Seattle-based teenager Avi Schiffmann is doing what he can to help Ukrainian refugees. He has launched a website that helps refugees find safe places to stay, matching refugees with people willing to share their homes. Anush Avetisyan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
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The Academy Awards have always loved a comeback story. This year, the Oscars are attempting to star in one, too.
On Sunday, the Academy Awards will try to bounce back from a 2021 ceremony that was plagued by pandemic restrictions, a botched ending and record-low ratings. The 94th Academy Awards will return to their usual home, Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre, and be broadcast live on ABC beginning at 8 p.m. EDT. (It’s also possible to stream it live on services like Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV and on ABC.com with provider authentication.)
How much of the Oscars’ downturn should be chalked up to COVID-19? How much is it the new normal? These are just some of the questions that hang over an Academy Awards that feels like a crossroads for one of America’s most enduring pop-culture institutions, and still the most-watched annual show outside the Super Bowl.
Can the Will Packer-produced awards shrug off the pandemic, reverse years of declining ratings for network TV award shows and coalesce a big-tent event for a fast-evolving movie landscape? In the interminable run-up to the springtime Oscars, many in the industry have been skeptical. Which leads us to the first of five questions heading into the show.
Will the Oscars’ latest makeover work?
The biggest drama heading into Sunday revolves around a broadcast that has been substantially retooled to stem the ratings slide. As if making up for several host-less years, this time there are three: Amy Schumer, Regina Hall and Wanda Sykes. Will their combined star power move the needle at all?
Facing pressure from ABC, the academy will also first present eight categories — production design, editing, sound, score, makeup and hairstyling, and the three short film awards — before the telecast begins. Clips of their wins and speeches will be edited into the show. Critics throughout the industry, though, have lined up to decry the change. The largest union representing behind-the-scenes workers, IATSE, on Monday called the decision detrimental to the “fundamental purpose” of the Oscars.
So what will Packer do with the extra time? Beyoncé and Billie Eilish will perform their nominated songs. An eclectic group of presenters has also been announced, including some unexpected names like DJ Khaled, Tony Hawk, Sean “Diddy” Combs and Shaun White — so this could finally be the year that Judi Dench learns how to perform a “McTwist.”
Will a streamer take home Best Picture?
The two favorites both hail from streaming services, which have ever won best picture.
The lead nominee, Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” up for 12 awards, had long been the presumed frontrunner, and possibly Netflix’s best chance yet to win Hollywood’s top award. But after back-to-back wins with the Screen Actors Guild and the Producers Guild, Sian Heder’s deaf family drama “CODA” may have the edge. The film’s deep-pocketed backer, Apple TV+, has spent big to push a feel-good underdog indie to the front of the pack. If “CODA” wins, it will be the first time since 1932’s “Grand Hotel” that a film with fewer than four nominations (“CODA” has three) took best picture.
Some predictions this year have been wildly off, though, so other nominees like Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” could still pull off an upset.
How much will COVID-19 drag down the party?
Last year’s Oscars decamped to Union Station for an intimate show with a small number of attendees and lots of social distancing. This year, a full stage show and red carpet is planned, albeit with uneven COVID-19 protocols.
Attendees are required to submit two negative tests and proof of vaccination. Those presenting or performing don’t have to be vaccinated but need recent negative tests. Masks will be in the mix, too, for attendees sitting outside the orchestra at the Dolby and for media on the red carpet. After numerous attendees contracted the virus after attending the March 13 BAFTAs in London, several nominees have been quarantining, including Branagh and “Belfast” co-star Ciarán Hinds. With infection and hospitalization rates way down, Los Angeles County is set to lift many virus restrictions for indoor events on April 1, five days after the Oscars.
Will Will Smith win his first Oscar?
Nominated twice before for best actor (for “Ali” and “The Pursuit of Happyness”), Will Smith appears a lock to win his first Academy Award. Smith’s performance as Richard Williams, father to Venus and Serena, in “King Richard” has remained the most likely choice throughout the season. And the speech by the exuberant 53-year-old star should be one of the most lively of the night. A win, though, will have to come over some formidable competition — including the actor who bested Smith’s “Ali” performance 20 years ago: Denzel Washington, a winner then for “Training Day” and a threat this time for “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”
Who’s set to make history?
Many of the top awards could feature some major milestones. Ari Wegner, cinematographer of “The Power of Dog,” may become the first woman to ever win that award. Her director, Jane Campion, is also poised to make history. Campion, the first women ever nominated twice for best director, is set to become only the third woman to win the category. It would mark the first time the directing award has ever gone to women in back-to-back years, after “Nomadland” filmmaker Chloé Zhao won last year.
Troy Kotsur of “CODA” is in line to be the first deaf male actor to win an Oscar. His widely expected win would make him and his “CODA” co-star Marlee Matlin the only deaf actors to land Academy Awards. And supporting actress, which Ariana DeBose seemingly has sewn up for her breakthrough role in Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” may see the first Afro-Latina and openly LGBTQ actor win in the category. A win for DeBose would come 60 years after Rita Moreno won for the same role, Anita, in the 1961 original. That would be the third time that two actors have won for playing the same role, following Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, and Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro as Vito Corleone. But we’ll have to wait and see if DeBose’s “West Side Story” co-star Rachel Zegler is there to cheer her on.
