Author: Ohart

More than 40 years after they became the world’s most famous journalism duo, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are still making news.

Bernstein was among three CNN reporters who last week broke the story of former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s allegation that Trump knew in advance of the June 2016 meeting between representatives of his presidential campaign and Russian officials. On Tuesday, Woodward’s upcoming book, Fear: Inside the Trump White House, was No. 1 on Amazon.com, within a day of its announcement. 

The former Washington Post colleagues known for their Watergate coverage speak regularly, they say, comparing notes on the Trump era.

‘He’s a news junkie, and I’m a news junkie,” Woodward, 75, explained Tuesday during a telephone interview, adding that he includes a tribute to Bernstein in his new book’s acknowledgements.

“We keep each other posted pretty well,” Bernstein, 74, said during a separate phone interview. “Obviously, we do different things. But we also have a lifetime of understanding each other and looking at news together.” 

Successful author

Woodward, an associate editor at the Post, is among the most successful nonfiction authors of his time, with a long series of best-selling accounts of sitting presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. A new Woodward book even became a political tradition — coming out in the fall of an election year.

But after the 2012 release of The Price of Politics, Woodward stepped away from the present, publishing no works on Obama’s second term, and instead focused on Watergate-era news. The Last of the President’s Men, his work on White House aide Alexander Butterfield, the man who revealed Nixon’s taping system, came out in 2015.

A Trump book was an easy choice for Woodward, who calls the current president’s rise a “pivot point” in American history. According to his publisher, Simon & Schuster, Woodward will show the “harrowing life” of the Trump White House and the president’s decision-making process as he draws upon “hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, contemporaneous meeting notes, files, documents and personal diaries.”

What is power?

The book’s title draws upon an interview Woodward and Post reporter Robert Costa had with Trump that was published in April 2016. Costa had noted that Obama defined power as “you can get what you want without having to exert violence.” Trump had a different interpretation.

His answer was, Woodward said, checking his notes, “Real power is — I don’t even want to use the word — ‘fear.’ ”

Bernstein is a political commentator for CNN whose books include A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton and the two Nixon-era classics he wrote with Woodward, All the President’s Men and The Final Days. He is currently working on a memoir about his early years of journalism, when he was starting out at the now-defunct Washington Star.

“My time at the Star was a great learning experience, and then there was the Post and Watergate. Those two experiences inform pretty much everything I do,” Bernstein said.

“Imagine,” he added, referring to himself and Woodward, “here we are, 74 and 75 years old, and we still get to do this.”
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With the launch of a public school in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, LeBron James has joined a long list of celebrities who have sought to leave their mark on education centers.

The NBA star, who recently left the Cleveland Cavaliers and signed with the Los Angeles Lakers, was on hand Monday to welcome children to the I Promise School, built in a partnership with the LeBron James Family Foundation and Akron City Schools. The school launches with a group of third- and fourth-graders and plans to expand to serve first through eighth grades by 2022.

James has said the school, with a non-traditional schedule and year-round programming, can have a lasting impact for children facing the kinds of challenges he faced during a rough childhood. James grew up without a father, and he missed a lot of school because he and his mother lacked transportation.

Here is a look at some of the other celebrities who have been involved in creating schools, sometimes with mixed results:

Deion Sanders

The NFL Hall of Famer co-founded a multi-campus charter school called Prime Prep Academy in Texas in 2012. He coached there and served in other capacities but had a rocky relationship with administrators and was twice fired and rehired. The school’s enrollment slid amid financial and administrative problems, and it closed in early 2015.

Shakira

The singer has funded at least a half-dozen schools for children in her native Colombia over the past two decades with her foundation, Pies Descalzos, which means Barefoot in Spanish. Those institutions included a $6 million school she dedicated in 2009 in her hometown, Barranquilla, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. She said then that her foundation’s work is about “breaking the myth that quality education is the privilege of the few.”

Magic Johnson

The Lakers legend announced in 2011 that he was partnering with for-profit EdisonLearning Inc. to lend his name and business skills to promote dropout recovery centers. The effort expanded to at least 17 Bridgescape schools in six states within a couple years with the goal of reducing school dropout rates in urban areas. The company and Johnson parted ways after five years, but EdisonLearning says four Bridgescape Learning Academies still operate with the Chicago Public Schools.

Tony Bennett

The singer and his wife, teacher Susan Benedetto, founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in 2001 in New York, naming it after the legendary singer, who was Bennett’s best friend. The public performing arts high school in Queens, which gets support from Bennett’s nonprofit group, admits students based on auditions. It boasts a high graduation rate, with alumni who have gone on to study at a variety of top arts colleges. 

Will Smith

The actor-rapper and his actress wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, founded the private New Village Academy in the Los Angeles area in 2008. Pinkett Smith said she was moved to start the school after developing home-schooling programs for their own children, but it was embroiled in controversy over rumors the curriculum used instructional methods developed by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. The couple and school leaders denied any connection to the church. The school reportedly closed in 2013. Representatives for the couple couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Andre Agassi

The tennis great ran the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy for at-risk youth in his hometown, Las Vegas. In 2016, the academy was turned over to an out-of-state operator, and it has been rebranded Democracy Prep at Agassi Campus. The school change was compelled by a Nevada state initiative that targeted low-performing schools. The Andre Agassi Foundation for Education also is tied to an investment fund that helps charter school operators get access to buildings and facilities around the country.

Sean “Diddy” Combs

The performer and entrepreneur added another role in 2016 as founder of the Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School in the New York neighborhood where he was born. He said it was a dream come true to create the school, which is part of a group of schools aimed at supporting historically disadvantaged students.

Pitbull

The rapper, whose real name is Armando Christian Perez, has been a celebrity ambassador for the Sports and Leadership Academy, which has locations in Miami and Henderson, Nevada. He’s appeared at ceremonies for the schools, which focus on sports medicine, marketing, business and management. The academy is overseen by the Sports and Leadership Academy Foundation, and he is not a financial donor.

Madonna

The pop star founded the charity Raising Malawi in 2006 to help vulnerable children in that impoverished southern African nation. Its work has included helping to build schools there. It also funded a children’s wing at a hospital that opened last year.
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A rare draft poster for the “Star Wars” sequel “The Empire Strikes Back” has sold at auction for $26,400.

Heritage Auctions says a long-time pop culture collector who wished to remain anonymous made the winning bid Sunday in the Dallas auction.

 

The poster features Han Solo and Princess Leia in an embrace similar to one from a “Gone With the Wind” poster featuring Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett O’Hara while surrounded by flames.

 

Grey Smith, Heritage’s director of vintage posters, says the draft poster for the 1980 movie “The Empire Strikes Back” is unique because it shows Roger Kastel’s complete artwork in the original color palette.

 

After final revisions, the poster had a darker color scheme than the draft’s vibrant reds and oranges. It was also more streamlined with fewer characters.
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An Israeli court jailed an Israeli Arab poet for five months on Tuesday after convicting her of incitement to terrorism for a poem and remarks she posted on social media during a wave of Palestinian street attacks.

