Month: January 2024

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SEOUL, South Korea — Video footage released by an organization that works with North Korean defectors shows North Korean authorities publicly sentencing two teenagers to 12 years’ hard labor for watching K-pop.

The footage, which shows the two 16-year-olds in Pyongyang convicted of watching South Korean movies and music videos, was released by the South and North Development (SAND) Institute.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage, which was first reported by the BBC.

North Korea has for years imposed tough sentences on anyone caught enjoying South Korean entertainment or copying the way South Koreans speak in a war on outside influences since a sweeping new “anti-reactionary thought” law was imposed in 2020.

“Judging from the heavy punishment, it seems that this is to be shown to people across North Korea to warn them. If so, it appears this lifestyle of South Korean culture is prevalent in North Korean society,” said Choi Kyong-hui, president of SAND and Doctor of Political Science at Tokyo University, who defected from North Korea in 2001.

“I think this video was edited around 2022. … What is troublesome for (North Korean leader) Kim Jong Un is that Millennials and Gen Z young people have changed their way of thinking. I think he’s working on turning it back to the North Korean way.”

The video, made by North Korean authorities, shows a large public trial in which the two students in grey scrubs are handcuffed while watched by about 1,000 students in an amphitheater. All the students, including the two 16-year-olds, are wearing face masks, suggesting the footage was shot during the COVID pandemic.

The students were sentenced, according to the video, after being convicted of watching and spreading South Korean movies, music and music videos over three months.

“They were seduced by foreign culture … and ended up ruining their lives,” the narrator states, as the video cut away to young girls being handcuffed and Pyongyang women wearing South Korean fashion and hairstyles.

Reclusive North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and are divided by a heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ).  
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NEW YORK — New York prosecutors on Friday returned two pieces of art they say were stolen by Nazis from a Jewish performer and collector murdered in the Holocaust.

The artworks were surrendered by museums in Pittsburgh and Ohio, but prosecutors are still fighting in court to recover third artwork by the same artist, Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele, that was seized from a Chicago museum at the same time.

On Friday in Manhattan, the estate of Holocaust victim Fritz Grünbaum accepted Portrait of a Man, which was surrendered by the Carnegie Museum of Art and Girl with Black Hair, surrendered by the Allen Memorial Art Museum at Oberlin College. Prosecutors have collectively valued the two pieces at around $2.5 million.

Ten of Schiele’s works have now been returned to the family, but Russian War Prisoner remains at the Art Institute of Chicago, which maintains that it was legally acquired.

Grünbaum was the son of a Jewish art dealer and law school student who began performing in cabarets in Vienna in 1906. As the Nazis rose to power, he mocked them, once saying on a darkened stage, “I can’t see a thing, not a single thing; I must have stumbled into National Socialist culture.”

In 1938, he was captured by Nazi officials, who created a trail of paperwork. Manhattan prosecutors say they forced him to give power of attorney to his wife, and then forced her to sign away the art — including around 80 Schiele works — to Nazi officials. Some of the art was sold to fund the Nazi war effort, they say. Elizabeth and Fritz Grünbaum died in concentration camps.

Prosecutors say the works reappeared in 1956 in Switzerland, part of a shady art deal with members of the Nazi regime, that led to them being sold in New York galleries.

On Friday, one of Grünbaum’s heirs thanked leaders at Oberlin College and the Carnegie Institute, saying they “did the right thing.”

“This is a victory for justice, and the memory of a brave artist, art collector, and opponent of Fascism,” said Timothy Reif, Grünbaum’s great-grandnephew and a federal judge in New York City, in a statement released by the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. “As the heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, we are gratified that this man who fought for what was right in his own time continues to make the world fairer.”

A New York judge ruled in 2018 that other two works by Schiele had to be turned over to Grünbaum’s heirs under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act, passed by Congress.

