Author: Ohart

Music is as much about math, as it is about sound. It’s also about imagination and learning. But it’s out of reach for some disabled or physically challenged students, until now. A team of Polish inventors has created a push-button instrument that almost anyone can play. VOA’s Kevin Enochs reports.
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U2 turned their first headlining appearance at a U.S. music festival into Bono-roo.

 

The Irish rockers performed a two-hour set Friday night at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, as part of their world tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their Grammy-winning The Joshua Tree album.

 

They played the full album, as well as some of their other hits, including New Year’s Day and Beautiful Day, to tens of thousands of music fans.

 

Toward the end of the performance, lead singer Bono asked if they had made a mistake in not coming to the festival sooner, and later added, “Thanks for naming it after me.”

 

The band kicked off their tour last month in Canada, which hits the United Kingdom, Europe and Central America through Oct. 19.

 

The band has previously played the Glastonbury Festival, but their appearance on the Bonnaroo lineup this year was a huge get for the 16-year-old music festival.

Before their set, U2 guitarist The Edge received the Les Paul Spirit Award in a presentation from the Les Paul Foundation on the festival grounds. The Edge, whose name is David Evans, called Paul an inventor and innovator who pioneered advances in electric guitars and recording.

 

“I owe him a great debt of gratitude not only for the contributions he made to music, but in terms of his contributions to the technology,” Evans said.

 

The political nature of the album, which was inspired by the band’s fascination with America, was reflected on the giant screens behind the band. The screens showed images of female activists, scenes of the American desert and poems from American writers. Often Bono would stop singing to let the chorus of voices from fans complete the song.

 

As he ended the performance with their hit, One, he called it “a night we will never forget.”
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Thousands of people from around the world packed Israel’s streets of Tel Aviv for the city’s annual Gay Pride march, one of many festivals for gay rights taking place this weekend.

The festival is billed as the largest event of its kind in the deeply conservative Middle East.

Israeli police estimated that more than 100,000 people participated Friday with many coming from other countries.

The annual parade featured floats and dancers with this year’s theme being “Bisexuality Visibility.”

The festival is sponsored by the city of Tel Aviv, which has promoted gay tourism in recent years, becoming one of the world’s most gay-friendly travel destinations.

While Tel Aviv is seen as liberal and welcoming of gays, Jerusalem is seen as more conservative with the population’s views varying on gay rights. A gay pride parade there in 2015 ended in tragedy when an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jew stabbed a 16-year-old girl to death.

Across the rest of the Middle East, gay and lesbian relationships are largely taboo.

Watch: From a Jail Term to Legal Marriage in US

Gay pride festivals are taking place this weekend in dozens of cities around the world, including Los Angeles, Athens, Sydney and Rome.

A large-scale “Equality March” is planned for Sunday in Washington, with organizers saying they want to combat anti-LGBT rhetoric in the country.

Many more gay pride events are scheduled around the world later in June, the month gay pride is traditionally celebrated, chosen because of New York’s 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan, which is regarded as a catalyst for the gay rights movement.

Next week, Shanghai, China, will host its ninth gay pride event, but without a parade that accompanies most events in other cities around the world. Organizers say they expect around 6,000 people to attend. For the 10th anniversary next year, they said, they hope to expand to other cities including Beijing.
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Every springtime in the United States, boys don tuxedos or suits and girls wear elegant gowns on one special night. For decades, the high school prom has been a major moment in the teenage experience. While movies portray the evening as a night of magic and romance, the reality can be quite different. Jesusemen Oni followed a couple of high school students to their prom for an inside look at this decades-old tradition.
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Comedian Bill Cosby acknowledged in 2005 that he offered to pay for graduate school for the woman who has accused him of sexual assault after her mother confronted him, jurors at his trial were told on Friday.

Jurors in a Norristown, Pennsylvania, courtroom read excerpts from a deposition Cosby gave under oath more than a decade ago, as prosecutors sought to use the comedian’s own words against him.

But Cosby’s defense lawyer, Brian McMonagle, noted that throughout the deposition that Cosby described the encounter with his accuser, Andrea Constand, as consensual.

Constand, a former administrator at Cosby’s alma mater, Temple University, has accused him of drugging and then sexually assaulting her at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.

Dozens of women have leveled similar accusations against the 79-year-old entertainer, whose starring role in the 1980’s television comedy The Cosby Show made him a household name.

All the accusations but Constand’s are too old to support criminal charges under the state’s statute of limitations.

In the deposition, given in response to a civil lawsuit that Constand brought in 2005, Cosby said he gave her 1-1/2 Benadryl pills to help her relax before they engaged in what he called consensual sexual activity.

But Constand testified earlier this week the pills left her semi-conscious and unable to stop Cosby from sexually assaulting her.

Cosby also said in the deposition that he refused to tell Constand or her mother what type of pills he gave her during a phone call in 2005 because he did not trust their intentions.

“The mother is coming at me for being a dirty old man, which is bad also, but then, ‘What did you give my daughter?'” Cosby said. “What are they going to say if I tell them about it? And also to be perfectly frank, I’m thinking and praying that nobody is recording me.”

Cosby offered to pay for Constand to go to graduate school, but indicated in the deposition that he did so because she and her mother were upset, not to compensate her for anything he did wrong.

The testimony came after both sides tussled over whether the defense should be allowed to introduce evidence that Constand is gay. Judge Steven O’Neill sided with the prosecution, which called it “unfairly prejudicial and completely irrelevant” and said it would violate Pennsylvania’s rape shield law that bars defendants from referring to a victim’s sexual past.

Cosby’s deposition was unsealed in 2015 by a federal judge, prompting prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, to reopen the case and later bring criminal charges before the statute of limitations expired.

Constand settled the civil lawsuit in 2006 for an undisclosed sum.
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More than half a century ago, international relations between the United States and Russia warmed when a tall, soft-spoken young pianist from Texas claimed first prize at the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.  

