Category: Новини

new orleans — Clarence “Frogman” Henry, who was one of New Orleans’ best known old-time R&B singers and scored a hit at age 19 with “Ain’t Got No Home,” has died. He was 87.

Henry died Sunday night, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation said on social media. It didn’t give the cause of death.

Henry, who had been scheduled to perform at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival later this month, imitated the voice of a frog in “Ain’t Got No Home.” It was a hit in 1956 and later brought Henry renewed fame when it was featured on the “Forrest Gump” and “Mickey Blue Eyes” soundtracks.

He credited disc jockey Poppa Stoppa, whose real name was Clarence Hayman, as coming up with the nickname the “Frogman,” which mimicked Fats Domino’s moniker the “Fatman.”

By 1958, Henry’s popularity waned, and he took to playing nightclubs on Bourbon Street.

“I thought the sun would shine. I thought my record would always stay out there and stay on the top, but in 1958, the rain came and bring me back to New Orleans,” Henry told The Associated Press in 2003.

But in 1960, a new song, “I Don’t Know Why But I Do” by Cajun songwriter Bobby Charles and arranged by Allen Toussaint, brought Henry renewed success.

With the Bill Black Combo and the Jive Five, he opened for the Beatles for 18 dates in 1964 during their first U.S. trip and toured extensively, from Scotland to New Zealand.

In Louisiana, Henry remained popular. He also was one of the few Black New Orleans musicians to cross over into Cajun musical circles.

Henry, who was born in New Orleans on March 19, 1937, started playing the piano at 8, taking up lessons his sister had disliked. He worked for his father until he was 15, often for no money.

He played the trombone and piano in his high school band and later joined The Toppers, traveling around southern Louisiana before making it big.

“When I was going to school, I wanted to be Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, and I would wear a wig with two plaits and call myself Professor Longhair,” Henry told the AP. “I like the Fats Domino rhythm, but I play my own chords and my own style.”

Henry’s national fame faded but he remained popular in Louisiana. He was a Bourbon Street fixture until 1981, when he retired from the grueling club circuit. But he never gave up music and continued to be an annual crowd pleaser at the Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Funeral arrangements are pending at the Murray Henderson Funeral Home.
…

New York — “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” easily swatted away a pair of challengers to hold on to the top spot at the box office for the second week in a row, according to studio estimates Sunday.

After its above-expectations $80 million launch last weekend, the MonsterVerse mashup brought in $31.7 million over its second weekend, a 60% drop from its debut.

The Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures release, directed by Adam Wingard, has thus far outperformed any of the studio’s recent monster films except for 2014’s “Godzilla.”

But with $361.1 million worldwide in two weeks, “Godzilla x Kong” could ultimately leapfrog the $529 million global haul of 2014’s “Godzilla.” The latest installment, in which Godzilla and Kong team up, cost about $135 million to produce.

“Godzilla x Kong” extended its box-office reign as another primate-themed movie arrived in theaters. Dev Patel’s “Monkey Man,” an India-set revenge thriller released by Universal Pictures, opened in 3,029 North American theaters with an estimated $10.1 million.

That marked a strong debut for Patel’s modestly budgeted directorial debut in which he stars in a bloody, politically charged action extravaganza. “Monkey Man,” which cost about $10 million to make, was dropped by its original studio, Netflix, after which Jordan Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions swooped in.

The weekend’s other new wide release, “The First Omen,” from Disney’s 20th Century Studios, struggled to make a big impact with moviegoers. It came in fourth with an estimated $8.4 million in ticket sales in 3,375 theaters, while collecting an additional $9.1 million overseas. The R-rated horror film, which cost about $30 million to make, is a prequel to the 1976 Richard Donner-directed original starring Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.

This version, directed by Arkasha Stevenson and starring Nell Tiger Free, Tawfeek Barhom and Bill Nighy, follows 2006’s “The Omen,” which opened to $16 million and ultimately grossed $119 million.

The tepid opening for “The First Omen” allowed Sony’s “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire” to take third place with $9 million in its third weekend of release. The sci-fi comedy sequel has collected $88.8 million domestically and $138 million worldwide.

Warner Bros.’ “Dune: Part Two” continues to perform strongly. It added $7.2 million in its sixth week, dipping just 37%, to bring its domestic total to $264 million.

One of the week’s biggest performers was in China, where Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning “The Boy and the Heron” landed in theaters. The acclaimed Japanese anime is setting records for a non-Chinese animated film. After opening Wednesday, its five-day total surpassed $70 million, a new high mark for Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.

Estimated ticket sales are for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire,” $31.7 million.

2. “Monkey Man,” $10.1 million.

3. “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” $9 million.

