Beth Jensen suffered a stroke when she was just eight years old, and though she survived, she was almost completely paralyzed and unable to talk as a result. Yet, Jensen has refused to let her condition stop her from living a life filled with activities, art and love. Iryna Matviichuk met with the artist. Anna Rice narrates her story
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Hundreds of new restaurants mushroom in Washington every year, but the “Immigrant Food” restaurant that recently opened just a block away from the White House is unique. On top of making a delicious statement, it also makes a political one, serving food inspired by the many immigrant communities that live in the U.S. Mykhailo Komadovsky visited the unusual venue
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As former movie mogul Harvey Weinstein goes to trial on rape charges next week in Manhattan, lawyers will need to keep an eye out for jurors who want to use the case to make a statement about sexual abuse following the rise of the #MeToo movement, legal experts said.Once one of Hollywood’s most powerful producers, Weinstein, 67, has pleaded not guilty to charges of assaulting two women in New York, one in 2006 and the other in 2013.In all, more than 80 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct dating back decades.Those accusations helped fuel the #MeToo movement, in which hundreds of women have publicly accused powerful men in business, politics, the news media and entertainment of sexual harassment or assault. Weinstein has denied the allegations and said any sexual encounters were consensual.Jury selection is expected to begin Tuesday following a pretrial conference Monday, according to Danny Frost, spokesman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance.Selecting impartial jurors to decide the fate of a celebrity whose alleged abuse fueled the #MeToo movement presents unique challenges, experts said, as potential jurors may try to mask their bias to advance a larger cause.”They may think, ‘I want to be the one to make sure he goes to jail. I want to be the one to do justice,'” said Roy Futterman, a New York jury consultant.On the other hand, Futterman said, people who believe that #MeToo has gone too far and ruined the lives of innocent men, may attempt to hide their bias so they can exonerate Weinstein. Weinstein faces up to life in prison if convicted on the top counts, predatory sexual assault.Social media useOne of his lawyers, Donna Rotunno, said the defense team will be looking at potential jurors’ social media use and responses to jury selection questions, and said she is confident that will uncover biased candidates.”Obviously this case has a lot more notoriety and press involved with it, but that’s a concern in any case,” Rotunno said in a phone interview. “Once 12 people are put on that bench and they realize the gravity of it, they really want to be fair.”District Attorney Vance’s office, which is prosecuting the case, declined to comment on the jury selection issue.Weinstein in October lost a bid to move the trial to suburban Long Island or to Albany, New York state’s capital. He had said intense media scrutiny made it impossible for jurors to give him a fair trial in Manhattan.”The question … will be not whether they’ve heard of the Weinstein case and the allegations against him, but whether that publicity has made it impossible for someone to be a fair and impartial juror,” said Deborah Tuerkheimer, a Northwestern University law professor and former prosecutor in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.Jury selection is expected to last two weeks. Experts say both sides will likely question potential jurors about their knowledge and opinion of the case, their work history and whether they have been victims of sexual misconduct.Legal teams in high-profile trials often spend hundreds of hours building databases of potential jurors’ activity on social media such as Facebook and Twitter that might reveal bias, said Jeffrey Frederick, director of Jury Research Services at the National Legal Research Group Inc in Charlottesville, Virginia.”It’s almost legal malpractice not to do this,” he said. “You will find people in your jury pool where you will go, ‘Whoa, this is particularly good or particularly bad for me.'”Eliminating jurorsLawyers can excuse an unlimited number of potential jurors if they show bias for or against Weinstein. Each side can typically use “peremptory” challenges to eliminate up to three potential jurors they believe will be unsympathetic, without providing a reason.The #MeToo movement has prompted more people who have experienced sexual assault or workplace harassment to come forward, which is likely to complicate the vetting process, Tuerkheimer said.According to a 2018 Pew Research study, about 60% of women surveyed said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual advances or sexual harassment in their lifetime, and more than half of those reported being harassed in the workplace. Some, but not all, of those people might be biased, Tuerkheimer said.Experts said the prosecution may seek to eliminate jurors who say they have been falsely accused of harassment, out of fear they might sympathize with Weinstein, while the defense might excuse people who appear to be activists or favor liberal causes.Paul Callan, a former prosecutor, said lawyers also will want to avoid potential jurors seeking to cash in on the experience.”If books are written after the trial, that could result in a reversal,” Callan said.
