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NEW YORK (AP) — Tim Conway, the impish second banana to Carol Burnett who won four Emmy Awards on her TV variety show, starred aboard “McHale’s Navy” and later voiced the role of Barnacle Boy for “Spongebob Squarepants,” has died. He was 85.

Conway died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles care facility after a long illness, according to Howard Bragman, who heads LaBrea Media. Conway’s wife, Charlene Fusco, and a daughter, Jackie, were at his side.

A native of Ohio, Conway credited his Midwestern roots for putting him on the right path to laughs, with his deadpan expression and innocent, simple-minded demeanor.

“I think the Midwest is the heart of comedy in this country, and a little bit of the South, too,” he told the Wisconsin State Journal in 2005. “For some reason, we’re just more laid-back, more understanding. … And Midwesterners have a kinder sense of humor.”

Those qualities probably contributed to his wide popularity on “The Carol Burnett Show,” which he joined in 1975 after years as a frequent guest. The show aired on CBS from 1967 to 1978 and had a short summer stint on ABC in 1979.

“We really entistidn’t attack people or politics or religion or whatever. We just made fun of, basically, ourselves,” he said.

The show operated with just five writers, one producer, one director and without network interference. The ensemble cast surrounding the redheaded star included Vicki Lawrence and Lyle Waggoner.

“I don’t think the network would allow a show like ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ now because we had such freedom,” Conway said in his interview with the State Journal.

While America was laughing at Conway, so were his co-stars: Burnett and Harvey Korman were often caught by the camera trying not to crack up during his performances.

The short, nondescript Conway and the tall, imposing Korman were a physical mismatch made in comedy heaven. They toured the country for years with a sketch show called “Together Again,” which drew on characters from Burnett’s show.

Besides the four Emmys he won with Burnett (three as a performer, one as a writer), he won Emmys for guest appearances in 1996 for “Coach” and in 2008 for “30 Rock.”

Conway also had a modest but steady movie career, appearing in such films as “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), “The Shaggy D.A.” (1976), “Cannonball Run II” (1984), “Dear God” (1996) and “Air Bud 2” (1998).

“The Apple Dumpling Gang” and “Cannonball Run II” allowed him to work with his comedic hero, Don Knotts, who died in 2006.

“If there’s any reason at all I’m in the business, I think it’s Don,” Conway once said. “He’s an icon in this business. He’s an icon that’s never going to be duplicated.”

He also found success in the 1980s in a series of comedy videos based on an oddly short character named Dorf. (Carefully costumed, Conway performed the bits on his knees.) Among them were “Dorf on Golf” and “Dorf Goes Fishing.”

More recently Conway voiced the role of Barnacle Boy for the hugely popular children’s series “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

He was born Thomas Conway in 1933 in the Cleveland suburb of Willoughby. He attended Bowling Green State University and served in the U.S. Army. He got his career start on local TV in Cleveland in the 1950s, where his duties included comedy spots on a late-night movie show.

He was spotted by Rose Marie of “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” who got him an audition for “The Steve Allen Show.” He became a regular on the show in the early 1960s. It was Allen who had advised him to change his name from Tom to Tim to avoid being confused with a British actor.

Following the Allen show, Conway gained attention as the incompetent Ensign Charles Parker on the Ernest Borgnine sitcom “McHale’s Navy” from 1962-66. That led to series of his own, including “Rango” and “The Tim Conway Show,” but they were short-lived.

“McHale’s Navy” fans loved watching Ensign Parker infuriate the ever-flammable Captain Binghamton (played by Joe Flynn), but it was Conway’s work on Burnett’s show that would bring him lasting fame.

Conway and his wife, Mary Anne Dalton, married in 1961 and had six children. The marriage ended in divorce. He later married Charlene Fusco.

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Juncker consulted Merkel, Macron ahead of Trump trip

US president says ‘tariffs are the greatest’ ahead of trade talks with Commission chief.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker spoke with several EU leaders before he headed to Washington to hold talks with Donald Trump.

