Category: Новини

Basketball Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo is undergoing treatment in Atlanta for a brain tumor, the NBA announced Saturday. 

Mutombo has been one of the NBA’s global ambassadors for years, and recently appeared at Hall of Fame enshrinement events in Springfield, Massachusetts, and a pair of preseason games in Saitama, Japan. 

He also appeared with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at an event in the Congo, Mutombo’s native country, in August. 

“He is receiving the best care possible from a collaborative team of specialists in Atlanta and is in great spirits as he begins treatment,” Mutombo’s family said in a statement distributed by the NBA. “Dikembe and his family ask for privacy during this time so they can focus on his care. They are grateful for your prayers and good wishes.” 

The family did not release any other details, including what prompted the discovery of the tumor. 

“We know he will approach this challenge with the same determination and grit that have made him a legend on and off the court,” Atlanta Hawks principal owner Tony Ressler said. 

The 56-year-old Mutombo spent 18 seasons in the NBA, playing for Denver, Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, New York and the then-New Jersey Nets. The 7-foot-2 center out of Georgetown was an eight-time All-Star, four-time defensive player of the year, three-time All-NBA selection and went into the Hall of Fame in 2015 after averaging 9.8 points and 10.3 rebounds per game for his career. 

Mutombo last played during the 2008-09 season and has worked extensively for charitable and humanitarian causes since. Blinken lauded him when the pair were together in the Congo, telling Mutombo, “You’ve done so much to bring the world together.” 

Mutombo speaks nine languages and founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation in 1997, concentrating on improving health, education and quality of life for the people in the Congo. His foundation led the building of a 170-bed hospital in Kinshasa, the capital city, and that facility has treated nearly a half-million people regardless of their ability to pay for care. 

He also has served on the boards of many organizations, including Special Olympics International, the CDC Foundation and the National Board for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF. 
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Two women have been charged with criminal damage after climate change protesters threw soup on Vincent van Gogh’s painting “Sunflowers” at London’s National Gallery, British police said Saturday.

A video posted by the Just Stop Oil campaign group, which has been holding protests for the last two weeks in the British capital, showed two of its activists on Friday throwing tins of Heinz tomato soup over the painting, one of five versions on display in museums and galleries around the world.

The gallery said the incident had caused minor damage to the frame, but the painting was unharmed. It later went back on display.

Police said two women, aged 21 and 20, would appear later at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged with “criminal damage to the frame of van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting”.

Another activist will also appear in court, accused of damaging the sign outside the New Scotland Yard police headquarters in central London.

Police said in total 28 people had been arrested during protests on Friday.
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An Iranian filmmaker said the Islamic republic barred him from travelling to the London Film Festival over his support for the protest movement sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini that he called a “great moment in history.”

“I was prevented by the Iranian authorities from boarding my flight to London on Friday,” Mani Haghighi said in a video message to festival-goers tweeted by the British Film Institute (BFI).

“They gave me no reasonable explanation for this actually rude behavior.”

Outrage over Amini’s death on Sept. 16, three days after she was arrested by Iran’s notorious morality police, has fueled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country for years.

In response, the clerical state’s security forces have waged a brutal crackdown that has claimed the lives of dozens of protesters as well as a campaign of mass arrests of artists, dissidents, journalists and sports stars.

The BFI said Haghighi had been due to attend the London Film Festival for his latest film Subtraction, but the Iranian authorities “confiscated his passport and he could not leave.”

In the video message, the 53-year-old Iranian director, writer and actor said he believed the authorities had prevented him from going abroad over his support for the Amini protest movement.

“A couple of weeks ago I recorded an Instagram video in which I criticized Iran’s mandatory hijab laws and the crackdown on the youth who are protesting it and so many other instances of injustice in their lives.

“Perhaps the authorities thought by keeping me here they could keep a closer eye on me, perhaps to threaten me and shut me up.

“Well, the very fact that I’m talking to you now in this video kind of undermines that plan,” he said.

Haghighi said, however, that he had no regrets about being forced to stay in Iran as a “prisoner” in his own country.

“Let me tell you that being here in Tehran right now is one of the greatest joys of my life.

“I cannot put into words the joy and the honor of being able to witness first-hand this great moment in history and I would rather be here than anywhere else right now.

“So if this is a punishment for what I’ve done, then by all means, bring it on.” 
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Robbie Coltrane, the baby-faced comedian and character actor whose hundreds of roles included a crime-solving psychologist on the TV series “Cracker” and the gentle half-giant Hagrid in the “Harry Potter” movies, has died. He was 72.

Coltrane’s agent, Belinda Wright, said he died Friday at a hospital in his native Scotland, and but did not immediately release other details. She called him “forensically intelligent” and “brilliantly witty” in just one of many tributes made to him.

“Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, who decades ago said Coltrane was her first choice to play Hagrid, tweeted Friday that he was “an incredible talent, a complete one off.”

“I was beyond fortunate to know him, work with him and laugh my head off with him,” she wrote.

Born Anthony Robert McMillan in Rutherglen, Scotland, Coltrane was in his early 20s when he began pursuing an acting career and renamed himself in honor of jazz musician John Coltrane.

He had a notable screen career, with credits including “Mona Lisa,” “Nuns on the Run” and Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of “Henry V” when he broke through on his own as a hard-bitten criminal psychologist in “Cracker,” the 1990s TV series for which he won best actor at the British Academy Television Awards three years running.

He went on to appear in all eight “Harry Potter” movies as the young wizard’s mentor and had a wide variety of other parts, including a Russian crime boss in the James Bond thrillers “GoldenEye” and “The World is Not Enough” and Pip’s guardian Mr. Jaggers in a 2012 adaptation of Dickens’ “Great Expectations.” More recently, he received rave reviews for playing a beloved TV star who may harbor a dark secret in the 2016 miniseries “National Treasure.”

On Friday, his “Nuns on the Run” co-star Eric Idle tweeted that he had been talking about Coltrane, “wondering where he was,” when he learned of his death.

“Such a bright and brilliant man. A consummate actor, an extraordinarily funny comedian and an amazing actor. He was also a very good friend,” Idle wrote.

Wright said Coltrane is survived by his sister Annie Rae, his ex-wife Rhona Gemmell and his children, Spencer and Alice.
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