Author: Ohart

The Venice Film Festival is kicking off the fall cinema season with searing drama, serious glamour and a crop of new movies vying for attention, awards and acclaim.

 

Thanks to its late-summer time slot, just ahead of rivals in Telluride and Toronto, the world’s oldest cinema festival has become a key showcase for films hoping to dominate Hollywood’s awards season. In recent years, Venice has been a launch-pad for Oscar winners including “Gravity,” “Birdman,” “Spotlight” and “La La Land.”

 

This year’s edition opens Wednesday with Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing,” a science fiction-tinged drama starring Matt Damon as a man who hopes to minimize his problems by shrinking himself.

 

Other films competing for the festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, include George Clooney-directed heist movie “Suburbicon”; Guillermo del Toro’s fantastical “The Shape of Water”; Darren Aronofsky’s secrecy-shrouded thriller “Mother!”; and Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

 

Here’s what to watch for at the 74th Venice Film Festival, which runs to September 9:

Glamour galore

 

Unspooling in one of Italy’s most ravishing cities, the festival takes style and celebrity very seriously. Among the stars who will be whisked across the Venice lagoon by boat to walk the Palazzo del Cinema red carpet are Clooney, a festival favorite who has a house on nearby Lake Como.

 

He’ll likely be joined by pal Damon, who stars in both “Suburbicon” and “Downsizing,” which also features Kristen Wiig. Jennifer Lawrence is expected for the much-anticipated “Mother!”, which also stars Javier Bardem. The Spanish star should also be on hand alongside Penelope Cruz for the drug-lord biopic “Loving Pablo.”

 

An older generation of showbiz royalty will be well represented by stars including Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland and Michael Caine. Jane Fonda and Robert Redford star in the late-life romance “Our Souls at Night” and are being given lifetime-achievement awards by the festival.

 

Global Crises

 

Several films in the lineup tackle the conflicts and divisions convulsing the world.

 

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s documentary “Human Flow” travels to 23 countries as it tries to put a human face on the vast migrations unfolding around the world. Paul Schrader, who wrote “Taxi Driver,” directs “First Reformed,” featuring Ethan Hawke as a minister wrestling with his faith and the specter of environmental catastrophe.

 

Israel’s Samuel Moaz, director of acclaimed war drama “Lebanon,” returns with “Foxtrot,” another story of conflict and loss. From China, Vivian Qu’s “Angels Wear White” centers on sexual assault in a small provincial town.

 

It hasn’t escaped comment that Qu is the only female director among 21 filmmakers in the festival’s main competition. Debates about diversity and inclusion in the movie business are a long way from dying down.

 

Thrills and chills

 

Once considered the preserve of B-movies, thrills have become respectable. The Venice competition brims with films that include elements of sci-fi, action and horror, including “Downsizing,” “The Shape of Water” and “Mother!”

 

Further jolts and shocks are promised by the Italian organized-crime series “Suburra”; S. Craig Zahler’s bloody “Brawl in Cell Block 99,” starring Vince Vaughn; and a 3-D version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” screening alongside a 25th-anniversary documentary about the landmark video.

 

A changing industry

 

Technology and economics are transforming the film industry, and festivals like Venice are working hard to keep up.

 

Festival director Alberto Barbera has said he wants the lineup to provide “a perception of the future,” rather than “a snapshot of the present or a souvenir selfie of our contemporary cinema.”

 

One big change this year is the festival’s first virtual reality competition, featuring 22 films and installations judged by a jury led by director John Landis. Barbera said VR, until recently considered little more than “the latest technological gimmick,” looked set to “become one of the most colossal investments” for the cultural industry.

 

With the way films are funded, made, distributed and watched all in flux, the taste-maker role played by festivals like Venice makes them more powerful than ever.

 

Schrader, who has been making films since the 1970s, said advances in technology had let him make “First Reformed” twice as fast and at half the cost of a movie made just 10 or 15 years ago.

 

“That’s the upside of the enormous freedom we’ve been given by technology in film,” he said. “The downside is thousands of films are getting made now that no one wants to see.”

 

“The festivals are the new gatekeepers,” he added. “We need these festival structures to process this tsunami of product.”
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The lineup for the first women’s basketball World Cup in 2018 has been completed by African champion Nigeria and runner-up Senegal.

The top-ranked United States, which qualified as the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics champion, heads the 16-team tournament being played Sept. 22-30 next year in Spain, ranked No. 2.

Nigeria and Senegal sealed their places by reaching the AfroBasket final, won 65-48 on Sunday by the Nigerians in Mali.

The U.S. is the two-time defending champion in a competition rebranded from the World Championship after the 2014 edition.

The qualified teams are, from Africa: Nigeria and Senegal; from the Americas: Argentina, Canada, Puerto Rico and United States; from Asia: Australia, China, Japan and South Korea; from Europe: Belgium, France, Greece, Latvia, Spain (host) and Turkey.
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The daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. stood beside her father’s newly unveiled statue Monday, just a few blocks from where he grew up, handing out hugs and telling each well-wisher: “It’s about time.”

The statue paying tribute to King made its public debut Monday morning on the Georgia Capitol grounds in front of around 800 people including Gov. Nathan Deal, many other state political leaders and several members of the King family. The sculpture’s installation comes more than three years after Georgia lawmakers endorsed the project.

“Forty-nine years ago when my father was assassinated, he was the most hated man in America. Today, he is one of the most loved men in the world,” the Rev. Bernice King said of her father, who was slain in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

A replica of the nation’s Liberty Bell tolled three times before the 8-foot (2.4-meter) bronze statue was unveiled on the 54th anniversary of King’s “I have a dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington. The statue depicts King in mid-stride, holding a jacket and grasping a batch of papers.

Bernice King said her father gave the nation a sense of hope in a time of turmoil, and his statue can serve a similar purpose today.

Bringing the statue into reality took multiple struggles. Officials had to negotiate with King’s family for the right to use his image. Then an artist was selected for the project, only to be killed in a motorcycle accident. After a lengthy screening, sculptor Martin Dawe was chosen to replace him.

Dawe said he knew other tributes to King had been criticized and he set one goal: Make the statue look like the man.

