Author: Ohart

Americans are expected to spend about $9 billion on Halloween this year as they buy costumes, decorations, greeting cards and candy for the annual Oct. 31 event.

The National Retail Federation estimates that more than 175 million Americans are planning to participate in Halloween activities this year, spending about $3.2 billion on costumes, $2.7 billion on decorations, and $2.6 billion on candy.

Bulk candy dealer CandyStore.com looked through 11 years of data to come up with the favorite Halloween candy in each U.S. state.

Overall, Skittles, M&M’s and Snickers top the list.

Americans who plan on buying candy for Halloween are expected to spend an average of $27 for the sweet treats. Trick-or-treaters in Oregon might be among the luckiest kids in America because giving out full-sized candy bars has become the norm in the northwest state.

The bulk candy dealer also came up with a list of the worst Halloween candy Candy corn, Tootsie Rolls and Smarties make the list.

The most popular costumes for kids include princess, superhero and Batman. Adults are partial to witch, vampire and zombie looks.

And even America’s pets are getting into the action. Pet owners plan to dress their little animal friends as pumpkins, hotdogs and bumblebees, according to the National Retail Federation.
…

Since the 20th century, submarine movies have reflected the times. World War II gave rise to nerve-wracking thrillers such as the German “Das Boot.” Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October” and “Crimson Tide” in the 1990s introduced the perilous nuclear submarines of the Cold War. Now, “Hunter-Killer,” is the latest entry from filmmaker Donovan Marsh. It focuses on perils at sea and the delicate balance of power in the Post-Cold War era. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with lead actor Gerard Butler.
…

North Korea has extended the run of its iconic mass games, which it revived last month to mark the country’s 70th birthday.

Despite a travel ban blocking tourists from the U.S. and pricey tickets for tourists from other countries, the games, which involve tens of thousands of gymnasts, dancers and flip-card-wielding hordes in the stands, appear to once again be a hit, filling Pyongyang’s 150,000-seat May Day Stadium more than a month after they resumed to end a five-year hiatus.

For the past month, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the country’s independence on Sept. 9, North Korea has been staging its latest version of the games, called “The Glorious Country.’’

Performances had been expected to conclude Oct. 10.

Ticket sales appear to be good — the stadium was nearly full Thursday, with many Chinese and some Japanese tourists — despite a travel ban that has stopped American tourists from visiting and seats for foreigners and VIPs that begin at $110 and go up to nearly $900.

The performances run about two hours and are divided into “chapters’’ that depict important ideas or stages in the growth of the nation. One of the highlights of this year’s performance is a segment on Korean reunification that depicts leader Kim Jong Un greeting South Korean President Moon Jae-in for their historic summit earlier this year.

The games have been criticized as an insouciant homage to authoritarianism, with the individual so totally melded into the larger whole and performing for the glorification of the leader. But they are also almost certainly one of the biggest examples of performance art ever undertaken. The previous iteration of the games received a world record for having more than 100,000 participants.

North Korea first staged its mass games in 2002, when Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, was the country’s leader. They continued almost without interruption on an annual basis until 2013.
…

A young man in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has set out to do something about the global refugee crisis even if it has only a modest impact. He started a fashion company while in college selling accessories with a special connection to refugees. In this report narrated by Molly McKitterick, VOA’s June Soh introduces you to the young entrepreneur.
…

A Broadway musical about a woman who may be the last surviving member of Russian royalty is starting its tour around the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Ironically, the country it won’t visit is Russia. Elena Wolf explains why in this story narrated by Anna Rice.
…

Taylor Swift has donated $15,500 to a GoFundMe account of a fan whose family is struggling with medical bills.

 

Sadie Bartell’s mother has been in a coma for three years, and the family is worried about losing their Orem, Utah, home because of mounting medical bills. The 19-year-old tweeted that her mother became ill two days before she went to see Swift in a concert.

 

Swift made the donation over the weekend with the message, “Love, Taylor, Meredith and Olivia Swift.” Meredith and Olivia are Swift’s cats.

 

Others followed the singer’s lead and donated.

 

Bartell tweeted “Taylor really actually donated to me and followed me and liked my thank you to her like that actually happened it’s my life it’s real.”

 

 

 
…

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts played the percentages Tuesday night with his team down by one run to the Boston Red Sox in the seventh inning of the opening game of this year’s Major League Baseball World Series.

He saw two runners on base, a right-handed pitcher on the mound and the Red Sox sending one of the hottest hitters in the playoffs, lefty-batting Dominican third baseman Rafael Devers, to the plate with two outs.

Roberts made a call to his bullpen, preferring to let Alex Wood try to take advantage of a lefty-lefty matchup to stamp out the brewing Red Sox rally and get his team to the eighth inning trailing only 5-4.

