MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court has denied parole to a member of the Pussy Riot punk group.

In its ruling Thursday, the court accepted a claim by prosecutors that Maria Alekhina had systematically disobeyed prison authorities and failed to repent for her crime, Russian media reported.

Alekhina went on a hunger strike Wednesday after being barred from the court hearing in Perm province, and she ordered her defense not to participate.

Band members Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich gained worldwide notoriety last year when a Moscow court jailed them for two years for conducting a punk protest in Moscow’s main cathedral.

Samtusevich was later released on appeal.

Alekina’s lawyer said she would appeal Thursday’s court’s decision.

A court in the province of Mordovia denied Tolokonnikova parole last month.

CLEVELAND (AP) — Over the years, curators at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum have occasionally had trouble coaxing reluctant stars to help put together major exhibitions. Not so with members of The Rolling Stones, who made time in their packed anniversary schedule to help.

“Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Satisfaction,” opening Friday and running through March 2014, covers two floors at the museum and contains scores of personal items.

“The timing was right,” associate curator Craig Inciardi said. “Ordinarily, you would think that working on an exhibit while the artists are getting ready for a major tour would be a bad thing. In this case, it worked to our advantage in that they were all getting together, spending time making decisions in the same room. … We ended up getting their full cooperation.”

The interactive exhibit honoring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the band’s other members is a tribute to their work, worldwide musical impact and continued relevance.

It’s more than a celebration. In fact, it’s a gas.

With nearly 300 artifacts on display, the exhibit chronicles the band from its birth in England as a blues cover band to its current “50 and Counting” tour. Rare guitars, stage outfits, concert posters, documents and personal items fill two floors.

After stepping through a doorway framed like the Stones’ iconic tongue-and-lips logo — omnipresent in various shapes and sizes on the museum’s fifth and sixth floors — visitors are taken back to the band’s early days, even before founder Brian Jones, Jagger, Richards, Ian Stewart, Mick Taylor and Charlie Watts played their first gig.

There are gems of Stones’ history interspersed throughout the exhibit. Impeccably mounted behind glass, the treasure trove of items includes:

— Fan questionnaires filled out in the early 1960s by the band. On his, Jagger listed his likes as “girls, eating, clothes” and dislikes as “intolerant people, having my hair cut.”

— A silver serving tray the band “allegedly” stole from Station Hotel during a night of beer drinking.

— Jones’ custom Vox teardrop guitar and Ronnie Wood’s Zemaitis electric six-string, which has personalized etchings carved into the silver facing.

— Jagger’s floor-length cape stitched out of U.S. and British flags that he wore on the 1981-82 tour.

— The 1970 letter the Stones sent to Santana, asking for permission to use footage of the band’s performance at the infamous Altamont concert, which eventually became the film “Gimme Shelter.”

— The original artwork for “It’s Only Rock and Roll” and “Their Satanic Majesties Request.”

However, this is hardly a staid stroll through display cases and wall hangings. With this exhibit, the hall is hoping to entertain, educate and enlighten.

For the first time, visitors can be included in the show with the launch of an interactive project where fans can share photos — the hall has lifted a ban on picture-taking in the exhibit — and other memorabilia at a multimedia display and online. Fans can upload images to Twitter and Instagram with the hashtag (hash)rockhallsatisfaction to contribute.

“This gave us an opportunity to engage the fans a little bit more,” said Todd Mesek, vice president of communications. “‘OK, show us your experience with the Stones. Show us your tickets, show us your set lists, show us your concert photos. What we’re also doing with our new photo policy is letting fans take shots in here and send it out to the world, let them be a part of it.”

The exhibit includes three iPad-based interactive kiosks where visitors can put on a pair of headphones and hear the band’s early blues influences, explore the Jagger-Richards songwriting team and see how the band melded influences into its one-of-a-kind sound.

“We wanted to take visitors deeper into the sounds of the Stones and their music and hear it in a way they’ve never heard it before,” said Jason Hanley, the hall’s director of education. “… We had to think about ‘how do we get 50 years of music into three different stations?’ So we came up with the idea of focusing on them as real innovators who were always looking at the world around them and pulling in new things.”

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NEW YORK (AP) — Lea Michele has stories to share about the many auditions she has passed.

The “Glee” actress has a deal with Harmony Books, a Random House Inc. imprint. Harmony Books announced Thursday that “Brunette Ambition” will come out in the spring of 2014. The publisher is billing the book as a combination memoir, style guide and advice book.

