Month: February 2021

Grammy-winning electronic music pioneers Daft Punk have announced that they are breaking up after 28 years.
The helmet-wearing French duo shared the news Monday in an 8-minute video called “Epilogue.” Kathryn Frazier, the band’s longtime publicist, confirmed the break up for The Associated Press.
Daft Punk, comprised of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, have had major success over the years, winning six Grammy Awards and launching international hits with “One More Time,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Get Lucky.”
Bangalter and de Homem-Christo met at a Paris school in 1987. Prior to Daft Punk, they formed an indie rock band named Darling.
They officially formed Daft Punk in 1993, and the helmeted, mute and mysterious musicians released their debut album, “Homework,” 1997. They first found success with the international hit “Da Funk,” which topped the Billboard dance charts and earned them their first Grammy nomination. A second No. 1 hit and Grammy nomination followed with “Around the World.”
Daft Punk spent time touring around the world and reached greater heights with their sophomore album, 2001’s “Discovery.” It included the infectious smash “One More Time” and “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger,” which Kanye West famously flipped into his own hit “Stronger,” released in 2007. It won West the best rap solo performance Grammy at the 2008 show, where West and Daft Punk performed together onstage.
A year later, a live version of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” won Daft Punk the best dance recording Grammy — their first win — and their “Alive 2007” album picked up best electronic/dance album.
But it was the 2014 Grammys where Daft Punk really took the spotlight, winning album of the year for “Random Access Memories” and making history as the first electronic act to win the highest honor at the Grammys. The duo won four awards that night, including record of the year for their bombshell hit “Get Lucky,” featuring Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers.
“Random Access Memories” was regarded as a genre-bending album highlighted by its mix of live instrumentation, disco sounds, funk, rock, R&B and more. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 295 on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” last year.
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Naomi Osaka gave Jennifer Brady a lesson in Grand Slam tennis as she cruised to a 6-4 6-3 win to secure her second Australian Open title Saturday and cement her standing as the new queen of the women’s game.
 
Osaka’s victory over the 22nd-seeded American at a floodlit Rod Laver Arena gave the Japanese third seed her fourth major crown at the age of 23.
 
Fans hoping for a repeat of the pair’s engrossing U.S. Open semi-final last year were left disappointed as Brady froze in the spotlight of her first Grand Slam final.
 
U.S. Open champion Osaka played some way short of her best tennis and joined Brady in contributing to a dour, error-strewn first set.
 
But she settled to clinch six straight games, roaring to a 4-0 lead in the second before serving out the match to love.
 
A big serve sealed it, causing Brady to fire a forehand return long, and Osaka held her racket over her head and beamed in an understated celebration.
 
Osaka, who won the 2019 tournament, offered Brady warm congratulations and thanked the fans at the trophy ceremony.
 
“When we played in the semis of the U.S. Open, a couple of months ago, and I told everyone that ‘Listen you’re going to be a problem’. And I was right,” said Osaka, who will be world number two when the rankings are updated.
 
“It feels really incredible for me. I didn’t play my last Grand Slam with fans so just to have this energy it really means a lot.”
 Early nerves
 
On a cool and breezy night at Rod Laver Arena, Osaka warmed up with two aces as she served out the opening game to love but the blazing start fizzled out in a stream of errors from both players.
 
Grappling with early nerves, Brady dropped serve after two double-faults but quickly broke back when Osaka double-faulted to gift a break point.
 
Brady breathed some life into the contest at 4-4, luring Osaka in with a drop-shot, then scrambling forward to retrieve and lob her for break point.
 
Osaka canceled it in steely fashion with an imperious forehand winner launched from the baseline.
 
Brady kept offering Osaka gifts from her racket.
 
Serving to stay in the set at 5-4, she double-faulted then slapped a wild forehand over the baseline to cough up set point.
 
Brady fired down a huge serve that Osaka could only return short, then stepped in to pound what should have been a simple forehand winner straight into the net.
 
The crowd groaned and Brady went to her chair ashen-faced.
 
Osaka stepped up the pressure, breaking Brady again after setting up the chance with a sumptuous crosscourt backhand winner.
 
She charged on to a 4-0 lead before Brady belatedly conjured some resistance to break Osaka against the flow of play.
 
The American clawed back to 5-3 but bowed out as she started, smashing wild returns to allow Osaka to serve out the match without trouble.
 
Although it was a tough first Grand Slam final for Brady, she broke new ground in a remarkable run after being one of the 72 players unable to train during their two-week hard quarantine in the lead-up.
 
“First I would like to congratulate Naomi on another Grand Slam title,” said the 25-year-old.
 
