Bob Dylan has completed his Nobel course requirements.

The Swedish Academy announced Monday that it has received the mandatory lecture from the 2016 literature winner, enabling Dylan to collect 8 million Swedish kronor ($922,000) in prize money.

Spokeswoman Sara Danius described Dylan’s talk in a news release as “extraordinary” and “eloquent.” Nobel Prize officials said the 26-minute talk was recorded on Sunday in Los Angeles and an audio clip is posted on the academy’s website.

Danius said its delivery to the academy meant that “the Dylan adventure is coming to a close.” Dylan, widely regarded as the most influential songwriter of his time, received the Nobel Literature diploma and medal in April but was still required to give a speech to receive the money.

Dylan took weeks to publicly acknowledge even winning the prize, announced in October, and greeted with both joy and dismay that a rock star had received an honor previously given to William Faulkner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Alice Munro among others.

He did not attend December’s Nobel ceremony in Stockholm and his acceptance remarks were read by the United States Ambassador to Sweden, Azita Raji.

Dylan’s songs have drawn on literary influences from Beat poetry to Anton Chekhov and his recording was a celebration of books and music and of the common language among art forms. In a warm, raspy delivery, with lounge-style piano in the background, he called Buddy Holly his first musical hero, praised his “imaginative verses” and remembered seeing him in concert not long before Holly died in a 1959 plane crash.

“Something about him seemed permanent and he filled me with conviction,” Dylan said of seeing Holly on stage.  “Then out of the blue, the most uncanny thing happened, he looked at me right straight there in the eye and he transmitted something, something I didn’t know what. It gave me the chills.”

Dylan said that folk songs were his earliest musical vocabulary, but that books such as “Ivanhoe” and “Don Quixote” helped shape his view of the world and inspire him to write songs “unlike anything anybody had ever heard.” From the start, he believed in absorbing classical texts and the vernacular of the day.

He discussed three works at length: “Moby Dick,” (a reminder we “see only the surface of things”), “All Quiet On the Western Front” (in which “death is everywhere, nothing else is possible”) and “The Odyssey,” a “strange, adventurous tale” he likened to such modern pop songs as Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound.” He concluded by noting that Shakespeare’s words were meant to be spoken, “Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page.”

“And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days,” he said. “I return once again to Homer, who says, `Sing in me, oh Muse, and through me tell the story.'”
…

Wonder Woman was even mightier than expected. Warner Bros. has revised the film’s weekend estimate up to $103.1 million.

The studio on Monday said the tickets sold on Sunday turned out to be even higher than it estimated over the weekend. Warner Bros. previously had announced a $100.5 million North American haul.

The nearly $3 million swing, Warner Bros. said, was due to an unusually small drop in audience from Saturday to Sunday. That indicates that the well-reviewed film’s strong word of mouth is giving Wonder Woman more momentum than usual.

The Patty Jenkins-directed film became the biggest opening for a film directed by a woman and, by the far, the most successful female-led superhero release.
…

In the three weeks since St. Nicholas came to Moscow, more than 300,000 people have stood in huge lines for up to 10 hours to visit a gilded ark thought to carry his bone fragments. Yet the queues stretching down the Moscow River embankment from Christ the Savior Cathedral are something of their own marvel.

 The massive turnout to see the saint’s relics, which are on loan from their home in Bari, Italy for the first time, underline how strongly the Orthodox Church has become a part of Russians’ sense of themselves a quarter-century after the collapse of the officially atheist Soviet Union.

 

“It was tough, but you got a chance to think about your life, all the problems and the sins you have committed,” economist Svetlana Dzhuma, 24, said after exiting the cathedral in a state of elation.

 

President Vladimir Putin, who says he was secretly baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church as an infant, paid his respects to the relics on the day they arrived in Moscow, where photos of him kissing the ark were widely featured in Russian media.

 

Although Russians remain predominantly secular and have opposed church-backed initiatives such as a ban on abortions or public school classes on Orthodox Church teachings, the overwhelming majority of them strongly identify as Russian Orthodox.

Christian revival

Nicholas, who died in 343, never set foot in the territory that became Russia. But he has become the Russian Orthodox Church’s most popular saint, credited with miracles and with preventing catastrophes in Russia. His prominence in the church has made the relics something of a must-see even for people who are not regular church-goers.

 

Russia has witnessed a Christian revival since the crumbling Soviet state began to loosen its grip on religious life in the late 1980s. The percentage of Russians calling themselves Christian Orthodox shot up from 17 percent to around 77 percent, Lev Gudkov, director of the independent Levada Center polling and research organization, said.

Stable 7 percent

 

However, roughly 40 percent of those who identify as Orthodox Christians say they do not believe in God or eternal life, and the number of churchgoers who take communion is stable at around 7 percent.

Gudkov described the thinking as “a very superficial change in identity: I’m a Russian, therefore Orthodox. It’s a change from the Soviet identity to an ethnic Russian and religious one.”

 

Putin in his third term as president has evoked Russia’s Christian roots and relied on the church to provide the ideological backing for his policies at home and abroad. Among his justifications for Russia annexing Crimea from Ukraine was that the ancient settlement of Chersonesus there is as important to Russians as Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is to Jews, Muslims and Christians.

 

The Orthodox Church got permission to host the St. Nicholas relics after Patriarch Kirill met with Pope Francis last year in the first such meeting between the leaders of the two religions since the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches split about a millennium ago. The ark will be on display, first in Moscow and later in St. Petersburg, until the end of July.

Resurgence of faith

Speaking after a prayer celebrating the relics’ arrival, Kirill referred to the crowds of believers waiting to see the relics as a sign of the resurgence of faith.

“If someone has the energy to stand seven, eight hours or longer on the street, in the heat, in the cold, under the rain, it speaks of a very strong faith,” he said.

Yulia Kamolova, a 34-year-old accountant, got up at 5 a.m. and stood in line for nine hours to see the relics “to cleanse myself” and to show them to her 12-year-old son. Retired pharmacist Svetlana Timonina said Nicholas, known in Russia as “the wonderworker,” was her favorite saint and that he had answered her prayers in the past.

Many in the line spoke of the miracles for which they prayed. Andrei Olenko, 52, said he traveled from Crimea hoping for a turnaround for the former farming collective where he works.