In that case, art dealer Richard Nagy said he was the rightful owner of the works because Grünbaum’s sister-in-law had sold them after his death. But the judge in the case ruled that there was no evidence that Grünbaum had given them to her voluntarily, writing it was “a signature at gunpoint.”

The Art Institute of Chicago, however, disputes that. And it argues that Russian War Prisoner, a pencil and watercolor piece, was legally acquired.

“We have done extensive research on the provenance history of this work and are confident in our lawful ownership of the piece,” said Art Institute of Chicago spokesperson Megan Michienzi.

Michienzi pointed to a prior 2010 ruling from another federal judge that she said “explicitly ruled that the Grünbaum’s Schiele art collection was ‘not looted’ and ‘remained in the Grünbaum family’s possession’ and was sold by Fritz Grünbaum’s sister-in-law.”

Reif and his relatives had been fighting in a separate federal civil court case for the return of the work. The Art Institute of Chicago had the case thrown out in November on technical grounds, successfully arguing that, unlike the Nagy case, the family had missed a lawsuit deadline under the Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act.

After that case was dismissed, Bragg’s office earlier this month asked a Manhattan court to authorize the return of the artwork.
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SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — A grand jury indicted Alec Baldwin on Friday on an involuntary manslaughter charge in a 2021 fatal shooting during a rehearsal on a movie set in New Mexico, reviving a dormant case against the actor. 

Special prosecutors brought the case before a grand jury in the city of Santa Fe in New Mexico this week, months after receiving a new analysis of the gun that was used. They declined to answer questions after spending about a day and a half presenting their case to the grand jury. 

Defense attorneys for Baldwin indicated they’ll fight the charge. 

“We look forward to our day in court,” said Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro, defense attorneys for Baldwin, in an email. 

While the proceeding is shrouded in secrecy, two of the witnesses seen at the courthouse included crew members — one who was present when the fatal shot was fired and another who had walked off the set the day before due to safety concerns. 

Baldwin, the lead actor and a co-producer on the Western movie “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie set outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the gun went off, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. 

Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer, but not the trigger, and the gun fired. 

The charge has again put Baldwin in legal trouble and created the possibility of prison time for an actor who has been a TV and movie mainstay for nearly 40 years, with roles in the early blockbuster “The Hunt for Red October,” Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” and the sitcom “30 Rock.” 

The indictment provides prosecutors with two alternative standards for pursuing an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in the death of Hutchins. One would be based on negligent use of a firearm, and the other alleges felony misconduct “with the total disregard or indifference for the safety of others.” 

Judges recently agreed to put on hold several civil lawsuits seeking compensation from Baldwin and producers of “Rust” after prosecutors said they would present their case to a grand jury. Plaintiffs in those suits include members of the film crew. 

Los Angeles-based attorney Gloria Allred, who is representing the slain cinematographer’s parents and younger sister in a civil case, said Friday that her clients have been seeking the truth about what happened the day Hutchins was killed and will be looking forward to Baldwin’s trial. 

Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor and president of the West Coast Trial Lawyers firm in Los Angeles, pointed to previous missteps by prosecutors, saying they will need to do more than present ballistics evidence to make a case that Baldwin had a broader responsibility and legal duty when it came to handling the gun on the set. 

Special prosecutors dismissed an involuntary manslaughter charge against Baldwin in April, saying they were informed the gun might have been modified before the shooting and malfunctioned. They later pivoted and began weighing whether to refile a charge against Baldwin after receiving a new analysis of the gun. 

The analysis from experts in ballistics and forensic testing relied on replacement parts to reassemble the gun fired by Baldwin, after parts of the pistol were broken during testing by the FBI. The report examined the gun and markings it left on a spent cartridge to conclude that the trigger had to have been pulled or depressed. 

The analysis led by Lucien Haag of Forensic Science Services in Arizona stated that although Baldwin repeatedly denied pulling the trigger, “given the tests, findings and observations reported here, the trigger had to be pulled or depressed sufficiently to release the fully cocked or retracted hammer of the evidence revolver.” 

