Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
■ Lebanese authorities banned the new Wonder Woman movie hours before it was to premiere Wednesday in the capital and after a campaign against its lead actress, Gal Gadot, who served in the Israeli army, a security official and activists said. Cinemas in Beirut began removing the movie posters, and cinema executives said the movie will not be shown because of the ban. Lebanon is officially at war with Israel, and the two countries have been through a number of wars. A particularly devastating 2006 war battered Lebanon’s infrastructure and left hundreds of civilians dead. The ban is in accordance with a decades-old law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling to Israel or having contacts with Israelis. The official says the ban issued by the minister of the interior Wednesday has been relayed to the distribution company, which in turn has to inform the theaters planning to show the movie. An executive at the Grand Cinema chain said the company was planning to show the movie in 16 out of its 18 theaters around the country, but it would now be removed. Warner Bros., which has released the film, declined to comment. On her Facebook page, Gadot had praised Israel’s military during the 2014 Gaza-Israel war, sending prayers to soldiers “who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas.”
■ The man who married his former sixth-grade teacher after she was jailed for raping him has filed for legal separation from her. King County, Wash., court records show Vili Fualaau, 33, asked the court for a legal separation May 9 from 55-year-old Mary Kay Letourneau. Letourneau is a former suburban Seattle teacher who became tabloid fodder when she was convicted in 1997 of raping the 12-year-old Fualaau. She was 34 and a married mother of four when the relationship began. When she was released in 2005 after she served a 7½-year prison term, she and Fualaau petitioned a King County judge to lift an order barring them from seeing each other. The couple married on May 20, 2005, in Woodinville, Wash., and now have two daughters together. They reportedly received six figures for the TV rights to their wedding, the first of several attempts to capitalize on their notoriety. They also co-wrote a book published in France under the title Only One Crime, Love, in 1999. In 2009, they hosted a nightclub event in Seattle called “Hot For Teacher” night where Fualaau served as disc jockey for the night. They took photos and signed T-shirts. On the occasion of the couple’s 10-year wedding anniversary in 2015, Letourneau said in an interview with ABC, “If it wasn’t strong enough in the beginning, it wouldn’t have carried through those years.”