Dareen Tatour, 36, posted on Facebook and YouTube a video of herself reading out her poem “Resist, My People, Resist”, as a soundtrack to footage of masked Palestinian youths throwing stones and firebombs at Israeli soldiers.

Tatour published her poem in October 2015 during a spate of deadly Palestinian stabbing, shooting and ramming attacks on Israelis. She was arrested a few days later, and prosecutors said her post was a call for violence. She denied this.

Her case became a cause celebre for freedom of speech advocates in Israel and abroad. It drew attention to the advanced technology used by Israeli security agencies to trawl through social media to identify and arrest users suspected of incitement to violence, or of planning attacks.

Tatour said her poem was misunderstood by the Israeli authorities as it was not a call for violence, rather for non-violent struggle.

U.S.-backed negotiations on a Palestinian state in territory Israel captured in a 1967 war have been stalled since 2014.

Tatour was also charged with supporting a terrorist group. Prosecutors said she had expressed support for the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad’s call for an uprising.

“I wasn’t expecting justice to be done. The case was political from the start, because I am Palestinian and support freedom of speech,” she told reporters at the Nazareth Magistrate’s Court in northern Israel.

Arab minority

Tatour belongs to Israel’s Arab minority, which comprises mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 Arab-Jewish war that surrounded the creation of the state of Israel. Hundreds of thousands fled or were driven from their homes.

The court added a six-month suspended sentence to Tatour’s jail time, according to the official minutes distributed by the Justice Ministry. Her lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said Tatour would appeal both the verdict and the sentence.

Israel says the string of Palestinian attacks that began in 2015 was fueled by online incitement and it has launched a legal crackdown to curb it.

Indictments for online incitement have tripled in Israel since 2014. Prosecutions by the Israeli military have also increased in the occupied West Bank – most of those charged are young Palestinians.

The campaign against alleged incitement has raised questions about the balance between security and free speech.

On July 18 the Israeli parliament was set to pass legislation that would have empowered the justice system to order Internet providers, such as Facebook and Google, to take down social media posts in Israel deemed as incitement.

But hours before the scheduled vote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shelved the bill. An adviser to Netanyahu, Jonatan Urich, said the law was open to a too-wide interpretation that could allow cyber-censorship and harm freedom of speech.

 
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McDonald’s is fighting to hold onto customers as the Big Mac turns 50, but it isn’t changing the makings of its most famous burger.

The company is celebrating the 1968 national launch of the double-decker sandwich whose ingredients of “two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions and a sesame seed bun” were seared into American memories by a TV jingle. But the milestone comes as the company reduces its number of U.S. stores. McDonald’s said Thursday that customers are visiting less often. Other trendy burger options are reaching into the heartland.

The “Golden Arches” still have a massive global reach, and the McDonald’s brand of cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets and french fries remains recognizable around the world. But on its critical home turf, the company is toiling to stay relevant. Kale now appears in salads, fresh has replaced frozen beef patties in Quarter Pounders, and some stores now offer ordering kiosks, food delivery and barista-style cafes.

The milestone for the Big Mac shows how much McDonald’s and the rest of fast-food have evolved around it.

“Clearly, we’ve gotten a little more sophisticated in our menu development,” McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a phone interview.

As with many of its popular and long-lasting menu items, the idea for the Big Mac came from a franchisee.

In 1967, Michael James “Jim” Delligatti lobbied the company to let him test the burger at his Pittsburgh restaurants. Later, he acknowledged the Big Mac’s similarity to a popular sandwich sold by the Big Boy chain.

“This wasn’t like discovering the light bulb. The bulb was already there. All I did was screw it in the socket,” Delligatti said, according to “Behind the Arches.”

McDonald’s agreed to let Delligatti sell the sandwich at a single location, on the condition that he use the company’s standard bun. It didn’t work. Delligatti tried a bigger sesame seed bun, and the burger soon lifted sales by more than 12 percent.

After similar results at more stores, the Big Mac was added to the national menu in 1968. Other ideas from franchisees that hit the big time include the Filet-O-Fish, Egg McMuffin, Apple Pie (once deep-fried but now baked), and the Shamrock Shake.

“The company has benefited from the ingenuity of its small business men,” wrote Ray Kroc, who transformed the McDonald’s into a global franchise, in his book, “Grinding It Out.”

Franchisees still play an important role, driving the recent switch to fresh from frozen for the beef in Quarter Pounders, Easterbrook says. They also participate in menu development, which in the U.S. has included a series of cooking tweaks intended to improve taste.

Messing with a signature menu item can be taboo, but keeping the Big Mac unchanged comes with its own risks. Newer chains such as Shake Shack and Five Guys offer burgers that can make the Big Mac seem outdated. Even White Castle is modernizing, recently adding plant-based “Impossible Burger” sliders at some locations.

A McDonald’s franchisee fretted in 2016 that only one out of five millennials has tried the Big Mac. The Big Mac had “gotten less relevant,” the franchisee wrote in a memo, according to the Wall Street Journal.

McDonald’s then ran promotions designed to introduce the Big Mac to more people. Those kind of periodic campaigns should help keep the Big Mac relevant for years to come, says Mike Delligatti, the son of the Big Mac inventor, who died in 2016.

“What iconic sandwich do you know that can beat the Big Mac as far as longevity?” said Delligatti, himself a McDonald’s franchisee.
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Lindsay Lohan, whose promising movie career crashed in a string of legal woes and substance abuse, is returning to U.S. television in a reality series about her night club ventures in Greece.

MTV said on Monday that “Lohan Beach Club” will follow the actress as she works to expand a recently launched nightclub and restaurant business in Greece.

The TV network said the show, expected to air in 2019, will see Lohan, 32, lead a team of “brand ambassadors” who will help promote her business “while striving to rise above the temptations the Mykonos night life scene has to offer.”

Lohan, once one of Hollywood’s most-sought after young actresses after starring roles in “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls,” went to rehab six times between 2007 and 2013, and was in and out of jail and court repeatedly for offenses ranging from theft to drunken driving and drug possession.

Her last feature movie was the 2013 low-budget thriller “The Canyons” after which she moved to London, and later Dubai. Her biggest acting job since then is dark British TV comedy “Sick Note,” in which she plays a supporting role in the second season that began airing last week.

The Mykonos beach club is Lohan’s third business venture in Greece following the 2016 opening of a nightclub bearing her name in Athens and a beach house in Rhodes which is due to open this summer.
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Madonna on Monday launched a $60,000 fundraiser to support her work with children in Malawi, and had already raised more than $10,000 in the first 24 hours.

The “Rebel Heart” singer, who has adopted four children from the African nation in the past 10 years, said 100 percent of every contribution would go directly to her Raising Malawi foundation’s rural orphanage, Home of Hope.

She launched the fundraiser, which will run throughout August, through her Facebook page to mark her 60th birthday on Aug. 16.

“For my birthday, I can think of no better gift than connecting my global family with this beautiful country and the children who need our help most,” Madonna wrote.

