David Cronenberg has offered up his thoughts on the backlash that the Oscar-winning film The Brutalist was on the receiving end of throughout awards season.

The Canadian filmmaker was at a London Soundtrack Festival talk with career-long collaborator Howard Shore to discuss some of the films they’ve partnered on over the years.

The two visionaries discussed M. Butterfly, Cronenberg’s 1993 film about a French diplomat (Jeremy Irons) who becomes infatuated with a Chinese opera performer, Song Liling (John Lone). Their affair lasts for 20 years, and they subsequently marry, but Irons’ character is unaware or willfully ignorant that Liling is a man.

Cronenberg compared his editing of the film to the criticism surrounding Brady Corbet’s post-war epic when it was revealed that artificial intelligence was used on the film’s lead, Brody (who went on to win the best actor Oscar for his performance), to enhance the accuracy of his character’s Hungarian accent.

“I must confess, there was a scandal [with] The Brutalist,” the director began at London’s Royal Festival Hall. “There was a discussion about Adrien Brody… but apparently they used artificial intelligence to improve his accent. I think it was a campaign against The Brutalist by some other Oscar nominees. It’s very much a Harvey Weinstein kind of thing, though he wasn’t around.”

“We mess with actors’ voices all the time,” Cronenberg continued. “In the case of John (Lone), when he was being this character, this singer, I raised the pitch of his voice [to sound more feminine] and when he’s revealed as a man, I lowered to his natural voice. This is just a part of moviemaking.”

Cronenberg and Shore have collaborated on all of the former’s films, bar one, since 1979. At Saturday’s discussion, they unpacked movies such as The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988), M. Butterfly (1993), Crash (1996) and most recently, The Shrouds (1994).

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Nick Cannon has made quite the name for himself over the years as he’s fathered more children than there are members of the Wayans family (that’s saying something). But if you thought the man would be falling back from having anymore kids, you got another thing coming.

According to Page Six, the “Johnny Appleseed” of the Hip-Hop culture says that as long as there is breath in his body and his private parts remain potent, he will continue to have as many children as the good Lord allows him. He’s perfectly content single-handedly helping the global population grow. In his latest episode of his and Courtney Bee’s We Playin’ Spades podcast, the father of 12 hosted the likes of NFL players Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder, who revealed they had vasectomies following the birth of quite a few of their children. Clark and Channing insinuated that maybe Nick should follow suit as he’s got more kids than Wu-Tang Clan members.

Naturally, Nick pushed back on their advice and stated that as long as he can get busy, he’ll be keeping the maternity ward in hospitals humming if he has anything to say about it.

Per Page Six:

After the former athletes compared how their vasectomies were done, the “Gigolo” rapper said he felt like he was “being judged.”

Bee then asked her co-host if he would have more children with one of the women he already has a child with or outsource to find a new woman to procreate with.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s the thing. I leave it to the Lord.”

Cannon first became a dad in 2011 when he welcomed twins Monroe and Moroccan, now 13, with his ex-wife, Mariah Carey.

Nick Cannon then went on to have a gang of kids with multiple women over the years. While some may be appalled by that fact, the truth is it seems like he’s been taking his daddy duties seriously and has been a good father to all his children. For that alone we can’t really hate on the man.

Still, we do feel that man needs to…

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Eugene “Big U” Henley is known in the hip-hop community as a former member of the Rollin’ 60s who changed his life after spending 13 years in prison, using his stature in the city to prevent gang violence and make moves with artists like the late Nipsey Hussle. But an FBI investigation has Henley battling accusations of murder, kidnapping, robbery, extortion, and fraud.

LA Times reports that federal authorities filed a 107-page report running down a variety of crimes they’ve accused Henley of. The report alleges that Henley ran his Big U Enterprise as a “mafia-like organization,” extorting professional athletes, rappers, and others by making them “check in” with Henley to acquire “protection” while they were visiting the city. 

Big U is also accused of defrauding companies and celebrities like Draymond Green and Shaquille O’Neal, encouraging them to donate to his charities before keeping the money for himself. Henley is also accused of robbing a marijuana dispensary after the business stopped making extortion payments. 

The federal investigation was reportedly launched a month after the January 2021 murder of rapper Rayshawn Williams, an artist who was signed to Henley’s record label Uneek Music. Big U is accused of kidnapping and killing Williams after the latter recorded a diss song that was perceived to have targeted him.

Big U “has maintained the image of an entertainment industry entrepreneur running a music label and of somebody who gives back to the community here in Los Angeles,” U.S. Attorney. Joseph T. McNally said at a press conference. “The facts alleged in the complaint paint a very different picture. It is one of a murderer, a thief, a liar, and a cheat and the criminals that enabled him.”

