SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, a Tokyo-born actor known for his roles in the film “Mortal Kombat” and TV series “The Man in the High Castle” has died. He was 75.

Tagawa died surrounded by his family in Santa Barbara from complications due to a stroke, his manager, Margie Weiner, confirmed on Thursday.

“Cary was a rare soul: generous, thoughtful, and endlessly committed to his craft,” she said in an email. “His loss is immeasurable. My heart is with his family, friends, and all who loved him.”

Tagawa’s decades of film and TV roles truly got off the ground in 1987 when he appeared in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning film “The Last Emperor.” Since then, he appeared in such films as “Pearl Harbor,” “Planet of the Apes” and “License to Kill.”

Tagawa was raised mostly in the U.S. South while his Hawaii-born father was assigned to U.S. mainland Army bases. He lived in Honolulu and on the Hawaiian island of Kauai for a while.

Tagawa’s father met his mother while stationed in Japan, Tagawa told Honolulu Magazine in 2004. His parents named him after Cary Grant and his brother after Gregory Peck, he said.

His mother, Ayako, had been a stage actor in Japan, according to the Honolulu weekly newspaper Midweek. Tagawa said she asked him not to pursue acting because there weren’t many good roles for Asians.

He eventually began an acting career at age 36 after being a celery farmer, limo driver, pizza supply truck driver and photojournalist, he said.

“The good news for Asian actors and Hollywood is that it’s better than it’s ever been, but the bad news is that it hasn’t changed that much,” he told Midweek in 2005. “The opportunities haven’t increased that much, but commercially there’s more exposure.”

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Tagawa played the Baron in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” a 2005 movie based on the bestselling novel chronicling a young girl’s rise from poverty in a Japanese fishing village to life in high society.

Some critics said the movie lacked authenticity, but Tagawa said it was unrealistic to expect a fictional work written and directed by Americans to fully reflect Japanese style and sensitivities.

“What did they expect? It wasn’t a documentary,″ Tagawa told The Associated Press in 2006. “Unless the Japanese did the movie, it’s all interpretation.″

Tagawa told the AP that he studied various martial acts but left because he wasn’t into fighting or competition.

Instead, he developed a system he called Ninjah Sportz, which incorporated martial arts as a training and healing tool. He worked with professional athletes like World Boxing Council light flyweight champion Brian Viloria and advised members of the University of Hawaii football team.

In 2008, Tagawa pleaded guilty in a Honolulu court to a petty misdemeanor charge of harassing a girlfriend. She had bruises to her legs, police said at the time.

His attorney said he took full responsibility for the case from the beginning and made no excuses.

By ERIC TUCKER, ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The man accused of planting a pair of pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national parties in Washington on the eve of the U.S. Capitol attack confessed to the act in interviews with investigators, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Brian Cole Jr. also indicated that he believed the 2020 election was stolen and expressed views supportive of President Donald Trump, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss by name an ongoing investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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The details add to a still-emerging portrait of the 30-year-old suspect from Woodbridge, Virginia, and it was not immediately clear what other information or perspectives he may have shared while cooperating with law enforcement following his arrest on Thursday.

Federal authorities have not publicly disclosed any information about a possible motive or whether there is any connection to the attack on the Capitol the following day by Trump supporters.

A spokesperson for the federal public defender’s office, which will be representing Cole at a Friday court appearance in Washington, declined to comment. Calls to relatives of Cole listed in public records were not immediately returned Thursday.

Cole faces explosives charges in connection with the Jan. 5, 2021 placement of the pipe bombs near the offices of the Democratic and Republican national committees. Nobody was hurt before the bombs were rendered safe, but the FBI has said both devices could have been lethal.

An FBI affidavit made public Thursday indicated that investigators zeroed in on Cole through analysis of credit card charges related to the purchase of pipe bomb components, cellphone towers and a license plate reader.

The arrest marks the first time investigators have publicly identified a suspect in an act that has been an enduring mystery for nearly five years in the shadow of the violent Capitol attack.

By RONALD BLUM, HOWARD FENDRICH and NOAH TRISTER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The 2026 World Cup draw will begin Friday with a wintry feel as snow fell outside the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts 189 days ahead of an expanded 48-nation tournament.

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There were long lines outside the complex even at 7 a.m. as workers and media filed through with Secret Service agents securing the area. President Donald Trump of the U.S. and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico were expected to attend along with Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Frustrated he hasn’t been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump was likely to be given FIFA’s first peace prize during the ceremony to determine matches for the first round of the 104-game tournament, to be played in the U.S., Mexico and Canada from June 11 to July 19.

A red carpet was laid outside the arts center, taken over this year by Trump and his supporters. Retired stars Tom Brady of the NFL, Shaquille O’Neal of the NBA and Wayne Gretzky of the NHL along with three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge were to assist in a ceremony run by former England captain Rio Ferdinand.

All 11 of the highest-ranked teams were in the draw, with No. 12 Italy among 22 nations competing in playoffs for the final six berths to be decided March 31.