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Beyoncé, Billie Eilish and other nominees for best original song will perform at Sunday’s Oscars, the show’s producers announced Tuesday.
Beyoncé will perform her nominated song “Be Alive” from “King Richard,” and Eilish and her brother and co-writer Finneas will perform “No Time To Die” from the James Bond film of the same name.
Sebastián Yatra will perform “Dos Oruguitas,” the nominated song from “Encanto” written by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Reba McEntire will sing writer Diane Warren’s “Somehow You Do” from the film “Four Good Days.”
Van Morrison, who wrote and sings the nominated song “Down to Joy” from “Belfast,” will not be able to make the show because of his touring schedule. The song will not be performed.
The original song Academy Award goes to the songwriter, not the artist who performs it, and whoever wins this year will get their first Oscar.
That includes Beyoncé, a 28-time Grammy winner, who co-wrote “Be Alive” with Dixson.
Warren was nominated this year for the 13th time but is still seeking her first win.
Miranda will join the elite “EGOT” club of winners of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony should “Dos Oruguitas” win. The song was tapped as the Oscar submission from “Encanto” before another Miranda-penned song from the Disney movie, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” became a runaway hit.
The Oscars are returning to Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre after the pandemic sent the show to Union Station for a smaller, more intimate ceremony last year.
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Russian and Belarusian swimmers, divers, water polo players and artistic swimmers will no longer be able to compete in the upcoming world championships over the war in Ukraine, swimming’s governing body announced Wednesday.
Soon after the invasion, swimming’s governing body, FINA, said it would allow the swimmers to compete, but as neutral athletes who didn’t use national symbols.
“Following the review of an independent risk assessment, the FINA Bureau met today and confirmed that athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus will not take part (in the world championships),” FINA said.
“FINA maintains its strongest condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” it said in a press release.
The world championships will be held in Hungary in June.
In the last world championships held in 2019, Russia got the third most medals after the United States and China.
FINA also said it was investigating double Olympic backstroke champion Yevgeny Rylov over his alleged participation in a pro-Putin rally in Moscow last week.
Governing bodies for many sports, including soccer, track, gymnastics, skiing and ice skating, have taken measures to ban or restrict Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing.
Some information in this report comes from The Associated Press.
“West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler may get her Oscars moment after all. The 20-year-old actor has been invited to be a presenter at the ceremony, according to a report in The Hollywood Reporter.
The gesture came two days after Zegler, who plays Maria, posted on social media that she had not been invited to the awards and would be rooting for “West Side Story” from her couch. The Steven Spielberg film is nominated for seven Academy Awards, including best picture, director and supporting actress for Ariana DeBose, who is expected to win.
The post drew a lot of attention online as many couldn’t fathom why the lead of a best picture nominee wouldn’t have been invited to the ceremony or at least been asked to present an award.
“I hope some last minute miracle occurs and I can celebrate our film in person but hey, that’s how it goes sometimes, I guess,” Zegler wrote on Instagram Sunday. “Thanks for all the shock and outrage — I’m disappointed, too. But that’s OK. So proud of our movie.”
Next role: Snow White
Best picture nominees are allotted a certain number of tickets by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which the film’s studio then doles out as they see fit.
Presenters and individual nominees get a pair of tickets. And other spots in the room go to the broadcaster, sponsors and academy members, who can enter a lottery.
Zegler is not nominated, but her next big role is as Snow White, which she is currently filming in London. Some wondered why The Walt Disney Co., which owns Oscars broadcaster ABC, wouldn’t want their new Snow White there in some capacity, like presenting or performing. Others saw it as a missed opportunity to have a rising young Latina star represented at the show.
Russ Tamblyn, who played Riff in the 1961 “West Side Story” and is a voting member of the Academy, tweeted that it was the Academy’s, “duty to find Rachel a seat at the Oscars. … When they say representation matters, this is what that means. Please do right by her.”
Alec Baldwin tweeted that he would buy Zegler two tickets to the show.
And “One Day at a Time” showrunner Gloria Calderón Kellett tweeted at ABC and the Academy, “How about the rare time that Latine people have a movie nominated for an OSCAR you invite the lead. Latine people are 18.5% of this country. ENOUGH!”
Tickets hard to get
Oscars tickets are always hot commodities, and this year are even more limited than usual because of efforts to maintain more space between guests to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Most Academy members have never gotten to attend.
And the outrage has only intensified as more and more presenters with limited connections to the nominated movies or the movie business at all are announced. On Monday, producers revealed that DJ Khaled, Tony Hawk, Kelly Slater and Shaun White would all be presenting awards at the show, which will be broadcast live on ABC on Sunday starting at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
News of Zegler’s invitation to present came Tuesday afternoon. Zegler has yet to comment and it is still unclear if she’ll be able to attend on this short notice and with her Snow White production schedule.
Representatives for the Academy, Disney and Zegler did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
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Okta whose authentication services are used by companies including Fedex and Moody’s to provide access to their networks, said on Tuesday that it had been hit by hackers and that some customers may have been affected.
The scope of the breach is still unclear, but it could have major consequences because thousands of companies rely on San Francisco-based Okta to manage access to their networks and applications.
