Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the National Enquirer is threatening to publish revealing photographs of him unless his private investigators back off the tabloid.

Bezos detailed the revelations in a Thursday post on Medium.com. He accuses the Enquirer of “extortion and blackmail.”

The National Enquirer published a story last month that included lurid texts between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Since then, private investigators have been looking into how the Enquirer got the texts.

Bezos says the Enquirer’s parent company tried to get him to agree to a deal for the tabloid not to publish the explicit photos.

As part of the deal, Bezos would have to release a public statement that he has “no knowledge or basis” to suggest the tabloid’s reporting was politically motivated.
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says the National Enquirer is threatening to publish revealing photographs of him unless his private investigators back off the tabloid.

Bezos detailed the revelations in a Thursday post on Medium.com. He accuses the Enquirer of “extortion and blackmail.”

The National Enquirer published a story last month that included lurid texts between Bezos and former TV anchor Lauren Sanchez. Since then, private investigators have been looking into how the Enquirer got the texts.

Bezos says the Enquirer’s parent company tried to get him to agree to a deal for the tabloid not to publish the explicit photos.

As part of the deal, Bezos would have to release a public statement that he has “no knowledge or basis” to suggest the tabloid’s reporting was politically motivated.
…

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Legendary baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, the first black manager in the U.S. major leagues, died Thursday in Los Angeles at 83.

He had been suffering from bone cancer and was in hospice care at his home.

Even if he had not become baseball’s first African-American manager, Robinson’s feats on the playing field would have been enough to earn him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

During his career as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, Robinson hit 586 home runs, played in 14 All-Star games, helped lead the Orioles to three straight World Series, and was an outstanding and aggressive fielder.

He was named Rookie of the Year during his first season in 1956 playing for the Reds. 

Robinson is the only player in major league history to win the Most Valuable Player award in both the American and National leagues.

He made history in 1975 when the Cleveland Indians hired him as a player-manager, the first black manager in the major leagues. He made an impressive debut, hitting a home run on the first day. 

He later managed the Orioles, Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Montreal Expos, and Washington Nationals. He was named Manager of the Year in 1989 when he was with the Orioles.

Robinson worked as a baseball executive after retiring as a manager in 2006.
…

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Legendary baseball Hall of Famer Frank Robinson, the first black manager in the U.S. major leagues, died Thursday in Los Angeles at 83.

He had been suffering from bone cancer and was in hospice care at his home.

Even if he had not become baseball’s first African-American manager, Robinson’s feats on the playing field would have been enough to earn him a spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

During his career as an outfielder for the Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians, California Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers, Robinson hit 586 home runs, played in 14 All-Star games, helped lead the Orioles to three straight World Series, and was an outstanding and aggressive fielder.

He was named Rookie of the Year during his first season in 1956 playing for the Reds. 

Robinson is the only player in major league history to win the Most Valuable Player award in both the American and National leagues.

He made history in 1975 when the Cleveland Indians hired him as a player-manager, the first black manager in the major leagues. He made an impressive debut, hitting a home run on the first day. 

He later managed the Orioles, Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, Montreal Expos, and Washington Nationals. He was named Manager of the Year in 1989 when he was with the Orioles.

Robinson worked as a baseball executive after retiring as a manager in 2006.
…

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Filmmaker Woody Allen has filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a “baseless” decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter.

Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film, A Rainy Day in New York, his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan allege.

That film was one of several to be produced with the Oscar-winning director under a series of agreements reached after Allen made the Crisis in Six Scenes program for Amazon, which was then a new content provider.

He is seeking that $9 million along with minimum guarantees owed him for other films, totaling “in excess of $68,000,000,” according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in New York and obtained by AFP.

He says Amazon told him the deal had become “impracticable” because of “supervening events, including renewed allegations against Mr. Allen, his own controversial comments” and the refusal of actors to work with him.

Allen has been accused of molesting Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old in the early 1990s.