The weapons supervisor on the movie set, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, has pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering in the case. Her trial is scheduled to begin in February. 

“Rust” assistant director and safety coordinator David Halls pleaded no contest to unsafe handling of a firearm last March and received a suspended sentence of six months of probation. He agreed to cooperate in the investigation of the shooting. 

An earlier FBI report on the agency’s analysis of the gun found that, as is common with firearms of that design, it could go off without pulling the trigger if force was applied to an uncocked hammer, such as by dropping the weapon. 

The only way the testers could get it to fire was by striking the gun with a mallet while the hammer was down and resting on the cartridge, or by pulling the trigger while it was fully cocked. The gun eventually broke during testing. 

The 2021 shooting resulted in a series of civil lawsuits — including wrongful death claims filed by members of Hutchins’ family — centered on accusations that the defendants were lax with safety standards. Baldwin and other defendants have disputed those allegations. 

The Rust Movie Productions company has paid a $100,000 fine to state workplace safety regulators after a scathing narrative of failures in violation of standard industry protocols, including testimony that production managers took limited or no action to address two misfires on set before the fatal shooting. 

The filming of “Rust” resumed last year in Montana under an agreement with the cinematographer’s widower, Matthew Hutchins, that made him an executive producer. 
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Paris — The oldest person ever to win an Oscar, renowned director James Ivory, is still making films at 95, with a documentary about his formative trip to Afghanistan in 1960.

Though American, Ivory is best-known for a string of costume dramas about the repressed emotions of Brits, including Remains of the Day and Howard’s End, both starring Anthony Hopkins, and Room with a View with Daniel Day-Lewis.

In 2017, he reached a new generation with his screenplay for Call Me By Your Name starring Timothee Chalamet as a teenager discovering his sexuality, which won Ivory an Oscar at the age of 89.

But his career began as a student making films about art in Venice and South Asia.

“I was making a film in India, and it was getting hotter and hotter,” he told AFP.

“I couldn’t take it another minute. The backers told me to go to a cooler climate, so I went to Afghanistan. I knew nothing about it, but I went.”

Decades later, his footage from Kabul has been worked into a documentary that shows a peaceful Afghanistan, before the wars and extremism that would drag it into decades of violence.

“(The footage) was amazing from the first reel, very poetic and mysterious,” said Giles Gardner, a long-time collaborator who helped pull the film together after digging the footage out of Ivory’s archives.

“With all we know about Afghanistan, the violence we see on the news, this idea of it as a place of beauty has been erased,” he said.

The resulting film, A Cooler Climate, serves as a sort of origin story for Ivory’s career, since it was immediately after returning from Afghanistan that he met producer Ismael Merchant. They became personally and professionally involved and went on to make more than 40 films together until Merchant’s death in 2005.

By then their names — Merchant Ivory — had become a byword for high-quality period dramas.

Their romantic relationship was never revealed during Merchant’s lifetime as he came from a conservative Indian family.

But Ivory said his own life was largely a breeze. Growing up gay in an Oregon town was fine, even idyllic, he insisted.

“I don’t know why people think I had to escape anything, I was a happy young man,” he said.

Still in good shape for 95, traveling between Europe and the U.S. for screenings of the documentary, he comes across as a man of few regrets, apart from the sadness at losing friends, particularly Merchant and their writing partner, novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

“I wish they were here every day,” he said. “I love them. I’m a very old man now and have close friends, but I miss them very much.”  
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — The director and producer of a banned Malaysian film that explores the afterlife were charged Wednesday with offending the religious feelings of others in a rare criminal prosecution of filmmakers, slammed by critics as an attack on freedom of expression.

Mohamad Khairianwar Jailani, the director and co-scriptwriter of Mentega Terbang, and producer Tan Meng Kheng pleaded not guilty to having a “deliberate intention of wounding the religious feelings of others” through the independent, low-budget film. If found guilty, they could face up to a year in jail, a fine or both.