Chief Security Officer David Bradbury said in a blog post that the computer of a customer support engineer working for a third-party contractor was accessed by the hackers for a five-day period in mid-January and that “the potential impact to Okta customers is limited to the access that support engineers have.”
“There are no corrective actions that need to be taken by our customers,” he said.
Nevertheless, Bradbury acknowledged that support engineers were able to help reset passwords and that some customers “may have been impacted.” He said the company was in the process of identifying and contacting them.
The nature of that impact wasn’t clear, and Okta did not immediately respond to an email asking how many organizations were potentially affected or how that squared with Okta’s advice that customers did not need to take corrective action.
On its website, Okta describes itself as the “identity provider for the internet” and says it has more than 15,000 customers on its platform.
It competes with the likes of Microsoft, PingID, Duo, SecureAuth and IBM to provide identity services such as single sign-on and multifactor authentication used to help users securely access online applications and websites.
Okta’s statement follows the posting of a series of screenshots of Okta’s internal communications by a group of ransom-seeking hackers known as Lapsus$ on their Telegram channel late on Monday.
In an accompanying message, the group said its focus was “ONLY on Okta customers.”
Lapsus$ responded to Okta’s statement on Tuesday by saying the company was trying to minimize the importance of the breach.
Some outside observers weren’t impressed with Okta’s explanation either.
Dan Tentler, the founder of cybersecurity consultancy Phobos Group, earlier told Reuters that Okta customers should “be very vigilant right now.”
There were signs that Okta customers were taking action to revisit their security.
Web infrastructure company Cloudflare issued a detailed explanation of how it reacted to the Okta breach and saying the company did not believe it had been compromised as a result.
FedEx said in a statement that it too was investigating and “we currently have no indication that our environment has been accessed or compromised.” Moody’s did not return a message seeking comment.
Lapsus$ is a relatively new entrant to the crowded ransomware field but has made waves with high-profile hacks and attention-seeking behavior.
The group compromised the websites of Portuguese media conglomerate Impresa earlier this year, tweeting the phrase “Lapsus$ is now the new president of Portugal” from one newspaper’s Twitter accounts. The Impresa-owned media outlets described the hack as an assault on press freedom.
Last month, the group leaked proprietary information about U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to the Web.
More recently the group has purported to have leaked source code from several big tech firms, including Microsoft. In a blog post published Tuesday and devoted to Lapsus$, the software firm confirmed that one of its accounts had been compromised, “gaining limited access.”
The hackers did not respond to a message left on their Telegram group chat seeking comment.
An Oscar-nominated Danish documentary chronicling a gay Afghan refugee’s perilous journey to Europe tries to show that being a refugee is what happens to you, not who you are, its director told AFP.
“Flee,” an animated film which is up for three Academy Awards, is in the spotlight ahead of Sunday’s Oscars ceremony as the world witnesses another mass exodus, the millions of Ukrainians fleeing the war in their country.
“I really hope that we can give some nuance and some perspective,” director Jonas Poher Rasmussen told AFP in an interview held on the eve of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Being a refugee is not an identity. It’s a circumstance of life.”
In 2015, “we had Syrian refugees on the highways here in Denmark, and all over Europe. And I felt a need to give these people a human face,” he said.
The idea for the documentary stemmed from a conversation between the 40-year-old director and his childhood friend, dubbed “Amin” in the movie to protect his identity.
Amin arrived as a teenage refugee in Rasmussen’s small village near Copenhagen in 1996.
“The story is told from inside a friendship,” Rasmussen said. In the beginning, “I didn’t think about making a political film.” But his perspective changed over the 10 years between the film’s conception and the start of production.
Combining 2D, sketch animation and archive newsreel footage, “Flee” is as much a reflection on the agony of a refugee’s flight as the universal theme of man’s quest for a place in the world.
“I think people can really relate to the universality of the story,” Rasmussen said. “Most people at some point of their life look for that place where they feel they can be, honestly, who they are.”
The film also evokes parallels with the Taliban’s seizure of power again in Afghanistan last summer.
As a young boy and teenager in the 1980s and 1990s, Amin donned his sister’s dresses and later fantasized about secret crushes, such as Hollywood muscleman Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But he was not able to freely express his homosexuality.
His situation grew even more untenable with the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan in 1990s.
“It’s really a story about someone who’s had to flee himself all his life,” said Rasmussen. It is “about looking for a place in the world where you can be who you are, with everything that entails, with your sexuality, with your past, and everything else.”
Amin spent years not daring to speak about his past and his secrets, building up walls that prevented him from opening up to others.
Now married, he is thrilled that animation allowed him to tell his story incognito, without everyone he meets having to know his personal traumas and his innermost secrets, the director said.
“Flee,” which won the Sundance festival’s jury prize, has been nominated for three Academy Awards: best international film, best documentary, and best animated feature.
Ironically, Denmark is known for its ultra-restrictive immigration policy, even if it has eased its curbs during the Ukraine crisis.
Rasmussen said he was surprised by the success of “Flee.”
A former radio documentary-maker, he has made several other films, but the success enjoyed by his Danish contemporaries Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg has thus far eluded him.
This is his international breakthrough.
“At the beginning … our criteria for success was going to be a national TV broadcast here (in Denmark). And then the project grew and grew and grew and all of a sudden here we are with three nominations for the Academy Awards,” Rasmussen said.
