For his work in films reflecting U.S. history such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Apollo 13” and “Bridge of Spies,” actor Tom Hanks has won this year’s Records of Achievement Award, the National Archives Foundation said on Monday.

Hanks, 61, will receive the award, given to individuals who bring a broad awareness of U.S. history through their work, at an Oct. 21 event at the National Archives Museum in Washington, the nonprofit organization said in a statement.

“As a dive into archives of almost any kind is, to me, a swim in the finest of waters, I’m dazzled to be a part of this event,” said Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner, who last year was one of 21 people awarded the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest U.S. civilian honor.

“Part of my job has always been one not far from that of a lay-Historian, to understand that I am a part of the documenting of the human condition and the American idea, even in the silliest of stories,” he added in the statement.

Hanks has appeared in numerous films based on historical events and figures, including the World War II drama “Saving Private Ryan” and crime thriller “Catch Me If You Can,” based on the true story of fraudster Frank Abagnale.

More recently, Hanks played the title role in “Sully,” based on pilot Chesley Sullenberger’s 2009 emergency landing of a passenger flight on the Hudson River. He was also an executive producer and co-writer/director on the 2001 World War II television miniseries “Band of Brothers.”

“He’s served in World War II [in both the European and Pacific Theaters], negotiated for the U.S. in the Cold War, fought in Vietnam, worked in Congress, and led the space program,” said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States and board member of the National Archives Foundation.

A past winner of the award is Steven Spielberg, who directed Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” “Bridge of Spies” and the upcoming Pentagon Papers movie “The Papers.”

Previous recipients also include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ron Chernow, Tony award-winning film and theater director Thomas Kail and Tony award-winning “Hamilton” composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda.
…

A federal appeals court on Monday revived a lawsuit seeking to force a Madrid museum to return an Impressionist masterpiece to the family of a Jewish woman who was compelled to sell it to a Nazi art appraiser for $360 in 1939 so she could flee Germany.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said two of Lilly Cassirer’s great-grandchildren may sue the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum for the return of Camille Pissarro’s 1897 depiction of a Paris street scene, “Rue Saint-Honoree, Apres-midi, Effet de Pluie.”

Monday’s decision revived a 16-year legal battle that began after the Cassirers learned that the Pissarro, whose value may exceed $40 million, was on display in the Madrid museum, its home since 1992.

Applying Spanish law, the appeals court said it was an open question whether the museum knew the painting was stolen when it acquired it in 1993 in a $338 million purchase of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza’s art collection.

It said that price was well below the collection’s estimated $1 billion to $2 billion value, and the baron may have known he also got a bargain when he bought the Pissarro from a New York art dealer for $275,000 in 1976.

“The Cassirers have created a triable issue of fact whether [the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection] knew the painting was stolen from Lilly when TBC purchased the painting from the Baron,” Circuit Judge Carlos Bea wrote. “There is a triable issue of fact as to the Baron’s good faith.”

Bea also said Lilly Cassirer did not waive her ownership rights when Germany’s government paid her 120,000 marks for the loss of the painting in 1958, when its whereabouts were unknown.

The Pasadena, California-based appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge John Walter in Los Angeles, who dismissed the lawsuit in June 2015.

“We’re obviously very pleased,” said Stephen Zack, a Boies, Schiller & Flexner partner representing the Cassirers, in a phone interview. “This has been a scar they’ve had to deal with for generations.”

David Boies, a prominent U.S. lawyer, had argued the Cassirers’ appeal.

Thaddeus Stauber, a lawyer for the foundation that runs the museum, wrote in an email that the baron and the museum acquired the Pissarro in good faith.

“We remain confident that the foundation’s ownership of the painting will once again be confirmed,” Stauber said.

Both sides agreed that Lilly Cassirer’s sale of the Pissarro to Berlin art dealer Jackob Scheidwimmer amounted to a forcible taking. Pissarro’s works had been popular among European Jewish collectors.

The case is Cassirer v Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 15-55550, 15-55977, 15-55951.
…

They wanted to show the old seven-starred flag from their homeland. And when the Venezuelan players from the Pittsburgh Pirates finally found one on Amazon, they promptly held it upside down.

“When you carry it reversed, that’s a symbol of protest,” Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli said about the display before a game in Arizona in May.

Their rejection of the Venezuelan authorities becomes emboldened with those seven stars, instead of the eight that now appear after one was added by the late President Hugo Chavez’s government.

Amid three months of often-violent confrontations and economic turmoil in their country, an increasing number of Venezuelan players in Major League Baseball are speaking out against the government and showing solidarity with their compatriots protesting in the streets.

“Our country needs help and we want to show that we’re supporting them,” Cervelli said.

Detroit Tigers star Miguel Cabrera, the most famous baseball player from Venezuela, has rejected the violence in videos posted on social media. The two-time American League MVP appeared with other Venezuelan players from the Tigers and the Texas Rangers.

“We want a better country, we want a solution. We want to have someone that steps up and stop this because we cannot continue living like this, killing, and fighting for something not worth,” Cabrera said in Spanish during an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.

One of the gestures of disapproval against President Nicolas Maduro’s government is the use of the upside-down flag, something that started with another wave of protests in 2014.

Cervelli posed with that flag alongside reliever Felipe Rivero, outfielder Jose Osuna and bullpen catcher Heberto Andrade, all from Venezuela. They wanted to make sure that the flag didn’t have the eighth star added by Chavez, so Rivero went shopping online to find that particular emblem.

