Author: Ohart

A new exhibition in Los Angeles is celebrating the U.S. cult of custom cars and art culture. “Auto-Didactic: The Juxtapoz School” features art, fashion and vehicles that represent the custom culture of the “hot rod” era that began in Southern California in the 1960s. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more.
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When you think of art, you may imagine paints, brushes and a spacious studio with canvasses. But for a Los Angeles man, creating art means being out in the sun, accompanied by a magnifying glass, a mirror and a piece of wood. VOA’s Genia Dulot met with the sunlight artist.
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Information in this article is confirmed with other sources and may be used without attribution to the Associated Press in broadcasts — websites still must use the attribution. The News Center has no plans at this time to match it. 

 

Trumpeter Roy Hargrove, a prolific player who provided his jazz sound to records across a vast range of styles and won two Grammys, has died at age 49, his manager said Saturday. 

Hargrove died in New York on Friday of cardiac arrest stemming from a longtime fight with kidney disease, longtime manager Larry Clothier said in a statement. 

Clothier said Hargrove “was known just as intensely for his brimming fire and fury as he was for his gorgeous, signature balladry. Over and over, his sound attested to and sanctified his deep love for music. His unselfish timbre covered the waterfront of every musical landscape.” 

Many of Hargrove’s peers regarded him as the greatest trumpeter of his generation. Through his own bands and as a sideman, Hargrove brewed his jazz with African and Latin sounds, R&B, soul, pop, funk and hip-hop. 

He led the progressive, genre-melding group The RH Factor, played in sessions for Common, Erykah Badu and D’Angelo, and collaborated with jazz giants including Herbie Hancock and Wynton Marsalis. 

“He is literally the one-man horn section I hear in my head when I think about music,” Questlove, drummer and leader of the Roots, said Saturday on Instagram. “Love to the immortal timeless genius that will forever be Roy Hargrove y’all.” 

‘Young master’

A native of Waco, Texas, Hargrove was discovered by his fellow trumpeter Marsalis while Hargrove was playing at a performing arts high school in Dallas. He went on to the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then transferred to the New School in New York, where he joined in jam sessions at jazz clubs in the evening. One of those clubs, the Blue Note, said on its Twitter account Saturday that Hargrove was a “young master and friend gone too soon.” 

Hargrove released his first solo album, Diamond in the Rough, in 1990. He won his first Grammy in 1998 with his Afro-Cuban band Crisol for its album Habana. He then won another in 2002 for Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall, featuring a band he led with pianist Herbie Hancock and saxophonist Michael Brecker. 

Questlove, who worked with Hargrove on several projects, said his improvisational skills were astonishing. 

“I can’t properly document how crucial and spot on Roy was with his craft, man,” he said. “We NEVER gave him instructions: just played the song and watched him go.” 

Other tributes flowed from the musical community as word spread of Hargrove’s death. 

“I have no words over the loss of my dear brother of 31 years,” bass player Christian McBride said on Twitter. “We played on a lot of sessions together, traveled a lot of miles together, laughed a lot together, bickered on occasion — and I wouldn’t change our relationship for anything in the world. Bless you, Roy Hargrove.” 

Trumpet player and composer Keyon Harrold called Hargrove the “trumpeter jazz king” on Instagram. 

“The spirit that radiated from the bell of his horn was always a force of youth enthralled with the wisdom of old,” Harrold said. 

Hargrove is survived by his wife, Aida, daughter, Kamala, mother, Jacklyn, and brother, Brian. 

Memorial plans are in the works, but no details have been announced yet.  
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El Cajon, California, is home to a large number of Iraqi Chaldean Christians. Over the past nearly two decades, the Chaldean population in California has become a thriving immigrant community. But many say their hearts and minds are still with their home country of Iraq. VOA Kurdish Service’s Yahya Barzinji spent time in El Cajon and has this report, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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A federal judge in Boston heard closing arguments Friday in a highly publicized lawsuit alleging that elite Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans.

Much of the spotlight has been on affluent Chinese-Americans with stellar academic scores who say the college rejects Asians in favor of lesser-qualified applicants. They say factoring in race hurts Asian-Americans.

But others in the Asian community say that a race-blind process relying solely on academic scores would also hurt Asian-Americans. Southeast Asians, for example, who largely came over as refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, are underrepresented in higher education.

“The narrative right now is very focused on a very specific segment within the Asian-American community that does not represent the larger Asian-American community,’’ said Quyen Dinh, executive director of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center.

The center signed on to a “friend of the court” brief by the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, siding with Harvard’s use of what the university calls a “holistic’’ review of an applicant.

The case brought by Students for Fair Admissions could wind up before a newly reconstituted and more conservative U.S. Supreme Court, which only narrowly re-affirmed the use of race in college admissions two years ago.

Here are some of the issues surrounding Asian-Americans and affirmative action:

Who are Asian-Americans?

There are at least 18 million people in the U.S. who are of Asian descent from about 20 countries. Asian-Americans are about 6 percent of the U.S. population, but make up nearly 23 percent of this year’s freshman class at Harvard, 22 percent of the same class at Princeton, and are the fastest growing minority in the country.

Chinese-Americans are the largest sub-group with at least 4.3 million people, followed by Indian-Americans at 4 million and Filipino-Americans at 3 million.

Chinese started migrating to the country in the 19th century as labor for the growing West. More recent waves include refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, as well as highly skilled workers from China and India.

The term “Asian-American” was coined by young civil rights activists marching alongside Latinos and African Americans for social justice in the 1960s.

Ellen D. Wu, a history professor and director of the Asian American Studies Program at Indiana University in Bloomington, says that political identity has now evolved largely into a demographic designation for “a very diverse group.’’

What is the Asian American Coalition for Education?