 
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Lulu Wang, Lorene Scafaria, Melina Matsoukas and Greta Gerwig led Hollywood to a record year for women in the director’s chair. In 2019, women directed more of the most popular movies than any year before. Women directed 12 of 2019’s top 100-grossing films in 2019, according to a study released Thursday by USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. That percentage of female filmmakers, 10.6%, is greater than researchers have recorded before, suggesting that some measure of change is finally coming to a film industry where inequality behind the camera has remained stubbornly persistent. It’s the most meaningful increase in several decades for female directors. Despite mounting outcry, the rate of female directors helming Hollywood’s top productions has long been largely stagnant. The previous high in USC’s annual study was 8%, in 2008. In 2018, only 4.5% of the year’s top films were directed by women. ‘More progress needed’This is the first time we have seen a shift in hiring practices for female film directors in 13 years,'' said Stacy L. Smith, one of the study's authors.One notable reason for this jump in 2019 was that Universal Pictures had five films with women directors at the helm in the top 100 movies. Yet there is still much more progress needed to reach parity for women behind the camera.” The high-profile success of several films had already made 2019 a historic one for women. Those include Wang’s The Farewell, one of the year’s most popular indie releases; Scafaria’s acclaimed Hustlers ($105 million domestically); Matsoukas’ Queen & Slim ($40.7 million); and Gerwig’s Little Women, which last week opened strongly with $29 million in its first five days of release. FILE – Director Jennifer Lee smiles during a press conference for her new movie “Frozen 2″ in Seoul, South Korea, Nov. 25, 2019.Frozen II, with $1.2 billion in worldwide ticket sales, is close to setting a new box-office record for a movie directed by a woman. Jennifer Lee, who co-directed the film, set the record with the first Frozen film. In 2018, Lee became the chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios. Other notable films included Kasi Lemmons’ Harriet, Tina Gordon’s Little and Jill Culton’s Abominable. USC researchers singled out Universal Pictures, which put forward a slate of films with 26% directed by women. Universal is the only major studio with a female studio chief, Donna Langley. Netflix also fared well. While the streaming company’s films largely bypass theaters — leaving them outside the study’s parameters — 20% of Netflix’s 2019 movies were directed by women. Paramount Pictures, however, hasn’t released a movie directed by a woman in the last five years. Underrepresented directorsFour women of color directed one of the top 100 movies in 2019, though the overall statistics for underrepresented directors dipped. Underrepresented filmmakers were behind 16.8% of films in 2019, a decline from last year’s 21.4%, a record. “While 2019 is a banner year for women, we will not be able to say there is true change until all women have access and opportunity to work at this level,” Smith said. Another study released Thursday by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University examined women in the top films as not just directors but writers, producers, executive producers, editors and cinematographers. Women accounted for 20% of all such roles in the year’s top films, up from 16% the year before. But the San Diego State University study, the 22nd annual Celluloid Ceiling authored by Martha Lauzen, found less progress when the movies researched were expanded to the top 500 films. In that metric, Lauzen found women held steady at 23%. While the numbers moved in a positive direction this year, men continue to outnumber women 4 to 1 in key behind-the-scenes roles, Lauzen said in a statement. It's odd to talk about reaching historic highs when women remain so far from parity.'' Overlooked for awardsDespite gains, female filmmakers have been largely overlooked in this awards season. Sunday's Golden Globes, presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, includes no women nominated for best director. None of the 10 films nominated for best picture were directed by women, either. Rebecca Goldman, Time's Up chief operating officer, earlier said those results were unacceptable. “This year, there have been twice as many women-led features than ever, with more films by female directors on the way,'' Goldman said.Women — and especially women of color — continue to be pushed to the sidelines by a system that holds women back, onscreen and off.” 
