By Sono Motoyama, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

PITTSBURGH — My Japanese grandmother lived on the opposite coast when I was little. I only met her a couple times, but she would annually send a box of homemade Japanese treats, including red bean-stuffed buns.

As a kid growing up in a New York suburb, these were not exactly something I yearned for. I probably — no, definitely — would have been happier if she sent us Twinkies and Hostess Cakes.

Apparently now, though, Japanese red bean is having a moment, along with other Asian desserts.

A twentysomething acquaintance said he enjoyed Asian desserts because they don’t “feel like they’re immediately going to give you cavities.” Though he admitted that red bean was an “adult acquired taste, like coffee.”

On social media you can see an eye-popping array of Eastern desserts, including mochi in all the colors of the rainbow, the cutest little animal-shaped dessert buns and yes, red bean-filled taiyaki.

‘A hot concept’

As an adult, I would occasionally enjoy going to Chinese bakeries — the kind where you pick a trayful of sweet and savory treats with tongs — that you find in Chinatowns. But now they’re in the most unlikely places, including Memphis, where I recently lived. It most decidedly does not have a Chinatown.

Indeed, trend trackers Carbonate Insights has proclaimed, “Asian dessert cafés are one of the hottest concepts of 2025.”

It cites as evidence South Korean chain Paris Baguette, with locations in more than 20 U.S. states; Taiwan-based 85°C Bakery Cafe, in 10 states; and French-Asian bakery Tous les Jours, with over 100 locations in the U.S. — including Shadyside.

The gateway drug is bubble tea, which incited interest in other Asian desserts and snacks. Social media multiplied the curiosity among millennials and Gen Z.

Another draw was that many dessert cafes are open late. (Thank you! What’s up with coffee shops and cafes closing in late afternoon?) These dessert cafes offer non-alcohol-based but high-design social hangouts.

On a recent evening midweek, the photo-ready interiors of New York-based chain Mango Mango and Japanese chain Kyo Matcha, only a few yards from each other on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill, were buzzing with a young crowd. Both opened within the last year.

Substance over style

But as we welcome these sleek newcomers, we shouldn’t forget the previous generation that paved the way.

Sumi Chun who emigrated from Seoul, Korea, runs Sumi’s Cakery in the Strip District with her husband, Jun. (Previously, the shop was in Squirrel Hill.) She touts her strawberry layer cake, green tea cake and mocha cake. She had no professional cooking experience when she started her business — she taught Korean dance in her home country — but perhaps fittingly for such social media-ready edibles, she learned how to bake from the internet.

“Almost every bakery has a strawberry cake,” she said. “Mine is special.”

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It is ultralight, she said, because she uses whipped cream as a topping instead of butter cream.

Pink Box Bakery, in Squirrel Hill, opened around the same time as Sumi’s Cakery — in the 2010s. It is currently run by Hong Yang, a Taiwanese immigrant who took it over from his wife’s siblings. It has hints of an old-style bakery, with trays to stack up your treats. It carries a wide variety of sweet and savory buns (including red bean), taro bread and some intriguing-looking, colorful mochi cakes.

Like Chun, Yang takes pride in making everything in-house and using the best ingredients, preferring substance over style. Most of his pastries are traditional Taiwanese offerings, he said.

Perhaps the Instagram-ready newbies and the traditionalists could learn a thing or two from each other.

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By COLLEEN BARRY, Associated Press

SCHIAVON, Italy (AP) — Pope Leo XIV’s choice of name signals a commitment to social justice which is very much in line with the late Pope Francis’ global ministry.

“I think a lot us had a question mark when they elected an American, and then he selected the name Pope Leo XIV,” said Natalia Imperatori-Lee, the chair of religious studies at Manhattan University. “It really means to me he will continue the work of Leo XXIII.”

Pope Leo XIII, who was head of the Catholic Church from 1878 to 1903, laid the foundation for modern Catholic social thought, most famously with his 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which addressed workers’ rights and capitalism at the dawn of the industrial age. He criticized both laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism, giving shape to a distinctly Catholic vein of economic teaching.

The name “is a deep sign of commitment to social issues,” said Imperatori-Lee. “I think this (new) pope is saying something about social justice, by choosing this name, that it is going to be a priority. He is continuing a lot of Francis’ ministry.”

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV appears at the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, Thursday, May 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Another predecessor, Pope Leo I, was known for repelling the barbarian invasion of Atilla the Hun in 452 A.D. and dissuading him from sacking Rome through diplomacy, Italian Cardinal Maurizio Piacenza told RAI Italian state TV. He also noted that Pope Leo XIII elevated the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii to a papal basilica in 1901.

For most of the Catholic Church’s first millennium, popes used their given names. The first exception was the 6th century Roman Mercurius, who had been named for a pagan god and chose the more appropriate name of John II.

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The practice of adopting a new name became ingrained during the 11th century, a period of German popes who chose names of early church bishops out of “a desire to signify continuity,” according to Rev. Roberto Regoli, a historian at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University.

For many centuries, new popes tended to choose the name of the pope who had elevated them to cardinal. John was the most popular, chosen by 23 popes, followed by Benedict and Gregory, each with 16.

It was from the mid-20th century that new popes begin to choose names signaling the aim of their papacy, Regoli said.

By MICHAEL R. SISAK and JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A former model tearfully testified Thursday that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced” to that point.

Kaja (KEYE’-ah) Sokola, an aspiring actor at the time, told jurors at Weinstein’s #MeToo retrial that the onetime movie honcho put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at a Manhattan apartment in 2002.