Juncker spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte ahead of his visit, a Commission spokesman said Tuesday.

The Commission and U.S. presidents will discuss the trade battle that has broken out since Trump imposed tariffs on EU steel and aluminum imports.

While Juncker was traveling, Trump sent out two trade-related tweets. First he wrote: “Countries that have treated us unfairly on trade for years are all coming to Washington to negotiate. This should have taken place many years ago but, as the saying goes, better late than never!”

Twenty minutes later he wrote: “Tariffs are the greatest! Either a country which has treated the United States unfairly on Trade negotiates a fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that – and everybody’s talking! Remember, we are the “piggy bank” that’s being robbed. All will be Great!”

On Monday, Trump threatened Europe’s car exports, saying the European Union has been “very tough” on the U.S.

“They’re coming in to see me Wednesday and we’ll see if we can work something out,” Trump said at a White House event celebrating American-made goods. “Otherwise, we’ll have to do something with respect to the millions of cars that they send in every year. Maybe we can work something out.”

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Pro-life film Unplanned made it to 56 movie theaters across Canada despite opposition from pro-abortion activists who refer to the film as a “piece of hate propaganda.”

The U.S. film brings to the screen the memoir of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood manager-turned pro-life activist.

Unplanned opened to $353,510 on its opening weekend at the Canadian box office, noted the Hollywood Reporter, despite controversy and even death threats to independent theater owners.

Many Canadian theaters reported sold-out showings, though abortion activists denounced the film and protested it vehemently.

Joyce Arthur, executive director of the coalition, expressed concern about the safety of Canadian abortion providers due to the screening of the film.

According to CBC, Arthur referred to the film as a “piece of hate propaganda.”

“The film’s vicious falsehoods against providers could incite hatred and violence against them, including here in Canada,” she said. “But the film also aims to challenge abortion rights. That’s a non-starter in Canada, where women and transgender people have a Charter right to abortion based on their rights to bodily autonomy and equality.”

Katie Telford, chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, also tweeted on numerous occasions her contempt for the film and pro-life activists.

Telford recommended to her followers an opinion piece by an abortion advocate with the headline, “Unplanned and anti-choice activism, and the lies that they tell.”

When the film opened in Canada last Friday, Planned Parenthood Newfoundland and Labrador decided to sponsor a showing of the film Mean Girls as a “fun alternative” to Unplanned, rather than hold a formal protest to the U.S. movie.

Considering the controversy, Canadian film and television producer Martin Katz, marveled at the movie’s distribution, CBC observed.

“My understanding is that it’s quite terrible, but there are a lot of terrible films that get released,” said Katz. “What I think is drastic is that there’s a lot of great Canadian films that don’t get released, if they do get released, they get released on a screen or five screens or six screens, not [almost] 60 screens.”

The CEO of Cineplex, Canada’s largest cinema chain, ultimately justified screening the film based on the principle of free speech.

“Canada is a country that believes in and rallies behind freedom of expression, but that isn’t always an easy thing to do and it certainly doesn’t always make you popular,” said Ellis Jacob. “In this instance many of us will have to set aside our own personal beliefs and remember that living in a country that censors content, opinions, and points of view because they are different from our own is not a country that any of us want to live in.”

The film’s success led to screenings at Cineplex’s rivals, including Cinema Guzzo in Quebec and Imagine Cinemas, Landmark Cinemas, and some independent houses in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, observed THR.

Unplanned stars Ashley Bratcher in the role of Abby Johnson:

As of July 15, Unplanned‘s North American box office take was at $18.55 million.

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Only a week before European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker flies to Washington, France and Germany are divided over how much he should offer to U.S. President Donald Trump to end a deepening trade war, say European diplomats and officials.

But, they add, Germany has the upper hand. Berlin is shaping Juncker’s agenda, suggesting three offers that he could take to Trump on July 25 to resolve the dispute, according to people familiar with the plans.

The French are uneasy about the wisdom of such a conciliatory approach, however, and publicly accuse Trump of seeking to splinter and weaken the 28-member bloc, which he has called his “foe.”