Red Sox Manager Alex Cora waited for Wood to enter the game, then countered with a move of his own, sending right-handed Dominican second baseman Eduardo Nuñez to hit for Devers.

It took two pitches for Nuñez to send a ball screaming into the cool Boston night, clearing the famed Green Monster wall in left field for a three-run home run that gave the Red Sox an 8-4 lead.

The Dodgers failed to mount any comeback as the Red Sox bullpen allowed no runners to reach base in the final two innings.

In a game started by two of the best pitchers in all of Major League Baseball, the teams combined for 19 hits and neither Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw nor Red Sox starter Chris Sale made it through the fifth inning before being replaced.

Game two of the best-of-seven series is Wednesday in Boston before the series shifts to Los Angeles on Friday.

The 2018 World Series marks the first time in more than a century the two franchises, both with rich histories, have squared off against each other in a championship. In 1916, the Boston Red Sox featured a young left-handed power hitter named Babe Ruth. Boston won that series against the Brooklyn Robins, as the Dodgers was known then, in five games.
…

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” a coming-of-age story about racism and injustice, overcame wizards and time travelers to be voted America’s best-loved novel by readers nationwide.

The 1961 book by Harper Lee emerged as No. 1 in PBS’ “The Great American Read” survey, whose results were announced Tuesday on the show’s finale. More than 4 million votes were cast in the six-month-long contest that put 100 titles to the test. Books that were published as a series were counted as a single entry.

The other top-five finishers in order of votes were Diana Gabaldon’s “Outlander” series about a time-spanning love; J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” boy wizard tales; Jane Austen’s romance “Pride & Prejudice,” and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” fantasy saga.

Lee’s slender, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel proved enduring enough to overcome the popularity of hefty epics adapted as blockbuster movie franchises (the Potter and Tolkien works) or for TV (”Outlander”).

Even “Pride & Prejudice,” the 200-year-old inspiration for numerous TV and movie versions and with an army of “Janeites” devoted to Austen, couldn’t best Harper’s novel.

It’s been more than five decades since the film based on “To Kill a Mockingbird” debuted, winning three Oscars, including a best-actor trophy for Gregory Peck’s portrayal of attorney Atticus Finch.

The book has sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and remains a fixture on school reading lists. Set in the 1930s South, it centers on Finch and his young children, daughter Scout and son Jem.

When Finch defends an African-American man falsely accused of assaulting a white woman, the trial and its repercussions open Scout’s eyes to the world around her, good and bad.

Besides the TV series, “The Great American Read” initiative included a 50,000-member online book club and video content across PBS platforms, Facebook and YouTube that drew more than 5 million views.

The 100-book list voted on by readers was based on an initial survey of about 7,000 Americans, with an advisory panel of experts organizing the list. Books had to have been published in English but not written in the language, and one book or series per author was allowed.
…

Sean “Diddy” Combs has pledged $1 million to a network of charter schools for a new location in the Bronx.

 

Capital Preparatory Schools has been approved to open in September with 160 6th and 7th graders. The goal is to expand to 650 students in grades six through 11 over five years, according to an announcement Tuesday.

 

The music mogul and Harlem native is a longtime education advocate. He worked closely with Capital Prep founder Steve Perry to expand the network that already has schools in Harlem and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

 

Diddy says he knows firsthand from his own upbringing the importance of access to free quality education. He said the school will provide historically disadvantaged students with the college and career skills they need to succeed.

 
…

Graffiti covers the ruins of Cyrene in eastern Libya, a city founded by Greeks more than 2,600 years ago that once attracted tourists but is now neglected and the target of vandals.

Insecurity and looting has hit Libya’s archaeological sites in the chaos and fighting that has followed the overthrow of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011, as rival groups struggle to consolidate control of the country.Libya is home to five of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, listed for their outstanding universal value. The sites include the ruins of the Roman city of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, which is famous for its amphitheater.

There are also prehistoric rock carvings in the Akakous mountains deep in the southern Sahara desert near the border with Algeria.

In the east, tourists once trekked to Cyrene, a site founded by Greeks and later expanded by Romans, nestled in the mountains some 200 km (124 miles) east of Benghazi.

But with foreign tourists gone and the sites visited only by Libyan families on weekend trips, locals have seized land at the sites and vandals have even smeared graffiti on columns and walls.

That presents a challenge to local authorities trying to protect the ruins located in the small community of Shahat.

“In Cyrene, instead of speaking to one owner, now we speak to 50 with different backgrounds,” said Ahmad Hussein, the head of the antiquities department of a parallel administration in charge of eastern Libya.

“Some of the owners have built houses on these sites,” he said.

The challenge is worsened by a law in 2013 that allowed people to reclaim land confiscated under Gadhafi. Some people took that literally and annexed what they felt they deserved.