Not long after, the piano competition that bears his name — Van Cliburn — was founded, attracting outstanding young talent from around the globe to compete for the coveted gold, silver and bronze medals every four years.

This week, in Fort Worth, Texas, the original field of 30 competitors has been winnowed to six, and the winners will be announced Saturday evening. 

Life-changing and surreal

Twenty-five-year-old Rachel Cheung from Hong Kong, one of the finalists, expects being here will change her life, “because this is really the biggest competition in the world, and the engagements that would bring with winning it, would be very, very helpful to my career, and there will be a lot of opportunities and exposures.”

American Daniel Hsu says being a finalist at the Van Cliburn competition is a bit surreal.

“Even though it’s a competition, and there’s a lot of stress and preparation, but the overall feeling is just incredible and it’s a lot of fun, and I’m having a blast,” he said.

Leonard Slatkin, conductor and chairman of the jury, says the Cliburn competition, one of more than 200 piano competitions in the world, is an important one.

“Clearly the Cliburn is the premiere competition in the United States,” he said. “It attracts the highest level … the Cliburn ranks in a similar manner as, say, the Queen Elizabeth or the Tchaikovsky in terms of the international prestige it brings.”

More than a concert

All of the competitors have played concerts. But for some, including Georgy Tchaidze, a 29-year-old finalist from Russia, playing in a competition is different from an ordinary performance.

“It’s all about pressure,” he said. “Pressure is so high that sometimes you forget to enjoy the music. And music making is all about enjoying it. And to bring the joy and pass it to the audience.”

 

On the other hand, Hsu says he doesn’t approach a competition performance any differently from a concert.

“I’ve heard people say that, in competitions you should be more careful, and you should try and play for the jury,” he sad. “I didn’t particularly take that approach for this competition. I played how I felt in the moment, and how I thought the music should be portrayed.”

A life in music

No matter what the outcome of the competition, qualifying for the Cliburn validates their dedication to a life in music, says South Korean pianist Yekwon Sunwoo.

“My passion and love for music is just, deeply enough, and I can never get enough of it. You have to spend a lot of hours, and really such dedication to it,” he said.

Leonard Slatkin explains that the Van Cliburn is not the be-all and end-all to a career.

“It should be just one possible step among many paths that the pianist can take. They wouldn’t have gotten this far if they weren’t good enough to be at the Cliburn,” he said.

The winner of the Van Cliburn competition earns a cash prize and three years of professional concert management.  But no matter who takes home the gold, all of the competitors in the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition are winners, having had the opportunity to perform for audiences worldwide through global webcasts.
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Roman Polanski won’t take his chances and return to court to resolve his sexual assault case, so his victim is going to stand up for him.

Samantha Geimer, who was 13 at the time of the crime, is going to appeal directly to a judge Friday to end the long-running case, the fugitive director’s lawyer said.

Geimer, 54, has long supported Polanski’s efforts to end the legal saga that limits his freedom, but Friday will be the first time she’s appeared in Los Angeles Superior Court on his behalf, attorney Harland Braun said.

“She’s tired of this case,” Braun said. “The judge is just playing games with him.”

The Oscar-winner has been a fugitive since he fled to France in 1978 on the eve of sentencing for having unlawful sex with a minor. Prosecutors dropped charges that he drugged, raped and sodomized the girl.

Polanski feared the judge was going to renege on a plea agreement and send him away for more time than the six weeks he served in prison during a psychiatric evaluation prior to sentencing.

Polanski, 83, is trying to get the Interpol warrant lifted so he can move freely among most of the 190 countries in the global policing network. If that happened, the California warrant would remain valid.

The hearing Friday is an effort by Braun to get the court to unseal testimony by the now-deceased prosecutor in the case, who is believed to have testified in a closed session about backroom sentencing discussions.

Braun wants to use the transcript to show Polanski has served his time so the international warrant is dropped. 

Geimer has previously said she forgives Polanski for the assault that happened at Jack Nicholson’s compound in the Hollywood Hills during a March 1977 photo shoot.

Geimer sued Polanski and reached a settlement in 1993 for $500,000 that included over $100,000 in interest payments. Her longtime lawyer Lawrence Silver did not return phone and email messages seeking comment.

The Associated Press doesn’t typically name victims of sex abuse, but Geimer went public years ago.
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The new film “Beatriz at Dinner” puts immigration squarely on the table.

Director Miguel Arteta and actress Salma Hayek do the same on a press tour promoting the dark comedy, which opens in the United States on Friday.

“The problems are there. This is a movie about how we are divided and [about] being an immigrant – and how difficult it is to be able to understand us,” says Arteta, sitting beside Hayek in a boutique hotel here earlier in the week. Over their shoulders, in the distance, palm trees sway and the turquoise Atlantic Ocean blurs into gray skies.

“Beatriz” is set on the opposite coast, in greater Los Angeles, with Hayek cast in the title role as a Mexican-born healer and masseuse. She drives to a gated estate to give a massage to Cathy (Connie Britton), one of her regular clients. Later, when Beatriz’s car won’t start, Cathy invites her to stay for a dinner party for business associates. One is a boorish billionaire real estate developer (John Lithgow) who mistakes Beatriz for a maid. That leads to biting insights about race, privilege and what it means to be an American.

“When you say America … who is America?” Hayek asks rhetorically in a short interview with VOA.

Art mirrors life

Like her character, Hayek, 50, was born in Mexico – but into a well-off family. She moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to study acting and, she has previously acknowledged, “for a small period of time” was in the country illegally. She found work as an actress and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen. She is married to French businessman Francois-Henri Pinault, and they have a young daughter.

Arteta and Hayek both take issue with President Donald Trump’s promotion of “America first” and of a bigger barrier at the U.S. southern border.

“Everything that is happening in the world is going to affect us all,” Arteta says, “and we have to help ourselves not to be, in a way, America first … me first.”

“All the talk about this wall thing, it’s not realistic, it’s not serious,” Hayek says. She urges more focus on immigration reform – and “not just about the border. What about the millions of people who already live here?”

