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Saturday: Weekend

Prolific ‘Graduate’ writer-actor Buck Henry dies at 89

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Buck Henry, ìThe Graduateî co-writer who as screenwriter, character actor, ìSaturday Night Liveî host and cherished talk-show and party guest became an all-around cultural superstar of the 1960s and 70s, has died. He was 89. Henry’s wife, Irene Ramp, told The Washington Post that his death Wednesday in Los Angeles was due to a heart attack. Henry, who also co-created the TV spy spoof ìGet Smartî with Mel Brooks and others, managed to pull off the rare Hollywood coup of screenwriter-as-celebrity, partly through inserting himself in his films in ...

Royal courtiers chart path for Prince Harry’s independence

By DANICA KIRKA and JILL LAWLESS Associated Press LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II has moved quickly to take control of the crisis surrounding the decision by Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, to distance themselves from the royal family, ordering royal courtiers to find a future role for the pair within days. Officials representing t he most senior members of the family — the monarch, her son Prince Charles, grandson Prince William, and Prince Harry and Meghan — were meeting to sort out a workable solution for the couple within the royal family. In the ...

Brazil court allows gay Jesus film on Netflix

By DIANE JEANTET Associated Press RIO DE JANEIRO — The president of Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday issued an order that allows streaming service Netflix to continue exhibiting a satirical film depicting Jesus as a gay man and reaffirmed Brazilians’ right to free speech. “It is not to be assumed that a humorous satire has the magic power to undermine the values ??of the Christian faith, whose existence goes back more than two thousand years,î Supreme Court President Jose Antonio Dias Toffoli wrote in his decision. Netflix earlier the same day filed an official ...

Forest ecologist helps refashion Barbie dolls as scientists

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press SALT LAKE CITY — When Nalini Nadkarni was a kid, she’d run home from school, climb into one of the eight maple trees in her parents’ backyard and spend an afternoon there with an apple and a book. That time in the treetops set the ...

So long, for now

My parents’ home, where I grew up, still brings back sharp memories and feelings of long summer days, of the squishy soil and prickly grass beneath my feet running through the sprinkler in the front yard, and of the smack sound a baseball makes when it hits the pocket of my glove just right. I remember campfires under the stars, and trying to catch falling leaves while jumping on the trampoline, hauling in wood from the shed and the smell of smoke coming from our woodstove curling up into the crisp autumn air. I think of sledding down our driveway in winter, laying on my back in the ...

Taking note: Dreaming big

The final days of 2020 seemed to dwindle quickly. But the last little bit of the year offered up a few incredibly bright winter days. Sunshine had returned, sparkling upon the all-encompassing blanket of pure white snow. It was a powerful sun, bold and bright, against a pure blue backdrop of sky. The sunshine was a relief amid winter’s near-constant heavy gray skies, the daytime hours barely distinguishable from all those long inky nights. It had been days since the sun had been visible behind that wall of gray clouds, at best a hazy sphere floating low above the horizon. But this ...