Names and faces

Names and faces

• The next redo project for former Fixer Upper TV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines will be a Texas hotel. The couple has announced plans to transform a three-story office building into a boutique hotel in Waco. The site is a few blocks from their Magnolia Market at the Silos. McLennan County owned the 91-year-old Grand Karem Shrine building. Commissioners last year agreed to sell the property, which housed health service offices, to Magnolia Vacation Rentals for $930,000. The county sold a nearby parking garage for $500,000. The hotel is expected to open in 2021. In June, the Gaineses announced a $10 million plan for attractions at Magnolia Market at the Silos.

• Two actresses have sued James Franco and the acting and film school he founded, saying he intimidated his students into gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations far beyond what's acceptable on Hollywood film sets. Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, former students at the actor's now-closed Studio 4, said in the lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court that Franco pushed his students into performing in increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in an "orgy type setting." The women also said students were led to believe those who went along would get roles in Franco's films. The situations described in the suit arose during a master class in sex scenes that Franco taught at the school, which he opened in 2014 and closed in 2017. In an interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert last year, Franco, 41, called the sexual misconduct stories about him inaccurate, but said, "If I've done something wrong, I will fix it. I have to." The actor's attorney, Michael Plonsker, said claims in the new lawsuit are "ill-informed" and have "already been debunked."

• The United Nations' cultural agency UNESCO has appointed Mexican actress Yalitza Aparicio as its goodwill ambassador for indigenous peoples. The 25-year-old made history as the first indigenous performer nominated for a best actress honor at the Academy Awards this year for her performance in the film Roma, in which she speaks in an indigenous language and in Spanish. The Paris-based organization said Friday that Aparicio, who was born in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, was chosen for her commitment to fight racism and advocate for gender equality and indigenous rights.

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Chip and Joanna Gaines

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Invision

James Franco

A Section on 10/05/2019

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