Hussein wants to hold those who seized land accountable.

Two governments, few visitors

The effort to preserve ruins is further hampered by the fact that Libya has two governments. One administration backed by the United Nations sits in Tripoli, while the east has a parallel government.

In a rare positive sign, Hussein said that about 1,700 artifacts had been returned since 2011 after they were looted inside the country. Many other items are smuggled abroad though.

Leptis Magna in northwestern Libya has been able to escape vandalism thanks to local history fans and relative security at its location near the city of Misrata.

Sabratha has been repeatedly hit by fighting between rival factions and UNESCO last year issued an appeal to protect the site. The site received no help.

In the capital Tripoli, a lone director is trying to preserve some 18 Roman graves, dating back some 1,700 years which were found in 1958 in the western suburb of Janzour.

“There is no support for this site,” said al-Amari Ramadan Mabrouk, director of the Janzour antiquities office.

Libyan families come occasionally but otherwise spiders and dust cover the graves.

“I cannot give a number for tourists who visit Libya… but I can say that, before 2011, tourism was popular in Libya,” he said.
…

French film star Catherine Deneuve received Japan’s most prestigious art award on Tuesday at a ceremony in Tokyo, where she was greeted by Emperor Akihito.

Deneuve received the Praemium Imperiale for her achievement in film and theater performances.

 

The 84-year-old Akihito, who is abdicating at the end of April, shook hands with Deneuve at a reception afterward and congratulated her, according to Japan’s Kyodo News agency.

 

Deneuve has appeared in more than 100 films during a career spanning over 60 years.

 

Deneuve, 75, is currently working on a new film by Japanese award-winning director Hirokazu Koreeda in Paris.

 

She said at a news conference Monday that she’s lucky to be able to work with Koreeda and thanked him for giving her a break to pick up her award.

 
…

When Washington’s $500 million Museum of the Bible held its grand opening in November 2017, attended by Vice President Mike Pence, there were questions even then about the authenticity of its centerpiece collection of Dead Sea Scrolls.

Now the museum has been forced to admit a painful truth: Technical analysis by a team of German scholars has revealed that at least five of the museum’s 16 scroll fragments are apparent forgeries.

The announcement has serious implications not only for the Bible Museum but for other evangelical Christian individuals and institutions who paid top dollar for what now seems to be a massive case of archaeological fraud.

Jeffrey Kloha, chief curator for the Museum of the Bible, said in a statement that the revelation is “an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency.” 

The scrolls are a collection of ancient Jewish religious texts first discovered in the mid-1940s in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea in what is now Israel. The massive cache of Hebrew documents is believed to date back to the days of Jesus. With more than 9,000 documents and 50,000 fragments, the entire collection took decades to fully excavate.

Most of the scrolls and fragments are tightly controlled by the Israeli Antiquities Authority. But around 2002, a wave of new fragments began mysteriously appearing on the market, despite skepticism from Biblical scholars.

These fragments, they warned, were specifically designed to target American evangelical Christians, who prize the scrolls. That appears to be exactly what happened; a Baptist seminary in Texas and an evangelical college in California reportedly paid millions to purchase alleged pieces of the scrolls.

Also eagerly buying up fragments was the Green family — evangelical Oklahoma billionaires who run the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores and who famously sued the Obama administration on religious grounds, saying they didn’t want to pay to provide their employees access to the morning-after pill or intrauterine devices.

The Greens are the primary backers of the Museum of the Bible and went on an archaeological acquisition spree in the years leading up to the museum’s opening. In addition to the alleged Dead Sea Scrolls fragments, the Greens ran afoul of the Justice Department, which said they had acquired thousands of smuggled artifacts looted from Iraq and elsewhere. The family agreed last year to return those artifacts and pay a $3 million fine.
…

For 150 years, the British Museum has housed one of the iconic, heavy-browed stone figures that Chile’s Easter Island is famous for.

Now the islanders are hoping desperately to get it back.

They plan to build a copy of the four-ton monolith and, potentially swap it for the real thing.

The statue, known as a “moai” and named the Hoa Hakananai’a, is one of hundreds originally found on the island. Carved by Polynesian colonizers somewhere between the 13th and 16th centuries, each of the big-headed figures was considered to represent tribal leaders or deified ancestors.

About a dozen have been removed from the island over the years. Now Camilo Rapu, president of the island’s Ma’u Henua community, said it’s time Hoa Hakananai’a was returned.

The Ma’u Henua community, with Chilean government support, launched a campaign in August to persuade the British Museum and Queen Elizabeth II to return the famous moai — in exchange for an exact replica to be carved on Easter Island.

“Our expert carvers will make a copy in basalt, the original stone used in the Hakananai’a moai, as an offering to Queen Elizabeth in exchange for the original,” Rapu told reporters in Santiago.