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As the war unfolds in Ukraine, the owner of Amazing Piñatas in Los Angeles, has found a creative way to help Ukrainian refugees. Originally from Nicaragua, Lorena Robletto tells VOA’s Verónica Villafañe why she wants to help.
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One million tickets for the 2024 Paris Olympics will be sold for $26.50 (24 euros) each with availability for all 32 sports, organizers said Monday.
The Paris proposal to the International Olympic Committee sets the basic price lower than that of the 2012 London Olympics, where the tickets cost more than $31.
“This is something important for us,” Paris organizing committee president Tony Estanguet said. “This is a very strong promise to offer accessibility of everyone to Olympic sports.”
A centralized global sales program unveiled by Paris Olympics organizers calls for pricing nearly half of the 10 million total tickets at no more than $55 (50 euros).
For the 2024 Paralympics, prices start at $15.60 (15 euros), and about half of the 3.4 million tickets will cost no more than $27.50 (25 euros).
Paris aims to raise $1.22 billion (1.1 billion euros) in revenue — about 30% of its budget — from ticket sales, Estanguet said.
Hitting that target would lift ticket income for Paris above the $1 billion raised by London from more than 8 million tickets sold.
Tokyo organizers aimed for $800 million from ticket sales before the COVID-19 pandemic prevented fans from attending nearly all the events at the 2020 Games, which were postponed to 2021.
Fans wanting to secure tickets for Paris events can start toward the end of this year in a process overhauled to include buyers worldwide. Previously, tickets were sold in the host country and a network of agents worldwide handled sales elsewhere.
Estanguet said the new system should “limit the frustration” of people who previously specified their preferred tickets with no guarantee of getting them.
Instead, a two-month registration period will let prospective buyers sign up for a lottery that will allocate the winners a time slot next February of several hours to choose the tickets they want for multiple sports sessions.
“We can then guarantee that if you buy those tickets, you will receive them,” Estanguet said.
Single tickets for events will go on sale in May 2023, and a third sales phase will start toward the end of next year.
Estanguet said a new ticketing portal managed by French companies would also offer a resale platform.
Asked if discussions were made about limiting portal access for residents of Russia and Belarus because of the invasion of Ukraine, Estanguet said no decision was needed for several months.
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Final preparations are underway for the 94th Academy Awards and a long awaited return to Hollywood’s glamorous normalcy after a muted ceremony and ratings low last year. Here’s everything you need to know about the 2022 Oscars, including where to watch the live show, who’s expected to win and what the big controversies are this year.
When are the Oscars?
The Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 27, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The ceremony is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET and will be broadcast live on ABC.
Who is hosting the 2022 Oscars?
Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes are taking the stage to co-host the ceremony, which has been without an emcee for the past three years. Producer Will Packer said each woman brings something different to the show.
Who is presenting?
Show producers will continue adding names throughout the week, but at the moment stars expected to hand out awards Oscar night include Bill Murray, Lady Gaga, Kevin Costner, Samuel L. Jackson, Zoë Kravitz, Anthony Hopkins, Lily James, Daniel Kaluuya, Mila Kunis, John Leguizamo, Simu Liu, Rami Malek, Lupita Nyong’o, Rosie Perez, Chris Rock, Naomi Scott, Wesley Snipes, Uma Thurman, John Travolta, Yuh-jung Youn, Ruth E. Carter, Halle Bailey, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Shawn Mendes, Tyler Perry, Tracee Ellis Ross, Stephanie Beatriz, DJ Khaled, Jennifer Garner, H.E.R., Tiffany Haddish, Tony Hawk, Elliot Page, Kelly Slater and Shaun White.
Which movies are nominated for best picture at the 2022 Oscars?
The 10 movies competing for best picture this year are: “Belfast”; “CODA”; “Don’t Look Up”; “Drive My Car”; “Dune”; “King Richard”; “Licorice Pizza”; “Nightmare Alley”; “The Power of the Dog”; “West Side Story.” Here’s the full list of 2022 Oscar nominations. (( https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2022 ))
What were the most surprising Oscar snubs?
There were a lot of surprises Oscar nominations morning.
Some exclusions that stood out include Denis Villeneuve, whose “Dune” got the second most nominations (10) behind “The Power of the Dog” (12) including best picture, but who failed to get a directing nomination for himself.
The best actress category was especially brutal this year, leaving out Lady Gaga for “House of Gucci,” Jennifer Hudson for “Respect,” Caitriona Balfe for “Belfast” and Renate Reinsve for “The Worst Person in the World.”
What are the predictions for the winners on Oscar night?
“The Power of the Dog” is the presumed frontrunner for best picture and best director, for Jane Campion, but there is also the possibility that “CODA” will take best picture, especially after it won at the Producer’s Guild Awards. Either way, it’ll be the first time a streaming service has won best picture. Other likely winners include Will Smith for best actor (“King Richard”), Jessica Chastain for best actress (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”), Troy Kotsur for best supporting actor (“CODA”) and Ariana DeBose for best supporting actress (“West Side Story”).
What else can we expect from the Oscars?
