Studio Ghibli, the Japanese anime factory of surreal ecological wonders that has for 39 years spirited away moviegoers with tales of Totoros, magical jellyfish and floating castles, was celebrated Monday by the Cannes Film Festival with an honorary Palme d'Or.

In the 22 years that Cannes has been handing out honorary Palmes, the award for Ghibli was the first for anything but an individual filmmaker or actor. (This year's other recipients are George Lucas and Meryl Streep.) Hayao Miyazaki, the 83-year-old animation master who founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 with Isao Takahata and Toshio Suzuki, didn't attend the ceremony, but he spoke in a video message taped in Japan.

Before a journalist has even lobbed a question, Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos spit out a string of overlapping answers.

"We have a great relationship," begins Lanthimos. '"We just love working together," adds Stone. "It was cool to do a modern-day piece." "Going back to some of the early stuff," says Lanthimos. "A throwback," says Stone. "Our relationship has evolved over time," Lanthimos adds.

OpenAI on Monday said it plans to halt the use of one of its ChatGPT voices that "Her" actor Scarlett Johansson says sounds "eerily similar" to her own.

In a post on the social media platform X, OpenAI said it is "working to pause" Sky — the name of one of five voices that ChatGPT users can chose to speak with. The company said it had "heard questions" about how it selects the lifelike audio options available for its flagship artificial intelligence chatbot, particularly Sky, and wanted to address them.

Those who want to climb one of the most popular trails on Japan's iconic Mount Fuji will have to book a slot and pay a fee as crowds, littering and climbers who try to rush too fast to the summit cause safety and conservation concerns at the picturesque stratovolcano.

The new rules for the climbing season, starting July 1 to Sept. 10, apply for those hiking the Yoshida Trail on the Yamanashi side of the 3,776 meter- (nearly 12,300 feet-) high mountain that was designated a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site in 2013.

Welcome to Cannes. The annual film festival is always a spectacle, but 2024's edition may be the most combustible in years. The 77th Cannes red carpet unfurls against a backdrop of war and protest. The #MeToo movement, so slow to take root in France, is now quickly tearing through the country's film industry. Festival workers have threatened to strike.

And yet, the usual cavalcade of celebrities and filmmakers from around the world are descending upon the French Riviera over the course of two weeks. And so is The Associated Press. This year, we're keeping a running diary of life at — and in — Cannes. Follow along for an insider's view from the festival.

Leaning into the microphone in Saudi Arabia's capital, Nora let loose a primal scream. Guitars wailed and drums throbbed behind her as part of a set with her bandmates during a recent show.

The performance by Seera, an all-women psychedelic rock band that blends traditional Arabic melodies with the resurgent psychedelia of bands like Tame Impala, would have been unthinkable just years earlier in the kingdom.

They may be attending one of the glitziest festivals on the planet, but some personalities in Cannes are signalling they have not forgotten the war in Gaza.

Laura Blajman-Kadar, a survivor of the October 7 attacks on Israel, swept up the red carpet on Tuesday in a bright yellow dress calling for the release of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

Beneath intermittent rainy skies, the Cannes Film Festival opened Tuesday with the presentation of an honorary Palme d'Or for Meryl Streep and the unveiling of Greta Gerwig's jury, as the French Riviera spectacular kicked off a potentially volatile 77th edition.

A 10-day stream of stars began flowing down the Cannes' red carpet with the opening night film, "The Second Act," a French comedy starring Lea Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel and Raphaël Quenard. They play squabbling actors filming a movie directed by an artificial intelligence.

They stroll Doha's waterfront promenade and sing softly about children who are now "birds in heaven," flying free of the pain of the war in Gaza.

For the Palestinian group Sol Band, it seems surreal that weeks ago they were hiding from Israeli shelling.

The Eurovision song contest continued to spawn unprecedented controversy, days after the winner was crowned, with the 27-nation European Union lambasting organizers for their "incoherence" in banning its flag from the concert hall during the final.

In an unusually sharp letter, EU Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas wrote to the organizer, the Swiss-based European Broadcast Union, that its ban contributes to "discrediting a symbol that brings together all Europeans."