Mysterious creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster are more than just fun scary stories that we tell ourselves. Myths and superstitions that are passed down through the generations can provide insight into a culture’s perspective. As VOA’s Dora Mekouar  reports, they can also function as a warning.
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The Jerusalema Dance Challenge, a South African internet craze, is sweeping the African continent.As the Jerusalema spreads across Africa, in Zimbabwe, the wildlife is joining in. Staff at Zimbabwe’s Wild is Life sanctuary for rescued wildlife have seen their online dance video with elephants, giraffes and other animals go viral.The song “Jerusalema,” by South African DJ and record producer Master KG and vocalist Nomcebo, went viral during the coronavirus lockdown.Dancers, both professional and amateur, began posting their performances to the song online – including with some wildlife. Roxy Danckwerts, the founder of Wild is Life, said they used their phones to record the video.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Roxy Danckwerts, founder of Wild is Life, is seen in at a computer, in Harare, Zimbabwe, Sept. 23, 2020. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)Danckwerts said she hopes it will help support Zimbabwe’s wildlife tourism industry.South African tourist Phillipa Meek said she decided to visit the Wild is Life center with her friend Ben Fowler after seeing the video online.South African tourist Phillipa Meek says she decided to visit the Wild is Life center in Harare after seeing the video online, Sept. 23, 2020. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)”I have been watching a few of the Jerusalema videos, and the Wild is Life one was absolutely amazing. With all the animals and baby elephants, they were so cute, the giraffes and all the spirit in the video was absolutely fantastic, and I thought it was one of the best Jerusalema videos that is out there and it really encouraged me, because I am from South Africa, to come here and I just see it for myself,” Meek said.Like much of Africa, Zimbabwe’s tourism industry has been suffering since the pandemic began in March. But even before the pandemic, Zimbabwe struggled to attract visitors.Godfrey Koti, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, said the pandemic has brought the industry worldwide to “ground zero” and it is time for Zimbabwe to take off.Godfrey Koti, spokesman for Zimbabwe’s Tourism Authority says he wants to see tourism’s contribution to the country’s GDP increase from the current 8% to between 15%-18%, for a total $5 billion, in Harare, Sept. 23, 2020. (Columbus Mavhunga/VOA)”And we are starting with domestic tourism, making sure that everything is in place from a domestic perspective. For us to be successful, we need a sound domestic product, then we can go to the region and effectively send it to the international market and increase our arrivals, thereby increasing our contribution to the GDP, which is currently at 8%. We are looking at maybe between 15% and 18% and obviously, this will give us a very healthy $5 billion contribution to the fiscus,” Koti said.Zimbabwe has seen triple-digit inflation, adding to the country’s economic problems. Tourism is one of the industries Zimbabwe hopes will revive the country’s struggling economy.
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Sir Harold Evans, the charismatic publisher, author and muckraker who was a bold-faced name for decades for exposing wrongdoing in 1960s London to publishing such 1990s best-sellers as “Primary Colors,” has died, his wife said Thursday. He was 92.
His wife, fellow author-publisher Tina Brown, said he died Wednesday in New York of congestive heart failure.  
A vision of British erudition and sass, Evans was a high-profile go-getter, starting in the 1960s as an editor of the Northern Echo and the Sunday Times of London and continuing into the 1990s as president of Random House. Married since 1981 to Brown, their union was a paradigm of media clout and A-list access.  
A defender of literature and print journalism well into the digital age, Evans was one of the all-time newspaper editors, startling British society with revelations of espionage, corporate wrongdoing and government scandal. In the U.S., he published such attention-getters as the mysterious political novel “Primary Colors” and memoirs by such unlikely authors as Manuel Noriega and Marlon Brando.  
He was knighted by his native Britain in 2004 for his contributions to journalism.  
He held his own, and more, with the world’s elite, but was mindful of his working class background: a locomotive driver’s son, born in Lancashire, English, on June 28, 1928. As a teen, he was evacuated to Wales during World War II. After serving in the Royal Air Force, he studied politics and economics at Durham University and received a master’s in foreign policy.
His drive to report and expose dated back to his teens, when he discovered that newspapers had wildly romanticized the Battle of Dunkirk between German and British soldiers.
 “A newspaper is an argument on the way to a deadline,” he once wrote. He was just 16 when he got his first journalism job, at a local newspaper in Lancashire, and after graduating from college he became an assistant editor at the Manchester Evening News. In his early 30s, he was hired to edit the Daily Echo and began attracting national attention with crusades such as government funding for cancer smear tests for women.
He had yet to turn 40 when he became editor of the Sunday Times, where he reigned and rebelled for 14 years until he was pushed out by a new boss, Rupert Murdoch. Notable stories included publishing the diaries of former Labour Minister Richard Crossman; taking on the manufacturers of the drug Thalidomide, which caused birth defects in children; and revealing that Britain’s Kim Philby was a Soviet spy.
“There have been many times when I have found that what was presented as truth did not square with what I discovered as a reporter, or later as an editor, learned from good shoe-leather reporters,” he observed in “My Paper Chase,” published in 2009. “We all understand in an age of terrorism that refraining from exposing a lie may be necessary for the protection of innocents. But ‘national interest’ is an elastic concept that if stretched can snap with a sting.”
Meanwhile, the then-married Evans became infatuated with an irreverent blonde just out of Oxford, Tina Brown, and soon began a long-distance correspondence — he in London, she in New York — that grew intimate enough for Evans to “fall in love by post.” They were married in East Hampton, New York, in 1981. The Washington Post’s Ben Bradlee was best man, Nora Ephron was among the guests.  
With Brown, Evans had two children, adding to the two children he had with his first wife.
Their garden apartment on Manhattan’s exclusive Sutton Place became a mini-media dynasty: He the champion of justice, rogues and belles lettres, she the award-winning provocateur and chronicler of the famous — as head of Tatler in England, then Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, and as author of a best-selling book about Princess Diana.
Evans emigrated to the U.S. in 1984, initially serving as editorial director of U.S. News & World Report, and was hired six years later by Random House. He published William Styron’s best-selling account of his near-suicidal depression, “Darkness Visible,” and winked at Washington with “Primary Colors,” a roman a clef about then-candidate Bill Clinton that was published anonymously and set off a capitol guessing game, ended when The Washington Post unmasked magazine correspondent Joe Klein.
Evans had a friendly synergist at The New Yorker, where Brown serialized works by Monica Crowley, Edward Jay Epstein and other Random House authors. A special beneficiary was Jeffrey Toobin, a court reporter for The New Yorker who received a Random House deal for a book on the O.J. Simpson trial that was duly excerpted in Brown’s magazine.  
Evans took on memoirs by the respected — Colin Powell — as well as the disgraced: Clinton advisor and alleged call girl client Dick Morris. He visited Noriega’s jail cell in pursuit of a memoir by the deposed Panamanian dictator. In 1994, he risked $40,000 for a book by a community organizer and law school graduate, a bargain for what became former President Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father.”