King’s statue was erected in his Southern hometown at a time when monuments honoring Civil War Confederates are coming down in many other places across the South.

“This tribute is important and a lasting statement about the value of inclusion, the strength of our diversity and the power of grace and how it changes hearts,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said. “This statue comes at a time when there are many conversations about historical monuments going on nationally and within the state. When the time comes, I’m confident in the city of Atlanta that we will walk it together as we have again, again and again.”

Reed said $40 million is being invested to redevelop the Martin Luther King Jr. drive corridor to improve mobility and safety. The mayor also said a $23 million MLK Recreation and Aquatic Center will be opened in Atlanta by the end of the year.

Morehouse College professor Timothy Miller kicked off the ceremony singing Ray Charles’ song, “Georgia on My Mind.”
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Stars including Kevin Hart, Katy Perry and country singer Chris Young are lining up to help raise money for flood relief efforts in Houston.

 

Hart has pledged $25,000 to victims of Hurricane Harvey. In an Instagram video posted Sunday, Hart said he was starting a celebrity challenge to donate money to the cause. Beyonce, Jay Z, Justin Timberlake, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jerry Seinfeld are among the stars he called on to do the same.

 

Young said in a Twitter video that he has started an online fundraiser for the Red Cross and donated $100,000 to it.

 

Perry urged viewers to donate while hosting MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday night and tweeted a link to the Red Cross’ donation efforts to more than 100 million followers on Twitter.
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Kendrick Lamar was the king of the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, winning six awards on a night full of emotional performances, political moments and a new, eye-popping Taylor Swift music video.

 

Lamar’s “Humble” won video of the year, best hip-hop video, direction, cinematography, art direction and visual effects on Sunday at the Forum in Inglewood, California. He also gave an explosive performance of “Humble” and “DNA,” backed by ninjas dancing near fire.

 

But the VMAs, hosted by a forgettable Katy Perry with performances by Miley Cyrus and Ed Sheeran, was tamer than most years, not relying on the shock value and wild antics of past shows. Instead, touching performances and powerful speeches took center stage.

Emotional performances

 Logic performed his inspirational song “1-800-273-8255,” named after the phone number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. He was joined onstage with suicide attempt survivors as well as singers Alessia Cara (best dance video winner) and Khalid (best new artist winner). Lyrics from Logic’s song include: “I don’t wanna be alive/I just wanna die today” and “I want you to be alive/You don’t got to die today.”

 

Kesha introduced the performance and also offered words of encouragement: “As long as you don’t give up on yourself, light will break through the darkness.”

 

Pink was also emotional when she accepted the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award, telling the audience a story about her daughter, who was sitting in the crowd with her father Carey Hart. Pink said her daughter recently told her that “I’m the ugliest girl I know … I look like a boy with long hair.”

 

Pink said she then showed her 6-year-old daughter photos of performers such as Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Janis Joplin, George Michael, Elton John and Freddie Mercury.

 

“You are beautiful and I love you,” Pink said to her daughter.

‘Do not give up’

Rock singer and Oscar winner Jared Leto remembered Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, who hanged himself in July. Leto also mentioned Chris Cornell, who hanged himself in May.

 

“I think about his band, who were really his brothers, and I remember his voice,” Leto said of Bennington. “That voice will live forever.”

 

“Hear me now, you are not alone. There is always a way forward. Reach out. Share your thoughts. Do not give up,” Leto added.

 

The night also featured political moments focused on the Aug. 12 rally in Charlottesville, Virginia that turned violent after Nazis and white nationalists opposed to the city’s plan to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee clashed with counter protesters. Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when a car plowed into a crowd.

Mother honors daughter

The Rev. Robert Wright Lee IV, a descendent of Gen. Lee, told the audience: “As a pastor it is my duty to speak out against racism, America’s original sin.”

 

Heyer’s mother then entered the stage, telling the audience: “Only 15 days my ago, my daughter Heather was killed as she protested racism. I miss her but I know she’s here tonight.”

 

Bro announced The Heather Heyer Foundation, a nonprofit that will award scholarships and “help more people join Heather’s fight against hatred.”

 

Paris Jackson also spoke out against hatred.

 

“We must show these Nazi white supremacist jerks in Charlottesville, and all over the country, that as a nation with liberty as our slogan, we have zero tolerance for their violence and their hatred and their discrimination. We must resist,” Michael Jackson’s eldest daughter said before presenting an award.

Swift offers new video 

Lamar’s performance kicked off the three-hour show, followed by the premiere of Swift’s video for “Look What You Made Me Do,” which featured the singer dressed like a zombie in one scene and surrounded by slithering snakes in another. The video for the track, rumored to be a diss toward Kanye West, also featured Swift in a tub of diamonds, a cat mask, and a car that crashed (she was holding a Grammy). The clip ended with a dozen of Swifts — in memorable outfits she’s worn in the past — symbolizing how the singer felt the media has portrayed her through the years.

 

Swift and Zayn, who didn’t attend the show, won best collaboration for “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” Jack Antonoff and Sam Dew, who wrote the song with Swift, accepted the award.

 

Sheeran performed his hit, “Shape of You,” and was later joined by rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Sheeran won artist of the year, a new award established after MTV eliminated gender categories like best male and female video.

 

“Thank you to all the fans,” Sheeran said.

 

Tearful presentation

Fifth Harmony, who lost a group member last year and released their first album as a foursome last week, won best pop video for “Down.” Ally Brooke and Dinah Jane of the group were in tears as they accepted the award alongside Normani Kordei, Lauren Jauregui and rapper Gucci Mane.

 

“This is honestly so unreal. Thank you to God and thank you to our families,” Jane said.

 

Fifth Harmony started their performance standing on high platforms to sing “Angel,” then falling backward like superheroes. They followed it with the upbeat “Down,” taking a break from singing to perform intense choreography. Later, water rained on the four girls, who dropped their microphones at the end of the performance.

 

Lorde, who had the flu, danced throughout the performance of “Homemade Dynamite” instead of singing it, wearing a tin foil half dress, pants and sneakers.

Summer hit missing

Lamar’s win for video of the year beat videos by Bruno Mars, DJ Khaled, the Weeknd and Cara. “Despacito,” which was snubbed in the video of the year category, lost the only award it was nominated for: song of summer. Lil Uzi Vert’s Top 10 hit, “XO Tour Life,” won the prize.