Sokola said she saw Weinstein’s eyes — “black and scary” — staring at her in a bathroom mirror as it happened.

Kaja Sokola arrives at Manhattan criminal court before Harvey Weinstein’s trial on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Afterward, she said, he told her to keep quiet about what had happened, touting that he’d made the careers of A-listers like Gwyneth Paltrow and Penélope Cruz and that he could help her Hollywood dreams come true.

“I’d never been in a situation like this,” Sokola testified, as riveted jurors scribbled notes. “I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position.”

Weinstein is not charged with any crime in connection with the alleged assault, which Sokola first detailed in a lawsuit a few years ago. The timing put it outside the statute of limitations for criminal charges.

Sokola is testifying because Weinstein is charged with forcibly performing oral sex on her at a Manhattan hotel four years later, around the time of her 20th birthday. Prosecutors say it happened after Weinstein arranged for Sokola to be an extra in the film “The Nanny Diaries.”

Harvey Weinstein appears in state court in Manhattan for his retrial on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in New York. (Steven Hirsch /New York Post via AP, Pool)

Sokola reported the allegation to authorities a few days into Weinstein’s first trial in 2020, but was not a part of that case. Prosecutors added her to the retrial, joining two women who testified in the first case, after his conviction was overturned last year.

Weinstein, now 73, looked down and away from Sokola as she recounted the earlier allegation, pressing his left thumb and index finger against his face like a shield.

Sokola testified that she first met the then-studio boss at a Manhattan restaurant in 2002, three or four days before the alleged assault. During the short chat, she said, Weinstein asked her if she wanted to be an actress.

A few days later, she said, he invited her to lunch — ostensibly to talk about acting — but instead took her to an apartment, where led her into a bedroom and then a bathroom, instructed her to take her top off and assaulted her.

“He told me to take my clothes off and I didn’t want to do that. I was panicking,” Sokola testified. “And then he said that if I want to be an actress, that’s what actors do in films, so I should get used to it. If a director says you have you take your clothes off, you have to take your clothes off. I was scared. I was scared of him.”

Sokola avoided looking at Weinstein as she walked to the witness stand — testifying for a second day after detailing on Wednesday her upbringing in Poland, entrée into modeling and her professional career as a psychotherapist and author who recently launched a film production company. She peered briefly at Weinstein when asked Thursday to point him out in court.

Weinstein has pleaded not guilty and denies sexually assaulting anyone.

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His lawyers contend that his accusers consented to sexual encounters with him in hopes of getting movie and TV opportunities, and the defense has emphasized that the women stayed in contact with him for a while after the alleged assaults. The women, meanwhile, say the then-producer used the prospect of show business work to prey on them.

Sokola sued Weinstein after industry whispers about his behavior toward women became a chorus of public accusations in 2017, fueling the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct. Prosecutors have said Sokola eventually received $3.5 million in compensation.

Prosecutors have said they began investigating Sokola’s claims in 2020 but set the inquiry aside after Weinstein was convicted. They revived the investigation after New York’s highest court reversed his conviction.

Weinstein’s lawyers fought unsuccessfully to keep Sokola out of the retrial, accusing prosecutors of “smuggling an additional charge into the case” to try to bolster other accusers’ credibility.

One of the others, Miriam Haley, testified last week that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The third accuser in the case, Jessica Mann, is expected to testify later.

The Associated Press generally does not name sexual assault accusers without their permission, which Haley, Mann and Sokola have given.

By SCOTT BAUER and TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The father of a Wisconsin teenage girl who killed a teacher and fellow student in a school shooting was charged with felonies Thursday in connection with the case, police said.

The shooting occurred at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison last December.

The shooter’s father, Jeffrey Rupnow, 42, of Madison, was taken into custody around 3:45 a.m. Thursday, police said.

Rupnow was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a child and two counts of providing a dangerous weapon to a person under 18 resulting in death. All three charges are felonies, punishable by up to six years in prison each. He was scheduled to make an initial appearance in court on Friday.

Rupnow’s daughter, 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow, opened fire on Dec. 16, 2024, at Abundant Life Christian School, killing a teacher and a 14-year-old student before killing herself. Two other students were critically injured.

Jeffrey Rupnow did not immediately respond to a message The Associated Press left on his Facebook page. No one immediately returned voicemails left at possible telephone listings for him and his ex-wife, Melissa Rupnow. Online court records indicate he represented himself in the couple’s 2022 divorce and do not list an attorney for him in that case.

Police had said they were investigating how Natalie Rupnow obtained two guns she had the day of the attack. Police have not discussed a clear motive in the attack. Former Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes said shortly after the shooting that a “combination of factors” motivated the shooting, but he declined to specify what they were.

Jeffrey Rupnow is the latest parent of a school shooter to face charges associated with an attack.

Last year, the mother and father of a school shooter in Michigan who killed four students in 2021 were each convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The mother was the first parent in the U.S. to be held responsible for a child carrying out a mass school attack.

The father of a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting four people at a Georgia high school was arrested in September and faces charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter for letting his son possess a weapon.

In 2023, the father of a man charged in a deadly Fourth of July parade shooting in suburban Chicago pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanors related to how his son obtained a gun license.

Killed in the shooting were Abundant Life teacher Erin Michelle West, 42, and student Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14.

Abundant Life is a nondenominational Christian school that offers prekindergarten classes through high school. About 420 students attend the institution.