“She’s such an inspiration to us all and what she’s doing for the game is amazing and getting the sport out there and I hope young girls at home are watching and are inspired by what she’s doing.”   
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The 518-year-old Mona Lisa has seen many things in her life on a wall, but rarely this: Almost four months with no Louvre visitors.
 
As she stares out through bulletproof glass into the silent Salle des Etats, in what was once the world’s most-visited museum, her celebrated smile could almost denote relief.  
 
A bit further on, the white marble Venus de Milo is for once free of her girdle of picture-snapping visitors.
 
It’s uncertain when the Paris museum will reopen, after being closed on Oct. 30 in line with the French government’s virus containment measures. But those lucky enough to get in benefit from a rare private look at collections covering 9,000 years of human history — with plenty of space to breathe.  
 
That’s normally sorely lacking in a museum that’s blighted by its own success: Before the pandemic, staff walked out complaining they couldn’t handle the overcrowding, with up to 30,000-40,000 visitors a day.
 
The forced closure has also granted museum officials a golden opportunity to carry out long-overdue refurbishments that were simply not possible with nearly 10 million visitors a year.  
 
Unlike the first lockdown, which brought all Louvre activities to a halt, the second has seen some 250 of the museum employees remain fully operational.
 
An army of curators, restorers and workers are cleaning sculptures, reordering artifacts, checking inventories, reorganizing entrances and conducting restorations, including in the Egyptian Wing and the Grande Galerie, the museum’s largest hall that is being fully renovated.
 
“We’re taking advantage of the museum’s closure to carry out a number of major works, speed up maintenance operations and start repair works that are difficult to schedule when the museum is operating normally,” Laurent le Guedart, the Louvre’s Architectural Heritage and Gardens Director told AP from inside the Grande Galerie.
 
As le Guedart spoke, restorers were standing atop scaffolds taking scientific probes of the walls in preparation for a planned restoration, travelling back to the 18th century through layer after layer of paint.  
 
Around the corner the sound of carpenters taking up floorboards was faintly audible. They were putting in the cables for a new security system.  
 
Previously, these jobs could only be done on a Tuesday, the Louvre’s only closed day in the week. Now hammers are tapping, machines drilling and brushes scrubbing to a full week schedule, slowed down only slightly by social distancing measures.
 
In total, ten large-scale projects that were on hold since last March are underway — and progressing fast.  
 
This includes works in the Etruscan and Italian Halls, and the gilded Salon Carre. A major restoration of the ancient Egyptian tomb chapel of Akhethotep from 2400BC is also underway.  
 
“When the museum reopens, everything will be perfect for its visitors — this Sleeping Beauty will have had the time to powder her nose,” said Elisabeth Antoine-Konig, Artifacts Department Curator. “Visitors will be happy to see again these now well-lit rooms with polished floors and remodeled display cases.”
 
Initially, only visitors with pre-booked reservations will be granted entry in line with virus safety precautions.
 
Those who cannot wait are still able to see the Louvre’s treasure trove of art in virtual tours online.
 
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Millions of people in the United States are facing frigid, stormy weather, although the number of people without power in the southwestern state of Texas dropped below a half million on Thursday for the first time in four days.
Electricity in Texas, the country’s second-biggest state, was restored to about 2.5 million people. The head of the cooperative that is responsible for most of the state’s electricity said there was progress Wednesday in boosting available power and that officials hoped that soon people would only have to deal with rolling blackouts before service is fully restored.
But the state faced a new problem, with officials ordering 7 million people, about a quarter of its population, to boil tap water before drinking it because of damaged infrastructure and frozen pipes.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott urged residents, if possible, to shut off water to their homes, to prevent pipes from bursting and preserve water pressure in municipal systems.
The massive storm system has been blamed for at least 30 deaths in the U.S. this week. In the Houston area, the Associated Press reported that one family died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to car exhaust in their garage, while a grandmother and three children were killed by flames that escaped the fireplace they were using to keep warm.
The National Weather Service says the storm is moving across several states on a 2,300-kilometer track to the northeast, with 38 centimeters of snow on the ground in the state of Arkansas to the east of Texas, heavy snow and ice further north through the Appalachian Mountains and up to 20 centimeters of snow predicted Thursday and Friday in the New York metropolitan region
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Canada’s cancellation of the 2021 Alaska cruise ship season due to the coronavirus pandemic has angered the U.S. state’s politicians and rattled the tourism industry in both countries. Those on the ground in both Alaska and the Canadian province of British Columbia are dealing with the fallout.Citing continuing concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Transportation Ministry has extended the prohibition of any passenger cruise vessels carrying over 100 people between Canada and Alaska. The order extends through February 2022. 
 