Evan’s more notable follies included a disparaged, Random House-generated list of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century, for which judges acknowledged they had no ideal how the books were ranked, and Brando’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me.”  
As Evans recalled in “My Paper Chase,” he met with Brando in California, first for dinner at a restaurant where the ever-suspicious actor accused Evans of working for the CIA. Then they were back at Brando’s Beverly Hills mansion, where Brando advocated for Native Americans and intimated that he had sex with Jacqueline Kennedy at the White House.
After a follow-up meeting the next afternoon — they played chess, Brando recited Shakespeare — the actor signed on, wrote what Evans found a “highly readable” memoir. He then subverted it by kissing CNN’s Larry King on the lips, “stopping the book dead in its tracks,” Evans recalled.
Evans left Random House in 1997 to take over as editorial director and vice president of Morton B. Zuckerman’s many publications, including U.S. News & World Report and The Atlantic, but stepped down in 2000 to devote more time to speeches and books.  
More recently, he served as a contributing editor to U.S. News and editor at large for the magazine The Week. In 2011, he became an editor-at-large for Reuters. His guidebook for writers, “Do I Make Myself Clear?”, was published in 2017.
“I wrote the book because I thought I had to speak up for clarity,” he told The Daily Beast at the time. “When I go into a cafe in the morning for breakfast and I’m reading the paper, I’m editing. I can’t help it. I can’t stop. I still go through the paper and mark it up as I read. It’s a compulsion, actually.”
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Fans disappointed once by the delayed release of superhero movie Black Widow are now disappointed twice after The Walt Disney Co. again pushed back the opening on Wednesday.Starring Scarlett Johansson, the spy thriller was scheduled to debut on November 6 and was among the last movies expected to open in 2020. But as movie theaters remain closed in many areas because of the pandemic, fans will now have to wait until May 7, 2021, according to Disney.Fans who were anticipating the latest annual Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster had mixed reactions to the Black Widow delay.’Money hungry’Some, like Twitter user @KpHeaney, applauded the move, tweeting that “this is the right decision” because “there are certain films which cry to out to be seen on big screen. This is one of them.”Others saw Disney making a money play. “You would think with all what’s happening they’d help the people out [and] let us stream the movies but they’re money hungry, they keep on delaying movies,” tweeted @RyanH1904.A number of highly anticipated movies have been delayed in part, according to FILE – Concessions workers stock bins with popcorn and other treats as an AMC theater opens for some of the first showings since it shut down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Aug. 20, 2020, in West Homestead, Pa.Elsewhere in the U.S., AMC Entertainment and Cineworld Plc’s Regal Cinemas have reopened but “haven’t seen huge business,” according to Variety.Because the Marvel movie universe is interconnected, delaying Black Widow meant pushing back release dates for other Marvel offerings such as Eternals and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.Eternals is now scheduled to open on November 5, 2021, rather than February 12, 2021; Shang Chi is moving from May 7, 2021, to July 9, 2021.Accent on safetyEternals star Kumail Nanjiani tweeted, “There’s a pandemic. Nothing is more important than health & lives. I can’t tell [people] to go to a movie theater until I feel safe going to one.”Beyond the Marvel franchise, the pandemic is also delaying West Side Story, Steven Spielberg’s first foray into movie musicals. Originally scheduled to open on December 18, 2020, it will now be a holiday season release on December 10, 2021.In the meantime, film lovers can look forward to the animated Pixar movie Soul that Disney still plans to release in theaters on November 20. The Empty Man, a horror release from the former 20th Century Fox, is moving up from December to October 23.
 
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India’s iconic 17th century Taj Mahal monument reopened Monday after its longest shutdown even as the country grapples with rising coronavirus cases.The reopening of the famed white marble Mughal-era monument in Agra town after six months is a signal that the world’s second-worst hit nation by the pandemic will steadily ease restrictions to bring its devastated economy back on track and restore lost livelihoods, observers say.The long, snaking lines that could seldom be skipped at the Taj Mahal were missing. A visitor from Taiwan and a family from New Delhi were among the first to enter the monument that was sanitized before being opened, according to officials.Only 5,000 visitors will be allowed a day with restrictions that have become the norm amid the pandemic. “Masks are mandatory to enter the monuments and all tickets must be purchased online. Ticket counters will not be open,” according to Vasant Kumar Swarnkar, superintendent at the Archaeological Survey of India in Agra.Group photos, one of the highlights for families or friends who posed in the lawns outside with the iconic Taj Mahal in the backdrop, will not be allowed to ensure that physical distancing norms are followed, say authorities.The pandemic led to the monument’s longest shutdown in history – it was briefly closed during the Second World War, in 1971 when India and Pakistan fought a war, and in 1978 when Agra city was flooded.The Taj Majal’s reopening has brought a glimmer of hope to a tourism-dependent town whose economy revolves around the monument. The major draw for international tourists to India, it attracts seven million visitors a year that include foreign dignitaries.  U.S. President Trump made a visit during an official trip to India in February.“The monument’s reopening is a start at least and we hope it will help people overcome the fear that the pandemic has created about traveling. Initially we only expect to see domestic visitors who can drive in their own vehicles from nearby places,” according to Rajiv Tewari, president of the Federation of Travel Association of Agra.As in most countries, the travel and tourism industry has been battered the worst. In Agra, hotels and restaurants are struggling to stay open, several shops that sold curios and handicrafts have downed shutters and tens of thousands have lost livelihoods.A health worker takes temperature of a patient at a makeshift COVID-19 care center in New Delhi, India, Sept. 19, 2020.For Mohammad Shakeel Khan, who made a living as a tour guide, the monument’s reopening has rekindled some optimism, but he said he is unlikely to get work until foreign visitors return. “I have been at home for six months, but until international travel returns to normal, it will be difficult for my work to come back.”It is the plight of millions like Khan that is prompting India to return to business as usual although it has been reporting the world’s biggest daily jump in cases for some time. India now has nearly 5.5 million infections, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak. More than 4 million of these cases have been added in the last two months, according to Indian officials.Markets, businesses and restaurants have opened in most Indian cities, and public transport and domestic flights have largely been restored although international travel is still restricted.India had imposed the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns in March, hoping it could avert being devastated by the virus, but cases started rising after the restrictions were eased and travel resumed. Although as a proportion of its 1.3 billion population, India’s numbers are still small compared to countries like the United States and Brazil, it is expected to eventually become the worst-hit country by the pandemic. 
