress, McCarthy said MTV’s effort is non-partisan. Still, it is being launched at a time Democrats seem more active and engaged.

 

MTV says its measure of success will be an increase in the percentage of young people voting. During the 2010 midterm election in President Barack Obama’s first term, only 18 percent of people aged 18-to-20 voted, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

 

“MTV’s mission is to engage and entertain and celebrate the spirit of youth – everything from activism to escapism and all the messy stuff in between,” McCarthy said.

 

 

 
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New York rapper Cardi B kicked off the MTV Video Music Award (VMA) show on Monday, where politics quickly took center stage with a performance highlighting U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial immigration policies.

Dozens of immigrant children and their families, wearing white t-shirts saying “We are all human beings,” joined rapper Logic on the VMA stage in New York City for his song “One Day.”

The song and a new music video protest the zero tolerance policy that saw thousands of immigrant children separated from their parents in June after crossing the southern border with Mexico without documents.

The National Domestic Workers Alliance said in a statement that they and two other groups had helped to organize the performance.

Cardi B, in her first public appearance since giving birth to her first child in July, picked up an early win for song of summer for her dance hit “I Like It” with J Balvin and Bad Bunny.

The 25-year-old singer went into Monday’s fan-voted ceremony with a leading 10 nominations after a breakthrough year that saw a string of brash female empowerment hits like “Bodak Yellow.”

It was also a big night for recently engaged Ariana Grande, 25, who won the best pop video award for “No Tears Left to Cry” and was making her first public outing with fiance Pete Davidson.

Jennifer Lopez brought the audience to its feet with a song and dance medley of her biggest hits as she was presented with MTV’s annual Vanguard Award, named after Michael Jackson, recognizing her 20 years in show business.

“It’s been an incredible journey of dreaming my wildest dreams, and then watching them come true,” said Lopez.

Cardi B and Bruno Mars, Beyonce and husband Jay-Z, and Childish Gambino competed for the top prize – video of the year – against Grande’s “No Tears Left to Cry,” Camila Cabello’s “Havana,” and Drake’s “God’s Plan.”

But Beyonce and Jay-Z, along with Gambino, Bruno Mars and Drake were among several top artists not attending the ceremony in New York City.

Performing as The Carters, Beyonce and Jay -Z earned eight nominations for their “APES**T” video, which was shot inside the Louvre in Paris against the backdrop of some of the world’s most famous art works.

Childish Gambino, the music stage name of actor Donald Glover, earned seven nominations for his hard-hitting video “This Is America” about black identity and police brutality.

The VMAs, the first gathering of top music artists since the death last week of Aretha Franklin, honored the soul singer during the show.
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Pope Francis said Monday every effort must be made to ensure the culture of the Catholic Church prevents future clerical sexual abuse of children and to make sure that if such abuses do take place, they cannot be covered up.

The pope’s comments came in a letter to the world’s Catholics in response to the latest revelations of abuses by clergy members.

Last week, a U.S. grand jury report said more than 300 predator priests had abused more than 1,000 children in six Pennsylvania dioceses over the span of 70 years.

“Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims,” Francis said in his letter.

He said with “shame and repentance” the Catholic Church acknowledges it did not act in a timely manner and realize the amount of damage the abusers have done to so many people.

Francis said “no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient.”

The church has long faced cases of sexual abuse by the clergy in many countries. In the past month alone, the pope accepted the resignation of an Australian archbishop convicted in May for covering up child abuse, as well as the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who has also been accused of sexual abuse.

Francis noted in his letter ongoing efforts to address the problem and ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults while holding responsible those who commit abuses.

“We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future,” he wrote.

He said without the participation of all Catholics, the efforts to “uproot the culture of abuse” will fail.

“It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetuated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for the most vulnerable,” Pope Francis said.
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Fans and worshippers celebrated the life of Aretha Franklin at her father’s Baptist church in Detroit on Sunday, with her powerful voice again ringing out within its walls in tribute to her spectacular career.

Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, greeted by a standing ovation, sent the several hundred parishioners into raptures with his eulogy and rousing prayers for his old friend, the “Queen of Soul.”

The New Bethel Baptist Church — located in a down-at-heel, quiet neighborhood of Detroit — has been the focus of tributes to Franklin, who passed away from advanced pancreatic cancer on Thursday at age 76.

“On Thursday morning, Earth lost her music. Heaven gained her music,” Jackson told the congregation.

“Right now, the gospel choir in heaven has a lead singer. Detroit lost something, but heaven gained something.”

Franklin’s recording of “Precious Lord (Take My Hand)” — one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite gospel tracks which she sang at his funeral in 1968 — filled the church as a woman dressed in black and red danced.

The high-energy service was packed with music belted out by chief Pastor Robert Smith Jr.

“We are sad that Aretha has gone,” Smith said. “We’re happy that she’s free from the shackles of time.”

In his lengthy address, the now frail Jackson recounted Franklin’s life in the context of the civil rights movement, from her birth into the segregation of the American south to singing at Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Jackson, a Baptist minister and former Democratic presidential candidate, told the church that during the year of Franklin’s birth “in a shack on the Mississippi River” in Tennessee, “225 blacks were lynched.”

Her father, C.L. Franklin, was a prominent Baptist preacher and civil rights activist, who in June 1963 helped King organize the Walk to Freedom through downtown Detroit, only two months before King’s historic March on Washington and “I Have a Dream” speech.

