American pop star Rihanna tweeted about ongoing farmers’ protests in India this week, sparking attention from other big names on social media and anger from the Indian government.
 
“Why aren’t we talking about this?!” Rihanna tweeted on Tuesday, with a link to a CNN article about ongoing protests.
 
The tweet, which has been liked more than a half-million times in the past day, sparked attention from climate activist Greta Thunberg and the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris.
 
But its reception in India was mixed.
 
In a statement released Wednesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that the issue was a domestic one and accused “vested interest groups” of mobilizing international support against India.
 
“Before rushing to comment on such matters, we would urge that the facts be ascertained, and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken,” the Ministry said in a statement.
 
“The temptation of sensationalist social media hashtags and comments, especially when resorted to by celebrities and others, is neither accurate nor responsible,” the statement went on. [[link:
 
The statement claims that only a “very small section” of farmers have protested three new bills, which farmers fear would put them at the mercy of large corporations. However, tens of thousands of farmers have been camped out near India’s capital of Delhi for nearly two months as talks with the government have stalled.
Indian newspapers have reported that journalists reporting along the Singhu border near Delhi have been arrested or prevented from entering secured areas to report. The Indian government has also reportedly shut down the internet in various parts of the state of Haryana, where many farmers have set up camp.
 
While many Bollywood celebrities have echoed the rhetoric of the ruling party, famous musicians from Punjab — the state known as the “bread basket” of India where most protesters have traveled from — have welcomed the international attention.
 
Diljit Dosanjh, a Punjabi musician and actor who has been vocal in his support of the protests, produced a song called “Riri” in honor of Rihanna less than twelve hours after her tweet.
 
The farmers’ protest has emerged as a major challenge for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the government refusing to repeal the laws and farmers refusing to settle for anything less.    
 
The government has defended the laws saying they would modernize agriculture and help farmers raise their incomes by affording them new opportunities to market their produce to private companies.
But farmers say the laws favor powerful corporations and fear they will dismantle the protection afforded by a decades-old system under which the government buys farm produce such as rice and wheat at what is called a “minimum price.”  
…

Hollywood period drama “Mank” got a leading six nominations on Wednesday for the 2021 Golden Globe awards in film, while television shows “The Crown” and “The Mandalorian” will be among those competing for best series.
Streaming service Netflix Inc dominated the nominations in both film, with 22 nods, and television (20) after a year in which the coronavirus pandemic prompted Hollywood studios to push back dozens of their film releases, and many movie theaters were closed for months.
The contest for the Golden Globe best drama film awards will also include modern Great Recession-era story “Nomadland,” 1960s Vietnam War protest drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” #MeToo revenge story “Promising Young Woman and aging family drama “The Father.”
Sacha Baron Cohen’s satire on former President Donald Trump’s America, “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm;” the film version of the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton;” LGBTQ musical “The Prom;” “Music” and time-loop comedy “Palm Springs” will compete in a separate category for musicals and comedies.
The Golden Globe awards, which kick off a pandemic-era Hollywood awards season, are due to be handed out at a ceremony on Feb. 28, hosted by actors Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The nominees and winners are selected by the small Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).
Three of the five directors nominated on Wednesday were women, including Regina King for Black drama “One Night in Miami,” Britain’s Emerald Fennell for “Promising Young Woman” and Chinese-born filmmaker Chloe Zhao for “Nomadland.”
Among the actors nominated were Baron Cohen for “Borat,” the late Chadwick Boseman in his last film role in jazz period piece “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” British actor Riz Ahmed as a drummer losing his hearing in “Sound of Metal” and Frances McDormand for “Nomadland.”
…

Whether anyone will be attending the Golden Globes in person remains uncertain and improbable. But nominations to the 78th Globes will be announced Wednesday, nevertheless. Hollywood’s strange and largely virtual awards season lacks the usual kind of buzz and red-carpet glamour that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association annually feasts on. More than perhaps any other award show, the Globes depend on a cavalcade of stars — something that won’t materialize when the awards are handed out February 28 in a ceremony hosted by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  Virtual announcementNominations will be announced virtually at 8:35 a.m. ET Wednesday by presenters Sarah Jessica Parker and Taraji P. Henson. They will reveal 12 categories on NBC’s “Today” show, with full nominees announced live on E! digital channels and the Golden Globes’ website. Without any in-person screenings or photo ops with stars, little is known about how the roughly 90-member press association — a notoriously unpredictable group, in normal times — is swaying this year. But one thing may be a lock: Netflix will land a whole lot of nominations. Several of the streaming service’s films — including Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods,” David Fincher’ “Mank” and Aaron Sorkin’s “The Trial of the Chicago 7” — are considered frontrunners, as are Netflix TV series “The Crown” and “Ozark.” At last year’s Globes, Netflix also led all studios with 34 nominations. Also widely expected to be nominated Wednesday are Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” with Frances McDormand; Regina King’s directorial debut “One Night in Miami”; and George C. Wolfe’s August Wilson adaptation “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” with Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman all but assured of nods. The Globes’ splitting of nominees between drama and comedy/musical could also mean one wildcard of the season — “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” — may emerge. The film could be nominated for best feature, comedy or musical, along with acting nods for Sacha Baron Cohen (also a contender for his supporting performance in “The Trial of the Chicago 7”) and Maria Bakalova. Also of note in the category: the “Hamilton” film, ineligible for the Academy Awards, is a likely nominee at the Globes. In the television categories, expect “The Mandalorian,” “The Queen’s Gambit,” “The Flight Attendant,” “Ted Lasso” and the final season of “Schitt’s Creek” to be in the mix.  Awards ceremonyThe HFPA has yet to announce what form its awards ceremony — typically a bubbly dinner gathering with flowing drinks — will take this year. In August, the group’s president, Lorenzo Soria, died at age 68. He was replaced by Ali Sar. This year’s Globes were postponed nearly two months because of the pandemic and to adjust to the delayed Oscars. Those are set for April 25. Last year’s Golden Globes culminated in awards for “1917” and “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.” The telecast, hosted by Ricky Gervais, couldn’t buck the overall ratings trend for awards shows, drawing an average of 18.3 million viewers, down 2% from the previous year. 
 
