Month: August 2020

Grammy Award-winning music producer Detail was arrested Wednesday on more than a dozen charges of sexual assault, authorities said.
The 41-year-old producer was held on nearly $6.3 million bail, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Detail, whose real name is Noel Christopher Fisher, was charged on July 31 with 15 counts of sexual assault and five counts of felony assault, the statement said. He is accused of crimes between 2010 and 2018.
Detectives submitted the case to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in January, the statement said. It didn’t provide other details.
“Mr. Fisher was just arrested some hours ago and I have not had an opportunity to speak to him or look at the charges. I am quite certain he will enter a not guilty plea and contest to the fullest all of these allegations,” his attorney, Irwin Mark Bledstein, said in an email late Wednesday night.
Detail won a Grammy in 2015 for co-writing the Beyonce and Jay-Z hit “Drunk in Love” and has also produced hits for Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Wiz Khalifa.
Last year, a model and aspiring singer was awarded $15 million in a Los Angeles lawsuit that accused the producer of abusing and raping her.
She is one of six women, some established professionals and others music-industry newcomers, who have spoken out publicly against what they said was Fisher’s sexual aggression.
At least two, both former assistants, have filed their own lawsuits. Fisher has said in court documents filed in those lawsuits that all the allegations against him are false, and have led to his losing all work and being evicted.
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When two strangers walking by stopped to accuse James “Jamie” Juanillo of defacing private property, the San Francisco man immediately took a defensive posture. He started recording the encounter, which eventually went viral, garnering more than 23 million views. “I came up recording not because I thought there was a potential for a viral video, but because I believed that I was going to need to prove my innocence, that they were going to accuse me of a crime,” says Juanillo, 50, a Filipino American. James “Jamie” Juanillo stands in front of the Black Lives Matter wall art that prompted a woman to question whether he was defacing private property at his San Francisco home. (Courtesy James Juanillo)His “crime” was chalking a Black Lives Matter message on the retaining wall in front of the Pacific Heights home he shares with his husband and some friends. In the video, the woman, identified as Lisa Alexander, along with her male partner, approach Juanillo and question whether he lives at the property. They say they know that he does not and suggest he is breaking the law. Juanillo is heard calmly refusing to answer any questions while challenging the woman’s apparent insinuation that a person who looks like him could not belong in the wealthy enclave. “What I experienced is this kind of polite, everyday, ubiquitous, accepted racism where it’s delivered gift wrapped and politely, stipulating your acceptance of their superiority and their supremacy,” Juanillo says. “The presumption is that they are entitled to whatever answers [to questions] that they feel like posing to a random person of color in whatever situation.” A white couple call the police on me, a person of color, for stencilling a James “Jamie” Juanillo stands in front of his San Francisco home. (Courtesy James Juanillo)Back in San Francisco, the police who responded to the call about Juanillo recognized him as a longtime resident and left without incident. Alexander and her partner released a public apology after the encounter went viral. Juanillo decided to release the video of his Karen moment to highlight what everyday racism can look like. “Racism just doesn’t mean being executed on the streets of America. Sometimes it just means being questioned for why you exist and where you exist,” Juanillo says. “Someone can call the cops — men with guns — on you for innocuous actions like designing chalk art on property that’s not theirs, that they have no vested interest in. They don’t feel threatened by you and yet, they’re still willing to bet your entire life.” The term and people who embody it will continue to exist, but people like Juanillo who might have previously felt helpless or vulnerable during such encounters, now have a powerful weapon of their own to deploy. “This is no longer a world where it’s ‘he said versus she said’ or ‘he said versus he said.’ It is now a world where technology is a great equalizer,” Juanillo says, “and we all have the ability and the technology to record the truth, and justice will be visually on our side.”
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In a ceremony watched by millions of Indians on television, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers and laid the foundation stone for a grand Hindu temple to be built in the northern town of Ayodhya on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu radicals. 
 
