Author: Ohart

A video with dozens of news anchors reading a script about “fake stories” put in stark visual terms what for weeks had largely been an academic debate about media consolidation and the Sinclair Broadcast Group’s efforts to promote a consistent message across its stations.

The 98-second video, posted on Deadspin Saturday, has already been viewed by millions of people and provoked a tweet by President Donald Trump supporting the corporation on Monday.

Sinclair owns nearly 200 local stations and had ordered its anchors to read a statement expressing concern about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing the country.” Some outlets publish these “fake stories” without checking facts first and some people in the media push their own biases, the statement said.

The anchors give no specific examples. Sinclair, whose corporate leadership leans right, uses terminology familiar to Trump and his criticisms of “fake news.” In the message, the anchors say they “work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced and factual.”

Timothy Burke, a video editor at Deadspin, said he read a CNN story last month about the script being sent to local stations and contacted a media monitoring service to collect examples of the statement being read on the air. After receiving more than 50, he fashioned them into a video that shows anchors reading different portions of the text, either simultaneously or one after the other.

He posted a “teaser” with a small portion of the video Friday night and it quickly attracted attention when tweeted by a Wisconsin journalism professor. Not wanting to see his work appropriated by someone else, Burke said he rushed to get the full video posted Saturday afternoon. It spread quickly, particularly when tweeted by celebrities like Judd Apatow and Jimmy Kimmel.

The video’s repetition illustrates Sinclair’s reach in a way mere numbers can’t, said Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York.

“That’s what makes the video so powerful,” he said. “It illustrates a story that in some cases can read like a conspiracy theory. You can see by the video that it’s not.”

A Sinclair executive said Monday that he finds it curious that the company would be attacked for asking news people to remind the audience that unsubstantiated stories exist on social media.

“It is ironic that we would be attacked for messages promoting our journalistic initiative for fair and objective reporting, and for specifically asking the public to hold our newsrooms accountable,” said Scott Livingston, Sinclair’s senior vice president of news. “Our local stations keep our audiences’ trust by staying focused on fact-based reporting and clearly identifying commentary.”

After the story was reported on CNN and MSNBC Monday, Trump jumped to Sinclair’s defense.

“Funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticizing Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased,” he tweeted. “Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.”

Meanwhile, CNN’s Jim Acosta was criticized by some conservative media outlets on Monday for shouting questions about immigration to Trump while the president and first lady were attending an Easter event on the grounds of the White House.

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” did a lengthy segment on Burke’s Deadspin video Monday, showing the words being repeated by several anchors. Co-host Mika Brzezinski said she was surprised some of the local anchors didn’t refuse to read it.

“This looks like something we would mock the Russians for doing during the days of Pravda,” said co-host Joe Scarborough.

Dan Rather’s website said that it was “sickening” to watch local journalists being forced to read something that trashes their own profession.

Deadspin received a hat tip from HBO’s John Oliver, whose “Last Week Tonight” did a lengthy story on Sinclair last season. “Nothing says ‘we value independent media’ like dozens of reporters forced to repeat the same message over and over again, like members of a brainwashed cult,” Oliver said.

Burke said he’s received a number of emails from people who work at Sinclair stations but he’s been too busy at his regular job posting sports videos to look into them.

“I’m glad it received a large audience,” he said.
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They chanted his name from the cheap seats: “Di-Vin-cen-zo, Di-Vin-cen-zo.” By the time Donte DiVincenzo was done doing his damage, Villanova had another title and college basketball had its newest star.

The redhead kid with the nickname Big Ragu scored 31 points Monday to lift `Nova to another blowout tournament victory – this time 79-62 over Michigan for its second title in three seasons. 

The sophomore guard had 12 points and an assist during a first-half run to help the Wildcats (36-4) pull ahead, then scored nine straight for Villanova midway through the second to put the game away – capped by a 3-pointer he punctuated with a wink over to TV announcers Jim Nantz and Bill Raftery on the sideline.

Villanova won all six games by double digits over this tournament run, joining Michigan State (2000), Duke (2001) and North Carolina (2009) in that rare air. 

One key question: Could this be one of the best teams of all-time? 

Maybe so, considering the way Jay Wright’s team dismantled everyone in front of it in a tournament that was dripping with upsets, underdogs and parity.

Maybe so, considering the Wildcats won in seemingly every way imaginable. This victory came two nights after they set a Final Four record with 18 3-pointers, and one week after they relied more on defense in a win over Texas Tech in the Elite Eight. 

That debate’s for later. 

DiVincenzo squashed any questions about this game with a 10-for-15 shooting night that was better than that. 

He opened his game-sealing run with an around-the-back dribble to get to the hoop and get fouled. On the other end, he delivered a two-handed rejection of Michigan’s Charles Matthews, when Matthews tried to bring it into the paint. 

The 3 that sealed it came from a big step behind the arc; yes, the man was feeling it. 

About the only drama as the night closed was whether DiVincenzo could unwrap himself from his teammates’ mob hug to toss the ball underhanded toward the scoreboard. He succeeded there, too. 
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Tiger Woods is back in Green Jacket contention and from country club bars to boardrooms, the former world No. 1 is once again the tide lifting all boats in the golfing world.

Golf television ratings are trending upward, so are equipment and ball sales while Masters tickets and even tips are experiencing a “Tiger Bump” as a rejuvenated Woods returns to the U.S. Masters for the first time in three years.

Much of the buzz being generated around golf’s first major is emanating from a 42-year-old golfer who is closer to qualifying for the Seniors Tour (open to players 50 and over) than his last victory at Augusta in 2005.

But nothing gets the sporting public revved up more than a compelling comeback story and Woods is writing one for the ages.

“This is a little bit like a Lazarus resurrection here with respect to where he was,” Steve Mona, World Golf Foundation CEO, told Reuters. “Only last September he was talking about whether he would be able to come back at all. Now that he is the favorite at the Masters, it is just astonishing. He is certainly in form. I don’t think anyone would be terribly surprised if he were in the hunt.”

The greatest player of his generation, Woods dominated golf like few athletes in any sport ever have.

A prodigious talent who first appeared on television swinging a golf club at two years old, Woods grew into a champion by winning 14 majors in swashbuckling style. He became a crossover celebrity and very wealthy with career earnings totaling $1.7 billion, according to a 2017 report by Forbes.

Having climbed to such great heights, Woods’ fall from grace that started in 2009 has been all the more shocking.

A tawdry divorce, a DUI and years and years of injuries, surgeries and failed treatments sent sponsors scurrying.

