: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11895124<![CDATA[Wrestling icon Hulk Hogan died of natural causes, police report finds]]>Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:06:31 +0000
Professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan died of natural causes last year, according to a report by Florida police that formally closes the investigation into his death.
The Clearwater Police Department released a 72-page report on Friday summarizing an exhaustive review of statements, medical records, surveillance footage and a visual inspection of the body. Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, died last July 24 at age 71.
Remembering Hulk Hogan: Wrestling icon leaves behind complicated legacy
“There has been no evidence to indicate the death of Terry Bollea was anything other than natural,” the report said. “Through the course of the investigation, there has been no evidence to indicate any criminal wrongdoing related to his death. This case will be closed, and will be considered solved, non-criminal.”
According to the report, Hogan’s wife, as well as a home health aide and an occupational therapist, were all with Hogan at his home when he stopped breathing. His wife, Sky Daily Hogan, called 911, and then the trio performed CPR on Hulk Hogan until firefighters and paramedics arrived.
Family members told investigators that Hogan had been suffering from multiple health issues in the weeks before his death, including leukemia, an irregular heart rhythm, pneumonia and kidney failure. He had also undergone many hospitalizations and surgeries in the years before his death.
FILE – Famed wrestler Hulk Hogan fires up the crowd between matches during WrestleMania 21 in Los Angeles, April 3, 2005.
AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File
Early statements made by the occupational therapist to the police led to speculation that Hogan’s death was related to damage done to his phrenic nerve during a recent surgery. But the occupational therapist later said that he was still rattled from performing CPR and was speaking out of turn.
The local medical examiner had concluded that Hogan died from a heart attack and declined to perform a full autopsy. A private autopsy paid for by the family backed up the initial assessment, finding “no reasonable traumatic or terminal toxicologic contributions.”
Hogan was perhaps the biggest star in WWE’s long history, known for both his larger-than-life personality and his wrestling exploits. He was the main draw for the first WrestleMania in 1985 and was a fixture for years, facing everyone from Andre The Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even WWE co-founder Vince McMahon.
Hogan won at least six WWE championships and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2005 and reinstated there in 2018. He had been removed from the Hall of Fame in 2015 after he was recorded making racial slurs against Black people, for which he apologized.
A well-attended but private funeral service was held several weeks after Hogan’s death at a church in Largo, Florida.
Rihanna may sing about Diamonds, but a meeting with an Air Canada flight attendant from Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) in the Quebec area shone far brighter than the jewel.
During a recent flight on Monday, Lily Kahnerahtiio Dailleboust of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) on Montreal’s South Shore, gifted the award-winning singer with a set of beads from her community.
“This sweet lady gifted me with something very special that I will never forget and I will never lose,” Rihanna said in a Facebook video posted on Dailleboust’s page.
In the video, Rihanna then asks Dailleboust to introduce herself who says the beads were a present.
She then teaches the artist how to say “thank you” in her language, which is “Niá:wen.” Rihanna then repeats it, with Dailleboust telling her she said it correctly.
The Air Canada flight attendant told Global News Rihanna had boarded a flight from Toronto’s Billy Bishop to Montreal.
“You don’t even know how to react because it’s not my first time having a VIP, but on a small airplane from Billy Bishop, like the Dash-8 Q400, it’s just a regular aircraft, there’s no business class, there’s no separation,” she said.
The music artist was given the crew seats in the back to be more “comfortable,” saying the crew told her she’d be more comfortable and private in the back.
After seating her, Dailleboust introduced herself, offered her water and said she’d provide Rihanna with anything she needed. According to Dailleboust, Rihanna told her she was heading to an A$AP Rocky concert.
During the flight, Daillboust asked Rihanna’s bodyguard if she could give Rihanna a gift.
“Before I started anything I just took out the lanyard and I just presented it to her and said, ‘Oh I just want to offer you a gift,'” Dailleboust said. “You know in my culture we’re very giving. When somebody or something is very significant or meaningful we want to offer you something so I gave it to her. She was so happy.”
The lanyard of beads given to the singer was actually her personal keychain from a store in her community called “Traditions” that has local artists on display and for sale. She said the keychain was actually something she purchased some time ago.
The singer told Dailleboust she was the first Mohawk she’d ever met. They exchanged a bit of information but she had to start service for the flight.
Once the seatbelt sign had been turned off, Rihanna also offered to do autographs or a video.
“She was very nice and she did an autograph for me and then she offered to do a video about me gifting her the lanyard and she actually put it on her purse right away,” Dailleboust said.
Members of the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) have sent her messages saying they’re proud of her for sharing the culture with Rihanna.
“It was just overwhelming for me because she is such an activist and she is really proactive in humanity itself, she is so lovely,” she added.
