Author: Ohart

Peace never reigns in the pages of DC Comics. There’s always a world to be saving, a cataclysm to avert. The making of the DC superhero team-up film “Justice League” was hardly any more tranquil.

Made in the wake of the disappointment surrounding its predecessor, “Batman v Superman,” and the critically-panned “Suicide Squad,” “Justice League” was, like a jetliner given new wings in midair, retooled on the fly. Warner Bros. sought to lighten the tone of Zack Snyder’s grandiose and muscle-bound DC universe – a much-publicized pivot that came just as tragedy was striking.

Snyder, the “300” filmmaker, had overseen this latest series of DC movies starting with “Man of Steel,” but he stepped down after “Justice League” had been shot following the death of his daughter. Joss Whedon, the “Avengers” director known for snappy dialogue who had already been helping to punch up the script, was brought in steer the film through post-production and two months of reshoots. (He’s credited as co-writer.)

Writer Geoff Johns and producer Jon Berg had already been brought in to brighten “Justice League” and overhaul the wider DC slate with a more optimistic tone.

But that’s not been all. Ben Affleck, who stars as Batman, withdrew from directing a stand-alone Batman film, while also combating criticism over his behavior with women in the past. Whedon, himself, was called a hypocrite for espousing feminist ideals by his ex-wife, Kai Cole. Jason Momoa had to apologize for a 2011 joke about rape and “Game of Thrones.”

And just weeks before release, Warner Bros. severed ties with one of the film’s chief financiers, Brett Ratner’s RatPac-Dune company, after sexual assault allegations were leveled against Ratner. Gal Gadot, who plays Wonder Woman, has reportedly insisted Ratner have no connection with any future Wonder Woman film.

“Justice League” is the kind of production that, one suspects, its makers will celebrate the release of with a stiff drink.

“I’ve probably had a stiff drink along the way,” producer Charles Roven says, chuckling. “It’s been different in the sense that we’ve had some sadness along the happy-joy of making the movie. But for the most part it’s been an incredibly positive experience.”

Now, Warner Bros. and DC are hoping that the finished “Justice League,” which opens Friday, doesn’t show any Frankenstein-like scars from its tumultuous creation.

“The goal is to make sure when you’re watching the movie, it all feels cohesive,” says Roven, the veteran producer of “The Dark Knight” trilogy. “That imprint that Joss had, some aspect of it is going to come out in the direction, but the actors are already pretty much down the road on their arcs. Let’s just say 80, 85 percent of the movie is what was originally shot. There’s only so much you can do with other 15, 20 percent of the movie.”

In interviews, Roven and cast members pledged their loyalty to Snyder and his vision for the franchise, one they say incorporated a changing tone before Whedon’s involvement. (Neither filmmaker was made available for interview. Each has stayed silent publicly since Snyder’s departure.)

Batman

“Zack from the time that I first met with him said, ‘Look, Batman makes the DC world dark. The DC world has to be created as something dark,”’ says Ezra Miller, who plays Barry Allen aka the Flash). “He said what’s great now is that the League gets to bring Batman out of this darkness. That was always Zack’s vision. That was the intention from the beginning.”

The film, Miller says, has “a wonderful collision of tone” that he considers “a testament to both the strength of Zack’s vision and the generosity of Joss’s commitment.”

It’s also a turning point in the larger DC cinematic world.

“Justice League” finds Affleck’s Bruce Wayne, in the wake of Superman’s apparent death, gathering together the League to fight a new enemy. That means pushing not just Wonder Woman to the fore, but also Miller’s Flash, Momoa’s Aquaman and Ray Fisher’s Cyborg.

“It was very clear that the tone of the movie was different than ‘Batman v Superman,'” says Gadot. “Henry (Cavill), Ben and I had a wonderful addition with Ezra and Jason and Ray (that) just stirred everything up.”

Gadot and “Wonder Woman” are a big reason for optimism in the franchise, following its critically acclaimed, zeitgeist-grabbing $412.6 million box office success domestically. Though the epicenter of DC Comics has always revolved around Batman and Superman, that’s starting to change.

Matt Reeves has taken over the Batman movie, but he’s starting fresh on the screenplay, making a release date several years off. That leaves open the possibility of further changes, even potentially Affleck’s casting. “From everything I know, he’s going to play that Batman,” said Roven. “They’re retooling the script, so I can’t really say anything for certain.”

What’s next?

The Superman sequel “Man of Steel 2” also isn’t coming anytime soon, if at all. Roven says there’s no script but “various story ideas” are being kicked around.

On the front burner, however, is “Aquaman,” scheduled for release in December 2018, a Wonder Woman sequel due in 2019 (with director Patty Jenkins returning) and a Cyborg movie. Whedon is also prepping a Batgirl movie. 

“Justice League,” a team-up movie, will be followed by solo efforts.

“One of the things that’s really important to us with all of these DC movies is making sure that while they make sense, one from the other – because they’re in a certain way linked – we also want to make sure that the audience is hopefully excited by the fact that you don’t know exactly where you’re going to go.”
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The maker of Barbie says it will sell a doll modeled after Ibtihaj Muhammad, an American fencer who competed in last year’s Olympics while wearing a hijab.

 

Mattel says the doll will be available online next fall. The doll is part of the Barbie “Shero” line that honors women who break boundaries. Past dolls have included gymnast Gabby Douglas and “Selma” director Ava DuVernay.

 

Muhammad said on Twitter that she was “proud” that young people will be able to play with “a Barbie who chooses to wear hijab!”

 

Muhammad, the first American to compete at the Olympics while wearing a hijab, won a bronze medal in fencing at the 2016 Rio Games.
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As the Christmas season approaches, it seems that there are Santa Clauses everywhere. But it takes more than a red suit and a white beard to be a Santa. The longest continuously running Santa Claus School in the world is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. Erika Celeste takes us to Midland, Michigan, to visit with this year’s class.
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For more than a century she was known as the woman behind the throne, the empress who through skill and circumstance rose from lowly imperial consort to iron-fisted ruler of China at a time and in a place when women were believed to have no power at all.

But it turns out Empress Dowager Cixi was much more than that. The 19th century ruler, who consolidated authority through political maneuvering that at times included incarceration and assassination, was also a serious arts patron and even an artist herself, with discerning tastes that helped set the style for traditional Asian art for more than a century.

That side of Cixi comes to the Western world for the first time with Sunday’s unveiling of “Empress Dowager, Cixi: Selections From the Summer Palace” at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana. The wide-ranging collection, never before seen outside China, will remain at the Southern California museum through March 11 before returning to Beijing.