He was cleared of the charges, first leveled by his then-partner Mia Farrow, after two separate months-long investigations, and has steadfastly denied the abuse. But Dylan, now an adult, maintains she was molested.

In June last year, the same month that Amazon apparently terminated his contract, Allen backed the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment — and said he should be its poster boy.

“I’ve worked in movies for 50 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses, and not a single one has ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all,” he said in an interview with Argentina’s Canal 13 television network.

“I — who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue — I get lumped in with these people.”

In recent months, a string of actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from him, and said they would no longer work with him.

Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
…

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Filmmaker Woody Allen has filed a $68 million lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling a film deal because of a “baseless” decades-old allegation that he sexually abused his daughter.

Allen says Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for his latest film, A Rainy Day in New York, his lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan allege.

That film was one of several to be produced with the Oscar-winning director under a series of agreements reached after Allen made the Crisis in Six Scenes program for Amazon, which was then a new content provider.

He is seeking that $9 million along with minimum guarantees owed him for other films, totaling “in excess of $68,000,000,” according to a complaint filed Thursday in federal court in New York and obtained by AFP.

He says Amazon told him the deal had become “impracticable” because of “supervening events, including renewed allegations against Mr. Allen, his own controversial comments” and the refusal of actors to work with him.

Allen has been accused of molesting Dylan Farrow, his adopted daughter, when she was seven years old in the early 1990s.

He was cleared of the charges, first leveled by his then-partner Mia Farrow, after two separate months-long investigations, and has steadfastly denied the abuse. But Dylan, now an adult, maintains she was molested.

In June last year, the same month that Amazon apparently terminated his contract, Allen backed the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment — and said he should be its poster boy.

“I’ve worked in movies for 50 years, I’ve worked with hundreds of actresses, and not a single one has ever suggested any kind of impropriety at all,” he said in an interview with Argentina’s Canal 13 television network.

“I — who was only accused by one woman in a child custody case, which was looked at and proven to be untrue — I get lumped in with these people.”

In recent months, a string of actors who have worked with Allen have distanced themselves from him, and said they would no longer work with him.

Amazon did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
…

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The first Africans to arrive in North America were so little noted by history that many are known today by only their first names: Antony and Isabella, Angelo, Frances and Peter.

Almost 400 years ago, they were kidnapped and forcibly sailed across the ocean aboard three slave ships — the San Juan Bautista, the White Lion and the Treasurer — and then sold into bondage in Virginia.

Now their descendants, along with historians and genealogists, are seeking recognition for a group of 20-some Africans they describe as critical to the survival of Jamestown, England’s first successful settlement in North America.

“We need to reclaim our history. We need to tell our story,” said Calvin Pearson, head of Project 1619, which is named after the year those first Africans landed near what became Hampton, Virginia.

A few historical markers and records mention these early slaves, but there’s been scant research on their lives. Pearson and others are working to learn more.

Before the slaves arrived, Jamestown was starving. “Basically all of those people were right off of the streets in England,” said Kathryn Knight, who in May will release a book titled “Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd: Documenting the First Africans in England’s America 1619-1625 and Beyond.”

Those colonists “didn’t know how to grow anything. They didn’t know how to manage livestock. They didn’t know anything about survival in Virginia,” Knight said. The Africans “saved them by being able to produce crops, by being able to manage the livestock. They kept them alive.”

The slaves’ arrival marked the beginning of the region’s fractured relationship with blacks. More than two centuries later, Virginia became home to the Confederate capital, and in the last week its governor has been pressured to resign for appearing in a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook.

The new arrivals were Catholic and many spoke multiple languages, according to Ric Murphy, an author and descendant of John Gowan, one of the Angolan captives.

They came from a royal city and “were quite informed and educated, and several of them, based upon what they did in the latter part of their years, clearly were leaders in the community in one form or the other,” Murphy said. “Many of them became landowners, which is quite different from the false narrative of what an enslaved person was.”