…

While many U.S. professional football games this season have been played in empty stadiums because of the coronavirus pandemic, the February 7 Super Bowl will be played in front of 25,000 fans. It will be the lowest attended National Football League championship game of all time.Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, where the Kansas City Chiefs will take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has a capacity of 65,890, so the empty seats will be filled with as many as 30,000 cardboard cutouts of fans.Buccaneers, Chiefs to Face Off in Super Bowl Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes look to add to their championship resumes According to the NFL, all fans in attendance will be given personal protective equipment (PPE) kits. The league said that it was giving 7,500 vaccinated health care workers free tickets to the game. Everyone in attendance will be required to wear face coverings.Until this year’s game, the lowest attended Super Bowl was the first one, where nearly 62,000 fans in the Los Angeles Coliseum watched the Green Bay Packers defeat the Chiefs 35-10 in 1967. There were 35,000 empty seats.The 1980 Super Bowl between the Los Angeles Rams and Pittsburgh Steelers remains the most attended game with 103,985 fans watching in the Rose Bowl. Pittsburgh won the game 31-19.
…

Rocker Marilyn Manson was dropped by his record label on Monday after actor Evan Rachel Wood accused her ex-fiancé of sexual and other physical abuse, alleging she was “manipulated into submission” during their relationship.
Manson called the allegations “horrible distortions of reality.”
Wood, who stars on HBO’s “Westworld,” had spoken frequently in recent years about being abused in a relationship but did not name the person until she posted Monday on Instagram.
“The name of my abuser is Brian Warner, also known to the world as Marilyn Manson,” Wood said. “He started grooming me when I was a teenager and horrifically abused me for years.”
Manson’s label, Loma Vista Recordings, said in a statement that after the “disturbing allegations,” it will “cease to further promote his current album” and has “also decided not to work with Marilyn Manson on any future projects.”
Wood and Manson’s relationship became public in 2007 when he was 38 and she was 19, and they were briefly engaged in 2010 before breaking up.
Wood, now 33, said in her post that Manson left her “brainwashed and manipulated into submission.”
“I am done living in fear of retaliation, slander, or blackmail. I am here to expose this dangerous man and call out the many industries that have enabled him, before he ruins any more lives,” the post added.
She concluded, “I stand with the many victims who will no longer be silent.”
Manson responded with his own Instagram post Monday night.
“Obviously my art and life have long been magnets for controversy, but these recent claims about me are horrible distortions of reality,” his post said. “My intimate relationships have always been entirely consensual with like-minded partners. Regardless of how — and why — others are now choosing to misrepresent the past, that is the truth.”
It was not immediately clear whether Wood has gone to authorities with any of her allegations, and a representative did not immediately respond when asked via email whether she had.
In 2018, Los Angeles County prosecutors declined to file charges against Manson over allegations of assault, battery and sexual assault dating to 2011, saying they were limited by statutes of limitations and a lack of corroboration. The accuser in that case was identified only as a social acquaintance of Manson.
He denied the allegations through his attorney at the time.
In 2017, Wood was one of thousands of women who identified themselves as victims of sexual harassment or assault amid the #MeToo movement.
“Being raped once made it easier to be raped again. I instinctually shut down. My body remembered, so it protected me. I disappeared. #metoo,” Wood wrote at the time as part of a series of tweets on her experience.
In 2018, she testified about her abuse to a House Judiciary subcommittee as she sought to have a Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights passed in all 50 states.
“My experience with domestic violence was this: Toxic mental, physical and sexual abuse which started slow but escalated over time,” she told the committee.
Wood began acting as a child, gaining fame and a Golden Globe nomination for playing a troubled adolescent in 2003’s “Thirteen.”
For three seasons she has played Dolores Abernathy, a sentient android, on HBO’s “Westworld” and has been nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy Award for the role.
Manson, 52, became a household name in the mid-1990s with a series of hit rock albums and used a stage persona designed to shock and stoke controversy.
The Associated Press does not normally name people who say they were victims of sexual assault but is naming Wood because of her decision to speak out publicly.
…

Tony Bennett has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease but it hasn’t quieted his legendary voice.
The singer’s wife and son reveal in the latest edition of AARP The Magazine that Bennett was first diagnosed with the irreversible neurological disorder in 2016. The magazine says he endures “increasingly rarer moments of clarity and awareness.”
Still, he continues to rehearse and twice a week goes through his 90-minute set with his longtime pianist, Lee Musiker. The magazine says he sings with perfect pitch and apparent ease.
A beloved interpreter of American standards, Bennett’s chart-topping career spans seven decades. “He’s not the old Tony anymore,” his wife, Susan, told the magazine. “But when he sings, he’s the old Tony.”
Bennett, 94, gained his first pop success in the early 1950s and enjoyed a career revival in the 1990s and became popular with younger audiences in part because of an appearance on “MTV Unplugged.” He continued recording and touring constantly, and his 2014 collaboration with Lady Gaga, “Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek,” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.
…

