Laughing — and screening — all the way to 2026

There is abundant comedy available to ease into the formal new year and abundant new and returning television in the month to follow to keep your various screens crackling. Press Play now.

Violinist undeterred by Vancouver orchestra’s legal threat over sexual assault claim

VANCOUVER - A Vancouver violinist who was threatened with legal action by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after breaking a non-disclosure agreement and speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by one of its former senior musicians says she won't be intimidated into silence.

Esther Hwang says the legal demand by her ex-employer instead is encouraging her to continue sharing her story.

Hwang says she was sexually harassed and then raped by the former fellow member of the orchestra in 2017 and 2018, and in 2019 she received a payment of $7,100 in a settlement with the orchestra that also included the NDA and the removal of the alleged attacker.

She says she was then subject to retaliation by the orchestra by having her playing time as a violin extra cut and then ended, which the orchestra denies by citing an investigation conducted by a law firm this year.

Hollywood stars Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo recognized in New Year’s honor’s list

LONDON (AP) — Britons ranging from Hollywood stars Idris Elba and Cynthia Erivo to a 102-year-old judo instructor have been named in King Charles III’s New Year’s honors list, an annual tradition that recognizes people for their contributions to U.K. public life.

Elba, who starred as a drug dealer in “The Wire” and the president of the United States in “A House of Dynamite,” was knighted for his services to young people after he and his wife, Sabrina, founded the Elba Hope Foundation to target issues such as knife crime, education and poverty.

The actor accepted the honor on behalf of the young people served by the charity.

“I hope we can do more to draw attention to the importance of sustained, practical support for young people and to the responsibility we all share to help them find an alternative to violence,” Elba said.

Roses in the rain? New Year’s Day parade in Pasadena gets wet forecast. Bundle up for NYC ball drop

For the first time in 20 years, rain is expected to intrude on the Rose Parade in Southern California, a venerable New Year's Day event that attracts thousands of spectators and is watched by millions more on TV.

Storms caused Christmas week flooding, mudslides and other miseries across the region. Now comes a 100% chance of rain Thursday in Pasadena, the National Weather Service said.

“We try not to say that word around here,” joked Candy Carlson, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, the organization behind the 137th Rose Parade, which precedes the Rose Bowl College Football Playoff game.

Arctic air is meanwhile expected to blanket much of the eastern two-thirds of the country, the weather service said.

Kennedy Center renaming prompts a new round of cancellations

The Kennedy Center is ending the year with a new round of artists saying they are canceling scheduled performances after President Donald Trump's name was added to the facility, prompting the institution's president to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

The Cookers, a jazz supergroup that has performed together for nearly two decades, announced their withdrawal from “A Jazz New Year’s Eve” on their website, saying the “decision has come together very quickly” and acknowledging frustration from those who may have planned to attend.

Doug Varone and Dancers, a dance group based in New York, said in an Instagram post late Monday they would pull out of a performance slated for April, saying they “can no longer permit ourselves nor ask our audiences to step inside this once great institution.”

Those moves come after musician Chuck Redd canceled a Christmas Eve performance last week.

Movie Review: ‘The Plague’ dives into a sink-or-swim water polo camp

The undercurrents of adolescent cruelty churn queasily in Charlie Polinger’s stylish first feature, “The Plague.”

The title of Polinger’s film might bring to mind Stephen King or recent global history, but “The Plague” is set entirely around the clear, chlorinated pools and shadowy hallways of a water polo camp, circa 2003. There, 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), a scrawny and sensitive kid, arrives for the second session. That’s a key detail: Is there any greater horror than joining a summer camp where the friend groups are already established?

But there is really only one group: a lewd and boisterous lot led by a smirking, cocksure kid named Jake (Kayo Martin). And there is one outcast: Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), the kind of 12-year-old who’s obviously smart but whose awkward, introverted manner and fondness for things such as magic tricks and “Les Miserables” inevitably make him an outsider. He also is covered in acne and has rashes across his back. Jake and the rest all say he has the plague. “No cure for him,” Jake tells Ben.

These are the troubled coming-of-age waters that “The Plague” swims in. From the start, it’s clear that Polinger, who also wrote the film, has a keen eye for both darkly gleaming surfaces and for the roiling torments that lurk below. “The Plague” is by no means charting new ground when it comes to adolescent torments; this is a movie working with very recognizable preteen types. But Polinger’s talent for crafting ominous, murky atmospheres and perceptive adolescent dynamics make “The Plague” an auspicious debut feature.

‘We’re anything but risky’: Simu Liu laments decline of Asian roles in Hollywood

Even after achieving Marvel-level stardom, Simu Liu says he's grown frustrated with Hollywood and his career.

The Canadian actor argues the industry is once again treating Asian-led projects as a gamble, despite years of box-office success proving otherwise.

"I feel like because of who I am and because of the faces that we have, we're inherently seen as more risky, even though that's not the case," Liu says while promoting his new show "The Copenhagen Test."

He rattles off a list of recent Asian-centred projects: "Crazy Rich Asians," "Minari," "The Farewell," "Past Lives," "Everything Everywhere All at Once" — all critical or commercial successes, many wildly profitable.

Nézet-Séguin’s path to the Vienna New Year’s concert began when he replaced banned conductor in 2022

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s path to the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year’s Day concert started when he replaced a banned Russian conductor at New York's Carnegie Hall in 2022 with the help of a pianist who traveled trans-Atlantic after practicing all night in a Berlin hotel bar.

