Author: Ohart

The Rolling Stones have released an album of rarely heard radio recordings, but Keith Richards admits with a laugh: “I barely remember some of them.”

“The Rolling Stones — On Air” was released last week. It features 32 songs that originally aired between 1963 and 1965 on BBC shows like “Saturday Club,” “Top Gear” and “The Joe Loss Pop Show.” 

“It was weird time to record in London in 1963, ’64. Both the Beatles and us used to look at each other and say, “What are you doing tomorrow? We’ll, we’re doing the Joss Loss show on BBC Radio’ and we all shivered because no one knew how to record these things,” Richards said. 

“To me, they’re incredible pieces of history.”

Eight of the songs were never recorded or released commercially. Richards said he remembers the hysteria at the time. 

“It was so frantic. Everything was frantic. The schedule was frantic. The fans were particularly frantic. This was the teeny-bopper time,” he recalled. “It was overwhelming … At 19 years old, it’s all a bit of a blur, but a very pleasant one I have to say.”

“On Air” features well-known Stones songs such as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” as well as Chuck Berry covers, including “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Memphis, Tennessee,” “Beautiful Delilah” and “Come On,” the Stones’ debut single.

“That guy had it all. The lyrics, his sense of rhythm, it’s unbelievable. I’m still amazed when I hear the actual records, the Chess Records, today. I just go back to them, just to refill,” Richards said of Berry, who died in March.

“The only thing that Chuck and I used to laugh about before he went, unfortunately his biggest record was ‘My Ding-a-Ling,’” Richards added, laughing. “Unfortunately, the silly little ditty became actually his biggest-selling record.”

In the early ‘60s, the Stones’ lineup also included Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman. Richards said they were “a club band that sort of managed to expand its thing onto the big stage.”

The band returned to its blues roots last year with the release of “Blue & Lonesome,” which earned the Stones a Grammy nomination for best traditional blues album. They are currently working on an album of originals.

“We’re picking up the threads on a new album as we speak. I’m in touch with Don Was,” Richards said.
…

South Korea’s winter Olympics organizers have worries other than a ban on Russia competing, poor ticket sales and tensions over North Korea. They fear it may be too cold.

The Pyeongchang Games in February may feel like the coldest Olympics in at least three decades because the main stadium lacks a roof, leaving an estimated 35,000 spectators, including world leaders, exposed to extreme cold for the opening ceremony.

The organizing committee’s concerns are contained in an internal document, seen by Reuters, which expects biting winds to make conditions inside the open-air stadium at the start of the Games seem like minus 14 degrees Celsius, or about 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

That “feels-like” temperature is lower than the minus 11 degrees recorded at the 1994 Lillehammer Games in Norway, whose stadium also lacked a roof and is so far the coldest Olympics for which such data is available, the internal document shows.

Reuters could not find comparable data for earlier Games.

South Korea, which built Pyeongchang’s $58 million stadium without a roof to save time and money, plans a range of measures at opening and closing ceremonies to prevent people suffering hypothermia — from distributing hot packs and blankets to speeding up security checks, the internal document shows.

Organizers also plan to use audience participation during pre-ceremony entertainment to help keep spectators warm, the document says without giving details.

After the news last month that six people had reported hypothermia during a pop concert at the stadium, organizers are also considering installing more large windshields around the stadium, a sports ministry official said.

“These are stopgap measures,” said Shim Ki-joon, a ruling-party lawmaker, who sits on a parliamentary special committee set up to support the Games.

“This is a very serious issue. This is creating a headache to not only the organizers but the presidential office, which sent officials to the venue to figure out ways to fight the cold,” he told Reuters.

A presidential spokesman declined to comment on the matter.

President Moon Jae-in has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to the Games, among other VIPs. U.S. President Donald Trump has committed to sending a “high-level” delegation, the White House has said.

Some 160 VIPs will be offered thicker and bigger blankets than those given to other spectators, a committee official said.

Political tensions, ticket sales

The opening and closing ceremonies will both take place in the evening, on Feb. 9 and Feb. 25 respectively. Spectators will stay outdoors for four to five hours on each occasion.

In Lillehammer in 1994, the ceremonies were held outdoors and organizers scrapped the tradition of releasing doves, a symbol of peace, because they worried the birds might suffer.

Instead, the Norwegians released white dove-shaped balloons.

The International Olympics Committee discussed Pyeongchang’s cold weather at its executive board meeting this week, Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi told a news conference.

“It is not something we have not encountered in the past,” Dubi said Wednesday, citing Lillehammer as well as the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.

“[Organizers] have installed windscreens and [provided] blankets and there will be plenty of information. In the last K-pop concert people were not well informed of how cold it could get.”

The cold weather is at least a manageable problem for the organizers. Its other headaches are less so.

Political tensions with North Korea and China have chilled foreign interest in the Pyeongchang Games, which open just 80 km (50 miles) from the world’s most heavily fortified border.

As of Dec. 5, ticket sales totaled 578,000, or 54 percent of target, though an organizer said that was similar to sales at a similar point ahead of the Sochi Games in Russia in 2014.

The International Olympic Committee has also banned Russia, which finished top of the medals table at Sochi, from Pyeongchang, citing evidence of state-sponsored, systematic cheating of doping controls.

Organizers had requested a roof

Pyeongchang organizers had urged South Korea to equip the stadium with a roof and heating, but this was rejected due to costs and concerns over whether the structure would support a roof. The temporary arena is to be dismantled after the Games.

The culture and finance ministries, both involved in approving construction costs, did not respond to requests for comment.

“The cold could ruin the entire opening party. The fate of the event is down to the Mother Nature,” said ruling party lawmaker Yeom Dong-yeol at the Pyeongchang parliamentary committee, who was born and raised in the town.
…

Unreleased songs recorded by Jimi Hendrix between 1968 and 1970 will be released next year.

 

Experience Hendrix and Legacy Recordings announced Wednesday that they will release Hendrix’s “Both Sides of the Sky” on March 9, 2018. The 13-track album includes 10 songs that have never been released.

 

Hendrix died in 1970 at age 27. The new album is the third volume in a trilogy from the guitar hero’s archive. “Valleys of Neptune” was released in 2010, followed by “People, Hell and Angels,” released in 2013.

 

Eddie Kramer, who worked as recording engineer on every Hendrix album made during the artist’s life, said in an interview that 1969 was “a very experimental year” for Hendrix, and that he was blown away as he worked on the new album.

 

“The first thing is you put the tape on and you listen to it and the hairs just stand up right on the back of your neck and you go, `Oh my God. This is too (expletive) incredible,” said Kramer. “It’s an incredible thing. Forty, 50 years later here we are and I’m listening to these tapes going, ‘Oh my God, that’s an amazing performance.”’

 

Many of the album’s tracks were recorded by Band of Gypsys, Hendrix’s trio with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox. Stephen Stills appears on two songs: “$20 Fine” and “Woodstock.”

 

“It sounds like Crosby, Stills & Nash except it’s on acid, you know,” Kramer, laughing, said of “$20 Fine.”

 

“Jimi is just rocking it,” he added. “It’s an amazing thing.”

 

Johnny Winter appears on “Things I Used to Do”; original Jimi Hendrix Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding are featured on “Hear My Train A Comin”’; and Lonnie Youngblood is on “Georgia Blues.”

 

Kramer produced the album alongside John McDermott and Janie Hendrix, the legend’s sister and president of Experience Hendrix. Kramer said though “Both Sides of the Sky” is the last of the trilogy, someone could find new Hendrix music in an attic or a basement, which could be re-worked.

 

He also said they have live footage of Hendrix, some just audio and some in video, which they plan to release.