Defense lawyer N. Surendran said the two believe the charge is “unreasonable and unconstitutional” because it violates their right to freedom of expression. “As far as we are concerned, these are groundless charges and we will challenge those charges in court,” he said.

The film, which debuted at a regional film festival in 2021, revolves around a young Muslim girl who explores other religions to figure out where her ailing mother would go when she dies. Scenes that angered Muslims included ones showing the girl desiring to eat pork, which is forbidden in Islam, and pretending to drink holy water, and her father supporting her wish to leave Islam. It also sparked death threats against Khairianwar.

The film was briefly shown on a Hong Kong streaming platform last year before it was removed. The Home Ministry banned the film last September without giving any reason. The two filmmakers filed a suit challenging the government’s decision before they were charged.

Race and religion are sensitive issues in Malaysia. Ethnic Malays account for two-thirds of the country’s 33 million people and must be Muslims, with apostasy considered a sin. There are large ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities that are Buddhist, Hindu and Christian.

Critics say religious conservatism has been on the rise in Malaysia, after an influential Malay-Islam alliance won strong gains in the November 2022 general election.

Human Rights Watch accused Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government of prosecuting the two filmmakers to win political support from Malays.

“This sort of crude political pandering at the expense of human rights is precisely the sort of thing that Anwar accused previous governments of doing when he was in the opposition — but now he’s hypocritically changed his tune after assuming power, and using the same censorship and persecution,” said the group’s deputy Asia director, Phil Robertson.

“The government should reverse course, uphold human rights principles, immediately direct prosecutors to drop these ludicrous, rights abusing charges, and lift the ban on the film Mentega Terbang,” he said.

The court on Wednesday also forbid the two filmmakers from making statements about the case throughout the trial and ordered them to report to police monthly.

Khairianwar has said this is likely the first time a filmmaker has been criminally charged in the country.

“I am disappointed if this is a way to silence storytellers and concerned that it would make many more storytellers stop telling their stories out of fear of prosecution,” Khairianwar told the online news portal Free Malaysia Today a day before he was charged. 
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In the Western United States, professional bull riders risk serious injury on the back of bulls that can weigh more than 700 kilograms. But eight seconds on a bucking beast can mean thousands of dollars. VOA’s Scott Stearns takes us to the show.
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LOS ANGELES — List of the top winners of the prime-time Emmy Awards.

BEST DRAMA SERIES: “Succession”

BEST COMEDY SERIES: “The Bear”

BEST LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES: “Beef”

ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Kieran Culkin, “Succession”

ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Sarah Snook, “Succession”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ayo Edebiri, “The Bear”

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES: Matthew Macfadyen, “Succession”

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES: Ebon Moss-Bachrach, “The Bear”

SCRIPTED VARIETY SERIES: “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Niecy Nash-Betts, “Dahmer, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”

REALITY COMPETITION SERIES: “RuPaul’s Drag Race”

TALK SERIES: “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah”

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED OR ANTHOLOGY SERIES OR MOVIE: Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”

LIVE VARIETY SPECIAL: “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium”

ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Steven Yeun, “Beef”

ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE: Ali Wong, “Beef”
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LOS ANGELES — “Succession” secured its legacy with its third best drama series award, “The Bear” feasted as the night’s top comedy, and the two shows about squabbling families dominated the acting awards at Monday night’s Emmys.

Historic wins also came for Quinta Brunson of “Abbot Elementary” and Steven Yeun and Ali Wong of “Beef” at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony that was finally held four months late after a turbulent year of strikes in Hollywood.

“Succession,” the HBO saga of the dysfunctional generations of a maladjusted media empire, won the top prize for its fourth and final season. It also won best actress in a drama for Sarah Snook and best actor in a drama for Kieran Culkin.

“We all put our all into it and the bar was set so high,” Snook said.

