Author: Ohart

Film critics unleashed overwhelmingly positive reviews on Tuesday of “Avengers: Endgame,” the highly anticipated final installment in a decade-long superhero story from Walt Disney’s Marvel Studios.

As of Tuesday afternoon, all but one of 56 “Endgame” reviews collected by the Rotten Tomatoes website were rated as positive.

USA Today’s Brian Truitt called the three-hour film “Marvel’s glorious greatest-hits package” with callbacks to previous adventures that will thrill fans who have faithfully followed characters such as Iron Man and Thor.

“It’s also a singular, sprawling and hugely satisfying tale that begins with a brutal, emotional gut punch and takes you on quite the trip with the original Avengers crew,” Truitt said.

Highest-grossing franchise

“Endgame” concludes a story that has unfolded over 21 previous films since 2007 and become the highest-grossing franchise in movie history. It picks up where last year’s “Avengers: Infinity War” left fans hanging when several beloved heroes appeared to turn to dust.

CNN’s Brian Lowry said “Endgame” delivered a worthy finale.

“The filmmakers have sought to reward movie-goers with a spectacle that’s epic in every way,” Lowry said.

“The overall journey not only produces several genuine surprises — no small feat in this context — but plenty of humor, with an assortment of lighter moments to augment the stir ring and, yes, emotional ones,” he added.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times said the movie provided the “sense of an ending,” even though many characters are expected to return in future films, and “a chance to appreciate what has been done before the timelines reset and we all get back to work.”

“We’ve lived with these characters and the actors playing them for more than a decade,” Scott wrote. “For the most part, it’s nice to see them again, and a little sad to say goodbye.”

Box office experts say “Endgame” may break the opening weekend record for ticket sales in the United States and Canada, which now stands at $257.7 million for “Infinity War.”
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Egypt’s government is drawing up a plan to turn over as many as 150 crumbling historic buildings to the private sector to refurbish and lease out for profit, the Minister of Public Enterprise said on Tuesday.

The plan could potentially save an eclectic mix of neo-classical, beaux arts, art nouveaux, art deco and early modern styles built mostly in the first half of the 20th century then nationalized in the early 1960s.

It could also revitalize important tourism districts in central Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said on the Suez Canal. The buildings have fallen into various degrees of disrepair for lack of funding and maintenance, with many tenants paying tiny sums for units that have remained rent controlled for more than half a century.

‘Revenue-sharing basis’

Public enterprise minister Hesham Tawfik said the government would follow the model of privately owned Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment, which has been slowly renovating 23 historic buildings it has bought in downtown Cairo.

“They take the buildings, they settle with individuals or companies who are renting these apartments, they do the necessary renovations, inside and outside, and they simply rent them to the private sector. And they are making some decent return on their investment,” Tawfik said.

“We intend to do this by offering parcels of buildings, and by parcels I mean four to five buildings per transaction, for the private sector to repeat what Ismaelia did, on a revenue-sharing basis,” he said at business conference.

The plan was being studied at the state Insurance Holding Co. which along with the state insurance company owns 350 buildings, 150 of which are classified as historic.

“Probably they will come up with something very soon to offer to private developers, who we will insist be Ismaelia-style, with the right social background to be able to make sure that the development is done at the right level,” Tawfik said.  

Repaying debts

The government was also preparing to sell about 2 million square meters of unused land owned by state holding companies to help pay back more than 38 billion Egyptian pounds ($2.22 billion) in debts owed to other public entities, he said.

These include the National Investment Bank, the Ministry of Petroleum, the Ministry of Electricity, pension funds and the tax authority.

Once paid, any extra proceeds will be used to finance restructuring plans for companies under the ministry, including 21 billion pounds for textile industry and 5 billion pounds for chemical and metallurgical industries, Tawfik said.

 
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German champion football club Bayern Munich has signed an agreement to open its first soccer school in Africa, locating it in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

FC Bayern Munich told VOA’s Horn of Africa Service that it is inspired by the young football players and fans in Ethiopia, which is ranked 150th worldwide, according to the international soccer governing body, FIFA.

“Two-thirds of the Ethiopian population is younger than 25 years. We will support the Ethiopian Football Federation (EFF) in terms of young development and coaches education programs,” Holger Quest, team leader of media operations at FC Bayern Munich, told VOA. 

Last week, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder, other state officials and FC Bayern executive board members traveled to Addis Ababa to sign the agreement.

Soeder told Ethiopian media the agreement would bring Bavarian expertise in football to the sports-hungry nation of Ethiopia. 

“That is a good basis for a promising partnership,” he said.

The international FC Bayern Youth Cup tournament took place in Nigeria in 2018 and 2019. The success of the tournament led to the idea to give young athletes around the world a way to showcase their talents, and include those players from disadvantaged areas.

FC Bayern Munich has developed many world-class players in their academy, including Thomas Mueller, Mats Hummels and Toni Kroos Kolgers. 

“We want to share our knowledge to help football grow across all continents and nations,” FC Bayern media head Quest said.

Speaking to VOA Horn by telephone from Addis Ababa, EFF President Esayas Jira said Ethiopia would benefit from the coaching and training to be offered by FC Bayern.

The soccer school would accept 30-40 young athletes ages of 8-10, with their training costs covered by Bayern Munich, Jira said.

“The kids would have a chance to join Bayern Munich youth academy” once they successfully completed school training,” he added. 

In the agreement, Bayern Munich said it would also finance the school training and education. FC Bayern coaches would lead youth coaches to train local players in Addis Ababa starting May 3, Jira told VOA.

FC Bayern’s club mission states their programs help equip children with the tools to play football, and combines FC Bayern strategy of football with the lessons of “our philosophy and mentality, which typifies qualities like ambition, respect, ‘fair play’ and a strong team spirit that are beneficial both on and off the pitch.”

Bayern Munich’s football school provide young athletes three days of weekly training “to give youngsters a sense of what it is like to train like a professional football (player),” Jira said.

The FC Bayern club also hopes the new school increases exposure to the team in Africa.

When Bayern officials and Bavarian Prime Minister Soeder met with Ethiopia’s first female president, Sahle-Work Zewde, to discuss the details of the agreement, they presented her with a Bayern Munich shirt with “Sahle-Work 1” on the back.

FC Bayern has also established football schools in China, Thailand, Japan, Singapore and the United States as well. 
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Around half of Americans favor religion playing a greater role in U.S. society, while 18 percent oppose that idea, according to a Pew Research Center study published Monday.

Despite there being a separation of church and state, religion plays a significant part in daily U.S. life: the president traditionally is sworn in using a Bible, while “In God We Trust” is printed on bank notes.

France, Sweden and the Netherlands, meanwhile, posted almost opposite results: 47 percent, 51 percent and 45 percent respectively were opposed to religion playing a key role in society.

Among the 27 countries surveyed in 2018, France (20 percent) and Japan (15 percent) were the countries with the lowest proportion of citizens favoring strengthening religion’s role in society.

Indonesia (85 percent), Kenya (74 percent) and Tunisia (69 percent) came out as the countries most in favor of a bigger place for religion.

The study did not make a distinction between different religions.

In the U.S., the proportion rose to 61 percent among people aged 50 and over, but dropped to 39 percent among 18- to 29-year-olds.

