John Pinto, a Navajo Code Talker in World War II who became one of the nation’s longest serving Native American elected officials as a New Mexico state senator, has died. He was 94.

Senate colleague Michael Padilla confirmed Pinto’s death in Gallup on Friday after years of suffering from various illnesses that rarely kept him from his duties.

After serving as a Marine, Pinto was elected to the Senate in 1976 and represented a district that includes the Navajo Nation for more than four decades. The region is one of the poorest in the country.

“Words cannot express the sadness we feel for the loss of a great Dine warrior,” said Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, using the indigenous word for Navajo. “He dedicated his life to helping others.”

Born in Lupton, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation to a family of sheep herders. Pinto didn’t start formal schooling until he was nearly a teenager. 

“At the age of 12, I was in kindergarten,” Pinto told the Albuquerque Journal in a 2007 interview. “I guess I did all right.”

Pinto also recalled that his grandparents told of being forced at gunpoint from their land in the 1860s by the U.S. Army in the forced relocation of the Navajo people on foot to southern New Mexico.

After serving as a Code Talker — a group of radio men who translated American coordinates and messages into an indecipherable code based on the Navajo language — Pinto had to take an English test four times before he was finally admitted into the University of New Mexico’s College of Education.

He graduated with a bachelor’s in elementary education at 39, and eventually earned his master’s, becoming a teacher and a truancy officer in Gallup.

Pinto delved into politics to address the needs of impoverished indigenous populations. The Democrat won a seat in state Senate in 1976 as one of the state’s first Native American senators.

An unassuming appearance and manner belied Pinto’s political determination that carried him through 42 years in the Legislature. Laurie Canepa, the senior librarian for the Legislative Council Service, said that made him the longest serving senator in state history.

Manny Aragon, the state’s one-time Senate president, tells the story of driving to the Statehouse in a January 1977 snowstorm and picking up a middle-aged Navajo man who was hitchhiking in Albuquerque. The hitchhiker was newly elected Sen. Pinto.

“I just thought he was a transient,” Aragon said.

In the Legislature, Pinto advocated for education reform and anti-poverty programs. Receiving a lifetime achievement award in 2016, Pinto recalled going hungry at times as a child while his parents juggled odd jobs and said the experience influenced his work on issues of homelessness as a lawmaker.

Every year, Pinto would sing on the Senate floor the “Potato Song” — a Navajo song about a potato, planted in the spring and visited in the summer until it is harvested. Fellow senators, staff and aides clapped along to Pinto’s rendition.

Lenore Naranjo, the Senate’s chief clerk, says Pinto taught her bits of Navajo language over the decades.

“A beautiful man is all I can say,” Naranjo said.
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During Ramadan, when many in Muslim-majority Pakistan do not eat or drink during the day, sports enthusiasts turn to night games. For years, amateur cricketers in the capital, Islamabad, used empty roads or local play grounds — any open space with lights — to fulfill their passion. VOA’s Ayesha Tanzeem shows how informal tournaments are flourishing.
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 German authorities on Tuesday handed over to Israel some 5,000 documents kept by a confidant of Franz Kafka, a trove whose plight could have been plucked from one of the author’s surreal stories.

The papers returned include a postcard from Kafka from 1910 and personal documents kept by Max Brod, which experts say provide a window into Europe’s literary and cultural scene in the early 20th century.

They are among some 40,000 documents, including manuscripts, correspondence, notebooks and other writings that once belonged to Brod, which are being brought together again in Israel’s National Library. They had ended up in bank vaults in Switzerland and Tel Aviv, a Tel Aviv apartment and in a storage facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, where police found them tucked among forged Russian avant-garde artworks.

`I think he [Kafka] would really be amused,” said National Library archivist and humanities collection curator Stefan Litt, who helped identify the papers recovered in Germany. “He couldn’t invent by himself a better plot.”

The documents recovered in Wiesbaden have little to do with Kafka himself, but make the Brod collection complete and shine a light on Brod and his circle, which included Kafka and other writers, Litt said.

“This is an important chapter in Max Brod’s estate,” Litt said. “And it’s always good for researchers to have as complete a picture as possible.”

Kafka, a Bohemian Jew from Prague who lived for a while in Berlin, was close friends with Brod, himself an accomplished writer. Shortly before his untimely death at 40 of tuberculosis in 1924, Kafka bequeathed his writings to Brod, reportedly telling him to burn them all unread.

Instead, Brod published much of the collection, including the novels “The Trial,” The Castle,” and “Amerika,” helping to posthumously establish Kafka as one of the great authors of the 20th century. He also brought “Kafkaesque” into the English language to describe a situation evoking a bizarre, illogical or nightmarish situation like the ones Kafka wrote about.

After the Nazis occupied the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938, Brod fled to escape persecution with the entire collection to what was then British-ruled Palestine.When Brod died, he left his personal secretary Esther Hoffe in charge of his literary estate and instructed her to transfer the Kafka papers to an academic institution.

Instead, she kept the documents for the next four decades and sold some, like the original manuscript of Kafka’s “The Trial,” which fetched $1.8 million at auction in 1988. She kept some of the items in a bank vault in Tel Aviv, some in Switzerland, and others at her apartment in Tel Aviv.

When she died in 2008, the collection went to her two daughters, who fought to keep it but eventually lost a battle in Israel’s Supreme Court in 2016. The court sided with the country’s National Library, whose lawyers had argued the Kafka papers were “cultural assets” that belonged to the Jewish people.

Both daughters have now died, and the documents stored in Israel have already been transferred to the National Library’s care. The documents held in Switzerland should be on their way soon after the National Library won a court case in Zurich last month, which upheld the Israeli verdict and ordered that several safe deposit boxes be opened and their contents shipped to the institution in Jerusalem.

But that left the documents in Germany, which had been stolen from Hoffe’s apartment about a decade ago.

They ended up with an Israeli dealer, who tried in 2013 to sell them to the German Literature Archive in Marbach — the same institution that bought “The Trial” manuscript at auction in 1988. The German archive instead reported the offer to Israel’s National Library, which then got authorities involved, Litt said.

The documents resurfaced at the Wiesbaden storage facility of an international forgery ring that produced and sold millions of euros [dollars] worth of forged paintings, which was taken down by German authorities that same year, Litt said. Since then, they have been stored by German authorities as Litt and others sought to confirm their provenance.

