CNN founder Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer, dies at age 87

NEW YORK (AP) — Ted Turner, a brash television pioneer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the American West and transformed the news business by launching CNN and introducing the 24-hour cable news cycle, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Turner died surrounded by his family, according to Turner Enterprises, the company that oversees his vast business interests.

Turner owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities. He married three women — most famously actor Jane Fonda — and earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.”

He once bragged: “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.”

These are the finalists for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award

TORONTO - "Endling" author Maria Reva and "Small Ceremonies" writer Kyle Edwards are among the finalists for this year's Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

Last year, Reva took home the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for her novel about the Ukrainian bride business and Russia's invasion of that country, and Edwards won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction for his book about a team of Indigenous hockey players from north-end Winnipeg.

Also in the running for the $60,000 award, now in its 50th year, is Kate Cayley for "Property," which takes place over the course of a single day in a gentrifying Toronto neighbourhood.

Jon Claytor is a finalist for his graphic novel "Nowhere," about a 12-year-old boy who moves to a small town where zombies and monsters are commonplace.

In a low period for comedy films, these were the best of the last decade

NEW YORK (AP) — The last decade has not been good for big-screen comedies. Hollywood studios nearly stopped making them. Horror became the in vogue genre. Laughs were out. Good comedies have kept being made, of course — it's just taken a little more effort to find them.

This month marks the 10th anniversary of “The Nice Guys,” Shane Black's 2016 crime caper with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. No, it's not exactly the 50th anniversary of “Jaws.” But for a movie era where comedies went out of style, it's a moment worth marking.

In the past decade, comedies have largely become the stuff of cult: little seen at release but rediscovered on streaming or elsewhere. “The Nice Guys” flopped at the box office, but its afterlife is long.

So here are our picks for the best of the last 10 years, post-"Nice Guys.” We're leaving out the darker satires (“Parasite”), the acerbic dramas (“The Holdovers”) and the sequels that exist in their own glorious category entirely (“Paddington 2").

Ten years later, the cult of ‘The Nice Guys’ keeps growing

NEW YORK (AP) — When “The Nice Guys” debuted 10 years ago, the writing was on the wall for the big-screen comedy. It came out sandwiched between “Captain America: Civil War” and “X-Men: Apocalypse.” It opened against “Angry Birds.” The cartoon birds, Ryan Gosling has lamented, “just destroyed us.”

“They’re just so angry,” Gosling once sighed.

And yet, marking its upcoming 10th anniversary this month, “The Nice Guys” has established itself as one of the most beloved comedies of the last decade — a decade in which Hollywood studios largely left the genre for dead. A 1970s-set comic noir directed and co-written by Shane Black, “The Nice Guys” paired Gosling and Russell Crowe as private eyes in a Los Angeles crime caper that, a decade later, keeps getting better.

“There’s a lot of interest in ‘The Nice Guys’ today that wasn’t there when it opened. And the box office will attest to that,” Black deadpanned in a recent interview. “But people find these things. I think there’s kind of a joy of finding a movie on streaming or rental and then suddenly kind of realizing: How did I miss this? And ‘The Nice Guys’ was easy to miss.”

Ashley McBryde fell off the horse and went into the ‘Wild.’ Her new album is her most personal yet

NEW YORK (AP) — A few years ago, Ashley McBryde fell off the horse.

“That's not a figure of speech, sadly,” the country star told The Associated Press. “I was really, really badly hurt, and it was a bad enough injury that there was a chance that I wouldn’t have been able to perform ever again.”

It was 2021. She was riding in Montana, and fell, landing on her head. The accident — so severe that she ended up in an emergency room — resulted in a concussion and stitches to her scalp. At the time, she couldn't walk without assistance.

In the years since, McBryde thought about all of the songs she and her band rip through on stage but hadn't yet committed to record. “What if I keep letting them not be on records? What if something had happened and now somebody never hears “Water in the River”? Somebody never hears “Rattlesnake Preacher.” Somebody never hears “Creosote” because I let myself be discouraged in this way or that way from putting those on the record?”

Chile’s Raul Zurita to receive lifetime recognition award at Griffin Poetry Prize

TORONTO - Chilean poet Raul Zurita will receive the lifetime recognition award at this year's Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony.

Zurita is hailed as one of Latin America's most celebrated poets, who used his art as a form of political resistance during Chile's 17-year military dictatorship.

The lifetime recognition award comes with a purse of $25,000.

He will attend the ceremony and poetry readings at Toronto's Koerner Hall next month along with his translator Anna Deeny Morales.

Klimt ceiling paintings on display in Vienna theater’s daily scaffolding tours

VIENNA (AP) — For more than a century, only conservators and experts could catch a close-up glimpse of early works by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt in Vienna, but Klimt fans are now getting that opportunity on daily guided tours high up on scaffolding.

The 10 oil paintings, which are on the 18-meter-high (60-foot-high) ceilings of the renowned Burgtheater in Austria’s capital, are being restored because of water damage.

“The special thing about Klimt for me at least is that we only know about his later works,” said Hannes Höllinger, 60, who went on one of the recent Klimt tours and said it “was very interesting to see that already at age 24 he made these very beautiful paintings which I myself had not seen before.”

Klimt, famed for his bold, daring art nouveau paintings, was a key figure in artistic modernism at the start of the 20th century. His work has fetched some of the highest prices for any artist. Among his most famous paintings is “The Kiss” from 1907-1908, which shows a couple in a passionate embrace adorned with elaborate patterns and gold. The painting is on display at Vienna's Belvedere Museum.