 

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s international hit is the most viewed video on YouTube and currently No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. MTV said Universal Music Latin Entertainment didn’t submit the video, while the record label said they weren’t asked to send in the clip.

 

Shawn Mendes, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Perry, with guest Nicki Minaj, performed during the show. Rod Stewart, DNCE and Demi Lovato sang remotely from Las Vegas.

 
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An Emirati filmmaker is pushing boundaries and bypassing state censors by delicately unraveling a story about a traditional Arab family grappling with issues of homosexual love, gender identity, sectarianism and women’s rights.

The movie focuses on a conservative Iraqi family who begin seeing and unearthing one another’s secrets after the family matriarch goes blind and dies.

What makes the film “Only Men Go To the Grave” particularly avant-garde is that the homosexual characters are not simply supporting characters or portrayed as Westernized or globalized elites, like past characters in other famous Arabic films. Rather, the film’s stars are homosexual lovers who are also traditional Arab mothers, wives and caretakers.

The movie, by filmmaker Abdallah Al Kaabi, also reveals its central male character to be struggling with his masculinity and gender. In possibly the movie’s boldest scene, the character dresses in full makeup, a wig, jewelry and a dress.

Most surprisingly, the Arabic film passed state censors to screen at major movie theaters across Dubai this month. The United Arab Emirates, and Dubai specifically, are more liberal and seen as more tolerant than other parts of the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, where there are no movie theaters.

Al Kaabi says he believes the film’s handling of homosexuality and gender identity helped propel it to the big screen.

“A movie in the end is a story and people don’t really have a problem with what you talk about in the story, but they have a problem with how you expose it,” he told The Associated Press after a screening of the film.  “I think you need to show good taste when you talk about controversial and taboo issues,” he said.

The lovers in his film are never shown being physically intimate.

Egyptian cinema — the oldest and most revered film industry in the Arab world — has tackled homosexuality in film since the 1950s, though often portraying it as something that exists among a progressive minority. Gay characters have also been portrayed in some films as psychologically ill or are punished in some way.

Tunisian cinema has also depicted homosexuals in movies since the 1970s, while a genre of so-called queer cinema is currently surfacing among Lebanese filmmakers.

Egyptian film critic Joseph Fahim said Al Kaabi’s film appears to be the first made by an Arab Gulf filmmaker to tackle the issue of homosexuality in such a candid manner.

“It shows that this is coming from within, especially that the director casts no judgmental eye on it … he treated it in a matter-of-fact way, not as a disease. That is also a major stepping stone,” Fahim said.

Watch the film’s trailer:

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It took Al Kaabi six years to complete the ambitious project, which was awarded best Emirati film at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2016 — the year it was produced.

Al Kaabi grew up in the smaller emirate of Fujairah along the Gulf of Oman. With little entertainment around him, he would venture out to the emirate’s only video store and rent VHS tapes. It sparked in him a love for cinema.

“My pastime was to travel and dream through movies so I was watching a lot of Hollywood movies, Egyptian movies and Bollywood movies,” he said.

After vacationing in Iran, Al Kaabi was awed with the country’s vibrant film scene in the southern city Ahvaz, known for its ethnic diversity. He decided to shoot his debut feature film there using Iranian actors of Arab heritage and actors from Iraq.

Across the Gulf, there are varying degrees of censorship and support for independent filmmakers like Al Kaabi.

Despite there being no theaters in Saudi Arabia, a handful of films have been shot there in recent years. In Kuwait, which once held the mantle for Gulf theatrical productions, censors pulled Disney’s new Beauty and the Beast from theaters this year after the public’s reaction to what Disney called its first “gay moment” for a character.

Homosexuality and cross-dressing are forbidden in the predominantly Muslim Gulf. A popular transgender social media star said she was denied entry to Dubai by airport officials last year because her passport still listed her as “male.”

In Saudi Arabia, homosexuals and cross-dressers can be imprisoned, fined and lashed. Earlier this year, Saudi police raided a gathering of men dressed in women’s clothing outside the capital, Riyadh. A Pakistani arrested in the raid later died in police custody under unclear circumstances.

Though rare, judges in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and a handful of other countries can issue the death penalty in cases of same-sex relations.

Possibly for this reason, Al Kaabi prefers to describe the relationship between the women in his film as “alternative love.”

Still, throughout most of the Middle East, there is a narrow margin of acceptance for transgender individuals and homosexuality so long as it isn’t visible to the public. More recently, some Gulf countries have begun considering laws that would permit gender reassignment.

In the UAE, two Emirati women are petitioning the courts to be recognized as males. Last year, the UAE approved a law that would allow gender reassignment surgery for those who psychologically identify as the opposite sex.

The scene of the male character dressed as a woman, shocking for its raw and rare portrayal of a transgender character, left one young Emirati college student perplexed.

“There are things I really didn’t understand in the movie, like the man. Why was he wearing these kinds of clothes like woman clothes?,” Mahra Al-Nuaimi said after watching the movie.

Her cousin, Moza Al-Hamrani, appeared less confused by the filmmaker’s motives. As a student of film, she said she hoped to one day have the chance to produce similarly groundbreaking work.

“The issues to do with gender identity and sexuality — I thought like `Whoa, did he really do that?”‘ But I was also proud that someone finally spoke out about it, because these issues exist but everybody turns a blind eye,” she said.
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Floyd Mayweather Jr. figured out a 50th opponent, letting Conor McGregor have the early rounds before stalking him late and leaving the mixed martial artist defenseless and exhausted on the ropes.

Mayweather battered McGregor around the ring in the later rounds, finally stopping him at 1:05 of the 10th round Saturday night with a flurry of punches that forced referee Robert Byrd to stop the fight.

Before a pro-McGregor crowd that roared every time the UFC star landed a punch, Mayweather methodically broke him down after a slow start to score his first real stoppage in nearly a decade. He did it in what he said would be his final fight, against a fighter who had never been in a professional boxing match.

McGregor boxed surprisingly well early. But after landing some shots in the first three rounds, his punches seemed to lose their steam, and Mayweather went on the pursuit. McGregor backpedaled most of the way, stopping only to throw an occasional flurry as Mayweather wore him down.

