The stranglehold that autumn prestige films have on Oscar season just might be wilting in the summer sun. Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk hits theaters Friday, but the overflowing reviews have made it abundantly clear: It’s a major Oscar contender and a best-picture front-runner, even in July. And Dunkirk, which …

Catchy summer dance song Despacito has set a record as the most streamed music track of all time, with 4.6 billion plays across leading platforms, record company Universal Music said Wednesday. The song, first released in January in Spanish by Puerto Rican singer Luis Fonsi and rapper Daddy Yankee and …

Fleetwood Mac will be named the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year, becoming the first group to receive the honor.   The Recording Academy announced Wednesday that the 28th annual benefit gala will take place at Radio City Music Hall in New York on January 26, 2018, two days before …

Women dominate Westeros as never before, and it’s the same with the Game of Thrones ratings. The HBO drama’s seventh-season premiere last weekend drew a record-setting 10.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen company figures released Tuesday. That eclipsed previous top-rated Game of Thrones episodes, including the 8.11 million who watched …

An impending auction of pop star Madonna’s personal items, including a love letter from her ex-boyfriend the late rapper Tupac Shakur, a pair of previously worn panties and a hairbrush containing her hair, was halted by a judge on Tuesday. Manhattan state Supreme Court Judge Gerald Leibovitz ordered Gotta Have …

Two new books from the Harry Potter universe are set to be released as part of a British exhibition that celebrates the 20th anniversary of the launch of the series. The British Library’s Harry Potter exhibition, “A History of Magic,” opens in October and runs through February 2018. In an …

Images of life under Islamic State rule are rare because taking photos, drawing or painting was discouraged or even banned. An artist who escaped from Raqqa, an Islamic State stronghold in Syria which is now under siege, depicts scenes from the occupied city in a temporary shelter where he now …

Two of country music’s biggest stars, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, whose onstage chemistry spawned hit duets like “Islands in the Stream” and “Real Love,” will be making their final performance together this year. Rogers, who is retiring from touring, says his final performance with Parton will be part of …

Boston has launched a new public service campaign to fight Islamophobia by offering the public ways to address aggression toward others because of their appearance or beliefs. The campaign launched Monday involves 50 posters that provide a step-by-step guide to handling when someone is being harassed. They will be posted …

The executive who oversaw Spain’s rise to dominate world soccer in recent years was arrested Tuesday in an anti-corruption investigation, dealing yet another blow to the sport’s already-tarnished image.   Angel Maria Villar, his son, Gorka Villar, and two other soccer officials were detained while raids were conducted at the …

Actor Daniel Radcliffe came to the aid of a man who was mugged by moped-riding attackers in London. Former police officer David Videcette told the Evening Standard newspaper that two moped riders attacked a man just off the upmarket King’s Road in west London, slashing him across the face and …

American filmmaker Martin Scorsese is backing an international effort to preserve African movies, hoping to protect the work of some of Africa’s most influential directors. Arzouma Kompaore reports. …

After weeks of uncertainty, the U.S. Women’s Open stopped being about President Donald Trump, his course and his views toward women and it turned out to be what the USGA wanted: a good tournament on a good course. Not surprisingly, the best player this week won, making up for a …

Martin Landau, the chameleon-like actor who gained fame as the crafty master of disguise in the 1960s TV show “Mission: Impossible,” then capped a long and versatile career with an Oscar for his poignant portrayal of aging horror movie star Bela Lugosi in 1994’s “Ed Wood,” has died. He was …

Filmmaker Ken Burns views the Vietnam War as a virus that infected Americans with an array of chronic illnesses — alienation, a lack of civil discourse, mistrust of government and each other. And he hopes his new documentary can be part of a cure. “What if the film was just …

George Romero, whose classic “Night of the Living Dead” and other horror films turned zombie movies into social commentaries and who saw his flesh-devouring undead spawn countless imitators, remakes and homages, has died. He was 77.   Romero died Sunday following a battle with lung cancer, said his family in …

The roar of the engine was replaced by a furious whirring as the future of motorsports came to Brooklyn. Formula E took over part of the waterfront neighborhood of Red Hook on Sunday, the second of two race days for the Qualcomm New York City ePrix. The Formula One-style, open-wheel …

Swiss tennis star Roger Federer has won a record 8th Wimbledon title, defeating Croatia’s Marin Cilic in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1, 6-4. The win Sunday moved him past both Pete Sampras and William Renshaw, who each won seven Wimbledon titles. “It’s disbelief I can achieve such heights. I wasn’t sure …

Ray Phiri, a South African jazz musician who founded the band Stimela and became internationally known while performing on Paul Simon’s Graceland tour, died of cancer on Wednesday at age 70. Phiri, a vocalist and guitarist known for his versatility in jazz fusion, indigenous South African rhythms and other styles, …

“Don’t go to the pub tonight,” Irish pop musician Bob Geldof pleaded in the months leading up to Live Aid, the world’s biggest concert that took place on two continents, included 72 rock bands, and raised an estimated $125 million to feed starving Ethiopians caught in a historically severe famine. …

A ticking sound runs throughout “Dunkirk” like an omnipresent reminder that time is running out for the 340,000 British and Allied soldiers marooned on the French beach and surrounded by Germans. It’s a tick-tock effect woven into the score that originated, fittingly, from Christopher Nolan’s own stopwatch. Nolan is cinema’s …

A Spanish court has given permission for the remains of famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali to be exhumed as part of a paternity test. The judge in Catalonia ruled the body will be dug up July 20. A woman claims Dali was her father. She has given a saliva sample …

With peeling paint and crumbling plasterwork, an abandoned picture house and its renovation in the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli is more than a dream for Qassem Istanbouli. The 31-year-old has reopened three such cinemas, two in his home city of Tyre in southern Lebanon, and another in Nabatiyeh, and …

Before America put the first men on the moon in 1969, NASA astronauts prepared for their lunar missions on the volcanic terrain at a national park. Lunar landscape National parks traveler Mikah Meyer says he now knows why those astronauts visited Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in …

The charade only ended in the final years of Chuck Blazer’s life.   Stripped of his extravagances, soccer’s gregarious and greedy dealmaker was forced to admit to his years of corruption and confined to a New Jersey hospital. The eccentric bon vivant who once strode across the global stage being …