The abstract figures of naked women gyrating to the rhythms of a five-piece band had shocked many people almost 60 years ago as they eyed the artwork for the first time on the walls of a popular restaurant-nightclub in Cyprus.   The valuable and very rare concrete relief by Christoforos Savva, Cyprus’ most avant-garde artist of the 1960s, had lain hidden for decades in the underground recesses of the Perroquet nightclub in abandoned Varosha — an inaccessible ghost town that had been under Turkish military control since a 1974 war ethnically cleaved the island nation.   But with Varosha’s controversial partial opening last November, the artwork has again come to light following a report by local newspaper Politis. Now, the man who says he commissioned the art from Savva is asking authorities for help to have it removed and transported to the country’s national gallery for all to see.   Former Perroquet owner Avgerinos Nikitas, 93, a Greek Cypriot, has appealed to a committee composed of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots that’s tasked with protecting Cyprus’ cultural treasures on both sides of the divide to help remove the 13 sections.   “In return, I pledge to cede these pieces to the National Collection as a small contribution to Christoforos Savva’s huge body of work,” Nikitas said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, addressed to the committee as well as Cyprus’ education ministry.   But the whole venture could be derailed as the Greek Cypriot family that owns the Esperia Tower hotel that hosted the Perroquet club insist that the artwork legally belongs to them. They say they won’t allow their “private property” to be removed and transferred and are warning of legal action.   Speaking on behalf of his family, Panayiotis Constantinou told the AP that their lawyer has advised them that the hotel, the club and everything inside it belongs to the family, regardless of the Savva artwork’s cultural value.   “We respect and value culture, but this is private property about which we haven’t been asked anything about removing it, and on top of that, someone else lays claim to it,” Constantinou said.   Art historians credit Savva as one of the most influential artists of the time who brought the country’s inward-looking, traditionalist art world into modernity in the years immediately after Cyprus gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.   A painter and sculptor, Savva shifted away from the established, representational art styles by encompassing influences like cubism, which he picked up during his stays in London and Paris through the 1950s, into his voluminous artwork. He died in 1968.   “Savva was an innovator who always sought to break new ground and challenge the conservative times in which he lived,” said Andre Zivanari, director of the Point Center for Contemporary Art.   Savva’s work reflected the joie de vivre of Varosha, which at the time was Cyprus’ most progressive, popular tourist resort — a favorite with visitors from Europe and beyond, said Yiannis Toumazis, an art history professor and a Greek Cypriot member of the committee on culture.   That all changed in the summer of 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Turkish armed forces took over an empty Varosha and kept it virtually sealed off until last November, when breakaway Turkish Cypriot authorities re-opened a stretch of beach to the public.   The move caused much consternation among the suburb’s Greek Cypriot residents and protests from the island’s internationally recognized government amid concerns that the Turkish Cypriot north’s hardline leadership aimed to place the entire area under its control.   Cyprus’ former first lady and cultural committee co-chair Androulla Vassiliou told the AP that the body would look at bringing the reliefs to the island’s southern part, once new Turkish Cypriot members are appointed.   The previous Turkish Cypriot committee members collectively resigned last December for what they said was a divergence of views with the new Turkish Cypriot leadership over its aim to steer talks to resolve Cyprus’ division away from a federation-based arrangement.   The reclamation of artwork that disappeared amid the confusion of war isn’t without precedent. Last February, the culture committee successfully engineered the return of 219 paintings — including some of the most significant works produced by Greek Cypriot artists — that were thought lost or stolen in the north.   In return, Turkish Cypriots received rare archival footage from state broadcaster CyBC of Turkish Cypriot cultural and sporting events dating from 1955 to the early 1960s. The swap was hailed as a tangible way of bolstering trust among Greek and Turkish Cypriots.   Toumazis said the return of Savva’s reliefs would be another trust-boosting milestone, but better still would be if people could return to their properties in Varosha.   “It would be nice if people themselves returned to what they owned, rather than having any artwork being transferred to them,” he said. 
 
…

At twice the size of other kids his age, a young champion sumo wrestler in Japan can shove around his older counterparts.  Training with his dad, he already set his sights on one day dominating the national sport. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
…

The abstract figures of naked women gyrating to the rhythms of a five-piece band had shocked many people almost 60 years ago as they eyed the artwork for the first time on the walls of a popular restaurant-nightclub in Cyprus.   The valuable and very rare concrete relief by Christoforos Savva, Cyprus’ most avant-garde artist of the 1960s, had lain hidden for decades in the underground recesses of the Perroquet nightclub in abandoned Varosha — an inaccessible ghost town that had been under Turkish military control since a 1974 war ethnically cleaved the island nation.   But with Varosha’s controversial partial opening last November, the artwork has again come to light following a report by local newspaper Politis. Now, the man who says he commissioned the art from Savva is asking authorities for help to have it removed and transported to the country’s national gallery for all to see.   Former Perroquet owner Avgerinos Nikitas, 93, a Greek Cypriot, has appealed to a committee composed of both Greek and Turkish Cypriots that’s tasked with protecting Cyprus’ cultural treasures on both sides of the divide to help remove the 13 sections.   “In return, I pledge to cede these pieces to the National Collection as a small contribution to Christoforos Savva’s huge body of work,” Nikitas said in a letter obtained by The Associated Press, addressed to the committee as well as Cyprus’ education ministry.   But the whole venture could be derailed as the Greek Cypriot family that owns the Esperia Tower hotel that hosted the Perroquet club insist that the artwork legally belongs to them. They say they won’t allow their “private property” to be removed and transferred and are warning of legal action.   Speaking on behalf of his family, Panayiotis Constantinou told the AP that their lawyer has advised them that the hotel, the club and everything inside it belongs to the family, regardless of the Savva artwork’s cultural value.   “We respect and value culture, but this is private property about which we haven’t been asked anything about removing it, and on top of that, someone else lays claim to it,” Constantinou said.   Art historians credit Savva as one of the most influential artists of the time who brought the country’s inward-looking, traditionalist art world into modernity in the years immediately after Cyprus gained independence from British colonial rule in 1960.   A painter and sculptor, Savva shifted away from the established, representational art styles by encompassing influences like cubism, which he picked up during his stays in London and Paris through the 1950s, into his voluminous artwork. He died in 1968.   “Savva was an innovator who always sought to break new ground and challenge the conservative times in which he lived,” said Andre Zivanari, director of the Point Center for Contemporary Art.   Savva’s work reflected the joie de vivre of Varosha, which at the time was Cyprus’ most progressive, popular tourist resort — a favorite with visitors from Europe and beyond, said Yiannis Toumazis, an art history professor and a Greek Cypriot member of the committee on culture.   That all changed in the summer of 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Turkish armed forces took over an empty Varosha and kept it virtually sealed off until last November, when breakaway Turkish Cypriot authorities re-opened a stretch of beach to the public.   The move caused much consternation among the suburb’s Greek Cypriot residents and protests from the island’s internationally recognized government amid concerns that the Turkish Cypriot north’s hardline leadership aimed to place the entire area under its control.   Cyprus’ former first lady and cultural committee co-chair Androulla Vassiliou told the AP that the body would look at bringing the reliefs to the island’s southern part, once new Turkish Cypriot members are appointed.   The previous Turkish Cypriot committee members collectively resigned last December for what they said was a divergence of views with the new Turkish Cypriot leadership over its aim to steer talks to resolve Cyprus’ division away from a federation-based arrangement.   The reclamation of artwork that disappeared amid the confusion of war isn’t without precedent. Last February, the culture committee successfully engineered the return of 219 paintings — including some of the most significant works produced by Greek Cypriot artists — that were thought lost or stolen in the north.   In return, Turkish Cypriots received rare archival footage from state broadcaster CyBC of Turkish Cypriot cultural and sporting events dating from 1955 to the early 1960s. The swap was hailed as a tangible way of bolstering trust among Greek and Turkish Cypriots.   Toumazis said the return of Savva’s reliefs would be another trust-boosting milestone, but better still would be if people could return to their properties in Varosha.   “It would be nice if people themselves returned to what they owned, rather than having any artwork being transferred to them,” he said. 
…

