Ivan Reitman, the influential filmmaker and producer behind many of the most beloved comedies of the late 20th century, from “Animal House” to “Ghostbusters,” has died. He was 75.  Reitman died peacefully in his sleep Saturday night at his home in Montecito, Calif., his family told The Associated Press.  “Our family is grieving the unexpected loss of a husband, father, and grandfather who taught us to always seek the magic in life,” children Jason Reitman, Catherine Reitman and Caroline Reitman said in a joint statement. “We take comfort that his work as a filmmaker brought laughter and happiness to countless others around the world. While we mourn privately, we hope those who knew him through his films will remember him always.” Known for bawdy comedies that caught the spirit of their time, Reitman’s big break came with the raucous, college fraternity sendup “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” which he produced. He directed Bill Murray in his first starring role in the summer camp flick “Meatballs,” and then again in 1981′s “Stripes,” but his most significant success came with 1984’s “Ghostbusters.” Not only did the irreverent supernatural comedy starring Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis gross …

For literature lovers in sanction-hit Iran, a new novel has long provided a brief respite from a grinding economic crisis triggered by international pressure imposed over Tehran’s contested nuclear programme. But now losing yourself in a good book is becoming harder, as cash-strapped publishers struggle because the price of paper is soaring. “If a 200-page novel sold for 400,000 rials ($1.60) last year, its price today is 1,000,000 rials ($4.10), most of which is the cost of production”, said Reza Hasheminejad, who runs the Ofoq publishing house. Iran does not produce its own paper pulp for publishing so relies on imports, and while those are not under sanctions, they must be paid for in foreign currency. That means the price of a book depends directly on the fluctuation of Iran’s rial. So publishers are not only slashing the number of titles published, but also cutting the number of pages of those they do print by shrinking the font size. “Publishing has suffered a major crisis — which could become existential,” said Emily Amrai, collection director at the Houpa publishing house. While publishers worldwide face growing challenges to the way people read and consume literature, Iran is facing an extra problem. …

A star-studded Los Angeles Rams team will seek to deny the giant-killing Cincinnati Bengals a Hollywood ending in the Super Bowl on Sunday as an NFL season full of plot twists reaches its climax. The first NFL championship game of the post-Tom Brady era sees the Rams play host at their gleaming $5.5 billion SoFi Stadium against a Bengals side chasing a first Super Bowl crown. Around 100 million Americans are expected to tune in for the biggest annual event on the U.S. sporting calendar, which kicks off at 3:30 p.m. local time (2330 GMT). “It’s game day!” the National Football League proclaimed on Twitter. “It all comes down to this moment.” The perfectly scripted season finale will see a duel between two talented quarterbacks playing in the Super Bowl for the first time, with Rams veteran Matthew Stafford pitted against the rising Bengals star Joe Burrow. A Bengals victory would complete one of the most striking turnarounds in NFL history.  Last season, the team finished with four wins and 11 defeats, only slightly better than their 2019 campaign, which ended in a dismal 2-14 record.  But under head coach Zac Taylor, and buoyed by the arrival of No.1 draft …

Veteran NFL coach Anthony Lynn appreciates the league policy that requires teams to interview minority candidates for their top jobs, and he has even benefited from it. Like many of his peers, though, the assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers believes the policy has fallen short of its good intentions: There were three non-white head coaches when the rule went into effect in 2003; today, there are five. The figure has risen and fallen slightly over the past 20 years, but skepticism about NFL hiring practices has remained steady among minority job candidates even after the league introduced the so-called Rooney Rule, named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who oversaw the league’s diversity committee. Lynn, who is Black, long ago added his own personal amendment to the Rooney Rule: As his star rose as one of the league’s top assistants in the mid-2010s, Lynn would only meet with teams to discuss a head coaching vacancy if they had already brought in at least one other minority candidate, something the Rooney Rule didn’t require until 2021. “I just didn’t want to be a token interview,” Lynn told The Associated Press. “I really believe in the spirit of the …

Americans are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday. It’s the final matchup of the National Football League season and a national celebration. Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles, where the Los Angeles Rams will face the Cincinnati Bengals. …

Artechouse’s new exhibit in Washington, “Transient: Impermanent Painting,” offers visitors an experience in hyperrealism. The Italian multimedia artist Quayola projects hyperrealistic pictorials of paint strokes against the sound of a coded, computerized Yamaha piano. Maxim Moskalkov reports. …

Los Angeles is getting ready to host one of the biggest annual sporting events in the U.S. – the Superbowl. Angelina Bagdasaryan examines the preparations for Superbowl 2022 and also spoke with residents about this Sunday’s (2/13) playoff between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals. Anna Rice narrates her story. Camera: Vazgen Varzhabetian …