Students for Fair Admissions filed the lawsuit against Harvard in 2014. Actively supporting it is the Asian American Coalition for Education, which filed federal complaints in 2015 alleging discrimination. The coalition’s president is Yukong Zhao, a corporate strategist who immigrated to the U.S. from China in 1992 to pursue a master’s degree in business.

Zhao is part of a new generation of wealthier Chinese immigrants who are active on social media and opposed to affirmative action.

Conservative strategist Edward Blum, who is president of Students for Fair Admissions, was behind the last affirmative action admissions case, which accused the University of Texas of discriminating against white students. Blum lost that case at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Does affirmative action help or hurt Asian-Americans?

Depends on whom you ask.

Julie J. Park, author of “Race on Campus: Debunking Myths with Data” and past consultant to Harvard in the lawsuit, says underrepresented Asians such as Cambodians and Hmong can get a boost from a review that goes beyond test scores. The same goes for lower-income Asian-Americans whose grades may not reflect their potential. Park also says colleges want students with different backgrounds so Asian-Americans may be more coveted in fields or colleges with few Asians. It depends on the situation.

Students for Fair Admissions, on the other hand, argues the system in place at Harvard puts unfair weight on race, primarily at the expense of academically talented Asian-Americans. It also alleges that Harvard intentionally uses a vague “personal rating’’ to reject Asian-American applicants in favor of students from other racial backgrounds.

Supporters of affirmative action say it’s possible that Harvard is biased against Asian-Americans, but that doesn’t mean race-conscious policies should be scrapped.

Why are Asians called the ‘model minority’?

The stereotype of Asian-Americans as hard-working, educated and free of societal problems started in the 1960s. Wu, the history professor, says it was a way for whites to establish a racial order that was defined, most importantly, by not being black.

Asian-Americans were also responsible for perpetuating the myth, she said, adding that the “consequences of that have long functioned to justify anti-black racism and anti-black policies.”

Is there any truth to the model minority myth?

Overall, the numbers look good for Asian-Americans. Their household median income is $83,000, compared with $60,000 for the U.S. More than 50 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 32 percent for the country, according to the 2017 American Community Survey put out by the U.S. Census Bureau.

But there are large disparities within the group.

For example, while 75 percent of Indians held a bachelor’s degree or higher, only 16 percent of Laotians and 20 percent of Cambodians had done so. Among Chinese, the figure is 55 percent.

Indian households have the highest median income at $114,000 while at the other end are Burmese households, at $40,000. About 6 percent of Filipino individuals live in poverty, compared with 21 percent of Nepalese and 31 percent of Burmese.
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Everything about the city of Barrow, Alaska, is special. The northern-most city in the U.S., it is home to indigenous carvers, fishermen, researchers and teachers doing their best to preserve the native Inupiaq language. But at the center of Inupiat culture is the whale: It is its food, its symbol, and its soul. Natasha Mozgovaya set off to Alaska to see what life is like in this frozen place. Anna Rice narrates her story.
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The road to riches in the United States can take many routes.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos became a billionaire 132 times over by creating a business few would have conceived of just 25 years ago.

Thanks to his mammoth online marketplace, Bezos is not only Washington State’s wealthiest resident, but also the richest person in America.

Nebraska’s wealthiest person is businessman Warren Buffett.

He’s also the second richest person in the entire country. How did Buffett accumulate so much money? Via his company, Berkshire Hathaway, which owns some iconic U.S. companies like GEICO, Fruit of the Loom, and Dairy Queen. Buffett also owns shares of Heinz, Apple, and American Express.

Mark Zuckerburg is California’s wealthiest resident and the nation’s third wealthiest.

The Harvard dropout has his social media bases covered. Since founding Facebook, he’s also bought Instagram and the internationally popular communication application Whatsapp.

A number of the nation’s wealthiest people inherited their riches.

That’s what happened with the richest people in both Arkansas and Texas. The brother and sister duo of Alice and Jim Walton are the children of Sam Walton, one of the founders of Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.

Heiress Jacqueline Mars comes out on top in Virginia. She’s the daughter and granddaughter of the founders of the American candy company Mars.

Forbes did the research and then career development website Zippia developed the map below of 2018’s richest people in each state.
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We tend to think of opera singers as a voluptuous breed: it’s not over until the fat lady sings, or so the old saying goes. But as star soprano Lisette Oropesa knows all too well, directors are increasingly pressuring female stars into losing weight.

Back in 2005, the Cuban-American singer — sought by some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses — weighed 95 kilograms (210 pounds). Now, she weighs just 56.

“That’s a lot to lose. It took five years to get to this weight,” Oropesa told AFP.

The 35-year-old was used to being called fat — she’d suffered such taunts since she was a schoolgirl in New Orleans.

But as a singer, she soon found that her weight was blocking her from winning certain roles.

“I was told, ‘You need to fix the weight problem if you want to have any chance at all’,” she said of an early experience at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House.

Cutting the fat girls

She admits she was “very upset for a while” at being told this — but with her career on the line, Oropesa bit the bullet.

There’s a practical element to the push for slimmer singers, says the soprano, who is currently performing at the Paris Opera. In contemporary productions, “they want people to be agile — we are dancing, jumping, and people carry you,” she said.

“If they have a thousand girls to choose from, the first ones they are going to cut are the fat girls.”

She notes, however, that her male colleagues don’t come in for anything like the same pressure. For tenors, of whom there are far fewer vying for jobs, “as long they appear and come to work, they are okay.”

The most famous case of dramatic weight loss in the opera world is that of legendary Maria Callas. Described as “monstrously fat” by one impresario in 1951, the soprano eventually shed 36 of her 91 kilos.

At the other end of the spectrum, Montserrat Caballe — the Spanish star who died in October aged 85 -— remained throughout her career the archetypal curvaceous soprano.

Looks over voice?

