When Raquel Welch donned a deerskin bikini for a 1966 caveman screen epic, she became one of the hottest sex symbols of her time, a role she never felt able to escape.

The film was mediocre, but the poster for “One Million Years BC” went round the world, taking her with it and making both of them an indelible part of cinema history.

“With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away,” Welch wrote in her 2010 autobiography Beyond the Cleavage.

“All else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol.”

With an auburn mane and lauded for her famous figure, Welch took over from the late Marilyn Monroe to become the universal sex goddess of the 1960s and 1970s.

The New York Times described her in 1967 as “a marvelous breathing monument to womankind” while Playboy magazine said she was “the most desired woman of the 1970s.”

Walk-on parts

Welch, who died Wednesday after a brief illness, was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago to a Bolivian aeronautical engineer and his American wife.

Growing up in California, she took ballet lessons and won the first of several teen beauty titles at the age of 14.

She married her high school sweetheart, James Welch, before she was 20, having two children with him before moving to Dallas to take on jobs as a model and barmaid.

Seeking stardom, she returned to Los Angeles in 1963, where she met her agent and next husband Patrick Curtis.

Her never-illustrious acting career started with a string of walk-on parts in minor films, including the 1964 musical feature “Roustabout” starring Elvis Presley.

But a break came when she was picked by the 20th Century Fox studio to star in the 1966 science fiction film, “Fantastic Voyage.”

Typecast

The same year she had a leading role in “One Million Years BC,” a fantasy film forgettable except for its bikini-clad cavewoman.

In 1967 Welch married Curtis in Paris in a famously skimpy white crochet dress, living it up in a lavish Beverly Hills villa with black marble swimming pool and Rolls-Royce.

However, by then she was typecast, and struggled to prove herself as an actress.

“Americans have always had sex symbols. It’s a time-honored tradition and I’m flattered to have been one,” she once said.

“But it’s hard to have a long, fruitful career once you’ve been stereotyped that way.”

Welch clocked up a series of films in the late 1960s and 1970s but remained restricted by her status as a beauty.

Titles included the western “Bandolero!” (1968), detective movie “Lady in Cement” (1968) and comedy “Animal” (1977).

In 1969 she was in Hollywood’s first interracial sex scene with Jim Brown in “100 Rifles.” Then came her most controversial role — a transsexual heroine in the explicit “Myra Breckinridge” (1970).

The swashbuckling “The Three Musketeers” (1973), in which she played the queen’s dressmaker, won her the Golden Globe for best actress.

While filming “Cannery Row” in 1982, Welch was fired for insisting on doing her hair and make-up at home. She sued MGM studios for breach of contract, ultimately winning a $15 million settlement.

Later roles

A lover of yoga, Welch later launched herself into the business of wellbeing, publishing her “Total Beauty and Fitness” program in 1984.

Having long hidden her Latino origins, as an elegant 60-something she took on Hispanic roles in the “American Family” series on PBS in 2002 and “Tortilla Soup” in 2001.

In 2008 at age 68, she divorced her fourth husband, Richard Palmer, who was 14 years her junior.
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This year’s New York Fashion Week is wrapping up after featuring genderless style, throwback 1990s fashion and colorful knitwear to fight sadness. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Producer: Anna Rice. Camera: Vladimir Badikov.
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Ethiopia has long struggled with problems of communal friction turning into violent, ethnic conflict. Members of the two largest ethnic groups, the Oromos and Amharas, have come together to showcase traditional conflict resolution through musical drama. Maya Misikir reports from Adama, Ethiopia. Camera: Vinicius Assis.
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A German newspaper critic had animal feces smeared on her face in the city of Hannover by a ballet director who apparently took offense at a review she wrote.

The Hannover state opera house apologized for the incident and said Monday that it was immediately suspending ballet director Marco Goecke.

The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported that a furious Goecke approached its dance critic, Wiebke Huester, during the interval of a premiere at Hannover’s opera house on Saturday and asked what she was doing there. It said that the two didn’t know each other personally.

The newspaper said that Goecke, who apparently felt provoked by a recent review she wrote of a production he staged in the Dutch seat of government, The Hague, threatened to ban her from the ballet and accused her of being responsible for people canceling season tickets in Hannover.

He then pulled out a paper bag with animal feces and smeared her face with the contents before making off through a packed theater foyer, the newspaper said. Huester identified the substance as dog feces and said she had filed a criminal complaint, German news agency dpa reported.

In a statement on its website, the opera house said Huester’s “personal integrity” was violated “in an unspeakable way.” It said that it contacted her immediately after the incident to apologize.

The opera house said that Goecke’s “impulsive reaction” violated the ground rules of the theater and that “he caused massive damage to the Hannover State Opera and State Ballet.” As a result, it said, he is being suspended and banned from the opera house until further notice.

Goecke has been given the next few days to apologize “comprehensively” and explain himself to theater management “before further steps are announced,” it added.

The ballet director appeared at least partly unrepentant, however. In an interview with public broadcaster NDR, Goecke acknowledged that his “choice of means wasn’t super, absolutely.”

“Of course, socially that is also certainly not recognized or respected, if one resorts to such means,” he said of the attack, adding that he had never done anything like that before and was “a bit shocked at myself.”

Goecke said that while having his work “soiled for years” was a price he had been told he had to pay for being in the public eye, there was a limit.

“Once a certain point has been reached, I disagree,” he said.

The German journalists’ association DJV denounced the attack.

“An artist must tolerate criticism, even if it seems exaggerated,” the union’s regional head in Lower Saxony state, Frank Rieger, said. “Whoever reacts violently to criticism is unacceptable. The attack on the … journalist is also an attack on press freedom.”
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Rihanna made her long-awaited return to the stage at the Super Bowl with a career-spanning medley of pop bangers, but it was her baby bump that dominated the conversation.   