“I remember one time Dr King was facing bankruptcy… and Aretha did an 11-city tour and gave all the money to Dr King,” said Jackson, who was a close aide to the slain activist.

“She was a rose that grew tall in a garden of weeds,” he said.

‘A mighty tribute to the Queen’

Franklin recorded the album “One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism” at the church, where she performed over the years, and also served dinners to worshippers and the homeless at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Talking about his final visit with Franklin last Wednesday, Jackson told the church that he walked into the room calling out “Re, Re, Re.”

“She opened her eyes and pressed my arms, and we began to pray,” he said.

His eulogy had worshippers on their feet. Smartly dressed women raised their arms into the air and swayed to the music, as a few wiped away tears, with Jackson leading them in prayers and song.

Worshippers spilled out of the service, invigorated by what they called a celebration of the music icon’s life and legacy.

“It was beautiful and it spoke to all of us,” said Denise Redmon, a 57-year-old Indiana bus driver on a weekend coach trip to Detroit.

“I thought it was excellent. A mighty tribute to the Queen,” agreed Esther Birden, 60, on the same two-day “Aretha Franklin soul weekend, joining in all the festivities and being a part of history.”

“I remember listening to Aretha when I was eight years old and dancing to her music,” she said.

“We have nothing to be sad about because she gave us so much. She gave us secular, she gave us gospel, she gave us opera… and you don’t find too many that can fit in every arena like that.”

‘Freedom fighter’

Ralph Godbee, a former Detroit police chief turned pastor, led the congregation in a rousing hand clap for Franklin.

He recalled how she had once called to complain about a relative who had been mistreated by the police department, telling him that no one — regardless of their family — should be treated in such a way.

“There’s something about when the queen calls,” he said, hailing her as a “freedom fighter” and “demanding justice for everybody from the back row to the front pew.”

He said the revival of the Motor City — the home of the US auto industry that has turned a corner after years of economic depression and high crime — was “on the back of the spirit of the Queen of Soul.”

Outside the pale brick church, mourners have left helium balloons, bouquets of flowers, teddy bears and hand-written tributes.

“Aretha Will Always be My Queen. Nothing But Respect!!” read one home-made poster adored with cut-out, black-and-white newspaper pictures of the musical icon in her prime.

“You will always be in my heart,” said another. “Your voice will always ring in my heart and soul. I hear it all of the time, soothing me.”
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Women still lag far behind men when it comes to careers in the fastest growing technology fields. Recent studies show fewer than 20 percent of women will pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics or STEM for short. Two sisters in Maryland have started their own summer camp to get more women interested in STEM careers. Cristina Caicedo Smit reports.
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Tucked away in an industrial block in the New York City borough of Queens is an ordinary-looking warehouse containing an extraordinary treasure: a quarter-million sheets, shards and pieces of multicolored and iridescent glass that together make up the largest collection of Tiffany glass, The Neustadt Tiffany Glass Archive.

​Magnificent windows

While stained glass has been produced since ancient times, the colorful cathedral windows created during the 15th century of the Renaissance period are perhaps the best known. But the art was transformed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Louis Comfort Tiffany, an American artist and designer who used his unique talent to essentially create paintings out of glass.

Lindsy Parrott, executive director and curator of the collection, holds up a medium-sized piece of glass as she explains its uniqueness. 

“This is called dichroic, rippled glass and so it’s one color — this greenish color — in reflected light. But then look at this,” she says, as she holds it up to the window. “When you illuminate it, it becomes a wonderful reddish-yellow glass.”

And that’s what is significant bout The Neustadt Tiffany Glass Archive, she says. “It documents this unbelievable chapter in the history of stained glass, by introducing all of these incredible colors and textures, various patterns, different opacities of glass.”

​Distinctive style of glass

Tiffany glass derives its name from the distinctive style of glass produced by Tiffany and his team of designers from 1878 to 1933. Working out of the Tiffany Studios in New York, Tiffany became famous for the color-infused, leaded glass lampshades and stained glass windows that have come to define his name.

The Neustadt Collection was founded in 1969 by collector Egon Neustadt and his wife, Hildegard, who discovered their first Tiffany lamp in 1935. That $12.50 purchase inspired a lifelong passion.

“This one wonderful daffodil lamp kicked off an entire collection,” Parrott says. The Neustadts became deeply passionate about Tiffany lamps after that initial purchase, transfixed by their beauty, and spent the rest of their life building a massive collection.

A passion for Tiffany glass

The couple would eventually amass more than 200 Tiffany lamps, each one unique, including the purchase in 1967 of a huge cache of Tiffany glass left when the company’s furnaces finally closed in 1937.

“Tiffany’s furnaces were originally located in Corona, Queens, and so much of the glass that you see here was made here in New York City,” Parrott says.

The collection represents a variety of forms of glass, from drapery glass meant to mimic a flowing robe, rippled glass meant to represent water, and pressed glass jewels and 3D glass jewels to adorn lamps, mosaics and windows, all carefully sorted and ordered by color, size, texture and type.