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White evangelical Protestants stand noticeably apart from other religious people on how the government should act on two of the most politically divisive issues at play in the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll of Americans from various faith backgrounds.Asked about significant restrictions on abortion — making it illegal except in cases of rape, incest or to threats to a mother’s life — 37% of all Americans responded in support, according to the poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Those abortion limits drew 39% support from white mainline Protestants, 33% support from nonwhite Protestants and 45% support from Catholics, but 67% support from white evangelical Protestants.A similar divide emerged over whether the government should bar discrimination against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender in workplaces, housing or schools. About 6 in 10 Catholics, white mainline Protestants and nonwhite Protestants supported those protections, compared with about a third of white evangelical Protestants.The differences between white evangelicals and other religious Americans, as well as the non-religious, were less stark on other policy issues examined in the poll. But its findings nonetheless point to an evangelical Protestant constituency that’s more firmly aligned with President Donald Trump’s agenda than other Americans of faith. White evangelicals were also more likely than members of other faiths to say religion should have at least some influence on policymaking.Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the late Rev. Billy Graham and one of Trump’s most stalwart evangelical supporters, pointed to Trump’s record on abortion as a key driver of the president’s support from his religious community.“I don’t think evangelicals are united on every position the president takes or says, but they do recognize he is the most pro-life-friendly president in modern history,” Graham said in a recent interview. “He has appointed conservative judges that will affect my children and grandchildren’s lives, long after he’s gone.”Indeed, white evangelical Protestants’ preference for a religious influence on abortion policy outdrew most other issues examined in the poll. About 8 in 10 white evangelicals said religion should have at least some influence on abortion policy. A similar share said that of poverty, compared with about 7 in 10 saying the same about education and roughly 6 in 10 saying that about income inequality, immigration and LGBT issues.Trump has embraced a staunch anti-abortion agenda, and his administration has opposed legislation supported by Democrats seeking to challenge him in 2020 that would extend broad anti-discrimination protections for LGBT individuals.“There is nobody, except a few wackos who are one-half of 1%, that would ever want to discriminate against some of these groups,” said Stephen Strang, founder of the Christian magazine Charisma and author of a forthcoming book backing Trump’s reelection.“But what happens is, this legislation is criminalizing long-held beliefs that we believe are scriptural,” Strang added, referring to conservative evangelicals’ opposition to same-sex marriage.About 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestants approve of the president’s job performance, according to the poll, which asked respondents to self-identify as born-again or evangelical.Trump’s reelection campaign plans to showcase that high level of support in Miami on Friday, with the president set to unveil an “Evangelicals for Trump” coalition.But not every Trump-backed policy found strong support in the poll from white evangelical Protestants. A majority of white evangelicals opposed an immigration policy that separates children from parents who are detained entering the country illegally, although nonwhite Protestants and white mainline Protestants opposed that policy by slightly larger margins.“I disagree with the president on that one,” said Dorothy Louallen, 87, of Dunlap, Tenn., who described herself as a born-again Christian opposed to abortion and said “I really don’t think government and churches should be involved.”The poll also showed a majority of white evangelical Protestants supporting higher taxes on the wealthy, albeit by smaller margins than the other major religious groups surveyed, as well as the non-religious. Trump signed a GOP tax bill in 2017 that cut taxes for the middle class but delivered a larger tax break for the wealthiest Americans.Similarly, about half of white evangelicals showed support for increasing government aid to the poor, similar to that policy’s support from Catholics and white mainline Protestants. About 7 in 10 nonwhite Protestants supported more government assistance for the poor. More than 600,000 low-income Americans are set to lose access to food stamps under new work requirements proposed by the Trump administration.In addition, about 6 in 10 white evangelicals supported regulating the levels of carbon dioxide that power plants can emit, a climate change-fighting measure that Trump has weakened and that majorities of other religious groups also support, as well as those without a religious affiliation.Americans without any religious affiliation registered stronger opposition in the poll than people of specific faiths to abortion restrictions (72%) and stronger support than people of specific faiths for government action to shield people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender from discrimination (83%). About one-quarter of Americans currently align with no religious faith, a figure that’s risen notably over three decades, according to the General Social Survey.However, some Americans of faith continue to defy easy characterization — a trend that promises to scramble the electorate’s moral calculus heading into a 2020 campaign where Democrats have shown strong interest in connecting with voters of faith, even evangelicals whom Trump is often assumed to have locked down.Courtney Lester, 29, of Macon, Ga., said she was baptized in the Baptist faith but “can’t say I’m in one set religion.”Once policymakers “mix religion with politics, that’s when things get very mixed up,” Lester added, noting that she is “not here to judge anyone” of a different sexual orientation and praising immigrants for making America “great the first time.”Lester, who is undecided in the election, said faith should play the same role in politics that it does in medicine: Doctors, she said, prioritize health rather than asking “‘Who is your God?’ before (they) see if you have the flu.”The AP-NORC poll of 1,053 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone.