Those being returned include correspondence between Brod and his wife, and even some of his notebooks from high school, Litt said.

“There’s no doubt these materials were part of his papers,” he said.

The manuscript of “The Trial,” however, was properly purchased by the German Literature Archive in the 1988 Sotheby’s auction, and the National Library has no claim on it, he said.

“We’re happy it’s in safe hands,” Litt said.
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Three handwritten wills have been found in the suburban Detroit home of Aretha Franklin, months after the death of the “Queen of Soul,” including one that was discovered under cushions in the living room, a lawyer said Monday. 

The latest one is dated March 2014 and appears to give the famous singer’s assets to family members. Some writing is extremely hard to decipher, however, and the four pages have words scratched out and phrases in the margins.

Franklin was 76 when she died last August of pancreatic cancer. Lawyers and family members said at the time that she had no will, but three handwritten versions were discovered earlier this month. Two from 2010 were found in a locked cabinet after a key was located.

The 2014 version was inside a spiral notebook under cushions, said an attorney for Franklin’s estate, David Bennett. 

Bennett, who was Franklin’s lawyer for more than 40 years, filed the wills on Monday. He told a judge that he’s not sure if they’re legal under Michigan law. A hearing is scheduled for June 12. 

Bennett said the wills were shared with Franklin’s four sons or their lawyers, but that a deal wasn’t reached on whether any should be considered valid. A statement from the estate said two sons object to the wills.

Sabrina Owens, an administrator at the University of Michigan, will continue to serve as personal representative of the estate.

“She remains neutral and wishes that all parties involved make wise choices on behalf of their mother, her rich legacy, the family and the Aretha Franklin estate,” the statement said.

In a separate court filing, son Kecalf Franklin said Aretha Franklin wanted him to serve as representative of the estate in the 2014 will. He is objecting to plans to sell a piece of land next to his mother’s Oakland County home for $325,000. 

Judge Jennifer Callaghan in April approved the hiring of experts to appraise Franklin’s assets and personal belongings, including memorabilia, concert gowns and household goods. The Internal Revenue Service is auditing many years of Franklin’s tax returns, according to the estate. It filed a claim in December for more than $6 million in taxes.

Franklin’s star, meanwhile, hasn’t faded since her death. She was awarded an honorary Pulitzer Prize in April, cited posthumously for her extraordinary career. A 1972 concert film, “Amazing Grace,” was released with much praise from critics.

The estate is involved in “many continuing projects … including various television and movie proposals, as well as dealing with various creditor claims and resulting litigation,” Bennett said. 
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Movie stars including Salma Hayek and Eva Longoria celebrated the role of women in cinema at a glitzy gala in Cannes on Sunday, amid a drive to promote gender equality in the industry that is still falling short of what many campaigners hoped for.

Cannes’ film festival, the world’s most important cinema showcase, last year signed a pledge to get an equal number of men and women in its top management by 2020 that is gradually gathering momentum at similar European and U.S. events.

Actors and filmmakers participating in this year’s edition have joined activists in warning that while industry attitudes were changing, progress was still slow.

“We have so much work to do and I just think we can’t let up,” Longoria told journalists at the Women in Motion dinner at Cannes, part of a program set up by luxury group Kering to push for gender equality in cinema.

“Whenever we see something improving we can’t just say ‘Oh OK let’s relax, the momentum’s going to go that way’. It won’t continue to go that way, we have to continue to change the industry for ourselves.”

Chinese actress Gong Li, the star of “Farewell My Concubine”, was awarded a prize for her career at the event.

At Cannes, four women are contending for this year’s top Palme D’Or film prize, including Franco-Senegalese Mati Diop and France’s Celine Sciamma, out of 21 entries – or just under 20 percent of the total.

Elsewhere, the proportion has sometimes been higher, with over 40 percent of the films competing at Berlin’s festival in February made by women.

“We hear a lot about how times are changing and improving, and it’s true. The idea is to support that trend. (But) the figures still don’t look good,” said Delphyne Besse, a film sales specialist and one of the founders of 50/50 by 2020, the collective behind the gender parity pledge signed by Cannes.

Of the 47 film festivals that have so far backed the drive globally, 38 percent have female heads, according to the lobby group’s figures.

Short shrift

Industry insiders said the slow progress was reflected in everything from the short shrift female directors still got in the media to their under-representation at industry events.

“Women have been making films for 11 decades now,” British actress and star of zombie movie “The Dead Don’t Die” Tilda Swinton told a news conference earlier this week.

“There are countless films by women. The question is why don’t we know about them,” she said, adding that even obituaries for female filmmakers tended to be dwarfed by those dedicated to men.

Cannes’ organizers have said they were not planning to introduce quotas dictating the gender balance of the films selected to compete at the festival.

“Cannes is only at the end of the chain. This needs to start with encouragement at film schools,” festival director Thierry Fremaux said last week.

The cinema showcase is looking to include more women its board, however, and the festival jury this year was more balanced.

“Atlantics” director Diop said festivals were still a logical starting point to highlight women’s work in the industry.

“It starts with the films, there is no festival without films, so it is an extraordinary exhibition that will give the films much bigger exposure,” she told Reuters in an interview.

 
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Simon Pagenaud turned a stressful weekend into an unforgettable celebration.

Pagenaud earned his first career Indianapolis 500 pole with a four-lap average of 229.992 mph, edging three-time pole winner Ed Carpenter and Spencer Pigot on Sunday. He is the first Frenchman to win the Indy 500 pole in 100 years.

Carpenter, also the team owner, will start second while Pigot, the fastest qualifier Saturday, completes the front row and Chevrolet sweep of the top three spots.

Pagenaud will try to become the 18th Indy 500 winner for Team Penske and second consecutive to sweep the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Will Power of Penske did it last season.

“This is incredible, this is the biggest race in the world,” said Pagenaud, who snapped a 21-race losing streak last week with a win on Indy’s road course.

This month has been every bit as memorable for Pagenaud as it has been for Roger Penske, who is celebrating the 50th anniversary of making his first 500 as a team owner.

But Pagenaud came to the party on shaky footing because his job status with Penske is believed to be unsecure.  But the road course win was his first since the 2017 season finale and now Pagenaud has his first pole since 2017 and momentum heading into next weekend’s race.