The almost-daily protests have left at least 90 people dead and hundreds injured. The protests have been fueled by widespread discontent over shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and allegations that Maduro is undermining democracy in the country.

Venezuela is the second-biggest exporter of foreign players in the majors, behind the Dominican Republic. The 76 Venezuelan players on the 25-man rosters of the 30 MLB teams was a record at the start of the season.

No one has been more vocal than the 31-year-old Cervelli, particularly on his social media accounts. He also has written “SOS Venezuela” in his eye black and has a foundation that ships food, medicine and personal hygiene products to Venezuela.

Cervelli should be enjoying the peak of his MLB career. He signed a $31 million, three-year contract to keep him in Pittsburgh from 2017-19. He has to plans to marry Migbelis Castellanos, a former Miss Venezuela.

But what’s happening daily in Venezuela makes him outraged.

He still has family in the country, but his parents moved to neighboring Colombia “due to the shortages.” His grandparents returned to their native Italy when they couldn’t find the medicine they need.

“It’s not me trying to be a leader, that’s not what’s it all about,” Cervelli said. “Venezuela is a country in shambles. We have to rebuild it from scratch.”

The unrest has also caused players to not want to go back to Venezuela during the offseason. Many are trying to have close family members join them permanently in the United States.

Yangervis Solarte, the San Diego Padres infielder who was widowed last year, brought his mother to live with his three daughters in Florida. But others want to remain in Venezuela, like his father, Gervis, and his uncle, 11-year major leaguer Roger Cedeno.

“I live in the United States, but you never stop worrying with those in the country,” Solarte said. “When you call back home and get all the anguish, that they cannot get this or that. We are tired of this.”

Solarte mentions the struggles of less heralded players, who don’t have the same resources as established stars.

“The ones speaking out are players with million-size contracts,” he said. “But with the rookie ones, it’s different. With or without a big contract, you worry about your family.”

Cervelli hopes to be able to go to Venezuela one day “without the need of bodyguards and armored cars.”

He intends to maintain his activism: “This is not going to stop, is not a fight of just one day. The least I can do is to express that I’m with you and raised my voice because my country need helps. We had the perfect country, but look it a now … it’s a mess.”
…

A remote Iranian desert city, Ice Age-era caves in Germany and a stone wharf in Brazil built for arriving African slave ships are three new additions to UNESCO’s list of World Heritage sites.

The World Heritage Committee spent a week meeting in Kraków, Poland, to consider 34 significant historical and cultural sites to add to the list.

This year’s selections include the Iranian city of Yazd, which UNESCO describes as a “living testimony to the use of limited resources for survival in the desert.”

The city has managed to avoid so-called modernization that destroyed many similar Iranian towns, and has preserved its traditional homes, bazaars, mosques and synagogues.

Another site UNESCO added to the list is in the Swabian Jura in southern Germany, one of the areas in Europe where humans first arrived more than 40,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age. They settled in caves, first discovered in the 1860s, and where they created some of the oldest known figurative art.

The U.N. cultural organization said the ancient musical instruments and prehistoric carved figures of animals and humans found in the caves help shed light on the origins of human artistic development

UNESCO also placed the Valongo Wharf in central Rio de Janeiro on the World Heritage List. The stone wharves were built in the early 1800s for slave ships sailing from Africa to Brazil. UNESCO called the wharves “the most important physical trace of the arrival of African slaves on the American continent.”

UNESCO added the World Heritage designation to more than 22 sites during its weeklong meeting in Poland, including choices that were controversial.

They include the Hoh Xil area in the China’s Qinghai province, a traditionally Tibetan area. By designating this a World Heritage site, the International Camnpaign for Tibet, an advocacy group critical of China’s administration there, said UNESCO endorses the forced relocation of Tibetan nomads by Chinese authorities.

China has promised to preserve the traditions and cultural heritage of the Tibetan region.

UNESCO also designated the Old City and Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron as a Palestinian World Heritage Site, angering Israel.

The city is split between Israeli and Palestinian control with the Old City and tomb in the Israeli sector. The tomb is sacred to Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Israel accuses UNESCO of trying to hide Jewish ties to Hebron, while Palestinians contend Israel is seeking to undermine their history.

 

 
…

The IOC has balked at helping Rio Olympic organizers pay a debt estimated at $35-40 million.

 

The executive board of the International Olympic Committee, meeting Sunday in Lausanne, Switzerland, said it had already contributed a “record” $1.53 billion to last year’s Olympics, and questioned giving more after meeting with organizing committee President Carlos Nuzman.

 

In a statement, the IOC said “more detailed information” was needed and said it “deferred any further consideration at this stage.” It added that it “has closed all its obligations with the organizing committee.”

 

Contractually, host cities and countries are obligated to pay Olympic debts.

 

In Rio’s case, if governments step in to help pay creditors, it is sure to anger police, teachers, and other public employees who are getting paid late – caught up in Brazil’s deepest recession in decades.

 

The IOC, trying to move on to future games including the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in seven months, said in addition to record help for Rio, there had been “an exceptional effort to significant cost savings and additional financial undertakings by all the Olympic stakeholders, which amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.”

 

The Rio Olympics opened just under a year ago and were plagued by organizational problems, spotty attendance, corruption scandals, and Brazil’s worst recession in decades. At the last minute, organizers needed millions in a government bailout to hold the Paralympic Games.