In a terse statement, Alaska’s U.S. congressional delegation complained that the decision was made arbitrarily by Canada with no consultation or advance notice. The statement, from the two U.S. senators and the state’s only representative, also says it was made without any consideration for Alaska or the state’s economy.   FILE – The Grand Princess cruise ship in Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska, May 30, 2018.According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, in 2019 the state welcomed more than 1.3 million visitors who arrived on cruise ships, comprising 60 percent of the state’s summer visitors. 
 
The association’s CEO, Sarah Leonard, is urging a temporary waiver to the U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act to allow cruise ships to sail from American ports, like Seattle, directly to Alaska. Adopted in 1886, the act still prohibits cruise ships from sailing directly between American ports, forcing Alaska-bound vessels to either start from or stop in Canada. “We’ve long advocated since the beginning of the pandemic for a potential temporary waiver of that federal legislation, which would again potentially allow large ship cruise passengers or large ship cruise operations to travel to Alaska,” she said.  
 
Vancouver, British Columbia, is the principal starting point for most cruise ships heading to ports of call in Alaska, with nearby Seattle providing competition. According to the Port of Vancouver, 2019 was a record-breaking year with more than 288 cruise ship visits, a 22 percent increase from the previous year.
 
Walt Judas is the CEO of the Tourism Industry Association of British Columbia.He is concerned a temporary waiver to the Passenger Vessel Services Act might become permanent to the detriment of British Columbia’s tourism industry. “Once you set a precedent like that, even if only on a temporary basis, who’s to stop a lobby from making that permanent? And so that would be a big concern, if you start to sail from, say, Alaska to Seattle, and vice versa, and you cut out the Canadian ports. Now, you’ve lost a huge amount of business for the visitor economy. And for the economy. In general, we’re talking more than $2 billion [Canadian] in economic impact,” said Judas.  
 
