LONDON — The global promotional tour for Deadpool & Wolverine touched down in London on Thursday, with stars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman bringing their bromance to the movie’s United Kingdom sneak peek event.

The two have entertained fans with their humorous, high-energy appearances at previous stops in Shanghai, Seoul, and Berlin.

The third installment in the Deadpool movie franchise sees Mr. Jackman’s Wolverine return from retirement to help wise-cracking Deadpool (Mr. Reynolds) save his world.

“It’s about friendship, and friendship is another version of a love story,” said Mr. Reynolds, who also co-wrote and produced the film.

“There’s so many moments in the movie where it’s hard to tell if Deadpool’s talking to Wolverine, Wolverine talking to Deadpool, or it’s Hugh and Ryan talking to each other. And I’m really proud of those moments.”

Mr. Jackman had not planned to reprise the role of the gruff, clawed X-Man Wolverine. But the Australian actor said his mind started changing after he watched the first Deadpool film.

“It was something in here,” he said, pointing at his heart. “I really thought I was done. And then, five or six years later, I was driving and I just knew in my bones I wanted to do that.

“I knew for fans it would be the thing they’d waited for, I knew it’d be a kind of dynamic that we’ve never seen before. I had no idea how hard it would be physically at age 55 to do it but it’s absolutely worth it. I have loved every second.”

Secrecy surrounds the film’s plot details. Respecting the characters and their legacy was at the heart of the writing process, said director and co-writer Shawn Levy.

“But then we pushed them into areas that other movies haven’t,” he said. “I think you’re going to see some aspects to both their performances that are quite different than what we’ve seen in their prior films.”

The only Marvel-Disney movie released this year, Deadpool & Wolverine is expected to be a box office hit when it begins its global cinematic rollout on July 24.

“There is a lot riding on it but we’ve worked really hard to deliver the goods,” said Mr. Levy.

“I focus on the opportunity, not the expectation. The creative opportunity to connect with a huge global audience in a new way, in a surprising and fresh way, that was delicious,” he said.

For Mr. Reynolds, 47, releasing the film to the world comes with other concerns.

“I feel like I’ve waited my entire life to do this one movie. The only problem that poses is I don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do next.” — Reuters

LONDON — “This is a career highlight,” popular K-pop group Stray Kids said as they headlined the British Summer Time (BST) Hyde Park Festival on Sunday.

The eight-man group from South Korea debuted in 2018 after being formed by JYP Entertainment through a reality show. They have won over fans around the world with their genre-mixing sound and hit songs such as “God’s Menu,” “S-Class,” and “Maniac.”

Made up of members Changbin, Felix, Hyunjin, Lee Know, Han, Seungmin, Bang Chan and I.N, Stray Kids returned to London after nearly five years to make their United Kingdom festival debut.

“It’s a really big festival and it’s a really big space. It’ll be really interesting to see how much the energy we bring to it will change that,” said Han shortly before the group took to the stage to perform a high-energy one-hour-40-minute-long set in front of a crowd of thousands.

Named by Time magazine as one of the Next Generation Leaders, Stray Kids placed third on recorded music industry body IFPI’s top 10 list of global recording artists last year. Their third Korean-language studio album 5-Star was last year’s second biggest-selling album globally, IFPI said.

All eight members also walked the famed MET Gala red carpet this May, wearing custom Tommy Hilfiger suits.

Bang Chan said the group were grateful for their strong streaming numbers and successes but added that the onus was on bringing meaningful music to their fans, known as STAYs.

“Lots of STAYs and a lot of people are giving us a lot of attention, so I don’t think we should sit still and do nothing about it. That’s why all the members are working hard in their parts,” added Seungmin.

Part of that is the group’s “comeback,” their new EP, titled ATE, which will be released on July 19.

ATE represents the eight members who have “eaten up” their comeback, said Felix, adding that fans could expect new concepts and styles.

“It really means a lot to us. It’s been a while since our last album. With this album we really want to emphasize our eight members, how genuine we are with music and we’ve also put in a lot of styles of music for everyone out there to enjoy,” said Bang Chan.

“We’re bringing out all we can at this time and that makes us confident,” added Changbin. — Reuters

FITNESS guru Richard Simmons has died at age 76, multiple media outlets reported, including ABC News and TMZ.

The reports said his housekeeper found him unresponsive on Saturday morning and Los Angeles police were called. TMZ reported that police were treating it as a natural death.

Los Angeles police said it could not confirm Mr. Simmons’ death.

Born Milton Teagle “Richard” Simmons, the flamboyant fitness instructor became a household name and pioneered gyms as safe places for people who weren’t already in perfect shape. He revealed in a series of social media posts this year that he had been diagnosed with skin cancer.

In a post on X in March he declared, “I have some news to tell you. Please don’t be sad. I am …dying. Oh I can see your faces now.” There was no other context for the statement and he later apologized for the media stir his comments made. Through his representative he said that the sole purpose of the post was meant to be inspirational.