 

“It was amazing just to watch him in the studio or live. The brain kicks off the thought process — it goes through his brain through his heart and through his hands and onto the guitar, and it’s a seamless process,” Kramer said. “It’s like a lead guitar and a rhythm guitar at the same time, and it’s scary. There’s never been another Jimi Hendrix, at least in my mind.”
…

A memoir by the late Japanese Emperor Hirohito about the years leading up to World War II has been purchased by a Japanese cosmetic surgeon who has has been condemned for denying the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and imperial Japanese forces.

Katsuya Takasu purchased the handwritten document Wednesday from Bonham’s auction house in New York City for $275,000, nearly double its expected top price, at an auction in Manhattan on Wednesday.

The 173-page document was dictated to Hirohito’s aides soon after the end of the war. It was created at the request of General Douglas MacArthur, whose administration controlled Japan at the time.

The memoir, also known as the imperial monologue, covers events from the Japanese assassination of Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin in 1928 to the emperor’s surrender broadcast recorded Aug. 14, 1945.

The document’s contents caused a sensation when they were first published in Japan in 1990, just after the emperor’s death.

The two volumes are each bound with strings, the contents written vertically in pencil.

It was transcribed by Hidenari Terasaki, an imperial aide and former diplomat who served as a translator when Hirohito met with McArthur.

The monologue is believed among historians to be a carefully crafted text intended to defend Hirohito’s responsibility in case he was prosecuted after the war. A 1997 documentary on Japan’s NHK television found an English translation of the memoir that supports that view.

According to the Associated Press, the manuscript, was in the possession of the daughter of Terasaki. Hirohito wrote the document in 1946, a year after Japan surrendered to Allied forces and the emperor faced the possibility of being tried as a war criminal.

Takasu says he purchased the document so it can be kept in Japan.

Takasu has been condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Jewish human rights group, for using social media to praise Nazi Germany and describe the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre in China as fabrications.

Japanese forces swept through Nanjing in December 1937 and killed scores of civilians and soldiers over a brutal six-week period.

The transcript was kept by Terasaki’s American wife, Gwen Terasaki, after his death in 1951 and then handed over to their daughter, Mariko Terasaki Miller, and her family.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
…

Han Solo is dead. Luke Skywalker is back, but changed. And Leia Organa’s story will soon be coming to an end. 

The Star Wars that inspired four decades of passionate fandom appears to be slowly but surely fading as “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” prepares to descend on Dec. 15, giving way to a newer generation of intergalactic rebels and their foes, like Rey and Kylo Ren, and a fresh voice behind the endeavor in writer-director Rian Johnson (“Looper”).

J.J. Abrams’ “The Force Awakens” set the stage for this new era of the franchise, but “The Last Jedi” has to move it forward and keep audiences interested for the next one too.

After all these years and billions of dollars, Star Wars isn’t exactly a scrappy underdog anymore, but the franchise is in somewhat uncharted territory. The prequels did their own damage, but at least no one had to say goodbye to their original heroes.

And then there’s the seemingly impossible standard set by that other Star Wars sequel, “The Empire Strikes Back.” 

​Premiere is Dec. 9

Besides the main cast, filmmakers and some Lucasfilm and Walt Disney Co. brass, no one will see “The Last Jedi” until the Los Angeles premiere on Dec. 9. And determining what exactly audiences should expect is a bit like trying to assemble a puzzle with no picture and most of the pieces missing. The cast has left some adjective breadcrumbs (“intense,” “emotional,” “intimate,” “cinematic”) but for the most part, it’s a mystery.  

“For me, ‘The Last Jedi’ is not a particularly happy story to tell, but it’s just my part,” Mark Hamill says cryptically. Hamill, 66, returns to play Luke Skywalker after being seen in only a few frames of “The Force Awakens,” which ends on a wind-swept cliff as the young protege Rey (Daisy Ridley) approaches him looking for training from the missing Jedi. Luke and Rey are just one of the new pairings promised for the film, which finds every character out of their comfort zone and facing new challenges as the Resistance organizes to go up against the First Order. 

 “It’s got so much going on,” Hamill adds. “You can cut from the more somber scenes I have to the action/adventure, the suspense, the humor … I’ve only seen it once but I thought, “This is too much information to process.’”

The marketing campaign, no doubt playing into the tone set by “Empire,” has focused on the darkness and intensity of “The Last Jedi,” but Johnson says that’s only one element. He stresses that it is, first and foremost, a Star Wars movie. To him, that means capturing that thing that makes you want to “run out of the theater and into your backyard” to play with your spaceship toys — even without the curmudgeonly wit of Harrison Ford’s Han Solo.

“That’s what everyone was concerned about going in: How do you do it without him?” Johnson, 43, says. “I saw so much potential for humor in it. I was looking at every single character and trying to find opportunities to break the tension. I think people are going to be surprised by how fun and light on its feet it is.” 

Expanded roster

In addition to Luke and Rey, the film brings back Carrie Fisher as Leia in her last film role (Fisher died after filming had wrapped), Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, fresh off murdering his father Han Solo, the mysterious Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), Domnhall Gleeson’s General Hux, the ace pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac), the ex-Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) and his old boss Captain Phasma (Gwendoline Christie), Chewbacca, the droids and a host of newcomers, like Laura Dern’s purple-haired Vice Admiral Holdo, a maintenance tech, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran), a hacker (Benicio Del Toro) and some cute little creatures called Porgs. 

His script, which he was able to write while “The Force Awakens” was being made, took some of the cast aback at first. 

“I was going, ‘Uh, I’m not sure about this,’” Ridley says. “It just took us all a second to be like, ‘Ok this is where the story is heading.’” 

​The new boyfriend

Johnson jokes that he’s like the new boyfriend at Thanksgiving dinner who everyone has to get used to.

“(Rian) had a different challenge which was to expand the Star Wars universe further with more inventive ideas, taking more risks,” Boyega says. “He was a real fan. I feel like he ticked off his Star Wars fanboy theories just one by one with this film.”

That fandom has also helped Johnson, who Hamill refers to as his Obi-Wan, reach a sort of zen-like state with the film. It also doesn’t hurt that Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who has not been afraid to make tough decisions and fire or bench directors if something isn’t working, was so pleased with their collaboration and the resulting film that she has already enlisted Johnson to develop a new Star Wars trilogy separate from the Skywalker saga (he’ll write and direct the first). 

 

Loyal fanbase

Now it’s just a matter of putting “The Last Jedi” out in the world. Financially, there’s not much to worry about — it’s tracking to open somewhere in the $200 million range (far below “The Force Awakens”’ $248 million debut, but stunning nonetheless). Also box office and the expectations and hopes of a loyal fanbase, who have been burned before, are two very different things.

“Having been a Star Wars fan myself for the past 40 years, I know intimately how passionate they are about it and how everyone has stuff they love and hate in every single movie. That takes the pressure off a little bit just thinking, `Ok, there’s going to be stuff that everyone likes, there’s going to be stuff that people don’t like and it’s going to be a mixture,”’ Johnson says. 

And with a smile and a shrug, he adds: “That’s what being a Star Wars fan is.”
…

Kiss co-founder and entrepreneur Gene Simmons has a new book out in which he hopes to reveal the principles of being rich and powerful.

There’s no quick fix: You’re going to have to wake up early, dress better, turn off the TV and study.

 

“On Power” is part guidebook, part self-help manual, with several profiles of people Simmons thinks we should admire, like Oprah Winfrey and Warren Buffett.

 

His advice to gaining wealth is simple: Think of a good idea, start a limited liability partnership in your home, use social media and deduct the costs from your taxes. You can keep your old job until the rewards flow in.

 

If they don’t? You can declare bankruptcy and “then you can start again.”
…

Six women filed a lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday, claiming that the movie mogul’s actions to cover up assaults amounted to civil racketeering.

The lawsuit was filed at a federal court in New York seeking to represent a class of “dozens, if not hundreds” of women who say they were assaulted by Weinstein.