“The Bear,” the FX dramedy about a contentious family and a struggling restaurant at the center of the life of a talented chef, won best comedy series for its first season. It also made a meal of its acting categories, with Jeremy Allen White winning best actor in a comedy, best supporting actress in a comedy for Ayo Edebiri winning best supporting actress, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach taking best supporting actor. All three were first-time nominees.

“This is a show about family and found family and real family,” Edebiri said from the stage as she accepted the first trophy of the night at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

Instead of the usual producer speeches, Matty Matheson, a real-life elite chef who plays a kitchen newbie and repairman on “The Bear,” spoke for the show near the end of the Fox telecast.

“I just love restaurants so much, the good and the bad, we’re broken inside,” Matheson said before getting a long kiss on the mouth from Moss-Bachrach.

Brunson won best actress in a comedy for the show she created, ABC’s “Abbott Elementary,” becoming the first Black woman to win the award in more than 40 years and the first from a network show to win it in more than a decade.

“I am so happy to be able to live my dream and act out comedy,” Brunson said during her acceptance on the Fox telecast, fighting back tears. The writer-actor was among the stars with standout looks on the Emmys’ silver carpet.

“Succession” won six Emmys overall including best supporting actor in a drama for Matthew Macfadyen and best writing in a drama for show creator Jesse Armstrong. The only drama acting category it didn’t win was supporting actress, taken for the second time by Jennifer Coolidge of “The White Lotus.”

“The Bear” won in every category it was nominated for Monday night, and along with the four it had won previously at the Creative Arts Emmys, took 10 overall, the most of any show.

Landmark wins on TV’s big night

“Beef” won best limited series, while Steven Yeun and Ali Wong became the first Asian Americans to win in their categories – Yeun for best actor in a limited series and Wong for best actress. Creator Lee Sung won Emmys for writing and directing. It had eight Emmys overall after three wins at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Brunson had won a writing Emmy for “Abbott Elementary,” her mockumentary about a predominantly Black and chronically underfunded grade school in Philadelphia, but this is her first for acting. Isabel Sanford of “The Jeffersons” was the only previous Black woman to win the category in 1981.

The first hour of the show held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day saw three Black women win major awards: Brunson, Edebiri and Niecy Nash-Betts, who won best supporting actress in a limited series for “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

On the Netflix show, Nash-Betts played a neighbor of the serial killer whose complaints to authorities about his behavior go unheeded.

“I accept this award on behalf of every Black and brown woman who has gone unheard and over-policed,” she said.

“Everybody having fun at the chocolate Emmys tonight?” host Anthony Anderson said during the show. “We are killing it tonight! … This is like MLK Day and Juneteenth all rolled up in one!”

The tweaked awards calendar made for some oddities. Edebiri and White won their Emmy for the show’s first season eight days after after winning Golden Globes for the second season.

Baby talk amid ‘succession’ wins

Culkin outshined the older brother and the father to win the final lead actor Emmy for “Succession.”

He had twice been nominated for best supporting actor for “Succession” without a win. But in the final season, in which his character Roman Roy goes from sideline wisecracker to emotional disaster at the center of the show’s drama, he was put in the lead category and won over castmates Brian Cox, who played his father, and Jeremy Strong, who played his older brother.

He then shifted to his own family, getting big laughs during his speech when he told his wife Jazz Charton that their two young kids weren’t enough. “I want more,” he said. “You said if I won, we could talk about it.”

Snook took her first Emmy in three nominations for “Succession” and her fictional husband Macfadyen won the second Emmy of his career for playing Tom Wambsgans, the son-in-law that began the HBO series as a hanger-on and ended it as the closest thing it had to a victor on “Succession.”

Many tears, and one concerned mother

Emotions ran high from the start of the ceremony. Edebiri and Brunson were both quick to cry as they took the stage, and the first presenter, Christina Applegate, who said in 2021 that she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, got a standing ovation as she came out using a cane, helped by Anderson. She struggled to get through the nominees and winner with the tears in her eyes.