The Vancouver Convention and Visitors Bureau estimates each ship’s visit brings at least $2.2 million in economic benefits, including Vancouver hotel bookings before and after cruises. FILE – The Carnival Spirit cruise ship sits docked at Canada Place as a seabus (R) commuter boat makes its way across the inner harbor in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sept.17, 2008. 
Judas is still hoping, with enough pressure on the Canadian government and positive development in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, that there might be a way to salvage at least a portion of the cruise ship season this year.   
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Artworks owned by the late artist Christo and his wife, Jean-Claude, a duo famed for wrapping landmarks in fabric, sold for $9.6 million at auction on Wednesday.The 28 lots under the hammer at Sotheby’s in Paris included drawings for the couple’s “The Umbrellas (Joint project for Japan and USA),” two spectacular installations by the couple in 1991 consisting of thousands of umbrellas erected simultaneously in Japan and Los Angeles.Less than a year after his death at the age of 84, Christo is evidently more in demand than ever, with more than three quarters of the works on sale selling above estimate.The works, snapped up by buyers in the United States, Asia and Europe, had been expected to sell for between $3 million and $4.5 million collectively.The preparatory drawings for the yellow Californian umbrellas set a new record for a work by the Bulgarian-born U.S. artist at $2 million, while the Japanese version sold for about $1.4 million.A second set of works from the couple’s private collection are due to go on sale Thursday.Christo collaborated with Jeanne-Claude, his wife of 51 years, until her death in 2009 and continued to produce dramatic pieces into his 80s.From Paris’s oldest bridge to Berlin’s Reichstag, they spent decades wrapping landmarks and creating improbable structures around the world.Their large-scale productions would take years of preparation and were costly to erect, but they were mostly ephemeral, coming down after just weeks or months.
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Yoshiro Mori’s replacement as president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee is expected to be named very quickly. The 83-year-old former prime minister was forced to step down last week after making demeaning remarks about women. Basically, he said they talk too much.There is pressure to name a woman to replace Mori. But don’t bet on it happening with the Olympics opening in just over five months. Mori tried last week to work behind the scenes to appoint 84-year-old Saburo Kawabuchi, the former head of the governing body of Japanese soccer. Public opinion and social media quickly pushed back against the move and Kawabuchi withdrew from consideration. Some news reports in Japan say the front-runner might be 63-year-old Yasuhiro Yamashita, the head of the Japanese Olympic Committee and a judo gold medalist from the 1984 Olympics. Yamashita took over the Japanese Olympic body after his predecessor, Tsunekazu Takeda, was forced to step down in 2019 in a bribery scandal. Yamashita is also a member of the International Olympic Committee by virtue of his position in Japan. A panel to pick Mori’s replacement, set up by the organizing committee, met on Tuesday. It was expected to meet again Wednesday and come up with a list of candidates. It’s unclear when the choice will be announced. The panel is headed by 85-year-old Fujio Mitarai, the chairman of the camera company Canon. Organizers have promised transparency. However, except for Mitarai, the other members have not been announced. It is to be a 50-50 split of men and women with fewer than 10 members. Q: Have qualified women been mentioned for the job? A: Media in Japan have listed almost a dozen women — most in their 50s — that seem to fit the bill. Many are former Olympians and medal winners. Japan ranks 121st out of 153 in terms of gender equality in a report done by the World Economic Forum, and the “old boy network” remains stronger in Japan than in most developed countries. Q: Who are the female possibilities? A: Seiko Hashimoto, the current Olympic minister in the government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, has been mentioned frequently. She won a bronze medal in speedskating in 1992. Reports Tuesday said she was reluctant to take the job. There are many other Olympic medal winners, but it’s not clear any will be interested: Yuko Arimori (silver 1992, bronze 1996, marathon); Mikako Kotani (2 bronze 1988, synchronized swimming); Naoko Takahashi (gold 2000, marathon); Yuko Mitsuya (bronze 1984, volleyball); Kaori Yamaguchi (bronze 1988, judo). Also mentioned has been former Olympic minister Tamayo Marukawa and businesswoman Tomoko Namba. In addition to Yamashita, some men have also been mentioned. They include former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Olympic gold-medal swimmer Daichi Suzuki, and Koji Murofushi, who won gold and bronze in the hammer throw. Q: Did Mori’s comments do any real damage to the Olympics? A: In terms of operation, probably not. Mori surely helped work out many of the political deals to push through funding. Official costs are now $15.4 billion, though government audit suggests it might be twice that much. But now the postponed Olympics are in the hands of the pandemic. But the reputation of Japan and the Olympics took a hit. The International Olympic Committee has bragged about the strides in has made in gender equality over the past two decades — on the field and on its boards. Japan, not so much. This has not helped public opinion. Just over 80% in polls in Japan say the Olympics should be canceled or postponed again. “Japan is still governed by a club of old men.” Koichi Nakano, a politicial scientist at Sophia University, wrote in an email. “They continue to pick these old men in order to silence possible dissent and to continue to put women ‘in their place.’ Social norms are changing, though, and a clear majority of the Japanese found Mori’s comments unacceptable.” Q: How is the gender balance in the Tokyo organizing committee? A: Not good. The executive board and council met on Friday to accept Mori’s resignation. Of the 38 members of the executive board, eight are women (21%). None of the vice presidents is a woman. Of the six council members, one is a woman (16.7%). The day-to-day leadership is also almost all male, led by 77-year-old Toshiro Muto, the CEO and former deputy governor of the Bank of Japan. 
