Author: Ohart

Don Rickles, the master insult comic who created laughs with ridicule and sarcasm in a decades-long career that earned him the facetious nickname “Mr. Warmth,” died on Thursday at his Los Angeles home from kidney failure, his publicist said. He was 90.

Rickles, who said he developed his brand of mockery humor because he was no good at telling traditional jokes, had recently postponed some performances, including a show set for May in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was pushed back to November just this week.

His death was confirmed by his spokesman, Paul Shefrin, who said Rickles is survived by his wife of 52 years, Barbara, as well as their daughter, Mindy Mann, and two grandchildren. He would have turned 91 on May 8.

The New York-born Rickles had an intense, often-ad libbed, rapid-fire delivery and a wide, impish grin. He delighted nightclub audiences, Hollywood royalty and politicians by hurling invective at them, all in good fun.

Encountering Frank Sinatra for the first time during a stand-up act in 1957, Rickles greeted the mercurial singer as Sinatra walked in with a retinue of tough guys by saying, “Make yourself at home, Frank – hit somebody.”

Luckily for Rickles, the line amused Sinatra, who became one of his biggest boosters and took to calling the short, bald Rickles “Bullethead.”

Performing decades later at the second inaugural gala of U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1985, Rickles did not hesitate to zing the commander-in-chief, asking, “Is this too fast for you, Ronnie?”

But the most frequent targets of the “Merchant of Venom” were the fans who packed his performances for a chance to be belittled as a “dummy,” a “hockey puck” or worse. Celebrities often showed up just for the honor of being mocked by Rickles, and no minority or ethnic group was immune to a Rickles tongue-lashing.

“He was called ‘The Merchant of Venom’ but in truth, he was one of the kindest, caring and most sensitive human beings we have ever known,” actor-comedian Bob Newhart and his wife, Ginnie, said in a statement.

Comic actor Jim Carrey tweeted: “Don once begged me for a couple of bucks, then told me to twist myself into a pretzel.

Ego slayer! Comic Everest!” Oscar winner Tom Hanks also tweeted a tribute to his “Toy Story” co-star, saying, “A God died today. Don Rickles, we did not want to ever lose you. Never.”

Rickles also mocked himself and shied away from describing himself as an “insult comic,” insisting that his humor was not intended to be mean-spirited but was built on making wild exaggerations for the sake of laughs.

Much of Rickles’ material played on racial and ethnic stereotypes that did not always keep up with cultural evolution.

He came under fire in 2012 for a joke that characterized President Barack Obama as a janitor. His spokesman defended the line as just “a joke, as were the other comments Don made that night.”

“Anyone who knows him knows he’s not a racist,” the spokesman told Politico then.

Heckling the Hecklers

Rickles, a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, proved especially adept in early nightclub engagements at handling hecklers, which led him to make poking fun at audience members a major part of his act.

In an interview with Reuters to promote his 2007 memoir “Rickles’ Book,” he said his flair for impromptu insults grew out of his shortcomings as a conventional comic.

“I just can’t tell jokes,” he said. “As a young man I had a personality that I could rib somebody and get away with it.”

Rickles, who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, also built a resume as an actor, making his film debut as a junior officer alongside Clark Cable and Burt Lancaster in the 1958 submarine drama “Run Silent, Run Deep.”

He went on to appear in a series of 1960s “beach party” movies with Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon and in 1970 played Army hustler Sergeant Crapgame in the wartime caper “Kelly’s Heroes,” with Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas and Donald Sutherland.

He endeared himself to an entirely new generation by providing the voice of Mr. Potato Head in the computer-animated “Toy Story” movie and its two sequels in the 1990s. In 1995 he had a dramatic role in Martin Scorsese’s Las Vegas crime film “Casino.”

But Rickles’ biggest exposure came on television, both as a frequent sitcom guest star and late-night and variety show regular, especially on NBC’s “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” and “The Dean Martin Show.”

On Carson, Rickles was typically introduced by Spanish matador music, signifying that someone was about to be gored.

He took a long break from live shows and a Los Angeles performance in January 2015 was his first in 17 years.

Several Rickles TV series were short-lived, the most popular of which was the NBC comedy “C.P.O. Sharkey,” in which he starred as a U.S. Navy chief petty officer in charge of new recruits. The series lasted just two seasons.

A TV documentary, “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project,” directed by John Landis, aired on HBO in 2007.

Six Facts About Don Rickles

* Rickles was not always an insult-slinging comedian. He graduated from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, where his classmates included Jason Robards, Grace Kelly and Anne Bancroft. He had an early undistinguished stage career before gravitating toward comedy work, starting out in strip joints and working his way up to nightclubs, casinos, records, television and movies.

* Rickles did not think of himself as an “insult comic.” He said his act was all in fun and that his barbs were exaggerations delivered with good humor. “I’m the guy that makes fun of the boss at the Christmas party on Friday night and Monday still has his job,” he once said.

* Rickles inspired lots of nicknames. Singer Frank Sinatra called the short, bald comedian “Bullethead” while late-night television host Johnny Carson gave him the facetious title “Mr. Warmth” and Milton Berle dubbed him “The Merchant of Venom.”

* One of Rickles’ most notorious put-downs was to call someone a “hockey puck” but he once told an interviewer he was unsure how he came up with the barb.

* A lifelong Democrat, Rickles performed as part of Ronald Reagan’s second presidential inauguration. He joked that he took the job because he wanted to hang out with Sinatra.

* Rickles was a devoted son but in his act referred to his mother, Etta Rickles, as “the Jewish Patton.”
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Paul O’Neill, who founded the progressive metal band Trans-Siberian Orchestra that was known for its spectacular holiday concerts filled with theatrics, lasers and pyrotechnics, has died. He was 61.

 

University of South Florida police spokeswoman Renna Reddick said O’Neill was found dead in his room by hotel staff at a Tampa Embassy Suites late Wednesday afternoon. She says there were no obvious signs of foul play, and a medical examiner is working to determine an official cause.

 

The band said in a statement that O’Neill died from a “chronic illness.” The band calls his death “a profound and indescribable loss for us all.”

 

O’Neill was a rock producer and manager who began putting together Trans-Siberian Orchestra in 1996, blending heavy metal with classical music and creating a unique brand of rock theater. He tapped three members of the Tarpon Springs, Florida, band Savatage to be part of TSO and intended for it to be a “supergroup,” similar to popular bands like ELO, Pink Floyd and Yes.

 

“The best description of a TSO show I ever saw came from a reporter who said the only way to describe TSO is ‘The Who meets Phantom of the Opera with Pink Floyd’s light show,”’ O’Neill told the Tampa Bay Times in an email interview in 2012. “I would take any one of those alone as a compliment.”

 

The band is best known for its hard rock takes on Christmas staples like “Carol of the Bells,” but also more experimental, arena-rock songs such as “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24),” which described a lone cello player playing a forgotten holiday song in war-torn Sarajevo. That song was on the band’s 1996 album, “Christmas Eve and Other Stories,” which went triple platinum.

 

Fans especially loved the band’s Christmas tours, which were heavy on guitar solos and heavier on special effects — similar to a Broadway Christmas pageant with a heavy metal soundtrack. One magazine once wrote that “TSO has enough pyro to BBQ an entire school of blue whales” during a show.

 

“My personal theory is it was being in the right place at the right time. It was easier for us to jump the generation gap between all the people before us. There’s something magical about watching a 15-year-old kid get into an Al Pitrelli guitar solo and his father jamming out there with him. That’s [proof] enough time has gone by that everybody has rock in common now, which simply didn’t exist when it was born in the ’60s,” O’Neill told Billboard.

 

But O’Neill, with his signature flowing locks, sunglasses and leather jackets, was remembered by legions of fans on social media Thursday for something else: his deep generosity.

 

Fans recalled how O’Neill would often approach them before concerts and hand them a silver dollar from the year they were born (he kept a case of them while touring), or sometimes hand out jean jackets. And others recall him tipping waitresses thousands of dollars for a post-show meal, buying drum sets for young fans and on numerous occasions, would not let security guards kick fans out until everyone received an autograph.

 

O’Neill is survived by his wife and daughter.
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Pop star Britney Spears may not be topping the charts these days, but she’s still big enough to influence elections in another country.

