Coalition calls on minister to withdraw criticism of museum’s Palestinian exhibit

OTTAWA - A coalition of civil society groups is pushing back against criticism by a federal cabinet minister and Jewish organizations of a museum exhibit on Palestinian displacement.

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights, a federal Crown corporation in Winnipeg, has faced a torrent of criticism over its exhibit on the Nakba, the forced displacement of about 750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Culture Minister Marc Miller has said the museum failed by not naming Hamas in the exhibit as a terrorist organization that targets Jews, while Jewish groups say the exhibit portrays only one side of a complex history.

Dozens of groups are set to issue a joint statement today voicing support for the museum and pushing back against what they call political interference in its operations.

Bookman brings roving kiosk of literary treasures to fringe

Every superhero has a true identity: Superman is Clark Kent, Captain Canuck is Tom Evans and Wonder Woman is Diana Prince.

In Winnipeg — on university campuses, at craft markets and at flea markets — the Bookman is John Thompson.

Each July since the mid-1990s, the denim-clad seller has peddled perused pages to fringe festival goers in the Exchange District, setting up his bookshop — a movable feast of literary diversion — on the periphery of Old Market Square. Inside his shelved kiosk, the Bookman offers a broad selection that encourages expansive search and sudden summertime discovery. He takes credit, debit and cash.

While the annual theatre festival’s core curriculum is centred on its paperback program — containing snapshots from 160 indoor theatre productions — fringe veterans understand the value of having other reading options available in their back pocket for prolonged sidewalk waits.

Kaylee Hottle, deaf ‘Godzilla’ actor, killed in car crash at 18

Kaylee Hottle, a deaf actor best known for her starring role in two “Godzilla” films, died in a car crash in Maryland early Tuesday morning, the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said. She was 18.

Hottle was one of two passengers in the car when it went off the road and hit a culvert in Ijamsville before 3 a.m. The driver was taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the other passenger declined medical treatment, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. Excessive speed is believed to be a factor in the crash, which is under investigation, the sheriff's office said.

Hottle was a native signer of American Sign Language, and her family members are also deaf. Her parents, Joshua and Ketsi Hottle, shared emotional video statements about her death on social media sites.

“Kaylee’s mom and four siblings are crushed,” her father said in ASL in a post from an airport. “They are together at home, grieving. I am on my way to Maryland to bring Kaylee’s body back home.”

NHL to produce and distribute local game telecasts for Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, Wild and Blues

The Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes are one of four teams that will have their game telecasts produced and distributed by the NHL for the upcoming season.

The league announced Tuesday that the Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues will also have local broadcasts done by NHL Productions when the season begins in late September.

The NHL branching out into centralized production of local telecasts is another part of the evolution and challenges faced by teams with the demise of regional sports networks. Seven franchises had agreements last season with Main Street Sports, including the aforementioned four teams. Main Street operated 15 regional channels under the FanDuel Sports Network brand and went out of business at the conclusion of this past season.

“I think we’ve been looking at this day for a long time. If something happened in the middle of last season, we would’ve been quickly able to mobilize and not miss a beat,” said Steve Mayer, the NHL's president of events and content. “In some ways, this is a lot of time from the end of one season to the beginning of the next in terms of being able to do what we ultimately want to make it a great production.”

Movie Review: Pickleball is the star of the sports comedy ‘The Dink’

It’s the tennis establishment versus pickleball enthusiasts at an uptight club in “The Dink,” a kind of spiritual descendant of “Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story.” The story itself is very by the books: A once promising tennis prodigy learns to get over himself and his disdain for the “lesser sport.”

In one version of the world it could have been “The Cutting Edge.” But “The Dink” chose the grounded, goofy route, with memorably eccentric characters and a few high profile cameos that add up to an enjoyable watch.

Jake Johnson plays the has been, Dusty, whose domineering father, Chuck (Ed Harris) had groomed him for tennis stardom since he was born. He called his son “The Hammer” long before he’d even told him his real name, we’re told in an amusing introduction. But as with so many sports prodigies, Dusty flamed out early (in a match against a young Andy Roddick, no less). Now he teaches tennis lessons to kids at his dad’s club and bores them with stories of his glory days. He has but one remaining friend: PJ, an earnest sycophant and kindhearted weirdo played by Australian comedian Aaron Chen.

Dusty and his father hate pickleball with a passion, so when Dusty’s doctor (a brief, funny appearance by Ben Stiller, who also produced) recommends it as rehab for a wrist injury, it’s a sentence worse than death. Naturally, he’ll eventually change his tune when he starts playing with a group of older women, including Candace (Mary Steenburgen), Gail (Cleo King) and Judy (the late Lynne Marie Stewart).

Tariffs threaten Canadian retailers and their U.S. sales — again

TORONTO - When customers in the United States place orders with Toronto jewelry company Suetables, Sue Henderson does something unconventional for a business owner: she asks them if they're really sure they want to make the purchase.

Henderson double checks because on-and-off again tariffs have driven up fees on products crossing the border. 

"Just to give you an example, someone would order a $200 pair of earrings and click through saying yes, I'll pay the tariffs, yes, I'll pay the tariffs, yes, I'll pay the tariffs, but then the order would arrive to the concierge and you've got a $70 tariff on a $200 pair of earrings," Henderson said.

"They'd say, 'Well, I don't want them.'"

Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion copyright settlement in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.

District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.

About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.

Plaintiff attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”

Appeals court rejects Biden’s bid to block release of recordings of ghostwriter interviews

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court has rejected a request by Joe Biden to block the release of audio recordings and transcripts of his interviews with a memoir ghostwriter before he was elected president.

A divided three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit suspended its decision until Aug. 3 to allow more time for Biden to consider another appeal.

The panel's 2-1 ruling late Monday found there is a “substantial” public interest in disclosing the material that Biden wants to keep under wraps. Redactions to the recordings would help protect Biden's privacy, the majority noted.

“We conclude that any remaining incursion on personal privacy from disclosure of the now-redacted materials likely does not outweigh the public interest in disclosure,” the ruling says.

TV lineup promises pugilism, pickleball and partying

A look ahead to They Fight, The Dink, 72 Hours, Furious, The Devil’s Mouth.

Detective says D4vd ordered chain saws, body bags in hearing to decide if singer should go to trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer D4vd ordered a body bag, chain saws, an inflatable pool and a shovel online in the days after the death of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a homicide detective testified Tuesday.

Prosecutors say D4vd, a 21-year-old whose legal name is David Burke, used the items to dismember Rivas Hernandez's body after he had stabbed her to death for threatening to reveal their relationship and ruin a music career that one witness said had brought in more than $10 million in just a couple of years.

On the first day of a hearing where a judge will decide if there's enough evidence to go to trial, the homicide detective, Joshua Byers, testified that Burke had used the alias Trayvion Davis for the orders, but used his own cards to buy them and had them delivered to his Hollywood home.

Burke's lawyers have said he did not cause Rivas Hernandez's death, and he has pleaded not guilty to murder, continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and unlawful mutilation of human remains.

Luke Skywalker’s ‘Empire Strikes Back’ lightsaber with severed hand attached auctioned for $3.75M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A lightsaber with Luke Skywalker's severed hand from “The Empire Strikes Back” has sold for $3.75 million at auction.

Heritage Auctions announced the results of its Hollywood & Entertainment Signature Auction on Monday.

The lightsaber, used onscreen by Mark Hamill in the climactic Cloud City fight where Darth Vader declares “I am your father” in the 1980 “Star Wars” sequel, included a severed hand effects rig used for when Vader sliced it off.

Heritage said the price was the highest ever fetched for a prop used in a “Star Wars” film.