Wide-ranging collection

Consisting of more than 100 pieces from the lavish Beijing palace Cixi called home during the final years of her life, “Empress Dowager” includes numerous examples of intricately designed Chinese furniture, porcelain vases and stone carvings, as well as several pieces of Western art, rare in China at the time, that she also collected. Among them are a large oil-on-canvas portrait of herself she commissioned the prominent Dutch artist Hubert Vos to create.

Other Western accoutrements include gifts from visiting dignitaries, among them British silver serving sets, German and Swiss clocks, and a marble-topped table from Italy with inlaid stones in the shape of a chessboard.

This is even an American-built luxury automobile. The 1901 Duryea touring car, is believed to be the first automobile imported into China and as such may have involved the empress in the country’s first automobile accident when her driver is said to have hit a pedestrian.

“We already have a lot of scholarship on who she is and how she ruled China. But this show brings you a different angle,” said exhibition curator Ying-Chen Peng, as she led a recent pre-opening tour of it through the museum that was kicked off by a raucous performance of Chinese lion dancers accompanied by musicians loudly banging gongs cymbals and drums.

Through art, not politics

“This exhibition seeks to introduce you to this woman as an arts patron, as an architect, as a designer,” the American University art historian said.

That’s an approach that may finally have gotten it to the Western world. Anne Shih, who chairs the museum’s board of directors, noted recently that she spent 10 years trying to persuade the Chinese government to lend Cixi’s art.

The Bowers has built an impressive international reputation over the years by hosting exhibitions of priceless, historical, often larger-than-life artworks from Tibet, the Silk Road, the tomb of China’s first emperor and other historic sites.

However, Shih says the Chinese government turned her down repeatedly. Officials told her the empress, who outlived two much younger emperors, including one who died mysteriously of arsenic poisoning, was just too controversial. She’s been portrayed in numerous films and books and not always positively.

Shih finally prevailed, however, when she emphasized this show would focus on art, not politics.

​A passion for art

Although it does, it still becomes apparent to visitors what a formidable presence Cixi must have been as they enter a recreation of her throne room to be greeted by a larger-than-life portrait of her covered in jewels and razor-sharp fingernail protectors as she glares ominously at her audience.

Nearby, however, are objects that quickly make her passion for art clear. Prominent among them is a towering calligraphy work of black ink embossed on a sheet of paper that, stretching to about 6 feet (2 meters), is taller than the dowager was. She is said to have made it by wielding a large heavy brush while standing on a stool as some of the eunuchs who served her stretched out the paper.

Not far away are ink-and-paper drawings of flowers the empress also created, although Peng notes that when it came to painting, Cixi was a much better calligrapher.

Placed into the emperor’s harem as a low-level teenage consort, she quickly elevated her status by giving birth to his only son in 1856. When the emperor died six years later she installed the boy as his successor and, as the woman behind the throne, ousted opponents, brought in loyalists and ran the country herself for the next 43 years. She died in 1908 at age 72.

Although she led her country through numerous wars launched by foreign invaders during those years, she also found time to visit with dignitaries from other countries and to pursue her own passion for art.

Her real artistic skill, however, lay not in making art but in envisioning works that would stand the critical test of time and then finding skilled artisans to create them.

“Her personal preference actually led to the further development of these very ornate designs,” Peng said, observing some of the intricately carved, gold-inlaid furniture and hand-painted porcelain objects. “Nowadays when you go to antique shops, you can see quite a few pieces in this style. You can say she was a trendsetter.”
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Liz Smith, the syndicated gossip columnist whose mixture of banter, barbs and bon mots about the glitterati helped her climb the A-list as high as many of the celebrities she covered, died Sunday at the age of 94.

 

Joni Evans, Smith’s literary agent, told The Associated Press she died of natural causes. 

 

For more than a quarter-century, Smith’s column, titled simply “Liz Smith,” was one of the most widely read in the world. The column’s success was due in part to Smith’s own celebrity status, giving her an insider’s access rather than relying largely on tipsters, press releases and publicists. 

 

With a big smile and her sweet Southern manner, the Texas native endeared herself to many celebrities and scored major tabloid scoops: Donald and Ivana Trump’s divorce, Woody Allen and Mia Farrow’s impending parenthood. One item proved embarrassingly premature: In 2012, she released a column online mourning the death of her friend Nora Ephron. But Ephron, who was indeed gravely ill, did not die until a few hours later and an impending tragedy that Ephron had tried to keep secret became known to the world. 

Smith held a lighthearted opinion of her own legacy. 

“We mustn’t take ourselves too seriously in this world of gossip,” she told The Associated Press in 1987. “When you look at it realistically, what I do is pretty insignificant. 

 

“Still, I’m having a lot of fun.” 

 

“I was fortunate enough to work with the amazing Liz Smith,” Al Roker tweeted. He said that during his time at WNBC, she was nothing short of “fabulous.” 

 

“Liz Smith was the definition of a lady,” actor James Woods tweeted. “She dished, but always found a way to make it entertaining and fun.”

One-way ticket to New York

After graduating with a degree in journalism from the University of Texas, Smith recalled buying a one-way ticket to New York in 1949 with a dream of being the next Walter Winchell. 

 

But unlike Winchell and his imitators, Smith succeeded with kindness and an aversion to cheap shots. Whether reporting on entertainers, politicians or power brokers, the “Dame of Dish” never bothered with unfounded rumors, sexual preferences or who’s-sleeping-with-whom. 

 

“When she escorts us into the private lives of popular culture’s gods and monsters, it’s with a spirit of wonder, not meanness,” wrote Jane and Michael Stern in reviewing Smith’s 2000 autobiography, “Natural Blonde,” for the New York Times Book Review. 

But it may have been the question of her own sexuality that kept her from discussing that of the stars. A subject in the gay press for many years, Smith acknowledged in her 2000 book that she had relationships with both men and women, and confirmed a long-rumored, long-term relationship with archaeologist Iris Love. 

 

Evans said Smith had a series of small strokes earlier this year but nothing serious that slowed her down. She was still having breakfast, lunch and dinner outings with friends, family and associates, Evans said. She called her “a light.” 

 

Texas born, Baptist raised

Born Mary Elizabeth Smith in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1923, she was the daughter of devout Baptist mother and an eccentric father. Smith said her dad received his divine inspiration more from the race track than the pulpit. 

 

As a young girl, Smith quickly fell in love with the silver screen, since movies were one of the few things her mother did not consider a sin. 

 

After a brief marriage while attending Hardin-Simmons University, Smith earned her journalism degree and headed off for New York with two suitcases and $50. 

 

For nearly 30 years, Smith bounced from job to job: publicist for singer Kaye Ballard; assistant to Mike Wallace and Candid Camera creator Allen Funt; ghostwriter for Igor Cassini’s “Cholly Knickerbocker” gossip column. 