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Quirky comedy “Schitt’s Creek,” media family saga “Succession,” and dystopian drama “Watchmen” dominated the Emmy Awards on Sunday in a show where the coronavirus pandemic meant most celebrities took part from their sofas and backyards dressed in a variety of gowns, hoodies and sleepwear.”Hello, and welcome to the PandEmmys!” said Jimmy Kimmel, opening the show, which had multiple skits and jokes about life under lockdown.HBO’s “Succession,” the wickedly juicy tale of a fractious media family, was named best drama series, while Jeremy Strong won best actor for his role as a downtrodden son.”Succession” also won for writing and directing.The biggest shock of the night came when former Disney Channel actress Zendaya, 24, was named best drama actress for playing a teen drug addict in HBO’s “Euphoria,” beating presumed favorites Laura Linney (“Ozark”) and Jennifer Aniston (“The Morning Show.”)“Schitt’s Creek,” a sleeper hit on the small Pop TV network about a wealthy family that is forced to live in a rundown motel, won seven Emmys, including best comedy series and acting awards for Canadian stars Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy and Annie Murphy.It was the first time in the Emmy Awards’ 72 years that a comedy won all seven categories in the same year, organizers said.HBO’s alternative-reality show “Watchmen,” infused with racial themes, won for best limited series, while actress Regina King won for her performance as the show’s top-notch police detective and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II took best supporting actor. “Watchmen” also won for writing.Creator Damon Lindelof dedicated the Emmy to the victims and survivors of the 1921 massacre of the Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which partly inspired the series.The coronavirus pandemic meant no red carpet and no physical audience for the show, which was broadcast live on ABC. Instead, producers sent camera kits and microphones to all the nominees, scattered in 125 places around the world, who chose how and where they wanted to be seen. 
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In a stunning performance for the ages, Tour de France rookie Tadej Pogacar won cycling’s showpiece race Sunday on the eve of his 22nd birthday.Pogacar became the second-youngest winner of the 117-year-old event that this year braved, and overcame, France’s worsening coronavirus epidemic.Turning him from promising prodigy into cycling superstar, Pogacar became the youngest winner since World War II and the first from Slovenia.His victory was incredible, too, for the way in which he sealed it: at the last possible moment, on the penultimate stage before Sunday’s finish on Paris’ Champs-Elysees.In a high-drama time trial on Saturday, he left the race breathless by snatching away the overall lead from Slovenian countryman Primoz Roglic.Their 1-2 is the first for one country since British riders Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome went 1-2 at the 2012 Tour. Australian Richie Porte rounded out the podium, at age 35, after his brilliant time trial that hoisted him from fourth to third overall.With jets trailing plumes of red, white and blue smoke above the riders as they raced toward the finish, the Tour was also celebrating a victory — over the coronavirus.None of the 176 riders who started, or the 146 finishers who raced into Paris, tested positive in multiple batteries of tests, validating the bubble measures put in place by Tour organizers to shield them from infection.
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The first volume of former President Barack Obama’s memoir is coming out Nov. 17, two weeks after Election Day. It’s called “A Promised Land” and will cover his swift and historic rise to the White House and his first term in office.  
The publication date for the second volume has not yet been determined.  
“I’ve spent the last few years reflecting on my presidency, and in ‘A Promised Land’ I’ve tried to provide an honest accounting of my presidential campaign and my time in office: the key events and people who shaped it; my take on what I got right and the mistakes I made; and the political, economic, and cultural forces that my team and I had to confront then — and that as a nation we are grappling with still,” Obama said in a statement Thursday.
“In the book, I’ve also tried to give readers a sense of the personal journey that Michelle and I went through during those years, with all the incredible highs and lows. And finally, at a time when America is going through such enormous upheaval, the book offers some of my broader thoughts on how we can heal the divisions in our country going forward and make our democracy work for everybody — a task that won’t depend on any single president, but on all of us as engaged citizens.”
Obama’s book, like his previous ones, will be released by Crown.  
The 768-page book is the most anticipated presidential memoir in memory, as much or more because of the quality of the writing than for any possible revelations. He has been called the most literary president since Abraham Lincoln and has already written two highly praised, million-selling books: “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope,” both of which have been cited as aiding his presidential run in 2008 and making him the country’s first Black president.  
Even with a substantial list price of $45, “The Promised Land” is virtually guaranteed to sell millions of copies. But it will face challenges far different from most presidential memoirs, and even from former first lady Michelle Obama’s blockbuster book, “Becoming,” which came out two years ago. Because of the pandemic, the former president will likely be unable to have the spectacular arena tour that Michelle Obama had.  
Barack Obama also may find his book coming out at a time when the Nov. 3 election is still undecided and the country is far more preoccupied with who the next president will be than with events of the past.
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Only about six percent of the world’s professional classical music orchestras are headed by women. But in France, there is a drive to change that, including La Maestra – an international competition for women conductors in Paris.  The winner of the contest, which attracted more than 200 applicants from Asia, Europe and the Americas, will be announced later this month.Laurent Bayle, director of the Paris Philharmonic which is co-hosting La Maestra, said the victor and runner-ups will get two years of intensive mentoring and other support.Experts say there is a need for that kind of encouragement. While women head nearly 40 percent of Belgian orchestras, just three percent of French orchestras have female conductors.  In the U.S., only eight percent of orchestras are led by women. The Philharmonic is doing better— 30 percent of its visiting conductors this current season are women, an uptick from a few years ago.A mix of factors hamper women’s advancement in the field, from historical to cultural. Bayle said that in France, for example, the country’s theoretically egalitarian, so-called “Republican values” frown on affirmative action initiatives supporting women and other minorities.  Claire Gilbault is one of France’s rare female conductors, heading the Paris Mozart Orchestra, which is co-hosting this event. She noted that men head all major musical institutions — and share power among themselves. This contest is breaking new ground in another way: the jury is headed by a female conductor and is gender balanced.Of course, for this all-women competition, performance is the key criteria.Italian Sara Caneva competes in La Maestra. She is both a conductor and classical music composer. (L. Bryant/VOA)Twenty-nine-year-old Sara Caneva from Italy faced extra stress as the first candidate to perform. The coronavirus pandemic has not helped.”It’s the first, it’s after a long time without conducting because of the lockdown, and all the potential commitment that just vanished,” she said.Holly Hyun Choe from the U.S. felt better about her performance. She is currently a conductor in Switzerland.”My first goal is to be an international conductor, to be conducting at the highest level possible,” Choe said. “Of course that has to come with a lot of luck and a lot of hard work, and your own talent. And I also have to be honest with myself…can I make it to the top, do I have what it takes? …But I think to dream big is always good.”The Philharmonic’s Bayle said this contest’s ultimate goal is not just to hand out prizes, but rather to encourage other European orchestras to invite these conductors to perform and, as Choe puts it, to dream big.
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A Paris court has sentenced former World Athletics chief Lamine Diack to four years in prison on charges of corruption, money laundering and abuse of confidence.  The charges stemmed from a Russian doping scandal, and for accepting Russian money to finance the 2012 election campaign of a Senegalese president.
 
The judgment has 87-year-old Senegalese Lamine Diack, ex-World Athletics, or IAAF chief, serving two years in jail, with an additional two-year suspended sentence. The court also fined him nearly $600,000, the maximum under French law.  
