POPGAZETA

 Jennifer Lopez made an emotional speech about how believers and skeptics contributed to her success as she accepted a career achievement honor at the MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday.  “I want to thank the people who gave me joy and the ones who broke my heart — the ones who were true and the ones who lied to me,” said Lopez, who nabbed this year’s Generation Award for actors whose diverse contributions have made them household names. She also took home best song — a new category — for the track “On My Way” from the “Marry Me” soundtrack.  MTV’s youth-focused celebration of film and TV offered a lighter, breezier awards show with 26 categories in gender-neutral categories such as best villain, best kiss and new category “here for the hookup.” Hosted by Vanessa Hudgens, the ceremony returned to a live format after being pre-recorded for several years.  Lopez shed tears as she thanked fans, her longtime manager and children for “teaching me to love,” bringing the audience to their feet at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California.  “I want to thank the people who gave me this life,” said Lopez, 52, later adding, “You’re only as …

Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of the iconic rock band Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70. The group on Sunday announced the death of Such, the New Jersey band’s bassist from 1983 to 1994. No details on when or how Such died were immediately available. A publicist for singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi didn’t immediately respond to messages. “He was an original,” Bon Jovi wrote in a post on Twitter. “As a founding member of Bon Jovi, Alec was integral to the formation of the band.” Bon Jovi credited Such for bringing the band together, noting that he was a childhood friend of drummer Tico Torres and brought guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora to see the band perform. Such had played with Sambora in a band called Message. The Yonkers, New York-born Such was a veteran figure in the thriving New Jersey music scene that helped spawn Bon Jovi. As manager of the Hunka Bunka Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, Such booked Jon Bon Jovi & The Wild Ones before joining the singer-songwriter’s band. He played with Bon Jovi through the group’s heyday in the 1980s. Such departed the band in 1994, when he was replaced …

Narendra Modi rose from his chair and walked briskly towards the podium to deliver another nighttime address to the nation. It was expected the speech would include a rare message of interfaith harmony in the country where religious tensions have risen under his rule. The Indian prime minister was speaking from the historic Mughal-era Red Fort in New Delhi, and the event marked the 400th birth anniversary celebrations of Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru who is remembered for championing religious freedoms for all. The occasion and the venue, in many ways, were appropriate. Instead, Modi chose the April event to turn back the clock and remind people of India’s most despised Muslim ruler who has been dead for more than 300 years. “Aurangzeb severed many heads, but he could not shake our faith,” Modi said during his address. His invocation of the 17th century Mughal emperor was not a mere blip. Aurangzeb Alamgir remained buried deep in the annals of India’s complex history. The country’s modern rulers are now resurrecting him as a brutal oppressor of Hindus and a rallying cry for Hindu nationalists who believe India must be salvaged from the taint of the so-called Muslim invaders. …

Every year thousands of visitors to Las Vegas can’t help falling in love — at least long enough to get married by an Elvis impersonator. But the company that controls the rights to the King’s likeness has sparked outrage in Sin City by cracking down wedding chapels offering Elvis-themed nuptials. Authentic Brands Group, which bought a controlling stake in Elvis Presley’s estate in 2013, last month sent cease-and-desist letters to companies offering the kitschy weddings. The move triggered angry responses from Elvis impersonators, chapel owners, and even the mayor of Las Vegas, who called for a little more open conversation — and less legal action — from the group. “Elvis Presley long called Las Vegas his home and his name has become synonymous with Las Vegas weddings,” Jason Whaley, president of the Las Vegas Wedding Chamber of Commerce, told AFP. “The Vegas Wedding Chamber shares a concern that many of our chapels and impersonators livelihoods are being targeted, especially as many are still trying to recover financially from the hurdles we all endured with Covid shutdowns.” ABG on Thursday apologized for its initial approach, saying it was committed to protecting Presley’s legacy. “We are sorry that recent communication with a …

Afghan and Pakistani artists held a protest in front of press club in Peshawar, Pakistan, against the crackdown on Afghan artists who fled their country after the Taliban’s takeover. Muska Safi has more from Peshawar in this report, narrated by Nazrana Yousufzai. Contributors: Nazrana Yousufzai, Roshan Noorzai …