Despite Paris’ reservations about giving away too much to the increasingly hostile U.S. president, the diplomats say that the European Commission’s powerful Secretary-General Martin Selmayr supports the German attempt at rapprochement, which makes it more likely that Juncker will offer some kind of trade fix next week.

“It’s clear that Juncker can’t go to Washington empty-handed,” one diplomat said. He stressed that Juncker’s proposals would be a political signal to Washington and would not be the formal beginning of negotiations, which would have to be approved by EU countries.

European ambassadors will meet on Wednesday to discuss the scope of Juncker’s offer — and indeed whether any offers should be made at all. France’s official position is that Europe must not strike any deal with a gun to its head, or with any country that has opted out of the Paris climate accord, as Trump’s America has done.

While Berlin is terrified by the prospect of 20 percent tariffs on cars and is desperate for a ceasefire deal, France has more fundamental suspicions that the time for compromise is over and that Trump simply wants to destroy EU unity. Paris is concerned that Trump’s next target is its sacred farm sector and is putting more emphasis on the importance of preserving a united political front against Washington.

Two diplomats said Berlin has a broad menu of offers that should be made to Trump: a bilateral deal to cut industrial tariffs, a plurilateral agreement to eliminate car duties worldwide, and a bigger transatlantic trade agreement including regulatory cooperation that potentially also comes with talks on increasing U.S. beef exports into Europe.

Making such generous offers is contentious when Trump crystallized his trade position toward Brussels on CBS news on Sunday: “I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now, you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.”

This undiplomatic bombshell came not long after he reportedly advised French President Emmanuel Macron to quit the EU to get a better trade deal than he was willing to offer the EU28.

In announcing Juncker’s visit on Tuesday, the White House said that he and Trump “will focus on improving transatlantic trade and forging a stronger economic partnership.”

Talking to the enemy

Diplomats note that a French-led camp in Brussels reckons Trump’s goals are strategic, and that he’s not after the sort of deal Germany is offering.

A French government official said that Washington quite simply wants to shift the EU off the stage: “Trump’s objective is that there are two big blocs: The United States and China. A multipower world with Europe as a strong player does not fit in.”

France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire this month also issued a stark warning that Trump is seeking to drive a wedge between France and Germany — courting Paris, while simultaneously attacking Berlin’s trade surplus with the U.S. “In this globalized world, European countries must form a bloc, because what our partners or adversaries want is to divide us,” Le Maire said at an economic conference in Aix-en-Provence. “What the United States want, that’s to divide France and Germany.”

Despite these remarks from Le Maire, Anthony Gardner, former ambassador to the EU under the Barack Obama administration, said that he suspects the full magnitude of the threat has not sunk in. “Europe wake up; the U.S. wants to break up the EU,” he tweeted on Sunday. “Remember Belgium’s motto: L’union fait la force. [Unity creates strength]. Especially on trade. No side deals.”

One EU diplomat insisted that Brussels is not blind to these dangers in the run-up to Juncker’s visit.

Trump thinks that Europe is “too big to be controllable by DC, so it’s bad for America. Simple logic. And therefore the only deal that will bring the president to stop the trade war is the deal that breaks up the European market. I don’t quite think that’s the legacy Juncker is aiming for,” the diplomat said.

Europe is source of a deep frustration for Trump, as it runs a massive goods surplus with the U.S., at $147 billion in 2016. In particular, the U.S. president blames Germany’s mighty car exporters for this imbalance.

Leveling the field is not easy, however. With its market of 510 million consumers, Europe not only has the clout to stand up to the United States, but is increasingly setting global standards — particularly on food. This not only limits U.S. exports in Europe but also means that the European model is used in a broader trading ecosystem that includes Canada, Mexico and Japan.

New world order

Marietje Schaake, a liberal Dutch member of the European Parliament, observed that the U.S. trade strategy meshed with Trump’s political agenda.

“You could say there’s a new transatlantic relation emerging, of nationalists, populists and protectionists,” she said, pointing out that Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast doubt on America’s commitment to supporting European security.

