Author: Ohart

If you’re looking for a new sport, or a new hobby that doesn’t cost a fortune, is open to nearly everyone, and helps relieve stress, you may want to consider ax throwing. All you need is a sharp ax — or axe, as Canadians spell it — and an unsuspecting piece of wood. Arash Arabasadi caught up with an international, competitive ax-throwing league in Washington.
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Orchids are among the world’s most beautiful flowers. Although the blossoms come in different shapes, sizes and colors, they all belong to one of the largest and oldest families of flowering plants on earth. The U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington is showcasing some of the thousands of different orchid varieties in a spectacular exhibit that runs until the first week of April. VOA’s Deborah Block takes us there for a fragrant look at the exotic world of orchids.
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Daichi Yamamoto is a Japanese photographer who has called Senegal home for the past two years. His work captures local fashion, and he’s helped launch the careers of several Senegalese fashion models. For VOA, Chika Oduah has the story from Dakar.
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The will of “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee is public following a lawsuit by The New York Times, but details on her estate remain a secret.

The Times reports the will unsealed Tuesday shows most of Lee’s assets were transferred into a trust days before her death two years ago in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama.

 

But the contents of her estate remain private because trust documents are private.

 

A probate court sealed the will of the famously private writer following her death, and the newspaper filed suit in 2016 to have the document made public. The suit argued that Lee’s desire for privacy wasn’t sufficient legal reason to keep her will hidden from public view.

 

Records show the estate recently dropped its opposition to unsealing the will.
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Should any of this year’s winners at the Oscars use the occasion to promote a political cause, you can thank — or blame — Marlon Brando.

Brando’s role as Vito Corleone in The Godfather remains a signature performance in movie history. But his response to winning an Academy Award was truly groundbreaking.

Upending a decades-long tradition of tears, nervous humor, thank-yous and general goodwill, he sent actress Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to the 1973 ceremony to protest Hollywood’s treatment of American Indians.

In the years since, winners have brought up everything from climate change (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant, 2016) to abortion (John Irving, screenplay winner in 2000) to equal pay for women (Patricia Arquette, best supporting actress winner in 2015 for Boyhood).

“Speeches for a long time were relatively quiet in part because of the control of the studio system,” said James Piazza, who with Gail Kinn wrote The Academy Awards: The Complete History of Oscar, published in 2002. “There had been some controversy, like when George C. Scott refused his Oscar for Patton [which came out in 1970]. But Brando’s speech really broke the mold.”

Producers for this year’s Oscars show have said they want to emphasize the movies themselves, but between the #MeToo movement and Hollywood’s general disdain for President Donald Trump, political or social statements appear likely at the March 4 ceremony.

Salutes for speaking out

Winners at January’s Golden Globes citing the treatment of women included Laura Dern and Reese Witherspoon, who thanked “everyone who broke their silence this year.” Honorary Globe winner Oprah Winfrey, in a speech that had some encouraging her to run for president, noted that “women have not been heard or believed if they dare speak the truth to the power of those men. But their time is up. Their time is up. Their time is up.”

Before Brando, winners avoided making news even if the time was right and the audience never bigger. Gregory Peck, who won for best actor in 1963 as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, said nothing about the film’s racial theme even though he frequently spoke about it in interviews. When Sidney Poitier became the first black to win best actor, for Lilies of the Field in 1964, he spoke of the “long journey” that brought him to the stage, but otherwise made no comment on his milestone.

When Jane Fonda, the most politicized of actresses, won for Klute in 1972, her speech was brief and uneventful. “There’s a great deal to say, but I’m not going to say it tonight,” she stated. “I would just like to thank you very much.”

Political movements from anti-communism to civil rights were mostly ignored in their time. According to the movie academy’s database of Oscar speeches, the term “McCarthyism” was not used until 2014, when Harry Belafonte mentioned it upon receiving the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. “Vietnam” was not spoken until the ceremony held April 8, 1975, just weeks before North Vietnamese troops overran Saigon.

No winner said the words “civil rights” until George Clooney in 2006, as he accepted a supporting actor Oscar for Syriana. Vanessa Redgrave’s fiery 1978 acceptance speech was the first time a winner said “fascism” or “anti-Semitism.”

​Comments linked to movies

Political or social comments were often safely connected to the movie. Celeste Holm, who won best supporting actress in 1948 for Gentleman’s Agreement, referred indirectly to the film’s message of religious tolerance. Rod Steiger won best actor in 1968 for the racial drama In the Heat of the Night and thanked his co-star, Poitier, for giving him the “knowledge and understanding of prejudice.” The ceremony was held just days after the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., whose name was never cited by Oscar winners in his lifetime, and Steiger ended by invoking a civil rights anthem: “And we shall overcome.”

Hollywood is liberal-land, but the academy often squirms at political speeches. Redgrave was greeted with boos when she assailed “Zionist hoodlums” while accepting the Oscar for Julia, a response to criticism from far-right Jews for narrating a documentary about the Palestinians. She was rebutted the same night: Paddy Chayevsky, giving the award for best screenplay, declared that he was “sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own propaganda.”

Producer Bert Schneider and director Peter Davis, collaborators on the 1974 Oscar-winning Vietnam War documentary Hearts and Minds, both condemned the war by name (they were the first winners to do so), welcomed North Vietnam’s impending victory and even read a telegram from the Viet Cong. An enraged Bob Hope, an Oscar presenter and longtime Republican, prepared a statement and gave it to Frank Sinatra, who was to introduce the screenplay award: “The academy is saying, ‘We are not responsible for any political references made on the program, and we are sorry they had to take place this evening.’ ” 

​Moore draws boos

In 2003, Michael Moore received a mixed response after his documentary on guns, Bowling for Columbine, won for best documentary. The filmmaker ascended the stage to a standing ovation, but the mood soon shifted as he attacked George W. Bush as a “fictitious president” and charged him with sending soldiers to Iraq for “fictitious reasons.” The boos were loud enough for host Steve Martin to joke that “right now, the teamsters are helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo.”

Sometimes, the academy tries to head off any statements before they’re made. Whoopi Goldberg, host of the 1994 show, hurried out a list of causes during her opening monologue.

“Save the whales. Save the spotted owl. Gay rights. Men’s rights. Women’s rights. Human rights. Feed the homeless. More gun control. Free the Chinese dissidents. Peace in Bosnia. Health care reform. Choose choice. ACT UP. More AIDS research,” she said, before throwing in jokes about Sinatra, Lorena Bobbitt and earthquakes.

