Author: Ohart

Since the beginning of time, every generation has tried to find the secret to staying young. One man might have discovered the key in something we can all do, no matter what our age. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti takes us on his musical journey and tells us how it can help anyone with breathing problems.
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A tearful Jimmy Kimmel turned his show’s monologue into an emotional recounting of his newborn son’s open-heart surgery — and a plea that all American families get the life-saving medical care they need.

“It was a scary story and before I go into it, I want you to know it has a happy ending,” Kimmel assured ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” studio audience Monday as he detailed how his son’s routine birth April 21 suddenly turned frightening.

Several hours after his wife, Molly, gave birth to William John, a “very attentive” nurse at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center alerted the couple and doctors to the baby’s purple-ish color and an apparent heart murmur, the host said.

The baby’s lack of oxygen was either due to a lung problem or heart disease, Kimmel said, and it was found to be his heart.

“It’s a very terrifying thing,” he said. He was surrounded at the hospital by very worried-looking people, “kind of like right now,” he told the audience, one of the jokes he managed despite choking up and having to pause at times.

A test showed his son had a birth defect called tetralogy of Fallot with pulmonary atresia — a hole in the wall separating the right and left sides of the heart and a blocked pulmonary valve, Kimmel said. The baby, nicknamed Billy, was taken by ambulance to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles to undergo surgery to open the valve.

“The longest three hours of my life,” Kimmel said.

Billy will have another open-heart surgery within six months to repair the hole and then a third procedure when he’s a young teen, but he came home six days after the surgery and is “doing great,” Kimmel said. He shared photos of him with his wife, their 2-year-old daughter Jane and a smiling Billy.

After thanking by name the nurses, doctors and staff at the two hospitals, along with his colleagues and friends — “Even that (expletive) Matt Damon sent flowers,” Kimmel said of his faux rival — the comedian then gave an impassioned speech on health care.

He criticized President Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health and praised Congress for instead calling for increased funding.

“If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it shouldn’t matter how much money you make. … Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or something else, we all agree on that, right?” he said.

Washington politicians meeting on health care need to “understand that very clearly,” he said. Partisan squabbles shouldn’t divide American on something “every decent person wants. We need to take care of each other.”

Former President Barack Obama took to social media, retweeting Kimmel and touting the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.

“Well said, Jimmy. That’s exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA, and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy. And congratulations,” he tweeted.

Kimmel said he would skip the rest of this week’s shows to be with his family while guest hosts take his place.

He was joined Monday by Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was a previously scheduled guest but jumped in to offer an illustrated description of Billy Kimmel’s heart problem. Also on the show at Kimmel’s request was Shaun White, the Olympic gold medal snowboarder who discussed overcoming the same heart defect as Kimmel’s son.
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The surviving members of the legendary rock band The Eagles, are suing a Mexican hotel that calls itself Hotel California, which is also the title of what is likely the band’s most famous song.

The suit was filed Monday against the 11-room hotel in Baja California Sur, saying the hotel owners “actively encourage” the notion that the hotel is somehow associated with the band.

Allegedly one way the owners do this was through playing the song and other Eagles hits over the hotel’s sound system. The hotel also sold merchandise such as T-shirts calling itself “legendary.”

The suit, which was filed in Los Angeles, also claimed the hotel owners tried to register the Hotel California name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“Defendants lead U.S. consumers to believe that the Todos Santos Hotel is associated with the Eagles and, among other things, served as the inspiration for the lyrics in Hotel California, which is false,” according to the complaint.

The hotel opened in 1950 and was called Hotel California, but had gone by the name Todos Santos until it was purchased by a Canadian couple in 2001 who changed the name back to Hotel California.

Hotel California appeared on the 1976 album of the same name and took home a Grammy for album of the year.

 

The song, which is known for winding guitars and oblique lyrics, was written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey and Don Henley. Frey died in 2016 at age 67.

According to Henley, the song is about “a journey from innocence to experience. It’s not really about California; it’s about America,” he said in an interview with CBS News last year.
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A thunderous drumbeat echoed through the cocktail reception at the Met Gala. Either an earthquake was hitting the Upper East Side of Manhattan, or the glittering assembly of guests was being called in to dinner.

 

Hasan Minhaj, a correspondent on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” was standing with the show’s host, Trevor Noah, and marveling about the week he was having. Just two days earlier, he’d made a huge splash with his blistering speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and now he was at one of the most exclusive parties on the planet, rubbing shoulders (literally) with a ridiculous number of A-list celebrities, and getting praise for his performance.

 

“It’s been an insane week,” he said. “I keep thinking, what if the other night had gone poorly, what would tonight have been like?”

 

Like everyone, he was somewhat shell-shocked at the number of famous people present. He mentioned Matt Damon and Michael B. Jordan in particular, just two of hundreds of celebrities attending what often feels like a combination of the Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tonys, plus the worlds of fashion and sports.

 

The stars were packed so tightly together, in fact, that the major hazard of the evening seemed to be potential hem damage, from famous feet stepping inadvertently on long, delicate trains. Halle Berry, wearing a black-and-gold Atelier Versace jumpsuit, was one of those who had to stop and release her train from a stranger’s foot as she glided across the Carroll and Milton Petrie European Sculpture Court during cocktail hour.

 

The evening began with invited guests making their way past the assembled media and up the red-carpeted stairs, then into the huge entry hall of the museum, where a massive tower of hot pink and white roses, in the form of a flower, awaited them. Nobody seemed to know how many roses had been called into service. That tower and the rest of the evening’s decor was inspired, of course, by revered designer Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garcons and the subject of the Costume Institute’s spring exhibit.

 

After climbing up the huge interior staircase, and past a receiving line, many opted to head before cocktails to the exhibit, set in a pure white setting with geometric structures housing some of the designer’s most famous collections.

 

One of those displays had actor Ansel Elgort staring at the strange body forms dreamed up by Kawakubo for her 1997 collection “Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body,” in which garments are stretched over bizarre protrusions coming from the stomach, the back, the waist or the hip.

 

“It’s sort of a comment on what people are doing to their bodies these days. I think that may be what she’s doing here,” Elgort suggested.

Some of the guests were wearing Kawakubo’s designs, known for their boundary-pushing, avant-garde nature, but not for their wearability. One of them, Michele Lamy, wife of designer Rick Owens, was wearing a red-and-pink Comme des Garcons dress that looked like a pile of unfinished strips of fabrics, somehow hanging loosely together.