“I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see,” Mayweather said. “I owed them for the (Manny) Pacquiao fight.”

McGregor had vowed to knock Mayweather out within two rounds, and he won the early rounds with movement and punches to the head. But the tide of the fight turned in the fourth round as Mayweather seemed to figure out what he had to do and began aggressively stalking McGregor.

“I turned him into a Mexican tonight,” McGregor said. “He fought like a Mexican.”

In a fight so intriguing that it cost $10,000 for ringside seats, McGregor turned in a respectable performance for someone in his first fight. But Mayweather’s experience and his ring savvy paid off as he executed his game plan to perfection.

“Our game plan was to take our time, go to him and take him out in the end,” Mayweather said. “I guaranteed everybody this fight wouldn’t go the distance.”

Mayweather was widely criticized for not going after Pacquiao in their megafight, and he didn’t make the same mistake this time. In a fight that could make him $200 million he seemed to stagger McGregor with a series of punches in the ninth round, then came back in the 10th eager to finish it off.

McGregor went over and hugged Mayweather. He seemed almost happy in the ring afterward, secure that he had given a good performance even in losing.

“I was a little fatigued,” he said. “He was composed in there, that’s what 50 pro fights can give you.”

Mayweather ran his record to 50-0, surpassing Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 record and giving himself a great parting gift. He repeated afterward that he was not going to fight again.

“This is my last fight for sure. 50-0 sounds good, I’m looking forward to going into the Hall of Fame,” Mayweather said. “I picked the best dance partner to do it with.”

Irish fans arrived by the thousands in the days before the fight, filling the arena for the weigh-in and boisterously cheering for their man. They even went off in the middle of the night and spray painted an Irish flag and “49-1” on a billboard on Interstate 15 promoting Mayweather’s businesses.

The capacity crowd at the arena cheered McGregor on, but they quieted as the fight progressed and Mayweather showed his dominance.
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Spotify says Taylor Swift has set a new global first day streaming record.

The music delivery site said Saturday it had logged more than 8 million same-day streams for her new single, “Look What You Made Me Do.”

The 27-year-old singer dropped the much-anticipated song late Thursday to streaming platforms and iTunes.

She wrote and produced it with frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, who performs in the bands Bleachers and fun. It’s the first single from her sixth album, “reputation,” set to be released Nov. 10.

The video for the song will premiere Sunday on the MTV Video Music Awards. A clip previewed Friday on “Good Morning America.”

YouTube said Saturday the song’s lyric video broke a record for that site, with more than 19 million same day views.
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We’re interfacing with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending August 26, 2017.

We greet a new song this week, but that’s not the big story.

Number 5: Charlie Puth “Attention

Let’s open in fifth place, where Charlie Puth jumps two slots with “Attention.”

His first came in 2015, when his hit with Wiz Khalifa, “See You Again,” topped the Hot 100 for 12 weeks. Charlie says record bosses wanted him to simply write the song, not sing on it or appear in the video. He threatened to withhold the track if he didn’t get to participate…and that turned out to be the decision that made him a star.

Number 4: Imagine Dragons “Believer”

Imagine Dragons has a serious hit on its hands as “Believer” jumps a notch to fourth place.

It’s the Las Vegas band’s second biggest hit, following its 2012 breakthrough “Radioactive,” which peaked at number three and sold more than 10 million copies. On August 26, the band travels to Utah for the LoveLoud Festival. It’s the brainchild of lead singer Dan Reynolds and benefits LGBTQ youth within the Mormon Church.

Number 3: French Montanta Featuring Swae Lee “Unforgettable”

Holding in third place are French Montana and Swae Lee with “Unforgettable.” 

French is the new brand ambassador for Ciroc Vodka – he’s the personal choice of Ciroc boss Sean “Diddy” Combs. Mr. Montana helped develop and name its latest flavor, Ciroc French Vanilla. Diddy tells People Magazine that one dollar from the sale of every bottle will go toward the charitable Mama Hope Organization.

Number 2: DJ Khaled, Rihanna and Bryson Tiller “Wild Thoughts”

Staying put in second place are DJ Khaled, Rihanna, and Bryson Tiller with “Wild Thoughts.”

Anchoring the song is Carlos Santana’s 1999 hit “Maria, Maria.” In a statement to Billboard Magazine, Santana thanks his original collaborator, Wyclef Jean, and says DJ Khaled, Rihanna, and Bryson Tiller move it into a new dimension…with the groove still intact.

Number 1: Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee Featuring Justin Bieber “Despacito”

Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee, and Justin Bieber remain your Hot 100 champs for a 14th week with “Despacito.” That ties it with Los Del Rio’s 1996 hit “Macarena” as the longest-running Spanish-language champion in Hot 100 history.

The sky’s the limit from here, so you have to join us next week!
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Detectives missed chances to stop pedophile rock star Ian Watkins in the years before he was charged with child sex abuse, Britain’s police watchdog said Friday.

Watkins, lead singer of the Welsh band Lostprophets, was sentenced in 2013 to 29 years in prison for crimes against children as young as 1.

In a highly critical report, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said that South Wales Police made mistakes and in some cases failed to “carry out even rudimentary investigation” into reports about Watkins’ behavior by an ex-girlfriend and other witnesses between 2008 and 2012.

Ex-girlfriend Joanne Mjadzelics told police in 2009 that she had a cellphone message from Watkins about his desire to sexually abuse children. The watchdog said police considered her report “malicious” and didn’t examine the phone.

Watkins, now 40, was eventually arrested for drug offenses in 2012, and police found evidence of abuse on his computers.

Lostprophets — which formed in 1997 and had a chart-topping album in 2006 with “Liberation Transmission” — disbanded after Watkins’ arrest.
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Section by section, American artist Ryan Mendoza painstakingly disassembled the small wood-frame home of civil rights icon Rosa Parks after learning that the struggling city of Detroit was going to have it demolished. He shipped it across the Atlantic Ocean and rebuilt it in the German capital of Berlin, saving the home and creating a new tourist attraction.

The house has been up in Berlin less than a year, but after violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the growing call to remove Confederate monuments in the United States, the New York native said it’s now clear to him that Parks’ house needs to return soon to the U.S.