The study was carried out with a representative sample of at least 1,000 people in each country.
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It’s a cold, windy day in Washington, D.C., but that’s not stopping a group of about 20 girls from taking a 5-mile hike in Rock Creek Park.

As the girls in their khaki uniforms walk through the woods, they said they are happy to be in the first all-girls Boy Scout troop in the nation’s capital. Olivia Hurley, whose brother is a Boy Scout, said she always wanted to be one. 

“I think I’m going to get life skills and community service opportunities,” said the teenager. “I like being with all girls because it gives us an opportunity to learn and empower each other.”

The Washington troop was formed on Feb. 1, when the 109-year-old Boy Scouts of America allowed girls ages 11 to 17 to join all activities. Now called Scouts BSA, boys and girls are placed in separate troops. Girls were able to join the younger Cub Scouts program last year. 

​According to the Boy Scouts of America, approximately 15,000 girls have joined about 2,000 new Scouts BSA troops in the United States. There are about 40 troops in the Washington metropolitan area.​

Outdoor focus

The girls in the Washington troop said they like the challenge of learning and doing the same things as the boys, including leadership and outdoor activities. Today, they are learning to build a campfire, which Sophie Schell discovered is easier said than done as the wind kept extinguishing the flames. 

“I thought it would be a cool opportunity to practice my leadership skills, so I get better at leading and being more in the outdoors,” she said. “I also know some pocketknife safety, and I’ve swung an ax, which is pretty awesome.”

Dressed in a traditional Boy Scouts uniform, Scoutmaster Craig Burkhardt is leading the girls. Scouting is a tradition in his family, and he hopes it will continue with his daughter, who asked to join Scouts BSA. 

“Scouting is a very adaptable program for girls,” he said, despite critics who think girls should not be in the Boy Scouts. “The girls in my troop jumped into it with more enthusiasm than I’ve ever seen in any of the boy troops.”

Girl Scouts program

Perhaps not surprisingly, Girl Scouts of the USA is critical of the all-girl Scouts BSA troops, calling Girl Scouts the world’s single best leadership development program for girls. The group has a trademark infringement lawsuit against the Boy Scouts of America for changing Boy Scouts to Scouts BSA.

Samantha Hermoza said she joined Scouts BSA because Boy Scouts do a lot more outdoor activities than Girl Scouts.

“The Girl Scouts is a good organization,” she said, “but I prefer being outdoors with nature.”

In the Washington suburb of Arlington, Virginia, another girls troop is reciting the Scouts BSA oath at their monthly meeting in a local church basement. Today, they are learning first aid, how to properly fold an American flag, and how to tie different kinds of knots.

‘Pioneers’

Scoutmaster Meghan Thomas said the girls have jumped into the program. 

“They’re excited to be pioneers by being part of an all-girl troop,” she said.

Her daughter Corbett joined Scouts BSA, but also remains in the Girl Scouts. 

“They both have different activities that they do, so I enjoy both of them,” Corbett explained. “And I didn’t want to quit one just to join the other.”

Her sister Sophie preferred Scouts BSA. 

“It gives more opportunity to show that just because we’re girls, we can go hiking or camping, and things like that,” Sophie said.

Assistant Scoutmaster Mark Sprulls hopes each of his three daughters will become a coveted Eagle Scout, which is the highest rank in scouting, like him. 

“I want them to have the same opportunity and learn the same types of skills that I learned. I would like them to be confident in themselves, and be able to handle any situation, and not think that they have to rely on a man to help them,” he said.
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Nigeria’s women’s football [soccer] team, the Super Falcons, has dominated the African Women’s Championship, winning nine titles since 1991. But the players have complained of low salaries, delayed paychecks, and being treated as second-class players to the men’s team.

Thirty-one-year-old Toochukwu Oluehi is the Number One goalkeeper on the Nigerian women’s national team – the Super Falcons. 

The team has won almost every African Women’s Championship since 1991, taking nine out of 11 recognized titles. 

But despite their record, Oluehi and her teammates say they are too often overlooked and underpaid. 

“We’re the people bringing glory to the land. So, they should look into the females and try and concentrate more on the females and leave the boys. The boys are earning more than the girls,” Oluehi said.

The women’s team is more dependent on government funding than the men’s team, the Super Eagles, which has won three African titles. The men receive more corporate sponsorships and higher attendance at matches.

Even so, the women are not happy with the pay inequity. 

Players on the men’s team receive bonuses of up to $5,000 each for winning a big match, while members of the women’s team rarely see bonuses of more than $1,500. The men also receive higher daily stipends.

The Sports Ministry’s Usman Haruna says while public demand and corporate sponsorship affect salaries, the women are better paid than they used to be. 

“I know what it used to be for the Falcons in terms of remuneration after a game. But this present administration, to be sincere with you, has lifted them from nowhere to where they are, which is by far more comfortable and better in the African context,” Haruna said.

Despite the challenges at home, Nigeria’s Super Falcons are preparing for this summer’s Women’s World Cup in France, says head coach Thomas Dennerby.

“Everything is good, all players are fit, no injuries at all, and that is a good start,” Dennerby said.

Nigeria’s women’s team has been to every World Cup since 1991, but only once made it to the quarterfinals. 
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Prominent Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian has died in her home in Tehran at the age of 97, the semiofficial ISNA news agency reported Sunday.

Farmanfarmaian, known for her mirror mosaics and reverse glass paintings, had her first solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2015.

The Monir Museum, devoted to her life and work, opened in the Iranian capital in 2017 at the historic Negarestan Museum Park Gardens. The museum displays 51 works by Farmanfarmaian.

“All my inspiration has come from Iran. It has always been my first love,” Farmanfarmaian told The Guardian in 2017 on the eve of the opening of the museum.

“When I traveled the deserts and the mountains, throughout my younger years, all that I saw and felt is now reflected in my art,” she said.

Born in Ghazvin in northwestern Iran, she studied at the Faculty of Fine Art of Tehran University.

She later traveled to New York, where she attended Parsons School for Design and Cornell University.

Farmanfarmaian’s art has been exhibited in Iran, Europe, the United States and in the Middle East.

She was forced into exile following the 1979 revolution, when some of her works and art collection were confiscated.

She returned permanently to Iran in 2004.

With reporting by The Guardian, ISNA, The New York Times and Harper’s Bazaar.
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It is a tradition in some families for boys to join the Boy Scouts of America. And now it’s becoming a tradition for girls, too. In February, girls were officially allowed to join all activities in the Boy Scouts, now called Scouts BSA to reflect the change. But the girls and boys are in separate troops. VOA’s Deborah Block visited two all-girl troops in the Washington area to see how they are liking scouts so far.
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Adele and her husband, Simon Konecki, have separated.

The pop singer’s representatives Benny Tarantini and Carl Fysh confirmed the news Friday in a statement to The Associated Press.

“Adele and her partner have separated,” the emailed statement said. “They are committed to raising their son together lovingly. As always they ask for privacy. There will be no further comment.”

Adele gave birth to their son, Angelo, in 2012.

The Grammy-winning British superstar has been private about her relationship, but confirmed she married Konecki when she won album of the year at the 2017 Grammys. In her acceptance speech, she said: “Grammys, I appreciate it. The Academy, I love you. My manager, my husband and my son — you’re the only reason I do it.”