In the realm of film, the year 2021 seems to be the year of woman. Dozens of acclaimed films and TV series by female directors pondering a woman’s complex world are being released every week. Many are already Oscar contenders. VOA’s Penelope Poulou looks at few examples.
Camera, Producer: Penelope Poulou
…

Actors with disabilities will be included in auditions for each new film and television production at NBCUniversal, which becomes the second major media company to make such a commitment.NBCUniversal said Friday that the pledge covers projects by the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Universal Studio Group, NBC network and Peacock streaming service.The pledge was made in response to calls for change by the Ruderman Family Foundation, following a similar commitment the disability rights advocate received from CBS Entertainment in 2019.“My hope is that other major studios in the industry will now see NBCUniversal and say, ‘This is something that makes sense and we’re also going to commit to this,’” said Jay Ruderman, head of the Boston-based foundation. Disney, Sony and major streaming services including Netflix and Amazon are among others the foundation would like to enlist, he said.As more people with disabilities are seen in roles, “it will have ramifications throughout society,” Ruderman told The Associated Press. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal signed on after a series of conversations with the foundation, he said.The company is committed “to creating content that authentically reflects the world we live in and increasing opportunities for those with disabilities is an integral part of that,” said NBCUniversal executive vice president Janine Jones-Clark, whose portfolio includes film, TV and streaming inclusion.Outside calls for action are important and “hold the industry accountable of the work we still need to do in order to see systemic change,” Jones-Clark said in a statement.According to the most recent foundation report, only about 22% of characters with disabilities on network and streaming shows in 2018 were “authentically portrayed by actors with disabilities.” That’s an improvement over 2016’s finding that 5% of such TV roles went to actors with disabilities.Actor Kurt Yaeger a member of the SAG-AFTRA Performers with Disability Committee, lauded the new agreement. “It’s what I’ve been pushing for 10 years,” he said, given how infrequently studios and producers open the door to people with disabilities.Yaeger, who uses a prosthetic leg because of a motorcycle accident, has appeared as a guest actor in more than 50 TV episodes, including ABC’s The Good Doctor and Netflix’s upcoming Another Life. That’s more than most people who are auditioning regularly for continuing series roles, he said, adding, “I’d like more of those opportunities for me and my fellow performers with disabilities.”While NBCUniversal’s commitment is a “great start,” Yaeger said he wants to see every other network and studio do the same thing and allow their progress to be monitored.Eileen Grubba, an actor and disability activist, said NBCUniversal’s action, coupled with that of CBS Entertainment, could lead to wider change. Grubba, whose credits include HBO’s Watchmen and NBC’s New Amsterdam, already considered both companies to be leaders in disability diversity.“The two of them together, standing up and saying, ‘This will happen, this will be done,’ puts pressure on the rest of the industry,” said Grubba, who uses a leg brace because of childhood spinal cord damage. “This is a massive win for this community and for inclusion, and hopefully for all the people who have been in this industry many, many years without ever getting opportunities.”The growing pressure on movie and TV makers to give women, people of color and the LGBTQ community greater representation may have increased awareness of one of the country’s largest and overlooked minority groups, Ruderman said.According to the Centers for Disease Control, 26% of the U.S. population has some form of disability. Their near invisibility on screen, both as characters and actors, influences how the community is perceived, Ruderman said.“Not seeing people who have disabilities in film and on TV does impact society, it does shape attitudes,” he said. Three decades since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, unemployment remains high among people with disabilities and “a lot of that has to do with stigma.”“I don’t think you can mandate through legislation how people feel. But I think that entertainment can change the way people feel,” Ruderman said.Although the agreement with NBCUniversal doesn’t establish hiring goals, Grubba said the value of getting a chance to audition shouldn’t be undersold.“It requires repeated attempts to get good at it,” she said. “And when you’re competing against people who audition 10 times a week and you’re only getting in one to three times a year, if you’re lucky, you don’t have the same skills in dealing with the pressures and the best way to get through them.”
…