The audience laughed and cheered.
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After dusk in Havana, an ice-blue neon sign illuminates the faded facade of the Cine El Megano, one of many abandoned movie houses in the Cuban capital, lighting up a once vibrant corner at the heart of the Caribbean city that had gone pitch black in recent decades.

The glowing neon italic letters fill the building’s colonial facade with an art deco accent between the doors below and the wraparound balcony above. It is the work of Cuban artist Kadir Lopez Nieves, who is restoring the vintage signs of the cinemas, hotels and cabarets that lit up Havana’s nightlife in its 1950s heyday.

His project, dubbed “Habana Light Neon + Signs,” has so far restored around 50 signs, reflecting a broader revival in Havana. The city, one of the architectural jewels of Latin America, has been enjoying a tourism boom.

“They called it the Broadway or Paris of the Caribbean because it had so much light and brilliance,” said Lopez Nieves, during an interview in his workshop and gallery. “But when I started out the project … Havana was switched off in terms of light.”

After Fidel Castro’s 1959 leftist revolution, many of Havana’s ritzy entertainment venues, often run by American mobsters and frequented by the rich and famous, were shuttered or slowly became run-down.

Effects of weather

Over the decades, tropical weather wrought havoc on their neon signs. The communist-run island, laboring under a U.S. embargo, often lacked the funds and know-how to fix them.

As elsewhere, other forms of lighting, such as LEDs, proved cheaper and the ornate neon signs were abandoned. 

Lopez Nieves set about restoring the neon lights of a dozen cinemas as a project for the Havana Biennial arts festival in 2015. His work delighted locals.

“It’s lending more life to the city at night,” said Alberto Echavarria, 68, guarding a parking area down the road from the Cine Megano. He said the sign recalled the once “fabulous” ambiance of the neighborhood, which lies close to Havana’s neo-classical Capitol Building.

Shining incandescent from afar, the sign also helped to make the run-down area more salubrious by chasing away shady characters, he said.

“Obscure zones would go from being marginal to being photographed,” said Lopez Nieves, who then started restoring other neon signs, using historic documents such as old photographs for guidance. “A personal project turned into a social project.”

The initiative has become self-financing, thanks to the ale of new commercial signs to Cuba’s fledgling private sector, costing between $200 and $3,000.

Close to Havana’s seafront, the Bar Cabana sign flashes red, while around the corner the La Farmacia restaurant sign burns white.

​Tropicana lights

Lopez Nieves says he has a large contract to restore the lights at Havana’s famed Tropicana nightclub, which in its prime boasted famous patrons such as Hollywood stars Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart.

Amid a global neon revival, the initiative started attracting enthusiasts from all over the world, who offered their expertise, he said.

“I love [neon] because it’s an organic light that lives and breathes. And then to discover an entire city — it’s almost like finding a treasure box,” Jeff Friedman, who runs a New York neon sign manufacturing company, said during a trip to Havana.

Foreign expertise has come in handy, Lopez Nieves said. There are only a few craftsmen left in Cuba who know how to bend the neon tubes into letters and fill them with gas to create different colors.

Lopez Nieves hopes to safeguard that knowledge with his next project: the creation of a neon center in the abandoned art deco cinema Cine Rex. It would host a museum and workshops, as well as a store for new and classic designs. He plans to open it in December.

“Neon is having an important revival,” he said, “and I’m glad we’re part of that.”
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Just as “Black Panther” is setting records at the box office, a new study finds that diverse audiences are driving most of the biggest blockbusters and many of the most-watched hits on television.

UCLA’s Bunche Center released its fifth annual study on diversity in the entertainment industry Tuesday, unveiling an analysis of the top 200 theatrical film releases of 2016 and 1,251 broadcast, cable and digital platform TV shows from the 2015-2016 season. Among its results: minorities accounted for the majority of ticket buyers for five of the top 10 films at the global box office, and half of ticket buyers for two more of the top 10.

“There has been some progress, undeniably. Things are not what they were five years ago,” said Darnell Hunt, director of the center, which focuses on African American studies, at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People are actually talking about diversity today as a bottom-line imperative as opposed to just the right thing to do. We’ve amassed enough evidence now that diversity does, in fact, sell.”

Minorities make up nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population, but Hispanic and African-American moviegoers over-index among moviegoers. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, Latinos make up 18 percent of the U.S. population but account for 23 percent of frequent moviegoers. Though African Americans are 12 percent of the population, they make up 15 percent of frequent moviegoers.

UCLA found that films with casts that were 21 to 30 percent minority regularly performed better at the box office than films with the most racially and ethnically homogenous casts.

Hunt believes that the wealth of data, as well as box-office successes like “Black Panther,” have made obvious the financial benefits of films that better reflect the racial makeup of the American population.

“I think the industry has finally gotten the memo, at least on the screen in most cases, if not behind the camera,” said Hunt. “That’s where there are the most missed opportunities.”

The report, titled “Five Years of Progress and Missed Opportunities,” covers a period of some historic high points for Hollywood, including the release of the best picture-winning “Moonlight,” along with fellow Oscar nominees “Hidden Figures” and “Fences.”

But researchers found the overall statistical portrait of the industry didn’t support much improvement in diversity from 2015 to 2016.

“With each milestone achievement, we chip away at some of the myths about what’s possible and what’s not,” said Hunt. “Every time a film like this does really well, every time we see a TV show like ‘Empire,’ it makes it harder for them to make the argument that you can’t have a viable film with a lead of color. Or you can’t have a universally appealing show with a predominantly minority cast. It’s just not true anymore because the mainstream, itself, is diverse.”

Some of the largest disparities for minorities detailed by the UCLA report were in roles like film writers (8.1 percent of 2016’s top films) and creators of broadcast scripted shows (7.1 percent). Hunt blamed the lag behind the camera on, among other factors, executive ranks that are still overwhelmingly male.

“It’s a white-male controlled industry and it hasn’t yet figured out how to incorporate other decision-makers of color and women into the process. So you have these momentary exceptions to the rule,” said Hunt, pointing to “Black Panther,” which has grossed $700 million worldwide in two weeks of release.

Such films, he said, show the considerable economic sense of making movies and television series that don’t ignore nearly half of their potential audience.

“It’s business 101,” Hunt said.
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Ensa Cosby, the daughter of comedian Bill Cosby, has died from renal disease. She was 44.