Just four days before Valery Gergiev was to lead the famed Austrian orchestra on tour at Carnegie, Nézet-Séguin was walking into the hall to lead his Philadelphia Orchestra when he noticed a wall poster for Vienna's performance.

“This looks like a Yannick program,” he remembers thinking to himself. “The rest is history indeed.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 caused the orchestra to replace Gergiev and pianist Denis Matsuev, both supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For taking over on that short notice, Nézet-Séguin was rewarded with leading Thursday's concert of waltzes, to be televised around the world to an audience of millions.

Brigitte Bardot’s funeral will be held next week in French Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez

PARIS (AP) — The funeral for Brigitte Bardot will be held next week in Saint-Tropez, the glamorous French Riviera resort she helped make famous and where she lived for more than a half-century, local authorities said.

The cinema star and animal rights activist died Sunday at the age of 91 at her home in southern France.

A ceremony is scheduled on Jan. 7 at the Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Catholic Church and will be broadcast on two large screens set up at the port and on the Place des Lices central square, Saint-Tropez town hall said in a statement Monday.

The burial will then take place “in the strictest privacy” at a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, according to the statement. The ceremony will be followed by a public homage for fans at a nearby site.

France grants citizenship to George and Amal Clooney and their twins Ella and Alexander

PARIS (AP) — Call them Monsieur and Madame Clooney.

France’s government says that George Clooney, his wife Amal and their twins Ella and Alexander have been awarded French citizenship.

The naturalizations of the Kentucky-born star of the “Ocean's” series of heist movies and his family were announced last weekend in the Journal Officiel, where French government decrees are published.

The government notice indicated that human rights lawyer Amal Clooney was naturalized under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin. It also noted that George Clooney's middle name is Timothy.

Haircut, hornet and luggage woes triggered B.C.’s most unusual 911 calls in 2025

VANCOUVER - British Columbia's emergency line responder has released a list of the most unusual 911 calls this year, topped by a caller upset that their luggage exceeded flight carry-on limits, and another complaining that a store wouldn't accept the return of an air-fryer.

E-Comm handles 99 per cent of 911 calls in B.C., accounting for about two million calls a year.

It says while most callers use 911 responsibly, some call for non-emergency reasons that do not require police, firefighters or paramedics and unnecessarily tie up resources.

E-Comm says its list of unusual calls also includes someone calling because their dishwasher broke, a person who wanted help removing a hornet from their apartment and someone unhappy with a haircut.

Rain could be an unwelcome entry at the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. Bundle up for NYC ball drop

For the first time in 20 years, rain could be an intruder at the Rose Parade in Southern California, a venerable New Year's Day event that attracts thousands of spectators and is watched by millions more on TV.

Storms caused Christmas week flooding, mudslides and other miseries across the region. Now comes a 90% chance of rain Thursday in Pasadena, according to the National Weather Service.

“We try not to say that word around here,” joked Candy Carlson, a spokesperson for the Pasadena Tournament of Roses, the organization behind the 137th Rose Parade, which precedes the Rose Bowl College Football Playoff game.

On New Year's Eve in New York City, forecasters are predicting temperatures in the low 30s, which is not unusual, when the ball drops in Times Square. Light rain is possible in Las Vegas, where several casinos will be shooting fireworks from rooftops.

Movie Review: Daisy Ridley holds onto hope in the zombie thriller ‘We Bury the Dead’

Movies that begin with a wedding often don’t bode well for the couple. Starting with the so-called happy ending can only really guarantee a reversal of fortune. In the case of “We Bury the Dead,” in theaters Friday, something cosmically catastrophic is coming: the accidental detonation of an experimental weapon that instantly wipes out some 500,000 people in Tasmania, including Ava’s (Daisy Ridley) husband Mitch (Matt Whelan). Perhaps they should have toasted to something other than Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare).”

Grief manifests for everyone in its own way and the only thing Ava can think to do is board a plane and search for Mitch. It’s almost certain he’s dead. In fact, the resort where he was staying on a work trip is south of an area that is still burning — the humanitarian cleanup mission she joins isn’t allowed to go there. There’s a little extra complication too: Some of the dead have been “coming back.” The helpers are told not to worry, but also not to engage. Simply light a flare and someone in the military will be there quickly to kill them. Again.

If the promise of zombies might send some hightailing back across the ocean, Ava is only emboldened by hope. What if Mitch is one of the reanimated? What could it mean? Why do some come back and not others? What if he can be saved? If it seems like a somewhat delusional dream, especially once she starts getting glimpses of some of the zombie specimens with their bloodcurdling teeth grinding and generally unpleasant demeanor, just wait: There’s at least one person she’ll meet who has an even crazier plan.

Ava works dutifully for a bit, removing bodies from wherever they’ve fallen. It’s disgusting, thankless work full of smells, bodily fluids and the occasional jump scare. Her partner, Clay (Brenton Thwaites), seems mostly unbothered by it all. With his long hair and '70s dropout mustache, he’s a product of a different era despite his young age, more interested in the leftover cocaine and aspirational cars and motorcycles they encounter along the way than any bigger purpose. Eventually, Ava decides to just ask him to help her, and off they go into the forbidden zone.