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☆ Versatile Oscar-winning American actor Alan Arkin dies at 89
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/3] Actor Alan Arkin poses during the CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada April 23, 2015. Alan Arkin was honored with the CinemaCon Lifetime Achievement Award. His first major movie role also earned him an Oscar nomination - best actor for playing a Soviet sailor in the 1966 Cold War comedy "The Russians Are Coming! He appeared as a deaf-mute in the adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter" in 1968, drawing his second Academy Award nomination for best actor. "Did ANYONE have the range Alan Arkin had?

Persons: Alan Arkin, CinemaCon, Steve, Oscar, Adam, Matthew, Anthony, Arkin, Carl Reiner's, Sunshine, Audrey Hepburn, terrorizes Hepburn, Carson McCullers, Joseph Heller's, Ben Affleck's, Michael Douglas, Patton Oswalt, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen, Alan Wolf Arkin, Harry Belafonte, Suzanne, Will Dunham, Danielle Broadway, Bill Trott, Diane Craft, Nick Zieminski, Rosalba O'Brien Organizations: Caesars, National Association of Theatre Owners, REUTERS, Little, Oscar, Variety, The New York Times, CIA, New, Thomson Locations: Las Vegas , Nevada, Carlsbad , California, Soviet, Iran, Glengarry Glen Ross, Beverly Hills, New York City, Brooklyn, Los Angeles

☆ Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer-winning novelist known for apocalyptic Westerns, dies at 89
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-13 | by ( Daniel Arkin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

NEW YORK - NOVEMBER 16: Writer Cormac McCarthy attends the premiere of "The Road" at Clearview Chelsea Cinemas on November 16, 2009 in New York City. McCarthy's death was announced in a statement by his publisher, Penguin Random House. "Cormac McCarthy changed the course of literature," Nihar Malaviya, the CEO of Penguin Random House, said in a statement. Two novels published in the 2000s — "No Country for Old Men" and "The Road" — drew wide acclaim and found favor in Hollywood. McCarthy published his final two novels in 2022: "The Passenger" and "Stella Maris," interconnected narratives that grappled with morality, science and faith.

Persons: Cormac McCarthy, Jim Spellman, WireImage, Pulitzer, John McCarthy —, McCarthy, Olivetti Underwood, Malaviya, James Wood, King James Bible, Melville, Conrad, Faulkner, Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr, Albert Erskine, William Faulkner, James Joyce, —, Joel, Ethan Coen, Viggo Mortensen, Stella Maris Organizations: Chelsea Cinemas, Penguin Random, Yorker, The New York Times, University of Tennessee, Random, Penguin Locations: New York City, Santa Fe , New Mexico, American, Providence , Rhode Island, Knoxville , Tennessee, Hollywood

☆ Israel's Percepto gets U.S. FAA waiver for drone use, raises $67 mln
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Heavy industry confronts major challenges to operate efficiently, maintain reliable critical infrastructure, meet high productivity expectations, and increase safety levels - all in the face of complex, hazardous and often aging infrastructure assets. Percepto said it helps industrial companies meet challenges such as maintaining reliable critical infrastructure, meeting high productivity expectations, and increasing safety levels through real-time visibility into their facility's infrastructure integrity, and finding failures before they escalate into incidents. It said it received a nationwide Beyond Line of Sight waiver from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, allowing the company to provide any U.S. critical infrastructure site with remotely-operated automated drones without the need for site specific approvals from the FAA. Percepto said this waiver removes logistical and cost barriers, such as the need for radars or people on the ground, fuelling the adoption of autonomous drone technology. In total, Percepto has raised $120 million.

Persons: Percepto, Arkin, Steven Scheer, David Evans Organizations: U.S . Federal Aviation Administration, FAA, Koch Disruptive Technologies, Zimmer Partners, U.S, Venture Partners, Delek US Holdings, Atento, Spider Capital, Arkin Holdings, Thomson

☆ Fox News sends Tucker Carlson cease-and-desist letter over new Twitter show
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( Daniel Arkin | Diana Dasrath | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Fox News has sent a cease-and-desist letter to Tucker Carlson, alleging that the conservative network's former star anchor breached his contract by launching a new show on Twitter, according to a source familiar with the matter. "Doubling down on the most catastrophic programming decision in the history of the cable news industry, Fox is now demanding that Tucker Carlson be silent until after the 2024 election. The first installment of Carlson's new show, "Tucker on Twitter," debuted June 6. The conflict between Fox News and Carlson comes at an inflection point for the conservative media ecosystem. "Tucker Carlson Tonight," a cornerstone of the Fox News lineup since 2016, was one of the most-watched shows on American cable news.