The back that had caused Woods so much pain was getting no better and the golfer who had held the No. 1 world ranking for a collective 683 weeks slumped out of the top 1,000.

Even the ever-positive Woods suddenly seemed resigned to a dour fate.

Yet after undergoing spinal fusion surgery last April, the dark clouds hanging over Woods slowly began to lift.

Shaking off years of competitive rust, Woods returned with an encouraging tie for ninth at the Hero World Challenge, followed by a tie for 23rd at the Farmers Insurance Open and a missed cut at the Genesis Open.

Highest ratings

Then suddenly Woods grabbed the spotlight as only he can, announcing his return to form with three impressive results — 12th at the Honda Classic, a tie for second at the Valspar Championship and a tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woods’ back now appears to be strong enough to carry the hopes of an entire industry that is experiencing a “Tiger Bump.”

With Woods back in contention, NBC/Golf Channel said the final rounds of both the Arnold Palmer and Valspar championships registered the highest ratings for a PGA Tour telecast, outside of the majors, since the 2015 Wyndham Championship.

The golf industry has also seen a spike. Bridgestone said that when Woods (who uses its ball) has been in the field in 2018, the average basket value with Bridgestone products increased by over 120 percent compared with the same period in 2017.

“His endorsement [that we make the best ball] is more valuable than all of the science and data that we throw out to the consumers,” Angel Ilgan, President & CEO of Bridgestone, told Reuters. “It is just ridiculous that we can show them hundreds and thousands of testings with robots and projectile guns that we’re the best ball, the most accurate ball. And the consumer doesn’t believe us until Tiger says, ‘Yeah that’s true.’

“During Tiger’s absence the entire industry, the PGA Tour, we were all kind of looking who is the next player,” he continued. “Then when Tiger came back, the entire industry is jumping on the Tiger bandwagon.”

Far-reaching effects

The trickle-down economics of Woods’ comeback are far-reaching.

During the final round of the Valspar, a bartender at a golf club raved on social media that tips were up 300 percent with Woods in contention.

“I was slammed packed with people watching Tiger play, it was insane,” said Alcaonline in a post on Reddit picked up by several news outlets. “I know it seems minimal but the economic trickle down effect this has when it comes to the golf world is hard to explain. I made at least 3X the amount of money I usually make on Sundays just because Tiger was in contention.”

With Woods at the start of a comeback but on the downslope of a turbulent but spectacular career, it is uncertain how long this Tiger bubble will last.

But with Woods’ stock soaring, everyone is buying in and Mona believes that it could be a good long-term investment.

“That [bartender] obviously takes it down to the grass-roots level and it is felt on many different levels and the most obvious ones are from TV ratings standpoint,” he said. “It’s astronomical how much they have increased and there is one common denominator and that is Tiger in contention.

“You look at attendance at those events and it is much the same story. What Tiger does is he increases interest in the game … they get interested and think maybe this is a game for me,” he added.
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Anyone who has seen Kristen Bell break down in (happy) hysterics over a sloth knows the actress’s affinity for animals, especially those of the cute and cuddly variety. So when the people behind the new IMAX original film “Pandas” asked “The Good Place” star if she would consider narrating the documentary, it was a no-brainer.

“I’m not un-secretive about the fact that I’m an animal lover, or an IMAX lover to be totally honest with you,” Bell said. “I think they produce some of the best content out there and I take my kids to the science center every time there’s a new IMAX movie. I just think the patience with which they produce particularly their animal documentaries is kind of astounding.”

“Pandas,” from David Douglas and Drew Fellman (“Born to be Wild” and “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar”), takes audiences to the Chengdu Research Base For Giant Panda Breeding in China where scientists are working toward a goal of releasing captive-born pandas into the wild, where only about 2000 remaining pandas live.

The film, out Friday, focuses in on one, Qian Qian (pronounced Chen Chen), from cub stage to her supervised release in the wild and the humans trying to make that happen. Hou Rong, the Director of Research at Panda Base since 1994, has raised over 200 baby pandas during her tenure and hopes that one day their work will help pandas thrive outside of captivity.

In an inspiring display of cross cultural solidarity, she travels to New Hampshire to observe how a man named Ben Kilham has for 20 years been successfully raising orphaned black bear cubs for eventual release in the wild. At Kilham’s suggestion, Panda Base hires American conservation biologist Jake Owens, who Douglas calls “the Indiana Jones of biologists” to help supervise Qian Qian’s transition from city panda to country panda.

Bell, who got involved later in the process, didn’t get to meet the pandas but hopes that one day she will. But that didn’t stop her from peppering the scientists like Owens with questions, like how much do their weigh (“150 pounds”), how much for they feel like they weigh (“about 300 pounds”) and what do they smell like (“sweet grass and milk”).

An avid watcher of nature documentaries, Bell said that she and her young daughters Lincoln and Delta particularly love David Attenborough and the “Planet Earth” series. The girls saw an early cut of “Pandas” and “loved it” which makes Bell all the more excited for additional kids and families to experience “Pandas” too.

“It’s inspiring the next crop of biologists and conservationists,” she said.

She thinks the film will connect beyond animal die-hards too.

“It makes you feel good,” Bell said. “It’s inspiring, it’s beautiful, it’s
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Jeremy McLellan has been labeled an extremist and accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

But the white Catholic comedian from South Carolina says he’s only an extremist when it comes to Biryani, his favorite dish.

In his stand-up act, McLellan uses sarcasm and comedy to explore the commonalities between Christians and Muslims.

“I think that there is so much that we have in common…Christians and Muslims,” said McLellan. “And there are so many practices that we both have that we aren’t necessarily aware of, like Lent. Lent is a period of 40 days, you know, Ramadan is a month. And it’s a period of fasting and alms-giving and all these things that are the same in both traditions. But the rules are different.”

McLellan finds it interesting to compare the religious rituals.

“Are we as strict as you? Like, who’s fasting more?” he said. “Sort of like a healthy competition.” 

Besides a talent for making people laugh, McLellan likes to foster an environment of mutual respect and understanding between the two religions. He says misunderstanding is generally to blame for much of the religious intolerance today. 

“You know right now, there seems to be a lot of tension between Christians and Muslims…” he said, “but I think now is the time when we can actually start to bridge those gaps and create dialogue and talk about our differences….talk about what we have in common and hopefully coexist.” 

 

The use of comedy to bridge the religious divide isn’t a new phenomenon. Imam Talal Eid, a Muslim scholar, says interfaith humor goes back centuries — to the Prophet Muhammad. 