The warehouse containing the Tiffany Glass Archive will open to the public for exclusive monthly tours later this year. And The Neustadt will provide a sneak preview of some of these glass treasures in a new exhibition in their dedicated gallery at the Queens Museum, opening October 7.
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About 250,000 pieces of multicolored and iridescent glass sit in a warehouse on an industrial block in Long Island City, Queens, which houses the largest collection of Tiffany glass. It’s a welcome tribute to Louis Tiffany, an American artist who many believe transformed the history of stained glass with his unique artistry — essentially creating paintings out of glass. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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Relatives of the late singer Aretha Franklin say her funeral will be August 31 in her hometown of Detroit.

There will be a two-day public viewing before the funeral at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, a publicist for the family, Gwendolyn Quinn, said, to allow fans to mourn.

The funeral will take place at Greater Grace Temple, which seats about 4,000 people and will be limited to family, friends and invited guests, which are expected to include dignitaries and music royalty from around the world.

Following the funeral, Franklin is to be buried with other members of her family at Woodlawn Cemetery.

Franklin died Thursday at her home in Detroit at the age of 76 from pancreatic cancer.

The Grammy-winning vocalist was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but grew up in Detroit after moving there as a youngster with her family.

Her talent was recognized at a young age as she played piano and sang hymns at the church where her father, C.L. Franklin, was a popular preacher.

Franklin moved into pop and jazz music at age 18 on the Columbia Records label. But her real breakthrough came in 1967 on Atlantic Records, which allowed her to sing with her natural gospel intensity for the first time.

She rocketed to national fame that year with a series of hit singles, including “Chain of Fools,” “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” and her most famous song, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” her first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

Franklin eventually racked up more than 110 entries on Billboard magazine’s charts, the most by any woman in the magazine’s history. In 1987, she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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The reigning Miss America says she has been bullied, manipulated and silenced by the pageant’s current leadership, including Gretchen Carlson.

In a letter sent Friday to former Miss Americas, Cara Mund says she decided to speak out despite the risk of punishment.

Her letter is reminiscent of the movie Mean Girls, in which characters Gretchen and Regina bully the heroine and make her life miserable. That’s what happened to her in real life, Mund wrote. Carlson is chairwoman of the Miss America Organization; Regina Hopper is its CEO.

Her letter exponentially increased the turmoil surrounding the pageant three weeks before the next Miss America is to be crowned in Atlantic City.

“Let me be blunt: I strongly believe that my voice is not heard nor wanted by our current leadership; nor do they have any interest in knowing who I am and how my experiences relate to positioning the organization for the future,” Mund wrote. “Our chair and CEO have systematically silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis. After a while, the patterns have clearly emerged, and the sheer accumulation of the disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion has taken a serious toll.”

Mund said she’s been left out of interviews, not invited to meetings and called the wrong name. When she obliquely hinted at trouble with pageant leadership in an interview earlier this month with The Press of Atlantic City, Mund said she was swiftly punished by having her televised farewell speech cut to 30 seconds, and was told a dress she had been approved to wear in the traditional “show us your shoes” parade cannot be worn.

This year’s competition will not include swimsuits, and pageant officials from at least 19 states have called for the current leadership to resign.

There was no immediate response from The Miss America Organization or from Carlson and Hopper, who were singled out in Mund’s letter.

Mund said she was given three talking points to be made in every appearance: “Miss America is relevant. The #MeToo movement started with a Miss America, Gretchen Carlson. Gretchen Carlson went to Stanford.” (Mund said she was allowed to mention that she went to Brown to show that both women were highly educated.)

“Right away, the new leadership delivered an important message: There will be only one Miss America at a time, and she isn’t me,” Mund wrote.

Mund, who was Miss North Dakota and won the crown on a platform of increasing the number of women elected to political office, said she was treated better by the previous Miss America leadership that was forced from power after sending emails ridiculing the appearance, intellect and sex lives of former Miss Americas.

She cites examples of mistreatment including being excluded from the nationally televised announcement that swimsuits were being eliminated — even though she was with Carlson at the TV studio where it was made. She says pageant handlers ridiculed her clothing choices and chided her for wearing the same outfits too often. When she reached out to former Miss Americas to see if they had been treated similarly, “I was reprimanded by Regina who told me that problems and concerns had to be kept ‘in the family.'”
…

Fans of Aretha Franklin came together at New York City’s landmark Apollo Theater and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday to pay their respects to the Queen of Soul, singing along to her hits and sharing memories of her remarkable career.

Franklin, known for such classic songs as “Respect” and “Chain of Fools,” died at home in Detroit on Thursday at the age of 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, her family said.

“My heart feels empty,” said Sheila Black, 51, outside the Apollo, not far from where she grew up in Harlem, as she recalled listening to Franklin’s “Another Night Without You” to get over heartbreak. “Her music will live forever. I’m just so sad that we had to lose her.”

Billy Mitchell, the Apollo’s historian, said the landmark theater would likely hold a tribute to one of its most beloved performers.

“We’re sad but we’re very grateful to have had someone like Aretha Franklin in our lifetime,” said Mitchell, known as “Mr. Apollo.”

Inducted to the Apollo’s Walk of Fame in 2010, Franklin performed there more than a dozen times, most recently in 2010.

Her June 1971 “homecoming” show “drove fans to near-hysteria,” according to the theater.

“Aretha’s legacy should be excellence in music,” Mitchell said. “There’s a reason why she’s queen. You don’t get to get that title by being mediocre.”

Lou Adams, 77, who had seen Franklin perform at the Apollo, said she was one of the greats. “It’s an experience you can’t explain; you have to feel,” he said of the concert.