Met gala guests deliver works of art on the human form

New York (AP) — Whether dressed in a jewel-encrusted skeletal form, sculpted breast plates or anatomy-evoking trompe l’oeil, Met Gala guests physically evoked the theme “fashion is art” Monday evening as they masterfully pulled from a kaleidoscope of references to embody living works of art.

“Everyone who attended the Met Gala this year really leaned into fashion is art, using your body as a canvas, and that really came across in some of the best-dressed looks of the night,” said Kevin Huynh, fashion director of InStyle.

Fashionable A-listers gave into the theme and had fun with it. First-time Met Gala attendees included actors Chase Infiniti and Hudson Williams, as well as Olympian Alysa Liu, all of whom commanded the carpet in dramatic ensembles. Infiniti, for example, donned an enchanting Thom Browne sequined gown using trompe l’oeil to depict the female form.

Meanwhile, Met Gala mega stars and repeat attendees rose to the occasion: Vogue red-carpet correspondent Emma Chamberlain playfully dressed in a dramatic long-sleeved gown that appeared dipped in a rainbow of color from indigo to the brightest yellow-gold. And after 10 years of skipping the Gala, Beyoncé arrived to reclaim her throne, wearing a glittering crown and radiant Olivier Rousteing silver gown designed in the shape of a skeleton.

Saskatchewan to use massive postcard mail-out to gauge citizens on internet controls

REGINA - The Saskatchewan government is promising a mass mail-out of postcards to gauge citizen opinions on whether to put fences around the internet.

Premier Scott Moe said the survey will hear from residents about a possible social media ban or limits for those under the age of 16.

The postcards ask whether there should be restrictions or some flexibility for parents to provide consent, he said Tuesday.

They also ask whether any social media platforms should be exempt from limits.

Mark Zuckerberg ‘personally authorized’ Meta’s copyright infringement, publishers allege

NEW YORK (AP) — Five publishing houses and author Scott Turow sued Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, alleging the company illegally used millions of copyrighted works to train its AI language system Llama.

The class action lawsuit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, accuses the tech giant of copyright infringement and opens up a new front in the ongoing battle between the book community and developers of AI.

The plaintiffs allege that Zuckerberg and Meta “followed their well-known motto ‘move fast and break things’" by illegally drawing upon a massive trove of books and journal articles for Llama.

“Defendants reproduced and distributed millions of copyrighted works without permission, without providing any compensation to authors or publishers, and with full knowledge that their conduct violated copyright law,” the complaint reads in part. “Zuckerberg himself personally authorized and actively encouraged the infringement."

The Venice Biennale previews in chaos as war follows art into the world’s oldest exhibition

VENICE, Italy (AP) — The Venice Biennale previewed its 61st and most chaotic edition ever on Tuesday, just days after the unprecedented resignation of its jury over the participation of Israel and Russia undermined the very structure of the world’s oldest contemporary art exhibition.

Tensions were evident as Ukrainian artists stood by a truck that had brought a statue of an origami deer from the war-ravaged eastern front to the Biennale's storied Giardini. Just meters (yards) away, a handful of participants in the Russian Pavilion danced to house music played by an Argentine DJ.

At the same time, a group of Palestinians marched through the Giardini wearing the names of artists who have been killed in Gaza. More protests were expected as the preview week continued.

Chaos puts national pavilions in the spotlight

Manitoba commits $15 million to revamp the Pantages Playhouse Theatre

WINNIPEG - A historic theatre in Winnipeg that has played host to Charlie Chaplin, Harry Houdini and Ella Fitzgerald but later shuttered is one step closer to raising the curtains again. 

The Manitoba government is putting up $15 million to help restore the Pantages Playhouse Theatre, which closed its doors in 2018 due to aging infrastructure and costly renovations. 

The century-old building was a key venue during the vaudeville era, and in later years hosted concerts, graduation ceremonies and dance recitals. It was declared a national historic site in 1989. 

"This facility has served our community and now we're so happy that future generations of Manitobans will be able to learn about what makes life worth living in this part of the world by attending events here and, of course, connecting with arts and culture," Premier Wab Kinew said at an announcement on Tuesday. 

France reckons with Nazi-looted art in a new Paris museum gallery

PARIS (AP) — The painting shows a girl in a bonnet and her younger brother staring across the Normandy coast toward an unknown horizon.

The artwork itself faced an unknown future in 1942, when it was acquired in Paris for Adolf Hitler, one of countless works swept up in the Nazi plunder of European Jews.

On Tuesday, it went on permanent display in a new room at the city's Musée d’Orsay as part of France’s long-delayed reckoning with Nazi-era looting. The gallery is the first in the museum's history given over to the orphaned masterpieces of the Nazi era.

It is also the first such display in France where the paintings are hung so visitors can read the backs. The stamps, labels and inventory marks map how each piece of art moved from private homes into Nazi hands.

Céline Dion jukebox musical among Tony nominees with Canadian connections

To hear Canadian producer Chad Rogers tell it, the Tony-nominated musical "Titanique" almost didn't make it to Broadway. 

The show, a parody of James Cameron's 1997 classic "Titanic" featuring the music of Céline Dion — and a portrayal of Dion herself — had a hit turn off-Broadway, a successful tour and made waves on the West End.

But it hadn't made it to the Great White Way — until, says Rogers, "a weird set of circumstances emerged" last year.