“Every dollar raised will go directly to meals, schools, uniforms and healthcare,” she added.

According to her website, more than 200 people had contributed almost $11,000 of the $60,000 target on the first days of the project’s launch.

Madonna established the non-profit Raising Malawi in 2006 to provide health and education programs, particularly for girls.

In 2017 she adopted four-year-old twin Malawi girls, Esther and Stella, and opened a children’s hospital in the country’s second-biggest city, Blantyre.

Madonna’s family also includes Malawi children David Banda and Mercy James, and biological children Lourdes and Rocco from her previous relationships.
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A new initiative in the Chilean capital of Santiago is making some of the city’s dramatic street murals more accessible to visually disabled people by offering them a tactile representation of the artwork. VOA’s Mariama Diallo has more.
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CBS said Friday it is investigating sexual misconduct allegations against Les Moonves, the company’s 68-year-old chairman and CEO.

The claims were detailed Friday on the website of The New Yorker magazine in an article written by Ronan Farrow.

Farrow won a Pulitzer Prize last year for an article in the same magazine about the sexual allegations against powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

In his latest article, Farrow said that he interviewed six women who said they had been sexually harassed by Moonves between the 1980s and the late 2000s.

“Four described forcible touching or kissing during business meetings,” he wrote. “Two told me that Moonves physically intimidated them or threatened to derail their careers.”

All of them, Farrow said, continue to fear “speaking out would lead to retaliation from Moonves, who is known in the industry for his ability to make or break careers.”

Janet Jones, a writer, told Farrow that Moonves “has gotten away with it for decades.” She said she had to push Moonves off of her after he “forcibly kissed” her at a work meeting.

Moonves said in a statement published in The New Yorker: “I recognize that there were times decades ago when I may have made some women uncomfortable by making advances. Those were mistakes, and I regret them immensely. … I have never misused my position to harm or hinder anyone’s career…”

Farrow said 30 current and former CBS employees told him that the sexual misconduct allegations at CBS include not only Moonves, but also extend “to important parts of the corporation, including CBS News and 60 Minutes, one of the network’s most esteemed programs.”

Under Moonves, Farrow wrote, “men at CBS News who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.”

Last year, Moonves was one of the founders of Hollywood’s Commission on Eliminating Sexual Harassment and Advancing Equality in the Workplace, chaired by Anita Hill.

Moonves’ wife, a CBS TV producer and personality, Julie Chen, said on Twitter:

​
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Carrie Fisher is not done with Star Wars after all. Lucasfilm says unreleased footage of the actress will be used in the next installment of the science fiction saga to draw her character’s story to an end.

The studio and writer-director J.J. Abrams announced Friday that footage of Fisher shot for 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be used in the ninth film in the space opera’s core trilogies about the Skywalker family that includes Fisher’s character, Leia. 

Filming is scheduled to begin Wednesday at London’s Pinewood Studios.

Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker, will also appear in the film, which for the moment is simply called Episode IX. It is scheduled to be released in December 2019.

Fisher died in December 2016 after she finished work on the middle installment in the trilogy, The Last Jedi. Director Rian Johnson opted not to alter her storyline, leaving Leia’s fate to be handled by Abrams.

“We desperately loved Carrie Fisher,” Abrams said in a statement. “Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us.”

He said recasting Fisher or re-creating her using computer graphics, as was done in a spinoff film, Rogue One, was not an option.

“With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie’s legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII,” Abrams said.

Friday’s announcement also confirmed that Billy Dee Williams will be returning to the franchise as Lando Calrissian, a hero of the rebellion who hasn’t been seen in the latest trilogy.
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How late is too late to become a mother? Actress Brigitte Nielsen has had her fifth child at 54, reopening debate on the growing number of women using IVF to have babies later in life.

Fertility experts say the average age of mothers is steadily rising across the world, with women increasingly turning to fertility treatments to extend their childbearing years.

Some have renewed calls for women to prioritize having children in their younger and more fertile years, but others said health providers needed to take into account the pressures that led women to put off starting a family.

“We should trust women to make this decision for themselves,” Katherine O’Brien, head of policy research at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), a charity.

“What we need is a health care service that supports their decisions rather than trying to cajole women into children at a time that’s not right for them,” she told Reuters.

Nielsen said she conceived using eggs she had frozen in her 40s, an increasingly popular choice among women seeking to extend their fertile years.

Given that the quantity and quality of eggs declines with age, most women trying to conceive in their mid-40s or above would be advised to consider using donor eggs taken from a younger woman.

A recent analysis of fertility treatments in 1,279 institutions across Europe found almost a third of births through egg donation in 2014 were to women aged 40 or older.

One Indian woman thought to be in her 70s gave birth last year using a donor egg, according to Britain’s Guardian newspaper, a case that promoted debate over the ethics of older women using treatment to conceive.

“There is a global trend for women choosing to have their children later in life,” said Richard Kennedy, the president of the International Federation of Fertility Societies.

“Certainly, in the UK and western Europe it’s personal choices: It’s lifestyle, it’s women pursuing their professions and [they] are making lifestyle choices to delay having families to until their late 30s or early 40s,” he said.

Kennedy said pregnancies of women in their 50s or older “is not something that should necessarily be encouraged,” citing the heightened risks of cardiac and other health problems during pregnancy.

“I think that women should be conscious of their fertility,” he added. “A woman should be encouraged to consider that when she is making decisions around her career and personal life.”

O’Brien, however, said much of the debate around fertility “just ignores the reality of women’s lives.”

She pointed to research by BPAS that found women were aware that fertility declined with age, but were often waiting to have children for practical reasons — such as concern over their financial stability or the impact on their careers.

“The fact that women are able to have children at that stage of their life should be celebrated,” she said. “All this finger-wagging is directed solely at women and that ignores that this is largely a decision taken by two people.”
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Whether it’s in movies, comic books or video games, fans say there is diversity in the superhero universe.

At the international Comic-Con convention that ended July 22, Emmeline Ye, a Chinese-American from San Diego, is dressed up in a Wonder Woman costume. She said her next costume will be of her favorite character in the video game, “Overwatch.”

“I appreciate that they put a Chinese character in that game, and the fact that she’s a scientist and she’s smart. She’s helping save the world,” Ye said.

For many African-American movie fans, the film “Black Panther,” released this year, was a milestone.

“When ‘Black Panther’ came out, I was so excited to see my future children have something to look up to,” said Shanice Souvenir, who also attended Comic-Con dressed as Princess Shuri of Wakanda, a character in the movie.

Diversity in comics

In recent years, superheroes in comic books and American popular culture have become increasingly diverse. But fans and creators say more work needs to be done, especially on the big screen, to fully represent American society.

“Print, I think, tends to be able to get away with that first and kind of test the waters,” said freelance comic book writer Vita Ayala.

University of Oregon director of comics and cartoon studies Ben Saunders agreed that initial risks can be taken with comics, a medium that can be more experimental than big-budget Hollywood films. But he said comic book superheroes have not always been so diverse.

“The initial wave of superheroes of the 1930s and ’40s was predominantly male and always exclusively white,” Saunders said.