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 Former US secretary of state and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was appointed Thursday as the new chancellor of Queen’s University Belfast.Clinton will serve for five years in the largely ceremonial role, the Northern Irish institution announced.”It is a great privilege to become the chancellor of Queen’s University, a place I have great fondness for and have grown a strong relationship with over the years,” Clinton said in a statement.”The university is making waves internationally for its research and impact and I am proud to be an ambassador and help grow its reputation for excellence.”The Democratic presidential nominee lost the 2016 US election to Republican candidate Donald Trump.Clinton received an honorary doctorate from Queen’s in October 2018.”Secretary Clinton has made a considerable contribution to Northern Ireland and as an internationally-recognized leader will be an incredible advocate for Queen’s and an inspirational role model for the Queen’s community,” said Stephen Prenter, who chairs the university’s governing body.The chancellor’s duties involve presiding at degree awarding ceremonies, representing Queen’s in an ambassadorial role and advising the university’s executive.Queen’s is one of the oldest universities in the United Kingdom.
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Don Larsen, the journeyman pitcher who reached the heights of baseball glory when he threw a perfect game in 1956 with the New York Yankees for the only no-hitter in World Series history, died Wednesday night. He was 90.Larsen’s agent, Andrew Levy, said the former pitcher died of esophageal cancer in hospice care in Hayden, Idaho. Levy said Larsen’s son, Scott, confirmed the death.Larsen was the unlikeliest of characters to attain what so many Hall of Famers couldn’t pull off in the Fall Classic. He was 81-91 lifetime, never won more than 11 games in a season and finished an unsightly 3-21 with Baltimore in 1954, the year before he was dealt to the Yankees as part of an 18-player trade.In the 1956 World Series, won in seven games by the Yankees, he was knocked out in the second inning of Game 2 by the Brooklyn Dodgers and didn’t think he would have another opportunity to pitch. But when he reached Yankee Stadium on the morning of Oct. 8, he found a baseball in his shoe, the signal from manager Casey Stengel that he would start Game 5.“I must admit I was shocked,” Larsen wrote in his autobiography. “I knew I had to do better than the last time, keep the game close and somehow give our team a chance to win. Casey was betting on me, and I was determined not to let him down this time.”No-windup deliveryThe Dodgers and Yankees split the first four games and Stengel liked the deception of Larsen’s no-windup delivery. The manager’s instincts proved historically correct. The lanky right-hander struck out seven, needed just 97 pitches to tame the Dodgers and only once went to three balls on a batter — against Pee Wee Reese in the first inning.In winning 2-0, the Yankees themselves only managed five hits against the Dodgers’ Sal Maglie, but scored on Mickey Mantle’s home run and an RBI single by Hank Bauer.Larsen, selected MVP of the 1956 Series, had two close calls. In the second inning, Jackie Robinson hit a hard grounder that was deflected by third baseman Andy Carey to shortstop Gil McDougald, who threw out Robinson. In the fifth, Mantle ran down a long drive to left-center field by Gil Hodges. With two outs in the ninth, pinch-hitter Dale Mitchell took a third strike, completing the perfect game and sending catcher Yogi Berra dashing out from behind the plate to leap into Larsen’s arms. Their celebration remains one of baseball’s most joyous images.FILE- New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra embraces pitcher Don Larsen as he leaps into Larsen’s arms at the end of Game 5 of the World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers at New York’s Yankee Stadium, Oct. 8, 1956. Larsen pitched a perfect game.Out on the town before perfect gameBorn Aug. 7, 1929, in Michigan City, Indiana, Larsen moved with his family to San Diego, where he went to Point Loma High School, the alma mater of another Yankees perfect game pitcher, David Wells. Larsen played basketball and baseball and was signed by the St. Louis Browns for a $500 bonus and $150 a month.After two minor league seasons, Larsen hurt his arm and then spent two years in the Army. He was promoted to the Browns in 1953 and moved with the team to Baltimore the following year. He struggled through his 3-21 season but two of the wins were against the Yankees, who insisted he be included in the trade that also brought pitching star Bob Turley to New York.Larsen started 1955 with the Yankees’ farm team in Denver, where he went 9-1 and developed the no-windup delivery. Promoted to the majors midway