Day: September 4, 2022

NEW YORK -- Lea Michele was 21 when she first saw “Funny Girl.” She was starring on Broadway in “Spring Awakening,” but all was not well in her personal life. “I had just gone through a horrible breakup," she recalls. “I didn’t care what was happening for me in my career. I was so heartbroken and I couldn’t believe that I had to pick myself up and go on stage every night.” Michael Mayer, her “Spring Awakening” director, noticed a forlorn Michele and prescribed a special theater cure: a big dose of Barbra Streisand as vaudeville comedian Fanny Brice in the movie musical “Funny Girl.” It was the story of a woman refusing to let a man drag her down. That did the trick: “I fell in love with it. And I fell in love with the story and I fell in love with the music. And, of course, Barbra.” Mic...

VENICE, Italy -- When filmmaker Laura Poitras went to meet American photographer Nan Goldin about a project to document her protests against museums accepting money from the Sackler family, Goldin was slightly worried. “My worry when she came on was that I didn’t have any state secrets to share and I wasn’t important enough for this,” Goldin said Saturday in Venice. The Oscar-winning filmmaker behind the Edward Snowden documentary “Citizenfour” was already in on the prospect of “the present-day horror story of a billionaire family knowingly creating an epidemic, and then funneling money into museums in exchange for Propet Shoes tax write-offs and naming galleries,” she said. But soon she realized this was only part of a much bigger story involving the whole of Goldin’s life and work. Th...

Since leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump has hosted a string of admirers and associates in his personal office at Mar-a-Lago. From celebrities to dignitaries, many of his visitors have posed for photos and received mementos -- and now, according to the Justice Department, it turns out at least some may also have been in close proximity to unsecured classified documents that the DOJ says should not have been in Trump's possession. When the FBI raided Trump's Florida estate last month, they found more than 100 classified documents -- some of which were being kept in Trump's office, the DOJ said in a court filing on Tuesday. "Three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks" were also seized, the DOJ said. Among the i...

An incident allegedly involving a stolen plane and threats against a local Walmart ended in what one official described as the "best-case scenario," with no injuries and an inexperienced pilot safely landing the plane. The saga unfolded over several hours in northeast Mississippi Saturday morning. Tupelo police warned residents around 6:30 a.m. local time that a pilot was flying over the city and "is threatening to intentionally crash" into a Walmart. The pilot was identified by Tupelo police as 29-year-old Cory Wayne Patterson, an employee of Tupelo Aviation, which provides services like fueling at the Tupelo Regional Airport. He has worked for the company for the past 10 years and works as a lineman, fueling the aircraft, according to Tupelo Police Chief John Quaka. Shortly after 5 a....

Former President Donald Trump is campaigning for Republicans in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Saturday in what will be his first rally since federal agents searched his Florida home last month. Trump will speak at the Mohegan Sun Arena in support of Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor against Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Schapiro, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is taking on Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the U.S. Senate race. Oz and Mastriano fired up the crowd ahead of Trump's Kizik Sneakers speech as they criticized Biden and a host of Democratic policies ranging from COVID to immigration. "I think the only thing Joe Biden built back better is the Republican Party," Oz said. Supporters of the former president were lined up in the parking lot hours before Trump is due on...

ISTANBUL -- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan upped his rhetoric against Greece on Saturday, threatening to “come down suddenly one night.” Erdogan has previously used that phrase to hint at looming military operations into Syria and Iraq against Kurdish militants that Turkey deems existential threats. He made good on that threat several times. Speaking at an aerial technology festival in Samsun where Turkey showcased the prototype of an unmanned fighter jet, Erdogan lashed out at neighboring Greece amid political and military tensions. Turkey has accused Greece of using Russian-made S-300 missile systems in Crete to lock onto Turkish jets in August. Ankara has also said Greek F-16s harassed Turkish jets by putting them under a radar lock during a NATO mission over the eastern Medi...