NEW YORK (AP) ― Hollywood loves the Next Big Thing, and four years ago, that was Barack Obama, the equivalent of a breakout movie star.“He is ‘The One,’’’ said Oprah Winfrey, his biggest and most influential celebrity champion.“The best candidate I’ve ever seen,’’ said George Clooney.Halle Berry said she’d “collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.’’ Black Eyed Peas frontman will.i.am chimed in with the famous “Yes We Can’’ video.But you can’t be the Next Big Thing twice and a

Pianist Paik’s ‘romance’ with Brahms Paik Kun-woo“Brahms-Intermezzi” (Universal Music)Paik Kun-woo’s second album on Brahms is more evidence that this Korean musician’s fingertips can bring back to life almost any composer.Filled with 13 pieces chosen among those written in the latter half of Johannes Brahms’ life, the album will serve as a gift for any fan of the German composer.Playing through the intermezzi, capriccios and romance pieces Op. 76 through Op. 119 (in random order), Paik has tran

PARIS (AP) ― Paris, once regarded as the gastronomical center of the world, is looking to a cadre of young chefs from a country derided for its love of processed cheese ― gasp, the United States ― to help raise the bar.French chefs have been opening fine restaurants stateside for years, but up until about a decade ago, the opposite would have been almost unthinkable. Now, bright young things from New York, Chicago and Seattle are behind some of the City of Light’s most-hyped, hardest-to-get-into

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) ― When Thomas Jefferson died, scores of slaves were sold from his Monticello plantation to settle his debts. Peter Fossett, 11, was among them, recalling that he was “born and reared as free, not knowing that I was a slave, then suddenly, at the death of Jefferson, put on an auction block and sold to strangers.’’Fossett’s story is one of many included in several new projects launching this winter to explore the slaves who lived and worked at Monticello.A website launching

NEW YORK (AP) ― Hanging around outside The Public Theater next week could turn you into an unanticipated actor.An hour or so before the group known as the Gob Squad hits the stage with its new offering for the Under the Radar Festival, four members will hit the streets armed with video cameras to create their new work, “Super Night Shot.”They’ll initiate and film some “comic and surreal adventures” that “celebrate unexpected encounters with strangers,” according to the group, a British and Germa

Up to 1.71 million people will receive aid from the government for cultural activities and a foundation for artists’ welfare will be set up next year, as part of efforts to resolve the cultural divide among different social sectors, the Culture Ministry said Thursday. The ministry released its plans for the New Year as Minister Choe Kwang-shik briefed President Lee Myung-bak along with other cultural organization chiefs.Some of the plans for 2012 include increasing the number of people who recei

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) ― Serbia’s folk diva Svetlana Raznatovic denied this week charges of violent behavior she and another person are facing for allegedly insulting and beating up the manager of a soccer club.Raznatovic claimed at a court hearing that it was her who was insulted.“He (manager) even wanted to attack me,’’ she told the court. “I have never caused any incidents.’’The hearing was briefly interrupted when the singer complained she was feeling ill and asked for a glass of water.Raznat

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Cheetah, a chimpanzee said to have performed in the “Tarzan” films of the 1930s, has died at the age of 80, according to the Florida sanctuary where he lived.“It is with great sadness that the community has lost a dear friend and family member on December 24, 2011,” the Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, Florida announced on its website.Cheetah was said to have performed in “Tarzan the Ape Man” (1932) and “Tarzan and His Mate” (1934), classic films about a man reared i

DUBLIN (AFP) ― Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has admitted that her fourth marriage has ended after just 16 days, with the star blaming pressure put on her husband by those close to him.O’Connor, 45, met therapist Barry Herridge, 38, earlier this year when he responded to an online appeal posted by the singer, and they married in a Las Vegas chapel on Dec. 8. But in a blog post on Monday, the singer revealed that the marriage had lasted only 16 days, until December 24, and that the couple had live

 WASHINGTON (AP) ― Forrest Gump’s oft-imitated line, “My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get’” will be immortalized among the U.S. treasures in the world’s largest archive of film, TV and sound recordings.The Library of Congress on Wednesday announced that 1994’s smash hit “Forrest Gump’’ starring Tom Hanks was one of 25 films chosen to be included this year in the National Film Registry.The oldest reels are silent films both from 1912. “Th