The megastar appeared in the stadium midair on a floating stage, donning a clingy, all-red ensemble featuring a molded bustier — and a belt below what many viewers deduced was another mini RiRi in the making.   

Representatives for the singer confirmed the speculation to trade magazines Rolling Stone and The Hollywood Reporter: Rihanna is pregnant with her second child.   

The 34-year-old welcomed her first child, a son, with rapper A$AP Rocky in May.   

Musically speaking, fans who hoped for some fresh tracks were disappointed: Rihanna’s night on the world’s biggest stage offered a nostalgia tour of hits from the past. 

She delivered her club smashes including “Where Have You Been” to “Only Girl (In the World)” and the time-tested “We Found Love.”   

“Rude Boy,” “Work” and “All of the Lights” were also on the setlist, as a sea of dancers performed stunning acrobatics.   

“Wild Thoughts,” “Run This Town” and, of course, “Umbrella” and “Diamonds” rounded out the show.   

She did not, as many stars do, bring out any guest artists, commanding the stage all on her own.   

The evening marked a reversal after Rihanna had previously turned down the gig in protest of the National Football League’s handling of race issues.   

But in accepting the coveted slot this time around, the Barbados-born singer said it was “important for representation.”   

“It’s important for my son to see this,” she said.   

Since releasing “Anti” in early 2016, Robyn Rihanna Fenty has taken a break from recording but has by no means taken it easy: she’s become a billionaire, parlaying her music achievements into successful makeup, lingerie and high-fashion brands.   

Since her last album Rihanna has performed occasional features and more recently recorded music for the “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” soundtrack. 
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A court run by Yemen’s Iran-backed rebels on Sunday upheld a five-year sentence against a female actor and one of her companions who were convicted of committing an indecent act and having drugs in her possession, her lawyer said.

The arrest of Intisar al-Hammadi and the three other women in February 2021 — as well as the court proceedings against them — have been widely criticized by international rights groups. The case has mirrored widespread Houthi repression and crackdown on women in areas they control in war-torn Yemen.

Al-Hammadi and one of the women were first sentenced in November 2021 to five years. The other two were handed one and three years in prison, respectively.

The Court of Appeals in the Houthi-held capital of Sanaa upheld the sentences against al-Hammadi and Yousra al-Nashri, who was also handed a five-year sentence, according to lawyer Khalid al-Kamal, who represents all four women.

Al-Hammadi, who is also a model, was born to a Yemeni father and an Ethiopian mother. She has worked as a model for four years and acted in two Yemeni soap drama series in 2020. She was the sole breadwinner for her four-member family, including her blind father and a disabled brother.

Human Rights Watch has previously criticized the court proceedings as “marred with irregularities and abuse.” It said the Houthis confiscated al-Hammadi’s phone and “her modeling photos were treated like an act of indecency.”

Yemen has been convulsed by civil war since 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sanaa, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015 to try to restore the government to power.

In the Houthi-held areas, women who dare dissent, or even enter the public sphere, have become targets in an escalating crackdown by the Iran-backed rebels.
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There is no bigger cheerleader of awards season than Richard E. Grant. 

He brings joy to the red carpet, snapping selfies with stars and posting congratulations to nominees on social media. 

Now this enthusiasm has been tapped to host the EE BAFTA Film Awards on February 19 at the Royal Festival Hall. 

“I’m an unabashed fan of movies and of talent and always have been. I’ve never been disingenuous or, you know, blasé about that,” he says. “I probably have to restrain myself from permanently taking selfies with every nominee and winner coming up on the stage.” 

“From that point of view, I am the right fit for the job, hopefully,” he says. 

Grant also knows how it feels to participate in awards season and sit, nervously, waiting for that career changing envelope to be opened. He was nominated as supporting actor at both the BAFTAs and Oscars in 2019 for “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” 

And he’s aware that, as a working actor, hosting has its challenges. 

“Traditionally if you’re a comedian, your role is very clear to roast the audience. Whereas I’m an actor and, you know, even though I’m the vast vintage that I am now, I still want to work and collaborate with directors and actors and writers for the remainder of my breathing days. So roasting them is not really an option and not something that I want to do.” 

When asked if there will be any humor in the ceremony — Grant has jokes. 

“No, it’s going to be very, very serious. There’ll be no jokes and it will be … it’ll be brutally earnest,” he says, laughing. 

Rebel Wilson got mixed reviews for her joke heavy turn as the BAFTA ceremony emcee last March, which at one point involved a cake of Benedict Cumberbatch’s face. 

This year, “All Quiet on the Western Front” leads the nominees with 14. “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” both have 10 nominations. 

As you’d expect, Grant knows quite a few of the nominees, having worked with EE Rising Star nominees Naomi Ackie and Daryl McCormack, plus Bill Nighy, Cate Blanchett and most of the “Banshees” cast. 

But there will be big changes at the BAFTA Film Awards ceremony this year. 

After six years of walking up the red carpeted steps into the Royal Albert Hall, nominees will be attending an event held beside the River Thames on London’s Southbank at the Royal Festival Hall. 

Also, for the first time, the last 30 minutes of the show will be broadcast live on BBC One, as BAFTA moves towards the idea of a fully live ceremony. 

“In an age where everything can be paused or fast forwarded or, you know, watched on at a later time, the thing of it being live gives it a kind of frisson and excitement and also the possibility that something can go fantastically well or really badly. And that’s always a good thing,” Grant says. 

British rapper Lil Simz will be performing at the ceremony and both the prince and princess of Wales will be in the audience, as he is president of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. 

Grant, currently working with script writers on what he’ll be saying on stage, claims he’s more excited than nervous, adding he’ll probably be “levitating” on the big day. 

