Category: Новини

Brazil’s World Cup qualifying match against Argentina was dramatically suspended shortly after it began Sunday as controversy over COVID-19 protocols erupted.The match at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena between the two giants of South American football came to a halt when a group of Brazilian public health officials came onto the pitch, triggering a melee involving team staff and players.Argentina’s players trudged off the pitch to the locker room as the furor raged. Argentina captain Lionel Messi later re-emerged from the tunnel without his team shirt on as confusion swept around the stadium.The stunning intervention came just hours after Brazil’s health authorities said four players in Argentina’s squad based in England should be placed in “immediate quarantine” for breaching COVID-19 protocols.According to Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA), Premier League players Giovani Lo Celso (Tottenham), Emiliano Martinez (Aston Villa), Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa) and Cristian Romero (Tottenham) provided “false information” upon their entry to Brazil.Romero, Lo Celso and Martinez were all in the Argentina starting lineup that kicked off Sunday’s game, triggering the intervention onto the field of officials wearing ANVISA shirts.The four Premier League players were accused of failing to disclose that they had spent time in the United Kingdom in the 14 days prior to their arrival.”We got to this point because everything that ANVISA directed, from the first moment, was not fulfilled,” ANVISA director Antonio Barra Torres said on Brazilian television.”(The four players) were directed to remain isolated while awaiting deportation, but they did not comply. They went to the stadium and they entered the field, in a series of breaches,” the official added.A government order dating from June 23 prohibits the entry into Brazilian territory of any foreign person from the United Kingdom, India or South Africa, to prevent the spread of variants of the coronavirus.”ANVISA considers that this situation represents a serious health risk and recommends that the local health authorities (of Sao Paulo) order the immediate quarantine of the players, who are prohibited from taking part in any activity and from remaining on Brazilian territory,” the agency said in a statement earlier Sunday.ANVISA said Brazil’s Federal Police had been notified so that “the necessary measures are taken immediately.”Brazilian website Globoesporte said the Argentina Football Association (AFA) could request an exceptional authorization from authorities in Sao Paulo to allow the players to take the field against Brazil.The controversy comes after nine Brazilians based in the Premier League failed to travel to South America following objections from their clubs.
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Willard Scott, the beloved weatherman who charmed viewers of NBC’s Today show with his self-deprecating humor and cheerful personality, has died. He was 87. His successor on the morning news show, Al Roker, announced that Scott died peacefully Saturday morning surrounded by family. An NBC Universal spokeswoman confirmed the news. No further details were released. “He was truly my second dad and am where I am today because of his generous spirit,” Roker wrote on Instagram. “Willard was a man of his times, the ultimate broadcaster. There will never be anyone quite like him.” “He played such an outsized role in my life and was as warm and loving and generous off-camera as he was on,” Katie Couric tweeted.  Scott began his 65-year career at NBC as an entry-level page at an affiliate station in Washington and rose to become the weather forecaster on the network’s flagship morning show for more than three decades. His trademark was giving on-air birthday greetings to viewers who turned 100 years old by putting their faces on Smucker’s jelly jars and delivering weather updates in zany costumes. According to NBC, he once took up a viewer’s dare to appear in drag to win a $1,000 donation to the USO, the charity for military families, by dressing up as the Brazilian singer Carmen Miranda. The stunt wasn’t new for the genial Scott: He played Bozo the Clown when he hosted a children’s TV show in the 1960s and Ronald McDonald in commercials in the Washington area.  He often dressed as Santa Claus at the National Tree Lighting ceremony throughout the 1980s and co-anchored NBC’s coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade between 1987 to 1997. In one memorable moment on live television, first lady Barbara Bush gave him a kiss during the 1989 inauguration parade of her husband, President George H.W. Bush.  “[The president] said, ‘I didn’t know you knew Willard Scott.’ I said, ‘I don’t know Willard Scott. I just love that face,’ ” the first lady recalled. Scott handed the reins to Roker in 1996, occasionally filling in for him for the next decade before fully retiring in 2015. He is survived by his wife, Paris Keena, whom he married in 2014, and two daughters with Mary Dwyer Scott, his wife of 43 years until she died in 2002. 
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One of the most important tasks Alice Greenwald has as president and CEO of the 9/11 Memorial and Museum is to educate and inspire a younger generation and make sure the heroism and sacrifices made that day in 2001 are never forgotten.
 