 

“Yes, she’s a visionary, she is hugely influential, but she also makes it fun,” Lamy said.

 

Isabelle Huppert, the French film star, was wearing a Dior leather beret as she examined the exhibit. “It’s amazing, really like an art installation, not a fashion exhibit,” she said.

 

Lucas Hedges, the young actor nominated for an Oscar this year for “Manchester by the Sea,” suggested that the exhibit felt “like a guided meditation on fashion, life and beauty.”

 

Broadway actress Laura Osnes was experiencing her first Met gala. Wintour, she said, had come to see her new show, “Bandstand,” the week before, and suddenly invited her. There followed a mad rush to find something worthy to wear. Osnes ended up with a dramatically voluminous – in other words, huge – pink skirt with rose appliques and a long train by Christian Siriano. It was one of the more striking outfits of the evening.

 

“I figured, who knows if I’ll be here ever again,” Osnes said.

 

She soon found other Broadway stars to compare notes with: Josh Groban was there, as was Tony-winner Cynthia Erivo, and Andy Karl, who stars in “Groundhog Day” and famously tore his anterior cruciate ligament just before the show opened. Karl seemed in good shape, saying he was progressing well in physical therapy.

 

Speaking of being in shape, two of the best tennis players in history were in the room. The pregnant Serena Williams was in bright green Versace – and yes, she was glowing. As for ever-dapper Roger Federer, he lived up to his reputation with a Gucci tux that held a huge, jeweled surprise on the back.

 

“Is that a dragon?” he was asked.

 

“No! It’s a king cobra,” he replied. Then he posed for a few more pictures, and headed into dinner.
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Bette Midler, Cate Blanchett and Sally Field received best actress nominations in Broadway’s Tony Awards on Tuesday, while “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” scored a leading 12 nominations including the top prize, best musical.

Close behind was the hit revival of “Hello, Dolly!” which took 10 nominations, including one for actor David Hyde Pierce.

“Dear Evan Hansen,” “Groundhog Day The Musical” and “Come From Away” received best musical nominations as well.

Best play nominees included “Oslo,” “Sweat,” “Indecent,” and “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” which won nominations for stars Laurie Metcalf and Chris Cooper.

The Tony Awards will be presented on June 11 at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall in a ceremony headlined by film and stage star Kevin Spacey.
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Singer Janet Jackson has announced she is going back on tour later this year, returning to the stage in the United States and Canada after taking time off to give birth to her first child.

In a video message to fans, the pop star also referred to media reports that she had split from her Qatari businessman husband Wissam al-Mana, saying: “Yes I separated from my husband, we are in court and the rest is in God’s hands.”

Jackson, 50, last year said she was postponing her “Unbreakable” music tour due to a “sudden change” in the couple’s plans to start a family. She gave birth to son Eissa in January.

“I’m continuing my tour as I promised, I’m so excited,” the singer said in the video posted on her Twitter feed, thanking fans for their patience and support.

“I decided to change the name of the tour, ‘State of the World’ tour. It’s not about politics, it’s about people, the world, relationships and just love.”

The youngest child in the famed musical Jackson family, the Grammy Award winning singer began her “Unbreakable” tour in summer 2015. She will kick off the four-month, 56-date North American “State of the World” tour on Sept. 7 in Lafayette, Louisiana.

“I am so excited,” Jackson said. “I cannot wait to see you on stage September 7th.”

 

 
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If you’re someone who likes a lot of guidance and explanation at the museum, you might want to dramatically recalibrate your expectations before heading into “Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons: Art of the In-Between,” the lavishly presented new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Arriving in a brilliant white space containing a series of geometric structures, you’ll find no one pointing you in the right direction, and no explanatory text next to the garments. That’s because for Kawakubo, the revered Japanese designer who’s been reinventing her clothes for nearly a half-century — to the point that she no longer calls them clothes, but “objects for the body” — there is no right answer. 

“I don’t like to explain the clothes,” the Comme des Garcons founder, now 74, was quoted as saying in 2013. “The clothes are just as you see them and feel them.”

There is a bit of guidance available. Andrew Bolton, star curator of this and other blockbuster Met fashion exhibits, has provided paper brochures with maps and context, though he cheerfully welcomes you to ditch them. And even this much explanation for the visitor was a hard-fought compromise with Kawakubo.

“It was a battle,” Kawakubo says in an interview with Bolton. “Are you going to write that we fought?”

They seem to have fought over various things. Showing a reporter around the exhibit a few days before opening, Bolton noted that although Kawakubo approached him 18 months ago saying she was ready for a show, she was resolutely opposed to a retrospective. She hates focusing on the past, because she has moved on.

“She finds it physically painful to look at her work. So, that took months of negotiation,” he said.

Fans of “Comme,” as fashion-lovers call it, would have been “screaming in my ears,” Bolton added, if he hadn’t included collections like “Broken Bride,” where Kawakubo explored the concept of marriage, and “Ballerina Motorbike,” in which she juxtaposed the very feminine — a filmy pink tutu — with the tough, muscular look of a black motorcycle jacket.

Her ‘ruptures’

Kawakubo wanted to focus exclusively on the last few years of designs — following her second “rupture” in 2014, when she said she was no longer making “clothing” in the sense of wearable garments.  (Her first rupture, in 1979, is known as the moment she decided to ditch her early, folklore-inflected designs and “start from zero.”)  “This was where her mind was at,” Bolton said. He convinced her otherwise, and sprinkled through the show are juxtapositions of the older, more functional clothes, and the new.

Pointing out a 2009 dress, he noted: “This still has arms, still has legs, still has openings.” Then, pointing to a post-2014 version: “Now you see the priority of form over function.” An example of her later work is three jackets, fused into one — with two of the jackets forming sleeves of the central jacket.

It is rare that the Costume Institute focuses on a single living designer — the last was Yves Saint Laurent in 1983. But Bolton had long wanted to work with Kawakubo. “For me Rei is not only the most important and influential designer of the last 40 years, but the most inspirational at the same time,” he says. “Her influence is enormous — especially on the vocabulary of fashion that we now take for granted, like asymmetry, like the unfinished, like black as a fashionable color.”