In recent years, debate has risen to a crescendo over how much contemporary opera is favoring looks over larynxes. In 2003 London’s Royal Opera House sparked an outcry by sacking Deborah Voigt, one of the world’s best-known sopranos, because she couldn’t fit in her dress.

She used her severance pay to fund gastric bypass surgery — a decision which eventually led to new roles.

Russia’s Anna Netrebko, another global star, meanwhile shocked some of her fans after returning from maternity leave 13 kilos heavier. She retorted that she’d never sung better.

And there was widespread anger in Britain among colleagues of mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught when words like “dumpy” and “stocky” littered press coverage of her performance at the Glyndebourne festival.

“There was little comment on her musicianship, dramatic commitment or her ability to communicate to an audience and to move that audience to tears,” wrote fellow mezzo Jennifer Johnstone.

Some critics shot back that opera is a visual artform, and that people need to be believable as the characters they are playing.

But “body-shaming is not acceptable,” insisted Oropesa, who is sick of rich patrons saying “‘Oh, I am so glad you’re not fat, like so and so’ — because they think they are entitled to say things like that.”

Whether or not there’s a link between sopranos’ weight and their performance is still disputed.

Some fans believe Callas’ voice deteriorated because she lost weight, but specialists contest this.

Oropesa believes it’s a myth that “you should be fat to able to sing.”

And while she stresses that she doesn’t care about how thin people are, she also says she’s seen nothing but benefits to her change in lifestyle.

To slim down, Oropesa didn’t resort to drastic surgery or a starvation diet — she started running marathons.

“I have done six marathons and I run almost four to five days a week,” she said.

These days, “when I run round the stage it doesn’t make me feel sweaty, or dying out of breath, because I run a lot.”

After Paris, Oropesa heads to Rome where she’s performing Verdi’s “Rigoletto,” then to Barcelona for Handel’s “Rodelinda” before shows in Brussels and Pittsburgh.

“It is non-stop — a real vocal marathon,” she said with a smile.
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Thirty-year-old Shamsia Hassani is widely recognized as Afghanistan’s first, if not only, female graffiti artist. Being a graffiti artist anywhere in the world is a challenge, but in war-torn Kabul, it carries its own unique difficulties.

An invitation to an Istanbul cartoon and street art festival allowed Hassani to share her pieces with a broader audience. The large mural she worked on for three days features a regular character of her work, a cool, fashionably dressed young woman playing an instrument.

“This character is always in my work with different compositions, and she has different messages and different colors,” Hassani explains. “She can use her musical instrument to talk to people, to speak louder and to get more attention, as she has no mouth.

“But this musical instrument gives her power to speak in society,” she adds “Her eyes are closed because usually, she has nothing good around her to see, she does not want to see anything around, and she cannot see her future. However, it does not mean she cannot see.”

Welcome respite in Istanbul

The opportunity to attend the Istanbul festival is welcomed, Hassani says, given the increasingly difficult environment in Afghanistan.

“Recently the situation is getting very bad, and I usually am feeling hopeless sometimes because I see that nothing has changed and I could not change anything, that’s very hopeless,” she said.

“Still, I am trying to work to give power to people and how they can stay strong in a society like Afghanistan,” she said.

Late to graffiti

Hassani has struggled in her pursuit of art. Born in Iran to Afghan parents who had fled the war in Afghanistan, she was prevented from studying art in Iran, she says, because of her Afghan heritage. Eventually, her parents moved back to Kabul so she could pursue her art studies at Kabul University, where she now teaches. Hassani’s love of graffiti came relatively late, however, thanks to an international initiative.

“I just started to make graffiti at a graffiti workshop in Kabul,” she said. “They brought a teacher from the U.K. by the name of Chu, and he teaches us how to do graffiti. It was a very good experience, and after that I was just trying to paint on walls, and I wanted to do graffiti.”

​A luxury of time

Working on a mural for a few days at the Istanbul festival is a rare luxury for Hassani. Being a graffiti artist in one of the world’s most dangerous cities carries its own unique challenges, especially if you are a woman.

“I am really scared of public spaces; I am really scared for explosions happening all the time. Specifically, it’s difficult for women to do graffiti and street art because usually, people are not happy with women’s activity,” Hassani said.

“My family is very supportive, my parents and my husband, they always support me in my works. All the time I am careful,” she adds with a nervous laugh. “I usually work in Kabul, but usually on the small walls, not the big walls, because I cannot finish them. I need to run away as soon as I can.”

It’s not only the risk of bombs and hostility toward women artists, that Hassani faces. Artistic differences with the owners of the walls upon which she paints also can be a problem.

“I am trying to get permission, but sometimes it’s difficult. Usually the owner of the wall never gives me permission to paint something — fantasy like this” Hassani said, pointing to her mural. “They usually like me to paint some portrait or some landscape or something that they like. So that’s why it’s difficult to find a wall and location, as well.”

At the Istanbul festival she received a warm reception as she held a seminar, sharing her experiences with a full and appreciative audience that peppered her with questions. Hassani says the support and interest at the seminar is welcome because in Kabul, few dare to offer her public support.

“When I am working, sometimes I listen to people, and they usually use bad words,” she said. “But there are just a few people who say OK, it’s nice, or some people never say anything, they just pass by. But when I post my pictures on social media, I see a lot of support there. However, while working (outside) no support from people.”

Love, power of art

When asked what keeps her going, Hassani says it is her love of art and the power it has for good.

“I think I can introduce art to people in Afghanistan because we don’t have galleries and exhibitions, and it’s good way that I can just show them artwork,” Hassani said. “And I also think that I can change people’s minds with my artwork and sharing my ideas with people, that’s the thing I really like to do.”
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The director of a viral rap video that has racked up tens of millions of views on YouTube with lyrics flaying Thailand’s military junta says the artists behind it have no intention of hiding from police. 