Hayek suggests that issuing more work permits for Mexican laborers might discourage illegal stays: “Let me tell you something, there’s a lot of Mexicans – they don’t want to live here. They wish they could come, they could work when we are needed, and go back. But they can’t be coming and going, so they stay….”

“We need to start the dialogue,” the actress says earlier, in Spanish. “We have to concentrate on finding the solution instead of talking about this wall that is ridiculous and that will never happen … we are wasting a lot of time.”

Arteta and Hayek say they hope “Beatriz” will enrich the conversation.

Carol Guensburg contributed to this report from Washington, D.C.
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Earth, Wind & Fire goes on the road this summer with some classic hits, a new touring partner and lingering heartache.

 

The hits include “September,” “Shining Star” and “Boogie Wonderland,” while they’ll share the stage with the band Chic, featuring Nile Rodgers. The sadness comes from the loss last year of their founder Maurice White.

 

“We’re still healing,” said drummer Ralph Johnson, one of three original members still playing the band’s infectious hooks. “I think the way we’ve dealt with it has been to do the music.”

 

Concertgoers can expect a teary memorial to White amid the disco grooves and horn-driven funk. The band has always honored its missing member — White stopped touring in 1995 — but this time the section has a final kiss to it.

 

“It’s not something you get over. Maurice will always be part of us. We cut our teeth on Earth, Wind and Fire. He was our mentor, our leader, our Elvis, our John Lennon, all in one guy,” said White’s brother, Verdine.

 

Earth, Wind & Fire and Chic embark on their Live Nation tour July 12 in Oakland, California, and then hits New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C., before concluding Aug. 22 in Detroit.

 

It’s called 2054 The Tour and it looks backward to the heyday of the infamous disco Studio 54 and to a shiny, electronic future. Each venue will be reconfigured to make it easier for the bands to interact with dancing fans.

 

Each night, after unleashing a top-heavy string of hits, Earth, Wind & Fire get serious during the White tribute. It comes during the song “That’s the Way of the World,” when a video memorial of Maurice White plays. He died at 74 last year after suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

Johnson and Verdine White — joined by fellow original member, singer Philip Bailey — said they try to avoid looking at each other during the show’s memorial part for fear that tears will fall. Many fans stop to pull out cellphones and capture the moment.

 

“Everything is fun, fun, fun, fun. Then we get to that section and that’s when the show gets heart. All we see is just phones,” said White. “It’s heavy. It’s deep. It’s beautiful, though.”

 

Earth, Wind & Fire was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, played the 2005 Super Bowl halftime show and has six Grammys. The band’s “Got to Get You Into My Life” was on President Barack Obama’s first Spotify playlist.

 

Each generation seems to rediscover the band, in part because popular culture can’t get enough of its bouncy vibe. Last year, in one November weekend, the band had three songs in the world’s top two movies — “Trolls” and “Doctor Strange.”

 

“We’re part of peoples’ lives. As they say, `the soundtrack of their lives’ — literally,” said White. “They always want pictures: ‘Can I take this for my dad or my mom?’ ‘Will you sign this for my dad?’ We get that all the time.”

 

Satellite and classic rock radio keep the band’s hits alive and online services like iTunes, SoundCloud and Shazam have made their work accessible. A band that started on vinyl turns out to be thriving in the digital age.

 

“They can get to us. They can discover us. And rediscover us and rediscover us and turn a friend on to us,” said White. “So when we’re doing the concert, they’re Googling and they’re buying songs they didn’t even know that existed. So actually I think it’s been a big help.”

 

Earth, Wind & Fire and Chic hit the road proving that nostalgia acts are still reliable tour sellers. Other bands from the 1970s like Queen, Foreigner, Boston, Aerosmith, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Billy Joel and Rod Stewart are also touring this year.

 

“I think people will always be enamored with bands that can really play — live performance. You can’t beat that,” Johnson said. “There’s something you get from a live performance you can’t get from a record or a CD. The experience is very different.”

 

How long will they keep at it? Until the boogie wonderland stops.

 

“Maurice wanted a band that could play all genres of music and a band that would not be standing still onstage. We’re always in motion, there’s always something going on,” said Johnson.

 

“We’re just carrying on the vision. This is the legacy. The three of us — Verdine, Philip and myself — we’re carrying on for as long, as I tell people, we put butts in the seats.”
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A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Phoenix that the famous architect designed for his son and was saved from demolition by its current owner was donated Thursday to the architecture school that Wright founded.

Owner Zach Rawling announced that he is giving the David and Gladys Wright House to the School of Architecture at Taliesin, formerly known as the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. The announcement came on the iconic architect’s 150th birthday.

Nestled at the base of Camelback Mountain, the house is constructed in the form of a spiral that appears to rise from the ground and offers 360-degree views of Camelback and other mountains that loom over the city.

The house, completed in 1952, is regarded as the precursor to the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, said Aaron Betsky, the school’s dean. The Guggenheim Museum is one of Wright’s most revered works. The architect designed over 1,000 architectural works, 532 of which were built, and he is regarded by many as one of America’s best architects.  

Betsky said the donation “will allow us to use that great legacy to be a living laboratory in which we will figure out how to use what Frank Lloyd Wright taught us about living in the desert Southwest, to make the life in this desert and in this community even better in the future.”

Rawling bought the Phoenix home in 2012 for $2.4 million to save it from being demolished by its previous owners.

He had plans to restore it and turn it into a museum, but neighbors complained doing so would generate excessive traffic in the well-heeled residential Arcadia area where the house is located.

He said he hopes the donation will engage the community and continue the school’s mission.

“I think we’re celebrating every aspect of Wright’s legacy and hopefully it informs future generations to carry on those ideas,” Rawling said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Rawling said the donation is contingent on an organization affiliated with the school raising $7 million for the program by 2020.