Because of a July 3 Spears concert in Tel Aviv, a first for the singer, Israel’s Labor Party decided to push back primary voting by a day.

“We delayed the vote one day, to July 4. We couldn’t hire enough security for the election because of the Britney Spears concert on July 3. There would also be a lot of traffic and roadblocks that would make it hard for the vote to go ahead,” Labor Party spokesman Liron Zach said, according to CNN.

The primary was set to decide the leader of the party and future challenger for the prime minister spot.

“We aren’t concerned about voters favoring Spears over the party. The two main concerns are security and traffic,” Zach said.

Spears’ stop in Israel is part of a world tour, her first since 2011.
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A court paved the way Wednesday for Poland’s government to take control of a new World War Two museum that has been the focus of a major ideological standoff over how to remember the war.

The conflict has pitted the creators of the Museum of the Second World War — who place Poland’s war experiences in an international context and emphasize the fate of civilian populations — against the nationalistic ruling party, which prefers to focus on Polish suffering and military heroism.

Culture Minister Piotr Glinski sought to take control of the museum last year by merging it with an as-yet-unbuilt museum, the Museum of Westerplatte and the War of 1939.

 

 

Critics of the government described the maneuver as a legal trick aimed at pushing out the managers of the original museum.

The attempt was held up for months in the courts, giving director Pawel Machcewicz time to open the World War Two museum to the public in March after more than eight years of development. It is located in Gdansk, where Germany fired some of the war’s opening shots against Poland.

Merger can proceed

A decision Wednesday by the Supreme Administrative Court now paves the way for the Culture Ministry to take control of the Museum of the Second World War. The court overruled a lower court’s decision to suspend the merger, which now can proceed.

The ministry said in a statement that the merger of the two institutions would take place “immediately” and will mean “a significant increase of their potential.”

The ministry argues that it is not economically justifiable to operate two state museums on a similar subject in the same city.

 

 

Opponents of the ruling Law and Justice party see the step as part of the party’s broader agenda to take control of state institutions and to reshape the nation to conform to its nationalistic worldview.

The museum project was launched in 2008 by then-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who is now one of the European Union’s top leaders.

Tusk is a longtime rival of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the ruling party’s leader, and many political observers think Kaczynski’s opposition to the museum is at least partly rooted in that rivalry.

Kaczynski has for years also criticized the museum’s concept and said he preferred a museum that would focus exclusively on Polish suffering and military heroism.

Poland was occupied during the war by both Germany and the Soviet Union and subjected to unthinkable horrors by the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin. Nearly 6 million Polish citizens were killed.

 

 

Many Poles feel that the world has never truly understood the magnitude of their country’s devastation, a belief that has bolstered the views of some museum critics who argue Poland’s tragedy must be told as its own story.

Wartime suffering

Director Machcewicz argues that Poland’s wartime suffering, which features heavily in the museum, is much more meaningful, especially to foreign visitors, when placed alongside information about the suffering also inflicted across Europe and beyond.

Machcewicz is expected to lose his position now that the government has been cleared to take control of the Museum of the Second World War.

He expressed satisfaction that he was at least able to open the facility, allowing thousands of visitors to see it before the exhibition is potentially changed. But he also appealed to the government not to change the exhibition.

“I will keep fighting for the integrity of the exhibition even after I am fired,” he said.
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Country star Alan Jackson, actor-singer-guitarist Jerry Reed and songwriter Don Schlitz will be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame later this year. Their selection was announced Wednesday.

Jackson, 58, from Newnan, Georgia, broke out in 1990 with his neo-traditional style of honky-tonk country music that earned him several multiplatinum records. His hit songs include “Chattahoochee,” ”She’s Got the Rhythm (And I Got the Blues)” and “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning).”

Jackson, with his signature white hat, said during the press conference that his dad’s wooden radio inspired him to write “Chasin’ That Neon Rainbow,” one of his first singles. The radio is now in an exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, along with a pair of water skis he wore for the music video for “Chattahoochee.”

“I’ll be in the Hall of Fame with Daddy Gene’s radio and my water skis and some blue jeans with holes in them,” Jackson said.

The singer-songwriter earned two Grammy Awards and was named entertainer of the year three times by the Country Music Association. Over the course of his 25-year career, he’s the second most nominated artist in CMA history with 81 nominations and has had more than 30 No. 1 country hits.

“This is about the last dream on the list, right here,” Jackson said.

Reed, from Atlanta, Georgia, became a popular country star in the 1960s with his fingerstyle picking that earned him the nickname “Guitar Man.” which became the title of one of his signature songs. His hits include Grammy-winning “When You’re Hot, You’re Hot” and “Amos Moses.”

After regularly appearing on Glen Campbell’s TV show, he started a successful career in Hollywood. He starred opposite Burt Reynolds in the “Smokey and the Bandit” films and appeared in Adam Sandler’s “The Waterboy.”

He died in 2008 at 71. His daughters Seidina Hubbard and Lottie Zavala spoke on his behalf Wednesday.

Schlitz, 64, from Durham, North Carolina, has written dozens of top country hits including “The Gambler,” ”On The Other Hand,” ”Forever and Ever, Amen,” ”The Greatest” and “When You Say Nothing At All.”

His songs were cut by Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Judds, Tanya Tucker and more. He has won three CMA song of the year awards and two Grammy Awards, and has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

“I will never be able to believe that I deserve this, unless I receive it as a representative of my family, my mentors, my collaborators, my promoters and my friends,” Schlitz said. “That’s the only way I can deal with this.”
…

The Pew Research Center says Muslims are soon to rival Christians as the largest religious group worldwide, with higher birth rates among Muslim families predicted to increase the Muslim population to a number ties with Christians by 2060.

Pew said in a study released Wednesday that by 2060 Muslims will make up about 31 percent of the world population, with about 3 billion people, while Christians will make up about 32 percent, or 3.1 billion people.

A Pew study two years ago found that Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion and could overtake Christianity by the end of this century. The analysis is based on 2,500 census, survey and population registers from around the world.

Pew experts say they allowed for conversion rates, but maintain that birth and death rates will have a far larger impact on religious populations.

Other religious groups such as Hindus and Jews are expected to grow to larger total numbers by 2060, but not at pace with total population growth. And the number of people who profess no religion is expected to shrink, given current birth rates.
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The World Cup champion women’s soccer team has a new labor contract, settling a dispute in which the players sought equitable wages to their male counterparts.

The agreement with the U.S. Soccer Federation runs through 2021, meaning the players will be under contract through the 2019 World Cup in France and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The women will receive raises in base pay and bonuses as well as better provisions for travel and accommodations.

“We are proud of the hard work and commitment to thoughtful dialogue reflected through this process, and look forward to strengthening our partnership moving forward,” U.S. Soccer and the players’ association said in a joint statement Wednesday.

The deal comes as the national team is preparing to play an exhibition match against Russia on Thursday in Frisco, Texas. The team faces Russia again on Sunday in Houston.

The agreement was ratified by the players and the federation’s board Tuesday. The team had been playing under a memorandum of understanding that expired Dec. 31.

It also comes before the start of the National Women’s Soccer League season on April 15. U.S. Soccer pays the wages of the national team players who are allocated across the domestic league, and the terms of those salaries are outlined in the collective bargaining agreement.

“I’m proud of the tireless work that the players and our bargaining team put in to promote the game and ensure a bright future for American players,” player representative Meghan Klingenberg said in a statement. “We are excited to further strengthen the USWNTPA through our new revenue generating opportunities and abilities.”

A group of players drew attention to the fight for a better contract a year ago when they filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that alleged wage discrimination by the federation. The women maintained that players for the men’s national team earned far more than they did in many cases despite comparable work.

Talks had stalled late last year when the players split with the union’s executive director. They picked up again over the last two months after U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association brought in a new executive director and legal representation. Klingenberg, Becky Sauerbrunn and Christen Press were elected player representatives at the team’s January training camp.

The memorandum of understanding between U.S. Soccer and USWNTPA was struck in March 2013. Early last year U.S. Soccer took the players’ association to court to clarify that the CBA ran through 2016 after the union maintained that players could strike.

A federal judge ruled in June that the team remained bound by a no-strike provision from its 2005-12 collective bargaining agreement, heading off any labor action that could have affected last Olympics in Brazil.

