Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson launch Maui wildfire fund with $10m

Winfrey says direct cash assistance aims to support those affected as they determine what ‘rebuilding looks like for them’

Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson have launched a relief fund for the Maui wildfires with an initial $10m donation.

The People’s Fund of Maui, a fund within the Entertainment Industry Foundation, will distribute direct cash assistance to those affected by the wildfires in Maui, which killed at least 115 people earlier this month and devastated the towns of Kula and Lahaina. The fund, supported by public donations and the initial grant by Winfrey and Johnson, plans to provide $1,200 a month to anyone over the age of 18 who lost their primary residence in the fires, including renters and excluding property owners who do not reside in the residence.

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Niece of J-Pop mogul Johnny Kitagawa should resign over abuse allegations, panel says

Julie Fujishima, now president of Japan’s biggest boyband talent agency, had long been aware of accusations but failed to investigate, experts say

The current president of Japan’s biggest boyband talent agency, who is the niece of its late founder Johnny Kitagawa, should resign over allegations that Kitagawa sexually abused recruits for decades, a panel has said.

The panel, commissioned by Johnny and Associates to address the allegations of abuse, recommended on Tuesday that Julie Fujishima should resign because she had long been aware of the allegations but “neglected to conduct a probe”.

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Biden privately admitted feeling ‘tired’ amid concerns about his age, book says

Franklin Foer, author of The Last Politician, also says experience and calming presence make US president ‘a man for his age’

Amid relentless debate about whether at 80 Joe Biden is too old to be president or to complete an effective second term, an eagerly awaited book on his time in the White House reports that Biden has privately admitted to feeling “tired”, even as it describes his vast political experience as a vital asset.

“His advanced years were a hindrance, depriving him of the energy to cast a robust public presence or the ability to easily conjure a name,” Franklin Foer writes in The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future.

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Disney+ production Nautilus scrapped after wrapping on the Gold Coast

The UK series, which employed hundreds of Australian cast and crew, is the latest victim of cost-cutting measures at Disney and beyond

A big budget series filmed in Queensland which employed hundreds of Australian cast and crew has become the latest victim of cuts at Disney, being dropped by the studio after filming – and before it even had a chance to be released.

Nautilus, a UK series that had been set to stream on Disney+, is a prequel story to Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Shazad Latif stars as Captain Nemo, an Indian prince who became a prisoner of the East India Company and sets off on a mission of revenge on submarine Nautilus.

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Eminem demands Vivek Ramaswamy cease using his music on campaign trail

Rapper sends letter to Republican presidential hopeful objecting to candidate’s use of his song

The rapper Eminem has demanded that Vivek Ramaswamy cease using his music.

In a letter reported by the Daily Mail, a representative for the rapper’s publisher told counsel for the Republican presidential hopeful that Eminem, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, objected to Ramaswamy’s use of his compositions and was revoking a license to use them.

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London theatregoers escorted from Grease the Musical by police

Rest of audience applauds after people causing ‘disturbance’ removed from Dominion theatre on Saturday

Theatregoers were escorted from a London performance of Grease the Musical by police on Saturday night, to cheers of approval from the rest of the audience.

Footage posted online shows eight police officers and staff from the Dominion theatre lining the stairway in the balcony as audience members chant “out, out, out!”.

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Rich Men North of Richmond singer condemns Republicans after song used in debate

Oliver Anthony responds after politicians discuss his No 1 hit on stage: ‘I wrote that song about those people’

Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the mega-hit Rich Men North of Richmond, hit out at Republican candidates for president who discussed his song in the debate in Milwaukee on Wednesday.

“It was funny seeing my song at that presidential debate. Because I wrote that song about those people, you know, so for them to have to sit there and listen to that, that cracks me up. It was funny kind of seeing the response to it,” the Virginian said in a statement on Friday.

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British Museum director Hartwig Fischer resigns after suspected thefts

Fischer to step down after blunders prompt international embarrassment and questions about systemic failures

The head of the British Museum has resigned and his deputy has stepped back over its handling of the suspected widespread theft of artefacts following a string of blunders that have prompted international embarrassment and questions about systemic failures.

Hartwig Fischer said on Friday he accepted responsibility for the museum’s failure to properly respond to warnings about the suspected thefts of thousands of objects in 2021.

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Alice Winn wins 2023 Waterstones debut fiction prize for In Memoriam

Novel described as ‘truly stunning feat of fiction’ tells love story of two first world war soldiers

Alice Winn has won the 2023 Waterstones debut fiction prize for her novel In Memoriam, which has been described as a “truly stunning feat of fiction”.

The novel, inspired by archive clippings from a student newspaper, chronicles the love story between two first world war soldiers. It was announced as the winner at a ceremony in London on Thursday evening.

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Toto Cutugno whose song L’Italiano was No 1 across Europe dies at 80

Singer’s big hit, stuffed with cliches about Italian life, was irresistible to millions as far away as Russia and Georgia

Toto Cutugno, the singer whose cliche-ridden but irresistibly catchy L’Italiano defined ideas of Italian culture to millions of listeners across Europe and Russia, has died at Milan’s San Raffaelle hospital aged 80.

Born Salvatore Cutugno to Sicilian parents in Tuscany, the singer was for a decade a regular at the Sanremo music festival, the Italian institution that served as inspiration for the Eurovision song contest.

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‘This power is reaching a natural end’: Michael Wolff’s new book predicts the fall of Fox News

The Fall will be published next month and promises to chronicle the rightwing network and the Murdoch family’s downfall

The author Michael Wolff, whose bestselling books have chronicled the rise and fall of Donald Trump, promised on Tuesday to tell readers how Fox News will end.