The Special Olympics has dropped a coronavirus vaccine mandate for its games in Orlando after Florida moved to fine the organization $27.5 million for violating a state law against such rules.  Republican Governor Ron DeSantis on Friday announced the organization had removed the requirement for its competition in the state, which is scheduled to run June 5-12.  “In Florida, we want all of them to be able to compete. We do not think it’s fair or just to be marginalizing some of these athletes based on a decision that has no bearing on their ability to compete with honor or integrity,” DeSantis said at a news conference in Orlando.  The Florida health department notified the Special Olympics of the fine in a letter Thursday that said the organization would be fined $27.5 million for 5,500 violations of state law for requiring proof of coronavirus vaccination for attendees or participants.  Florida law bars businesses from requiring documentation of a COVID-19 vaccination. DeSantis has strongly opposed vaccine mandates and other virus policies endorsed by the federal government.  In a statement on its website, the Special Olympics said people who were registered but unable to participate because of the mandate can now attend.  …

Harini Logan was eliminated from the Scripps National Spelling Bee once, then reinstated. She missed four words in a grueling standoff against Vikram Raju, including one that would have given her the title. In the first-ever lightning-round tiebreaker, Harini finally claimed the trophy. The 13-year-old eighth grade student from San Antonio, Texas, who competed in the last fully in-person bee three years ago and endured the pandemic to make it back, spelled 21 words correctly during a 90-second spell-off, beating Vikram by six. Harini, one of the best-known spellers entering the bee and a crowd favorite for her poise and positivity, wins more than $50,000 in cash and prizes. Perhaps no champion has ever had more final-round flubs, but Harini was no less deserving. She is the fifth Scripps champion to be coached by Grace Walters, a former speller, fellow Texan and student at Rice University who is considering bowing out of the coaching business. If so, she will depart on top. The key moment came during the bee’s much-debated multiple-choice vocabulary round, when Harini defined the word “pullulation” as the nesting of mating birds. Scripps said the correct answer was the swarming of bees. But wait! “We did a …

In Mogadishu, a group of young filmmakers are hoping to take their vision to the world. VOA’s Abdulkadir Zubeyr reports. …

Queen Elizabeth II will make two appearances on the Buckingham Palace balcony on Thursday, kicking off four days of public events to mark her historic Platinum Jubilee. The extent of the 96-year-old monarch’s involvement in the celebrations for her record-breaking 70 years on the throne has been a source of speculation for months. She has cut back drastically on her public appearances since last year because of difficulties standing and walking — and a bout of COVID-19. But royal officials confirmed that she would take the salute of mounted troops from the balcony after a military parade called Trooping the Colour. The centuries-old ceremony to officially mark the sovereign’s birthday has previously seen the queen take the salute on horseback herself. Her 73-year-old son and heir, Prince Charles, will step in this year, supported by his sister, Princess Anne, 71, and his eldest son, Prince William, 39. Joining senior royals watching the display of military precision will be Charles’ younger son, Prince Harry, and his wife, Meghan, on a rare visit from California, Buckingham Palace confirmed. But the queen’s disgraced second son, Prince Andrew, 62, is not expected to join them. She will return to the balcony later to watch …

A jury on Wednesday ruled in favor of Johnny Depp in his libel lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard, vindicating his stance that Heard fabricated claims that she was abused by Depp before and during their brief marriage.  The jury also found in favor of Heard, who said she was defamed by Depp’s lawyer when he called her abuse allegations a hoax.  Jury members found Depp should be awarded $10.35 million in damages, while Heard should receive $2 million.  The verdicts bring an end to a televised trial that Depp had hoped would help restore his reputation, though it turned into a spectacle of a vicious marriage. Throughout the trial, fans — overwhelmingly on Depp’s side — lined up overnight for coveted courtroom seats. Spectators who couldn’t get in gathered on the street to cheer Depp and jeer Heard whenever either appeared outside.  Depp sued Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers said he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.  While the case was ostensibly about libel, most of the testimony focused …