The lawsuit claims that a coalition of companies and people became part of the growing “Weinstein Sexual Enterprise” and that they worked with Weinstein to conceal his widespread sexual harassment and assaults.

“The Weinstein Sexual Enterprise had many participants, grew over time as the obfuscation of Weinstein’s conduct became more difficult to conceal,” the suit said.

A lawyer for Weinstein declined comment.

According to the lawsuit, actresses and other women in the film industry were lured to industry events, hotel rooms, Weinstein’s home, office meetings or auditions under the pretense that they were to discuss a project.

Plaintiffs included the scriptwriter and actress Louisette Geiss and the actresses Katherine Kendall, Zoe Brock, Sarah Ann Thomas, Melissa Sagemiller and Nanette Klatt.

The Associated Press generally doesn’t name alleged victims of sexual assault without their permission. All of the women have told their stories publicly.

At least 75 women have come forward in the media to detail accounts of assault, harassment and inappropriate conduct by Weinstein. Weinstein’s representatives have denied all accusations of non-consensual sex, but no charges have been filed.

Weinstein, 65, is being investigated by police in Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, New York and London

Weinstein was ousted from the movie company he founded following a barrage of sexual harassment allegations that began with a bombshell New York Times article in early October. Since then, numerous prominent men in entertainment, business and politics and the media have been hit with allegations of improper behavior with women.

 
…

Women who say they were sexually harassed or mistreated by powerful men in television news have banded together to form a support network aimed at changing a newsroom culture they say has given men a free pass to misbehave for decades.

The women behind the Press Forward initiative tell The Associated Press they want a zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct at networks, better awareness of legal rights for women coming into the industry and better accountability for executives to ensure safety and improvements.

“Women should not have to go to work and worry that something like this is going to happen to them,” said Eleanor McManus, who said she was a 21-year-old job seeker when then-ABC News political reporter Mark Halperin tried to kiss her during a meeting in his office. “Women should not worry that mentors may act in an aggressive manner toward them. That’s not fair.”

Press Forward evolved over the last two months after McManus and other women went public with allegations against Halperin, CBS and PBS host Charlie Rose and NBC’s “Today” show host Matt Lauer, and others.

Halperin has said that he is “profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish” he has caused and, in reading the women’s accounts, recognized “conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility.” Rose and Lauer have also offered apologies, while saying some the allegations are untrue. All have been fired.

This was the second wave of an industry-wide reckoning that began at Fox News with the removal last year of Fox News chief Roger Ailes and the dismissal in April of the network’s star host Bill O’Reilly. But the most recent revelations came as many Hollywood and other media executives have faced allegations, and more network women have come forward.

At first, McManus and a small group shared stories and hugs over drinks. They kept in touch via text messages and private Facebook groups, including one called “The Silver Lining.” Now they have reached out to other women with shared experiences to build a growing coalition.

“Nobody here is wallowing in their pain and anger,” said Dianna Goldberg May, a former ABC News researcher who said Halperin demanded she close the door and sit on his lap in his office in the mid-1990s when she was 23. “We are doing something to effect positive change in the workplace.”

The group’s first mission: figuring out what’s needed to make the television news business more equitable and effective. The women say they’ll spend the next six months talking with everyone from interns to executives and designing best practices that tear down the status quo.

After Lauer’s firing, NBC initiated a review of its handling of the matter and implemented in-person training on sexual harassment awareness and appropriate behavior in the workplace.

McManus said some of the networks have already expressed an interest in working with Press Forward.

“There are many reasons to have an industry-wide conversation about how we’re doing and how we’re living up to our norms,” said McManus, a co-founder of the Washington, D.C. public relations firm Trident DMG. “This is, perhaps, the most pressing because this is about the shameful power imbalance that has been in place too long.”

They already have plenty of ideas.

May, now a lawyer, wants the government to give sexual harassment victims more time to file a complaint. Currently, they have up to 300 days.

McManus wants newsrooms to evolve so women at all levels are not afraid to report wrongdoing by a top anchor or producer.

“We stayed silent because we thought we were the only ones,” said McManus. “We didn’t think that this happened to others, and that’s why we stayed silent so long. The cult of silence is finally broken.”

Emily Miller tweeted that Halperin sexually assaulted her while she was a researcher at ABC News. Lara Setrakian was 24 when she says Halperin kissed and touched her while they talked politics in his office.

They said they learned later that some people at the network had been aware of Halperin’s behavior, but that it didn’t stop. Setrakian said Halperin’s treatment of young women was considered an “open secret” in some circles.

“There’s clearly a problem here,” said Setrakian, now the chief executive of the digital media outlet News Deeply. “They should be launching rigorous investigations on how to fix the problem.”

Changing the culture of television news so that men and women are on equal footing – with the same opportunities for advancement – is vital to ensuring its future, Setrakian said. That means not only eliminating the sexual misconduct that has caused scores of women to leave the industry, she said, but getting rid of double standards that judge women on their appearance.

“The current culture is muddling the meritocracy,” Setrakian said. “It’s pushing talented people out. It’s allowing toxic behavior to affect the performance and contribution of certain colleagues. That’s bad for business.”

Marcy McGinnis, who worked her way from secretary to senior vice president at CBS News, said as much as women should be told what resources are available to them if there is an incident, men need to know how to act in the workplace.

“Then we wouldn’t have to train women how to deal with it,” said McGinnis, who now works at the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University. “Why don’t we go to the source and fix that?”
…

When Marvel’s The Punisher debuted on Netflix last month, it was greeted with great interest and high anticipation.

But it arrived as just one of many comic-book adaptations. The Punisher is only the latest in a flood now comprising some 28 shows across nine broadcast, cable and streaming platforms, with no end in sight.

Granted, all comic-book shows aren’t created equal.

AMC’s The Walking Dead, beset by zombies, differs markedly from the teen adventures of Archie Andrews on the CW’s Riverdale and from Amazon’s superhero spoof The Tick.

But the majority exists within either of two expansive brands, not dissimilar to Pepsi and Coke.

One is DC, which (with the midseason arrival of Black Lightning on the CW) will be represented by nine shows on three networks. The other is Marvel with 13 shows arrayed on six outlets, chiefly Netflix, which currently hosts a half-dozen of its own.

That all adds up to more spandex get-ups than you’d find in an aerobics class. But before concluding that superheroes have taken over the small screen, it’s worth noting a few things.

Trends

First, TV has always chased trends. Think: cop shows, doctor shows, lawyer shows. Way back in Fall 1959, more than two dozen Westerns were airing on just three broadcast networks. That would dwarf the current slate of comic book shows as a percentage of the 500-odd scripted original prime-time series airing in 2017.

“Comics-related television series have always been a mainstay of television,” said Paul Levinson, professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University. “Now it may seem like they’re all over the place. But that’s because there’s television all over the place.”

Even so, an upsurge of comic-based shows the past few years is unmistakable. Consider the CW, where, without Smallville after a decade’s run, no such shows were in its lineup in Fall 2011. But after a subsequent year-by-year buildup, it will boast seven this season.

Along the way, comics-related movies proliferated, while in October 2010, The Walking Dead made clear from its explosive arrival that a comic-book property could be a TV smash.

Technology

By then, the CGI (computer graphics imagery) that any superhero show requires had become more sophisticated yet sufficiently affordable for weekly TV productions. Conversely, superhero series were a perfect TV showcase for those ever-more-eye-popping special effects in a way that more realistic cop dramas or sitcoms could never be.

Meanwhile, the launch of more and more channels, especially streaming platforms with their limitless capacity, signaled an ever-escalating need to create content.

“With this extraordinary appetite for source material, decades of comic books offered material just waiting to be plucked,” said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture.

Even better, they’re perfectly formatted for turning into TV.

