NEW YORK (AP) ??" Melvin Van Peebles, the groundbreaking filmmaker, playwright and musician whose work ushered in the "blaxploitation" wave of the 1970s and influenced filmmakers long after, has died. He was 89. In statement, his family said that Van Peebles, father of the actor-director Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday evening at his home in Manhattan. "Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?" Mario Van Peebles said in a statement "We...