In Jamestown, historian Mark Summers leads tourists down paths that Angelo — also known as Angela — walked after being sold to a Captain William Pierce.

Like many of that first group, her life is largely a mystery. In fact, her entire known biography “could probably fit on a 3×5 index card,” Summers said. But being able to show people where she lived and walked is a spiritual experience for some, he said.

For African-Americans, “this is the same thing as going to Plymouth Rock,” said Summers, who works at the Historic Jamestowne park. “Here’s a place where you can stand and say, ‘We set foot here, and we can still walk this ground.’”

The first Africans were among more than 300 taken out of the Ndongo region of Angola, a Portuguese colony of mostly Catholic Africans, on the San Juan Bautista bound for Mexico. That ship was attacked and plundered by the White Lion and the Treasurer, which together seized about 60 slaves. After stopping in the Caribbean and trading some of the slaves for provisions, the White Lion sailed for Virginia with its human cargo.

Englishman John Rolfe, who would later marry Pocahontas, documented the White Lion’s arrival at what was then called Point Comfort.

“He brought not anything but 20, and odd Negars, which the Governor and Cape Merchant bought for victualle,” Rolfe wrote in a letter in January 1620, meaning that the colony purchased the slaves with provisions.

A 1620 census showed 17 African women and 15 African men in Jamestown.

Although sold into servitude, many of those original Angolans fared better than the millions of African slaves who came to North America later, said John Thorton, a Boston University professor of African American studies and history.

“They had a better chance at a better future than almost anybody who followed them because they were the first,” Thorton said. “A lot of them ended up owning property, and they ended up owning slaves of their own.”

By intermingling with the English colonists, some had children who ended up passing for white and merging into early colonial society, Thorton said.

Some, like the Catholic John Pedro, met with tragedy, Pearson said.

Pedro “ended up owning quite a bit of land in Virginia. When the English Civil War broke out, it was Protestants versus Catholics,” Pearson said. Pedro moved to Maryland to live with other Catholics, but he was captured in a battle and executed.

Antony and Isabella became servants for a Captain William Tucker, gained their freedom around 1635 and started a homestead in Kent County, Virginia, Pearson said. Around 1623, they had a son named William Tucker who “became the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.”

Descendants of Antony and Isabella are buried at a Hampton cemetery that has been in use since the 1600s, Pearson said.

Knight has a different interpretation of those early records, concluding that Frances gave birth to Peter first, making him the first African child born in Virginia.

Described in later records as a “Negro carpenter,” Peter married and received his freedom with the promise of paying 10,000 pounds of tobacco to his master around 1676. He made the last payment in 1682, Knight said.

Murphy, who wrote “Freedom Road: An American Family Saga from Jamestown to World War,” said it’s important for black people to know about these first Africans because it “helps us have more ownership of American history.”

Pearson, whose organization plans to honor the anniversary of the Africans’ arrival on Aug. 24, agrees.

“From here, we see the beginnings of the Africa imprint on what would become the United States of America. It’s worth remembering.”
…

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The first Africans to arrive in North America were so little noted by history that many are known today by only their first names: Antony and Isabella, Angelo, Frances and Peter.

Almost 400 years ago, they were kidnapped and forcibly sailed across the ocean aboard three slave ships — the San Juan Bautista, the White Lion and the Treasurer — and then sold into bondage in Virginia.

Now their descendants, along with historians and genealogists, are seeking recognition for a group of 20-some Africans they describe as critical to the survival of Jamestown, England’s first successful settlement in North America.

“We need to reclaim our history. We need to tell our story,” said Calvin Pearson, head of Project 1619, which is named after the year those first Africans landed near what became Hampton, Virginia.

A few historical markers and records mention these early slaves, but there’s been scant research on their lives. Pearson and others are working to learn more.

Before the slaves arrived, Jamestown was starving. “Basically all of those people were right off of the streets in England,” said Kathryn Knight, who in May will release a book titled “Unveiled – The Twenty & Odd: Documenting the First Africans in England’s America 1619-1625 and Beyond.”