Nonwhite characters at the time were stereotypes, said Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, granddaughter of Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, founder of DC Comics.

“African-Americans were always drawn with big white lips, which is just horrible. And the Asian characters’ skin tone was usually yellow, which is just weird. And so, they were usually the menace. They were usually the evil bad guy,” she said.

​First nonwhite heroes

The first nonwhite superheroes did not quite look human and took the form of the green Hulk and The Thing, who is orange.

“The Hulk is readily sort of understandable as a kind of complicated allegory for race, as a sort of figure through ideas of monstrosity,” Saunders said.

In 1966, in the midst of the U.S. civil rights movement, Black Panther became the first black superhero in the Marvel universe, which Hollywood has embraced.

“We actually saw ‘Black Panther’ a couple of different times on opening day because it was so good,” said comics and pop culture fan Rosemary Matthew. “And we were really glad to see that something that was related to somebody that we could relate to was done really well.”

“Black Panther” opened strong in China, earning $66.5 million during the first three days in theaters. Reviews in China have been lukewarm.

“A lot of the times, I do hear that China doesn’t want to see black people or other people of color. Hollywood doesn’t think that diverse stories could sell overseas, so they make less of it, and they don’t give chances to diverse stories that could be good,” said Chinese-American Alice Mei Chi Li, who works as a freelance illustrator.

In May, Marvel released its first Chinese superheroes in print.

The Black Panther, the Hulk and other superheroes appear together in the latest Marvel film, “Avengers: Infinity War.” It has become Marvel’s most successful superhero movie in China and was granted a 30-day extended run.
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Tom Cruise’s latest action installment of Mission: Impossible Fallout follows operative Ethan Hunt, the daredevil spy, on an extremely perilous quest to save the world.

Cruise and the rest of the Mission: Impossible cast, along with the powerful visuals and the megastar’s mind-bending stunts, keep audiences on the edge of their seats for almost three hours.

The film starts with a dramatic failed operation in which Hunt, an operative of the fictional independent espionage agency “Impossible Mission Force” — or IMF — loses three plutonium bombs to the enemy. With nuclear devastation looming, Hunt teams again with field agents Benji and Luther, played by Simon Pegg and Ving Rhames, to reclaim the missing bombs. They are not alone. The CIA’s deputy director, Erica Sloane, played by Angela Bassett, insists on sending along one of the agency’s own with Hunt’s team.

Enter CIA assassin August Walker, played by Henry Cavill, of DC Comics Superman fame. He portrays a large, powerfully built fighter and something of a wild card in the movie.

​Strong women

Rebecca Ferguson returns as operative Ilsa Faust, an antagonist and a love interest for Hunt, who more often than not, saves his life.

“Oh, I always save Tom’s life. I’m tired of saving Tom’s life, actually,” she joked during a red carpet event. 

Ferguson, smart and funny, told VOA how happy she’s been to work on the set with the rest of the cast in an action film that respects and elevates women. 

“They brought back incredible women and introduced women, who, all of them, have a character and a reason and a purpose for being in this film, and that’s gender equality,” she said.

Her feelings are echoed by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett.

“What my character brings to the movie is gravitas, her brilliance, her mystique, her strength, her integrity and her ability to play chess very well when she is being underestimated by those around her,” Bassett said. “But she also does not mistake her presence for the be-all and end-all. If she is right, she is right. And if she is wrong, she can admit that, too.”

Jaw-dropping stunts

From Europe to India, the action-packed film offers a tight storyline and a stellar cast, but the franchise’s secret weapon is Cruise himself, who performs his own jaw-dropping stunts — from a skydive 27,000 feet above ground, and a plane flying 167 miles per hour, to a vertical helicopter fall he himself is piloting.

He flashes his trademark smile when VOA asks him about his fearlessness. 

“I don’t know where it comes from,” Cruise said. “I just have a tremendous passion for what I do and I can’t stop unless I know it’s really there and it’s working.”

He describes his two greatest stunts on film. 

“Both of them are very intense,” he said. “On the helicopter, I spent a year and a half training, and I trained with aerobatic helicopter pilots. I’ve trained in airplanes before, I fly aerobatics in airplanes, but the airplanes are very different than helicopters, so I went through grueling training, and I did anything I could to make sure that I was as competent as possible.”

And for a good reason: his life depends on it. Co-star Ferguson recounts her terror when she saw Cruise fall during the helicopter stunts above New Zealand’s mountain peaks. 

“And I scream. I was terrified, absolutely terrified until he says, ‘That’s great, that’s a cut, we got that.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God! This is Mission. Phew!’ I’ve done some of the stunts, but nothing compares to what he does,” she added.

Cruise tells us he saved the most difficult stunt for last. He jumps off a C-17 military transport plane airplane. 

“It took over 106 jumps to get it. One-hundred-and-six jumps, and you know, we planned to be there for a week and ended up being there almost a month trying to get that sequence. It is significantly more challenging than I anticipated. I have to say, it was pretty exciting, too,” Cruise said.

So, how long does Cruise plan to keep going? And how can he keep outdoing his previous exploits? Smiling, he says, “As long as I can.”

Film’s value in story, characters

Mission: Impossible producer Jake Myers says that although it is stressful to watch Cruise do all these impossible feats, “We wouldn’t have the movies without them. But obviously there is a nail biter every time he does a stunt, so that’s what we are here for.”

Since Cruise assumed the role Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies, he has infused the franchise with extremely dangerous stunts that bring audiences to the theater. At this point everyone is wondering about the personal risks he takes. During the shooting of this installment, Cruise broke his ankle jumping out of a window and over a wall.

Filmmaker Christopher McQuarrie does not hide his concern.

“Yes, I mean, when you look at what happened in this movie, when he broke his ankle when he was doing the simplest stunt. There are no small stunts. So, when you are doing a helicopter chase or you are jumping out of a plane at 25,000 feet, it’s all pretty nerve-wracking,” McQuarrie said.

Stunts aside, the Oscar-winning filmmaker says that the film’s value lies in its unpredictable storyline and its complex and endearing characters. One of them is Pegg, who plays the witty, loyal but often skittish Benji.

“I think he is like the most kind of an audience member, Benji, that is why people relate to him,” Pegg said. “That is why sometimes he can be funny because he says the things we are thinking in these incredible situations, where the cool guys are just getting on with it, Benji is the one who asks ‘why are we doing this?’”

Mission: Impossible FALLOUT offers stellar cinematography, which as filmmaker McQuarrie says, was incredibly sophisticated based on the action he had to tape.

“It is very challenging, especially because you have an actor who is willing to do all those stunts,” he said. “It gives you the freedom to put the camera wherever you want and sometimes it is very challenging to find the right place to put it.”