“It is absolutely genuine,” he says of his boundless enthusiasm, “and it’s to the annoyance of some people.” 

“Just surviving in show-business because it is, you know — for what it looks like from the outside — it is a profession that is has an enormous amount of rejection in built into it. So when people are recognized or succeed at what they’re doing and do it so brilliantly — I’m a great champion of that,” Grant said. 
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A halftime show that Rihanna promises will be “jam-packed” will sit at the center of the celebrity supplements to Super Bowl 57. 

But the 13-minute mini-extravaganza, her first live event in seven years, is only one part of the entertainment sideshow surrounding Sunday’s big game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 

Chris Stapleton, who has dominated country music awards in recent years, will take on the challenge, and scrutiny, of singing the national anthem. 

“The national anthem’s not an easy song for singers. It’s one that can go horribly wrong as we’ve seen many times in the past,” Stapleton said at a media event during the leadup to the game. “But if you’re gonna do it, this is the place to do it. I’m gonna go out there and play. And play it like I play it.” 

The length of the anthem has become one of the countless game elements up for betting. Oddsmakers have put the over-under on Stapleton’s “Star Spangled Banner” at 2 minutes, 5 seconds. 

This being the Super Bowl, one anthem is not enough. R&B legend Babyface will perform “America the Beautiful.” 

And “Abbot Elementary” star Sheryl Lee Ralph will sing what’s been dubbed the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” 

Famous faces are bound to be seen throughout the stands. Some will care more about the outcome than others. The Eagles count Kevin Hart and “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star Rob McElhenney among their biggest fans. Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis pull hard for the Chiefs. 

Many stars have made the scene at Super Bowl week parties. 

And many others, including John Travolta and Alicia Silverstone, will show up in the big game’s big commercials. 
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Visitors to one of Florence’s most iconic monuments — the Baptistry of San Giovanni, opposite the city’s Duomo — are getting a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see its ceiling mosaics up close thanks to an innovative approach to a planned restoration effort.

Rather than limit the public’s access during the six-year cleaning of the vault, officials built a scaffolding platform for the art restorers that will also allow small numbers of visitors to see the ceiling mosaics at eye level.

“We had to turn this occasion into an opportunity to make it even more accessible and usable by the public through special routes that would bring visitors into direct contact with the mosaics,” Samuele Caciagli, the architect in charge of the restoration site, said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Caciagli called the new scaffolding tour of the baptistry vault “a unique opportunity that is unlikely to be repeated in the coming decades.”

The scaffolding platform sprouts like a mushroom from the floor of the baptistry and reaches a height of 32 meters (105 feet) from the ground. Visits are set to start Feb. 24 and must be reserved in advance.

The octagonal-shaped baptistry is one of the most visible monuments of Florence. Its exterior features an alternating geometric pattern of white Carrara and green Prato marble and three great bronze doors depicting biblical scenes.

Inside, however, are spectacular mosaic scenes of The Last Judgment and John the Baptist dating from the 13th century and created using some 10 million pieces of stone and glass over 1,000 square meters of dome and wall.

The six-year restoration project is the first in over a century. It initially involves conducting studies on the current state of the mosaics to determine what needs to be done. The expected work includes addressing any water damage to the mortar , removing decades of grime and reaffixing the stones to prevent them from detaching.

“(This first phase) is a bit like the diagnosis of a patient: a whole series of diagnostic investigations are carried out to understand what pathologies of degradation are present on the mosaic material but also on the whole attachment package that holds this mosaic material to the structure behind it,” Beatrice Agostini, who is in charge of the restoration work, said.

The Baptistry of San Giovanni and its mosaics have undergone previous restorations over the centuries, many of them inefficient or even damaging to the structure. During one botched effort in 1819, an entire section of mosaics detached. Persistent water damage from roof leaks did not get resolved until 2014-2015.

Roberto Nardi, director of the Archaeological Conservation Center, the private company managing the restoration, said the planned work wouldn’t introduce any material that is foreign to the original types of stone and mortar used centuries ago.

“It is a mix of science, technology, experience and tradition,” he said.

The origins of the baptistry are something of a mystery. Some believe it was once a pagan temple, though the current structure dates from the 4th or 5th centuries.
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As legal sports gambling proliferates, the number of Americans betting on the Super Bowl and the total amount they’re wagering is surging — although most of the action is still off the books. 

An estimated 1 in 5 American adults will make some sort of bet, laying out a whopping $16 billion, or twice as much as last year, according to an industry trade group. 

Even as legal gambling has spread to two-thirds of U.S. states, independent analysts say only about $1 billion of the total being wagered on Sunday’s game will happen through casinos, racetracks or companies such as FanDuel and DraftKings, whose ads have become ubiquitous during sporting events. 

The vast majority of people, in other words, are still betting with friends and family, participating in office pools or taking their chances with a bookie. 

More than 50 million American adults are expected to bet on the national championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs, according to the American Gaming Association, whose estimates are based on a nationwide online survey of 2,199 adults. That’s an increase of 61% from last year. 

Experts in addiction say aggressive advertising is contributing to a rise in problem gambling. 

“As sports betting expands, the risk of gambling problems expands,” said Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling. 

Thirty-three states, plus Washington, D.C., now offer legal sports betting, and more than half of all American adults live in one of those markets. 

“Every year, the Super Bowl serves to highlight the benefits of legal sports betting,” said Bill Miller, the gambling association’s president and CEO. “Bettors are transitioning to the protections of the regulated market … and legal operators are driving needed tax revenue to states across the country.” 

But legal sports betting still represents just a small piece of the pie. 

Eilers & Krejcik Gaming Research, an independent analytics firm in California, estimates that just over $1 billion of this year’s Super Bowl bets will be made legally. The leading states are: Nevada ($155 million); New York ($111 million); Pennsylvania ($91 million); Ohio ($85 million) and New Jersey ($84 million). 