4. “The First Omen,” $8.4 million.

5. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” $7.9 million.

6. “Dune: Part Two,” $7.2 million.

7. “Someone Like You,” $3 million.

8. “Wicked Little Letters,” $1.6 million.

9. “Arthur the King,” $1.5 million.

10. “Immaculate,” $1.4 million.
    …

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sophomore Christian Adams expected he would be studying Chinese when he enrolled at West Virginia University, with a dream of working in labor or immigration law.

He didn’t foresee switching his major to politics, a change he made after West Virginia’s flagship university in September cut its world language department and dozens of other programs in subjects such as English, math and music amid a $45 million budget shortfall.

And he certainly didn’t expect to be studying — or teaching fellow students — about community organizing.

But the cuts, denounced as “draconian and catastrophic” by the American Federation of Teachers, catalyzed a different kind of education: Adams is co-founder of The West Virginia United Students’ Union. The leading oppositional force against the cuts, the union organized protests, circulated petitions and helped save a handful of teaching positions before 143 faculty and 28 majors ultimately were cut.

Disappointed, they say their work is far from done. Led by many first-generation college students and those receiving financial aid in the state with the fewest college graduates, members say they want to usher in a new era of student involvement in university political life.

“Really, what it is for WVU is a new era of student politics,” Adams said.

The movement is part of a wave of student organizing at U.S. colleges and universities centering around everything from the affordability of higher education and representation to who has access to a diverse array of course offerings and workplace safety concerns.

The university in Morgantown had been weighed down financially by enrollment declines, revenue lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects. Other U.S. universities and colleges have faced similar decisions, but WVU’s is among the most extreme examples of a flagship university turning to such dramatic cuts, particularly to foreign languages.

The union called the move to eliminate 8% of majors and 5% of faculty a failure of university leadership to uphold its mission as a land-grant institution, charged since the 1800s with educating rural students who historically had been excluded from higher education. A quarter of all children in West Virginia live in poverty, and many public K-12 schools don’t offer robust language programs at a time when language knowledge is becoming increasingly important in the global jobs market.

As the school continues to evaluate its finances, the union plans to keep a close eye on its budget, mobilize against any additional proposed cuts and prepare alternative proposals to keep curriculum and faculty positions in place.

Another key goal is monitoring and influencing the school’s search for its new president after university head E. Gordon Gee retires next year. Gee, the subject of symbolic motions from a faculty group that expressed no confidence in his leadership, said last year the curriculum cuts came at a time of change in higher education, and that WVU was “leading that change rather than being its victim.”

Higher education nationwide has become “arrogant” and “isolated,” he said, warning that without change, schools face “a very bleak future.”

Union Assembly of Delegates President and Co-Founder Matthew Kolb, a senior math major, said his group doesn’t want a new president who believes running the school as a corporate or business entity is the only option for getting things done properly.

“We know, when push comes to shove, the results of that are 143 faculty getting shoved off a cliff with one vote,” he said.

Adams, a north central West Virginia native who was the first in his family to attend college immediately after high school, said he could transfer to another institution and continue his studies in Chinese. But much of the reason he chose WVU was because of a commitment to the state and a desire to improve its socioeconomic outlook.

“A lot of West Virginians feel trapped in West Virginia and feel like they have to leave — not a lot of people choose to stay here,” Adams said. “I made the conscious decision to go to WVU to stay here to help improve my state.”

The cuts meant reaffirming that commitment, “despite basically being told by my state’s flagship university that, ‘Your major is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter, it’s not worth our time or money to teach.’”

Student union organizations have existed for hundreds of years worldwide. Commonly associated in the U.S. with on-campus hubs where students access dining halls, club offices and social events, in the United Kingdom the union also takes on the form of a university-independent advocacy arm lobbying at the institutional and national level.

Members say they envision the West Virginia United Students’ Union similar to those in the U.K., and it’s a concept they want to help grow.

That has meant a lot of work behind the scenes, strategizing to keep students interested and engaged and building relationships with the university campus workers union, student government and other organizations.

That work with the union helped keep up student morale as they watched faculty scramble to find new jobs and rewrite curriculum, student Felicia Carrara said.

An international studies and Russian studies double major from North Carolina, Carrara said she and many of her peers chose West Virginia University because it was affordable.

“The fact that we would now have to pivot to try and find the scholarships and other money to be able to afford an education anywhere else, or just not get a degree at all or get a degree that’s really bare bones. It’s just really disheartening,” she said.

“When you come to higher ed, you think things are going to be better than they were in high school and in middle school,” she said. “And it’s very sad finding out that they’re not.”

Andrew Ross, a senior German and political science double major, will be the last graduate to major in the language.