 

Smith ultimately wrote for nine New York newspapers and dozens of magazines, but it was a stint writing for Cosmopolitan that led to her break. While establishing herself as an authority on Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Smith attracted the attention of the New York Daily News. 

​Celebrity journalism

She started her own column at the tabloid in 1976. A gossip star was born. 

 

In 1978, during a strike at the News, Smith helped usher in the era of celebrity journalism on television by joining WNBC-TV for three nights a week commentary. Ten years later she jumped to Fox, and she later did work for the cable channel E! Entertainment Television. 

 

During that time, Smith migrated from the News to the rival New York Post and finally to Newsday, ultimately earning salaries well into six figures. Her column was syndicated nationwide, drawing millions of readers. 

 

She was married a second time, but it was also short-lived. 

 

In between all the parties, movie premieres and late-night soirees at celebrity hangouts like Elaine’s, Smith found time to host an ever-widening array of charity fund-raisers. 

 

She raised money for groups such from Literacy Volunteers, which teaches adults to read and write, to the Women’s Action Alliance, which promotes full equality for women. 

 

She is survived by several nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held to honor her this spring.
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What is the only Da Vinci painting on the open market worth? A Russian billionaire believes he was swindled when he bought it for $127.5 million. This week he’ll find out if he was right.

“Salvator Mundi,” a painting of Jesus Christ by the Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci circa 1500, is the star lot in New York’s November art auctions that will see Christie’s and Sotheby’s chase combined art sales of more than $1 billion.

It goes under the hammer at Christie’s on Wednesday evening, something of an incongruous lot in the postwar and contemporary sale, which attracts the biggest spenders in the high-octane world of international billionaire art collectors.

The auction house, which declines to comment on the controversy and identifies the seller only as a European collector, has valued the painting at $100 million.

“Look at the painting, it is an extraordinary work of art,” said Francois de Poortere, head of the old masters department at Christie’s. “That’s what we should focus on.”

But the price will be closely watched — not just as one of fewer than 20 paintings by Da Vinci’s hand accepted to exist, but by its owner Dmitry Rybolovlev, the boss of soccer club AS Monaco who is suing Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier in that city-state.

Rybolovlev, who spent an eye-watering $2.1 billion on 37 masterpieces purchased through Bouvier over a decade, accuses Bouvier of conning him by hundreds of million dollars by overcharging him on a string of deals, and pocketing the difference.

At the heart of the court battle is “Salvator Mundi,” which has been exhibited at The National Gallery in London.

Bouvier bought the Da Vinci at Sotheby’s for $80 million in 2013. He resold it within days to the Russian tycoon, for $127.5 million, netting a $47.5 million profit. Bouvier denies any wrongdoing.

The painting’s rarity is difficult to overstate. For years it was presumed to have been destroyed.

Long believed to have been a copy, before eventually being certified as authentic, it fetched a mere 45 pounds ($60 in today’s money) in 1958 before disappearing again for decades. It emerged only in 2005 when it was purchased from a US estate.

All other known paintings by Da Vinci are held in museum or institutional collections.

“For auction specialists, this is pretty much the Holy Grail,” Loic Gouzer, co-chairman of Christie’s Americas postwar and contemporary art department, has said. “It doesn’t really get better than that.”

 A Ferrari on the block

Christie’s has sought to emphasize Da Vinci’s inestimable contribution to art history by hanging “Salvator Mundi” next to Andy Warhol’s “Sixty Last Suppers” — which depicts Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” 60 times over, also on sale with a $50 million estimate.

Pablo Picasso holds the world record for the most expensive piece of art ever sold at auction. His “The Women of Algiers (Version O)” fetched $179.4 million at Christie’s in New York in 2015.

Other highlights being offered by the auction house are “Contraste de formes,” a 1913 Fernand Leger valued at $65 million and “Laboureur dans un champ” by Van Gogh, painted from the window of a French asylum in 1889 and valued at $50 million.

Sotheby’s, whose May sales languished behind Christie’s, says it has more than 60 works making their auction debuts this week.

Chief among them is Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of George Dyer,” valued at $35-45 million, and which it says is appearing in public for the first time in 50 years. Bacon painted the work in 1966 during his passionate relationship with Dyer.

Two other such triptychs are in museums, while an additional two have been offered at auction in recent years.

Sotheby’s other star lot is a 1972 Warhol “Mao,” exhibited in Berlin, Turin and Paris, and now back in public view for the first time since 1974. It has been given an estimate of $30-40 million.

Each of the other 10 “Mao” paintings of the same size are in prestigious public and private collections, including the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Sotheby’s calls it one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.

And for the first time, the house has added a rare automobile to an art auction, offering Michael Schumacher’s Grand Prix-Winning Ferrari for upwards of $4 million on Thursday. But is it a work of art?

“No, it’s not,” said Gregoire Billault, senior Sotheby’s vice president, of the sleek, low-slung, fire-engine red vehicle. “But it’s… the very best racing car ever sold at an auction.”

 

 
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For the first time, a museum in Australia is telling the stories of the massacres by colonists of indigenous people from an Aboriginal perspective. Thousands of First Nation people are believe to have been killed by white settlers until the 1940s, but much of that history is yet to be uncovered.

Near the city of Portland is the site of the oldest known massacre of indigenous people in the Australian state of Victoria. 

There was tension in the early 1830s between European settlers, who had set up a whaling station, and a local Aboriginal tribe over a whale carcass. The precise details of the confrontation have been hard to establish, but 60 to 200 First Nation people were killed in what is known as the Convincing Ground massacre.

The killings are part of a series of stories being told in a new exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. Called “Black Day, Sun Rises, Blood Runs,” the multimedia show is included in the museum’s Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Center.

Indigenous stories

The stories are told by indigenous people who have been filmed at the sites of several massacres.

Officials say the testimony tries to fill gaps in the documentation of the killings contained in court proceedings, newspaper reports and Aboriginal records.

Curator Genevieve Grieves says the exhibition contains valuable historical information.

“We are going quite deeply into six narratives that include massacre, they include resistance, they include the native police, who were used against Aboriginal people in Victoria and other parts of the country,” she said, “And we are really doing that through first-person voice. So we are just talking to people connected to those spaces and so we have got what is on the historical record, but also what is contained in memory as well, in indigenous memory and, indeed, in non-indigenous memory as well.”

Grieves says this is the first time a new permanent exhibition at an Australian museum has detailed the stories of the massacres from an indigenous perspective.

Thousands massacred

According to the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, about 1,200 indigenous people in Victoria state died in 40 massacres from the 1830s to the 1850s. Academics say that armed white settlers or farmers would ambush Aboriginal camps in the night or early morning.