Especially when his team had to capture the star fall from the sky just as the sun was setting. The efforts have not gone unrewarded. Critics are calling the movie one of this year’s best action films.
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Tom Cruise’s latest action installment of “Mission: Impossible FALLOUT” follows operative Ethan Hunt, the daredevil spy on a mission impossible to save the world. VOA’s Penelope Poulou spoke with Cruise, inhabiting his character Ethan Hunt, along with the rest of the cast, about the powerful visuals and megastar’s mind-bending stunts that keep audiences on the edge of their seats for almost three hours.
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As American women seek a larger role in politics, fairer wages and an end to sexual harassment, the Girl Scouts see an opportune time to show some swagger in promoting their core mission: girl empowerment.

They recruited Queen Latifah to narrate a video featuring famous former Girl Scouts — Venus Williams, Katie Couric and many more. And they indulged in a little bragging when Girl Scout alumna Meghan Markle married into Britain’s royal family.

“Life is always better with a Girl Scout by your side, and Prince Harry truly hit the jackpot,” enthused a post on Girl Scout Blog.

But the marketing campaign is about more than boasting. It’s also an effort to confront several high-stakes challenges, including reversing a long slide in membership, making the case for all-girl scouting after the rival Boy Scouts included girls and updating the organization’s curriculum for a new generation that expects more than cookies and camping.

“What’s happening in society as a whole makes it all the more important for girls to have every possible opportunity to learn that their voice and opinion matter, and to have the courage and confidence to become who they want to be,” said Megan Ferland, CEO of the Seattle-based Girl Scouts of Western Washington.

One major challenge, she said, is to puncture some of the myths and stereotypes that affect public perceptions.

“People hear ‘Girl Scouts’ and think, ‘Oh, those cute little girls that sell the cookies and make macaroni necklaces’ and that’s it,” Ferland said. “It is so much more than that.”

She cited activities such as robotics and rock climbing, a strong emphasis on community service and the iconic cookie sales, which she depicted in a recent newspaper essay as “the largest girl-run business in the world.”

The Boy Scouts decided last year to admit girls into all programs. But the Girl Scouts’ parent organization, Girl Scouts of the USA, will not follow suit by admitting boys.

“I believe with full conviction that Girl Scouts is the best leadership organization in the world for girls, and that is because we are girl-led and girl-centric,” said Violet Apple, CEO of Girl Scouts of Central Maryland.

The Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts, as well as other youth organizations and sports leagues, have experienced membership declines in recent years, for reasons ranging from busy family schedules to the lure of online games and social media. The Girl Scouts say they now have about 1.76 million girls and 780,000 adult members — down from about 2.9 million girls and 900,000 adult volunteers in 2003.

Some recruitment efforts reflect the Girl Scouts’ pride in the diversity of their membership. For example, the organization over the past two years has created more than 240 new troops in low-income Los Angeles neighborhoods to serve several thousand girls from Hispanic, African-American, Korean and other communities.

Denise Nowack, who oversees the recruitment programs, said the Girl Scouts council in LA decided to cover basic first-year costs for the new troops, including membership fees and uniforms, to ease the financial burden.

Many other councils struggle to find enough adults to serve as volunteer troop leaders, leaving hundreds of girls on waiting lists.

“It’s really sad,” said Asha Menon, a troop leader for seven years in the Atlanta suburb of McDonough. “All these parents show up with kids who want to be in it — but they want another adult to take the lead.”

In Chicago, TV producer Craig Harris has tried — with minimal success — to persuade other men to join him as Girl Scout leaders. Harris started as a volunteer 14 years ago when his eldest daughter — now a confident college student — joined the Girl Scouts as a shy 5-year-old.

Harris’ 11-year-old daughter is active in the Girl Scouts, pursuing her interest in science.

“I lead a full career, but I’ve found ample time to be a volunteer,” Harris said. “My oldest daughter went all the way through, and I was there at every stage. It was invaluable time building those memories with her.”

Among the many mothers juggling work and Girl Scout duties is Audra Fordin, owner of an auto-repair business in New York City’s Flushing neighborhood. She is founder of an education initiative called Women Auto Know and leader of her teenage daughter’s troop.

Fordin is confident the Girl Scouts can maintain their stature as an all-girl institution even as the Boy Scouts make its programs available to boys and girls.

“Some girls may not feel as capable of doing the same things boys can do,” she said. “But when we come together in a group, we can accomplish whatever we want to do.”

Reeny Boutros, 18, of Wichita, Kansas, started Girl Scouts at age 5. She said the experience helped her develop the skills and confidence that recently earned her admission to Stanford University, with plans to major in computer science.

Boutros has received Girl Scouting’s highest honors — first earning the elite Gold Award, then being selected as one of 10 National Young Women of Distinction. She’s a technology whiz now, but recalled struggling with studies back in middle school.

“The badge work (with Girl Scouts) was one of the few academic recognitions I got,” she said. “I got exposed to archaeology, photography. It was a great way to boost my self-esteem.”

Boutros’ experience reflects the Girl Scouts’ push to engage girls in science, technology, engineering and math. There are a host of new STEM-related badges, and there’s a newly opened year-round camp in Dallas — the STEM Center of Excellence — that will offer K-12 STEM programs on a 92-acre campus.

But the best part of being a Girl Scout? “It’s always been camping,” she said. “You put your phones away and bond with nature — and just giggle uncontrollably with your friends.”

 
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Former President Donald Trump aide and “Apprentice”  contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman has a memoir coming that her publisher calls “explosive” and “jaw-dropping.”

The book is called “Unhinged.” Gallery Books announced Thursday that it will be released on Aug. 14.

Manigault Newman was a Trump ally who joined his administration in January 2017 as a White House communications director.

 

She had vowed that political foes would “bow down” to Trump. But she left after a year and spoke harshly of her experience, while denying reports she was fired. She said she was worried about the country and would never vote for Trump again.

The rare black woman in Trump’s administration, she has likened her departure to being freed from a “plantation.”
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German Football Association (DFB) head Reinhard Grindel on Thursday said he should have made clearer that racism is unacceptable after midfielder Mesut Ozil quit the national team citing “racism and disrespect” over his Turkish roots.

Ozil, who plays for English Premier League club Arsenal, was widely criticized for having his photograph taken with Turkey’s authoritarian President Tayyip Erdogan in May.

Ozil and Ilkay Gundogan, a team mate of Turkish descent who also posed with Erdogan, were jeered by German fans in warm-up games before the World Cup in Russia.

Grindel rejected Ozil’s accusations of racism against the DFB but said he regretted the photograph had been misused to justify “racist words” but did not go into any details.

“In retrospect, as the president I should have clearly said what is obvious for me personally and for us as an association, namely that any form of racism is unbearable, unacceptable and intolerable,” he said in a statement.

The 29-year-old’s decision to quit has triggered a public debate in Germany about its relations with its largest immigrant community, with Ozil being a key member of the team that won the World Cup in 2014 and also being voted German Player of the Year a record five times through public ballots.

Some politicians and the leader of the Turkish community in Germany had called for Grindel to resign but there were others who said Ozil’s racism claims were out of place.

Earlier this week, a spokeswoman for Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany was a “cosmopolitan country” where people with migrant backgrounds were welcome and sport played a big role in integration. She added that Merkel valued Ozil as a “great” footballer.