Trump’s opposition to the EU partly builds on an long-standing American discomfort about the EU’s economic policies.

“We already saw problems during the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, where the U.S. didn’t like EU demands such as on geographical indications [food name protections], and certainly didn’t like that we had ambitious requests in areas like public procurement,” said Pascal Kerneis, managing director of the European Services Forum and a member of the now defunct TTIP advisory group.

Kerneis said that Trump’s trade attacks are shifting the tensions to a completely new level: “He’s attacking on all fronts, hoping to break our unity, particularly between Germany and France.”

France particularly fears that Trump’s duties on Spanish olives could only be the first salvo on Europe’s whole system of farm subsidies.

EU lawmaker Schaake said that France is right to worry about a conflagration. “Once we give in in one area, he will attack at the next one,” she said. “If we allow Trump to play Europeans against each other, sector by sector, it will be a losing game.”

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The Portuguese boss expressed his frustration over a lack of attacking options after losing another prized asset due to injury on Tuesday

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho says he won’t be counting on Son Heung-min again this season after seeing the forward sidelined with a fractured arm.

The club announced on Tuesday that Son will undergo surgery on the issue, before starting a rehabilitation programme which will keep him out of action for a “number of weeks”.

The South Korea international had been filling in up front for Spurs in the absence of Harry Kane, who sustained a serious hamstring injury in January.

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Kane is not expected to return to the pitch until April, and Mourinho was unable to bring in an extra forward as cover for a talismanic figure during the winter transfer window.

Son has led the line admirably since being switched into a central role, and helped himself to another two goals during a 3-2 victory over Aston Villa on Sunday – taking his tally for the season to nine.

That result saw Tottenham move to within a point of fourth-placed Chelsea in the Premier League standings, but Mourinho will now be forced to rethink his approach ahead of a Champions League last-16 meeting with RB Leipzig on Wednesday.

The Portuguese tactician doesn’t expect to welcome Son back before the end of the 2019-20 campaign, and claims “the situation couldn’t be worse” for his side as they head into a crucial period.

“We are going to miss him. The club wrote a nice statement. If I was the one to write the statement I would write differently. We miss him,” Mourinho told a press conference when asked to discuss Son’s injury.

“I’m not going to count on him again this season. If he plays two or three games then it’s because he (his press officer) is very optimistic, but I’m not counting on him.

“The situation couldn’t be worse. That is obvious. There is nothing we can do. We are going to play with the players we have available. I was worried about not having attacking options on the bench, now I don’t have attacking options on the pitch!

“No strikers, no market. Nothing. The only help we can have is our crowd. The Tottenham supporters, that is the only thing that I ask because to the players I cannot ask more than what they are giving.”

Mourinho added on Tottenham’s bid to qualify for the Champions League for a fifth successive season: “I like analogies. When we arrived, we were -12 [from fourth].

“We started climbing the stairs but the stairs immediately broke. We found a way, we start climbing and, 11 floors up, when we arrive on the fourth floor, someone took the stairs away!”

Lucas Moura and Dele Alli are still available to Mourinho, and January signing Steven Bergwijn is another option for Spurs after making a bright start to his career in English football.

Teenager striker Troy Parrott could also be granted a more prominent role in the team, with Tottenham set to switch their focus to a crucial Premier League meeting with Chelsea after their latest European outing.

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Left-wing comedian and actress Sarah Silverman revealed last week that producers fired her from a movie she was set to co-star in after discovering a photo of her in blackface, which stemmed from a comedy sketch in 2007.

Silverman told The Bill Simmons Podcast last week that she lost a role in a movie — which she did not name — after producers discovered a photo of her donning blackface for a sketch on The Sarah Silverman Program. She did not dispute their decision but said she was disheartened because she has “devoted” her life to “making it right.”

“I recently was going to do a movie, a sweet part,” she said on the podcast. “Then, at 11 p.m. the night before, they fired me because they saw a picture of me in blackface from that episode.”

