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Elim Chan hired as San Francisco Symphony’s first female music director

The Associated Press 1 minute read Thursday, May. 21, 2026

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Elim Chan was hired as first female music director of the San Francisco Symphony on Thursday, two years after Esa-Pekka Salonen announced he was leaving because he did not share the same goals as the orchestra's board.

Chan, 39, will start with the 2027–28 season and was given a six-year term. She was given the title music director designate until then.

Chan was born in Hong Kong and studied at Smith College and the University of Michigan.

She was principal conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra  in Belgium from 2019–24 and principal guest conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra from 2018–23. She will be artistic partner of the Vienna Symphony for two seasons starting next fall.

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Business

CRTC triples streamers’ financial contributions to Canadian content

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 3 minute read Preview

CRTC triples streamers’ financial contributions to Canadian content

Anja Karadeglija, The Canadian Press 3 minute read Thursday, May. 21, 2026

OTTAWA - Large TV streaming services like Netflix must contribute 15 per cent of their Canadian revenues to Canadian content, the federal broadcast regulator said Thursday.

That’s three times the five-per-cent initial contribution requirement the CRTC set out in 2024, which is being challenged in court by major streamers, including Apple and Amazon.

Contribution requirements for traditional broadcasters, which currently pay between 30 and 45 per cent, will be lowered to 25 per cent.

"The total contributions are expected to stabilize the funding at more than $2 billion in support of Canadian and Indigenous content, such as French-language content and news," the regulator said in a press release.

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Thursday, May. 21, 2026

Entertainment

Provincial, federal governments leaning on AI to cut red tape

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press 2 minute read Preview

Provincial, federal governments leaning on AI to cut red tape

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press 2 minute read Thursday, May. 21, 2026

OTTAWA - The federal government and several provincial governments are turning to artificial intelligence to analyze laws and search for outdated regulations as they try to cut back on red tape.

Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali and provincial and territorial ministers responsible for red tape reduction met in Toronto on Thursday to discuss ways to cut outdated and overly complicated regulations to reduce costs and improve productivity.

Mohammad Kamal, a spokesperson for Ali's office, said several provinces are exploring how to use AI to streamline how applications and approvals are handled, review internal processes and improve service delivery.

Kamal said the federal government is using a platform called BizPal, which shows permit and licensing requirements across jurisdictions and uses AI to convert complex legal and regulatory language into plain language summaries.

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Thursday, May. 21, 2026

Entertainment

Police federation calls for probe of CBC-APTN show, says officers were ‘misled’

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview

Police federation calls for probe of CBC-APTN show, says officers were ‘misled’

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Thursday, May. 21, 2026

OTTAWA - The National Police Federation is calling for an inquiry into a CBC and APTN comedy show it says intentionally misled current and former members of the RCMP to get them to agree to interviews.

The show, which has not aired, is described by the Indigenous Screen Office as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

“With outrageous humour, they flip the script on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples, offering a fresh, timely perspective on the prank genre, akin to shows like Borat and The Yes Men," the Indigenous Screen Office said in an online post about the show.

The National Police Federation says RCMP members who were invited to participate in the show were told they would be recognized and honoured for their service, but were instead "deceived, insulted and publicly shamed at the expense of Canadian taxpayers."

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Thursday, May. 21, 2026

Entertainment

How ‘Navalny’ filmmaker Daniel Roher’s post-Oscar creative depression inspired ‘Tuner’

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 6 minute read Preview

How ‘Navalny’ filmmaker Daniel Roher’s post-Oscar creative depression inspired ‘Tuner’

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 6 minute read Thursday, May. 21, 2026

For Daniel Roher, making things is kind of a compulsion. Perhaps it’s not surprising for someone who was able to direct two movies at the same time: A documentary about artificial intelligence, now streaming on Peacock, and the heist thriller “Tuner,” in theaters Friday.