Konecki co-founded Life Water, an eco-friendly brand of bottled water in the U.K. Funds from the company assists the charity that Konecki runs, Drop4Drop, which provides clean water to countries in need.

A representative for Konecki could not be reached.
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An iconic temple central to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints faith will close for four years for a major renovation to help it withstand earthquakes and be more welcoming to visitors, leaders said Friday. 

Authorities are also keeping a careful eye on construction plans after a devastating fire this week at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris.

The Salt Lake Temple will close Dec. 29 to update the stately granite building and surrounding square, including elements that emphasize the life of Jesus Christ, church President Russell M. Nelson said. 

“We promise that you will love the results,” he said.

​Like The Vatican, Jerusalem

The building and square at the heart of Utah’s capital city is one of the state’s top tourist destinations, though only church members in good standing can go inside the building used for marriages and other religious ceremonies. 

When the project is done in 2024, the faith widely known as the Mormon church will host an open house to give outsiders the first glimpse of the 126-year-old temple’s interior in more than a century. 

A new visitors’ center and removal of a wall around the square in favor of a fence will also visually open up the flower-lined space to visitors walking by. 

 

“We want to them to think of Salt Lake just as easily as they think of Jerusalem or The Vatican as a place where Christianity really has its heart,” Bishop Dean M. Davies said.

Increased risk of fire

The work that will bring scaffolding, cranes and occasional road closures to downtown Salt Lake City also carries increased fire risk. Authorities are taking extra caution in light of the damage to Norte Dame by crafting a plan that includes a 24-hour fire watch, limiting welding and grinding to certain areas, and plenty of fire extinguishers. 

Investigators are still determining the exact cause of the fire at Notre Dame, which was under renovation when the blaze started on Monday. 

The Salt Lake Temple’s earthquake-mitigation project will be a major undertaking, and involve excavating underneath the temple to install a base-isolation system that will prevent damage by largely decoupling the building from the earth. 

The area sees seismic activity, including a series of small quakes that have occurred in recent months. Plans for this project, though, stretch back more than a decade.

Much of the square will remain open during the construction, including the building where the faith’s famed Tabernacle Choir sings.

​Serving 86 languages

In a nod to the 16-million-member church’s increasingly global membership, the project will also allow the temple to serve people in over 86 languages, rather than only English. 

Leaders declined to say how much the project will cost.

Temples aren’t used for regular Sunday services, but thousands of church members visit every year. It is one of the most popular destinations for weddings. While it’s closed, local members will go to a number of other nearby Utah temples. 

More colorful palette

After it reopens, changes will include a return to a more colorful Victorian-era palette rather than the mostly white style adopted during another extensive renovation in the 1960s.

The faith’s temples have rooms where couples are “sealed” in marriage, chambers for ceremonies on theology and morality and celestial rooms used for prayer and reflection. 

They also have ornate baptismal fonts designed for use in ceremonies to baptize dead relatives, though there’s been occasional controversy over members posthumously baptizing public figures against church policy. The faith teaches proxy baptisms give the deceased the choice to join the faith in the afterlife. 

New temples are typically open to the public for a brief time before being dedicated, after which they’re reserved for members only. 

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert said the renovation will likely bring more congestion downtown, but he’s hoping curious tourists will keep visiting during construction.

“People think of The Church of Jesus Latter-day Saints and most people think of this temple,” said Herbert, who is a member of the faith. The renovation “shows the vitality of Salt Lake City. We’re not closing things down. We’re expanding and growing.”
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A new film called “The Burial of Kojo” is a tale of family tensions with an overlay of magical realism. Set in Ghana, it is the first feature from Blitz Bazawule, a Ghana-born rapper and director. As Mike O’Sullivan reports from Los Angeles, the film got its start as a crowd-funded project and is being widely distributed on Netflix.
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A new film called “The Burial of Kojo” is a tale of family tensions with an overlay of magical realism. Set in Ghana, it is first feature from Samuel “Blitz” Bazawule, an Ghana-born musician and director who wanted to avoid the cliches of many films set in Africa, themes of war and famine. 

Bazawule maintained creative control of the project by using the crowd-funding site Kickstarter, and he hired a Ghanaian cast and local crew. The Burial of Kojo is now reaching a global audience on Netflix.

Bazawule lives in Brooklyn but says the story is reminiscent of the tales that he heard as a child in Ghana. It concerns a girl, Esi, her father, Kojo, and his brother, Kwabena.

“One of the brothers goes missing on a mining expedition,” Bazawule explains, “and his daughter has to go on the magical journey to rescue him.” The quest lands Esi in a dreamlike world.

Rapper and filmmaker

Bazawule, known as Blitz from his days as a rapper, wanted to move from musical to visual storytelling, and this film includes both. He wrote its script and composed the film’s soundtrack. With several short films already under his belt, this was his feature debut.

The project was initially self-funded, and he completed the film by raising $78,000 through the website Kickstarter. That “gave us the autonomy that we needed,” Bazawule said. “We didn’t have anyone looking over our shoulder, we didn’t have anyone telling us what to do, what not to do. It was always us deciding with ourselves, does this make sense for this narrative?”

Showing on Netflix

The film is being shown on the streaming service Netflix as part of a distribution deal with ARRAY, a Hollywood company founded by filmmaker Ava DuVernay, that highlights the work of filmmakers of color and women directors.

“Netflix is in 190 countries, so that’s a lot of places where you can find beautiful work,” said ARRAY’s Tilane Jones.

It’s good for movie lovers, Bazawule added, and international filmmakers are also finding an audience. 

“You build credibility for the stories that you’re telling,” he said, with fresh faces and new voices bringing art from countries like Ghana to the screen.
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“Real Housewives of New Jersey” husband Joe Giudice has lost his appeal to avoid deportation to Italy.

His attorneys said Thursday they are “extremely disappointed” by the Board of Immigration’s decision and have appealed to the federal circuit court in Philadelphia.

Giudice and his wife, Teresa, pleaded guilty in 2014 to financial fraud. Giudice is an Italian citizen who was brought to the U.S. as a baby and says he wasn’t aware he wasn’t an American citizen. 

 

Teresa Giudice served nearly a year in prison and was freed in December 2015. Joe Giudice was released from prison last month and was sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in southeast Pennsylvania.

 
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As the war in Yemen continues to inflict suffering on its millions of civilians, a Yemeni graffiti artist is taking her art to the streets of Sanaa to draw images of war and hunger in the conflict-torn country.  

 

Haifa Subay, 28, is weaponizing her art to disseminate messages of peace at home and to try to bring the world’s attention to the toll that war has taken on Yemenis, particularly women and children. 

 

“I wanted to send a message of peace, a plea to stop the fighting and alleviate the suffering caused by the ongoing war,” Subay told VOA from her home in Sanaa. 

 

Subay said her art campaign focuses on various humanitarian and social consequences of the conflict, including famine, land mines, displacement, child soldiers, child marriage and domestic violence against women. She chose Sanaa’s most populated areas to make sure her striking art is seen by as many people as possible.  

​’Just a Leg’

 

One of her popular works, called “Just a Leg,” shows a one-legged boy who is holding his amputated leg, the result of a land mine accident. Another artwork, “Child of Bones,” portrays a mother holding her malnourished son. 