The USSF has maintained that much of the pay disparity between the men’s and women’s teams resulted from separate labor agreements. The women’s team had set up its compensation structure, which included a guaranteed salary rather than a pay-for-play model like the men, in the last contract.

There has been no decision issued in the EEOC complaint, which was brought by Sauerbrunn, Hope Solo, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe and Carli Lloyd. All five were on the team that won the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Canada.

“While I think there is still much progress to be made for us and for women more broadly, I think the WNTPA should be very proud of this deal and feel empowered moving forward,” Rapinoe said.

The contract announcement follows an agreement between USA Hockey and its women’s national team for better compensation following a threat by players to boycott the world championships.

The Irish women’s national soccer team also said Tuesday it could skip an upcoming international match because of a labor dispute. The players, many of them amateurs, say they aren’t compensated for time off from their daily jobs. They say they don’t even have their own team apparel, but share it with Ireland’s youth teams.
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It’s a game that is deadly serious.  

In this make-believe world, humanity teeters on the brink of destruction.  With each flip of a card, virulent and deadly diseases get a fiendish chance to advance across the globe.

In this world, Yaianni and his friends are valiant public health officials, racing against time to save the world from pestilence and death. So they take this game – called Pandemic – seriously.

They huddle around a table at the Victory Point Cafe in Berkeley, California, discussing strategy. The colorful board in front of them is crowded with little cubes representing diseases, and every turn could be their last. In Pandemic, Yaianni says, diseases usually win.

 

“People have created this game to make you lose.  So it’s a challenge, mentally.”

It’s a challenge players can overcome only if they work together. Pandemic is a cooperative game. Unlike most board games, in which one player wins and everyone else accepts defeat, in this newer style of gaming, the deck is stacked against everyone.  

 

A deck of disease, a game of friends

Yaianni’s team must draw from a diabolical deck that is filled with cards that make even more “disease cubes” pile up. “Every turn, we’re all talking about the turn we’re taking together,” he explains. To prevent another disaster, the friends decide to build a little hospital.

 

Yaianni says that when he’s hanging out with friends, he likes board games. “It’s kind of social, at the same time, it’s not something you do on your own.  I used to play a lot of computer games and that’s fun.  But it’s between you and the computer screen.  Even if you’re on line, playing with other people.  Here you’re like literally in person.  And you’re, you know, you play a game together, whether it’s cooperative or competitive, you’re socializing in a way, and it’s entertaining.”

To help with that socializing, the Victory Point Cafe offers patrons coffee, beer… and board games.  Nora, the assistant manager, says those board games are a big part of the appeal. “You can play video games with other people, but you don’t look at them necessarily face to face over a board that you share pieces on and that sort of thing.  You can’t hand things to other people. [Board games are] just very tactile, and very visual.  And you know, I feel like it uses more engagement, and people crave that.”

 

There is a wall lined with board games that customers can borrow, and most of these games are competitive. But Nora likes the cooperative games such as Pandemic. “There’s something about cooperative games that I just find really enjoyable, and almost comforting.  Because you’re working together.”

Competition vs. cooperation

At Karliquin’s Game Knight in Boulder, Colorado, the board game buddies prefer competition, whether it’s a colorful board and a deck of cards, or a lively game of dice. One regular at the hobby shop dismisses cooperative games. “You can’t really feel the twist of the knife,” he says while rolling a pair of dice. “There’s kind of no reward and no penalty for failing in cooperative games.  It’s a little better than watching television but not by much.”

 

But cooperative games have their fans here. One man says his favorite is a game called Ghost Stories. “You’re protecting a village against an onslaught of ghosts.” Other players list Mansions and Madness, and Super Dungeon Explorer.

 

Meanwhile, back at Victory Point, it’s a Pandemic cliffhanger. One turn away from the final curtain, their team strategy gets a boost with the draw of a lucky card. They save the world from pestilence and death!

As for what this means in the game of Life, Yaianni quips, “If your life is having to cure disease before it kills everyone in the world, then yes, I guess it’s a metaphor for life.” Yet in a world that needs people solving problems together, he says that playing cooperatively speaks to him. “We have a very good team when we’re playing together, and if we didn’t have this level of teamwork, we wouldn’t have been able to do it.  We would have lost the game.”

 

Board game fans say that win, lose or cooperate, anyone who finds a game they love will have a grand adventure. 
…

Get ready for solar eclipse mania. Destinations in the path of the Aug. 21 eclipse, which will be visible in the U.S. along a narrow path from Oregon to South Carolina, are going wild with plans for festivals, concerts and viewing parties.

 

Hotels in Casper, Wyoming, are charging five times their usual rates. Rooms at Idaho’s Sun Valley Resort have been booked for years.

 

An eclipse tour in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park sold out in 10 minutes. The Smokies are among 20 National Park sites that will experience the total solar eclipse, from sections of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina to Wyoming’s Grand Tetons.

“We are expecting record visitation,” said NPS spokesman Jeffrey Olson.

 

Hopkinsville, Kentucky, population 32,000, and Carbondale, Illinois, population 23,000, expect 50,000 visitors each. The destinations, 140 miles apart, will experience about 2 minutes and 40 seconds of total darkness, among eclipse sites with the longest duration. Events in the region include an “Eclipse Con” festival, concerts and tailgate parties.

 

South Carolina’s Clemson University also expects 50,000 people at a campus event that will feature astronomers and other experts. Twenty thousand people will gather in the Ochocho National Forest for Oregon Eclipse 2017, with music, yoga, theater, art installations and more. Wind River Reservation in Wyoming hosts “bring back the sun” ceremonies.

 

A Pink Floyd Tribute band plans a “Dark Side of the Moon” concert in Jefferson City, Missouri. The South Carolina Philharmonic in Columbia offers “Star Wars Musiclipse.” Sylva, North Carolina, has a “Moonlight Madness” run.

 

Eclipse Chasers

 

Sharon Hahs and her husband, Billy, have chased 14 eclipses around the world from Mongolia to South Africa. They’ll see this one from a family farm in Missouri, not far from their St. Louis home.

 

“There is nothing else in our universe that looks like a total solar eclipse,” said Hahs. “The air gets cool. You have 360-degree dusk. Nature sounds really happen: the cock crows, birds get quiet. We even had a horse cross our viewing area to return to the stable.”

 

Michael Allen of Southampton, England, is a “keen amateur astronomer” who considers the eclipse “a once in a lifetime opportunity.” He can’t travel alone because he has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, so his brother Nick is accompanying him on a three-day tour to Nashville with eclipse-viewing at the Kentucky border.

 

Jack Bohannon of Anchorage, Alaska, plans to see the eclipse in Nebraska as the “culmination of a summer-long RV trip” with family.

“We were originally going to book an RV park in the eclipse path in Wyoming, but everywhere was full,” he said.

 

Hotels

 

In small or remote destinations, hotels and campsites in the path of totality are completely sold out. But bigger cities still have openings. As of March 25, Nashville hotels were only 54 percent booked.

 

Don’t assume lodging is sold out because a travel booking site says so. Call hotels directly to ask.

 

Many hotels are offering eclipse packages. Nashville’s Loews Vanderbilt package includes eclipse viewing glasses, commemorative T-shirt, Uber gift card and bar credit. Hotel Jackson in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, has an “eclipse concierge” to help guests plan their $699-a-night stay.

 

Consumers in Oregon have complained about hotels canceling reservations they made long ago, claiming rebranding or new ownership, then charging much higher rates for rebooking.

 

Location and Weather

As the moon moves in front of the sun, daylight will yield to darkness from Oregon to South Carolina along a path 60 to 70 miles wide. The path of totality will also cut across broad swaths of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Kentucky and Tennessee, along with corners of Kansas, Georgia and North Carolina, and a tiny chip of Iowa. Totality will first hit Oregon around 10:15 a.m. Pacific time. South Carolina will experience the final moments of total darkness at 2:49 p.m. Eastern time.

 

Some spectators are heading to mountains and forests to experience the eclipse in a natural setting.

 

“Think of an eclipse as an incredible short night,” with “a rapid sunset and then sunrise,” said Sara Morris, an ornithologist and biology professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. “Birds go back to roost. Animals that are active during the day will stop foraging and put themselves in a place of safety.”

 

Destinations that offer easy highway access have an advantage in bad weather: You can drive elsewhere to seek clear skies.