“A comic book is like a TV storyboard: visual dialogue in frames,” Thompson said. “It’s so perfectly transferable. Comic books make the life of a network development executive really, really easy.”

Escapism

But none of this accounts for the apparently insatiable hunger for these shows with which the audience receives them.

“All of it, on some level, is escapism,” explained Brett Rogers, classics professor at the University of Puget Sound. “If I’m watching Jessica Jones for an hour, I’m not dealing with some real thing in my life. But the flip side is that comic-book-inspired shows can be spaces for thinking through some serious questions: Jessica Jones is an opportunity to explore sexual violence and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The comic book industry famously has had to fight the stigma of being for just for children and idiots,” he said. But as gifted “kids and idiots” like Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith came of age and made waves by nurturing a comics ethos across multiple media including TV, comics gained new gravitas, respect and urgency.

“It’s now being normalized as shared myth of mainstream culture,” Rogers said. “It’s a common myth shared between readers and viewers, adolescents and adults, comics and film buffs alike — NOT just kids’ culture.”

Morality tales

Such shows, like the comics that spawned them, can offer welcome moral clarity in an ever-more-confounding world.

“It’s much easier to identify the heroes and villains, the good guys vs. the bad guys, than it is on other television shows,” says Levinson. “And, by and large, the good characters and heroes endure and triumph over adversity.”

“These characters were created as morality tales. They have a primal appeal, a simple appeal,” said Glen Weldon, a panelist on NPR’s “Pop Culture Happy Hour” podcast and author of Superman: The Unauthorized Biography.

“They represent our best selves. We are meant to look at them and strive to be more like them.”

And thanks to the internet, the appreciation of these comic-book heroes, whether they exist on the page or the screen, can now be enjoyed as a communal experience.

“In the past, if you grew up a nerd, you thought you were alone,” said Weldon. “Now you can go online and find people just like you who share your passion.”

Versatility

How long will this craze last? For more than a half-century, TV’s trends have burst on the scene, then flared out and been given up for dead. (How many current TV Westerns can you count?)

But comics-inspired TV may not follow that cycle.

“It may ebb as well as flow,” said Thompson, “but I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that this genre will exhaust itself as others have done, or that viewers will get tired of it. It’s such a versatile genre.”

Versatile, and with room to grow, he adds, unlike other genres that may have reached their peak. While the police procedural may well have plateaued creatively, “the comic-book genre is still maturing,” he said. “We’re still seeing it evolve.”
…

Darkest Hour, a historical drama by acclaimed filmmaker Joe Wright, shows how Winston Churchill galvanized the British to fight against Nazi Germany.

Though based on fact, the film runs like a political thriller chronicling Churchill’s controversial decision to send England to a perilous war.

In the spring of 1940, the West was losing the war against Germany. The Nazis had invaded Belgium and France, and Britain was on the verge of capitulating.

As the British forces were cornered in the French coastal town of Dunkirk, the British Parliament replaced Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, known for his appeasement policy toward Adolf Hitler, with Winston Churchill who advocated war against the Nazis.

Churchill’s impulsive, forceful and explosive personality did not win him many friends. But the film Darkest Hour reveals his qualities as a ferocious leader, who acknowledged his fears and battled his uncertainties while rallying England against the Nazis.

It was Churchill’s humility that most appealed to Wright.

“For me, it was the element of doubt,” the filmmaker said. “The idea that his doubt was a key element to the attainment of wisdom. I found that a really interesting idea.”

Wright builds the film around that doubt, putting his audience right in the middle of that decision, as opposed to looking at the statesman’s actions through history’s 20/20 vision.

Lead actor Gary Oldman felt that Churchill’s appeal lay in his volatility.

“It was the highs and the lows, the extremes of what [screenwriter] Anthony [McCarten] presented,” Oldman said. “Oddly, for such a verbose film, still my favorite scene in the movie … was when Churchill is walking down the corridor and hears Hitler and he doubles back and he closes the door on Hitler. It’s my favorite scene. No words. That says so much about him and his character.”

Oldman offers a tour de force performance as Churchill.

He says, though, that he had misgivings about accepting the role of a much physically larger character, and he did not want to put on 50 or 60 extra pounds.

“I mean, I am nearly 60 years old and I really did not want to mess with my metabolism,” Oldman said. “It would take the rest of my life, I think, to take it off. So, the only way to go was the prosthetic way, but we got a wonderful prosthetic makeup artist and hair designer, Kazuhiro Tsuji. It was daunting at first, and I said ‘no’ to it several times, but I’m mostly glad in the end I said ‘yes.'”

Unlike some of his predecessors, who portrayed Churchill as a curmudgeon and a heavy brooding man, Oldman expressed a lighter, wittier Churchill, albeit impatient with his loyal secretary Elizabeth, played by Lily James, and petulant with his wife, Clementine, played by Kristin Scott Thomas.

“I studied the footage, and what started to emerge was this rather vital cherubic, cheeky man who was just dynamic and full of life, charismatic and funny,” Oldman said.

While watching Darkest Hour, one experiences the risks Churchill and, by extension, Britain took fighting in what it seemed at the time to be an almost futile war against tyranny. The film is an important one, both for its historic value and cinematic depth, as well as its message that democracy should be defended at any cost.
…

What do a former U.S. president, LeBron James and a guy who really, really likes chicken nuggets have in common? They all made the biggest splash on Twitter this year.

Twitter on Tuesday released its top trending people and topics for 2017, ranging from sports to politics to Korean boy bands. It was a year in which almost every sector of society was mashed together or clashing on social media, with the “Tweeter in Chief,” President Donald Trump, leading the way.

The top retweet came from fast food lover Carter Wilkerson, who begged people to retweet him so that he could get a year’s worth of free chicken nuggets from Wendy’s. He fell short of the 18-million retweet bar set by the fast-food chain, but Wendy’s gave Wilkerson the nuggets anyway for the effort.

President Barack Obama , with 1.7 million retweets in August, was second. Obama took three of the top 10 spots on the list. Cleveland Cavaliers star Lebron James was seventh, with a tweet that criticized President Donald Trump over his decision to rescind Stephen Curry’s invitation to the White House to celebrate the Golden State Warrior’s NBA championship.

Curry, and others on the team, said that he didn’t want to visit Trump in the White House.

While he did not make the most retweeted list, Trump took the top spot for the most tweeted about elected world leader. He also came in No. 1 for top tweeted U.S. elected officials, with Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan taking second and third. PBS’ special live coverage of Trump’s inauguration day was the most viewed live stream broadcast of the year.

With the media in Trump’s crosshairs, it was also in the sights of Twitter users. The top three tweeted news outlets were Fox News , CNN and The New York Times .

Some other highlights: #halamadrid was the top sports hashtag, @NFL was the top sports handle and the most tweeted about musicians were Korean boy band BTS, also known as the Bangtan Boys.
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These last few years, Chris Stapleton is often surprised by early-morning texts of congratulations from his friends. Take, for instance, last week, when the Grammy Award nominations were announced.

 

“That’s how I usually find out. People go ‘Congratulations’ and I go ‘What for?”’ Stapleton said. He eventually discovered that he was nominated for three awards, including best country album, best country song and best country solo performance.

“That’s usually what happens to me because I usually don’t know what’s going on,” he said.

 

Since his sensational debut solo album, “Traveller,” was released in 2015, he’s won two Grammy Awards and scores of Country Music Association and Academy of Country Music Awards. The album continued to dominate the country album sales chart this year and has been certified double platinum.

 

He released two new albums this year — the Grammy-nominated “From A Room: Volume 1,” which came out in May, and “From A Room: Volume 2,” which came out Dec. 1.