 

“All of my murals are of real people and real situations,” Subay said,  and each one “has a story behind it representing an aspect of the conflict. My favorite mural is of the child victim of land mines holding a leg he lost in an explosion.”

The war in Yemen started in 2015 when a Saudi-led coalition entered the conflict in support of the internationally recognized government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi after Iran-aligned Houthi rebels staged a takeover of Sanaa and large swaths of Yemeni territory. Since then, the conflict has morphed into a proxy war between neighboring Saudi Arabia and Iran.  

 

According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a database tracking violence in the country, the conflict has, since early 2016, caused 67,600 deaths; 7,000 of those victims were civilians.   

  

The United Nations has warned that Yemen is facing the world’s most urgent humanitarian crisis, with two-thirds of all districts in the country in a “pre-famine” state and an estimated 80 percent of the population in need of some form of humanitarian assistance.  

​Yemeni women  

 

The agency said women and girls are paying the heaviest price in the conflict, with many being prevented from going to school or even having access to public spaces. 

 

According to a report released in February by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), the conflict has forced about 4.3 million Yemenis to flee from their homes, with almost half of the displaced being women and girls under age 18.  

 

“With limited shelter options, displaced women and girls tend to suffer most from lack of privacy, threats to safety and limited access to basic services, making them ever more vulnerable to violence and abuse,” UNFPA reported. 

 

As a female artist, Subay said she wanted to use her work as a tool to express women’s suffering due to the war and their abilities to make positive change when they are given an opportunity.  

 

“When I started painting on the walls of my city, some people were surprised by seeing a woman drawing graffiti on the street. But my illustrations of war touch the hearts of every Yemeni,” Subay told VOA. 

 

“With time, the gazes of surprise have turned into support and encouragement,” she said, adding that she has been able to change the attitude of many toward women’s abilities.  

 

Similarly, she hopes her murals can also help promote peace and respect for civilian lives as warring sides seek a compromise to end over four years of war.  

 

​Peace talks 

 

The Saudi-backed government and Iran-backed Houthis reached a U.N.-backed cease-fire agreement in December that demanded all parties pull back from the main ports and parts of the strategic city of Hodeida. The agreement, however, fell short of its goals as the parties started accusing each other of using the cease-fire to prepare for war.  

 

The U.N. on Monday said efforts were under way to get the warring parties to the negotiating table again.  

 

“I hoped for a peace that alleviates the suffering of Yemenis, but my hope is fading as the conflict is deepening my people’s agony. … My country’s grave suffering is a wound in my heart,” Subay said. 
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Beyonce has surprised her fans by releasing a soundtrack to her Netflix documentary “Homecoming.” 

 

The 37-year-old superstar debuted “Homecoming: The Live Album” Wednesday, the same day a Netflix documentary exploring her historic performances at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was released.

She was the first black woman to headline the event in which she paid tribute to America’s historically black colleges.

The album features 40 tracks including “Single Ladies” and “Crazy in Love.” There’s also a special version of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” by her oldest daughter, Blue Ivy. 

 

It is available through most major streaming services.

Beyonce first surprised fans when she unexpectedly dropped her fifth studio album, “Beyonce,” in 2013.
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France on Wednesday announced it would invite architects from around the world to submit designs for replacing the spire of Notre-Dame cathedral after a devastating blaze, as the government braced for a mammoth restoration challenge.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the contest would decide whether the monument should have a new spire at all and if so, whether it should be identical to the fallen 19th-century model or be a wholly new design.

The world looked on in horror Monday as flames engulfed the 850-year-old gothic masterpiece seen as encapsulating the soul of Paris and the spire came crashing down.

Explaining that having no new spire at all was an option, Philippe noted that Notre-Dame had been without a steeple for part of its history.

“The international contest will settle the question of whether we should build a new spire, whether we should rebuild the spire that was designed and built by [Eugene] Viollet-Le-Duc, in identical fashion, or whether we should… endow Notre-Dame cathedral with a new spire adapted to the techniques and the challenges of our era.”

Philippe described the task of rebuilding it as “a huge challenge and historic responsibility,” a day after President Emmanuel Macron said the entire restoration should be completed in just five years.

The bells of French cathedrals were to ring out at 1650 GMT on Wednesday to mark the exact moment when the fire started on Monday.

Macron had vowed to rebuild the iconic monument, the real star of Victor Hugo’s “Hunchback of Notre Dame” by 2024 when France hosts the summer Olympics.

“We can do it,” he said Tuesday, calling France “a nation of builders.”

On Wednesday afternoon, he was set to chair a meeting of senior government, church, conservation and Paris city officials to launch the reconstruction process.

Rebate debate

No sooner had firefighters extinguished the flames than pledges of donations towards restoring France’s best-loved monument, which attracted 12 million visitors in 2018, began to pour in.

Within 24 hours, the pledges had reached more than 800 million euros ($900 million), with French business magnates and corporations jostling to outshine each other with displays of generosity.

But the slew of announcements raised eyebrows in France, with some leftist politicians arguing that the ultra-rich could best help protect the country’s cultural heritage by fully paying their taxes — or helping the “human cathedral” of people in need.

The huge tax breaks available on the donations also caused some unease, prompting Francois-Henri Pinault, the billionaire CEO of the Kering luxury goods empire, to announce he would forfeit his rebate.

“The donation for Notre-Dame of Paris will not be the object of any tax deduction. Indeed, the Pinault family considers that it is out of the question to make French taxpayers shoulder the burden,” Pinault said in a statement.

Pinault had led the pledges of donations starting Monday night with a promise of 100 million euros.

Billionaire Bernard Arnault and his LVMH luxury conglomerate, Total oil company and cosmetics giant L’Oreal also each pledged 100 million euros or more, while US tech giant Apple said it would give an unspecified amount.

French corporations are eligible for a 60-percent tax rebate on cultural donations.

The government said Wednesday that figure would remain unchanged, but increased the rebate to 75 percent on individual donations for Notre-Dame of up to 1,000 euros.

Bigger private donations will continue to qualify for the standard 66 percent rebate.

Rebuilding for 2024 Olympics

On Tuesday evening, Macron set out an ambitious timeline for restoring the landmark that took nearly two centuries to build and which has played a role in many of the defining moments of French history.

“We will rebuild the cathedral even more beautifully and I want it to be finished within five years,” Macron said in an address to the nation, in which he hailed how the fire had shown the capacity of France to mobilize and unite.

In a sign of the monument’s resilience, the copper rooster that topped its spire was found Tuesday in the rubble of the roof, “battered but apparently restorable” according to a spokesperson for the culture ministry.

The walls, bell towers and the most famous circular stained-glass windows also remain intact.

But the floor of the nave was left strewn with blackened roof beams and chunks of the collapsed upper vaulting.

Experts have warned that full restoration could take longer than five years, with one of the biggest tasks involving replacing the precious oak “forest” that propped up the roof.

“I’d say decades,” Eric Fischer, head of the foundation in charge of restoring the 1,000-year-old Strasbourg cathedral, told AFP.

‘Long, complex’ investigation

Investigators trying to determine the cause of the blaze are questioning workers who were renovating the steeple, an operation suspected of accidentally triggering the blaze.