“Please keep the Cosby family in your prayers and give them peace at this time,” Cosby’s spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said Monday. He did not reveal any other details of Ensa Cosby’s death Friday in Massachusetts.

Ensa Cosby was a fierce supporter of her father when he was accused of sexual assault in 2014.

“I believe that racism has played a big role in all aspects of this scandal,” she wrote in a statement released along with her sister Erinn.

“How my father is being punished by a society that still believes black men rape white women but passes off ‘boys will be boys’ when white men are accused, and how the politics of our country prove my disgust. My father has been publicly lynched in the media,” she said.

Bill Cosby has denied all sexual assault allegations against him. 

Ensa Cosby largely stayed out of the public spotlight during her life, though she did appear in 1989 in a single episode of her father’s popular sitcom, The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984-1992.

She is the second of Bill and Camille Cosby’s five children to die. Their son, Ennis, was murdered at the age of 27 in 1997 during a failed robbery attempt.
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Dubai police said Monday that drowning was the cause of death for famed Bollywood actress Sridevi Kapoor, correcting earlier reports that she had died of a heart attack.

“Following the completion of post-mortem analysis, #DubaiPolice today stated that the death of Indian actress #Sridevi occurred due to drowning in her hotel apartment’s bathtub following loss of consciousness,” Dubai police tweeted.

The case of her death has now been transferred to public prosecutors, Dubai police added.

Sridevi, 54, died Saturday night in Dubai while attending her nephew’s wedding. Best known for her roles in Indian Hindi romantic drama films, including Chandni, Lamhe, Mr. India, and Nagina, Sridevi began her acting career at a young age and starred in over 300 films.

Her body was flown back to Mumbai Monday, where hundreds of fans had gathered around her home.

Others in the Bollywood film industry expressed their shock and sadness following the news of her death.

“I have no words. Condolences to everyone who loved #Sridevi . A dark day . RIP,” actress Priyanka Chopra wrote on Twitter.

“Ma’am, we will always remember you with love and respect,” actor Aamir Khan tweeted.

 
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Russia’s imminent return from a doping suspension won’t be derailed because its hockey players sang their national anthem, the International Olympic Committee said Monday.

The Russian men’s team defied IOC rules by belting out the anthem at their medal ceremony following Sunday’s 4-3 overtime win against Germany in the gold-medal game.  Russian fans at the match also sang along.

“We understand that this was over excitement by the athletes who had just won a gold medal in extraordinary circumstances,” the IOC said in an e-mailed statement to The Associated Press.

Players on the Russian team said they agreed before the game that they would sing the anthem.

The IOC suspended Russia’s membership in December over a doping scheme at the 2014 Olympics, but allowed 168 Russians to enter the Pyeongchang Olympics as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” in neutral uniforms.

They had to sign a document agreeing not to display any national symbols or protest the restrictions. The Olympic anthem played when Russians won gold.

The IOC voted against reinstating Russia in time for the closing ceremony Sunday, which would have allowed Russian athletes to march under their national flag. The Russian delegation had stockpiled uniforms with the Russian flag in preparation.

However, the IOC decided that Russia will be reinstated if no more of its athletes fail drug tests from the Pyeongchang Games. Russia produced two of the four doping cases announced so far.

Testing of samples taken from Russians in Pyeongchang is nearing its end, and Russian IOC member Shamil Tarpishchev told the state news agency RIA Novosti on Monday that reinstatement could come as soon as Tuesday.

The IOC’s ruling brought sharp criticism from an alliance of national anti-doping agencies, iNADO.

“It has taken two positive tests on Russian athletes to force the IOC’s hand when its clear intention had been to readmit the ROC before the closing of the Pyeongchang Games,” iNADO said in a statement.

“The disappointing fact that this is another short-lived, negotiated deal, to be lifted promptly within the next few days, indicates the IOC’s management of this issue has gone from bad to worse.”
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Steve Emt was rolling himself up a hill to a pie shop in Falmouth, Massachusetts, when the coach of a wheelchair curling team noticed the former UConn basketball player.

The shop’s name was Pie in the Sky. An interesting coincidence, Emt thought, when Tony Colacchio approached him and suggested that within a year he could turn Emt into a Paralympic athlete in a sport he’d never heard of.

It took a few years, but next month, Emt will compete in the Paralympic Games in South Korea as the vice skip of the United States curling team.

“The sport just bit me,” he said. “With everything that has happened to me in life, I’ve learned to stop asking why. Everything happens for a reason.”

He was a student at the U.S. Military Academy in when he lost his father, a man he says was his best friend, mentor and coach. His dad’s death, he said, led to falling grades at West Point and a decision to come home to Hebron, Connecticut, where he was a basketball and soccer star in high school.

Jim Calhoun said he learned from his players about this big, tough kid playing intramural games at UConn. Calhoun, who also had lost his father at a young age, gave the 6-foot-4, Emt him a chance to walk on to the Huskies. He played with the likes of Ray Allen, Donyell Marshall and current coach Kevin Ollie from 1992 to 1994.

“Coach Calhoun stepped right in as a father figure,” Emt said. “He became a person I could talk to, a person who demanded the most out of me, showed me what it was to never give up, to give 100 percent every day.”

Emt said he needed those values, instilled by his dad and drilled home by Calhoun to help him survive what came next.

A year removed from UConn, Emt lost his ability to walk when he decided to get into his truck after a night of watching basketball and drinking with friends at a bar in East Hartford.  He drove off Interstate 84, flipped five times into a bridge abutment going about 80 mph.  He broke most of his ribs and his back, severing his spinal cord. 

What followed were surgeries and months of rehab, learning to open a door by himself, put clothes on, make toast.

“There were two days at the beginning I couldn’t get out of bed. I hit bottom. I was questioning a lot of things,” he said. “I was 25. I could have played professional basketball in Europe. I could have played professional soccer. All that was gone. I messed up. What now?”

Calhoun gave him some advice.

“I didn’t want people telling him how tough he had it,” Calhoun said. “I told him, no, you’re not going to play in the NBA, but you weren’t going to do that anyway. So, why not put those good things you do have, your mind, your toughness, into something positive.”

A while later a friend asked Emt to mentor a trouble teen. That gave him some direction. He wanted to work with kids; he wanted to be an example.  Emt eventually went back to school, became a math teacher and for 20 years, a high school basketball coach. 

He said he never had the desire to play wheelchair basketball. He has tried several other adaptive sports, even racing a hand cycle in the 2010 New York marathon.