The Ma’u Henua have signed an agreement with the Bishop Museum — Hawaii’s largest museum, with a huge collection of Polynesian artifacts — to produce a polycarbonate copy of the Hakananai’a, to be ready by November 3.

The actual carving of the statue will take place on Easter Island, using thousand-year-old Rapa Nui techniques — combined with some modern technology to allow the job to be completed in seven months.

The Hakananai’a moai in the British Museum stands 2.4 meters tall (eight feet) and weighs about four tons.

On November 23, a committee of islanders and Chilean officials plans to travel to London in hopes of negotiating the moai’s return.

“This is a historic demand of the Rapa Nui people,” said Rapu. The Rapa Nui were the island’s aboriginal settlers, and their descendants still make up a large part of the population.

“This moai has a spiritual value; it is part of our family and our culture. We want her (the queen) to understand that for us, this is its value — not as a museum piece,” he said.

The islanders will bring with them a book, in support of their demand, signed by some of the thousands of tourists who every year visit the Pacific island paradise some 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) off Chile’s mainland.

 
…

78th Street in Cleveland, Ohio, has been transformed from an industrial area into an art mecca. Once home to a car manufacturer, its old metal doors and freight elevators serve as a setting for bright paintings and abstract sculptures. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.
…

It’s been a mystery in the United States since the Great Depression: Who are the 11 men pictured in a famous photograph called “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper”? In the 1932 photo, the construction workers are enjoying their lunch break on a metal beam, 256 meters up in the air above New York City streets. That skyscraper is now part of the Rockefeller Center complex, and that’s where Boris Koltsov went in search of answers. Anna Rice narrates his report.
…

Halloween may still be a few weeks away, but New York City is getting ready to be frightened. The Morgan Library and Museum is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s book “Frankenstein,” one of the most famous horror novels of all time. VOA’s Elena Wolf went to the exhibition and got a look at the original Frankenstein manuscript.
…

Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

“It gives the people who are seeking agency a little bit of chance to have that back,” Madara said. The ritual was to be livestreamed on Facebook and Instagram at 8 p.m. EDT Saturday (1200 GMT Sunday).

Seated at a desk phone among bird skulls and crystal balls at Catland Books, the occult shop she co-owns, Madara said the Kavanaugh hex is expected to be the most popular event the store has hosted since its 2013 opening, including spells aimed at President Donald Trump. Madara declined to provide details of what the latest ritual will entail.

More than 15,000 people who have seen Catland Books promotions on Facebook have expressed interest in attending the event, vastly exceeding the shop’s 60-person capacity.

​Irate, threatening calls

Not everyone is a witchcraft fan. Madara said she had fielded numerous irate calls from critics, with at least one threatening violence. 

“Every time we host something like this there’s always people who like to call in with death threats or read us scripture,” she said.

As far as supporters go, some are sexual assault survivors still angry that the U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court despite accusations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations, and an FBI investigation failed to corroborate his accusers’ accounts.

Democrats hope lingering outrage over Kavanaugh, particularly among women, will translate into election gains for them Nov. 6. Republicans are likewise trying to seize on anger among conservatives at how they perceive Kavanaugh was mistreated.

Counter hexes and prayers

Believers in mysticism on both sides of the political divide are taking matters into their own hands.

Plans for the Catland Books event have sparked “counter hexes” around the country by those seeking to undo the spell that the Brooklyn witches cast against Kavanaugh, Madara said.

Even mainstream clergy was joining the fray. Rev. Gary Thomas of the Diocese of San Jose in California said Friday that he would include Kavanaugh in his prayers at Saturday mass.
…

Majority-Hindu Bali has long been considered more tolerant of different sexual identities compared with other parts of Indonesia, especially amid recent anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) crackdowns in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country. 

But a beauty pageant promoting HIV education and equality was this month shutdown by Islamic hardliners, sparking concern among some in the LGBT community that Bali is no longer a safe place.

Organized by the Bali-based Gaya Dewata Foundation, which provides testing, counseling and support on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, the pageant has been held annually for the past three years. But this year, anti-LGBT Muslim groups reportedly harassed the owners of the Bhumiku Convention Hall in Denpasar, Bali’s capital. 

“We had to call off our event, due to the owners of the venue canceling it,” Christian Supriyadinata, the director of Gaya Dewata, told VOA.

“I thought Bali will have that space for us to be ourselves,” said Agung a Balinese native who recently moved back to the island from Muslim-majority Java. He chose to be identified by one name to protect his identity. Agung told VOA it, “actually turns out to be Bali doesn’t have that immunity anymore, doesn’t have that bubble anymore to protect ourselves.”

