NEW YORK (AP) — The longtime World Wrestling Entertainment impresario Vince McMahon agreed to share more than $12 million over the past 16 years to suppress of sexual misconduct and infidelity, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The amount is significantly larger than what was previously known.

Four women — all formerly affiliated with WWE — signed agreements with McMahon, 76, that bar them from discussing their relationships with him, the Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the deals and documents it reviewed.

McMahon stepped down as CEO and chairman of WWE in mid-June during an investigation into the alleged misconduct and the Journal reported at the time that he had agreed to pay $3 million to a former paralegal who said he sexually harassed her on the job.

McMahon will continue to oversee WWE’s creative content during the investigation.

WWE named McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie, interim CEO and chairwoman during the investigation into his alleged misconduct though he continued to oversee the company’s creative side. The organization stated at the time that it will have no further comment until the investigation is over.

McMahon has been the leader and most recognizable face at WWE for decades. When he purchased what was then the World Wrestling Federation, from his father in 1982, wrestling matches took place at small venues and appeared on local cable channels.

WWE matches are now held in professional sports stadiums and the organization has a sizeable overseas following. It has a broadcast partnership with the Saudi media company MBC Group.

The organization underwent a seismic transformation under McMahon with events like WrestleMania, a premium live production that draws millions of fervent viewers.

Revenue last year exceeded $1 billion for the first time and the company has television deals with Fox and NBCUniversal. Last month it announced a multiyear expansion of its original programming partnership with A&E.

WWE stars have become crossover sensations, including Hulk Hogan, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and John Cena.

Shares of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut, dropped 2% on Friday.

.

<p>The post Report: WWE boss McMahon’s hush cash bill over $12 million first appeared on harchi90.</p>

CNN
—

James Caan, the veteran screen actor known for his work in such films as “The Godfather,” “Misery” and “Elf,” has died, his family said in a statement on his verified Twitter account. He was 82.

“It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of Jimmy on the evening of July 6,” the statement read. “The family appreciates the outpouring of love and heartfelt condolences and asks that you continue to respect their privacy during this difficult time.”

They did not disclose a cause of death.

Caan first found fame playing Chicago Bears halfback Brian Piccolo in “Brian’s Song,” a widely seen 1971 TV movie. The tearjerking film chronicled Piccolo’s real-life battle with terminal cancer and drew praise for its treatment of the interracial friendship between Piccolo and a Black teammate, Gale Sayers.

His next movie, 1972’s “The Godfather,” made Caan a star. Although he was not Italian, Caan was cast as hotheaded Sonny Corleone, the oldest of mobster Vito Corleone’s three sons, who is memorably gunned down by rival gangsters at a tollbooth.

In a 2021 interview for “CBS Sunday Morning,” Caan said he based Sonny’s persona on the late comedian Don Rickles.

“It wasn’t imitating Don Rickles. It was having that drive, that thing, you know? I was just locked into that,” he said of his performance.

The role earned him an Oscar nomination. Caan also appeared in a flashback in “The Godfather, Part II.”

Caan was perhaps best known for playing tough-guy characters in such films as “Thief” and “Rollerball.” But he was a versatile actor who commanded a variety of roles, including “Misery,” the 1990 Stephen King adaptation about a mild-mannered romance novelist terrorized by an obsessive fan.

He is probably best known to younger audiences for his role in “Elf,” the Christmas tale in which he played Will Ferrell’s Scrooge-like father, a children’s book publisher unhappy to learn he has an exuberant grown son who wears an elf costume and pours maple syrup on his spaghetti.

In the same CBS interview, Caan said he almost turned down the role over the film’s title alone but Ferrell convinced him to join the project.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

.

<p>The post James Caan, Oscar-nominated actor of ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Misery’ and ‘Elf,’ dies at 82 first appeared on harchi90.</p>

CNN
—

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” did gangbusters over the weekend. The latest film in the “Despicable Me” franchise of a would-be villain and his bizarre yellow henchmen had the biggest opening ever over the July 4th holiday.

For all its success in drawing audiences back to theaters, distributor Universal Pictures has, at least partially, the “Gentleminions” to thank.

Gentleminions are young people who film themselves dressed in formalwear, flooding unsuspecting movie theaters to see the newest “Minions” flick and hollering at the screen like they’re lining the ring at Wrestlemania. TikTok teens are arguably not the audience Illumination had in mind when concocting the latest slapstick-heavy animated children’s film, but they’ve turned out in droves anyway thanks to the viral trend – the hashtag #Gentleminions has over 22 million views and counting on the platform.