The Capitol Police are stepping up security at Washington-area transportation hubs and taking other steps to safeguard traveling lawmakers as Congress continues to react to this month’s deadly assault on the Capitol.
Capitol Police will be stationed at area airports and Washington’s Union Station railway hub on busy travel days, the House’s chief law enforcement officer wrote in an email obtained Friday by The Associated Press. Timothy P. Blodgett, the acting sergeant at arms, wrote that officials were setting up an online portal so lawmakers can notify them of travel plans and urged legislators to report threats and suspicious activity.  
“Members and staff should remain vigilant of their surroundings and immediately report anything unusual or suspicious,” said the email, sent late Thursday.  
Blodgett said lawmakers have previously been advised that they can use office expense accounts to pay for security to protect their offices and events in their districts and for self-protection while performing official duties. It also cited a 2017 Federal Elections Commission opinion that they can use campaign contributions to install security systems at their homes.  
President Joe Biden is in “close touch” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., about congressional security, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.  
Pelosi told reporters Thursday that lawmakers face threats of violence from an “enemy” within Congress and said money would be needed to improve security. Pelosi’s comments were a startling acknowledgment of escalating internal tensions between the two parties over safety since the Jan. 6 Capitol attack by supporters of former President Donald Trump.  
Also Thursday, the acting chief of the Capitol Police said “vast improvements” are needed to protect the Capitol and adjacent office buildings, including permanent fencing.  
Such barricades have ringed the complex since the deadly Jan. 6 riot, but many lawmakers have long resisted giving the nation’s symbol of democracy the look of a besieged compound, and leaders were noncommittal about the idea.
Pelosi focused her comments on the anxiety and partisan frictions that have persisted in Congress since Trump supporters’ assault on the Capitol, which led to five deaths. She told reporters she thinks Congress will need to provide money “for more security for members, when the enemy is within the House of Representatives, a threat that members are concerned about.”
Asked to clarify what she meant, Pelosi said, “It means that we have members of Congress who want to bring guns on the floor and have threatened violence on other members of Congress.”
Some lawmakers who voted for this month’s House impeachment of Trump have reported receiving threats, and initial moves to enhance safety procedures have taken on clear partisan undertones. Some Republicans have loudly objected to having to pass through newly installed metal detectors before entering the House chamber, while Pelosi has proposed fining lawmakers who bypass the devices.
Pelosi did not say whom she meant by her reference to an “enemy” within the House, and a spokesperson provided no examples.  
First-term Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has expressed support for baseless QAnon conspiracy theories, has liked Facebook posts that advocated for violence against Democrats and the FBI. One post suggested shooting Pelosi in the head.
Asked to comment, Greene sent a written statement accusing Democrats and journalists of attacking her because she is “a threat to their goal of Socialism” and supports Trump and conservative values.  
Earlier this month, the HuffPost website reported that Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., set off a newly installed metal detector while trying to enter the House chamber and was found to be carrying a concealed gun. Other Republicans have also talked about carrying firearms, which lawmakers are permitted to do, though not on the House or Senate floors.
Since the attack, the Capitol grounds have been surrounded by barrier fences and patrolled by National Guard troops. Yogananda D. Pittman, acting chief of the Capitol Police, said in a statement that based on security assessments by her agency and others, some changes should be lasting.
“I can unequivocally say that vast improvements to the physical security infrastructure must be made to include permanent fencing, and the availability of ready, back-up forces in close proximity to the Capitol,” said Pittman.  
Pelosi took no immediate stance about permanent fencing. Drew Hammill, the speaker’s spokesperson, said she would await a Capitol security review led by retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré “to understand what infrastructure changes are necessary.”  
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters he would “defer to the experts.”
Others panned the permanent fencing suggestion. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said she was “adamantly opposed” and had heard no justification for its need. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., a former Marine, said it would be wrong to turn the Capitol into a “fortress.”
The public is barred from carrying firearms on Capitol grounds. Members of Congress can keep guns in their offices or transport them on the campus if they’re unloaded and securely wrapped.  
The House impeached Trump this month on a charge of inciting the insurrection at the Capitol. A Senate trial is set to begin February 9.  
Trump made incendiary remarks to a throng of supporters shortly before the riot, urging them to march to the building. Lawmakers at the time were formally certifying Biden’s election victory, which Trump has repeatedly and falsely attributed to fraud.
…

Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” died Thursday at age 96.Tyson’s death was announced by her family, via her manager Larry Thompson, who did not immediately provide additional details.”With heavy heart, the family of Miss Cicely Tyson announces her peaceful transition this afternoon. At this time, please allow the family their privacy,” according to a statement issued through Thompson.A onetime model, Tyson began her screen career with bit parts but gained fame in the early 1970s when Black women were finally starting to get starring roles. Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”In this file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama presents actress Cicely Tyson with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, during a ceremony honoring 21 recipients, in the East Room of the White House, Nov. 22, 2016.Tyson’s memoir, “Just As I Am,” was published this week.”I’m very selective as I’ve been my whole career about what I do. Unfortunately, I’m not the kind of person who works only for money. It has to have some real substance for me to do it,” she told The Associated Press in 2013.Besides her Oscar nomination, she won two Emmys for playing the 110-year-old former slave in the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.” A new generation of moviegoers saw her in the 2011 hit “The Help.” In 2018, she was given an honorary Oscar statuette at the annual Governors Awards. “This is a culmination of all those years of haves and have nots,” Tyson said.She was one of the recipients for the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. At that ceremony, President Barack Obama said: “Cicely’s convictions and grace have helped for us to see the dignity of every single beautiful memory of the American family.””Sounder,” based on the William H. Hunter novel, was the film that confirmed her stardom in 1972. Tyson was cast as the Depression-era loving wife of a sharecropper (Paul Winfield) who is confined in jail for stealing a piece of meat for his family. She is forced to care for their children and attend to the crops.The New York Times reviewer wrote: “She passes all of her easy beauty by to give us, at long last, some sense of the profound beauty of millions of black women.” Tyson went on to earn an Academy Award nomination as best actress of 1972.In an interview on the Turner Classic Movies cable channel, she recalled that she had been asked to test for a smaller role in the film and said she wanted to play the mother, Rebecca. She was told, “You’re too young, you’re too pretty, you’re too sexy, you’re too this, you’re too that, and I said, `I am an actress.'”In 2013, at the age of 88, Tyson won the Tony for best leading actress in a play for the revival of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.” It was the actress’ first time back on Broadway in three decades and she refused to turn meekly away when the teleprompter told to finish her acceptance speech.”‘Please wrap it up,’ it says. Well, that’s exactly what you did with me: You wrapped me up in your arms after 30 years,” she told the crowd.She told The AP afterward she had prepared no speech — “I think it’s presumptuous” — and that “I burned up half my time wondering what I was going to say.” She reprised her role in a Lifetime Television movie, which was screened at the White House.In the 1974 television drama “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” based on a novel by Ernest J. Gaines, Tyson is seen aging from a young woman in slavery to a 110-year-old who campaigned for the civil rights movement of the 1960s.In the touching climax, she laboriously walks up to a “whites only” water fountain and takes a drink as white officers look on.”It’s important that they see and hear history from Miss Jane’s point of view,” Tyson told The New York Times. “And I think they will be more ready to accept it from her than from someone younger”New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael offered her praise: “She’s an actress, all right, and as tough-minded and honorable in her methods as any we’ve got.”At the Emmy Awards, “Pittman” won multiple awards, including two honors for Tyson, best lead actress in a drama and best actress in a special.”People ask me what I prefer doing — film, stage, television? I say, ‘I would have done “Jane Pittman” is the basement or in a storefront.’ It’s the role that determines where I go,” she told the AP. 
…