LGBT events canceled

Lini Zurlia, an Indonesian queer activist who works for the regional LGBT organization ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, said this was not first LGBT event to be canceled in Bali. Many public events for the Straits Games, a sports event for the gay community from across Asia, were canceled last year after pressure from certain quarters, she said. 

“It was not only from hard-line groups but also from the police,” she said. “Since then, we think Bali isn’t all that friendly [to LGBT people] after all. Maybe it’s just friendly because it’s a center for tourism in Indonesia.”

The local chapter of the Indonesian Council of Ulama (MUI) was among the groups that opposed the event and reported it to the police. 

“This is clearly very alarming, because the [pageant] is clearly contrary to moral and religious values in Indonesia,” the Bali MUI chairman, Muhammad Taufik Asadi, told the conservative-leaning newspaper Republika.

Sexuality and health

Many local cultures in Indonesia have traditionally had fluid understandings of sexuality beyond a binary of heterosexuality and homosexuality. This has, however, eroded in recent years with the rise of more conservative strains of Islam. Intensified anti-LGBT sentiment has also been accompanied by rising infection rates of HIV/AIDS.

According to UNAIDS, Indonesia had 48,000 new HIV infections and 38,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2016, an increase in AIDS-related deaths of 68 percent from 2010. 

“We want the community in Bali, especially our friends in the LGBT community, to understand the problem of HIV/AIDS and help with HIV/AIDS prevention,” Supriyadinata said.

Members of the LGBT community are disproportionately affected, with HIV prevalence rates of 25.8 percent for men who have sex with men and 24.8 percent of transgender people. 

“Cases of HIV/AIDS across the whole community [in Indonesia] have indeed increased, so information about HIV/AIDS is much needed,” Supriyadinata said.

​Moral panic

The Gaya Dewata pageant’s cancellation is just the latest in a string of anti-LGBT actions by the police and civil society groups across Indonesia. While gay sex is not a crime, the LGBT community is often targeted under the country’s strict anti-pornography laws.

Earlier this month, Jakarta police raided a so-called “gay party” and arrested four men on drug charges. Law enforcement publicly paraded the suspects and their faces were televised. Several social media accounts later further spread the men’s images to shame them.

Social media again exploded with the hashtag #UninstallGojek, with many netizens calling for a boycott of the local ride-sharing application Gojek after one of the company’s executives expressed support for diversity and tolerance of LGBT people on Facebook.

Indonesia’s minister for religion, Lukman Saifuddin, subsequently released a video on social media declaring that “all religions reject LGBT, that’s why I reject LGBT actions and behavior.”

“Although LGBT behavior is wrong, they should be treated with empathy so that they change their deviant ways,” he added. Survey results released by Saiful Mujani Research & Consulting in January showed that 81.5 percent of Indonesians believe gay and lesbian “behavior” is prohibited by religion, and a majority said they would object to having LGBT neighbors or in government. But only 58.3 percent of the respondents reported to know what LGBT meant.

​Election season

Some worry that anti-LGBT activity will further ramp up ahead of the country’s presidential elections in April 2019. The incumbent Joko Widodo’s running mate, the influential conservative cleric Ma’ruf Amin, has helped issue fatwas against LGBT people as a member of Indonesia’s Ulama Council. 

“We want a stern prohibition of LGBT activities and other deviant sexual activities and legislation that categorizes them as crime[s],” he was quoted as saying by the national news agency Antara in 2016.

Anti-LGBT themes also feature heavily in the rhetoric of supporters of opposition candidate Prabowo Subianto. According to Zurlia of ASEAN SOGIE Caucus, many of the Islamic groups who support Prabowo and opposition figure Fadli Zon claim that the LGBT movement is the product of Western influence and an import from countries like the United States.

“They’re good friends with the American president and praise Donald Trump and yet say that the LGBT movement comes from America,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
…

Hundreds of people have lined up in New York City as rapper Cardi B handed out free winter coats.

The Bronx-born rapper met with residents and fans on Thursday evening at the Marlboro Houses in Brooklyn during brisk fall weather.

 

The 26-year-old also was given balloons and a cake to celebrate her recent birthday.

 

Cardi B says she cares a lot about kids and the community and feels it’s important to set a good example.

 

On Oct. 1, she got a summons in connection with a melee at a New York strip club. Her lawyer says the star didn’t cause any harm.

 

About three weeks earlier, Cardi B and Nicki Minaj were involved in an altercation at a New York Fashion Week party.

 
…

Supermodel Karlie Kloss has married businessman Joshua Kushner.

 

Kloss posted a photo of her in a wedding dress and Kushner in a tuxedo – both of them beaming – on Instagram and Twitter Thursday night. People magazine reports the couple married at a small ceremony in upstate New York and will have a larger ceremony in the spring.

Kloss’ publicists did not return an email seeking details about the wedding Thursday.