The tournament opens June 11 in Mexico City. The U.S., which has never advanced past the semifinals, starts the next day in Inglewood, California, and Canada kicks off in Toronto.

All games from the quarterfinals on will be in the U.S., which is using 11 NFL stadiums. Sites for most games and kickoff times are to be announced Saturday.

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

By Lori Rackl, Tribune News Service

With more than its fair quota of quaint towns, pretty parks and sandy beaches laced along 300 miles of shoreline, Wisconsin’s Door County has long been a popular Midwest summer getaway. But this slender peninsula sandwiched between Lake Michigan and Green Bay has plenty of appeal in winter, too. And a new holiday movie aims to show it.

“A Wisconsin Christmas Pie” stars Katie Leclerc (“Switched at Birth”) as a Chicago pastry chef who returns home to Door County, where she has to deal with her family’s struggling orchard and a rekindled crush on a high-school flame. It’s your typical feel-good, hygge-filled holiday flick — as well as a love letter to a vacation destination that often gets overlooked when the temperature drops.

Movie scenes unfold among the snow-covered branches of Peninsula State Park and rows of dormant cherry trees at Lautenbach’s Orchard Country, which doubles as the beleaguered family business in the film. Characters stroll between stalls selling cherry jam, alpaca sweaters and dried lavender at Christkindlmarkt, an annual event in the northern county hamlet of Sister Bay. A candy-apple red Door County trolley cruises through fat snowflakes along the serene coast.

“People who are here in the winter always say it looks like a Christmas movie, and now it is,” said Jon Jarosh, head of communications for Destination Door County.

If viewers are going to make a game out of it and drink every time the film makes a Wisconsin reference, they’d better have a brandy old-fashioned glass the size of a paint bucket. The movie is stuffed with Badger State shout-outs, from New Glarus beer and Renard’s cherry cheddar cheese to an appearance by former Green Bay Packers running back Ahman Green.

Door County’s tourism office helped bankroll the production, which recently debuted on the Great American Family network and various streaming services.

“It puts the focus on a different time of year that’s not May through October — our high season,” said Jarosh, who dressed in a cherry pie costume for his cameo. (“I hope I don’t get typecast,” he laughed.)

Almost half of the annual visitors to Door County, often dubbed the Cape Cod of the Midwest, come in June, July and August. December, January and February account for only 8% of the region’s overnight stays, according to the tourism bureau.

Winter might mean some businesses pare back hours, but the county doesn’t hibernate through the frostier months. Parks turn into cold-weather playgrounds for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, sledding and snowmobiling. Anglers head onto carpets of ice to catch whitefish, walleye and northern pike. (Fishing charter guides can hook up novices with the necessary bait, gear and shanties.)

The Ridges Sanctuary offers hiking and luminaria-lit boardwalks at its 1,700-acre nature preserve in Baileys Harbor, a lighthouse-studded town on the Lake Michigan side of the peninsula. Door County Trolley runs holiday pub crawls and winter wine tours, and Mayberry’s Carriages has horse-drawn sleigh rides at Lautenbach’s Orchard, one of the filming locations.

The county’s largest city, Sturgeon Bay, is home to about 10,000 people — and the Door County Maritime Museum, a good spot to warm up indoors. The tourist attraction draws about 100,000 visitors a year, many of whom come to learn about the plethora of shipwrecks filling the surrounding waters. The county’s name stems from the French phrase for death’s door. It’s a reference to the treacherous passage between the north end of the peninsula and Washington Island, the largest of Door County’s 34 isles and the only one with a year-round community.

The maritime museum sits along Sturgeon Bay’s working waterfront, the backdrop for one of the film’s flirty scenes between Emma the pastry chef and fisherman Mitch Henriksen. The latter character’s name is a nod to the county’s real-life whitefish suppliers, Henriksen Fisheries. The longtime business is selling its whitefish chowder along with some movie merch at this year’s Christkindlmarkt.

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Lake Michigan whitefish is the star ingredient of the beloved Door County fish boil. The outdoor event involves tossing kerosene on a fire, causing a giant kettle of fish, potatoes and onions to boil over. The blaze gets rid of the fish oil that’s floated to the top of the cauldron. This culinary spectacle with Scandinavian roots is a hot ticket with tourists in the summer, but some places keep the tradition going all year.

The White Gull Inn in Fish Creek puts on winter fish boils Fridays and Sundays. “A Wisconsin Christmas Pie” cast and crew were supposed to shoot their requisite fish boil scene at this historic inn and restaurant, but a lightning storm quashed those plans. It ended up being filmed at Waterfront Mary’s Bar and Grill in Sturgeon Bay, where visitors can catch a fish boil on Saturdays in winter.

Both fish boil joints are among the 16 stops that make up the new Door County Christmas movie trail. At each location, people get points for checking in with their mobile phone. These points can be redeemed for movie-themed prizes at the Door County welcome center in Sturgeon Bay.

“We have coffee mugs to give away and a special blend from Door County Coffee for people to enjoy,” Jarosh said, “hopefully while they’re watching the film.”

Lori Rackl is a freelance writer.

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