NEW YORK – After being arrested for creating antigovernment propaganda in 2010, the Iranian director Jafar Panahi was banned from making films for 20 years. Since then, he’s made five widely acclaimed features. His latest, “No Bears,” opens soon in U.S. theaters while Panahi is in prison. In July, Panahi went to the Tehran prosecutor’s … Read more
LOS ANGELES – When Chance the Rapper visited West Africa earlier this year, he initially thought his trip with fellow Chicago hip-hop artist Vic Mensa would be just another vacation getaway. Instead, the Grammy winner connected with Mensa’s father’s family in Ghana and other natives from the Motherland on a deeper level. He saw Ghana’s … Read more
PARIS – “Emily in Paris” fans will get a few surprises in their Christmas stockings, when the third season of the hit show arrives on Netflix this Wednesday. Even the cast were shocked by the number of cliffhangers in the new series when they first read the scripts. “I’m like, how are we going to … Read more
LOS ANGELES – Harvey Weinstein faces a shorter prison sentence in California after a Los Angeles jury failed to reach a verdict on whether the disgraced mogul planned his attack on a woman he was convicted of raping. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench declared a mistrial on the issue Tuesday after the panel … Read more
BERLIN – Tennis great Boris Becker tearfully recounted the moment the door of his single-occupancy cell at Britain’s notorious Wandsworth prison closed for the first time, speaking publicly after serving eight months for bankruptcy offenses. “It was the loneliest moment I’ve ever had in life,” Becker said in an interview with German broadcaster SAT.1 that … Read more
HAVANA – When everything seemed to be going wrong, Cuban multimedia artist Alejandro Pablo García Alarcón found a solution in what some might consider an unusual place: NFTs. Artists like him have been dealt multiple blows in recent years: The pandemic wreaked havoc on Cuba’s tourism sector, sending art sales plummeting. American sanctions, while not … Read more
ROME – Opposition lawmakers in Italy are seeking a parliamentary commission of inquiry into three cold cases that have consumed the Italian public’s imagination for decades, including the 1983 disappearance of a 15-year-old that was highlighted in the Netflix documentary, “Vatican Girl.” The aim of the inquest, said Sen. Carlo Calenda, would be to pressure … Read more