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‘Sundown’ folk singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot dies at 84

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

TORONTO (AP) — Gordon Lightfoot, the folk singer-songwriter known for “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” and for songs that told tales of Canadian identity, died Monday. He was 84.Representative Victoria Lord said the musician died at a Toronto hospital. His cause of death was not immediately available.One of the most renowned voices to emerge from Toronto’s Yorkville folk club scene in the 1960s, Lightfoot recorded 20 studio albums and penned hundreds of songs, including “Carefree Highway,” “Early Morning Rain” and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”In the 1970s, Lightfoot garnered five Grammy nominations, three platinum records and nine gold records for albums and singles. He performed in well over 1,500 concerts and recorded 500 songs.He toured late into his life. Just last month he canceled upcoming U.S. and Canadian shows, citing health issues.“We have lost one of our greatest singer-songwriters,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. “Gordon Lightfoot captured our co...

Bride killed leaving wedding reception when speeding DUI driver slams golf cart

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

FOLLY BEACH, S.C. — A bride leaving her wedding reception was killed when a woman driving under the influence and well over twice the speed limit slammed into the back of a golf cart on a South Carolina beach road, authorities said.Data retrieved from Jamie Lee Komoroski’s rental car indicated she was driving 65 mph and only briefly hit the brakes before she hit the golf cart around 10 p.m. Friday on Folly Beach, investigators said.The speed limit on the island near Charleston is 25 mph (40 kph).Samantha Miller, 34, of Charlotte, North Carolina, died in the wreck, according to the Charleston County Coroner’s Office.Miller had just got married hours earlier, Folly Beach Public Safety Department Director Andrew Gilreath said.Three others in the golf cart including the groom were injured. Gilreath said the golf cart had lights and was legal to drive at night.The groom’s mother created an online fund to pay for her daughter-in-law’s funeral and her son’s medical bills. It included a pho...

Ex-officer Thao convicted of aiding George Floyd’s killing

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A former Minneapolis police officer who held back bystanders while his colleagues restrained a dying George Floyd has been convicted of aiding and abetting manslaughter.Tou Thao, who already had been convicted in federal court of violating Floyd’s civil rights, was last of the four former officers facing judgment in state court in Floyd’s killing. He rejected a plea agreement and, instead of going to trial, let Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill decide the verdict based on written filings by each side and evidence presented in previous cases. His 177-page ruling, filed Monday night, was released Tuesday.“Thao’s actions were not authorized by law. … There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote.Prosecutors argued in their filings in January that Thao “acted without courage and displaye...

Select list of nominees for 2023 Tony Awards

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Select nominations for the 2022 Tony Awards, announced Tuesday.Best Musical: “& Juliet,” “Kimberly Akimbo,” “New York, New York,” “Shucked,” “Some Like It Hot.”Best Play: “Ain’t No Mo,’” “Between Riverside and Crazy,” “Cost of Living,” “Fat Ham,” “Leopoldstadt.”Best Revival of a Play: “August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson,” “A Doll’s House,” “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,” “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog.”Best Revival of a Musical: “Into the Woods,” “Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot,” “Parade,” “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog;” Corey Hawkins, “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog;” Sean Hayes, “Good Night, Oscar;” Stephen McKinley Henderson, “Between Riverside and Crazy;” Wendell Pierce, “Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.”Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play: Jessica Chastain, “A Doll’s Hou...

FIFA warns Europe of Women’s World Cup broadcast blackout

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

GENEVA (AP) — Publicly criticizing broadcasters for offering too little to screen the Women’s World Cup has not worked out yet for FIFA president Gianni Infantino, who is now threatening a blackout in major European markets.A public standoff that started last October was intensified by Infantino late Monday when he warned five key countries – England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain – in a statement less than three months before the tournament starts in Australia and New Zealand.“To be very clear, it is our moral and legal obligation not to undersell the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” Infantino said of the July 20-Aug. 20 tournament. “Therefore, should the offers continue not to be fair (towards women and women’s football), we will be forced not to broadcast the FIFA Women’s World Cup into the ‘Big 5’ European countries,” he said.Europe is FIFA’s most lucrative broadcast market with $1.06 billion in broadcast revenue for the 2019-22 commercial cycle, mostly tied to the men’s Wor...