The police have already spoken to around 30 people from five different construction companies.

Public prosecutor Remy Heitz has said the investigation threatened to be “long and complex”.

Meanwhile, work to secure the cathedral continues.

Junior interior minister Laurent Nunez said Tuesday that although “some weaknesses” had been identified, overall the building was “holding up OK”.
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A long-hidden trove of unpublished works by Franz Kafka could soon be revealed following a decade-long battle over his literary estate that has drawn comparisons to some of his surreal tales.

A district court in Zurich upheld Israeli verdicts in the case last week, ruling that several safe deposit boxes in the Swiss city could be opened and their contents shipped to Israel’s National Library.

At stake are untouched papers that could shed new light on one of literature’s darkest figures, a German-speaking Bohemian Jew from Prague whose cultural legacy has been hotly contested between Israel and Germany.

What’s in the vaults?

Though the exact content of the vaults remains unknown, experts have speculated the cache could include endings to some of Kafka’s major works, many of which were unfinished when they were published after his death.

Israel’s Supreme Court has stripped an Israeli family of its collection of Kafka’s manuscripts, which were hidden in Israeli bank vaults and in a squalid, cat-filled Tel Aviv apartment. But the Swiss ruling would complete the acquisition of nearly all his known works, after years of lengthy legal battles over their rightful owners.

Kafkaesque saga

The saga could have been penned by Kafka himself, whose name has become known as an adjective to describe absurd situations involving inscrutable legal processes. Kafka was known for his tales of everyman protagonists crushed by mysterious authorities or twisted by unknown shames. In “The Trial,” for example, a bank clerk is put through excruciating court proceedings without ever being told the charges against him.

“The absurdity of the trials is that it was over an estate that nobody knew what it contained. This will hopefully finally resolve these questions,” said Benjamin Balint, a research fellow at Jerusalem’s Van Leer Institute and the author of “Kafka’s Last Trial,” which chronicles the affair. “The legal process may be ending, but the questions of his cultural belonging and inheritance will remain with us for a very long time.”

Manuscripts not burned

Kafka bequeathed his writings to Max Brod, his longtime friend, editor and publisher, shortly before his death from tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40. He instructed his protege to burn it all unread.

Brod ignored his wishes and published most of what was in his possession — including the novels “The Trial,” “The Castle” and “Amerika.” Those works made the previously little-known Kafka posthumously one of the most celebrated and influential writers of the 20th century.

But Brod, who smuggled some of the manuscripts to pre-state Israel when he fled the Nazis in 1938, didn’t publish everything. Upon his death in 1968, Brod left his personal secretary, Esther Hoffe, in charge of his literary estate and instructed her to transfer the Kafka papers to an academic institution.

Instead, for the next four decades, Hoffe kept the papers stashed away and sold some of the items for hefty sums. In 1988, for instance, Hoffe auctioned off the original manuscript of “The Trial” at Sotheby’s in London. It went for $1.8 million to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, north of Stuttgart.

When Hoffe died in 2008 at age 101, she left the collection to her two daughters, Eva Hoffe and Ruth Wiesler, both Holocaust survivors like herself, who considered Brod a father figure and his archive their rightful inheritance. Both have since also passed away, leaving Wiesler’s daughters to continue fighting for the remainder of the collection.

Legitimate inheritance or cultural assets?

Jeshayah Etgar, a lawyer for the daughters, downplayed the significance of the potential findings in Zurich, saying they were likely replicas of manuscripts Hoffe had already sold. Regardless, he said the ruling was the continuation of a process in which “individual property rights were trampled without any legal justification.” He said his clients legitimately inherited the works and called the state seizure of their property “disgraceful” and “first degree robbery.”

Israel’s National Library claims Kafka’s papers as “cultural assets” that belong to the Jewish people. Toward the end of his life, Kafka considered leaving Prague and moving to pre-state Israel. He took Hebrew lessons with a Jerusalem native who eventually donated her pupil’s vocabulary notebook to the library. In recent years, the library also took possession of several other manuscripts the courts had ordered Hoffe’s descendants to turn over.

“We welcome the judgment of the court in Switzerland, which matched all the judgments entered previously by the Israeli courts,” said David Blumberg, chairman of the Israel National Library, a nonprofit and non-governmental body. “The judgment of the Swiss court completes the preparation of the National Library of Israel to accept to entire literary estate of Max Brod, which will be properly handled and will be made available to the wider public in Israel and the world.”

Other scholars question Israel’s adoption of Kafka, noting that he was conflicted about his own Judaism. The German Literature Archive, for instance, has sided with Hoffe’s heirs and aimed to purchase the collection itself, arguing the German-language writings belong in Germany. Dietmar Jaegle, an archive official, said he would not comment on the Zurich verdict as he had not yet seen it.

Balint cautioned that the contents of the hidden archive may not live up to everyone’s expectations.

“It is very unlikely we are going to discover an unknown Kafka masterpiece in there, but these are things of value,” Balint said, noting the fierce competition over any original Kafka material. “There is something about the uncanny aura of Kafka that is attracted to all this.”
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A Rwandan albino woman has appeared in a music video, attracting widespread attention and helping alleviate the stigma of albinos in Africa. Claudine Mukarusine has described the video as a spark of light in a life filled with discrimination and fear.

Mukarusine is a 28-year-old graduate from the University of Rwanda with Albinism, a genetic condition that makes her hair, skin and eyes pale.

In parts of Africa, Albino body parts are considered to have black magic that brings luck and wealth. Their graves are dug up and bodies stolen, while the living face constant fear of abduction and murder.

But here in Rwanda, Mukarusine has become famous.

She shows a reporter a music video by Rhythm and Blues singer James Ruhumuriza, known as King James, which she acted in. The music video, for the song called “Igitekerezo,” meaning “Ideas,” shows King James serenading Mukarusine in the city and countryside.

In Rwanda it has gone viral.

She says this video played a very big role in her life because many people have come to realize that people with Albinism can do something that is good and appreciated.

Albinos killed

The United Nations says nearly 100 albinos were killed in Tanzania alone in the past two decades, including at least 10 children whose bodies were found in January.

For Mukarusine, the song released in January is a spark of light in her dark days of fear that she too could be killed for being albino.

She says on the first day she heard about this threat, she cried a whole day in class. She used to cry also in her bedroom, it strongly affected her, Mukarusine said. She used to worry so much, wondering if she is going to die. But she couldn’t share her sorrow with anyone, Mukarusine said, and it affected her studies.

A good message

Singer King James says he composed the song after watching accounts of albinos being killed in Rwanda’s neighboring countries.

“That’s when I decided, that I can feature her so that I can give a good message to people that even if they are albinos, they can do anything we can do, anything they want to do,” he said.

Mukarusine works as a mentor at the National Union of Disability Organizations of Rwanda. She helps three groups of 300 people learn about saving money and accessing finance.

She has hope and confidence that her future will be good, and she will have a family, Mukarusine said. She will contribute in developing the lives of people with albinism and other disabilities in general, she says, as well as her family and country.