Anderson told the nominees at the beginning of the night that instead of having their speeches cut off by music, his mother, actor Doris Hancox, sitting in the audience, would tell them when it was time to move on. But she more often shouted down her son in the running gag.

Older shows return to spotlight

Honoring TV history was the theme at the 75th Emmys. Anderson opened the show on a “Mr. Rogers” set and performed TV theme songs including “Good Times,” and several cast reunions were spread throughout the show.

Cast members including Martin Lawrence and Tisha Campbell from “Martin,” Ted Danson and Rhea Perlman from “Cheers,” and Rob Reiner and Sally Struthers from “All in The Family,” performed short bits from recreations of their sitcom sets before presenting awards.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler reunited to present an award in the form of their 2001-2005 “Weekend Update” team-up from “Saturday Night Live.”

“We’ve reached the stage in life where we’ll only present awards sitting down,” Fey said.

One notable appearance came from Katherine Heigl, who joined Ellen Pompeo and other former “Grey’s Anatomy” cast mates on a hospital room set after leaving the show, now about to start its 20th season, on not the best terms in 2010.

“Yes, there have been changes over the years,” Heigl said with a wry smile, “But the one constant is the amazing fanbase.”
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london — Lionel Messi has been named FIFA’s best men’s player after moving from Paris Saint-Germain to Inter Miami and leading the David Beckham-owned team to a little-known Leagues Cup title — all while single-handedly elevating soccer’s relevance in the United States.

The 36-year-old Argentine on Monday was selected over Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland,  the same pair he beat for his eighth Ballon d’Or award last October. 

Messi was not in attendance at Hammersmith Apollo theater in west London. 

Moments later, World Cup champion Aitana Bonmati, 25, of Spain was named FIFA’s best women’s soccer player, building on her Ballon d’Or award last October, which followed a Union of European Football Associations award in August.

And that was after she led Spain to World Cup glory and Barcelona to the Champions League title. She was named player of the tournament for both competitions. 

Bonmati won Monday over Spain teammate Jenni Hermoso and Colombia star Linda Caicedo.

They were FIFA finalists in voting by a global panel of national team coaches and captains, selected journalists, plus fans online. The women’s eligibility period covered performances from August 1, 2022, through the World Cup final last August. 

Spain’s women won their first World Cup by beating England 1-0 in the final in Sydney, Australia. 

Messi secured the FIFA award for the eighth time in 15 years. He had won it last year, too, after leading Argentina to the 2022 World Cup title. 

The men’s award did not consider the World Cup, which ended 13 months ago. It recognized achievements from after the tournament through August 20. 

Messi and Mbappe helped PSG win the French league title, but the team underperformed in the Champions League and French Cup — exiting both competitions in the round of 16. 

That means Messi’s exploits in the United States surely swayed some voters. 

In rejecting Saudi Arabia for the MLS, Messi brought star power to a league that fights for relevance in an American sports landscape dominated by the NFL and NBA. 

LeBron James, Serena Williams and Kim Kardashian were all on hand in Fort Lauderdale for Messi’s debut on July 21, when the forward scored from a free kick goal in stoppage time to beat Cruz Azul 2-1. 

The goals kept coming — 10 in seven games to lead the MLS club to its first-ever trophy by winning the Leagues Cup final on August 19, one day before FIFA award eligibility period ended. 

Haaland and Mbappe could make good arguments that they deserved to win. 

Haaland scored 28 goals in 36 games in all club competitions from after the World Cup through the end of the 2022-23 season as a driving force in Manchester City winning the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup. The 6-foot-4 striker then scored three goals in two appearances for Norway in June.

Mbappe scored at nearly a goal-per-game clip in the period of eligibility for PSG and then for France in European Championship qualifying in March and June. 