“Our farm is falling apart, and we would like (St. Nicholas) to help the farm,” Olenko said.

Blind faith

The Levada Center’s Gudkov said “this craving for a miracle, craving for a cure,” is becoming noticeable as the country’s disillusioned people have started pinning their hopes for a better future to a blind faith in the supernatural instead of on the ideal of a democratic government.

“People were waiting for a miracle, that once they gave up the Soviet ideology and Soviet state they will get prosperous — and then it didn’t happen,” he said.

Xenia Loutchenko, a Moscow-based commentator on church affairs, said it would be an oversimplification to dismiss those lined up to visit the relics as ignorant or superstitious, as many of Moscow’s atheists have.

What fuels this craving for a miracle is that with standards of living falling, Russians have little faith in a positive change from social institutions or the government.

“The thing is, people don’t have much to hope for with the current state of our health care, what people hear from doctors and bureaucrats: They have nothing else to rely on, other than to go and pray.”

 
…

Bill Cosby went on trial Monday on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman more than a decade ago, with prosecutors immediately introducing evidence the 79-year-old TV star once known as America’s Dad had done it before to someone else.

 

The prosecution’s opening witness was not the person Cosby is charged with violating, but another woman, who broke down in tears as she testified that the comedian abused her in the mid-1990s at a hotel bungalow in Los Angeles.

 

Cosby is on trial on charges he assaulted Andrea Constand, a former employee of Temple University’s basketball program, at his suburban Philadelphia mansion in 2004. His good-guy reputation already in ruins, he could get 10 years in prison if convicted.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Kristen Feden noted that the “Cosby Show” star previously admitted under oath that he gave Constand pills and touched her genitals as she lay on his couch.

 

“She couldn’t say no,” Feden said. “She can’t move, she can’t talk. Completely paralyzed. Frozen. Lifeless.”

 

Cosby attorney Brian McMonagle countered by attacking what he said were inconsistencies in Constand’s story. McMonagle also disputed that Constand was incapacitated and made the case that she and Cosby had a romantic relationship. McMonagle said Cosby gave her the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl only after she complained she couldn’t sleep.

 

The defense lawyer said Constand changed the date of the encounter from mid-March to mid-January of 2004. And he said Constand initially told police that she and Cosby had never spoken afterward, when, in fact, phone records show the two talked 72 times after mid-January — with 53 of those calls initiated by Constand.

 

Constand, 44, of the Toronto area, is expected to take the stand this week and tell her story in public for the first time.

 

The trial’s first witness was Kelly Johnson of Atlanta, who worked for one of Cosby’s agents at the William Morris Agency. She described an encounter she said took place in 1996 at the Hotel Bel-Air when she was in her mid-30s.

 

Prosecutors are trying to show Cosby’s treatment of Constand fit a pattern of predatory behavior.

 

They had wanted to call as many as 13 women who say Cosby sexually assaulted them — out of more than 60 accusers in all. But Montgomery County Judge Steven O’Neill, in a victory for Cosby, said jurors could hear only from Constand and Johnson.

 

Johnson testified that Cosby pressured her to take a large white pill that knocked her out, and when she woke up he put lotion on her hand and forced her to touch his genitals.

 

“My dress was pulled up from the bottom, and it was pulled down from the top, and my breasts were out,” she said, crying. “And I felt naked.”

 

Cosby’s lawyer argued that Johnson was seeking a payout from the TV star. He also said Johnson had a six-year relationship with Cosby despite a company ban on dating clients.

 

Cosby arrived at the courthouse in the morning carrying a wooden cane and holding his spokesman’s arm for support as he walked past dozens of cameras.

 

Cosby’s wife, Camille, was not in court. But actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played his daughter Rudy on the top-rated “Cosby Show” in the 1980s and ’90s, was at his side as he made his way into the building. She told reporters she was there to support her TV dad.

 

“I want to be the person that I would like to have if the tables were turned,” she said. “Right now it’s the jury’s job and the jury’s decision to determine guilt or innocence. It’s not mine or anyone else’s.”

 

Cosby built a wholesome reputation as a father and family man, on screen and off, during his extraordinary 50-year career in entertainment. He created TV characters, most notably Dr. Cliff Huxtable, with crossover appeal among blacks and whites alike. His TV shows, movies and comedy tours earned him an estimated $400 million.

 

Then a deposition unsealed in 2015 in a lawsuit brought by Constand revealed that Cosby had a long history of extramarital liaisons with young women and that he obtained quaaludes in the 1970s to give to women before sex. Dozens of women soon came forward to say he had drugged and assaulted them.

 

The statute of limitations for prosecuting Cosby had run out in nearly every case. This is the only one to result in criminal charges against the comic.

 

Feden, the prosecutor, warned the jury not to fall into the trap of confusing celebrities with the characters they play.

 

“We think we really know them,” she said. “In reality, we only have a glimpse of who they really are.”

 

Gloria Allred, the celebrity attorney who represents several of Cosby’s accusers and showed up for the first day of the trial, told reporters she is hopeful “there will be justice in this case.”

 

“This case is not going to be decided on optics,” she said. “It’s going to be decided on the evidence, and finally, it’s Mr. Cosby who’s going to have to face that evidence and confront the accusers who are against him.”

Constand filed a police complaint in 2005 over the encounter at Cosby’s home. The district attorney at the time said the case was too weak to prosecute. But a new set of prosecutors charged Cosby a year and a half ago after the deposition became public and numerous women came forward.

 

Cosby’s lawyers tried repeatedly to get the case thrown out. They said Cosby testified in the lawsuit only after being promised he could never be charged.

 

And they argued that the delayed prosecution makes the case impossible to defend, given that witnesses have died, memories have faded and Cosby, they say, is blind.

 

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are sexual assault victims unless they grant permission, which Constand and Johnson have done.

 
…

Ariana Grande returned to the city to pay tribute with an energetic, all-star concert featuring Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Liam Gallagher two weeks after a suicide bombing killed 22 of her fans and injured dozens of others in Manchester, England.

 

Grande was emotional and teary-eyed throughout the One Love Manchester concert Sunday, which the British Red Cross said raised more than 10 million pounds ($13 million) for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, created for those affected by the attack at Grande’s May 22 show.  

 

She closed the three-hour-plus event with a cover of “Over the Rainbow,” crying onstage at the song’s end as the audience cheered her on.

