Regression – Syndication AP

Steven Spielberg is bringing his highly personal film “The Fabelmans” to the Toronto International Film Festival this fall. Organizers on Friday announced his participation, which will mark his first time at the festival. Spielberg co-wrote the coming-of-age story about a young man and a shattering family secret. His co-writer is Tony Kushner, who he also collaborated with on “Lincoln." The cast includes Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen and Judd Hirsch. “The Fabelmans” is set for a Nov. 11 theatrical release from Universal Pictures and is expected to be a big player in the upcoming awards season. The Toronto International Film Festival kicks off on Sept. 8 and runs through Sept. 18.

Italian police say three Italian environmental activists glued their hands to the glass protecting Botticelli's masterpiece painting “Spring” in the Uffizi Galleries. The museum in Florence says thanks to the glass, no damage was done to the iconic painting in the incident Friday morning. Carabinieri police said two young women and a man, all Italians who had bought entrance tickets, staged the protest in the Uffizi's room dedicated to the painter. They sat on the floor and displayed a banner reading, “Last Generation No Gas No Coal.” The glue was safely removed from the glass protecting the painting. The activists were ordered by police to stay out of Florence for three years.

Several artists including Bun B, Lupe Fiasco and 6LACK have recorded songs honoring Juneteenth for Apple Music. Performers from different genres composed new tracks, while others recorded cover songs for the second annual “Juneteenth 2022: Freedom Songs” playlist, which launches Friday on the streaming platform. The playlist releases more than a week before the annual holiday – also known as Emancipation Day and Freedom Day – that commemorates when the last enslaved African Americans learned about their freedom on June 19. The 16-song playlist also features country singer Brittney Spencer, reggae-dancehall singer Kranium, gospel singer Koryn Hawthorne and Latin rapper-singer Eladio Carrion.

Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal that the justices took in $800,000 in book royalties last year, a lucrative supplement to their judicial salaries. Reports released Thursday show that by far the largest payment went to Justice Amy Coney Barrett. It's $425,000 for a yet-to-be-released book and likely the first installment on a reported $2 million deal she signed soon after joining the court in 2020. Justices are being paid $274,200 this year for their work on the bench. Chief Justice John Roberts gets a little more, $286,700. The largest advances before now have gone to Justices Clarence Thomas and Sonia Sotomayor, who each received more than $1 million for their accounts of their rise from poverty to the nation’s highest court.

Foo Fighters will honor the rock band’s late drummer Taylor Hawkins with a pair of tribute concerts in September, with one in London and the other in Los Angeles. The twin shows will take place Sept. 3 at London’s Wembley Stadium and Sept. 27 at The Kia Forum in Inglewood, California, featuring “his bandmates and his inspirations playing the songs that he fell in love with, and the ones he brought to life,” the band said in a statement. Lineups for each show will be announced at a later date. Hawkins died March 25 during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50.

There are more than a few A-list stars coming to the multiplex, and your televisions, this summer. But there's also quite a few new names that will sure to have audiences buzzing, like Austin Butler, a television teen hearthrob who stars as Elvis Presley in Baz Lurhmann's drama, Keke Palmer, a child actor who is showing new depths in Jordan Peele's “Nope," comedian Jo Koy who at 50 is making a splash in his first major film “Easter Sunday,” English actor Andrew Koji who holds his own with Brad Pitt in “Bullet Train," or Cooper Raiff in “Cha Cha Real Smooth.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, one of this year’s most prominent Oscar nominees, is sitting out the ceremony after his wife tested positive for COVID-19. Miranda shared the unfortunate news on Twitter Saturday afternoon. He said that even though he has tested negative himself, he will stay away from the ceremony out of caution. Miranda is up for an Oscar for best original song for “Dos Oruguitas” from the animated film “Encanto.” Should he win, he would attain rare EGOT status, meaning he’d be an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner. 

Yes, folks, dinosaurs do still roam the Earth. Come Sunday night, an increasingly irrelevant Hollywood elite will gather for their annual fete to an astonishing lack of self-awareness, a.k.a. the Academy Awards. In less than two weeks, Major League Baseball will throw out the first pitch on another fun-filled season of jockstrap adjustments and dallying even longer than usual between pitches so every fielder, plus a couple of hot dog vendors, have time to shift to one side of the field. Baseball & the Oscars. Two relics of a bygone era, both fighting to avoid relegation to Nicheville U.S.A.

WHIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 5, 2022--Bayer today announced the appointment of Michael Parrish to the position of Vice President of Public Affairs, Science and Sustainability, U.S. Parrish has served as the interim lead of U.S. Public Affairs since April 2021, following…

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thousands of South Korean firefighters and troops were battling a large wildfire on Saturday that tore through an eastern coastal area and temporarily threatened a nuclear power station and a liquified natural gas plant.…

Japanese snowboarder Rina Yoshika injured her back in a training crash and will not be able to compete in the Olympic slopestyle contest. Yoshika, ranked 12th in the world, fell hard on a jump during Thursday’s practice session. Medical staff rushed to help her, and took about 20 minutes to stabilize her and put her in a sled to take her down the hill. Japanese Olympic officials said the 22-year-old suffered a spinal injury but was not paralyzed. They said she will return home after receiving treatment for her injuries.

BEIJING (AP) — Two hands reach through holes in the glass to fill up a pair of dangling gloves. The hands seem almost separate from the woman they belong to. She is one of the people performing COVID-19 tests…

More than 30 new COVID-19 cases are being detected daily ahead of the Beijing Olympics but organizers say they aren't worried and expect numbers to drop within days. The 32 new cases confirmed Tuesday included 15 people arriving at the airport in China and 17 among athletes, officials and workers already living inside the Olympic bubbles. All get daily PCR tests. Olympic medical advisor Brian McCloskey says 11 people have been treated at the hospital for a symptom since Jan. 23. But he says “none of those are seriously ill in any way.”

A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit of a 30-year-old man who alleged that the image of him nude as a baby on the 1991 cover of Nirvana’s “Nevermind" is child pornography. Judge Fernando Olguin granted the motion by Nirvana's attorneys to dismiss the case Monday, but said plaintiff Spencer Elden can refile an amended version of the suit. Elden's lawsuits said Nirvana and others connected with “Nevermind” had caused him lifelong damages as they profited off the image. Nirvana's attorneys replied that the lawsuit was not serious and was outside the statute of limitations for the laws it used. 

The European Union is imposing restrictions on the inks that tattoo artists can use as of Wednesday. The EU says it is a necessary move to protect the health of consumers because thousands of chemical elements now in use can cause anything from allergic reactions to cancer. The tattoo industry is complaining that it's unfairly targeted and that it's losing an essential aspect of its art. Tattoo artist Tycho Veldhoen says that he is suddenly losing “a gigantic part" of his palette with no alternatives in sight.   

The extensive catalog of David Bowie, stretching from the late 1960s to just before his death in 2016, has been sold to Warner Chappell Music. More than 400 songs, among them “Space Oddity,” “Ziggy Stardust," and “Let’s Dance" are included. Financial details of the sale were not released. Warner Chapell is the music publishing wing of Warner Music Group Corp. Bowie died in January 2016 after battling cancer for 18 months. As a performer, Bowie had unpredictable range of styles, melding European jadedness with American rhythms and his ever-changing personas and wardrobes.

Iran appears to be preparing for a space launch as negotiations continue in Vienna over its tattered nuclear deal with world powers. That's according to satellite images obtained Sunday by The Associated Press and an expert who analyzed the photos. The likely blast off at Iran’s Imam Khomeini Spaceport comes as Iranian state media has offered a list of upcoming planned satellite launches in the works. Conducting a launch amid the Vienna talks fits the hard-line posture struck by Tehran’s negotiators. It also fits into a renewed focus on space by Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, under whom concerns about alienating the West with the launches likely have faded.

Stephen Sondheim, the songwriter who reshaped the American musical theater in the second half of the 20th century, has died. He was 91. Sondheim influenced several generations of theater songwriters, particularly with such landmark musicals as “Company,” “Follies” and “Sweeney Todd.” His most famous ballad, “Send in the Clowns,” has been recorded hundreds of times, including by Frank Sinatra and Judy Collins. Six of Sondheim’s musicals won Tony Awards for best score, and he also received a Pulitzer Prize for “Sunday in the Park,” an Academy Award for the song “Sooner or Later” from the film “Dick Tracy,” five Olivier Awards and the Presidential Medal of Honor.

Tributes quickly flooded social media following the death of Stephen Sondheim as performers and writers alike saluted a giant of the theater: “Rest In Peace, Stephen Sondheim, and thank you for your vast contributions to musical theater. We shall…