 
Diack’s lawyers say they will appeal what they describe as a profoundly unfair verdict. Either way, Diack appears unlikely to go to jail. The presiding judge predicted a conditional release, given his age.  
 
Diack’s Dakar-based son, Papa Massata Diack, got a tougher sentence in absentia — five years in prison, along with a nearly $1.2 million fine. The younger Diack is accused of overseeing a vast network of corruption as a former IAAF marketing adviser.  
 
Papa Massata Diack refused to attend the Paris trial. Speaking to reporters in Dakar earlier this week, he insisted he was innocent. In addition, an investigation against him is underway in Senegal.  
 
During the Paris trial, the senior Diack also denied corruption. He admitted to slowing the handling of Russian doping allegations, but he said it was to snag lucrative Russian sponsorship deals that would help shore up the organization’s finances.  
 
Furthermore, the senior Diack denied charges of taking Russian funds to finance the successful 2012 election campaign of Senegalese President Macky Sall.   
 
Trial observers say Diack’s testimony was often confusing. One of Diack’s lawyers urged leniency, saying it was important he die in dignity in his native land. Prosecutors argued Diack’s behavior deeply tarnished the IAAF.  
 
A once-powerful figure in the sports world, Diack headed the IAAF for 16 years, before stepping down in 2015. Olympic gold medalist Sebastian Coe took over as head of the organization, which has been renamed World Athletics.  
 
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Much has been written about the 102 Europeans who crossed the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Much less has been written about the Wampanoag Native American community the Europeans met on the other side. After four centuries, a new exhibition in the place where the ship set sail aims to highlight the largely ignored history of the Wampanoag people.In the year 1620, the Mayflower left the port of Plymouth in southern England and arrived 10 weeks later in what is now the U.S. state of Massachusetts. The story of the religious separatists and colonists has been well documented over the centuries, unlike the experiences of the Wampanoag Native American community that was already living there.An exhibition in Plymouth marking the 400-year anniversary of the Mayflower voyage is putting the history of the Wampanoag front and center.The newly renovated Mayflower II, a replica of the original ship that sailed from England in 1620, sails back to its berth in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Aug. 10, 2020.Steven Peters, a citizen of the Wampanoag tribe who is involved in curating the exhibit in Britain, said the arrival of the Mayflower has historically been told from a European point of view.“We think that once everyone has a chance to listen to all perspectives, and absorb the perspective of both the Europeans and the Native Americans, they can then come to an understanding of what this history was and what those impacts were on the native communities that that unfolding were colonized,” he said.The arrival of the Mayflower is commonly associated with the American tradition of Thanksgiving celebrations, the first of which was – according to history – in 1621 when Europeans and native Americans joined in celebration. But critics say the traditional Thanksgiving narrative overlooks how the arrival of the settlers ultimately meant loss of land, culture and lives for many Native Americans over the centuries that followed.An interior view of the Mayflower II, in Plymouth Mass., Nov. 11, 2008. (Wikimedia Commons photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel)Peters said working on projects having to do with the history of his ancestors is part of a difficult journey.“Often the history and the stories that that we’re retelling are tragic and there’s a lot of death and sickness. And so, it’s emotional for us,” he said.British curator Jo Loosemore of the Mayflower 400, Legacy and Legend exhibition hopes to fill knowledge gaps.Co-curator Jo Loosemore adjusts a display of the white and purple shells of whelks and quahog, the shells to make a wampum belt by members of the Wampanoag native American people, at the SeaCity museum in Southampton, England, Aug. 13, 2020.There is a wealth of information about the maritime journey, the religious perspective and the separatists’ movement. But she said that for most English people the story only begins in 1620.“What the Wampanoag people have enabled us to see is that the Mayflower certainly wasn’t the first ship to cross the Atlantic with traders or settlers or colonists. And also the story most definitely does not begin in 1620 years for the Wampanoag, you’re talking a 12,000-year civilization and society, a history and the culture,” she said.An estimated 30 million Americans can trace an ancestral connection to the Mayflower. 
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The massive El Dorado wildfire in the U.S. state of California was reportedly started by a reveal party, a growing trend in the United States in which couples come up with increasingly elaborate ways to announce the gender of their expected child. For some couples, the revelation of the baby’s gender has become an important milestone, like a baby shower. But some are saying reveal parties have gotten out of control, as couples vie for the most dramatic reveal and the accompanying social media attention. FILE – A helicopter prepares to drop water at a wildfire in Yucaipa, Calif., Sept. 5, 2020. The blaze is being blamed on a gender reveal party, when a pyrotechnical device sparked a wildfire that has burned thousands of acres.Jenna Karvunidis, whom the media call the inventor of the reveal party, says social media influencer clout and the money that can generate is pushing couples to extremes. “The problem is that it’s monetary,” she told the Daily Beast. “The platforms are rewarding this more extravagant content because that’s how you get the sponsorship opportunities. … And so, they have to up the ante with more and more spectacles.” It’s not clear if Karvunidis is, in fact, the inventor of the gender reveal party, but her 2008 post to social media helped cause the trend to go viral. Her idea was simple by today’s standards: Invite a few friends and family members over, bake a modest cake with pink icing in the center to indicate the unborn baby is a girl and post some photos on a blog. Karvunidis told the Daily Beast that her reveal party wasn’t to get attention from strangers but rather to celebrate a healthy pregnancy and get her estranged mother excited. Cakes no longer seem to cut it. One expecting couple hollowed out a watermelon, filled it with blue jello and then had an alligator chomp on it to reveal the gender. Another couple hired a small plane to dump small colored balls on attendees.Another aviation-themed reveal caused a plane crash when a small aircraft that was supposed to dump 1,300 liters of pink water flew too low and crashed. Luckily, no one was injured. Some are jumping out of planes to add to the drama. In one case, a man parachuted from a plane toward event guests with a smoke canister emitting colored smoke to reveal the gender. Yet another couple built a complex Rube Goldberg machine to reveal the gender of their coming baby. Some of the events have produced painful viral video, including a recent video of a Massachusetts man accidentally firing an explosive canister of blue smoke directly into his crotch. Flare hits dad-to-be in the crotch at a gender reveal party pic.twitter.com/tpkpNN9qOd— The Sun (@TheSun) September 13, 2020But now, the parties may be causing massive damage like the El Dorado fire, which started east of Los Angeles and has burned around 5,600 hectares so far. A massive 2018 fire in Arizona is also blamed on a gender reveal event gone wrong. It’s unclear if the fires will cause a pause to the gender reveal trend, but a quick online search reveals numerous resources for parents wanting to plan their event, and it’s likely most parties don’t involve gators, planes or explosive devices. There are also signs the trend is going global with a couple recently lighting up the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, in blue to announce they were expecting a boy. Karvunidis, however, says she has had enough. “Stop it. Stop having these stupid parties,” she wrote on Facebook. 