Sting has sold his songwriting catalog — including solo works as well as hits with The Police like “Roxanne” — to Universal Music Group, the company said Thursday, the industry’s latest such blockbuster transaction. The company did not disclose financial terms of the deal, but U.S. media estimated it was worth some $250 million. It covers Sting’s entire body of songwriting work, including songs written for The Police. Sting’s sale reunites his publishing catalog with his recorded music rights, which are already controlled by Universal, according to the company’s statement. Universal now stands to receive all future income related to Sting’s song copyrights and songwriter royalties, for hits including “Every Breath You Take” and “Fields of Gold.” In a statement, the 70-year-old British-born artist said he is “delighted” for Universal’s publishing division to manage his catalog, saying “it is absolutely essential to me that my career’s body of work have a home where it is valued and respected — not only to connect with longtime fans in new ways but also to introduce my songs to new audiences, musicians and generations.” It’s the latest high-profile deal of the recent music rights purchasing rush, which has seen artists including Bob Dylan …

Kenya will be sitting out the Winter Olympics in Beijing after the country’s hopefuls either failed to qualify or pulled out of The Games due to lack of financial support. The ice hockey team did not have a place to train. Brenda Mulinya reports from Nairobi. Videographer: Amos Wangwa  …

Ambassadors from six Latin American countries on Tuesday denounced an upcoming auction of pre-Hispanic artifacts in France, reviving a longstanding grievance of the region.  The joint statement came a day after Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador denounced the practice as immoral after a recent major auction.  The Paris ambassadors of Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and the Dominican Republic condemned “in the strongest terms” the sale of pre-Hispanic artifacts organized by auction houses in the coming days.  In their joint statement, they called for the auctions to be halted.  They denounced what they said was the “continuation of practices linked to the illicit trade in cultural property, which damage the heritage, history and identity of our native peoples.”  The ambassadors of Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Peru made a similar appeal last November.  On Monday, Mexico’s Lopez Obrador called on France to legislate on the issue, after the January 28 sale by the Millon auction house of 30 pre-Hispanic Mexican artifacts, despite protests from Mexico City.  In recent years, Mexico has been trying to recover artifacts in the hands of private collectors around the world, with only partial success.  As well as calling for artworks to be returned, Mexico …

Jane Campion’s gothic western “The Power of the Dog” led nominations to the 94th Academy Awards, where streaming services more than ever before swept over Hollywood’s top honors. In nominations announced Tuesday, Campion’s film landed a leading 12 nominations, including nods for best picture, best director and all of its top actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Campion, a nominee for 1993′s “The Piano,” became the first woman to ever be nominated twice for best director. Last year, Chloé Zhao became just the second woman to ever win the award. Campion’s director of photography, Ari Wegner, also became the second woman ever nominated for best cinematography. The only previous woman to do so was Rachel Morrison for “Mudbound” in 2018. Denis Villeneuve’s majestic sci-fi epic “Dune” followed closely behind with 10 nominations. The nominees for best picture are: “Belfast”; “The Power of the Dog”; “Dune”; “Drive My Car”; “West Side Story”; “Don’t Look Up”; “Licorice Pizza”; “CODA”; “King Richard”; “Nightmare Alley.” Nominations were announced Tuesday morning in Los Angeles by Leslie Jordan and Tracee Ellis Ross. A largely virtual awards season added some unpredictability to this year’s nominations, which are occurring later than usual. To make …

 A virtual version of the handwritten notes for the song “Hey Jude” has been sold at auction in California for almost $77,000, the latest hammer price success for NFTs.    Originally entitled “Hey Jules,” the Fab Four’s hit was written in 1968 by Paul McCartney to comfort a young Julian Lennon during father John’s separation from his mother, Cynthia.      The NFT version of the notes was presented as an animation in which the words are progressively inscribed on the page and was accompanied by an audio commentary from Lennon junior.   “For me, just looking at a picture is not enough if I was a buyer,” Lennon earlier told AFP in Los Angeles. “So I wanted to add something a little more personal. And for me, that was writing and narrating a little bit of story that would be behind the images.” The sale, by Julien’s Auctions, also included an NFT of the Afghan coat worn by his father on the set of “Magical Mystery Tour,” which fetched $22,400  NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital objects that confer ownership.    While their content may be copyable, the NFT is “the original,” in much the same way that there are innumerable prints of …

It’s time again to celebrate Hollywood’s grandest ambitions and most daring risk takers. No, I’m not talking about Jackass Forever. On Tuesday morning, nominations for the 94th annual Academy Awards will be announced. Nominations are occurring a little later than usual. To make way for the Olympics, the Oscars are to be held March 27. And for the second straight year, the Oscars will unfold during the pandemic. The industrial complex of parties, galas and little gold statuettes known as “awards season” has again gone largely virtual, sapping the season of some of its usual buzz. The Oscars’ typical opening act — the Golden Globes — were much reduced and untelevised this year. But the Oscar nominations, which will be announced Tuesday beginning at 8:18 a.m. EST by presenters Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan, will try to again seize the spotlight after a year of profound change for the industry and a still-unfolding recovery for movie theaters. Nominations will be broadcast live on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the academy’s social media accounts and on ABC’s Good Morning America. But those are far from the only headwinds facing the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Last year’s Oscars, held in late …