But German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas questioned the debate by saying: “I don’t believe the case of a multimillionaire living and working in England gives much insight into the success or failure of integration in Germany.”

Erdogan has said the treatment of Ozil was racist and unacceptable.

Ozil said Grindel had blamed him for Germany’s group stage elimination from this year’s World Cup, their earliest exit from the tournament in 80 years, and considered him a German when the national team won but an immigrant when the side lost.

Grindel said the personal criticism had affected him.

“I feel even more sorry for my colleagues, the many volunteers and staff at the DFB to be mentioned in relation to racism,” he said. “I decisively reject this – both for me personally and for the association.”

He said he shared the DFB’s values of diversity, solidarity, anti-discrimination and integration and said that during his time at the DFB he had witnessed how football could help integrate people.

Grindel said the DFB would use the integration debate stoked by Ozil’s departure as an opportunity to redouble its integration efforts.

He also said the DFB would do a sports analysis on the team’s poor performance in Russia and added it hoped to win the bid to host the Euro 2024 tournament – for which Turkey is also bidding. UEFA will hold a meeting on Sept. 27 to choose between them.

 
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From westerns to the space race and the latest offerings from Oscar-winning directors, this year’s Venice Film Festival will present a rich lineup of premieres, including a host of Netflix movies and an unfinished Orson Welles work, the organizers said.

The 75th edition of the world’s oldest film festival kicks off in late August, with some 20 movies competing for the Golden Lion Award.

Unlike May’s Cannes Film Festival, which Netflix Inc pulled out of after organizers banned its films from competition for its refusal to release them in cinemas, the Venice event will show several movies by the streaming platform.

“There are many Netflix films this year, five or six,” festival director Alberto Barbera told a news conference Wednesday, adding that lots of filmmakers were now turning to new platforms to produce and distribute movies.

Among the Netflix-distributed films in competition are the Coen brothers’ western The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and black and white family drama Roma by Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaron.

Jason Bourne director Paul Greengrass will present his Netflix-distributed work 22 July — about the aftermath of the 2011 massacre of 77 people in Norway by far-right militant Anders Breivik.

The organizers of the 11-day festival, which usually offers a first peak at Oscar contenders, have already announced space drama First Man, chronicling Neil Armstrong’s mission to become the first man to walk on the moon, as the opening film.

Highly anticipated western dark comedy The Sisters Brothers by Jacques Audiard, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ period piece The Favourite with Oscar-winner Emma Stone and new The Crown actress Olivia Colman are also in competition.

Other contenders include Peterloo about the 1819 massacre in Manchester by Mike Leigh, Napszallta (Sunset) by Laszlo Nemes, who directed the Oscar-winning Son of Saul and Werk Ohne Autor by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck.

A film about Vincent van Gogh, At Eternity’s Gate, and What You Gonna Do When the World’s On Fire? about a black community in the southern United States last summer will also vie for the top prize.

Out of competition, a remake of romantic musical drama A Star is Born starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga as well as crime film Dragged Across Concrete, starring Mel Gibson and Vince Vaughn, will screen.

Netflix is also bringing Orson Welles’ unfinished The Other Side of the Wind to the festival out of competition. The film about a movie director making a comeback was first shot in the 1970s and recently completed.

Organizers have also said veteran British actress Vanessa Redgrave will be presented with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement honor.
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They are arguably among the most recognizable figures in American pop culture, and by their daring exploits, capture the imaginations of fans around the world. They are the fictional characters we call superheroes. Comic book and movie fans say characters such as Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America hold values that are especially relevant in today’s social and political climate. Elizabeth Lee reports on the pop culture significance of superheroes at Comic-Con in San Diego.
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At Comic-Con 2018, fantasy can come to life. Fans dress up as Superman, Spider-Man and Captain America, just to name a few.

These names have become some of the most familiar heroes in American popular culture. The values they represent have captured the imaginations of fans from around the world. 

Superman fan Dorian Black was dressed in a blue costume, a red cape, yellow belt, red boots and a big “S” on his chest.

At Comic-Con in San Diego, Black said he becomes the alien from the planet Krypton who represents the immigrant spirit. A story, he adds, that is just as relevant today as it was when Superman was created in 1938.

“There was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment happening at the time that he was created, and I don’t feel like that’s ever changed,” Black said. “We’d like to pretend that America has changed greatly from that time period. A lot of ways it has for the better, but we’re still having this argument of do we let in refugees? How much is too much?”

Relevant today

Superman is not the only superhero fans find relevant in today’s political and social climate in the U.S. The female comic book superhero Captain Marvel will be featured in a movie in 2019. Many female fans are excited about what she represents. 

“Strength and female strength especially, which I think is really important in our current world,” said Hayley West, who dressed as Captain Marvel, complete with a red, dark blue and gold jumpsuit with a star on her chest. 

Seeing a superhero’s relevance in politics and social issues is not a new phenomenon. Superman’s character first appeared during the Great Depression.

“He’s (Superman) almost a kind of anarchist, socialist,” said English professor Ben Saunders, who directs a University of Oregon comics and cartoon studies minor, the first of its kind in the U.S. 

Saunders said Superman originally fought representatives of the oil companies and advertising executives who were out to fleece the public, and campaigned for prison reform. He then became more socially conservative in the 1940s and 1950s as American values changed, but what stayed consistent was Superman’s ability to always do the right thing, Saunders said.

“Of course, our notions of what the right thing is changed. It’s culturally contingent. It changes month to month sometimes, and that’s what makes Superman a particularly challenging character to write,” he added. 

“The characters become the voice of whoever’s creating them at the time. Whoever the writer is or the artist. The things that are important to them are going to get interjected into those characters,” said Aaron Lopresti, a comic book artist who has drawn superheroes, including Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, for publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics. 

Lopresti said modern-day writers tend to have more liberal views on what is happening in society, which is often reflected in their work.

“When things change or different ideas come into view, I think a lot of times you see those things reflected in the characters or the situations they’re in, in their comics,” Lopresti said.

Timelessness of values

Fans, however, also see a timelessness in values held by their favorite superheroes.

“I believe that Captain America holds really good values of staying true to your family and really just making sure that you stick to what you’re going to say and what you’re going to do,” said 18-year-old Valencia Garcia, a movie fan who proudly held a replica of Captain America’s shiny red, silver and blue shield with a silver star in the middle.

“I like all of them. They’re all heroes to help save the people, and they do good deeds,” said Sonya Flores, a Laotian American who loves superhero movies.

Fans say these superheroes represent an ideal that people and those in positions of power should try to emulate.

“I feel like, as a society, we’re so jaded to the idea of power that if you have power, you’re just by default corrupted by it. And there’s that saying that absolute power corrupts absolutely. But Superman is sort of a counter argument to that. You can be all powerful and be good, but you have to try to be good,” said Black. 

In Spider-Man’s story, there is a famous line that says, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

“There are people in positions of power today who I think will be well-advised to remember that power and responsibility go hand in hand,” Saunders said.
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When four-piece hard rock band Halestorm went back into the studio to work on their fourth album, they had already thrown out a bunch of songs they felt sounded too much like songs they had recorded before.

