Celebrated children’s book author Beverly Cleary, whose memories of her Oregon childhood were shared with millions through beloved characters like Ramona and Beezus Quimby and Henry Huggins, has died at age 104. Cleary’s publisher, HarperCollins, announced Friday that the author died Thursday in Northern California, where she had lived since the 1960s. No cause of death was given. “We are saddened by the passing of Beverly Cleary, one of the most beloved children’s authors of all time. Looking back, she’d often say, ‘I’ve had a lucky life,’ and generations of children count themselves lucky, too,” Suzanne Murphy, the president and publisher of…

Larry McMurtry, the prolific and popular author who took readers back to the old American West in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove and returned them to modern-day landscapes in works such as his emotional tale of a mother-daughter relationship in Terms of Endearment, has died. He was 84. McMurtry died Thursday night of heart failure, according to a family statement issued through a publicist on Friday. The statement did not say where he died but noted that he will be buried “in his cherished home state of Texas.”  McMurtry, who in his later years split his time between his small Texas hometown…

Jessica Walter, the Emmy-winning actor whose career spanned six decades, has died. She was 80. “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of my beloved mom, Jessica,” Walter’s daughter, Brooke Bowman, said in a release. “While her legacy will live on through her body of work, she will also be remembered by many for her wit, class and overall joie de vivre.” While Walter’s career began in the mid-60s (her feature debut was in the 1964 film Lilith, with Warren Beatty, Jean Seberg and Gene Hackman), she most recently grabbed attention from performances in the sitcom Arrested Development and the long-running…

George Segal, the banjo player turned actor who was nominated for an Oscar for 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and starred in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs, died on Tuesday in Santa Rosa, Calif., his wife said. He was 87. “The family is devastated to announce that this morning, George Segal passed away due to complications from bypass surgery,” Sonia Segal said in a statement. A native of Great Neck, N.Y., Segal was always best known as a comic actor, but his most famous role was in a harrowing drama, 1966’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The entire cast of the…

The common view of Inuit art centres around breathtaking soapstone carvings, sculptures and printmaking, but in reality, the body of work is as wide as the tundra is vast. Thousands of traditional and cutting edge works of Inuit art will be on display to the general public starting March 27, when Qaumajuq, the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s new Inuit Art Centre, officially opens. CBC News profiled nine artist who have work in the inaugural exhibit, INUA — a name that means “spirit” or “life force” in many Arctic dialects, according to the WAG, and is also an acronym for Inuit Nunangat Ungammuaktut Atautikkut — or “Inuit Moving Forward Together,”…

When Nic Dyson got a Facebook message from an alias account claiming to be his long-lost third cousin — and CNN anchor Jake Tapper — he assumed it was fake news.  “I thought, why does he know so much about my family?” Dyson said.  “He started throwing out names and stuff and I was like, maybe this is some creepy, stalkery stuff.”  But when the high-profile American journalist told his 3.3 million Twitter followers about the “amazingly talented” third cousin he just discovered on Ancestry.com, things got real — fast.  “My social media has not calmed down since,” Dyson said.  Just discovered on <a href=”https://twitter.com/Ancestry?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@Ancestry</a>…

Actor Armie Hammer is under investigation for sexual assault, Los Angeles police said Thursday. Hammer’s lawyer denied the allegation. Hammer is the main suspect in a sexual assault that was reported to police on Feb. 3, LAPD spokesperson Officer Drake Madison said. Police would give no further details on the incident or who made the report. Earlier Thursday at a video news conference, a woman said that on April 24, 2017, in Los Angeles, Hammer raped her for four hours, slammed her head against a wall and committed other violent acts against her. The Associated Press does not generally identify alleged…