Joining a cacophonous debate over gun violence in the United States, a new film probes behind the headlines of a 2002 shooting spree that terrorized the area around the nation's capital.

New York-based French director Alexandre Moors's film "Blue Caprice" premiered at the Sundance festival and was chosen to open the New Directors New Films festival that ends in Brooklyn this Sunday.

"African" curves or an "international" silhouette? On the airwaves and the catwalks of Ivory Coast, a war of words has broken out between admirers of voluptuous female figures and those who plump for a more streamlined, traditionally Western, shape.

The young Ivorian singer "Princesse Amour" is hoping for a hit with her song celebrating "lalas", the name she has given to slender, small-breasted women.

Moroccan rapper Mouad Belghouat, a voice of the February 20 pro-reform movement jailed for defaming the police, was freed on Friday after serving a one-year sentence.

Belghouat, 25, was arrested in March last year and convicted over a song he wrote called "Dogs of the State," which denounced police corruption and was deemed an affront to Morocco's entire police force.

Marilyn Monroe's letter of despair to mentor Lee Strasberg, and Dwight D. Eisenhower's heartfelt missives to his wife during World War II are among hundreds of historical documents being offered in an online auction. Also included is a draft letter from John Lennon to Linda and Paul McCartney around the time of the breakup of the Beatles.

Monroe's handwritten, undated letter to the famed acting teacher is expected to fetch $30,000 to $50,000 in the May 30 sale.

British actor Richard Griffiths, best known for his roles as Harry Potter's uncle and in the cult film "Withnail & I", has died aged 65, his agent said on Friday.

The portly star of stage and screen, one of Britain's best loved character actors, died on Thursday from complications following heart surgery, Simon Beresford said.

U.S. broadcasting icon Barbara Walters, 83, is poised to announce her retirement next year in the coming weeks, U.S. news media reported Thursday.

The New York Times, quoting "an executive familiar with the newswoman's plans," said a formal announcement of Walter's retirement would likely be made on "The View," a daytime talk show on ABC that she co-hosts.

Legendary U.S. filmmaker Martin Scorsese is to make a television series of "Gangs of New York," the epic story he brought to the big screen in an Oscar-nominated 2002 movie.

Scorsese is teaming up with film and TV studio Miramax to make the small screen series, about fighting between newly-arrived Irish immigrants and local "natives" in New York at the turn of the 20th century.

French actress Julie Gayet has launched legal action over Internet rumors that she is the mistress of President Francois Hollande, her lawyer, Vincent Toledano, told Agence France Presse on Thursday.

Judicial sources said Gayet, a blonde 40-year-old who appeared in one of Hollande's 2012 election commercials, had filed a complaint relating to an alleged breach of her right to a private life with Paris prosecutors on March 18.

"The Harlem Shake" is moving on.

After five weeks in the number one slot, New York DJ Baauer's single that triggered a global YouTube sensation has slipped to number two on Billboard's latest Hot 100 chart, the music industry trade journal said Wednesday.

The director of China's biggest box-office hit says "Lost in Thailand" succeeded by showing a rarely seen subject: modern Chinese life.

The historical epic, fantasy, action and thriller genres have long filled China's domestic movie screens. But "Lost in Thailand" was a low-budget and light-hearted road-trip tale about an ambitious executive who goes to Thailand to get his boss's approval for a business deal. Along the way he's pursued by a rival co-worker and encounters a wacky tourist who helps him rethink his priorities.