 
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“Mulan” has been one of Jewher Ilham’s favorite movies since she was a little girl. She says she remembers sitting with her dad and watching Disney’s 1998 animated version of the tale of a Chinese woman who disguises herself as a man and wins acclaim as a warrior.“I was so excited about the live-action remake, until one of my favorite actresses, Liu Yifei, publicly supported the Hong Kong police against pro-democracy protesters,” she said. Liu, the leading actress and a naturalized U.S. citizen, posted a pro-police comment on Chinese social media platform Weibo in 2019 that was welcomed by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Cast member Liu Yifei poses at the European premiere for the film “Mulan” in London, March 12, 2020.It’s not only Liu’s remarks that disappointed Jewher. The live-action “Mulan” filmed some of its scenes in Xinjiang, and Disney thanked eight local government bodies in its credits, including the Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Commerce Department for administrating the internment camps in Xinjiang.“Because I have relatives and friends in the concentration camps. They might be in a camp near where the movie was shot,” she said.Jewher’s father, Ilham Tohti, is a Uighur economist and former university lecturer who in 2014 was sentenced to life in prison in China on separatism-related charges. Officials accused him of using his lectures to incite violence and overthrown the Chinese Communist Party leadership.Washington-based lawyer Rayhan Asat is advocating for the release of her brother Ekpar Asat, a Uighur entrepreneur who disappeared upon returning to China from a U.S. State Department program.Rayhan said Disney’s actions amount to indirect funding of the Communist Party institutions that imprison Uighurs and has violated corporate social responsibility standards.To her, the rollout of “Mulan” marks the latest example of Hollywood’s hypocrisy and willingness to sacrifice values to do business in China.“Disney is publicly endorsing the Xinjiang government in thanking them in credits. Disney wants to profit by a movie that empowers woman, but it’s praising governments who are committing crimes against woman, against humanity. It’s so hypocritical,” she told VOA.“In my eyes, the Uighur women who are voicing out for their parents, brothers, sisters, and loved ones, they are the real Mulan,” she added.”Mulan” has become a political flashpoint since it was released on Disney+ in the U.S. on September 4. #BoycottMulan is trending on Twitter. Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, last week published a letter addressed to Disney CEO Bob Chapek, accusing the company of “whitewashing” the “ongoing Uighur genocide.” Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, also requested the company explain why it chose to film part of the movie in Xinjiang.Children play next to a poster of the Disney movie “Mulan” outside a cinema in Beijing on September 11, 2020.Disney’s CFO Christine McCarthy last Thursday acknowledged that the film’s ties to China had created “a lot of issues” for the company, yet Disney declined to comment further on the current controversy.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian on Friday said it’s “very normal for the film to thank the convenience provided by the government of Xinjiang.” He also praised lead actress Liu Yifei, calling her the real “daughter of the Chinese nation.” China has maintained that the camps in Xinjiang at the center of the controversy are training facilities aimed at combating terrorism in the region.Officials and civic groups have growing concerns about the influence China has had over Hollywood in recent years.A new report by Pen America accused Hollywood of censoring films to avoid losing access to China’s lucrative box office market. It said key players in Hollywood are increasingly making decisions about their films “based on an effort to avoid antagonizing Chinese officials who control whether their films gain access to the booming Chinese market.”It said that in some instances, filmmakers or directors have directly invited Chinese government censors onto their film sets to advise them on “how to avoid tripping the censors’ wires.”Beijing has the world’s second-largest box market behind the U.S. According to the Hollywood Reporter, American films earned $2.6 billion in China last year.Despite the political backlash, “Mulan” premiered as the top movie in China last week, where theaters are open. Preliminary estimates show “Mulan” grossed $23.2 million, which some considered a disappointment.The film received lukewarm reviews online, scoring only 4.9 out of 10 on the country’s movie rating site Douban. Users criticized the film’s handling of feminism and its portrayal of Chinese culture.In other markets, Disney canceled plans to release “Mulan” in theaters because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The company hasn’t revealed how many people have purchased the movie since it became available September 4 in the U.S.
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At the start an otherwise dreary academic year for many college freshmen because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston College — a Jesuit Catholic university — treated incoming freshmen to a pep talk from one of the biggest stars in American music. “If you completed your assignment and read my book, you will know I got into rock ‘n’ roll for the sex, the drugs and the sex,” drawled Bruce Springsteen, winner of numerous awards, seller of a gazillion downloads, and the father of Boston College graduate Evan Springsteen, Class of 2012.“Oh wait, that’s the wrong speech. Let’s start again.”Springsteen, 70, delivered his remarks September 10 by livestream to the incoming class of freshmen, who, like millions of other among the Class of 2024, have not enjoyed the same initiations and orientations of most new freshmen. The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools or limited the typical ways new students interact in person because of social distancing. But the megastar quickly turned philosophical and fatherly, consoling them over their limitations and dubbing these post-GenZers the “coronial generation,” a play on the coronavirus.“The life of the mind is a beautiful thing. Along with your spiritual life, it’s the apotheosis of human experience,” he said. “You can waste it, you can half-ass your way through it, or you can absorb every minute of what you’re experiencing, and come out on the other end: an individual of expanded vision, of intellectual vigor, of spiritual character and grace, fully prepared to meet the world, on its own terms.”Despite mentioning a few times that he’d lapsed from formal religious views learned in eight years of Catholic school in central New Jersey, Springsteen often returned to mentions of faith and spirituality. “My faith was something I thought I could walk away from after those eight formative years in Catholic school, but I was wrong. … My faith remained with me, informing my writing … incorporating biblical language. I consider myself primarily a spiritual songwriter,” he said. “I make music that ultimately wants to address the soul. I made my peace with my Catholic upbringing, for better or for worse. And I have had to nod to the fact that I wouldn’t exactly be who I am without it.”Freshman Danny Giunta of Massachusetts asked the mega-star how he avoided conformity in his youth and gained confidence as a fledgling artist. “How did I maintain my confidence? Ah …” Springsteen pondered. “I am a rambling mess of towering insecurities, even to this day …” But after a decade of performing in “bars, union halls, firehouses, fairs, weddings, high school dances [and] bar mitzvahs” — before he signed his first recording contract that launched worldwide adoration and wealth — he had learned and worked to gain confidence in his skills.  Money, which is a frequent theme in his work, “is great. But alone, it ain’t gonna do it. Everybody wants to do well, but don’t just do well, as they say, do good. Choose something that makes you happy and makes you want to get up and go to work in the morning and allows you to rest easy at night,”  he saidWhen asked by BC student Heidi Yoon about the importance of friendship near the end of his 30-minute address, the singer-songwriter lit up.“Imagine this: The people you’re going to school with right now? Forty-five years later, you’re working with those exact same people! Forty-five years later, those same people are still with you,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “You’re gonna fight, you’re gonna love, you’re gonna argue, you’re gonna hate this about the other guy, he’s gonna hate this about you. But … we held the value of our friendship, higher than any of our personal grievances or disputes,” he said of the E Street band, assembled in 1972 and maintaining the same members for most of its duration.Springsteen gave several minutes to encouraging his young viewers to participate in the upcoming presidential election, and their role in civic duty.“Your country needs you: your vision, your energy and your love. Yes, your love,” he said. “Love your country, but never fail to be critical. When it comes to your country’s living up to your and its ideals. Listen to the voices calling you from our founding documents and keep faith with them. And vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Only half of all Americans vote. It’s a sin.”Jesuit education is notable for its intellectual rigor, critical thinking and volunteerism. There are numerous Jesuit educational institutions around the world, with 27 universities in the U.S., including Boston College and College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, Georgetown University in Washington, Loyola University of Maryland, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Chicago, Gonzaga University in the state of Washington, and Spring Hill College in Alabama. “You are already wisened by this experience,” Springsteen said about the COVID pandemic and resultant restrictions and limitations. “So appreciate the underappreciated: sporting events, getting together with your friends, concerts. Remember those?” Springsteen said, whose concert tickets to stadium performances sell out in minutes. “We will soon look to you for answers for a safer and better world.” 