But then in July 2012 he went on vacation to Cape Cod, and decided to get some pie.

About a week after their meeting at the pie shop, Colacchio convinced Emt to come watch an international tournament, called a bonspiel, which was being held on the cape. During that tournament, the coach called to say a Canadian team was missing a player and asked if Emt would be willing to drive from his home in Connecticut to fill in. He’d have to learn the game between midnight and 4 a.m., after the curling tournament had ended for the day.

No problem. The math teacher fell in love with the angles of the game, figuring out how hard to throw the stone down the ice and how much curl was needed to make a shot.

Colacchio said he was immediately impressed by Emt’s dedication.  His star pupil now practices about 20 hours a week, either making the five-hour round-trip drive to Cape Cod or two hours to clubs in Norfolk, Connecticut or Bridgeport.

“The day they put that USA jacket on him, he cried,” Colacchio said, choking up himself. “I still get emotional thinking about it.”

Emt’s team leaves this week. They will spend some time in Japan practicing before the games. The curling begins March 10.

Calhoun said he’s convinced Emt can help bring home a medal.

“When things don’t always go your way, it takes more than the average person to overcome it,” Calhoun said. “Steve’s always done that. So, I think he can help his teammates, who have all been through similar things, realize, maybe when the times get tougher, ‘Hey, we can do this.’  You know how people ask, ‘Who would you want in your foxhole?’  I would like to have Steve Emt in my foxhole.”
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It’s not easy to be a spy. The job requires a unique set of skills, including mastery of a wide range of gadgets and devices. Visitors to the new Spyscape museum in New York have an opportunity to explore secret missions and see for themselves if they have what it takes to be a secret agent. Faiza Elmasry has this story narrated by Faith Lapidus.
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South Korea brought the curtain down on its “Peace Games” on Sunday, with winter sports athletes dancing and singing together at a vibrant closing ceremony.
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Hailing the Pyeongchang Olympics as “the games of new horizons”, the International Olympics Committee declared the 2018 winter games closed Sunday.

In his speech at the Games’ closing ceremony, IOC president Thomas Bach praised North and South Korea for marching together during the opening ceremony, saying, “You have shown how sport brings people together in our fragile world; you have shown how sport builds bridges,” Bach told the Korean athletes.

Bach handed the Olympic flag to the mayor of Beijing, which will host the next winter Olympics in 2022.  The Chinese capital will be the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympic games, after it hosted the summer edition in 2008.

 

 

Following his closing speech, Bach posed for photos with a few standout athletes, including Tongan cross-country skier Pita Taufatofua, who attended both ceremonies bare-chested, despite the cold.

South Korean-Chinese boy band EXO performed for the closing ceremony, which included a drone show, fireworks, and the extinguishing of the Olympic torch.

In Photos: Closing Ceremony of 2018 Winter Olympics

President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump lead the U.S. delegation to the closing ceremonies, sitting in the same box as President Moon Jae-In of South Korea and Kim Yong Chol — vice chairman of North Korea’s ruling Worker’s Party Central Committee.

Yonhap New Agency reported the North Korea delegation said Pyongyang was willing to hold talks with the United States, but the White House denied that anyone in the U.S. delegation spoke with North Korean officials at the ceremony.

“Ivanka Trump and General Brooks watched in President Moon’s box and Ivanka sat next to the first lady of the Republic of Korea … There was no interaction with the North Korean delegation,” a senior administration official said.

Steve Herman contributed to this report.

 

 
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Famed Bollywood actress Sridevi Kapoor, best known as Sridevi, died of a heart attack Saturday in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, a family member said. Sridevi was 54.

She was known for her roles in the 1990s in Indian Hindi romantic drama films, including Chandni, Lamhe, as well as Mr. India and Nagina. She began working in films as a child.

After word of Sridevi’s death, Indian actress Priyanka Chopra tweeted, “I have no words. Condolences to everyone who loved #Sridevi. A dark day. RIP.”
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There was plenty of slime and llamas in red pajamas at the International Toy Fair earlier this week in New York. Hidden among these popular playthings were a number of toys that cater to the modern-day kid, with plenty of technology built in.

Educational toys are a mainstay in the industry, and S.T.E.M. toys, those that incorporate principles of science, technology, engineering and math, have garnered attention in recent years. But now, toymakers are addressing children’s emotional intelligence as well, with toys that not only cultivate their IQ but their EQ, or emotional quotient.

PleIQ is a set of plastic toy blocks that use augmented reality technology to showcase a variety of words, numbers and lessons to children. PleIQ CEO Edison Durán demonstrated how virtual characters and miniature storybook scenes pop up on the blocks when they’re held in front of a tablet camera. 

“Every side of a block, every letter, every number and every symbol becomes a 3-D interactive learning experience especially designed to foster the multiple intelligence of preschoolers,” Durán said.

Intelligence here includes intrapersonal and interpersonal skills, and PleIQ builds on these by having kids play the role of teacher or guide. 

“The children have to help the companion character in (a) difficult situation. So they have to give them advice to solve these situations that are common,” Durán said.

‘A kid’s Alexa’

On the other side of the convention center, Karen Hu was demonstrating the workings of an educational robot called Woobo. 

“You can think of this as a kid’s Alexa,” said Hu, Woobo’s strategic partnerships and business development manager. “We have a lot of expressions that’s built into it.”

Hu posed a question to the furry green Woobo, “Hi, what’s your name?”

It responded in a childlike voice with, “Are you trying to trick me? My name is Woobo.”

Woobo comes programmed with educational games and activities that children can access via its touchscreen face. Toys that function as companions also aid in social development. Hu described how Woobo can help an autistic child. 

“He can communicate with Woobo and he can follow some of the instructions Woobo is giving,” said Hu, noting that kids see Woobo more as a companion than a parent or authority figure “telling him to do certain things.”

Stress-relieving animals

A more low-tech companion is Manimo, toy animals weighing 2.2 to 5.5 pounds that can help with hyperactivity and concentration. Whether it’s a snake, salamander, dolphin or frog, Manimos can be draped across a child’s arm, chest or neck.

Like the use of weighted blankets or vests in occupational therapy, Manimos alleviate anxiety and stress and can be particularly helpful to kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or those on the autism spectrum.

Karine Gagner, president and founder of Manimo, explained that applying deep pressure to one’s body can help calm kids before bedtime, while simultaneously increasing their concentration and focus. 