 

Led by frontwoman Lzzy Hale, the group has been dealing with critics for years saying they leaned too pop and didn’t shred hard enough. But the band wasn’t trying to please everyone, because they just wanted to keep evolving.

 

“We’re on our fourth record on a major label and we won a Grammy Award, and there’s this misconception that you’ve had the success and therefore it gets easier,” said 34-year-old Hale. “It really doesn’t because you’ve put so much out in the world and you’re like, ‘OK, what’s next?'”

 

Their new album “Vicious,” out Friday, came out of a lot of experimentation in a Nashville, Tennessee studio working with acclaimed rock producer Nick Raskulinecz, who has worked with bands like Foo Fighters and Alice in Chains. Hale and her brother Arejay Hale, Joe Hottinger and Josh Smith have been performing together for more than 15 years and Raskulinecz wanted to capture that live sound as much as possible.

 

The Pennsylvania-based band will also start the second leg of a tour with all female-fronted rock bands — including In This Moment and New Year’s Day — on Friday in Kansas City, with additional stops in Albany, Seattle and San Francisco. A third leg of the tour was just added starting in November.

 

Lzzy Hale and Hottinger, who plays guitar, talked with The Associated Press about dealing with critics, finding new inspiration and touring with other female rockers. Answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

 

AP: What was it like in the studio this time?

 

Hottinger: We were really like, “How do we push this band forward? How do we do something interesting that’s hard rock these days?” Because it seems like it’s really hard to find good rock music and something that is pushing the boundaries a little bit. And (Nick) is like, “Well, let’s just start with the four of you in a room and who’s got a riff? We’ll start there.”

 

Hale: He was a Halestorm fan before we ever started working together. So when we would be excited, like this is really cool, he would say, “No, no, no. I’ve seen what you can do live. I know you can sing harder, I know you can play faster, I know your brother can be crazier. Let’s push everything that makes you guys who you are. Let’s push it forward.”

 

AP: Is there a democratic process to making decisions as a band?

 

Hale: It’s interesting because we’ve been a four-piece for over 15 years now and it’s interesting how you settle into your roles. Everybody has a tremendous amount of respect to what everybody brings to the table. And not everybody has to be interested in the same thing.

 

AP: Do you pay attention to critics and reviews of your albums?

 

Hale: We pay attention to critics and reviews, but we’ve never paid any mind to what people think of us. I think that comes with literally growing up on the stage. Since we were 13 we were performing.

 

Hottinger: Like the first record came out and nobody really cared and the only thing you’d see about us was positive things ’cause people would take the time because they were excited.

 

Hale: We always said once people started hating on us, then we’ve got it.

 

Hottinger: You can’t make everyone happy and we’re not going to. I think it’s great actually when you get some of the good, creative criticism.

 

Hale: We’ve always been our biggest critics and like any obstacle that is in front of us or judgment that’s in front of us, we usually put it there.

 

AP: That feels like a theme throughout the album, especially on songs like “Uncomfortable,” of being unapologetic.

 

Hale: I was trying to figure out how to be OK with not being the person that makes everybody happy. And writing an album and moving this band forward specifically for myself and my bandmates and not for anybody else. So it came through very honestly in the lyrics.

 

AP: By touring with other female-fronted rock bands, did you hope to change perceptions about what rock fans will pay to see?

 

Hale: Halfway through this tour we realized the audience is no longer 60/40 male to female, which is usually kinda what happens at a rock show. It’s either 50/50 or it’s completely turned on its head. So we’re seeing this kind of sea of girls that are like us. We’re kind of proving on this tour that this heavy music is genderless.

 

Hottinger: You look at the crowd and there’s these girls that are like embracing these traditionally masculine moments, like heavy moments or these screams, and these girls are loving it. And you realize these are just rock ‘n’ roll moments and there’s no gender.

 

Hale: I think the goal with this next leg is to really show these girls that this is a place for you.
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Underprivileged children in an ancient neighborhood in Cairo are getting the chance to trapeze into a brighter future.

The al-Darb al-Ahmar arts school, named after the more than 700-year-old neighborhood where it is located, hopes that teaching children performing and circus arts they will also learn valuable life skills.

The area has long been known for its mosques from the Fatimid and Mamluk eras of 1,000-or-so years ago, and in more recent years unofficial settlements have taken root, with many small workshops and factories that are often dependent on child labor.

Dozens of children have enrolled since the school opened in 2012, performing locally and in festivals around the country, and some going on to pursue a career in the performing arts, said Adel al-Bahdaly, a coach at the school.

The children learn to sing, act, and play music, but for 14-year-old Atoota, a student at the school for the past six years, there was more to take away than dance routines.

“I benefited a lot. I learned how not to be shy around people, and to have the confidence to speak to them and share ideas,” she said.
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Films starring Timothee Chalamet and Hugh Jackman as well as Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut “A Star Is Born” with Lady Gaga are among the selections announced Tuesday for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

 

“Beautiful Boy” stars Chalamet and Steve Carell and will be one of several films having their world premiere at the festival, a launching pad for Hollywood’s awards season.

 

Other world premieres include “The Front Runner” starring Jackman as former presidential candidate Gary Hart, “Life Itself” from “This Is Us” creator Dan Fogelman, the police shooting drama “The Hate U Give” and Steve McQueen’s “Widows.”

 

Tuesday’s announcement was scaled back and handled by press release because of Sunday’s attack in Toronto’s lively Greektown neighborhood left two people and a gunman dead. Among the 47 films announced, 13 are directed by women.

 

Chalamet, an Oscar nominee for last year’s “Call Me By Your Name,” plays a meth addict whose recovery is seen through the eyes of his father, played by Carell. “The Front Runner,” from director Jason Reitman, chronicles Hart’s rise and fall as the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee after his extramarital affair became tabloid fodder and a national scandal.

 

Other notable films screening at the festival include the Neil Armstrong film “First Man,” which stars Ryan Gosling as the astronaut. It is directed by Damien Chazelle and is his first film since the Oscar darling “La La Land.” Barry Jenkins’ “If Beale Street Could Talk,” based on a novel by James Baldwin, will also premiere at the festival. “Moonlight” beat out “La La Land” for best picture at the 2017 Academy Awards.

 

The festival’s opening film will be “Mouthpiece” from Canadian director Patricia Rozema. The closing film will be Cannes Film Festival winner “Shoplifters” from Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda.

 

The 43rd annual festival will run from Sept. 6-16.
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At Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field this June, Kenny Chesney flew in a large group of VIP guests to visit with him before performing for some 55,000 fans. They weren’t music industry bigwigs.

 

They were school children and teachers from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Hurricane Irma made landfall last year and caused massive destruction. And they also happened to be his neighbors on the island of St. John.

 

“I’ve spent the majority of my adult life walking those beaches and hanging out in those bars and writing songs,” Chesney, 50, recalled later in his manager’s office in Nashville, Tennessee. “All of a sudden, it was a place that was very beautiful and that was very broken.”