A 31-year-old nontraditional student who transferred to WVU in 2022 after earning an associate’s degree, Ross learned about the proposed cuts days after he returned home from a summer program in Germany he attended with the help of a departmental scholarship.

Ross, now the student union’s assembly of delegates vice president, said the cuts “felt like getting slapped in the face.” The university told him to drop the German major. He’s proud of his effort to finish the degree after twists and turns, but it’s bittersweet.

“In some ways and it makes me sad because I hope there isn’t someone who is still growing up that can’t have this experience — we all deserve it,” he said. “This university isn’t just failing me, it’s failing the state.”
…

PHILADELPHIA — He surveyed the Arizona crowd that had paid to catch a wrestling glimpse of the planet’s mightiest heavyweight, as measured in both box-office heft and ink-stained muscles. Then The Rock let the abuse fly. And as with so many public outbursts these days, attacking his opponents wasn’t enough. He had to insult the people, too.

“The Rock did a little bit of research, and here’s what he found out. This is the truth. This is a fact. The No. 1 city in America for cocaine and meth use is Phoenix, Arizona,” The Rock said to a roaring crowd that seemed to revel in the insults. Then and only then did he lay the smack down on his WrestleMania opponents.

Were The Rock’s assertions true? Or just an engine for vigorous trash talk? Most importantly: Does anyone really care, as long as the entertainment value is cranked to 11 and WWE churns out more fans to watch and fork over cash for its signature spectacle, WrestleMania, unfolding in Philadelphia this weekend?

Along the murky lines that intertwine sports, entertainment and, yes, politics, the ethos of being bad has never been so good. Say what you want. Do you want. The public eats it up. And for decades, somehow, the garish world of professional wrestling has sat smack in the middle of it all.

Outside the ring, the Superman spandex traded for Clark Kent glasses and a leather jacket, Dwayne Johnson crafts his good-guy image to plug his movies, his tequila label, his men’s care line, his football league — business interests where the bottom line doesn’t require calling the competition a bunch of “roody-poo candy-asses.” But under the house lights each week on live TV, Johnson knows storylines are sold on his Hollywood heel persona.

“I feel like everybody wants to be the good guy, the good girl. Everyone wants to be loved and cheered and considered the hero, which is great and it’s natural,” he says. “But, I have felt in my career, the rare air is when you have the opportunity to grab it by the throat, you don’t let it go. And that’s the opportunity to be a great bad guy.”

Wrestlemania and its cultural pull

The Rock is set to headline one of two nights of the annual WrestleMania event this weekend in Philadelphia, where more than 70,000 fans each night are expected to pack the NFL stadium that is home to the Eagles.

Banners of your favorite wrestlers, or the ones you love to hate, have smothered city street poles. Philly has been overrun by wrestling conventions, autograph signings, independent wrestling shows, podcast tapings, a 2K24 gaming tournament and all the other trappings that have turned the industry into a mainstream cultural phenomenon.

From the start, WrestleMania was born to be different.

Mr. T and Muhammad Ali helped pack Madison Square Garden in 1985, and “The Showcase of the Immortals” quickly turned a night of wrestling usually reserved for smoky arenas into the Super Bowl of entertainment. As WrestleMania approaches 40, it’s never been bigger — even with brainchild Vince McMahon a pariah and ousted from the company in the wake of a sex abuse lawsuit.

Yes, McMahon and Donald Trump even tangled at WrestleMania in 2007 in a “Battle of the Billionaires” match.

“Donald Trump, to a certain extent, represents a great deal of Americana,” McMahon said in 2007. “He’s larger than life, which really fits into what the WWE is.”

Maybe wrestling really does represent who we are as a nation. But even if you still scrunch your nose like you took a whiff of curdled milk over the very idea that anyone would like this flavor of wrestling, odds are you’ve still heard of The Rock and Hulk Hogan. Andre the Giant and John Cena. You’ve snapped into a Slim Jim because Randy Savage ordered you to, or let out a “Woooo!” at a hockey game like Ric Flair. Dave Bautista won a WrestleMania championship before he ever guarded the galaxy.

“Look at the way it was marketed in the 80s, when Vince McMahon really changed the whole industry forever,” said author Brad Balukjian, whose new book is on 1980s WrestleMania stars. “He’s got the action figures, he’s got the cartoon and the bedsheets and the lunch boxes. He turned these guys into the Batmans and the Marvel Cinematic Universe of the 80s, in a way.”

Revel in the universally accepted fakery

Fans have long been in on the con — and embraced it. It’s a mutual agreement forged for even paying customers to play their own roles in the four-sided ring performance. So they cheer. They boo. And despite all evidence to the contrary, they openly accept that each move is as legitimate a sporting action as anything found in a weeknight ballgame.