Those colonists “didn’t know how to grow anything. They didn’t know how to manage livestock. They didn’t know anything about survival in Virginia,” Knight said. The Africans “saved them by being able to produce crops, by being able to manage the livestock. They kept them alive.”

The slaves’ arrival marked the beginning of the region’s fractured relationship with blacks. More than two centuries later, Virginia became home to the Confederate capital, and in the last week its governor has been pressured to resign for appearing in a racist photo in a 1984 yearbook.

The new arrivals were Catholic and many spoke multiple languages, according to Ric Murphy, an author and descendant of John Gowan, one of the Angolan captives.

They came from a royal city and “were quite informed and educated, and several of them, based upon what they did in the latter part of their years, clearly were leaders in the community in one form or the other,” Murphy said. “Many of them became landowners, which is quite different from the false narrative of what an enslaved person was.”

In Jamestown, historian Mark Summers leads tourists down paths that Angelo — also known as Angela — walked after being sold to a Captain William Pierce.

Like many of that first group, her life is largely a mystery. In fact, her entire known biography “could probably fit on a 3×5 index card,” Summers said. But being able to show people where she lived and walked is a spiritual experience for some, he said.

For African-Americans, “this is the same thing as going to Plymouth Rock,” said Summers, who works at the Historic Jamestowne park. “Here’s a place where you can stand and say, ‘We set foot here, and we can still walk this ground.’”

The first Africans were among more than 300 taken out of the Ndongo region of Angola, a Portuguese colony of mostly Catholic Africans, on the San Juan Bautista bound for Mexico. That ship was attacked and plundered by the White Lion and the Treasurer, which together seized about 60 slaves. After stopping in the Caribbean and trading some of the slaves for provisions, the White Lion sailed for Virginia with its human cargo.

Englishman John Rolfe, who would later marry Pocahontas, documented the White Lion’s arrival at what was then called Point Comfort.

“He brought not anything but 20, and odd Negars, which the Governor and Cape Merchant bought for victualle,” Rolfe wrote in a letter in January 1620, meaning that the colony purchased the slaves with provisions.

A 1620 census showed 17 African women and 15 African men in Jamestown.

Although sold into servitude, many of those original Angolans fared better than the millions of African slaves who came to North America later, said John Thorton, a Boston University professor of African American studies and history.

“They had a better chance at a better future than almost anybody who followed them because they were the first,” Thorton said. “A lot of them ended up owning property, and they ended up owning slaves of their own.”

By intermingling with the English colonists, some had children who ended up passing for white and merging into early colonial society, Thorton said.

Some, like the Catholic John Pedro, met with tragedy, Pearson said.

Pedro “ended up owning quite a bit of land in Virginia. When the English Civil War broke out, it was Protestants versus Catholics,” Pearson said. Pedro moved to Maryland to live with other Catholics, but he was captured in a battle and executed.

Antony and Isabella became servants for a Captain William Tucker, gained their freedom around 1635 and started a homestead in Kent County, Virginia, Pearson said. Around 1623, they had a son named William Tucker who “became the first documented African child born in English-occupied North America.”

Descendants of Antony and Isabella are buried at a Hampton cemetery that has been in use since the 1600s, Pearson said.

Knight has a different interpretation of those early records, concluding that Frances gave birth to Peter first, making him the first African child born in Virginia.

Described in later records as a “Negro carpenter,” Peter married and received his freedom with the promise of paying 10,000 pounds of tobacco to his master around 1676. He made the last payment in 1682, Knight said.

Murphy, who wrote “Freedom Road: An American Family Saga from Jamestown to World War,” said it’s important for black people to know about these first Africans because it “helps us have more ownership of American history.”

Pearson, whose organization plans to honor the anniversary of the Africans’ arrival on Aug. 24, agrees.