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At the start an otherwise dreary academic year for many college freshmen because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Boston College — a Jesuit Catholic university — treated incoming freshmen to a pep talk from one of the biggest stars in American music. “If you completed your assignment and read my book, you will know I got into rock ‘n’ roll for the sex, the drugs and the sex,” drawled Bruce Springsteen, winner of numerous awards, seller of a gazillion downloads, and the father of Boston College graduate Evan Springsteen, Class of 2012.“Oh wait, that’s the wrong speech. Let’s start again.”Springsteen, 70, delivered his remarks September 10 by livestream to the incoming class of freshmen, who, like millions of other among the Class of 2024, have not enjoyed the same initiations and orientations of most new freshmen. The COVID-19 pandemic has closed schools or limited the typical ways new students interact in person because of social distancing. But the megastar quickly turned philosophical and fatherly, consoling them over their limitations and dubbing these post-GenZers the “coronial generation,” a play on the coronavirus.“The life of the mind is a beautiful thing. Along with your spiritual life, it’s the apotheosis of human experience,” he said. “You can waste it, you can half-ass your way through it, or you can absorb every minute of what you’re experiencing, and come out on the other end: an individual of expanded vision, of intellectual vigor, of spiritual character and grace, fully prepared to meet the world, on its own terms.”Despite mentioning a few times that he’d lapsed from formal religious views learned in eight years of Catholic school in central New Jersey, Springsteen often returned to mentions of faith and spirituality. “My faith was something I thought I could walk away from after those eight formative years in Catholic school, but I was wrong. … My faith remained with me, informing my writing … incorporating biblical language. I consider myself primarily a spiritual songwriter,” he said. “I make music that ultimately wants to address the soul. I made my peace with my Catholic upbringing, for better or for worse. And I have had to nod to the fact that I wouldn’t exactly be who I am without it.”Freshman Danny Giunta of Massachusetts asked the mega-star how he avoided conformity in his youth and gained confidence as a fledgling artist. “How did I maintain my confidence? Ah …” Springsteen pondered. “I am a rambling mess of towering insecurities, even to this day …” But after a decade of performing in “bars, union halls, firehouses, fairs, weddings, high school dances [and] bar mitzvahs” — before he signed his first recording contract that launched worldwide adoration and wealth — he had learned and worked to gain confidence in his skills.  Money, which is a frequent theme in his work, “is great. But alone, it ain’t gonna do it. Everybody wants to do well, but don’t just do well, as they say, do good. Choose something that makes you happy and makes you want to get up and go to work in the morning and allows you to rest easy at night,”  he saidWhen asked by BC student Heidi Yoon about the importance of friendship near the end of his 30-minute address, the singer-songwriter lit up.“Imagine this: The people you’re going to school with right now? Forty-five years later, you’re working with those exact same people! Forty-five years later, those same people are still with you,” he said, laughing and shaking his head. “You’re gonna fight, you’re gonna love, you’re gonna argue, you’re gonna hate this about the other guy, he’s gonna hate this about you. But … we held the value of our friendship, higher than any of our personal grievances or disputes,” he said of the E Street band, assembled in 1972 and maintaining the same members for most of its duration.Springsteen gave several minutes to encouraging his young viewers to participate in the upcoming presidential election, and their role in civic duty.“Your country needs you: your vision, your energy and your love. Yes, your love,” he said. “Love your country, but never fail to be critical. When it comes to your country’s living up to your and its ideals. Listen to the voices calling you from our founding documents and keep faith with them. And vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Only half of all Americans vote. It’s a sin.”Jesuit education is notable for its intellectual rigor, critical thinking and volunteerism. There are numerous Jesuit educational institutions around the world, with 27 universities in the U.S., including Boston College and College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, Georgetown University in Washington, Loyola University of Maryland, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Chicago, Gonzaga University in the state of Washington, and Spring Hill College in Alabama. “You are already wisened by this experience,” Springsteen said about the COVID pandemic and resultant restrictions and limitations. “So appreciate the underappreciated: sporting events, getting together with your friends, concerts. Remember those?” Springsteen said, whose concert tickets to stadium performances sell out in minutes. “We will soon look to you for answers for a safer and better world.” 
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Country-turned-pop star Taylor Swift is coming back to her roots with a performance at this year’s Academy of Country Music Awards.The nine-time ACM award winner will perform from the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, where the awards show will be broadcast Wednesday on CBS.Swift will perform “Betty” from her new album “Folklore,” which has held the top spot for six weeks on the Billboard 200 Albums chart. The song, which is being played on country radio stations, has reached No. 6 on Billboard’s Hot Country song chart.This marks the first time in seven years that the two-time ACM entertainer of the year has performed at this awards show and will be her world premiere performance for any song from her “Folklore” album.Other performers scheduled for the show include Miranda Lambert, Eric Church, Luke Bryan, Maren Morris, Blake Shelton with Gwen Stefani, Carrie Underwood and Dan + Shay.