“I didn’t fight it,” Silverman continued. “They hired someone else who is wonderful but who has never stuck their neck out. It was so disheartening. It just made me real, real sad because I really kind of devoted my life to making it right.”

Silverman has expressed regret for the sketch, telling GQ last year that “it makes me feel yucky” and that she is “not that person anymore.”

The Wreck-It Ralph star also said it was “totally racist out of context.”

She told The Bill Simmons Podcast that she “knew there was racism” at the time of the sketch and wanted to “illuminate that in some way in comedy.” However, she “didn’t know that cops were killing black people and unarmed black teenagers on the regular.” It was that narrative, she said, that changed her “forever.”

The controversial sketch focused on Silverman’s character trying to figure out if it was more difficult to be Jewish or black.

“I look like the beautiful Queen Latifah,” she said in the sketch:

Despite the comedian’s status as a liberal, she is concerned by the left’s growing tendency to embrace “canceled culture.”

“I think it’s really scary and it’s a very odd thing that it’s invaded the left primarily and the right will mimic it,” she said.

“It’s like, if you’re not on board, if you say the wrong thing, if you had a tweet once, everyone is, like, throwing the first stone,” Silverman explained. “It’s so odd. It’s a perversion. It’s really, ‘Look how righteous I am and now I’m going to press refresh all day long to see how many likes I get in my righteousness.’”

Actor, rapper, and TV host Nick Cannon called out Silverman earlier this year for her past use of blackface.

UK, EU take tentative steps toward a backstop compromise

Officials say the EU is offering to put a temporary UK-wide customs arrangement into the Withdrawal Agreement.

LONDON — Brussels is prepared to write a new clause into the Brexit divorce agreement allowing for a legally enforceable, U.K.-wide customs arrangement to give London certainty that the Irish backstop will never be used, two senior officials familiar with the negotiations said.

In the House of Commons Monday, Theresa May said the EU has “responded positively” to her proposal for a U.K.-wide “customs solution” to the last remaining hurdle in the way of an orderly British withdrawal.

However, the prime minister said the EU has told her there is no time left to work out the details of the proposal, suggesting it would have to be agreed as part of the future relationship negotiations, the broad aims of which will be set out in a legally unenforceable “political declaration” that sits alongside the divorce agreement.

This, however, would leave the U.K. with no legal certainty that it could stop Northern Ireland being forced into separate arrangements from the rest of the country, as envisaged in the EU’s backstop proposal.

In the Commons, May also revealed the EU is still insisting its original backstop remain in the withdrawal text, potentially keeping Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs territory after Brexit “unless and until” a new arrangement can be found.

By offering to put a temporary U.K.-wide customs arrangement into the Withdrawal Agreement — effectively keeping the entire U.K. in a customs union with the EU until the new trade and customs deal is ready — London can claim legal certainty that should a future trade and customs deal not be ready at the end of the transition period (planned on December 31, 2020), Northern Ireland would not fall into a separate customs zone to the rest of the U.K.

The offer is a small but significant step toward a breakthrough in the negotiations, which all sides admit remain uncomfortably close to permanent impasse over the status of Northern Ireland.

However, even if the EU firms up its commitment to a new clause in the withdrawal agreement, significant political problems remain.

First of all, Downing Street is concerned that even with a legal commitment for a temporary customs arrangement, unless the details are fully worked out there would still be an “imbalance” between this commitment and the EU’s detailed and legally enforceable backstop that applies only to Northern Ireland, which would make this difficult for the PM to sell to MPs. The U.K. needs this commitment to be hardened up considerably before it is deemed acceptable, one senior U.K. official said.

Second, as May confirmed to MPs Monday, even with such a clause written into the Withdrawal Agreement, the U.K. could not accept the EU’s original, Northern Ireland-specific backstop because the new offer would be “temporary,” meaning there remains a risk that if negotiations break down then Northern Ireland could be forced into the backstop at some point in the future.

To ensure this is not the case, the EU is demanding that the “temporary” bridge be indefinite in length — something Conservative MPs insist is unacceptable because it could mean the U.K. remaining trapped in a customs union with Brussels indefinitely.