 

“Manchester, I love you with all of my heart,” Grande said before the performance, and just after singing “One Last Time” with Miley Cyrus, Pharrell and more of the show’s performers standing behind her in solidarity.

 

Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, earned loud cheers from the audience as he emerged in his home town in surprise form. He sang and offered encouraging words to the crowd, who held inspirational signs in their hands.

 

One of the most powerful moments was when the Parrs Wood High School Choir performed Grande’s “My Everything” with the singer. The 23-year-old pop star held the young lead performer’s hand, both with tears in their eyes, as the rest of the singers joined in.

 

Perry also left a mark with her resilient performance: She sang a stripped down version of her hit, “Part of Me.” Backed by two singers and a guitarist, she delivered the song wearing all white, singing, “Throw your sticks and your stones, throw your bombs and your blows, but you’re not gonna break my soul.”

“I encourage you to choose love even when it’s difficult. Let no one take that away from you,” she said.

 

Bieber shared similar words onstage, even coming close to crying when he spoke about God and those who died at Grande’s show.

 

“[God] loves you and he’s here for you. I wanna take this moment to honor the people that were lost, that were taken,” he said. “To the families, we love you so much. … Everybody say, ‘We honor you, and we love you.’”

 

Coldplay were also a crowd favorite, performing well-known songs like “Viva La Vida” and “Fix You.”

 

Grande performed throughout the show, singing her hits from “Side to Side” to “Break Free.” She even collaborated with others onstage: She sang Fergie’s verse on the Black Eyed Peas hit, “Where Is the Love” along with the group; she performed a duet with Cyrus; and she sang her debut song, “The Way,” with rapper Mac Miller.

 

Cyrus said she was “so honored to be at this incredible event” and performed “Happy” alongside Pharrell, who also sang “Get Lucky.”

 

“I don’t feel or smell or hear or see any fear in this building. All we feel here tonight is love, resilience, positivity,” Williams said.

 

Take That, who are from Manchester, followed with fun energy that the crowd danced to.

 

“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this,” singer Gary Barlow said. “We want everyone to stand strong.”

 

Robbie Williams also performed, changing some of his lyrics of “Strong” to honor the Manchester victims.

 

“Manchester we’re strong … we’re still singing our song,” he sang with the audience of 50,000.

 

The Manchester concert came the day after attackers targeted the heart of London, killing seven people. Authorities have said the attack started with a van plowing into pedestrians and then involved three men using large knives to attack people in bars and restaurants at a nearby market.

 

The One Love Manchester concert aired across the globe. Other performers included Little Mix, Niall Horan, Imogen Heap and Victoria Monet.
…

A renowned gospel singer in Malawi has raised more than $20,000 in donations for the country’s only pediatric cancer ward. Patience Namadingo donated the money to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital during the event Saturday at the hospital in Blantyre.

Music by a Malawi police brass band graced the street march that gospel singer Patience Namadingo and his fans organized before the check presentation ceremony with hospital officials.

The event marked the end of Namadingo’s 40-day campaign known as “Song for a Penny” in which he was performing in people’s homes and work places for $4 a song, per person to meet the needs of the cancer ward.

At the final count, Namadingo raised $21,000. He said this is beyond his expectation.

“This is overwhelming. The feeling is just exciting. You do not see these things happening everyday, maybe in other people’s lives it does not happen at all. So it is a once in life time achievement, so I thank God.”

Initially Namadingo planned to raise $1,700 in 40 days, but he reached his target in just four days after big companies, like the National Bank of Malawi and Telecom Networks Malawi invited him to perform for their workers.

This forced him to increase his target to $7,000. He reached this target six days later.

Namadingo says the response to the initiative has given him motivation to do more charity work.

“This is just the beginning. It has proven that Malawians are warm hearted people. So this is not the only problem Malawi is facing. Malawi is facing a lot of problems. So we are going back on the table and we plan on where is the next solution.”

More than 300 children with cancer seek treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital every year.

The ward has just a 25-bed capacity.

Hospital officials say the facility lacks sheets, needles and other supplies.

Linley Chewere, the Deputy Director for the hospital, told VOA the donation will also help meet other pediatric needs.

“The donation will not only assist the cancer ward, but it will extend to other children’s ward. We are planning to rehabilitate the Higher Dependency Unit for children where very sick children are admitted. From there, they move to different wards.”

Namadingo enlivened the occasion with a live performance to fans and well-wishers who patronized the two-hour event.

 
…

Chef Majed cracks eggs into a mixer and blends mayonnaise when we meet in Washington. He tosses fresh greens in a food processor, and he seasons the mix. It’s part of a thick, yellow sauce he’ll use to coat chunks of chicken skewered for kabobs, just like his mom used to make.

“The kitchen plays a big role for every family in Syria,” he tells me. “My mother is an excellent cook. I used to help her and learn from her. … I haven’t seen her in five years. I wish I can see her and taste her cooking, because I consider her the greatest.”

Majed, who asked VOA not to use his last name, began his journey to America when his parents urged him to leave Syria amid constant war.

Watch: Aspiring Chefs Thrive at Washington Restaurant Incubator

First stop, Jordan

He found refuge in Jordan where he stayed for three years. But social media reminded him of why he fled.

“My hometown was subject to shelling and strikes. We weren’t able to see or go back to our house. I … started to see my city and my home in pictures on Facebook and on the internet. I saw pictures of my home in ruins. … It hurts me to think about it now.”

Meanwhile, he struggled to find a job.

“The Jordanian police prohibited me from working, and there was no help from the government. I was living in a house, and I had to pay rent.”

When he ultimately found work, he found new challenges.

“I had to keep it a secret. In a secret place. In any moment I could have been taken away by the police, deported back to Syria or taken to a camp.”

Love and marriage

But as in many great stories, love happened, and Majed got married.

“I wasn’t able to prove my marriage for eight months in the Jordanian court,” he says with a smile. “It was problematic yet comical at the same time. My wife was pregnant and about to give birth at any moment, and we weren’t married by law. And in our countries this is a very big problem.”

But then his phone rang, and his life was again about to change. He and his fledgling family, he now had two daughters, were going to the U.S. as refugees.

“I was so happy,” he says.