Illinois highway reopens after dust storm crashes kill 6

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

DIVERNON, Ill. (AP) — An interstate highway in Illinois reopened Tuesday after a windstorm that kicked up clouds of blinding dust from farm fields and led to crashes that killed at least six people and injured dozens more, police said.More than 70 vehicles, including dozens of commercial vehicles and passenger cars, were involved in crashes late Monday morning along a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 55 in Montgomery County, 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of St. Louis. The highway was closed in both directions after the crashes, but northbound and southbound lanes reopened around 6 a.m. Tuesday, Illinois State Police said.The crashes involved 40 to 60 cars, along with tractor-trailers, two of which caught fire, Maj. Ryan Starrick said. The six people who died were all in northbound lanes, while 37 people on both sides of I-55 were taken to hospitals.Those hurt in the crash range in age from 2 to 80 and have injuries from minor to life-threatening, police said. One of the six people kil...

UN summit in Qatar on Afghanistan ends, another planned

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — A closed-door summit on Afghanistan ended Tuesday in Qatar without any formal acknowledgment of the Taliban-controlled government there, though the United Nations’ chief said they would hold another meeting in the future.U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres attended the summit, which the world body described as nations and organizations trying to reach unified stances on human rights, governance, counterterrorism and anti-drug efforts. No recognition had been anticipated to come out of the meeting, though activists in recent days criticized the possibility. “To achieve our objectives, we cannot disengage,” Guterres said. “And many called for engagement to be more effective and based on lessons we have learned from the past.” He did not elaborate, though the Taliban previously controlled Afghanistan from 1994 to 2001.Asked by a journalist if there would be any circumstance under which he’d be wiling to directly meet with the Taliban, Guterres said: “...

Canadian writer David West Read nabs Tony nomination for ‘& Juliet’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

Canadian writer David West Read has been nominated for a Tony Award for “& Juliet.”He’s up for best book for “& Juliet,” a jukebox musical that reimagines the end of Romeo and Juliet.The show, which spotlights Swedish songwriter Max Martin’s megahits, is also nominated for best musical.In the comedy musical, Juliet not only survives, but she quickly rebounds from the loss of Romeo and takes off to Paris for a fresh start. The journey is set to 30 familiar tunes, including six from the Backstreet Boys and five from Britney Spears.The Tony Awards will air live on June 11 this year.This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 2, 2023.The Canadian Press

‘Some Like It Hot’ leads Tony Award nominations with 13 nods

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — “Some Like It Hot,” a musical adaptation of the cross-dressing movie comedy that starred Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, waltzed away Tuesday with a leading 13 Tony Award nominations.With songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, the show follows two musician friends who disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band to flee Chicago after witnessing a mob hit. It has been turned into a sweet, full-hearted embrace of trans rights starring Christian Borle and J. Harrison Ghee, both who earned nominations.Three shows tied with nine nominations each: “& Juliet,” which reimagines “Romeo and Juliet” and adds some of the biggest pop hits of the past few decades, “New York, New York,” which combined two generations of Broadway royalty in John Kander and Lin-Manuel Miranda, and “Shucked,” a surprise lightweight musical comedy studded with corn puns. The critical musical darling “Kimberly Akimbo,” with Victoria Clark playing a teen who ages four times faster than the a...

Bill C-11 is law now. But we still don’t know what it does

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:26:37 GMT

On today’s Big Story Podcast, the passing of Bill C-11 is the biggest piece of broadcast or media legislation this country has seen in decades. You would think we’d have a clear picture of its implications. But despite receiving royal assent and becoming law, not even leading experts in the field can say what the bill’s many changes will look like in practice.Dr. Michael Geist is a law professor at the University of Ottawa and holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law. He says this is a bill with profound implications both for creators and consumers of basically any kind of digital media.“Rather incredibly, there are no thresholds in this legislation. And in fact, it applies to all audio-visual content anywhere.”What counts as a streaming service? What counts as digital Canadian content? Will user-created content be subject to the same regulations as corporate-made media?You can subscribe to The Big Story podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google and S...