 

Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and one of his senior advisers.

 

Kloss has modeled for Victoria’s Secret and numerous luxury brands, and will be the new host of “Project Runway.”

 
…

The four major U.S. professional sports leagues could reap a combined $4.2 billion annually as a result of legal sports betting, most of it indirectly from increased fan engagement, according to a casino industry survey released on Thursday.

The findings could fuel a long-simmering feud between the gaming industry and American sports leagues, who want a share of the gambling revenue as U.S. states begin to legalize sports betting.

The survey showed leagues stand to benefit even without taking a cut of wagers. The National Football League is likely to make the most, with a projected $2.33 billion of additional annual revenue, according to the study seen by Reuters. The rest would go to Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.

The Nielsen Sports survey was commissioned by the American Gaming Association (AGA), which represents the casino industry. The NBA and MLB  declined to comment. The NFL and NHL did not reply to requests for comment.

For years, the leagues fought states’ efforts to legalize sports betting, arguing it would lead to game fixing.

Supreme Court ruling a game-changer

But in May, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a federal ban against sports betting, paving the way for any state to legalize, regulate and tax the activity.

Since then, the leagues have sought to glean a portion of the coming windfall to help them fund additional integrity measures. They also have argued that they deserve a portion of wagers because there would be nothing to bet on without their players, stadiums and games.

Major League Baseball has said it wants 1 percent of the total amount of money bet as an “integrity fee.”

Lawmakers in New Jersey, the first major state outside of Nevada to roll out sports betting, flatly rejected that idea.

Heated exchange

At last week’s annual Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, tensions flared when Kenny Gersh, an MLB executive vice president, told a panel the integrity fee should be called a “royalty” and that leagues had lowered their request to 0.25 percent.

“You want a cut of the revenue without any of the risk,” shot back fellow panelist Sara Slane, the AGA’s senior vice president of public affairs.

“We have to go through a regulatory process. We invest billions of dollars in buildings and our licenses,” she said. “You want us to take that risk, pay you, and then you’re going to benefit on the back end as well.”

The AGA study found that $596 million of leagues’ total increased annual revenue would come from gaming services spending on television advertising, $267 million from sponsorship deals with the sports betting industry and $89 million from data and video revenue.

But the study projected that the bulk of the projected windfall would come if more fans, attracted by betting, attend games or watch them. Nearly $3.3 billion is tied to those indirect revenues, including media rights and more merchandise and ticket sales.

Over 13% increase in revenue for NFL

For the NFL alone, indirect revenues could grow 13.4 percent to $14.8 billion of annual revenue, the report said.

The study has a margin of error of 3 percentage points and surveyed more than 1,000 adult sports fans and self-identified bettors nationwide, asking how a national legal market would affect sports consumption habits.

The national market would need to include at least 100 million people for the leagues to fully benefit, Nielsen estimated.  
…

In the late 1960s, while fledgling new retailers Walmart, Kohl’s, Kmart and Target were hard at work establishing a foothold in the hearts, minds and wallets of the American consumer, the nation’s dominant retailer was busy building the world’s tallest building.

In pouring its funds and focus into Chicago’s Sears Tower, America’s original super-store may have unwittingly become the architect of its own long, slow and painful demise.

“Walmart, the strongest of all those four, wasn’t anywhere near where Sears was for a couple of decades,” says James Schrager, professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “So, if Sears was on top of things, even in the early 80s, they could have been Target or a better version of Kmart, they could have been any of that. But they sat on their hands and built their tower in 1969 instead.”

It’s been a precipitous fall for the one-time retail powerhouse, which this week filed for bankruptcy after years of losses.

Established 123 years ago, Sears was literally the place where America shopped, as its tagline boasted.

Sears had everything from clothing and toys, to tools and appliances. It even sold housing kits. Thousands of Sears homes still stand across America today. For decades, American families eagerly awaited the delivery of the retailer’s several-inches thick mail order catalogues.

The secret to Sears’ success was being able to stay ahead of the market, according to Schrager.

From small stores in small towns, to big stores in downtowns in the 1920s; to a thriving catalogue business for smaller outposts, the main way America shopped right through to the 1950s and 60s; and then the switch to anchor stores in shopping malls through the late 1970s, Sears was always on the move, changing with the times.

But then the retailer seemed to stop evolving.

While the Walmarts and Targets of the world recognized the value of moving away from shopping centers and opening massive spaces in strip malls where customers could park right in front of the store, Sears stayed at the mall.

The competition also developed individual identities and expertise. Target became known for its upscale, fashion-oriented approach, Walmart for superior logistics in smaller towns, and Kohl’s had fashion-only soft goods, says Schrager.

Meanwhile, Sears seemed to lose its focus.