Cloris Leachman, an Oscar winner for her portrayal of a lonely housewife in “The Last Picture Show” and a comedic delight as the fearsome Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein” and neighbor Phyllis on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” has died. She was 94. Leachman died in her sleep of natural causes at her home in Encinitas, California, publicist Monique Moss said Wednesday. Her daughter was at her side, Moss said. FILE – Cloris Leachman poses with her Emmy award for outstanding single performance by an actress in “A Brand New Life” at the Emmy Awards presentation in Los Angeles, May 21, 1975.A character actor of extraordinary range, Leachman defied typecasting. In her early television career, she appeared as the mother of Timmy on the “Lassie” series. She played a frontier prostitute in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” a crime spree family member in “Crazy Mama,” and Blücher in Mel Brooks’s “Young Frankenstein,” in which the very mention of her name made horses whinny. In 1989, she toured in “Grandma Moses,” a play in which she aged from 45 to 101. For three years in the 1990s, she appeared in major cities as the captain’s wife in the revival of “Show Boat.” In the 1993 movie version of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” she assumed the Irene Ryan role as Granny Clampett. She also had an occasional role as Ida on “Malcolm in the Middle,” winning Emmys in 2002 and 2006 for that show. And in 2008, she joined the ranks of contestants in “Dancing with the Stars,” not lasting long in the competition but pleasing the crowds by wearing sparkly dance costumes, sitting in judges’ laps and cussing during the live television broadcast. FILE – Gavin MacLeod, from left, Valerie Harper, Cloris Leachman, Betty White and Ed Asner, of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, reunite in Los Angeles, March 21, 1992.Although she started out as Miss Chicago in the Miss America Pageant, Leachman willingly accepted unglamorous screen roles. “Basically, I don’t care how I look, ugly or beautiful,” she told an interviewer in 1973. “I don’t think that’s what beauty is. On a single day, any of us is ugly or beautiful. I’m heartbroken I can’t be the witch in ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ But I’d also like to be the good witch. Phyllis combines them both. “I’m kind of like that in life. I’m magic, and I believe in magic. There’s supposed to be a point in life when you aren’t supposed to stay believing that. I haven’t reached it yet.” 
 
…

With Joe Biden as president, pets are back in the White House after a break in the longtime tradition during his predecessor’s time in office. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Dmitrii VershininMasha Morton contributed.
…

Tova Friedman hid among corpses at Auschwitz amid the chaos of the extermination camp’s final days.
Just 6 years old at the time, the Poland-born Friedman was instructed by her mother to lie absolutely still in a bed at a camp hospital, next to the body of a young woman who had just died.
As German forces preparing to flee the scene of their genocide went from bed to bed shooting anyone still alive, Friedman barely breathed under a blanket and went unnoticed.
Days later, on Jan. 27, 1945, she was among the thousands of prisoners who survived to greet the Soviet troops who liberated the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Now 82, Friedman had hoped to mark Wednesday’s anniversary by taking her eight grandchildren to the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial site, which is under the custodianship of the Polish state. The coronavirus pandemic prevented the trip.
So instead, Friedman will be alone at home in Highland Park, New Jersey, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet a message of warning from her about the rise of hatred will be part of a virtual observance organized by the World Jewish Congress.
Across Europe, the victims were remembered and honored in various ways.
In Austria and Slovakia, hundreds of survivors  were offered their first doses of a vaccine against the coronavirus in a gesture both symbolic and truly lifesaving given the threat of the virus to older adults. In Israel, some 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 out of the 5,300 who were infected last year, the country’s Central Bureau of Statistics reported said Tuesday.
Pope Francis warned from the Vatican that distorted ideologies can “end up destroying a people and humanity.” Meanwhile, Luxembourg signed a deal agreeing to pay reparations and to restitute dormant bank accounts, insurance policies and looted art to Holocaust survivors.
Institutions around the world, including the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum in Poland, Yad Vashem in Israel and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. have online events planned. The presidents of Israel, Germany and Poland were among those planning to deliver remarks of remembrance and warning.
The online nature of this year’s commemorations is a sharp contrast to how Friedman spent the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation  last year, when she gathered under a huge tent with other survivors and dozens of European leaders at the site of the former camp. It was one of the last large international gatherings before the pandemic forced the cancellation of most large gatherings.
Many Holocaust survivors in the United States, Israel and elsewhere find themselves in a state of previously unimaginable isolation due to the pandemic. Friedman lost her husband last March and said she feels acutely alone now.
But survivors like her also have found new connections over Zoom: World Jewish Congress leader Ronald Lauder has organized video meetings for survivors and their children and grandchildren during the pandemic.
More than 1.1 million people were murdered by the German Nazis and their henchmen at Auschwitz, the most notorious site in a network of camps and ghettos aimed at the destruction of Europe’s Jews. The vast majority of those killed at Auschwitz were Jews, but others, including Poles, Roma and Soviet prisoners of war, were also killed in large numbers.
In all, about 6 million European Jews and millions of other people were killed by the Germans and their collaborators. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, an acknowledgement of Auschwitz’s iconic status.
Israel, which today counts 197,000 Holocaust survivors, officially marks its Holocaust remembrance day in the spring. But events will also be held Wednesday by survivors’ organizations and remembrance groups across the country, many of them held virtually or without members of the public in attendance.
While commemorations have moved online for the first time, one constant is the drive of survivors to tell their stories as words of caution.
Rose Schindler, a 91-year-old survivor of Auschwitz who was originally from Czechoslovakia but now lives in San Diego, California, has been speaking to school groups about her experience for 50 years. Her story, and that of her late husband, Max, also a survivor, is also told in a book, “Two Who Survived: Keeping Hope Alive While Surviving the Holocaust.”
After Schindler was transported to Auschwitz in 1944, she was selected more than once for immediate death in the gas chambers. She survived by escaping each time and joining work details.
The horrors she experienced of Auschwitz — the mass murder of her parents and four of her seven siblings, the hunger, being shaven, lice infestations — are difficult to convey, but she keeps speaking to groups, over past months only by Zoom.
“We have to tell our stories so it doesn’t happen again,” Schindler told The Associated Press on Monday in a Zoom call from her home. “It is unbelievable what we went through, and the whole world was silent as this was going on.”
Friedman says she believes it is her role to “sound the alarm” about rising anti-Semitism and other hatred in the world, otherwise “another tragedy may happen.”
That hatred, she said, was on clear view when a mob inspired by former President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Some insurrectionists wore clothes with anti-Semitic messages like “Camp Auschwitz” and “”6MWE,” which stands for “6 million wasn’t enough.”
“It was utterly shocking and I couldn’t believe it. And I don’t know what part of America feels like that. I hope it’s a very small and isolated group and not a pervasive feeling,” Friedman said Monday.
Still, the mob violence could not shake her belief in the essential goodness of America and most Americans.
“It’s a country of freedom. It’s a country that took me in,” Friedman said.
In her recorded message that will be broadcast Wednesday, Friedman said she compares the virus of hatred in the world to COVID-19. She said the world today is witnessing “a virus of anti-Semitism, of racism, and if you don’t stop the virus, it’s going to kill humanity.”
…

