The Washington Redskins began a “thorough review” of their nickname Friday, a significant step toward moving on from what experts and advocates call a “dictionary-defined racial slur.”Even though owner Dan Snyder had shown no willingness to change the name since buying the team in 1999, the recent national conversation on race has renewed opposition to the name and prompted sponsors to speak up. With support from the NFL, it may finally lead to a new moniker for the long-struggling storied franchise with long-ago Super Bowl success.Washington Redskins head coach Ron Rivera holds up a helmet during a news conference at the team’s NFL football training facility in Ashburn, Virginia, Jan. 2, 2020.”In the last few weeks, we have had ongoing discussions with Dan, and we are supportive of this important step,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said.In a statement, the team said recent events around the U.S. and feedback from the community prompted the formal review.”This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the National Football League and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field,” Snyder said.  Washington Redskins Remove Racist Founder From Team Material George Preston Marshall refused to integrate his team until government forced him to do so in 1962Native American advocacy groups have tried for decades to force a change, and a peer-reviewed UC Berkeley study released earlier this year revealed 67% of those surveyed who strongly identify as Native agreed or strongly agreed the name was offensive. The death of George Floyd in Minnesota and other examples of police brutality against Black people in the U.S. sparked protests worldwide and changes to various brands considered racially insensitive.Asked last month about the name, a spokesman said the team had no comment. But this week marked a possible sea change on the issue with investors writing to FedEx, PepsiCo and other sponsors hoping they woould influence change.FedEx was the first to act publicly. The title sponsor of the team’s stadium in Landover Maryland, FedEx said Thursday, “We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name.” FedEx paid $205 million in 1999 for the naming rights to the stadium.Controversy Continues Over Washington Redskins Name

        A leading U.S. 

On Thursday night, Nike appeared to remove all Redskins gear from its online store. Nike did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment. PepsiCo did not immediately respond to an email Friday seeking comment.Coach Ron Rivera, who said in a recent radio interview now is not the time to discuss the name, called it “an issue of personal importance.” Rivera, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent and is the only Hispanic head coach currently in the NFL, added he’d work closely with Snyder during the process.Washington mayor Muriel Bowser said recently the name was an “obstacle” to the team building a stadium in the District. The current lease at FedEx Field expires in 2027, and the old RFK Stadium site in Washington is one of several options for the team’s new headquarters, along with locations in Maryland and Virginia.The team in late June removed racist founder George Preston Marshall from its Ring of Fame. A monument of Marshall was also removed from the RFK Stadium site.Marshall’s granddaughter supported those moves and recently told The Associated Press she’s fine with the team changing its name.”I think if anybody’s offended that they should change the name,” Wright said. “I’ve always felt that way.”
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Legendary U.S. broadcaster Hugh Downs, who at one time held the record for the most hours appearing on American television, has died at 99.Downs’ daughter said her father died Wednesday of a heart ailment.Hugh Downs once described himself as “a jack of all trades and a master of none,” excelling at every broadcasting assignment during his 60 years on radio and television.Downs began in radio in his native Ohio, and after moving to Chicago and later New York, became one of television’s most familiar and welcomed faces.FILE – Hugh Downs hosts the Today show on NBC, March 10, 1966.With a smooth voice, warm demeanor and simple style, Downs announced variety shows, did commercials, narrated soap operas, joked around with puppets and hosted talk shows.He announced The Tonight Show with host Jack Paar and hosted the early morning news broadcast Today, while finding time to emcee the fondly remembered game show Concentration.Downs liked to say people woke up with him on Today, went to bed with him on Tonight, and played Concentration with him in between.Downs co-anchored the news magazine 20/20 from 1978 until his retirement in 1999. That job allowed Downs to indulge in such adventures as traveling to the North and South Poles, swimming with sharks and killer whales, diving for sunken treasure, and experiencing weightlessness on a NASA flight simulator.Downs estimated that he spent 10,000 hours on television, which earned him a one-time spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.  
 