Korean pianist Shin Soo-jung and baritone Bahk Heung-u will both receive medals from Germany, noted for the contributions they made in spreading German music in Korea, according to the German Embassy in Seoul. Shin, 69, will be receiving the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, while Bahk, 50, will be honored with the Cross of the Order of Merit during a ceremony on Friday, the embassy said. Veteran pianist Shin, formerly the dean of the Seoul National Univer

CHICAGO (AP) ― Dolls a Greek woman made during World War II. Ice cream bowls and wooden spoons from a 1940s Greek candy store. Thousands of record albums filled with Greek music.These items and many other beloved objects and family heirlooms have found their way from around the country to the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago, which has a new place to store and exhibit them all, in a four-story 40,000-square-foot (12,192-meter) environmentally friendly building of limestone and glass that open

NEW YORK (AP) ― Helen Frankenthaler, an abstract painter known for her bold, lyrical use of color who led a postwar art movement that would later be termed Color Field painting, died Tuesday at her home in Connecticut, her nephew said. She was 83.One of Frankenthaler’s most famous works is “Mountains and Sea,” a 1952 painting at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which she created by pouring thinned paint directly onto raw, unprimed canvas laid on the studio floor. Frankenthaler’s

NEW DELHI (AFP) ― Yoko Ono believes Bollywood has a lot to teach the world and says she will be looking for “inspiration” in India when she holds an exhibition here next month.The avant-garde artist, musician and widow of Beatles singer John Lennon will visit New Delhi for an art show that opens on Jan. 13.The Japanese-born Ono, 78, told the Hindustan Times newspaper in an email interview from her New York home that she hoped to get more out of her coming trip than on a previous India visit she

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― Reality TV producer Bruce Beresford-Redman is willing to face trial in Mexico for the murder of his wife after losing his fight against extradition, his lawyers said.Beresford-Redman, 40, an Emmy-nominated former producer of CBS’s “Survivor” and MTV’s “Pimp My Ride,” is accused in the death of Monica Burgos, 41, his Brazilian-born wife of 11 years, at a Cancun resort in April, 2010.In a statement, his lawyers Richard Hirsch and Vicki Podberesky expressed disappointment with l

NEW YORK (AP) ― Occupy Wall Street may still be working to shake the notion it represents a passing outburst of rage, but some establishment institutions have already decided the movement’s artifacts are worthy of historic preservation.More than a half-dozen major museums and organizations from the Smithsonian Institution to the New-York Historical Society have been avidly collecting materials produced by the Occupy movement.Staffers have been sent to occupied parks to rummage for buttons, signs

TOKYO (AP) ― Sori Yanagi, whose designs for stools and kitchen pots brought the simplicity and purity of Japanese decor into the everyday, has died. He was 96.The pioneer of Japan’s industrial design died of pneumonia in a Tokyo hospital Sunday, Koichi Fujita of Yanagi Design Office said.Yanagi’s curvaceous “butterfly stool,” evocative of a Japanese shrine gate, won an award at La Triennale di Milano in 1957 and helped elevate him to international stature.The work later joined the permanent coll

THE HAGUE (AFP) ― The Amsterdam Museum has raised more than 50,000 euros from public sponsors to restore a 198-year-old painting depicting Napoleon’s entrance into the city, its spokeswoman said. The public was asked to sponsor different parts on the canvas entitled “Napoleon’s Entrance,” painted by Belgian master Matthieu van Bree in 1813 and which until recently had been rolled-up since 1891.“We have 340 donors who contributed amounts ranging from between 10 euros to 25,000 euros,” Martine Wil

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― A former journalist who became the subject of a Hollywood movie after he was caught fabricating articles in the late 1990s is fighting to become a lawyer in California over the objections of a state bar committee.Stephen Glass, whose ethical missteps at The New Republic and other magazines were recounted in the film “Shattered Glass” and an autobiographical novel, has challenged the bar committee’s decision to deny him a license to practice law, the San Francisco Chronicle r

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Hollywood has picked up a little Christmas bonus.Studios generally underestimated the size of their movie audiences over the weekend, and they’re now revising the holiday revenues upward.Leading the way is Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible ― Ghost Protocol,” which pulled in $29.5 million for the weekend. That Monday figure is $3 million more than distributor Paramount estimated a day earlier.For the four-day period Friday to Monday, Paramount estimates “Ghost Protocol” will ha