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Black Americans attend church more regularly than Americans overall, and pray more often. Most attend churches that are predominantly Black, yet many would like those congregations to become racially diverse. There is broad respect for Black churches’ historical role in seeking racial equality, coupled with a widespread perception they have lost influence in recent decades. Those are among the key findings in a comprehensive report released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 8,660 Black adults across the United States about their religious experiences. It is Pew’s first large-scale survey on the topic. Among Black adults who go to religious services, 60% attend churches where the senior clergy and most or all of the congregation are Black, Pew found. It said 25% are part of multiracial congregations, and 13% are part of congregations that are predominantly white or another ethnicity. Pew said patterns of worship are shifting across generations: Younger Black adults, born since 1980, attend church less often than their elders, and those who attend are less likely to do so in a predominantly Black congregation. FILE – Church parishioners sit socially distanced at a prayer vigil for racial justice at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Seattle, July 19, 2020.Among 30 Black pastors and religious leaders interviewed by Pew, some predicted further shrinkage of predominantly Black churches and an increase in multiracial congregations. “I don’t think there should be a Black Church,” said Dr. Clyde Posley Jr. of Antioch Baptist Church in Indianapolis. “There isn’t a Black heaven and a white heaven. … A proper church will one day eschew the label of Black Church and be a universal church.” The survey found that 66% of Black Americans are Protestant, 6% are Catholic and 3% identify with other Christian faiths — mostly Jehovah’s Witnesses. Another 3% belong to Islam or other non-Christian faiths. Some 21% are not affiliated with any religion and instead identify as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.” Black Americans born since 1980 are far more likely to be among the unaffiliated. Survey responses were collected from November 2019 through June 2020, but most respondents completed the survey by Feb. 10, 2020, before the coronavirus outbreak and the racial-injustice protests that spread after the death of George Floyd in May while in the custody of Minneapolis police.  Among the respondents, 77% said predominantly Black churches had played a role in helping Black people move toward racial equality. Yet just one third said historically Black congregations should preserve their traditional character; 61% said these congregations should become more racially diverse. Influence of churchesNearly half of respondents said Black churches are less influential today than 50 years ago. Among the clergy interviewed by Pew, some said too few Black pastors have been on the front lines of recent struggles against racism.  “When you look at Black Lives Matter, this is the first time that there has been any political uprising and the church isn’t spearheading it,” said the Rev. Harvey L. Vaughn III, senior pastor of Bethel AME Church in San Diego.  FILE – Dwight McKissic, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, and his wife, Vera McKissic, pray during services in Arlington, Texas, June 7, 2020.”We’re not as bold and courageous as we used to be,” said the Rev. Sandra Reed of St. Mark AME Zion Church in Newtown, Pennsylvania. “I have to say, I’m somewhat ashamed of that, because the AME Zion Church is known as the Freedom Church that was at the forefront of addressing all the ills of America, and we sort of lost that.” The survey indicates that congregants at Black Protestant churches are more likely to hear preaching about race relations and criminal justice reform than those attending multiracial or white churches.  Black Protestants, meanwhile, are less likely than U.S. Protestants overall to hear sermons on abortion. Pew found 68% of Black adults said abortion should be allowed in most or all cases — compared with 59% of all U.S. adults. Pew also posed some survey questions to 4,574 Americans who do not identify as Black, to provide comparisons.  Asked whether religion is very important in their lives, 59% of Black respondents said yes, next to 40% of all U.S. adults. Asked if they prayed daily, 63% of Black respondents said yes, compared with 44% overall.  Women as leadersAccording to a recent national study cited by Pew, women make up only 16% of religious leaders at Black Protestant churches. Pew’s survey found that 85% of respondents favored allowing women to serve as senior leaders of congregations, however.  Pew said the survey’s margin of error, for the full number of respondents, was plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. Black pastors and worshippers in predominantly white or multiracial denominations, face a number of contemporary race-related issues. FILE – Parishioners clap during a worship service at the First Baptist Church, a predominantly African-American congregation, in Macon, Ga., July 10, 2016.Some Black pastors have left the predominantly white Southern Baptist Convention in dismay over decisions by white leaders that they view as downplaying the problem of systemic racism.  In the Episcopal Church and some other mainline Protestant denominations, there are reparations initiatives aimed at making amends for past involvement in slavery and the mistreatment of Black and Indigenous people.  And many Black Catholics have urged leaders of their church to be more forceful in combating racism. Some have asked the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to consider reparations and promote the teaching of Black Catholic history in Catholic schools. “We still don’t have the church taking a necessary stand against systemic racism,” Tia Noelle Pratt, a sociologist who has studied racism in the U.S. Catholic church and an adviser on Pew’s survey, told The Associated Press via email. “This means acknowledging the white supremacy that exists in the church and ways white church leaders and white members of the faithful benefit from it.” The Rev. Mario Powell, a Black priest who heads a Jesuit middle school in Brooklyn, said Catholic clergy need to preach more often against racism and speak out against some of their colleagues “who brazenly post white nationalist ideology online.”  
 