Organizers have promised that they will keep the broadcast to three hours and Packer (whose films include crowd pleasers like “Girls Trip”) wants to make it as entertaining as possible while still honoring the nominees and winners.
“The show will flow, not unlike a movie, in that there will be different themes and a different feel and different energy throughout the night,” Packer said in an interview with IndieWire. “It will not feel or look or sound like one show for three hours. It’s taking you through the course of this cinematic journey.”
Best song nominees like Beyoncé, Van Morrison and Billie Eilish are also in talks to perform.
Are there any controversies this year?
The Oscars are so high profile that every year someone is upset about something (especially when changes are involved) but this year the biggest controversy is over the decision to present some awards before the live broadcast begins and edit them into the show later. The eight awards are for shorts (live action, animated and documentary), editing, score, hair and makeup, sound and production design. The decision has its defenders, but also an army of high-profile detractors, including Campion, Villeneuve, Steven Spielberg, Chastain and Penelope Cruz.
The last musher has arrived in Nome, ending the 50th running of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race across Alaska.
Musher Apayauq Reitan of Kaktovik, Alaska, crossed the finish late Saturday night, winning the Red Lantern award and $1,000 for being the final sled dog team to reach the Bering Sea coastal community on Alaska’s western coast.
Reitan also extinguished the widow’s lamp on the burled arch that towers over the finish line, a tradition that means there are no other mushers on the trail.
The world’s most famous sled dog race started for 49 mushers March 6 north of Anchorage. The nearly 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) trail took them over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and then along the Bering Sea ice on Alaska’s western coast.
Twelve mushers scratched, half of them on Friday during a vicious storm that hammered mushers with high winds as they attempted to make the final 77 miles (124 kilometers) to Nome.
Brent Sass, a Minnesota native now living in Eureka, Alaska, won the race Tuesday.
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“CODA” won the top prize at Saturday night’s Producers Guild Awards, giving momentum to the possibility that the small film could have a big night at next week’s Oscars.
The story of three adult family members who are deaf and a fourth who is not and seeks a singing career beat out bigger contenders including “The Power of the Dog,” “Dune” and “West Side Story” to take an award that — more often than not — goes on to win the Academy Award for best picture.
“This movie has been an amazing ride, it was such a special one to make, there was so much love and so much heart put into it,” said Fabrice Gianfermi as he accepted the award with his “CODA” co-producers Philippe Rousselet and Patrick Wachsberger at the 33rd PGA Awards.
An American Sign Language translator, who had been off to one side of the stage throughout the night’s speeches, stood front and center during the “CODA” acceptance and another stood in front of the stage to translate for the three actors from the film who are deaf: Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant.
“CODA,” an acronym for “children of deaf adults,” is nominated for three Oscars at the March 27 ceremony, including best adapted screenplay for writer-director Sian Heder and best supporting actor for Kotsur, who is expected by most to become the first actor who is deaf since Matlin in 1987 to win an Oscar.
After it won best ensemble at last month’s Screen Actors Guild Awards it began to appear “CODA” could get real consideration for best picture. The odds may be getting better. The top PGA award winner has gone on to win the top Oscar in three of the past four years and 10 of the past 13. Academy Award voting closes Tuesday.
The PGA Awards, an untelevised show from the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles honoring producers of film and television, is as much like a company awards banquet as a typical awards show, with no speeches cut short for time or curses bleeped out.
Issa Rae, producer of “Insecure” and “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” accepted the guild’s Visionary Award.
Ninety-year-old Rita Moreno, star of the both the 1961 and 2021 versions of “West Side Story,” accepted the guild’s Stanley Kramer Award, which honors someone who has combined a career of artistry and activism.
“This business has taken tenacity and hard work,” Moreno said. “Advocating for issues of social justice for the last 60 years, it’s been exhausting, exhilarating and life-giving.”
Moreno said the night itself was both joyful and exhausting after taking the stage at 11 p.m. local time, nearly three hours into the show.
“I was really getting tired,” she said. “My buttocks are a bit sore.”
George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy, stewards of the “Star Wars” universe and producers of many other notable motion pictures, were honored for their careers with the PGA’s Milestone Award.
Presenter Steven Spielberg, whose films have been produced by both Lucas and Kennedy, called them “two titans” who are “still just like kids playing in a sandbox.”
Lucas acknowledged that his favorite achievement may not be the most popular among his peers, including the one who introduced him Saturday.
“The thing I’m the most proud of is digital cinema. That was something that I worked on for 20 years. Spent many many millions of dollars to make it happen,” Lucas said. “Some still don’t believe in it. Where’s Steven?”
Spielberg, standing in the wings, acted out the operation of a traditional film camera, to laughs from the crowd.
“But we’re all friends,” Lucas said.
“Summer of Soul” won the PGA’s documentary film category and “Encanto” won the award for animated movies. Both are also nominated for Oscars.
In the PGA’s television categories, awards went to the producers of “Succession,” “Mare of Easttown” and “Ted Lasso.”
Greg Berlanti, producer of shows including “Dawson’s Creek” and several series from the D.C. comic universe, was given the guild’s Norman Lear Award and was praised for advancing LGBTQ characters and storylines.
Outgoing co-presidents of the guild Gail Berman and Lucy Fisher were tearful as they expressed joy that they could finally see their gathered peers in person after two years during which the pandemic forced the show to go virtual.