But he is the kind of person who is constantly creating, if not movies, little sketches, doodles and paintings, often while he’s in conversation with someone else (including this reporter). That’s not to say he’s not engaged and present with whomever he’s talking to — his mind is just one where it can all happen simultaneously. If he were to describe himself in film editing terms, he’d be a montage of a human being, he said.

A post-Oscar creative paralysis

That’s why it was so alarming that not too long ago, sometime after he’d won the best documentary Oscar for “Navalny,” that tap turned off. He was 29 years old, had just won filmmaking’s top honor and was paralyzed by the question of what to do next.

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Thursday, May. 21, 2026

Entertainment

Gilbert Rozon, Just for Laughs founder, agrees to pay $930K to nine accusers: lawyers

The Canadian Press 1 minute read Preview

Gilbert Rozon, Just for Laughs founder, agrees to pay $930K to nine accusers: lawyers

The Canadian Press 1 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

MONTREAL - The lawyers for nine women who sued Just For Laughs founder Gilbert Rozon for sexual assault say the media mogul has agreed to pay the complainants $930,000.

The settlement comes after Quebec Superior Court Justice Chantal Tremblay ruled in late March that Rozen pay eight of the nine women a total of $880,000.

A statement from the women's law firm, Trudel Johnston & Lespérance, says the comedy festival founder also agreed to waive his right to appeal.

Rozon's lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

Movie Review: Boots Riley’s ‘I Love Boosters’ is a wild, surrealist social satire

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 4 minute read Preview

Movie Review: Boots Riley’s ‘I Love Boosters’ is a wild, surrealist social satire

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 4 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Boots Riley holds nothing back in his audacious, surrealist social satire “I Love Boosters.” The film is a go-for-broke expression of wild imagination and social consciousness that’s impossible not to admire for its wacky, bold vision, with teleporting, high fashion snobbery and pyramid schemes.

Here is a movie where we get Keke Palmer, Naomi Ackie and Taylour Paige leading a vigilante shoplifting operation, Demi Moore as a toxic girl boss, Don Cheadle as a sleazy lifestyle evangelist, Will Poulter as a fussy store manager and LaKeith Stanfield as a discount brand model with a strange accent and a hypnotizing stare. It sounds like fun, right? Like a raucous, madcap ride through the inequities of the fashion business from the executive suite, down to the retail store where the goods are sold and the Chinese factories where they’re made? And on a certain level it is all of that, but one thing it is not is very funny. “I Love Boosters” can be amusing and clever, but the laugh-out-loud comedy just isn’t quite there. And it doesn’t help that the film goes more off the rails as it progresses to a climax that is less rousing than mind-numbing.

The thing is, “I Love Boosters” does start on a strong, albeit minor key as we’re introduced to the Velvet Gang, Corvette (Palmer), Sade (Ackie) and Mariah (Paige) and their booster operation, stealing overpriced designer wares from high end stores and selling them for a steep discount on the street. There’s a kind of a Robin Hood sensibility to it all. Mariah calls it “Triple F,” or “Fashion Forward Filanthropy.” She knows how to spell philanthropy, she deadpans; This is branding.

But despite the colorful surroundings, there’s a pervasive hopelessness in this off-kilter world that looks a lot like our own. Corvette, particularly, feels outside of it all, as a woman who dreams of being a designer herself but is currently squatting in a closed fast food chicken shop and being haunted by a boulder of debt (like, literally). It doesn’t help that the founder she idolizes, Moore’s Christie Smith, has become obsessed with stopping the boosters. To Christie, a genius megalomaniac, they’re the big problem with her business and not the fact that her store employees are being paid a pittance and her factory employees even less. The people who work at the factories are also getting sick from sandblasting the denim. And yes, these are all real things.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

As ‘The Boys’ ends, actors reveal their craziest stunts and what’s next for Vought

Leslie Ambriz And Cristina Jaleru, The Associated Press 6 minute read Preview

As ‘The Boys’ ends, actors reveal their craziest stunts and what’s next for Vought

Leslie Ambriz And Cristina Jaleru, The Associated Press 6 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

LOS ANGELES (AP) — After five seasons of death, depravity and digs at the capitalistic superhero-industrial complex, “The Boys” dropped its series finale Wednesday.

