POPGAZETA

American actor James Caan, known best for his role as the hot-headed Sonny Corleone in the classic 1972 film, “The Godfather,” has died at the age of 82. A message posted to the actor’s Twitter account on Thursday read “It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time. End of tweet.” “End of tweet” became a signature phrase for the actor as he became more active on the social media platform in recent years.   The Associated Press reports Caan’s manager, Matt DelPiano, confirmed that Caan died at his home in Los Angeles late Wednesday. No cause was given. Caan was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in “The Godfather,” playing the oldest sibling in the Corleone crime family. He told an interviewer earlier this year — the 50th anniversary of the film’s release — that he knew the film would be something special when he made it, largely because of the rapport he had with fellow cast members. Caan was born in the New …

An American basketball player held in Russia since February for possession of cannabis oil pleaded guilty in a Russian court Thursday.   “I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Brittney Griner, 31, said, speaking English, which was then translated into Russian for the court.   “I’d like to give my testimony later. I need time to prepare,” she added.   The WNBA star, who also played in Russia, could face 10 years in prison.   She is due back in court on July 14.   The trial began Friday, July 1, and resumed Thursday.   On Monday, Griner sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden asking him to “do all you can” for her and other Americans detained or held hostage in Russia.   White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Biden has read the letter.   Griner’s representatives shared parts of the letter Monday.   “As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments, I’m terrified I might be here forever,” Griner wrote.   The White House …

The Canadian government said Monday it had signed a $15.5 billion agreement to compensate First Nations children and families harmed by chronic underfunding of child welfare.  The Assembly of First Nations and plaintiffs in two class action lawsuits agreed to the deal.  Indigenous Services Canada, a government agency, said the settlement is the largest in Canadian history.  “The parties have agreed on a plan for settling compensation claims to recognize the families and people who have suffered tremendously through discriminatory and systemically racist child-welfare practices,” said Patty Hajdu, the Indigenous services minister.  The settlement accounts for half of an overall $31.1 billion deal that aims to reform Canada’s child welfare system, including five-year funding for the First Nations Child and Family Services program.  The settlement must still be approved by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal and the Federal Court.  Cindy Woodhouse, the Manitoba regional chief at the Assembly of First Nations, praised the deal.  “And after three decades of advocacy and months of negotiations, I’m proud to say on behalf the AFN that we have reached another historic milestone for our children and their families,” she said in a statement.  The First Nations Children and Family Caring Society and the …

Peter Brook, one of the world’s most innovative theater directors who perfected the art of staging powerful drama in bizarre venues, has died aged 97, his publisher said Sunday. The British director used the world as his stage mounting productions ranging from challenging versions of Shakespeare through international opera to Hindu epic poems. Brook put on plays in gymnasiums, deserted factories, quarries, schools and old gas works in towns around the world. His 1970 Stratford production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” played all in white and with a huge, garlanded swing, secured his place in the annals of theater history. According to Le Monde, Brook – who had been based in France since 1974 – died in Paris Saturday. A statement from his publisher confirmed his death Sunday. Although Brook was regarded with awe in theatrical circles, he was less well known among the wider public because of his refusal to bow to commercial taste. He left Britain to work in Paris in 1970. He often shunned traditional theatrical buildings for the “empty space” which could be transformed by light, words, improvisation and the sheer power of acting and suggestion. “I can take any empty space and call it …

London Saturday celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first Pride parade, marking half a century of progress in the fight for equality and tolerance but with warnings that more still needs to be done.  Several hundred people took part in the first march July 1, 1972, just five years after homosexuality was decriminalized in the U.K.  Fifty years on, more than 600 LGBTQ+ groups danced, sang and rode floats along a similar route to the original protest, in the first Pride since the coronavirus pandemic, watched by huge cheering crowds.  London Mayor Sadiq Khan told reporters the event, which organizers said was the “biggest and most inclusive” in its history, was a celebration of community, unity and progress.  But he said it was also a reminder of the need to “campaign and never be complacent” and the need for “an open, inclusive, accepting world.”  “We saw this time last week an attack in Oslo just hours before that parade, where two people lost their lives and more than 20 were injured,” he said.  “So, we’ve got to be conscious of the fact that there’s still a danger to this community of discrimination, bias and violence.”  Khan’s predecessor as mayor, Prime …

Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman’s long search came to an end Friday when he was reunited in Tokyo with a cherished guitar 45 years after it was stolen from a Toronto hotel. “My girlfriend is right there,” said Bachman, 78, a former member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, as the Gretsch guitar on which he wrote “American Woman” and other hits was handed to him by a Japanese musician who had bought it at a Tokyo store in 2014 without knowing its history. He said all guitars are special, but the orange 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins he bought as a teenager was exceptional. He worked at multiple jobs to save money to buy the $400 guitar, his first purchase of an expensive instrument, he said. “It made my whole life. It was my hammer and a tool to write songs, make music and make money,” Bachman told The Associated Press before the handover at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo. When it was stolen from the Toronto hotel in 1977, “I cried for three days. It was part of me,” he said. “It was very, very upsetting.” He ended up buying about 300 guitars in unsuccessful attempts to …

June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride month. In the Western U.S. city of Denver, a museum exhibition features fashions from the gender-inclusive DCR Studios. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns caught up with designer Darlene Ritz at the show. Videographers: Scott Stearns, Jodi Westrum …

The National Football League (NFL), the top league in American-style football, has hosted its first African developmental camp in Ghana’s capital, Accra. The weeklong program was aimed at finding fresh talent and building the sport’s popularity across Africa. Senanu Tord reports from Accra, Ghana. …

Held for the first time since the pandemic, the world’s biggest transgender pageant pulled contestants from as far apart as Honduras and India to Thailand, a country where gender equality law is under the spotlight. For VOA, Vijitra Duangdee has this story from Pattaya, Thailand. …

Shackled and looking wary, WNBA star Brittney Griner was ordered to stand trial Friday by a court near Moscow on cannabis possession charges, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team.  The Phoenix Mercury center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist also was ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned.  At Monday’s closed-door preliminary hearing at the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photos obtained by The Associated Press showed the 31-year-old in handcuffs and looking straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head down and covered with a hood.  Her detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon …

 Step into Yuet Tung China Works, Hong Kong’s last remaining hand-painted porcelain factory, and you find yourself surrounded by stacks of dinnerware, each piece painstakingly decorated by hand with vibrant motifs of flowers, fruits and animals.  Joseph Tso, the third-generation owner of the factory, and his small team are among the few people in Hong Kong who have mastered the traditional technique of painting “guangcai,” or Canton porcelain.  It is a fading art in this modern metropolis, as fewer young people are willing to put in the time and effort required to master the craft or to work at the factory full-time.  “The business environment in Hong Kong is not suitable for labor-intensive industries,” Tso said. “Hong Kong’s traditional handicraft industry is gradually declining. It will eventually disappear.”  Guangcai, which comes from the nearby Chinese city of Guangzhou, is characterized by an overglaze technique in which the painter sketches a design on white porcelain and then fills it in with color using thin brushes before firing the piece in a kiln.  Tso’s grandfather established the factory in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City in 1928. It rose to prominence over the years, becoming famous for its delicate craftmanship and custom dinnerware.  The …

Part of the wooden stands collapsed during a bullfight in central Colombia on Sunday, sending spectators plunging to the ground and killing at least four people and seriously injuring about 30, authorities said.  The disaster took place in a stadium in the city of El Espinal in Tolima state during a traditional event called “corraleja” in which members of the public enter the ring to engage the bulls.  Videos taken during the bullfight show a three-story section of the stands collapsing as people screamed.  “We have activated the hospital network in Tolima,” Tolima Gov. José Ricardo Orozco told local Blu Radio. “Four people have died, as of this moment: two women, a man and a minor.”  Authorities said about 30 people had been seriously injured.  Orozco said he had asked for the traditional “corralejas” to be suspended in Tolima earlier Sunday but this one was held anyway.  President-elect Gustavo Petro urged local officials to ban such events, noting that it was not the first time an incident like this had taken place.  “I ask mayors not to allow more events involving the death of people or animals,” he said.  Current President Iván Duque on Twitter announced an investigation of the …