Foodhini

Chef Majed now cooks for an online restaurant called Foodhini that works with immigrant and refugee chefs who prepare traditional dishes from the lands they fled.

Owner Noobstaa Philip Vang is a refugee from Laos who came to the U.S. with his parents after the Vietnam War.

“I … was just really missing some of my mom’s home cooking and wished I could just go to auntie or grandma in the neighborhood and just buy some of their food,” he says.

And so, Foodhini was born. It’s one of 70 food businesses growing at Union Kitchen in what’s called a “food incubator,” where fledgling businesses without the means for a brick-and-mortar operation rent space in a professional kitchen.

And while the kitchen, the country and the language are new, Majed’s cooking transports him back to the old life that he knew.

“Any dish I make reminds me of Syria. Reminds me of my country, my family, my mother. Every dish is a reminder.”

Seemingly worlds away from the ravages of war back home, Majed now optimistically looks toward the future.

“Like any father I have a dream for my girls that they have a bright future. I have worked to give them a generous life so that they wouldn’t be in need of anything … whether it be schools, university, or anything. When they told me I would be coming to America, I dreamed like anybody else that I would live with my wife and kids a bountiful life. And God willing, life will be good and I will be able to provide.”
…

Fans of the Juventus team watching the Champions League soccer final rushed out of a Turin piazza in panic Saturday after witnesses reported being spooked by a loud sound.

At least one person was carried away on a stretcher, and ambulances and firefighters were at the scene.

Thousands of people had gathered at Piazza San Carlo to watch the match pitting Juventus against Real Madrid on giant TV screens. At a certain point, hundreds ran in a near-stampede from the square’s center. Witnesses reported hearing a loud sound that sparked the alarm.

Within minutes, dazed fans in Juve’s trademark black-and-white jerseys returned and milled about amid the broken bottles and garbage littering the cobblestones.

The ANSA news agency said it was a false alarm.

Real Madrid won 4-1 in the match, played in Cardiff, Wales.
…

Jack O’Neill, the legendary promoter of the neoprene wetsuit that makes it possible for surfers and divers to withstand cold water temperatures, has died at age 94.

O’Neill, known for his black leather eyepatch and bushy beard, was surrounded by family and friends when he died Friday in the small coastal community of Pleasure Point, California, according to the executive director of his nonprofit organization, O’Neill Sea Odyssey.

A spokesman for the company called O’Neill “an absolute titan of the surf industry.”

O’Neill started one of California’s first surf shops in a garage on the Great Highway in San Francisco in 1952. He is one of several people who claimed credit for inventing the wetsuit. Historians say Berkeley physicist Hugh Bradner was most likely the original designer.

O’Neill started a surf gear company that marketed surfboards and wetsuits when the industry was still in its early stages. He is so closely identified with the sport, and with the Santa Cruz area where he lived, that his image appears on a 16-meter outdoor mural near the site of his first surf shop. The site of the shop, now the home of a cocktail lounge, is marked with a commemorative plaque.

O’Neill acquired his signature eye patch in the 1970s when a surfboard hit him in the face. The patch, combined with short, bushy hair and a spiky beard, made his image an unforgettable part of Santa Cruz surf culture.

His business turned into a family venture, with his son Pat claiming to have invented the surfboard leash (which attaches to the ankle to keep the board from washing away in the ocean waves) and his son Tim taking charge of O’Neill Sea Odyssey, which teaches marine and environmental care to young people.

O’Neill’s death was the second blow to the California surfing community in less than a week. John Severson, founder of Surfer magazine, died last week at age 83. Severson’s magazine blossomed in the 1960s along with the popularity of the sport and helped turn a tightly woven surf culture into a glamorous symbol of “the good life” in sunny California.
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U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande has paid a surprise visit to young fans who were injured in a suicide attack on a concert she gave in Manchester last month, posing with them for selfies and signing t-shirts.

Grande returned to Britain on Friday to lead an all-star benefit concert on Sunday and quickly headed for a hospital in the northern English city where many of the injured are being treated.

The Manchester Evening News newspaper said she brought presents and chatted with young fans, including 10-year-old Jaden Farrell-Mann, who suffered fractures to both legs and shrapnel wounds and has undergone two operations.

“Jaden was just sat there watching TV and she walked in. She was absolutely amazed! It was a complete surprise,” her mother, Sharon, told the newspaper. “She’d met Prince William earlier today and then Ariana walked in.”

Adam Harrison told the BBC his daughter Lily “felt like a rock star” after meeting her idol late on Friday and was “chomping at the bit” to attend the concert.

The “One Love Manchester” concert will also feature Coldplay, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Pharrell Williams, Take That and the Black Eyed Peas.

It will take place at the Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground.

Fans who attended Grande’s show that was targeted by the bomber are being offered free tickets to the concert which will be broadcast on British television. Proceeds from tickets sold will go to the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund set up to aid grieving families and victims of the attack.

The attack by suicide bomber Salman Abedi on May 22 killed 22 people and wounded 116. Eleven people are in police custody as part of the police investigation into the attack.

 
…

National parks traveler Mikah Meyer left Texas and headed to southern New Mexico, just in time to celebrate a milestone; he’s exactly one-third of the way through his 3-year journey to visit all 417 sites within the U.S. National Park Service.

He didn’t realize what spectacular beauty awaited him at his first two sites.

Geological wonders

While in Texas, Mikah had explored the natural beauty among the mountains and canyons of the Chihuahuan Desert, but he soon discovered other natural gems, this time hidden beneath the desert in southeastern New Mexico: the 119 limestone caves in Carlsbad Caverns National Park.

They were formed millions of years ago, when sulfuric acid dissolved the limestone along fractures and folds in the rock, leaving behind caves of all sizes.

Land of enchantment

As he explored one of the largest, Mikah said it was like looking up at the sky. “And in this case the sky that you’re looking at is full of stalactites. It’s basically this incredibly filled cave with stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, in crazy designs.”

Stalactites hang like icicles from the roof of a cave. They are made up of calcium salts and other minerals deposited by water seeping from cracks in the roof. Stalagmites form in the same way, rising up from water that drips to the floor of a cave. The two often meet and fuse into a single column, creating a picturesque form.

WATCH: White Sands, Mystical Caves Mesmerize Parks Traveler

“I have a picture of one that looks like Jabba the Hutt; it looks like a Star Wars character with nasty teeth,” Mikah said. “There is other one that looks like a bunch of spider webs hanging from the ceiling and others that look like chandeliers.”