“If you think about 20 years, it is the span of a generation and there are tens of millions of young people, college age and younger, who were born after 2001. [Others] were toddlers, they were infants when 9/11 happened,” she said.
 
“For those of us who witnessed 9/11 20 years ago, it’s seared into our consciousness. We cannot ever not remember what our eyes saw. But for this generation, it’s history to be learned,” Greenwald told Reuters.
 
Ahead of this year’s anniversary, the Museum and Memorial launched a new campaign and fundraiser called The Never Forget Fund, which will support educational initiatives to teach young people about the attack and the global aftermath.
 
Greenwald said the museum – located in lower Manhattan, close to where the World Trade Center collapsed on September 11, 2001 after being struck by two planes hijacked by Islamic militants – offers an important lesson to the younger generation about overcoming extraordinary hardship.
 
“This memorial, this museum tells a story about the best of human nature in response to the worst. And we need to remind this generation that they have the capacity for unity, for hope and for resilience when faced with challenges that you couldn’t imagine and aren’t yet prepared to deal with.”
 
She added, “But you will rise to the occasion and if you come together, you will meet adversity and prevail.”  
 
“This was a seminal event in American and global history that happened here,” said Greenwald. “And we can’t renege on our promise of two decades ago. We will never forget.”
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A popular Rwandan rapper known as Jay Polly died in custody early Thursday, officials and media reports said, the second detained musician to die in mysterious circumstances in less than two years.Polly, whose real name was Joshua Tuyishime, was being held on drugs charges and had just found out that he was due to stand trial in December.The 33-year-old was taken to Muhima hospital in the capital Kigali at around 3:00 am (0100 GMT), its director Pascal Nkubito told AFP.”He was in a bad shape and unresponsive. Doctors tried to revive him but he unfortunately died shortly after,” he said. “The cause of death is not something I want to speculate about. We will know that after the post-mortem.”The musician was arrested at his home in April for hosting a party in violation of Covid regulations and was later paraded along with other suspects in front of the media.Police said Tuyishime and other defendants were found to be drinking and in possession of marijuana and fake negative Covid certificates. He had denied the charges but requests for bail were rejected.Parties are strictly prohibited in Rwanda because of the coronavirus pandemic and thousands of people have been detained for breaking restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the disease. Some have been forced to spend the night in open-air stadiums and to listen to Covid-19 guidelines on loudspeakers, while others have been held for weeks in detention facilities.’Cultural icon’Rwandans took to Twitter to pay tribute to Tuyishime, with one describing him as a “cultural icon who contributed so much to our music.”In February last year, Kizito Mihigo, whose music was banned by the regime of President Paul Kagame, was found dead in his cell, just days after he was caught trying to flee the country.Police said Mihigo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide whose gospel songs angered Kagame’s government, had committed suicide by hanging himself from his cell window using bedsheets.Mihigo, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in 2015 for conspiracy against the government but later released on pardon, was captured trying to cross the border in Rwanda’s south.He fell foul of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front in 2013 after composing songs that questioned the government’s tight control of the legacy of the 1994 tragedy. His music, once popular among the ruling elite, was swiftly banned. Two years later he was accused of terrorism and raising support for an opposition political movement and sentenced to 10 years in prison.His lawyers said prosecutors had little evidence to jail him. He was released on presidential pardon in September 2018.Mihigo and Polly are not the first figures to die in mysterious circumstances while in police custody in Rwanda.Last year, a former director-general in Kagame’s office was found dead in a military jail after being sentenced to 10 years for corruption. In 2015, Kagame’s personal doctor, Emmanuel Gasakure, was shot dead in custody by police.Kagame, who has been in power since 1994, has been accused of ruling with an iron fist, clamping down on all forms of dissent and jailing or exiling opposition politicians.Human Rights Watch (HRW), among other groups, has accused Kagame’s regime of summary executions, unlawful arrests and torture in custody.
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