“Humor is important in our life,” said Eid. “And he himself used his sense of humor when communicating with his companions…He used his sense of humor to cement his relationship with non-Muslims. So American-Muslims today and Muslims in general when they have interfaith relations, they have to do it with fun, not with too much seriousness. ”

McLellan is part of a new generation of young comedians who use humor to serve as ambassadors of faith.

And by combining those ancient methods of diplomacy with the well-timed joke, McLellan accomplishes what professional diplomats aspire to — resolving misunderstandings and creating friendly dialogue while making people laugh. 
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Steven Bochco, a writer and producer known for creating the groundbreaking police drama “Hill Street Blues,” died Sunday. He was 74. A family spokesman says Bochco died in his sleep after a battle with cancer. 

Bochco, who won 10 primetime Emmys, created several hit television shows including “L.A. Law,” “NYPD Blue,” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.”

Premiering in January 1981, “Hill Street Blues” challenged, even confounded the meager audience that sampled it. Then, on a wave of critical acclaim, the series began to click with viewers, while scoring a history-making 27 Emmy nominations its first year.

During its seven-season run, it won 26 Emmys and launched Bochco on a course that led to dozens of series and earned him four Peabody awards, in addition to the 10 Emmys.

“Hill Street Blues” had a sprawling universe of engaging yet flawed characters, a zippy pace and layers of overlapping, scripted dialogue, shot in a documentary style.

But what really set the show apart were the multiple narratives that interlaced each episode with those that came before and after. With the rare exception of the few prime-time soaps, almost every series up to that time – whether comedy or drama – made each episode freestanding, with a reset button for the one that came next.

Bochco once recalled a fan telling him that “Hill Street Blues” was the first TV series with a memory.

“That’s what I always thought of myself doing in the context of TV: craft a show that over time would have a memory,” he told The Associated Press in an interview two years ago. “I sensed that very early in my career. It just took me another 10 or 12 years to get to the point where I earned the right to take a shot at it.”

Bochco grew up in Manhattan, the son of a painter and a concert violinist. On arriving in Los Angeles after college, he wrote for several series at Universal Studios. Then he got a big break: writing the screenplay for the 1972 sci-fi film “Silent Running.” But Bochco said the disrespect he confronted as the writer soured him on writing for the big screen.

“Once you’ve delivered the screenplay they don’t want you around, because you’re gonna get in the way of someone else’s vision,” Bochco said.

In his self-published memoir “Truth Is a Total Defense: My Fifty Years in Television,” Bochco tells the story of his prolific career, which he began at 22 as a story editor on a popular NBC drama, “The Name of the Game,” all the way to “Murder in the First,” which ran on TNT from 2014 to 2016.

In his book, Bochco recalls his great collaborations and his battles with actors, studio heads and network execs, along with the flops (”Bay City Blues”! “Cop Rock”!) that made the triumphs even sweeter.

Details of a memorial service were not immediately released.
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Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is going into the future with his virtual reality adventure Ready Player One. Based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, the film takes place in the dystopian world of 2045, while referencing 1980s popular culture.

Set more than 25 years in the future, the characters are driven by overpopulation and poverty to escape into a digital universe. One of them is young Wade Watts, a poor orphan living in the stacks, a poverty-ridden area in Columbus, Ohio, who escapes to the Oasis through his virtual avatar, Parzival.

WATCH: Spielberg’s New Film Goes into the Future

He is not alone. Billions of displaced people the world over escape into the digital universe, using aliases and idealized appearance through their avatars. The reason? As Watts says in the film, this “is a place where the limits of reality are your imagination. People come to the oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be.”

He describes the Oasis as “the only place it feels like I mean anything.”

Control the Oasis

The Oasis is the brainchild of reclusive James Halliday, played by Oscar winner Mark Rylance. Halliday is a genius and also a fan of 1980s popular culture.

Upon his death, Halliday reveals he has created a virtual reality game where players are called to discover a hidden object, an Easter egg. Whoever finds it first gets a half-trillion dollars and total control of the Oasis.

That sets Parzival and his friends on a collision course with the head of iOi, Innovative Online Industries, a huge virtual reality corporation, and its CEO Nolan Sorrento, played by Ben Mendelsohn. Sorrento will do anything to win the contest and control the Oasis. So, a brutal hunt for the Easter egg begins inside the virtual world, and also outside, in the real world.

​World run amok

Spielberg says this spectacular, escapist and addictive virtual future is the product of a world run amok.

“Having spent so much time trying to imagine what the future could be for all of us in that circumstance, I suddenly saw a future that Ernest Cline, the writer of the book, and Zak Penn, the screenwriter, envisioned, and it wasn’t that far away from what I think is going to happen,” Spielberg said in a release about the film.

To further accentuate the stark contrast between the Oasis and the grittier real world, Spielberg shot the scenes of the dystopian future on film, while scenes in the virtual universe were captured digitally.

Tye Sheridan, who plays Wade and his avatar Parzival, describes shooting the digital part of the film. 

“We did that in a motion-capture studio. We are wearing these suits with head cams and dots all over our face so that they can track, they can record our facial performances and put those on our avatar, animate us and create a virtual world around us.”

Sheridan says during filming, a monitor displayed the virtual version of their movements in real time. This enabled the actors to perform while seeing themselves as their avatars walking around, tracking the actors’ movements.

1980s deja vu

Throughout the film, Spielberg references 1980s popular culture, building on the nostalgia of his fan base. Video games like Adventure released for the Atari 2600 video game console, 1979-1980; movies such as Stanley Kubrick’s horror flick blockbuster The Shining, and Stephen King’s equally popular book by the same title, or dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. They all happen in the seductive cyber world of the Oasis, where the main character finds purpose, love and social justice.

Spielberg notes, however, that though Ready Player One builds on virtual reality cutting-edge technology, it also warns about VR’s addictive potential and encourages its viewers to disconnect from technology regularly in order to find real beauty in the world. He also says as impressive as his digital production is, it is ultimately meant to advance a story about real characters and the human condition.
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Thousands of fans gathered in Washington for the city’s comic convention, called Awesome Con. During the three-day event, they meet their favorite artists and actors, have their comic books autographed, and do a little shopping. Many also dress up in costume. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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From aging crooners to bubbly K-Pop starlets, some of South Korea’s biggest pop stars flew to North Korea on Saturday for rare performances that highlight the sudden thaw in inter-Korean ties after years of tensions over the North’s nuclear ambitions.