There are no accurate statistics on the number of albinos in Rwanda. But Mukarusine hopes her music video fame raises attention to their plight and helps remove some of the stigma and fear for other albinos as it did for her.
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A young Rwandan woman, who is an albino, has appeared in a music video that has attracted widespread attention and has helped alleviate the fears and stigma attached to albinos in Africa. Claudine Mukarusine has described the video as a spark of light in a life filled with discrimination and fear. Eugene UWIMANA has more from Kayonza, Eastern Rwanda.
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A blustering bureaucrat fills a form out with your personal details and hands you a badge declaring you an inspector qualified to police Communist-run Cuba’s cultural sector under a controversial new decree.

This interactive performance by Cuban artist Leandro Feal, 33, is one of the politically charged artworks in a parallel exhibit on the sidelines of Havana’s 13th Biennial arts celebration that kicked off this weekend.

The exhibit underscores both simmering tensions in Cuba’s arts scene and artists’ growing independence from the state, which has dominated all aspects of society since the 1959 revolution, including promoting culture.

The official biennial program of more than 300 works by artists from 52 countries is taking over Havana’s museums, galleries and open spaces, including its seafront, until May 12.

Meanwhile, the parallel program of exhibits is sprawling — often in private studios and galleries — and reaches into the most remote neighborhoods.

The growth of tourism and the private sector over the past decade, as well as greater freedom to travel and internet access, have enabled artists to work more independently of state institutions.

While most of these exhibits are not explicitly political, artists say the greater independence allows them to address politically sensitive issues more freely.

“The biennial at the end of the day is a kind of mirror of Cuban society where the independent scene is growing,” said Abel Gonzalez Fernandez, 27, curator of the group show that includes Feal’s performance and works by some of Cuba’s top young artists, like Reynier Leyva Novo.

Some say Cuba’s cultural institutions are ideologically outdated and too strapped for cash to promote them sufficiently. The so-called biennial, impressive as it is, was last held four years ago.

The power of Decree 349 

Gonzalez Fernandez and others believe the government last year introduced Decree 349 partly to rein them in. It gives inspectors the right to shut down exhibits and performances deemed to violate Cuba’s revolutionary values.

The government says the legislation targets offensive and mediocre content. But it agreed in December to revise the accompanying regulations after broad outcry, and since then, it has not expressed itself again on the topic.

“They tried to impose a moratorium on the topic, but we have artists who are getting imprisoned,” said Feal.

Self-proclaimed “artivist” Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who led a vocal campaign against Decree 349, was arrested Friday after staging a small but politically charged performance in his neighborhood.

In the show, competitors carrying the flag of Cuba’s old-time foe, the United States, ran a race, in homage to the Cuban who interrupted Havana’s mass May Day march in 2017 by running in front of it waving the Stars and Stripes.

Otero Alcantara told Reuters he had been briefly detained a week earlier and warned not to stage his planned performance. He was released Monday.

Rights groups say Cuba often uses short-term detentions to repress public criticism.

Asked by Reuters about the arrest, the head of Cuba’s National Council of Visual Arts, Norma Rodriguez, said at a news conference: “As far as I know he is an activist, not an artist.”

‘Testing the limits of what’s possible’

Cuba considers dissidents to be mercenaries in the pay of the United States trying to subvert the government. A few other artists who have protested Decree 349 say they have also been harassed by authorities.

Some supporters of the Cuban government accuse activist artists of trying to boost their cachet or get offered asylum through altercations with the state.

A top cultural official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Decree 349 had nothing to do with the biennial and described it as an inclusive event showing the work of several artists who had publicly criticized it.

Cuban artists who are critical of the government have often used the biennial — which attracts international collectors, gallery owners and critics — to raise awareness of the restraints on freedom of expression in Cuba.

“We are testing the limits of what’s possible,” said Gonzalez Fernandez.

Tania Bruguera, one of Cuba’s most famous living artists, who has had frequent run-ins with authorities, said she would not participate in this year’s biennial because the government was using it to “clean its international image in the wake of the campaign against Decree 349.”
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The fire that tore through Notre-Dame cathedral was probably caused by accident, French prosecutors said on Tuesday after firefighters doused the last flames in the ruins overnight and the nation grieved for the destruction of one of its symbols.

More than 400 firemen were needed to tame the inferno that consumed the roof and collapsed the spire of the eight-centuries-old cathedral. They worked through the night to extinguish the fire some 14 hours after it began.

Paris public prosecutor Remy Heitz said there was no obvious indication the fire was arson. Fifty people were working on what would be a long and complex investigation. One firefighter was injured but no one else was hurt in the blaze which began after the building was closed to the public for the evening.

From the outside, the imposing bell towers and outer walls, with their vast flying buttresses, still stood firm, but the insides and the upper structure were eviscerated by the blaze.

Firefighters examined the gothic facade and could be seen walking atop the belfries as police kept the area in lockdown.

Investigators will not be able to enter the cathedral’s blackened nave until experts are satisfied its stone walls withstood the heat and the building is structurally sound.

The fire swiftly ripped through the cathedral’s timbered roof supports, where workmen had been carrying out extensive renovations to the spire’s wooden frame.

The Paris prosecutor has opened an investigation into “involuntary destruction by fire.” Police on Tuesday began questioning the workers involved in the restoration, the prosecutor’s office said.

Hundreds of stunned onlookers had lined the banks of the Seine river late into the night as the fire raged, reciting prayers and singing liturgical music in harmony as they stood in vigil.

“Yesterday we thought the whole cathedral would collapse. Yet this morning she is still standing, valiant, despite everything. It is a sign of hope,” said Sister Marie Aimee, a nun who had hurried to a nearby church to pray as the fire spread.

It was at Notre-Dame that Napoleon was made emperor in 1804, Pope Pius X beatified Joan of Arc in 1909 and former presidents Charles de Gaulle and Francois Mitterrand were mourned.

Messages of condolence flooded in from around the world.

Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, was praying for those affected, the Vatican said, adding: “Notre-Dame will always remain – and we have seen this in these hours — a place where believers and non-believers can come together in the most dramatic moments of French history.”

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth expressed deep sadness while her son and heir Prince Charles said he was “utterly heartbroken.”

Vow to rebuild

President Emmanuel Macron promised to rebuild Notre-Dame, considered among the finest examples of European Gothic architecture, visited by more than 13 million people a year.

Notre-Dame is owned by the state. It has been at the center of a years-long row between the nation and the Paris archdiocese over who should finance badly needed restoration work to collapsed balustrades, crumbling gargoyles and cracked facades.

It was too early to estimate the cost of the damage, said the heritage charity Fondation du Patrimoine, but it is likely to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

The rival billionaire owners of France’s two biggest luxury fashion empires, Francois-Henri Pinault of Kering and Bernard Arnault of LVMH, pledged 100 million euros and 200 million euros to the restoration respectively. Oil company Total pledged 100 million. The city of Paris said it would provide 50 million.

Paolo Violini, a restoration specialist for Vatican museums, said the pace at which the fire spread through the cathedral had been stunning.

“We are used to thinking about them as eternal simply because they have been there for centuries, or a thousand years, but the reality is they are very fragile,” Violini said.

Human chain

The company carrying out the renovation works when the blaze broke out said it would cooperate fully with the investigation “All I can tell you is that at the moment the fire began none of my employees were on the site. We respected all procedures,” Julien Le Bras, a representative of family firm Le Bras Freres.