The research firm estimates 10% to 15% of that total would be wagered live after the game begins. Another 15% to 20% would come in the form of same-game parlays, or a combination of bets involving the same game, such as betting on the winner, the total points scored and how many passing yards Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts will accumulate. 

As legal sports betting grows, so too has concern about its effect on people with gambling problems.

The National Council on Problem Gambling has conducted nationwide surveys since 2018, when New Jersey won a U.S. Supreme Court case clearing the way for all 50 states to offer legal sports betting. They ask questions like, “Do you ever borrow money to gamble?”

Between 2018 and 2021, the number of people whose answers indicated they were at risk of a gambling problem increased by 30%, said Whyte, the council’s executive director. 

He added that the Super Bowl presents an opportunity to see how well responsible gambling messaging and campaigns by sports books and professional sports leagues are working. 

On Tuesday, New Jersey gambling regulators unveiled new requirements for sports books to analyze the data they collect about their customers to look for evidence of problem gambling, and to take various steps to intervene with these customers when warranted. 

“It is no coincidence that our announcement comes just a week ahead of one of the biggest days in sports wagering, serving as a reminder of how devastating a gambling addiction can be,” New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said.
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Australia has nominated a culturally sensitive Aboriginal area that is home to the world’s largest collection of rock art for United Nations heritage protection. 

The Burrup Peninsula, 1,500 kilometers north of Perth, the Western Australian state capital, has 50,000 years of First Nations history, including millions of a type of rock carving called petroglyphs.  

It is the world’s densest known concentration of hunter-gatherer petroglyphs.

The site has been nominated as a United Nations World Heritage site.  If accepted by UNESCO, it would become the second site in Australia listed for World Heritage for its Aboriginal cultural heritage. 

Environment and Water Minister Tanya Plibersek told reporters Friday the site is a “natural wonder of the world.”

“This place has to be protected forever, and it has to be managed for the benefit of people who have connection to it but managed for the benefit of all of humanity,” said Plibersek.

Reece Whitby, Western Australia’s environment minister, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday that the region has global significance.

“It is putting it on par with such things as Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China, and I think it deserves that status,” said Whitby. “So, this is very important and it is a very emotional and important day for local traditional owners here.”  

The peninsula is also home to a huge fertilizer plant. Indigenous campaigners have blamed industrial emissions for damaging the region’s ancient art.   

A federal investigator is assessing the claims that First Nations heritage is under threat. 

However, resources company Woodside, which operates in the region, has disputed any risk to its ancient heritage.  It said in a statement that it had “demonstrated its ability to work alongside Aboriginal people and the heritage values of the peninsula.”

The site’s inclusion on the U.N. World Heritage List is expected to be considered by the World Heritage Committee next year.  
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When Enrique Vera opens the door to his workshop, an array of gleaming gold and silver matadors’ jackets shine in the sun.

“It is little bit like a cave full of treasure,” he says.

Vera painstakingly fashions the brilliant trajes de luces (suits of lights) which are worn by bullfighters when they face half-ton bulls in the ring.

One of only seven sastres (bullfighting tailors) in the world, he used to be a matador. But he swapped the sword used to kill the bull for a needle and followed a family tradition to become a tailor.

The iconic status of the matador’s suit has meant it has passed from the bullring to mainstream popular culture.

Vera and his mother, Nati, also a seamstress, were called on to make matadors suits for films and the catwalk, working with Pink Panther star Peter Sellers, designer John Paul Gaultier and the late ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

From the moment a matador steps through the door into Vera’s office in Seville, southern Spain, it sets in motion an intricate process of measuring, sewing, ironing, and finally fitting the suits which can cost as much as $6,000 each.

Meticulous process

Vera’s team of 15 specialist seamstresses spend a-month-and-a-half making each suit, which is made to measure. Up to 300 drawings are made before a suit is finished.

The golden, blue or red jackets, trousers and capotes de paseo — the huge cape which the bullfighter carries when he emerges into the ring — are filled with rhinestones, beads and gold or silver thread.

One essential quality is all Vera’s suits must withstand bloodstains — from the bull or the matador.

“It is like drawing a work of art. You must capture the vision of the bullfighter for his suit, then make it a reality. It must be like a second skin,” Vera says in an office filled with photographs of famous bullfighters wearing his creations.

Ancient art dying?

But as attitudes toward bullfighting change in Spain, confecting these suits, whose design has remained the same for the past 150 years, is an art in decline.

Some Spaniards consider bullfighting to be an essential part of the culture, while others say it is a cruel spectacle.

In recent years, the number of bullfights has declined partly because of the pandemic, but also because Spaniards have a raft of different ways to amuse themselves and the animal rights movement is on the rise.

“The problem is that we have changed the concept of animals to humanize them. There is no one more environmentally conscious than breeders of fighting bulls,” Vera told VOA.

“The bulls spend three or four years living free. They are not being slaughtered for meat. But there are plenty of bullfights in Spain, Latin America, and France.”

He was not so sure, however, about his own job.

“There are less sastres because it takes a lot of time. The older ones are retiring and not being replaced,” he admitted. He hopes his 14-year-old son will follow him into the trade.

Polls show less support for bullfighting in recent years.

Some 46.7% of Spaniards were in favor of prohibiting bullfighting, while 18.6% backed the tradition and 34.7% had no opinion, according to a 2020 survey for Electomania, a polling company.

The number of bullfights fell from 1,553 in 2017 compared to 824 in 2021, according to government figures. Only 8% of the population attended bullfights in 2018-2019, compared to 45% who said they went to the theater or 70.3% who said they spent spare time reading.