The concerts in Pyongyang on Sunday and Tuesday come ahead of a historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a border village April 27. The meeting, which will precede a planned summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in May, could prove to be significant in the global diplomatic push to resolve the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons and missiles program.

The 120-member group that flew to Pyongyang also included government officials, reporters and a taekwondo demonstration team that will perform in Pyongyang on Sunday and Monday. Another team of 70 South Korean technicians went to Pyongyang on Thursday to set up equipment.

Singer Yoon Do-hyun, who previously performed in Pyongyang in 2002, was emotional after landing in the North Korean capital.

“My heart is bursting,” Yoon told reporters, his eyes welling up with tears. “I am most curious about the reaction of the audience, how it would be different from 16 years ago.”

The artists were greeted by Hyon Song Wol, the photogenic leader of Kim Jong Un’s hand-picked Moranbong girl band who has been working out the details of the performances with South Korean officials.

“Your arrival in Pyongyang brings big expectations,” she said. “A lot of famous singers have come.”

A look at the South Korean singers who made the trip and a certain horse-dancing specialist who didn’t:

​The legends

During stormier times, North Korea described the South’s society and culture as a “corrupt bourgeois lifestyle.” Still, that didn’t stop southern pop singers from performing across the border when relations warmed.

It’s the second trip for the iconic Cho Yong-pil, perhaps South Korea’s most influential musician of the past 50 years. He staged a solo concert in Pyongyang in 2005 during a previous era of rapprochement between the rivals.

“It will be as comfortable performing in the North as it is to perform in the South,” the 68-year-old singer said at a news conference at South Korea’s Gimpo Airport on Saturday. “There’s no reason for me or other singers to be nervous. We all finished rehearsing and will have a fun and comfortable time showing our music.”

Seoul hasn’t officially announced the titles of the songs by the South Korean artists. Cho’s “Dear Friend,” a ballad about a long-lost friend that reportedly drew an enthusiastic response from the Pyongyang crowd 13 years ago, will almost certainly be one of them.

It would be the third North Korean performances for female balladeers Choi Jin-hee and Lee Sun-hee, who are relatively well-known in the North.

The 61-year-old Choi will likely sing her biggest hit, “Maze of Love,” which is rumored to have been a favorite of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the late father of current leader Kim. Lee, who at 53 still might have the best pipes in the business, may sing “To J,” one of several South Korean songs North Korean musicians performed during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

“I hope we can create a stage where we can make an emotional connection and convey the warm feelings between the South and North,” Choi said.

The girls

It won’t be all slow ballads in Pyongyang. It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans react to girl band Red Velvet, currently one of the most popular acts in the highly competitive K-Pop scene.

The genre, which has a huge following across Asia, has been defined by synthesized music, powerful visuals and dance moves, and teasing sexuality. In recent years, South Korea’s military has used K-Pop for psychological warfare, blaring it from loudspeakers along the heavily armored border between the rivals.

“Happiness! Hello, it’s Red Velvet!” band member Seulgi cheerfully shouted during the news conference.

“We’re the ‘maknae’ (youngest of the group), so we will make sure to deliver our bright energy to the North,” the 24-year-old said.

K-Pop groups have performed before in North Korea. The now-disbanded Sechs Kies and Fin.K.L sang and danced in Pyongyang in 1999, as did boy band Shinhwa in 2003. Some of the artists said later that the reaction from the audience was awkward and quiet.

Red Velvet may find a better reception more than a decade later as cultural tastes change, even in isolated North Korea. Currently, the most popular music act in North Korea is Hyon’s Moranbong band, whose members often perform suggestive shimmies in short skirts with electric guitars.

Park Hyeong-il, an official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said North Korean officials didn’t show any discomfort about Red Velvet and also didn’t take issue with the “red” in the band’s name.

Red Velvet is originally a five-member band, but only four made the trip to Pyongyang — 22-year-old Joy stayed in South Korea to film a soap opera.

​No ‘Gangnam style,’ please 

Despite constant questioning from reporters, South Korean officials aren’t offering a clear explanation on why PSY, the “Gangnam Style” singer, was left out of the concert lineup.

South Korea’s culture ministry spokesman Hwang Seong-un said without specifying that the YouTube rapper had been initially considered for the Pyongyang events before being excluded. He said he couldn’t confirm a media report that North Korean officials had rejected PSY.

“What I can say is that we explored ways to include him, but it didn’t work out,” Hwang said. “We hope there will be better opportunities for him in the future.”

It’s possible that officials from either the North or the South concluded that PSY’s bizarre humor and highly sexualized music would be too provocative for the North Korean public.

It’s not that North Korea had entirely ignored the global Gangnam Style craze. In September 2012, the North posted a video on its Uriminzokkiri website of a horse-dancing PSY character that had a photo of conservative South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye’s face transposed on it. The lyrics had the character satirically defending Park’s late father, staunch anti-communist dictator Park Chung-hee.

Park went on to win the presidential race, only to be ousted from office and jailed over a corruption scandal in March last year.

Will Kim Jong Un attend?

The South Korean singers will perform at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater on Sunday and then take part in a joint concert with North Korean artists on Tuesday at the 12,000-seat Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong Gymnasium. 

 

It’s unclear whether North Korean leader Kim will show up in any of these performances. His presence would be seen in the South as a proper response to Moon’s attending the North Korean performances in February. But Kim also was accused by Seoul in previous years of harshly punishing, and even executing, North Korean officials and people who were caught privately consuming South Korean popular culture. 

 

In 2014, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers that North Korea used firing squads to execute 10 officials that year for taking bribes or watching South Korean television dramas. 
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The Easter holiday is synonymous with symbols of spring, and for kids, it means candy in their Easter baskets. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig finds out how much sales increase over the holiday, and what the best sellers are.
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Traditional handicrafts from Pakistan are exported to many countries around the world. One item that appears to be gaining in popularity are the country’s hand-made bamboo curtains. VOA’s Saman Khan has more in this report from Lahore, Pakistan, narrated by Sarah Zaman.
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We’re airborne with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending March 31, 2018.

Last week, we had a big new addition to the Top Five … this week it’s the same lineup, just slightly shuffled.

Number 5: Post Malone Featuring Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”

That comes in fifth place, where Post Malone and Ty Dolla $ign back off a notch with “Psycho.”

It’s Post’s second Top Five hit, and also the second for Ty … back in 2016, he topped out in fourth place as Fifth Harmony’s guest on “Work From Home.” If you’d like to see the video for this song, head to our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.