“Clouds are the enemy of eclipse chasers,” said Hahs. “If one can move, one should.”

 

The driest section of the eclipse path is from eastern Oregon to western Nebraska but “even the driest places on Earth experience clouds, fog and rain,” said Brady Phillips at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is developing an online weather map for the eclipse.

 

Safety

 

When the sun is completely blocked by the moon, its rays can’t hurt your eyes. But the period before and after totality is dangerous — even when it seems dark — because viewing even a sliver of the sun as it slips in and out of view can damage retinas. Sunglasses are useless. Viewing through telescopes or cameras without proper filters is also unsafe before and after totality.

 

So be sure to buy eclipse glasses, but don’t spend a lot: $1 glasses with paper filters are fine.
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Scripps National Spelling Bee winners aced “gesellschaft” and “feldenkrais” to be named co-champions of last year’s competition, but it was the word “tie” that gave organizers a headache.

On Tuesday, the contest revealed new rules aimed at preventing ties after the annual competition ended in a dead heat three years in a row, with joint winners both getting $40,000 cash prizes in 2016.

Organizers said they would prefer to see a clear-cut champion, rather than a shared title.

The 290 young spelling whizzes from across the United States and six foreign countries in this year’s bee will face a new written tiebreaker when they square off May 30-June 1 in a Washington suburb, organizers said.

The written test introduces a fresh hurdle for participants spelling ever-tougher words in the bee, a national institution since 1925.

“During our history, students have expanded their spelling abilities and increased their vocabulary to push our program to be even more challenging,” Paige Kimble, the bee’s executive director, said in a statement.

Tiebreaking test

Ahead of this year’s title round, the finalists will be tested on 12 words, which they will write, and 12 multiple-choice vocabulary questions.

If it is mathematically impossible for one champion to emerge through 25 rounds, bee officials will declare the speller with the highest tiebreaker score the winner. If there is a tie on the test, judges will declare co-champions.

This year’s bee will draw contestants ages 5 to 15 culled from more than 11 million in the spelling program. The winner or winners will receive the cash prize of $40,000.

Last year, Nihar Janga, a fifth-grader from Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, a seventh-grader from Painted Post, New York, were named co-champions after battling 25 rounds head to head.

To gain the title, Nihar spelled “gesellschaft,” a type of social relationship, and Jairam aced “feldenkrais,” a method of education.
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Tom Brady’s Super Bowl jersey was stolen again – this time by Rob Gronkowski in full view of 37,000 screaming Red Sox fans.

The New England Patriots quarterback was showing off the recently re-acquired uniform top during the pregame ceremony on opening day at Fenway Park on Monday when Gronkowski ripped it out of his hands. Brady chased him around the infield and playfully tackled him in right field.

The Patriots said it was the same jersey that had been stolen out of their locker room in Houston after the Super Bowl victory over the Atlanta Falcons in February.

“That was awesome seeing those guys out there,” said Boston outfielder Andrew Benintendi, whose three-run homer propelled the Red Sox to a 5-3 victory over the Pirates in a rematch of the first World Series, in 1903. “I grew up watching them and still do. It was cool to see them all out there.”

Brady got the jersey back at owner Robert Kraft’s home in suburban Brookline earlier Monday . “It took an international trip,” Kraft said in the video that was tweeted out on the team’s account.

The Patriots brought all five of their Vince Lombardi trophies out for the first pitch ceremony, coming out from behind a giant American flag draped over the Green Monster. Joining Brady, Gronk and Kraft were James White, who scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl in overtime, and fellow running back Dion Lewis.

The other players wore their blue uniform tops, but Brady walked out in the white one from the Super Bowl before he pulled it off and began waving it around.

Gronkowski jumped behind him and snatched it away.

“It was fun. They were kind of making fun of the whole jersey-taking thing,” said Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr., who started the winning burst with a fifth-inning triple. “It was good seeing some champions out there. And they definitely know a lot about winning.”

Brady threw out the first pitch to Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia – like the Patriots quarterback, the longest tenured player on his team – before the two embraced. Even the Pirates enjoyed the pregame shenanigans.

“It was pretty hard not to,” said Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole. “Tom Brady is on the field, and he’s tackling Gronk. It’s a pretty special environment. I’ll probably forget everything after the fourth inning.”

The Patriots tweeted a video earlier on Monday showing Kraft presenting his star with two No. 12 Super Bowl jerseys that had been missing. (Another had disappeared after the 2015 Super Bowl.)

Kraft thanked the authorities who found the jerseys while searching the property of Mexican media executive Martin Mauricio Ortega. He has not been charged.
…

It’s OK, Carolina, you can open your eyes.

An unwatchable game turned into a beautiful night for the Tar Heels, who turned a free-throw contest into a championship they’ve been waiting an entire year to celebrate.   

 

Justin Jackson delivered the go-ahead 3-point play with 1:40 left Monday and North Carolina pulled away for a 71-65 win over Gonzaga that washed away a year’s worth of heartache.

 

It was, in North Carolina’s words, a redemption tour — filled with extra time on the practice court and the weight room, all fueled by a devastating loss in last year’s title game on Kris Jenkins’ 3-point dagger at the buzzer for Villanova.

Winners struggle from field

 

“I wanted to see this confetti fall on us and we’re the winners,” said Carolina’s Joel Berry II, who led the Heels with 22 points. “We came out here and we competed. It came down to the last second, but we’re national champs now.”

 

Berry, along with most of Roy Williams’ players, returned for another run. To say everything went right for them at this Final Four would not be the truth.

 

The Tar Heels (33-7) followed a terrible shooting night in the semifinal with an equally ice-cold performance in the final — going 4 for 27 from 3-point land and 26 for 73 overall.

 

Gonzaga, helped by 8 straight points from Nigel Williams-Goss, took a 2-point lead with 1:52 left, but the next possession was the game-changer.

 

Jackson took a zinger of a pass under the basket from Theo Pinson and converted the shot, then the ensuing free throw to take the lead for good. Moments later, Williams-Goss twisted his right ankle and could not elevate for a jumper that would’ve given the Bulldogs the lead.

Tar Heels finish strong

 

Isaiah Hicks made a basket to push the lead to 3, then Kennedy Meeks, in foul trouble all night, blocked Williams-Goss’ shot and Jackson got a slam on the other end to put some icing on title No. 6 for the Tar Heels. Williams got his third title, putting him one ahead of his mentor, Dean Smith, and now behind only John Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Mike Krzyzewski.

 

“I think of Coach Smith, there’s no question,” Williams said. “I don’t think I should be mentioned in the same sentence with him. But we got three because I’ve got these guys with me and that’s all I care about right now — my guys.”

Berry recovered from ankle injuries to lead the Tar Heels, but needed 19 shots for his 22 points. Jackson had 16 on a 6-for-19 night and, overall, the Tar Heels actually shot a percentage point worse than they did in Saturday night’s win over Oregon.

Referees are busy

Thank goodness for free throws. They went 15 for 26 from the line and, in many corners, this game will be remembered for these three men: Michael Stephens, Verne Harris and Mike Eades, the referees who called 27 fouls in the second half, completely busted up the flow of the game and sent Meeks, Gonzaga’s 7-footers Przemek Karnowski and Zach Collins and a host of others to the bench in foul trouble.

 

The most bizarre sequence: With 8:02 left, Berry got called for a foul for (maybe) making contact with Karnowski and stripping the ball from the big man’s hands. But as Karnowski was flailing after the ball, he grabbed Berry around the neck and, after a long delay, got called for a flagrant foul of his own.

 

That resulted in four straight free throws, a 52-all tie and booing from every corner of the massive Phoenix University Stadium.

 

 
…

The NHL announced Monday that it will not participate in the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, refusing for the first time in 20 years to halt its season for three weeks so its stars can chase gold for their home countries.

From Alex Ovechkin and Jonathan Toews to Connor McDavid and Henrik Lundqvist, the world’s best players called playing in the Olympics important. The league decided otherwise.

Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly informed the NHL Players’ Association that the matter was “officially closed” after weeks of speculation.

 

The NHLPA said in a statement that players are “extraordinarily disappointed and adamantly disagree with the NHL’s shortsighted decision.”

