Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose work focused on war atrocities and denounced anti-Semitism and tyrannical dictators, has died. He was 84.

Ginny Hensley, a spokeswoman for Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, confirmed Yevtushenko’s death. Roger Blais, provost at the University of Tulsa, where Yevtushenko was a longtime faculty member, said he was told Yevtushenko had died Saturday morning.

“He died a few minutes ago surrounded by relatives and close friends,” his widow, Maria Novikova, was quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. She said he’d died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure.

Yevtushenko gained notoriety in the former Soviet Union while in his 20s, with poetry denouncing Josef Stalin. He gained international acclaim as a young revolutionary with “Babi Yar,” the unflinching 1961 poem that told of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.

Heard by huge crowds

At the height of his fame, Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large audiences on tours of the West.

With his tall, rangy body, chiseled visage and declaratory style, he was a compelling presence on stages when reading his works.

“He’s more like a rock star than some sort of bespectacled, quiet poet,” said former University of Tulsa President Robert Donaldson, who specialized in Soviet policy during his academic years at Harvard.

Until “Babi Yar” was published, the history of the massacre was shrouded in the fog of the Cold War.

“I don’t call it political poetry, I call it human rights poetry, the poetry which defends human conscience as the greatest spiritual value,” Yevtushenko, who had been splitting his time between Oklahoma and Moscow, said during a 2007 interview with The Associated Press at his home in Tulsa.

Yevtushenko said he wrote the poem after visiting the site of the mass killings in Kyiv, Ukraine, and searching for something memorializing what happened there — a sign, a tombstone, some kind of historical marker — but finding nothing.

“I was so shocked. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it, that people didn’t keep a memory about it,” he said.

It took him two hours to write the poem that begins, “No monument stands over Babi Yar. A drop sheer as a crude gravestone. I am afraid.”

Native of Zima

Yevtushenko was born in the Siberian town of Zima, a name that translates to winter. He rose to prominence during Nikita Khrushchev’s rule.

His poetry was outspoken and drew on the passion for poetry that is characteristic of Russia, where poetry is more widely revered than in the West. Some considered it risky, though others said he was only a showpiece dissident whose public views never went beyond the limits of what officials would permit.

Dissident exile poet Joseph Brodsky was especially critical, saying, “He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved.” Brodsky resigned from the American Academy of Arts and Letters when Yevtushenko was made an honorary member.

Donaldson invited Yevtushenko to teach at the university in 1992.

“I like very much the University of Tulsa,” Yevtushenko said in a 1995 interview with the AP. “My students are sons of ranchers, even cowboys, oil engineers. They are different people, but they are very gifted. They are closer to Mother Nature than the big city. They are more sensitive.”

He was also touched after the 1995 bombing of a federal government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. He recalled one woman in his class who lost a relative in the blast, then commented that Russian women must have endured such suffering all their lives.

“This was the greatest compliment for me,” he said.

Blais, the university provost, said Yevtushenko remained an active professor at the time of his death. His poetry classes were perennially popular and featured football players and teenagers from small towns reading from the stage.

“He had a hard time giving bad grades to students because he liked the students so much,” Blais said.

Lauded in Russia

Yevtushenko’s death inspired tributes from his homeland.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on the Russian social media site Vkontakte: “He knew how to find the key to the souls of people, to find surprisingly accurate words that were in harmony with many.”

A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said the poet’s legacy would remain “part of Russian culture.”

Natalia Solzhenitsyna, widow of the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said on Russian state television that Yevtushenko “lived by his own formula.”

“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” she said. “And he really was more than a poet — he was a citizen with a pronounced civic position.”
…

Rodney Crowell’s tender lyrics about a woman with “hair two shades of foxtail red” in a song that features ex-wife Rosanne Cash makes it an easy leap to assume that he’s singing about her. It’s not like the thought didn’t cross her mind.

 

“If I’m totally honest,” she said. “Yeah, a little bit.”

 

But Crowell, whose new album “Close Ties” is sure to be one of the year’s cornerstone releases in the Americana genre, insists he had others in mind while writing “It Ain’t Over Yet.” He was thinking about old friends Susanna and Guy Clark, who both died in recent years.