“She summarizes the last 50 years of fashion. She’s that important.”

‘Least dissatisfying’ collection

The exhibit, which began with the glitzy Met gala Monday night and opens to the public May 4, is divided into nine themes, all of them dualities in Kawakubo’s work: Fashion/Anti-Fashion, High/Low, Design/Not Design, and Clothes/Not Clothes are a few.

Passing by one display, Bolton notes that the collection is one of Kawakubo’s favorites — and then stops himself. “Well, she wouldn’t say favorite — she would say `least dissatisfying.”‘ That 1997 collection was called “Body Meets Dress — Dress Meets Body.” Garments in gingham-like fabric are stretched over bizarre protrusions on the body, coming out from the stomach or the back or the hip.

“I didn’t expect them to be easy garments to be worn every day,” Kawakubo has said about that collection. “It is more important … to translate thoughts into action rather than to worry about if one’s clothes are worn in the end.” (Of course, she has made more commercial collections that end up in stores, if not the runway.)

Scurrying around the exhibit the other day, Bolton described a classic anxiety dream he’d had two nights earlier: The exhibit opened, but it was in a huge airplane hangar — and nobody came. No one at all.

And Kawakubo, too, has not been immune to anxiety about the show. “Do you think the space is disorienting?” she asks him during the interview. “Do you think people will get lost?”

Getting lost, he assures her, is rather the point.
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John Legend is expected on a Massachusetts college campus this week to receive a social justice award.

 

The singer-songwriter becomes the first recipient of the Salem Advocate for Social Justice award when he accepts the honor Tuesday at Salem State University.

 

Legend is to perform and also discuss his work on criminal justice, education and other issues.

 

The Salem Award Foundation for Human Rights and Social Justice bestows the award to recognize those who champion social justice issues and advocate for people who are underrepresented.

 

This is the first year the award will be given.
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An English policeman wearing a gorilla costume while crawling the London Marathon has finally finished the race, almost a week after starting.

 

Metropolitan Police officer Tom Harrison, who goes by the name “Mr. Gorilla,” raised a reported 26,000 pounds ($33,650) for the Gorilla Organization, which is dedicated to conserving gorillas in countries including Rwanda and Uganda.

 

The 41-year-old Londoner started the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) route last Sunday and crossed the finish line on Saturday.

Harrison slept at friends’ houses in the evenings after completing around 10 to 12 hours and 4.5 miles per day. He has swapped between crawling on his hands and knees and up on his hands and feet to save his blistered knees.

He crossed the finish line in central London flanked by his two sons – and beating his chest.
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April 30 is International Jazz Day, with events and concerts being held throughout the world. It also marks the end of Jazz Appreciation Month in the United States. Sponsored by the National Museum of American History, it’s designed to stimulate and encourage people to participate, study and listen to a genre of music that is uniquely American. Jazz has a storied place in Voice of America’s 75-year history. For 40 years, millions of people worldwide listened to VOA’s Jazz Hour with Willis Conover. During the Cold War, Conover’s programs created a connection to the United States for millions of people living behind the Iron Curtain. Earlier this past week, Voice of America hosted The Frankie Addison Quintet to mark Jazz Appreciation Month and VOA’s part in keeping the free form music genre alive. Enjoy the music.
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Al Pacino was considered too short, Marlon Brando was required to do a screen test, and director Francis Ford Coppola was almost fired.

The director and cast of The Godfather reminisced Saturday in a 45th anniversary reunion in New York about the trials, perseverance and inspiration that resulted in the Oscar-winning Mafia movies.

Coppola, Pacino, Robert De Niro, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Talia Shire and Robert Duvall watched back-to-back screenings of The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather: Part II (1974) along with an audience of 6,000 on the closing night of the Tribeca film festival.

“I haven’t seen these movies for years,” Coppola said. “I found (watching) a very emotional experience. I forgot a lot about the making of it and thought about the story, and the story used a lot of family and my personal stuff.”

Brando too difficult

The two films won nine Oscars and their tale of how an orphan from Sicily emigrated to the United States at the turn of the 20th century and formed the Corleone crime family became movie classics.

But the film had a less than auspicious start. Coppola recalled that Hollywood studio Paramount wanted to set the movie in the 1970s and make something “cheap and quick.”

Coppola was almost fired several times and met stiff resistance to the casting of Pacino as Michael Corleone and Brando as the titular Godfather.

Brando, who died in 2004, had made several box-office flops after a stellar career in the 1950s and had a reputation for being difficult.

“I was told (by studio executives) that having Brando in the film would make it less commercial than having a total unknown,” Coppola said.

The studio later agreed “if Marlon will do a screen test and do it for nothing and put up a $1 million bond that he wouldn’t cause trouble during the production.”

Brando created the rasping voice, jowly cheeks and oiled hair for Corleone in the screen test. Yet three weeks into shooting, there was more trouble.

“They (the studio) hated Brando. They thought he mumbled and they hated the film. … It was very dark,” Coppola said. Brando went on to win an Oscar for his performance.

Pacino too short

Newcomer Pacino had to screen test “countless times” for the role of Michael, the college-educated son who takes charge of the Corleone business of casinos, gambling and racketeering.

Studio bosses though he was too short and wanted to cast Robert Redford or Ryan O’Neal.

Yet Coppola persevered because “every time I read the script, I always saw his (Pacino’s) face, especially in the scenes in Sicily.”

Pacino said he originally wanted the part of the hot-headed son, Sonny, and thought Coppola “was really nuts” about wanting him to play Michael.

“I thought this is either a dream or a joke … and then started the whole trial of them not wanting me and Francis wanting me,” Pacino recalled. The film launched his career as one of the most honored actors of his generation.

Then some luck

Luck played a part in the creation of some of the most memorable scenes in the two films. The revelation by Corleone’s wife Kay (Keaton) that she had aborted their baby because of horror over her husband’s criminal activities was suggested by Talia Shire (Connie).

And the cat Brando cradles in the opening scene of “The Godfather,” making for a stark contrast with his intimidating presence, was a last-minute addition.

“I put that cat in his hands. It was the studio cat. It was one take,” Coppola said. 
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The White House press corps gathered Saturday for its annual black-tie dinner, a toned-down affair this year after Donald Trump snubbed the event, becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to bow out in 36 years.