 

His success lies in his bold simplicity: His recordings are cut live in the studio with his band; his wife, Morgane, sings harmony; and his producer is Dave Cobb. Stapleton isn’t verbose and neither are his lyrics, so it’s no surprise that everyone from Adele to Luke Bryan has recorded his songs. “Either Way,” which is nominated for best country solo performance, is literally his voice and a guitar.

“I think simple is harder to do than making overly complicated things,” Stapleton said. “Much in the way that I think lyrically in songwriting less words can mean more, the same can be true of music. If you can, for lack of a better term, sell a song without putting in extraneous instrumentation … then that’s what serves the song the best.”

 

His touring is an extension of the idea of putting the music first. On his arena tour this year, he plays on a stage shaped like a half-circle band shell with lights.

“While it looks like some science fiction piece, it’s a giant diffuser that controls frequency and stage volume,” Stapleton explains.

 

He doesn’t use in-ear monitors, those ear buds that allow artists to hear the music, preferring monitors placed on the stage; the stage allows him to better project his music to the seats in the back of the arena.

 

“I am not trying to make the biggest, most elaborate, pyrotechnic show,” Stapleton said. “I am trying to make the show that sounds the best, or best represents what we do onstage. It’s all from a sound perspective for me and then the visual has to fall in line.”

 

Singer-songwriter Kendall Marvel met Stapleton 15 years ago, back when the Kentucky-bred Stapleton was a clean-shaven new songwriter with a short, flattop haircut. They have written some 60 songs together, including songs cut by Blake Shelton, Lee Ann Womack and Josh Turner.

 

Marvel, who co-wrote “Either Way” as well as two other songs on Stapleton’s “From A Room: Volume 2,” said the husband-and-wife harmony is key to their music. Morgane Stapleton, who is also a songwriter, adds just the right touch of sweetness and softness to his volume and range.

 

“When you take her out of the equation, he would not be Chris Stapleton,” Marvel said. “She is to him and his guitar playing what harmonica player Mickey Raphael is to Willie Nelson.”

Stapleton gives a lot of credit to his wife for knowing all the songs in his catalog and picking songs that fans can connect to, like “Broken Halos,” another Grammy-nominated song.

 

That song, which talks about not always understanding why loss happens, has become a tender, comforting moment for many fans, especially after the mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas earlier this year. Stapleton said he wants his fans to attach meaning to his songs that he didn’t always intend when he wrote them.

 

“I want them to have ownership in it because they do,” Stapleton said. “The songs don’t really mean as much without them and without people listening to them and investing in them.”
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After shaking the halls of Congress, network newsrooms, and Hollywood, a sex abuse scandal has now reached the epitome of high culture — grand opera.

New York’s Metropolitan Opera has suspended famed longtime conductor James Levine because of allegations he sexually abused as many as three teenage boys more than 30 years ago.

“This is a tragedy for anyone whose life has been affected,” Met general manager Peter Gelb said Sunday.

Gelb says the opera company has hired former U.S. attorney Robert J. Cleary to lead its investigation and that Levine has denied the accusations.

The New York Post first reported the allegations against Levine. The newspaper says according to a Lake Forest, Illinois police report, the conductor allegedly molested a 15 year old boy in 1985 when Levine was a conductor with a summer music festival near Chicago.

According to Post, the unidentified victim told police the encounters with Levine “nearly destroyed my family and almost led me to suicide.”

The New York Times reports two other men allege Levine sexually molested them when they were teenagers — one case in 1968 and another in 1986.

The 74 year-old Levine is known for his stocky build and wild frizzy hair and was the face of the Metropolitan Opera for decades.

He retired last year as the Met’s music director, but still conducts occasional performances. He was preparing to conduct the Met’s new production of Tosca when his suspension was announced.

Levine is the latest public figure to fight for his professional and political life after allegations of sexual misconduct.

Just last week, NBC news fired Today show host Matt Lauer because inappropriate behavior toward women.

CBS and PBS also fired longtime newsman Charlie Rose for alleged sexual advances toward coworkers.

Democratic Senator Al Franken says he is “embarrassed” by a picture showing him grinning and holding his hands over the breasts of a sleeping woman in 2006, when he was a television comic. Other women have also leveled accusations against him.

Congressman John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, is under pressure to resign after allegations of sexual misconduct — a charge he denies.

Others confronted with charges include actor Kevin Spacey, comedian Louis C.K., former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, and Republican Senate candidate from Alabama, Roy Moore.

About 16 women have accused President Donald Trump of sexual harassment and worse. He has labeled the accusations “fake news.”
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Just when South Korea thought it was finally creating a buzz for February’s Winter Olympics, North Korea fired its most powerful missile yet and reignited safety worries about the small mountain town that will host the games not far from the rivals’ border.

The Pyeongchang Olympics probably aren’t in jeopardy because of Wednesday’s launch, for a number of reasons, including that the North is unlikely to attack the more powerful, U.S.-backed South. Despite its belligerent neighbor, South Korea is one of the safest places in the world, with a wealth of experience hosting international sporting events.

Still, the launch, which followed a 10-week lull, was a frustrating development for Pyeongchang’s organizers, who have only recently got on track after facing construction delays, controversies over cost overruns and wary sponsors. They can also do little to calm international fears created by North Korea’s accelerating nuclear weapons and missile tests.

Shortly after North Korea fired the Hwasong-15 into the sea Wednesday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in convened a national security meeting where he ordered government officials to closely review whether the launch could hurt South Korea’s efforts to successfully host the Olympics, which begin February 9. 

South Korea wants more than a million spectators for the Olympics, which will be held just 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border, and expects 30 percent of them to be foreign visitors. Organizers have struggled for months to spark enthusiasm for the games locally, where the national conversation over the past year has been dominated by a massive corruption scandal that toppled and jailed the last president, as well as North Korea’s flurry of weapons tests.

Sung Baikyou, an official from Pyeongchang’s organizing committee, on Thursday downplayed worries that North Korea would scare away athletes and visitors to Pyeongchang. Organizers and government officials have held briefings and site inspections for Olympics officials, members and sponsors to reassure them of South Korea’s security readiness.

Largest winter field

The 92 nations that have so far registered to participate in the Pyeongchang Games represent the largest ever Winter Olympics field. And after a slow start, organizers had managed to sell more than half of the available tickets by the end of November.

Sung said there hadn’t been any talk with the International Olympic Committee about moving or canceling the games.

“It wouldn’t make sense for anyone to cancel tickets to Pyeongchang because of fears about North Korea,” Sung said. “There’s no war; bombs aren’t being dropped on Pyeongchang.”

Hyun Jae-gyung, an official from Gangwon province, which governs Pyeongchang and nearby Gangneung, a coastal city that will host the skating and hockey events during the Olympics, said cancellations at hotels and other accommodation facilities in the areas had been few and sporadic and unlikely linked to security concerns.

But there’s nothing organizers can do if North Korea raises fears even higher with more tests. North Korea has conducted 20 ballistic missile launches just this year, and the tests are becoming increasingly aggressive; some in the South fear that Washington might consider a pre-emptive strike on the North as the intercontinental ballistic missile tested Wednesday may be able to reach anywhere in the continental United States.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Dongguk University and a security adviser to South Korea’s presidential office, thinks it’s highly unlikely that the North will do any significant weapons tests or other aggressive acts that would disrupt the Olympics. 

After the Hwasong-15’s successful flight test, delighted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un declared that the country has “realized the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force.” Many experts, including Koh, believe that this suggests the country could soon consider its nuclear program as “enough” and shift the focus to its dismal economy.

It would do nothing for heavily sanctioned Pyongyang to worsen its awful reputation by creating trouble during the Olympics, Koh said. In recent government statements, including the one announced after Wednesday’s missile test, North Korea has repeatedly claimed itself as a “responsible” and “peace-loving” nation, something it has been emphasizing since the United States relisted the country as a state terror sponsor, Koh said.