Persons: Tucker Carlson, Carlson, Harmeet Dhillon, Tucker, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump, Trump, Bernard Gugar, Bryan Freedman —, Carlson —, Fox, Freedman, Tucker Carlson's, Elon Musk Organizations: Fox News, Twitter, Dominion Voting Systems, Fox, Axios, NBC News, Defamation League, America News Network, Trump, Dominion Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Miami

☆ Chuck Todd will depart NBC's 'Meet the Press'; Kristen Welker to become host
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Daniel Arkin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

"Meet the Press" host and moderator Chuck Todd announced on Sunday that he will step down this year after nine years hosting the public affairs talk show. "'Meet the Press' has sustained its historic role as the indispensable news program on Sunday mornings," Blumenstein and Budoff Brown said. She is the second woman — following its inaugural host, Martha Rountree — and the first Black journalist to moderate "Meet the Press." Todd — the 12th moderator of "Meet the Press" and a five-time Emmy-winning journalist — saw himself as a custodian of the show. Welker has regularly filled in for Todd on "Meet the Press."

Persons: Chuck Todd, Kristen Welker, It's, Todd, I've, we've, Rebecca Blumenstein, Carrie Budoff Brown, Budoff Brown, Welker, Tim Russert, Martha Rountree —, Barack Obama's, Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Conway, Spicer, Trump, Todd —, —, I'm, She's, Joe Biden, David Gregory, Chuck Organizations: NBC News, White House, NBC, Press, America, U.S, Capitol, Trump, GOP, Republican National, MSNBC, White, The, CNBC, Comcast Locations: America, Washington

☆ Cash App founder Bob Lee was stabbed to death after argument about the suspect's sister, court documents show
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Daniel Arkin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Flowers and cards left as people paying tribute to Bob Lee near the Portside apartment building in San Francisco, California, on April 7, 2023. Cash App founder Bob Lee was fatally stabbed by an IT consultant near downtown San Francisco after the two men got into an argument over the suspect's sister, according to court documents obtained by NBC News on Friday. In the wake of the dispute, Momeni's sister sent a text to Lee, the documents show. The witness saw Momeni asking Lee whether Momeni's sister had been "doing drugs or anything inappropriate" earlier that day. Additional footage obtained by police shows the BMW heading to a "dark and secluded area" near downtown San Francisco.

Oscar-nominated actor Alec Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the New Mexico set of the Western movie “Rust,” prosecutors said Thursday. "Rust" first assistant director, David Halls, has agreed to plead guilty to negligent use of a deadly weapon, according to Carmack-Altwies' office. Baldwin was rehearsing with a pistol for a scene set inside a church when the gun went off, killing Hutchins and wounding the director, Joel Souza. Jae C. Hong / AP fileIn early October, Hutchins’ husband reached a settlement in his wrongful death lawsuit against the producers of “Rust,” including Baldwin. Souza is expected to return as the director when filming picks back up this month.

The Mega Millions jackpot has climbed to an eye-popping $565 million after no ticket matched all six numbers drawn last week, the lottery announced Saturday. If somebody wins at the next drawing, the jackpot would be the sixth-largest prize in the 20-year history of the game, Mega Millions announced in a news release on its website. No ticket matched all six winning numbers, but two tickets sold in California and Illinois matched five of them and nabbed the game's second-biggest prize. The Mega Millions jackpot was last won on Oct. 14, when tickets sold in California and Florida shared a $502 million prize. The odds of winning the Mega Millions lottery are 1 in 302 million, according to the website SmartLuck.

Mike Hodges, the British filmmaker who directed the hard-boiled gangster saga "Get Carter" and the campy space opera "Flash Gordon," died Saturday, according to his friend Mike Kaplan. "My middle-class eyes were forced to witness horrendous poverty and deprivation that I was previously unaware of," Hodges wrote in a letter published in The Guardian in May. "Get Carter" quickly entered the pantheon of British film classics. He replaced the acclaimed British director Nicolas Roeg ("Walkabout") on "Flash Gordon," a goofy project that has since attracted a cult following. I think that as a young man I probably did."