Officials breathed a sigh of relief that many relics and artworks had been saved. At one point, firefighters, policemen and municipal workers formed a human chain to remove the treasures, including a centuries-old crown of thorns made from reeds and gold, and the tunic believed to have been worn by Saint Louis, a 13th century king of France.

“Notre-Dame was our sister, it is so sad, we are all mourning,” said Parisian Olivier Lebib. “I have lived with her for 40 years. Thank God that the stone structure has withstood the fire.”
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The fire that devastated Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Monday prompted fund-raising appeals in the United States, as people horrified by the blaze began making commitments to restore a global landmark even before the flames were extinguished.

The New York-based French Heritage Society and the Go Fund Me crowdsourcing platform were among the first to offer help for a cathedral that is a must-see destination for visitors to Paris from all over the world.

French President Emmanuel Macron said an international campaign would be launched to raise funds for the rebuilding of Notre Dame Cathedral.

The French Heritage Society, an American non-profit group dedicated to preserving French architectural and cultural treasures, launched a web page on Monday to raise money for the cathedral’s restoration.

“Notre Dame is obviously an architectural marvel and most certainly a monument that should be restored,” Jennifer Herlein, the executive director of the society, said by phone.

Herlein could not immediately say how much her organization had raised for Notre Dame on Monday. Eventually, the funds raised will go directly to the cathedral, she said.

The organization, which was founded in 1982, gave two grants last year totaling more than $430,000 for restoration projects at France’s national library, she said.

50 campaigns 

At the website GoFundMe, more than 50 campaigns related to the cathedral fire had been launched globally on Monday, John Coventry, a spokesman for Go Fund Me, said by email.

“In the coming hours we’ll be working with the authorities to find the best way of making sure funds get to the place where they will do the most good,” Coventry said.

Some of the Go Fund Me campaigns had not listed any money raised by late Monday, and several joke campaigns were created through Go Fund Me to help Quasimodo, the fictional character in Victor Hugo’s 19th century novel “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

“I think the challenge will be whether or not people who give the money agree with those who are doing the rebuilding about how the cathedral should be rebuilt,” said Lisa Bitel, a professor of religion and history at the University of Southern California.

“This is a national monument in France and they will not spare money to rebuild,” Bitel said. “I don’t think the Americans will get much of a say in how to do it.”

Notre Dame Cathedral has looked to international donors for past renovation efforts.

In 2017, Michel Picaud, president of Friends of Notre Dame De Paris, told the New York Times his group planned to organize gala dinners, concerts and other events to raise funds in France and the United States for restoration work at the cathedral.

 
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Notre Dame, a survivor of wars and revolutions, has stood for centuries as not merely the greatest of the Gothic cathedrals and a towering jewel of Western architecture.

 

It has stood, in the words of one shell-shocked art expert, as “one of the great monuments to the best of civilization.”

 

And so it was that across the globe Monday, a stunned and helpless art world wept alongside the people of France as a massive fire ravaged the beloved cathedral.

 

“Civilization is just so fragile,” said Barbara Drake Boehm, senior curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval Cloisters branch in New York, her voice shaking as she tried to put into words what the cathedral meant. “This great hulking monument of stone has been there since 1163. It’s come through so many trials.”

 

“It’s not one relic, not one piece of glass — it’s the totality,” she said, struggling to find words expansive enough to describe the cathedral’s significance. “It’s the very soul of Paris, but it’s not just for French people. For all humanity, it’s one of the great monuments to the best of civilization.”

 

Boehm spoke shortly before the Paris fire chief announced that firefighters had been able to finally save the structure, including its two main towers. Much of the roof was destroyed.

 

The exact cause of the blaze wasn’t known, but French media quoted the fire brigade as saying it was “potentially linked” to a 6 million-euro ($6.8 million) renovation project on the church’s spire and its 250 tons of lead. The Paris Prosecutor’s office, which was investigating, said it was treating it as an accident.

 

Construction on Notre Dame — French for “Our Lady” — began in the 12th century and continued for nearly 200 years. It sustained damage and fell into neglect during the French Revolution, but received renewed attention following the 1831 publication of Victor Hugo’s novel “The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.” This led to two decades of restorations, including the cathedral’s famous flying buttresses and a reconstructed spire.

 

While most kings were crowned elsewhere, Napoleon Bonaparte made sure he was crowned there in 1804, and married there in 1810.

 

Experts note that Notre Dame is an aesthetically smooth synthesis of different centuries. “It all blends together so harmoniously,” said Nancy Wu, a medieval architecture expert and educator at the Met Cloisters. She said she was struck by delicacy of the structure, as well as that in the three stunning stained-glass rose windows, and the elegant exterior carvings.

 

“There are a lot of details that remind one of intricate lace,” she said, “even though it’s a building of cold hard stone.”

 

Aside from the structure, art experts were concerned about the fate of countless priceless artworks and artifacts inside, including relics like the crown of thorns, which is only occasionally displayed.

 

“This cathedral has a number of elements that are not just famous but religiously significant,” said Julio Bermudez, professor at the school of architecture and planning at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. “One of course is the crown of thorns … the faithful believe this is the crown that the Savior put on his head. It’s kept in a very safe place. But you know the fire is tremendously damaging.” He also expressed concern about the beautiful stained-glass windows, which he called “really irreplaceable.”

 

Those worried about the cathedral’s durability could, perhaps, take solace in one of Notre Dame’s more fascinating survival stories. In 1977, workers demolishing a wall in another part of Paris discovered 21 heads belonging to 13th-century statues from the cathedral. The kings of Judea, which were a prime example of Gothic art, had been taken from Notre Dame during the French Revolution and guillotined by antiroyalists who mistakenly thought they represented French kings.

 

The heads, which were thought to be lost, are now displayed in the capital’s Cluny Museum.

 

The mourning was not limited to the art world. Religious leaders, too, expressed deep sorrow over the devastation.

 

Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said he was praying for Notre Dame, which he called “second maybe to St. Peter’s Basilica, (in) … the ability of a church to lift our minds and hearts back to the Lord.”

 

“For the French, my God, for the world, Notre Dame Cathedral represents what’s most notable, what’s most uplifting, what’s most inspirational about the human project,” he said.

 

Boehm, at the Cloisters, found herself thinking about how the cathedral is at once of the past, and of the present — a living, vibrant building, despite its age.

 

“When you step inside it, you have at once the sense of everything that came before, and everything that’s still current,” she said.
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Tiger Woods’ victory at the Masters golf tournament on Sunday, his first major victory since 2008, is expected to lift sales for sponsors, broadcasters and golf courses lucky enough to host a tournament with Woods playing.

The competition put the 43-year-old back on top of a sport he helped transform 25 years ago.

“Tiger sells golf,” says Eric Smallwood, president of Apex Marketing Group, a Michigan analytics firm. Apex found that Nike earned $22.5 million worth of brand exposure just from Woods’ final round, with Nike’s “Swoosh” logo splashed on his hat, shirt, pants and shoes. Nike stock was up about one percent on Monday.

Tournament broadcaster CBS Corp saw a ratings bump.

Based on preliminary data, the final round of Sunday’s tournament was the highest-rated morning golf broadcast since 1986, when CBS started collecting that data. The tournament, which is usually broadcast in the afternoon, was rescheduled to the morning because of weather.