“It works very well at school, you can use it on your lap or you can put it over your shoulder or just hold it in your arm,” Gagner said.

Social intelligence

At the EQtainment booth, sales director Jonathan Erickson was explaining the company’s toy lineup: “The purpose of all of our products is to develop emotional and social intelligence in kids — so that’s impulse control, manners, any skill sets relating with other people.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re a genius when it comes to IQ, you still need to be able to relate with the world around you,” Erickson said.

Erickson was displaying a board game called “Q’s Race to the Top,” in which players try to advance a monkey named “Q” to the top of his treehouse while engaging in an interactive mix of physical activity and conversational prompts. Kevin Chaja, EQtainment’s CTO, says the game got his 4-year-old daughter to open up. 

“The biggest thing, is her talking. And that’s the key of all this, is getting her to talk, getting her feelings expressed out. Like, ‘Hey, what does it feel like to be sad? Or how does it feel like to be happy?’” Chaja said.

Whether a board game can ultimately improve a child’s emotional intelligence remains to be seen, but in parents’ ongoing quest to raise well-rounded children, toymakers are making sure to cover all their bases.
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Nearly 17,000 students in the Philippines gathered in a park in the capital, Manila, on Saturday in a bid to set a record for the world’s biggest art class.

Middle school students from about 200 schools listened for about an hour as a teacher taught them how to draw a mask.

“I learned a lot,” said one of the students, Kathleen Pareno.

Organizers said 16,692 students joined the lesson and the figure would be sent to Guinness World Records for an evaluation.

India holds the record for the largest art lesson with 14,135 people taking part in one in 2014, Guinness World Records said on its website.

 
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Nanette Fabray, the vivacious, award-winning star of the stage, film and television, has died at 97.

Fabray’s son, Dr. Jamie MacDougall, told The Associated Press his mother died Thursday at her home in Palos Verdes Estates.

Fabray launched her career at age 3 as Vaudeville’s singing-dancing Baby Nanette.

On Broadway she won a Tony in 1949 for the musical “Love Life” and was nominated for another for “Mr. President.”

She starred opposite Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in the hit 1953 film “The Band Wagon.”

Her television roles included playing Bonnie Franklin’s mother in the hit 1980s sitcom “One Day at a Time.”

She also played the mother of Shelley Fabares, her real-life niece, in the 1990s sitcom “Coach.”
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Mikaela Shiffrin is not quite convinced Lindsey Vonn’s Olympic career is done.

“Whenever I hear anybody say something about this,” Shiffrin said Friday, “it’s like, ‘most likely,’ ]’probably,’ ‘maybe,’ ‘we’ll see,’ ‘not sure.’ I’m like, ‘Knowing Lindsey, I don’t believe her.’ ”

And with that, Shiffrin let out a big laugh.

She is, without a doubt, the heir apparent to Vonn as the leader of U.S. ski racing. They were the only two members of the country’s Alpine team to earn medals at the Pyeongchang Games — and the only two to hold news conferences a day after the sport’s last two individual events.

First came Vonn, 33, wearing her downhill bronze medal. After she left the room, it was time for Shiffrin, 22, whose gold from the giant slalom and silver from the combined dangled from her neck.

Vonn spent much of her session taking questions about her, um, extensive experience — “You’re not getting any younger,” was the way one reporter put it, to which the skier replied with a smile, “Come right out and say it, why don’t you!” — and the emotions of her (presumably) last Olympics.

Then Shiffrin discussed what she called the frustration of dealing with schedule changes that contributed to a fourth-place finish in her top event, the slalom, and forced her to enter only three of five races.

Tribute to Vonn

When asked about being Vonn’s successor, she was deferential.

“I don’t necessarily feel like I’m taking over something for the sport. I don’t know if I could fill Lindsey’s shoes, the way that she has worn them,” Shiffrin said. “I’m going to do my best to help the sport grow in whatever way that I can. The best way that I can do that, as far as I see right now, is just to ski my best and to keep taking ski racing to a new level.”

Shiffrin also was asked about what sort of advice she might have received from Vonn about taking over as the face of Alpine skiing in the United States.

“I haven’t had a lot of advice about what to do because, first of all, I don’t think Lindsey sees herself as being done yet or passing the baton,” she answered. “And I don’t see myself as taking the baton.”

Shiffrin is now what Vonn once was: a multiple Olympic medalist in her 20s with a bright future.

After Vonn won a gold and bronze at the 2010 Vancouver Games, the assumption was she would go on to add medal upon medal to her career total. Instead, she was forced to miss the 2014 Olympics after tearing knee ligaments.

So after an eight-year wait, Vonn stepped back on the stage, but has said this would be her last Olympics. As it is, she became the oldest woman to win an Alpine medal.

Vonn said the woman who took the gold in the downhill, good friend Sofia Goggia of Italy, wrote a note trying to lobby for a return in 2022.

“I told her … if I physically could continue for four years, then I probably would, as long as I considered myself still a competitor,” Vonn said. “But four years is a really long time. I told her that. She said she’s going to keep trying to convince me.”

Career record

In the meantime, there are other goals Vonn will pursue before retiring. She reiterated she is “not going to stop ski racing until I break” Ingemar Stenmark’s World Cup record for most career race wins. She has 81; he had 86.

“I think next season,” Vonn said, “I can get it done.”

She also intends to pursue a chance to compete against men, something she’s sought for years.

The sport’s governing body is supposed to consider her request in a few months, but if that doesn’t work out, Vonn said she would think about trying to set up an exhibition race.

All of that will be put on hold for a bit, though.

Instead of joining the skiing circuit when it resumes in Switzerland next weekend, Vonn will wait until the World Cup Finals in Are, Sweden, on March 14-18, to try to overtake Goggia for the season downhill title.

“I need a break,” Vonn said. “I need a moment to breathe. I’ve never actually had time after an Olympics to enjoy it, so I’m going to.”
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They were little girls with dreams of Olympic gold when they started in gymnastics. Now they’re women with lifelong injuries, suffocating anxiety and debilitating eating disorders. 

They are the other victims of USA Gymnastics. 

Thirteen former U.S. gymnasts and three coaches interviewed by The Associated Press described a win-at-all-cost culture rife with verbal and emotional abuse in which girls were forced to train on broken bones and other injuries. That culture was tacitly endorsed by the sport’s governing body and institutionalized by Bela and Martha Karolyi, the husband-and-wife duo who coached America’s top female gymnasts for three decades.

