Michigan Governor Signs Ban on Conversion Therapy

Renowned opera singer David Daniels and his husband have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another singer in Houston. Daniels, 57, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Scott Walters, 40, entered the pleas Friday after a jury was assembled for the trial of the pair on first-degree felony charges of aggravated sexual assault.

So many stars are supporting Stand Up to Cancer.

Coronation Street star Daniel Brocklebank has the backing of his fans and followers when it comes to his new romance as they declared 'love this' over his latest loved-up post. The actor went 'Instagram official' with his new boyfriend late last month as he shared a gorgeous snap.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor Rose Byrne jumped at the chance to voice Leatherhead in “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” when producer-star Seth Rogen asked her to join the film. “It was ridiculous,” the “Physical” actor tells me. “Seth was like, ‘I want you to do just fully Aussie — just go for it!’ “I was like, ‘I’m going to do my best Eric Bana.’ This is an homage to Eric,” Byrne continues.

Thomas Bangalter – one half of Daft Punk – has revealed that he was “relieved” over the way that the band ended.The musician, who founded the French electronic duo with Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, was speaking as part of a new interview when he reflected upon his time in the group, and recalled his feelings towards calling it quits back in 2021.In the discussion with BBC Radio 6 Music, Bangalter explained that it “felt good” to draw the project to a close and was sometimes left surprised by how long Daft Punk continued to make music, following their 1997 debut album, ‘Homework’.“The question I ask more myself is why we did end it rather than how it could last for so long,” he said after he was asked why they decided to part ways. “It’s a lot like a story or mini saga – sometimes there’s a TV show that has a special place in people’s hearts and it keeps that place, and it runs for one, two, three, four, five, sometimes 10 seasons.“There’s a moment where it ends and I think it’s actually interesting to have this opportunity to start, have the middle and to end it… [I was] relieved and happy to look back and say: ‘OK, we didn’t mess it up too much.’”Elsewhere in the interview, he also shed insight into their reasoning behind the anonymity when starting Daft Punk, and explained why they chose to wear their signature masks.“You have an idea when you’re like 25, [but] you don’t say ‘You know what? We’re going to dress up like robots until the day we die…’,“I really remember thinking – it would be fun to just have some special effects guys from Hollywood do these personas – robotic personas like if they were part of the cantina scene in Star Wars or something like that,” he added.

Antonio Banderas is reminiscing. The Spanish actor took advantage of Throwback Thursdays to share an inspiring story of his days as a young actor. Melanie Griffith concealed her old Antonio Banderas heart-shaped tattoo with new inkStella Banderas keeps going strong with boyfriend Álex Gruszynski after rekindling their loveA post shared by Antonio Banderas (@antoniobanderas)The photo was shared on Instagram, and is a close up shot of his face taken in the ‘80s.

Naman Ramachandran Auteur Mostofa Sarwar Farooki is spearheading “Ministry of Love,” a 12-film anthology by the leading lights of the Bangladesh film industry for streamer Chorki. The broad theme of the films will be love. Farooki, a celebrated filmmaker whose work including “Television,” “Saturday Afternoon” and “No Land’s Man,” has travelled to festivals worldwide, will co-produce the project on behalf of Chorki.

Even with Kristen Stewart leading the cast and Elizabeth Banks behind the camera, 2019’s “Charlie’s Angels” reboot endured a rough run at the box office, earning a paltry $73 million worldwide. Sure, the reviews weren’t great, but it’s hard to understand how the film performed so poorly when it was based on an established IP with a massive star attached.

Tekken 8 players were found to be illegally playing the game’s closed network test and as a result have been threatened with pre-release bans by Bandai Namco.Available for all platforms, the second closed network test for the forthcoming fighting game was held over the weekend (July 29-30). But because Tekken 8 was playable on PC, this allowed the players who had an awareness of how to circumvent the software to continue playing the game outside of its authorised hours.An important reminder from the TEKKEN Project and Bandai Namco Esports Team.