With Joe Biden as president, pets are back in the White House after a break in the longtime tradition during his predecessor’s time in office. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Natalia Latukhina, Dmitrii VershininMasha Morton contributed.
…

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Kansas City Chiefs have advanced to face off in the National Football League’s Super Bowl. The game, which is one of the most-watched television programs in the United States each year, will take place February 7 in front of a restricted crowd of about 22,000 people due to the coronavirus pandemic. Tampa Bay will also be the first team to play a Super Bowl in its home stadium since the event began in 1967. The Buccaneers are led by 43-year-old quarterback Tom Brady, who is in his first year with the team after a hall-of-fame career with the New England Patriots.  Tampa Bay advanced by beating the Green Bay Packers 31-26 in Sunday’s National Football Conference championship game. On the other side of the field will be 25-year-old quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who last year was named the most valuable player as he led the Chiefs to a Super Bowl win.  He will be trying to become the first quarterback to win two consecutive Super Bowls since Brady did so with the Patriots nearly 20 years ago. Kansas City earned its Super Bowl berth with a 38-24 win over the Buffalo Bills. The game could be a high-scoring affair. It features the top offense in the league this year in the Chiefs, with the Buccaneers ranking seventh. Kansas City defeated Tampa Bay 27-24 in late November, and oddsmakers have made the Chiefs the early favorite to win the Super Bowl by 3.5 points. 
…

South Africa jazz trombonist and composer Jonas Gwangwa, whose music powered the anti-apartheid struggle, died Saturday aged 83, the presidency said.President Cyril Ramaphosa led the tributes to the legendary musician who was nominated for an Oscar for the theme song of the 1987 film “Cry Freedom.”
 
“A giant of our revolutionary cultural movement and our democratic creative industries has been called to rest,” Ramaphosa said.
 
“The trombone that boomed with boldness and bravery, and equally warmed our hearts with mellow melody has lost its life force” the president added.
 
There were no immediate details on how or where Gwangwa died.
 
He passed away on the third anniversary of the death of the “father of South African jazz” Hugh Masekela and the second anniversary of the death of Zimbabwean musical legend Oliver Mtukudzi. January 23 had become “the day the music died,” the South African and other media outlets said.
 
Gwangwa was born in October 1937 in Soweto and went on to have a career spanning 40 years.
 
“He delighted audiences in Sophiatown until it became illegal for black people to congregate and South African musicians were jailed merely for practicing their craft,” the presidency’s statement said.
 
He was awarded the Order of Ikhamanga, South Africa’s highest national award presented for achievements in art and culture, in 2010.
 
The award recognized his work as composer, arranger and musical director of the Amandla Cultural Ensemble, a cultural group formed by activists from the African National Congress in the 1970s.  
…

Larry King, who quizzed thousands of world leaders, politicians and entertainers for CNN and other news outlets in a career spanning more than six decades, has died at age 87, CNN reported Saturday, citing a source close to the family.  King had been hospitalized in Los Angeles with a COVID-19 infection, according to several media reports. He had endured health problems for many years, including a near-fatal stroke in 2019 and diabetes.  He had been hospitalized at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for more than a week, CNN reported.  Millions watched King interview world leaders, entertainers and other celebrities on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” which ran from 1985 to 2010. Hunched over his desk in rolled-up shirt sleeves and owlish glasses, he made his show one of the network’s prime attractions with a mix of interviews, political discussions, current event debates and phone calls from viewers.  Even in his heyday, critics accused King of doing little pre-interview research and tossing softball questions to guests who were free to give unchallenged, self-promoting answers. He responded by conceding he did not do much research so that he could learn along with his viewers. Besides, King said, he never wanted to be perceived as a journalist.  “My duty, as I see it, is I’m a conduit,” King told the Hartford Courant in 2007. “I ask the best questions I can. I listen to the answers. I try to follow up. And hopefully the audience makes a conclusion. I’m not there to make a conclusion. I’m not a soapbox talk-show host … So, what I try to do is present someone in the best light.” 
 
…

Japan is publicly adamant that it will stage its postponed Olympics this summer. But to pull it off, many believe the vaccination of its 127 million citizens for the coronavirus is key.  
    