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The Los Angeles Lakers are going to the conference finals for the first time in a decade, ending the longest drought in franchise history. LeBron James is going there for the first time since 2018. For him, that also qualifies as ending a drought.   James scored 29 points and the Lakers wrapped up their first trip to the Western Conference finals since 2010 by topping the Houston Rockets 119-96 on Saturday night in Game 5 at Walt Disney World.   “It’s the reason I wanted to be a part of this franchise, to take them back to a place that they were accustomed to being — and that’s competing for a championship,” James said. “It’s an honor for me to wear the purple and gold, and for us, we just try to continue the legacy.”   Kyle Kuzma scored 17 points, Markieff Morris had 16, Danny Green added 14 and Anthony Davis finished with 13 for the top-seeded Lakers. They will play either the second-seeded Los Angeles Clippers or third-seeded Denver Nuggets for the West title in a series that won’t begin before Wednesday.   James is going to the conference finals for the 11th time overall — six with Cleveland, four with Miami and now with the Lakers. It’s his ninth time getting to this round in the last 10 seasons; the one miss in that stretch was last season, when his inaugural year with the Lakers fell apart because of injury and the team missed the playoffs.   “The opportunity to play for a championship, that’s what we’re all here for, that’s what we all signed up for,” James said.   James Harden scored 30 points, Jeff Green scored 13 and Russell Westbrook had 10 for Houston.   “Tough season for us,” Harden said. “Obviously, it didn’t end like we wanted it to. Just got to figure it out.”   And now that the offseason is here, the speculation about coach Mike D’Antoni’s future will ramp up. His contract with the Rockets is now complete, the sides couldn’t agree on terms of any extension a year ago, and he’s been mentioned as a candidate for the vacancies in Indiana and Philadelphia.   “We’ve got a great organization, great city, great fans, team’s great,” D’Antoni said. “I mean, everything’s good here. We’ll see what happens, but I couldn’t ask for a better situation. I had four years and hopefully it keeps going. You just never know.”   It was a tough end to a tough week for the Rockets.   Westbrook exchanged heated words with a fan in the family section during the fourth quarter; NBA security asked the man, identified by ESPN as a brother of Lakers guard Rajon Rondo, to leave the game.   “He started talking crazy,” Westbrook said. “I don’t play that game.”   Houston won Game 1 of the series and lost the next four. Saturday’s finale came a day after Danuel House — who averaged 11.4 points in nine playoff games this season — was told to leave the bubble. An NBA investigation showed he had an unauthorized guest in his room for several hours earlier this week, and he missed the last three games of the series.   “It affected us,” Harden said, who called the situation disappointing.   The Lakers ran out to a 33-11 lead, though Houston came right back with a 17-2 run to get within seven. The Lakers’ lead was 62-51 at the half after the Rockets turned 13 Los Angeles turnovers into 15 points, the biggest reason why Houston was still in the game to that point.   Houston got within seven on a drive by Westbrook 2:09 into the third, and that was the last real gasp of hope for the Rockets. The Lakers scored the next 15 points, and the lead was 95-69 going into the final quarter.   “I’m really proud of our whole team,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel said. 
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After one errant forehand in the first set of the U.S. Open final, Naomi Osaka looked at her coach in the mostly empty Arthur Ashe Stadium stands with palms up, as if to say, “What the heck is happening?”  Surprisingly off-kilter in the early going Saturday, Osaka kept missing shots and digging herself a deficit. But suddenly, she lifted her game, and Victoria Azarenka couldn’t sustain her start. By the end, Osaka had pulled away to a 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 comeback victory for her second U.S. Open championship and third Grand Slam title overall.”I just thought this would be very embarrassing, to lose this in less than an hour,” said Osaka, who dropped down to lie on the court after winning.A quarter-century had passed since the last time the woman who lost the first set of a U.S. Open final wound up winning: In 1994, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario did it against Steffi Graf.No fun”I actually don’t want to play you in more finals,” a smiling Osaka told Azarenka afterward. “I didn’t enjoy that.”Osaka, a 22-year-old born in Japan and now based in the United States, added to her trophies from the 2018 U.S. Open — earned with a brilliant performance in a memorably chaotic final against Serena Williams — and 2019 Australian Open.The 23,000-plus seats in the main arena at Flushing Meadows were not entirely unclaimed, just mostly so — while fans were not allowed to attend because of the coronavirus pandemic, dozens of people who worked at the tournament attended — and the cavernous place was not entirely silent, just mostly so.Victoria Azarenka, of Belarus, holds the runner-up trophy after losing to Naomi Osaka, of Japan, in the women’s singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Sept. 12, 2020, in New York.Certainly no thunderous applause or cacophony of yells that normally would reverberate over and over and over again through the course of a Grand Slam final, accompanying the players’ introductions or preceding the first point or after the greatest of shots.Instead, a polite smattering of claps from several hands marked such moments.Osaka stepped onto the court wearing a black mask with the name of Tamir Rice, a Black 12-year-old boy killed by police in Ohio in 2014. Osaka arrived in New York with seven masks bearing the names of Black victims of violence and wore a different one for each match, honoring Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Philando Castile.  “The point is to make people start talking about it,” Osaka said during Saturday’s trophy ceremony.Focus on racial injusticeShe has been at the forefront of efforts in tennis to bring awareness to racial injustice in the United States. She joined athletes in various sports by refusing to compete last month after the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin — she said she wouldn’t participate in her semifinal at the Western & Southern Open, then decided to play after the tournament took a full day off in solidarity.Osaka and her coach have said they think the off-court activism has helped her energy and mindset in matches.The win over Azarenka, a 31-year-old from Belarus also seeking a third Grand Slam title but first in 7½ years, made Osaka 11-0 since tennis resumed after its hiatus because of the COVID-19 outbreak.