The first bullfight in Spain was held in 711 A.D. in honor of King Alfonso VIII. Originally, the pastime was reserved for the nobility and took place on horseback. The present version of bullfighting started in Ronda at the start of the 19th century.

A bill to end bullfighting in France failed last year after a member of parliament withdrew the proposed legislation. Portugal allows fights where the bull does not die.

In Latin America, the tradition has been banned in some Mexican states, but is still legal in Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Tradition breaking

Paco Ramos, who runs trajesdeluces.com, which sells second-hand suits of lights, fears a younger generation of tailors may not emerge to replace the likes of Vera.

“For younger people it takes too long to make each suit and is too much work. But for now, there are not many tailors and there is enough demand,” he told VOA.

However, he was confident there was no chance bullfighting would be banned any time soon.

In 2013, the then conservative government introduced a law which declared bullfighting part of the national heritage which should be protected throughout Spain, effectively preventing any attempts to ban the practice.

Animal rights groups are planning to challenge the legal protection of bullfighting by introducing a bill through a people’s petition.

Marta Esteban, president of Torture Is Not Culture, an animal rights collective, told VOA she believed that public opinion was behind banning bullfighting.

“There is no doubt that it is coming to an end, but governments are not willing to give it a coup de grace,” she said.

Aldara Arias de Saavedra, a tour guide who grew up within the shadow of La Maestranza bullring in Seville, has never been to a bullfight.

“I can understand why some people like it. My father did. But it is not for me. You have to kind of grow up with it to be into it. It is like football, I suppose,” she told VOA.

Walk around the narrow streets near the bullring and there is a mini-economy which depends on this pastime, from bars to restaurants to those selling souvenirs like fake suits of lights.

“I think down here in the south, not everyone will go to bulls, but it is so associated with the big ferias and smaller ones in villages that it is not going to be banned soon,” said Marcos Alvarez, a cinematographer.

 
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Scientists have a mystery on their hands after the discovery of 330 stone tools about 2.9 million years old at a site in Kenya, along Lake Victoria’s shores, that were used to butcher animals, including hippos, and pound plant material for food.

Which of our prehistoric relatives that were walking the African landscape at the time made them? The chief suspect, researchers said on Thursday in describing the findings, may be a surprise.

The Nyayanga site artifacts represent the oldest-known examples of a type of stone technology, called the Oldowan toolkit, that was revolutionary, enabling our forerunners to process diverse foods and expand their menu. Three tool types were found: hammerstones and stone cores to pound plants, bone and meat, and sharp-edged flakes to cut meat.

To put the age of these tools into perspective, our species Homo sapiens did not appear until roughly 300,000 years ago.

Scientists had long believed Oldowan tools were the purview of species belonging to the genus Homo, a grouping that includes our species and our closest relatives. But no Homo fossils were found at Nyayanga. Instead, two teeth – stout molars – of a genus called Paranthropus were discovered there, an indication this prehistoric cousin of ours may have been the maker.

“The association of these Nyayanga tools with Paranthropus may reopen the case as to who made the oldest Oldowan tools. Perhaps not only Homo, but other kinds of hominins were processing food with Oldowan technology,” said anthropologist Thomas Plummer of Queens College in New York City, lead author of the research published in the journal Science.

The term hominin refers to various species considered human or closely related.

“When our team determined the age of the Nyayanga evidence, the perpetrator of the tools became a ‘whodunit’ in my mind,” said paleoanthropologist and study co-author Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Human Origins Program. “There are several possibilities. And except for finding fossilized hand bones wrapped around a stone tool, the originator of the early Oldowan tools may be an unknown for a long time.”

The molars represent the oldest-known fossils of Paranthropus, an upright-walker that combined ape-like and human-like traits, possessing adaptations for heavy chewing, including a skull topped with a bony ridge to which strong jaw muscles were attached, like in gorillas.

Other hominins existing at the time included the genus Australopithecus, known for the famous even-older fossil “Lucy.”

“While some species of nonhuman primates produce technologies that assist in foraging, humans are uniquely dependent on technology for survival,” Plummer said.

All later developments in prehistoric technologies were based on Oldowan tools, making their advent a milestone in human evolution, Potts said. Rudimentary stone tools 3.3 million years old from another Kenyan site may have been an Oldowan forerunner or a technological dead-end.

The Nyayanga site today is a gully on Homa Mountain’s western flank along Lake Victoria in southwestern Kenya. When the tools were made, it was woodland and grassland along a stream, teeming with animals.

Until now, the oldest-known Oldowan examples dated to around 2.6 million years ago, in Ethiopia. The species Homo erectus later toted Oldowan technology as far as Georgia and China.

Cut marks on hippopotamus rib and shin bones at Nyayanga were the oldest-known examples of butchering a very large animal – called megafauna. The researchers think the hippos were scavenged, not hunted. The tools also were used for cracking open antelope bones to obtain marrow and pounding hard and soft plant material.

Fire was not harnessed until much later, meaning food was eaten raw. The researchers suspect the tools were used to pound meat to make it like “hippo tartare.”

“Megafauna provide a super abundance of food,” Plummer said. “A hippopotamus is a big leather sack full of good things to eat.”
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Nairobi’s public buses and vans, called “matatus,” and their custom graffiti brighten the busy streets of Nairobi. The idea is the glitzier the vehicle’s design, the more customers it will attract. Hubbah Abdi has this report from the Kenyan capital. Narrated by Michele Joseph. (Camera: Joseph Ochieng)
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Burt Bacharach, the singularly gifted and popular composer who delighted millions with the quirky arrangements and unforgettable melodies of “Walk on By,” “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” and dozens of other hits, has died at 94.

The Grammy, Oscar and Tony-winning Bacharach died Wednesday at home in Los Angeles of natural causes, publicist Tina Brausam said Thursday.