“It’s actually become a necessity, as we see people rising up and seeing things for what they are,” he said. “As Americans begin to understand they have to re-contextualize these monuments, the Confederate statues, there is a lack of civil rights monuments to balance things out.”

Parks, who died in 2005, became a leading name in the civil rights movement for refusing in 1955 to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. She moved to Detroit in 1957 to escape death threats and stayed in the house with her brother and his family — crammed into the tiny residence with more than 15 people.

After the financial crisis of 2008 and Detroit’s dramatic decline, Parks’ home was abandoned and put on a list for demolition. Parks’ niece Rhea McCauley instead bought it from the city for $500 and donated it to Mendoza for preservation. In 2016, he and others took it carefully apart, then rebuilt it on the lot in Berlin where his studio and home are.

Queen Yahna, a soul and gospel singer from Philadelphia who now lives in Berlin, performed for the crowd at the house’s official dedication in April. Visiting the house this week, she said it doesn’t matter to her where the house is, so long as Parks’ struggle is remembered.

“The issue of racism is going on, negative things are going on and there are different things, positive, that can be brought to light, not just physical monuments,” she said. “The spirit is more important.”

But Mendoza said even though the house is tucked away on his lot, it still draws curious onlookers daily — including many Americans — showing how important a symbol it is.

“Imagine if the house were on a public setting in a prominent city in the U.S.?” he said. “That’s an educational tool that shouldn’t be denied the American people. They have to know their past.”

He said a foundation has offered to help pay the costs of moving it back to the U.S., and he’s been in talks with museums and a university about putting it on display, but there’s no timeline yet on when the house may return.

His dream would be to see the derelict home reconstructed on the lawn of the White House with the blessing of U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Trump says that he’s not a racist. This would be a wonderful moment for him to redeem himself in the eyes of Americans,” Mendoza said. “He wants to embrace all of America’s past. Why not embrace the house that Rosa Parks once lived in?”

McCauley, Parks’ niece who still lives in Detroit, told The Associated Press that she would welcome the home’s return to the U.S.

“We need all the help we can get, in light of all current events,” she said.
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On Alaska’s Kenai peninsula, the city of Homer proudly calls itself the halibut fishing capital of the world. For more than 30 years it has held an annual “Halibut Derby.” VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya and Aleksandr Bergan were there for this year’s big event.
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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Thursday he won’t seek to rescind any national monuments carved from the wilderness and oceans by past presidents. But he said he will press for some boundary changes and left open the possibility of allowing drilling, mining or other industries on the sites.

Twenty-seven monuments were put under review in April by President Donald Trump, who has charged that the millions of acres designated for protection by President Barack Obama were part of a “massive federal land grab.”

 

If Trump adopts Zinke’s recommendations, it could ease some of the worst fears of his opponents, who warn that vast public lands and marine areas could be stripped of federal protection.

But significant reductions in the size of the monuments or changes to what activities are allowed on them could trigger fierce resistance, too, including lawsuits.

Changes to ‘handful of sites’

In an interview with The Associated Press, Zinke said he is recommending changes to a “handful” of sites, including unspecified boundary adjustments, and suggested some monuments are too large.

 The White House said only that it received Zinke’s recommendations and is reviewing them.

 Conservationists and tribal leaders responded with alarm and distrust, demanding the full release of Zinke’s recommendations and vowing to challenge attempts to shrink any monuments.

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, called Zinke’s review a pretext for “selling out our public lands and waters” to the oil industry and others.

Jacqueline Savitz, senior vice president of Oceana, which has been pushing for preservation of five marine monuments included in the review, said that simply saying “changes” are coming doesn’t reveal any real information.

“A change can be a small tweak or near annihilation,” Savitz said. “The public has a right to know.”

Tribal coalition

A tribal coalition that pushed for the creation of the 2,100-square-mile Bears Ears National Monument on sacred tribal land in Utah is prepared to launch a legal fight against even a slight reduction in its size, said Gavin Noyes of the nonprofit Utah Diné Bikéyah. Zinke has previously said Bears Ears should be downsized.

Republican Utah state Rep. Mike Noel, who has pushed to rescind the designation of Bears Ears as a monument, said he could live with a rollback of its boundaries.

He called that a good compromise that would enable continued tourism while still allowing activities that locals have pursued for generations — logging, livestock grazing and oil and gas drilling.

 

“The eco tourists basically say, ‘Throw out all the rubes and the locals and get rid of that mentality of grazing and utilizing these public lands for any kind of renewable resource such as timber harvesting and even some mineral production,’” Noel said. “That’s a very selfish attitude.”

Marine monuments

Other sites that might see changes include the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in the Utah desert, consisting of cliffs, canyons, natural arches and archaeological sites, including rock paintings; Katahdin Woods and Waters, 136 square miles of forest of northern Maine; and Cascade Siskiyou, a 156-square-mile region where three mountain ranges converge in Oregon.

The marine monuments encompass more than 340,000 square miles and include four sites in the Pacific Ocean and an array of underwater canyons and mountains off New England.

In the interview with the AP, Zinke declined to reveal his recommendations for individual sites.

Four-month review

 

The former Montana congressman did not directly answer whether any monuments would be newly opened to energy development, mining and other industries Trump has championed.

 

But he said public access for uses such as hunting, fishing or grazing would be maintained or restored. He also spoke of protecting tribal interests.

“There’s an expectation we need to look out 100 years from now to keep the public land experience alive in this country,” Zinke said. “You can protect the monument by keeping public access to traditional uses.”

The recommendations cap an unprecedented four-month review based on a belief that the century-old Antiquities Act had been misused by presidents to create oversized monuments that hinder energy development, grazing and other uses. The review looked at whether the protected areas should be eliminated, downsized or otherwise altered.

Six sites spared earlier

The review raised alarm among conservationists who said protections could be lost for ancient cliff dwellings, towering sequoia trees, deep canyons and ocean habitats.

Zinke previously announced that no changes would be made at six of the 27 monuments under review — in Montana, Colorado, Idaho, California, Arizona and Washington.

 

In the interview, Zinke struck back against conservationists who had warned of impending mass sell-offs of public lands by the Trump administration.