“Sears slowly lost track of its retail business by being fascinated with other things,” Schrager says. “In 1969, they began to build the tallest building in the world, that took a lot of time away from the business. They bought a stock brokerage company, which they had no business doing. They bought a real estate company, which they had no business doing. They developed a wonderful credit card called Discover, which has nothing to do with retailing.”

And along the way, the type of people at the top, the people making the business decisions, changed.

“Merchants are the lifeline of the business and Sears allowed them to wither,” Schrager says. “How do we know that? Because, after a while, Sears wasn’t getting a merchant to run the business. They were getting a financier or a marketer or someone other than a dirty-fingernails merchant who spent their life trying to beat the merchant down the street.”

Edward Lampert, Sears’ most recent CEO and majority shareholder, is a hedge fund billionaire. He took over in 2013 and expressed hopes of turning the company around.

Although Sears just filed for bankruptcy protection this week, Schrager believes the final death blow for the retailer occurred back in the early 1990s.

That’s when previous company executives decided to sell off the profitable parts of the business, while keeping the failing stores. In 1993, Sears shed the Discover credit card, its real estate company Coldwell Banker, and its Dean Witter Reynolds stock brokerage. Allstate, its insurance company, followed in 1995.

“There’s nothing left. Retail walks by you,” Schrager says. “You can’t stand still, and Sears has been standing still since 1969. That’s a very long time. The world has evolved two of three times since then…it’s over.”

While one-time competitors like Walmart, Target and Kohl’s continue to change and thrive, Kmart, which is now operated by Sears Holdings, is also in financial trouble because, Schrager says, it too failed to change with the times.

As for the one-time king of the pack, the next time consumers get excited about buying something at Sears could be when the bankruptcy court rules that the place where America once shopped must itself now be broken apart and sold off for the best possible price.
…

The U.S. Mega Millions lottery jackpot swelled to $868 million, the second largest in U.S. history, after no winning ticket emerged in Tuesday night’s drawing.

The Mega Millions jackpot rose from $667 million after no one had the six numbers drawn Tuesday, extending a winless streak for the top prize that has lasted since July. The next drawing is Friday night.

The lottery prize is the largest ever for Mega Millions and the country’s second highest on record, trailing a $1.586 billion Powerball jackpot paid out in 2016.

Lottery tickets are sold in kiosks, supermarkets and gas stations in 44 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands.

The immediate cash value of the Mega Millions prize is $494.5 million. Otherwise $868 million is paid out over 29 years.

The Mega Millions jackpot has grown with each of the 24 semi-weekly drawings that failed to produce a top winner since July 24, when an 11-member office pool in Santa Clara County, California, hit a $543 million jackpot.

The odds of hitting the jackpot by matching all six numbers correctly are 1-in-302.6 million, but the odds of turning a Mega Millions ticket into a winner of any kind, including a $2 prize simply for matching the “Mega ball,” are a more down-to-earth 1-in-24.
…

In West Africa, as in other parts of the continent, dancing is an important part of traditions. An ocean away, in Baltimore Maryland, a multi-generational family has made performing those dances part of their tradition. 

All In the Family

The Von Hendricks founded an African dance company six years ago. They named it “Keur Khaleyi”, which means the House of Children in Wolof, a language in Senegal.

The company originally featured sisters Jihan and Ayana dancing, and their brother, Shakai, on the drum. Soon, they were joined by two members of a second generation, and later, a sister-in-law. The family performs dances from Senegal, Mali and Guinea, although that is not part of their heritage.

“My granddad was German and my grandma was Jamaican,” Jihan, who also serves as the company’s art director, says.

It all started when Jihan’s parents enrolled her in an African dance school, where she picked up moves and got her siblings interested. Over the years, the West African culture became part of their identity.

“That’s why my heart really is with Senegal because those were the dances I learned,” Jihan says. “They all have different meanings, children play dance, dances done the night before the bride gets married, harvesting dances. So, these dances all have meanings.” 

Her brother Shakai’s heart is also with Senegal. He loves African drumming. “Ever since I saw it when I was 10, I was hooked,” he recalls. “(It’s) like the sound of the drum had just caught my attention. I was like ‘Wow I need to get into that.’ It took about a year for my Mom to find a company. It became something I do every day. ”

Performing together strengthens family ties and sparks creativity.

“You’re bouncing off your each other’s energy,” he adds. “It’s really good. It just made us tighter and tighter. It made it an unbreakable bond between us. It’s great. Our parents knew what they were doing. They put us into this at a young age to keep us together.”

“My happy place”

Thirteen-year old Diallo, one of the second-generation company members, dances and plays the drum. She started dancing when she was 18 months old. She says it helped her develop social skills and make friends. She likes everything about performing: the lively music, the costumes and the sense of achievement it gives her.