It’s an immense undertaking in the best of circumstances and complicated now by an overly cautious decision-making process, bureaucratic roadblocks and a public that has long been deeply wary of vaccines.  
    
Japan hopes to start COVID-19 vaccinations in late February, but uncertainty is growing that a nation ranked among the world’s lowest in vaccine confidence can pull off the massive, $14 billion project in time for the games in July, casting doubt on whether the Tokyo Olympics can happen.
    
Japan has secured vaccines for all its citizens, and then some, after striking deals with three foreign pharmaceutical makers – Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca and Moderna Inc. Its swift action was seen as proof of its resolve to stage the games after a one-year postponement because of the pandemic.  
    
The country needs foreign-made vaccines because local development is only in its early stages.
    
Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, in a speech this week, said vaccines are “the clincher” in the fight against the pandemic and vowed to start vaccinations as soon as late February, when health ministry approval of the Pfizer vaccine, the first applicant, is expected.
    
Suga pledged to provide “accurate information based on scientific findings, including side effects and efficacy,” an attempt to address the worries of vaccine skeptics.  
    
Under the current plan, inoculations will start with 10,000 front-line medical workers. Then about 3 million other medical workers will be added ahead of high-risk groups such as the elderly, those with underlying health conditions and caregivers. The rest of the population is expected to get access around May or later, though officials refuse to give an exact timeline.
    
Japan is under a partial state of emergency and struggling with an upsurge of infections. There have been about 351,000 cases, with 4,800 deaths, according to the health ministry.  
    
Many people are skeptical of the vaccination effort, partly because side effects of vaccines have often been played up here. A recent survey on TBS television found only 48% of respondents said they wanted a COVID-19 vaccination. In a Lancet study of 149 countries published in September, Japan ranked among the lowest in vaccine confidence, with less than 25% of people agreeing on vaccine safety, importance and effectiveness.  
    
Many Japanese have a vague unease about vaccines, said Dr. Takashi Nakano, a Kawasaki Medical School professor and vaccine expert. “If something (negative) happens after inoculation, people tend to think it’s because of the vaccine, and that’s the image stuck in their mind for a long time.”  
    
The history of vaccine mistrust in Japan dates to 1948, when dozens of babies died after getting a faulty diphtheria vaccine. In 1989, cases of aseptic meningitis in children who received a combined vaccination for measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, prompted lawsuits against the government, forcing it to scrap the mix four years later.  
    
A 1992 court ruling held the government liable for adverse reactions linked to several vaccines, while defining suspected side effects as adverse events, but without sufficient scientific evidence, experts say. In a major change to its policy, Japan in 1994 revised its vaccination law to scrap mandatory inoculation.  
    
While several Japanese companies and research organizations are currently developing their own coronavirus vaccines, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. will distribute the Moderna vaccine and produce the Novavax vaccine in Japan.
    
Masayuki Imagawa, head of Takeda’s Japan vaccine business unit, said his company last year considered developing its own vaccine. But instead, it decided to prioritize speed and chose to import Moderna’s product and make the Novavax vaccine at Takeda’s factory in Japan. He said the decision was not influenced by the Olympics.
    
Experts also worry about running into logistical challenges and bureaucratic roadblocks in staging a massive inoculation project that involves five government ministries along with local towns and cities. The government has budgeted more than $14 billion for the vaccine project.
    
Thousands of medical workers would have to be mobilized to give the shots, monitor and respond in case of any problems. Securing their help is difficult when hospitals are already burdened with treatment of COVID-19 patients, said Hitoshi Iwase, an official in Tokyo’s Sumida district tasked with preparing vaccinations for 275,000 residents.  
    
While vaccines are considered key to achieving the games, Prime Minister Suga said they won’t be required.
    
“We will prepare for a safe and secure Olympics without making vaccination a precondition,” Suga said Thursday, responding to a call by opposition lawmakers for a further postponement or cancellation of the games to concentrate on virus measures.
    
Uncertainty over vaccine safety and efficacy make it difficult to predict when Japan can obtain wide enough immunity to the coronavirus to control the pandemic.
    
“It is inappropriate to push vaccinations to hold the Olympics,” said Dr. Tetsuo Nakayama, a professor at Kitasato Institute for Life Sciences. “Vaccines should be used to protect the people’s health, not to achieve the Olympics.” 
…

The Atlanta Braves Major League baseball team announced Friday Hall of Famer Hank Aaron has died at the age of 86.
 
The team says Aaron died peacefully in his sleep Thursday.  
 
Aaron spent all but two years of his 23-year major league baseball career with the Braves organization.  
 
In a statement on the Braves web site, Chairman Terry McGuirk said the team was “devasted” at news of Aaron’s death. “Henry Louis Aaron wasn’t just our icon, but one across Major League Baseball and around the world.”
 
Aaron was known as the all-time greatest hitter, but he is best known for breaking Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974. By the time he retired two years later, he had 755 home runs, a record that stood until 2007 when it was broken by Barry Bonds. Aaron remains in second place.
 
Aaron joined the then-Milwaukee Braves in 1954 and moved with the team in 1965 to Atlanta, where he played until 1974. He played his final two seasons back in Milwaukee, with the Brewers before retiring in 1976.  
 
In his career, Aaron was always among baseball’s best. He was the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player in 1957 — the same year the Braves won the World Series — and he was a two-time NL batting champion, a three-time Gold Glove winner for his defensive play as a right fielder and a record 25-time All-Star.
 
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1982, and in 1999, MLB created the Hank Aaron Award, given annually to the best hitter in both leagues.
 
Off the field, Aaron was an activist for civil rights, having been a victim of racial inequalities. He was born in Mobile, Alabama, and didn’t play organized high school baseball because only white students had teams.  
 
During the buildup to passing Ruth’s home run mark, threats were made on his life by people who did not want to see a Black man break the record.
 
After his retirement, as an executive with the Braves, Aaron worked to help find Black players meaningful employment after their playing days were over.
“On the field, Blacks have been able to be super giants,” he once said. “But once our playing days are over, this is the end of it, and we go back to the back of the bus again.”
…