The gymnasts agreed to speak to AP, some for the first time, after the recent courtroom revelations about USA Gymnastics’ former team doctor, Larry Nassar, who recently was sentenced to decades in prison for sexually assaulting young athletes for years under the guise of medical treatment.

The Karolyis’ oppressive style created a toxic environment in which a predator like Nassar was able to thrive, according to witness statements in Nassar’s criminal case and a lawsuit against USA Gymnastics, the Karolyis and others. Girls were afraid to challenge authority, Nassar was able to prey on vulnerable girls and, at the same time, he didn’t challenge the couple’s harsh training methods.

“He was their little puppet,” Jeanette Antolin, a former member of the U.S. national team who trained with the Karolyis, said. “He let us train on injuries. They got what they wanted. He got what he wanted.”

Young girls were virtually starved, constantly body shamed and forced to train with broken bones or other injuries, according to interviews and the lawsuit. Their meager diets and extreme training often delayed puberty, which some coaches believed was such a detriment that they ridiculed girls who started their menstrual cycles.

USA Gymnastics declined to answer questions for this story, and the Karolyis didn’t reply to requests for comment. The Karolyis’ Houston attorney, Gary Jewell, said the Karolyis didn’t abuse anyone.

Some female gymnasts in the U.S. were subjected to abusive training methods before the Karolyis defected from their native Romania in 1981. But other coaches and former gymnasts say the Karolyis’ early successes — starting with Romania’s Nadia Comaneci becoming the first woman gymnast awarded a perfect score in competition — validated the cutthroat attitudes that fostered widespread mistreatment of American athletes at the highest levels of women’s gymnastics.

The Karolyis, who helped USA Gymnastics win 41 Olympic medals, including 13 gold over three decades, trained hundreds of gymnasts at their complex in rural Huntsville, Texas, known as “the ranch.” They selected gymnasts for the national team and earned millions from USA Gymnastics. 

A congressional committee investigating the gymnastics scandal said in Feb. 8 letters to the Karolyis, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee that they were all “at the center of many of these failures” that allowed Nassar’s sexual abuse to persist for more than two decades.

It’s unclear what the Karolyis knew about Nassar’s sexual abuse and whether they took any action to stop it.

Martha Karolyi, in a deposition given last year as part of the lawsuit against the Karolyis and numerous others, acknowledged that “in or around June 2015” she received a phone call from the then-head of the national gymnastics organization, Steve Penny, informing her that the organization had received a complaint that Nassar had “molested a national team gymnast at the ranch.”

The deposition was included in a Feb. 14 letter to two U.S. senators from John Manly, an attorney representing Nassar victims in a lawsuit that seeks monetary damages and court oversight of USA Gymnastics.

Manly cited the deposition in accusing the sport’s governing body of lying to Congress. 

In a timeline submitted to a congressional committee investigating the scandal, the organization said it was told in mid-June of an athlete “uncomfortable” with Nassar’s treatment, but that it was not until late July 2015 that it decided to notify law enforcement “with concerns of potential sexual misconduct.”

Penny, the former USA Gymnastics chief, said in a statement that Martha Karolyi was mistaken about the timing of his call.

Texas has one of the strongest child abuse reporting laws in the nation, requiring anyone who has reason to believe abuse has occurred to immediately alert authorities. Failure to do so is a misdemeanor punishable by jail time and a fine.

In the deposition, Martha Karolyi said she did not discuss what she learned about Nassar with anyone but her husband, her lawyers and the USA Gymnastics official who called her. 

Jewell, the Karolyis’ attorney, said the couple didn’t know about any sexual assault complaints involving Nassar until Martha Karolyi was contacted by a USA Gymnastics official in the summer of 2015.
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Forget Lindsey Vonn and Adam Rippon. The real rock stars of the Pyeongchang Olympics are a humble group of Korean curlers who have no idea they’ve become a global sensation.

They are known as the “Garlic Girls,” the South Korean women’s curling team with the fairy-tale story whose moniker reflects the locally famed garlic grown in their hometown. Never considered a medal contender coming into Pyeongchang, they have risen to No. 1 in the rankings, earning worldwide attention for their fierce talent and funny personalities.

And yet the Garlic Girls have been almost totally sheltered from the international frenzy both by personal choice — they switched off their phones during the games to block outside attention — and by a protective coach who is keenly aware that curling is as much a mental game as a physical one.

​Famous and they don’t know it

After a recent match, the women were quickly shuffled past waiting reporters, giving journalists apologetic smiles and greetings of “Anyonghaseyo!” (hello) before vanishing. None of them, says coach Kim Min-jung, are aware that they’ve become superstars.

“I’m sorry that I could not bring the athletes today, because I’m worried there will be too much pressure and burden on them,” Kim said. “Even the crowd is too interested in them.”

That interest is understandable. The Garlic Girls seem tailor-made for stardom.

The wildly skilled underdogs came into the Olympics ranked eighth in the world and went on to crush curling heavyweights including Canada and Sweden. They are cute and comical, referring to themselves by quirky nicknames such as “Pancake” and “Steak.”

Two teammates are sisters and all are longtime friends, creating irresistible chemistry on the ice. The team’s “skip,” or captain, has a steely gaze and funky, owl-eyed glasses that have become fodder for endless Internet memes.

Screaming fans

Many Koreans who have never seen a curling match have traveled to remote Gangneung to peek at their nation’s new darlings in person.

“I’m very proud of them,” said Lee Ji Sun, a 26-year-old who had never been inside a curling arena before Wednesday’s match. “They are showing we can do well even in new sport events.”

Every match featuring the team is packed with screaming, flag-fluttering Koreans who leap to their feet to cheer on the women’s stunningly precise shots. One fan in the crowd Wednesday waved what appeared to be a hand-drawn portrait of skip Kim Eun-jung with her trademark spectacles.

​Late to the game of curling

That curling has gained any prominence in Korea is surprising in itself. Korea didn’t even have a team in Olympic curling until the 2014 Sochi Games.

It took Koreans awhile to wake up to curling, largely because the country lacked sufficient facilities until recent years, Kim Young, a curling legend who started the Korean Curling Club in 1988, said by email. Now, he says, Korea has six dedicated curling arenas, and many schools have curling teams.

In 2006, South Korea’s first curling center was built in the rural town of Uiseong. Four of the five team members attended Uiseong Women’s High School, where they were on the school’s curling team. Uiseong’s reputation as the nation’s default curling capital slowly grew, and the curling center has hosted about 15 major domestic and international curling events.