 

Some infrastructure built for the Olympics has found uses – a subway line, a renovated port, and high-speed bus lines. But sporting venues are mostly vacant, a $20 million Olympic golf course is struggling to find players, and fewer than 10 percent of the apartments in the 3,600-unit Athletes Village are reported to have found buyers.

 

Last month, an AP analysis – supported by city, state and federal data – put the cost of the Olympics at $13.1 billion, a mix of public and private money. However, the exact figure is likely larger and may never be known.
…

Deploying poems, paintings and posters, opposition-minded artists in Venezuela are expanding their anti-government protests, offering a peaceful alternative to the violent political unrest costing at least 90 lives in three months.

“We don’t want to confront passers-by but to encourage reflection,” said Teresa Mulet, 46, a designer who joined a recent flash protest in a Caracas boulevard, lying with two dozen people as if dead before jumping up to deliver their message.

At the event, lasting just minutes, some shouted phrases lauding peaceful resistance, while others held letters of the alphabet drawn on cardboard which, when joined, spelled a line from a Venezuelan poem: “Those who kill in reality have not lived.”

Such surprise demonstrations are organized by a group of intellectuals and artistic creators – from historians to film directors – meeting discreetly since May, sometimes in bookshops, to design different strategies of protests to the traditional street marches.

The organizers break into small groups and appear suddenly at opposition marches or public spaces, including some areas dominated by government supporters, to leave messages that later go viral on social networks.

Near-daily opposition rallies have brought chaos to Venezuelan streets since April as protesters demand elections, solutions to an economic crisis and a suspension of leftist President Nicolas Maduro’s plan to rewrite the constitution.

Many have descended into battles between masked youths and security forces, with thousands of injuries and arrests on top of the fatalities. Maduro says the protesters are seeking a violent coup with U.S. encouragement.

Seeking to create arresting images, artists have sometimes turned to gargantuan projects.

In the Venezuelan capital Caracas’ largest slum, Petare, they recently unfurled a 25-meter- (82-foot-) wide poster made from 3,000 two bolivar currency notes – worth less than $1 at the street rate – to denounce roaring inflation and economic hardship.

Sometimes, peaceful protesters have been holding up signs, like “Ceasefire!” or “No To Violence!,” just meters (yards) from where young men hurl stones and Molotov cocktails against National Guard soldiers using tear gas and water cannons.

At times, the security forces have fired tear gas canisters directly at the peaceful art-themed protest gatherings.

In Barinas, the rural home state of Maduro’s predecessor and mentor Hugo Chavez, one painter depicted a pregnant mother with a baby inside her wearing a gas mask – in honor of Venezuela’s new generation of young protesters.

Oscar Olivares, a painter and friend of slain student protester Juan Pernalete, mixes the faces of victims with religious images in his protest-themed designs.

“All of us, with our gifts and talents, can build a better Venezuela,” said Olivares, some of whose images have been featured on the makeshift shields of young demonstrators. “I’m happy to know my art can provide hope and protection.”

The artists, some of whom draw inspiration from Spain’s anti-austerity protesters known as “Indignados” (“The Indignant Ones”), are convinced their methods will be more successful than violent protests.

“We’re trying to reflect what common people feel,” said Mariela Ramirez, 52, an architect.
…

Refugees are likely to compete at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with the International Olympic Committee planning another refugee team after its first appearance at last year’s Rio de Janeiro Games.

The IOC unveiled its first team of refugees last year in an effort to raise awareness of the issue and it was one of the feel-good stories of the 2016 Olympics.

The 10-member team from Syria, Congo, Ethiopia and South Sudan hogged the spotlight after marching as the penultimate team before host nation Brazil in the Opening Ceremony at the Olympic stadium.

The athletes took part in athletics, swimming and judo.

“We are already discussing a potential refugee team for Tokyo 2020,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams told reporters on Sunday.

“We want to strengthen our efforts with the United Nations.”

Adams said it was too early to talk about size of the team given the complex selection process, with the refugees for Rio being located at camps scattered across the world.

More than a million refugees streamed into Europe in 2016 alone as they fled fighting in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Millions more are housed in camps in countries across the world, having escaped wars or armed conflicts in their home nations.
…

With the delicacy of a conductor, Ammar Alobaidi runs his right index finger across his acrylic work — a bright, abstract piece that reflects his love for cubism and three sources of inspiration: Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Salvador Dalí.

“The paintings and the colors look like music,” he said. “It has tones.”

His bachelor pad, a modern apartment overlooking a turquoise pool, near the upscale Galleria complex in Houston, Texas, doubles as his art studio and personal gallery. The space is sparse but immaculate. Original canvases occupy every wall.

Alobaidi, 48, feels completely at home here, calling Houston his “mother city,” even though he is originally from Baghdad, Iraq.

“I’m a local artist, not a refugee anymore,” he said. “This feeling gives me more power to create more beautiful things.”

Watch: Ammar Alobaidi, Immigrant and Artist, Calls Houston Home Now

Formerly an established nuclear engineer, Alobaidi resettled in the United States nearly four years ago after a life divided between Iraq, Jordan and Libya. In Houston, home to the country’s largest resettled refugee community, he made a living as a case manager with YMCA International Services’ refugee cash assistance program, in part to give back to the community that afforded him “the opportunity to develop,” but also to fund his passion.

“A lot of professional artists come here as refugees or as immigrants,” said Joe Saceric, director of Community Relations at YMCA International Services. “Whereas they might have been a well-respected professional artist in their country of origin, now they’re having to start from scratch.”