Outside of the cave, Mikah noticed a huge flock of birds flying around. Come evening, the skies fill with thousands of bats — specifically, Brazilian (or Mexican) free-tailed bats. The 9-centimeter long creatures are among the most abundant North American mammals and reported to be the fastest flyer in the animal kingdom.

Experiencing the wonders of the cave helped Mikah understand why New Mexico’s nickname is the Land of Enchantment. “It’s one of the most otherworldly places I’ve been to on this entire journey so far,” he said.

Desert snow?

Heading north from the ethereal world of the caves, Mikah found himself in another surreal place… driving on a road covered with something that looked like snow…

“Growing up in Nebraska, this is what it looks like after a really heavy snow,” he noted.  

Except he wasn’t in Nebraska… he was in the middle of a desert. And what he was driving on, wasn’t snow.

It was white sand. Lots and lots of white gypsum sand, covering 712 square kilometers of desert, the largest gypsum dunefield in the world. White Sands National Monument preserves a major portion of this unique dunefield, along with the plants and animals that live there.

“The reason this white sand exists is partially because there used to be a lake,” Mikah explained. As the ancient lake dried up, it left behind the sand. “And because the sand is in between two mountain ranges, that’s what’s helped allow it to stay there,” he added. “So it’s a very, very unique opportunity to see a different ecosystem.”

Ocean of sand

Mikah had fun exploring those dunes, running up and down the glistening white sand in the white hot sun. At one point, he even swapped his sneakers for a snow saucer, using it to sled down the dune as he would have on a snowy hill.

Mikah also enjoyed a hike on the Alkali Flat Trail, a strenuous, 8 kilometer round trip. Despite its name, the trail isn’t flat, the National Park Service warns. Mikah hiked up and down dunes the entire way, with no shady refuge from the sun.

“When you’re in the main part of the park where you’re driving around, the sands have some bushes and green trees in them, so it’s not just like this pure field of sand,” Mikah said. “But when you go on the Flats Trail it really becomes nothing but basically an ocean of white sand.”  

“White Sands was a really big place for me because it was my 139th park site which marked exactly one third of the way through this journey,” Mikah said. He stamped his National Park Service “Passport” with a cancellation stamp to commemorate the milestone.

He ended his day at the site with a fitting tribute.

“I made it a goal to get there for sunset because I’d heard the sunsets there were magical, and I’m proud to say I made it… it was really just another otherworldly place.”

That may be one of the reasons the site is one of Mikah’s top four favorite parks so far.

Carlsbad Caverns National Park and White Sands National Monument are just two of 15 national park sites in New Mexico. Mikah, invites you to learn more about his journey through those enchanted lands by visiting him on his website, Facebook and Instagram.
…

National parks traveler Mikah Meyer recently celebrated a milestone. He’s exactly one-third of the way through his three-year journey to visit all 417 sites within the U.S. National Park Service. He spent it exploring white sand dunes and mystical caves at two of New Mexico’s many national park sites. He shared highlights of his visits with VOA’s JulieTaboh.
…

One year ago today, Muhammad Ali — arguably the greatest and most unforgettable athlete of the 20th century — lost his decades-long fight with Parkinson’s disease, dying at age 74.

‘I am the greatest’

Originally named Cassius Clay, Ali was in Kentucky during an era of harsh segregation, and confronted its indignities from the start, carrying himself with confidence and pride despite the racist world around him.

He learned to box at the age of 12, motivated by the theft of his red Schwinn bike, which left the skinny youth humiliated — and determined.

‘Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee’

From the start, Clay — who would later change his name to Muhammad Ali after joining the Nation of Islam — was driven, creating a punishing gym routine that he rarely deviated from.

He was a natural.

 

The young athlete possessed unmatched speed, agility and physical power. His signature was a kind of mental strength or attitude that he used to outwit his opponents.

Outside the ring, Ali was witty, charismatic, even vain (of his opponents, he would often say ‘He isn’t as pretty as me!”), and often spoke like hyped up poet:

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. His hands can’t hit what his eyes can’t see. Now you see me, now you don’t. George thinks he will, but I know he won’t. 

I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.

I’ve wrestled with alligators. I’ve tussled with a whale. I done handcuffed lightning. And throw thunder in jail.

Although he had already made a name for himself, his big moment came in 1964, when he stepped into the ring for his first title fight against then heavyweight champ Sonny Liston. Ali taunted the champion mercilessly, once appearing unexpectedly at his home to goad him into the ring.

Ali instantly became a worldwide star after knocking out Liston in just six rounds. 

​Despite his brash charm, originality in the ring and stunning physical prowess, not everyone took to Ali.  Many publicly expressed their hatred.

By joining Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam and adopting a Muslim name, he alienated many Americans who were not ready to accept a black Muslim boxing star. 

“He threatened a sense of the racial order; he was, in his refusal to conform to any type, as destabilizing to many Americans. … He was, for many years, a radical figure for many Americans,”  wrote David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker Magazine and author of the 1998 biography “Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero.” ​

By 1967, Ali had won 29 title fights in six and a half years, an extraordinary record. But an unexpected turn of events was to keep the champ out of the ring for the next three years. 

Vietnam

When he refused to be inducted into the armed forces during the Vietnam War, the state boxing commission suspended him, stripping him of his title.  

Ali would not fight the Vietcong in Vietnam.

That move endeared him to many, African-Americans in particular, who watched as the heavyweight champion of the world courageously gave up his hard-won heavyweight boxing title in exchange for principles.

Ali returned to the ring in 1970, after a federal court upheld his petition for a state license.

He would triumph over and over again in the years to come: reclaiming his title in 1974 in a fight with Joe Frazier; the famed “Rumble in the Jungle” in what was then the country of Zaire, where he won a masterful fight against George Foreman; losing his title and winning it back; and, finally, losing it for the last time in 1980 to Larry Holmes.

He retired a year later. By then, the early effects of Parkinson’s disease on Ali’s body were clearly evident in his slurred speech.

As he grew increasingly more ill, he was rarely seen in public, living out the rest of his life quietly with his family in Kentucky and Arizona.