The David and Gladys Wright House is considered one of Wright’s late career masterworks, said Victor Sidy, the architect in charge of the home’s renovation.

Wright called plans for the home “How to Live in the Southwest.” His son lived there until he died in 1997, and his daughter-in-law Gladys lived in it until she died in 2008.

The home will be transformed into a place for architecture students to do hands-on restoration and renovation projects.

The school’s students currently split their time between a Wright house in Wisconsin and another in the Scottsdale suburb of Phoenix.

Those living at David and Gladys Wright House will work on projects like correcting leaks in the ceiling and corrosion in some metal work. Students will also restore an old pool.

The school plans to have 24 students at the house starting in the fall. Visitors will be allowed when the school holds educational tours and lectures.

“It’s definitely one of those buildings that is worth visiting to truly understand,” Sidy said.
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The Beverly Hills home where Debbie Reynolds and her Star Wars actress daughter Carrie Fisher lived together is up for sale, along with hundreds of items of their personal property and Hollywood memorabilia, the auctioneers said Thursday.

The sale comes six months after Fisher, 60, died of a heart attack and Singin’ in the Rain star Reynolds, 84, passed away the next day.

Rambling estate

The 1928 house, complete with swimming pool, tennis court and a guesthouse where Fisher lived for many years, is listed at $18 million and will be sold separately.

The rambling estate was featured in the HBO documentary Bright Lights about their tempestuous relationship that was aired in January.

Their personal property, to be auctioned in Los Angeles over several days starting Sept. 23, includes Fisher’s 1978 Star Wars Princess Leia action figure in its original packaging, her on-set chair from the film of The Return of the Jedi, and Reynolds’ lavender silk chiffon dress worn in Singin’ in the Rain, auctioneers Profiles in History said in a statement.

‘Magnificent collectors’

“My mother and sister were magnificent collectors, they amassed an amazing and diverse collection in their lifetimes,” Reynolds’ son Todd Fisher said in the statement.

“So in keeping with my mother’s wishes we have decided to share part of their magnificent collection with all their friends and fans.”

More than 1500 lots will be auctioned in what is expected to be a sale lasting several days, Profiles in History, the auctioneer, said.
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The IFAB, soccer’s lawmaking body, wants to keep the use of video replays to an minimum if they are eventually introduced into the sport to help referees make match-changing decisions.

Technical director David Elleray added that International Football Association Board was also considering whether the crowd should be shown the replay while match officials were deliberating over an incident.

IFAB approved live testing of video assistant referees (VARs), who monitor the action on screens and call the match referee’s attention to key mistakes or omissions, in March 2016.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has already said that soccer’s governing body would like to use video replays in the 2018 World Cup, and IFAB is expected to decide next March whether to authorize their use in the game permanently.

Elleray said replays should be used only for “clear errors in goals, penalties and direct red cards, plus mistaken identity.”

“The idea is not to check every decision. … It is to overturn the ones that make the headlines,” he said, adding that he wanted “minimum interference, maximum benefit.”

“We would rather have one review in four matches than four in every match,” he said.

Replays for crowds

Asked whether it would be a good idea to show replays to the crowd, Elleray said: “We are discussing and considering at the moment. There are strong arguments for, strong arguments against.”

Elleray said that in cases where play continued after a possible infringement, the referee should stop the game for a review “as soon as the ball is in a neutral part of the field.”

However, he acknowledged that in rare cases it would be impossible to stop the game quickly; in such cases, he said, officials would simply allow play to go on and review the incident at the first opportunity.

“Ultimately, the main thing is getting it right,” he said.

“It could one day happen that there is a possible penalty at one end but play goes straight down the other end and a goal is scored.

“In that case, depending on the outcome of the video, the goal would be disallowed and a penalty awarded to the other side.”
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Rolling Stones fans are sure to get some satisfaction from an upcoming auction to benefit a pair of Connecticut charities that help autistic adults.

The Stamford Advocate reports that Stones guitarist Keith Richards and his wife, Patti Hansen, are donating items from their Manhattan apartment to benefit the Prospector Theater and Sphere Inc., both based in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Hansen’s nephew has received services from the organizations.

The couple lives in nearby Weston.

The 73-year-old Richards’ guitars and flamboyant stage costumes aren’t on the auction block. Instead, items for sale include Italian, French and English furniture, Persian carpets, paintings, Waterford crystal and even a skull-motif china tea set.

The auction is being handled by Stair Galleries in Hudson, New York, on June 24. The preview begins June 10.
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Angkor Wat has triumphed across the centuries to emerge at the world’s top tourism landmark in TripAdvisor’s Traveler’s Choice awards—for the second time since 2015.

The travel website used — what else? — an algorithm to determine the winners, which were determined by taking into account the quantity and quality of reviews and rankings for landmarks worldwide gathered over a 12-month period.

WATCH: Angkor Wat voted top travel site

Angkor Wat scored 33,000 5-star reviews with comments that included “must see,” “magnificent” and “WOW!” along with admonitions to bring comfortable shoes and bottled water to explore the 250 square kilometers of Angkor Archaeological Park, which includes Angkor Wat and hundreds of other temples.

“This is the Khmer nation’s pride, because Angkor is not only part of the prosperous heritage of Cambodia, but it has also become the heart and soul of the nation,” according to Long Kosal,  a spokesman for the government’s Authority for the Protection and Management of Angkor and the Region of Siem Reap (APSARA).

Built between the years 802 and 1431, the city of Angkor was the center of the Khmer empire in what is now Cambodia, until it was toppled by internal power struggles, foreign invasion and climate change.

‘Unique concentration of features’

A complex of temples, basins, dikes, reservoirs and canals, the site “is a unique concentration of features testifying to an exceptional civilization,” according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Angkor was, according to World Archaeology, “the most extensive urban complex in the pre-industrial world.”

Angkor topped the 2015 TripAdvisor landmarks list, and last year Lonely Planet, another travel site, gave the temples of Angkor the top spot.

