Masahiro Nakai, a TV host and former pop star in Japan, retires after sexual assault report
Masahiro Nakai, one of Japan’s top TV hosts and a former pop star, said Thursday he was retiring to take responsibility over sexual assault allegations that are part of a wave roiling Japan’s entertainment industry and have triggered an avalanche of lost advertising at one of the networks where he worked. Weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported in December that Nakai had reached a 90 million yen ($580,000) settlement with a woman over the alleged sex assault at a 2023 dinner party that Fuji TV staff allegedly helped to organize. He acknowledged “a trouble” and a settlement, while denying any violence, in a statement earlier this month. The magazine has also alleged that Fuji TV has long exploited its female announcers to entertain stars like Nakai.
Mike Tirico will be lead play-by-play announcer when NBC begins its NBA coverage next season
Mike Tirico has been officially named as NBC’s lead play-by-play announcer when it begins its coverage of the NBA next season. The move is not a surprise, since many expected that to happen when NBC agreed to an 11-year contract with the NBA last summer. Tirico was part of ESPN and ABC’s coverage of the league until moving to NBC in July 2016. He also called six NBA Finals on ESPN Radio. According to research from the 506 Sports Archive, Tirico called 313 NBA regular-season and playoff games on ESPN and ABC.
Movie Review: ‘The Colors Within’ is a gentle stunner
Kids movies so often bear little of the actual lived-in experience of growing up, but Yamada Naoko’s luminous anime “The Colors Within” gently reverberates with the doubts and yearnings of young life. Totsuko (voiced by Suzukawa Sayu) is a student at an all-girls Catholic boarding school. In the movie’s opening, she explains how she experiences colors differently. She feels colors more than sees them, like an aura she senses from another person. “When I see a pretty color, my heart quickens,” she says. Totsuko, an exuberant, uncensored soul, has the tendency to blurt things out before she quite intends to. She accidentally tells a nun that her color is beautiful. In the midst of a dodgeball game, she’s transfixed by the purple and yellow blur of a volleyball hurtling toward her — so much so that she’s happily dazed when it smacks her in the head.
Movie Review: Steven Soderbergh’s eerie haunted house drama ‘Presence’ packs a punch
The camera is the ghost in Steven Soderbergh’s chillingly effective, experiential haunted house drama “Presence.” The filmmaker traps the audience in a beautiful suburban home, letting us drift through rooms with this curious being, in and out of delicate conversations as we (and the ghost) try to piece together a puzzle blindly. Often in haunted house movies where a new family moves in and starts sensing strange things, the ghost knows exactly what they want — usually their house back. In this one, the presence doesn’t have such a clear objective. It’s more confused, wandering around and investigating the surroundings, like a benevolent amnesiac. Occasionally, though, big emotions erupt, and things shake violently. Mostly, they go unnoticed. They observe the chipper real estate agent (Julia Fox) preparing for a showing, the painting crew, one of whom believes there’s something around, and finally the family and all the complexities of its dynamics. Lucy Liu (a delightful, wickedly funny scene-stealer) is the mom, Rebecca, a wealthy, successful, type-A woman hyper focused on the success of her eldest, a teenage boy named Tyler (Eddy Maday). The father, Chris (Chris Sullivan), is more of the nurturer, concerned about their teen daughter Chloe (Callina Liang) in the aftermath of her friend’s unexpected death.
'Real Housewives' star Jill Zarin slams Hollywood for stance on Israel: 'Blows my mind'
President Donald Trump was sworn into office Monday and immediately began fulfilling campaign promises on the final day of a whirlwind inauguration weekend. "Real Housewives of New York" star Jill Zarin, a friend of the Trump family who also attended Donald's first inauguration eight years ago, has high expectations for the next four years of the 47th president's administration. Zarin, 61, admitted she's looking forward to "change" in the Oval Office and praised Trump for his unwavering support of Israel, unlike her peers in Hollywood who she believes have remained silent.
Meghan Markle earns stinging secret nickname from Spotify podcast co-workers: expert
Meghan Markle earned a not-so-sweet nickname during her time with Spotify. UK royal correspondent Neil Sean told Fox News Digital that the secret nickname was given to the Duchess of Sussex by disgruntled former employees "who worked on her ill-fated podcast" titled "Archetypes." "Ex-staff members… told me they decided to christen her ‘Eva’ and this was used as a warning signal to let people know that she was either arriving or on the warpath," Sean claimed.
Do politics fit in the book social media world? Inside the 'reading is political' debate
In November, a chasm opened in the middle of one of the most popular online reading spaces. It started after the election, as political chatter bled into BookTok. On one side of the app, readers begged users to refrain from connecting politics and novels. On the other, readers argued that these conversations are necessary because "reading is political."
Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen lead the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Award nominations
Taylor Swift and Morgan Wallen lead the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Award nominations with 10, followed closely by Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter and Post Malone with nine. The iHeartRadio Music Awards honor the most played artists of the year on its stations and app. This year, the show will also pay tribute to Los Angeles following the wildfires and drive donations to FireAidLA.org. FireAid is a star-studded benefit concert organized for wildfire relief featuring Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Green Day, Joni Mitchell and more. Contributions to FireAidLA.org and from ticket sales “will be distributed under the advisement of the Annenberg Foundation, for short-term relief efforts and long-term initiatives to
Estimated 24.6 million TV viewers watched inauguration coverage, smallest audience since 2013
An estimated 24.6 million television viewers watched President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, the smallest audience for the quadrennial ceremony since Barack Obama’s second inauguration in 2013. The Nielsen Company said Tuesday that viewership was down from Joe Biden’s 2021 inauguration, which reached 33.8 million, and Trump’s first move into the White House, seen by 30.6 million in 2017. Inauguration viewership has varied widely over the past half-century, from a high of 41.8 million when Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 to a low of 15.5 million for the start of George W. Bush’s second term in 2004.
‘Wicked’ star Cynthia Erivo named Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year
Cynthia Erivo, who is starring in the hit musical “Wicked,” was named Tuesday as the 2025 Woman of the Year by Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals. The theater group, which dates to 1844 and claims to be the world’s third-oldest still operating, said Erivo will receive her Pudding Pot award at a celebratory roast Feb. 5. Afterward, she will attend a performance of Hasty Pudding Theatricals’ 176th production, “101 Damnations.” Actor Jon Hamm, who came to fame starring as ad executive Don Draper on the AMC series “Mad Men,” is the 2025 Man of the Year. He will receive his Pudding Pot Jan. 31.