Joe Rogan has put Spotify in a tough spot, but the streaming giant is not ready to part ways with the popular podcast host despite intense criticism over his anti-coronavirus vaccine comments and use of racial slurs. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek also said in a message to employees Sunday that Rogan’s racist language was “incredibly hurtful” and that the host was behind the removal of dozens of episodes of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “While I strongly condemn what Joe has said and I agree with his decision to remove past episodes from our platform, I realize some will want more,” Ek said in the note. “And I want to make one point very clear — I do not believe that silencing Joe is the answer.” The letter is the clearest indication yet of where Spotify stands on Rogan’s fate with the company as some musicians, including Neil Young and India.Arie, have pulled their work from the streaming service in protest and others could follow. Spotify reportedly paid $100 million to exclusively host Rogan’s podcast, which now threatens the bottom line but is also a key part of the company’s strategy to be a one-stop shop for audio. “We should have …

After final against Egypt finished 0-0 in extra time, Sengal won shoot-out 4-2 …

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai is again denying that she had accused a former Communist Party official of sexually assaulting her in a social media post late last year.   L’Equipe, a French daily sports newspaper, published an interview it conducted with Peng in its Monday edition.   “I never said anyone had sexually assaulted me in any way,” Peng is quoted in the interview after she is asked directly if she actually wrote the post on her account on China’s Weibo social media platform. In the November 2 post, Peng, a former Olympian who won titles at Wimbledon and the French Open, said former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into sex before it evolved into an on-off consensual relationship. Her post was quickly deleted and she vanished from public view for several days.  She eventually appeared at a tennis event and spoke by video with Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee president, during which she said she was safe.   Her public absence sparked concern among some of the world’s top tennis players, including Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, Billie Jean King and Novak Djokovic, and the Women’s Tennis Association suspended all of its sponsored tournaments in mainland China and …

 The iconic tapestry of Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica,” which is considered by numerous art critics as perhaps the most powerful anti-war painting in history, returned to its place of honor at the United Nations on Saturday after a year-long absence that angered and dismayed many U.N. diplomats and staff. The tapestry of the painting, woven by Atelier J. de la Baume-Durrbach, was re-hung Saturday outside the Security Council, the U.N.’s most powerful body charged with ensuring international peace and security. Since February 2021, the yellow wall where it had hung had been empty. The tapestry was commissioned in 1955 by former U.S. vice president and New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and offered to the U.N. on loan in 1984. The Rockefeller family donated the land to build the U.N. complex after the world body was founded on the ashes of World War II, in the words of the U.N. Charter, “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” When the United Nations headquarters was undergoing a major renovation starting in 2009, the tapestry was returned to the Rockefeller Foundation for safekeeping. It was reinstalled in September 2013 when the renovations were completed. Early last year, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Jr., the …

Bollywood superstar Lata Mangeshkar, known to millions as the “Nightingale of India” and a regular fixture of the country’s airwaves for decades, died Sunday morning at the age of 92. Mangeshkar was born in 1929 and started her musical training early under the tutelage of her father, Deenanath, singing in his theatrical productions when she was just 5. Her father’s death when she was 13 forced her to take on the role of breadwinner to support four younger siblings, and the family eventually moved to Mumbai in 1945. There she pursued a career as a playback singer, recording tracks to be mimed by actors, and her high-pitched voice soon became a staple of Bollywood blockbusters. In a move reflecting her huge following, she was invited by the government to sing a patriotic tribute to the soldiers killed in the 1962 Indo-China war at India’s Republic Day commemorations in January 1963. Her rendition of Oh the People of my Country reportedly moved then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to tears. In the following decades, composers and film producers alike vied to sign the prolific Mangeshkar for their movies. “I composed keeping Lata Mangeshkar’s range and voice quality in mind,” composer Anil Biswas said …

The fashion industry has always had a relationship with some forms of social activism. But all too often the industry is also seen as one of excess and consumerism gone wild. That could change if New York’s Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act – or FSSAA – becomes law. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera – Vladimir Badikov. …

Golf is sometimes seen as a sport only accessible to an elite few. But in Senegal, one female golf star is redefining the sport’s image and challenging her country’s conservative gender norms. Annika Hammerschlag reports from Saly, Senegal. …

The lawsuit alleges that the league has discriminated against Brian Flores and other Black coaches for racial reasons; the NFL said it will defend “against these claims, which are without merit” …

The U.S. National Football League’s Washington franchise announced Wednesday it will now be known as the Washington Commanders, 18 months after dropping its previous name following years of complaints it was derogatory and racist. The team, founded as the Boston Braves, became the Redskins in 1932 before moving to Washington in 1937. But since the 1970s the team received criticism from Native American activists and others who viewed its name as offensive. Current team owner Daniel Snyder vowed repeatedly never to change it.  But in 2020, following the worldwide protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd while in police custody, the national discussion about racial equality brought new pressure on the team. The Washington Post reports pressure from public officials as well as threats from top sponsors such as FedEx, Nike and Pepsi prompted the team to drop “Redskins.” The team had been known simply as The Washington Football Team – or WFT – while team management conducted the process of selecting a new name. In a statement, team owner Snyder said, “As an organization, we are excited to rally and rise together as one under our new identity, while paying homage to our local roots and what it …