In July, an online map marking the massacres of Aboriginal clans across Australia’s colonial frontier was launched. It detailed more than 150 sites where violent attacks against indigenous groups took place in eastern Australia following the arrival of European settlers in the late 1700s.
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Despite 70 years of tense relations between India and Pakistan, the two countries share a passion for each other’s movies, food and fashion trends. Take the example of palazzos, a popular Pakistani type of pants that are all the rage in India. VOA Urdu’s Ritul Joshi reports from Delhi that the trend started after a new Indian TV channel started broadcasting Pakistani dramas.
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U.S. women’s soccer star Hope Solo on Friday accused Sepp Blatter of sexual assault, claiming the disgraced former FIFA president groped her backside at the 2013 Ballon d’Or ceremony.

Solo, 36, her country’s standout goalkeeper, said Blatter, 81, committed the act shortly before she was to present an award to her teammate Abby Wambach.

“It was a few years ago at the Ballon d’Or ceremony, just before I got on stage,” Solo told Portuguese newspaper Expresso.

A spokesman for Blatter, however, said the accusation was “ridiculous.”

Solo, a World Cup winner and two-time Olympic champion, made the allegation on the sidelines of the Web Summit being held in Lisbon.

She said sexual harassment on the part of male officials was a common problem in women’s soccer.

“I have seen this all of my career, and I would like to see more athletes speak about their experiences,” said Solo.

“It’s out of control, not just in Hollywood but everywhere,” she added, referring to the firestorm of sexual harassment allegations in entertainment, politics and sport ever since the scandal involving Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein unfolded.

Blatter was president of FIFA from 1998 until 2015, when he was banned for corruption.
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With his career imploding over allegations of sexual misconduct, comedian Louis C.K. confessed Friday to masturbating in front of women and expressed remorse for wielding his influence “irresponsibly.”

The comedian said in a statement that the harassment claims by five women detailed in a New York Times report published Thursday “are true.”

“I can hardly wrap my head around the scope of hurt I brought on them,” he said.

“There is nothing about this that I forgive myself for,” he wrote. “And I have to reconcile it with who I am. Which is nothing compared to the task I left them with.”

He apologized to the cast and crew of several projects he’s been working on, his family, children and friends, his manager and the FX network, among others.

The 438-word statement ends with the comedian vowing to stop talking and leave the spotlight, sating “I will now step back and take a long time to listen.”

The comedian stepped forward on the same day the indie distributor The Orchard said it will scrap the release of C.K.’s film “I Love You, Daddy.” C.K. has already been edited out of the upcoming HBO benefit “Night of Too Many Stars” and his work is being scrubbed from the cable network’s vaults.

More fallout came Friday when Netflix said it will not produce a second planned standup special starring the comedian, citing his “unprofessional and inappropriate behavior.” He had been tapped for two specials, with the first airing in April. At least five of the comedian’s stand-up specials remain on Netflix.

C.K. is the latest high-profile man caught in a flood of accusations that began after an October report in the New York Times alleging that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein had sexually harassed or assaulted several women. Others who face sexual harassment or assault accusations include “House of Cards” star Kevin Spacey and filmmaker Brett Ratner.

The widening allegations have also reached former “Gossip Girl” actor Ed Westwick. The BBC scrapped a TV series in the wake of rape allegations against Westwick. The broadcaster also paused filming on the 1980s-set sitcom “White Gold,” which stars Westwick. He has been accused of raping two women, charges he denies. On Instagram, he called the allegations “unverified and provably untrue.”

“ER” actor Anthony Edwards revealed that he was molested when he was 12 by director and producer Gary Goddard. In a post Friday on Medium, Edwards said he’s been in therapy for years over the assault and confronted Goddard over it 22 years ago at an airport. Goddard, he said, “swore to his remorse.” Attorney Alan Grodin, a lawyer for Goddard, said Goddard has been out of the country and “will have a response shortly.”

Actor Jeremy Piven also took to social media to once again declare his innocence of sexual misconduct, saying on Twitter he hopes the string of sexual harassment allegations will lead to “a constructive dialogue on these issues” but warned about “false accusations.”

“We seem to be entering dark times — allegations are being printed as facts and lives are being put in jeopardy without a hearing, due process or evidence. I hope we can give people the benefit of the doubt before we rush to judgment,” he wrote.

Piven, who has been accused by two women of sexual misconduct, faces a fresh accusation made against him from an advertising executive. Tiffany Bacon Scourby told People magazine that Piven held her down while he performed a sex act at a hotel 14 years ago.

The crisis has also roiled the world of journalism, with editors at The New Republic and NPR losing their jobs. The latest accusation involved Rolling Stone: Ben Ryan, a freelance writer, accused the magazine’s publisher, Jann Wenner, of sexual harassment, saying Wenner offered a writing contract if Ryan spent the night at the publisher’s Manhattan townhouse. Wenner acknowledges he did attempt to have a sexual liaison but denied offering a writing contract for sex.

In other developments, Jenny McCarthy also reiterated an allegation she made against Steven Seagal, saying she fled from a 1995 audition with Seagal after he repeatedly asked her to take off her clothes for a part that didn’t require nudity.

McCarthy recounted her encounter with Seagal during a tryout for “Under Siege 2” on her Sirius XM radio show Thursday, a day after actress Portia de Rossi accused Seagal of unzipping his pants during an audition.

McCarthy said Seagal was the only person in the room when she showed up to read for her part, she said. After declining his invitation to sit next to him on a couch, McCarthy, who said she purposefully wore a loose-fitting garment to the audition so the focus would be on her acting instead of her body, said Seagal asked her to remove her clothes. When McCarthy countered that she was told the part didn’t require her to be naked, she said Seagal told her that it involved “off-camera nudity.”

“I know you must have a beautiful body underneath there. Can you lower it so I can see your breasts,” she recalled Seagal saying.

A representative for Seagal didn’t immediately return a request for comment Friday, but a Seagal spokesman has denied McCarthy’s accusations to The Daily Beast. McCarthy told the same story to Movieline in 1998.
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Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman says she is among the young women sexually abused by a former USA Gymnastics team doctor.

Raisman tells “60 Minutes” she was 15 when she was first treated by Dr. Larry Nassar, who spent more than two decades working with athletes at USA Gymnastics. He’s now is in jail in Michigan awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.

Raisman, the captain of the 2012 and 2016 Olympic gold-medal winning teams, details the abuse in her book “Fierce,” which will be released on Tuesday. Raisman’s interview with “60 Minutes” will air on Sunday night.

Raisman is the latest gymnast to claim she was sexually abused by Nassar. McKayla Maroney, who won two medals at the 2012 Games as Raisman’s teammate, said last month she was molested for years by Nassar.

