~theguardian-world | Bookmarks (113)

Director of Palme d’Or-winning film Entre les Murs (The Class) was much praised for humanism in projectsLaurent Cantet, the award-winning film-maker whose creations tackled some of the most complex issues of modern French society, including meritocracy, the education system, diversity and class struggle, has died aged 63 after an illness.Cantet was best known outside France for his film Entre les Murs (The Class), which...

Drake used AI to simulate the voice of the late rapper and have him chide Kendrick Lamar, which the estate calls a ‘flagrant violation’The estate of the late Tupac Shakur has sent a cease and desist letter to Drake, following the release of a Drake track that uses an AI version of Shakur’s voice to lambast Kendrick Lamar.As seen by Billboard, the letter instructs...

Day-trippers will have to pay €5 to visit Italian city under scheme designed to protect it from excess tourismAuthorities in Venice have been accused of transforming the famous lagoon city into a “theme park” as a long-mooted entrance fee for day trippers comes into force.Venice is the first major city in the world to enact such a scheme. The €5 (£4.30) charge, which comes...

Cher finally recognised 60 years after her first recordings, while Mary J Blige, Peter Frampton and Dave Matthews Band are among the other inducteesCher, Ozzy Osbourne, Mary J Blige and A Tribe Called Quest are among the stars to be added to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year – many of them rather overdue.Artists can be added to the US institution...

Trish Faranda claims she felt ‘humiliated’ when asked by the comedian to leave but fellow audience member says child was disrupting performanceFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastComedian Arj Barker’s interaction with a mother who brought a seven-month-old baby to his comedy show in Melbourne on Saturday night has sparked...

Actors Rei Hance, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams – who improvised most of horror film’s dialogue – claim they didn’t have proper union representation in 1999 and seek residualsThe stars of The Blair Witch Project have called for more compensation for their work in the original film, as well as “meaningful consultation” on any reboots and sequels, after it was announced that the horror...

Woman Begging With Two Children, by an unknown artist, shows what appears to be a denim skirt in 17th-century ItalyThe origin of the world’s most enduringly popular fabric is in ­dispute, as a new exhibition spotlights a claim that firmly links denim with 17th-­century Italy and takes its history back 200 years.Blue denim, that all-American ­symbol of informality and a life lived on the open...

New album The Tortured Poets Department flies off the shelves as Swift breaks record for most Spotify streams in a single dayTaylor Swift fans joined queues outside vinyl shops yesterday for the annual Record Store Day in the hope of securing a limited edition note from “the desk of Taylor Swift”.The “handwritten” note came with a limited number of copies of the musician’s latest...

Myra Carvalho sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment and banned from seeing singer performA woman who stalked Harry Styles has been jailed and banned from seeing him perform.Myra Carvalho, who appeared at Harrow crown court sitting at Hendon magistrates court in London, was said to have stalked the singer by sending him 8,000 cards in less than a month. Continue reading...

Authors and translators say PEN America has ‘had no criticism of American complicity in the bombardment of Gaza’, in stark contrast to other national centres of the organisation Thirty-one authors and translators have withdrawn their work from consideration for or declined PEN America’s 2024 literary awards over the organisation’s “failure to protect” Palestinian writers in Gaza.Nine out of 10 longlistees for the PEN/Jean Stein...

Climbable sculpture in Hudson Yards in Manhattan closed in 2021 after four people died by suicideThe Vessel, the huge climbable centerpiece of New York’s upmarket Hudson Yards development that saw a number of suicides, is set to reopen later this year with new safety features, according to developers.The 150ft sculpture, designed by Thomas Heatherwick and built at a cost of $260m, was closed three...

Tributes paid to music producer who helped write TLC’s Waterfalls and worked on albums by OutKast and CeeLo GreenRico Wade, one of the architects of Atlanta’s “dirty south” hip-hop sound, who co-produced albums by OutKast, Goodie Mob and CeeLo Green and who co-wrote TLC’s 1994 hit Waterfalls, has died. He was 52.Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens paid tribute to Wade, saying he had “led in...