“We gave it everything we had and it balanced well,” he said. “We trimmed (the car) more than yesterday but the car was just outstanding.”

Penske’s other drivers couldn’t even come close to Pagenaud, who moved up two spots from Saturday.

Defending race winner Power qualified sixth at 228.645. Josef Newgarden, the 2017 series champ, qualified eighth at 228.396 and three-time 500 champion Helio Castroneves did not make the nine-car pole shootout.

All three of Carpenter’s cars were fast and Ed Jones will start fourth as the trio went 2-3-4 behind Pagenaud.

“That’s the way this series is now, everything is thousandths and hundredths of a second all the way through,” Carpenter said. “You’ve got to be perfect to really put it together because if you’re not, you’re going to slide down.”

Rookie Colton Herta was the top Honda-powered driver at fifth with a speed of 229.086.

Sebastien Bourdais was seventh at 228.621 and Alexander Rossi, the 2016 Indy winner, was ninth at 228.247. Bourdais drives for Dale Coyne with Vasser-Sullivan and Rossi is the only Andretti Autosport driver in the first three rows.
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Participants from all over the world converged in Belgium for the 2019 World Beard and Moustache Championship. Styled whiskers wrapped around the faces of hundreds of men all hoping to enter the pantheon of facial hair immortality. Arash Arabasadi has more from this year’s frizzy finale.
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The famous Las Vegas strip lights up the night with neon signs and animated images. The Las Vegas Neon Museum has been lighting up the city since 2012. That’s when activists, art lovers and local officials decided that neon signs that have seen better days deserved to be viewed and enjoyed by a new generation of tourists. Roman Mamonov traveled to Las Vegas and visited the unusual museum. Anna Rice narrates his story.
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The Netherlands won the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv Saturday, with Duncan Laurence’s doleful piano ballad “Arcade” crowned champion of Europe’s annual music extravaganza.

The 25-year-old was tapped as an early front-runner before the Grand Final but was only ranked third after the vote of professional juries from the 41 participating countries, trailing Sweden and North Macedonia. He surged ahead thanks to the fan vote, securing The Netherlands its fifth win ever in the competition. Italy finished second, followed by Russia, Switzerland and Norway.

“This is to dreaming big. This is to music first, always,” Laurence said, as he was handed the trophy from last year’s winner, Israel’s Netta Barzilai.

About 200 million people around the world were believed to have watched the annual campy contest with 26 nations battling in the Grand Final of the 64th Eurovision.

Madonna was the star attraction, performing her hit staple, “Like a Prayer,” marking 30 years since its release, and a new song “Future” from her forthcoming album “Madame X.” She took the stage after participants wrapped up their performances shortly after midnight when the elaborate voting process got underway across Europe.

To maximize onscreen tension, performers are ranked by a mix of fan votes and professional juries. Spectators could not vote for their own country, but like-minded nations tend to fall into blocs that back their regional favorites, with politics meshing into art.

Over-the-top spectacle

The Eurovision debuted in the wake of World War II to heal a divided continent. Over the years, the earnest show of European unity has ballooned into an over-the-top, gay-friendly spectacle that brings together acts from across the continent, including those with little or no connection to Europe, such as Australia.

Israel earned the right to host the show after Barzilai won last year’s competition with her catchy pop anthem “Toy.”

The ostensibly non-political affair has tried to avoid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has largely succeeded, despite swirling threats of controversy. Calls for performers to boycott the show over Israeli policies toward Palestinians failed to generate much momentum.

​Politics kept at bay

A small protest took place outside Tel Aviv’s Expo Center before the show, following another one from musicians in Gaza earlier in the week. A recent round of rocket fire toward Israel from there also failed to temper excitement.

Madonna herself had faced calls from a Palestinian-led campaign to avoid performing at the event in Israel. But the Queen of Pop rejected the boycott motions, saying she will “never stop playing music to suit someone’s political agenda.” Still, two of her embracing dancers sported the flags of Israel and the Palestinians on their backs.

All eyes were on Iceland’s controversial steampunk band Hatari, which had drawn attention for initially saying it would be “absurd” to participate in Israel because of its policies toward the Palestinians. They had vowed to use the Eurovision spotlight to expose the “face of the occupation,” but their live performance of grinding metal rock passed without incident. Only at the end of the broadcast, when their final vote tally was announced, did they whip out a Palestinian flag, to sounds of boos from the audience.

For Israel, the mega event offered a much-anticipated opportunity to put its good face forward and project an image of normalcy to the world. Israel-themed promotional clips featuring each of the participants dancing in various scenic locations across the country streamed before each performance to a TV audience expected to be larger than that of the Super Bowl.

Israeli hosts

The event itself was being hosted by a quartet of Israeli celebrities, including top model Bar Refaeli. Israel’s own Wonder Woman Gal Gadot also made a cameo video appearance. The Tel Aviv hall was packed with thousands of screaming fans, while tens of thousands gathered to watch the final at the city-sponsored Eurovision village in Tel Aviv and at public screenings elsewhere.

As the reigning champion, Israel swept straight through to the finals — along with the five European countries who most heavily funded the event. The other 20 participants qualified through a pair of semifinal rounds.

Sweden’s soulful “Too Late for Love,” sung by John Lundvik, topped the professional jury vote and seemed to be on its way to carrying forward Sweden’s successful Eurovision track record 45 years after Swedish icons ABBA won with “Waterloo.”

Israel has won the Eurovision four previous times and it has provided the country with some of its cultural touchstones. “Hallelujah” became the country’s unofficial national song after Milk and Honey won the contest for Israel when it hosted the event in the late 1970s, and Dana International became a national hero and global transgender icon when she won with “Diva” in 1998. Barzilai became a role model for plus-size women after her win last year. She has been unapologetic about her weight, the loud colors she wears, and the funky chicken moves and sounds that have become her trademark.

All of Israel’s former winners took part in Saturday’s event with Barzilai and Dana International ceremoniously getting it under way.
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War of Will bounced back from a bumpy ride in the Kentucky Derby to win the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, holding off a field that included a riderless horse that threw his jockey just out of the gate and still finished the race. 

 

Trainer Mark Casse got his first Triple Crown victory, with War of Will unbothered starting from the inside No. 1 post position for the second consecutive race. War of Will was interfered with in the Kentucky Derby, which led to first-place finisher Maximum Security being disqualified.