Over the past 70 years, only Lennon-McCartney, Carole King and a handful of others rivaled his genius for instantly catchy songs that remained performed, played and hummed long after they were written. He had a run of top 10 hits from the 1950s into the 21st century, and his music was heard everywhere from movie soundtracks and radios to home stereo systems and iPods, whether “Alfie” and “I Say a Little Prayer” or “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “This Guy’s in Love with You.”

Dionne Warwick was his favorite interpreter, but Bacharach, usually in tandem with lyricist Hal David, also created prime material for Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones and many others. Elvis Presley, the Beatles and Frank Sinatra were among the countless artists who covered his songs, with more recent performers who sung or sampled him including White Stripes, Twista and Ashanti. “Walk On By” alone was covered by everyone from Warwick and Isaac Hayes to the British punk band the Stranglers and Cyndi Lauper.

Bacharach was both an innovator and throwback, and his career seemed to run parallel to the rock era. He grew up on jazz and classical music and had little taste for rock when he was breaking into the business in the 1950s. His sensibility often seemed more aligned with Tin Pan Alley than with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and other writers who later emerged, but rock composers appreciated the depth of his seemingly old-fashioned sensibility.

“The shorthand version of him is that he’s something to do with easy listening,” Elvis Costello, who wrote the 1998 album “Painted from Memory” with Bacharach, said in a 2018 interview with The Associated Press. “It may be agreeable to listen to these songs, but there’s nothing easy about them. Try playing them. Try singing them.”

A box set, “The Songs of Bacharach & Costello,” is due to come out March 3.

He triumphed in many artforms. He was an eight-time Grammy winner, a prize-winning Broadway composer for “Promises, Promises” and a three-time Oscar winner. He received two Academy Awards in 1970, for the score of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and for the song “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” (shared with David). In 1982, he and his then-wife, lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, won for “Best That You Can Do,” the theme from “Arthur. His other movie soundtracks included “What’s New, Pussycat?”, “Alfie” and the 1967 James Bond spoof “Casino Royale.”

Bacharach was well rewarded, and well connected. He was a frequent guest at the White House, whether the president was Republican or Democrat. And in 2012, he was presented the Gershwin Prize by Barack Obama, who had sung a few seconds of “Walk on By” during a campaign appearance.

In his life, and in his music, he stood apart. Fellow songwriter Sammy Cahn liked to joke that the smiling, wavy-haired Bacharach was the first composer he ever knew who didn’t look like a dentist. Bacharach was a “swinger,” as they called such men in his time, whose many romances included actor Angie Dickinson, to whom he was married from 1965-80, and Sager, his wife from 1982-1991.

Married four times, he formed his most lasting ties to work. He was a perfectionist who took three weeks to write “Alfie” and might spend hours tweaking a single chord. Sager once observed that Bacharach’s life routines essentially stayed the same — only the wives changed.

It began with the melodies — strong yet interspersed with changing rhythms and surprising harmonics. He credited much of his style to his love of bebop and to his classical education, especially under the tutelage of Darius Milhaud, the famed composer. He once played a piece for piano, violin and oboe for Milhaud that contained a melody he was ashamed to have written, as 12-point atonal music was in vogue at the time. Milhaud, who liked the piece, advised the young man, “Never be afraid of the melody.”

“That was a great affirmation for me,” Bacharach recalled in 2004.

Bacharach was essentially a pop composer, but his songs became hits for country artists (Marty Robbins), rhythm and blues performers (Chuck Jackson), soul (Franklin, Luther Vandross) and synth-pop (Naked Eyes). He reached a new generation of listeners in the 1990s with the help of Costello and others.

Mike Myers would recall hearing the sultry “The Look of Love” on the radio and finding fast inspiration for his “Austin Powers” retro spy comedies, in which Bacharach made cameos.

In the 21st century, he was still testing new ground, writing his own lyrics and recording with rapper Dr. Dre.

He was married to his first wife, Paula Stewart, from 1953-58, and married for a fourth time, to Jane Hansen, in 1993. He is survived by Hansen, as well as his children Oliver, Raleigh and Cristopher, Brausam said. He was preceded in death by his daughter with Dickinson, Nikki Bacharach.

Bacharach knew the very heights of acclaim, but he remembered himself as a loner growing up, a short and self-conscious boy so uncomfortable with being Jewish he even taunted other Jews. His favorite book as a kid was Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”; he related to the sexually impotent Jake Barnes, regarding himself as “socially impotent.”

He was born in Kansas City, Missouri, but soon moved to New York City. His father was a syndicated columnist, his mother a pianist who encouraged the boy to study music. Although he was more interested in sports, he practiced piano every day after school, not wanting to disappoint his mother. While still a minor, he would sneak into jazz clubs, bearing a fake ID, and hear such greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie.

“They were just so incredibly exciting that all of a sudden, I got into music in a way I never had before,” he recalled in the memoir “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” published in 2013. “What I heard in those clubs turned my head around.”

He was a poor student, but managed to gain a spot at the music conservatory at McGill University in Montreal. He wrote his first song at McGill and listened for months to Mel Torme’s “The Christmas Song.” Music also may have saved Bacharach’s life. He was drafted into the Army in the late 1940s and was still on active duty during the Korean War. But officers stateside soon learned of his gifts and wanted him around. When he did go overseas, it was to Germany, where he wrote orchestrations for a recreation center on the local military base.

After his discharge, he returned to New York and tried to break into the music business. He had little success at first as a songwriter, but he became a popular arranger and accompanist, touring with Vic Damone, the Ames Brothers and Stewart, his eventual first wife. When a friend who had been touring with Marlene Dietrich was unable to make a show in Las Vegas, he asked Bacharach to step in.