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South Africa has held (Feb 10-14) its annual International Public Art Festival (IPAF), despite the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing measures. Turnout was low but those attending welcomed the street festival as a chance to get out of the house. Vinicius Assis reports from Cape Town.Produced by: Jason Godman   Camera: Vinicius Assis
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Spanish rapper Pablo Hasél was arrested Tuesday after a 24-hour standoff between him and his free speech supporters on one side and Catalan anti-riot police on the other. Along with more than 50 supporters, Hásel barricaded himself in rectorate building of Lleida University, located some 160 kilometers west of Barcelona, to resist reporting to serve a prison sentence and to campaign for free speech.“We will win! They will not bend us with all their repression. Never!” the 32-year-old rapper yelled to TV news cameras during his arrest.Hasél, whose birth name is Pablo Rivadulla Duró, has gained attention across Spain for demanding a change to the country’s so-called “Gag Law.” The 2015 legislation, called the Citizen Safety Law, imposes fines for protesting in front of parliament or taking and sharing photographs of police officers. The law became more restrictive during Spain’s mandatory coronavirus quarantine, according to the country’s newspaper El País.Over 200 artists, including film director Pedro Almodóvar and actor Javier Bardem, signed a petition against his jail term. Amnesty International condemned Hasél’s arrest as “terrible news for freedom of expression in Spain.”Last week, the left-wing coalition government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced it would change Spain’s criminal code to eliminate prison terms for free speech offenses. But the government did not specify when it would take action or whether Hasél’s protests inspired the changes.This is not the first time Hasél has clashed with law enforcement. He has faced charges on at least four occasions for assault, praising armed extremist groups, breaking into private premises or insulting the country’s monarchy. In 2014, he was given a two-year sentence, which was suspended, for a song criticizing former King Juan Carlos. In 2018, he was sentenced to nine months in jail for 64 tweets he posted between 2014 and 2016 calling for insurrection. Spain’s National Court rejected his appeals to be kept out of prison, alleging it would be “discriminatory” to do so.Overnight, Hasél tweeted that he chose to go to prison instead of seeking exile.“We cannot allow them to dictate what we can say, what we can feel or what we can do,” he said. “They will arrest me with my head up high for not giving in to their terror, for adding my grain of salt to everything I am saying. We all can do it.”
 