through the season, he finished 9-2 for New York. Larsen went 11-5 the next season and enjoyed the party atmosphere that came with playing for the Yankees, often running with Mantle, Billy Martin and Whitey Ford in their late-night rounds of the city. On the night before his perfect game, he had been out on the town, believing he was not in Stengel’s plans for the next day. Larsen pitched in three other World Series. He won Game 2 of the 1957 series against Hank Aaron and the Milwaukee Braves, but lost the decisive Game 7. He shut out the Braves 4-0 on six hits in Game 3 of the 1958 Series, when New York beat Milwaukee in seven games, and was back in the Bronx with the San Francisco Giants for the 1962 Fall Classic.Record unbrokenLarsen retired in 1967 with an 81-91 record over 14 major league seasons. He later worked as a liquor salesman and paper company executive. When David Cone tossed a perfect game for the Yankees during the 1999 season, Larsen was in attendance after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch.No other pitcher has thrown a perfect game in the postseason, but in 2010 the Phillies’ Roy Halladay pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds during the National League Division Series. “They can never break my record,” Larsen would say of his game. “The best they can do is tie it. October 8, 1956, was a mystical trip through fantasyland. Sometimes I still wonder whether it really all happened.”Late on Wednesday night, Cone tweeted “RIP my friend” with a photo of himself, Wells and Larsen together on the field at Yankee Stadium.“We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Don Larsen, who remained a welcome and familiar face at our annual Old-Timers’ Day celebrations in the decades following his playing career,” the Yankees said. “He will be missed.”In addition to his son, Larsen is survived by his wife of 62 years, Corrine, daughter-in-law Nancy, and grandsons Justin and Cody.
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Former commissioner of the National Basketball Association David Stern, who oversaw the NBA turning from a struggling U.S. league into a global powerhouse, died in New York Wednesday. He was 77.The NBA said Stern had been seriously ill since emergency surgery for a brain hemorrhage in early December.Stern joined the NBA’s legal department in the 1960s and took over the league in 1984 when U.S. professional basketball was struggling to attract the same kind of fans base that followed other sports, such as baseball and American football.Stern focused on marketing professional basketball overseas, including Europe and Asia, allowing fans who were barely aware of the sport to see superstars such as Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James.Under Stern, the NBA expanded from the United States into Canada and was the first U.S. major league sport to play a regular season game outside North America, when the Phoenix Suns facing off against the Utah Jazz in Japan in 1990.The NBA has grown into a $5 billion a year league with games broadcast in more than 200 countries in 40 languages. Stern retired from the NBA in 2014.
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The world rang in a new year and decade Wednesday with fireworks, music and all-night parties.The celebrations included the usual massive gathering in New York’s Times Square where people counted down the remaining seconds of 2019 and cheered as 2020 officially arrived.People celebrate as they watch the traditional New Year’s fireworks at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Dec. 31, 2019.Several million people gathered in Rio de Janeiro for a massive celebration featuring fireworks and music on Brazil’s famous Copacabana beach.In Paris, fireworks lit up the Champs-Elysees area as France took its turn welcoming the new year.Fireworks explode over the Kremlin during New Year’s celebrations in Red Square with the Spasskaya Tower, left, in the background in Moscow, Jan. 1, 2020.The huge clock looming over the Kremlin in Moscow chimed in 2020 with fireworks in the sky and fake snow on the ground. Unusually warm temperatures has made it a wet, not white New Year’s Eve, leading Russian authorities to spread artificial snow around Moscow to create the proper New Year’s atmosphere.A 10-minute fireworks show delighted revelers in Dubai, while in Japan, celebrants took turns in striking Buddhist temple bells, an ancient tradition.Fireworks brightened the skies elsewhere in Asia and the Pacific, including Sydney Harbor in Australia.Fireworks were canceled in other parts of the country because of the extremely dry conditions that led to devastating wildfires.Pro-democracy demonstrators broke out in chants as midnight approached in Hong Kong. Authorities there canceled the traditional fireworks over the city for “security reasons,” replacing them with a light show beamed against skyscrapers.