Without Trump, who scheduled a rally instead to mark his 100th day in office, the usually celebrity-filled soiree hosted by the White House Correspondents’ Association took a more sober turn, even as it pulled in top journalists and Washington insiders.

Most of Trump’s administration also skipped the event in solidarity with the president, who has repeatedly accused the press of mistreatment. The president used his campaign-style gathering to again lambaste the media.

“I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away,” he told a crowd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, calling out The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC by name.

‘Not fake news’

In Washington, WHCA President Jeff Mason defended press freedom even as he acknowledged this year’s dinner had a different feel, saying attempts to undermine the media was dangerous for democracy.

“We are not fake news, we are not failing news organizations and we are not the enemy of the American people,” said Mason, a Reuters correspondent.

Instead of the typical roasts — presidents of both parties have delivered their own zingers for years — the event returned to its traditional roots of recognizing reporters’ work and handing out student scholarships as famed journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein presented awards.

“That’s not Donald Trump’s style,” NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell told MSNBC, referring to the self-deprecating jokes presidents in the past have made despite tensions with the press.

Jokes for free speech

Instead, the humor fell to headline comedian Hasan Minhaj.

“We’ve got to address the elephant that’s not in the room,” Minhaj, who plays a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, told the crowd. “The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow. It’s a very long flight. As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”

He also joked about Trump, despite organizers’ wishes, saying he did so to honor U.S. constitutional protection of free speech: “Only in America can a first-generation, Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president.”

Trump in Pennsylvania

Trump was indeed in Pennsylvania, having scheduled a rally in Harrisburg to mark his 100th day in office. He began his remarks with a lengthy if familiar attack on the news media while dismissing the dinner and its participants.

 

“A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation’s capital right now,” Trump said. He added: “And I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington’s swamp, spending my evening with all of you and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people, right?”

Trump became the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip the event — and Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt. 

In a video message, actor Alec Baldwin, who has raised Trump’s ire playing him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” program also encouraged attendees.

Fewer celebrities

Few other celebrities graced the red carpet, although some well-known Washingtonians, such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California, appeared.

Trump attended in 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made jokes at the expense of the New York real estate developer and reality television show host.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Trump said he decided against attending as president because he felt he had been treated unfairly by the media, adding: “I would come next year, absolutely.”

In Pennsylvania, Trump told supporters the media dinner would be boring but was noncommittal on whether he would go in 2018 or hold another rally.

Late night television show host Samantha Bee also hosted a competing event — “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” — that she said would honor journalists, rather than skewer Trump.

Journalists honored

The WHCA awards and this year’s recipients: 

Aldo Beckman Memorial Award winner: Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post for stories on President Barack Obama’s speeches and policies that contrasted the realities of 2016 with the hopes of 2008. 
Merriman Smith Award winner for outstanding White House coverage under deadline: Edward-Isaac Dovere of Politico for his coverage of the historic meeting between Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro.
Edgar A. Poe Award winner: David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post for stories on Donald Trump’s philanthropic claims.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Washington’s once-glitzy “nerd prom” was briefly upstaged Saturday as comedians and Hollywood stars gathered for jokes and jests about President Donald Trump for a tongue-in-cheek event to counter the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Late-night TV star Samantha Bee pulled in celebrities for the first “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner'”: Alysia Reiner of “Orange Is the New Black,” Retta of “Parks and Recreation” and Matt Walsh of “Veep.” Bee’s show, a comedic tribute to American news organizations, featured actor Will Ferrell and other guests roasting Trump and his allies.

The star power of the real correspondents’ dinner took a hit this year when Trump declined to attend, the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip it. In Reagan’s case, he was recovering from an assassination attempt. Trump did his own counter-programming, scheduling a rally Saturday night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to mark his 100th day in office.

The absence of the president himself at the WHCA dinner or even officials from the administration seemed to diminish attendance by big names in film, television and sports.

Barack Obama’s humorous remarks had become a highlight at the dinner. Last year, for Obama’s final appearance, the crowd included Will Smith, Emma Watson, Kerry Washington, Helen Mirren and model Kendall Jenner.

For years, the event offered Washington’s press corps an opportunity to wear black tie and stunning gowns while mixing with celebrities. With Trump out, organizers put the focus on the First Amendment and the role of the press in democracy.

The scheduled headliners were Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, set to present journalism awards. Woodward told The Washington Post the two planned to speak about “the First Amendment and the importance of aggressive but fair reporting.”

The dinner still booked a master of ceremonies: Hasan Minhaj of The Daily Show. Broadcast coverage was to begin at 9:30 p.m. on C-SPAN, followed by Bee’s event airing on TBS at 10 p.m.

Jeff Mason, the WHCA president, said this year would have been different even if Trump had attended, “based on the tension that has existed in the relationship and some of the things he has said about the press. We were preparing for a different dinner either way.”

Trump has called the media “fake” and “dishonest” and even “the enemy of the people.” In an emailed fundraising appeal before leaving for Pennsylvania, Trump cited among the accomplishments over his first 100 days, “We fought back against the media’s lies.”

Mason promised that Minhaj would use his comedy chops, without “roasting the president in absentia.”

“People don’t want to come to a dinner and feel bored or preached at. Hopefully neither of those things will happen,” Mason said.

Bee, who hosts TBS’ weekly show Full Frontal, said she cared deeply about the press.

“For God’s sake, we could not do our show if things were more restricted. So, boy, nobody needs press freedom more than we do,” she told The Associated Press in an interview.

Bee’s taped show singled out the Committee to Protect Journalists, the nonprofit group that will receive proceeds from the show. The show humorously assailed topics like “alternative facts,” a remark once made by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway that drew heavy criticism.

The official WHCA dinner began in 1921. Most people trace the development of the celebrity guests to 1987, when Baltimore Sun reporter Michael Kelly brought Fawn Hall, the secretary at the center of the Iran-Contra affair.
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If you’ve been walking through downtown Nairobi lately, you may have seen Moses Odhiambo. The 29-year-old self-taught saxophonist has been drawing crowds and inspiring a love of music in young people who, like himself, are growing up on the streets.

Moses Odhiambo plays his saxophone amid the usual buzz of evening rush hour in Nairobi’s central business district.

 

He performs here every Tuesday and Thursday.