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“Our Big Chief told us he doesn’t want us out there this Mardi Gras because of COVID,” Aaron “Flagboy Giz” Hartley told VOA. “He said it wasn’t safe for our members or for the public watching us.”Until this year, Hartley took part in a festive New Orleans tradition dating back to the 1800s, the Mardi Gras Indian. In a unique intermingling of African American and Native American cultures, scores of Black paradegoers don colorful renditions of some elements of Native American garb.”There’s nothing like it in the world,” said Hartley.February 16 is Fat Tuesday, which literally translates to “Mardi Gras.” For Catholics in many parts of the world, the day represents one final celebration before the more solemn six-week period known as Lent.A festively-dressed dinosaurs greets visitors at this home in New Orleans. (Matt Haines/VOA)Perhaps no place in the world celebrates the day more raucously than New Orleans. In a normal year, you’d find Mardi Gras Indians like Hartley with their elaborate suits made of beads, feathers and sequins. You’d find colorful, thematic floats the size of small buildings rumbling down oak-lined avenues as masked “Krewe” members toss beads, cups, decorative coins (and just about everything else you can or can’t imagine) to hundreds of thousands of screaming, costumed onlookers packed on the street.You’d see and hear dozens of marching bands high stepping behind the floats, and you’d be delighted by a smattering of dance krewes — comprised of members of all ages and skill levels — with playful and often sexually suggestive names. 
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has put all of that on pause, to the sorrow of countless locals. “It’s the dopest [best] part of the richest culture in the culture in the country,” said Hartley. “We gotta do something. You can’t just cancel Mardi Gras.”Parades canceled On November 17, citing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans due to the coronavirus, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell announced all parades in the city would be canceled. Last year’s Mardi Gras took place days before COVID-19 cases grabbed the public’s attention and those festivities are believed to have made New Orleans an early hotspot for the virus.This year, after several large gatherings on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street — fueled to some degree by visitors — the mayor announced she was also closing the city’s bars during one of their busiest times of the year.”I understand the decision,” said Cole Newton, owner of local bar Twelve Mile Limit. “People would have gotten sick and died, and no amount of temporary economic boost would have been worth it.”While New Orleanians acknowledge that holding Mardi Gras as usual could lead to a public health catastrophe, the economic hit is painful for service industry workers like bartender Kristin Boring. “It makes my stomach drop to lose more money,” Boring said. “But I understand it’s for the best. It’s just a tough situation.”A different kind of Mardi Gras “The thing about Mardi Gras is that it’s not put on by a single person or organization,” said New Orleans resident Laura Plante. “It’s organized by individual people. That’s what makes it special.”In the wake of the decision to cancel parades, residents almost immediately began proposing new, safer ways to celebrate.Megan Boudreaux, a 30-year-old insurance adjuster with no Mardi Gras leadership experience, was one of those people. A few days after the mayor announced the cancellation of parades, she tweeted a joke that if revelers weren’t allowed to ride floats and throw beads at stationary onlookers, she would just decorate her home like a float and throw beads at random passersby. What started as a joke has grown into a phenomenon. Approximately 3,000 homes — mostly in the New Orleans area, but with a few as far away as Saudi Arabia and Australia — have been decorated as Mardi Gras parade floats. The movement, called “Krewe of House Floats,” has transformed the city.”It went way beyond anything I imagined it could be months ago,” Boudreaux said, “and every time I think it’s peaked, a new house float pops up and becomes a new favorite.”Octopus tentacles burst through the windows of this New Orleans home. (Photo courtesy of Kristin Boring)Walking through the city’s many neighborhoods, onlookers will find everything from modest houses with Carnival float-themed flowers and beads, to mansions with massive octopus tentacles seemingly busting through the home’s many windows. Other houses in the liberal-leaning city are decorated with less-than-flattering images of former President Donald Trump, while others are focused on more fantastical elements — like swooping dragons or Harry Potter.When asked why so many have rallied behind the unusual idea instead of just waiting for next year’s Mardi Gras, Boudreaux pointed to the difficult year.”This holiday has meant so much to so many people for hundreds of years,” she said. “This year especially we’ve lost so much and so many people. I think folks were desperate for something positive to direct their energies toward. They yearned for some connection and house floats gave them that.” New traditions “New Orleanians take Mardi Gras fun seriously,” explained Chaya Conrad, owner of Bywater Bakery, where she makes some of the city’s most celebrated king cakes — a Mardi Gras confection with a several-thousand year history.”We all have our own role to play in Carnival,” she said, “and I think this year we’re creating new traditions for this unique moment that could be celebrated for years to come.”Some — like Devin De Wulf, founder of the Hire a Mardi Gras Artist initiative — are also working tirelessly to protect old traditions in danger because of the pandemic.”Every Mardi Gras parade you watch is the work of countless float makers, artists, costume designers and musicians,” De Wulf said. “We admire the parades, but we don’t think about who’s behind them. This year those people are out of work.”Through Hire a Mardi Gras Artist, he has raised more than $300,000 to pay 48 New Orleans artists to create 23 house floats. Mardi Gras artist Rene Pierre works on a piece of a house float, in New Orleans. (Photo courtesy of Rene Pierre)Rene Pierre is a Mardi Gras artist, too. He would typically begin working on floats 10 months before the parades and that work is an essential part of his income. But this year, because of the uncertainty around COVID-19, work was scarce.Because of initiatives like Hire a Mardi Gras Artist and Krewe of House Floats, though, Pierre said he has been commissioned to produce 64 house floats since December.”I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Personally, it was my family’s ticket out of a really tough financial situation. And as a city, it restored our morale in a big way.” Coming home Laura Renae Steeg visits a New Orleans home decorated to honor local legend Big Freedia. (Photo courtesy of Laura Renae Steeg)That restoration of morale extends beyond those currently living in New Orleans. Laura Renae Steeg loves the region so much she named her daughter Magnolia after the Louisiana state flower.”I get a daily reminder of this place I love,” Steeg said.Her husband’s job moved the family to Maryland nearly a decade ago, but she has returned to New Orleans every year for Mardi Gras — except the year Magnolia was born.Steeg had planned to skip the trip this year until tragedy struck. Her father unexpectedly passed away in January.”It was a really dark time for me, and then I saw all of these house floats popping up in New Orleans,” she said. “This has been a dark year for a lot of people, and it reminded me that beauty can emerge during terrible times, too. I needed to see it.”Steeg created a travel plan to limit the risk to herself and others and drove 1,800 kilometers from Maryland to Louisiana. She visited a drive-thru parade of some of Mardi Gras’ most famous floats and someone threw beads into her car. The moment, the music and the people overwhelmed her and she broke down crying in her car. “It just struck me that, like this city, we’ve all been through so much. It’s been through hurricanes, pandemics and so much more — but it always perseveres just like it will this time. It just struck me that you can’t beat spirit as strong as Mardi Gras. New Orleanians won’t allow it.” 
 