‘I am limitless’

Texas withdrew from the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program in 2016, citing security concerns. But in Houston, the YMCA has continued to provide resettlement and legal support, in more than 20 languages, to clients representing roughly 92 countries, Saceric said.

YMCA International Services noticed the range of talent within its own refugee and immigrant community, including Alobaidi, and hosted an art exhibit and silent auction in 2016 — the first of its kind — called “Triumph of the Human Spirit.”

Tina Aldebashi, a 29-year-old featured immigrant artist from Yemen and outreach worker at YMCA International Services, recalled her move to Houston as a moment of self-discovery.

“The girl who came two years ago to Houston is not the same girl sitting here and talking today,” she told VOA.

“I just wanted to explore — I’ve always wanted to explore since I was a child — but I was limited to the resources I had, or the places I could go to explore,” Aldebashi said. “When I came here, I just thought, ‘I am limitless.’”

Out of darkness

Aldebashi’s medium of choice is resin, one that interprets her emotions but also “holds colors beautifully.” Apart from a “rebellious” charcoal phase, she admits her life has not been one of extreme hardship. Nonetheless, she has made it her mission to empower refugee women through the creation and sale of artwork, an idea based on her personal upbringing.

“I have seen the women in my family, and how reliant they are on their husbands,” she said. “You are an individual; you should be independent enough to do things for yourself, and not be reliant on somebody to help you.”

Alobaidi’s earlier works, like Aldebashi’s, were occasionally dark. Inside his apartment, he reveals one of fallen, dismembered corpses, reflecting the horrors of war. But his newer canvases reveal “strength of love, solidarity,” and “exchanges of generosity,” impressions that he says come as a surprise to some viewers.

“‘Oh, we thought you are a refugee,’” he said. “They thought they will see sadness … they see the opposite.”

Alobaidi, who recently left YMCA to pursue his art full time, claims to paint feelings, not figures — a truth that speaks to his positivity, as he looks ahead.

“I am sure that I will succeed, because [in] this country, when you work hard, you will succeed.” He lights up, like the paintings that surround him. “That is an equation.”
…

After 1,400 kilometers (nearly 900 miles) in eight days of racing, the suffer-fest Tour de France now turns the pain dial up a notch or five. How does scaling half the height of Everest in one day sound?

That’s the monstrous challenge lurking Sunday for the 193 tired, sunbaked riders who have made it this far.

For the moment, when race leader Chris Froome looks over his shoulder, he sees a gaggle of challengers hot on his heels. Just 61 seconds separate him from 10th-placed Rafal Majka of Poland. More dangerous contenders are closer still to the three-time Tour champion.

Climbs defy categorization

All that will likely change on the succession of seven climbs in eastern France’s Jura mountains Sunday — three of them so tough they defy categorization on cycling’s sliding scale of climbing toughness. “A monster stage” is how Froome described it, predicting the race standings will “get blown to pieces.”

Total elevation, when all the ascents are added together: 4,600 meters (15,000 feet). That’s just shy of the height of western Europe’s highest peak, Mont Blanc, and about belly button-height on Everest.

The last “hors categorie” climb, Mont du Chat, may be named after a cat but looks on Tour maps like a lion’s fang. With an average 10 percent gradient, and even steeper than that in parts, it will push riders already exhausted by the previous six climbs to the very limit. Hearts pounding, legs burning, they will have no time to recover from its hairpin bends before plunging into more fast, twisting bends on the descent. Clear heads and quick reactions are a must: Not easy when body and brain are screaming for rest.

“That climb is savage,” Froome said. “I imagine it’s going to blow the general classification right open.”

Tired legs

Complicating matters: Saturday’s stage, also in the Jura mountains, was far from easy.

Froome’s teammates at Sky had to ride hard to make sure that riders who rode off at the front of the race, chasing the stage victory, didn’t get too far ahead and take the overall lead away from him. The question now is whether Sky will pay for the effort Sunday and run out of juice on the 181.5-kilometer (112-mile) Stage 9 from Nantua to Chambery in the Alps, arguably the most grueling of this Tour’s 21 stages.

“It was good to see them pull on the front,” said Australian Richie Porte of the rival BMC team, who is 39 seconds behind Froome overall, in fifth place. “I hope there’s some tired legs among them tomorrow.”

Grinding away from pursuers on a small mountain road more suited to goats than riders, Lilian Calmejane won Stage 8 to the Rousses ski station, for his first victory in his first Tour.

Calmejane, riding for French team Direct Energie, fought cramps after breaking away on the final climb and hung on, tongue lolling, for victory in only the second visit by the Tour to the Rousses, with its cross-country ski trails through dense forests.

It was the second win at this Tour for a French rider, after Arnaud Demare’s on Stage 4.

Froome rode in 50 seconds after Calmejane — plenty close enough to retain the yellow jersey — in a group with all of the other top contenders for overall victory in Paris on July 23.

Saturday frights

Froome’s day wasn’t without incident: On a downhill, right-hand bend after the second of three rated climbs on the 187.5 kilometer (116-mile) stage from Dole, the Briton went into roadside gravel instead of cornering. Froome stayed on his bike and quickly recovered. But teammate Geraint Thomas went over roadside barriers. Thomas quickly rejoined the race, and Froome said his teammate was uninjured.

The corner “sprang up on us a little bit,” Froome said. “One moment you’re in control, the next thing you’re in a ditch.”