Wrestling pretended for so long to be on the up-and-up. Comedian Andy Kaufman drew gasps when he was slapped by wrestler Jerry Lawler on Late Night with David Letterman. But the curtain was yanked open long ago. On Wednesday, Johnson and WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns appeared on the The Tonight Show without any manufactured theatrics on their final hype job ahead of WrestleMania.

Former WWE star Dave Schultz slapped a 20/20 reporter in the 1980s for calling wrestling fake. Now ESPN, The Athletic, Sports Illustrated and CBS Sports have dedicated pages that report on both storylines and behind-the-scenes news, where the real drama is more likely found. Wrestling news is treated as seriously as any other sport’s.

But is it? A sport, that is.

Debate the definition all you want. Wrestling — a precursor to reality TV and all the Real Housewives — isn’t going anywhere. And its biggest fans are often the athletes who want to emulate the super-sized stars.

This week, Joel Embiid was about to divulge that he suffered from depression during an injury that cost him two months of his NBA career. But before the Philadelphia 76ers big man unburdened himself, he pulled on a WWE T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan of the wrestling company’s most boorish faction, Degeneration X: “Suck It.”

For pro wrestling, momentum is at hand. WWE’s weekly television show Raw will move to Netflix next year as part of a major streaming deal worth more than $5 billion. That’s some serious cash that even the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase would envy.

So go ahead. Sneer at wrestling. Or let go, turn a blind eye to the subterfuge and embrace Hulkamania and the frenzy that followed as a staple of the global sports landscape. Because it’s not leaving the building anytime soon.

Consider John Kruk, retired Phillies star and team broadcaster. You’d think that the pinnacle moment of baseball each year would be a must-see for him. But if pro wrestling is coming to town, as he told wrestler Kofi Kingston on TV recently, other priorities prevail.

“If it was a World Series game, if the Phillies aren’t participating, and wrestling was on,” Kruk said, “I’m watching wrestling.”
…

RABAT, Morocco — When Morocco ‘s King Mohamed VI visited Havana in 2017, Cuban-American gallery owner Alberto Magnan impressed him with a “full immersion” in the Caribbean island’s art and culture, drawing a line between the cultural and historical themes tackled by Cuban artists and those from across Africa.

Seven years after that encounter, one of the first exhibitions of Cuban art at an African museum is showing at Morocco’s Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art.

It’s part of an effort to give visitors a view beyond the European artists who often remain part of the school curriculum in the North African nation and other former French colonies, museum director Abdelaziz El Idrissi said.

“The Moroccan public might know Giacometti, Picasso or impressionists,” El Idrissi said. The museum has shown them all. “We’ve seen them and are looking for other things, too.”

The Cuba show contains 44 pieces by Wifredo Lam — a major showing of the Afro-Cuban painter’s work more than a year before New York City’s Museum of Modern Art will honor him with a career retrospective show in 2025.

“We’re kind of beating MoMA to the punch,” Magnan said.

The Morocco show also marks the first time that the work of another luminary, Jose Angel Toirac, is being displayed outside Cuba. Previously, his paintings depicting the country’s late anti-capitalist president Fidel Castro in the iconography of American advertisements and consumer culture were not allowed off the island.

Other works in Cuban Art: On the other side of the Atlantic — open until June 16 — show prevalent themes in Cuban art ranging from isolation and economic embargo to heritage and identity.

In Cuba, almost half of the population identifies as mixed race and more than 1 million people are Afro-Cuban. The island’s diversity is a recurring subject for its painters and artists, including Lam. That’s why it was important to show his work — including paintings of African-inspired masks and use of vibrant color — in Africa, Magnan said.

Morocco is among countries that have shown new interest in Cuban art since the United States restored diplomatic ties with Cuba in 2014 and Castro died in 2016. American art dealers and major museums flocked to the previously difficult-to-visit island.

But the intrigue was curbed by the COVID-19 pandemic and former U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to redesignate the country as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Magnan said.

Meanwhile, Morocco has increased funding for arts and culture in an effort to boost its “geopolitical soft power” in North Africa and beyond.

In both Morocco and Cuba, 20th century artists responded to political transition — decolonization in Morocco, revolution in Cuba — by drawing from history and engaging in trends shaping contemporary art worldwide.

But the current show does not touch on Moroccan-Cuban diplomatic relations, which were restored following King Mohamed VI’s 2017 visit to Cuba.

The countries had cut ties decades ago over Cuba’s position on the disputed Western Sahara, which Morocco claims. Cuba has historically trained Sahrawi soldiers and doctors and backed the Polisario Front’s agenda at the United Nations. 
…