 

A small crowd gathers. Today marks one year since he started performing like this. But he is no stranger to the streets.

At 10 years old, he left home with his three brothers. Their mother couldn’t afford to feed them. Odhiambo spent several homeless years in the slums of Nairobi’s Kayole Soweto area. Through sponsorship programs, he was able to complete high school, where he played trumpet.

He showed a knack for music.   

“So the director called me and told me, before we get a professional teacher come and try teaching these students,” said Odhiambo. “So when I went there. I saw the saxophone and fell in love with it and I picked it up, taught myself from scratch up to where I am today”.

When he is not performing in the streets, Odhiamdo is teaching music in two public primary schools or giving private lessons. But the streets remain his source of inspiration.

“I could choose to be in the house and do my practice in the house but I saw that being not so productive for me so I wanted to go out and make a difference,” said Odhiambo. “Because of my background having been a street child, I thought of coming out into the streets and make a difference.”

After his performances, Odhiambo sets aside time to talk with street kids he meets.

“They can make a difference in life if indeed they pursue their passion,” he said.

Rafael Mwangi sings a song he composed. The 14-year-old has lived on the streets for over six years now.

He says “when I saw Moses play, it gave me so much hope. I felt it was time to also start singing… I started writing music and when I showed Mose my writings, he told me he could see my future.”

On Thursdays, Odhiambo is joined by another young musician, Steven Muthama, on the guitar.

 

Muthama says performing on the street creates a powerful connection.

“People just take time to come and listen,” said Muthama. “Tired people from work taking time to just stop in the street, not knowing you, just seeing you there, listening and appreciating, maybe dropping a shilling or two but just the time and the effort to stand there and listen is really amazing.”

 

Music has been Odhiambo’s ticket to a better life. He hopes to pass that opportunity on to the next generation.

 

 
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San Antonio, Texas, is home to the greatest concentration of Catholic missions in North America, including The Alamo, the state’s first mission dating to 1718. The most visited historic landmark in Texas was also a fort and the site of a battle that played a pivotal role in the state’s dramatic history.

San Antonio Missions

In the 18th century, the government of Spain established Catholic missions in the American southwest, in an attempt to exert control and expand its influence in the region. The Spanish Crown looked upon the natives as potential subjects and saw the missions as a way to convert as many of them as possible to Catholicism.

But the native tribes in what is now east Texas showed little interest in what Spain had to offer. So in 1731, the missions there were relocated westward to the San Antonio River, where, according to the U.S. National Park Service, the hunter-gatherer tribes proved “more receptive” to the Spanish message. Upon entering a mission, tribal members were expected to give up their traditional life, accept a new religion and pledge loyalty to a distant and unseen king.

Most of the missions lasted as fully functional religious sites for six decades.

A perfect union

National parks traveler Mikah Meyer, who’s on a quest to visit all of the more than 400 sites within the U.S. National Park Service, described the relationship between the Spanish government and its Catholic priests as “a perfect marriage.”

“The Crown of Spain wanted to expand the territory and the Catholic priests wanted to help spread [Catholicism], so within that, it was kind of a magical partnership,” he said. “So these mission sites preserve a lot of that heritage.”

Today the National Park Service operates the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, which helps preserve four of the five missions — San José, Concepción, San Juan and Espada. They were added to the list of national parks in 1978 under then-President Jimmy Carter.  

Meyer traveled on the scenic Mission Hike and Bike Trail that follows the San Antonio River and links all five sites. “Each of these mission sites tells part of the story in a different way, depending on how much of the site has been preserved,” he remarked.

“The outlying walls and buildings showcase where the religious figures would have lived, where the students would have lived who were being taught by the missionaries, and a lot of what the daily life would have looked like for these early Spanish colonizers,” he added.

And what life must have been like for Native Americans under Spanish rule, he noted.

“Some people would say they stole their culture from them. Other people would say they provided a means for survival in a changing world that was no longer nomadic and that was becoming agricultural,” he said.

 

“What’s really incredible about these sites are how well intact and preserved the churches are,” he said. “Most at least have their chapel still maintained.” In fact, all four of the churches remain active parishes, which means services are held in them every week.

The heart of San Antonio

Mission San Antonio de Valero, more commonly known as The Alamo, was established by the Franciscans in 1718. It is not a unit of the National Park Service but owned by the state of Texas and is a National Historic Landmark. The 3-century-old compound was a mission from 1718-1793, a fort from 1803-1835 and a battlefield from 1835-1836.

Many consider The Alamo the most enduring symbol of independence in Texas.

Remember The Alamo!

The historic compound is best known as the site of a 1836 battle that marked a turning point in the state’s history. At the time, Texas was a province of Mexico, and colonists (primarily from the United States) grew resentful of increasingly centralized Mexican government. On October 2, 1835, they launched a revolution for independence.

On February 23 the next year, Mexican President Santa Anna’s army began a siege of the Alamo Mission and overran it 13 days later, killing all of the defenders — known at the time as Texians. Among the dead were well-known men such as garrison commander William Travis, American pioneer Jim Bowie and Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett.

The deadly siege motivated many Texians to join the Texian Army. They defeated the Mexican forces the following month at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution, and starting Texas’ decade-long status as an independent republic, until it joined the United States as the 28th state.

Mission accomplished

Today, the Alamo compound is the state’s most visited landmark — two centuries after Spain lost most of its influence throughout the Americas.

Meyer noted that considering the historic, life-altering events that took place at The Alamo compound, “it’s not that big of a building … but it’s impressive that it’s become such a well-known part of our culture.”

“It really seems like the town has embraced this part of their history and built a lot of their current day infrastructure around it,” he added.

All five missions were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites on July 5, 2015

As he prepared to depart Texas and head west, Meyer remarked how impressed he was by the Lone Star state’s vast landscape and diverse culture.

“It’s so huge that you got a very rich diversity of natural landscapes, and with that comes a rich diversity of history,” he said.

The national parks traveler invites you to join him as he continues his journey across the American southwest by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.

 
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A hacker claims to have stolen the upcoming season of Netflix’s hit series “Orange Is The New Black,” and is demanding that the video streaming service pay an unspecified ransom to prevent all the new episodes from being prematurely released online.

 

The hacker, operating under the name The Dark Overlord, has purportedly uploaded the first episode to an illegal file-sharing service. The Associated Press could not legally confirm the authenticity of that uploaded file.