Calmejane held off Dutch rider Robert Gesink, hot on his heels, on the final climb and rolling finish. Cramping from his effort, Calmejane had to slow and rise off his saddle to stretch his legs in the final section and then gritted his teeth and pedaled onward to the line.

“I gave myself a huge fright,” Calmejane said of his cramps. “It would have been so sad to lose the stage like that.”

Gesink, of the Netherlands’ Lotto-Jumbo team, rode in 37 seconds after Calmejane. French rider Guillaume Martin placed third on the stage, another 13 seconds back.

By being the first rider to scale the day’s last climb, Calmejane enjoyed the added bonus of picking up enough points to take the polka-dot jersey, awarded for points collected on climbs, off the shoulders of Italian Fabio Aru.

“Winning alone like that is incredible,” said Calmejane, who also won a stage at his first Grand Tour, the Spanish Vuelta, last year. “It’s everything I dreamed of.”
…

Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr celebrated his 77th birthday on Friday by announcing a new album that will feature former bandmate Paul McCartney.

Starr’s 19th solo album “Give More Love” will be released on Sept. 15 and will include McCartney on two tracks – “We’re on the Road Again” and “Show Me the Way,” which is dedicated to Starr’s wife, Barbara Bach.

“We are still mates,” Starr told Reuters of his former bandmate. “He’s out on the road, he’s got his own life. I’m out on the road a lot making records and he was in town so I called him and I said, ‘I’ve got this track for you to play on.'”

Starr called McCartney “the most melodic bass player in the world.”

“I love the way he plays,” he said.

Starr holds his birthday celebrations in public every year, raising awareness of his peace-and-love message.

On Friday he led a crowd gathered on the sunny, hot streets of Hollywood in a “peace and love” chant, joined on stage by guests including guitarist Joe Walsh, who is a member of Starr’s band and also his brother-in-law, as well as “Twin Peaks” director David Lynch.

“There is a lot of trouble in the world, a lot of violence in the world and a lot of starvation and a lot of people without water,” Starr said. “I’m a big supporter of Water Aid because everyone should at least have water … It’s not all bombs and

guns.”

Starr and McCartney made musical history as members of seminal 1960s English band the Beatles, along with the late George Harrison and John Lennon. The “Fab Four” led the British invasion into U.S. pop music and became one of the most successful bands in the world.

All four Beatles have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame both as part of the band and as solo artists.
…

At the peak of his career in the 1930s, Carlos Gardel’s fans used to gather at the curb outside his home, hoping to hear one of Argentina’s greatest tango singers practice a tune before a show. Now, they can gather inside to hear him again.

 

Visitors to the remodeled “Carlos Gardel Museum Home” at his former house in the Argentine capital can see black-and-white images of key moments in the career of the singer who gave tango a huge boost worldwide.

 

And the voice is on tap as well. Visitors can hear 893 recordings, which make up most of his repertoire, through headphones installed there.

“It’s very interesting to visit the house where he lived and to give children a chance to understand that there are other types of music,” said Siomara Gordon, a Colombian tourist visiting the museum. “He expresses love like no other.”

 

Gardel’s cult remains powerful more than eight decades after his death in a 1935 air crash in Colombia at the age of 44. Argentines often leave carnations and burning cigarettes at his tomb in Chacarita cemetery in Buenos Aires and couples dance to his songs in packed halls.

Iconic images of him with a fedora hat pulled over his brow and a cigarette dangling from his lips are plastered on walls throughout Buenos Aires — and on those of Argentine restaurants worldwide.

The museum was first inaugurated in 2003, and reopened in June. It is located in the tango-crazed Abasto neighborhood of Argentina’s capital, where Gardel used to frequent cafes and often perform. Gardel bought the home in 1926 at the peak of his career and lived there with his mother, Marie-Berthe Gardes. The place became the gathering point for journalists and friends visiting the singer.

 

“Gardel had this grand piano where he would rehearse his compositions. Guitarists and other musicians would get together with other friends and Gardel’s mother, who was a great cook, would cook for all of them,” museum director Carlos Koffman, said near the windows through which Gardel’s fans outside could hear him practice.

 

The museum is filled with mementos including unpublished audiovisual material made shortly before his death. There is an authenticated copy of Gardel’s birth certificate, which shows that he was born in Toulouse, France, on Dec. 11, 1890.

One room in the exhibition focuses on Gardel’s tour of Latin America before his death. Images from Argentina’s National Archives show Gardel’s remains returning to Buenos Aires in 1936, his wake and his funeral.

 

“Gardel is huge today,” said museum visitor Mariano Herrera. “And he’ll continue to be great throughout time.”
…

Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio has been effectively banned from the Gold Cup by FIFA for insulting match officials.

FIFA banned Osorio for six matches on Friday for his behavior during the Confederations Cup third-place game last Sunday, when Mexico lost to Portugal 2-1.

Mexico will have to play up to six games to retain the Gold Cup in the U.S., starting on Sunday against El Salvador in San Diego.

Osorio was incensed when his team was not awarded a penalty against Portugal.

FIFA said Osorio “used insulting words towards the match officials while displaying an aggressive attitude towards them.”

If Mexico plays fewer than six games at the Gold Cup, Osorio’s suspension will carry over to its next internationals.
…

Entertainer Bill Cosby will be retried on charges of sexually assaulting a former employee of his alma mater in November, five months after his first trial on those charges ended in a hung jury, a Pennsylvania judge ruled on Thursday.

Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas Judge Steven O’Neill said the 79-year-old comedian would be tried again beginning on Nov. 6. He is accused of the sexual assault of Temple University administrator Andrea Constand in his Philadelphia-area home in 2004.

Cosby built a long career on a family-friendly style of comedy exemplified by the 1980s TV hit “The Cosby Show” before dozens of women came forward to accuse him of sex assault in a series of incidents dating back to the 1960s.

The vast majority of those alleged incidents were too old to be the subject of criminal prosecution, but Cosby has faced one criminal trial because prosecutors in Pennsylvania charged him in December 2015, just days before the statute of limitations was to run out on Constand’s claim.

The jurors who heard Cosby’s first trial in Norristown, Pennsylvania, who were bused in from Pittsburgh, 300 miles (480 km) away, failed to reach a unanimous verdict last month after 52 hours of deliberations that often stretched late into the night.

Cosby has long denied any criminal wrongdoing and has said that any sexual contact he had with his accusers was consensual.

His spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, hailed the hung-jury outcome as a victory for Cosby, who has not performed to a paying audience for more than two years.

Cosby is also awaiting two trials over civil lawsuits filed against him by accusers, with both scheduled for the summer of 2018.
…

Director Franco Zeffirelli’s art works and personal library have been moved from his Roman villa to his native Florence to fill a museum honoring his life’s work.

 

The museum and performing arts center will display around 500 sketches of production sets that Zeffirelli made during his vast career, make available his 10,000-volume library and incorporate artistic activities.

His son, Pippo Zeffirelli, said at a presentation Thursday in Rome “the project was born from the maestro’s desire to leave all his artistic treasures” intact and accessible. Zeffirelli was expected to attend, but his son said he was feeling unwell because of a heat wave.

 

The film, TV and opera director, who is 94, also will be honored at La Scala with a revival of his 1963 production of “Aida.”
…

Madonna says the children’s wing at a hospital in Malawi she has been building for two years completed its first surgery last week and will officially open July 11.

The Mercy James Institute for Pediatric Surgery and Intensive Care, located at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in the city of Blantyre, had a soft opening and is the first of its kind in Malawi. It was built in collaboration with the Malawian Ministry of Health.

“When you look into the eyes of children in need, wherever they may be, a human being wants to do anything and everything they can to help, and on my first visit to Malawi, I made a commitment that I would do just that,” Madonna said in a statement to The Associated Press.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has joined me on this unbelievable journey. What started out as a dream for Malawi and her children has become a reality, and we couldn’t have done it without your support,” she added.

Madonna adopted four children, David Banda, Mercy James, Stelle and Estere from Malawi. The children’s wing was named after 11-year-old Mercy.

The pop star’s charity, Raising Malawi, has built schools in Malawi and has funded the new pediatric unit, which began construction in 2015. Madonna, 58, visited the site last year.

The children’s unit includes three operating rooms dedicated to children’s surgery, a day clinic and a 45-bed ward. It will enable Queen Elizabeth hospital to double the number of surgeries for children and will provide critical pre-operative and post-operative care. It also includes a playroom, an outdoor play structure and murals curated by Madonna and other artists.

Sarah Ezzy, executive director of Raising Malawi, said the charity has been working with Queen Elizabeth hospital since 2008, helping the hospital’s chief of pediatric surgery, Dr. Eric Borgstein, develop a training program.

“Pediatric intensive care is not something that has formally existed in Malawi. There hasn’t been any training on it. It’s not part of the curriculum in nursing school [or] medical school. People had to leave the country to train … now people don’t have to leave the country to train,” Ezzy said in an interview. “This facility is attached to the college of medicine and nursing so it will be a learning, teaching hospital.”

Trevor Neilson, who works at Charity Network and has been advising Madonna’s philanthropic efforts for the last six years, said “only someone like Madonna could do this. If you weren’t Madonna, you would have given up a long time ago.”

“Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives will be saved by the hospital in the course of it operating,” added Neilson, who has worked on charity projects with Bill Gates, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Bono and others.

Madonna founded Raising Malawi in 2006 to address the poverty and hardship endured by Malawi’s orphans and vulnerable children.

“Malawi has enriched my family more than I could have ever imagined. It’s important for me to make sure all my children from the country maintain a strong connection to their birth nation, and equally important to show them that together as humans we have the power to change the world for the better,” Madonna said.
…

The first time a new country songwriter named Kacey Musgraves saw one of her songwriting heroes, John Prine, she had an unusual proposition when she approached.

 

“I said, ‘Hey, my name is Kacey and I am a really big fan. I don’t want to offend you or anything, but is there any way you might want to burn one with me?”’ Musgraves recalled saying after one of his shows in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Musgraves, who would later go on to win two Grammy Awards for her 2013 major label debut album, was hoping to fulfill a fantasy of smoking a joint with Prine. It was also the premise of an unreleased song she had written that somehow ended up on Prine’s desk.

 

Prine, who has survived a couple of bouts of cancer, politely declined.

 

“He says, ‘Well, I don’t do that anymore, but if I did, I would with you,”’ Musgraves, who is now 28, recalled.

 

This 70-year-old former mailman from Chicago is the hippest writer in Nashville and still in demand. Prine has become an affable songwriting guru for many of Nashville’s talented young artists, including country rebel Sturgill Simpson, Americana darlings Jason Isbell and his wife, Amanda Shires, and rocker Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys.