The NHL had allowed its players to participate in the past five Olympics dating to 1998, giving the Winter Games pro-level star power akin to the NBA players who participate in the Summer Olympics.

NHL wanted concessions

 

The league said no meaningful dialogue had emerged in talks with the NHLPA, International Olympic Committee and International Ice Hockey Federation.

 

Even after the IIHF had agreed to pay for players’ travel and insurance costs when the IOC refused, the NHL had been looking for more concessions that were believed to include marketing opportunities tied to the Games. The league wanted the matter resolved before the playoffs begin April 12.

 

 “The league’s efforts to blame others for its decision is as unfortunate as the decision itself,” the NHLPA said.

 

“NHL players are patriotic and they do not take this lightly. A decent respect for the opinions of the players matters. This is the NHL’s decision, and its alone.”

Babcock ‘disappointed’

Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, who led Canada to consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2010 and 2014, told The Associated Press in a text message he was “disappointed.”

Players immediately blasted the decision. Montreal Canadiens goaltender Carey Price, in Sochi under Babcock, called it “very disappointing” and said it was short-changing younger players who hadn’t got to experience it before.

 

“Disappointing news, (the NHL) won’t be part of the Olympics 2018. A huge opportunity to market the game at the biggest stage is wasted,” tweeted Lundqvist, the New York Rangers goaltender who won the 2006 Olympic gold medal with Sweden.

 

“But most of all, disappointing for all the players that can’t be part of the most special adventure in sports.”

Attempting to grow sport internationally?

Former NHL forward Brandon Prust, who’s now playing in Germany, tweeted: “Way to ruin the sport of hockey even more Gary (hash)Olympics.”

“Good to see the NHL and Gary Bettman always looking out for the good of the game,” prominent agent Allan Walsh tweeted. “So much for that grand partnership with the players.”

The NHL and NHLPA teamed up on the return of the World Cup of Hockey last fall and had made strides on growing the sport internationally, including games in China and Sweden later this year.

 

The NHL has not ruled out participating in the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, though the IIHF and IOC had indicated that could be conditional on the NHL going to South Korea. For now, the league is making its 2017-18 schedule without a break for the Olympics.

 

“We have previously made clear that, while the overwhelming majority of our clubs are adamantly opposed to disrupting the 2017-18 NHL season for purposes of accommodating Olympic participation by some NHL players, we were open to hearing from any of the other parties who might have an interest in the issue,” the NHL said.

 

“Instead, the IOC has now expressed the position that the NHL’s participation in Beijing in 2022 is conditioned on our participation in South Korea in 2018. And the NHLPA has now publicly confirmed that it has no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the clubs.”

The IOC and IIHF did not immediately respond to the NHL’s decision.

Time difference a concern

The league has cited the 13-hour difference from Pyeongchang to the Eastern time zone as one of its concerns. There was a 13-hour difference to Nagano in 1998, six to Turin in 2006 and nine to Sochi in 2014. Team owners have long complained that stopping the NHL season every four years wasn’t worth it and they have been wary of injuries to star players.

Still, many players expressed a strong desire to go, and Ovechkin has said he plans to go regardless of NHL participation.

“I think the players know it’s very important for us to represent our countries,” the Washington Capitals star said last month. “Everybody wants to go there.”

Will players be allowed to play?

The NHL has not decided whether to allow teams to make decisions on a case-by-case basis about players participating in the 2018 Olympics.

 

“If Alex Ovechkin and Braden Holtby and Nick Backstrom tell us, ‘We want to go play for our country,’ how am I going to say no?” Capitals owner Ted Leonsis said in February. “I might get fined, I might get punished in some way, but I feel I’m in partnership with Nick and Braden and Alex.”

It was not immediately clear how the United States, Canada and other countries will fill Olympic rosters, though national federations have already begun planning for this possibility. Hockey Canada said Monday that the NHL’s statement was not what it was hoping for but will not change Olympic preparation.

“We knew it was a very real possibility for many months and certainly respect the decision of the NHL,” USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean said.

 

“The good news is that because of our grassroots efforts over the course of many years, our player pool is as deep as it has ever been and we fully expect to field a team that will play for a medal.”

Olympic hockey offers ‘unique style of play’

NBC Sports, which televises both the Olympics and the NHL in the U.S., said it was “confident that hockey fans and Olympic viewers will tune in to watch the unique style of play that occurs at the Olympic Winter Games when athletes are competing for their country.”

Months ago, the league offered the NHLPA a deal allowing Olympic participation in exchange for a three-year extension of the collective bargaining agreement.

 

Players turned that down . Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Justin Faulk, who represented the United States in Sochi, said he didn’t think players should give up anything to go in 2018.

“We’re not going to give up something ridiculous,” Faulk said recently. “I’m sure they would take anything that’s ridiculous for the Olympics. It’s kind of like making a bad trade, and they would do it and we’re not going to do it.”
…

Facebook and Mozilla are among the companies and organizations launching a $14 million fund to promote news literacy and increase trust in journalism.

 

The nonprofit, called the News Integrity Initiative, will be based at the City University of New York. It will run as an independent project of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. 

 

Others contributing to the fund include Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and the Ford Foundation. 

 

Recent polls show the public’s trust in the news industry at a low. 

 

False news and misinformation, often masquerading as trustworthy news and spreading on social media, has gained a lot of attention since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Companies like Facebook are trying to address the issue. 
…

A German software company has used drones and laser imaging to take people back in time to the ancient Italian city of Volterra. The goal of the project is to save historically significant places in cyberspace as time continues to slowly wear them down.
…

The best women’s hockey players in the U.S. can now make a living playing the sport they love thanks to a landmark agreement with USA Hockey reached after a threat to boycott the world championship. The deal will likely help their counterparts north of the border make more money in their next Olympic agreement with Hockey Canada.

Even those who will benefit, though, acknowledge the off-ice fight isn’t over.

At every level of female hockey, from pre-teen girls to college to post-graduate players, there are obstacles.

“Women’s hockey has come a long way with the amount of teams that are popping up and support and visibility,” said Meghan Duggan, captain of the Americans’ team playing in the world championship. “I think it has a long way to go, and I’m excited to push it ahead. I’m certainly proud to be someone standing up for women’s hockey and really trying to get it to move forward. I look forward to see how far women’s hockey is going go.”

In a border town about 300 miles north of suburban Detroit, a new USA Hockey rule appears to be having unintended consequences for girls trying to find their stride.

The Soo Lady Lakers, an organization based in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, participated in the state’s Tier II 14-and-under tournament with just 11 girls that were mostly from Canada and 12 years old or younger. Beginning next season a USA Hockey rule states, no player 12 years or younger is eligible to play on a team intending or declared to compete in district or national championships.

Malory McCormick, who coached the Lakers at this year’s tournament, said the girls on her team that are not old enough to play 14U hockey next year have limited options. They can drive 2-plus hours, each way, to join a 12U team in Kalkaska, Michigan; play with 12U boys in their area; participate in house hockey with girls just learning how to skate; or quit playing the sport.

“It’s heartbreaking to tell the girls I don’t know what our team will look like next year,” McCormick said.

Kristen Wright, USA Hockey’s manager of girls’ player development, said the new rule was put in place for safety and development reasons because girls usually hit a growth spurt at about 13.

“The rule hasn’t gone into effect yet and we want to see what’s going to happen,” Wright said in a telephone interview Saturday night. “We think more good than bad will come up this, but we’ll review this over time and we’ll see how it changes the landscape of the game.”

Given the chance to comment on this story with a conversation or email, Michigan Amateur Hockey Association President George Atkinson repeatedly declined on Sunday.

In the same week that USA Hockey gave in to demands from its top-caliber women, females in the sport had a setback when the University of North Dakota eliminated its women’s hockey team. Eight players from the program represented three countries in the 2014 Olympics, including Monique Lamoureux-Morando, who plays defense for the U.S.

Lamoureux-Morando, who was a volunteer assistant coach for the program last season, said players on the team found out about the decision on Twitter.

“To have that happen and then the way in which they found out that their team was cut is just in my opinion very unacceptable,” Lamoureux-Morando said.