Bodexpress threw Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez just out of the starting gate but still finished the race. An outrider tried to swoop in at the top of the stretch and corral Bodexpress, but the horse sped up and passed a few competitors near the finish line — and kept going.

Technically, Bodexpress gets a did-not-finish.

War of Will made a move around the final turn led by jockey Tyler Gaffalione and didn’t relent down the stretch. Hard-charging late addition Everfast came in second and Owendale third. 

An inquiry was briefly put up on the board at Pimlico Race Course but quickly taken down. 

Casse, 58, entered a horse in the Preakness for the fifth time and came closest two years ago when Classic Empire finished second.

The victory was also a breakthrough for Gaffalione, who has become something of a rising star since being named top apprentice rider in 2015. Gaffalione, 24, was aboard War of Will for the colt’s sixth consecutive race and came away with the biggest victory of his young career. 

 

Bob Baffert-trained Improbable was beaten as the favorite for the second consecutive Triple Crown race. 
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A filly collapsed and died while running at Pimlico Race Course on Friday, the day before the track was set to host the second leg of Thoroughbred racing’s  Triple Crown series. 

 

Congrats Gal faltered in the upper stretch of the Miss Preakness Stakes in 83-degree heat and was eased to the finish line. 

 

The Florida-bred 3-year-old was running her sixth career race. She came in last in the eighth race on the card and fell to the dirt about 100 yards past the finish line.  

  

Clearly distraught, Congrats Gal jockey Trevor McCarthy said the filly felt hot walking on the track before the race. As a medical team rushed to the scene, McCarthy said, “She’s clearly sound. Nothing’s broken or anything like that.” 

 

After being treated on the scene, Congrats Gal was taken from the track by ambulance. 

 

The Stronach Group, which owns Pimlico, and the Maryland Jockey Club confirmed the death in a statement: “Commission veterinarians attended to the horse immediately. A full necropsy will be performed to try to determine the cause of death.” 

 

The death marred one of the two biggest days of the year at Pimlico, where a sizable crowd gathered for Black-Eyed Susan Day.  

  

Covfefe won the eight-horse race for 3-year-old fillies.

Three-time winner

Owned by Charles Biggs, Congrats Gal was sired by A.P. Indy. She had a 3-1-1 record going into the race with winnings of $134,740. 

 

The Preakness on Saturday did not feature the Kentucky Derby winner for the first time since 1996, ending any prospects for a Triple Crown.

In the Derby, a tight crowd of horses near the finish line on a muddy track could have led to a disastrous collision. 

 

When Maximum Security drifted to his right in the final turn, his back legs almost became entangled with those of War of Will behind him. The foul caused Maximum Security to be the first Kentucky Derby winner to be disqualified for interference in the 145-year history of the race.  

  

It would've been catastrophic had he fell,'' War of Will trainer Mark Casse said.What didn’t happen was the most important thing of all for people’s lives, for our sport and for everything.” 

 

It’s been a difficult year for horse racing — and 149-year-old Pimlico, which has deteriorated to the point where the Stronach Group has advocated moving the Preakness to nearby Laurel Park. 

 

In addition, the safety of the horses has come into focus. There have been 23 horse deaths at Santa Anita Park in California over a span of three months.
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Herman Wouk, the versatile, Pulitzer Prize winning author of such million-selling novels as “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War” whose steady Jewish faith inspired his stories of religious values and secular success, died on Friday at 103.

Wouk was just 10 days shy of his 104th birthday and was working on a book until the end, said his literary agent Amy Rennert.

Rennert said Wouk died in his sleep at his home in Palm Springs, California, where he settled after spending many years in Washington, D.C.

Among the last of the major writers to emerge after World War II and first to bring Jewish stories to a general audience, he had a long, unpredictable career that included gag writing for radio star Fred Allen, historical fiction and a musical co-written with Jimmy Buffett.

He won the Pulitzer in 1952 for “The Caine Mutiny,” the classic Navy drama that made the unstable Captain Queeg, with the metal balls he rolls in his hand and his talk of stolen strawberries, a symbol of authority gone mad. A film adaptation, starring Humphrey Bogart, came out in 1954 and Wouk turned the courtroom scene into the play “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial.”

Other highlights included “Don’t Stop the Carnival,” which Wouk and Buffett adapted into a musical, and his two-part World War II epic, “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance,” both of which Wouk himself adapted for a 1983, Emmy Award-winning TV miniseries starring Robert Mitchum. “The Winds of War” received some of the highest ratings in TV history and Wouk’s involvement covered everything from the script to commercial sponsors.

Wouk (pronounced WOKE) was an outsider in the literary world. From Ernest Hemingway to James Joyce, major authors of the 20th century were assumed either anti-religious or at least highly skeptical. But Wouk was part of a smaller group that included C.S. Lewis, Chaim Potok and Flannery O’Connor who openly maintained traditional beliefs. One of his most influential books was “This Is My God,” published in 1959 and an even-handed but firm defense of Judaism.

For much of his life, he studied the Talmud daily and led a weekly Talmud class. He gave speeches and sermons around the country and received several prizes, including a lifetime achievement award from the Jewish Book Council. During his years in Washington, the Georgetown synagogue he attended was known unofficially as “Herman Wouk’s synagogue.”

Jews were present in most of Wouk’s books. “Marjorie Morningstar,” published in 1955, was one of the first million-selling novels about Jewish life, and two novels, “The Hope” and “The Glory,” were set in Israel.

Wouk had a mixed reputation among critics. He was not a poet or social rebel, and shared none of the demons that inspired the mad comedy of Philip Roth’s “Portnoy’s Complaint.” Even anthologies of Jewish literature tended to exclude him. Gore Vidal praised him, faintly, by observing that Wouk’s “competence is most impressive and his professionalism awe-inspiring in a world of lazy writers and TV-stunned readers.”

But Wouk was widely appreciated for the uncanniness of his historical detail, and he had an enviably large readership that stayed with him through several long novels. His friends and admirers ranged from Israeli Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin to Nobel laureates Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel. President Ronald Reagan, in a 1987 speech honoring 37 sailors killed on the USS Stark, quoted Wouk: “Heroes are not supermen; they are good men who embody — by the cast of destiny — the virtue of their whole people in a great hour.”