Ang Kim Eang, founder of the Great Angkor Tour Company, said the most recent award, which was made on May 23, will bolster tourism as more people become aware of the temples. But he cautioned that it was important to educate tourists about how to behave while visiting the sacred site, as visitor numbers continue to rise.

Code of conduct

To prevent damage to the complex, the APSARA provides a code of conduct with video on its site.

“They don’t have any knowledge,” he said. “They did not pay respect to the Buddha statues while they are visiting. We are worried especially when it is crowded.”

Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a George Washington University professor who is director of the masters of tourism administration program, on Wednesday told VOA Cambodia “the way you preserve a cultural heritage site is that you put caps on admission. I did see that they doubled the admission prices in 2016, which is one way to control capacity.”

For foreign tourists, the price of a one-day pass increased from $20 to $37, a three-day ticket from $40 to $62 and a seven-day pass from $60 to $72. Cambodians enter without charge.

Golden Gate Gate Bridge top US landmark

In 1993, when Agkor Wat was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, there were 7,650 recorded visitors. Last year, 2.2 million tourists visited the temple complex, Kosal said, bringing in more than $62 million to government coffers. So far this year, about 950,000 tourists have visited Angkor Wat. In April, 63,541 Chinese tourists visited the complex, far in excess of the 17,217 South Koreans and 12,660 visitors from the United Kingdom, according to government statistics.

Until November 2015, the complex was leased to a company owned by Sok Kong, a petroleum magnate close to the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Since then, it has been under government control.

The 2017 TripAdvisor awards honored 706 landmarks in 82 countries, with the Sheikh Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the Mezquita Cathedral de Cordoba in Cordoba, Spain, St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, and the Taj Mahal in India occupying the next four positions. The 80-year-old Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco holds 11th place worldwide and is the top-rated U.S. landmark.

 
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The Saturday Night Fever dance floor where John Travolta captured the 1970s disco craze is going up for sale next month and could fetch up to $1.5 million, the auctioneers said Wednesday.

The dance floor that lit up in red, blue and yellow in rhythm with the music was custom-built for the 1977 movie whose soundtrack featured disco hits by the Bee Gees, including Night Fever and You Should Be Dancing.

The floor, measuring 24 feet by 16 feet (7 meters by 5 meters) and housing more than 250 separate light compartments, was fitted into a small club in Brooklyn for the film’s famous dance scenes, said Profiles in History, a Calabasas, California-based auction house.

It will go up for auction in Los Angeles during the June 26-28 Profiles in History Hollywood Auction, and carries an estimated price of $1 million to $1.5 million.

Vito Bruno, who owns the floor, said he started his career at 2001 Odyssey, the club in Brooklyn where Saturday Night Fever was filmed. The club later changed its name and then closed in 2005.

“I received a call from a friend telling me that the club was closing and they were auctioning off the contents, including the legendary dance floor, so I bought it,” said Bruno, the chief executive of New York-based party planning group AMPM Entertainment.

“I have had the dance floor for a few years now. It’s one of the most recognizable pieces of film memorabilia in history, but I’ve decided it’s time to share it with the world,” he said.

Saturday Night Fever, the story of a working-class Brooklyn youth trying to break out of his dead-end life through dancing, launched Travolta as an international movie star.

Travolta rehearsed for months to perfect his dance moves, and his white-suited disco dancer became one of the enduring images of the 1970s disco scene.

In 2010, the film was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
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The owners of a Mexican hotel using the name Hotel California on Wednesday said a trademark infringement lawsuit by the Eagles, whose song “Hotel California” is arguably the band’s most famous, should be dismissed.

Hotel California Baja LLC, which runs the Todos Santos hotel in Baja California Sur, said the band long ago waived its trademark rights, having waited four decades to assert them since releasing the song “Hotel California” on a 1976 album with the same name.

The owner said it “flatly denies” the Eagles’ “baseless contention” that the 11-room hotel seeks to mislead travelers into thinking the property is associated with the band.

“Any alleged use of plaintiff’s trademarks is not likely to cause confusion, deception or mistake as to association, connection, sponsorship, endorsement, or approval of plaintiff,” the owner said in a filing in Los Angeles federal court.

Lawyers for the Eagles were not immediately available for comment.

In their May 1 lawsuit, the Eagles said the defendant encourages guests to believe their hotel is associated with the band, including piping its music through a sound system, to sell T-shirts and other merchandise.

The hotel is located about 1,000 miles (1,609 km) south of San Diego and 48 miles (77 km) north of Cabo San Lucas.

It was named Hotel California at its 1950 opening, underwent some name changes, and later revived the original name after a Canadian couple, John and Debbie Stewart, bought it in 2001.

U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner scheduled a conference in the case for Aug. 21.

The album “Hotel California,” won the 1977 Grammy Award for record of the year.

The case is Eagles Ltd v Hotel California Baja LLC et al, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No. 17-03276.
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U.S. President Donald Trump admonished comedian Kathy Griffin Wednesday for appearing in a brief video holding a reproduction of a severed, bloody head that resembled the president.

In an early morning tweet, Trump said the image is disturbing – particularly to his children.

After seeing negative online reaction, Griffin apologized Tuesday night — saying she “moved the line” and then “crossed it.”

Griffin had shared the image in a tweet that has since been deleted at Griffin’s request.

The photo was taken by Tyler Shields, whose own biography notes he has evolved from Hollywood’s “bad boy of photography.”

The criticism came from liberals and conservatives alike, including the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and daughter of 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton Chelsea Clinton, who called the image “vile and wrong.”

The CNN news channel, which has featured Griffin as a co-host on its New Year’s Eve coverage, said the picture was “disgusting and offensive.”

The cable news network said in a statement it is “evaluating our New Year’s coverage.”
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In a world of only women, there are no phallic structures.

At least that’s how Patty Jenkins imagined the island home of the Amazons and their heroic princess Diana, who grows up to become Wonder Woman.