But the gutsy (in more than one way) Vought Cinematic Universe is not coming to an end, with two spinoffs on the horizon at Amazon's Prime Video: “Vought Rising” and “The Boys: Mexico.” “Vought Rising” is due out in 2027 and traces the origins of the titular corporation's “supe” program, bringing back fan favorite Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles).

“I mean, look, you hope it’s received well. We don’t necessarily know just yet, my fingers are crossed,” Ackles said at “The Boys” series finale's premiere Tuesday in Los Angeles, praising “The Boys” cast and crew for building a remarkable fanbase. “So, I’m hoping that we can just capitalize on that as much as we can and that they will go with us on this new journey.”

How last season of ‘The Boys’ came together

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

Summer Movie Guide 2026: Here’s what’s coming to theaters and streaming from May to August

Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press 21 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

This summer at the movies, the Minions are filmmakers, the Mandalorian is working for the good guys, Matt Damon tries to find his way home (again), Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Tom Holland are everywhere and no one remembers Peter Parker. Well, at least in the movie. The hope is that audiences not only remember but want to know what comes next for Spider-Man.

Hollywood’s summer movie season kicks off the first weekend in May not with a superhero movie but with “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” though one might argue that Miranda Priestly might be the Iron Man of fashion. May also brings a Billie Eilish concert film, the first “Star Wars” movie in seven years and a D-Day drama with Brendan Fraser as Dwight D. Eisenhower.

June kicks off with a live-action He-Man, a John Carney musical (with Nick Jonas and Paul Rudd!), an original Steven Spielberg sci-fi spectacle, the return of Supergirl and Woody and Buzz as well.

July brings a dose of Minions in 1920s Hollywood, Moana and a back-to-back dose of Holland and Zendaya, first in “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” and then in Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” where Holland plays Odysseus’ son Telemachus and Zendaya is the goddess Athena.

Entertainment

‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’ has its day at the Cannes Film Festival, 50 years after it was shot

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 5 minute read Preview

‘Once Upon a Time in Harlem’ has its day at the Cannes Film Festival, 50 years after it was shot

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 5 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

CANNES, France (AP) — David Greaves was 26 when his father, the pioneering filmmaker William Greaves, asked him to be one of four cameramen documenting a historic gathering in Harlem.

In August 1972, William Greaves assembled as many artists, writers, poets, musicians and organizers from the Harlem Renaissance as he could. They came for a cocktail party at Duke Ellington’s Harlem townhouse. There, they talked about the seminal 1920s cultural movement: what they remembered, who not to forget, what it all meant.

“My father would say, ‘Capture the life that’s happening,’” David recalls.

It took more than half a century for the result to see the light of day. But 54 years after that gathering, “Once Upon a Time Harlem” screened this week at the Cannes Film Festival.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

Canadian mystery writer Alan Bradley, who created Flavia de Luce character, dies at 87

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Preview

Canadian mystery writer Alan Bradley, who created Flavia de Luce character, dies at 87

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press 4 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Alan Bradley, the Canadian mystery writer whose tales of a precocious 11-year-old super-sleuth earned an international fan base, has died.

He died on Monday at age 87 in the Isle of Man, where he'd lived for more than a decade, said his publisher, Doubleday Canada.

"Alan's extraordinary imagination, generosity of spirit, and wonderful craft as a storyteller brought joy to readers in Canada and around the world for more than fifteen years," said Kristin Cochrane, CEO of Doubleday parent company Penguin Random House Canada.

Bradley's debut novel "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" and the character at its centre — kid detective Flavia de Luce — won a devoted fan base.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

‘Minotaur,’ about murder and corruption in Putin’s Russia, jolts the Cannes Film Festival

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

‘Minotaur,’ about murder and corruption in Putin’s Russia, jolts the Cannes Film Festival

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 3 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

CANNES, France (AP) — Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev sent shock waves through the Cannes Film Festival with a soberly damning crime film about murder and corruption in Russia, set against the conscription of young men into President Vladimir Putin’s war with Ukraine.