Number 4: Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”

Taking over fourth place is the dynamite combination of Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line, with “Meant To Be.” 

That’s not all: It’s your Hot Country Songs champion for an incredible 17th week. Born to ethnic Albanian parents in New York City, Bleta “Bebe” Rexha won a “Best Teen Songwriter” contest sponsored by the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. That set her on her way to her recording career.

Both Bebe and Bruno Mars have been performing since they were little kids.

Number 3: Bruno Mars & Cardi B “Finesse”

This week, Bruno and Cardi B spend another week in third place with “Finesse.”

Esquire magazine recently took a close look at Bruno’s fashion choices. If you want to copy his look, go for silky track suits, bolo ties, sunglasses at all times, bold chains, and sequins. You can get a closer look by reading the article on our Facebook page.

Number 2: Ed Sheeran “Perfect”

Ed Sheeran may be permanently attached to second place, because that’s where you’ll again find “Perfect.”  He’s popular everywhere, but seems to hold a particular place in the hearts of his Australian fans.

Ed’s “Divide” album tops the Aussie album list for a 25th week. Only three albums have lasted longer at the top: Delta Goodrem’s “Innocent Eyes” at 29 weeks; Adele’s “21” with 32 weeks; and the all-time champion, “Brothers In Arms” by Dire Straits, which topped the ARIA album chart for 34 weeks.

Number 1: Drake “God’s Plan”

Meanwhile, Drake notches another frame atop the Hot 100 with “God’s Plan,” bringing his championship run to eight weeks. Drake just dropped a piece of news about his next album.

Last week, Drake went on Instagram to say he’s working on a new album …and Murda Beatz is among the producers. They’ve collaborated several times, most recently on Drake’s 2017 collection “More Life.”

We’ll have more hits next week, so join us if you can!
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Alex Rodriguez received a special opening day visit during his first official broadcast with the ESPN Sunday night baseball team.

His girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, dropped by the booth at Dodger Stadium on Thursday with her son.

Rodriguez was working with Matt Vasgersian and Jessica Mendoza when Lopez popped in.

Lopez gave Rodriguez a kiss and her son gave him a hug.

Rodriguez later said Lopez is a baseball fan and her father, who grew up a Mets fan, was also there for the Dodgers-Giants opener.

San Francisco beat Los Angeles 1-0.
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Bill Cosby’s lawyers first pressured the judge in his sexual assault retrial to quit, and now they are counting on him to make rulings critical to their plan to portray the accuser as a greedy liar who framed the comedian to get rich.

 

Judge Steven O’Neill could rule as early as Friday on whether the defense can call a witness who claims Andrea Constand spoke about falsely accusing a celebrity before going to police with allegations Cosby drugged and molested her at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004.

 

Prosecutors said the theory that Constand wanted to set Cosby up is undermined by his testimony in a 2005 deposition that she only visited his home when invited and that he gave her pills without her asking.

 

The judge also will decide how much jurors will hear about Cosby’s financial settlement with Constand.

 

Cosby’s lawyers argued that the lawsuit and payment were the direct result of her scheming against him. Prosecutors said Cosby’s negotiators wanted to bar Constand from ever cooperating with law enforcement.

 

O’Neill presided over Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury last year.

 

O’Neill remained on the case after rejecting the defense’s assertions on Thursday that he could be seen as biased because his wife is a social worker and advocate for assault victims.

 

In arguing for the judge to step aside, Cosby’s lawyers pointed to a $100 donation made in his wife’s name to an organization that gave money to a group planning a protest outside of the retrial.

 

O’Neill said the contribution was made 13 months ago by the department where his wife works at the University of Pennsylvania and that Cosby’s lawyers held an antiquated view of marriage where spouses must agree on everything.

 

“How are my wife’s independent views of an independent woman connected to me?” O’Neill said. “She’s an independent woman and has the right to be involved in anything that she believes in.”

 

Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday and jurors will once again be sequestered at a hotel. Opening statements and testimony are not expected to get underway until April 9 at the earliest.

 

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

 
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It looks like “Game Over” for actress Lindsay Lohan in her state court fight against a software company for using what she claims is a likeness of her in a video game.

Lohan’s lawyer argued before New York’s top court that Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. violated her right to privacy by incorporating “look-a-like” images of her in the game “Grand Theft Auto V.”

But the state Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that the satirical representations of “a modern, beach-going” young woman are not identifiable as Lohan. The court affirmed a ruling from a lower state appeals court dismissing her lawsuit.

Similar claims against Take-Two by “Mob Wives” television star Karen Gravano also were dismissed in a separate ruling.

A message left with Lohan’s lawyer wasn’t immediately returned.
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Kentucky has altered a statue of Jefferson Davis in the state Capitol, removing a plaque that declared the only president of the Confederacy to be a patriot and a hero.

The plaque adorned a 15-foot (4.5 meter) marble statue, which sits in a corner of the state’s ornate Capitol rotunda just behind a bronze statue of former President Abraham Lincoln. Both men were born in Kentucky.

Advocates have pushed for the Davis statue to be removed from the Capitol for years. Their protests gained momentum following the racially-motivated 2015 murders of nine people at an African-American church in South Carolina and the violent protests last year at a white supremacist rally in Virginia.

The Historic Properties Advisory Commission, which governs the statues in the rotunda, voted in 2015 to keep the statue in place as a symbol of the state’s divided past. Kentucky never joined the Confederacy, but it had a number of Confederate sympathizers who attempted to set up a Confederate government in the western part of the state during the Civil War.

Last year, the commission voted to alter the statue by removing a plaque that says Davis was a “Patriot-Hero-Statesman.” The commission then delayed that decision so a lawyer from Republican Gov. Matt Bevin’s administration could make sure the commission had authority to remove the plaque.

Officials removed the plaque on March 11, according to Leslie Nigels, director of the Division of Historic Properties. A report from Nigels during the commission’s meeting on Thursday said removing the plaque is consistent with the commission’s obligation to provide “an objective, balanced, and educational display.”

The Lincoln statute was erected in 1911. The Davis statute came in 1936 after a fundraising campaign by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the height of the Jim Crow era, when segregation laws proliferated throughout the South.

The original plan, according to the Kentucky Historical Society, was for the Lincoln statue to face north while the Davis statue faced South. The plan was abandoned because the statues were too heavy to be that close together.