Big U has reportedly admitted to being a part of the Rollin’ 60s Crips and served a prison sentence after being convicted for trying to rob 33 pounds of cocaine from an undercover officer in 1991. After…

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When Jasmine Sessoms observed the political landscape, she was disheartened to see that practically no Black women worked in public policy. After successfully training Black women to run for political office in her home state of Pennsylvania through her “She Can Run” program—resulting in graduates like Cherelle Parker, who went on to be elected Philadelphia’s first female mayor—Sessoms decided she needed to go a step further.

“Without training us, investing in us, and connecting us, we really are struggling,” said Sessoms, a longtime political fundraiser who has served in various roles in government relations and higher education. “I was like, ‘You know what? I want to do something bigger than just training women to run for office because there are so many other facets.”

That’s where Center 1968 comes in. The center, named after the year Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress, builds on the work of “She Can Run,” expanding beyond getting Black women to run for office to include training in policy to become staffers in political offices. The center even honors iconic Black women in politics with a fellowship named after former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan and a staffer program named after Valerie Jarrett, the former senior advisor to President Barack Obama. To date, 13 women have graduated from the center, and a handful of them have been placed in jobs as policy experts.

Sessoms told theGrio that the center primarily seeks out women who are not necessarily politically connected. “We look for the community leader, the single mom that just is a block captain or a ward leader or a committee person…we put them into the system that was not designed for them.” She continued, “There’s a lot of nervousness and trepidation because everything they know about politics is just scary, bad…we make it more friendly.”

For those who are politically connected, Center 1968 provides a needed…

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Raising Black boys in America in 2025 sounds as complex as it’s ever been, especially if you take Anthony Mackie’s word on the matter.

The 46-year-old father of four boys and actor recently appeared on “The Pivot” podcast to discuss his career, parenting, and much more, including how he’s been instilling certain values in his sons.

“In the past 20 years, we’ve been living through the death of the American male…but I raised my boys to become young men,” the “Captin America: Brave New World” star said. He added, “They have literally killed masculinity in our homes, in our communities, for one reason or another. But I raise my boys to be young men. And however you feel about that, you feel about that.”

Elaborating further, he said he teaches his sons, who are ages 15 through 8, to be respectful and humble, say “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am,” open doors for women, and become providers.

Mackie added that when he leaves town, his 15-year-old son becomes the “man of the house.”

“If I’m not there to protect, he gotta be there to protect,” the actor said.

In order to keep his sons humble, the “Twisted Metal” actor said in his house they “don’t do all the internet fly sh—.”

“I keep my boys humble,” he said, “My boys have never had a pair of Jordans.”

His comments regarding his values and thoughts on masculinity’s “death” have received mixed reactions online. While some have found his stance offputting, verging on homophobic, others have been praising him for his “traditional” sensibilities and taking his responsibility as a father seriously. There are others who have noted, in his defense, that Mackie mentions how playing a gay character expanded his viewpoint within the same conversation.

The actor explains that growing up in the 80s and the 90s, the culture was rampant with homophobia. However, at the same time being from New Orleans and seeing local cultural…

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A professor filed a lawsuit against a New Jersey university claiming the school’s negligence led to 380-million-year-old fossils ending up in a landfill in Nashville, Tennessee, last year.

Martin Becker, professor of environment science and paleontologist at William Paterson University, had planned to collaborate with a colleague on a comprehensive monograph featuring his fossil collection, according to the civil suit filed last week in Superior Court in Passaic County.

Becker spent “hundreds upon hundreds of hours” collecting the Devonian age marine invertebrate fossils from the High Mountain area of Wayne, New Jersey, the suit said. 

Becker needed to send the priceless collection to his colleague in Florida to move forward with the project, the lawsuit said.

On June 18, 2024, Becker packaged about 200 fossils into 19 separate boxes, which was about 80% of his collection. Each package weighed 20 to 60 pounds, the suit said. The fossils were brought to the WPU mailroom that same day and given to mailroom supervisor Raymond Boone, who is also named as a defendant in the case.

The packages were picked up by the United Parcel Service on June 18. Becker was told by Boone that he would receive tracking and insurance information, but Becker claims he never received it, according to the lawsuit.

In the following weeks, the suit said Becker’s colleague in Florida informed him that the fossils had never arrived.

Becker said he received tracking information on Aug. 20 after making two phone calls to the mailroom to speak with Boone, the lawsuit said. Tracking information indicated that the packages were in Parsippany, New Jersey, awaiting delivery.

Becker would repeatedly contact Boone over the course of a month regarding the packages, the suit said, and Boone assured him on three separate occasions that he was “working on the issue.”

On Sept. 20, Boone advised Becker that the fossil packages were possibly being held at the UPS fraud department, according to the lawsuit….