Wouk was well remembered in his latter years. In 1995, the Library of Congress marked his 80th birthday with a symposium on his career; historians David McCullough, Robert Caro, Daniel Boorstin and others were present. In 2008, Wouk received the first ever Library of Congress Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Writing of Fiction. He published the novel “The Lawgiver” in his 90s and at age 100 completed a memoir. Wouk’s longevity inspired Stephen King to title one story “Herman Wouk is Still Alive.”

 The son of Russian Jews, Wouk was born in New York in 1915. The household was religious — his mother was a rabbi’s daughter — and devoted to books. His father would read to him from Sholem Aleichem, the great Yiddish writer. A traveling salesman sold his family the entire works of Mark Twain, who became Wouk’s favorite writer, no matter how irreverent on matters of faith.

“I found it all very stimulating,” Wouk, in a rare interview, told The Associated Press in 2000. “His work is impregnated with references to the Bible. He may be scathing about it, but they’re there. He’s making jokes about religion, but the Jews are always making jokes about it.”

Wouk majored in comparative literature and philosophy at Columbia University and edited the college’s humor magazine. After graduation, he followed the path of so many bright, clever New Yorkers in the 1930s: He headed for California, where he worked for five years on Fred Allen’s radio show.

If war had not intruded, he might have stuck to comedy sketches. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor he enlisted in the Navy and served as an officer in the Pacific. There, he received the writer’s most precious gift, free time, and wrote what became his first published novel, the radio satire “Aurora Dawn.”

“I was just having fun. It had never occurred to me write a novel,” he said.

By the time “Aurora Dawn” came out, in 1947, Wouk was married and living in New York. His novel was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and he would soon publish “City Boy,” a coming-of-age story highly influenced by Twain.

In 1951, Wouk released his most celebrated novel, “The Caine Mutiny.” It sold slowly at first but eventually topped best-seller lists and won a Pulitzer. For a time, Wouk was compared to other World War II novelists: Norman Mailer, Irwin Shaw, James Jones.

But his next book looked into domestic matters. Wouk spoke often of his concern about assimilation and this story told of an aspiring Jewish actress whose real name was Marjorie Morgenstern. Her stage name provided the novel’s title, “Marjorie Morningstar.”

“My agent was absolutely appalled,” Wouk said. “He submitted it to the editor of a women’s magazine and the editor said, `Herman Wouk has destroyed himself. He’s a man who writes big, sweeping dramas about men in action. Then he writes about this girl and nothing happens. He should burn this book and forget it.”‘

But like “The Caine Mutiny,” the novel sold millions and was made into a movie, starring Natalie Wood. (Wouk eventually bought Wood’s former home in Palm Springs). He was famous enough to appear on the cover of Time magazine, even as some Jews complained his book perpetuated stereotypes and critics complained he was too old-fashioned, too accepting of authority.

Captain Queeg, for example, may be a villain in popular culture, but “The Caine Mutiny” was not “Catch-22.” Wouk was just as hard on the officers who rebelled against Queeg. The “crux” of the story, Wouk wrote in his journal, was that the “mutiny was a mistake” and the crew should have stood by its leader, however flawed.

Over the years, Wouk responded to criticism in two ways: He didn’t judge the characters in his stories, but tried to tell the truth; and whether he really challenged authority depended on what you thought needed challenging.

He believed that among writers, anti-conformity was a kind of conformity. “It seems curious,” he wrote in “Aurora Dawn,” “that life `as it really is,’ according to modern inspiration, contains a surprising amount of fornication, violence, vulgarity, unpleasant individuals, blasphemy, hatred, and ladies’ underclothes.”

Wouk knew others didn’t share his views. Both “This Is My God” and “The Will to Live On” took a similar approach to “Mere Christianity” and other works by C.S. Lewis. They preached not to the converted, but to the curious. They anticipated arguments about religion and tried their best to answer them.

His books followed no proven formula. They were all personal, from the works on religion to “Inside, Outside,” an autobiographical novel he considered his favorite.

“I’m not out front as a figure, and that suits me,” he told the AP. “I love the work and it’s the greatest possible privilege to say, `Here are these books that exist because I had to write them.’ The fact that they were well received is just wonderful.”

In 1945, Wouk married Betty Sarah Brown, who also served as his agent. They had three sons — Nathaniel, Joseph and their eldest, Abraham, who drowned in 1951, a death that left Wouk with “the tears of the scar of a senseless waste.”
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Norman Rockwell is considered one of America’s most beloved and influential artists, painting scenes of ordinary Americans at work, at play and at war, capturing simple yet compelling details that illuminated everyday life in the country.

Helping tell America’s story

Most Americans became familiar with his work through his hundreds of cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, the most widely circulated weekly magazine in America during the first half of the 20th century. Rockwell painted his first illustration for the magazine in 1916 at the age of 22, and considered the Post to be the “greatest show window in America” for an illustrator.

Over the next 47 years, another 320 Rockwell images would appear on its cover, and hundreds of his other illustrations were featured in popular publications over a career that spanned six decades.

Four Freedoms

Among Rockwell’s most enduring works is a series of four paintings titled Four Freedoms, inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union address to Congress on January 6, 1941.

In his speech, Roosevelt talked about his “Four Freedoms” ideals… the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear; principles that make up the cornerstones of democracy, which he believed people the world over had a right to enjoy.

Democracy for all

FDR presented the idea that these were principles worth fighting for, as war was being waged against other democracies across the continents in the eastern hemisphere. Eleven months later, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States joined the war.

Rockwell’s interest in interpreting FDR’s Four Freedoms was born out of a quest to do more for the war effort. He spent seven months using his own observations and life experiences to create his own version.

The iconic paintings were the highlight among many other Rockwell works on display at a recent exhibit in ‘The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.’

 

“Freedom of speech and worship, freedom from fear and want, are ideals as powerful today as they were for Americans who fought in World War II,” museum director John Wetenhall said. “At a time and in a federal city where the true meaning of these values has become contested in the world of partisan and identity politics, it behooves us all to reflect back to when these very freedoms were in peril: ideals so powerfully embodied in Rockwell’s unforgettable icons.”

Enduring ideals

The exhibit, “Enduring ideals: Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms,” was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum, located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts — where the paintings are permanently housed — to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Rockwell’s four paintings.