They praised their fellow producers for keeping the industry alive during their tough tenure.
“Hollywood loves a comeback story,” Fisher said, “and boy, yours is one for the ages.”
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Three companies have lodged a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, accusing the U.S. technology giant of anti-competitive practices in its cloud services, sources told AFP on Saturday, confirming media reports.
Microsoft is “undermining fair competition and limiting the choice of consumers” in the computing cloud services market, said one of the three, French company OVHcloud, in a statement to AFP.
The companies complain that under certain clauses in Microsoft’s licensing contracts for Office 365 services, tariffs are higher when the software is not run on Azure cloud infrastructure, which is owned by the U.S. group.
They also say the user experience is worse and that there are incompatibilities with certain other Microsoft products when not running on Azure.
In a statement to AFP, Microsoft said, “European cloud service providers have built successful business models on Microsoft software and services” and had many options on how to use that software.
“We continually evaluate how best to support all of our partners and make Microsoft software available to all customers in all environments, including those with other cloud service providers,” it continued.
The complaint, first reported this week by The Wall Street Journal, was lodged last summer with the EU Commission’s competition authority.
Microsoft is also the subject of an earlier 2021 complaint to the European Commission by a different set of companies led by the German Nextcloud.
It denounced the “ever-stronger integration” of Microsoft’s cloud services, which it said complicated the development of competing offers.
Microsoft has already been heavily fined multiple times by Brussels for anti-competitive practices regarding its Internet Explorer browser, Windows operating system and software licensing rules.
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With many small businesses failing during the economic downturn of coronavirus lockdowns, three sisters in the U.S. state of Colorado chose the pandemic to open Denver’s first Vietnamese coffee shop. VOA’s Scott Stearns went to their café to hear their story.
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World-famous ballet dancers from Russia and Ukraine, Argentina, Cuba, France and Japan come together Saturday for a gala to raise funds for Ukraine and send a message of peace.
“We as artists have talent and we need to use this talent to say what we believe in,” Ukraine’s Ivan Putrov, co-organizer of the event to be held at the English National Opera’s London Coliseum, told AFP.
“Art has a voice and is the voice that we use,” said Putrov, who was a principal dancer with London’s prestigious Royal Ballet from 2002-10.
Putrov and Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru both trained in Kyiv and decided to mobilize the world of ballet for this “humanitarian appeal” in the face of Russia’s invasion.
Now, they have united a team of exceptional dancers to “raise funds that will save lives,” Putrov said.
The message is not only for the West and those in Ukraine, but also Russia.
“Some Russians will hear us and will raise their voice… because what’s happening is outrageous,” he said.
Stars taking the stage include Russia’s Natalia Osipova, Argentina’s Marianela Nunez and Japan’s Fumi Kaneko, all from the Royal Ballet, and France’s Mathieu Ganio from the Paris Opera.
Ukraine’s Katja Khaniukova, Spain’s Aitor Arrieta and the United States’ Emma Hawes of the English National Ballet will also perform on the night.
The evening hopes to raise more than $130,000 for the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) UK charity collective which includes the British Red Cross and is helping victims of the war.
“Is art appropriate in such a horrible circumstance? Of course it is, because it gives hope, it gives inspiration to people,” said Putrov.
Loaded with symbolism
The Ukrainian national anthem will open the evening, which will close with The Triumph of Love from the ballet Raymonda, with music by Russia’s Alexander Glazunov.
In between there will be 13 symbolism-laden choreographies such as No Man’s Land by Liam Scarlett, Lacrimosa by Gyula Pandi and Ashes by Jason Kittelberger.
Russian composers including Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff will also be played.
“Russian culture doesn’t have anything to do with (President Vladimir) Putin, and equally Putin has nothing to do with Russian culture,” said Putrov.
Osipova, one of the most famous Russian dancers outside her country, declined to be interviewed.
But her presence “signifies that Russia doesn’t equal aggression,” said Putrov.
Cuba’s Javier Torres of the Northern Ballet will perform The Death of a Swan by Camille Saint-Saens.
The piece is about a paraplegic who loses one of his limbs and “represents fighting for what you have lost,” Torres told AFP.
“It talks about fighting to the end and that’s how I wanted to interpret it,” he said, thinking of “people who try to resist what happens to them,” like the Ukrainians mired in war or the Cubans who have suffered under decades of U.S. sanctions and embargoes, and “even by the Russians” in Soviet times.
“I have that pain, I have that anguish that every Cuban who lives outside of Cuba has, because we know the needs that are experienced there,” he said.
He said he has not previously mixed art with politics, but Saturday’s gala is “a humanitarian duty as a dancer, as a human rights defender, first as a person and then as an artist.”
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Finland has been named the world’s happiest country for the fifth year running, in an annual U.N.-sponsored index that again ranked Afghanistan as the unhappiest, followed closely by Lebanon.
Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania recorded the biggest boosts in wellbeing. The largest falls in the World Happiness table, released on Friday, came in Lebanon, Venezuela and Afghanistan.
Lebanon, which is facing economic meltdown, fell to second from last on the index of 146 nations, just below Zimbabwe.
War-traumatized Afghanistan, already bottom of the table, has seen its humanitarian crisis deepen since the Taliban took power again last August.