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UPDATED: 12 p.m. EST March 17, 2025

Black faces show up on every continent in every era of world history, including places like Ireland.

Researchers are discovering new information about the earliest inhabitants of Ireland and some data suggests that the first settlers were Black people with blue eyes, according to the Irish Times.

In April 2021, Geneticist Dr. Lara Cassidy told the publication that forensic data revealed surprising information about Black prehistoric Irish people, who were known to be hunters and gathers. They lived on the island for nearly 4,000 years before settled farmers took over. The discovery was largely explored in a documentary called The Burren: Heart of Stone last year, where scientists developed a large genetic database of Irish genomes to help uncover more information about Ireland’s first natives.

“We know now from ancient genomes that farming was accompanied by a whole group of people moving into the continent from the region now known as modern Turkey, ” Cassidy explained.

The Black settlers were known to gather shellfish along the Burren, a karst landscape of bedrock incorporating a vast cracked pavement of glacial-era limestone located in the region of County Clare, which is southwest of Ireland. They eventually moved inland to hunt wild boars and gather hazelnuts. Scientists believe that farmers who migrated into the region during the neolithic period may have driven the original settlers out as they brought “cattle, sheep and goats, pottery” and new housing structures. Dr. Cassidy believes they may have had lighter skin than the hunter-gathers.

“There could have been violence. This would have been quite a dramatic colonization event,” she added.

Back in 2018, geneticists at the University College London and the Natural History Museum found a Mesolithic skeleton dating back to 1903 that they believed had “dark to black skin” with blue eyes and curly hair, the Irish Post first…

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It’s never too late to chase your dreams, but when a Bronx, NY grandmother decided to pursue her own and go get her masters degree, life took an unthinkable turn. After a two-year-long set back, she’s back on track to open her own business providing much needed help to New York’s homeless population.

Life for Karen Wallace hasn’t always been an easy one. Two years ago, she started John Jay College in hopes of obtaining her masters in public administration, but then she was hit with a tragic diagnosis. She shared her story with ABC 7 of how shortly after deciding to go back to school, she was diagnosed with cancer.

“I had already got diagnosed with the breast cancer in November,” the social worker told ABC 7’s Nina Pineda. Despite her condition, Wallace finished the first two weeks of classes. “I just went on and started, because it started. I’m home, I’m online, it was easy,” she continued.

But in January, her education was put on pause after she was hit with yet another cancer diagnosis. “When we did the PET scan in January, and it came up with the Non-Hodgkin lymphoma,” she revealed. “I just didn’t know what to do.”

The grad student soon decided to withdraw from school, notably doing so within the school’s designated withdrawal time frame. Over the next year, Wallace took her health seriously, and her cancer was in remission when yet another bomb dropped— this time in the form of a bill.

The school had charged Wallace for more than $5,000 despite her never being able to finish a class. And after going back and worth with the college over the matter, her bill went into collection. “It was going to go on my credit report, what am I going to do?” she asked. “It made me want to cry, I was literally sick.”

But, that’s when ABC 7 jumped in and pulled some impressive strings. “7 On Your Side contacted John Jay College on a Friday, and before classes started on Monday, Wallace got some great news,” journalist Pineda said.

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In the wake of the Food and Drug Administration banning Red Dye No. 3 from foods, dietary supplements and oral medications, many people are wondering: What products contain Red 3?

The Red 3 ban will not go into effect until early 2027 for food and early 2028 for drugs, according to the FDA. So it’s good to check the ingredient lists for the dye until then, experts say.

Research shows Red No. 3, which is used to give products a bright red hue, can cause cancer in animals, NBC News reported. Many food safety advocates have been concerned for decades about the substance’s presence in the U.S. food system.

“We’re thrilled that the FDA has finally taken action to remove this unneeded color additive for the market and in so doing has followed the clear dictates of the law,” Dr. Peter Lurie, president and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), tells TODAY.com.

“In the absence of lobbying by the industry, I think we would all expect this product to have been banned decades ago,” he adds.

In a statement about the ban, the International Association of Color Manufacturers told NBC News that it “remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding the highest safety standards. … Our members will continue to comply with FDA regulations.”

Did the FDA ban Red Dye 3?

Yes. The FDA said it is banning the use of Red Dye No. 3 due to evidence that the synthetic color additive can cause cancer in animals. But the additive will still be present in some foods sold in the U.S. in until early 2027 and in some drugs until early 2028.

The agency says that under a clause of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), the FDA is not allowed to authorize any color additive “if it has been found to induce cancer in humans or animals.”

Jim Jones, the agency’s deputy director for human foods, said there is “evidence” of “cancer in laboratory male rats exposed to high levels of FD&C Red Dye No. 3” in a statement to NBC News.

Red Dye No. 3 has not been…

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