Pre-Olympics push

“Even if they do conduct a missile or nuclear test during the Olympics, the games will go on, as tests don’t start wars. But I think there’s almost no possibility that they will,” said Koh. “If anything, they might have pushed hard to get their tests done before the start of the Olympics.”

It would help ease worries if North Korea participates in the Pyeongchang Games. While a North Korean figure skating pair qualified for the Olympics in September, it’s unclear whether the North will let them compete in the South.

North Korea boycotted the 1988 Summer Olympics in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, and has ignored the South’s proposals for dialogue in recent months.

Securing North Korea’s commitment to attend the Pyeongchang Games will be a critical topic at the IOC’s executive board meeting starting Monday in Lausanne, Switzerland, which will be the last one before the start of the Olympics.

The IOC has already offered to pay the costs should North Korea decide to participate, and Pyeongchang officials have been talking about granting special entries for North Korean athletes in some ice sports. Kim Kyung-hyup, a lawmaker for South Korea’s ruling party, said Thursday that Seoul should consider sending a special envoy to the North to try to persuade it to participate in the Pyeongchang Games.

Other than hoping that North Korea accepts the invitation, organizers are stuck.

“If there’s any other solution, tell me,” Sung said. “It’s not like we can jump up and catch North Korean missiles with a net.”
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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington will bestow the Kennedy Center Honors, the highest award in the U.S. for a performer, to five recipients Sunday for their lifetime contributions to the arts.

This year’s honorees, announced last summer, include LL Cool J – the first hip-hop artist to receive the prestigious award.

The other honorees are television writer and producer Norman Lear, singers Gloria Estefan and Lionel Richie and dancer Carmen de Lavallade.

They will be honored at a gala featuring performances by top entertainers. The ceremony, which will not be televised until December 26, has historically been a secret event. The honorees are unaware which artists will pay tribute to them, only that their careers will be celebrated.

The affair is traditionally attended by the president and first lady, who have also traditionally hosted a pre-gala reception at the White House. But this year things will be different. Lear and de Lavallade said months ago they would boycott the reception due to their opposition to U.S. President Donald Trump.

The White House subsequently issued a statement saying Trump decided not to participate in this year’s activities “to allow the honorees to celebrate without any political distraction.
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For some black women, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s engagement was something more. One of the world’s most eligible bachelors has chosen someone who looks like them and grew up like them.

It’s the kind of storybook plot twist they don’t always experience.

“It’s that old ‘Cinderella’ tale,” said Essence Magazine Editor-in-Chief Vanessa K. DeLuca. “No matter what, we all have this fantasy of being swept off our feet by the prince. It’s validation that, of course, we can be princesses. … We need to see that as black women, that that’s possible. That’s something we don’t get to see enough of, and that’s what we’re responding to.”

Markle, whose mother is black and father is white, will be the first woman of color in modern history to join the British royal family. She joins famous black women like Serena Williams, rapper Eve and Janet Jackson who have recently found love outside of their race, with powerful men.

Ashley Mosley had been living in London this summer, across the street from Kensington Gardens. Engagement gossip between Markle and Prince Harry was all anyone could talk about at the black hair salon in her neighborhood. When the news broke this week, Mosley shrieked, “Oh my God!”

“‘Coming to America’ was fictional, but this is going to be real,” said Mosley, referring to the 1988 Eddie Murphy film that imagined an African prince finding a black wife in New York.

Though the celebrations this week have been wide and plenty, the royal engagement has not come without strife for Harry and Markle. After their relationship was announced this year, Harry lashed out at what he described as “racial undertones” in media coverage and overt racism on social media.

Markle this week called it “disheartening” to have to still deal with questions about her identity in 2017.

For Markle, some of the negative coverage marked a sad refrain. When Markle was growing up in Los Angeles, her black mother was mistaken for her nanny, and her father worked hard to shield her from bigotry. As an actress, she struggled with her dual backgrounds preventing her from landing both black and white roles.

The engagement mirrors broader trends in interracial marriage both in the U.S. and the United Kingdom.

According to a recent Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data, among newlyweds, the share of recently married blacks with a spouse of a different race has more than tripled, from 5 percent in 1980 to 18 percent in 2015. Another study showed that more than 2 million people in England and Wales, or 9 percent of those in couples, were part of mixed-race relationships in 2011, up from 7 percent a decade earlier.

Still, African-Americans face more obstacles to marriage than other groups. In the U.S., blacks are the least likely racial group to marry, at 68 percent, compared with 90 percent of whites and 85 percent of Hispanics, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Blacks also tend to marry later, at an average age of 26.2, compared with 24.2 for whites and 23.8 for Hispanics.

Morgan Jerkins, a 25-year-old writer and editor who lives in New York, said the couple’s story is inspiring – especially Markle’s second chance at love as a divorced woman in her mid-30s.

“The odds were not in her favor,” said Jerkins, a black woman. “I’m all for seeing women of color who are loved publicly and tremendously. We’re bombarded all the time with messages about how unmarriageable we are. For this moment, we can say, ‘Not today.'”

It’s also just fun.

In a year full of unending bad headlines, often about minority communities, the engagement was a chance to escape, imagine and celebrate.

The news launched a thousand memes as people took to social media to contemplate the culture clash between black Americans and the British. Who, for instance, will wear the fanciest hats to the wedding?

Until this week, an African-American royal was as unlikely a prospect as a black president once seemed – and now both are happening in Mosley’s lifetime.

“I think it’s encouraging that women are independent and doing what makes them happy,” Mosley said. “When you follow your heart and your dreams, they do pay off. … You might end up with a prince on the other side of it!”
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Archaeologists working in sand dunes on the central California coast have dug up an intact plaster sphinx that was part of an Egyptian movie set built more than 90 years ago for Cecil B. DeMille’s epic The Ten Commandments.

The 300-pound sphinx is the second recovered from the Guadalupe-Nipomo Dunes.

Dunes Center Executive Director Doug Jenzen told the Santa Barbara news station KEYT-TV that it’s unlike other items found on previous digs because most of it is preserved with the original paint intact.

The set of the 1923 movie included more than 20 sphinxes. After filming, DeMille ordered everything buried in the dunes 175 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

They lay undisturbed for decades before recovery efforts began. The newly recovered sphinx is expected to go on display at the dunes museum next summer.
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A World Cup shrouded in corruption controversies and struggling to attract sponsors could have the dreariest of starts on the field: a meeting of the lowest-ranked teams in the 32-team field.

Host Russia and Saudi Arabia play June 14 at Moscow in an opener lacking global appeal, but things pick up the next day when 2010 champion Spain and defending European champion Portugal meet in Sochi.

The Iberian neighbors were drawn into Group B at a Kremlin ceremony Friday. Morocco coach Herve Renard hoped to avoid the “two ogres” but will face them along with Iran.

“It’s a complicated group,” Spain coach Julen Lopetegui said. “It will be tough. Portugal is a great team. It is the defending European champion and has a squad filled with top players.”

None more so than Cristiano Ronaldo, who recently joined Argentina’s Lionel Messi as the only five-time winners of FIFA’s player of the year award. Messi’s quest for his first World Cup title begins the following day when Argentina takes on Iceland — at 334,000 the least-populous country to qualify for the World Cup.

Iceland coach Heimir Hallgrimsson already knows what he must tell his team: “Watch out for No. 10.”

The United States is missing from soccer’s top event for the first time since 1986 and four-time champion Italy will be watching from afar for the first time since 1958.

Germany remains the favorite. Its depth was clear when an experimental squad won the Confederations Cup in Russia in July. Germany opens against Mexico in its quest to become the first country to win back-to-back World Cup titles since Brazil in 1962. The Germans then face Sweden and South Korea in Group F.

“We got opponents that are not unknown to us,” Germany captain Manuel Neuer said. “That’s what I like best, when we know what to expect.”