Nassar also is awaiting trial on separate criminal sexual conduct charges and has been sued by more than 125 women alleging sexual abuse. Nassar has pleaded not guilty to the assault charges, and the dozens of civil suits filed in Michigan are currently in mediation.

USA Gymnastics said in a statement Friday that Raisman sharing her personal experience took “great courage” and it is “appalled by the conduct of which Larry Nassar is accused.”

The 23-year-old Raisman has been highly critical of USA Gymnastics in recent months, calling for leadership change at the top of the organization while advocating for athlete’s rights.

USA Gymnastics launched an independent review of its policies in the wake of the allegations against Nassar and reporting by the Indianapolis Star in August 2016 that highlighted chronic mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against coaches and staff at some of its more than 3,500 clubs across the country.

Nassar began working with USA Gymnastics as an athletic trainer in 1986 and became the national team doctor in 1996. He stepped down in 2014 but remained on staff before being fired in 2015.

“These girls, they should be comfortable going to USA Gymnastics and saying ‘I need help, I want therapy. I need this,’” Raisman said in an interview with The Associated Press and USA Today in August during the 2017 national championships.

Raisman declined to get into specifics at that time about whether she was abused by Nassar but painted a vivid picture of how Nassar’s behavior went unchecked.

“I think that, you just want, you want to trust people and that he was just a disgusting person, he took advantage of so many people’s trust,” Raisman said. “And I think, it just disgusts me he was a doctor. It’s crazy. Because when a doctor says something you want to believe him and it’s just awful.”

Jamie Dantzscher, a bronze medalist on the 2000 U.S. Olympic team, filed a lawsuit against Nassar in California in September 2016. She says Nassar touched her inappropriately while disguising the abuse as treatment. Dantzscher initially filed as “Jane Doe” but came forward publicly to “60 Minutes” in February.

In June, the gymnastics board adopted the new USA Gymnastics SafeSport Policy that replaced the previous policy. Key updates include mandatory reporting, defining six types of misconduct, setting standards to prohibit grooming behavior, preventing inappropriate interaction and establishing accountability.

In July, the organization hired Toby Stark, a child welfare advocate, as its director of SafeSport. Part of Stark’s mandate is educating members on rules, educational programs and reporting. The federation also adopted several recommendations by Deborah Daniels, a former federal prosecutor who oversaw the review. USA Gymnastics now has the power to withhold membership from clubs that decline to report claims of abuse.

Clubs are now “required to report child abuse or neglect, including sexual misconduct, to proper authorities, including the U.S. Center for SafeSport and law enforcement authorities.”

The organization has taken some steps to provide more oversight and safety to its national team gymnasts.

Team members who fly into Houston for training camps must be escorted to the camp with at least two other people to avoid any one-on-one interaction. Underage female gymnasts with male coaches who are picked to compete internationally must now travel with a credentialed female chaperone. One-on-one visits by medical staff are prohibited at cabins the athletes use during overnight stays at the national training center.

USA Gymnastics announced Tuesday it hired Kerry Perry as the organization’s new president and CEO. Perry starts on Dec. 1.
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The galaxy far, far away is expanding further on screen with a new trilogy of Star Wars films outside of the ongoing Skywalker saga, Walt Disney Co. said Thursday, to be overseen by Rian Johnson, the director of the franchise’s upcoming film The Last Jedi.

Johnson, 43, will write and direct the first of a new Star Wars trilogy that will bring new characters and worlds not yet explored on screen, Disney said.

“He’s a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy,” Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm, said in a statement.

Disney said no release dates have been set for the new trilogy.

Johnson was brought on to write and direct the second film in Disney’s rebooted trilogy of the Skywalker stories, which George Lucas first brought to screen in 1977.

The Last Jedi, which follows on 2015’s hit film, The Force Awakens, is expected to focus on Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), will be in theaters on Dec. 15.

Disney is also making three standalone Star Wars films outside of the Skywalker saga, including last year’s Rogue One and next year’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, following the origins of the charming roguish smuggler Han Solo, made famous by Harrison Ford in the film.
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Award-winning actor John Hillerman, best known as Jonathan Higgins, the sidekick to TV’s Magnum P.I., died Thursday in Houston.

Hillerman was 84, and no cause of death was given.

Hillerman was a stage and screen veteran when he took on the role that made him one of television’s most familiar faces and voices.

Magnum P.I. starred Tom Selleck as a detective based in Hawaii. Hillerman played the caretaker of the resort out of which Magnum operated. It ran from 1980 until 1988 and earned Hillerman an Emmy as best supporting actor.

Before Magnum made him a star, Hillerman proved to be adept at both comedy and drama on the stage, on television and in films, including the slapstick Blazing Saddles and dark detective drama Chinatown.
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The board game Clue, the Wiffle Ball and the paper airplane are the newest inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

                   The trio was honored at the upstate New York hall on Thursday. The Class of 2017 takes it place alongside more than 60 previous honorees, including the dollhouse, jump rope and Radio Flyer wagon.

                   The winners are chosen on the advice of historians and educators following a process that begins with nominations from the public.

                   To make the hall of fame, toys must have inspired creative play across generations.  

 

                   This year’s other finalists were: the board game Risk, Magic 8 Ball, Matchbox cars, My Little Pony, PEZ candy dispenser, play food, sand, Transformers and the card game Uno.

 
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It will soon look a lot like Christmas in New York City thanks to a tree from Pennsylvania.

Workers on Thursday will cut down a 75-foot (23-meter) Norway Spruce at the State College home of Jason Perrin that was chosen as the 2017 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree.

 

The tree, which weighs between 12 and 13 tons, will be hoisted onto a trailer and arrive Saturday in New York City. There it will be decorated with more than 50,000 lights and topped with a Swarovski star.

 

It is the 86th tree to adorn the plaza and the third from Pennsylvania.

 

The tree will be illuminated on Nov. 29 and remain on display until Jan. 7. It will then be recycled and donated to Habitat for Humanity to be transformed into lumber for building homes.

 

 
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One of Britain’s most celebrated dancer-choreographers, Akram Khan, is tackling the rise of xenophobia in his latest work, which he says will be his last as a leading performer.

The production, “Xenos”, is Khan’s tribute to the Indian soldiers of the British Empire who fought in World War One. It focuses on the story of a shell-shocked Indian soldier, but also tackles contemporary political issues.

“Xenos means a foreigner or alien or stranger in Greek, i.e. xenophobia, and it just seems apt and relevant to my reflection of the world today and how xenophobia is growing,” he told Reuters.

Khan, 43, will dance a segment from “Xenos” at the opening night of the Darbar Festival, an annual festival of classical Indian music, on Thursday in London.

Following its full premiere next year in Athens, Xenos will tour Australia, North America, and Europe, with a staging at Sadler’s Wells theater in London in 2018.