Since the junta, led by Prayut Chan-o-cha, seized power in a coup four years ago and banned political gatherings, it has harshly punished any form of dissent, jailing scores of critics and opponents. 

That’s why it was something of a surprise when director Teerawat Rujintham and the collective Rap Against Dictatorship launched a broadside against the military by releasing a profanity laced video called My Country Has It on Oct. 22. 

Teerawat told VOA the public response to the video, which has been viewed more than 23 million times on YouTube, had vastly surpassed the group’s expectations. 

Waiting for reaction

“The project served its purpose, and for now each of the members of the group and I are just waiting for the reaction from those in power and the government to contact us,” he said in an interview conducted partially through a translator. 

He said he and the group were “not going to hide from the police. We’re going to confront them, because I don’t feel that [we] did anything wrong.” 

Teerawat said the video had tapped into brooding resentment that many Thais felt toward the junta “under the surface” but could not express. 

“The country that points a gun at your throat.  Claims to have freedom but no right to choose.  You can’t say [stuff] even though your mouth is full of it. Whatever you do the leader will see you,” one artist raps in the video. 

Police initially threatened to arrest group members after the song’s release, but as online views of the video quickly shot up, they backed down. 

Local media reported Deputy National Police Chief Srivara Ransibrahmanakul had filed a defamation suit against the group and stressed that its members remained under investigation.  Police have not answered VOA requests for comment. 

Prayut reportedly weighed in Tuesday, warning anyone who “shows appreciation for the song must accept responsibility for what happens to the country in future,” according to the Bangkok Post. 

“I do not care if they attack me. But if they do so against the country, I do not think it is appropriate,” he reportedly said. 

Undeterred, anti-junta punk rockers plan to hold a concert Saturday in Bangkok at the site of a notorious 1976 massacre of student protesters opposing military rule. 

The massacre is regarded as a highly sensitive topic for the junta and is graphically depicted in Teerawat’s video when the camera pans to an effigy of a corpse hanging from a tree, representing the lynchings that took place. Teerawat said he chose to use the cover-up of the massacre as a metaphor for the present. 

Thitinan Pongsudhirak, an associate professor of international political economy at Chulalongkorn University, said the artists are helping vent pent-up public frustration as long-delayed elections, expected now by mid-2019, draw closer. 

More expected

“It strikes a chord because they feel that they themselves are fed up and frustrated with no way out, no voices to be heard. So these guys are speaking up for them, and I think we will see more of it going forward,” he said. 

Political figures ranging from former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the young billionaire leader of the progressive new Future Forward party, have come out in support of the rappers’ right to speak out. 

Their support and the huge popularity of the artists means silencing them outright has become a precarious proposition, Thitinan said. 

“The military government will be in a dilemma now because on the one hand they want to suppress it, there’s no doubt. But if they do suppress it they have less chance of winning the election, because these groups are popular,” he said. 

“On the other hand, if they allow it to go on, to take place, then they would invite other groups, other movements to come to the fore against the military government,” he said. 

Meanwhile, street graffiti artist Headache Stencil has gained notice for skewering senior regime leaders, including Prayut, in his satirical works.

Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics and lecturer at Naresuan University, said Rap Against Dictatorship’s video has gained strong popularity among urban voters, many of whom had originally supported the military coup. 

“Thus the writing is on the wall: More and more former junta supporters want the military to return to the barracks,” he wrote in an email.  “The surprise is that more and more urban Thais, who tended to remain supportive or apathetic to the junta, have now jumped on the bandwagon of demanding a return to democracy now.”  

Prayut repeatedly has delayed promised elections since staging the 2014 coup, Thailand’s 12th since 1932. He also passed a new constitution that grants him extraordinary power and the military virtually total control of parliament. 

Some steps have been taken to loosen the bans on political activities he implemented after seizing power, though many remain. 

Rangsiya Ratanachai contributed to this report. 
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Rafael Nadal pulled out of his second-round match at the Paris Masters on Wednesday because of an abdominal problem, meaning Novak Djokovic will reclaim the No. 1 ranking next week.

Nadal was returning from a right knee injury which forced him to retire from the U.S. Open semifinals, but took medical advice not to play against Fernando Verdasco.

 

“The last few days I start to feel a little bit the abdominal, especially when I was serving,” Nadal said. “I was checking with the doctor and the doctor says that is recommended to not play, because if I continue the abdominal maybe can break and can be a major thing, and I really don’t want that.”

 

At last year’s tournament, Nadal reached the quarterfinals but then pulled out against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic. Nadal has dealt with off-and-on knee problems for years and, given his injury record, the 32-year-old Spaniard prefers to be cautious.

 

At the U.S. Open in early September, he dropped the opening two sets against Juan Martin del Potro before retiring. He then skipped the Asia swing to recover, missing tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai.

 

“It has been a tough year for me in terms of injuries so I want to avoid drastic things,” Nadal said. “Maybe I can play today, but the doctor says if I want to play the tournament, I want to try to win the tournament, the abdominal with break for sure.”

 

Nadal did not say whether he will play at the season-ending ATP Finals in London, beginning Nov. 11.

 

“I cannot answer. I just go day by day, as I did all my tennis career,” the 17-time Grand Slam champion said. “I would love to be in London of course. But the most important thing for me is to be healthy, be healthy and have the chance to compete weeks in a row. Something that I was not able to do this year, playing only nine events and retiring in two.”

 

Nadal is optimistic his latest injury will pass, providing he does not rush back.

 

“It would not be fair to say it’s a real injury today but what is sure, if I continue it will be a real injury,” he said. “When you come back after injuries, and you push a little bit, the body at the beginning some issues can happen.”

 

Djokovic, who faces Damir Dzumhur in the third round, will reclaim the top ranking for the first time in two years on Monday.