President Joe Biden hosted K-pop supergroup BTS on May 31, 2022, to raise awareness of anti-Asian discrimination. Members of the Grammy-nominated South Korean group also serve as U.N. ambassadors. VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House. …

President Joe Biden hosted K-pop supergroup BTS Tuesday to raise awareness of anti-Asian discrimination. The septet is South Korea’s most prominent crossover act, bagging two Grammy nominations and an armful of American music awards and garnering widespread appeal among American teens. They’re also U.N. ambassadors. VOA White House Correspondent Anita Powell reports from the White House.  …

Much-anticipated action film “Top Gun: Maverick” was expected to have a big opening and it did not disappoint, taking in an estimated $151 million in North America for the four-day Memorial Day weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported.  Viewers had to wait 36 years to see the sequel to the original “Top Gun,” but critics say the Paramount/Skydance production was worth the wait, with some calling it superior to the original film.  “The source material remains strong, the execution is excellent, and Tom Cruise makes it work impeccably well,” said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.  The film — whose release had been delayed two years by the COVID-19 pandemic — notched $124 million for the first three days of the holiday weekend and took in the same amount overseas, despite not playing in China or Russia. It was Cruise’s first opening to top $100 million.  He again plays cocky (if grayer) navy test pilot Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, now a captain, as he trains to bomb a rogue nation’s uranium enrichment facility. A strong supporting cast includes Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly, Miles Teller and Jon Hamm; original “Top Gun” veteran Val (Iceman) Kilmer appears briefly.  Slipping a notch …

A 36-year-old man has been arrested and placed in psychiatric care after he smeared a glass screen encasing the Mona Lisa with cake, prosecutors said Monday, in a purported protest against artists not focusing enough on “the planet.” Officials at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where the enigmatic portrait holds pride of place, declined to comment on the bizarre incident on Sunday, which was captured on several phones and circulated widely on social media. The treasured work by Leonardo da Vinci, which has been the target of vandalism attempts in the past, was unharmed thanks to its bulletproof glass case. A Twitter user identified as Lukeee posted a video showing a museum employee wiping a mess off the glass and another showing a man dressed in white being escorted away by security guards. “A man dressed as an old lady jumps out of a wheelchair and attempted to smash the bulletproof glass of the Mona Lisa. Then proceeds to smear cake on the glass and throws roses everywhere, all before being tackled by security,” Lukeee wrote. Speaking French, the man says: “There are people who are destroying the Earth… All artists, think about the Earth. That’s why I did this. …

Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, which won the Eurovision this year, has auctioned its trophy for a $900,000 donation to a foundation that helps the Ukrainian army. The trophy — a large crystal microphone with the song contest’s logo — was put up for auction on Facebook. The bidding ended Saturday night and was won by WhiteBIT, a Ukrainian bitcoin company.  “You guys are amazing!” Kalush Orchestra wrote on Facebook late Sunday announcing the winner. “Special thanks to the WhiteBIT team who bought the trophy for $900,000 and are now the rightful owners.” The band said that funds raised in auction, which could be entered using cryptocurrencies, will be donated to the Prytula Foundation, which helps the Ukrainian army. The group Kalush Orchestra won the European contest on May 14 with its song “Stefania” mixing hip-hop and traditional music. Russia, which invaded Ukraine on February 24, was excluded from the competition. …

Indian police are investigating the murder of a popular Punjabi rapper who blended hip-hop, rap and folk music, a day after he was fatally shot, officials said Monday.  Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, also known around the world by his stage name Sidhu Moose Wala, was killed Sunday evening while driving his car in Mansa, a district in northern India’s Punjab state. Moose Wala, 28, was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead.   Punjab state’s top police official VK Bhawra said the initial investigation has revealed the killing to be an inter-gang rivalry.  A day before the attack, the Punjab government had pulled security cover for over 400 individuals, including Moose Wala, in a bid to clamp down on VIP culture, local media reports said.  Moose Wala started off as a songwriter before a hit song in 2017 catapulted his singing career, making him well known among the Indian and Punjabi diaspora in countries like the United Kingdom and Canada.  Most of his singles have an English title even though the songs were mainly sung in Punjabi. His glossy music videos were most famous for his rap lyrics and often focused on macho culture. His debut album in 2018 made …