]]>: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11889222<![CDATA[How have The Beatles remained relevant after all these years?]]>Sun, 07 Jun 2026 14:00:14 +0000When they appeared in the early 1960s, The Beatles quickly became the biggest pop and rock group in the world. Not only did they have great songs — and boy, they had a lot of them — they had charm, a sense of humour, and were fashion-forward.
Between 1963 and their breakup in the spring of 1970, they changed the world of music forever. That breakup was 56 years ago, and yet, The Beatles remain a staple of popular culture.
For a while, though, there was a time when the group was considered passé. The excitement of the ’60s had faded into the past, and it was time to move on. Oh, the band still had their rabid fans, but as hard as it may be to believe today, they’d become largely a take-it-or-leave-it proposition for the general population.
The 1970s may have been a good time to a solo Beatle — all four members had various levels of success on their own, with Macca leading the way with Wings — but as for The Beatles as a group, meh. They slipped into the category of nostalgia as the original Beatlemaniacs grew up and moved on.
Young’uns were more interested in the new crop of bands that included Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, and The Eagles. The Rolling Stones and The Who, two Beatles contemporaries, stayed together and continued to make amazing music and escaped being tossed into the bin. If you came of age musically in the ’70s, as I did, you might remember thinking anyone at school who was a Beatles fan was completely out of touch.
So how did The Beatles end up becoming so revered in subsequent years? Through careful recycling and refreshing.
The indoctrination of second-generation Beatles fans was orchestrated via two greatest-hits compilations released on April 2, 1973: the “red” 1962-1966 album and its “blue” companion, 1967-1970. These two double records gathered together the group’s 54 biggest hits for the first time in one place.
When they arrived as Christmas presents for me later that year, I thought, “I know all these songs! And they’re from just one group? I must know more!” Talk about a red pill and a blue pill, but in this case, both led to somewhere wonderful.
These records helped, but more work was needed. The next step was another compilation, Rock’n’Roll Music, in 1976, which covered ground not included on the “red” and “blue” albums. There was even a single, Got to Get You Into My Life, a track originally from Revolver in 1966, that peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 that fall.
Meanwhile, the British single, led by Back in the USSR, reached number 19. Again, these releases brought back good memories of The Beatles and introduced them to millions more.
It was around this time that there was something of a movement to get the band back together. CFRW, my AM top 40 station of choice while I grew up outside of Winnipeg, started such a petition that spread across North America, ultimately gathering tens of thousands of signatures. Nothing came of it, of course.
Strawberry Fields Forever: John Lennon fans gather at Central Park memorial 45 years after his death
Efforts like this were probably at the heart of Lorne Michaels’ offer of $3,000 for The Beatles to get back together on Saturday Night Live on April 24, 1976. Weirdly, Paul was over at John’s place, and the two of them were watching the show. They actually considered heading over to 30 Rock as a counter-prank, but it was too late and they were too tired.
Then came the musical Beatlemania, featuring four lookalikes/soundalikes, which toured worldwide, including a stint on Broadway. Anyone who saw the production got all sorts of fresh feels for the group and their music, but the show was ridiculed as cringey nostalgia in many quarters (cf. Joe Strummer singing “Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust” in The Clash’s London Calling).
The thing that really turned The Beatles into the cultural phenomenon they are today was the assassination of John Lennon on Dec. 8, 1980. Amidst all the anger and grief was the sense that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Interest in The Beatles began to trend upward.
Enter Michael Jackson. He collaborated with Macca on two songs, The Girl is Mine, from Thriller (a number two single on Billboard), which brought some Jacko fans into the fold. Jackson returned the favour a year later when he duetted with Paul on Say Say Say from the Pipes of Peace album.
By the middle ’80s, The Beatles were back in the mainstream and receiving a new level of respect. If you remember the years when the compact disc was rolled out, there was a general feeling that until The Beatles blessed the new format with their music, the CD may not back it. That finally came on February 26, 1987 — a good four years after the CD’s rollout — that The Beatles joined the party with the release of their first four British albums. More albums followed every two months or so until the entire catalogue was on compact disc by October.
The remixing, refurbishing, recycling, and re-releasing really kicked into high gear after that.
Volumes one and two of the Past Masters collections came out in 1988, kicking off (as I recall, anyway) the concept of the box set. They were followed by the Anthology project (three albums) in the 1990s, which brought Paul, George, and Ringo back into the studio together.
In 2000, another collection of remastered songs entitled 1 appeared, featuring virtually every number-one single the group had in the U.S. and the U.K. It reached number one on album charts in more than two dozen countries, selling a staggering 31 million copies in the process.
Since then, something new from The Beatles appears with regularity. The Cirque du Soleil Beatles show called Love at the Mirage in Las Vegas, along with its accompanying soundtrack album. New remixes/reissues of all the albums and box sets by Giles Martin. Peter Jackson’s Get Back documentary. The 2023 release of Now and Then features the salvaged vocals of John Lennon and old guitar parts by George Harrison.