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Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland,” a recession-era road trip drama starring Frances McDormand, won the Golden Lion for best film Saturday at a slimmed-down Venice Film Festival, which was held against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic.Zhao and McDormand appeared by video from the United States to accept the award, given virus-related travel restrictions made reaching the Lido in the Italian lagoon city difficult if not impossible for many Hollywood filmmakers and actors.”Thank you so much for letting us come to your festival in this weird, weird world and way!” McDormand told the masked audience as the Italian marketing team for the film actually accepted the award. “But we’re really glad you let us come! And we’ll see you down the road!”A favorite going into the awards season, “Nomadland” is screening at all the major fall film festivals in a pandemic-forged alliance involving the Venice, Toronto, New York and Telluride festivals.Britain’s Vanessa Kirby won best lead actress for “Pieces of a Woman,” a harrowing drama about the emotional fallout on a couple after their baby dies during a home birth. Italy’s Pierfrancesco Fabino won best lead actor for “Padrenostro,” (“Our Father”), an Italian coming-of-age story that takes place after a terrorist attack in the 1970s.Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for best director for “Wife of a Spy,” while the Silver Lion grand jury prize went to Mexico’s Michel Franco for his dystopian drama “Nuevo Orden.”The Russian film “Dear Comrades!” about a 1960s-era massacre in the former Soviet Union, won a special jury prize while Chaitanya Tamhane won best screenplay for “The Disciple,” about an Indian man’s pursuit to be a classical vocalist.That the 10-day Venice festival took place at all was something of a miracle, given that northern Italy in late February became ground zero for Europe’s coronavirus outbreak. The Cannes Film Festival was canceled and other big international festivals in Toronto and New York opted to go mostly online.British actress Vanessa Kirby poses with the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress at the closing ceremony of the 77th edition of the Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, Sept. 12, 2020.But after Italy managed to tame its infections with a strict 10-week lockdown, Venice decided to go ahead, albeit under safety protocols that would have previously been unthinkable for a festival that has prided itself on spectacular visuals and glamorous clientele.Face masks were required indoors and out. Reservations for all were required in advance, with theater capacity set at less than half. The public was barred from the red carpet, and paparazzi, who would normally chase after stars in rented boats, were given socially distanced positions on land.While it’s too soon to say if the measures worked, there were no immediate reports of infections among festivalgoers, and compliance with mask mandates and social distancing appeared to be high.”We were a little bit worried at the beginning, of course,” said festival director Alberto Barbera. “We knew that we had a very strict plan of safety measures and we were pretty sure about that, but you never know.”Hong Kong director Ann Hui almost didn’t make it after she couldn’t get on her flight because of virus border restrictions. In the end, she arrived to collect her Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award and to see her out-of-competition film “Love After Love” make its world premiere.Movie lovers applauded Venice’s effort and the symbolic significance of the world’s oldest film festival charting the path forward.”It’s a moment of rebirth for everyone, for the whole world,” said Emma Dante, the Italian director of the in-competition film “The Macaluso Sisters.” “This festival is really an important moment of encounter, of beginning to dream again and be together again, even with the norms and following all the safety protocols.”Film writer Emma Jones said aside from “a few teething problems” with the online reservation system, the festival went off better than she expected.”It feels safe in there, it feels socially distanced,” she said of the venues.Jones noted that the lineup of films lacked the usual Hollywood blockbusters – think “La La Land,” and “The Shape of Water” – that have used Venice as a springboard to Oscar fame. While the festival featured films from Iran, India, Australia and beyond, it was heavily European.”This is a COVID festival. There’s no use pretending anything else,” Jones said.But she added: “It would feel really off-note, I think, to have had a red carpet with screaming fans and celebrities walking down it and people talking about who wore what. 2020 is not the year for those kind of discussions.”Instead, she said, Venice focused on the integrity of the films and the diversity of the countries represented.”We were lucky to receive a lot of submissions from all over the world, and apart from a few missing titles from the Hollywood major film studios, most of the countries are represented in Venice and the quality of the lineup is really very high,” said festival director Barbera. 
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For years, U.S. businesses have been trying to get a piece of the Chinese market, and that’s also true for Hollywood. However, as Disney is currently experiencing, doing business with China’s authoritarian government can be tricky, especially in light of current political tensions between the U.S. and China. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Diana Rigg, a commanding British actress whose career stretched from iconic 1960s spy series “The Avengers” to fantasy juggernaut “Game of Thrones,” has died. She was 82. Rigg’s agent, Simon Beresford, said she died Thursday morning at home with her family. Daughter Rachael Stirling said she died of cancer that was diagnosed in March. Rigg “spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words,” Stirling said. Rigg starred in “The Avengers” as secret agent Emma Peel alongside Patrick Macnee’s bowler-hatted John Steed. The pair were an impeccably dressed duo who fought villains and traded quips in a show whose mix of adventure and humor was enduringly influential. FILE – Actor George Lazenby, the new James Bond, and British actress Diana Rigg share a moment during takes of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” at Schilthorn near Muerren, Switzerland, Jan. 10, 1969.Rigg also starred in the 1969 James Bond thriller “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” as Tracy di Vicenzo, the only woman ever to marry, albeit briefly, Agent 007. Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli said Rigg was “much beloved by Bond fans for her memorable performance.” George Lazenby, who made his only appearance as Bond in the film, said on Instagram that he was “so sad to hear of the death of Diana Rigg. She undoubtedly raised my acting game when we made On Her Majesty’s Secret Service together in 1968-9.” In later life, Rigg played Olenna Tyrell, the formidable Queen of Thorns, in “Game of Thrones.” She received an Emmy nomination for the role. Other television roles included the Duchess of Buccleuch in the period drama “Victoria.” Rigg starred alongside her daughter in the gentle British sitcom “Detectorists.”  Rigg spent several years in the 1960s as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and combined screen work with a major stage career, in plays including William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage” and Tom Stoppard’s “Jumpers” at the National Theater in London. She had several acclaimed roles in the 1990s at London’s Almeida Theater, including Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and the title role in Greek tragedy “Medea.” Rigg won a Tony Award for “Medea” on Broadway and was nominated on three other occasions — most recently in 2018 for playing Mrs. Higgins in “My Fair Lady.” Jonathan Kent, who directed Rigg in some of her great stage roles, said her “combination of force of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power made her a great classical actress — one of an astonishing generation of British stage performers.” FILE – British actress Diana Rigg and actor Anthony Hopkins attend the opening night of “Macbeth” at the National Theater, London, Sept. 20, 1972.She never retired. One of Rigg’s final television roles was in the rural veterinary drama “All Creatures Great and Small,” which is currently running on British television. Stoppard said Rigg was “the most beautiful woman in the room, but she was what used to be called a Trouper.” “She went to work with her sleeves rolled up and a smile for everyone. Her talent was luminous.” Rigg is survived by her daughter, son-in-law Guy Garvey — lead singer of the band Elbow — and a grandson. 
 
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American football, the most popular sport in the United States, kicks off its season tonight, but instead of the usual holiday-like atmosphere surrounding opening day, the event is clouded by concerns over the coronavirus and controversial protests for racial justice.The National Football League’s (NFL) opening matchup features the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs playing the Houston Texans, but don’t expect the contest to resemble a normal game.For one, the stands will appear fairly empty. Tonight’s game will be played at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, which has a capacity of more than 76,000, but the team is only going to allow 22% capacity.Fans will be required to wear masks and maintain social distancing, according to the Chiefs’ website.Sorry, fansMany teams around the league will not be allowing any fans in the stadiums, at least for now.Fans will not be the only ones missing. Reportedly, some 60 players in the league have said they are opting out of games for now, citing virus-related health concerns.Players and team staff are tested daily, with game day being an exception as their eligibility to play will be announced the day before. The NFL said that during the week of September 5, 44,510 tests had been administered to a total of 8,349 players and staff.The sidelines also will look very different, as there will be no cheerleaders, mascots or sideline reporters.In addition to the national anthem, which is traditionally played before the game, the NFL will play the song “Lift Every Voice,” which is considered by some to be the Black national anthem. It’s unclear if or how many players will kneel in protest during “The “Star-Spangled Banner,” a controversy dating to 2016 when former player Colin Kaepernick first knelt.On the field, players will be allowed to add social justice message decals to their helmets, and the NFL will paint “End Racism” and “It Takes All of Us” in the end zones for every game.After the game, the tradition of players exchanging greetings, hugs, handshakes and trading jerseys will be ended as the players maintain social distancing.The National Basketball Association has taken many similar measures but has faced a drop-off in TV viewership. How NFL fans will react remains to be seen.
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