Fans gathered at Franklin’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, leaving flowers and candles and sharing tributes to the entertainer.

“Every time one of her songs comes on, everyone sings along, everyone knows the lyrics and… her songs give you that power, like that confidence to step out into the world and to feel, as a woman and as a black woman, like, that you are beautiful and that you can do it,” said Chelsea Monroe, 29.

Crystal Carpenter, 56, said she grew up listening to Franklin in the late 60s and early 70s.

“And my mom bought this album back in ’71 and now I have it,” Carpenter said, holding a copy of Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace,’ which was recorded live in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“I love her gospel, secular, everything,” Carpenter said. “She was the queen.”
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Outfielder Rolando Rodriguez from Panama heard a reporter’s question, but he doesn’t speak English. So Georgia shortstop Tai Peete helped him out, pecking the words into Google Translate to ask about how young baseball players are sharing technology during the Little League World Series.

“It was easier than expected,” Rodriguez said of the language barrier, speaking through an interpreter.

So goes life in the International Grove, the dorms where 16 teams all are staying during the double-elimination tournament in pursuit of a world title. Apps and even video games are making it easier for the boys to communicate and get to know each other — making smartphones a key part rather than a distraction during their moment of a lifetime.

Eight teams are from U.S. states while the other teams represent various countries around the world and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.  Players are using Translate to input questions in their native languages and let other players read or hear them in one of more than 100 languages.

Trading pins

That’s changing some of the tournament’s traditions. For example, each team has pins that they are given to trade with other teams. While body language used to go a long way in this process, players are using technology to directly ask for trades.

No words actually need to be spoken aloud, but the kids still are helping fellow baseball players pronounce the words, learning a little bit of a new language in the process.

“I talked to the Mexico team,” Peete said. “I was talking about Little League and they couldn’t pronounce it, so I was helping them.”

Even with better technology, language and cultural barriers still exist.

It’s “a lot harder than I thought,” said Lee Jae-hyeok of South Korea, who noted through a human interpreter that players also were using Facebook to connect.

The days leading up to the start of the series on Thursday consisted of practices, interviews and hanging out in the players village. For the duration of the tournament, each team from the U.S. bracket shares a dorm with one of the international teams. The rooms have bunk beds and TVs, but no Wi-Fi.

They do have a game room, however, which allows players to get their video game fix in a more social way.

Arcade games, table tennis

The space has arcade games, including bowling and motorcycle simulators, but also activities like table tennis. Peete taught the tailgate favorite cornhole to the Australian club.

One common thread for most of the boys: Fortnite, the massively popular, multiplayer shootout video game. They don’t have their consoles but they can still play on their phones and try to impress each other with renditions of the famous dances done by the game’s characters.

But the reason for their visit to Pennsylvania loomed.

“Can we play a [baseball] game?” Peete asked a volunteer at the Little League complex before the tournament started, suggesting that maybe the whole World Series could be moved up.

“There’s nothing else to do,” he said.
…

Aretha Franklin, who was born and rose to fame during the segregation era and went on to sing at the inauguration of the first black president, often used her talent, fortune and platform to inspire millions of black Americans and support the fight for racial equality.

“She not only provided the soundtrack for the civil rights movement, Aretha’s music transcended race, nationality and religion and helped people from all backgrounds to recognize what they had in common,” said longtime civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery.

Franklin, who died Thursday at 76, was a close confidante of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a financial lifeline to the civil rights organization he co-founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

​Father’s commitment

The Queen of Soul’s commitment to civil rights was instilled by her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who also knew King and preached social justice from his pulpit at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit.

The church, in fact, was the first place King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Among those in the congregation were Aretha Franklin and Mahalia Jackson. It was Jackson who later urged the civil rights leader to “tell them about the dream, Martin” at the March on Washington, where he delivered the oration for which he is most famous.

Franklin recorded “Respect” on Valentine’s Day 1967. Black Americans had won federal legislation outlawing segregation and protecting their voting rights, particularly in the Deep South.

But blacks were still a year away from the Fair Housing Act. And just months after the song was recorded, urban centers, including Franklin’s hometown of Detroit, would burn, exposing police brutality and unequal living conditions and job opportunities.

Financial backer

“Her songs were songs of the movement,” Andrew Young, the former King lieutenant and U.N. ambassador, said Thursday. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. … That’s basically what we wanted. The movement was about respect.”

The SCLC often struggled financially, but Franklin played a vital role in keeping the movement afloat.

“Almost every time we needed money, there were two people we could always count on: Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte,” Young said. “They would get together and have a concert, and that would put us back on our feet.”

Strong faith

King and Franklin were like spiritual siblings, sharing a bond rooted in their Christian faith, Young said. King would often ask Franklin to sing his favorite songs, “Amazing Grace” or “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” When King was assassinated in 1968, Franklin sang “Precious Lord” at his funeral in Atlanta.

Franklin’s “Amazing Grace” was also a comfort to the Rev. Al Sharpton when he was a boy. He recalled that his mother would play the song nonstop in their Brooklyn home after his father left.

As an adult and an activist, Sharpton became friends with the soul singer. He noted her unwavering faith, which she brought with her on stage to every performance.