Germany is hoping to be based in Sochi along with Brazil. The only five-time world champion does not intend to move its training camp despite a schedule that has none of its games in the Black Sea resort. The Selecao, beaten 7-1 at home by Germany in the 2014 semifinals, were drawn in Group E with Switzerland, Costa Rica and Serbia.

“Despite the distances, there are quick ways to get there,” Brazil coach Tite said.

England, eliminated in the group stage three years ago, was drawn into Group G along with newcomer Panama, Tunisia and Belgium. Gareth Southgate’s first World Cup game as a coach will be a repeat of his first as a player — Southgate made his World Cup debut in England’s 2-0 win over Tunisia in 1998.

“We’ve been good at writing off teams and then getting beaten by them,” Southgate said.

Roberto Martinez also will be making his World Cup debut. But the Belgium coach knows England well after spending two decades there as a coach and player.

“It is going to be one of those games with no secrets,” said Martinez, a former Everton manager. “We have 25 players in the British game. That brings that understanding. That brings that competitive level.”

Peru, the last of the 32 teams to qualify for Russia, is in Group C with 1998 champion France, Australia and Denmark.

“It could have been worse,” France coach Didier Deschamps said.

The only group without a former World Cup champion is H — Poland, Senegal, Colombia and Japan.

The Russians have been placed with the winners of the first World Cup — Uruguay — in Group A along with Egypt and Uruguay. At No. 65, Russia is the lowest-ranked team at the tournament, with Saudi Arabia only two places higher.

“I’ve never seen them,” Russia coach Stanislav Cherchesov said.

Russian hosts

The ceremony was opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin, one day short of the seventh anniversary of the FIFA executive committee vote that awarded the 2018 World Cup to Russia and the 2022 tournament to Qatar — the subject of bribe allegations against soccer executives brought up nearly daily in New York during a corruption trial against top soccer officials. Putin urged fans to visit and enjoy his “big and multifaceted” country, a rallying cry that comes amid concerns about racism and hooliganism.

“We will do everything to make it a major sporting festival,” Putin said, anticipating a World Cup of “friendship and fair play, values that do not change with time.”

The Olympic doping scandal surrounding Russia hung over the final countdown to the draw. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Mutko, head of the local World Cup organizing committee, defended himself against accusations he helped orchestrate state-sponsored doping at the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

“Nowadays everyone is trying to make some kind of axis of evil out of us, just because we’re a great sporting power,” Mutko said.

The International Olympic Committee executive board will decide Tuesday whether to ban Russia from the upcoming Pyeongchang Olympics.
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We’re gathering the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending December 2, 2017.

The hit list seems comfortable with offering one new song a week, because that’s what we have once more.

Number 5: Cardi B. “Bodak Yellow Money Moves”

Let’s start in fifth place, where Cardi B slides two slots with “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves).”

The 2018 Grammy nominations came out on November 28, and Cardi competes in two categories. “Bodak Yellow” is nominated for both Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance. The 60th annual Grammy Awards ceremony will take place on January 28.

Number 4: Imagine Dragons “Thunder”

Imagine Dragons gains a slot in fourth place with “Thunder.” The Las Vegas band may win its second Grammy Award: “Radioactive” took Best Rock Performance in 2014, and “Evolve” is currently nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album.

Beyond that, the band’s music also appears in many advertisements. The song “Believer” alone currently has more than 32 placements, ranging from Nintendo and Microsoft to Jeep vehicles.

Number 3: Lil Pump “Gucci Gang”

Lil Pump places himself right in the middle of our countdown, as “Gucci Gang” jumps from 12th to third place. Hailing from Miami, Florida, Lil Pump – real name Gazzy Garcia – began uploading songs to SoundCloud last year. After earning millions of streams, he became a leader in “Soundcloud Rap,” a genre which also includes Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty. Lil Pump’s self-titled debut mixtape hit third place on the U.S. pop album chart in October.

Number 2: Camila Cabello Featuring Young Thug “Havana”

Camila Cabello and Young Thug remain stuck in second place with “Havana.” However, it’s a different story on the Billboard Pop Songs chart, where it jumps to number one.

This is Camila’s second Pop Songs victory, following her collaboration with Machine Gun Kelly, “Bad Things.”

Number 1: Post Malone Featuring 21 Savage “Rockstar”

Up at number one, as you may have guessed, Post Malone and 21 Savage log a sixth straight week at the top with “Rockstar.” 

Speaking recently with Polish media, Post said words to the effect that whenever you want to feel something, don’t listen to hip-hop. Post later said he meant no disrespect to hip-hop, which he loves…he just meant to say that when he needs to reflect on life, Bob Dylan is his go-to artist.

We’re your go-to source for the biggest hits every week, so join us again in seven days!
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Something extraordinary happened last week at the bottom of the world: 55 very determined, possibly crazy people participated in a marathon on the continent of Antarctica. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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The new head of the U.N. cultural agency has called for greater protection for cultural heritage sites, especially in conflict zones.

Audrey Azoulay told a U.N. Security Council meeting Thursday that of 82 UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Arab world, 17 are on a danger list.

“All six Syrian World Heritage sites have been severely affected, including Palmyra and the fabled city of Aleppo, one of the oldest cities in the world, now reduced to rubble,” Azoulay said.

She also told the council that more that 100 cultural sites across Iraq have been damaged.

Azoulay said she was encouraged by the council’s adoption of a resolution in March condemning the unlawful destruction of cultural heritage and warning Islamic State, al-Qaida and other combatants that such attacks may constitute war crimes.

But she said countries need to do a lot more, including improving data collection and information sharing on trafficking routes, and better damage assessments.  

U.N. counterterrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov called for a stronger focus on investigations and cross-border cooperation, and on bringing in collectors, art dealers, auction houses and the tourism sector to stop the illegal trade in stolen cultural items.

Voronkov said the “looting and illicit trafficking of cultural objects leads to the financing of terrorism and criminal networks.”

Yury Fedotov, head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told the council that “the art market and museums should pay special attention to the provenance of cultural items that they are considering for acquisition, or with which they otherwise come into contact.”

Fedotov said there needs to be international cooperation in investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating cases related to trafficking cultural property.

“Only in this way can we protect precious cultural heritage from being lost forever,” he said.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and his family have lit the National Christmas Tree at the White House.

The White House tree lighting took place on the White House Ellipse, where the national tree and smaller trees representing each of the 50 states are placed each year for visitors to Washington to enjoy.

This year’s event was hosted by talk show host Kathie Lee Gifford and actor Dean Cain. The event featured musical performances by the Beach Boys, the U.S. Navy Band, Mannheim Steamroller and other musicians, including Jack Wagner, Wynonna, Craig Campbell, the Texas Tenors, and the young-adult group Boys II Bow Ties.

This year’s ceremony was the 95th tree-lighting celebration, started in 1923 by President Calvin Coolidge. The tradition was even carried on in 1941, just two weeks after the United States entered World War Two.

In fact, at that event on Dec. 22, 1941, there were surprise appearances by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Norway, whose country had been occupied by Germany one year earlier.

The tree was not lit during the later years of the war due to the need to conserve power, but local schoolchildren donated ornaments for the National Christmas trees of 1942, 1943 and 1944. With a patriotic theme and tags with the names of U.S. servicemen accompanying the ornaments, the national tree became a symbol of patriotism in troubled times.

Later in 1980, the national tree remained largely dark, except for 417 seconds, to remind people of the 417 days that a group of 52 American hostages had then been held by militants in Iran. The hostages were released in January 1981 after 444 days, and the tree was re-lit to welcome them back to the United States.

Today, the National Christmas Tree is lit early in the holiday season to kick off a month-long Pageant of Peace, meant to inspire goodwill and holiday spirit among all people and religions in the United States.