The Gentleminions are not always welcome, though. They’re showing up at theaters everywhere from the US to Australia and countries in between, causing chaos to the point that some theaters have banned them from buying tickets to “Minions” if they come dressed in a suit.

If you spot a Gentleminion at a viewing of “Minions,” don’t panic – they’re typically harmless, if irksomely obsessed with the little yellow menaces. Here’s how the odd trend came to be – and how teenage boys on TikTok became the Minions’ biggest fans.

To understand the Gentleminions, one must first understand the Minions themselves.

Minions first hit the scene when the first “Despicable Me” premiered in 2010. Immediately, viewers were drawn to the oblong creatures in overalls who served villain-turned-softie Gru. With names like Kevin and Bob, a penchant for drag and a wholly unique delivery of the word “banana,” the Minions endeared themselves to audience members across generations – including Facebook users of a certain age, some of started sharing memes of Minions that convey the thankless exhaustion of parenthood.

And then there are the ironic Minion memes, those shared by irreverent young people and jaded adults. The Minions, these users postulate, are funny because they are note funny, but they’re so unfunny that the same memes have become funny again. Somehow, within that cycle of earnestness and irony, the Minions have become what they’ve always striven to be: Comedy legends.

Now, in 2022, the children who grew up with Minions are now young adults and very fluent in internetspeak. Enter the Gentleminions.

To be a Gentleminion, one must arrive at the movie theater in formal attire – usually a suit and tie. Then, after one has purchased a ticket to “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” one must film themselves before, during and after the movie to demonstrate their excitement. One must cheer, leap up in glee and generally disrupt the viewing experience to inhabit the Gentleminion ethos. And then, of course, one must post their excursion on TikTok, setting the clip to a song called “Rich Minion” by the rapper Yeat.

Why dress up for a night at the theater? Bill Hirst, an Australian teen whose Gentleminions video has received millions of views, told Variety it was all “just for fun” after he and his friends saw another group of boys on TikTok who donned suits to the movies.

“We just chucked on our suits and went straight to the cinemas,” he said. “It was very spontaneous”

In a few cases, though, the Gentleminions’ mostly innocent revelry has sourced. The only movie theater in Guernsey, in the British Isles, had to cancel screenings of the movie after a horde of Gentleminions vandalized the theater and led some children at the screenings to leave in tears, its manager told the BBC.

Some American theaters have also seen light vandalism: A representative for a major theater chain who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record told the Los Angeles Times that its employees have been alerted to the trend after some Gentleminions caused minor property damage, though it doesn’t currently have rules in place to stop them from seeing the movie.

Movie theaters have long been the preferred domains of many a raucous teen, but the Gentleminions have pushed many theaters to their limits. In the UK, several theaters have banned certain young people from tickets to the film as a result of the chaos in Guernsey and other locales, the Guardian reported. One theater said it would not admit any “unaccompanied children wearing suits” who came to see the Minions make mischief.

Whether American cinemas will take the same steps to curb the chaos remains to be seen. CNN reached out to national chains AMC, Regal and Cinemark for comment on their response to the Gentleminions trend and is waiting to hear back.

Meanwhile, Universal Pictures has wholeheartedly embraced the Gentleminions: In a tweet last week, the company wrote: “to everyone showing up to @Minions in suits: we see you and we love you.”

The Minions themselves even sent the Gentleminions a video salute on TikTok, wishing them “Bobspeed.” Their new “fans” might be seeing the film for disingenuous laughs, but the Minions are taking their teasing all the way to the bank.

.

<p>The post ‘Gentleminions’: Why TikTok teens are wearing suits to ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru’ first appeared on harchi90.</p>

CNN
—

Legendary musician Carlos Santana said a medical emergency Tuesday night during a performance in Michigan, according to his management team.

Santana was “over-taken by heat exhaustion and dehydration,” according to a statement by his management team on his official Facebook page. He was performing at Pine Knob Music Theater, an outdoor amphitheater in Clarkston, which is about 40 miles outside of Detroit.

Temperatures in Clarkston reached up to 90 degrees Tuesday, nearly 10 degrees above average, according to CNN meteorologist Robert Shackelford.

“He had just started a song that was about joy and love,” concertgoer Alisa Zee told CNN. “He called for healing for the world. It was during that song that he collapsed.”

In videos recorded by fans, the 74-year-old musician sits on the corner of the stage and stops playing the guitar.

As medical personnel attended to Santana, the stage crew held up a black tarp to block the view of the stage. As he was removed off the stage, fans are heard in a video cheering for the musician. Zee said the artist waved at fans as he was taken off stage.