Forget breaking the sound barrier: Tom Cruise just soared past a major career milestone. The 59-year-old superstar just got his first $100 million opening weekend with “Top Gun: Maverick.” In its first three days in North American theaters, the long-in-the-works sequel earned an estimated $124 million in ticket sales, Paramount Pictures said Sunday. Including international showings — its worldwide total is $248 million. It’s a supersonic start for a film that still has the wide-open skies of Memorial Day itself to rake in even more cash. According to projections and estimates, by Monday’s close, “Top Gun: Maverick” will likely have over $150 million. “These results are ridiculously, over-the-top fantastic,” said Chris Aronson, Paramount’s president of domestic distribution. “I’m happy for everyone. I’m happy for the company, for Tom, for the filmmakers.” Though undeniably one of the biggest stars in the world — perhaps even “the last movie star,” according to various headlines — Cruise is not known for massive blockbuster openings. Before “Maverick,” his biggest domestic debut was in 2005, with Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” which opened to $64 million. After that it was “Mission: Impossible — Fallout” with $61 million in 2018. It’s not that his films …

Swedish director Ruben Ostlund’s class warfare comedy “Triangle of Sadness” won the Palme d’Or at the 75th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday, giving Ostlund one of cinema’s most prestigious prizes for the second time.  Ostlund, whose art-world send-up “The Square” took the Palme in 2017, pulled off the rare feat of winning Cannes’ top award for back-to-back films. “Triangle of Sadness,” featuring Woody Harrelson as a Marxist yacht captain and a climactic scene with rampant vomiting, pushes the satire even further.  “We wanted after the screening (for people) to go out together and have something to talk about,” said Ostlund. “All of us agree that the unique thing with cinema is that we’re watching together. So, we have to save something to talk about, but we should also have fun and be entertained.”  The awards were selected by a nine-member jury headed by French actor Vincent Lindon and presented Saturday in a closing ceremony inside Cannes’ Grand Lumière Theater.  The jury’s second prize, the Grand Prix, was shared between the Belgian director Lukas Dhont’s tender boyhood drama “Close,” about two 13-year-old boys whose bond is tragically separated after their intimacy is mocked by schoolmates; and French filmmaking legend Claire Denis’ …

Karmila Purba revs her motorbike under the lights of an Indonesian night carnival and rides up horizontally inside a wooden cylinder called Satan’s Barrel, drawing gasps from spectators looking down into the drum.  With a smile on her face, Purba delights onlookers as she fearlessly pings around the bowl in Bogor, West Java, spreading her arms to collect tips waved by those above.  The gravity-defying daredevil is among a handful of women that perform the stunt in Indonesia, zipping around a structure more commonly known as the “Wall of Death.”  Women becoming “Wall of Death” riders is “extremely rare,” the 23-year-old told AFP before the show.  “When I started there was no one else … so I wanted to be something different, doing something that no one else was doing.”  For decades, the Satan’s Barrel — or “Tong Setan” — has been the main attraction at traveling funfairs in Indonesia, particularly in rural areas where there are few options for affordable entertainment.  Using centrifugal force, riders sling their bikes around the motordrome at high speeds without protective gear as the smell of rubber fills the air.  Purba came from humble beginnings, earning a meagre living as a street busker on …

Experts say Mali’s struggle against Islamist militants is putting its World Heritage sites at risk. For the first time in modern history, officials say, the annual replastering of the mud mosque in the town of Djenné in central Mali will likely be canceled because of security concerns. The concerns cast doubt onto the government’s claim it is winning the fight against terrorism. The Great Mosque of Djenné  is the largest mud brick building in the world and was a main attraction in Mali’s formerly thriving tourism industry. Each year the mosque is replastered in an event known as the “crépissage.” This year, the event is on the verge of cancellation for the first time, as Mali’s decadelong conflict has gradually moved south into the center of the country. A Djenné resident who wished to remain anonymous, speaking via a messaging app from Djenné, said that in recent weeks he saw ambulances circulating in town and military helicopters flying overhead, signs of unrest in neighboring villages. The Malian army said on its Twitter account this month that four soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack near the town. He said that due to insecurity, village residents have decided not to …

Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell won the International Booker Prize on Thursday for Tomb of Sand, a vibrant novel with a boundary-crossing 80-year-old heroine. Originally written in Hindi, it’s the first book in any Indian language to win the high-profile award, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The $63,000 prize money will be split between New Delhi-based Shree and Rockwell, who lives in Vermont. Translator Frank Wynne, who chaired the judging panel, said the judges “overwhelmingly” chose Tomb of Sand after “a very passionate debate.” The book tells the story of an octogenarian widow who dares to cast off convention and confront the ghosts of her experiences during the subcontinent’s tumultuous 1947 partition into India and Pakistan. Wynne said that despite confronting traumatic events, “it is an extraordinarily exuberant and incredibly playful book.” “It manages to take issues of great seriousness — bereavement, loss, death — and conjure up an extraordinary choir, almost a cacophony, of voices,” he said. “It is extraordinarily fun, and it is extraordinarily funny.” Shree’s book beat five other finalists including Polish Nobel literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk, Claudia Pineiro of Argentina and South Korean author …

A documentary about discrimination within the ranks of Dutch police has sparked a national conversation in the Netherlands about racism, with many officers and others hoping it will finally bring about change. The Blue Family, or De Blauwe Familie in Dutch, discusses a culture of bullying and fear in the national police force. It premiered on Dutch television Monday, timed around the second anniversary this week of the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minnesota police. “There is no way back,” Peris Conrad, one of the officers featured in the film, told The Associated Press. Born in the former Dutch colony Surinam, Conrad dreamed of being a police officer as a child. He moved to the Netherlands when he was 4 years old, and after a stint in the military, became a security guard. While in that job, he had an encounter with police officers who were looking for information about crime in the Surinamese community. The officers encouraged him to join the force himself, which he did, ultimately spending 26 years in service. But Conrad, who is Black, recalled how in his first year at the police academy, colleagues hung a picture of him with cell bars …

A former director of the Louvre Museum in Paris has been charged with conspiring to hide the origin of archaeological treasures that investigators suspect were smuggled out of Egypt in the chaos of the Arab Spring, a French judicial source said Thursday. Jean-Luc Martinez was charged Wednesday after being taken in for questioning along with two French specialists in Egyptian art, who were not charged, another source close to the inquiry told AFP. The Louvre, which is owned by the French state, is the world’s most visited museum with around 10 million visitors a year before the COVID-19 pandemic and is home to some of Western civilization’s most celebrated cultural heritage. The museum declined to comment when contacted by AFP. French investigators opened the case in July 2018, two years after the Louvre’s branch in Abu Dhabi bought a rare pink granite stele depicting the pharaoh Tutankhamun and four other historic works for 8 million euros ($8.5 million). Martinez, who ran the Paris Louvre from 2013-21, is accused of turning a blind eye to fake certificates of origin for the pieces, a fraud thought to involve several other art experts, according to French investigative weekly Canard Enchaine. He has been …

Ray Liotta, the actor best known for playing mobster Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and baseball player Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams,” has died. He was 67. A source at the Dominican Republic’s National Forensic Science Institute who was not authorized to speak to the media confirmed the death of Ray Liotta and said his body was taken to the Cristo Redentor morgue. The Hollywood Reporter and NBC News cited representatives for Liotta who said he died in his sleep Wednesday night. He was in the Dominican Republic to film a new movie. The Newark, New Jersey, native was born in 1954 and adopted at age six months out of an orphanage by a township clerk and an auto parts owner. Though he mostly grew up playing sports, including baseball, during his senior year of high school, the drama teacher at the school asked him if he wanted to be in a play, which he agreed to on a lark. And it stuck: He’d go on to study acting at the University of Miami. After graduation, he got his first big break on the soap opera “Another World.” Liotta’s first big film role was in Jonathan Demme’s “Something Wild” …