“From here, we see the beginnings of the Africa imprint on what would become the United States of America. It’s worth remembering.”
…

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Europe’s first major film festival of the year, the Berlinale, kicked off Thursday making a statement against entertainment industry sexism by welcoming an unprecedented line-up of female directors.

The 11-day event prides itself on being the most politically engaged of the A-list cinema showcases, presenting 400 movies from around the world, most on hard-hitting topical themes including rising extremism and economic exploitation.

But its red carpet promises a steady stream of glamour too with Christian Bale, Diane Kruger, Tilda Swinton, Catherine Deneuve, Jonah Hill, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Casey Affleck all awaited in the frosty German capital.

French Oscar winner Juliette Binoche, 54, is leading a six-member panel choosing the winner of the prestigious Golden and Silver Bear prizes, to be awarded at a gala ceremony on February 16.

Last year, with the #MeToo movement against abuses of power roiling the industry, the innovative docudrama “Touch Me Not” about sexual intimacy by Romania’s Adina Pintilie clinched the top honours.

For the first time this year, seven out of the 17 contenders are women — a more than 40-percent share that eclipses rivals such as Cannes and Venice, which have come under fire as chummy men’s clubs.

The top festivals have long faced pressure to boost their female representation as they serve as gatekeepers to international distribution, awards and box office cash.

‘Big step forward’

Binoche welcomed the more diverse selection, saying it was long overdue and sent a message beyond the world of cinema.

“I think that’s a good step forward, 10 years ago was not like that,” she told reporters. “Open minds — it’s a good sign.”

British producer, director and actress Trudie Styler, 65, who is also on the jury, said the Berlinale had long championed films by underrepresented groups but that this year’s selection was “not only courageous but a big step forward.”

Denmark’s Lone Scherfig, who made the Oscar-nominated coming-of-age tale “An Education” in 2009, will start the festival with the premiere of her film “The Kindness of Strangers” on Thursday evening.

The bittersweet drama stars Zoe Kazan (“The Big Sick”) as a mother of two who has to rely on her fellow New Yorkers for help, in a cast including Andrea Riseborough (“The Death Of Stalin”) and Bill Nighy (“Love Actually”).

Scherfig, 59, said she was proud her film would be opening the last Berlinale under Kosslick, who is passing on the baton after 18 years.

“It’s a milestone edition so I’m really looking forward to presenting the film there,” Scherfig told film industry bible Variety.

Polish veteran Agnieszka Holland will unveil the Stalin-era thriller “Mr Jones” starring James Norton (“Happy Valley”) while France’s Agnes Varda will premiere a new autobiographical documentary out of competition.

Acclaimed French director Francois Ozon will present his controversial new drama “By the Grace of God” based on real-life cases of sex abuse allegedly committed by a French priest.

A cardinal, Philippe Barbarin, is currently on trial in Lyon on charges he covered up the assaults, allegations he denies.

‘World’s biggest festival’

Kosslick, 70, is credited with expanding the Berlinale and boosting its international profile with high-wattage guests ranging from the Rolling Stones to festival regulars Swinton and George Clooney.

“Our fans have stayed true to us and grown so much that we can say we’re the world’s biggest film festival in terms of audience,” Kosslick told AFP, with around a half-million tickets sold each year.

Kosslick will be handing over the reins at a time of growing competition from streaming services but said he saw scope for cinemas to “co-exist” and thrive.

After winning the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival in September with “Roma”, Netflix will enter the Berlin race for the first time with gay marriage drama “Elisa and Marcela” by Spain’s Isabel Coixet, based on a true story.

In June, Kosslick will be succeeded by Carlo Chatrian, the current head of the Locarno film festival, and Mariette Rissenbeek, the Dutch director of German Film, which promotes homegrown movies abroad.

For his last edition, Kosslick has opted to make a parting political statement, offering to buy tickets for leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party to a screening of “Who Will Write Our History?”, a documentary about the Warsaw Ghetto.
…

your ads here!

