- Uniqlo owner reports record annual earnings
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- Rugby Australia to counter-sue in dispute with Melbourne Rebels
- Mumbai mourns Indian industrialist Ratan Tata
- Philippines challenges China over South China Sea at ASEAN meet
- Mets advance on Lindor blast, Dodgers stay alive in MLB playoffs
- Injury-ravaged Krygios aiming to return at Australian Open
- Greek international Baldock, dead at 31: family
- EU talks deportation hubs to stem migration
- Deaths and repression sideline Suu Kyi's party ahead of Myanmar vote
- S. Africa offers a lesson on how not to shut down a coal plant
- China opens $71 bn 'swap facility' to boost markets
- Mets advance on Lindor grand slam, Yankees and Tigers win
- Taiwan President Lai vows to 'resist annexation' of island
- China's solar goes from supremacy to oversupply
- Asian markets track Wall St record as Hong Kong, Shanghai stabilise
- 'Denying my potential': women at Japan's top university call out gender imbalance
- China's central bank says opens up $70.6 bn in liquidity to boost market
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- Death toll rises to 109 after Haiti gang attack, official says
- Tigers beat Guardians and on brink of advancing in MLB playoffs
- Argentina MPs back Milei's veto of university funding
- Man City sink Barca in Women's Champions League as Bayern outgun Arsenal
- Greek international Baldock, 31, found dead in pool: state agency
- Florida seaside haven a ghost town as hurricane nears
- Pharrell Williams to co-chair Met Gala exploring Black dandyism
- Wall Street indices hit fresh records as Chinese shares tumble
- Taiwan's president to deliver key speech for National Day
- Sea row on the menu as ASEAN leaders meet China's Li
- Injured Kane won't start England's Nations League clash with Greece
- Discord seen as online home for renegades
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- One dead as storm Kirk tears through Spain, Portugal, France
- Indian business titan Ratan Tata dead at 86
- Lebanon facing 'catastrophic' situation as 600,000 displaced: UN
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Chastain closes out strongly political Venice festival
Has the Venice Film Festival saved its best for last? Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain is back on Friday with a provocative romance between a recovering alcoholic and dementia patient in "Memory".
Instant Oscar frontrunners and hard-hitting political dramas have emerged from the 80th edition of the festival, which draws to a close with the winner of the Golden Lion announced on Saturday.
Among the highlights of the 23 entries, Emma Stone looks like a shoo-in for award nominations with her hilarious and shockingly explicit turn as a sex-hungry reanimated corpse in "Poor Things", a feminist reworking of Frankenstein.
So do Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan for their roles as conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia in Cooper's elegant biopic, "Maestro".
Biopics were a thing this year: from Michael Mann's long-awaited take on racing car impresario Enzo Ferrari starring Adam Driver and Penelope Cruz, to Sofia Coppola's lauded "Priscilla" about the wife of Elvis Presley.
The closing film of the competition is "Memory" from Mexican director Michel Franco, premiering Friday, which tackles numerous issues from buried trauma to the rights of disabled adults to maintain control over their lives.
It stars Chastain in her first role since winning an Oscar for "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" two years ago, alongside Peter Sarsgaard.
- Migrant tales -
The jury, led by Damien Chazelle ("La La Land") and including Jane Campion and last year's winner Laura Poitras, may be swayed by more political entries.
Critics have been impressed by two powerful migrant dramas.
"Io Capitano" tells the epic and brutally powerful story of a Senegalese teenager crossing Africa to reach Europe, with newcomer Seydou Sarr wowing audiences in the central role.
And "Green Border" offered a harrowing account of refugees trapped between Belarus and Poland during a real-life crisis on the EU border in 2021.
Or the critics might wish to reward one of the odder entries, "El Conde" by Chile's Pablo Larrain, which reimagined Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a blood-sucking vampire.
On the more arthouse end of the spectrum was "The Beast" starring Lea Seydoux, a surreal era-jumping love story with touches of David Lynch that got strong reviews.
And Japan's Ryusuke Hamaguchi followed his Oscar triumph of "Drive My Car" with a quiet and unsettling ecological drama, "Evil Does Not Exist".
Many stars were unable to attend the festival due to an ongoing Hollywood strike.
But the strong slate of films at least helped distract from the controversy around the inclusion of Roman Polanski in the out-of-competition section.
As a convicted sex offender, the 90-year-old director was already struggling to find distribution in the US and other countries for his slapstick comedy "The Palace", but the disastrous response in Venice will not have helped.
Currently holding a resounding zero percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it was variously described as a "laughless debacle" and "soul-throttlingly crap" by critics.
Another director who has been effectively blacklisted in the US, Woody Allen, had a better time with his 50th film (and first in French), "Coup de Chance", which was widely considered his best in at least a decade.
J.Williams--AMWN