Guilty Pleasues
By NewsPress Now
Ryan Gosling, Billie Eilish, Jon Batiste to perform at the Oscars
The Oscars just got an infusion of Kenergy.
Ryan Gosling will sing the pop power ballad “ I’m Just Ken “ at the show on March 10, the show’s producers announced Wednesday. Others set to perform their nominated original songs include Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell, Jon Batiste, Scott George and the Osage Singers and Becky G.
Gosling is also nominated for best supporting actor that evening. While in character as Ken in a promo for the show with Jimmy Kimmel, he shrugged that he’s not going to win. In fairness, even if it was a joke, he might not be wrong: His fellow nominee Robert Downey Jr. has been sweeping the season.
“I’m Just Ken,” written by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, still has a chance, however, even if the other “Barbie” song, Eilish and Finneas’s soulful “What Was I Made For” seems to be the clear awards favorite to date, having already won a Grammy. But the Ken ballad is also the one everyone has wanted to see on the Oscars telecast, which will mark Gosling’s first time performing at the show.
As Ken might shout, hiding behind a corner that he believes is somehow soundproof: “Sublime!”
The other nominated songs include Diane Warren’s “The Fire Inside,” from “Flamin’ Hot,” Jon Batiste and Dan Wilson’s “It Never Went Away” from “American Symphony,” and Scott George’s “Wahzhazhe” from “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
The 96th Oscars will be broadcast live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, March 10 with the show beginning at 7 p.m. EDT.
‘Euphoria’ star Hunter Schafer among protesters arrested
NEW YORK | Actor Hunter Schafer was among dozens of war protesters arrested at NBC’s headquarters in Manhattan during President Joe Biden’s appearance on “Late Night with Seth Myers” earlier this week, organizers confirmed Wednesday.
The 25-year-old “Euphoria” star was part of a group of more than 100 demonstrators who packed the lobby at 30 Rockefeller Plaza on Monday afternoon to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, the group Jewish Voice Peace said.
Schafer and other protesters wore black shirts reading, “Ceasefire Now” and “Not in Our Name” while chanting “Let Gaza Live” and other slogans as Biden’s motorcade pulled into the area, according to videos and photos of the event provided by Jewish Voice Peace.
Schafer, who like many protesters also wore a facemask, is seen at one point seated on the floor as others hold up a banner behind her reading, “Jews to Biden: Stop Arming Genocide.”
Representatives for Schafer didn’t respond to messages seeking comment Wednesday, but protest organizers said she and others are due in court sometime next month.
“We commend her commitment to Palestinian freedom and to a future of justice for everyone,” Sonya Meyerson-Knox, of Jewish Voice for Peace, said in an emailed statement confirming the arrest Wednesday.
The New York Police Department on Wednesday said 30 people were taken into custody and issued summonses for trespassing following the hour-and-a-half-long demonstration.
Biden, meanwhile, said Monday he was optimistic a ceasefire would be reached in the coming days.
“I hope by the end of the weekend,” he told reporters after taping the late show interview. “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. My hope is by next Monday we’ll have a ceasefire.”
Prince Harry loses
a court challenge over security detail
LONDON | Prince Harry’s fight for publicly funded protection was rejected Wednesday by a London judge who said the U.K. government didn’t act irrationally when it stripped him of security privileges after he quit working as a member of the royal family and moved to the United States. Harry plans to appeal the decision.
High Court Judge Peter Lane said the February 2020 decision to provide “bespoke” security to the Duke of Sussex on an as-needed basis wasn’t unlawful, irrational or unjustified.
“Insofar as the case-by-case approach may otherwise have caused difficulties, they have not been shown to be such as to overcome the high hurdle so as to render the decision-making irrational,” Lane wrote in the 51-page ruling that was censored throughout to protect identities and security arrangements for Harry and other public figures.
Harry said he planned to appeal the ruling and keep challenging the decision made by the group known by the acronym of its former name, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee, or RAVEC, a spokesperson said.
“The duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of RAVEC’s own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with RAVEC’s own written policy,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Harry claimed in the lawsuit that he and his family were endangered when visiting the U.K. because of hostility toward him and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, on social media and relentless hounding by news media.
His lawyer argued that RAVEC, which is made up of members of the royal family staff, the Metropolitan Police and several government offices, acted irrationally and failed to follow its own policies that should have required a risk analysis of the duke’s safety.
A government lawyer said Harry had been treated fairly and was still provided protection on some visits, citing a security detail that guarded him in June 2021 when he was chased by photographers after attending an event with seriously ill children at Kew Gardens in west London.
The committee considered the wider impact that the “tragic death” of his mother, the late Princess Diana, had on the nation, and in making its decision gave greater weight to the “likely significant public upset were a successful attack” on her son to happen, attorney James Eadie said.
The Home Office was pleased with the ruling and was considering its next steps, a spokesperson said. It didn’t say what those steps might be, but it could seek reimbursement of its legal fees for prevailing in court.
Harry, 39, the younger son of King Charles III, has broken ranks with royal family tradition in his willingness to go to court to challenge the government and take on tabloids in his effort to hold publishers accountable for hounding him throughout his life.