“Carlos was taken to the emergency department at McLaren Clarkston for observation and is doing well,” reads the statement on his Facebook page.

Following the incident, Santana also posted a short message on Facebook, where he thanked his fans for their “precious prayers.”

“Forgot to eat and drink water so i dehydrated and passed out,” he wrote.

The musician was set to perform with Earth, Wind and Fire on Wednesday night in Pennsylvania, but that concert has been postponed, according to the statement.

Santana performed Monday as part of CNN’s ‘The Fourth in America’ concert.

.

<p>The post Carlos Santana heat exhaustion during a Michigan concert first appeared on harchi90.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal authorities are pushing back on R. Kelly’s claims that he was placed on suicide watch as a form of punishment last week after a judge sentenced him to 30 years behind bars for using his fame to sexually abuse young girls.

The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn filed court papers late Saturday saying the disgraced R&B superstar remains on suicide watch “for his own safety” following a psychological assessment.

Kelly’s “current life circumstances undoubtedly bring emotional distress,” Assistant US Attorney Melanie Speight wrote in a court filing.

“He is a convicted sex offender who has been sentenced to spend the next three decades in prison,” she added. “In the immediate future, he faces another federal criminal trial in Chicago for charges related to child pornography.”

Kelly’s attorney filed a lawsuit Friday alleging prison officials placed him on suicide watch at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center “solely for punitive purposes and because of his status as a high-profile inmate,” adding that Kelly has had no thoughts of harming himself.

“Nothing occurred during sentencing that came as a surprise to Mr. Kelly,” attorney Jennifer Bonjean wrote in the argument. “While the conditions of suicide watch may be appropriate for individuals who are truly at risk of hurting themselves, they are cruel and unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment for individuals who are not suicidal.”

Kelly, 55, didn’t give a statement and showed no reaction upon hearing his sentence, which also included a $100,000 fine.

The Grammy-winning, multiplatinum-selling songwriter was found guilty last year of racketeering and sex trafficking. He has denied wrongdoing, and he plans to appeal his conviction.

The US Bureau of Prisons has been under heightened scrutiny Since financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself behind bars in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges he sexually abused girls as young as 14 and young women in New York and Florida in the early 2000s.

.

<p>The post Feds: R. Kelly remains on suicide watch ‘for his own safety’ first appeared on harchi90.</p>

NEW YORK (AP) — A 35-year-old New York man is facing trespassing and stalking charges after authorities said he entered two New York City residences linked to the famed singer-songwriter Taylor Swift.

Police say the suspect, who was arrested Friday, entered one of the residential buildings, located in the city’s Tribeca neighborhood, on March 26. He walked “through an unlocked door and remained unlawfully” before fleeing on foot when security told him to leave, investigators said.

On June 12, the same man entered another residential building linked to Swift, located on the same street, and “made threats through the intercom toward a 32 year-old female,” according to a spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Commissioner, Public Information.

Swift, 32, has had prior issues with alleged stalkers. In 2018, police said a man broke into her Tribeca townhouse and took a nap. That same year, a Colorado man was arrested outside a Beverly Hills home owned by Swift with a knife, a rope and ammunition.

.

<p>The post Man found at Taylor Swift properties faces stalking charges first appeared on harchi90.</p>

TOKYO (AP) — Canadian rock legend Randy Bachman’s long search came to an end Friday when he was reunited in Tokyo with a cherished guitar 45 years after it was stolen from a Toronto hotel.

“My girlfriend is right there,” said Bachman, 78, a former member of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, as the Gretsch guitar on which he wrote “American Woman” and other hits was handed to him by a Japanese musician who had bought it at a Tokyo store in 2014 without knowing its history.

He said all guitars are special, but the orange 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins he bought as a teenager was exceptional. He worked at multiple jobs to save money to buy the $400 guitar, his first purchase of an expensive instrument, he said.

“It made my whole life. It was my hammer and a tool to write songs, make music and make money,” Bachman told The Associated Press before the handover at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo.

When it was stolen from the Toronto hotel in 1977, “I cried for three days. It was part of me,” he said. “It was very, very upsetting.” He ended up buying about 300 guitars in unsuccessful attempts to replace it, he said.

Bachman talked frequently about the missing guitar in interviews and on radio shows, and more recently on YouTube programs on which he performed with his son, Tal.

In 2020, a Canadian fan who heard the story of the guitar launched an internet search and successfully located it in Tokyo within two weeks.

The fan, William Long, used a small spot in the guitar’s wood grain visible in old images as a “digital fingerprint” and tracked the instrument down to a vintage guitar shop site in Tokyo. A further search led him to a YouTube video showing the instrument being played by a Japanese musician, TAKESHI, in December 2019.