 
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The private studio of glass artist Dale Chihuly reflects his long obsession with collecting. Sheets of stamps cover one table; pocket knives are marshaled on another. Carnival-prize figurines from the first half of the 20th century line shelves that reach the ceiling.

 

Amid the ordered clutter, some items hint at more than Chihuly’s eclectic tastes: a long row of Ernest Hemingway titles in one bookcase, and in another an entire wall devoted to Vincent van Gogh — homages to creative geniuses racked by depression.

 

Chihuly, too, has struggled with his mental health, by turns fragile and luminous like the art he makes. Now 75 and still in the thrall of a decades-long career, he discussed his bipolar disorder in detail for the first time publicly in an interview with The Associated Press. He and his wife, Leslie Chihuly, said they don’t want to omit from his legacy a large part of who he is.

 

“It’s a pretty remarkable moment to be able to have this conversation,” she said. “We really want to open our lives a little bit and share something more personal. … Dale’s a great example of somebody who can have a successful marriage and a successful family life and successful career — and suffer from a really debilitating, chronic disease. That might be helpful for other people.”

 

Chihuly, who began working with glass in the 1960s, is a pioneer of the glass art movement. Known for styles that include vibrant seashell-like shapes, baskets, chandeliers and ambitious installations in botanical gardens and museums, he has said that pushing the material to new forms, creating objects never before seen, fascinates him.

Even in the past year he has found a new way of working with glass — painting with glass enamel on glass panes, stacking the panes together and back-lighting them to give them a visual depth. He calls it “Glass on Glass,” and it’s featured for the first time in the new Chihuly Sanctuary at the Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha, Nebraska, and at an indoor-outdoor exhibit opening June 3 at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.

 

But the flip side of that creativity has sometimes been dark. He began suffering from depression in his 20s, he said, and those spells began to alternate with manic periods beginning in his late 40s.

 

“I’m usually either up or down,” Chihuly said. “I don’t have neutral very much. When I’m up I’m usually working on several projects. A lot of times it’s about a six-month period. When I’m down, I kind of go in hibernation.”

 

He still works but doesn’t feel as good about it. His wife noted that if he only went into the studio when he was up, he “wouldn’t have had a career.”

 

Asked what his down periods are like, Chihuly took a long pause. “Just pretty tough,” he said. “I’m lucky that I like movies. If I don’t feel good, I’ll put on a movie.”

 

Leslie Chihuly, who runs his studio, is more loquacious about the difficulties his condition has posed in their 25-year relationship.

 

They’ve tried to manage it as a family with various types of counseling, medication and a 1-to-10 scale system that allows him to communicate how he’s feeling when he doesn’t want to talk about it, she said.

 

Chihuly gave up drinking 15 years ago, and it’s been more than a decade since he was “life-threateningly depressed,” she said, though he’s never been suicidal.

 

“Dale has an impeccable memory about certain things, but there have been certain periods of time when he’s been hypomanic, as we call it, or depressed, and I’ll be the keeper for our family and our business around those difficult times,” she said.

 

She met him in 1992 after a mutual friend set them up. He was in a near-manic period, talking about an idea for bringing glassblowers from around the world to Venice, Italy, to display their art in the city’s canals. He had no plan and no funding, but she was eager to help him realize his vision — one that would eventually be depicted in the public television documentary “Chihuly Over Venice.”

 

Six months later, they traveled to an exhibit opening at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.

 

“It was like the lights went out,” she said, choking back a sob. “All of a sudden the guy who was interested in everything … that guy wasn’t there.”

 

Dale Chihuly remained quiet as his wife described that moment. A tear fell from beneath the recognizable eyepatch he has worn since he lost sight in his left eye in a 1976 car crash.

 

Though the mood swings were new to Leslie Chihuly at the time, they were familiar to the other artists Chihuly worked with. Joey Kirkpatrick met him in 1979, when she attended Pilchuck Glass School, which Chihuly founded in the woods north of Seattle in 1971. It was a small summer workshop; the students constructed their own shelter. She and her partner, Flora Mace, spent many hours watching movies with him during his down periods.

 

“What amazed me about it is his persistence at picking the thing, his creative life, that would pull him along or keep him going through those times,” she said. “When he was up, he could call you up at Pilchuck on a Sunday night and say, ‘Meet me at the airport at 10 tomorrow, we’ve got a flight to Pittsburgh to go to some demonstration.’ It was always exciting. When he was down, there wasn’t that. It was quieter.”

 

Chihuly said the message he’d have for others struggling with the condition would be to “see a good shrink” and to “try to live with it, to know that when they’re really depressed, it’s going to change, before too long. And to take advantage when they do feel up to get as much done as they can.”
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New York’s Museum of Modern Art is boldly expanding its midtown Manhattan home that draws more than 3 million visitors annually from around the world — including those who came Friday to see the first completed phase of the $450 million project.

 

Spread over three floors of the art mecca off Fifth Avenue are 15,000 square-feet (about 1,400 square-meters) of reconfigured galleries, a new, second gift shop, a redesigned cafe and espresso bar and, facing the sculpture garden, two lounges graced with black marble quarried in France.

 

Still under construction are 50,000 square-feet (about 4,600 square-meters) of new galleries opening in 2019, bringing MoMA’s total art-filled space to 175,000 square-feet (about 16,000 square-meters) on six floors. The expansion will allow more of the museum’s collection of nearly 200,000 works to be displayed.

 

The project also will provide 25 percent more space for visitors to relax or have a sit-down meal.

 

The museum building, which opened in 1939, now nearly fills an entire city block and showcases works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo, to name just a few from the permanent collection. The complex fuses original architecture by Philip Goodwin and Edward Stone with Philip Johnson-designed additions in 1951 and 1964 and a new section by Argentine native Cesar Pelli in 1984, topped in 2004 by Yoshio Taniguchi’s $425 million expansion and renovation.

 

“We’re riffing off the DNA of MoMA’s history,” said Elizabeth Diller, whose Boston-based firm, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, was hired for the project, working with the Gensler firm in San Francisco. “This work has required the curiosity of an archaeologist and the skill of a surgeon.”

 

MoMA director Glenn Lowry wants to achieve much more than augmenting square footage. MoMA curators are embracing ethnic and cultural diversity that transcends established European artists through shows including, for instance, black and women artists. MoMA also is highlighting art tracing certain social periods — for example, female creativity in the decades after World War II that spawned feminism.