At the next level of women’s hockey, a professional league in Canada and another in the U.S. are trying to make it independently. At least some women who play for both leagues wish the five-team Canadian Women’s Hockey League would merge with the four-team National Women’s Hockey League to become one. That might help the sport gain support from the NHL, which could potentially financially back the best women in the game as the NBA does with the WNBA. The CWHL pays players with performance and playoff bonuses and hasn’t delivered on a promise to give them a salary. The NWHL paid players $15,000 and $26,000 last year in its inaugural season and then a month into the second season, the league announced it over-estimated its financial projections and slashed salaries in half.

For the first time, though, there’s hope for girls aspiring to play hockey as a career when they become women.

The best hockey players in the U.S. can make about $70,000 a year thanks to the recent agreement and in Olympic years, including next year, they can earn up to $129,000 with contributions from the U.S. Olympic Committee. And like the men who play for USA Hockey, the women will fly in business class and sleep in nicer hotels.

That development provided a lot of girls across North American with an emotional boost, including 12-year-old Crosby Wildfong, who looks up the players bold enough to threaten sitting out of the world championship.

“All of them are my idols,” said Wildfong, who is driven from Flint, Michigan, to suburban Detroit about an hour each way to practice with a top-tier HoneyBaked team. “I agree with them. They play the same sport as the boys, and the boys are getting paid so much more than they are. I don’t think it’s fair.”
…

American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan accepted his Nobel Prize in literature Saturday in Stockholm, members of the Swedish Academy and local media reported.

Dylan received his Nobel diploma and medal during a small ceremony at a hotel near where he performed later Saturday, Klas Ostergren, a member of the Swedish Academy, told The Associated Press.

Academy member Horace Engdahl simply answered “yes” when asked by Swedish public broadcaster SVT whether Dylan had accepted his award.

He performed a concert later Saturday but made no reference to the Nobel award. He plans a second concert Sunday.

‘New poetic expressions’

The academy cited Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition” in awarding him the 2016 Nobel. He was the first songwriter to be awarded the literature prize. Previous winners include authors Thomas Mann, Samuel Beckett, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Doris Lessing.

The American icon, 75, did not attend the Nobel Prize ceremony December 10, citing other commitments.

In a speech read on his behalf at December’s award ceremony, Dylan expressed his surprise at becoming a Nobel laureate.

“If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I’d have about the same odds as standing on the moon,” he said.
…

Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose work focused on war atrocities and denounced anti-Semitism and tyrannical dictators, has died. He was 84.

Ginny Hensley, a spokeswoman for Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, confirmed Yevtushenko’s death. Roger Blais, provost at the University of Tulsa, where Yevtushenko was a longtime faculty member, said he was told Yevtushenko had died Saturday morning.

“He died a few minutes ago surrounded by relatives and close friends,” his widow, Maria Novikova, was quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. She said he’d died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure.

Yevtushenko gained notoriety in the former Soviet Union while in his 20s, with poetry denouncing Josef Stalin. He gained international acclaim as a young revolutionary with “Babi Yar,” the unflinching 1961 poem that told of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.

Heard by huge crowds

At the height of his fame, Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large audiences on tours of the West.

With his tall, rangy body, chiseled visage and declaratory style, he was a compelling presence on stages when reading his works.

“He’s more like a rock star than some sort of bespectacled, quiet poet,” said former University of Tulsa President Robert Donaldson, who specialized in Soviet policy during his academic years at Harvard.

Until “Babi Yar” was published, the history of the massacre was shrouded in the fog of the Cold War.

“I don’t call it political poetry, I call it human rights poetry, the poetry which defends human conscience as the greatest spiritual value,” Yevtushenko, who had been splitting his time between Oklahoma and Moscow, said during a 2007 interview with The Associated Press at his home in Tulsa.

Yevtushenko said he wrote the poem after visiting the site of the mass killings in Kyiv, Ukraine, and searching for something memorializing what happened there — a sign, a tombstone, some kind of historical marker — but finding nothing.

“I was so shocked. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it, that people didn’t keep a memory about it,” he said.

It took him two hours to write the poem that begins, “No monument stands over Babi Yar. A drop sheer as a crude gravestone. I am afraid.”

Native of Zima

Yevtushenko was born in the Siberian town of Zima, a name that translates to winter. He rose to prominence during Nikita Khrushchev’s rule.

His poetry was outspoken and drew on the passion for poetry that is characteristic of Russia, where poetry is more widely revered than in the West. Some considered it risky, though others said he was only a showpiece dissident whose public views never went beyond the limits of what officials would permit.

Dissident exile poet Joseph Brodsky was especially critical, saying, “He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved.” Brodsky resigned from the American Academy of Arts and Letters when Yevtushenko was made an honorary member.

Donaldson invited Yevtushenko to teach at the university in 1992.

“I like very much the University of Tulsa,” Yevtushenko said in a 1995 interview with the AP. “My students are sons of ranchers, even cowboys, oil engineers. They are different people, but they are very gifted. They are closer to Mother Nature than the big city. They are more sensitive.”

He was also touched after the 1995 bombing of a federal government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. He recalled one woman in his class who lost a relative in the blast, then commented that Russian women must have endured such suffering all their lives.

“This was the greatest compliment for me,” he said.

Blais, the university provost, said Yevtushenko remained an active professor at the time of his death. His poetry classes were perennially popular and featured football players and teenagers from small towns reading from the stage.

“He had a hard time giving bad grades to students because he liked the students so much,” Blais said.

Lauded in Russia

Yevtushenko’s death inspired tributes from his homeland.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on the Russian social media site Vkontakte: “He knew how to find the key to the souls of people, to find surprisingly accurate words that were in harmony with many.”

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said the poet’s legacy would remain “part of Russian culture.”

Natalia Solzhenitsyna, widow of the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said on Russian state television that Yevtushenko “lived by his own formula.”

“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” she said. “And he really was more than a poet — he was a citizen with a pronounced civic position.”
…

Rodney Crowell’s tender lyrics about a woman with “hair two shades of foxtail red” in a song that features ex-wife Rosanne Cash makes it an easy leap to assume that he’s singing about her. It’s not like the thought didn’t cross her mind.

 

“If I’m totally honest,” she said. “Yeah, a little bit.”

 

But Crowell, whose new album “Close Ties” is sure to be one of the year’s cornerstone releases in the Americana genre, insists he had others in mind while writing “It Ain’t Over Yet.” He was thinking about old friends Susanna and Guy Clark, who both died in recent years.

 

That’s fortunate, since he sings: “Takes the right kind of woman to help you put it all in place. It only happened once in my life, but man you should have seen.” It might have made for awkward dinner conversation with Crowell’s current wife, Claudia Church.

 

“Rosanne was a wonderful period in my life,” Crowell said, “but the ‘one’ woman is the one I’m with now.”

 

Susanna Clark was a straight-talking muse for many aspiring Nashville songwriters in the 1970s who figured if she liked one of their songs, they must be on to something, Crowell explained.

 

Crowell understands why people might think he was talking about Cash, who appears on record with her for only the second time since their 12-year marriage broke up in 1992 (he sang backup on a song on her most recent album). They were once Country music’s First Couple, taking turns at the top of the charts, and for both their artistry has deepened as the spotlight moved on.

 

They’re both also of the school that appreciate listeners who can take their own meanings from songs.

 

Another song on “Close Ties,” out Friday, was actually written with Cash in mind. More specifically, “Forgive Me Annabelle” is about Crowell’s own actions during their breakup. After an inevitably bitter period, they’re friends now.

 

“I passed through a period where I simply did not like myself,” Crowell said. “If you don’t like yourself, you’re not liking anybody else. You’re pretty miserable. And that’s what the narrator is apologizing for. It’s saying, ‘Forgive me for who I was then.’ But, of course, I was already forgiven.”

 

Crowell recalls pawing through some albums at home and coming upon his own “Diamonds and Dirt” from 1988, which yielded five No. 1 Country singles. He and his wife laughed at the mullet-haired guy on the cover.

 

“I wanted to be like Dwight Yoakam,” he said. “He definitely owned ‘cool’ at that moment.”

 

He’s fueled by a “look back with bemusement” attitude now. After taking five years off at the turn of the century, Crowell returned as a focused writer, digging deep into his heart and leaving few wasted words. He learned to take his art more seriously than himself. In “I Don’t Care Anymore” he sings: “All those party dolls and favors that I savored from day one add up to next to nothing after all is said and done.”