After receiving the news from Long, Bachman contacted TAKESHI immediately, and recognized the guitar in a video chat they had.

“I was crying,” Bachman said. “The guitar almost spoke to me over the video, like, ‘Hey, I’m coming home.’”

TAKESHI agreed to give it to Bachman in exchange for one that was very similar. So Bachman searched and found the guitar’s “sister” — made during the same week, with a close serial number, no modifications and no repairs.

“To find my guitar again was a miracle, to find its twin sister was another miracle,” Bachman said.

TAKESHI said he decided to return the guitar because as a guitar player he could imagine how much Bachman missed it.

“I owned it and played it for only eight years and I’m extremely sad to return it now. But he has been feeling sad for 46 years, and it’s time for someone else to be sad,” TAKESHI said. “I felt sorry for this legend.”

He said he felt good after returning the guitar to its rightful owner, but it may take time for him to love his new Gretsch as much as that one.

“It’s a guitar, and it has a soul. So even if it has the same shape, I cannot say for sure if I can love a replacement the same way I loved this one,” he said. “There is no doubt Randy thought of me and searched hard (for the replacement), so I will gradually develop an affection for it, but it may take time.”

Bachman said he and TAKESHI are now like brothers who own guitars that are “twin sisters.” They are participating in a documentary about the guitar on which they plan to perform a song, “Lost and Found,” together.

They also performed several songs at Friday’s handover, including “American Woman.”

Bachman said he will lock the guitar up in his home so he will never lose it again. “I am never ever going to take it out of my house again,” he said.

.

<p>The post Rock star Randy Bachman reunited with beloved stolen guitar first appeared on harchi90.</p>

LOS ANGELES — Nipsey Hussle was a hip-hop star who sought to raise up his neighborhood with him until a friend from the same streets gunned him down, a prosecutor said in his closing argument Thursday.

“This man was different,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney told jurors, seeking to humanize Hussle after two weeks of testimony that dwelled on the technical details surrounding the 2019 shooting. “He wanted to change the neighborhood. He kept the same friends. And the neighborhood loved him. They called him Neighborhood Nip.”

McKinney’s presentation came at the trial of Eric R. Holder Jr., who is charged with the first-degree murder of the 33-year-old Hussle, whose legal name was Ermias Asghedom.

Holder’s attorney Aaron Jansen acknowledged, as he has throughout the trial, that Holder shot and killed Hussle. But he argued to jurors during his own closing that they should find his client guilty of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter because he was acting in the “heat of passion” after a conversation in which Hussle told him there were rumors of his informing to authorities .

“That heat of passion of being called publicly a snitch by someone as famous as Nipsey Hussle,” Jansen said, later adding, “This is a provocation that stirs up rage and powerful emotion.”

Hussle and Holder were both rappers, one successful, one unsuccessful, who grew up as members of the same South Los Angeles gang, the Rollin’ 60s, the prosecutor McKinney said.

He showed the jurors a photo, taken moments before the shooting, of Hussle crouching down with a toddler wearing a shirt that read “Crenshaw,” bought from Hussle’s South LA clothing store, The Marathon, that they were standing outside of.

“He was no longer a gangbanger. He was a world-known recording artist and so much more,” the prosecutor said. “It really is a shame that his life was so brutally and coldly taken, on his own property, in his own neighborhood, by someone from his own gang. By somebody that he considered a friend.”

Jansen painted a similar picture of Holder, saying he had grown beyond his young gang life and moved miles away.

“By 2019 he had completely put the Rollin’ 60s in his rearview mirror,” Jansen said.

Holder had not been to the neighborhood where he grew up in years, and only stopped at Hussle’s shopping center with a friend because he had a craving for food from a favorite fast-food place there. Jansen said he then found himself blindsided.

“This was a serious accusation that someone of Nipsey Hussle’s stature was making against little Eric Holder Jr., who had just come into the neighborhood to get his chili-cheese fries,” Jansen said.

He said it gave Holder reason to fear for his life and safety.

“What if he calls you a snitch in a song, and names you?” Jansen said.

McKinney downplayed this apparent motivation, calling it a calm conversation that was “in the nature of advice,” and saying no one who observed it thought there was any real hostility or imminent danger.

“I submit to you that the motivation for killing Nipsey Hussle had little or nothing to do with the conversation they had,” McKinney said. “There was already a preexisting jealousy or envy.”

There had been no testimony to this effect during the trial, and the defense objected. The judge let the statement stand, but reminded jurors to focus on the actual evidence from the trial.