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The more you give, the richer you become that’s the philosophical idea behine the gift economy.  It’s an idea that’s catching on. At the famous Burning Man festival in Nevada for instance money has no worth. In his book “The Gift”, Lewis Hyde described this model in detail. Misha Gutkin looked into the whole idea.
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What would it be like to attend a concert with thousands of other people without leaving your home? Matt Dibble dons a VR headset to find out
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This New Year’s Eve, an estimated 1 million people will pack the streets of New York City’s Times Square to watch the famous ball drop. It’s a tradition that dates back to 1907, as visitors from around the world gather to count down the final seconds to the New Year. VOA’s Tina Trinh heads to the rooftop of One Times Square for a look at the New Year’s Eve ball, the centerpiece of one of the world’s most anticipated New Year’s Eve celebrations.
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Wheelchair basketball is growing in popularity in South Sudan, offering hope for athletes with disabilities, some of whom lost legs from unexploded ordnance left from decades of conflict. U.S. professional wheelchair basketball players, including Sudanese American Malat Wei, this month helped eighty South Sudanese players take part in a week-long training program and tournament, as Sheila Ponnie reports from Juba.
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The Chapultepec Zoo in Mexico City is celebrating its second baby giraffe of the year, already as tall as a full-grown human.The female giraffe was unveiled last week after a mandatory quarantine period following her Oct. 23 birth. She will be named via a public vote to generate empathy with the little cow, zoo director Juan Carlos Sanchez Olmos said Sunday.The 96-year-old zoo on the grounds of the capital’s central park has a knack for breeding creatures in captivity: This year it welcomed 170 baby animals, including six Mexican gray wolves, which are in danger of extinction.”A new birth of a character as unique, as charismatic as a giraffe becomes emblematic – a flag for conservation, for the prestige of the zoo,” said Sanchez Olmos while four grown giraffes happily munched branches and leaves behind him.Giraffes are considered “vulnerable” because the species faces significant habitat loss in the 17 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where they reside.Unlike the wolves, which will be released into the Sierra de San Pedro Martir National Park in Baja California, the giraffes are expected to spend their lives under observation in a dusty patch of the Chapultepec Zoo.A team of professionals – including nutritionists, veterinarians and biologists like Sanchez Olmos_ takes care of more than 1,000 animals in the zoo, which sits under the flight path of jetliners that roar overhead.As Sanchez Olmos detailed the zoo’s mission to not just educate and amuse, but also conserve species, caretaker Alejandro Gonzalez offered long branches from a pomegranate tree to four hungry giraffes. The tallest of the pack eagerly yanked the branches from Gonzalez’s hands.”What did I tell you?” the caretaker said, looking the tall giraffe square in the eyes. “Take it easy, please.”If Gonzalez had his way, the new addition to the herd of giraffes would be called Sarita. At least, that’s what he calls her.The long-necked creatures are a favorite fixture at the zoo. The public voted in April to name the first baby giraffe of the year Jirafifita, which translates as Uppity Little Giraffe – a play on the president’s favorite word for dismissing critics.”Fifi” is slang for uppity or posh. Populist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador frequently uses the word to describe opposition politicians and others who question his decisions.
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“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” stayed on a strong glide path in North American theaters, taking in an estimated $73.6 million for the three-day weekend, industry watcher Exhibitor Relations reported Sunday.The Disney film, marketed as a grand finale of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” has had mixed reviews and was down considerably from last weekend’s lofty $177.4 million opening.But it has compiled a strong domestic total of $364.5 million.It again maintained a big lead over the No. 2 film, Sony’s “Jumanji: The Next Level,” an action sequel starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Kevin Hart, which had $34.4 million in North American ticket sales for the Friday-through-Sunday period.In third for the second straight week was Disney’s “Frozen II,” at $17 million. The animated musical film has Broadway star Idina Menzel voicing Queen Elsa in her latest adventures.Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel “Little Women” has been brought to the screen many times — no fewer than seven, by Variety’s count — but the new version from director Greta Gerwig has drawn strong reviews and netted $16.2 million to place fourth in its debut this weekend.The film stars Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, Emma Watson and Laura Dern, in the story of the joys and struggles of four sisters during the US Civil War.In fifth was new Fox/Disney release “Spies in Disguise,” at $13.4 million. The animated children’s film features the voices of Will Smith and Tom Holland.Rounding out the top 10 were:”Knives Out” ($9.9 million)”Uncut Gems” ($9.4 million)”Bombshell” ($4.8 million)”Cats” ($4.8 million)”Richard Jewell” ($3 million)
 
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A U.S. astronaut set a record Saturday for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, breaking the old mark of 288 days with about two months left in her mission.Christina Koch, a 40-year-old electrical engineer from Livingston, Montana, arrived at the International Space Station on March 14. She broke the record set by former space station commander Peggy Whitson in 2016-2017.Koch is expected to spend a total of 328 days, or nearly 11 months, on board the space station before returning to Earth. Missions are typically six months, but NASA announced in April that it was extending her mission until February.The U.S. record for longest space flight is 340 days set by Scott Kelly in 2015-2016. The world record is 15 months set in the 1990s by a Russian cosmonaut aboard the former Mir space station.Koch’s extended mission will help NASA learn about the effects of long spaceflights, data that NASA officials have said is needed to support future deep space exploration missions to the Moon and Mars.Before breaking the endurance record for a woman in space, Koch set another milestone as part of the first all-female spacewalking team in October. It was Koch’s fourth spacewalk.She previously said she took a lot of helpful advice from Kelly’s 2017 autobiography “Endurance.”