 

“The Museum of Modern Art’s renovation and expansion project will seek to reassure and surprise,” Lowry said.

 

Architecturally, he said, MoMA is “opening up, so you’re aware of the city” — by bringing the urban turf closer to visitors through an all-glass facade facing West 53rd Street, more window panels elsewhere and a rooftop lounge with a terrace.

 

Some galleries will be pliant, with partitions that can drop or be lifted, and ceilings of varying heights, depending on exhibition needs. Added studios and galleries will be set up for performances or film screenings.

 

The current, double-height entrance lobby will be reconfigured to ease visitor congestion that often results in lines reaching out onto the sidewalk. Demolition starts this month, and visitors will have to use alternative entrances.

 

Providing easier access inside is the historic Bauhaus staircase that was extended to reach down to the first floor.

 

The ongoing work includes some unseen improvements, with energy and water conservation that puts MoMA on track for the LEED Gold certification, a rating system that evaluates a building’s environmental performance.

 

MoMA has raised private funds for the nearly half-a-billion-dollar project; entertainment magnate David Geffen alone donated $100 million.

 

Admission is $25, but the ground level with its galleries is open to the public free of charge.

 

In the newly completed area, the first exhibition opens June 12. “Frank Lloyd Wright at 150: Unpacking the Archive” will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the American architect’s birth.
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In the latest offering from the tourism industry, trips with a social or educational mission are now being offered to travelers who want more from a holiday than sea, sun and shopping.

This summer, vacationers can pair a visit to the colonial Colombian city of Cartagena with an program aimed at raising awareness about the modern slave trade.

“I have been asked whether the tour, given its theme, was ‘depressing,’ ” Karen Weiss, who took a similar trip to Thailand, wrote on the tour organizer Ecpat-USA’s website.

“I assure you that it was not,” she wrote. “It combines the excitement of visiting a fascinating country with a rare opportunity to broaden your understanding of the problem of human trafficking.”

Nearly 46 million people globally are living as slaves, trafficked into tourism, mining and farming, or sold for sex, trapped in debt bondage or born into servitude, according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index by rights group Walk Free Foundation.

While public awareness has grown in recent years with new legislation, campaigning by NGOs and crackdowns in the private sector, campaigners say tourism can be a major force for change.

One-fifth of July’s Cartagena trip — organized by the anti-trafficking group Ecpat-USA and travel company Altruvistas — will be spent visiting typical tourist spots.

For the rest of the trip, the group will meet with NGOs and government representatives and learn about child trafficking.

“Our journey is made to create an advocate, so when they come home they’re very active on the issue, and inspire them to be involved,” Michelle Guelbart of Ecpat-USA told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Hotels sign ‘Code’

All hotels used sign up to “The Code,” an industry initiative to boost awareness and stop child sex exploitation.

Guelbart said this provides a double benefit: educating travelers and promoting responsible businesses.

From an individual trip fee of $2,050, Ecpat-USA gets a $500 direct payment. Guelbart said people who take the trips remain engaged, which is more valuable than a one-time donation.

Ecpat-USA and Altruvistas have run two similar anti-trafficking advocacy trips to Thailand, home to a vibrant sex market fed in large part by human trafficking.

Altruvistas CEO Malia Everette has worked in both travel and trafficking issues for about 15 years and says advocacy is a new form of tourism.

Her sustainable travel company runs about 80 trips annually, of which a handful focus on trafficking, with very different participants. She has taken school students to Ghana to learn firsthand about slavery and accompanied trafficking survivors to Peru to meet anti-slavery groups that help people like them.

Previous trends for ethical travel have included volunteering, ecotourism and travel that benefits local people.

Mark Watson of the Ethical Tourism group said advocacy tourism can help in raising awareness of the issues, but that the impact of people trying to help out locally was debatable.

“In most cases there’s not much you can do,” he said. “There’s professional people out there doing the proper stuff. What they need is resources and money. What they don’t really need is tourists turning up and getting in the way.”

Watson said the best way to help is to take ethical holidays and donate money to organizations on the ground rather than trying to do more while traveling.

Everette said the explosion of ecotourism in the 1970s and 1980s helped change mass travel for the better, but there was little emphasis on the people directly affected by tourism.

“As we saw tourism booming, we also saw the commodification of people in sex tourism, sex trafficking and cultures just being bought rather than respected,” she said.

‘Voluntourism’

Campaigners have long raised concerns about the impact of tourism, questioning the treatment of vulnerable people when travelers engage in so-called poverty tourism, and the real value of volunteering trips — or “voluntourism” — for locals.

James Sutherland of children’s charity Friends International said that “voluntourism” in Cambodia had encouraged the spread of unregistered orphanages that can house trafficked children.

“If we can continue to foster awareness that everyone can play a part by being a responsible tourist, we may begin to progress in ensuring tourism is not exacerbating issues, but is actually playing a positive role in ending them,” he said.

Ecpat-USA’s Guelbart said volunteering was altogether different from the advocacy trips she runs.

“When people are volunteering, it’s more for them and not actually for the people in the area,” she said — unlike her advocates, who “go home and create a project that lasts.”
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Black Eyed Peas leader will.i.am said in a recent interview that Fergie is no longer in the group, but later said the songstress “will always be a Pea.”

 

Will.i.am’s interview with Ahlan! magazine caused a frenzy online Thursday with the suggestion that Fergie was no longer a member of the pop group. A day later, will.i.am said in a statement: “Fergie is family and will always be a Pea. She is focused on her solo album which we fully support.”

 

In the interview, will.i.am said that “nobody is replacing Fergie” and that the Black Eyed Peas are working on a new project. He said former Pussycat Doll leader Nicole Scherzinger would be featured on the project but didn’t say how much involvement she would have (Scherzinger was offered a spot in the Peas before Fergie.)

 

Representatives for the Black Eyed Peas and Fergie didn’t immediately reply to emails seeking clarity about Fergie’s role in the group.

 

The Black Eyed Peas released its debut in 1998 as an eclectic hip-hop trio with will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo. Fergie first appeared on the group’s third album, 2003’s “Elephunk,” helping them achieve mainstream success. The group went on to win Grammy Awards, sell millions of albums and top the pop charts with hits from “Where Is the Love” to “Boom Boom Pow.”