“Rockwell’s Four Freedoms are among the most recognizable images in American history,” says Stephanie Plunkett, Deputy Director/Chief Curator of the Norman Rockwell Museum. “They are reminders of the profound influence of visual imagery on the human imagination, and portray FDR’s timeless ideals in real world terms, reminding us that we, too, are heirs to these cherished values.”

“This exhibition focuses on a significant aspect of Rockwell’s art at a time when he was at the height of his career, during the 1930s Depression era and the World War II period, when magazines like The Saturday Evening Post provided both information and entertainment to a vast audience,” she added.

Those interpretations became a national sensation in early 1943 when they were first published in The Saturday Evening Post.

“Roosevelt’s words and Rockwell’s artworks soon became inseparable in the public consciousness, with millions of reproductions bringing the Four Freedoms directly into American homes and workplaces.”  

Civil rights, social issues

 

The exhibit is the first comprehensive traveling exhibition devoted to Rockwell’s depiction of the president’s Four Freedoms, and also a rare opportunity to see other iconic works, including wartime paintings and posters, and his later artworks that addressed social issues such as civil rights and the Vietnam war.

Also on display were the objects and artifacts that are depicted in his paintings, such the jacket worn by Rockwell’s model Carl Hess in his Freedom of Speech painting and the white dress worn by Ruby Bridges on her first day of school. Young Ruby was the first African American child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans, Louisiana, and had to be escorted to school by four U.S. Marshals every day throughout the school year because of the threats against her.

Modern interpretations

The exhibition also includes works by contemporary artists offering their own perspective on freedom. One powerful example is Maurice “Pops” Peterson’s Freedom from What? which plays off of Rockwell’s Freedom from Fear illustration. It depicts a modern-day African-American couple putting their children to bed while looking over their shoulder as if for possible threats from the outside world.

“It is our hope that Norman Rockwell’s enduring paintings will inspire a new generation of students, citizens, future leaders and elected officials to embody these human values in their life’s work,” said Laurie Norton Moffatt, director and CEO of the Norman Rockwell Museum.

Now closed in Washington, the next stop for “Rockwell, Roosevelt & the Four Freedoms” exhibit will be at Caen Memorial Museum, Normandy, France starting June 4 and closing October 27, 2019.
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I.M. Pei, the versatile, globe-trotting architect who revived the Louvre with a giant glass pyramid and captured the spirit of rebellion at the multi-shaped Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has died at age 102.

 

Pei’s death was confirmed Thursday by Marc Diamond, a spokesman for Pei’s New York architectural firm, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

 

Pei’s works ranged from the trapezoidal addition to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the chiseled towers of the National Center of Atmospheric Research that blend in with the reddish mountains in Boulder, Colorado.

 

His buildings added elegance to landscapes worldwide with their powerful geometric shapes and grand spaces. Among them are the striking steel and glass Bank of China skyscraper in Hong Kong and the Fragrant Hill Hotel near Beijing. His work spanned decades, starting in the late 1940s and continuing through the new millennium. Two of his last major projects, the Museum of Islamic Art, located on an artificial island just off the waterfront in Doha, Qatar, and the Macau Science Center, in China, opened in 2008 and 2009.

 

Pei painstakingly researched each project, studying its use and relating it to the environment. But he also was interested in architecture as art — and the effect he could create.

 

“At one level my goal is simply to give people pleasure in being in a space and walking around it,” he said. “But I also think architecture can reach a level where it influences people to want to do something more with their lives. That is the challenge that I find most interesting.”

 

Pei, who as a schoolboy in Shanghai was inspired by its building boom in the 1930s, immigrated to the United States and studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. He advanced from his early work of designing office buildings, low-income housing and mixed-used complexes to a worldwide collection of museums, municipal buildings and hotels.

 

He fell into a modernist style blending elegance and technology, creating crisp, precise buildings.

 

His big break was in 1964, when he was chosen over many prestigious architects, such as Louis Kahn and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, to design the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library in Boston.

 

At the time, Jacqueline Kennedy said all the candidates were excellent, “But Pei! He loves things to be beautiful.” The two became friends.

 

A slight, unpretentious man, Pei developed a reputation as a skilled diplomat, persuading clients to spend the money for his grand-scale projects and working with a cast of engineers and developers.

 

Some of his designs were met with much controversy, such as the 71-foot faceted glass pyramid in the courtyard of the Louvre museum in Paris. French President Francois Mitterrand, who personally selected Pei to oversee the decaying, overcrowded museum’s renovation, endured a barrage of criticism when he unveiled the plan in 1984.

 

Many of the French vehemently opposed such a change to their symbol of their culture, once a medieval fortress and then a national palace. Some resented that Pei, a foreigner, was in charge.

 

But Mitterrand and his supporters prevailed and the pyramid was finished in 1989. It serves as the Louvre’s entrance, and a staircase leads visitors down to a vast, light-drenched lobby featuring ticket windows, shops, restaurants, an auditorium and escalators to other parts of the vast museum.

 

“All through the centuries, the Louvre has undergone violent change,” Pei said. “The time had to be right. I was confident because this was the right time.”

 

Another building designed by Pei’s firm — the John Hancock Tower in Boston — had a questionable future in the early 1970s when dozens of windows cracked and popped out, sending glass crashing to the sidewalks, during the time the building was under construction.

 

A flurry of lawsuits followed among the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co., the glass manufacturer, and Pei’s firm. A settlement was reached in 1981.

 

No challenge seemed to be too great for Pei, including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which sits on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Pei, who admitted he was just catching up with the Beatles, researched the roots of rock `n’ roll and came up with an array of contrasting shapes for the museum. He topped it off with a transparent tent-like structure, which was “open — like the music,” he said.

 

In 1988, President Reagan honored him with a National Medal of Arts. He also won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1983, and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal, 1979. President George H.W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1992.

 

Pei officially retired in 1990 but continued to work on projects. Two of his sons, Chien Chung Pei and Li Chung Pei, former members of their father’s firm, formed Pei Partnership Archiitects in 1992. Their father’s firm, previously I.M. Pei and Partners, was renamed Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.

 

The museum in Qatar that opened in 2008 was inspired by Islamic architectural history, especially the 9th century mosque of Ahmed ibn Tulun in the Egyptian capital of Cairo. It was established by the tiny, oil-rich nation to compete with rival Persian Gulf countries for international attention and investment.