The plaque in question was installed in 1975. It was a gift from the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and former Gov. A.B. “Happy” Chandler was on hand to dedicate it.
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She’s talked shop with President Barack Obama and is soon to be the subject of a feature documentary. Mai Khoi, an outspoken musician who has become a thorn in the side of the Vietnamese government, was detained Tuesday after refusing to shut up about human rights amidst a widening crackdown on dissent in the country. David Boyle reports from Hanoi.
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Prosecutors have selected the five additional accusers they plan to call to the witness stand at Bill Cosby’s April 2 sexual assault retrial.

The accusers, including model Janice Dickinson, were chosen from a group of eight women whose allegations date as far back as the early 1980s.

Prosecutors listed their selections in a letter to Judge Steven O’Neill that was made public on Wednesday.

O’Neill’s March 15 ruling cleared the way for prosecutors to broaden their case beyond the alleged assault of Andrea Constand in 2004 that led to Cosby’s only criminal charges. They want to show that he had a pattern of misconduct over a five-decade span.

At Cosby’s first trial, which ended in a deadlock, O’Neill allowed only one other accuser to take the stand. But that woman is not one of the five who will testify this time in support of Constand’s case.

In the letter to O’Neill and other filings, prosecutors have listed the women only by witness number. The Associated Press was able to identify them by cross-referencing the details of the allegations described in court filings with statements and other accounts they have made publicly.

The AP does not typically name people who say they are victims of sexual assault, but those named below have consented.

Attorneys for Cosby, who is now 80, have said the women’s memories are tainted at best and tried to get them barred from testifying, but their request was denied.

 ___

The criminal case

Andrea Constand

Ages then: She was 30; he was 66.

Constand told police in 2005 that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her a year earlier at his suburban Philadelphia estate. The Temple University basketball team manager said he gave her three unlabeled blue pills to “relax” as she discussed a career change. She said she was semi-conscious when he digitally penetrated her. Cosby, a Temple alumnus, booster and former trustee, is charged with sexually assaulting a person unable to give consent, a felony that could bring 10 years in prison upon conviction. The defense says her story has evolved and there were other times they were sexually intimate. Cosby has pleaded not guilty.

 ___

The five other accusers

Janice Dickinson

Ages then: She was 27; he was 45.

Dickinson met Cosby in 1982 and saw him as a trusted friend and mentor as she tried to broaden her career from modeling to music and television. Dickinson said Cosby arranged for her to fly to see him perform in Lake Tahoe and knocked her out with a pill he gave her after she had complained of stomach pain. She said she woke up in pain and found fluids between her legs. She never reported the encounter to authorities and has said she was afraid that if she did, her career would be damaged and Cosby would retaliate. Cosby lawyer Martin Singer said in 2014 that Dickinson’s allegations were a lie and a “glaring contradiction” to what she wrote in her book and what she had previously told the media.

 ___

Janice Baker-Kinney

Ages then: She was 24; he was 45.

Baker-Kinney, then a Harrah’s casino bartender in Reno, Nevada, went to a pizza party at a nearby home where Cosby was staying in 1982. He insisted that she take two pills, she said, before the backgammon game they were playing went blurry. She said she recalls seeing her blouse unbuttoned and his pants unzipped before she awoke naked with signs she had been sexually assaulted. The defense says her story is “nothing like Ms. Constand’s” because she only met Cosby once, “voluntarily” took quaaludes and apologized for passing out.

 ___

Heidi Thomas

Ages then: She was 24; he was 46.

Thomas’ agent sent the aspiring actress to meet Cosby for career advice at a Harrah’s hotel in Reno in 1984, but the limousine he sent instead took her to a private house where she said he gave her a drink so she could play the intoxicated person in a script he gave her. During intermittent bouts of consciousness, she said, she was naked and Cosby forced her to perform oral sex. The defense says she has given three versions of her story.

 ___

Chelan Lasha

Ages then: She was 17; he was 48.

The model and aspiring actress met and befriended Cosby in 1986. Lasha said he invited her to his Las Vegas hotel room to introduce her to a modeling agency representative and gave her a pill he described as an antihistamine and a double shot of almond liqueur to help fight a cold. At Cosby’s behest, Lasha said, she changed into a robe, wet her hair and posed for a few modeling shots. She said Cosby then directed her to the bed, where he pinched her nipple and humped her leg as she lay immobilized and unable to speak. She says she woke up naked.

 ___

Lise-Lotte Lublin

Ages then: She was 23; he was about 52.

Lublin was an aspiring actress when she met Cosby in 1989. She and her mother went for a run with Cosby, and he gave them show tickets before he invited her to the Elvis suite of the Las Vegas Hilton to practice acting improvisation. He prodded her to take two drinks to relax, which she ultimately did. She said she recalls seeing Cosby stroking her hair and walking down a hall before she woke up at home two days later. She said she believes she was sexually assaulted. The defense says Lublin assumes she is a victim based on other media accounts but can only remember Cosby stroking her hair.
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There are fewer than 2,000 wild pandas in the world. However, as VOA’s David Byrd reports, a new documentary tells how scientists are working to introduce captive-bred panda cubs into the wild.
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Sean Penn, Oscar-winning actor, has other passions these days.

“I’m not in love with the job of acting anymore,” says Penn, whose films include “Milk,” “Mystic River,” “Dead Man Walking” and many others. “In fact, what I want to do is write books.”

Penn fears the world is so overwhelmed with “content” that even great movies are quickly forgotten. But he still believes in words. This week, Penn joins such literary heroes as Norman Mailer and Jack Kerouac, not to mention such acting peers as Ethan Hawke and James Franco, as an author of fiction.

Penn’s novel is called “Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff,” a title not out of place for someone whose off-screen adventures have led to encounters with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to El Chapo. “Bob Honey,” its volatile and alienated protagonist like/unlike the writer himself, is a hot tour of the United States and beyond as a Trump-like figure known as “The Landlord” rises to power and Bob Honey longs to be “Unbranded, unbridled and free.”

“Bob Honey” has an improvisational style and a trail of alliterations (“Quite intentionally, to a fault,” Penn acknowledges). The plot involves septic tanks, lethal mallets and fireworks for dictators. The book’s back story also follows a scattered path. Last year, Penn released a brief audiobook under the pseudonym Pappy Pariah. He expanded on it and published a hardcover under his own name, although he says that opinions contained within, including a poem that chastises the #MeToo movement, are not necessarily his own.

“A character’s thought pattern,” he says of such lines as “A platform for accusation impunity?/Due process has lost its sheen?”