 

“I’ve heard this narrative that somehow the land is going to be sold or transferred,” he said. “That narrative is patently false and shameful. The land was public before and it will be public after.”

Different restrictions

 

National monument designations are used to protect land revered for its natural beauty and historical significance. The restrictions aren’t as stringent as those at national parks but can include limits on mining, timber-cutting and recreational activities such as riding off-road vehicles.

 

The monuments under review were designated by four presidents over the past two decades.

No president has tried to eliminate a monument, but some have reduced or redrawn the boundaries on 18 occasions, according to the National Park Service.

Environmental groups contend the 1906 Antiquities Act allows presidents to create the monuments but gives only Congress the power to modify them.

 
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One of six African nations will bid to host the 2025 World Athletics Championships as the continent hopes to stage the global meet for a first time, the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) president Hamad Kalkaba Malboum has said.

African countries have previously held several major sporting events with South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup and Morocco staging an IAAF Diamond League event this year. Three nations also co-hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup.

Malboum believes that the continent’s previous hosting record indicated that the biennial championships could also be held successfully in Africa.

“We are talking with Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco — those countries have the facilities,” Malboum told the BBC on Wednesday.

“I have very positive sounds from some of them. People said that Africa could not host the World Cup in football, but we did it very successfully.”

Malboum added that the governing body IAAF’s head Sebastian Coe was also in favor of a bid from within the continent.

“President Coe is supporting the fact that Africa could host the World Championships,” the 66-year-old added.

The Cameroonian said that African countries had now come to understand the importance of the event after showing little interest in hosting the championships in the past.

“I think many now realise that (staging the championships) could put the nation on the world map in terms of publicity and promote tourism, so there is a benefit from hosting the event. This was not the case in the past,” Malboum said.

Qatar and the U.S. will host the 2019 and 2021 championships respectively, with the decision on the hosts for the 2025 edition set to be announced in 2020.

 
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A lottery player in the U.S. state of Massachusetts won the $759 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday night, the second highest in the game’s history and an amount that prompted millions of Americans to buy tickets in hopes they would have the lucky numbers.

The odds of winning the top prize were 1-in-292 million. Last year, three winners split the record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot. Early Thursday, Charlie McIntyre, Powerball Product Group chairman, said the $758.7 million jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history. 

And yet, legalized lotteries are a relatively new phenomenon in the United States.

Colonists ran lotteries

Early colonists operated lotteries, and Roger Dunstan, who wrote the book History of Gambling in the United States, said the Jamestown colonists operated lotteries to fund the colony.

But the Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded by Puritans, banned lotteries and other forms of gambling, even at home.

In the end, the lure of easy money was too much and eventually, each of the 13 original colonies operated lotteries to provide funding.

Money from lotteries was used to fund schools and infrastructure, which is similar to what the revenues are used for today.

But it wasn’t smooth sailing for state lotteries. As scandals and evangelical disapproval of gambling mounted, states began banning lotteries as early as 1844. By 1890, only Delaware and Louisiana had lotteries.

Lotteries make a comeback

The pendulum started to swing back when Puerto Rico instituted a lottery in 1934. Thirty years later, New Hampshire followed suit.

Now, nearly every state, with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, Utah and Alabama, has a state lottery.

Today, most of the big-prize lotteries are operated across many states. Powerball and Mega Millions are the biggest joint-state lotteries. They are both available in 44 states.

According to Reuters, lotteries raised $17.6 billion in 2009. Eleven states made more money off the lottery than they did from corporate income tax, Reuters said. Most of the revenue goes to public schools.
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The Nazi symbol known as the swastika was on display in Charlottesville, Virgina, during a white supremacist rally earlier this month that led to violence and division in the U.S. It sparked a national debate about how to respond. In Germany, where the swastika is banned, a group of graffiti activists have taken it upon themselves to transform that symbol of hate into something beautiful and positive. Faiza Elmasry tells us how. Faith Lapidus narrates.
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Yes, Taylor Swift fans, Wednesday was a lucky one for you.

 

The pop star who whipped her army of Swifties into a frenzy with video snippets of slithery snake parts on social media posted the title of her new album, “Reputation,” and announced online it will be out Nov. 10.

 

The first single, she said in a series of posts, will drop Thursday night. And she threw in the album’s cover art for good measure: a black-and-white photo of herself — head and shoulders, in slouchy sweatshirt, hair swept back — against a backdrop of newsprint reading, simply, “Taylor Swift” over and over again.

 

Swift, who is followed by millions on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, wiped her feeds clean Friday and replaced the void Monday with the first of three reptilian videos, each offering just a tad more of a snake, from tail to squirmy middle and finally its beady red eyes and ominous fangs lunging briefly at the camera.

 

The teasers put fans on high alert, and the snake imagery evoked snake emojis used against her in various dis-fests last year, including one with Kim Kardashian West after West claimed Swift knew about hubby Kanye’s reference to Swift in his song “Famous.”

 

The album would be Swift’s sixth studio effort and the first since the 2014 release of  “1989,” which is the last time she teased fans online, that round with mysterious Polaroid photographs. She scrubbed her feeds Friday of everything from profile pictures to followers. It was three years to the date she dropped the song “Shake It Off” and announced “1989” — and just a few days after her courtroom assault trial victory against a former radio DJ in Denver.

 

Word of a new album lifted Swift to a top trending topic around the world Wednesday on Twitter ahead of Sunday’s MTV Video Music Awards, to be hosted by Katy Perry, a former friend.
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A Connecticut farm once owned by Mark Twain is for sale for $1.8 million.

The Connecticut Post reports the 18.7-acre property in Redding is next to Twain’s country home, known as “Stormfield.”

He bought it for his daughter, Jean Clemens, in 1909 and named it “Jean’s Farm.” But Clemens died soon after. Twain died five months later, in April 1910.

The real estate agency, William Raveis, says the house includes five bedrooms and four bathrooms. The property also includes a movie theater, saltwater swimming pool, fish pond and a barn built in the 1860s that includes an extra apartment.