Zack Sharf Digital News Director Elizabeth Banks recently told Rolling Stone that the media was behind the “gendered agenda” of “Charlie’s Angels,” her 2019 action-comedy starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska that flopped at the box office. The director told The New York Times last year that she wished the film’s marketing “had not been presented as just for girls,” but now she told Rolling Stone that’s the only perspective the media was interested in perpetuating anyway. “So much of the story that the media wanted to tell about ‘Charlie’s Angels’ was that it was some feminist manifesto,” Banks said.

Michigan became the 22nd state Wednesday to ban “conversion therapy,” the discredited pseudoscience that attempts to convert gay, lesbian, and bisexual people heterosexual. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, signed two bills into law Wednesday — House Bill 4617, which defines conversion therapy, and House Bill 4616, which bars licensed therapists from subjecting minors to the practice and lays out penalties for violation, including discipline by public health regulators. Photo: Officer of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Elizabeth Banks was too busy in the ’90s to be collecting Beanie Babies.

Vertigo Films & Haifaa Al Mansour Join Saudi Female Filmmaker Program

Mind is demanding that the government ends all forms of conversion therapy for all members of the LGBT community now. Gemma Byrne, policy and campaigns manager at the mental health charity, said that “there’s no time to wait” to protect people against the psychologically damaging practice.

Elizabeth Banks spilled the tea on how she keeps her “buns” in shape — and the answer is extremely relatable. 

It is probably no accident that Apple has chosen this week to launch its own legendary toy biopic, The Beanie Bubble, in the shadow of Warner Bros. about-to-be blockbuster Barbie. It can only benefit from the obvious connections and themes of female empowerment bubbling under the surface of both.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The scheduled Aug. 24 release of the Eric Bana-starring Australian thriller film “Force of Nature: The Dry 2” has been indefinitely postponed, due to the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike. The strike is also forcing adjustments at the Melbourne International Film Festival, which starts in early August. “It is with some regret, but a large amount of conviction that we have decided to postpone the release of ‘Force of Nature: The Dry 2’,” said Bana, who both stars and produces through his Pick Up Truck Pictures.

Steven Spielberg warned Antonio Banderas of the imminent rise of CGI back on the set of 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.Celebrating the 25th anniversary in a recent interview, Banderas reflected on the Martin Campbell-directed action-adventure film – which was produced by Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment – and how the latter told him that “things are going to change”.“Steven Spielberg said to me once when we were shooting, ‘This is probably going to be one of the last Westerns shot in the way the Westerns were shot in the old days, with real scenes with real horses, where everything is real, [real] sword fighting, no CGI.’ Everything was [practical],” Banderas told Yahoo Entertainment.“And he said, ‘But things are going to change. They’re going to change and they’re gonna change fast.

Mississippi minors are being denied access to widely used e-book and audiobook platforms due to a new book-banning law.The law, which went into effect at the beginning of July, purportedly intends to protect minors from digital resources and databases that contain “sexually oriented” materials.The impact? Because OverDrive, Hoopla, and Mississippi state libraries lack age-based content restrictions, some public libraries are making their online databases –- including those entirely lacking in sexual content — entirely inaccessible to all young people under the age of 18, including disabled minors who may depend on audiobook or e-book access to read.“This move by the state ensures that those with the least privileges — those in unstable homes, those without regular internet access, and those without active parents or guardians in their lives — have even fewer opportunities to utilize public goods and services,” Kelly Jensen, the editor of Book Riot, the largest independent editorial book site, wrote in analyzing the ban.Given how existing Mississippi law defines “sexually oriented” materials, vendors could potentially be deemed to be violating the law by providing access to materials depicting sexual reproduction, nudity or displays of human anatomy, sexual health information, or depictions of LGBTQ identity. Depictions of any of these topics would be treated as equivalent to providing access to hardcore pornography.Violators of the law can face fines between $500 and $5,000, as well as possible prison time.

Illumination is having a hell of a 2023. Obviously, even without a new ‘Minions’ or ‘Despicable Me’ film in theaters, the dumb Minions characters are omnipresent in the lives of children everywhere.