During a recent interview with The Associated Press, the 57-year-old Penn talked about writing, movies, #MeToo and his changing tastes in books. He has more trouble in mind for Bob Honey, depending on whether he thinks the public will care. Some reviews have been rough (“Sean Penn The Novelist Must Be Stopped” reads a Huffington Post headline), but the novel has made the top 100 on Amazon.com and hit No. 1 in a category Penn should appreciate: absurdist fiction.

On why he wrote the novel:

“I needed to step away from the news cycle some time during 2015-2016. It was occurring to me more and more that the debates I had found even myself part of in the public arena had become that which were dividing us as a country more and more, that we entered the conversations now as 3-year-olds and to be in the conversation was to be a 3-year-old. The only way I felt I could respond to it was a kind of satire — to choose to laugh, instead of vent, or instead of rage.”

On some favorite authors from Mailer to Cormac McCarthy and what they have in common:

“I realized after I wrote this book that my reading of fiction has been, and I hadn’t thought about it before, almost entirely mono-cultural. It’s almost been entirely American men, the authors I have read. I’m anxious to change that. … My real history of going to bookstores and buying a book has been the rugged men tale tellers and I find that my interests do go beyond that.”

 “I was early on a reader of Louise Erdrich, but I haven’t read any of her writing in a long time. I’d like to go back and see what she’s been doing. I’m a big fan of Sharon Olds as a poet. Whenever she has a book out, I grab it.”

 

On #Metoo:

“One of the interesting things that I note has not come up in the discussion of sexual abuse, be it by a partner or a parent or a legal system, and it’s sort of surprising that there isn’t within any of these movements any express concern or dialogue when it comes to the age consent in this country.”

“Here we are talking about sexual abuse and you’re still seeing in this country teenagers being married. I think for a movement about protecting young people, about protecting women, that if we are to add to our empathy those who were exploited for their ambition, among the other things, which is not my business to say that that’s a fair thing to be protected from or not. The expectation for me in my adulthood was that I was responsible for that. We are all different and people have different strengths and weaknesses at different times in their lives. But when we’re talking about kids, it’s just clear.”

On a possible movie of `Bob Honey’:

“A couple of people have talked to me about that. I think that if one of these talented directors really wants to do it, then it would be a lot of fun to see them go do it. But I don’t want anything to do with it other than pay whatever it is to buy a ticket and see it.”
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In Ernest Cline’s novel “Ready Player One,” the main character drives a DeLorean because of “Back to the Future,” and uses a grail diary because of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” The films of Steven Spielberg loom large in the story littered with pop culture references. That the legendary filmmaker then ended up being the one to take Cline’s futuristic-nostalgic vision to the big screen is a small Spielbergian miracle.

“I hadn’t read anything that had triggered my own imagination so vividly where I couldn’t really shut it off,” said Spielberg, who, with “Ready Player One,” out Thursday, returns to the wide-eyed grand-scale blockbuster filmmaking that he made his name with.

The sci-fi spectacle with a reported $175 million production budget presents a near-future vision of a dystopian society that has all but abandoned the real world for an escapist virtual reality existence. In 2045, most people, including the teenage hero Wade (Tye Sheridan), spend their lives as avatars (Wade’s is a cooler version of himself named “Parzival”) in the virtual world of the OASIS – a VR game created by an eccentric genius, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), who has promised his wealth to whomever wins and finds the “Easter egg.”

It’s because of Halliday, who, like its author, came of age in the 1980s, that the OASIS is chalk full of 80s nostalgia from Atari to Buckaroo Banzai. It’s also why Cline assumed that “Ready Player One” would be impossible to adapt. How would anyone be able to secure all the rights? 

That it ended up being Spielberg doing the asking helped a little, but producer Kristie Macosko Krieger is the one he credits for getting everything from Chucky to the Iron Giant in the film. She spent three years working with Warner Bros. to obtain all the necessary clearances from various studios. Some they didn’t use, like the main “Star Wars” icons (although you may spot an X-Wing or R2-D2 in a few frames), and some Spielberg just nixed himself, like the mothership from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” He didn’t want too many of his old movies in his new movie.

“There comes a point when I would have just had to defer to someone else who likes my movies and not make a movie about my movies,” Spielberg said. 

It meant co-screenwriter Zak Penn would have to lose a few of his Spielberg-inspired jokes and ideas that he’d written into the script before Spielberg signed on to direct, but he didn’t mind. 

“It would have taken you out of the narrative. He’s too iconic a director,” Penn said. “You’d be sitting there thinking, ‘Oh, this is from a Spielberg film.”’

But everything was on the table, from the song Cline walked down the aisle to (the Hall & Oats song “You Make My Dreams,” which plays during the credits) to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to “Last Action Hero,” Penn’s first movie which he had wanted Spielberg to direct. Penn, for his part, had said “no” to a proposed reference and was surprised when he saw one in the final cut. Cline had gone behind his back to persuade the folks at ILM to do it.

Most of the references amount to set-dressing, packing every frame in the OASIS with eggs that would take even the most eagle-eyed viewer multiple viewings to catch.

“My philosophy from the very beginning was, the story is out the front windshield and the pop culture references are out the side mirror,” Spielberg said. “And it’s your choice what you would like to look at.”

The production used cutting-edge technology to simulate the OASIS for the cast and crew with VR headsets that would give everyone a 360-degree view of what the virtual world looked like. And the film itself is a mash-up of past and present technologies, including motion capture, computer animation and even film stock, which Spielberg used to shoot the live-action sequences. 

“It was just a small little touch because I’m trying to keep, you know film, meaning the chemical, the chemistry of film, relevant and I’m just trying, until they close the last lab and stop making raw stock, to shoot everything I can on film,” Spielberg said. “It also gave the real world a more gritty flavor because when you shoot digitally, it’s much more like acrylic. And film is more like oil. You get that blend between that world of oil and the texture that an oil painting has with the film and you get the very smooth, almost antiseptic clarity of what the digital world looks like.”

Lena Waithe, who plays the tech-savvy Aech, said, “I love that he did that. The movie really represents where cinema is going and where it all began, which is really beautiful.”

Cline’s novel has already proved prophetic in the digital space. He says companies like Oculus and Google have copies on hand and, he’s been told, give them to people who come through the offices. And he thinks the movie, which will play globally, will have a more significant impact.

“The best thing that could ever happen to a science fiction writer is to write something that helps inspire the people who make it into a reality,” Cline said. “This movie could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

The OASIS, essentially, is not that distant of a reality. It’s also something of a cautionary tale about the perils of VR, or as, Spielberg said how, “too much of a good thing is too much.”