It calls it a perfect Connecticut gentleman’s farm.
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Praise keeps pouring in for a Muslim model, who earlier this month became the first contestant in the Miss Universe Great Britain pageant’s history not to wear a bikini in the swimsuit round. The model, Muna Jama, spoke about her decision with VOA’s Jon Spier.
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The Village Voice, the alternative weekly newspaper co-founded by Norman Mailer and known for its culture coverage and investigative reporting, said Tuesday that it would end its print version and continue as an online-only publication.

Peter Barbey, who purchased the newspaper from Voice Media Group in 2015, said in a statement the move was part of media’s migration to the internet and that its readers now expect “a range of media, from words and pictures to podcasts, video, and even other forms of print publishing.”

The publication is still considering when it will end the print edition, said Luke Carron, a Village Voice spokesman.

The newspaper has been distributed free in the New York City area since 1996 and was mostly supported by classified advertising, which declined with the rise of Craigslist and other internet outlets.

The company has discussed a number of potential partnership opportunities, and will continue to host events like The Pride Awards, which honors work in LGBTQ communities, Barbey said in the statement.

The Voice was started by Mailer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and three others in New York’s Greenwich Village in 1955. It became a forerunner of the alternative weekly press movement that challenged mainstream newspapers in cities around the nation with their coverage of art, politics and other news.

The newspaper started the Obie Awards for off-Broadway theater and its three Pulitzer Prize winners include cartoonist Jules Feiffer. Investigative reporter Wayne Barrett and music critic Nat Hentoff wrote for the Voice for decades, and it also published the works of writers such as Ezra Pound, James Baldwin, Lester Bangs and Allen Ginsberg.
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Morgan Freeman, the versatile actor known for playing gods, presidents and pimps, will be honored with the 2017 lifetime achievement award by the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) at its annual ceremony in January.

Freeman, 80, whose prolific career spans 50 years and more than 100 movies, will join the likes of past recipients Lily Tomlin, Debbie Reynolds and Dick Van Dyke when he gets the honor at a Los Angeles ceremony on Jan. 21. SAG announced the award on Tuesday.

“Some actors spend their entire careers waiting for the perfect role. Morgan showed us that true perfection is what a performer brings to the part,” SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said in a statement.

“He is innovative, fearless and completely unbound by expectations,” she added.

The award is given annually to the actor who fosters the finest ideals of the acting profession.

Freeman’s calm demeanor and authoritative voice has seen him cast as God, or the voice of God, in movies including “Bruce Almighty,” and he played the role of president in “Invictus” and “Deep Impact.” In 2005 he won an Oscar for playing a former boxer in “Million Dollar Baby.”
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“Transformers: The Last Knight” star Mark Wahlberg has outmuscled Dwayne Johnson to become Hollywood’s highest-paid actor in the past year with a transforming income of $68 million, according to Forbes magazine.

The former rapper known as Marky Mark beat out “Baywatch” star Johnson, with $65 million, and Johnson’s “The Fate of the Furious” co-star Vin Diesel, worth $54.5 million

The rest of the top five, released Tuesday, includes Adam Sandler, flush with a Netflix deal, at No. 4 with $50.5 million and Jackie Chan with $49 million.

The top 10 actors banked a cumulative $488.5 million — nearly three times the $172.5 million combined total of the 10 top-earning women.

All the data is from between June 1, 2016, and June 1, 2017, before fees and taxes.
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The players from Venezuela look as happy as any other team, dancing to “Shake Your Groove Thing” with the tournament mascot before a win over Mexico and raising the roof to “Taking Care of Business” before a loss to Canada.

They go through all the baseball routines — greeting a slugger after a home run, blessing themselves before at-bats and cheering their pitcher. When Omar “Spark Plug” Romero cracked a game-ending hit to beat the Dominican Republic 3-2 on Monday night, teammates mobbed him on the field, just as any other team would.

 

But they might not be at the Little League World Series were it not for the support of a couple of major league players from their home country.

 

“In a way, this helps them appreciate this in a different way,” Carolinne Valbuena, the mother of third baseman Jhann Bozo, said through an interpreter.

First to help is Odor

 

Venezuela has been caught in internal strife, pitting socialist President Nicolas Maduro against an opposition-led congress increasingly stripped of power. Underlying the civil unrest is a country living in poverty and beset by runaway inflation.

 

In addition, Maduro’s government has been at odds with the Trump administration. The U.S. president said this month he would not rule out a “military option” in Venezuela.

 

Texas Rangers second baseman Rougned Odor first learned to play baseball in Maracaibo, the town that’s home to the Venezuelan squad.

 

“I know everybody on that team, in that league,” Odor told The Associated Press in Texas this weekend. “And that’s why I tried to help those kids.”

 

The first step for the players was obtaining a visa to the U.S., and they had to go to Caracas, the nation’s capital, to get them. Odor paid for their flights.

 

Simply flying to Caracas, though, wasn’t enough to get the players to the Little League World Series. Visas to the U.S. run about $170.

Padres pitcher helps out

 

San Diego Padres pitcher Jhoulys Chacin is also from Maracaibo. He found out from a friend about the players’ financial plight and paid for all their visas.

 

Chacin’s Little League team lost to the Maracaibo team that went on to win the Little League World Series in 2000.

 

“I know how big a deal it is for the young guys … so they deserve to go,” Chacin said Sunday in San Diego. “I’m glad I could help them come here to play in the Little League World Series. That was one of my dreams when I was young.”

 

Still, there is a part of the Little League World Series experience that’s missing for most of the Venezuelan players. Only three parents of players on the team were able to make the trip.

 

And those three might not have made it if not for a donor from Venezuela who now lives in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, about a 30-minute drive to Williamsport. The man let them stay at his house, Valbuena said.

Doctor helps his home team

 

Javier Zerpa, who now lives in Maryland, was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, and he and his 12-year-old son have gone to each of the last nine Little League World Series. Zerpa and his son have become friends with the Venezuelan team. Although most of the parents are not there, Zerpa said, the kids are still happy to be on the field.

 

Canada coach Ryan Hefflick said the excitement of the Venezuelan team was evident as soon as it stepped on the field.

“They’re a great bunch of kids,” Hefflick said. “One of the boys on that team, I think his nickname is ‘Spark Plug.’ They’ve got a lot of energy.”

 
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A Texas family who discovered their old Norman Rockwell work of baseball umpires was an authentic painting sold the work at auction for $1.6 million, Heritage Auctions said on Monday.