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis” shook up theaters with an estimated $30.5 million in weekend ticket sales, but — in a box-office rarity — “Elvis” tied “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also reported $30.5 million, for No. 1 in theaters. Final figures Monday, once Sunday’s grosses are tabulated, will sort out which film ultimately won the weekend. With a high degree of accuracy, studios can forecast Sunday sales based on Friday and Saturday business, though numbers often shift by a few hundred thousand dollars. But for now, the unlikely pair of “Elvis” and “Maverick” are locked in a dance off (if you favor “Elvis”) or a dead heat (if you prefer “Maverick”). That it was this close at all was due to both a better-than-expected opening for “Elvis” and remarkably strong continued sales for “Top Gun: Maverick.” The “Top Gun” sequel reached $1 billion in worldwide box office in its fifth week of release. “Elvis,” starring newcomer Austin Butler as Presley, came into the weekend with expectations closer to $25 million. Among recent music biopics, a $30.5 million debut puts the King ahead of the pace of Elton John (“Rocketman” launched with $25.7 million in 2019) though not in the …

A new museum recently opened in Rome to display stolen art recovered by the Italian police squad charged with safeguarding the country’s artistic and cultural heritage. On display at the Rescued Art Museum are around 100 valuable artifacts, returned from the United States after having been stolen by tomb raiders and making their way illegally into private collections, museums and auction houses.   In December 2021, the art squad of the Carabinieri — Italy’s national police — announced the recovery of more than 200 priceless artifacts from between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC.  It credited the recovery to in-depth investigations, diplomacy, and collaboration with authorities in the U.S. It took more than two decades of negotiations and legal proceedings to obtain the return of the looted art.  Over the years, investigations overseen by the Rome Public Prosecutors’ Office enabled the Carabinieri art squad to examine photos of antiquities collections held by museums, private collectors, auction houses and antiques galleries in the U.S.   This allowed the squad to identify hundreds of items that they knew had been illegally excavated in Italy and illicitly exported from the country. The Carabinieri were also able to thwart a black market trade in …

A movie theater owner in the western U.S. state of Oklahoma said the theater never carried out a plan to fast forward through a same-sex kiss in a newly released Disney/Pixar film. The theater had posted a warning sign about the kiss and its intention to fast forward through the brief kissing scene in Lightyear, part of the Toy Story franchise. The sign said that management found out about the kiss between two women after booking the film, adding that, “We will do all we can to fast-forward through that scene, but it might not be exact.” Instead, the owner of the theater in Kingfisher told local television station KOCO 5 that the plan to interrupt the film was never executed in any of the showings of the film. Some countries have banned the film because of the kiss. …

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Jurors at a civil trial found Tuesday that Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, and awarded her $500,000. Jurors found that Cosby intentionally caused harmful sexual contact with Huth, that he reasonably believed she was under 18, and that his conduct was driven by unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor. The jurors’ decision is a major legal defeat for the 84-year-old entertainer once hailed as “America’s Dad.” It comes nearly a year after his Pennsylvania criminal conviction for sexual assault was thrown out, and he was freed from prison. Huth’s lawsuit was one of the last remaining legal claims against him after his insurer settled many others against his will. Cosby did not attend the trial or testify in person, but short clips from a 2015 video deposition were played for jurors in which he denied any sexual contact with Huth. He continues to deny the allegation through his attorney and publicist. Jurors had already reached conclusions on nearly every question on their verdict form, including whether Cosby abused Huth and whether she deserved …

Why would the smell of a baby’s head calm men but rile women? It may be another example of how we’re more animal than we like to think. …