CBS has the rights to the PGA Championship in May and expects prices for advertising time that is still available to rise as a result of Woods’ Masters victory, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The golf demographic is wealthier and better-educated than other sports fans, so TV ratings are valued more highly because  hey’re more apt to turn into sales, even of big-ticket items, said Neal Pilson, president of Pilson Communications and former president of CBS Sports.

“Historically, events where Tiger Woods is on leaderboards on Sunday generated 30 to 40 percent higher ratings in the United States for those tournaments,” Pilson said.

Makings of a comeback

Woods was a 20-year-old prodigy when he turned pro in 1996.

Less than a year later he was ranked No. 1 in the world. He struck lucrative endorsement deals — including a five-year, $40 million deal with Nike — and golf experienced a surge in popularity.

Then Woods’ personal life collapsed and with it, his brand.

In 2009, after the news of multiple infidelities, he lost endorsement deals with companies like AT&T and Accenture. Other sponsors, such as Procter & Gamble’s Gillette and Berkshire Hathaway’s NetJets, kept their contracts with Woods but stopped using him in marketing.

Four back surgeries later, Woods continued to suffer professionally and in the public eye. In 2017 police arrested him for driving under the influence; he pleaded guilty to reckless driving and entered a program for first-time offenders.

In 2018, Woods began a professional comeback that culminated at Sunday’s Masters. After his victory, Nike, which stood behind Woods throughout his darker years, posted an ad on its website titled “Tiger Woods: Same Dream.”

“In sports you have heroes, villains and underdogs,” said Benjamin Hordell, founder of digital marketing and advertising firm DXagency. “Tiger has lived all of it. That’s amazing from a storytelling perspective. People will root against him, but they’re watching.”

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would award Woods the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Aretha Franklin is still getting R-E-S-P-E-C-T after death: The Queen of Soul received the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation honor Monday, becoming the first individual woman to earn a special citation prize since the honor was first awarded in 1930.

The Pulitzer board said the award was given to Franklin for “her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”

 

Franklin died on Aug. 16 at her home in Detroit from pancreatic cancer at age 76.

 

The superstar musician was the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when she entered the prestigious organization in 1987.

 

The Pulitzer board most recently awarded a special citation prize in 2010 to Hank Williams, the country music legend who died in 1953. From the arts world, other recipients include Duke Ellington, Bob Dylan, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, George Gershwin, Ray Bradbury, William Schuman, Milton Babbitt, Scott Joplin, Roger Sessions, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

 

Before Monday, only 41 special citation prizes had been awarded since 1930, and winners have ranged from individual people to organizations and groups, including the New York Times, writers E.B. White, Alex Haley and Kenneth Roberts, and Columbia University and its Graduate School of Journalism. Franklin and the Capital Gazette newspaper received special citation honors this year.

 

“Aretha is blessed and highly favored even in death. She’s continued to receive multiple awards — she’s received almost every award imaginable and now to get the Pulitzer Prize, it’s just amazing,” Sabrina Owens, Franklin’s niece and the executor of her estate, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday. “Aretha continues to bless us with her music and just paving the way for women going forward. It’s thrilling. She would be so happy right now.”

 

When Owens heard the news that Franklin won a Pulitzer, she and the family were “surprised but in another way we were not because that’s just the kind of person Aretha was.”

 

“She was just very gifted and talented, and the world is still recognizing that,” she said.

 

Franklin’s inclusion into the exclusive club re-confirms the impact her music — and voice — had and continues to have on the world. She became a cultural icon and genius of American song, considered by many to be the greatest popular vocalist of her time. Her voice transcended age, category and her own life.

 

Franklin was professional singer and accomplished pianist by her late teens and a superstar by her mid-20s. Raised in Detroit, she recorded hundreds of tracks and had dozens of hits over the span of a half century, including 20 that reached No. 1 on the R&B charts.

 

But her reputation was defined by an extraordinary run of Top 10 smashes in the late 1960s, from the morning-after bliss of “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,” to the wised-up “Chain of Fools” to her unstoppable call for “Respect,” transforming Otis Redding’s song into a classic worldwide anthem — especially for the feminist and civil rights movements — making it one of the most recognizable and heard songs of all-time.

 

She sold millions of albums and won countless awards, including 18 Grammys, the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

 

She performed at the inaugurations of Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and even sang at the funeral for civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks and at the dedication of Martin Luther King Jr’s memorial.

 

Rolling Stone ranked Franklin No.1 on its list of the Top 100 singers and she was also named one of the 20 most important entertainers of the 20th century by Time magazine, which celebrated her “mezzo-soprano, the gospel growls, the throaty howls, the girlish vocal tickles, the swoops, the dives, the blue-sky high notes, the blue-sea low notes. Female vocalists don’t get the credit as innovators that male instrumentalists do. They should. Franklin has mastered her instrument as surely as John Coltrane mastered his sax.”

 

Franklin was born in Memphis, Tennessee, though her family moved to Buffalo, New York, and then settled in Detroit. She grew up singing in the church alongside her father Rev. C.L. Franklin, a prominent Baptist minister who recorded dozens of albums of sermons and music. She joined him on tour and she released a gospel album in 1956. Four years later, she signed with Columbia Records and when her contract ran out in 1966, she joined Atlantic Records.

 

That’s when she blazed the pop and R&B charts with a string of hits, including “Respect,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Think,” “Chain of Fools,” “Day Dreaming,” “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone,” “Rock Steady” and “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do).”

 

Her Grammy-winning album, “Amazing Grace,” is one of the seminal albums in not only Franklin’s discography, but the canon of American pop music. It is the basis for the recently released concert film “Amazing Grace,” filmed over two sessions in January 1972 at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in the Watts section of Los Angeles.
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Tiger Woods, one of the world’s best golfers, captured his fifth Masters championship Sunday, his 15th major professional victory after an 11-year drought from winning the sport’s biggest tournaments.

Woods shot a 2 under par 70 on a drizzly day at the Augusta National Golf Club in the southern U.S. state of Georgia to finish 13 under par for the tournament, a shot better than three other American golfers, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele.

Woods, with a big smile on his face, thrust both arms into the air as holed his final putt on the 18th green for a bogey. He hugged his mother, Kultida Woods, his two children, daughter Sam and son Charlie, and other well-wishers as he headed to the clubhouse to sign his scorecard.

At 43, Woods is the oldest Masters champion since Jack Nicklaus, who won the 1986 Masters at 46. The 79-year-old Nicklaus holds the record for most major golf championships with 18, with Woods now trailing the mark by three.

With Woods’ dearth of recent major championships, the Nicklaus mark appeared increasingly distant for the aging Woods. The last 11 years have marked a period of personal turmoil for Woods as he underwent several surgeries to repair back injuries that inhibited his performance or stopped him from playing at all. He also was divorced from his wife, Elin Nordegren, after a string of his highly publicized extramarital affairs.

Nicklaus tweeted his congratulations to Woods, saying, “A big ‘well done’ from me to @TigerWoods! I am so happy for him and for the game of golf. This is just fantastic!!!”

U.S. President Donald Trump, himself an avid golfer who has occasionally played with Woods, said on Twitter, “Congratulations to @TigerWoods., a truly Great Champion!”
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