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PALO ALTO —  At the moment when tech mammoths Amazon, Apple and Netflix are reinventing Hollywood, the U.S. premiere at Stanford University of “Hell’s Fury, the Hollywood Songbook” Saturday night might seem a bit rich. Hanns Eisler’s songs, written during Hollywood’s supposed golden age, most with texts by Bertolt Brecht, do an excellent job of encapsulating […]

I never thought I’d be putting Robert De Niro and Gollum in the same sentence, but that’s where we find ourselves at a moment when “The Irishman” could become the first movie since “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” to win the Oscars for best picture and visual effects. Here’s a […]

There’s an action sequence in director James Gray’s sci-fi thriller “Ad Astra” that’s packed with thrills but also rife with nuance. Brad Pitt is Roy McBride, an astronaut who finds himself saving mankind from a threat deep in outer space. U.S. intelligence has asked him to send a message from Mars to a long-forgotten mission […]

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. stock surged to a two-month high Monday after reaching a $13.5-billion settlement with the victims of wildfires ignited by its power lines — a major step toward resolving the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history. The agreement, announced late Friday, will cover claims stemming from some of the worst blazes […]

SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund is selling back its nearly 50% stake in Wag Labs Inc. as the Los Angeles dog-walking start-up cuts staff. Wag will regain control of SoftBank’s two board seats as part of the agreement, according to a memo Wag sent to staff Monday. The company didn’t disclose terms of the deal […]

Stocks on Wall Street closed modestly lower Monday as losses in technology, healthcare and financial companies outweighed gains elsewhere in the market. The selling snapped a three-day winning streak for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and wiped out the benchmark index’s 0.2% gain from last week. Trading was mostly muted as investors looked ahead […]

Three women are suing a Silicon Valley start-up and its CEO on allegations of harassment and discrimination based on gender, pregnancy and age, according to a complaint filed Monday in San Francisco state court. The women claim that the CEO of Synapse Financial Technologies Inc., Sankaet Pathak, was verbally abusive and antagonized them in meetings […]

How to re-create a festive winter vibe without the stress (and snow)? Simple: Transform your interiors with the scents of cypress, juniper, pine and sandalwood. Here, we offer seven holiday candles that are all hand-poured by makers in L.A. Some are sweet, others are smoky; all are festive. Best of all: When the candle is […]

COPENHAGEN —  Finland’s next government is breaking the mold in multiple ways. Sanna Marin, the 34-year-old transport minister, was tapped over the weekend by the ruling Social Democratic Party to be Finland’s new prime minister. When she takes the reins of the country, most likely on Tuesday, she will become the world’s youngest sitting head of […]

BETHLEHEM, West Bank —  For decades, the people of Bethlehem have watched tour buses drive up to the Church of the Nativity, disgorge their passengers for a few hours at the traditional birthplace of Jesus, and then return to Israel. But in recent years a new form of tourism has taken root, focused on the West […]