“Whether it was the White House, Radio City Music Hall or the Apollo Theater, she always did gospel numbers,” Sharpton said. “She was unapologetically a hardcore, faith-believing Baptist. At the height of her career, she cut a gospel album. Who does that? Her faith is what motivated her.”

Committed to social justice

Long after the civil rights movement ended, Franklin remained committed to social justice, helping Sharpton as he began his organization, the National Action Network, in New York. She would call Sharpton for updates on the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, asking about such cases as those of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.

“She gave so much to so many people, from Dr. King, to Mandela, to Barack Obama,” said Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime friend who visited her the day before her death.

Her presence and influence were as valuable to the movement as her financial contributions, Sharpton said.

“To have someone like that that involved and interested … was a statement,” he said. “It gave all the credibility in the world. Others had celebrity, but she had gravity and respect.”
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Musical icon Aretha Franklin, known by millions around the world as the Queen of Soul, is dead at the age of 76. The American singer — who had been ill for a while — was considered one of the country’s greatest musical artists. She sold millions of albums, received numerous honors and awards — including 18 Grammys — and was loved by generations of fans, artists and celebrities the world over. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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Aretha Franklin, the American singer known to millions of fans around the world as the “Queen of Soul,” has died at the age of 76.

Franklin passed away Thursday in her hometown of Detroit, where she had been under hospice care after a long battle with cancer.

Born March 25, 1942, in Memphis, Tennessee, Franklin was raised in Detroit, where her father, C.L. Franklin, was a popular preacher. Her talent was recognized at a young age as she played piano and sang hymns at his church services.

Franklin moved into pop and jazz music at age 18 on the Columbia Records label. But her real breakthrough came in 1967 on Atlantic Records, which allowed her to sing with her natural gospel intensity for the first time.

She rocketed to national fame that year with a series of hit singles, including “Chain of Fools,” “A Natural Woman,” and her most famous song, “Respect,” her first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was written by singer-songwriter Otis Redding, who died the year it was released in 1967. But Franklin transformed the song into an anthem for blacks and women by rewriting some of the lyrics and adding lines that spelled out the title: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.”

She eventually racked up more than 110 entries in Billboard magazine’s charts, the most by any woman in the magazine’s history. In 1987, Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

She also recorded popular and acclaimed albums such as “Amazing Grace” and “Young, Gifted and Black.”

After a downturn in the late 1970s, Franklin’s career rebounded with an appearance in the 1980 film “The Blues Brothers” and a new series of hits, including “Freeway of Love.”

Franklin struggled with weight and health problems, but even in her older years, her soaring voice remained a thing of wonder.

In 2009, she sang at President Barack Obama’s first inauguration, thrilling the crowd with a rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

She made headlines again in 2016 when she sang a four-and-a-half-minute rendition of the U.S. national anthem before a Detroit Lions football game.

Paul McCartney was among those paying tribute to Franklin on Thursday.  “Let’s all take a moment to give thanks for the beautiful life of Aretha Franklin, the Queen of our souls, who inspired us all for many many years. She will be missed but the memory of her greatness as a musician and a fine human being will live with us forever,” he said on Twitter.

Elton John said “The loss of @ArethaFranklin is a blow for everybody who loves real music: Music from the heart, the soul and the Church. Her voice was unique, her piano playing underrated – she was one of my favourite pianists.” 

President Donald Trump said “The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, is dead. She was a great woman, with a wonderful gift from God, her voice. She will be missed!”

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle sent “prayers and warmest sympathies to her family and all those moved by her song.”  

“Through her compositions and unmatched musicianship, Aretha helped define the American experience.  In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade—our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect,” the Obamas said in a statement. “Aretha may have passed on to a better place, but the gift of her music remains to inspire us all.  May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”
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The creator of the long-running animated TV series The Simpsons brings his first new show in 20 years to Netflix this week, a story that centers around a drunken princess, an elf and a demon.

Set in a medieval world called Dreamland, Disenchantment is creator Matt Groening’s take on shows like HBO’s blockbuster fantasy series Game of Thrones.

Speaking at the show’s Los Angeles premiere on Tuesday, Groening said the program is “more emotional” than The Simpsons or his other animated hit, Futurama. He said Netflix gave him “free rein” to create whatever he wanted.

Netflix will release all 10 episodes of Disenchantment on Friday.
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Neil Diamond may have retired from the road because of Parkinson’s disease, but he said he’s working hard to get back onstage.

“Well, I’m doing pretty well. I’m active. I take my meds. I do my workouts. I’m in pretty good shape. I’m feeling good. I want to stay productive. I still have my voice. I just can’t do the traveling that I once did, but I have my wife there supporting me [and] friends,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“It does have its challenges, but I’m feeling good and I feel very positive. … I’m feeling better every day,” he added. “Just dealing with it as best I can, and just keep the music coming.”

The 77-year-old canceled planned concerts when he announced he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in January. Still, fans will be able to see the icon perform with Hot August Night Ill, a live concert CD/DVD chronicling his return to the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in August 2012. It’s out on Friday.

1972 album

The two-hour-plus performance featuring 33 songs celebrated the 40th anniversary of his original Hot August Night live album, also recorded at the Greek in August 1972. He performed 10 shows at the venue that month.

“It brings back memories — very deep, loving and warm memories,” he said of his performance. “Playing there and doing music relating to the audience, it was special. It’s a special experience for me.”