 

Ieoh Ming Pei (pronounced YEE-oh ming pay) was born April 26, 1917, in Canton, China, the son of a banker. He later said, “I did not know what architecture really was in China. At that time, there was no difference between an architect, a construction man, or an engineer.”

 

Pei came to the United States in 1935 with plans to study architecture, then return to practice in China. However, World War II and the revolution in China prevented him from coming back.

 

During the war, Pei worked for the National Defense Research Committee. As an “expert” in Japanese construction, his job was to determine the best way to burn down Japanese towns. “It was awful,” he later said.

 

In 1948, New York City real estate developer William Zeckendorf hired Pei as his director of architecture. During this period, Pei worked on many large urban projects and gained experience in areas of building development, economics and construction.

 

Some of his early successes included the Mile High Center office building in Denver, the Kips Bay Plaza Apartments in Manhattan, and the Society Hill apartment complex in Philadelphia.

 

Pei established his own architectural firm in 1955, a year after he became a U.S. citizen. He remained based in New York City. Among the firm’s accomplishments are the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

 

Pei’s wife, Eileen, who he married in 1942, died in 2014. A son, T’ing Chung, died in 2003. Besides sons Chien Chung Pei and Li Chung Pei, he is survived by a daughter, Liane.
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More than 150 years after Victor Hugo’s classic novel, a French film titled Les Miserables gives a gritty, modern view of the Paris suburbs where Jean Valjean first met Cosette.

Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables, which premiered Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival, contains no singing or romance, but rather a tough, The Wire-like street-level portrait of the Parisian banlieue of Montfermeil. It’s the same neighborhood where Ly, 37, grew up and still lives.

Ly says he made his movie as “an alarm bell” for the plight of kids growing up in neighborhoods like Montfermeil.

For the past 20 years, we've said things are not going well. We have the impression no one's listening,'' said Ly.I wanted to address a message to Emmanuel Macron, the president of the republic. It’s important for him to see the film.”

For 20 years now, we have been yellow vests,'' he added, referring to the continuing protests by working-class French.We’ve been demanding our rights for the past 20 years. We’ve had to cope with police violence for over 20 years.”

Les Miserables, which is competing for the top Palme d’Or prize in Cannes, shows the Paris suburbs as a combustible powder keg, where neighborhood gang leaders and overanxious police are in a constant dance. Much of Ly’s film revolves around the kids growing up in the housing projects.

In 2015, the Paris banlieue of Clichy-sous-Bois exploded in riots that put an international spotlight on the lives of immigrants and French-Africans in the areas surrounding Paris.  

One shouldn't forget that three-fourths of the people who live in these housing estates are French,'' said Ly.Now we have the impression that there are different classifications of citizenship. But we’re just French, full stop. So accept us as French, full stop.”

Other recent films have sought to capture the reality of the banlieues, including La Haine and Dheepan, which won the Palme d’Or in 2015.

Les Miserables, Ly’s feature directing debut, drew largely strong reviews in Cannes for its muscular genre work and passionate social commentary.   

“One century later, misery, abject poverty is still present in these housing estates,” Ly said.
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Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms on display at The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum.
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The mystery about the authenticity of a painting has been solved after 25 years. A painting given by a private collector to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1957 is indeed by Vincent Van Gogh. New imaging technology helped confirm the painting’s authenticity after years of doubt and debate. For VOA, Anna Nelson traveled to Hartford to see the Van Gogh painting “Vase with Poppies” in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
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Organizers of a three-day concert marking the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock music festival said on Wednesday the show was back on after winning a court ruling against a lead investor.

Woodstock 50, planned for Aug. 16-18 at the Watkins Glen motor racing venue in New York state with a lineup that includes rapper Jay-Z, and pop singer Miley Cyrus, was thrown into doubt last month after Japanese investors announced they had decided to “cancel the event.”

New York State Supreme Court Judge Barry Ostrager on Wednesday ruled that Amplifi Live, a unit of Japanese company Dentsu Inc, “does not have the right to unilaterally cancel the Festival.”

“Woodstock 50 is on! We can’t wait to bring this important event to the public this summer,” Gregory Peck, one of the owners of Woodstock 50, said in a statement after the decision. Ostrager in his ruling cast doubt, however, on whether the festival could still proceed. He wrote that “it appears it is no longer feasible to conduct the festival,” and declined to order the return to the organizers of $17.8 million that Amplifi has withdrawn from the Woodstock 50 bank account.

Dentsu said in a statement that while the court had ruled that Amplifi Live could not unilaterally cancel the festival “at this time we do not intend to further invest in the festival.” Woodstock 50 is backed by the co-producer of the 1969 Woodstock festival, which was billed as “three days of peace and music” and is regarded as one of the pivotal moments in music history.

Amplifi said the event was plagued by delays in obtaining permits, arranging security, water supplies and sanitation. A mid-April sale date for tickets was postponed and has yet to be rescheduled.

Woodstock 50 announced in March that more than 80 musical acts, including 1969 festival veterans John Fogerty, Canned Heat and Santana, would take part. Some 100,000 fans were expected to attend and camp at the Watkins Glen site, but the court documents said that number of tickets had been reduced to 60,000.
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Emmy-winning actor Tim Conway, who brought an endearing, free-wheeling goofiness to skits on “The Carol Burnett Show” that cracked up his cast mates as well as the audience, died Tuesday at the age of 85, his publicist said.

Publicist Howard Bragman said Conway died in the Los Angeles area on Tuesday morning. Before his death, he had suffered complications from normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) but had no signs of dementia or Alzheimer’s, Bragman said.

Conway won three Emmy awards for acting on the Burnett show and a fourth as a writer in the 1960s and ’70s. He also won guest actor Emmys for a 1996 appearance on “Coach” and another in 2008 for “30 Rock.”

Burnett said Tuesday she was “heartbroken” at Conway’s death.

“He was one in a million, not only as a brilliant comedian but as a loving human being. I cherish the times we had together both on the screen and off. He’ll be in my heart forever,” she said in a statement.

Vicki Lawrence, who co-starred on “The Carol Burnett Show,” called Conway “hysterical, crazy, bold, fearless, humble, kind, adorable. … The angels are laughing out loud tonight,” the actress wrote Tuesday in an Instagram posting.

Comedy fame

Conway first found television fame on the 1960s comedy “McHale’s Navy” playing Ensign Parker, a befuddled by-the-book officer in a group of unconventional sailors in the Pacific during World War II.

