AP National Entertainment News

By MICHAEL R. SISAK Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — The Voice of America can’t be silenced just yet. A federal judge on Friday halted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the eight-decade-old U.S. government-funded international news service, calling the move a “classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making.” Judge James Paul Oetken blocked

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — After mounting criticism following its initial response to the violent attack on Oscar-winning “No Other Land” co-director Hamdan Ballal, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences apologized Friday for not acknowledging Ballal by name. In a letter to academy members, academy CEO Bill Kramer

By CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Ozy Media co-founder Carlos Watson, a White House official said Friday, just before Watson was due to report to prison for a nearly 10-year sentence in a financial conspiracy case. Watson was convicted last year in a

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer President Donald Trump’s FCC commissioner said Friday he’s opening an investigation into the Walt Disney Co. and its ABC television network to see whether they are “promoting invidious forms of DEI discrimination.” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr announced the probe in a letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger on Friday.

By HILLEL ITALIE and AARON MORRISON Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” targets the Smithsonian Institution — which has, he contends, “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” Critics have pushed back, saying the order is an attempt to whitewash

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — It wasn’t the night punk broke, but it was close. Nearly 50 years ago, the Sex Pistols — then made up of vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock — performed at the 100 Club Punk Special in London,

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — King Charles III waved to well-wishers in central London on Friday as he headed for his country estate in western England a day after he was briefly hospitalized because of side effects from a scheduled cancer treatment. Charles canceled planned engagements on Thursday afternoon and Friday on

By The Associated Press Will Smith releasing his first new album in 20 years and “Mufasa: The Lion King,” Barry Jenkins’ photorealistic prequel to the 1994 animated classic, are some of this week’s new streaming entertainment releases are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer NEW YORK (AP) — By the time a film arrives on movie screens, its makers often strive to find ways to articulate how relevant it is, how it speaks to now. But that’s not so easy when your movie is about a handful of people off the coast of

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and MEAD GRUVER Associated Press The Sundance Film Festival is Boulder bound, leaving its home of four decades in Park City, Utah, for a new chapter in neighboring Colorado. Organizers announced their decision Thursday after a yearlong search in which numerous U.S. cities vied to host the nation’s premier independent film festival.

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — At Hong Kong’s Art Basel, painter Chow Chun-fai’s new works transport viewers back to the night in 1997 when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule, displayed in the very exhibition center where one era ended and another began. That transformation in the city’s post-colonial

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian Institution with an executive order that targets funding for programs that advance “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology,” the latest step in a broadside against culture he deems too liberal. Trump claimed there has

By JUAN A. LOZANO Associated Press HOUSTON (AP) — The woman convicted of killing Tejano music legend Selena Quintanilla-Pérez has been denied parole and will continue serving a life sentence for fatally shooting the rising young singer at a Texas motel in 1995, the state’s parole board announced Thursday. Yolanda Saldívar, 64, was up for

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press LONDON (AP) — King Charles III was briefly hospitalized for observation on Thursday after experiencing “temporary side effects’’ related to a scheduled cancer treatment, Buckingham Palace said in a statement. His engagements for Thursday afternoon and Friday were canceled. “His majesty has now returned to Clarence House and as a

By BETH HARRIS Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — Betty White is making her mark on the nation’s snail mail. The beloved actor of “The Golden Girls” fame was celebrated with a new U.S. Postal Service stamp at a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Los Angeles Zoo on Thursday. Fans that were crowded behind barricades cheered

By MATT O’BRIEN and SARAH PARVINI AP Technology Writers LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fans of Studio Ghibli, the famed Japanese animation studio behind “Spirited Away” and other beloved movies, were delighted this week when a new version of ChatGPT let them transform popular internet memes or personal photos into the distinct style of Ghibli founder

By PHILIP MARCELO Associated Press NEW YORK (AP) — A New York City rapper who joined President Donald Trump during a campaign rally last year has pleaded guilty to attempted murder and conspiracy charges after prosecutors say he used earnings from his music career to fuel gang violence in Brooklyn. Sheff G, whose legal name

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — The Sundance Film Festival announced Thursday that its new home will be Boulder, Colorado, starting in 2027, after spending 40 years in Park City, Utah. The decision ends a yearlong process in which numerous U.S. cities vied to host the prominent independent film festival, which has been a launching pad

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer After a yearlong search, the Sundance Film Festival announced Thursday that its new home will be Boulder, Colorado, keeping Sundance in the mountains but moving it out of Park City, the Utah ski town that had for decades provided the premier independent film gathering its picturesque snowy backdrop. Organizers

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest “Hunger Games” novel sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide during its first week, the biggest opening ever for Suzanne Collins’ blockbuster series. “Sunrise on the Reaping” sold 1.2 million copies in the U.S alone, more than double the pace of its immediate predecessor, “The Ballad of Songbirds and

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer An upcoming memoir by retired Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has a new title and release date. Kennedy’s book also will come out as a single publication, not in two volumes, as once planned. Simon & Schuster announced Thursday that “Life, Law, & Liberty” will be released Oct. 14,

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Prince Harry’s surprising resignation from an African charity he co-founded in memory of his mother, Princess Diana, came this week amid allegations of bullying, harassment, sexism and racism made by the organization’s chairperson against unnamed board members. Harry announced his resignation in a joint

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for The Associated Press asked a federal judge Thursday to reinstate the agency’s access to the White House press pool and other official events, saying the Trump administration’s ban is a fundamental attack on freedom of speech and should be overturned. The government insisted

By MARIA SHERMAN AP Music Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Ella Langley leads the nominees for the 2025 Academy of Country Music Awards with eight nominations. The first-time nominee’s nods include female artist of the year and female new artist. Notably, there are no nods for Beyoncé’s landmark “Cowboy Carter,” which won the Grammy for

By LOUISE DIXON Associated Press BERLIN (AP) — Jacob Elordi is gearing up for another busy year. He’ll soon be seen in Guillermo del Toro’s much-anticipated “Frankenstein” and is currently filming Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights.” But during a recent interview in Berlin, Elordi, complete with wild curly Heathcliff hair and sideburns, had his upcoming Australian

By SYLVIE CORBET Associated Press PARIS (AP) — Paris’ public prosecutor on Thursday requested that French actor Gérard Depardieu be found guilty and given a 18-month suspended prison sentence on the last day of a trial over accusations that he sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him. The actor, 76,

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Salman Rushdie has a collection of novellas and short stories coming out this fall, his first published fiction since being stabbed repeatedly and hospitalized in 2022. Random House announced Thursday that Rushdie’s “The Eleventh Hour,” billed by the publisher as “five interlinked stories and novellas

By LESLIE AMBRIZ Associated Press LOS ANGELES (AP) — When filmmaker Travis Gutiérrez Senger reflects on ASCO’s legacy, he quickly notes they were more than an art group; they created a movement, one with remarkable influence on Chicano art history. “That movement continues today, and it’s very expansive,” he says. “There’s a lot of books,

By DAVID BAUDER AP Media Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is returning to a federal courtroom on Thursday to ask a judge to restore its full access to presidential events, after the White House retaliated against the news outlet last month for not following President Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of

By ANDREW DALTON AP Entertainment Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Anthony Mackie’s Captain America, Sebastian Stan’s Bucky Barnes, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man and Tom Hiddleston’s Loki are all back in the Avengers ensemble, where they’ll be joined by several of cinema’s original X-Men. The five veterans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are in