The celebrated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi on Tuesday blasted the arrest of film actor Taraneh Alidoosti, who was detained by authorities after expressing solidarity with nationwide anti-government protests that have rocked the country. In a post on Instagram, Farhadi demanded the immediate release of Alidoosti, who starred in his film “The Salesman,” a Tehran-set drama that won the Oscar for best foreign language feature in 2016. “I have worked with Taraneh on four films and now she is in prison for her rightful support of her fellow countrymen and her opposition to the unjust sentences being issued,” Farhadi wrote on Instagram. The demonstrations have since transformed into one of the most forceful challenges to Iran’s clerical regime since it was installed in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Farhadi is widely considered one of the best working filmmakers in contemporary Iran.

"The production companies and producers ignored harassment on set, failed to act despite multiple complaints, and fired crew members for complaining about the harassment," the release added. The state civil rights department went on to investigate the claims. "Criminal Minds" ran for 15 seasons on CBS before moving over to the Paramount+ streaming service last month under the new title "Criminal Minds: Evolution." The popular series has spawned two short-lived CBS spinoff shows, "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior" and "Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders." In the summer of 2016, former "Criminal Minds" star Thomas Gibson was fired from the program days after he was suspended for a reported altercation with a producer during filming.

LOS ANGELES — Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault but acquitted of one count of sexual battery after a trial in Los Angeles, nearly three years after the disgraced movie mogul was convicted at a watershed sex crimes trial in New York City. In the Los Angeles trial, jurors found Weinstein guilty of forcible rape, forcible oral copulation and sexual penetration by foreign object. Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón thanked the jurors for their service and hailed the accusers who came forward. In opening arguments, Los Angeles prosecutors portrayed Weinstein as a relentless sexual predator who lorded his status as “the most powerful man in Hollywood” over the women he abused. Daniel Arkin reported from New York, Diana Dasrath reported from Los Angeles.

"The worst governments are already going to suppress speech," said David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine and the former free speech watchdog for the United Nations between 2014 and 2020. The free speech experts who spoke to NBC News on Friday said Twitter's actions could invite international attempts to manipulate Musk. Would some head of state say, 'Hey, can you do this for my country and prevent public reporting?' Kaye, the former U.N. free speech watchdog, said Musk's behavior reminded him in part of authoritarian leaders who enforce rules against challenging the government or criticizing powerful figures, such as royal family members or regime allies. Musk can talk about standing for free speech all he wants, but this should make it clear to everyone that what he’s doing is quite the opposite.

Oscar-winning actor and activist Jane Fonda, who revealed earlier this year that she had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, announced Thursday that her cancer is in remission and she can stop chemotherapy treatments. I am confident that it played a role in the good news," Fonda wrote in a blog post titled "BEST BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!!!" "The last chemo session was rough and lasted 2 weeks making it hard to accomplish much of anything," she wrote. In early September, Fonda announced she'd been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In recent years, she has focused intensely on climate change and environmentalism, lobbying lawmakers to take immediate action to save the planet.

Stephen "tWitch" Boss was a thoroughly modern dancer. He lit up the stage of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" for nearly a decade. He was so classy," Boss told The Associated Press in 2014, the year he joined the "Ellen" show. Stephen "tWitch" Boss on "Ellen's Game of Games." Stephen "tWitch" Boss and Ellen DeGeneres on "Ellen's Game of Games".

The Golden Globes are attempting to press forward after a rocky few years for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organization that puts on the ceremony. The press association ultimately decided to hold the event privately, with a small audience and winners announced on social media. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has since diversified its voting membership, and NBC has reinstated the telecast. Including popular television series could help the Globes draw viewers this year. Gilles Mingasson / ABCThe nominees for best drama series are "Better Call Saul," "The Crown," "House of the Dragon," "Ozark" and "Severance."

Christine McVie, the English musician whose smoky vocals and romantic lyrics helped catapult the rock group Fleetwood Mac to international success, has died, the band announced on Twitter. "There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie," the group said in a statement posted on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. From left, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood in 1977. McVie was once married to Fleetwood Mac bass guitarist John McVie. Christine McVie penned some of the most cherished lines in the Fleetwood Mac songbook, writing the lyrics to global hits like "Everywhere," "Little Lies" and "Don't Stop" — a track that became synonymous with Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign.