“Costumes are very comfortable,” she says. “They’re very bright and pretty. I really like it and I love dancing. It made me who I am. I grew up with it. It’s my happy place. I get to express my emotions when I’m dancing.”

Her mother, Jihan, says integrating younger members of the family into the company comes naturally, as they are exposed to dancing and drumming since early childhood. “We take them to conferences,” she says. “We have workshops, we bring in master dancers and drummers. So, they’re always exposed to it.”

Dance as Medicine

The Von Hendricks dance in local and national festivals, and recently started a school to teach the moves to others. Offering classes brings dancing to a larger family, the Baltimore community. 

Seventy-one-year old hair stylist, Shakoorah El Sharief is one of the students. She learned many other African dances in the past, but says she likes West African dances best. “I love everything about it. I love the drumming. I love moving with the music, it energizes me. It’s so healing. It’s very healing to the mind, the body and the soul, everything. It’s like my medicine.”

The Von Hendricks’ dream is to teach more members of their community about West African dances, and expose the youngest members of the family to their dancing and drumming traditions. That promises to keep the family dancing for many generations to come.
…

You could say baseball has struck out as America’s favorite pastime, because Americans would apparently rather watch TV than head to the ballpark.

Most Americans prefer to fill their spare time watching television than doing just about anything else, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Nearly 80 percent of people living in the United States are watching TV on any given day. Television viewing swallows up more than half of all the time Americans spend on sports and leisure activities, according to data from the BLS’s American Time Use Survey.

From 2013 to 2017, people 15 and older spent about 2 hours and 46 minutes a day watching TV — 55.2 percent of their total spare time — when they could have been doing pretty much anything else they wanted.

That TV time includes watching recorded TV shows, live programming, DVDs, and streaming content on TVs, computers, and portable devices. It does not include time spent watching a film in a movie theater.

Men watch about a half-hour more TV than women each day.

Older people and the unemployed watch the most TV, while parents with small children watch the least. Older people and the unemployed spent the most time watching TV. Americans over the age of 65 are the nation’s biggest couch potatoes. They spend the most time — 4 and a half hours per day — in front of the tube.

TV watching also varies by geography. Residents in the American South are among the nation’s most ardent TV viewers. People living in several of the Rocky Mountain states and in the Northeast tend to watch the least.
…

Anna Burns won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday with Milkman, a vibrant, violent story about men, women, conflict and power set during Northern Ireland’s years of Catholic-Protestant violence.

Burns is the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize, which is open to English-language authors from around the world. She received her trophy from Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, during a black-tie ceremony at London’s medieval Guildhall.

Milkman is narrated by a young woman dealing with an older man who uses family ties, social pressure and political loyalties as weapons of sexual coercion and harassment. It is set in the 1970s, but was published amid the global eruption of sexual misconduct allegations that sparked the #MeToo movement.

“I think this novel will help people to think about MeToo, and I like novels that help people think about current movements and challenges,” said philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, who chaired the judging panel. “But we think it’ll last — it’s not just about something that’s going on in this moment.

“I think it’s a very powerful novel about the damage and danger of rumor,” he added.

Burns beat five other novelists, including the bookies’ favorites: American writer Richard Powers’ tree-centric eco-epic The Overstory and Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, the story of a slave who escapes from a sugar plantation in a hot-air balloon.

The other finalists were U.S. novelist Rachel Kushner’s The Mars Room, set in a women’s prison; Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, a verse novel about a traumatized D-Day veteran; and 27-year-old British author Daisy Johnson’s Greek tragedy-inspired family saga Everything Under.

Founded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. Americans have been eligible since 2014, and there have been two American winners — Paul Beatty’s The Sellout in 2016 and George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo in 2017.

A third consecutive American victor would have revived fears among some U.K. writers and publishers that the prize is becoming too U.S.-centric. But Appiah said neither the nationality nor the gender of the authors was a factor in the judges’ deliberations.

“If we had been drifting towards thinking that one of the men on the list was the best one, I wouldn’t have said ‘No, guys, we’re going to get in trouble for this’ — any more than if we’d been drifting towards an American,” he said. “We picked the one … most deserving of the prize.”

The Man Booker is always subject to intense speculation and lively betting, and has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Previous winners include Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Hilary Mantel.

It’s likely to bring a big boost to Burns, who is 56 years old and has published two previous novels, but is hardly a household name.

Milkman appears on the printed page as a continuous torrent with few paragraph marks, which has led some to label it experimental and challenging. But Appiah said the vivid, distinctive Belfast language in Burns’ book was “really worth savoring.”

“If you’re having difficulty, try reading it out loud,” he said. “The pleasure of it really has to do with the way that it sounds.

“It’s challenging in the way a walk up (mount) Snowdon is challenging. It’s definitely worth it, because the view is terrific when you get to the top.”
…