McKinney used the extensive surveillance and police body-camera images surrounding the shooting to take the jurors through a minute-by-minute narrative of the day.

He repeatedly showed the video, taken by a camera across a parking lot, of the moment Holder appeared with guns and Hussle collapsed to the ground.

Holder was gone for about 10 minutes before returning and firing. McKinney told jurors that it was plenty of time for premeditation as defined by the law.

“He thought about it and he did it,” McKinney said. “That’s all premeditated means. It doesn’t mean he planned it for weeks.”

Jansen countered that it was “a short period of time for such a serious, life threatening provocation.”

“Clearly, emotions did not have time to clear in that short an amount of time,” the defense attorney said. “There was no cooling off period. There was no time to reflect.”

He even said the fact that Holder kicked Hussle in the head while he was on the ground is evidence that the lesser charge is more apt.

“That shows rage,” Jansen said. “That shows heat of passion.”

———

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton on Twitter: https://twitter.com/andyjamesdalton

.

<p>The post Lawyer: Hussle lifted up neighborhood he was gunned down in first appeared on harchi90.</p>

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Sonny Barger, the leather-clad fixture of 1960s counterculture and figurehead of the notorious Hells Angels motorcycle club who was at the notorious Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway, has died. He was 83.

Barger’s death was announced on his Facebook page late Wednesday.

“If you are reading this message, you’ll know that I’m gone. I’ve asked that this note be posted immediately after my passing,” a posting said. “I’ve lived a long and good life filled with adventure. And I’ve had the privilege to be part of an amazing club.”

The post said that “I passed peacefully after a brief battle with cancer.”

Barger’s former attorney, Fritz Clapp, told The Associated Press that Barger had liver cancer and died Wednesday night at home in Livermore, California. Barger composed the post placed on the Facebook page managed by Barger’s wife, Zorana, he said.

Ralph “Sonny” Barger was a founding member of the Oakland, California, chapter of the Hells Angels in 1957 and was present at its most infamous moment — the 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway during which bikers hired as security staff fatally stabbed a concertgoer who pulled a gun on one of their members.

The Hells Angels were typically depicted by the media as the dark fringe of the 1960s counterculture, embracing freedom, drugs and rock music, but also crime and violence.

But Barger, the unofficial spokesman for the Hells Angels, downplayed their outlaw reputation.

“They say we’re organized crime, but if you took every Hells Angel on the face of the Earth and got rid of them you wouldn’t drop the crime rate in the world one-tenth of one percent,” he said in a 2000 interview for Heads magazine. “We’re a little drop in the bucket. There’s more cops committing crimes than Hells Angels.”

Barger’s own arrest record included charges ranging from drunken driving to attempted murder. He served 13 years in various prisons, according to news reports.

He argued that one of his most satisfying experiences was his acquittal in 1980 on a count of racketeering, and the declaration of a mistrial on a charge of conspiracy to violate the racketeering law.

But in 1988, a jury found Barger guilty of conspiracy to violate federal firearms and explosives laws in plots to kill members of a rival gang. He was sentenced to a six-year term at the Phoenix Federal Correctional Institution and was released in 1992.

Barger capitalized on his notoriety. He wrote three books about his life and philosophy, including a best-selling autobiography, “Hell’s Angel.” A chapter title in one of his books was “Nothing states your position more clearly than a punch in the face.” He also wrote two novels.

Sonny Barger Productions operates a website and sells clothing.

A high school dropout at 16, Barger grew up in Oakland and joined the Army in 1955 with a forged birth certificate. He was kicked out with an honorable discharge after the forgery was discovered.

He started the Hells Angels with friends and soon learned there were other Hells Angels clubs in California. Barger helped unify the clubs.

He served as the main character in Hunter Thompson’s 1966 expose “Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.”

“He’s smart and he’s crafty and he has a kind of wild animal cunning. He was clearly the most competent person around,” Thompson wrote.

Of the Altamont killing, Barger argued that the Hells Angels acted in self-defense. The club member charged in the incident was acquitted. The stabbing was captured by a camera crew filming the documentary “Gimme Shelter.”

Barger underwent a laryngectomy in the early 1980s for throat cancer, which he attributed to a long, three-pack-a-day cigarette habit. Thereafter, he breathed through a plastic valve in his neck, and covered the vent to speak.

“Live your life the Sonny Barger way? I don’t recommend it,” he wrote in the opening lines to his 2005 book “Freedom: Credos from the Road.”

———

Biographical material compiled by former AP reporter Gary Kane.

.

<p>The post Sonny Barger, figurehead of Hells Angels, dies at 83 first appeared on harchi90.</p>