 

Also, Roger Federer advanced to the third round after big-serving Milos Raonic retired with a right elbow injury.

 

Raonic injured himself during a three-set win against Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Tuesday.

 

“In the middle of second set, I overextended my elbow and it did some kind of pain,” he said. “I went and I did an ultrasound and MRI, and they found some kind of a lesion in the tricep.”

 

Federer, who won his 99th career title at the Swiss Indoors last Sunday, will face 13th-seeded Fabio Fognini.

 

Defending champion Jack Sock of the United States and fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev reached the third round in straight sets.

 

The 16th-seeded Sock saved all four break points he faced in a 6-3, 6-3 win against Frenchman Richard Gasquet, while Zverev advanced 6-4, 6-4 over American Francis Tiafoe.

 

Seventh-seeded Kevin Anderson, the Wimbledon runner-up, got past Nikoloz Basilashvili 6-3, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (3).

 

No. 8 John Isner, No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov and No. 10 Kei Nishikori also won.

 

Dimitrov had 13 aces in a 7-6 (10), 6-4 win against Roberto Bautista Agut and Nishikori beat Adrian Mannarino of France 7-5, 6-4. Isner had 33 aces in a 6-3, 6-7(2), 7-6 (1) against Mikhail Kukushkin, with the big-serving American saving a break point in the 11th game of the third set.

 

Isner and Nishikori are competing with No. 5 Marin Cilic and No. 6 Dominic Thiem for the last two spots for the ATP finals. Thiem was facing Frenchman Gilles Simon later Wednesday, while No. 11 Borna Coric was playing Daniil Medvedev.

 

 

 

 
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Three weeks after a bizarre White House meeting with U.S.

President Donald Trump, rapper Kanye West said on Tuesday he was

distancing himself from politics.

West, Trump’s biggest celebrity supporter, also sought to distance himself from a new campaign that encourages black Americans to quit the Democratic

Party.
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Clues to America’s past can be found in its ghost towns, once bustling communities that have been abandoned.

The deserted communities show us how the Industrial Revolution and two World Wars shaped the history of the United States, according to Geotab, a telematics company (think global positioning and vehicle tracking), which developed an interactive map showcasing more than 3,000 abandoned towns across America.

Ghost towns are often associated with the Wild West and Texas does have the most ghost towns with 511 abandoned communities. California follows with 346, and Kansas with 308.

Most of the Texas towns were established during the frontier era, from the early to mid-1800s. Mining towns sprang up around rich mineral deposits while the Mexican government’s favorable terms — a promised 4,000 acres per family for a small fee — attracted settlers.

“In the end, some Texas towns were destroyed by natural disasters and droughts, while others failed once the railroad and highway system reshaped transportation routes,” Geotab’s Kelly Hall told us via email.

Towns founded around particular mineral resources were abandoned when demand dried up.

“Once the need declined or resources were scarce, it caused the population or entire town to vanish,” said Hall. “Others were economically overpowered by neighboring towns, the Great Depression or frontier settlements that simply died down.”

Sixty structures still survive in Bannack, Montana, which was founded in 1862. The town flourished when thousands descended on the area with hopes of making their fortune in gold. By 1860, the gold was harder to reach and, despite a brief resurgence in the 1890s, the town was abandoned by the 1940s.

Natural disasters could also wipe out a town. That’s what happened to Fort Jefferson in Monroe County, Florida.

Built starting in 1846, the fort once helped defend the state against pirates, became a prison during the Civil War, was once used as a quarantine station, and then a refueling station for the U.S. Navy. But Fort Jefferson was abandoned in 1906 after it was damaged by a hurricane.

“With limited access to technology and without today’s emergency management advancements, a hurricane, a tornado or an earthquake could mean the total devastation of an entire community,” Hall said.

But some of these ghost towns, such as Fort Jefferson, have gotten a second life as tourist attractions. The residents are long gone, but the buildings, and the unique history of each town, remain.
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The Pistol Annies’ sassy new song about reclaiming singlehood called “Got My Name Changed Back” has raised some eyebrows for its lyrics about a husband who cheats while on the road and prompted speculation about who might have inspired it.

 

The trio of Miranda Lambert, Angaleena Presley and Ashley Monroe won’t say, but Presley notes that there are two divorces and two ex-husbands between them.

 

“It was a feel-good divorce song that was needed,” Presley said. “You’re welcome.”

 

“We can say whatever we want together a little more bravely than we ever would alone,” Lambert added. “Our whole catalog has been about celebrating things that weren’t so positive and putting them in a humorous light.”

 

The women tackle failed marriages, desperate wives, female friendships and complicated women with a lot of wry humor and just the right amount of sadness on their first album in five years called “Interstate Gospel,” out on Friday.

 

They wrote the record together without any outside writers, which has mostly been their pattern. “We haven’t written any songs with other writers,” Lambert said, but then the other two correct her, noting there was one song on their first album that her ex-husband Blake Shelton co-wrote with them.

 

“Oh well, he’s gone,” Lambert said with a laugh.

 

It was another divorce song that prompted them to start writing again after years of each working individually on their solo albums.

 

Lambert came up with a verse and chorus for the regretful tune, “When I Was His Wife,” and sent it to Presley and Monroe in a voice note. Soon after they were hanging out at Lambert’s house churning out songs.

 

“We don’t do per se writing sessions,” Presley said.

 

“We do slumber parties with guitars,” Lambert said.

 

The break between records has been productive for all three singers. Lambert released a critically-acclaimed double album, “The Weight of These Wings,” while Monroe and Presley each released two solo albums over the past five years.

 

“It’s like we have so much life to talk about, we have enough for solo projects and as a band,” Lambert said.

 

The song they will admit is about themselves is “Stop Drop and Roll One,” a country rocker in which they celebrate their differences and similarities. As the song goes, “One’s got the matches, one’s got the lashes, one’s running her mouth again.”