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Work crews wielding a giant crane, harnesses and power tools wrested an imposing statue of Gen. Stonewall Jackson from its concrete pedestal along Richmond, Virginia’s famed Monument Avenue on Wednesday, just hours after the mayor ordered the removal of all Confederate statues from city land.  Mayor Levar Stoney’s decree came weeks after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the removal of the most prominent and imposing statue along the avenue: that of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which sits on state land. The removal of the Lee statue has been stalled pending the resolution of several lawsuits.  The Jackson statue is the latest of several dozen Confederate symbols to be removed from public land in the U.S. in the five weeks since the death of George Floyd at the hands of police sparked a nationwide protest movement.  In most instances, state or local governments moved to take down monuments in response to impassioned demonstrators, but in a few cases —including several other Virginia Confederate statues — protesters toppled the figures themselves. Also this week, Mississippi retired the last state flag in the U.S. that included the Confederate battle emblem.The statue of Confederate Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson stands at the Manassas Battlefield Park in Virginia. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet). Jackson was a commander in the First Battle of Bull Run, which marked the first major land battle of the Civil War.Flatbed trucks and other equipment were spotted Wednesday at several other monuments as well. The city has roughly a dozen Confederate statues on municipal land, including one of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. Mayor Stoney said it will take several days to remove them.The mayor said he also is moving quickly because he is concerned that people could be hurt trying to take down the gigantic statues themselves. In Portsmouth last month, a man was seriously injured when protesters tried to pull down a Confederate statue.”Failing to remove the statues now poses a severe, immediate and growing threat to public safety,” he said, noting that hundreds of demonstrators have held protests in the city for 33 consecutive days.Stoney said the removal of the statues is “long overdue” and sends a message that the city of Richmond — the onetime capital of the Confederacy — is no longer a place with symbols of oppression and white supremacy.”Those statues stood high for over 100 years for a reason, and it was to intimidate and to show Black and brown people in this city who was in charge,” Stoney said.”I think the healing can now begin in the city of Richmond,” he said.Stoney’s move came on the day a new state law took effect granting control of the monuments to the city. The law outlines a removal process that would take at least 60 days to unfold.But during a City Council meeting Wednesday morning, the mayor balked as the council scheduled a special meeting for Thursday to formally vote on a resolution calling for the immediate removal of the statues.”Today, I have the ability to do this through my emergency powers,” Stoney said. “I think we need to act today.”Work crews arrived at the Jackson statue about an hour later. 
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South Africa’s Market Theater is one of several African cultural institutions that has recently gone entirely online because of coronavirus restrictions that prevent large gatherings. But for this small institution often known as the “Theater of the Struggle” for its flouting of apartheid-era laws, obstacles are nothing new. Now, the theater hope its artistic message — which touches on local and global events — will resonate beyond the African continent.Johannesburg’s Market Theater is no stranger to struggle. It opened in 1976, at the height of South Africa’s racist apartheid system, and made a point of flouting segregation laws.  And so now, as a global pandemic has made live shows impossible, the institution’s artistic director, James Ngcobo says the show must go on — even if that means it goes online.  He told VOA the acclaimed theater, which has received 21 international awards for its work, is now seizing the opportunity to spread its stories well beyond this country, by streaming its entire season online.  Not only that — it is writing brand-new, topical shows that touch on the issues many South Africans — and people across the world — are facing right now. Ngcobo said he cooked up the plan shortly after South Africa’s government announced a strict total lockdown in late March, shuttering pretty much all non-essential businesses.   
“I then said to my team, ‘we are going on a long pause that we don’t know the pause is going to last for for how long. But our stories can never be on pause.’ And my team said to me. ‘So what do we do?’ And I said, ‘well, we are going to commission some of our finest playwrights to create works for us, that, at the moment, these short plays that are between 20 and 25 minutes, that we are producing for the virtual space.’” South African actor and playwright Paul Slabolepszy says it is more important than ever that art continues to be made. He spoke to VOA on the Google Hangouts platform.   “Without art, we are, we are nothing,” he said. “We explain ourselves, our conversations come through storytelling. If we were living just with the struggles that we have with no hope, life would be terrifying. We need stories all the time. We need to connect in any way we can to feel human.”  National theaters in Algeria and Egypt are also doing live shows online, and Somalia’s National Theater recently reopened for Independence Day celebrations —and hopefully more.   Meanwhile, major theaters on New York’s Broadway and London’s West End have also gone online. Ngcobo says the Market Theater has gotten an enthusiastic response to its online offerings from people in the U.S., Europe and other African countries.    But he laments that the continent’s artistic houses could do more. His theater is communicating with institutions in Ghana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to help them go online.  “In most places around the continent, it’s very sad because some places might not have the infrastructure that you find in other countries that I’ve mentioned, and South Africa. And so we are always looking at an idea of working with countries — especially Anglophone countries,” he said.At the small theater in central Johannesburg, the doors may be closed, and the lights may be off, but the curtain will still rise.  
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