He said he watched the 2012 footage recently as it was edited for the new release, and he called it “one of the best live performances that I’ve done and I’m proud of it.”

“I love the chemistry with the audience and myself. That’s part of the thrill of the whole thing. There’s a little magic involved in it,” he said. “I’m just going to keep on keeping on, and that’s about it.”

“The thing I love most about live performing is that it’s very much in the moment. It’s just something that you really can’t describe,” he continued. “You just have to be there and let the moment happen. Let yourself connect with the audience. Let that relationship with the audience express itself. It’s a powerful tool.”

Diamond is one of music’s best-selling singers with a number of hit songs, including Sweet Caroline, America and Love on the Rocks.

One-song shows

He’s given one-song performances since his Parkinson’s diagnosis, including at the Songwriters Hall of Fame in June and last month for firefighters battling a blaze near his Colorado home.

He said he’s not sure he can perform more than one song at the moment, but added: “The only way I could find out is to actually do it.”

“But I think I can, and I will give it a try at some point,” he added. “I’m glad to still be around. The fact that I’m still singing well is a bonus and I hope to continue doing it, but in a format that I can handle.”

Could a residency be a possibility?

“Well, I feel I can do it. I want to do it,” he said. “It’s just a matter of resting up, finding the time, preparing, and then just doing the show.”
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Jimmy Fallon remembers a summer a few years back when it seemed everybody was reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

“Everyone had that book. If we had people over, or went on vacation poolside, people had that book wrinkled and curled up. I read it with my wife and we read every chapter together and we’d be like, ‘[Gasps] This is great!’ It was the world’s smallest book club,” he laughed.

This summer, Fallon decided to expand his book club of two to include his late-night audience. In June, he launched “Tonight Show Summer Reads.” Fallon presented five book options on his show and instructed viewers to go online and vote for their favorite. The results exceeded his expectations with 140,000 votes. The winner was Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi.

“Any way to engage the audience and to do stuff with them is always more fun,” said Fallon.

He also enthusiastically tracked how the books performed on Amazon after a mention on his show. The company confirms he had an impact.

“When a celebrity decides to get behind a book, we generally see a lift in sales,” said Chris Schluep, an editor at Amazon. “For instance, Children of Blood and Bone has been selling well this year. But the week after Jimmy Fallon selected it as the first Tonight Show book club selection, it sold nearly three times the number of print, Kindle and Audible books that it had sold in the previous week at Amazon.”

Reese Witherspoon

Fallon isn’t the only celebrity to follow in Oprah Winfrey’s footsteps with a book club. Reese Witherspoon has made such a success of her monthly literary picks that publishers are now putting Reese stickers on her selections.

“It’s fantastic and we have a great experience,” said Witherspoon, who has bought the rights to many of her picks to adapt for film or television. One of her selections, Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Cg will be a limited series on Hulu starring Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.

The Oscar winner has also partnered with the audio producer-distributor Audible on audio recordings of her selections.

Emma Roberts

Emma Roberts has turned her lifelong love of reading into a pet project she calls Belletrist. A website and social media for Belletrist celebrate all things books. Each month they feature a new book to read and even an independent bookstore to check out.

“Belletrist is my baby,” said Roberts, who runs the site with her partner, Karah Preiss.

She says there is “no criteria” for books she features because her personal taste is so varied, but she does tend to lean toward highlighting female authors.

She wants to create a community for Belletrist followers to share thoughts and ideas about what they read.

Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker is so committed to reading that she’s partnered with the American Library Association to share her own suggestions. The goal, she says, is to not only get people to read but to also support their own local libraries.

When Parker was approached by publishing house Hogarth to start her own imprint, her respect for writing initially made her think it wasn’t a good idea.

“I didn’t think I had the experience and had too much respect for people who’ve been in publishing for a long time,” she said. But Parker then thought it could be a way to help champion works in the literary fiction space which isn’t always as commercial. The first novel printed by SJP for Hogarth, A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza, is a New York Times best-seller.

Parker said she also enjoys posting about books on social media because it’s a safe topic.

Books are the “one thing I can talk about on Instagram that’s not controversial,” she said. “Everybody wants to talk about their favorite books or their feelings about books and share title recommendations. I mean, it’s a huge exchange of information and enthusiasm and it’s really the easiest part of my relationship with social media certainly.”

Like Witherspoon, Roberts and Parker are open to the idea of giving a book they recommend the Hollywood treatment.

“One of the most exciting things about reading is thinking about how to bring it to life. I’m always imagining the show or the movie. We’re in an exciting time,” said Roberts.

Parker stresses her goal first and foremost is to help the author.

“I’m in it really for the genuinely purest of intentions — to introduce new authors to readers. And if the opportunity exists for there to be a discussion about any television or film rights, I would certainly enter in to those conversations. But that isn’t in any way my incentive.”
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Stevie Wonder visited an ailing Aretha Franklin at her home in Detroit on Tuesday.

 

Franklin’s publicist Gwendolyn Quinn told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Franklin’s ex-husband, actor Glynn Turman, also visited the Queen of Soul, who is seriously ill.

 

A person close to Franklin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly talk about the topic, told the AP on Monday that the singer is ill. No more details were provided.

 

Franklin canceled planned concerts earlier this year after she was ordered by her doctor to stay off the road and rest up. The 76-year-old announced plans to retire last year, saying she would perform at “some select things.”