 

Fergie also had major success with her 2006 solo debut, which was heavily produced by will.i.am. She announced last week that she left Universal Music Group, the longtime label behind her and the Black Eyed Peas, to launch her own record label called Dutchess Music through BMG.

 

She plans to release her sophomore album, “Double Dutchess,” this year.
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Ananya Vinay never looked all that impressed by any of the words she was given in the finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

 

The 12-year-old from Fresno, California, showed little emotion and didn’t take much time as she plowed through word after word. Sometimes she would blurt out questions, with little intonation — “Part of speech?” “Language of origin?” — and sometimes she didn’t even bother.

 

Unflappable to the end, Ananya seized the opportunity when her steely opponent, Rohan Rajeev, flubbed a simple-looking but obscure Scandinavian-derived word, “marram,” which means a beach grass. She calmly nailed two words in a row, ending on “marocain,” which means a type of dress fabric of ribbed crepe, to win the 90th Scripps National Spelling Bee Thursday.

One champion

Ananya barely cracked a smile even when her parents and younger brother stormed onto the stage to embrace her as the confetti fell. And she took time to console Rohan, who remained in his seat, wiping tears from his eyes.

 

“It’s like a dream come true,” Ananya said as she held the trophy. “I’m so happy right now.”

 

She will take home more than $40,000 in cash and prizes. 

 

It was the first time since 2013 that the bee declared a sole champion. After three straight years of ties, the bee added a tiebreaker test this year, and it looked like it might come into play as Ananya and Rohan dueled for nearly 20 rounds.

 

Ananya was on the radar of some veteran bee watchers but didn’t come in with a high profile. She participated in last year’s bee but didn’t make the top 50. As a sixth-grader, she could have come back for two more years, had she fallen short. Now, she’ll return only in a ceremonial role to help present the trophy to next year’s winner.

 

For Rohan, a 14-year-old eighth-grader from Edmond, Oklahoma, it was his first and only time on the national stage, but he’s competed for years in other bees and he sought tutelage from another Oklahoman, Cole Shafer-Ray, who finished third two years ago. Rohan’s close call was even more heartbreaking.

13th consecutive Indian-American to win

 

Ananya is the 13th consecutive Indian-American to win the bee and the 18th of the past 22 winners with Indian heritage, a run that began in 1999 with Nupur Lala’s victory, which was featured in the documentary Spellbound. Like most of her predecessors, she honed her craft in highly competitive national bees that are limited to Indian-Americans, the North South Foundation and the South Asian Spelling Bee, although she did not win either.

 

Mira Dedhia, trying to become the first offspring of a past competitor to win, finished third. 

Best speller who didn’t win 

Before Ananya and Rohan began their lengthy duel, the primetime finals were marked by surprising eliminations of better-known spellers. Shourav Dasari, a past winner of both minor-league bees, was described as the consensus favorite as the ESPN broadcast began. He had the most swagger of the finalists, at one point spelling the word “Mogollon” as soon as he heard it and turning around to return to his seat.

 

He was felled in fourth place by a killer word, “Struldbrug,” that was coined by Jonathan Swift in his novel Gulliver’s Travels and had no recognizable roots or language patterns to fall back on.

 

“I was honestly, absolutely shocked. It was stunning,” former speller Jacob Williamson said. “Shourav is one of the greatest spellers of all time and he’s probably the best speller that never won.” 
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The Beverly Hills home where Debbie Reynolds and her Star Wars actress daughter Carrie Fisher lived together is up for sale, along with hundreds of items of their personal property and Hollywood memorabilia, the auctioneers said Thursday.

The sale comes six months after Fisher, 60, died of a heart attack and Singin’ in the Rain star Reynolds, 84, passed away the next day.

Rambling estate

The 1928 house, complete with swimming pool, tennis court and a guesthouse where Fisher lived for many years, is listed at $18 million and will be sold separately.

The rambling estate was featured in the HBO documentary Bright Lights about their tempestuous relationship that was aired in January.

Their personal property, to be auctioned in Los Angeles over several days starting Sept. 23, includes Fisher’s 1978 Star Wars Princess Leia action figure in its original packaging, her on-set chair from the film of The Return of the Jedi, and Reynolds’ lavender silk chiffon dress worn in Singin’ in the Rain, auctioneers Profiles in History said in a statement.

‘Magnificent collectors’

“My mother and sister were magnificent collectors, they amassed an amazing and diverse collection in their lifetimes,” Reynolds’ son Todd Fisher said in the statement.

“So in keeping with my mother’s wishes we have decided to share part of their magnificent collection with all their friends and fans.”

More than 1500 lots will be auctioned in what is expected to be a sale lasting several days, Profiles in History, the auctioneer, said.
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The IFAB, soccer’s lawmaking body, wants to keep the use of video replays to an minimum if they are eventually introduced into the sport to help referees make match-changing decisions.

Technical director David Elleray added that International Football Association Board was also considering whether the crowd should be shown the replay while match officials were deliberating over an incident.

IFAB approved live testing of video assistant referees (VARs), who monitor the action on screens and call the match referee’s attention to key mistakes or omissions, in March 2016.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has already said that soccer’s governing body would like to use video replays in the 2018 World Cup, and IFAB is expected to decide next March whether to authorize their use in the game permanently.

Elleray said replays should be used only for “clear errors in goals, penalties and direct red cards, plus mistaken identity.”

“The idea is not to check every decision. … It is to overturn the ones that make the headlines,” he said, adding that he wanted “minimum interference, maximum benefit.”

“We would rather have one review in four matches than four in every match,” he said.

Replays for crowds

Asked whether it would be a good idea to show replays to the crowd, Elleray said: “We are discussing and considering at the moment. There are strong arguments for, strong arguments against.”

Elleray said that in cases where play continued after a possible infringement, the referee should stop the game for a review “as soon as the ball is in a neutral part of the field.”

However, he acknowledged that in rare cases it would be impossible to stop the game quickly; in such cases, he said, officials would simply allow play to go on and review the incident at the first opportunity.

“Ultimately, the main thing is getting it right,” he said.

“It could one day happen that there is a possible penalty at one end but play goes straight down the other end and a goal is scored.

“In that case, depending on the outcome of the video, the goal would be disallowed and a penalty awarded to the other side.”
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