“I have been telling the story of the great power of Rupert Murdoch and Fox News for many years,” Wolff said, announcing his new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty. “This power is now reaching a natural end and The Fall brings the story to its closing act.”

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Quarter of music industry workers have had no work in EU since Brexit

Survey shows devastating impact of Brexit on music sector, says Independent Society of Musicians

Almost half of UK musicians and workers in the music industry have had less work in the EU since Brexit than before it, and more than a quarter have had no EU work at all, according to a survey.

The impact of Brexit on the music sector had been devastating, said the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), which carried out the survey. Restrictions had impaired the viability of making a living as a musician, it said.

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How impressionists keep audiences laughing in an age of social media celebrities

Younger audiences may not recognise people comedians are impersonating but some performers say there’s still plenty to work with

“If I see somebody become famous, and they’ve got tremendously predominant mannerisms and they speak a certain way which is unusual, I go for it right away,” the veteran impressionist Mike Yarwood once said of the public figures he mimicked.

But in the decades since Yarwood drew up to 18 million viewers to his BBC shows – with his impressions of the likes of Harold Wilson and the football manager Brian Clough – the cultural touchstones that once defined celebrity have exponentially shifted. With traditional TV viewership continuing to decline among younger generations, impressionists are faced with a new challenge – today’s digital natives may not readily recognise the people they are impersonating.

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Ron Cephas Jones, This Is Us actor who won two Emmys, dies aged 66

Actor had a double lung transplant in 2020 because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Ron Cephas Jones, a veteran stage actor who won two Emmy awards for his role as a long-lost father who finds redemption on the NBC series This Is Us, has died at age 66, a representative said.

Jones’s manager, Dan Spilo, said the actor died “due to a long-standing pulmonary issue”.

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Britney Spears speaks to fans about divorce from Sam Asghari

Singer tells 42 million Instagram followers she ‘couldn’t take the pain any more’ but would stay strong

Britney Spears has spoken about the recent announcement that she and her husband, Sam Asghari, are to divorce, telling fans she “couldn’t take the pain any more” but will remain strong in the face of adversity.

Asghari cited “irreconcilable differences” in documents filed at a court in Los Angeles, which also revealed that the couple separated almost three weeks ago. The documents said he intended to obtain financial support and legal costs from Spears.

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Bye bye brutalism, hello Instagrammers: inside Geelong’s spectacular $140m arts centre

Australia’s newest and largest regional arts centre features malleable theatres, Indigenous art and spaces especially designed to get your camera out

When Joel McGuinness was brought on to oversee the redevelopment of the Geelong Arts Centre, and subsequently run the venue as its CEO and creative director, he wanted to change more than the 1980s building’s brutalist aesthetics. He wanted to redefine its purpose, to open it up to people who may have thought they didn’t belong.

“I really wanted to challenge the notion of black box theatres that turn their back on the world,” he says. “To change the relationship between the art and the audience. Because when the baby boomers die out, maybe the institutions as we know them will die out too.”

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‘I don’t know why our boobs are so frightening’: why musicians in Spain are going topless as a radical gesture

Singer Eva Amaral this week created headlines by baring her chest at a festival, joining a string of other artists asserting this freedom in the name of defending women’s rights

In the middle of her performance at the Sonorama festival in the northern Spanish town of Aranda de Duero on Saturday, Eva Amaral was about to lead her band Amaral into her song Revolución when she took off her red sequin top and threw it on the floor.

“This is for Rocío, for Rigoberta, for Zahara, for Miren, for Bebe, for all of us,” she said, listing the names of fellow artists before uncovering her breasts. “Because no one can take away the dignity of our nakedness. The dignity of our fragility, of our strength. Because there are too many of us.” In a concert marking the Spanish band’s 25-year career, going topless was a way of defending women’s dignity and freedom to go nude, and “a very important moment”, Amaral later told El País.

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Death masks help recreate face of Bonnie Prince Charlie

De-aged image offers likelife image of how prince may have looked during unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1745

The face of Bonnie Prince Charlie has been recreated using death masks that depict him as he would have looked during the Jacobite rising of 1745.

The prince, who was renowned for his good looks, has captivated a new generation of interest through the TV show Outlander.

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The Nun actor accuses Warner Bros of ‘hiding’ her share of merchandise revenue

Bonnie Aarons, who plays demonic nun in billion-dollar Conjuring franchise, is suing studio for ‘obscuring’ the ‘true amount of her rightful share’

The actor who plays the demonic nun in the billion-dollar Conjuring film franchise is suing Warner Bros, claiming the studio is hiding the true amount of money it made from merchandise featuring her character.

Bonnie Aarons first played the nun, also known as “Valak”, in the 2016 horror film The Conjuring 2. The box office hit spawned a spin-off franchise just for her character: the 2018 film The Nun and the impending sequel The Nun 2, set to be released on 8 September.

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Britney Spears’ estranged husband Sam Asghari denies he will challenge prenup in their divorce

Asghari says he and Spears will ‘hold onto the love and respect’ they have for each, after filing for divorce after 14 months of marriage

Sam Asghari has denied he will challenge the prenuptial agreement he has with Britney Spears after filing for divorce after 14 months of marriage.

In a statement posted online on Thursday, the model and fitness trainer acknowledged that asking for privacy “seems ridiculous” but asked that the media be “kind and thoughtful”.

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