 

Fans, friends and musicians influenced by Franklin offered positive words to the iconic singer when news broke that she was ill, including Rod Stewart, Mariah Carey, Chaka Khan, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tyler Perry, Missy Elliott and Wayne Brady.

 

At her concert in Detroit on Monday night with Jay-Z, Beyonce thanked Franklin for her “beautiful music” and said “we love you.”

 

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton tweeted Monday that he and Hillary Clinton “are thinking about Aretha Franklin tonight & listening to her music that has been such an important part of our lives the last 50 years.”

 

“We hope you’ll lift her up by listening and sharing her songs that have meant the most to you,” Clinton wrote.

 

In an interview with the AP on Monday, Emmy-winning actor Sterling K. Brown said, “May I wish the Queen of Soul all the best.”

 

“Your music has moved and inspired a generation,” he added, “so my prayers are with you. Wishing you all the best, queen.”

 

Actress-singer Mandy Moore, who stars in “This Is Us” with Brown, said Franklin has “the most incredible legacy.”

 

“Who is not a fan? I don’t think there is anyone that Aretha Franklin’s music has not touched or influenced in one way or another,” she told the AP. “She’s the best of the best.”

 

Fans gathered Tuesday in Lafayette Park, directly in front of the White House, to pray for Franklin. With a saxophonist playing nearby, Rocky Twyman clutched a handwritten get-well card made from a white poster and appealed to passing tourists to sign it and pray for the singer.

 

The card read: “Book of Love and Healing for Aretha, the Queen.”

 

Twyman, of Rockville, Maryland, described himself as a longtime fan. He said he and his religious group held a prayer vigil outside the White House for Franklin in 2013, and she got better then.

 

“We’re hoping that God will shine down upon her and heal her again,” he said.

 

Tuva Johannessen, a tourist visiting from Norway, signed Twyman’s get-well card. The 34-year-old said she has been listening to Franklin’s music all her life.

 

“I loved how she has an ability to touch people’s heart with her music,” Johannessen said.
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Constance Wu had resigned herself to the fact that “Crazy Rich Asians” was not going to work out for her. She was under contract for her sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” both were filming in the fall, and that was that. “Crazy Rich Asians” would be the first studio-made Asian-American movie in 25 years, and Wu, who has established herself as a crusader for Asian-American representation in Hollywood, would have to sit this historic moment out.

 

But then, feeling “kind of dramatic,” and thinking about the significance of the project to her and untold number of Asian-Americans who make it a point to tell her their stories because of her tweets and “Fresh Off the Boat,” Wu decided to give it one last shot and composed an email to “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu.

 

“I said, I know the dates don’t work out and whoever you cast, I will be the first in line and I will be their No. 1 fan and supporter, but I did want to let you know that I would put 110 percent of my heart into this project and I know what to do with it and how to carry a movie and if you can just wait for me, I don’t think you’ll regret it,” Wu, 36, said. “I did NOT think this email would work. I did it more for me so that I felt that I had told my truth. But then he read it and said, “You guys, we’ve got to push the production.”

 

Sitting in a restaurant at the Beverly Wilshire, a hotel famous for co-starring in another “Cinderella” story, “Pretty Woman,” and sipping on a “cocktail” of grapefruit juice and sparkling water, Wu is describing how “Crazy Rich Asians,” out nationwide Wednesday is also a kind of “Cinderella” story. Based the first book in author Kevin Kwan’s popular trilogy, Wu’s character Rachel Chu is a middle-class economics professor from the U.S. who finds herself navigating the upper echelons of Singapore’s wealthy classes when her boyfriend Nick Young takes her home for a wedding and to meet his disapproving family and all the jealous women also vying for the attention of the “prince.”

 

“It’s a fairy tale, it really is,” Wu said. “And there are a lot of different shoes in the movie!”

A native of Richmond, Virginia, and a classically-trained theater actress with a passion for musicals, Wu has been working toward a moment like this her whole life, and taking it very seriously. During the shoot, she wouldn’t go out with her co-stars for karaoke nights or have a drink after a long day of work. She wanted to be clear of mind and she’d already promised her director that she was going to give it her all.

 

She knew how unlikely it was that she’d ever get an opportunity as an Asian-American woman to lead a studio movie.

 

“Even a terrific actress like Sandra Oh was always No. 2 or No. 3 in the movie, she was never No. 1 unless it was an independent movie,” said Wu, who is not shy about saying that she only wants to go out for roles where she is the No. 1 star. It’s a drive that has made some uncomfortable.

 

“People are like, ‘Who do you think you are?’ And it’s like, I guess I think I’m a talented actor and I guess I’m not a person who is going to let you make me feel small anymore,” she said.

 

But Wu isn’t interested in making people feel comfortable at the expense of her truth, which is why at least part of her time is spent amplifying underrepresented voices on twitter, even knowing that it’s affected her employment opportunities.

 

Wu once heard that a friend’s liberal boyfriend said he didn’t like Wu’s politics.

 

“I’m like, ‘Does he not like my politics or does he not like that I have politics?’ And she asked him and he was like, “Oh I guess it’s that,'” Wu said.

 

Fame, she said, is silly in that regard. She thinks it’s “dumb” that she has a bigger voice than other people, like journalists or academics who are more studied in discourse on race and intersectionality. But, she also realized that while she has this platform, she can at least do some good with it.

