Category: Новини

COVID-19 has killed more Americans than the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-1919. One artist is determined that the more than 700,000 lives lost will not be forgotten. VOA’s Amy Hybels has the story.

Camera: Amy Hybels

 
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The U.S. Justice Department has launched a fresh inquiry into the FBI’s botched handling of its sex abuse investigation into disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, after previously declining to prosecute the agents involved, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said on Tuesday.

“The recently confirmed assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division is currently reviewing this matter, including new information that has come to light,” Monaco told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, adding that she is “constrained” on what more she can say.

“I do want the committee and frankly, I want the survivors to understand how exceptionally seriously we take this issue,” she added.

In an emotional hearing last month famous gymnasts including Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney appeared before the same Senate panel, where they blasted the FBI for failing to properly investigate abuse they suffered under Nassar’s care.

The hearing was prompted by a scathing investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general, which uncovered widespread and dire errors which allowed Nassar to continue to abuse at least 70 more victims before he was finally arrested.

Two former FBI agents were singled out in the report – the former Indianapolis field office Special Agent in Charge W. Jay Abbott and a former supervisory special agent who has since been identified as Michael Langeman.

The inspector general referred both former agents for prosecution, but the Justice Department declined to bring charges against them in September 2020.
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The crew of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft was welcomed aboard the International Space Station Tuesday, though a communications glitch during their final approach delayed their eventual boarding.

The Soyuz spacecraft was launched Tuesday from the Russian spaceport in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The ship was carrying a history-making crew, as it included film director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild, who will be filming a feature film during their stay at the station.

After the spacecraft orbited the earth twice and made a final approach to the ISS, mission control reported the Soyuz craft experienced some communication issues. Those issues resulted in the crew abandoning automated docking procedures. Veteran Cosmonaut Shkaplerov, the other crew member on the Soyuz craft, manually guided the spacecraft into place without a problem.

The manual docking set back the scheduled opening of the hatch between the spacecraft and the station by an hour.

Once they were welcomed on board the ISS, Shipenko and Peresild will spend the next 12 days filming segments of a new feature film called “Challenge” — the first to actually be shot in outer space.  

NASA says filming will begin almost immediately. Pereslid will play a doctor who is launched to the orbital outpost to save an ailing cosmonaut. Shkaplerov and two fellow cosmonauts already on board the ISS, Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov, will all have speaking roles in the film.

Shipenko and Pereslid will return to Earth on October 17 with Novitskiy.

The historic mission beats out a similar plan announced last year by Hollywood superstar actor Tom Cruise, the U.S. space agency NASA and Elon Musk’s privately-owned SpaceX company, which ferries crews and cargo to the ISS.  

Russian space officials are hoping the film will restore some luster to the program, which has fallen from its glory days of the 1950s and `60s, when it launched the first man-made satellite as well as the first man and woman, into orbit, but has been plagued by delays, accidents and corruption scandals in recent years.

Tuesday’s launch comes nearly a month after four Americans became the first all-civilian crew to orbit the Earth, spending three days in space aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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A woman walks alone past bombed-out windowless buildings in Gaza, black high heels on gray rubble. This image of life during conflict was one of several captured by a young Palestinian photojournalist in May. 

The striking set of images has earned Fatima Shbair the 2021 Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award, bestowed by the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF).  

At 24, Shbair is the youngest journalist to be awarded the honor, which was named for a German Associated Press photographer who was killed in 2014 while on assignment in Afghanistan.

Shbair’s photos center on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in May 2021. More than 200 people, including dozens of children, died during the 11 days of fighting. The United Nations said at the time that the Israeli airstrikes might constitute a war crime, and it also condemned tactics used by Hamas.

Shbair, who lives in Gaza City, said that when the airstrikes began, she picked up her camera and continued doing her job: documenting daily life.  

“As photojournalists, it’s our job to focus on the little details that might not be apparent for anyone outside the city,” she told VOA.  

Shbair documented everything she saw, including scenes of mourning and commutes across the city, in her poignant photo essay “11 Days of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

“Everything happening there deserved to be documented. It doesn’t matter how dangerous it is,” she told VOA. 

Judges praise work 

The body of work, shot under tough conditions, caught the attention of the IWMF judges. 

Members of the judging committee “were really impressed with how she captured these incredibly beautiful images among the wreckage of an ongoing bombardment that she was also living through herself,” Elisa Lees Muñoz, executive director of the IWMF, told VOA.  

“The fact that she was part of this conflict and really trying to survive as a civilian, in addition to trying to survive as a photojournalist, was pretty telling,” Muñoz said.  

Shbair studied journalism in college but taught herself photography while documenting what she calls “different” daily life in Gaza in 2019. By 2020, she was working as a freelancer and selling images to international agencies such as Getty Images. 

But the conflict this May presented new challenges.  

“I left my home and my family for 11 days. I went directly into the field, moving from one office to another,” she said. “I just stayed there in the streets, running toward what was happening. It was not easy, but in some way, I did it.”  

Inspiring images 

The IWMF’s annual award recognizes photography that inspires viewers or helps them better understand the world. Each awardee is given $20,000 and has her work showcased.

Honorable mentions this year were given to Kiana Hayeri, an Iranian Canadian photojournalist based in Afghanistan since 2013, and Adriana Zehbrauskas, a Brazilian documentary photojournalist who covers immigration and the drug trade across borders with Mexico. 

On Thursday, one day after she was named an awardee, Hayeri posted a humble thank you on Instagram, alongside a photo of an older Afghan woman taken in April. 

“As I’m posting this, I’m sitting at my gate, waiting to catch one last plane to go back to #Kabul with a chest filled with contrasting feelings,” Hayeri wrote. 

The award’s namesake, Niedringhaus, also extensively covered events in Afghanistan. She was the recipient of a separate IWMF Courage in Journalism Award in 2005, the same year her team won a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the war in Iraq.  

“(Niedringhaus) is among us with her images,” 2021 awardee Shbair said. “Despite all difficulties, I hope that we will be efficient in continuing her journey to always highlight the truth.” 

 
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Actor William Shatner, best known for his portrayal of space explorer Captain James T. Kirk in the “Star Trek” television series, announced he will travel to space later this month.

Shatner, 90, will blast off October 12 aboard a Blue Origin rocket. Blue Origin is the space travel company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

If successful, Shatner would be the oldest person ever to travel to space. He will be joined by three other passengers on Blue Origin’s second space venture.

Bezos was among the first Blue Origin passengers in July.

The flight is expected to last about 10 minutes and reach an altitude of 106 kilometers.

“I’ve heard about space for a long time now. I’m taking the opportunity to see it for myself. What a miracle,” Shatner said in a statement.

In a tweet, the actor wrote, “So now I can say something. Yes, it’s true; I’m going to be a ‘rocket man!’ a referral to his spoken-word cover version of singer-songwriter Elton John’s famous song.

 

Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
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Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the latest Marvel film, is unique in that it features a largely Asian cast. The film has received a warm welcome by audiences in Asian countries. The film’s release, however, has been indefinitely postponed in China. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more
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