 

St. John was among several Caribbean islands hit last September by the most powerful hurricane to develop over the open Atlantic. Throughout the Caribbean, the Category 5 storm knocked out power and cell phone towers for weeks or months, damaged roads, airports and hospitals and smashed up boats, businesses and homes.

 

Chesney was not on the island, but he opened his home there to friends and neighbors so they could ride out the storm. They survived, but his home was destroyed.

 

“I could hear the anxiety and the stress on everyone,” Chesney said. “The people that actually rode the storm out in the bottom of my home, I was able to get them off the island a couple of weeks after the storm. And you know when they got to my home, they were wearing the same clothes they had on that morning (of the storm).”

 

Immediately after the storm hit, he wrote the title track of his new album, “Songs for the Saints,” out Friday.

 

“I was writing the songs as a lot of the destruction and devastation was happening,” Chesney said. “I’ve never made a record like that in the middle of such anxiety.”

 

Although born in landlocked East Tennessee, Chesney has become an islander at heart. On St. John, he made friends and enjoyed the peace and isolation away from the demands of his superstar life. There were years where he’d step off a tour bus and head straight for a boat.

 

“The people that I met there didn’t care what I did,” Chesney said. “They had no idea. It was great.”

 

He turned that island lifestyle into his brand and the loyal No Shoes Nation that pack out stadiums. The island had fed his human spirit and his creative side as a songwriter, but now he had his chance to give back.

 

Within days, Chesney set up a foundation called Love for Love City, also the title of the second song he wrote after the storm. He helped bring in medical supplies and equipment, had crews clear out debris and rescue pets and bought new musical instruments for the St. John School of the Arts.

“Not many people know what Kenny has done and is still doing for the rebuilding efforts in the Virgin Islands,” said his friend and country star Eric Church. “It’s a place that is a part of his DNA, of his story. It tells you the kind of person he is and how big his heart is to see him helping in this way.”

 

Chesney was also in the midst of working on a new record deal with Warner Music Nashville, making his move from Sony after more than two decades. He called up John Esposito, the chairman of Warner Music Nashville, and told him he was ready to work with Warner, but he had a caveat.

 

“He says, ‘The first record I’m doing is a charity record,'” Esposito said.

 

Esposito absolutely agreed that proceeds of the record should go to the foundation, but beyond that Esposito said the record is just a great album.

 

“I’ve actually listened to this album 250 times and not only am I never bored with it, I hear something else unveiled with every listen,” Esposito said.

 

The album has already produced Chesney’s 30th No. 1 single, “Get Along,” making him the artist with the most songs to top Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, surpassing Tim McGraw, Alan Jackson and George Strait.

 

On the title track, Chesney’s vocals take center stage at the beginning with an acoustic guitar and a single drum beat, as he sings that “God lifted these islands from the ocean.” On “Love for Love City,” Chesney adds delicate steel drums and Ziggy Marley to the loping, reggae-inspired song in which he promises to be a part of the island’s encore.

 

The songs aren’t sad odes to what was lost, but reflective of the grit and hope necessary to keep going. At the end of the album, Chesney covers a song called “Better Boat,” written by Travis Meadows and Liz Rose, which is a poignant description of the struggle of personal recovery.

 

Others like “Trying to Reason (With Hurricane Season),” a duet between Chesney and Jimmy Buffet, who wrote the song, are more lighthearted. Mac McAnally, an acclaimed guitarist and songwriter who worked on the record, said that Chesney kept the instrumentation to a minimum to keep the focus on the lyrics.

 

“That kind of framework lets you be a little more contemplative as you listen,” McAnally said. “A song that’s got some depth to it benefits from being listened to a little quieter.”

 

In February, Chesney visited students and their teachers at St. John School for the Arts after donating new instruments and he talked to them about life post-Irma.

 

“It was a really emotional day when we went there, just to see the look on their faces when you give them a guitar or a steel drum,” Chesney said. “You never know what one of those guitars will do. I know what one guitar did for me.”

 

There’s still a pressing need for help in the islands as hurricane season starts anew this year. Chesney, who says he is a firm believer in global warming, predicts that the catastrophic storms will continue to be a threat to the Caribbean as well as the United States. He’d like the foundation to help build up the infrastructure of the islands, possibly even opening a hospital on St. John and improving schools.

 

Chesney isn’t always comfortable talking about his philanthropy and he’s quick to point out that many people have been helping with hurricane recovery. But he does know how his music can affect people, which is why he considers this album among the best of his career.

 

“If you believe music heals and rebuilds the human spirit, this has the potential to be one of the most important albums I’ve made,” Chesney said.
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For years, Dumbo the Flying Elephant hung from his living room ceiling, a Mr. Toad Wild Ride car was parked in his library and Bashful’s cart from Snow White’s Scary Adventures sat on his front lawn in suburban California.

Now collector Richard Kraft is selling off his 750-item collection of theme park vehicles, props and artifacts spanning six decades of Disneyland history.

Kraft, a Hollywood agent, began his collection 25 years ago, spurred by nostalgia for his visits with his late brother to Disneyland in southern California.

Van Eaton Galleries in Los Angeles said the result was an extraordinary array of Disneyland memorabilia.

“Through Richard’s passion for the park and his love for his brother and family, he has amassed a collection that is unequaled,” co-founder Mike Van Eaton said.

Such is its scale that hundreds of the items are being displayed for a month at a free public exhibition called “That’s From Disneyland” at a 20,000 sq. ft. (18,500 sq. meters) abandoned store in suburban Los Angeles ahead of the auction on Aug. 25 and 26.

Visitors will be able to dance along with six singing animatronic dolls from It’s a Small World, or board one of the pirate ships from Peter Pan’s Flight.

“Real artisans made this and I love putting it in an exhibit setting so it could be admired differently. You never actually see this stuff up close and personal the way you would see it in this exhibit,” Kraft said.

“We had Dumbo hanging in the living room of our house – 800 pounds (360 kg.) of elephant hanging over people’s heads,” Kraft said. “We used to decorate Dumbo for Christmas.”

The Dumbo the Flying Elephant vehicle is expected to be among the top sellers with an estimate of $100,000-$150,000, while a Peter Pan’s pirate ship vehicle is seen fetching $75,000-$100,000.

Other artifacts include a Disneyland ticket booth, an animatronic singing bird from the Enchanted Tiki Room, as well as original drawings, concept sketches and posters from the 63-year-old theme park.

Kraft intends to donate a portion of the proceeds to two organizations benefiting children who, like his four-year-old daughter Daisy, suffer from the rare genetic disorder Coffin-Siris Syndrome, and other special needs.

“She’s in a special school program that is so underfunded. This collection I’ve had for all these years can be put to good use in helping kids and people with disabilities,” he said.
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It was three days of needles, containers of ink and thousands of striking designs that attracted hordes of tattoo enthusiasts and artists to New York’s annual Empire State Tattoo Expo (held July 15-18). The action took place in a mid-town hotel in Manhattan, and VOA’s Elena Wolf was there. Robert Raffaele narrates her story.
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