 

Henry Golding, who plays Nick, is in awe of Wu’s fortitude.

 

“She’s such a role model for so many people. She has a backbone, which a lot of people don’t. She’s not afraid of saying what’s on her mind and really driving home what she thinks should be done, or what’s not happening in the industry that should be happening,” said Golding. “She’s going to go down as a real fighter and someone who can act the socks off anything. She is Rachel Chu.”

 

As for what’s next, Wu said she thinks she’s going to have a lot of choices in the coming years.

 

“I’m very privileged and lucky and I’m at a point where I can sort of get to decide where I want to go with my career,” Wu said.

 

And first up on her wish-list? A musical.
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Once upon a time in central Greece … a small town fell in love with famed film composer Ennio Morricone and painted a huge mural in his honor.

The residents of Larissa have launched a fan club dedicated to the Italian maestro — known for his scores for classic movies Once Upon a Time in America, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and The Mission.

Members of the Cultural Society of Friends of Ennio Morricone Music in Greece screen his films and broadcast his concerts live on screens at archaeological sites.

In the latest sign of their appreciation, they have commissioned a mural of Morricone’s bespectacled profile on a five-story residential block, about 1,000 km (620 miles) away from his birthplace in Rome.

“It is very visible, we wanted a clear illustration of him, so it could always remain here in our town, magnificent, like him and his large body of work,” said society president Konstantinos Papakostas.

Papakostas set up the society in 2010 after seeing the Oscar-winning composer perform live in the Italian capital, then Assago, Milan.

He spread the word in Larissa and has since persuaded 1,080 fellow townspeople to sign up as members.

“I am completely in awe of him and his music,” Papakostas said.

Morricone, who turns 90 this year, is still composing music and has a series of performances lined up as part of “The 60 Years in Music” tour.
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Glenn Close may be known for playing strong, often ruthless women, but like her long-subdued character in The Wife she says she’s only just starting to feel comfortable in her own skin.

Close plays Joan, the self-effacing spouse of a successful novelist in The Wife, which opens in the United States on Friday as women in Hollywood and beyond are demanding a louder voice.

Decades of suppressing her own talents and desires in support of her husband’s career begin to unravel when he wins the Nobel Prize for literature and a biographer probes the couple’s life.

“The film took 14 years to get made and who knew that it would be incredibly relevant?” Close, 71, told Reuters. The film is based on the 2003 book of the same name by Meg Wolitzer.

Close’s performance has won rave reviews, sparking talk of a potential seventh Oscar nomination next year. The Hollywood Reporter said the actress “commands the center of The Wife: still, formidable and impossible to look away from.”

Despite a 40-year career, three Emmy awards, three Tonys and six Oscar nominations, the star of Fatal Attraction and the TV drama Damages says she feels she is just beginning.

“I’m a very late bloomer. It took me a very long time to learn some basic things. That’s why it’s kind of wonderful and ironic for me to be at this point at my life and feel like it’s just the beginning,” she said.

Close launched her acting career in the theater in the 1970s and said she feels lucky to have found success in job she is so passionate about.

“I think I’m at a time in my life where I’ve finally accepted certain things about myself, and it’s OK. The fact that I’m not a hugely social person, that I’m very much in my head is OK,” she said. “I feel happier and more calm and more excited about life than I ever have.”
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Fans and friends, including Mariah Carey and Missy Elliott, offered prayers and well wishes to Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, who is seriously ill.

A person close to Franklin, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not allowed to publicly talk about the topic, told The Associated Press on Monday that the singer is seriously ill. No more details were provided.

Carey, who considers Franklin one of her biggest influences, wrote on Twitter that she is “praying for the Queen of Soul.” Missy Elliott said the public has to celebrate iconic artists before they die.

“So many [of them] have given us decades of Timeless music,” the rapper wrote on Twitter.

Mark Frost, Andy Cohen and Ciara also posted about Franklin, who is considered the greatest singer of all-time and is known for hits like “Respect” and “[You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman.”

Franklin canceled planned concerts earlier this year after she was ordered by her doctor to stay off the road and rest up. She was originally scheduled to perform on her 76th birthday in March in Newark, New Jersey, and at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in April.

Last year, the icon announced her plans to retire, saying she would perform at “some select things.” One of those select events was a gala for Elton John’s 25th anniversary of his AIDS foundation in November in New York City, where Franklin closed the event with a collection of songs including “I Say a Little Prayer” and “Freeway.”

Abdul “Duke” Fakir, the lone surviving original member of the Four Tops, told the AP on Monday morning they have been “very close” for decades and their most recent conversation was about a week ago by phone. Fakir said they talked after Franklin had stopped by his Detroit house when he wasn’t there.

“She was telling me she rides around the city every now and then — she talks about how beautiful it is again,” Fakir said. “We were reminiscing about how blessed we were — only a couple two of us are around from that era. We were just kind of reminiscing about the good times we had.”

Fakir, who calls Franklin “baby sis” because he’s older than she is by six years, said despite her health troubles “she was talking about the future.”

“She talked about this great, big special she was going to have in New York, with all her great friends performing,” he said. “It made me feel good as well — she was still hoping and wishing and dreaming as we do in this business.”
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Over the last 25 years, Hugo Kohl has developed his own style of vintage jewelry using the same techniques as industrial revolution artisans at the end of the 18th century.
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