“Like columns? They didn’t make that much sense to me,” Jenkins said in a recent interview. “They felt like an imposition on landscape, which didn’t feel like something that women are jonesing to do.”

As the director of “Wonder Woman,” Jenkins is creating new worlds for women both onscreen and off. Not only did she help dream up the look of the Amazon island and hire scores of actresses to serve as its resident warriors, she’s the first woman to direct a major superhero movie, and her success could pave the way for others.

 

As a child, she was inspired by Wonder Woman, describing Lynda Carter’s portrayal on TV as “the embodiment of everything that I wanted to be as a woman.”

“When I was playing Wonder Woman, I was able to do incredible things and save the world,” the 45-year-old filmmaker said.

 

That’s the feeling she hopes to evoke with viewers of “Wonder Woman,” in theaters Friday. Gal Gadot plays the title character, who discovers her superpowers and fights for justice alongside humans after following a charming spy (Chris Pine) to London during World War I.

‘An important movie’

The Israeli-born Gadot didn’t grow up with Wonder Woman, but she was always on the lookout for powerful characters to play.

“Usually the women are the damsel in distress or the heartbroken woman or the sidekick, but in real life it’s not the case. In real life, we bring life. We have babies. We have careers. We are so many other things,” said Gadot, a 32-year-old married mother of two.

“Wonder Woman symbolizes the magnificence of a woman and how amazing women are. And I think that it’s an important movie not only for women and girls, but it’s also great for boys and men, Gadot said. “You can’t empower women if you don’t educate the men and you don’t teach the boys, so as much as it’s important for girls to be exposed and see this movie, it’s important for boys to have a strong female figure that they can look up to.”

A first for Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman was created in 1941, yet this is her first solo feature film. Jenkins wanted to bring her to the big screen for more than a decade, but studios doubted the appeal of the lasso-wielding super heroine.

“I don’t understand why somebody who has had zero big blockbuster representation for 75 years still has 15 little girls a minute coming to my door dressed as her every Halloween, like how does that not equal dollar signs?” Jenkins said.

 

Connie Nielsen, who plays Diana’s mother, Amazon queen Hippolyta, also didn’t grow up with Wonder Woman, but had myriad other models of powerful women as a child in Denmark.

“The Denmark I grew up in was a Denmark in which women were, in fact, fully liberated and the whole world had been opened up to us,” she said. “In the magazines in the early ‘80s, it was men who were photographed doing the vacuum cleaning in the ads for vacuum cleaners and women were no longer posing on the Ford Mustang.”

So Nielsen felt entitled to question why, on an island populated by only women, her character would wear high heels. She and Gadot, both statuesque, wear wedges in the film.

“I actually had that conversation several times, and Patty was adamant,” Nielsen said. “She really felt like you stand a different way (in heels), and you do.”

Amazons were best part

The costumes, including the wedges, had to be considered during the physical training, which included horseback riding, archery and swords(wo)manship. For Robin Wright, who was raised on the “Wonder Woman” TV show, training and shooting with the Amazons was the best part.

“I think it was a little daunting for the men because it was very unusual. I think there were like 120 Amazons,” said Wright, who plays the warrior Antiope, Diana’s aunt and teacher. “That’s a different energy on the set, and great for us. We just felt like a team of women that had each other’s backs.”

She called Jenkins “the biggest cheerleader of them all.”

With the film’s arrival this week, Jenkins is thinking about what “Wonder Woman” might mean for a new generation of aspiring superheroes — and filmmakers.

“I am a filmmaker who wants to make successful films, of course. I want my film to be celebrated,” she said. “But there’s a whole other person in me who’s sitting and watching what’s happening right now who so hopes, not for me, that this movie defies expectation. Because I want to see the signal that that will send to the world.”

 
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Three past winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee say losing was the secret to their success.

Early defeats spurred an inner competitive streak that they used to eventually seize the title, said champions from 1985, 1999 and 2010. The 2017 national spelling bee winner will be crowned on Thursday.

“Those were tough losses but they also made me dig deeper and work harder,” said Balu Natarajan, 45, who flamed out on the national stage in 1983 and 1984. He won the next year at age 13 and is now a sports medicine doctor in Chicago.

Nupur Lala, 32, still remembers the word that tripped her up in 1998: commination, which ironically means the act of threatening divine vengeance. She took the title in 1999 at 14.

“It was one of the really healthy moments in my life. Any hubris that I had was eliminated at that point,” said Lala, headed for a 2018 medical school degree with a focus in neurology after conducting research at University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Lesson about challenges

For 2010 winner Anamika Veeramani, losing in front of a worldwide audience on live television in 2009 was a seminal lesson in handling life’s challenges.

“In the spelling bee, you really learn how to deal with failure. And dealing with those things gracefully is really important to living a good life,” said Veeramani, 21.

She graduated last week with a biology degree after just three years at Yale University and is applying to medical school. She envisions treating patients as well as launching a broadcast career covering medical stories.

Defeat has fanned the competitive fires within, all three past winners said in separate interviews.

“The competition is not with other spellers but with yourself,” Lala told Reuters. “I don’t think that besting other people is quite as motivating for me.”

Natarajan, who is chief medical officer at Seasons Hospice & Palliative Care, the nation’s largest privately owned hospice provider, agreed he has been his own fiercest rival.

“Some people love to win. Some people want to keep pushing to be their best. I am the latter,” he said.

Natarajan won the title for correctly spelling milieu, Lala for logorrhea and Veeramani for stromuhr, after their opponents had stumbled.

Others’ errors

And how do the world’s best spellers handle errors in emails, classroom lessons or even romantic love letters? Do they point out corrections or suffer in silence?

“I don’t hesitate,” Natarajan said. “It drives me crazy.”

But Lala and Veeramani hold their tongues.

“I don’t want to be obnoxious. Nobody wants to be that kid,” Veeramani said.

This week, 291 whizzes ages 6 to 15 will descend on a resort in the Washington area to compete in the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee.