U.N. agency UNICEF estimates one million children under five could die of hunger this winter if not aided.
“This (index) presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims,” co-author Jan-Emmanuel De Neve said.
The World Happiness Report, now in its 10th year, is based on people’s own assessment of their happiness, as well as economic and social data.
It assigns a happiness score on a scale of zero to 10, based on an average of data over a three-year period. This latest edition was completed before the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Northern Europeans once again dominated the top spots — with the Danes second behind the Finns, followed by the Icelandic, the Swiss and the Dutch.
The United States rose three places to 16th, one ahead of Britain, while France climbed to 20th, its highest ranking yet.
As well as a personal sense of wellbeing, based on Gallup polls in each country, the happiness score takes account of GDP, social support, personal freedom and levels of corruption.
This year the authors also used data from social media to compare people’s emotions before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. They found “strong increases in anxiety and sadness” in 18 countries but a fall in feelings of anger.
“The lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another and honesty in government are crucial for wellbeing,” report co-author Jeffrey Sachs wrote.
“World leaders should take heed.”
The report raised some eyebrows when it first placed Finland at the top of its listings in 2018.
Many of the Nordic country’s 5.5 million people describe themselves as taciturn and prone to melancholy, and admit to eyeing public displays of joyfulness with suspicion.
But the country of vast forests and lakes is also known for its well-functioning public services, ubiquitous saunas, widespread trust in authority and low levels of crime and inequality.
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Film icon Arnold Schwarzenegger told Russians in a video posted on social media Thursday they’re being lied to about the war in Ukraine and accused President Vladimir Putin of sacrificing Russian soldiers’ lives for his own ambitions.
Schwarzenegger is hugely popular in Russia, and apparently also with Putin. The President of Russia Twitter account follows only 22 accounts — one of them the actor’s.
In the nine-minute video, Schwarzenegger said Russian soldiers were told they’d be fighting Nazis in Ukraine, or to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine or that were going on military exercises, and that they’d be greeted like heroes. He said many of the troops now know those claims were false.
“This is an illegal war,” Schwarzenegger said, looking straight into the camera while seated at a desk in a study. “Your lives, your limbs, your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the entire world.”
Schwarzenegger posted his emotional video on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. While some of those services are blocked in Russia, he also posted it on the Telegram messaging app — which is not — where it got more than a half-million views. It was subtitled in Russian.
The former California governor brought up painful memories about how his own father was lied to as he fought with Adolf Hitler’s forces during World War II, and how he returned to Austria a broken man, physically and emotionally after being wounded at Leningrad.
He asked Russians to let their fellow citizens know about “the human catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine.” The video showed bombed out buildings in Ukraine and people coming under Russian shelling.
He then addressed Putin directly, saying: “You started this war. You are leading this war. You can stop this war.”
Schwarzenegger described his long ties to Russia, having traveled there as a body builder and film action hero. In 2010, as California governor, he led a delegation of Silicon Valley business leaders and venture capitalists on a trip to Moscow.
He called all the Russians who have been in the streets protesting the invasion of Ukraine, and who have been arrested and manhandled, “my new heroes.”
An adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry who works to disseminate information about the course of the war urged Ukrainians to share the video with friends and relatives in Russia.
“Putin and his propagandists call us Ukrainians fascists and Nazis,” the adviser, Anton Gerashchenko, said on Telegram. “But their propaganda is blown to smithereens when super famous people all over the world speak with one voice: ‘No to war!’”
Gerashchenko has more than 385,000 subscribers to his channel on Telegram. He included a link to a version of Schwarzenegger’s video with a Russian voice-over that he posted on his YouTube channel.
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St. Patrick’s Day celebrations across the country are back after a two-year hiatus, including the nation’s largest in New York City, in a sign of growing hope that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic may be over.
The holiday served as a key marker in the outbreak’s progression, with parades celebrating Irish heritage among the first big public events to be called off in 2020. An ominous acceleration in infections quickly cascaded into broad shutdowns.
The full-fledged return of New York’s parade on Thursday coincides with the city’s wider reopening. Major mask and vaccination rules were recently lifted.
“Psychologically, it means a lot,” said Sean Lane, the chair of the parade’s organizing group. “New York really needs this.”
The city’s entertainment and nightlife scenes have particularly welcomed the return to a normal St. Patrick’s Day party.
“This is the best thing that happened to us in two years,” said Mike Carty, the Ireland-born owner of Rosie O’Grady’s, a restaurant and pub in the Theater District.
“We need the business, and this really kicked it off,” said Carty, who will be hosting the parade’s grand marshal after the procession.
Celebrations are back in other cities, too.
Over the weekend, Chicago dyed its river green, after doing so without much fanfare last year and skipping the tradition altogether during the initial virus onslaught.
Boston, home to one of the country’s largest Irish enclaves, is resuming its annual parade Sunday after a two-year absence. So is Savannah, Georgia, where the parade’s cancellation disrupted a nearly two-century tradition.
Some communities in Florida, one of the first states to reopen its economy, were also bringing their parades back.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis chose St. Patrick’s Day two years ago to shutter restaurants, bars and nightclubs — a dramatic move by the Republican and which underscored the fear and uncertainty of the time.