The lawsuit was one of six cases Harry has brought in the High Court, including three related to his security arrangements that have either failed or been dropped.
Harry failed to persuade a different judge last year that he should be able to privately pay for London’s police force to guard him when he comes to town. A judge denied that offer after a government lawyer argued that officers shouldn’t be used as “private bodyguards for the wealthy.”
He recently withdrew a libel case against the Daily Mail over an article that said he tried to hide his efforts to continue receiving government-funded security. Harry dropped the case after a judge ruled he was more likely to lose at trial, because the publisher could show that statements issued on his behalf were misleading and that the February 2022 article reflected an “honest opinion” and wasn’t libelous.
His other three cases have shown more promise in taking on newspaper publishers that he said hacked phones and used private investigators to snoop on his life for sensational news stories.
In his first case to go to trial, Harry won a big victory in December after a judge found phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror Group Newspapers.
He won a judgment in court and recently settled remaining allegations that were due to go to trial. While the payout was undisclosed, he was to be reimbursed for all his legal fees and was due to receive an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000).
The publishers of The Sun and Daily Mail face trials on similar allegations.
While the security lawsuit was against the Home Office, which oversees U.K. national security, it also marked a challenge to palace insiders, who are members of the committee now known as the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures.
Harry said he hadn’t initially been told the composition of the panel and only later learned it included royal family staff.
He argued that Edward Young, the assistant private secretary to the late Queen Elizabeth II, shouldn’t have been on the committee because of “significant tensions” between the two men.
The government argued that any conflict between Harry and royal staff was irrelevant and the committee was entitled to its decision, because he had relinquished his role as a working member of the family.
Harry has been estranged with members of his family, including his older brother, Prince William, heir to the throne. Any rift was further exacerbated by his 2023 memoir “Spare,” which recounted sibling grievances including a time he said his brother ripped his necklace and knocked him onto a dog bowl.
Harry said in the book that the British media vilified him and Meghan compared to the favorable treatment given to William and Kate, Prince and Princess of Wales. He accused palace officials of lying to protect his elder brother.
When Harry flew home earlier this month for a brief visit with his father, following the king’s cancer diagnosis, he didn’t meet up with his brother. In an interview with Good Morning America in Canada a week later, he hinted that illness could help reunite his family.
Europe’s oldest monarch remains hospitalized
LANGKAWI, Malaysia | King Harald V of Norway remained hospitalized with an infection on Malaysia’s northern resort island of Langkawi on Wednesday as officials said that his condition was improving.
Harald, Europe’s oldest monarch at age 87, became ill while he was on vacation. His son, Crown Prince Haakon, said in Norway that his father “is doing better now. Now he needs some rest, so it looks like things are going better.”
In a brief statement, the royal household said “the king’s personal physician is in Langkawi and confirms that the king is improving from his infection.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said that “we get worried when our king gets ill and is admitted to hospital, whether in Norway or abroad.”
“We should do what we can to contribute to getting the king home as quickly as possible and as healthy as possible,” he told Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
Malaysian national news agency Bernama said that Harald was undergoing treatment at the Sultanah Maliha Hospital in Langkawi. The report cited unnamed sources as saying he was staying in the hospital’s Royal Suite.
The hospital declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press. Malaysia’s health ministry told the media to wait for a possible statement.
“The king was in good spirits,” the heir to the throne said, adding that he had spoken with his parents over the phone on Wednesday.
“It is clear that his age means that it is good to treat this properly. They are very good at the hospital,” Haakon told Norwegian reporters. “We don’t know when he will come home. We will have to decide on that later.” The palace said that “no decision has been made regarding his return home.”
On Tuesday, the royal palace in Oslo said that the king was hospitalized with an infection, but didn’t provide further details. The palace said that it may send a statement out later Wednesday.
Two days before his birthday last week, Norwegian news agency NTB said that the king would be undertaking a private trip abroad together with his wife Queen Sonja, without specifying the destination or dates.
The monarch, who has been seen using crutches in recent years, has been repeatedly ill in recent months, raising concern about the head of state’s health. In January, the palace said he was on sick leave until Feb. 2 because of a respiratory infection.
In December, he was admitted to a hospital with an infection and was treated with intravenous antibiotics. He also was hospitalized last August with a fever.
Still, Harald has repeatedly said he has no plans to abdicate, unlike his second cousin Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, who stunned Danes when she announced in a New Year’s speech that she was stepping down. Each time the king was reported ill, the 50-year-old Haakon has taken over his duties in line with protocol.
The palace in Oslo told NTB said there were no plans to alter a planned trip by Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit on Wednesday and Thursday to southern Norway.
According to the royal house’s calendar, Harald’s first official task after the vacation is scheduled for March 8, when he and Haakon are due to preside over the state council — a monthly meeting with the government — at the royal palace in Oslo. At those meetings, new legislation is sanctioned by the monarch and also signed by the prime minister, after which it takes effect.
On Jan. 23, Harald said that he stood by the oath he made when he ascended the throne in 1991.
“I maintain what I have said all the time. It lasts for life,” he said.
—From AP reports
—From AP reports