“Minotaur,” which debuted Tuesday night at the French festival, was one of the most anticipated selections at this year's Cannes. The film rewarded those expectations, receiving one of the festival's most enthusiastic responses and putting the Russian filmmaker squarely in the mix for the Palme d'Or.

While “Minotaur” is outwardly centered around a married couple, its story has obvious political reverberations. Dmitriy Mazurov plays the chief executive of a large shipping company who, as Russia's military mobilizes for the all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is asked to contribute a quota of 150 workers to the mounting war effort.

At the same time, Mazurov begins investigating the suspected infidelity of his wife, played by Iris Lebedeva. As “Minotaur” evolves, their family drama takes on darker symbolism for the deceptions and savagery of Putin's war.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Business

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

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press 7 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

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.”

Business

Stephen Colbert’s long goodbye is coming to an end, leaving a void

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 7 minute read Preview

Stephen Colbert’s long goodbye is coming to an end, leaving a void

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press 7 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

NEW YORK (AP) — On his very first time hosting “The Late Show” back in 2015, Stephen Colbert ripped into Donald Trump while gorging on Oreos, likening his inability to resist the cookies to his inability to resist going after the then-presidential candidate.

“Look, you don't own me. I don't need to play tape of you to have a successful TV show,” he warned an image of Trump. “Someone on television should have a modicum of dignity and it could be me.”

Over the next 11 years, Colbert couldn't curb his appetite for making Trump barbs, often turning his show into a full-throated rebuke of MAGA policies. Trump would call him a “dead man walking.”

The on-air feud between the two men seemingly ends Thursday as Colbert's top-rated late-night TV program goes off the air for the final time, effectively silencing a high-profile White House critic.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

Entertainment

Judge orders mental health evaluation for the woman accused of attempting to murder Rihanna

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press 3 minute read Preview

Judge orders mental health evaluation for the woman accused of attempting to murder Rihanna

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press 3 minute read Tuesday, May. 19, 2026

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Tuesday paused the prosecution of a woman charged with the attempted murder of Rihanna and more than a dozen other felonies and sent the case to a mental health court that will determine whether she is competent to stand trial.

At a Los Angeles meeting held in a judge's chambers, Deputy Public Defender Derek Dillman said he had doubts over the mental competence of his client, 35-year-old Ivanna Lisette Ortiz of Orlando, Florida, court documents showed. Ortiz has pleaded not guilty to firing at the house of Rihanna, her partner A$AP Rocky and their children while all of them were home.

Judge Shannon K. Cooley ordered psychiatric evaluations and temporarily transferred the case to a Hollywood mental health court that specializes in determining whether defendants can understand the proceedings and go through a trial.

“It is the ethical obligation of counsel and the court to ensure that Ms. Ortiz’s rights are protected, including being able to assist counsel in conducting a defense in a rational manner,” Dillman said in an email to The Associated Press.

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Tuesday, May. 19, 2026

Entertainment

CBC pausing production on satirical Indigenous show

The Canadian Press staff, The Canadian Press 2 minute read Preview

CBC pausing production on satirical Indigenous show

The Canadian Press staff, The Canadian Press 2 minute read Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

OTTAWA - The CBC is pausing production on a satirical show on Indigenous issues after blowback from some who claimed false pretences were used to lure high-profile guests.

CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson says the public broadcaster is halting production on "Northland Tales" to ensure it doesn't negatively affect the news brand and so existing footage can be assessed.

Several current and former Conservative politicians have gone on social media to denounce the production of the show, which was being produced for CBC and APTN.

The show is described by the Indigenous Screen Office – which works to increase Indigenous media representation using federal funding – as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

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Wednesday, May. 20, 2026

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