Since then, DeSantis has been one of the country’s leading voices against mask and vaccine mandates, as well as other pandemic measures.
New York’s parade — the largest and oldest of them all, first held in 1762 — starts at 11 a.m. and runs 35 blocks along Fifth Avenue, past St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Central Park.
It’s being held as the city emerges from a discouraging bout with the highly contagious omicron variant, which killed more than 4,000 people in New York City in January and February.
New infections and hospitalizations have declined since the surge, prompting city officials to green-light the procession.
On the eve of the holiday, Mayor Eric Adams raised the Irish flag at a park located on the southern tip of Manhattan, not far from Ellis Island, to honor the city’s Irish history.
“This St. Patrick’s Day, we honor those Irish immigrants who relocated and helped build our city, and the many Irish Americans who serve New York City to this day,” the mayor said. “Today, we celebrate the fighting spirit of the Irish with the courage and resilience of this entire city.”
Currently, you don’t need to show proof of vaccination to dine indoors at a restaurant in New York, but huge numbers of people still wear masks in public and avoid big crowds. Office towers remain partially empty, as many businesses still haven’t called employees back to their cubicles. Tourists, once thick enough to obstruct Manhattan sidewalks, are still not back in their usual numbers.
“If you walk around the city, it’s still very different,” said Lane, the parade organizer and a financial adviser at a major Wall Street firm. “It’s a very different vibe when you walk in Manhattan versus what it would have been two years ago, because the people aren’t fully back yet.”
Allowing the parade to proceed, he said, could provide a surge of confidence among New Yorkers to return to public life.
This year’s parade is two years in the making, after token processions during the pandemic.
To keep the tradition going, organizers in 2020 and 2021 quietly held small parades on St. Patrick’s Day, right around sunrise, when the streets were empty. Bagpipes accompanied a tiny contingent of officials and a smattering of people drawn by the music.
It remains to be seen if big crowds will show up for this year’s parade, although organizers expect hordes — even if many New Yorkers remain skittish about massive, potentially virus-spreading public events.
Organizers hope people will turn out not just to commemorate the holiday, but to honor the first responders who helped the city get through the pandemic, as well as in support of a delegation of Ukrainian marchers bringing attention to the war in their homeland.
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Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the groundwork had already begun — online. Russian disinformation is a key part of what many are calling a hybrid war. VOA’s Tina Trinh explains.
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The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s most prestigious award, was awarded Tuesday to Burkina Faso-born architect Diebedo Francis Kere, the first African to win the honor in its more than 40-year history.
Kere, 56, was hailed for his “pioneering” designs that are “sustainable to the earth and its inhabitants — in lands of extreme scarcity,” said Tom Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Foundation that sponsors the award, in a statement.
Kere, a dual citizen of Burkina Faso and Germany, said he was the “happiest man on this planet” to become the 51st recipient of the illustrious prize since it was first awarded in 1979.
“I have a feeling of an overwhelming honor but also a sense of responsibility,” he told AFP during an interview in his office in Berlin.
Kere is renowned for building schools, health facilities, housing, civic buildings and public spaces across Africa, including Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Kenya, Mozambique, Togo and Sudan.
“He is equally architect and servant, improving upon the lives and experiences of countless citizens in a region of the world that is at times forgotten,” Pritzker said.
Kere won plaudits for his 2001 project for a primary school in Gando village, in Burkina Faso, where he was born.
Unlike traditional school buildings, which used concrete, Kere’s innovative design combined local clay, fortified with cement to form bricks that helped retain cooler air inside.
A wide, raised tin roof protects the building from rain while helping the air circulate, meaning natural ventilation without any need for air conditioning.
Kere engaged the local community during the design and building phase, and the number of students at the school increased from 120 to 700, the Hyatt Foundation said in its release.
The success of the project saw the creation of an extension, a library and teachers’ housing in later years.
Kere “empowers and transforms communities through the process of architecture,” designing buildings “where resources are fragile and fellowship is vital,” the Pritzker statement added.
“Through his commitment to social justice and engagement, and intelligent use of local materials to connect and respond to the natural climate, he works in marginalized countries laden with constraints and adversity,” the organizers said.
In Kere’s native Burkina Faso, his accolade was hailed as a reminder that Burkina Faso should be known internationally for more than a violent jihadi insurgency that has gripped the country.
Groups affiliated to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group have killed more than 2,000 people and displaced at least 1.7 million.
“In the current pain of the security crisis, our country must remember that it is also the nation of exceptional men like Francis Kere,” said Ra-Sablga Seydou Ouedraogo, of the non-profit Free Afrik.
Nebila Aristide Bazie, head of the Burkina Faso architects’ council, said the award “highlights the African architect and the people of Burkina Faso.”
In 2017, Kere designed the Serpentine pavilion in London’s Hyde Park, a prestigious assignment given to a world-famous architect every year.
He was also one of the architects behind Geneva’s International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum and has held solo museum shows in Munich and Philadelphia.
“I am totally convinced that everyone deserves quality,” he said in his office, where he celebrated his award with his team.
“I’m always thinking how can I get the best for my clients, for those who can afford but also for those who cannot afford.
“This is my way of doing things, of using my architecture to create structures to serve people, let’s say to serve humanity,” Kere added.
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