 

New episodes of “Orange” are scheduled for official release June 9.

Vendor suffered breach 

Netflix said that a small production vendor that works with several major TV studios had suffered a breach. The Los Gatos, California, company described it as an “active situation” that’s being investigated by the FBI and other authorities.

 

Pirated copies of “Orange” could dent Netflix’s subscriber growth and the company’s stock price.

 

In the ransom note, The Dark Overlord claimed to have stolen series from other studios, too, by breaking into a single company. The purported hacker promised to also release those titles unless ransoms are paid.

Rumors for months

Rumors of a massive leak of Hollywood films and TV episodes have been circulating online for months, fed by purported screenshots of the footage and a copy of a proposed deal to delete the stolen material in return for tens of thousands of dollars in electronic currency.

 

When the AP contacted The Dark Overlord in February, the hacker said the purloined video wouldn’t be made publicly available after all, making the far-fetched claim that “no one really (cares) about unreleased movies and TV show episodes.”

 

It’s not clear what triggered The Dark Overload’s renewed ransom demands.

 

Netflix is counting on “Orange” to help it add 3.2 million subscribers from April through June. That’s substantially higher than the company’s average gain of 1.8 million subscribers in the same period over the past five years.

 

Whenever Netflix’s quarterly subscriber gains fall shy of management’s projections, the company’s stock usually plunges. 
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The sprawling American investigation of bribery and corruption in international soccer has reached into Asia and claimed the first guilty plea from a senior official in the new FIFA leadership.

A member of the FIFA Audit and Compliance Committee, Richard Lai of Guam, was provisionally suspended Friday by the FIFA ethics committee after admitting to taking about $1 million in bribes, including from a “faction” of Asian officials buying influence among voters.

The Asian Football Confederation, where he is a long-time executive committee member, also “provisionally suspended Richard Lai from football with immediate effect.”

Lai, a United States citizen and president of Guam’s soccer federation since 2001, plead guilty in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday. The FIFA ethics committee typically imposes life bans on officials who plead guilty.

The AFC official admitted to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy in connection with multiple schemes to accept and pay bribes to soccer officials.

Lai’s case marks a stunning step forward in the American federal investigation, which had indicted or taken guilty pleas from more than 40 people and marketing agencies linked to soccer in the Americas since 2015.

The latest plea reaches deep into Asian soccer for the first time and involves an official who retained his position monitoring FIFA’s multi-billion dollar income and spending in the transition from former president Sepp Blatter to his successor Gianni Infantino.

Infantino praised U.S. law enforcement agencies Friday and promised cooperation from his Zurich-based organization.

“I would like to thank the American authorities for their continued efforts to stamp out corruption from football,” the FIFA president said in a statement. “I am happy to confirm once again, that FIFA will provide whatever assistance is needed by the U.S. and any other authorities around the world.”

FIFA, former senior officials including Blatter, and its hosting awards for World Cups from 2006 to 2022 are variously under investigation in the U.S., Switzerland, Germany and a French case which was confirmed Thursday.

Lai’s 90-day interim ban by the FIFA ethics committee prevents him taking part in the world soccer body’s audit panel meeting on May 8 in Manama, Bahrain. Also that day, Asian soccer federations meet in the city to elect delegates to the FIFA Council.

Lai also pleaded guilty to failing to disclose foreign bank accounts and agreed to pay more than $1.1 million in forfeiture and penalties. The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen.

Bridget M. Rohde, an Acting U.S. Attorney, announced the guilty plea and said it “marks another important step in our ongoing effort to root out corruption in international soccer.”

“The defendant abused the trust placed in him as a soccer official in order to line his own pockets. The defendant’s breach of trust was particularly significant given his position as a member of the FIFA Audit and Compliance committee, which must play an important and independent role if corruption within FIFA is to be eliminated.”

According to the criminal information to which Lai pleaded guilty, he received more than $850,000 in bribes between 2009 and 2014 from a faction of soccer officials in the Asian region in exchange for using his influence as a soccer official. The cash was intended to advance the interests of the faction that bribed him, including by helping officials in that faction identify other officials to offer bribes.

A U.S. Department of Justice news release did not identify details of the faction buying influence.

Lai also received $100,000 in bribes in 2011 from an official of the AFC who was then running for the FIFA presidency, in exchange for Lai’s vote and support in the then-upcoming FIFA presidential election.

Mohamed bin Hammam, the AFC president who was running against Blatter in that FIFA election, was later banned for life from soccer by FIFA.
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Films focusing on America’s broken education system, the power of independent journalism, and the Syrian refugee crisis are just some of the highlights of this year’s Filmfest DC. 

For more than 30 years, the annual event has been showcasing thought-provoking movies from around the world to a discerning audience in the U.S. capital, promoting discussion and debate. This spring, April 20-30, the festival celebrates its 31st anniversary with 80 selected films.

Tony Gittens, founder and head of the Washington, DC International film Festival, came to VOA to talk about this year’s offerings. 

Heightened issues

“These are films that look at issues that have been heightened with the new presidential administration [in the U.S.,]” he said.

He cites as examples films that examine the U.S. educational system, which according to the documentary Backpack Full of Cash, is suffering. Gittens says the film looks at the importance of public schools and throws light on the commercialization of education.

Another film that focuses on the United States is the documentary All Governments Lie, by Canadian filmmaker Fred Peabody. The film traces the history of “free, independent journalism and its significance to the pursuit of truth and preservation of democracy.”

Broad range

Throughout the year, Gittens visits international festivals like Cannes and Toronto to select films that reflect political, social and economic topics across the world. He says one of the advantages of an international film festival is that it also brings a foreign perspective to an American audience.

“We have a film from Bulgaria called The Good Postman, looking at immigration from a European perspective.” The documentary by Bulgarian filmmaker Tonislav Hristov, looks at people who live in an economically depressed village and have to decide, as Syrians enter their small community, how to deal with illegal migration. Is it going to help them and their economy, or is it going to hurt them in some way?

Gittens says the festival attracts 16,000 people into local movie theaters, as well as embassies and museums, which host films every spring. Many of these people work for think tanks, are political decision-makers, and generally are a politically involved audience.