The painting, an original study for the work called “Tough Call,” shows three umpires pondering whether to halt a game as raindrops begin to fall. It became one of the best-known Rockwell illustrations after being published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1949.

Rockwell gave a signed copy to John “Beans” Reardon, a baseball umpire featured prominently in the work. Sandra Sprinkle, Reardon’s granddaughter, later inherited the piece and put it above the mantle of her Dallas home for about a decade, it said.

After her death in 2015, her husband Gene Sprinkle sold the couple’s home and moved to a retirement community, where his nephew took a look at the piece and noticed brush strokes.

“We always thought it was a print, but we hung it over our fireplace because it was signed by Norman Rockwell to Beans Reardon,” Gene Sprinkle told Reuters by telephone on Monday.

Sprinkle, a 74-year-old retiree, said he agreed to let his nephew contact Dallas-based Heritage, which determined it was an original oil, painted as a study for the final version.

The buyer has asked to remain anonymous, according to Heritage officials.

“Sandra and her grandfather were very close,” Sprinkle said. “Whenever people came to our house to visit, she was always proud to show it off and tell them about her grandfather.”
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Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, a fierce critic of President Nicolas Maduro, said on Monday that the government-backed Venezuela National Youth Orchestra’s tour of the United States has been canceled, calling the move heartbreaking.

Dudamel, 36, one of Venezuela’s best-known celebrities, did not give a reason, but the cancellation follows escalating criticism by the conductor of government tactics in quelling protests.

“Heart-breaking cancellation of our 4-city NYOV US tour. My dream to play with these wonderful young musicians cannot come true this time,” Dudamel tweeted.

“We will continue to play and to fight for a better Venezuela and a better world,” he added.

Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional reported over the weekend that the order to cancel came from the office of the Venezuelan presidency. There was no official confirmation of that report.

Dudamel is the artistic director of the youth orchestra, whose 180 members had been due to play four dates in the United States in September, including the Hollywood Bowl. The fiery young conductor is also the artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Dudamel has spoken out strongly in recent months in support of anti-government protests that have rocked Venezuela for four months, leaving more than 120 people dead, including an 18-year-old musician from the youth orchestra.

In an op-ed in the New York Times in July, he said Venezuelans were “desperate for the recognition of their equal and inalienable rights and to have their basic needs met.”
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Americans with telescopes, cameras and protective glasses staked out viewing spots along a narrow corridor from Oregon to South Carolina to watch the moon blot out the midday sun Monday in what promised to be the most observed and photographed eclipse in history.

Eclipse-watchers everywhere — and millions were expected to peer at the sun — fretted about the weather and hoped for clear skies for the first total solar eclipse to sweep coast-to-coast across the U.S. in practically a century.

As he set up telescopes, Ray Cooper, a volunteer with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Salem, worried offshore clouds might roll in and spoil the less than two-minute show.

“If it stays like this, it will be perfect,” Cooper said on the eve of the big day. He has seen full solar eclipses before, but never so close to home, making this one extra special.

With 200 million people within a day’s drive of Monday’s path of totality, towns and parks braced for monumental crowds.

In Salem, a field outside the state fairgrounds was transformed into a campground in advance of an eclipse-watching party for 8,500, courtesy of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.

“It’s one of those ‘check the box’ kind of things in life,” said Hilary O’Hollaren, who drove 30 miles from Portland with her two teenagers and a tent, plus a couple friends.

Astronomers consider a full solar eclipse the grandest of cosmic spectacles.

The Earth, moon and sun line up perfectly every one to three years, briefly turning day into night for a sliver of the planet. But these sights normally are in no man’s land, like the vast Pacific or Earth’s poles. This will be the first eclipse of the social media era to pass through such a heavily populated area.

In a case of near-perfect celestial symmetry, the sun is 400 times the breadth of our moon and also 400 times farther away, so the two heavenly bodies look more or less the same size from our vantage point, and the moon can neatly cover up the sun.

The moon hasn’t thrown this much shade at the U.S. since 1918. That was the country’s last coast-to-coast total eclipse.

In fact, the U.S. mainland hasn’t seen a total solar eclipse since 1979 — and even then, only five states in the Northwest experienced total darkness.

Monday’s total eclipse will cast a shadow that will race through 14 states, entering near Lincoln City, Oregon, at 1:16 p.m. EDT, moving diagonally across the heartland over Casper, Wyoming, Carbondale, Illinois, and Nashville, Tennessee, and then exiting near Charleston, South Carolina, at 2:47 p.m. EDT.

The path will cut 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) across the land and will be just 60 to 70 miles (96 kilometers to 113 kilometers) wide. Shawnee National Forest in southern Illinois will see the longest stretch of darkness: 2 minutes and 44 seconds.

Mostly clear skies beckoned along much of the route, according to the National Weather Service.

All of North America will get at least a partial eclipse. Central America and the top of South America will also see the moon cover part of the sun.

NASA and other scientists will be watching and analyzing from telescopes on the ground and in orbit, the International Space Station, airplanes and scores of high-altitude balloons, which will beam back live video. Citizen scientists will monitor animal and plant behavior as daylight turns into twilight and the temperature drops.

NASA’s associate administrator for science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen, took to the skies for a dry run Sunday. He planned to usher in the eclipse over the Pacific Coast from a NASA plane.

“Can’t wait for the cosmic moment MON morning,” he tweeted.

Near Victoria, British Columbia, where 91 percent of the sun will be eclipsed, science and math teacher Clayton Uyeda was going to watch from a ferry along with his wife. He said he was “expecting to have a real sense of connection with the heavens.”

He had similarly lofty hopes for his students if they could bring themselves to look up at the sky instead of down at their electronic devices.

Scientists everywhere agree with Uyeda: Put the phones and cameras down and enjoy the greatest natural show on Earth with your own (protected) eyes.

The only time it’s safe to look directly without protective eyewear is during totality, when the sun is 100 percent covered. Otherwise, to avoid eye damage, keep the solar specs on or use pinhole projectors that can cast an image of the eclipse into a box.

The next total solar eclipse in the U.S. will be in 2024. The next coast-to-coast one will not be until 2045.
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