Born in London to Bangladeshi parents, Khan was awarded an MBE in 2005 for services to dance. His style is a hybrid of Indian classical, traditional Indian kathak and contemporary dance.

Khan says he is going to step down from dancing in full-length productions as a lead, but will still dance smaller roles. Besides wanting a respite from physical demands of dancing, he wants to focus on other areas.

“I want to focus more on choreography. I‘m working a lot on film. I‘m fascinated by film and that medium and what movement, how you can tell stories through the camera,” he says.

“There just came a time where I felt: ‘OK, enough is enough’. You know, I’ll keep training but not to the severity or the intensity that I do to prepare myself for a full-length solo.”

 
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The mounting allegations of sexual assault involving Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey are taking a mounting toll on his career.

Sony Pictures says it will remove Spacey from its upcoming feature film, All the Money in the World, and replace him with another veteran Oscar winner, Christopher Plummer. Director Ridley Scott is rushing to reshoot the new scenes with Plummer in order to make the film’s scheduled release date of Dec. 22.

Spacey played the late oil tycoon J. Paul Getty in the film, which dramatizes the 1973 kidnapping of his grandson, John Paul Getty III, and the elder Getty’s refusal to pay a ransom for his release.

Sony had announced it was pulling All the Money in the World from the upcoming American Film Institute film festival in Los Angeles.

Spacey has suffered a rapid fall from grace since actor Anthony Rapp, who starred in the 2005 musical Rent, accused Spacey of making sexual advances toward him in 1986 when Rapp was 14. Spacey announced he was gay in a statement apologizing to Rapp, while claiming he did not remember the alleged incident.

The actor has since been accused by more than dozen men of either sexually harassing or assaulting them. The allegations have led to his firing from the hit television series House of Cards by the streaming service Netflix, which has also refused to release a film in which Spacey stars as the late American writer and critic Gore Vidal.

The latest accusation against Spacey came Wednesday, when a former television news anchor accused him of sexually molesting her son last year when he was 18. 

Heather Unruh told reporters Wednesday the alleged incident occurred in a restaurant on Nantucket island, a popular Massachusetts tourist spot.

She says a criminal investigation is under way. But Nantucket police will not confirm or deny an investigation, saying Massachusetts law bars them from discussing sexual assault allegations.

British news reports say London police are also looking into an alleged sexual assault there in 2008.
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America’s national parks are a popular destination for tourists and vacationers from across the country and around the world. More than 330 million people visited them in 2016, enjoying the spectacular scenery and natural wonders… and increasing the need for road repairs, additional park staff and habitat restoration.

For over a century, the federal government has paid to protect the parks through subsidies, plus entry fees at the most popular parks, fees that have remained relatively low and unchanged for more than 50 years. That may change next year, when the National Park Service plans to more than double the cost of a day pass at the most popular parks, including Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

The great outdoors

Although not as well-known as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain National Park is the fourth most visited park in the country, with more than 4.5 million visitors last year.

An entry fee of $30 lets a carload of visitors in for a week.  Many pay just for an afternoon to drive through the 100,000 hectare wilderness and admire the snow-capped mountains and pristine meadows. The park includes a huge network of hiking trails and an abundance of wildlife.

As children from Pueblo, Colorado, skip through a pine forest back to their car, their father says he’s enjoyed their visit. “We just came, like I said, to tour around a little bit.”

But when he learns that next year, the entry fee might jump to $70 a car, this dad lets out a gasp. “That’s pretty pricey. . . . Just to drive up and down and just look at a view. But increasing it? I think that’s a little bit too much.”

 

It would also be too much for a Houston, Texas, couple, who are finishing their first-ever mountain hike. The husband says a fee of more than $30 or $40 “would start scaring me away.”

 

Money for the parks, nearby businesses

What’s scaring park officials is the prospect of budget cuts. Next year, federal funding for the parks is expected to drop 10 percent, a cut of $300 million. The plan to raise entry fees at 17 of the nation’s most popular parks won’t replace that money, but it might generate an additional $70 million a year. The parks plan to use those funds to slowly help with an $11 billion backlog in overdue maintenance for aging roads, bridges, campgrounds, waterlines, bathrooms, and other wear and tear caused by visitors who sometimes love Nature to death.

 

The increased fees will also impact businesses in towns near those parks, where tourism is the economic engine. In Estes Park, Colorado, just up the road from Rocky Mountain, large crowds amble in and out of picture-perfect shops that offer everything from fancy jewelry to year-round Christmas ornaments and candied apples.

Jewelry shop manager Norma Wiggins gives a thumbs up to higher entry fees. “We’re thinking it will be a good thing,” she says, predicting that people will not be upset with the rate hike “because you can pack up a car, a full car, and I believe the amount is $70. Correct? And I think people will pay it.”

 

Down the street, coffee shop owner Richard Mazza wonders whether higher entry fees are a strategy to increase revenue while reducing overcrowding. “Disney World, I guess it was maybe about a year back when they had raised the prices from wherever it was to about $100 a day to get in. And I think it was part of a control mechanism to decrease the amount of people coming into the park so that it would increase the experience. Over the years, we’re moving up to five million visits in the Rocky Mountain National Park. And you know I think it’s being used quite heavily.”

 

Back inside Rocky Mountain National Park, a reduction in visitors is exactly what a nature lover from Fort Collins Colorado fears. Coupled with the administration’s proposed budget cut, she worries that the nation’s commitment to the parks will weaken. “The National Parks are the soul of this country. Truly so. And it almost makes me cry.”

 

But a couple from Pennsylvania is more optimistic, at least about themselves. “Whatever it takes, I’m willing to pay to enjoy the scenery and nature,” the husband says. But his wife has a different perspective. “We’re able to do that,” she points out. “But I’m a little concerned it would be cost prohibitive, for families that can’t afford $70 to come into the park.” Her husband admits, “That’s a good point,” as she nods knowingly.

 

The National Park Service is taking comments on their website about the proposals until Thanksgiving.
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Apple has ordered two seasons of a dramatic series that stars Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston and looks at the lives of people working on a morning television show, a company spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

The series is among the first projects the iPhone maker has acquired for its plunge into original television programming, where it aims to compete with established players such as Netflix Inc and Time Warner Inc’s HBO.

The untitled project taps top-level Hollywood talent at a time when deep-pocketed technology companies are jockeying with traditional networks to land A-list stars.

It marks Aniston’s first TV show since her famous role on the hit comedy “Friends” ended in 2004. Witherspoon, who appeared on “Friends” as Aniston’s younger sister, recently starred in and served as a producer of the Emmy-winning HBO series “Big Little Lies.”

Apple spokeswoman Rita Cooper Lee also confirmed the company had ordered a remake of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s science fiction anthology series “Amazing Stories.” News of a potential deal for the Spielberg show had emerged in October.