Influencing the influencers

“Washingtonians spend a lot of time looking at TV news, reading the newspaper, and when we gather for social events after a while, a few pleasantries, politics come up. It is really hard to avoid that here,” he said. 

So when a harrowing documentary, such as Last Men in Aleppo by Firas Fayyad is screening in town, it may not only influence how people see the war in Syria, but it might effect change, based on what people of influence may sit through [during] this two-hour experience of human rights violations on Syrian civilians by the Assad regime.

The festival also offers a variety of films that look at social and cultural displacement from the viewpoint of the ethnic communities that exist as islands within other cultures. One example is A Wedding by Stephan Streker. This French-Pakistani production deals with the values of a Pakistani family living in France and ends in tragedy when one of the daughters chooses a new way of life over tradition.

One of the most visually impressive films in this year’s festival is Human. Photographer and filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand uses breathtaking cinematography to deliver a film about humanity, weaving a picture of vast landscapes, the world as seen from up high with mankind dwarfed in it.

Arthus-Bertrand interviews people from all walks of life. 

“It’s about the world, the whole planet, the environment, people’s social needs, economic needs and interests showing how in a way we are different, but in fundamental ways we are very similar,” Gittens said.

Economic engine 

Filmfest DC’s leader says that on average, he watches 350 films a year to select the final 80 to bring to Washingtonians. He says throughout the 31 years he’s been doing this, it is a very rewarding process and the films are appreciated. 

The festival also has become an economic engine for the city, Gittens added. Thousands of people from the metro area and the U.S. come to the nation’s capital to attend the festival, filling up Washington restaurants, creating seasonal jobs, and providing a good time.
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For over 30 years, Filmfest DC has been bringing thought-provoking movies from all over the world to a discerning audience in the U.S. capital, promoting discussion and debate. This spring, the festival is celebrating its 31st anniversary with 80 selected films. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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This is the Top Five Countdown! We’re hangin’ with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 29, 2017.

It turns out that lighting does strike twice in the same place, because we get a Top Five debut for the second consecutive week.

Number 5: The Chainsmokers & Coldplay “Something Just Like This”

Let’s start in fifth place, where The Chainsmokers and Coldplay hold with “Something Just Like This.”

Coldplay just grabbed two nominations for this year’s Ivor Novello Awards. Chris Martin & Company are nominated twice in the PRS For Most Performed Work category – they earned it for “Adventure Of A Lifetime” and “Hymn For The Weekend.” They’ll square off against Adele, with “When We Were Young.” Named for the famous Welsh composer and actor, the Ivor Novello awards will be handed out on May 18 in London.

 

Number 4: Harry Styles “Sign of The Times”

Let’s keep it in the U.K. for this week’s big debut: Harry Styles opens in fourth place with “Sign Of The Times” – the lead single from Harry’s first solo album, dropping on May 12.

Harry co-wrote this song with Jeff Bhasker, who won the 2016 Grammy for Non-Classical Producer of the Year. He’s worked with everyone from Jay Z to the Rolling Stones. Harry’s album has a lot of buzz behind it, and he says he will go on tour.

Number 3: Kendrick Lamar “Humble”

Kendrick Lamar steps back a slot to number three with “Humble,” from his smash hit album Damn.

Kendrick headlined for two successive weekends at the Coachella festival, and now fans can await his North American headlining tour. It starts July 12 in Glendale, Arizona. Travis Scott and D.R.A.M. will be the opening acts.

Number 2: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”

Bruno, Bruno…make up your mind. He’s sold more than 26 million albums, but Bruno Mars just can’t make that last jump: “That’s What I Like” this week returns to its chart high of second place.

Bruno’s currently on tour in the United Kingdom, and last week stopped by the Beatles’ old stomping ground, Abbey Road Studios in London. He says he didn’t use that famous zebra crossing, but it was a temptation.

Number 1: Ed Sheeran “Shape of You”

If you’re tempted to think we have a new singles champ, think again: Ed Sheeran remains your countdown king with “Shape Of You.”

As of April 6, this was the best-selling song of 2017 in the U.S., moving 1.7 million copies. It’s also the only song to have surpassed the million-seller mark so far this year.

We get a whole new lineup next week, so be sure and drop by.
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Oscar-winning U.S. film director Jonathan Demme, who terrified audiences and also made them laugh, died Wednesday in New York at 73.

His family said Demme suffered from cancer of the esophagus.

Demme may be considered one of the most eclectic directors in Hollywood history — directing rousing comedies, horror, concert films and emotional dramas.

His 1991 thriller Silence of the Lambs featured Anthony Hopkins as a cannibalistic murderer with a terrifying mask who is restrained in a cage.

The film and Demme’s close-ups of the criminal haunted audiences and won five Oscars, including one for Demme.

He followed it in 1993 with Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks as a lawyer dying from AIDS. The film is considered to be a landmark in the way gays are portrayed and the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic.

Critics called Demme’s 1984 concert film starring the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, one of the greatest rock films ever made, using techniques that have set the standard for rock documentaries.

Demme also was heavily involved in the Florida-based charity Americans for Immigrant Justice, and his family has requested that fans honor Demme by making contributions to the fund.
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Musician David Byrne, known for his work with the 1980s pop band Talking Heads, wrote an urgent blog post this month. “I just got back from a rally at City Hall,” he said, referring to a New York City rally to support arts funding. “I spoke very briefly, making the economic and social argument that arts funding benefits the economy and creates jobs way in excess of the amount invested.”

Byrne and others at the rally were protesting a budget request by the White House for Congress to eliminate funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

While the Trump administration has said little beyond the budget proposal itself, conservative commentator George Will and others have made the case. Will wrote in The Washington Post last month that the arts mainly benefit the wealthy, and that the wealthy will support the arts regardless of federal help.

In addition, he said NEA funding, which goes to all 435 congressional districts in the United States, supports projects he does not consider art. The NEA, he said, “defines art democratically and circularly. Art is anything done by anyone calling himself or herself an artist, and an artist is anyone who produces art.”

 

The prospect of losing their funding is forcing arts organizations to pull out all the stops to show what good the arts do, beyond the fancy doors of museums and music auditoriums. And they question what good it would do to eliminate agencies whose spending combined makes up less than 1 percent of the national budget.

Byrne, the pop musician, said in his blog post: “Investment in the arts doesn’t cost us money — it MAKES us money!”

