The discrimination and objectification of women in Hollywood is not a new phenomenon. For decades sexist behavior by powerful men in the industry has been part of the star system, and it has influenced how stories were told on the large screen. In the first part of a two-part series …

Montserrat Caballe, a Spanish opera singer renowned for her bel canto technique and her interpretations of the roles of Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, has died. She was 85. Caballe died early Saturday at Hospital San Pau in Barcelona, hospital spokesman Abraham del Moral told The Associated Press. Caballe’s family requested …

The Yazidi community in Iraq and around the world expressed joy and hope after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its 2018 Peace Prize to Nadia Murad, a Yazidi activist and survivor of sexual slavery by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq. Murad will be sharing the prize with  Dr. Denis …

Ben Affleck says battling addiction is “a lifelong and difficult struggle.” The actor posted on Instagram Thursday that he has completed a 40-day stay at a treatment center for alcohol addiction and remains in outpatient care. The 46-year-old says the support he’s received from family and friends has given him …

Monica Lewinsky is teaming up with celebrities for an anti-bullying campaign that targets name-calling. Appearing Friday on ABC’s Good Morning America, Lewinsky says the #DefyTheName campaign calls on people to change their social media names to include the names they were bullied by. Lewinsky says she’ll now be known as …

Chance the Rapper says he’s donating $1 million to help improve mental health services in Chicago. The Chicago native made the announcement Thursday during a summit for his nonprofit organization SocialWorks, saying those involved “want to change the way that mental health resources are being accessed.” Six mental health providers …

After a year that saw the #MeToo movement sweep America, sexual harassment remains a global problem. Nearly 1 in 4 men across eight countries believe they are owed sex from their employees and that it’s sometimes OK to expect a worker to have intimate interactions with the boss’s family member …

With the digital era in full swing, sketchbooks are likely to be gathering dust in desk drawers around the world. But for the founder of the Brooklyn Art Library, sketchbooks are precious, the nondigital predecessors of Instagram. As part of a special project, the library has created a business by …

Marion “Suge” Knight was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for mowing down and killing a Compton businessman in a case that completed the former rap music mogul’s downfall from his heyday as one of the biggest and most feared names in the music industry. Knight will now spend …

EgyptAir is standing by a writer for its in-flight magazine who penned a bizarre article purportedly based on an interview with American actress Drew Barrymore. The article, riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors, led with a description of Barrymore as “being unstable in her relationships” and quoted her as saying …

Cristiano Ronaldo has been left off Portugal’s national team squad for a pair of upcoming matches, the decision coming as the soccer great fights rape allegations in the United States. Ronaldo has been accused of rape by Kathryn Mayorga, who says the player assaulted her in Las Vegas in 2009. …

Paper can be much more than just a surface to write on. Paper Trails’, is an annual exhibition held at Cleveland, Ohio’s Morgan Conservatory that showcases dozens of works of paper art that stretch the imagination. Maxim Moskalkov has the story. …

After years of delays Tokyo’s 80-year-old Tsukiji fish market is closing Saturday to move to a more modern facility on reclaimed industrial land in Tokyo Bay. The new, 569 billion yen ($5 billion) facility at Toyosu will open Oct. 11, over the objections of many working in Tsukiji who contend …

Negotiations to lift an Olympic ban on Kuwait are making progress, but more issues need to be ironed out before the country’s Olympic return, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said Wednesday. Kuwait’s national Olympic committee (KOC) has been banned since October 2015 after the government was accused of interference with …

Chelsea Clinton says she’s naturally an optimist and despite enduring name-calling from the time she was a child, she chooses to answer insults — even on Twitter — with kindness and respect. “Cyberbullying is a huge challenge across our country. I think we need those of us with platforms to …

How much did movie fans hate “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”? Perhaps not as fiercely as social media might suggest, according to a U.S. academic study which found that half of negative tweets about the 2017 movie came from bots, trolls or political activists, some of whom may be Russian. …

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner is back with a new television series, but while this one is set far from the 1960s world of advertising, he says the themes are much the same. The Romanoffs features eight contemporary drama stories about people who believe they are descendants of the Russian royal family, …

In the new movie Venom, British actor Tom Hardy plays an investigative journalist whose body is invaded by an alien with violent instincts who feeds on a diet of human flesh. It is a darker tale from the Marvel Comics superhero universe than what audiences have seen in recent films such …

Los Angeles is hosting an unusual art exhibition for an unusual crowd — dogs. At the show, four-legged art lovers can not only touch some of the art on display, they can sniff it, play with it and taste it. For VOA, Angelina Bagdasaryan gives us a look. …

It’s hard to miss some of the trash and recycling trucks rumbling through the streets of Washington. Twenty five of them are covered with colorful artwork, ranging from birds, flowers and butterflies to abstract images. As some sanitation workers do the dirty job of dumping trash into one of those …

A copy of a knotted gun sculpture which has become an emblem for peace was unveiled Tuesday in Lebanon’s capital Beirut near a tower block whose shattered facade evokes the civil war that once ripped the city apart. Swedish artist Carl Fredrik Reutersward made the original sculpture, a revolver with …

Thousands of people gathered in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday to sign a condolence book and pay last respects to Charles Aznavour, a French singer of Armenian origin who died on Monday. Aznavour passed away overnight at the age of 94 at one of his homes, in the village …

Organizers of Asia’s largest film festival have issued a rallying cry to its supporters as the event emerges from years of starring in its own political drama. The Busan International Film Festival hopes to draw a line under its role in a bitter row over the sinking of the Sewol …

When Bradley Cooper saw Lady Gaga perform “La Vie en Rose” at a fundraiser at the home of entrepreneur Sean Parker, it wasn’t one of the important moments along the road to making “A Star Is Born.” It was, Cooper says, THE moment.   “She demolished the room,” he recalls, …

A Christian TV network is entering the crowded world of 24-hour news broadcasting at a time when the mainstream news media is under increasing attack by President Donald Trump and some of his supporters, many of them evangelicals.   The Christian Broadcasting Network’s news channel will provide a religious perspective …