They have made the cut from more than 11 million contenders who faced off in spelling bees in all 50 U.S. states, U.S. territories from Puerto Rico to Guam, and several nations from Jamaica to Japan.

The victor on Thursday takes home a $40,000 cash prize. But second place also has its rewards: a $30,000 prize.

Natarajan, a married father of boys 8 and 11, said his elder child just missed competing in the national bee this year, coming in second in a countywide spelling competition. If losing really is the key to winning, that may be great news.
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Tiger Woods, once the world’s top golfer, was asleep at the wheel of his car and didn’t know where he was before he was charged with driving under the influence earlier this week, according to a police report released Tuesday.

Police in Jupiter, the oceanside Florida city where Woods lives, said he exhibited “extremely slow and slurred speech” after they awakened him when they found him sitting in his stopped car in the right lane of a roadway with the motor running. Police said he struggled with several roadside tasks they asked him to do.

The police report listed four prescription medications Woods said he was taking as he recovers from his latest back surgery, his fourth since 2014.

Two tests showed Woods’ blood-alcohol content to be zero, supporting his claim that the incident occurred because of an “unexpected reaction to prescription medications,” and not alcohol.

In a statement hours after he was released by police, Woods said he understood the severity of his actions and took full responsibility.

“I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly,” he said.

Woods added that he fully cooperated with police and thanked them for their professionalism.

The greatest player of his generation and one of the best of all time, Woods, 41, has not won a major tournament since 2008. He was the world’s top-ranked golfer for nearly 700 weeks but is now ranked at number 876.

Woods has been plagued in recent years by multiple back surgeries that have forced him to withdraw from recent tournaments. He has won 14 major golf championships and had been pursuing the record of 18 held by retired U.S. golfer Jack Nicklaus.
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U.S. pop star Ariana Grande will perform at a benefit concert in Manchester for victims of last week’s deadly bomb attack in the city, her publicist announced Tuesday.

The “One Love Manchester” show, to be held Sunday at the city’s Old Trafford cricket ground, will also feature artists such as Justin Bieber and Katy Perry.

A May 22 suicide bombing in the lobby of Manchester Arena just after a concert by Grande killed 22 people and injured more than 100 others. Many of the victims were young girls, a large part of Grande’s fan base. Others were parents who had gone to meet their children after the concert.

Police have identified the attacker as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a Manchester native, and are working to piece together his movements in the final weeks before the bombing as well as who else may have been involved.

More than a dozen people have been arrested in connection with the attack.

Abedi’s brother and father also were arrested in Libya last week where they are being held. A spokesman said that the brother, Hashim, was aware of Abedi’s plans to attack.

 
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Tiger Woods, once the top golfer in the world, has been arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in Florida.

Police say Woods was arrested early Monday morning in the city of Jupiter and was released on his own recognizance several hours later.

The greatest player of his generation and one of the best of all time, Woods, 41, has not won a major tournament since 2008. He was the world’s number-one ranked golfer for nearly 700 weeks but is now ranked at number 876.

Woods had been plagued in recent years by multiple back surgeries which have forced him to withdraw from recent tournaments.

Woods has won 14 major golf championships and had been pursuing the record of 18 held by retired U.S. golfer Jack Nicklaus.
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U.S. golfer Tiger Woods said Monday that an “unexpected reaction to prescription medications,” and not alcohol, was what led to his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Police arrested Woods early Monday morning in the city of Jupiter and released him on his own recognizance several hours later.

In a statement, Woods said he understands the severity of his actions and takes full responsibility.

“I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly,” he said.

Woods added that he fully cooperated with police and thanked them for their professionalism.

The greatest player of his generation and one of the best of all time, Woods, 41, has not won a major tournament since 2008. He was the world’s number-one ranked golfer for nearly 700 weeks but is now ranked at number 876.

Woods had been plagued in recent years by multiple back surgeries which have forced him to withdraw from recent tournaments.

Woods has won 14 major golf championships and had been pursuing the record of 18 held by retired U.S. golfer Jack Nicklaus.
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Takuma Sato on Sunday became the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500, in a race that featured a horrific crash involving the driver who started from the pole position.

In the 101st running of the iconic U.S. auto race in the midwestern state of Indiana, Sato passed three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Brazil in the closing laps of the 200-lap drive around the oval track, and held on to win by the slim margin of two-tenths of a second.

“Unbelievable feeling!” a jubilant Sato, 40, declared. Five years ago, the Japanese driver had a great chance to win the prestigious event, but on the final lap collided with eventual champion Dario Franchitti of Scotland.

“He drove unbelievable,” said Michael Andretti, head of the team Sato drives for, Andretti Autosport.

“I couldn’t do what he was doing (on the closing laps),” said Castroneves, who barely avoided two crashes.

The most horrific crash involved pole sitter Scott Dixon of New Zealand, the 2008 Indy 500 winner. With just over a quarter of the 500-mile (805 km) race completed, Briton Jay Howard’s car made contact with the outside wall after turn one and slid down into Dixon’s.

Dixon’s car was sent flying and sliding sideways on the inside safety barrier, flames shooting out as the back end of the car was ripped away. Miraculously, Dixon climbed out of the race car and walked away, as did Howard.

“I’m a little beaten up there. It was a bit of a rough ride,” said Dixon.

Sunday’s race featured 35 lead changes among a race record 15 drivers.

Twenty-two-year-old rookie Ed Jones of Britain placed third, and last year’s winner, Alexander Rossi of the United States, ended up seventh.  The only female driver in the annual event, Pippa Mann of Britain, climbed from 28th at the start and overcame a pit stop penalty to finish 17th in the 33-car field.
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The Swedish satire The Square has taken the top honors at the 70th annual Cannes Film Festival.

The art world satire by Swedish writer-director Ruben Ostlund won the Palme d’Or in Cannes, France, Sunday. Dominic West, Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang star in the movie.  Bang plays the curator of an art museum, who sets up “The Square,” an installation inviting passers-by to acts of altruism. But after he reacts foolishly to the theft of his phone, the father of two finds himself dragged into shameful situations.