 

The funny “Nashville 1972” recalls his first meeting, at age 22, with Willie Nelson. At a party, of course. “There was hippies and reefer and God knows what all, I was drinking pretty hard,” he sings. “I played him this shitty song I wrote and puked out in the yard.”

 

Like most people his age, 66, Crowell is affected by loved ones lost — the Clarks, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen — and it’s reflected in his music. He’s also recently rewritten some of his old songs, notably “Shame on the Moon,” a 1982 hit for Bob Seger, where he wanted another crack at a verse he didn’t like.

 

“He’s actually writing the best songs of his life after 45 years, or however long it is,” Cash said. “His level of commitment has deepened, and as his level of commitment has deepened, his songs have gotten better. That’s very inspiring. He’s not a dilettante. He’s not just out there showing up at the next gig. He’s completely devoted to his work and his songwriting and it shows.

 

“As Leonard Cohen said, he’s completely employed in the tower of song.”
…

Already one of the biggest names in Latin music, Colombian pop star Maluma is hoping to cross over to a wider audience with an upcoming album of Spanish and English music.

Maluma, the 23-year-old singer from Medellin, Colombia, has already collaborated with some of Latin music’s most successful cross over talents, such as Shakira and Ricky Martin.

“I’m trying to find the balance and do like, ‘Spanglish’ music or some songs in Spanish and others in English or do a translation,” Maluma told Reuters at the end of his U.S. tour in Los Angeles.

Maluma’s second album, “Pretty Boy, Dirty Boy,” was released in 2015 and became his breakout record, with hit singles “Borro Cassette” and “Sin Contrato.”

So far, his native Spanish has already garnered him a legion of fans on social media. Maluma, whose real name is Juan Luis Londono Arias, is the most-followed Latin male artist on Instagram with more than 22 million fans.

“That connection that I have with my fans is really special and every time when I have moments, when I have free time, the only thing that I think about is what I’m going to post, what I’m going to say to my fans,” he said.

“I think that’s the key to being a success right now,” he added.

It was Maluma’s social media presence that brought him to the attention of pop star Selena Gomez, whom Maluma invited to collaborate on a new song.

“I found out that she was following me and I tried to be in touch with her to make some music but we can’t do it … maybe because she’s a busy girl and me too, I’m a really busy man, and maybe next time we can do something,” he said.

Maluma’s world tour next takes him to Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

“I have a lot of surprises in store,” Maluma teased of his upcoming shows, although he remained tight-lipped about whether any special guest stars might join him on stage.

“I like to prepare each tour in a different way. Now that I’m heading to Mexico, I’m preparing something special for my fans in Mexico.”
…

We’re lighting up the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 1, 2017.

As has been the case, we welcome one new song this week…and it’s a big jumper.

Number 5: The Weeknd & Daft Punk “I Feel It Coming”

The Weeknd and Daft Punk surge seven slots to fifth place with “I Feel It Coming.” 

Here’s an item to pique your curiosity: on March 14, mastering engineer Rob Small went on social media to publicize an upcoming Daft Punk release. It’s about nine weeks away. It will appear on a French label and it will be available on vinyl.

Number 4: Zayn & Taylor Swift “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”

Meanwhile, our next artist is dealing with a family tragedy.

Zayn and Taylor Swift tread water in fourth place with “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” Please join me in sending condolences to Zayn and his family, following the death of his five-year-old cousin, Arshiya. She reportedly succumbed to a brain tumor on Tuesday. Zayn was said to be close to his cousin, and has yet to comment.

Number 3: Migos Featuring Lil Uzi Vert “Bad And Boujee”

Slipping a slot to third place go Migos and Lil Uzi Vert, with with their former Hot 100 champ “Bad And Boujee.”

Record Store Day happens on April 22 – it’s a day dedicated to independent music retailers. Lil Uzi Vert is offering his 2016 mix tape “Lil Uzi Vert Vs the World” in a deluxe purple vinyl edition limited to 2,700 copies.

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

Bruno Mars jumps into the runner-up slot with “That’s What I Like,” and as he eyes a possible championship, it’s time to ask: do you remember when he last hit the jackpot with a solo single? 

Mars last topped the Hot 100 in 2014 with “Uptown Funk,” but that was Mark Ronson’s release and Mars was a featured artist. When did Mars last hit the top as a solo artist? It happened back in early 2013, with “When I Was Your Man.”

Number 1: Ed Sheeran ” Shape of You”

Your man at the top continues to be Ed Sheeran, posting an eighth total week at number one with “Shape Of You.”

A woman in England has been jailed for eight weeks, after using “Shape Of You” in a campaign of noise harassment against her neighbors. Sonia Bryce, 36, reportedly played the song on repeat at high volume, but defended herself in court by saying she really doesn’t like Sheeran that much.
…

During World War II, the Warsaw Zoo in Poland’s capital became a hideout for Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Niki Caro’s film, The Zookeeper’s Wife, chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger.

The film opens with Antonina Zabinski, an empathetic animal lover, making her morning rounds in the zoo to check on the animals. Dark clouds of war are gathering over Poland.

Watch: ‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’ a Tale of Heroism During the Holocaust

The idyllic life of the zookeepers ends abruptly with a Nazi air raid over Warsaw, which hits the zoo and kills the majority of its animals. Filmmaker Niki Caro delivers a powerful scene of helpless caged animals dismembered and killed by the bombing. This heart-breaking waste of life is a forewarning of the Nazi attacks on human life.

Nazis invade

The Nazis invaded Poland September 1, 1939, and immediately started rounding up Jewish inhabitants in Warsaw, placing them in a ghetto to be starved, harassed, and exposed to the elements.

The film, script written by Angela Workman, is based on Diane Ackerman’s novel by the same title. The novel, a more detailed account of the zookeepers’ struggle was a challenge to condense to a two-hour film, Workman said.

She says the film was a labor of love by a team of women.

“Kim Zubek, our lead producer, was a person who carried this on her shoulders for years to get this made,” Workman said. “She worked really hard. I was involved with it for eight or nine years. Niki has been involved with it for years. Jessica (Chastain) stuck around when we didn’t know whether we’d be able to get it made. We’ve had some really fierce women working on this. I’m very proud of that.”

The largely female cast reflects the feminine point of view, said novelist Ackerman, who made Antonina Zabinski her central character. 

“She endangered her own life, the life of her child, but she felt it was the right thing to do.” Ackerman said. “Her husband was heroic in more traditional ways. He was head of an underground cell. She risked her life every single day, but she didn’t hold a gun and shoot at anybody. Her form of heroism was compassionate heroism. It’s something that I think people do every single day on our war-torn planet, but we don’t hear about it.”

Filmmaker Niki Caro echoes Ackerman’s viewpoint.

“Femininity has often been equated with weakness,” she said. “But a character like Antonina shows us that you can be both very soft and very strong.”

Manipulating Nazis to save Jews

The story pivots on Nazi official Lutz Heck, who’s eyeing the remaining rare zoo animals and Antonina.

Guided by greed and lust, Heck, played by Daniel Bruhl, offers assistance to Antonina by offering to take the remaining animals to Germany for safekeeping. And Heck is an historic figure.

“He was Hitler’s chief zoologist,” Workman said. “His family, I think, still breeds Heck cattle, and everything we see in the movie about him is true. He has feelings for Antonina; he would walk in whenever he wanted (in the zoo.) He controlled them. He had very strong animal instincts, and I think that he was a predator in a way.”

Though fearful, Antonina manipulated Heck’s feelings to convince him to let her and her husband keep the zoo open. Under Heck’s nose, Antonina and her husband smuggled about 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto using the vaults of the zoo as a way station for the refugees throughout the war.

Jessica Chastain interprets Antonina and the “gift she had in being able to communicate with all living creatures.

“Actually, we tried to showcase that in our film,” Chastain said, “and the idea what it means to possess another living thing. What does it mean to be in a cage?”

At a red carpet event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Workman said that though her script is based on Ackerman’s novel, it was also informed by her own family history.

“I am so emotional to be in this museum because I spent an enormous amount of time here when I was writing. I feel like my family’s faces are on the walls of this museum. It’s such an honor to be here.”

Message for today

Chastain said the film sends a message about today’s refugee crisis.