Whether or not audiences will flock to theaters to soak up the nostalgia and the visionary tech is a big question. Waithe said the film is a feel-good escape, and Sheridan stresses that it’s a, “great metaphor for the world that we live in in 2018 and the balancing act from your digital profile to your real world self.” Early tracking pegs the film, which has received strong reviews, for a $45 million opening. Spielberg might not have lost his touch, but mass audiences might also be too distracted to notice.

As for Cline, he still can’t believe his luck. 

“I tell people I’m just prepared for it to all be downhill from here. What could ever top this? I’m so lucky, I got to work with one of my heroes on a story that he helped inspire,” Cline said. “I’m just ready for the slow fade after this.”
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Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney is to put golfer Tiger Woods under the microscope in an upcoming documentary series based on a new biography of the 14-time winner of the sport’s major tournaments, Gibney’s Jigsaw Productions said Tuesday.

Gibney will use Tiger Woods, written by journalists Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, as a foundation for the series. The book was released Tuesday.

Jigsaw did not say when production of the series would begin, and it has yet to be picked up by a distributor.

Woods, 42, the greatest golfer of his generation who closely guards his personal life and highly crafted image, is in the midst of his latest comeback from injury.

Woods did not speak with the biography’s authors but did allow his chiropractor to speak on the record.

The book, which is published by CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster, sits in the top 40 on Amazon’s best-seller list and has so far received favorable reviews.

It examines Woods’ life as a closely managed introverted child prodigy to a global marketing phenomenon, and his midcareer fall from grace as a string of affairs and injuries took a toll on his image and performance.

Gibney’s projects include the scripted Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower and the 2015 HBO Scientology documentary Going Clear. He won an Oscar in 2008 for his Afghan war documentary Taxi to the Dark Side.
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A nearly decade-long makeover of King Tut’s tomb aimed at preserving one of Egypt’s most important archaeological sites and also one of its most popular tourist attractions is close to complete, the Getty Conservation Institute of Los Angeles said Tuesday.

The project has added a filtration system to keep out dust, humidity and carbon dioxide and a barrier to keep visitors from continuing to damage the tomb’s elaborate wall paintings. Other amenities include walkways and a viewing platform. 

New lights are also scheduled to be installed in the fall in the tomb of Tutankhamun, the legendary boy king who ruled Egypt more than 3,000 years ago. His mummified body remains on display in an oxygen-free case.

The project was launched in 2009 by the Los Angeles institute, known worldwide for its conservation work, in collaboration with Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities.

“This project greatly expanded our understanding of one of the best known and significant sites from antiquity, and the methodology used can serve as a model for similar sites,” Tim Whalen, the John E. and Louise Bryson director of the institute, said in a statement. 

Tutankhamun, just a child when he assumed the throne, was about 19 when he died. 

His tomb, discovered in 1922 by British archaeologist Howard Carter, was hidden for millennia by flood debris that preserved it intact and protected it from tomb raiders. 

Over the years humidity and dust carried in by visitors have caused damage, as have some visitors who scratched the wall paintings.

“Humidity promotes microbiological growth and may also physically stress the wall paintings, while carbon dioxide creates an uncomfortable atmosphere for visitors themselves,” said Neville Agnew, the institute’s senior principal project specialist. 

He added: “But perhaps even more harmful has been the physical damage to the wall paintings. Careful examination showed an accumulation of scratches and abrasion in areas close to where visitors and film crews have access within the tomb’s tight space.”

Conservationists also studied mysterious brown spots on some of the paintings that have baffled experts for years. They concluded they were caused by microorganisms that have since died and are causing no further damage. 

They decided to leave the spots there because they have penetrated into the paint layers and removing them would cause more damage. 
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Vietnamese singer and activist Do Nguyen Mai Khoi, an outspoken campaigner for free speech, was briefly detained at an airport in the capital Hanoi on Tuesday after flying home from Europe, her husband told Reuters.

Often dubbed a Vietnamese version of “Pussy Riot” or Lady Gaga because of her activism and provocative style, Mai Khoi was among dozens of dissidents on the watch-list of Communist-ruled Vietnam for her strong words against the system.

“When Mai Khoi landed at Noi Bai airport, at 9:15 am this morning, she texted me to say: ‘Love, I just landed’,” Mai Khoi’s Australian husband, Benjamin Swanton, posted on her Facebook page, which has some 46,000 followers.

“At 9:39 am, she texted another message: ‘Detained’.” Swanton wrote.

Mai Khoi updated her Facebook page later in the day to say that she has been released after eight hours.

“Thank you everyone for your care. I’m now on a public bus back to Hanoi,” Khoi said alongside a photo of herself she posted to the page.

Calls to authorities at Noi Bai International airport and Mai Khoi’s mobile phone went unanswered. Her husband confirmed she had been released.

“We have been evicted from our house three times now,” Swanton said.

At least 129 people are currently detained in Vietnam for criticizing or protesting against the government, according to a February report by Human Rights Watch.

A crackdown on dissent last year caused scores of activists to flee the country, according to Amnesty International.

Mai Khoi, who last year protested beside U.S. President Donald Trump’s motorcade during his visit to Vietnam by holding up a poster which said “[Expletive] on you Trump”, had not yet been subjected to a travel ban by the Vietnamese authorities.

The 34-year-old has courted controversy under a government which, despite overseeing sweeping economic reforms and growing openness to social change, does not tolerate criticism.

In 2016, she was one of a handful of activists who tried and failed to obtain a seat in the Communist party-dominated National Assembly. She met former U.S. president Barack Obama during his visit in Vietnam in 2015.

The title of her new album “Bat Dong”, which she had been in Europe to promote, translates to “Disagreement”. Her song “Please, sir” pleads with the leader of the Communist Party to allow ordinary Vietnamese people to sing, publish, share and travel freely.
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Extremely rare Chinese musical instruments and works of art dating from 9,000 years ago are on display for the first time in the U.S. The archaeological treasures, mostly found in tombs in central China, give viewers a glimpse of the musical life of the ancient societies. VOA’s June Soh takes us to the exhibit at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.
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The death this month of 45-year-old Sudan, the last male northern white rhino on the planet, rings the alarm on the imminent extinction of other endangered animals. The news also gives a renewed urgency to Kate Brooks’ documentary “The Last Animals,” about the threat poaching poses to the dwindling populations of rhinos and elephants. The film was showcased at the environmental film festival in Washington. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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