 

“If we all dumped our purses out on the table, it would be ‘Stop Drop and Roll One,'” Presley said.

 

A song like “Best Years of My Life” showcases their ability to craft emotionally complex female characters longing for escape from their monotonous lives through a recreational drug or a trashy TV show. “Masterpiece” acknowledges the public fascination with the glossy image of a perfect relationship, even if it’s not real.

 

“There’s a lot of stuff that you have to go through (as a woman),” said Monroe. “This album touches on a lot of that and there’s some humor and twists in there that make it a little less hard.”

 

The trio isn’t doing a tour to promote the album, just three shows in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles, mostly because Presley is pregnant, although they will be performing at the Country Music Association Awards on Nov. 14.

 

“This record feels very special and I feel like when we do an intimate couple of shows, it gives people a chance to live with it on tape and live with it in person and go from there,” Lambert said.
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Kids – and a lot of adults – around the country are counting the hours left until they can celebrate the spookiest night of the year – Halloween. But some folks prefer not to wait – celebrations, parties and events dedicated to All Hallows’ Eve are in full swing. Maxim Moskalkov caught up with some Washingtonians who celebrate the day in a healthy way – with a Dead Man’s Run through the historic Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C.
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Ava DuVernay is making a multipart documentary on Prince for Netflix with the support of the late musician’s estate.

The director on Tuesday confirmed Twitter reports late Monday that she’s working on the film. The documentary will be made with extensive use of Prince’s archives and will span the artist’s entire life.

It will be the “Selma” filmmaker’s second documentary for Netflix. Her 2016 film, “The 13th,” explored mass incarceration as a form of continued slavery for African-Americans. It was nominated for best documentary by the Academy Awards and won an Emmy Award for outstanding documentary.

DuVernay, who earlier this year directed Disney’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” is currently filming the Netflix miniseries “Central Park Five.”
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London will play host to four NFL games in the 2019 season, the league’s United Kingdom office announced Tuesday.

The league did not say which teams would play and did not disclose the game dates.

Two of the games will be played at Wembley Stadium, with the others at the stadium being built for Premier League team Tottenham.

Three NFL games were played in London this year. 

There have been 24 regular-season games played in London since the league began scheduling games there in 2007. All but three of the NFL’s 32 teams have made at least one London trip.
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In his latest film “Vaya,” Nigerian-born director Akin Omotoso explores the themes of migration and coming of age. 

“Vaya” tells the story of three strangers who get on a train, each of them with a mission to fulfill in Johannesburg. They’re coming from Durban to Johannesburg. They never meet, but their stories are intertwined,” Omotoso explained.

Each traveler has a mission. A young man is promised a job that is not what he expected. Another is sent to reclaim his father’s body — a task that is surprisingly difficult. A young woman escorts a young girl to her family in the city. Each faces rejection, abuse or violence.

The film came from the real-life stories of South Africans in the Homeless Writers Project, a workshop for people living on the streets of Johannesburg.

Vaya means “to go” in the Tsotsitaal dialect used in South African townships.

“It takes on several meanings. So, ‘to go’ — they’re leaving Durban to go to Johannesburg. But when they get there, maybe people don’t want you. They want you to go,” Omotoso said. 

The director is a migrant himself. He was born in Nigeria, but his family moved to South Africa, where his father, the writer Kole Omotoso, was a professor at the University of the Western Cape. Akin studied drama at the university, and then worked as an actor and director.

“Vaya” is one of 20 movies by filmmakers of color or female directors distributed by Array, a Los Angeles-based collective and distribution company founded by director Ava DuVernay.

“Our purpose is to make sure that audiences have access to films they otherwise would not see, those independent voices that deserve a platform for stories to be told,” said Mercedes Cooper, Array’s director of marketing.

“Vaya” was released in 2016 and has played at international festivals. It opened in U.S. theaters in late October and will stream on Netflix starting Nov. 1. Omotoso said many can relate to this story.

“I always say everyone has a cousin who’s arriving, or a brother who’s leaving, or somebody who’s coming,” he said. “So, “Vaya” is able to tap into something that doesn’t just happen in Johannesburg.”

The film taps into universal themes, notes Omotoso, such as the search for a better life and the struggle for survival. 

“It’s a thrilling ride when you start to put together the mystery of what’s going on.”
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Members of the rock band Kiss said they are kicking off a farewell concert tour in January because they wanted to say goodbye while they could still deliver the over-the-top performances that have thrilled audiences over a 45-year career.

Known for their makeup, big hair and outrageous costumes, Kiss was among the biggest acts of the 1970s, coming out of the glam rock era with hits including “Rock and Roll All Nite.”

“How pathetic and sad would it be to see the band, and you’ve seen lots of them, (where) you remember their glory days and they’re out there a little bit too long,” said 69-year-old bassist and singer Gene Simmons.

“We have too much pride and self-respect in us, and too much love for our fans, to not live up to our self-imposed mandate,” he added. “You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world.”

The “End of the Road” tour will start Jan. 31 in Vancouver.

It is expected to last two to three years and extend around the world, Simmons said.

“Earth is a big place and we’re going to go to every corner,” he said.

Kiss has sold more than 100 million albums over its career.

It served as a predecessor to 1980s heavy metal acts such as Motley Crue. Kiss currently includes two original members – Simmons along with singer and guitarist Paul Stanley – plus guitarist Tommy Thayer and drummer Eric Singer.

“I guarantee that the people who come that have never seen us before are going to say ‘Why did we wait so long?,'” 66-year-old Stanley said, “because this is going to be bombastic, explosive, unapologetic and a celebration of everything we’ve done.”

“The word ‘bittersweet’ doesn’t really enter into it,” he added. “For us, it’s a celebration. We want to go out on top while we can still do what we do.”
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In the final season of Netflix’s “House of Cards,” Frank Underwood is physically gone, having died unexpectedly in his sleep. But the ghost of the win-at-all-costs politician played by Kevin Spacey haunts his wife and her young presidency.

Writers of the acclaimed drama had to rework the story after Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct a year ago and dropped from the show that made Netflix a player in premium television.

The ending of the Underwoods’ story, which the producers called a “season of reckoning,” will be available on Netflix on Nov. 2.

At last season’s conclusion, Frank’s statuesque wife Claire, played by Robin Wright, looked into the camera and declared “my turn” as the power shifted and she became the first female U.S. president.

After Spacey’s departure, executive producers and writers Frank Pugliese and Melissa James Gibson said everyone involved in the show felt they wanted to go ahead with a sixth and final season.

“What would it been like to actually rob her turn?” Pugliese said in an interview. “It seemed like an impossible, unacceptable way to end it that way.”

The eight new episodes do not dance around Frank’s absence.

The first episode reveals early on that he died in bed but makes the cause of his death the subject of an ongoing mystery.

“It would have felt really dishonest to try and erase him essentially as a character,” Gibson said. “I think that wouldn’t have honored the seeds of the show.”

Spacey was nominated for five Emmys for his “House of Cards” role. But last November, Netflix quickly cut ties with the actor after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced. He has been accused by more than 20 men and has said nothing publicly about the allegations since an apology to the first accuser in October 2017.

Throughout the final “House of Cards” season, Claire is forced to constantly grapple with her late husband’s deals and the compromises she made with him.

“She is trying to carve out her own path and in doing so she has the opportunity and obligation to really face herself in a profound way,” Gibson said.

Claire also has to figure out who she can trust as the White House is destabilized with Frank out of picture, a scenario that provided the writers with rich story lines, they said.

“The circumstances became opportunities that I hope this season fulfills,” Pugliese said.
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Most Americans would fail a U.S. citizenship test if they had to take it.

Just one in three Americans can pass a multiple choice exam featuring questions taken from the U.S. Citizenship Test, according to a recent survey. And the bar isn’t particularly high. Test takers must get a score of at least 60 percent — the equivalent of a “D” grade — to pass the exam.

The citizenship test is a part of the U.S. naturalization process for people not born in the United States. People who are legal permanent residents — known as “Green Card” holders — can normally apply for citizenship after living in the United States for a 5-year period.

Almost three-fourths of the Americans who took the test couldn’t pick out the 13 original colonies in the multiple choice exam, 57 percent couldn’t say how many justices serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, and more than half — 60 percent — didn’t know which countries the United States fought during World War II.

“It really becomes troublesome,” says Patrick Riccards of the non-profit Woodrow Wilson Foundation. “It points to a real need to begin to look at how we are teaching and learning history in this country, and what we can do to make history more relevant, more interesting, more engaging for today’s students so that we can reverse this trend.”

Ironically, 40 percent of people who took the test cited history as their favorite subject while they were in school.

Senior citizens achieved the highest scores, with 74 percent of people over 65 answering at least six out of 10 questions correctly.

Only 19 percent of people under the age of 45 managed to pass the exam.

The Woodrow Wilson Foundation, which works toward educational excellence, says it is assisting history teachers across the country in hopes of reversing this trend.

“We try to teach them gaming theory so that they can develop games – card games, board games – simple things in their classroom to make history a little more relevant for kids,” Riccards says.

An informed citizenry, which includes a knowledge of history, is critical to the proper functioning of a democracy, he adds.

“If we want individuals to be strong, contributing citizens, you know, be part of what makes America so great,” says Riccards, “then we believe that they need to know that history, so that they’re having informed discussions and they’re making informed decisions.”
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Playwright, poet and author Ntozake Shange, whose most acclaimed theater piece is the 1975 Tony Award-nominated play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,” died Saturday, according to her daughter. She was 70.

Shange’s “For Colored Girls” describes the racism, sexism, violence and rape experienced by seven black women. It has been influential to generations of progressive thinkers, from #MeToo architect Tarana Burke to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Lynn Nottage. After learning of Shange’s death, Nottage called her “our warrior poet/dramatist.”

Embodies the ‘struggle of black women’

Savannah Shange, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said Saturday that her mother died in her sleep at an assisted living facility in Bowie, Maryland. She had suffered a series of strokes in 2004.

“She spoke for, and in fact embodied, the ongoing struggle of black women and girls to live with dignity and respect in the context of systemic racism, sexism and oppression,” Savannah Shange said.

“For Colored Girls” is an interwoven series of poetic monologues set to music, Shange coined the form a “choreopoem” for it, by African-American women, each identified only by a color that she wears.

Shange used idiosyncratic punctuation and nonstandard spellings in her work, challenging conventions. One of her characters shouts, “i will raise my voice / & scream & holler / & break things & race the engine / & tell all yr secrets bout yrself to yr face.”

It played more than 750 performances on Broadway, only the second play by an African-American woman after “A Raisin in the Sun,” and was turned into a feature film by Tyler Perry starring Thandie Newton, Anika Noni Rose, Kerry Washington and Janet Jackson.

Born Paulette Williams in Trenton, New Jersey, she went on to graduate from Barnard College and got a master’s degree from the University of Southern California. Her father, Dr. Paul T. Williams, was a surgeon. Her mother, Eloise Owens Williams, was a professor of social work. She later assumed a new Zulu name: Ntozake means “She who comes with her own things” and Shange means “She who walks like a lion.”

Plays, poetry, teaching

“For Colored Girls” opened at the Public Theater in downtown Manhattan, with Shange, then 27, performing as one of the women. The New York Times reviewer called it “extraordinary and wonderful” and “a very humbling but inspiring thing for a white man to experience.” It earned Shange an Obie Award and she won a second such award in 1981 for her adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” at the Public Theater.