Mr. Simmons, who grew up in the French quarter of New Orleans before settling in California, weighed 268 pounds (121.56 kg) when he graduated from high school, his website said.

His own story of struggling with weight loss, where he tried everything from fad diets to laxatives before settling on exercise and better lifestyle choices, inspired millions to do the same.

Over the years he produced a series of aerobics dancing fitness videos and had a chain of fitness studios, and hosted the Richard Simmons Show from 1980-1984, and the program won four Daytime Emmys.

In recent years, the once ubiquitous fitness instructor seemed to have stepped out of the public spotlight, where he frequently made appearances on daytime talk shows, but he maintained a large following on the internet.

Mr. Simmons posted on Facebook Friday to thank fans for their birthday wishes, as he turned 76.

“So many of you have sent me birthday wishes on my Facebook and other platforms,” he wrote. “I really appreciate that. I don’t know when your birthday is but I wish you a happy and healthy birthday!” — Reuters

DR. RUTH WESTHEIMER, the chirpy, diminutive therapist who became a pop culture figure as she encouraged Americans to have sex safely, frequently, and creatively, has died at the age of 96, the Washington Post reported.

Ms. Westheimer died on Friday at her home in Manhattan, the newspaper reported citing her publicist.

Ms. Westheimer, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, said she first learned about sex when she was 10 years old and took her parents’ “marriage manual” out of a locked cabinet. What she saw on those pages would lead to a career that included international fame, books, instructional videos, lectures, teaching jobs, a radio show, countless television appearances, a syndicated column, and even a “Good Sex” board game.

Known universally as “Dr. Ruth,” the 4-ft-7 inch (140-cm) tall lady with a distinctive German accent and perpetual cheerfulness preached the joys of good sex, great sex, and, especially, safe sex.

The woman who would become one of the world’s best known sex gurus lost her virginity at 17 on a starry night in a hayloft on a kibbutz. “We spent many nights in that barn … but I remember that first time most vividly of all because it shows that when two people are in love, the first experience can be very enjoyable,” she wrote in her 2001 autobiography, All in a Lifetime.

Ms. Westheimer, a great proponent of contraception, chided herself in the book for not being concerned with birth control in those first encounters. She also declined to say who her partner was because she remained friends with the man, as well as his wife.

Mr. Westheimer herself was the product of an unplanned, out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Her mother was working as a housekeeper for the family of Mr. Westheimer’s father in Frankfurt, Germany, when she became pregnant. The young couple eventually married and Karola Ruth Siegel was born on June 4, 1928.

ORPHANED BY HOLOCAUST
Ms. Westheimer was 10 when the Nazis came to her Frankfurt home and took away her father. Six weeks later her mother sent her to an orphanage in Switzerland. In 1941, Ms. Westheimer stopped receiving letters from her parents and she later learned they had been murdered in the Holocaust.

At 16 she emigrated to what was then Palestine and joined Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary organization. “I learned to assemble a rifle in the dark and was trained as a sniper so that I could hit the center of the target time after time,” she wrote in a 2010 New York Times opinion article that called for women to be allowed to serve in combat in the US military.

Ms. Westheimer never tested her sniping skills against an enemy but was injured in a bombing in Jerusalem.

She married an Israeli soldier and they moved to Paris and went to college. They later divorced, and she headed to New York with a boyfriend, married him, had a daughter and continued her education. After another divorce, she wed Manfred Westheimer, an engineer she met in 1961. That marriage produced a son and lasted until Manfred’s death in 1997.

After earning a doctorate in education, Ms. Westheimer went to work for Planned Parenthood and caught the attention of a New York radio station executive when she lectured broadcast officials on contraception.

That led to a weekly 15-minute midnight radio program in 1980 called Sexually Speaking. It was an advice show that took questions from listeners about orgasms, condoms, and sexual dysfunction — very sensitive subject matter for the time — and quickly won Westheimer a following. She said it was a combination of her experience, training, and her quirky voice and accent that gave her credibility with listeners. They also liked the way she would cheerily wish them “good sex!”

Ms. Westheimer became a popular guest on TV talk shows, which ultimately led to her own show.

“I’m like a Jewish mother,” she was quoted as saying in People magazine. “A Jewish mother who talks explicitly.”

Ms. Westheimer believed in people doing whatever they were comfortable with in bed — or elsewhere — and that sex was better when accompanied by intimacy and communication.

If it was between consenting adults and done with proper consideration of contraception, it was OK with Dr. Ruth.

But personally, she was no libertine.

“I am very old fashioned … and a square,” Ms. Westheimer said in a National Geographic interview in 2003. “I believe in love. I believe in relationships. I believe in people staying together for a lifetime or as long as possible.”

In addition to her autobiography, Ms. Westheimer wrote nearly 40 books, including Sex for Dummies, Dr. Ruth’s Sex After 50, Heavenly Sex: Sexuality in the Jewish Tradition, Dr. Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex, and Dr. Ruth’s Top Ten Secrets for Great Sex. — Reuters