 

All those artists have lined up to open for Prine, when they are easily selling out their own venues as headliners.

 

“I have met some really great people in the last five years that it’s easy to see that music in general is in good hands,” Prine said in an interview from his office, which is decorated year round with Christmas lights and a white Christmas tree.

 

Prine published his first book in April, a songbook called “Beyond Words,” which features guitar chords, family photos, handwritten or typed lyrics with his editing marks and witty musings alongside some of his most well-known songs, from “Sam Stone,” “Angel from Montgomery,” “Paradise,” and “Hello in There.”

Prine’s reinvigorated career came after neck cancer in the late ’90s left him with a much lower and grittier voice. After his recovery, he just moved his songs to lower key.

 

“Some of my oldest songs that I used to perform every night became brand spanking new just because I changed the key,” Prine said.

 

He started his own record label Oh Boy in Nashville in the early ’80s, which sold his CDs by direct mail to fans. He enjoys his independence from major labels, even if it has meant fewer sales. He says his only advice to young songwriters is don’t give up their publishing rights in a record deal.

 

“I am not a big one for advice,” Prine said. “I will tell them stories about things I have failed at or places I have stumbled and hope they take it as a parable. And maybe apply it to themselves and maybe not.”

 

Auerbach and Prine wrote several songs together, including the title track for Auerbach’s new solo album, “Waiting On a Song.”

 

“It was like having a conversation really,” the 38-year-old singer said of writing with Prine. “And I think for me, that’s what John does so well with his music. It’s not over your head. He uses simple language to convey big meaning.”

 

The Grammy-winner has taken on heavy topics including coal mining on Appalachia, the treatment of Vietnam veterans and the loneliness of growing old, and earned praises from Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt and Kris Kristofferson, who helped Prine get his first record deal. But he also likes to write with humor, as evidenced by another popular duet with Iris Dement “In Spite of Ourselves,” that contains some of his best one-liners about love and marriage.

 

“I think John is very youthful at heart,” Musgraves said. “He’s a big kid. So naturally he gets along with people that are younger than him. But also he probably recognizes himself in a lot of the up-and-coming songwriters that respect him.”

 

Even a trip to the grocery store is an opportunity for aspiring writers to pitch him. “I used to leave Kroger with cassettes in my pockets because people would drop CDs and cassettes because they want John Prine to hear it,” Prine said.

 

His last album in 2016 was a collection of classic country duets with artists like Musgraves, Alison Krauss and Miranda Lambert. He hasn’t released an album of new songs in 12 years, but his wife and manager, Fiona, and his son, Jody, who runs his label, convinced him it was time again.

 

He’s going back in the studio in July to record new music and he’s also been nominated for artist of the year at this year’s Americana Honors and Awards show held in September.

 

“I like the scene in Nashville,” Prine said. “I am not particularly happy with modern country music, but it’s part of a tradition. It will come and it will go, but it will always revert back to what country was before. I can see it coming around again. I am going to stick around Nashville and see what happens.”
…

In prehistoric times, millions of bison roamed North America, but by the late 1800s, they were nearly extinct. Through conservation efforts, they can now be found in all 50 states, including national parks, private lands and even on one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. As VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports, the story of how the bison crossed 45 kilometers of ocean to get to Catalina Island is right out of a Hollywood movie.
…

A newly discovered photograph may provide the answer to one of the 20th century’s greatest unsolved mysteries — the disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

The legendary American pilot vanished 80 years ago this month somewhere over the Pacific. She was attempting to be the first woman to fly around the world.

What is known is that Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan radioed on July 2 that they were in trouble between Papua, New Guinea, and Howland Island.

U.S. investigators quickly gave up the search, concluding they crashed into the ocean and formally pronounced them dead in 1939.

There have been numerous theories of what happened to Earhart and Noonan.

But a new television documentary shows a previously lost photograph of a woman resembling Earhart and a man who experts say is almost certainly Noonan on a dock somewhere in the Pacific.

The woman has her back to the camera and is looking to her right. She has the short hair style and men’s-style pants Earhart was known to favor.

A barge in the background appears to be towing an object that looks like the same size as Earhart’s plane.

The man in the foreground has the same hairline and prominent nose as Noonan’s.

The photo was misplaced in a box at the National Archives in Washington and the filmmakers found it by accident.

Possibly seen as spies

They theorize that Japanese forces captured Earhart and Noonan, believing them to be spies and held them prisoner in the Mariana Islands.

It is unknown when or how they died.

The producers believe someone spying for the U.S. against Japan took the photograph.

They say that may be the reason why the United States hastened to give up looking for Earhart and Noonan.

Shawn Henry, a former assistant director of the FBI and Earhart aficionado, hosts the documentary. He says the aviator was abandoned by her own government and “may very well be the first casualty of World War II.”

The documentary, “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidence,” premiers Sunday night on The History Channel.
…

Arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby has agreed to forfeit thousands of illegally smuggled ancient Middle Eastern artifacts obtained from antiquities dealers for a Bible museum headed by its president, the company and U.S. officials said Wednesday.

The forfeiture will include about 5,500 artifacts purchased by Hobby Lobby Inc that originated in modern day Iraq and were shipped under false labels, as well as an additional $3 million to settle the civil charges, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

“The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that (Homeland Security Investigations) and its partner U.S. Customs and Border Protection take very seriously as we recognize that while some may put a price on these artifacts, the people of Iraq consider them priceless,” Angel Melendez, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New York, said in the statement.

