People in the News

From The Associated Press

It’s Francis Ford Coppola’s first movie in a decade, and the Oscar-winning director said Saturday that audiences should be in no hurry before deciding if “Youth Without Youth” is good or bad. It was having its public premiere Saturday evening at the Rome Film Festival. At an earlier screening for the press, reactions were mixed, and Coppola asked people to see it more than once.

“When you venture into new territories ... you know that it’s different than ‘Spider-Man’ or ‘Shrek’ or other films that are immediately met with success. So, part of being an artist who wants to look at new areas (is knowing that) it will take a while for people to be familiar with the film,” he said. “I only ask you to think that my film was interesting.”

Coppola’s last movie was “The Rainmaker” in 1997.

Harry Potter fans learned during the weekend that the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay.

J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall in New York City. After reading briefly from the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” she took questions from audience members.

She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.” “Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.

She then explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald, whom he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards. “Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.” Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”

Police detained eight-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater early Saturday after a scuffle with photographers who were trying to take pictures of him with Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli, as they left a hotel in the Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya before dawn Saturday, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Earlier this year, Rafaeli and her then-boyfriend, actor Leonardo DiCaprio, created a media storm when he visited her in Israel. After eluding journalists for days, the pair was met by a group of waiting photographers when they toured Jerusalem. Their bodyguards scuffled with photographers, punching some and damaging equipment.

The pooch at the center of the dog-adoption drama between Ellen DeGeneres and an animal rescue agency has found a new home. Iggy was placed with a new family earlier this week, a spokesman for the agency’s owners said. “We’re not revealing the family’s identity to protect their privacy,” attorney Keith A. Fink told The Associated Press. “The dog is fine.”

DeGeneres, who had initially adopted the terrier mix, gave the dog to her hairstylist after Iggy couldn’t get along with her cats. Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun, who own the nonprofit Mutts and Moms adoption agency, said DeGeneres violated her signed agreement, which called for Iggy to be returned if things didn’t work out. Iggy was removed from the hairstylist’s home on Sunday during a confrontation that DeGeneres said left the woman’s daughters in tears.