Tourists may walk among the trees, peek through the fence at the White House, take photographs, enjoy performances or recorded music, and view other displays such as an electric model train, a Jewish menorah, a yule log, and a Christian nativity scene.

Both the menorah and the nativity scene have withstood legal challenges centered on separation of church and state.
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Jim Nabors, the shy Alabaman whose down-home comedy made him a TV star as Gomer Pyle and whose surprisingly operatic voice kept him a favorite in Las Vegas and other showplaces, died Thursday. He was 87.

Nabors, who underwent a liver transplant in 1994 after contracting hepatitis B, died peacefully at his home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year, said his husband, Stan Cadwallader, who was by his side.

“Everybody knows he was a wonderful man. And that’s all we can say about him. He’s going to be dearly missed,” Cadwallader said.

The couple married in early 2013 in Washington state, where gay marriage had recently been made legal. Nabors’ friends had known for years that he was gay, but he had never said anything to the media.

“It’s pretty obvious that we had no rights as a couple, yet when you’ve been together 38 years, I think something’s got to happen there, you’ve got to solidify something,” Nabors told Hawaii News Now at the time. “And at my age, it’s probably the best thing to do.”

Nabors became an instant success when he joined “The Andy Griffith Show” in the early 1960s. The character of Gomer Pyle, the unworldly, lovable gas pumper who would exclaim “Gollllll-ly!” proved so popular that in 1964 CBS starred him in “Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C.”

In the spinoff, which lasted five seasons, Gomer left his hometown of Mayberry to become a Marine recruit. His innocence confounded his sergeant, the irascible Frank Sutton.

Audiences saw another side of Nabors in appearances in TV variety programs — his booming baritone. The contrast between his homespun humor (“The tornado was so bad a hen laid the same egg twice”) and his full-throated operatic arias was stunning.

For two seasons beginning in 1969, CBS presented “The Jim Nabors Hour,” on which he joshed with guest stars, did sketches with Sutton and fellow “Gomer” veteran Ronnie Schell, and sang country and opera.

Offstage, Nabors retained some of the awed innocence of Gomer. At the height of his fame in 1969, he admitted, “For the first four years of the series, I didn’t trust my success. Every weekend and on every vacation, I would take off to play nightclubs and concerts, figuring the whole thing would blow over some day.

“You know somethin’? I still find it difficult to believe this kind of acceptance. I still don’t trust it.”

After the end of his variety show, Nabors continued earning high salaries in Las Vegas showrooms and in concert theaters across the country. He recorded more than two dozen albums and sang with the Dallas and St. Louis symphony orchestras.

During the 1970s he moved to Hawaii, buying a 500-acre macadamia ranch. He still did occasional TV work, and in the late 1970s, he appeared 10 months annually at Hilton hotels in Hawaii. The pace gave him an ulcer.

“I was completely burned out,” he later recalled. “I’d had it with the bright lights.”

In the early 1980s, his longtime friendship with Burt Reynolds led to roles in “Stroker Ace,” “Cannonball II” and “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.”

He returned to concert and nightclub performances in 1985, though at a less intensive pace.

“It was kind of like `The Twilight Zone’ for me, all of us standing there in costumes, the girls in spangles, no tops,” he told The Associated Press during his comeback stint at the Las Vegas Hilton. “I looked around and told the girls, `I’m used to being on the back of a tractor, then to be dropped into the midst of this! It’s kind of weird.”‘

Among his regular gigs was singing “Back Home Again in Indiana” at the Indianapolis 500 each year, which he first did in 1972. The first time, he wrote the lyrics on his hand so he wouldn’t forget.

“I’ve never thought of [the audience reaction] as relating to me,” Nabors said. “It’s always relating to the song and to the race. It is applauding for the tradition of the race and the excitement.”

Illness forced him to cancel his appearance in 2007, the first one he had missed in more than 20 years. He was back performing at Indy in 2008, saying, “It’s always the main part of my year. It just thrills you to your bones.”

Nabors was an authentic small-town Southern boy, born James Thurston Nabors in Sylacauga, Alabama, in 1930, son of a police officer. Boyhood attacks of asthma required long periods of rest, during which he learned to entertain his playmates with vocal tricks.

After graduating from the University of Alabama, he worked in New York City for a time, and later, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he was an assistant film editor and occasional singer at a TV station.

Nabors moved on to Hollywood with hopes of using his voice. While cutting film at NBC in the daytime, he sang at night at a Santa Monica club.

“I was up there on the stage the night that Andy Griffith came in,” Nabors recalled in 1965. “He said to me afterward, `You know somethin,’ boy? You’re good. I’m going to bring my manager around to see you.”‘

In 1991, Nabors got a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame in ceremonies attended by pals Carol Burnett, Loni Anderson, Phyllis Diller and Florence Henderson. His reaction? “Gollll-ly!”

The late Associated Press Entertainment Writer Bob Thomas wrote biographical material for this story.
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The founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including silent film stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, said at its inception in 1927 that the organization needed a library and museum. The Academy, best known for giving Oscars at its annual awards ceremony, soon got its library, but has been waiting nearly a century for the museum. 

The long wait is nearly over, said film historian Kerry Brougher during a tour of the site of the $388 million Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, which is under construction and scheduled to open in 2019 with Brougher as its director. The 27,000-square meter facility will be built around a historic department store that was built in 1939, and which, since 1994, has been used for exhibitions of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art next door. The expanded facility will include a glass-domed sphere with a view of the Hollywood Hills and a 1,000-seat theater.

​Brougher says the museum will open as Hollywood enters a new phase in creating entertainment, extending its reach beyond movie theaters. “Film is expanding,” he says. “It’s in the theaters still, but it’s also projected onto buildings, it’s also on your iPhone, it’s on your computer…It’s part of the art gallery world, with film installations.” And while films and multi-media projects are made worldwide, he says the heart of the industry is still in Hollywood.

​The museum will feature exhibits from the Academy’s collection of 12 million photographs and 80,000 screenplays, and which include props, costumes and set elements from such classic films as Casablanca, Psycho and The Ten Commandments.

Known as the Academy Museum, the venue will also feature Oscar statuettes donated by people who won them.

Brougher says visitors will have the feeling that they are in a movie in immersive exhibits. They will even get a chance to walk on a red carpet and accept their own Academy Award.

It will be “like a journey,” Brougher says. “You won’t necessarily know what’s coming next, what’s around the next corner. And you’ll be in environments sometimes that make you feel like you’ve gone back to the past, that you’re in the era that you’re actually exploring.”

​Visitors to Los Angeles have been able to tour movie studios and view the sidewalk plaques that honor movie stars or the footprints of them in the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. They can visit the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars are presented, but beyond that, they are often at a loss, says Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “I think they wander around wondering where they can experience this great golden ticket…to the movies,” he says. “Now they’ll have a place.” That will include the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the movie business and who will finally be able to visit a site that celebrates LA’s iconic industry, Garcetti notes.

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The U.S. television network NBC has fired its leading morning news anchor, Matt Lauer, just days after receiving a complaint against him describing sexual misconduct. Hours later, U.S. lawmakers discussed how to handle harassment on Capitol Hill. Esha Sarai reports.
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Snapchat is separating what friends share and what media organizations publish in an attempt to appeal to a broader range of users.

The photo messaging app has not been gaining enough users, especially beyond its core of younger people. Parent company Snap Inc.’s stock is down sharply since its initial public offering earlier this year.

Users will now see two separate feeds — one from friends and one from publishers and non-friend accounts they follow. Before, Snapchat was mixing those posts, much the way Twitter, Facebook and other rivals continue to do. Snap hinted at changes three weeks ago, but didn’t provide details then.

CEO Evan Spiegel took a jab at rivals, writing that social media “fueled ‘fake news’” because of this content mixing.

 
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