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“Our Big Chief told us he doesn’t want us out there this Mardi Gras because of COVID,” Aaron “Flagboy Giz” Hartley told VOA. “He said it wasn’t safe for our members or for the public watching us.”Until this year, Hartley took part in a festive New Orleans tradition dating back to the 1800s, the Mardi Gras Indian. In a unique intermingling of African American and Native American cultures, scores of Black paradegoers don colorful renditions of some elements of Native American garb.”There’s nothing like it in the world,” said Hartley.February 16 is Fat Tuesday, which literally translates to “Mardi Gras.” For Catholics in many parts of the world, the day represents one final celebration before the more solemn six-week period known as Lent.A festively-dressed dinosaurs greets visitors at this home in New Orleans. (Matt Haines/VOA)Perhaps no place in the world celebrates the day more raucously than New Orleans. In a normal year, you’d find Mardi Gras Indians like Hartley with their elaborate suits made of beads, feathers and sequins. You’d find colorful, thematic floats the size of small buildings rumbling down oak-lined avenues as masked “Krewe” members toss beads, cups, decorative coins (and just about everything else you can or can’t imagine) to hundreds of thousands of screaming, costumed onlookers packed on the street.You’d see and hear dozens of marching bands high stepping behind the floats, and you’d be delighted by a smattering of dance krewes — comprised of members of all ages and skill levels — with playful and often sexually suggestive names. 
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has put all of that on pause, to the sorrow of countless locals. “It’s the dopest [best] part of the richest culture in the culture in the country,” said Hartley. “We gotta do something. You can’t just cancel Mardi Gras.”Parades canceled On November 17, citing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans due to the coronavirus, New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell announced all parades in the city would be canceled. Last year’s Mardi Gras took place days before COVID-19 cases grabbed the public’s attention and those festivities are believed to have made New Orleans an early hotspot for the virus.This year, after several large gatherings on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street — fueled to some degree by visitors — the mayor announced she was also closing the city’s bars during one of their busiest times of the year.”I understand the decision,” said Cole Newton, owner of local bar Twelve Mile Limit. “People would have gotten sick and died, and no amount of temporary economic boost would have been worth it.”While New Orleanians acknowledge that holding Mardi Gras as usual could lead to a public health catastrophe, the economic hit is painful for service industry workers like bartender Kristin Boring. “It makes my stomach drop to lose more money,” Boring said. “But I understand it’s for the best. It’s just a tough situation.”A different kind of Mardi Gras “The thing about Mardi Gras is that it’s not put on by a single person or organization,” said New Orleans resident Laura Plante. “It’s organized by individual people. That’s what makes it special.”In the wake of the decision to cancel parades, residents almost immediately began proposing new, safer ways to celebrate.Megan Boudreaux, a 30-year-old insurance adjuster with no Mardi Gras leadership experience, was one of those people. A few days after the mayor announced the cancellation of parades, she tweeted a joke that if revelers weren’t allowed to ride floats and throw beads at stationary onlookers, she would just decorate her home like a float and throw beads at random passersby. What started as a joke has grown into a phenomenon. Approximately 3,000 homes — mostly in the New Orleans area, but with a few as far away as Saudi Arabia and Australia — have been decorated as Mardi Gras parade floats. The movement, called “Krewe of House Floats,” has transformed the city.”It went way beyond anything I imagined it could be months ago,” Boudreaux said, “and every time I think it’s peaked, a new house float pops up and becomes a new favorite.”Octopus tentacles burst through the windows of this New Orleans home. (Photo courtesy of Kristin Boring)Walking through the city’s many neighborhoods, onlookers will find everything from modest houses with Carnival float-themed flowers and beads, to mansions with massive octopus tentacles seemingly busting through the home’s many windows. Other houses in the liberal-leaning city are decorated with less-than-flattering images of former President Donald Trump, while others are focused on more fantastical elements — like swooping dragons or Harry Potter.When asked why so many have rallied behind the unusual idea instead of just waiting for next year’s Mardi Gras, Boudreaux pointed to the difficult year.”This holiday has meant so much to so many people for hundreds of years,” she said. “This year especially we’ve lost so much and so many people. I think folks were desperate for something positive to direct their energies toward. They yearned for some connection and house floats gave them that.” New traditions “New Orleanians take Mardi Gras fun seriously,” explained Chaya Conrad, owner of Bywater Bakery, where she makes some of the city’s most celebrated king cakes — a Mardi Gras confection with a several-thousand year history.”We all have our own role to play in Carnival,” she said, “and I think this year we’re creating new traditions for this unique moment that could be celebrated for years to come.”Some — like Devin De Wulf, founder of the Hire a Mardi Gras Artist initiative — are also working tirelessly to protect old traditions in danger because of the pandemic.”Every Mardi Gras parade you watch is the work of countless float makers, artists, costume designers and musicians,” De Wulf said. “We admire the parades, but we don’t think about who’s behind them. This year those people are out of work.”Through Hire a Mardi Gras Artist, he has raised more than $300,000 to pay 48 New Orleans artists to create 23 house floats. Mardi Gras artist Rene Pierre works on a piece of a house float, in New Orleans. (Photo courtesy of Rene Pierre)Rene Pierre is a Mardi Gras artist, too. He would typically begin working on floats 10 months before the parades and that work is an essential part of his income. But this year, because of the uncertainty around COVID-19, work was scarce.Because of initiatives like Hire a Mardi Gras Artist and Krewe of House Floats, though, Pierre said he has been commissioned to produce 64 house floats since December.”I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Personally, it was my family’s ticket out of a really tough financial situation. And as a city, it restored our morale in a big way.” Coming home Laura Renae Steeg visits a New Orleans home decorated to honor local legend Big Freedia. (Photo courtesy of Laura Renae Steeg)That restoration of morale extends beyond those currently living in New Orleans. Laura Renae Steeg loves the region so much she named her daughter Magnolia after the Louisiana state flower.”I get a daily reminder of this place I love,” Steeg said.Her husband’s job moved the family to Maryland nearly a decade ago, but she has returned to New Orleans every year for Mardi Gras — except the year Magnolia was born.Steeg had planned to skip the trip this year until tragedy struck. Her father unexpectedly passed away in January.”It was a really dark time for me, and then I saw all of these house floats popping up in New Orleans,” she said. “This has been a dark year for a lot of people, and it reminded me that beauty can emerge during terrible times, too. I needed to see it.”Steeg created a travel plan to limit the risk to herself and others and drove 1,800 kilometers from Maryland to Louisiana. She visited a drive-thru parade of some of Mardi Gras’ most famous floats and someone threw beads into her car. The moment, the music and the people overwhelmed her and she broke down crying in her car. “It just struck me that, like this city, we’ve all been through so much. It’s been through hurricanes, pandemics and so much more — but it always perseveres just like it will this time. It just struck me that you can’t beat spirit as strong as Mardi Gras. New Orleanians won’t allow it.” 
 
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