The ceremony marks a historic triumph for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, whose rise to political prominence was propelled by the three-decade campaign to build a temple to honor the revered Hindu deity Rama. 
 
“It is an emotional moment for India. A long wait ends today,” Modi said after the ceremony that was held even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in India. 
 
The temple is being built on the exact spot Hindus believe is the birthplace of Lord Rama. The demolition of the 16th century mosque that stood there in 1992 sparked deadly Hindu-Muslim riots and became a deeply divisive issue in the Hindu-majority country, where many Hindus want the temple to be built. 
 
The Supreme Court approved the temple’s construction last November when it handed the bitterly contested plot of land to a Hindu group after a long legal battle.  
 
Modi said the site had been liberated and a “grand house” would be constructed for Lord Rama.  Devotees walk past the pillars that Hindu nationalist group Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) say will be used to build a Ram temple at the disputed religious site in Ayodhya, India, Oct. 22, 2019.Building the temple in Ayodhya has long been a rallying cry of the BJP, which critics accuse of pursuing a Hindu nationalist agenda. Wednesday’s groundbreaking ceremony coincided with the first anniversary of the scrapping of the special status for Muslim majority Kashmir — another core promise that was made by the party. 
 
The response of the Muslim community to the temple project has been muted with some saying it is time to “move on.” 
 
“Whatever happened are things of the past,” said Iqbal Ansari, one of the Muslim litigants in the Supreme Court case, who was invited to attend the ceremony.   
 
The small, sleepy town of Ayodhya was given a makeover for the ceremony. Saffron flags fluttered in the streets and houses got a splash of yellow paint, both believed to be auspicious colors.Policemen stand guard before the arrival of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of the foundation laying ceremony for a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, India, Aug. 5, 2020.Paramilitary soldiers guarded the streets as COVID-19 restrictions kept people indoors. Many, however, stood on rooftops in the pilgrim town dotted with temples.   
 
Wednesday’s ceremony marks the consolidation of Hindu nationalism under the BJP during its six-year rule, say analysts. 
 
“A constellation of forces has allowed them to take advantage now, they have a favorable court judgment and all groups have come to believe that let us resolve the issue,” says Sandeep Shastri, a political analyst and Pro Vice Chancellor of Jain University. “This also seems to be the voice in the minority Muslim community that in order to buy peace if this is what we need to agree to, it is all right.” 
 
The proposed five-domed temple spread over nearly 8,000 square meters, is expected to be completed in three-and-a-half years and could yield political dividends for the BJP when it faces the next general election in 2024. 
 
“This reinforces Modi’s persona, the halo, he is the man who has delivered the temple,” says political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay. “This is the moment of Hindu supremacy, and Muslims recognize, and there is very little they can do by law after the Supreme Court rejected their petition for a review of its judgment.” 
 
A prominent Muslim lawmaker questioned the prime minister’s attendance, though, at the ceremony, saying that it violated his constitutional oath in India. “Secularism is part of the Basic Structure of Constitution,” Asaduddin Owaisi wrote on Twitter. 
 
There is unease among the Muslim community and some fear the construction of a temple at Ayodhya could pave the way for similar demands in other towns where Hindu groups claim mosques have been built on sites holy to Hindus. 
 
“The larger question would be, would it end here or is this the starting point of other developments. That is the more serious question,” said Shastri.  People watch a live screening of the stone laying ceremony of the Ram Temple by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Ayodhya, in New Delhi, India, Aug. 5, 2020.Some questions also have been raised about holding the ceremony during a pandemic in India when there have been repeated warnings by health experts that large gatherings should be avoided. 
 
The venue of the ceremony, attended by about 175 prominent BJP leaders and Hindu priests, was cordoned off and chairs kept at a distance to maintain social distancing.   
 
The ceremony became a moment of celebration across many homes in the country, where the temple campaign turned into a deeply emotive issue. Hindus make up about 80 percent of the population. 
 