Despite his lack of faith, the author believes ‘something happened that was not supposed to happen’ on the day he was attackedSalman Rushdie has revealed an abiding sense that his survival after a brutal knife attack two years ago was a miracle, in spite of his lack of spiritual faith. “I do feel that something happened that was not supposed to happen and I...

Technician, who hung his own picture in an exhibition about art world glitches, has been sacked and given a three-year banThe first picture that greeted visitors to the first-floor exhibition space in Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne gallery on 23 February may not have immediately grabbed their attention.The 60cm by 120cm artwork was a retro-looking photograph of a family of four, with the background and...

Actor in Disney+ series Andor will appear onscreen alongside Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson next yearVarada Sethu will join Doctor Who as one of the Doctor’s two companions for Ncuti Gatwa’s second series in the role, it has been confirmed.She will appear onscreen in 2025, alongside the former Coronation Street actor Millie Gibson after speculation over her character Ruby Sunday’s future on the sci-fi...

An arts organisation has been seeking out and recording the region’s traditional music and is teaching the lyrics to young singersIn the Jordanian town of Tafilah, a six-year-old boy softly hummed a song. His family were astonished, and his 82-year-old great-grandmother, Jawaher Al Ahmad, overheard and began to cry. She asked the child who had taught him the “hajini”, or Bedouin folk song, and...

Le Violon d’Ingres print produced under artist’s supervision was among friend’s collection auctioned in ParisIt is one of the most recognisable images of the surrealist movement: a black and white photograph by Man Ray of Kiki de Montparnasse with f-shaped sound holes painted on her back representing a violin.Le Violon d’Ingres, which was produced in 1924 and signed by the US artist, set a...

Staff member put work on display at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne ‘in hope of achieving his breakthrough’Europe live – latest updatesAccording to a quote commonly – if wrongly – attributed to the artist Andy Warhol, everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame. At Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne museum earlier this year, one technician and aspiring artist got to bask in the limelight for...

Tasmanian tribunal rules Museum of Old and New Art discriminated against NSW man by denying him entry to installationGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastHobart’s Museum of Old and New Art has been ordered to allow “persons who do not identify as ladies” entry to its Ladies Lounge art installation after losing a legal battle.The judgment, handed down...

Ruling means music in Russian republic must ‘conform to Chechen mentality and sense of rhythm’The Russian republic of Chechnya has banned dance music it deems either too fast or too slow, in an attempt to quash a “polluting” western influence on the conservative majority-Muslim region.Musa Dadayev, the culture minister, said “all musical, vocal and choreographic works should correspond to a tempo of 80-116 beats...

Star Wars actor says he believes actors should be free to ‘do anything you want to do’, in a discussion about Laurence Olivier’s performance in OthelloBilly Dee Williams has said that actors should be able to perform in blackface, with the Star Wars actor revealing that he believes, “If you’re an actor, you should do anything you want to do”.Speaking to Bill Maher on...

The 88-year-old director says he is ‘on the fence’ about making another film due to the work needed to get distribution and financial backingWoody Allen has once again hinted at his retirement from film-making, saying that he is “on the fence” about making another film after the US release of his latest, Coup de Chance.In an interview with Air Mail, the 88-year-old director was...

Shah Muhammad Rais was devastated when Taliban destroyed his shop, but now he is sending books to Afghanistan via the internetShah Muhammad Rais first opened his bookshop in the Afghan capital in 1974. By 2003, when his story was made famous by the bestselling book The Bookseller of Kabul, the business had collected about 100,000 books, in different languages, about literature, history and politics....

The author of Giles Goat-Boy and The Sot-Weed Factor was part of a wave of writers in the 1960s who challenged standards of language and plotJohn Barth, the playfully erudite author whose darkly comic and complicated novels revolved around the art of literature and launched countless debates over the art of fiction, has died aged 93.Johns Hopkins University, where Barth was an emeritus professor...