Blues legend B B King is receiving hospice care at his home in Las Vegas. The 89-year-old guitarist posted thanks on his official website for well-wishes and prayers from fans after he returned home from a brief spell in hospital. “Mr King is where he wishes to be,” said Laverne Toney, the musician’s long-time business manager, who has legal control over his affairs. “He’s always told me he doesn’t want to be in a hospital. He wants to be at home.” An ambulance was called on Thursday after what Las Vegas police officer Jesse Roybal described as a domestic dispute over medical care. No arrests were made and no criminal complaint was filed. Toney disputed reports by celebrity website TMZ that suggested one of King’s daughters had called the police because she was upset about her father’s condition and that he had suffered a minor heart attack. Paramedics checked King’s heart rhythm and he was treated in hospital for complications from high blood pressure and diabetes, Toney said. King had diabetes diagnosed decades ago. King’s hospital stay was the second in a month. He posted a similar message to fans when he returned home on April 7. He was forced to cancel some shows on his tour last October after falling ill in Chicago. – AP
Furious 7 races ahead in China
Furious 7 has knocked Transformers: Age of Extinction off its perch to become the highest-grossing movie in China. The film, which stars Vin Diesel and the late Paul Walker, was partly filmed in Abu Dhabi. It pulled in 450 million yuan (Dh266m) during its second full week on release in China, bringing its total box-office takings to 2.02 billion yuan, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. Last summer, the fourth Transformers film overtook 2009's Avatar to become the highest-grossing movie in the country, with US$320m (Dh1.17bn) in ticket sales. – AP
Slavery drama Roots to get a remake
The classic 1970s American television drama Roots, about the struggles by generations of an African family to survive slavery, is to be remade next year. Emmy-award winning actor LeVar Burton, who played Kunta Kinte in the original show and went on to appear in Star Trek: The Next Generation, will be an executive co-producer of the new version, which is being made by television companies History, A&E Network and Lifetime. The 1977 ABC mini-series was based on the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family, by Alex Haley, about Kinte's capture in his homeland of Gambia after which he was sold into slavery in colonial-era America. "Roots was a groundbreaking television milestone," said Dirk Hoogstra, head of History. "We are privileged to be stewards of this universal story and will undertake its retelling with extreme care. We are proud to bring this saga to fans of the original, as well as to a new generation that will experience this powerful ... tale for the first time." Mark Wolper, son of the original series' producer David Wolper, will also be an executive producer. "Kunta Kinte began telling his story over 200 years ago and that story went through his family lineage, to Alex Haley, to my father, and now the mantle rests with me," said Wolper. "Like Kunta Kinte fought to tell his story over and over again, so must we." The original eight-part mini-series was broadcast on consecutive nights in January 1977 in the United States and was shown around the world. – AFP
Global-warming film to close Cannes
The global-warming documentary Ice and Sky will close the 68th Cannes Film Festival. The French festival described the film – directed by Luc Jacquet, whose March of the Penguins won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2006 – as "a hymn to save the planet". Ice and Sky also focuses on the Antarctic, but on its ice rather than its penguins. The Cannes Film Festival runs from May 13 to 24. – AP
Bruce Jenner sued over fatal crash
The Olympic champion decathlete-turned-reality TV star Bruce Jenner is being sued for wrongful-death damages over a car crash in which a 69-year-old woman died. The stepchildren of the dead woman, Kim Howe, are seeking unspecified compensation for the accident in February, which involved four cars on the Pacific Coast Highway in Los Angeles. Keeping Up With the Kardashians star Jenner was "careless, negligent and/or otherwise responsible in causing the death," said the lawsuit, filed in LA Superior Court on Friday. Jenner was unhurt in the crash. He was driving an SUV when he collided with a smaller car that then swerved into oncoming traffic. – AFP
Hospital drama added to Chicago TV franchise
ABC is expanding its Chicago Fire and Chicago PD family with Chicago Med, which is set in a hospital emergency room and stars Oliver Platt and Epatha Merkerson. The new series will feature characters from its sibling police and fire department dramas, also produced by network stalwart Dick Wolf. Merkerson played New York police lieutenant Anita Van Buren on Wolf's Law & Order, the original series in the NBC franchise. – AP
Lopez steals the show at Latin Music Awards
Romeo Santos and Enrique Iglesias swept the Billboard Latin Music Awards, but Jennifer Lopez may have stolen the show. Santos, the American singer known as the King of Bachata, took home 10 awards on Thursday night, including Artist of the Year Solo, while the Spanish artist Enrique Iglesias won nine, including Latin Pop Song Artist of the Year. The biggest standing ovation, however, went to Lopez, who performed a tribute to Selena, backed by the band of the young Mexican singer who was killed in 1995. Colombian reggaeton artist J Balvin was another big winner with three trophies, including Artist of the Year, at the annual event in the BankUnited Center in Coral Gables, Florida. The awards for Santos also included Top Latin Album of the Year and Tropical Album of the Year, New for his Formula, Vol 2. Santos – who set a record for the most Billboard Latin Music Award nominations in a year, with 21 entries in 16 categories – thanked God, his fans and fellow singer Marc Anthony, who accompanies him in the song and video Yo, Tambien. "I had the opportunity, the grand privilege to record with a man I admire so much, Marc. Thank you for giving me that privilege," he told Anthony, who opened the three-hour show. "I would also like to thank the DJs, who spread our music." Iglesias, who was also a big winner at the Latin Grammy awards in November, thanked the many fans who kept his mega-hit Bailando at the No 1 on the Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart for a record 41 weeks. "I want to thanks all my fans ... for all the support they have given me these 19 years, and to the artists who have collaborated with me," he said as he accepted awards that also included Latin Pop Album of the Year and Latin Pop Albums Artist of the Year, Solo for Sex and Love. Anthony opened with Gente de Zona, performing La Gozadera to a backdrop of dancers in costumes that represented the flags of all the countries represented in the show. Along the way, the audience was treated to performances by Juanes and Carlos Santana, Carlos Vives and Daddy Yankee as well as Lopez, who played Selena in a 1997 biopic of the slain Tejano legend. – AP