“I was shocked to learn that Anne Frank’s family was denied a visa to the United States twice,” she said. “Antonina was a refugee. She was born and raised in Russia, and she found her safe place in Warsaw and then from there she created a sanctuary for others. I hope that people will see the film and be inspired by her compassion and kindness, and will do what they can to help others.”
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During WWII, the Warsaw Zoo became a refuge for Jews hiding from Nazi persecution. Niki Caro’s film “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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In a custom-built arena in Kabul, crowds cheered as young Afghan men punched, kicked and wrestled in the country’s first professional mixed martial arts league, a welcome distraction to the violence besetting the country.

While cricket and football more commonly grab public attention in Afghanistan, fighters and fans see martial arts not just as entertainment but as a constructive pastime for youths in a country torn by war and economic malaise.

Against a soundtrack of booming music and shouts of encouragement, sweat and blood mixed inside the cage. Each match, however, ended in a hug.

Outlet for frustration

“I think it provides a very good platform for the social frustrations that we have here in Afghanistan,” said Kakal Noristani, who a year and a half ago helped found the Snow Leopard Fighting Championship.

To date, only men have competed in the handful of competitions, but organizers say they are training women fighters. The walls of the club feature posters of American martial arts competitor Ronda Rousey.

Noristani and his partners want to develop mixed martial arts as a professional sport in Afghanistan, hoping to host foreign fighters and send Afghan competitors abroad.

“We’ve just begun here in Afghanistan,” Noristani said. “The professional structure was nonexistent before this.”

That’s helped some fighters dream of national and international glory.

“This is the wish of every fighter: To reach the highest level and be able to fight abroad,” said Mir Baba Nadery, who won his match that night.

Diversion from the war

Outside the cage, spectators expressed gratitude for a diversion from the country’s woes.

“Coming to these kind of events takes your mind off of our problems,” said Nadia Sina. “We are happy to see such an organization encouraging sportsmen and improving the sport in the country.”
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Afghanistan’s first – and only – all-female symphony is trying to change attitudes in a deeply conservative country where many see music as immoral, especially for women.

 

The symphony’s two conductors show how difficult that can be, but also how satisfying success is.

 

One of them, Negin Khpolwak, was supported by her father when she joined the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and then became part of its girls’ orchestra, called Zohra. But the rest of her family was deeply against it. Her uncles cut off ties with her father.

 

“They told him he is not their brother anymore,” said Khpolwak, now 20. “Even my grand-mother disowned my father.”

 

Khwolpak had learned about the music institute at the orphanage in Kabul where she spent most of her life. Her father sent her to the orphanage because he was afraid for her safety in their home province of Kunar in eastern Afghanistan, an area where Taliban militants are active.

 

The institute is one of the only schools in Afghanistan where girls and boys share classrooms, and it draws its students from the ranks of orphanages and street children, giving them a chance at a new life. Khpolwak studied piano and drums before becoming the orchestra’s conductor.

 

First international tour

More than 30 girls aged 12 to 20 play in Zohra, which is named after a goddess of music in Persian literature. In January, the orchestra, which performs traditional Afghan and Western Classical music, had its first international tour, appearing at the World Economic Forum in Davos and four other cities in Switzerland and Germany.

 

“The formation of the orchestra is aimed at sending a positive message to the community, to send a positive message to the girls, to encourage families and girls to join the music scene of the country,” said Ahmad Naser Sarmast, the institute’s founder and director.

 

Sarmast has experienced firsthand the militants’ hatred of music. In 2014, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up at a concert Sarmast was attending. He was wounded and a German man in the audience died.

 

The Zohra orchestra was created in 2014 when one of the institute’s students, a girl named Meena, asked Sarmast if there could be a group where girls could play together. Sarmast leaped at the idea.

 

Since then, Meena has disappeared. Last year, the 7th grader told the school she had to attend her sister’s wedding in her family’s village in eastern Nangarhar province. She never returned, a sign of how tenuous people’s situation is in a country where war rages, communications are poor and poverty is rife. Sarmast said the school has not been in contact with her, but he’s hopeful she’ll return to the school and Zohra.

 

The orchestra’s other conductor, 18-year-old Zarifa Adiba, faced resistance from her family just as Khpolwak did.

 

Societal barriers

When she joined the school in 2014, she only told her mother and step-father, not her four brothers and her uncles, because she knew they would disapprove. Her mother and step-father tried to tell them about the importance of music – without mentioning Adiba – but they weren’t convinced.

 

“If my brothers and uncles had known about me learning or playing music, they 100 percent would have stopped me because they had a very negative view toward music,” Adiba said.

 

Her family’s opposition to music was so intense she hesitated to join the orchestra’s trip to Davos. But she ended up going, and as one of the conductors she was widely interviewed in the media there and appeared on TV.

 

When she returned, her uncles were the first to congratulate her. Two of her brothers are still not happy about her involvement with music but now she has the support of the rest of the family, she has more courage, and she said she is sure her brothers will eventually come around.

 

“I changed my family, now it is time for other girls to change their families because I am sure that slowly all Afghanistan will change,” she said.
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In addition to visiting the hallowed battlesite grounds at Vicksburg National Military Park, national parks traveler Mikah Meyer also had the chance to visit several other national park sites in Mississippi, each with its own unique history.

Natchez National Historical Park

Natchez National Historical Park, in the southern part of the state, protects the sites and structures associated with the people of Natchez and its surrounding area — from its earliest inhabitants through the modern era. 

The name is derived from the Natchez American Indians who lived along the Mississippi River at the time of European exploration.

But the area is also known for its pre-Civil War history.

Pre-Civil War South

Mikah, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 national parks, was able to learn about that history and other aspects of life in the antebellum South through many of the city’s preserved properties.

“It’s a historical park, so it’s kind of like the other historical parks in that it’s basically the old portion of the town of Natchez and a bunch of various sites,” he explained.

William Johnson House

Among those sites is the home of William Johnson, who was a free black barber.

 

 

“It was interesting to learn about his story,” Mikah recounted. “He lived in Natchez before the Civil War as a free black man and had his own house and his own business as a barber.”

According to the National Park Service, Johnson used bricks from buildings destroyed in the infamous tornado of 1840 to construct the State Street estate and commercial business area. The family lived in the upper stories of the house, while the first floor was rented out to merchants. The house allows visitors to learn more about the life of free African Americans in the pre-Civil War South.

After the fall of Vicksburg in 1863, the Union Army occupied the city of Natchez, enforced the Emancipation Proclamation – which freed all slaves in the rebellious states, and put an end to the tragic sale of enslaved people at the Forks of the Road, one of the largest slave markets in the South.

Subsequently, thousands of formerly enslaved men from the Natchez area joined the U.S. Army and Navy.

Driving through history

It would seem unlikely that a modern-looking expressway would be considered a site worth preserving, but that’s exactly what the National Park Service has done with Natchez Trace Parkway. The 715-kilometer roadway once was the main way settlers and travelers reached Natchez from the Tennessee area.

Driving north on that scenic parkway, Mikah said he understood why the Park Service had chosen to preserve it.

“I drove mile zero of that, all the way up to mile 15, just to get a taste of what that was like,” Mikah recounted. “It’s what a highway in America would look like if there were no Dairy Queens or gas stations on it. It’s just the road, grass and trees, so it’s really pretty — a really beautiful driving experience.”

While it was cold and wintry up north, the grass along the parkway was a vibrant green. “The trees were starting to bloom, so I can only imagine it in peak spring,” Mikah added.

Alongside much of the parkway is the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail, a historic forest trail that roughly follows sections of the paved road through the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

Also known as the “Old Natchez Trace,” the trail was created and used for centuries by Native Americans, and later, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by European and American explorers, traders and emigrants.

Today, visitors like Mikah can still walk those trails and experience the area’s natural beauty.

The “Sunken Trace”

Picturesque land and waterscapes near the trail offer visitors recreational opportunities like hiking, biking, horseback riding and camping.

And Mikah said you can literally see history when you walk the trail, worn down by hundreds of thousands, even millions, of footsteps.

“One of the ways that distinguishes this is there are paths that are very clearly beaten down in that you have essentially a wall on either side of you.”

In the space of a few days, Mikah immersed himself in several fascinating aspects of his country’s history. He says he looks forward to exploring more of it when he visits two more national park sites in the northern part of Mississippi sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, he invites you to learn more about his travels across America by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.
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