Garlic and those nicknames

Still, until the women’s team began their surprise winning streak in Pyeongchang, Uiseong was better known for its prolific garlic production.

Koreans consider garlic a health food that boosts stamina. Seo Eun Ha, a 26-year-old Garlic Girls fan, believes garlic may have contributed to the team’s success. (She also credits the women’s good teamwork and strong relationships.)

Like many fans at Gangneung, Seo is particularly fond of the curlers’ unusual nicknames: Sunny, Steak, Pancake, Annie (a brand of yogurt) and ChoCho (a type of cookie).

“I think their nicknames go well with their lively images,” Seo said. “I like ‘Steak’ the most. It sounds so funny and unique.”

The nicknames started as a gag over breakfast one day, said Kim, the coach. The women were talking about how difficult it was for other countries’ athletes to pronounce their names at international competitions. All five team members and their coach also share the same surname — Kim, which is very common in Korea — making their names even more confounding for foreigners.

Kim Seon-yeong, who was eating a sunny-side-up fried egg, joked that she could go by the name “Sunny.” The other women loved the idea. They each opted to nickname themselves after the English words for their favorite breakfast foods, figuring that would be easier for others to grasp.

Though the women’s team is getting the most attention, Korean fans have been going wild for the men, too. After Wednesday’s men’s match, a player from the Korean team began throwing T-shirts into the crowd, which surged forward with outstretched arms.

Kim Heae Darm, a fan who leaped up and managed to snag a shirt sailing overhead, pressed it to her face and screamed with glee. She then turned to capturing the attention of Korean mixed doubles player Lee Ki-jeong, who scrawled his autograph in her notebook.

As she struggled to catch her breath, she explained her excitement by noting that Lee was strong, athletic and “very handsome.”

As for the success of the women’s team, Kim, the founder of the curling club, couldn’t be prouder. “They are heroes!” he said.

Yet the Garlic Girls do have one request: Maybe someone could come up with a nicer team name for them?

“We would prefer the name ‘Team Kim,’” Kim, the coach, said with a laugh. “Because although our hometown is Uiseong — which is related to garlic — we have no relationship with garlic at all.”
…

American cities are becoming safer as violent crime decreases nationwide. But the city of Baltimore is an exception. Amy Berbert, a local artist whose photography project “Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk” aims to bring awareness and compassion to the frequently forgotten victims of Baltimore’s homicides. Gabrielle Weiss reports.
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Malaysian police said a popular ethnic Chinese rapper has been detained over complaints that his latest music video featuring dancers wearing dog masks and performing “obscene” moves insulted Islam and could hurt racial harmony.

It was the second time in two years that Wee Meng Chee, popularly known as Namewee, has been investigated over his music videos.

Police said in a statement that Wee was detained Thursday after they received four public complaints that his video marking the Chinese year of the dog had “insulted Islam and could negatively impact racial unity and harmony.”

In the video entitled “Like a Dog,” Wee sits on a chair in a public square in the government administrative capital of Putrajaya with dancers wearing dog masks around him. Several of them mimic the “doggy-style” sex move. A green domed building in the background led some people to speculate it was filmed in front of a mosque, leading to criticism, but Wee later said it was the prime minister’s office.

The song includes the sounds of dog barks from various countries. In an apparent reference to government corruption, Wee sings that dogs in Malaysia go “mari mari, wang wang,” which in the Malay language means “come come, money money.”

Dogs are considered unclean by Muslims, who account for 60 percent of Malaysia’s 32 million people.

Several ministers have called for Wee to be arrested. He has defended the video as a form of entertainment and said he has no intention of disrespecting any race or religion.

Earlier Thursday, Wee posted a picture on Facebook of himself at the federal police headquarters as he was wanted by police for questioning.

“I am not afraid because I believe Malaysia has justice,” he said.

Previous controversies

In 2016, he was detained after enraged Malay Islamic activists lodged complaints that a video titled “Oh My God,” which was filmed in front of various places of worship and used the word “Allah,” which means God in the Malay language, was rude and disrespectful to Islam. He was not charged.

In one of his earliest videos, he mocked the national anthem and was criticized for racial slurs. He also produced a movie that was banned by the government in 2014 for portraying national agencies in a negative way.

Race and religion are sensitive issues in Malaysia, where the ethnic Malay majority has generally lived peacefully with large Chinese and Indian minorities since racial riots in 1969 left at least 200 people dead.
…

Director Steven Soderbergh said on Wednesday he so enjoyed making his psychological thriller “Unsane” on an iPhone, he would find it hard to go back to conventional filmmaking.

“Unsane”, which premieres at the Berlin film festival, was shot over just two weeks — way shorter than the months a movie

usually takes.

It tells the story of Sawyer Valentini, who moves to a new city to escape her stalker David but finds herself admitted to a

mental health institution where he works.

Sawyer, played by Claire Foy, is convinced she has been wrongly admitted to the facility but no one believes her so she

is trapped there and subjected to torments from David, who gives her pills that make her lash out and imprisons her in a padded cell where he declares his love for her.

Soderbergh said the overall experience of making a film on an iPhone was good, although there were some drawbacks such as

the phone being very sensitive to vibrations.

“I have to say the positives for me really were significant and it’s going to be tricky to go back to a more conventional

way of shooting,” he said.

Not having to make a hole in a wall or secure a camera to the ceiling are big advantages, as is being able to go straight

from watching a rehearsal to shooting, Soderbergh said.

“The gap now between the idea and the execution of the idea is just shrinking and this means you get to try out more ideas

so I wish I’d had this equipment when I was 15,” he said.

Joshua Leonard, who plays David, said filming on an iPhone enabled the actors to stay in the world of their characters and

the film more than the conventional camera set-up would allow.

“There’s nothing more fun as an actor than just being in the thick of the creative process when you’re actually on set and

not having to wait for the machine of filmmaking to catch up with the creative impulse,” he said.

Being used to people putting iPhones close to his face to take selfies helped too because “it really minimized any

self-consciousness about the process of making a film”, he said.

“Unsane” is among around 400 films screening at the festival but it is not among the 19 movies vying for the main prize, the

Golden Bear, which will be awarded on Saturday. The festival in the German capital runs until Feb. 25.
…

Thousands of South Koreans are calling for two speedskaters to be expelled from the Olympics after they left their slower teammate behind in a race defined by teamwork and walked away as she quietly sobbed at the stadium in one of the most bizarre moments of this year’s Winter Games.