Messi’s figures in France after the World Cup were good but unspectacular: nine goals and six assists in 22 games across all competitions.
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Los Angeles — The time has finally come for a most unusual Emmys. 

The 75th Primetime Emmy Awards are arriving four months past their due date on Monday night at the Peacock Theater, coming after a year of historic Hollywood turbulence in an industry whose upheavals are evident everywhere. 

Strikes by both actors and writers, seismic shifts toward streaming, and the dismantling of the traditional TV calendar mean the envelopes opened during the Fox telecast hosted by Anthony Anderson on Martin Luther King Jr. Day will display winners that were decided months ago for shows that in some cases were completed years ago — and have a fraction of the audience they had a few decades ago. 

But for actors and others taking part in the ceremony, norms just aren’t a thing anymore in this business. 

“Since the pandemic it’s been really strange, you shoot something, then sometimes it’s another couple years until you see it, and a while longer until something like this,” actor Nick Offerman told The Associated Press last week after winning an early Emmy for “The Last of Us,” a show that is among Monday night’s top nominees along with “Succession,” “Ted Lasso” and “The Bear.” 

The Emmys will provide some respite and celebration after the strike and the troubles that spurred it, and with its 75th edition, will attempt to provide links to its past and to TV history. It will include a series of cast reunions and scene recreations from beloved shows including “Cheers,” “Game of Thrones,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Martin.” 

The nominations themselves provide one big link to Emmys past — the continuation of the decades-long dominance of HBO, which this year has the three most nominated shows with “Succession,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us.” 

Anderson has been tasked with hosting at a time when emceeing awards shows is hardly a coveted job, especially after comic Jo Koy was widely roasted for his Golden Globes performance last weekend. 

But Anderson said he’s actually coming in relaxed and relieved, because for the first time in nearly a decade, he’s not a nominee. He never won an Emmy despite 11 nominations as a producer and actor for his former show, “black-ish.” 

“All the pressure is off of me now,” Anderson, now the host of Fox’s “We Are Family,” said during ceremony preparations. “I don’t have to sit there and wonder, am I going to win? Am I going to get it? What time are they going to get to this category? I just get to come up here and be myself.” 

How to watch 

The Emmys will air live on Fox starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, and available to stream starting Tuesday on Hulu. 

The ceremony is watchable in dozens of countries. The Television Academy website has a handy list of broadcasters and in some instances, air times. 

There are also many ways to watch the Emmys red carpet, which begins at 5 p.m., when E! kicks off its coverage. People and Entertainment Weekly are also hosting a red carpet show that will stream on their websites and YouTube pages. 

The nominees 

“Succession” got a leading 27 nominations. It’s the probable favorite to win its third best drama series Emmy and it has three men — Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong and Kieran Culkin — up for best actor with four more nominated for best supporting actor. 

But it won’t come away with the most wins. That’s because “The Last of Us,” second with 24 nominations, is coming in with eight via last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, where “Succession” won none. Those include best guest acting awards for Offerman and Storm Reid, suggesting that voters may also favor its lead actors Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Both could make history, with Pascal becoming the first Latino to win best actor in a drama and Ramsey the youngest to win best actress. 

The elite ensemble from “The White Lotus” is all over the supporting categories. It has five women up for best supporting actress in a drama, including Jennifer Coolidge and Aubrey Plaza. 

On the comedy side, the night could become a victory lap for the third and final season of “Ted Lasso,” the soccer-themed series that won best comedy for its first two seasons. 

Its main challenger comes from the kitchen. “The Bear,” about a chef struggling with his family’s legacy, will vie for best comedy, and its lead, Jeremy Allen White, could challenge Jason Sudeikis of “Ted Lasso” for best actor in a comedy. 

The long wait 

Last year’s two strikes meant the Emmys, normally held in September, made an unprecedented move to January, putting it in the heart of Hollywood’s awards season. 

Academy voting took place on the normal timetable, however, meaning the winners have been determined since late August. 