Oscar-winning Canadian screenwriter and director Paul Haggis is under house arrest in southern Italy on charges of sexual assault and aggravated personal injury, accusations that Haggis denies, his lawyers said on Monday. “Mr. Paul Haggis was detained on Sunday with an emergency measure issued by the Brindisi prosecutors and is now under house arrest in Ostuni. He will be questioned by Thursday by a judge who will have to decide whether or not to confirm the detention,” his Italian lawyer Michele Laforgia told Reuters. Haggis was charged with forcing a young non-Italian woman to have sexual intercourse against her will the course of two days in Ostuni, Italy, public prosecutors in Brindisi said in a statement on Sunday. “Under Italian Law, I cannot discuss the evidence. That said, I am confident that all allegations will be dismissed against Mr. Haggis,” Haggis’ personal attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement. Both lawyers said Haggis was pleading innocent and would cooperate with authorities.  “A young foreign woman was forced to seek medical care” following the sexual relations, the prosecutors said in the statement. They said that on Sunday after the non-consensual relations that man accompanied the woman to Brindisi airport, where she …

The surprise announcement by BTS last week that they were taking a break to focus on members’ solo projects stunned their global fanbase, shaking their label’s stock price and leaving many questions about the K-pop supergroup’s future. HYBE, the company behind the band, denied the group was taking a hiatus — a word used in a translation of the group’s emotional dinnertime video announcement. In the days since, band members have remained active on social media, continuing the stream of posts, photos and assurances that the band wasn’t breaking up. Despite the immediate impacts — HYBE’s stock initially dropped more than 25% and has yet to fully recover — several factors may still affect BTS’ future. One is looming military enlistment for older BTS members, as well as how engaged the group and their devoted fans, known as ARMY, will continue to be in social issues. In 2020, at the height of BTS’ success, the South Korean government revised the country’s military law that requires able-bodied South Korean men to perform approximately two years of military service. The revised law allows top K-pop stars — including Jin, the oldest member of BTS — to defer their military service until they …

An 18-year-old from South Korea has won the 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of the top showcases for the world’s best pianists.  The competition held in Fort Worth, Texas, ended Saturday night with Yunchan Lim becoming the competition’s youngest winner of the gold medal. His winnings include a cash award of $100,000 and three years of career management.  The silver medalist was Anna Geniushene, a 31-year-old from Russia, and the bronze medalist is Dmytro Choni, a 28-year-old from Ukraine.  Lim told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he’ll discuss with his teacher what the next move for his career should be.  “I am still a student and I feel like I have to learn a lot still,” Lim said. “This is a great competition and I feel the burden of receiving this great honor and award so I will just push myself to live up to the honor I received today.”  The competition was founded in 1962 in honor of the celebrated pianist Van Cliburn, who lived in Fort Worth. Cliburn, who died in 2013 at age 78, played for U.S. presidents, royalty and heads of state around the world. He is best remembered for winning the first International …

Swimming’s world governing body FINA on Sunday voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions and create a working group to establish an “open” category for them in some events as part of its new policy. Transgender rights has become a major talking point as sports seek to balance inclusivity while ensuring there is no unfair advantage. The decision, the strictest by any Olympic sports body, was made during FINA’s extraordinary general congress after members heard a report from a transgender task force comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures. The new eligibility policy for FINA competitions states that male-to-female transgender athletes are eligible to compete only if “they can establish to FINA’s comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later.” The policy was passed with a roughly 71% majority after it was put to the members of 152 national federations with voting rights who had gathered for the congress at the Puskas Arena. “We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s …

American actor and director Liev Schreiber says events in Ukraine didn’t impact him much before the Russian invasion. Due to the war, he became deeply involved in charity work and rediscovered the Ukrainian part of his heritage. VOA’s Tatiana Vorozhko reports. …

Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, couples there continue to get married. For many, the war itself prompted them to officially tie the knot – especially military couples. At least one jewelry store provides military couples with free wedding bands; wedding ceremonies are often held online, at times, literally from the front lines. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. …