Sofia Coppola became only the second woman to win the prize for best director for her film The Beguiled, starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell.  Soviet director Yuliya Ippolitovna Solntseva was the first woman to win the prize in 1961.

Diane Kruger was named best actress for her performance in Fatih Akin’s In the Fade. In the drama, she plays a German woman whose son and Turkish husband are killed in a bomb attack.

Joaquin Phoenix was named best actor for his role in Lynne Ramsay’s thriller You Were Never Really Here, in which he played a tormented war veteran trying to save a teenage girl from a sex trafficking ring.

The French AIDS drama 120 Beats Per Minute won the Grand Prize from the jury. The award recognizes a strong film that missed out on the top prize.

Kidman was awarded a special prize to celebrate the festival’s 70th anniversary.  She wasn’t at the French Rivera ceremony, but sent a video message from Nashville, saying she was “absolutely devastated” to miss the show.

Jury member Will Smith made the best of the situation, pretending to be Kidman. He fake cried and said in halting French, “merci beaucoup, madames et monsieurs.”

Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar presided over the competition jury that included Smith, German director Maren Ade, Chinese actress Fan Bingbing, Italian director Paolo Sorrentino, American actress Jessica Chastain and South Korean director Park Chan-wook.
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Iran’s potential as a holiday destination is vast, with its stunning landscapes and numerous World Heritage sites, but foreign tourists have largely avoided the country ever since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The reasons are numerous. The visa process can be lengthy and complex. Some female visitors object to customary restrictions on dress. Alcohol consumption is heavily restricted. And, fears of detention and political upheaval enter the minds of many foreigners considering holidays in the Islamic republic.

Under President Hassan Rohani, a relative moderate who won a second term in office with a convincing first-round victory in Iran’s May 19 presidential election, the country has welcomed foreigners as part of an effort to improve its international image and boost an economy battered by low oil prices and years of crippling international sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.

Since the signing of a nuclear deal with world powers in 2015 that was the crowning achievement of Rohani’s first term, tour companies have launched holiday packages and major European airlines have resumed regular flights to Iran.

The number of foreign tourists has increased accordingly, and the cash-strapped government is planning to build on its tourism revival by easing visa restrictions and spending heavily to spruce up tourist accommodations and shabby transportation networks.

‘Tsunami of tourists’

In 2015, Masoud Soltanifar, the head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization, said he was expecting a “tsunami of tourists” once sanctions were lifted following the deal under which Iran’s nuclear program would be curbed in return for the lifting of sanctions.

The World Bank said the number of visitors to Iran increased from 2.2 million in 2009 to 5.2 million in 2015, and Iranian officials expect that trend to continue.

The influx of tourists has brought the country billions of dollars in revenue and created badly needed jobs. In 2015, Iran earned $7.5 billion in tourism revenue; the government hopes to attract 20 million foreign tourists by 2025 and gross $30 billion.

Business Insider and Bloomberg have named Iran among the top destinations to visit in 2017 because of security and the country’s ancient architecture, famous bazaars, and natural beauty.

To put Iran on the map for tourism in the region, authorities have announced sweeping plans that include easing visa restrictions.

Issuing visas on arrival at the airport for nationals of 190 countries as well as issuing electronic visas are among the initiatives being considered by Iranian officials. Citizens from the United States, Canada and Britain would still only be allowed to travel on escorted tours.

The government has also announced plans to create sufficient accommodation and transportation for the growing number of tourists. There is a plan to increase the number of higher-end hotels from 130 to more than 1,000 in 10 years.

Iran also plans to add 400 new passenger planes to its domestic fleet to compensate for shortages due to international sanctions over the past three decades.

The plan is to make Iran a hot spot that would rival regional destinations. Like Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, Iran is blessed with natural wonders.

The Islamic Republic has a sun-baked coast with hundreds of kilometers of beaches. Iran is also a haven for culture buffs, with 19 World Heritage sites, including the ancient desert city of Bam and the ruins of Persepolis.

Tourist hub

Key to the government’s plans to boost tourist numbers is Kish Island, one of a handful of free-trade zones in Iran. The southern island in the Persian Gulf is known for its newly built, multistory malls; sparkling jewelry stores; and swanky, five-star hotels hugging the coast.

The island is a tourist hot spot that attracts an estimated 1 million people every year, mostly Iranians. But Tehran is stepping up its efforts to make the island, located 16 kilometers from the mainland, a destination for foreign visitors as well.

Iran’s first cruise ship since 1979 made its maiden voyage on April 13, docking at another Iranian Gulf resort island, Qeshm, with more than 200 passengers on board.

The seven-floor, Swedish-built cruise liner, named Sunny, is equipped with two cinemas, restaurants, a swimming pool and a conference hall. With the capacity to carry up to 1,600 passengers and 200 vehicles between the two islands, the ship is intended to help launch a “boom [in] marine tourism,” according to Iran’s state IRNA news agency.

Luxurious spot

Kish Island is known as an oasis of luxury and relative freedom in the otherwise conservative Islamic republic.

Women can be seen dipping their bare legs in the warm sea, alcohol is easier to come by, and even prostitutes can be seen on the promenades. It is a world away from the mainland, where a strict ban on alcohol and prostitution is enforced and women must be covered.

Visitors to Kish are attracted by the duty-free shops, resort hotels, water sports and an opportunity to escape the strict social norms on the mainland. A small number of foreigners are also going to Kish, where they do not need a visa and where they can mingle freely in foreigners-only parts of the island.

Authorities occasionally crack down on cinemas playing Western films, shops displaying mannequins that are deemed too exposed, and restaurants selling alcohol, but that is the exception.

Mina, a 21-year-old Iranian student who has visited Kish Island twice, says Iranians go there to escape the social restrictions on the mainland. But she added, “I saw more foreigners coming to Kish, and as long the infrastructure improves, more will come.”
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