Shange’s other 15 plays include “A Photograph: A Study of Cruelty” (1977), “Boogie Woogie Landscapes” (1977), “Spell No. 7” (1979) and “Black and White Two Dimensional Planes” (1979).

Her list of published works includes 19 poetry collections, six novels, five children’s books and three collections of essays. Some of her novels are “Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo” (1982) and “Some Sing, Some Cry,” with her sister, Ifa Bayeza. Her poetry collections include “I Live in Music” (1994) and “The Sweet Breath of Life: A Poetic Narrative of the African-American Family” (2004). She appeared in an episode of “Transparent” and helped narrate the 2002 documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown.”

She worked with such black theater companies as the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco; the New Freedom Theater in Philadelphia; Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick, New Jersey; St. Louis Black Rep; Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, Minnesota; and The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, Texas.

Shange taught at Brown University, Rice University, Villanova University, DePaul University, Prairie View University and Sonoma State University. She also lectured at Yale, Howard, New York University, among others.

In addition to her daughter and sister, Shange is survived by sister Bisa Williams, brother Paul T. Williams, Jr. and a granddaughter, Harriet Shange-Watkins.
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Traditionally, the U.S. turns to all things pumpkin as Halloween approaches at the end of October. Coffeeshops sell pumpkin spiced lattes, grocery stores offer pumpkin-scented paper towels, and markets, porches, even the White House are all decorated with carved pumpkins. One California city decided to celebrate the spookiest night of the year with its own pumpkin craze: pumpkin nights! Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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A stallion in southwest Mississippi is bringing the first new blood in a century for a line of horses brought to America 500 years ago by Spanish conquistadors. The stallion was bred by Choctaw Indians, who were later forced out of their ancestral homelands. Faith Lapidus has the story.
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A little more than 20 years after he was murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, the remains of Matthew Shepard were laid to rest Friday at Washington’s National Cathedral. Shepard was openly gay, and the aftermath of his brutal killing helped drive change in the United States to include sexual orientation when prosecutors press hate crime charges. Arash Arabasadi reports from Washington.
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Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News Channel personality who made a rocky transition to softer news at NBC, was fired from her morning show Friday after triggering a furor by suggesting it was OK for white people to wear blackface at Halloween.

“‘Megyn Kelly Today’ is not returning,” NBC News said in a statement. The show occupied the fourth hour of NBC’s “Today” program, a time slot that will be hosted by other co-anchors next week, the network said.

NBC didn’t address Kelly’s future at the network. But negotiations over her exit from NBC are underway, according to a person familiar with the talks who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Kelly, said in a statement that she “remains an employee of NBC News and discussions about next steps are continuing.” He did not elaborate.

$20 million a year

Kelly is in the second year of a three-year contract that reportedly pays her more than $20 million a year.

The show’s cancellation came four days after she provoked a firestorm for her on-air comments about blackface as a costume.

“But what is racist?” Kelly said Tuesday. “Truly, you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface at Halloween or a black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid, that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

Critics accused her of ignoring the ugly history of minstrel shows and movies in which whites applied blackface to mock blacks as lazy, ignorant or cowardly.

Kelly apologized to fellow NBC staffers later in the day and made a tearful apology on her show Wednesday. She did not host new episodes of “Megyn Kelly Today” as scheduled Thursday and Friday.

Awkward start at softer news

Kelly, 47, made her debut as a NBC morning host in September 2017, taking over the 9 a.m. slot at “Today” and saying she wanted viewers “to have a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear and maybe a little hope to start your day.” She did cooking demonstrations and explored emotional topics. 

 

She largely floundered with that soft-news focus, and a pair of awkward and hostile interviews with Hollywood figures Jane Fonda and Debra Messing backfired. Kelly briefly found more of a purpose with the eruption of the #MeToo movement.

She made news when interviewing women who accused President Donald Trump of inappropriate behavior and spoke with accusers of Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, Roy Moore and others, as well as women who say they were harassed on Capitol Hill.

Time magazine, which honored “The Silence Breakers” as its Person of the Year, cited Kelly as the group’s leader in the entertainment field. The episode with Trump accusers had more than 2.9 million viewers, one of her biggest audiences.

Lower ratings

But strains continued behind the scenes. Kelly last month publicly called for NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack to appoint outside investigators to look into why the network didn’t air Ronan Farrow’s stories about Weinstein and allowed Farrow to take the material to The New Yorker.

And her ratings have been consistently down from what “Today” garnered in the 9 a.m. hour before Kelly came on board. In its first year, Kelly’s show averaged 2.4 million viewers a day, a drop of 400,000 from the year before.

The latest controversy may have tipped the balance. Both NBC’s “Nightly News” and “Today” did stories on her blackface comment, and weatherman Al Roker said Kelly “owes a big apology to people of color across the country.”

A former corporate defense attorney, Kelly made her name at Fox News discussing politics in prime time. During the first GOP debate in 2015, she asked Trump about calling women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.” Trump later complained about her questions, saying, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”

Fox News baggage

Although Kelly may have attempted a fresh start at NBC, she couldn’t always escape her baggage.

Many of her former Fox News Channel viewers were upset by her perceived disloyalty in leaving and her clashes with Trump during the campaign. At the same time, her former association with Fox caused some NBC colleagues and viewers to regard her with suspicion.

While at Fox, Kelly cultivated a reputation for toughness and a willingness to challenge conservative orthodoxy. Her private testimony about former Fox News chief executive Roger Ailes’ unwanted sexual advances a decade ago helped lead to Ailes’ firing.

She also created controversy with her stance on race. In 2013, while an anchor at Fox, Kelly addressed the ethnicity of Santa Claus by saying: “For all you kids watching at home, Santa just is white.”
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