Europe’s first major film festival of the year, the Berlinale, kicked off Thursday making a statement against entertainment industry sexism by welcoming an unprecedented line-up of female directors.

The 11-day event prides itself on being the most politically engaged of the A-list cinema showcases, presenting 400 movies from around the world, most on hard-hitting topical themes including rising extremism and economic exploitation.

But its red carpet promises a steady stream of glamour too with Christian Bale, Diane Kruger, Tilda Swinton, Catherine Deneuve, Jonah Hill, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Casey Affleck all awaited in the frosty German capital.

French Oscar winner Juliette Binoche, 54, is leading a six-member panel choosing the winner of the prestigious Golden and Silver Bear prizes, to be awarded at a gala ceremony on February 16.

Last year, with the #MeToo movement against abuses of power roiling the industry, the innovative docudrama “Touch Me Not” about sexual intimacy by Romania’s Adina Pintilie clinched the top honours.

For the first time this year, seven out of the 17 contenders are women — a more than 40-percent share that eclipses rivals such as Cannes and Venice, which have come under fire as chummy men’s clubs.

The top festivals have long faced pressure to boost their female representation as they serve as gatekeepers to international distribution, awards and box office cash.

‘Big step forward’

Binoche welcomed the more diverse selection, saying it was long overdue and sent a message beyond the world of cinema.

“I think that’s a good step forward, 10 years ago was not like that,” she told reporters. “Open minds — it’s a good sign.”

British producer, director and actress Trudie Styler, 65, who is also on the jury, said the Berlinale had long championed films by underrepresented groups but that this year’s selection was “not only courageous but a big step forward.”

Denmark’s Lone Scherfig, who made the Oscar-nominated coming-of-age tale “An Education” in 2009, will start the festival with the premiere of her film “The Kindness of Strangers” on Thursday evening.

The bittersweet drama stars Zoe Kazan (“The Big Sick”) as a mother of two who has to rely on her fellow New Yorkers for help, in a cast including Andrea Riseborough (“The Death Of Stalin”) and Bill Nighy (“Love Actually”).

Scherfig, 59, said she was proud her film would be opening the last Berlinale under Kosslick, who is passing on the baton after 18 years.

“It’s a milestone edition so I’m really looking forward to presenting the film there,” Scherfig told film industry bible Variety.

Polish veteran Agnieszka Holland will unveil the Stalin-era thriller “Mr Jones” starring James Norton (“Happy Valley”) while France’s Agnes Varda will premiere a new autobiographical documentary out of competition.

Acclaimed French director Francois Ozon will present his controversial new drama “By the Grace of God” based on real-life cases of sex abuse allegedly committed by a French priest.

A cardinal, Philippe Barbarin, is currently on trial in Lyon on charges he covered up the assaults, allegations he denies.

‘World’s biggest festival’

Kosslick, 70, is credited with expanding the Berlinale and boosting its international profile with high-wattage guests ranging from the Rolling Stones to festival regulars Swinton and George Clooney.

“Our fans have stayed true to us and grown so much that we can say we’re the world’s biggest film festival in terms of audience,” Kosslick told AFP, with around a half-million tickets sold each year.

Kosslick will be handing over the reins at a time of growing competition from streaming services but said he saw scope for cinemas to “co-exist” and thrive.

After winning the Golden Lion top prize at the Venice film festival in September with “Roma”, Netflix will enter the Berlin race for the first time with gay marriage drama “Elisa and Marcela” by Spain’s Isabel Coixet, based on a true story.

In June, Kosslick will be succeeded by Carlo Chatrian, the current head of the Locarno film festival, and Mariette Rissenbeek, the Dutch director of German Film, which promotes homegrown movies abroad.

For his last edition, Kosslick has opted to make a parting political statement, offering to buy tickets for leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany party to a screening of “Who Will Write Our History?”, a documentary about the Warsaw Ghetto.
…

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