And I haven’t even touched on all the books written about The Beatles. Google’s Gemini AI tells us that up to 3,000 distinct books have been published about The Beatles just since 2000.
In short, The Beatles organization continues to give the entertainment world a masterclass on how to take a limited inventory of material, all dating from between 1962 and 1970, and shrewdly and carefully refresh it generation after generation, reminding the universe of the incredible genius of The Beatles.
Meanwhile, the surviving band members continue to do their part. Paul McCartney, the world’s greatest living songwriter, will turn 84 on June 18 and is still performing and recording (his just-released album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, is very good). Ringo Starr will celebrate his 86th birthday on July 7 and is the most high-energy octogenarian this side of Mick Jagger. He also continues to record and tour. Both are always happy to talk about their experiences.
The Beatles are unique in all of entertainment history. The stewardship of their legacy has been amazing. And there’s no reason to believe that they’ve become any less popular for decades.
]]>: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11892234<![CDATA[Veteran actor James Handy found stabbed to death in Los Angeles]]>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 19:58:25 +0000
Actor James Handy, a veteran in the industry who most recently starred in Top Gun: Maverick, was found stabbed to death outside a home in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to investigators. He was 81.
Police said in a statement on Thursday that the suspect, 44-year-old Michael Gledhill, waved down officers, telling them he was the one they were looking for after a 911 call was made to a residence in the Tarzana neighbourhood, an area in the northwest Los Angeles area, around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
The 911 caller said, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin,” according to the police statement.
Police found Handy unconscious in the front yard of a residence with a stab wound to the chest. He was taken to a local hospital by the Los Angeles Fire Department, where he was pronounced dead, according to the statement.
The suspect’s mother was Handy’s girlfriend, police said, who lived with his mother at the property where Handy’s body was found.
Handy’s agent Pam Ellis-Evenas confirmed his death to Global News.
“It is with great sadness that I can confirm that the gentleman who was killed in Tarzana on Wednesday was actor James Handy,” she wrote in an email statement.
“I could not have asked for a more talented, humble or gracious client and friend than James Handy. He was respected among his peers and an absolute joy to work with,” she concluded.
This image made from video provided by KABC shows the scene at a home where authorities were investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Los Angeles.
KABC via AP
Detectives said they believe the stabbing was an isolated incident and that there is no immediate threat to public safety. They did not provide a motive.
Gledhill was arrested and transported to Van Nuys jail, where he was booked on one count of murder, with bail set at US$2 million.
In addition to his role as the bartender Jimmy in the 2022 film Top Gun: Maverick, Handy appeared in the films Arachnophobia and Jumanji, as well as numerous television productions.
He played a doctor in the 2017 film Logan and had TV roles in ER, Matlock, Quantum Leap, NCIS: Los Angeles, CSI: New York, NYPD Blue and Law & Order, among others.
]]>: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11892038<![CDATA[British actor Anthony Head, known for ‘Ted Lasso,’ has died at 72]]>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:20:32 +0000
Anthony Head, the suave, smooth-voiced British actor known for roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ted Lasso, has died, his family said Friday. He was 72.
Head’s daughters, actors Emily and Daisy Head, told the Press Association news agency that the actor passed away due to complications from pneumonia.
Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddingham on her new festive special
The performer became known to British TV audiences in the 1980s as one half of a will-they, won’t-they romantic couple in a series of ads for Nescafe instant coffee.
Head achieved U.S. fame as librarian Rupert Giles, mentor to the title character in the cult-favorite supernatural series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which ran from 1997 to 2003.
He most recently played Rupert Mannion, the villainous ex-husband of Hannah Waddingham’s character Rebecca, in Ted Lasso.
“Our grief is far greater than the hole he has left behind, but we know his legacy will live on, in the shows he was a part of, and in the audiences that love them,” his daughters said. “How lucky we are to know we are able to watch him doing what he loved, even when he is no longer with us.”
]]>: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11890863<![CDATA[Prince William puts royal 600-acre English farm up for sale]]>Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:08:45 +0000: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11889431<![CDATA[Shia LaBeouf pleads guilty to battery charge in Mardi Gras bar incident]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:18:58 +0000: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11888757<![CDATA[Ottawa orders CRTC review of streamer spending rules, citing consumer cost]]>Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:17:34 +0000: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11887568&preview=true&preview_id=11887568<![CDATA[NHL faces scheduling challenge as B.C., Alberta move to permanent daylight time]]>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:30:54 +0000: Entertainmenthttps://globalnews.ca/?p=11887099<![CDATA[Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal battle continues despite settlement]]>Tue, 02 Jun 2026 19:18:42 +0000: Entertainment