The 26-year-old Michele is best known as the ever-striving Rachel Berry on “Glee.” She also starred in the Broadway production “Spring Awakening” and the film “New Year’s Eve.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Nick Carter isn’t only writing songs — he’s written a book.

The Backstreet Boys singer will release a memoir, “Facing the Music and Living to Talk About It,” on Sept. 24 via Bird Street Books. The 33-year-old is the first of the group to release a book.

The autobiography and self-help book will include stories about Carter’s teenage years in the multiplatinum Backstreet Boys, his struggles with substance and alcohol abuse and the hardships of his family. His younger siblings include Aaron and Leslie Carter. Leslie, who battled with substance abuse, died last year.

Carter is engaged to Lauren Kitt. The Backstreet Boys will release their eighth album, “In a World Like This,” on July 30.

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Follow Mesfin Fekadu at http://www.twitter.com/MusicMesfin

CANNES, France (AP) — Paolo Sorrentino has a thing about food — appropriately enough, for the director of a sumptuous feast of a film, “The Great Beauty.”

The Italian auteur’s Cannes Film Festival entry is a journey through Rome in the company of observant but aimless writer Jep Gambardella (actor Toni Servillo). Sorrentino’s camera takes viewers through the sacred, profane and teeming streets — to medieval churches and grand palazzi, modernist homes and debauched poolside parties. All are wearily watched by Jep, who is turning 65 and trying to recapture his passion for life.

Along the way the film provides sharp portraits of characters who have lost their way amid the endless distractions of urban living — including a Roman Catholic Cardinal too busy dispensing his favorite recipes to offer spiritual counsel. It’s one of many signs in the film of a society that has come unmoored from its bearings.

“When I think about it, I find it’s quite extravagant the way everyone talks about food,” the director said during an interview in Cannes. “I think this obsession with food has reached people who should deal with the Holy Spirit.

“I fall into the trap myself,” he admitted. “One of my favorite shows is ‘Masterchef.’”

“The Great Beauty” — the title can refer to the Eternal City, or to life itself — has been well received at Cannes, where Servillo is being mentioned as a candidate for the best-actor prize in Sunday’s awards.

Some viewers, though, found it overwhelming: too rich in strange and beautiful imagery — a flock of flamingoes and a giraffe make memorable appearances — and too suffused with talk and ideas.

Sorrentino says that’s partly the point — life and Rome are both overwhelming. One early scene shows a tourist photographing a sublime view of Rome, and keeling over dead.

“The perception of beauty is one of the strongest feelings you can have. You can even die from it,” said Sorrentino, a weary-eyed man — most people are after a few days at the festival — who is given to succinct answers.

Or, the film suggests, you can simply be numbed into aimlessness by the distractions of urban life.

Sorrentino said the original idea for the movie came from the image of “a very long party.”

“I wanted to reproduce the idea that sometimes you go to parties with extremely high expectations, and then you are longing to get away as quickly as you can,” he said.

“Our country offers marvelous opportunities, but people don’t seize them, because they’re too busy partying and enjoying themselves. That’s why we have so many missed opportunities.

“If I wanted to give a political interpretation of the movie, I’d say the theme was missed opportunities.

“But the film focuses on feelings, on human beings’ feelings, which are undermined by the fatigue of living, of human existence. I think that is not just an Italian characteristic.”

In contrast to his main character, a 65-year-old writer coasting on the success of his sole novel, 42-year-old Sorrentino is impressively prolific. One of 20 films in the running for Cannes’ coveted Palme d’Or, “The Great Beauty” is Sorrentino’s fifth movie to compete at the festival. He won the third-place Jury Prize in 2008 for “Il Divo” — a dramatization of the life of Italian politician Giulio Andreotti — and was last here in 2011 with his English-language comedy-drama “This Must Be the Place,” which starred Sean Penn as a rock star.

“The Great Beauty” takes him back to Italy, and with its air of melancholy and regret, feels like the work of a much older director.

“I take that as a compliment,” Sorrentino said. “I hope that when I get older I’ll have the opportunity to make the movies I should have made when I was young.

“I’m trying not to waste my time. I’m trying to seize opportunities when I can, because I’m a lucky man — my job is connected to my amusement. Job and fun in my case coincide. I work a lot because I like it a lot.”

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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless