Category: Новини

The United States returned two looted antiquities to China, the latest in a wave of repatriations of artifacts stolen from more than a dozen countries, New York authorities announced Tuesday.

The two 7th-century stone carvings, currently valued at $3.5 million, had been sawn off a tomb by thieves in the early 1990s and smuggled out of China, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.

The carvings were among 89 antiquities from 10 different countries purchased by Shelby White, a private art collector in New York.

From 1998, they were “loaned” to the Metropolitan Museum of Art until they were seized this year by the DA’s office following a criminal investigation.

“It is a shame that these two incredible antiquities were stolen and at least one remained largely hidden from the public view for nearly three decades,” Bragg said.

“While their total value is more than $3 million, the incredible detail and beauty of these pieces can never be truly captured by a price tag.”

Collectively valued at nearly $69 million, they were part of a criminal investigation by the city’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit that tracks and repatriates looted artifacts.

One of the funerary carvings was kept in the museum’s storage room and never displayed, according to the statement by Bragg’s office.

It was never cleaned and caked in dirt, another tell-tale sign of their illicit origin, the statement added.

The carvings were handed over during a repatriation ceremony at the Chinese consulate in New York.

“We regard the crackdown on crimes against cultural property a sacred mission,” Chinese Consul General Huang Ping was quoted as saying in the statement by the DA’s office.

Since January 2022, more than 950 antiquities worth over $165 million have been returned to 19 countries, including Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, Greece, Turkey, and Italy.

In 2021, Michael Steinhardt, a private collector, returned around 180 stolen antiquities worth $70 million following an out-of-court agreement, in one of the most famous cases of art trafficking in New York.
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Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who was taken off the air by the network last month, said on Tuesday he would relaunch his show on Twitter “soon.”

Fox News Media and its top-rated host agreed to part ways last month, shortly after parent company Fox Corp. settled for $787.5 million a defamation lawsuit in which Carlson played a starring role.

The outspoken Carlson embraced conservative issues and delivered his views with a style that made his prime-time show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the highest-rated cable news program in the key 25-to-54 age demographic on the most-watched U.S. cable news network.

Ratings slumped after his departure.

“Starting soon, we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last six and a half years to Twitter,” Carlson said in a video posted on Twitter. “We bring some other things too, which we’ll tell you about. But for now, we’re just grateful to be here.”

Carlson’s announcement comes weeks after Twitter owner Elon Musk sat for a two-part interview with Carlson on Fox News.

Musk, who has referred to himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has said his goal is to make Twitter a digital town hall where users can share diverse viewpoints.

Even as Carlson announced plans to reboot his show on social media, Axios reported that his lawyers sent a letter to Fox accusing it of fraud and breach of contract.

Carlson’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for Fox Corp. declined to comment.

Fox’s lawyers have asked attorneys for Dominion Voting Systems to investigate whether they leaked controversial internal messages from Carlson that provided evidence in their recent defamation suit.

The request came after multiple news outlets published racist and sexist remarks by Carlson in the leaked communications and recordings.
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Iranian American Sanaz Toossi won the Pulitzer Prize in drama Monday for her play English. 

The play takes place in 2008 near Tehran, where four Iranian adults prepare for an English proficiency test.  It examines how family separation and travel restrictions push them to learn a new language and how that may change their identity. 

The Pulitzer board called the play “quietly powerful.” 

The award includes a $15,000 prize. 

Toossi is the daughter of Iranian immigrants to the United States and grew up in the western U.S. state of California. 
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Mezzo-soprano Grace Bumbry, a Black opera singer who blazed trails and broke barriers, has died, her son and publicist announced Monday. She was 86.

The artist died on May 7 at a hospital in Vienna, having suffered a stroke in October, according to her adopted son David Lee Brewer, who was speaking to the press agency APA.

The decorated singer made her operatic debut in Paris in 1960, playing Amneris in Aida, and became a favorite of U.S. first lady Jackie Kennedy.

Over a nearly four-decade career, Bumbry received great acclaim for her performances in roles that showcased her wide vocal range and singular star power.

Grace-Melzia Bumbry was born in St. Louis on January 4, 1937, to parents hailing from Mississippi.

A unique talent in the church choir, she grew up in an era of profound racial segregation and was barred from entering the local music conservatory.

But she went on to study at Boston University and Northwestern University on scholarships, later going with her instructor Lotte Lehmann to the Music Academy of the West in California to hone her operatic and stage skills.

Following fellow pioneering Black artists including Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price, Bumbry was a major figure in breaking down racial barriers entrenched in classical music.

She gained international attention in 1961 when she became the first African American to perform at Germany’s Bayreuth Festival, an institution dedicated to Richard Wagner, a figure acclaimed for his music but whose antisemitism and white supremacist views have complicated his artistic legacy.

Wagnerites voiced some protest that she would perform, but the composer’s grandson, Wieland Wagner, said, “I require no ideal Nordic specimens,” arguing that his grandfather’s music was “for vocal color, not skin color.”

Across her storied career, Bumbry gained a reputation for glamour and high living, wearing dramatic gowns and jewels. She also had a penchant for show dogs and luxury cars.

In 2009 she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, among the highest American arts awards, in the presence of then-President Barack Obama. 

She lived for years in Switzerland and later settled in Vienna, retiring from opera in 1997 after gracing the world’s most prestigious stages for decades.

Bumbry remained professionally active as a teacher and concert performer, also founding the Grace Bumbry Black Musical Heritage Ensemble.

Austria’s secretary of state, Andrea Mayer, hailed Bumbry as “a pioneer for generations of opera singers.”

“With her legendary debut at Bayreuth in the 1960s, she made a decisive contribution to equal rights in the world of opera,” Mayer said in a statement. 
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Authentic Ukrainian ethnic folk attire made a recent appearance on a runway at Metropolitan Fashion Week Seattle, held in the city’s suburb of Woodinville. Natasha Mozgovaya has more.
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There is nothing like the promise of a chapter closing to draw people to the movie theater, especially when tied to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This weekend, ” Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which says goodbye to this iteration of the space misfits and its driving creative voice, director James Gunn, earned $114 million in ticket sales from 4,450 locations in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Internationally, where the film opened in 52 territories including China, “Vol. 3” earned $168 million, giving it a $282 million global debut.

Domestically, it’s both an impressive sum for any movie and slightly less than what we’ve come to expect from a Marvel opening. Last year on the same weekend, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” riding on the success of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” raked in $187.4 million in its first three days in North America. And in November, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” also opened over $181.3 million.

But things have come back to earth this year, at least by high-flying superhero standards. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” debuted just over $106 million on its way to $474 million worldwide. At rival studio DC/Warner Bros., “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” only made $133.4 million total. The question on some analysts’ minds this weekend is whether it’s because of the specific character or a bigger issue of “superhero fatigue.”

“Guardians Vol. 3″ bumped ” The Super Mario Bros. Movie ” out of first place after four weekends atop the charts and kicked off the summer movie season, a vital and usually profitable corridor for Hollywood that runs through Labor Day and often accounts for 40% of a year’s box office.

For Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, it’s still a solid opening for the summer season, which he said is poised to deliver the most robust profits since 2019.

“Though ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’s’ debut may reflect a bit of audience fatigue for the reliable superhero genre, this is just the beginning for what promises to be an irresistible movie marketplace with a killer combination of appealing films for every taste and every audience demographic,” Dergarabedian said.

The next major superhero movie on the schedule is DC’s “The Flash,” set for June 16, which has its own flurry of intrigue around it because of star Ezra Miller’s legal and personal troubles.

“Guardians Vol. 3” sees the return of actors Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Reviews have been mostly positive, but a little more divided than previous installments. And it remains difficult to compare a pre-pandemic opening such as Vol. 2’s $146 million debut (May 2017) with a post-pandemic one.

“Vol. 3” is Gunn’s last Guardians/Marvel movie as he turns his focus to leading DC Studios.

“The Super Mario Bros. Movie” added $18.6 million in its fifth weekend to take second place, bringing its domestic total to $518.1 million. Globally, it has now surpassed $1.1 billion.

Third place went to “Evil Dead Rise” with $5.7 million, and in fourth place was “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” with $3.4 million — both were holdovers.

Studios left the weekend mostly clear for the superhero behemoth, but Screen Gems and Sony did debut their new Priyanka Chopra Jonas romantic comedy “Love Again” (featuring Celine Dion and some new songs) in 2703 locations. It made a modest $2.4 million to take the fifth place spot.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” $114 million.

2. “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” $18.6 million.

3. “Evil Dead Rise,” $5.7 million.

4. “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” $3.4 million.

5. “Love Again,” $2.4 million.

6. “John Wick: Chapter 3,” $2.4 million.

7. “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” $1.5 million.

8. “Air,” $1.4 million.

9. “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,” $1.2 million.

10. “Sisu,” $1.1 million.
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As teqball continues its fast growth with its debut at the Southeast Asian Games, the young sport has drawn resentful glances from similar sports in the region that feel it is treading on their turf.

Invented in Hungary in 2012, teqball is a nonmedal exhibition sport at this year’s SEA Games in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, being played over three days with the finals on Monday. It is also on the schedule for the European Games in Poland in June and July.

Teqball already has more than 140 national federations, leading its backers to call it “the fastest-growing sport in the world.”

Top international football teams, including Spain and Portugal, bond over games of teqball during downtime, and stars such as Brazilian footballer Ronaldinho have become ambassadors for the game.

Played on a curved table, teqball melds elements of football, volleyball and ping-pong. Players — alone or in pairs — trade shots without using their arms. The catch is they cannot use the same body part twice consecutively.

“In Europe, North America, South America, it’s more developed than in Asia,” said Marton Keresztury, from governing body Fiteq. “So here, it’s just starting slowly.”

On Sunday, the much-fancied Thai men’s doubles team ruthlessly saw off their Cambodian opposition, the affront to their hosts compounded by Phakpong Dejaroen’s acrobatic winning shots repeatedly bouncing up and scudding into the home fans.

That set the Thais up for a final on Monday against another Cambodian duo.

In the women’s doubles, the Thai duo of Suphawadi Wongkhamchan and Jutatip Kuntatong also swatted away the opposition on their way to the final.

One reason Thailand excels at the sport is a pre-existing love for the game of sepak takraw, a similar sport popular around the region, played on something more resembling a volleyball court.

Fahrish Khan, of the Singapore men’s doubles team that beat Brunei in their last group game, but did not progress, noted the overlap.

“We play football. So, if you see a lot of them are sepak takraw players. It’s very different,” said the 27-year-old.

“The difference is they know how to kill,” he said, referring to the bouncing winners that the Thai team reeled off with elan.

Keresztury said teqball had more tournaments coming in Asia soon, in China, Thailand, “and maybe Indonesia.”

He noted that the sport risked butting heads with sepak takraw.

“The players who are here, they come from (sepak takraw). Sometimes you have clashes with sepak takraw federations because they don’t want to let their players play teqball. That’s why it’s developing slowly in Asia,” Keresztury said. “I think 80% of the players come from sepak takraw, from all nations.”

But, he added: “It’s easy to get some skills from sepak takraw, but if you want to have all the skills you have to play more teqball.”
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