Buckingham Palace said Wednesday that a member of the household has resigned after making "unacceptable and deeply regrettable comments" to a Black guest. The unnamed Buckingham Palace insider allegedly approached Fulani at a reception Tuesday hosted by the Camilla, queen consort, and asked her: "Where do your people come from?" In a tweet, Fulani said she left her visit to Buckingham Palace with "mixed feelings" and described the encounter in detail. In a statement, Buckingham Palace said it took this incident "extremely seriously," adding that it had "investigated immediately to establish the full details." The allegations could put deeper scrutiny on Buckingham Palace, where an unnamed insider was accused last year by Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, of racism against her unborn child.

Harvey Weinstein will not take the stand at his sex crimes trial in Los Angeles, where he is charged with seven counts of rape and sexual assault, his lawyer said Monday. Los Angeles prosecutors rested their case before the Thanksgiving break, following nearly four weeks of testimony from 44 witnesses. The trial in Los Angeles took on higher stakes for prosecutors after the New York State Court of Appeals agreed in August to allow Weinstein to appeal his conviction there. If it is overturned, his fate would hinge on the outcome of his Los Angeles trial. The charges against Weinstein in Los Angeles are two counts of rape and five other sexual assault counts.

The victims of the shooting at the LGBTQ-friendly Club Q in Colorado Springs include two bartenders, the mother of an 11-year-old girl and two other clubgoers who were enjoying a carefree night before a lone gunman started firing indiscriminately. "He lit up a room, always smiling, always happy and silly," said his mom, Sabrina Aston, who lives in Colorado Springs. We’re mad, angry.”Paugh, who is not part of the LGBTQ community, spent Saturday in Colorado Springs with a female friend. Jessica Fierro said she was at Club Q with her husband, their daughter and friends to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Daniel Arkin reported from New York; Deon J. Hampton reported from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

☆ ‘Fascism Comes to America’ Review: It’s Always Happening Here
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( D.G. Hart | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Popcorn doesn’t come with books published by respected university presses, but in the case of Bruce Kuklick’s “Fascism Comes to America,” maybe it should. Mr. Kuklick, a professor emeritus of history at Penn and an accomplished historian of ideas, turns his skills to Hollywood’s treatment of fascism. “Yet fascism has remained alive in Americanimaginations long after its eclipse in 1945.” Movies reveal popular sentiments in ways policy analysis does not. Hollywood’s use of farce to portray fascism illustrates a problem at the heart of this book. Another was “Red Heat” (1988), with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Soviet) and Jim Belushi (American) as “buddy-cops” catching a Georgian drug kingpin.

Stephanie Clark said Paugh, 35, was a loving mother and wife who was devoted to her family, including her 11-year-old daughter. Courtesy Stephanie Clark"My niece is devastated," Clark said, adding that Paugh "lived for her daughter." Paugh, who is not part of the LGBTQ community, spent Saturday in Colorado Springs with a female friend. "Club Q is in shock, and in deep mourning, with the family and friends who had loved ones senselessly taken from them. Deon J. Hampton reported from Colorado Springs, Colorado; Daniel Arkin reported from New York.

Iger is widely considered entertainment industry royalty, celebrated for his management acumen and creative chops. He turned Disney into a global powerhouse by acquiring marquee brands such as Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox. Bob Chapek, left, and Bob Iger, in Orlando, Fla.,on Sept. 30, 2021. Shares of the Walt Disney Co. are down 40% this year, and layoffs are pending. But almost immediately, the entertainment industry media zeroed in on what was thought to be a frosty relationship between the two men.

Michael Anderson, a bartender at Club Q, recalled that he heard "a few popping sounds" and initially assumed someone inside the club might have been clapping. In the dark of the club, Anderson saw "a silhouette of a person" clutching a long gun and heard one loud pop after another. "I don't know who stopped him," Anderson told NBC News, "but I'm grateful, because they most certainly saved my life last night." He has processed this much, Loveall said: "You don't need to take lives or cause pain and suffering to people that you don't know, you don't understand. "It's that adrenaline of, 'I can’t think, and I don’t know what to do.'

Two years later, Bautista and hundreds of thousands of other FTX customers are in limbo, shocked and unsure what happens next. FTX has paused customer withdrawals, and there’s growing doubt that customers will be able to recover any of their assets. “It’s lost at this point.”Bautista, 34, got the FTX itch thanks in part to flashy advertising. FTX, boosted by celebrities like NFL giant Tom Brady and pumped up by Silicon Valley bigwigs, struck Bautista as the most reliable crypto platform on the market. The firm has started the process of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried has resigned — and Bautista lost access to his crypto portfolio.

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