Attracting funds

The NEA says its budget appropriation for 2016 was $147.9 million, about .004 percent of the federal budget. It says its contributions to local arts institutions resulted in the leveraging of up to $9 million in private and other public funds.

 

Brad Erickson of Theatre Bay Area, a group representing 300 theater companies in the San Francisco area, clarified the issue in comments to The San Francisco Chronicle last month: “Nobody is getting enough from the NEA to keep the lights on and the rent paid. An NEA grant attracts other money. A dollar from the NEA attracts another $8 in private and local funding.”

The advocacy group Americans for the Arts studies the economic growth that the arts foster in the communities they serve. The group reported that in 2014, arts and culture represented 4.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product — a larger share, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, than transportation, tourism or construction.

Further, the NEA says 40 percent of the funding it doles out goes to organizations and activities in high-poverty neighborhoods, where arts education can matter the most.

 

Wolford McCue, president and CEO of the Arts Community Alliance in Dallas, told VOA that studies have found how important arts activities can be to an individual education.

“Young adults who have been engaged with the arts graduate from high school, junior college and college at a significantly higher rate than those not engaged in the arts,” he said. “Significantly more are gainfully employed, pay taxes, vote and volunteer in their community.”

Controversial content

One argument against arts funding persists from the 1980s, when NEA funding went to a venue hosting an art show of provocative photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe — an artist whose name is now synonymous with controversy. His sexually charged work set off a nationwide debate about obscenity and the role of public funding.

Those who defended Mapplethorpe’s work said he was entitled to free speech. Critics said federal dollars should not be used to support work that some people find obscene.

And that, some arts activists say, may be at the root of the issue. While the arts may look like an extravagance to some, others say shutting off arts funding amounts to stifling speech.

PEN, a writers organization focused on free speech, is circulating an online petition advocating for the NEA and its sister organizations. “Eliminating these vital agencies would lessen America’s stature as a haven for free thinkers and a global leader in humanity’s shared quest for knowledge,” it says.

Support in France

A group of French filmmakers also has rallied in support of keeping U.S. federal arts funding alive, saying defunding the NEA is “muffling diversity” because art enables people on the margins of society to tell their stories.

And in an op-ed piece in The New York Times last month, Eve Ewing, a sociologist at the University of Chicago, said, “Artists play a distinctive role in challenging authoritarianism. Art creates pathways for subversion, for political understanding and solidarity among coalition builders.

“Art teaches us that lives other than our own have value.”
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In some of the lowest performing elementary and middle schools in the U.S., students are learning in an unconventional way. 

 

“I like to act and I like to sing and I like to dance,” said 10-year-old Kayla Driakare, whose teachers at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary School are incorporating much of what she loves doing into the everyday curriculum.

 

Her school is a part of a national program called Turnaround Arts, and is an initiative started by former first lady Michelle Obama.It aims to help improve low performing schools through the arts.

 

For Driakare and her classmates, their school is a safe haven from life outside its walls.The students at Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary are from Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles known for its gang violence.

 

“High crime, high poverty, very multigenerational families in public housing. There’s gun violence. We see a lot of helicopters and we have lockdowns regularly and so, the thing is, all associated with poverty – that really traumatized students, so many of our students come to school with symptoms of post-traumatic stress,” explained school principal Akida Kissane Long.

 

She remembers when she first started at the school five years ago, there was “willful disobedience, primarily fighting (and) destruction of school property.”

 

Long said the suspension rate was “267 suspensions on record and (there were) 1,167 classroom suspensions.“

 

The school performed in the lowest 5% of the state and qualified for the Turnaround Arts program, a public-private partnership led by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and managed by the D.C.-based John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

 

It is one of 68 schools in the U.S. participating in the program.Teachers receive special training, and the arts are incorporated into all the subjects.Turnaround Arts schools also partner with professional musicians and actors who work with the students. Among the names are Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Jessica Parker, Elton John and Cameron Diaz. 

 

“The children were so excited and have been so excited because it’s not just about – “Go to the board. Do the problem. Turn the page. Read the book.’It’s about acting and impersonating artists and historic figures, and acting out the water cycle and becoming a butterfly that goes from caterpillar through the cocoon to an expansive beautiful winged insect,” said Long.

 

On Thursdays, dedicated teachers in music and art give lessons. 

 

 “Art is fun. You get to draw what you draw and you get to draw something that you really like,” said an excited Driakare.

 

Only in the first year of a 3-year program, Long is already seeing results.

 

 “We’ve probably suspended one kid this year. That’s amazing. Parents are getting phone calls to come to family portraiture night and come to family arts night, and it’s not just the naughty calls home. It’s for them to come and learn more about what their children are learning.So our parent engagement goes up,” Long said.

 

Decreased disciplinary actions, increased attendance and improved academic achievement are occurring nationwide in a 3-year program evaluation of pilot schools.From 2011 to 2014, the study found a 22.55% improvement in math proficiency and 12.62% improvement in reading proficiency in the Turnaround Arts pilot schools.The study also found Turnaround Arts schools performed better than comparable schools that received special grants for school improvement.

 

At a time when President Donald Trump is proposing cutting the budget for the arts, and arts education is being deemphasized as policy makers push for more focus on math and science in U.S. education, Long is making a case for a more holistic approach.

 

 “Art speaks to everyone. Arts isn’t a set aside. It is part of what makes the curriculum rich and exciting and motivating.” Long added, “Because the arts is so universal and speaks across every culture and every language, every kid has an opportunity to access the highest levels of the curriculum because they had it delivered in a way that they could understand.”

 

At the end of the 3-year program, Long is asking the school district to turn this school into a visual and performing arts magnet school so it can get funding from the district to continue its focus on the arts, and allow more students to experience learning through a more creative approach.
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President Trump’s proposed cuts to the federal budget for the arts is creating concern that it may impact a program started by former first lady Michelle Obama that is showing signs of success. Turnaround Arts gets some funding from federal tax dollars, and it helps some of the nation’s lowest performing schools improve learning in all educational subjects. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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In upstate New York, John Lundemo is making a living by making high end swords. He carves each sword with a distinctive style of his own, a style he developed over the years. Inspiration for his creativity comes from different places. And as Faiza Elmasry tells us, that’s what makes him a sword master. VOA’s Faith Lapidus narrates.
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