As of Thursday afternoon, nearly 570,000 signatures had been gathered on an online petition to South Korea’s presidential office calling for skaters Kim Bo-Reum and Park Ji Woo to be expelled from the Olympics.

 

During the women’s team pursuit quarterfinals on Monday, Kim and Park skated ahead as teammate Noh Seon-yeong fell behind the pack. Noh finished the race nearly four full seconds after her teammates did. Cameras showed Kim and Park walking away after the race as Noh cried in the infield of the Gangneung Oval. She was comforted only by her Dutch coach, Bob de Jong.

 

Some South Koreans believe Kim and Park were trying to humiliate Noh because there was nothing to be gained by crossing first.

 

“It’s clearly a disgrace to our national image that these individuals of bad character are representing this country at the Olympics,” the petition says.

The petition also calls for an investigation into what it describes as “various corruption and irregularities” at the Korea Skating Union, the national skating body. The union has come under criticism for many years for alleged factionalism and nepotism in selecting athletes to compete for the Olympics.

There was no immediate comment by the union.

In team pursuit, the finishing time is set by the third and last skater crossing the line. Normally, the first rider sets the pace and takes the air pressure head on while the other two follow in the draft. Skaters are also allowed to cooperate, including pushing their slower teammates from behind.

 

But in their quarterfinal heat, it seemed Kim and Park weren’t putting much effort into helping Noh keep pace and stay in the pack.

 

Kim further triggered public anger after the games with comments many saw as putting the blame on Noh.

 

“It was regretful, since it’s the time of the last skater that counts. If our last skater had come in a bit earlier we might have made the semifinals. But it’s finished,” Kim said after the race. “Park Ji Woo was supposed to go out with speed, and Noh Seon-Yeong would do minimal. But after we got separated, we couldn’t really communicate. That was probably the reason.”

 

As the public anger grew, Kim appeared in a news conference with her coach on Tuesday and tearfully offered her “sincere apology” and said she didn’t realize Noh was that far off until it was too late.

 

Both Kim and Park are from the Korea National Sports University, whose athletes and alumni have been at the center of factional disputes in the country’s super-competitive speedskating scene.

 

Skaters from other schools have previously complained that athletes with ties to the university are favored in domestic competitions to pick athletes for the Olympics and other international events. That’s believed to be particularly true in short-track speedskating where multiple athletes can work together _ jostling for position, blocking and ceding _ to improve the chance that a certain athlete wins.

 

Ahead of the Olympics, Noh reportedly complained that she wasn’t getting much time to train with Kim and Park, who were practicing separately at the university.

 

For Noh, it was her second tearful Olympics in a row.

 

Four years ago, she was bent on competing with her brother Jin-kyu at the 2014 Sochi Games. But the talented short-tracker failed to make it there after he was diagnosed with bone cancer. He died two years later.

 

Her preparations for the Pyeongchang Games were equally troubled.

 

She was supposed to be on the pursuit team, but she was told barely two weeks before the games started that she could not compete since she had not qualified for an individual event. The Korea Skating Union said an administrative error was to blame. After a withdrawal from other athletes, though, a spot opened up and she took it.

 

On Wednesday night, Noh skated with Kim and Park again in a two-team race to determine seventh place. As the stadium’s announcer called out their names, the crowd quietly acknowledged Kim and Park, but saved a thunderous cheer for Noh.

 

The Koreans lost to Poland and finished eighth.
…

Twenty years after winning the first Olympic gold medal in women’s ice hockey in Nagano, Japan, the United States defeated its archnemesis, Canada, in a 3-2 shootout Thursday in the gold medal game at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Jocelyne Lamoureux-Davidson scored the go-ahead goal in the sixth round of the shootout with a dazzling move against Canadian goalie Shannon Szabados, then watched as teammate and goalie Maddie Rooney stopped Meghan Agosta to snap Canada’s streak of four straight Olympic gold medals, as well as its 24-game Olympic winning streak. Thursday’s final was the first shootout in a women’s gold medal game, which has been dominated by the North American squads.

Finland won the bronze medal with a 3-2 win over the Russia on Wednesday.

The U.S. victory came 38 years to the day when the U.S. men’s team upset the Soviet Union in Lake Placid, New York, in the “Miracle on Ice” game.

​On the slopes

In Alpine skiing, Sweden’s Andre Myhrer was the surprise gold medalist in the men’s slalom, finishing 0.34 seconds ahead of silver medalist Ramon Zenhaeusern of Switzerland. The 35-year-old Myhrer became the oldest man to win Olympic gold in the slalom after the favorites, Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen and Austria’s Marcel Hirscher, failed to complete their first runs. Austria’s Michael Matt, whose brother Mario won gold in the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, took the bronze medal.

Twenty-four-year-old Michelle Giffin of Switzerland took the gold medal in the women’s combined, with Mikaela Shiffrin of the United States finishing nearly a second behind to win the silver medal, and compatriot Wendy Holdener taking home the bronze. American Lindsey Vonn, the leader in the downhill section, failed the finish the slalom portion in her final Winter Olympics.

Elsewhere, American freestyle skier David Wise won his second consecutive gold medal in the men’s half-pipe event, his score of 97.20 edging out compatriot Alex Ferreira, who took the silver. Sixteen-year-old Nico Porteous of New Zealand won the bronze.

Austrian snowboarder Anna Gasser won the gold medal in the Olympic debut of the women’s Big Air snowboarding event, with American Jamie Anderson, who won gold last week in the slopestyle, coming in second. Another 16-year-old New Zealander, Zoi Sadowski Synnott, took home the bronze medal.

Doping violation

Away from the ice rinks and ski slopes, Russian curler Alexander Krushelnitsky has been stripped of his bronze medal after admitting to a doping violation. Krushelnitsky tested positive for the banned substance meldonium after winning the mixed doubles bronze with his wife, Anastasia Bryzgalova.

Meldonium is a drug designed for people with heart problems and some believe it can help athletes increase stamina. It was banned in sports in 2016.

Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova was suspended for 15 months after testing positive for meldonium at the Australian Open in 2016.

Russia’s national team was banned from Pyeongchang over a major doping scandal dating back to the Sochi Games, but 168 Russian athletes have been allowed to compete under the neutral Olympic Athletes from Russian banner. The latest incident could keep the Russians from being reinstated and marching under the national flag at Sunday’s closing ceremony.
…