It is unclear when the shows will be released or where viewers will be able to see them. Apple has not divulged if it will put its own TV series in the iTunes Store, where it sells shows made by other companies, or on another platform.

Aniston and Witherspoon will among be the show’s executive producers. It will be produced by Media Res, a studio founded by former HBO executive Michael Ellenberg.

 

 

 
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A former television news anchor is accusing Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey of sexually molesting her son last year when he was 18 years old.

An angry Heather Unruh told reporters Wednesday that the alleged incident occurred in a restaurant on Nantucket island, a popular Massachusetts tourist spot.

“Kevin Spacey bought him drink after drink after drink, and when my son was drunk, Spacey made his move and sexually molested him,” she said.

Unruh said her son panicked and could not remove Spacey’s hands from his pants. He ran out of the restaurant to his grandmother’s house when Spacey left the bar to go to the bathroom.

Unruh described her son as being “starstruck” by Spacey, but also too embarrassed to call the police at that time and waited until just last week.

She said a criminal investigation was underway. But Nantucket police would not confirm or deny an investigation, saying Massachusetts law barred them from discussing sexual assault allegations.

“I just want to see Kevin Spacey go to jail,” Unruh said. “Not just for my son but for the many others.”

At least two other men accuse Spacey of sexually molesting them when they were teenagers.

British news reports say London police are also looking into an alleged sexual assault there in 2008.

The actor, who recently came out as gay, said he did not remember an alleged encounter with actor Anthony Rapp when Rapp was just 14. But he apologized if there was such “drunken behavior.”

Netflix has fired Spacey from its hit television series House of Cards.

The show-business newspaper Variety also reported that Sony Pictures had pulled a new film starring Spacey, All the Money in the World, from the upcoming American Film Institute film festival.
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The opening ceremony of Brazil’s World Cup in 2014 also marked the kickoff of a campaign by teenager Werá Jeguaka Mirim to fight for indigenous land rights through his rap songs.

He had been selected, with three other children, to free a peace dove at the ceremony, but in an unsanctioned move, Werá also held up a red-and-black poster reading “Demarcation Now!”.

The poster was hidden in his underwear, the suggestion of indigenous leaders from his Krukutu community of some 300 indigenous people in Brazil’s biggest city, Sao Paulo.

“After this I started to see that the indigenous fight (for land demarcation) is very important. This act made me become a real activist,” the 16-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Werá who had already written indigenous tales and poetry, started to compose rap songs just a few months after the opening ceremony and rebranded himself as Kunumi MC, the first solo indigenous rapper in the country.

“These songs are helping to raise awareness about land demarcation even among indigenous people,” Werá said.

The demarcation of land for Brazil’s 900,000 aboriginal people is controversial. While the formal ownership of land by the country’s some 300 indigenous tribes has been shown to preserve cultures and the rainforests where many of them live, plans to allocate new lands for indigenous communities have been on hold for months.

Indigenous leaders are concerned that political moves will put an end to their claims. Some powerful rural lawmakers have proposed changes to the land demarcation process, including the opening up of indigenous reserves to mining companies.

According to data from advocacy group Catholic Indigenist Missionary Council (CIMI) in October, there are 33 proposals threatening indigenous rights before the National Congress.

Of these, 17 are tied to land demarcation, including a proposal to allow the exploration of natural resources in indigenous land and a new framework for the land demarcation process, CIMI said.

One of the most controversial proposals is to transfer to the National Congress from the federal government all decision-making responsibility tied to indigenous land demarcation.

The proposal, known as PEC 215, became the name of one the songs of Sao Paulo-based indigenous rap group Rap Oz Guarani.

“Our land doesn’t get us dirty/ what makes us dirty is your papers/ your laws, vanity and your cruel hatred/ children want to grow, young people want to live/ so why are you destroying our nature?” the song says.

The group’s first song “Jaraguá village warrior” was related to a repossession order filed three years ago by a lawmaker against the rappers’ indigenous community.

“Here in the community indigenous warriors cannot talk about their difficulties. The rap is something that has strengthened the indigenous fight a lot,” said the group’s founder, 18-year-old Jefersom Karai Xondaro. “Today we are considered young leaders because of the rap.”

Challenging Prejudice

Brazil’s oldest indigenous rap group, Brô MCs, fights for similar causes in the city of Dourados, in Mato Grosso do Sul state in the country’s central-west region.

“Many families are growing and the Dourados reserve is getting small,” Kelvin Peixoto, 26, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “We have to fight for the land that belongs to us.”

Through rap songs, Peixoto and three other indigenous musicians, along with a non-indigenous woman on backing vocals, also challenge racial prejudice.

“White people only know indigenous’ history from books. They don’t see the indigenous as evolved people,” said Bruno Veron, 23, one of the band’s members. “The indigenous of today is a thinker too.”

All the indigenous rappers use Facebook and YouTube to promote their songs, concerts and events – hoping their protests will reach the ears of Brazilian lawmakers.

In Brô MCs’ case, their music has made an impact beyond Brazil’s borders, with the song “Red Land” played at the Berlin film festival as the soundtrack of a Brazilian film.

“Red land of spilled blood/ from the massacred warriors in the past/ farmers, mercenaries, landowners/ several died defending their land/ in the village where I live there has been a war already,” the lyrics read.

The rap groups sing in two languages: their native Guarani and Portuguese in order to reach a broader audience as possible.

Werá says land demarcation is a priority for the future of Brazil’s indigenous people. He also wants to bring “schools to indigenous communities; health posts too because many indigenous died in the past because of diseases,” he said.

Preserving the indigenous way of life equates to preserving the forests in which they live, which brings benefits to all.

“The indigenous’ cause is very important because we’re doing good for everyone,” he said. “We’re bringing oxygen.”
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“Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda made sandwiches, took selfies and announced a partnership with a nonprofit group for a $2.5 million hurricane recovery fund during a trip Tuesday to Puerto Rico.

 

Miranda said seven local groups already have received grants from the New York-based Hispanic Federation, which helps Latino agencies. The organization said it will award at least 25 grants ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 for reconstruction projects. A portion of a grant can be used for emergency relief efforts including food, water or shelter, officials said.

 

Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Sept. 20 as a Category 4 storm, destroying homes and power lines and leaving tens of thousands of people without work. Nearly 40 of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities are still without power and nearly 20 percent of the island remains without water.

“The road to recovery in Puerto Rico is not a simple one nor is it one that relies solely on aid from the American government on the mainland,” Miranda said. “Together, we will cultivate, fund and execute practical and actionable solutions to kick-start and continue the island’s road to recovery for years to come.”