The young musician and ageless singer quickly clicked and Bacharach traveled the world with her in the late 1950s and early ’60s. During each performance, she would introduce him in grand style: “I would like you to meet the man, he’s my arranger, he’s my accompanist, he’s my conductor, and I wish I could say he’s my composer. But that isn’t true. He’s everybody’s composer … Burt Bacharach!”

Meanwhile, he had met his ideal songwriter partner — David, as businesslike as Bacharach was mercurial, so domesticated that he would leave each night at 5 to catch the train back to his family on Long Island. Working in a tiny office in Broadway’s celebrated Brill Building, they produced their first million-seller, “Magic Moments,” sung in 1958 by Perry Como. In 1962, they spotted a backup singer for the Drifters, Warwick, who had a “very special kind of grace and elegance,” Bacharach recalled.

The trio produced hit after hit. The songs were as complicated to record as they were easy to hear. Bacharach liked to experiment with time signatures and arrangements, such as having two pianists play on “Walk on By,” their performances just slightly out of sync to give the song “a jagged kind of feeling,” he wrote in his memoir.

The Bacharach-David partnership ended with the dismal failure of a 1973 musical remake of “Lost Horizon.” Bacharach became so depressed he isolated himself in his Del Mar vacation home and refused to work.

“I didn’t want to write with Hal or anybody,” he told the AP in 2004. Nor did he want to fulfill a commitment to record Warwick. She and David both sued him.

Bacharach and David eventually reconciled. When David died in 2012, Bacharach praised him for writing lyrics “like a miniature movie.”

Meanwhile, Bacharach kept working, vowing never to retire, always believing that a good song could make a difference.

“Music softens the heart, makes you feel something if it’s good, brings in emotion that you might not have felt before,” he told the AP in 2018. “It’s a very powerful thing if you’re able to do to it, if you have it in your heart to do something like that.”

 
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NASCAR, the American stock car racing company, is celebrating its 75th anniversary and striving to bring diversity to the sport. Genia Dulot visited a preseason NASCAR race in Los Angeles and spoke to Daniel Suarez, the first Mexican-born racing driver to win a NASCAR cup series.
Camera: Genia Dulot
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U.S. basketball star LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers became the National Basketball Association’s all-time leading scorer Tuesday. 

James hit a two-point basket late in the third quarter in the game against the visiting Oklahoma City Thunder to surpass the 38,387 career points held by Lakers’ legend and Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar, who was in Crypto.com Arena to watch the historic moment, had held the record since April 5,1984.  

James entered Tuesday’s game needing just 36 points to break the record. He finished the game with 38 points, giving him 38,390 points for his career to date. But the Thunder won the game 133-130. 

The record adds to James’s already illustrious 20-year NBA career, which began as an 18-year-old rookie with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He has since won four NBA championships, four season Most Valuable Player awards and four NBA Finals MVP awards. 

Following James and Abdul-Jabbar on the NBA’s all-time scoring list are Karl Malone, the late Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, universally considered to be the greatest NBA player of all time. Another Lakers’ legend, the late Wilt Chamberlain, is in seventh-place with 31,419 points. 

When asked in a post-game interview with retired great Shaquille O’Neal, who won three NBA titles with the Lakers, if he was now the greatest player in NBA history, James said he always feels like “I’m the best to ever play this game” but said he was happy to be mentioned with the league’s other great players.  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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There are fans for all kinds of things, from sports to birds to stamps. This is true for trains as well. VOA’s Aunshuman Apte reports.
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British author Salman Rushdie said he finds it “very difficult” to write after being stabbed last year, in an interview published Monday ahead of the release of his new novel Victory City.

Rushdie, whose “epic tale” of a 14th-century woman who defies a patriarchal world to rule a city hits U.S. shelves Tuesday, said the attack had scarred him mentally.

“There is such a thing as PTSD you know,” the 75-year-old told the New Yorker magazine in his first interview since the August 12 stabbing at a conference in Chautauqua in upstate New York.

“I’ve found it very, very difficult to write. I sit down to write, and nothing happens. I write, but it’s a combination of blankness and junk, stuff that I write and that I delete the next day. I’m not out of that forest yet, really,” he added.

The award-winning novelist, a naturalized American citizen who has lived in New York for 20 years, lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand, his agent said in October.

Rushdie told journalist David Remnick that “big injuries are healed” but he was not able to type very well because of a lack of feeling in some fingertips.

“I’ve been better. But, considering what happened, I’m not so bad,” said the Indian-born author, describing himself as “lucky.”

Rushdie lived in hiding for years after Iran’s first supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered his killing for what he deemed the blasphemous nature of The Satanic Verses, published in 1988.

The attack shocked the West but was welcomed by extremists in Muslim countries such as Iran and Pakistan.

Words ‘the only victors’

Rushdie was asked whether he thought it had been a mistake to let his guard down in recent decades.

“I’m asking myself that question, and I don’t know the answer to it,” he said. “Three-quarters of my life as a writer has happened since the fatwa. In a way, you can’t regret your life.”

Hadi Matar, a 24-year-old from New Jersey with roots in Lebanon, was arrested immediately after the attack and pleaded not guilty to assault charges.

“I blame him,” said Rushdie, simply.

Victory City purports to be a translation of a historical epic originally written in Sanskrit. It’s his 15th novel and was penned before the attack.

The much-anticipated work tells the tale of young orphan girl Pampa Kampana who is endowed by a goddess with magical powers and founds the city, in modern-day India, of Bisnaga, which translates as Victory City.

While not personally promoting the book, Rushdie has begun to communicate via social media on Twitter, most often to share press reviews of his new novel.

An icon of free speech since he was subjected to the fatwa that forced him into hiding, Rushdie is still an outspoken defender of the power of words.

His new work follows a heroine on a mission to “give women equal agency in a patriarchal world,” according to publisher Penguin Random House’s summary.