Despite the problems, however, officials — one U.K. aide familiar with the state of the negotiations and one high-level EU27 diplomat — said there remain reasons for optimism that a route through the impasse could be found.

First, according to both officials, the U.K. and EU are working on “criteria” that could be written into the clause that, once met, would allow the temporary customs arrangement to be replaced by the new trade deal when it is ready. Both sides would need to agree the criteria and come up with an independent mechanism to rule when such criteria have been met.

At a briefing for journalists in parliament Tuesday, the prime minister’s official spokesman confirmed such a mechanism has been a subject of discussion at Cabinet.

“They discussed the need for a mechanism to clearly define how that backstop will end,” he said.

Asked if this would also include a date for “when” rather than “how” this temporary customs arrangement would come to an end, the spokesman said: “How and when essentially deliver the same point of the need to ensure that [the backstop] is not indefinite.”

The EU27 diplomat who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity saw another more fundamental reason for optimism — that if the EU accepts the principle of a U.K.-wide customs arrangement in the Withdrawal Agreement, why shouldn’t it supersede the backstop itself?

“You’d have to say, if they [the Commission] are prepared to accept the principle of U.K.-wide it doesn’t seem to be a long step,” the official said. “It could only happen at the very end though. The leaders have not had to confront a situation of absolute disaster yet.”

In Brussels Tuesday, European Council President Donald Tusk appeared pessimistic about the chances of progress at this week’s summit. “Tomorrow I am going to ask Prime Minister May whether she has concrete proposals on how to break the impasse,” he said. “Only such proposals can determine if a breakthrough is possible.”

He added: “Unfortunately the report on the state of the negotiations that I got from Michel Barnier today as well as yesterday’s debate in the House of Commons gives me no grounds for optimism before tomorrow’s European Council on Brexit.”

The narrator of Showtime’s new documentary on New England Patriots star Julian Edelman, is the same person who called President Donald J. Trump a “dirty d*ck stain” on Twitter this week.

The Edelman documentary, which debuts on July 28, is narrated by actor Michael Rapaport, a harsh critic of the current president.

His latest tweet about President Trump was on June 24, and featured a doctored photo of Trump, with no nose, and a very wrinkled face, with the words underneath: “Dirty D*ck Stain @realDonaldTrump.”

The Showtime documentary chronicles Edelman’s rise from undrafted Kent State quarterback to Super Bowl MVP wide receiver. It also documents Edelman’s journey back from a devastating 2017 knee injury and 2018 suspension to Super Bowl champion.

The narrator, who aside from being an actor and comedian is also a sportscaster, has a long history of criticizing the president on social media.

On May 29, Rapaport posted a commentary on Instagram about the finding of the Mueller Report which investigated alleged Russian collusion in the last presidential election:

“D*ck stain, dirty f**king d*ck stain. You heard what Mueller said? The only reason you’re not in prison right now you f**k, is because you’re president. You’re the only f**king person who couldn’t get arrested for what you’ve done. You sloppy dog. You committed crimes. You just committed crimes well. Congratulations. You’re a good criminal. You better win in 2020 you fat, sloppy dog, you. We’re going to arrest you and put you in an orange jump suit that is going to match your orange f**king skin. You’re going to be in prison next to El Chapo. That is the kind of criminal you’re going to be next to. And we’re going to get your son, d*ck stain Donald Trump Jr., and you’re daughter, and that f**king mute, f**king junk-yard dog Jared (Kushner). You f**king criminal. You crook. You pimp. You con-man, you.”

On June 14,  Trump celebrated his birthday, and Rapaport had a message for him on Instagram:

“D*ck stain. D*ck stain Donald Trump. It’s your birthday today.  You, f**k, you. What better day is it, than your birthday, then to go f**k yourself. Go f**k yourself on your birthday.”

In the press release promoting the Edelman documentary, Showtime wrote:

And a narrator who clearly isn’t a fan of President Trump.