 

Miranda also is scheduled to meet with students on Wednesday at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras.
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Retired Major League Baseball pitcher Roy Halladay was killed Tuesday when his private plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico near St. Petersburg, Florida.

Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said Halladay, a former All-Star, was flying a light sport plane called an ICON A5. There was nobody else on board. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

Halladay, 40, pitched for the Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies over a remarkable 16-year career. He twice won the Cy Young Award for being the top pitcher in his league.

Halladay’s achievements included a perfect game — an extremely rare feat, in which a pitcher or pitchers win a game that lasts a minimum of nine innings and in which no opposing player reaches base — and a no-hitter for the Phillies in the 2010 playoffs. He also played on eight All-Star teams.

Halladay retired in 2013 because of a back injury.

A statement from the Blue Jays said the organization was “overcome by grief” at the loss of “one of the franchise’s greatest and most respected players” and an “even better human being.”

The Phillies issued a statement saying the team was “numb.”

“There are no words to describe the sadness that the entire Phillies family is feeling over the loss of one of the most respected human beings ever to play the game,” it said.
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Singer songwriters Rodney Crowell and Kelsea Ballerini and hit country songwriter Ashley Gorley were honored at the ASCAP Country Music Awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Monday.

 

Crowell, who announced earlier this year he was cancelling all his 2017 tour dates due to a health issue, was given the Founder’s Award and honored with performances by Keith Urban and Vince Gill. The multiple Grammy Award-winner, who turned 67 this year, announced on Twitter last month that he had been diagnosed with dysautonomia, a disorder of the automatic nervous system.

 

Crowell said he was very grateful to be a songwriter for so long.

 

“It’s a gift that we get to do the work that we do to call ourselves artists,” Crowell said.

Gill, who performed “Oklahoma Borderline” and “Till I Gain Control Again,” told the crowd of songwriters about the time that he and Crowell dressed up as women for a music video they did together.

 

“He looked like Bette Davis on crack cocaine,” Gill joked. “I looked like my granny.”

 

Ballerini, whose second album “Unapologetically” came out last week, was given the Vanguard Award and performed her song “In Between.” She is also nominated for female vocalist of the year on Wednesday’s Country Music Association Awards.

“Songwriting is my favorite part of what I do,” Ballerini said.

 

The mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas last month weighed heavy on the minds of the artists and songwriters Monday night as the Nashville musical community gears up for the CMA Awards.

 

ASCAP President Paul Williams held a moment of silence for the 58 victims killed in Las Vegas.

 

“There is no greater challenge for music than diminishing the hatred at the heart of these acts,” Williams said. “But I believe that music and those that make it are up to the task.”

 

Gorley, who has written hits for Blake Shelton and Thomas Rhett and many more, thanked the first responders who were on the scene of the Vegas shooting and this Sunday’s shooting at a church in Texas.

 

“All those responders and people who really, really deserve to be celebrated and may not get celebrated the way we do tonight, I just want to celebrate those tonight together,” Gorley said.

 

Matthew Ramsey, lead singer of the country band Old Dominion, was named country songwriter-artist of the year and the song “Somewhere On a Beach,” which was performed by Dierks Bentley, was named country song of the year.
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Sony Pictures on Monday withdrew a movie starring Kevin Spacey from a Los Angeles film festival following sexual misconduct allegations against the actor, but said it was going ahead with a planned U.S. movie theater release in December.

“All the Money in the World,” about the 1973 kidnapping of teenager John Paul Getty III, features Spacey as his grandfather, the late U.S. oil billionaire Jean Paul Getty.

The film was due to have a red carpet world premiere at the American Film Institute’s (AFI) annual festival in Los Angeles on Nov. 16.

“Given the current allegations surrounding one of its actors and out of respect for those impacted, it would be inappropriate to celebrate at a gala at this difficult time. Accordingly, the film will be withdrawn,” Sony’s TriStar Pictures unit said in an emailed statement.

Spacey’s representatives did not return a request for comment on Monday regarding Sony’s decision. Reuters was unable to independently confirm any of the allegations.

The Sony statement said there were 800 other actors, writers and crew members involved in the movie, and the film would open wide as planned on Dec. 22.

Spacey apologized last month to actor Anthony Rapp, who accused him of trying to seduce him in 1986 when Rapp was 14.

Spacey’s representatives later said he was seeking unspecified treatment.

CNN reported last week that eight current and former employees of the Netflix TV show “House of Cards,” who were not identified, alleged sexual misconduct against Spacey, the TV show’s star.

AFI said in a statement that it supported Sony’s decision.

Netflix said on Friday that it had severed ties with Spacey because of the allegations.

It said it would not be involved in further production of “House of Cards” with Spacey. Producer Media Rights Capital said Spacey had been suspended from the political show.

Netflix also said it would not release the film “Gore,” in which Spacey plays the late U.S. writer Gore Vidal.
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President Tayyip Erdogan announced on Monday plans to demolish a culture center in Istanbul named after the founder of modern secular Turkey, in a move critics see as another attempt by the Islamist-rooted ruling party to roll back secularism.

It marks Erdogan’s second attempt to tear down the Ataturk Culture Center (AKM), named after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, after a previous plan to develop the site near Taksim Square in 2013 erupted into mass protests against Turkey’s ruling AK Party.

The project envisages building an opera house, theatre hall, a conference center and cinema on the site, near Gezi Park, the epicenter of the 2013 protests. Four years ago Erdogan had wanted to build a replica Ottoman baracks at the site.

“Today Turkey is starting something it should have done 10 years ago,” Erdogan said at a ceremony where he announced the project. He said the new building would be a “new and bigger” opera house, referring to it as “the New AKM Project.”

Erdogan, who served as mayor of Istanbul in the 1990s, has long argued for the need to replace the AKM, saying the building is not resistant to earthquakes. The AKM has been closed to the public for the past 10 years over disagreements regarding its renovation and infrastructure.

Opponents, however, see the planned demolition as further proof that Erdogan, a pious Muslim, and his AK Party want to reverse the secular order established by Ataturk in the 1920s and to reduce the use of the state founder’s name and image in public life.

Turkey’s chamber of architects said in a statement on Friday that demolishing the AKM was “a crime” and a violation of the constitution.

“The countless warnings and criminal complaints we have filed to public offices over the years have not been processed and the law has been disregarded, the AKM has been intentionally abandoned to demolition,” the chamber said.

“We are warning once again: For years, there have been willing crimes committed against history, culture, arts, society and the people in front of the eyes of the world,” it said, without elaborating.

The new project, whose cost has not been disclosed, will increase the capacity of the building from 1,300 people to 2,500 people, the presidency said in a statement.

Separately, Erdogan said the project would also pave the way to pedestrianizing Taksim Square, one of the busiest hubs in Istanbul.
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