He would find greater success in the comedy sketches on Burnett’s show starting in 1968. He was at his best with characters that were a little naive, clumsy or slow-witted, and especially when teamed with straight man Harvey Korman and given the chance to show off his improvisational and slapstick skills.

“Nobody could be with Tim and keep a straight face once he got on a roll,” Burnett said in a 2003 interview with the Television Academy Foundation.

She said Conway would stick with a sketch’s script through dress rehearsal but once it was time to tape the performance for a broadcast, he began freelancing. His improvised antics often reduced his co-stars — especially his close friend Korman — to tears of laughter.

“I think Conway’s goal in life was to destroy Harvey,” Burnett told the Television Academy Foundation.

​Dangerous dentist skit

In one popular skit, Conway’s portrayal of an inept dentist who accidentally injects himself with painkiller resulted in Korman, who was playing the patient, laughing so hard that he wet his pants, Burnett said.

Conway’s other most memorable recurring characters included an elderly man whose shuffling pace always caused trouble and Mr. Tudball, a businessman plagued by an indifferent and inept secretary played by Burnett.

Conway started on the show as a guest star in its first season in 1967 but did not officially become a regular until 1975.

“People have often asked me, ‘If you weren’t in show business, what would you be doing?’” Conway wrote in his memoir “What’s So Funny?: My Hilarious Life.” “The truth is I don’t think there’s anything else I could be doing so the answer would have to be, nothing … I guess you could say I’m in the only business I could be in.”

His popularity on the Burnett program led to his own shows, a sitcom in 1970 and a variety show in 1980, and they lasted about a year each. He said they failed because he was not comfortable being the star.

Before Korman’s death in 2008 he and Conway toured with an act that featured stand-up comedy, recreations of their better-known skits and question-and-answer sessions with the audience.

Movie career

Conway’s movie work included “The World’s Greatest Athlete” in 1973, “The Apple Dumpling Gang” in 1975, “The Shaggy D.A.” in 1976, “The Prize Fighter” in 1979 and “Private Eyes” in 1980. Conway also starred in the “Dorf” series of short videos as a sawed-off golf instructor, borrowing the accent his Mr. Tudball character used. He said Dorf was one of his favorite characters.

Conway, who was born Dec. 15, 1933, grew up near Cleveland and after serving in the Army worked in Cleveland radio and developed comedy routines. Actress Rose Marie, a co-star on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” liked his work and helped him get a regular spot on “The Steve Allen Show” in the early 1960s.
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A former business manager of Stan Lee has been charged in California with five counts of elder abuse involving the late Marvel Comics mastermind. 

A request for a restraining order filed last year by Lee’s daughter alleged Keya Morgan was manipulating the mentally declining Lee, preventing him from seeing family and friends, and trying to take control of his money and business affairs. 

The felony charges filed Friday by Los Angeles County prosecutors against the 43-year-old Morgan include theft, embezzlement, forgery or fraud against an elder adult, and false imprisonment of an elder adult. A misdemeanor count also alleges elder abuse. 

The charges date to June, when Morgan was working closely with Lee, who died in November. 

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Morgan. His attorney Alex Kessel said Morgan is not guilty.

“He has never abused or taken advantage of Mr. Lee in any way,” Kessel said in an email. “We expect him to be completely exonerated of all charges.” 

In June, attorneys for the 95-year-old Lee and his daughter Joan C. Lee were granted a restraining order against Morgan that barred contact with Lee and revealed that police were investigating Morgan for elder abuse.  

Lee, co-creator of such characters as Spider-Man, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, was for decades the face of Marvel Comics. His movie cameos, still emerging after his death in films like “Avengers: Endgame,” are a beloved element of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 
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Woody Allen’s latest film, which has been put on ice in the U.S. over decades-old sex abuse allegations against the director, will be released in France this year, a distributor said Tuesday.

“A Rainy Day in New York” starring Timothee Chalamet, Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez and Jude Law will hit French cinemas Sept. 18, Mars Films said ahead of the opening of the Cannes film festival.

“The 50th feature film by Woody Allen … is a romantic comedy set in present-day New York City,” the company’s CEO Stephane Celerier said on Twitter.

In February, Allen filed a $68 million (60 million euros) lawsuit against Amazon for breach of contract, accusing the streaming giant of canceling the film because of a “baseless” accusation that he sexually abused his daughter.

Allen has said Amazon sought to terminate the deal in June 2018, and has since refused to pay him $9 million in financing for “A Rainy Day in New York.”

The film has been completed but not released.

Earlier this month, Variety magazine reported it would be released in Italy in October.

The movie 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.

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.

Her brother Ronan Farrow revived the allegations on the day the Cannes film festival opened in 2016 with Allen’s “Cafe Society,” lashing out at the media for failing to ask hard questions about the director.

Amazon’s relationship with Allen began with “Cafe Society” (2016), to which the studio had purchased the rights, before producing and distributing “Wonder Wheel” (2017), then committing to four additional films.
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Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is taking on a new role as the honorary chairman of a nonpartisan group devoted to education about the Constitution, replacing former Vice President Joe Biden.

 

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia said Tuesday that Gorsuch, named to the high court by President Donald Trump, will serve as a spokesman for civics education and civility in politics.

 

The 51-year-old Gorsuch is the first justice to be the center’s chairman. Biden stepped down when he launched his campaign for the presidency in April.

 

Gorsuch said he’s concerned by polls that show most Americans would flunk a citizenship test and many say incivility keeps them away from public affairs.

 

“For a government of and by the people to work, everyone must have some idea how our Constitution works and we must be able to talk to each other about important ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect,” Gorsuch said in a comment provided by the Supreme Court.

 

Jeffrey Rosen, the center’s president and CEO, said the center was attracted by Gorsuch’s commitment to civics and civility. “We’re genuinely excited about this partnership because Justice Gorsuch is so passionate about the need for nonpartisan civics education,” Rosen said.

 

Gorsuch was put on the court by a president whose combative approach to politics is not often confused with civility. But Rosen said, “The attitudes of the president who appointed him did not factor in.”

 

Past chairmen have included former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. The honorary chairman has alternated between Democrats and Republicans, Rosen said.

 

The center’s home in Philadelphia is near the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, where the Constitution was drafted.

 

 
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