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Lee Mendelson, the producer who changed the face of the holidays when he brought “A Charlie Brown Christmas” to television in 1965 and wrote the lyrics to its signature song, “Christmas Time Is Here,” died Christmas day, his son said.Mendelson, who won a dozen Emmys in his long career, died at his home in Hillsborough, California, of congestive heart failure at age 86 after a long struggle with lung cancer, Jason Mendelson told The Associated Press.Lee Mendelson headed a team that included “Peanuts” author Charles Schulz, director Bill Melendez, and pianist and composer Vince Guaraldi, whose music for the show, including the opening “Christmas Time Is Here,” has become as much a Christmas staple as the show itself.Mendelson told The Cincinnati Enquirer in 2000 that he was short on time in finding a lyricist for the song, so he sketched out the six verses himself in “about 15 minutes on the backside of an envelope.”He found a choir from a church in his native Northern California to sing the song that sets the show’s unforgettable tone, beginning with Mendelson’s words: “Christmas time is here, happiness and cheer, fun for all that children call, their favorite time of year.”The show won an Emmy and a Peabody Award and has aired on TV annually ever since. The team that made it would go on to create more than 50 network specials, four feature films and many other “Peanuts” projects.Mendelson also took other comic strips from newspapers to animated TV, including “Garfield,” for which he produced a dozen television specials.His death was first reported by The Daily Post of Palo Alto.Northern CalifornianBorn in San Francisco in 1933, Mendelson’s family moved to nearby San Mateo when he was a boy, and later to nearby Hillsborough, where he went to high school.He graduated from Stanford in 1954, served in the Air Force and worked for his father’s fruit-and-vegetable company before going into TV for the Bay Area’s KPIX-TV.In 1963 he started his own production company and made a documentary on San Francisco Giants legend Willie Mays, “A Man Named Mays,” that became a hit television special on NBC.Show that nearly wasn’tHe and Schulz originally worked on a “Peanuts” documentary that proved a hard sell for TV, but midway through 1965 a sponsor asked them if they could create the first comic strip’s first animated special in time for Christmas.Schulz wrote the now-familiar story of a depressed Charlie Brown seeking the meaning of Christmas, a school Christmas play with intractable actors including his dog Snoopy, a limp and unappreciated Christmas tree, and a recitation of the nativity story from his best friend Linus.Mendelson said the team showed the special to executives at CBS a week before it was slated to air, and they hated it, with its simplicity, dour tone, biblical themes, lack of laugh track and actual children’s voices instead of adults mimicking them, as was common.“I really believed, if it hadn’t been scheduled for the following week, there’s no way they were gonna broadcast that show,” Mendelson said on a 2004 documentary for the DVD of the special.Holiday classicInstead, it went on to become perhaps the biggest holiday classic in television.“It became part of everybody’s Christmas holidays,” Mendelson told The Los Angeles Times in 2015. “It was just passed on from generation to generation. … We got this huge initial audience and never lost them.”Mendelson is survived by his wife, Ploenta, his children Lynda, Glenn, Jason and Sean, his stepson Ken and eight grandchildren.
 
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