Devotees are reported to have sent silver and gold coins to pay for the temple’s construction. 
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The roses, dahlias and daisies are in full bloom at the home of 19th-century artist Claude Monet. So are colorfully clad tourists, posing for pictures in front of Monet’s iconic lily pond.But one popular perennial is absent: the Americans.The coronavirus pandemic has put on indefinite pause a century-plus pilgrimage here by U.S. artists and tourists — the leading foreign visitors to this heartland of impressionist painting. Instead, it is mostly the French who are flocking to Monet’s home and garden amid the ongoing pandemic, as they rediscover their heritage.With coronavirus cases soaring in parts of the United States, polls show many Europeans, including French, do not want American tourists entering their countries right now. Chances are remote at any rate, current European Union restrictions bar travelers from the United States, along with many other countries.But in this tiny Normandy village, nestled between rolling hills and the Seine River, the Americans are sorely missed.Nestled between rolling hills and the Seine River, Giverny has long been a hub for American tourists. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)Giverny is the region’s second most popular tourist attraction after Mont Saint-Michel island. And Americans are among the top foreigners flocking here — accounting for one-fifth of those visiting Monet’s home alone.“They love everything from Normandy, everything that’s local— the aperitifs, the digestifs,” said Gregory Laisney, director of the nearby La Musardiere restaurant, who estimates U.S. diners made up 40 percent of his clientele last year.“The Americans,” he added, “come here to discover France.”The French are backMany French are wandering through Giverny’s streets and Monet’s garden, revisiting old memories. With the coronavirus battering France’s economy and sparking fears of further infection, some 70 percent of its citizens are spending the summer in-country, according to government estimates.“It’s been 20 years since I was last at Monet’s house and I’m rediscovering the garden,” said Anne-Marie da Silva, from the Val d’Oise department north of Paris, sporting a mandatory mask as she admired the flowers.Anne-Marie da Silva snaps a photo of Monet’s garden. French tourists like herself are rediscovering their heritage this summer. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)It’s a sharp U-turn from normality. U.S. visitors have long been a fixture here, braving August crowds that French residents would normally shun.Indeed, Americans arrived shortly after Monet moved to this village in 1883. The founder of the impressionist movement, with his 1872 masterpiece “Impression, Sunrise”—of a red sun burning through fog at Le Havre port— gardened and painted here until his death.It didn’t take long for the American acolytes who had moved to Paris to study painting, to follow him. They joined an artists’ colony established in the village, extending their visits beyond the summer months—even though Monet reportedly soon tired of them.Only a few, including celebrated portrait artist John Singer Sargent and Willard Metcalf, were allowed to paint with Monet and visit his grounds.A photo of Claude Monet in his kitchen. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)Today, the French impressionist would likely be horrified to see the hordes making his home a must-see stop on their way to D-Day beaches or the French capital.Good clientsThat’s not so for abstract painter Chantal Lallemand, who exhibits her work from a small gallery down the street.“The Americans buy quite a lot of my paintings, especially the big ones,” said Lallemand, who has two shows booked for New York and Florida, pending the coronavirus’s trajectory.“They love impressionism,” she added, “but we also feel there’s an opening to modern art.”The U.S. imprint on Giverny has endured in other ways. Monet’s paintings hang in nearly a dozen major American museums.The impressionist museum in Giverny – formerly known as the American museum. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)In 1992, an American art museum was founded in Giverny. Seventeen years later, the facility morphed into an impressionist museum under French control.Work from American artists like John Leslie Breck still hangs there. These days, however, there are few fellow citizens to admire it, except for a smattering of expatriates.Indeed, EstrellaGiverny-based artist Chanal Lallemand sells a lot of her work to American clients – but not this year. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)Garcia from Madrid counted among the few foreigners touring the museum one recent afternoon.“We’re here because we weren’t able to see Monet’s house,” she said. “We’re returning home without having had a chance to see it.”Tourists check out opening hours at Claude Monet’s house, which reopened in June following France’s two-month coronavirus lockdown. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)
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