The wait and other quirks of the calendar make for some strange award circumstances. “The Bear” is up for Emmys for its first season, after having already won key Golden Globes for its second. 
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New York — Joyce Randolph, a veteran stage and television actress whose role as the savvy Trixie Norton on “The Honeymooners” provided the perfect foil to her dimwitted TV husband, has died. She was 99.

Randolph died of natural causes Saturday night at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, her son Randolph Charles told The Associated Press Sunday.

She was the last surviving main character of the beloved comedy from television’s golden age of the 1950s.

“The Honeymooners” was an affectionate look at Brooklyn tenement life, based in part on star Jackie Gleason’s childhood. Gleason played the blustering bus driver Ralph Kramden. Audrey Meadows was his wisecracking, strong-willed wife Alice, and Art Carney the cheerful sewer worker Ed Norton. Alice and Trixie often found themselves commiserating over their husbands’ various follies and mishaps, whether unknowingly marketing dogfood as a popular snack or trying in vain to resist a rent hike, or freezing in the winter as their heat is shut off.

Randolph would later cite a handful of favorite episodes, including one in which Ed is sleepwalking.

“And Carney calls out, ‘Thelma?!’ He never knew his wife’s real name,” she later told the Television Academy Foundation.

Originating in 1950 as a recurring skit on Gleason’s variety show, “Cavalcade of Stars,” “The Honeymooners” still ranks among the all-time favorites of television comedy. The show grew in popularity after Gleason switched networks with “The Jackie Gleason Show.” Later, for one season in 1955-56, it became a full-fledged series.

Those 39 episodes became a staple of syndicated programming aired all over the country and beyond.

In an interview with The New York Times in January 2007, Randolph said she received no compensation in residuals for those 39 episodes. She said she finally began getting royalties with the discovery of “lost” episodes from the variety hours.

After five years as a member of Gleason’s on-the-air repertory company, Randolph virtually retired, opting to focus full-time on marriage and motherhood.

“I didn’t miss a thing by not working all the time,” she said. “I didn’t want a nanny raising (my) wonderful son.”

But decades after leaving the show, Randolph still had many admirers and received dozens of letters a week. She was a regular into her 80s at the downstairs bar at Sardi’s, where she liked to sip her favorite White Cadillac concoction — Dewar’s and milk — and chat with patrons who recognized her from a portrait of the sitcom’s four characters over the bar.

Randolph said the show’s impact on television viewers didn’t dawn on her until the early 1980s.

“One year while (my son) was in college at Yale, he came home and said, ‘Did you know that guys and girls come up to me and ask, ‘Is your mom really Trixie?'” she told The San Antonio Express in 2000. “I guess he hadn’t paid much attention before then.”

Earlier, she had lamented that playing Trixie limited her career.

“For years after that role, directors would say: ‘No, we can’t use her. She’s too well-known as Trixie,'” Randolph told the Orlando Sentinel in 1993.

Gleason died in 1987 at age 71, followed by Meadows in 1996 and Carney in 2003. Gleason had revived “The Honeymooners” in the 1960s, with Jane Kean as Trixie.

Randolph was born Joyce Sirola in Detroit in 1924, and was around 19 when she joined a road company of “Stage Door.” From there she went to New York and performed in a number of Broadway shows.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she was seen often on TV, appearing with such stars as Eddie Cantor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Danny Thomas and Fred Allen.

Randolph met Gleason for the first time when she did a Clorets commercial on “Cavalcade of Stars,” and The Great One took a liking to her; she didn’t even have an agent at the time.

Randolph spent her retirement going to Broadway openings and fundraisers, being active with the U.S.O. and visiting other favorite Manhattan haunts, among them Angus, Chez Josephine and the Lambs Club.

Her husband, Richard Lincoln, a wealthy marketing executive who died in 1997, served as president at the Lambs, a theatrical club, and she reigned as “first lady.” They had one son, Charles.
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