Privately held Hobby Lobby said that it was new to the world of antiquities when it began acquiring historical items for its Museum of the Bible in 2009 and made mistakes in relying on dealers and shippers who “did not understand the correct way to document and ship” them.

The company’s president, Steve Green, is the chairman and founder of the Museum of the Bible, which is under construction in Washington, D.C.

The artifacts being forfeited include cuneiform tablets and bricks, clay bullae and cylinder seals. Cuneiform is an ancient system of writing on clay tablets.

“At no time did Hobby Lobby ever purchase items from dealers in Iraq or from anyone who indicated that they acquired items from that country,” Green said in his statement. “Hobby Lobby condemns such conduct and has always acted with the intent to protect ancient items of cultural and historical importance. … “We have accepted responsibility and learned a great deal,” Green added, saying that the company has now “implemented acquisition policies and procedures based on the industry’s highest standards.”

Federal prosecutors say that when Hobby Lobby, which is based in Oklahoma City, began assembling its collection it was warned by an expert on cultural property law to be cautious in acquiring artifacts from Iraq, which in some cases have been looted from archaeological sites.

Despite that warning and other red flags, the company in December 2010 purchased thousands of items from a middle man, without meeting the purported owner, according to prosecutors.

A dealer based in the United Arab Emirates shipped packages containing the artifacts to three Hobby Lobby corporate addresses in Oklahoma City, bearing false labels that described their contents as “ceramic tiles” or “clay tiles” and the country of origin as Turkey.

 
…

A weird thing happened when the four members of the alt-rock band Imagine Dragons sat down to listen to their new album all the way through. They actually liked it.

 

“This was the first record that I think after we created it and we listened to it, we all went, for the first time, ‘Yes. This is Imagine Dragons and we’re proud of this,”’ said lead singer Dan Reynolds. “That doesn’t happen very often in this band, to be honest with you.”

 

The Las Vegas-based quartet, which likes to blend rock and hip-hop, has always been its toughest critic, but on “Evolve,” band members had to learn to let go. They relied on producers for the first time — Swedish duo Mattman & Robin, who won a Grammy for Taylor Swift’s “1989,” and Joel Little, who produced Lorde’s “Pure Heroine” — to shepherd the album all the way through.

 

“We knew as a band one of our biggest flaws was overproducing ourselves. We’ve known it since the beginning and we’ve had so many conversations as a band saying, ‘How do we peel back?’ And we just couldn’t do it until finally somebody walked into the room and slapped our head,” Reynolds said.

 

The new approach reflects a lot of changes behind the scenes at Imagine Dragons, now re-entering the spotlight after more than a year away as a happier — maybe even sunnier — band. The first single, “Believer,” is already a hit.

 

The group ground away in obscurity for years — even for sharing a bill with mimes — until being signed by producer Alex da Kid and seeing massive success with the 2012 release of the hit “Radioactive.” Their second album, “Smoke + Mirrors,” went gold but didn’t reach the sales height of their debut, “Night Visions.” They spent seven years touring, a grueling schedule that took its toll.

 

“I think it kind of snuck up on us a little bit, to be honest. The change happened pretty fast. We were this tiny little band that struggled and struggled for so long and played any show we could — I mean, we opened for mimes, for heaven’s sake. And that was by far not our worst gig,” said guitarist Wayne Sermon.

 

By the time they blew up — with a Grammy Award and arena tours — band members feared the success would stop if they stopped.

“It was sort of unhealthy for us, so this year-break was amazing,” said Sermon. “I think it reflects in the music. I think the music is brighter. I think it’s cleaner. I think more vibrant.”

 

The break was most appreciated by Reynolds, who has always been frank about his battles with depression. He was desperate to get home and reconnect with his 4-year-old daughter, his wife and friends.

 

“I was in a really just scattered, depressed headspace, and I think it just came from a sense of losing my sense of self almost to a degree and all the abrupt changes. I had dealt with depression when I was young, but it really took on a whole new level and it was kind of a full year,” he said.

 

“I did a lot of self-work, read a lot of books, met with a lot of people who helped me find a healthier headspace and got to a really wonderful, colorful, good headspace, which has been just great.”

 

To make “Evolve,” the band leaned on Alex da Kid and new collaborators like Joel Little and Mattman & Robin. Imagine Dragons turned to the duo for several songs chiefly because they were very opinionated and very minimalistic.

Reynolds and Sermon recall working in the studio for hours, trying all kinds of song approaches, until one of the Swedish producers smiled or just nodded.

 

“They helped us see the weakness of what we’d done and the strengths and try to make a more evolved version of what Imagine Dragons was sonically while also retaining the elements that made the band who they were,” Reynolds said.

 

Reynolds, whose wife recently gave birth to twins, also was freed up to push himself lyrically, turning for the first time to address love on songs like “Walking the Wire” and “I’ll Make It Up to You.”

 

“Since I was in a healthy headspace for the first time in a long time, love was exciting to me and it wasn’t cliched or corny. It was beautiful and interesting. So I found myself writing about love.”

 

After spending much of the summer on tour in Europe, the band returns for a fall swing through the United States. Life on the road may be a grind but they say the reward is the ultimate high of playing live.

 

“Cliff jumping isn’t as exciting to me as the idea of going onstage and playing for people who got a babysitter, fought traffic, paid extra for parking and showed up,” said Sermon.
…