The book tells the tale of Pampa Kampana’s creation of a city and of its downfall.

A triumph

“Over the next 250 years, Pampa Kampana’s life becomes deeply interwoven with Bisnaga’s, from its literal sowing from a bag of magic seeds to its tragic ruination in the most human of ways: the hubris of those in power,” it added.

The novel concludes with the statement: “Words are the only victors.”

U.S. author Colum McCann wrote in The New York Times that his friend Rushdie was saying “something quite profound” in his new novel.

“In the face of danger, even in the face of death, he manages to say that storytelling is one currency we all have,” said McCann.

The Atlantic magazine called it a “triumph — not because it exists, but because it is utterly enchanting.”

Born in Mumbai in 1947, Rushdie published his first novel Grimus in 1975, and gained worldwide fame six years later with Midnight’s Children, which won him the Booker Prize.

Victory City will be released in Britain Thursday.
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Iran-based singer Shervin Hajipour’s Grammy Award for a song he produced last year in honor of Iran’s peaceful protest movement against Islamist rule has prompted an outpouring of positive reactions from Iranian social media users. 

U.S. first lady Jill Biden announced Hajipour’s win of the U.S. Recording Academy’s first-ever Song for Social Change Special Merit Award at Sunday’s annual ceremony in Los Angeles.

Hajipour produced the award-winning song “Baraye” in September with lyrics drawn from social media posts in which other Iranians stated what they were protesting “for” and “because of.”

The song, which he posted on his Instagram account, became an instant hit and a protest anthem, garnering 40 million views in its first 48 hours. But it also led to his arrest by Iranian security forces on September 29. He was released on bail on October 4 but still faces charges of spreading anti-government ”propaganda” and “instigating violence.” He also has been barred from leaving the country, according to Iran’s Human Rights Activist News Agency. 

Social media reactions to Hajipour’s Grammy were overwhelmingly positive, as observed by VOA Persian. 

The singer was seen reacting to his win early Monday morning Iran time in an Instagram video posted by his friend Amirparsa Neshat.

The video showed Hajipour with several other people in the living room of a home inside Iran, watching a TV screen showing the U.S. first lady announcing his award. The people in the room erupted in cheers and embraced the singer, who appeared to wipe away tears. 

Neshat also posted a video of himself hours later saying, “Wow, I cannot believe it. We didn’t sleep from last night. It was worth it. It was a great feeling. I hope when you are waking in the morning, you get the good news instead of [execution] news!” 

Hajipour’s own response to the award was a simple “We won” message posted to his Instagram account along with a black-and-white photo of himself. 

 
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Centuries-old weavings from the Caucasus, Iran and Turkey show the individual stories and intertwined histories of the region in a museum exhibit in the Western U.S. state of Colorado. VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns has our story.
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Manchester City was accused by the Premier League on Monday of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period when the club was attempting to establish itself as a force in English and European soccer following its takeover by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.

The explosive development came at the end of a four-year investigation by the world’s most popular soccer league in the wake of leaked club emails and documents from City officials that were published by German magazine Der Spiegel in November 2018.

The Premier League released a long statement detailing a list of about 80 alleged breaches of its financial rules by City from 2009-18, the first nine full seasons under Abu Dhabi ownership. In that time, the team won three Premier League titles — in 2012, 2014 and 2018 — in what has become the most successful period in City’s 143-year history.

The league also accused City of 30 more breaches relating to its alleged failure to co-operate with the investigation since December 2018.

The league said it has referred the breaches to an independent commission ahead of a confidential hearing.

In a statement, City said it was “surprised” by the allegations, “particularly given the extensive engagement and vast amount of detailed materials that the EPL (English Premier League) has been provided with.

“The club welcomes the review of this matter by an independent commission to impartially consider the comprehensive body of irrefutable evidence that exists in support of its position,” City said. “As such we look forward to this matter being put to rest once and for all.”

The Premier League has accused City of breaching rules requiring provision “in utmost good faith” of “accurate financial information that gives a true and fair view of the club’s financial position” between 2009-18 and failing to give “full details of manager remuneration in its relevant contracts” from 2009-13. Roberto Mancini was manager during that period.

The third and fourth offenses are a failure to comply with UEFA regulations from 2013-18 and the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules from 2015-18.

For the fifth offense, City is accused of breaching rules requiring clubs to “co-operate with and assist the Premier League with its investigations” from December 2018 to the present day.

City, the defending Premier League champion and a team owning some of the world’s top players like Erling Haaland and Kevin De Bruyne, could be at risk of severe punishment. The league’s rule book gives a disciplinary commission powers to impose a range of sanctions plus the wider scope of “such other penalty as it shall think fit.”

A large fine seems inevitable if the charges are proven. Also in play is a point deduction, a title nullified or even being expelled from the league, according to league rules.

City never disputed that the documents leaked by Der Spiegel were authentic, but has argued the evidence was stolen and reported out of context.

While City was under investigation by the Premier League, the club had a two-year ban from European club competitions overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2020 after UEFA ruled City committed “serious breaches” of financial fair play regulations from 2012-16. That case arose on the back of the leaked information, too.

City was not fully cleared of wrongdoing, though the court said some of the allegations were not proven or could not be judged because of a statute of limitations in UEFA rules. There are no such time limits on the finances under investigation by the Premier League.

CAS also fined City 10 million euros (then $11.3 million) for failing to cooperate with investigators. The club’s “blatant disregard” should be “strongly condemned,” the court’s judges said.

City has been transformed into an English soccer power since being bought in September 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family.

Under its Abu Dhabi ownership, City — which previously lived in the shadow of neighbor Manchester United — has won six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and six English League Cups.

The team is in second place in the Premier League midway through this season, five points behind Arsenal having played one game more.
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