 

That’s fortunate, since he sings: “Takes the right kind of woman to help you put it all in place. It only happened once in my life, but man you should have seen.” It might have made for awkward dinner conversation with Crowell’s current wife, Claudia Church.

 

“Rosanne was a wonderful period in my life,” Crowell said, “but the ‘one’ woman is the one I’m with now.”

 

Susanna Clark was a straight-talking muse for many aspiring Nashville songwriters in the 1970s who figured if she liked one of their songs, they must be on to something, Crowell explained.

 

Crowell understands why people might think he was talking about Cash, who appears on record with her for only the second time since their 12-year marriage broke up in 1992 (he sang backup on a song on her most recent album). They were once Country music’s First Couple, taking turns at the top of the charts, and for both their artistry has deepened as the spotlight moved on.

 

They’re both also of the school that appreciate listeners who can take their own meanings from songs.

 

Another song on “Close Ties,” out Friday, was actually written with Cash in mind. More specifically, “Forgive Me Annabelle” is about Crowell’s own actions during their breakup. After an inevitably bitter period, they’re friends now.

 

“I passed through a period where I simply did not like myself,” Crowell said. “If you don’t like yourself, you’re not liking anybody else. You’re pretty miserable. And that’s what the narrator is apologizing for. It’s saying, ‘Forgive me for who I was then.’ But, of course, I was already forgiven.”

 

Crowell recalls pawing through some albums at home and coming upon his own “Diamonds and Dirt” from 1988, which yielded five No. 1 Country singles. He and his wife laughed at the mullet-haired guy on the cover.

 

“I wanted to be like Dwight Yoakam,” he said. “He definitely owned ‘cool’ at that moment.”

 

He’s fueled by a “look back with bemusement” attitude now. After taking five years off at the turn of the century, Crowell returned as a focused writer, digging deep into his heart and leaving few wasted words. He learned to take his art more seriously than himself. In “I Don’t Care Anymore” he sings: “All those party dolls and favors that I savored from day one add up to next to nothing after all is said and done.”

 

The funny “Nashville 1972” recalls his first meeting, at age 22, with Willie Nelson. At a party, of course. “There was hippies and reefer and God knows what all, I was drinking pretty hard,” he sings. “I played him this shitty song I wrote and puked out in the yard.”

 

Like most people his age, 66, Crowell is affected by loved ones lost — the Clarks, Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen — and it’s reflected in his music. He’s also recently rewritten some of his old songs, notably “Shame on the Moon,” a 1982 hit for Bob Seger, where he wanted another crack at a verse he didn’t like.

 

“He’s actually writing the best songs of his life after 45 years, or however long it is,” Cash said. “His level of commitment has deepened, and as his level of commitment has deepened, his songs have gotten better. That’s very inspiring. He’s not a dilettante. He’s not just out there showing up at the next gig. He’s completely devoted to his work and his songwriting and it shows.

 

“As Leonard Cohen said, he’s completely employed in the tower of song.”
…

Already one of the biggest names in Latin music, Colombian pop star Maluma is hoping to cross over to a wider audience with an upcoming album of Spanish and English music.

Maluma, the 23-year-old singer from Medellin, Colombia, has already collaborated with some of Latin music’s most successful cross over talents, such as Shakira and Ricky Martin.

“I’m trying to find the balance and do like, ‘Spanglish’ music or some songs in Spanish and others in English or do a translation,” Maluma told Reuters at the end of his U.S. tour in Los Angeles.

Maluma’s second album, “Pretty Boy, Dirty Boy,” was released in 2015 and became his breakout record, with hit singles “Borro Cassette” and “Sin Contrato.”

So far, his native Spanish has already garnered him a legion of fans on social media. Maluma, whose real name is Juan Luis Londono Arias, is the most-followed Latin male artist on Instagram with more than 22 million fans.

“That connection that I have with my fans is really special and every time when I have moments, when I have free time, the only thing that I think about is what I’m going to post, what I’m going to say to my fans,” he said.

“I think that’s the key to being a success right now,” he added.

It was Maluma’s social media presence that brought him to the attention of pop star Selena Gomez, whom Maluma invited to collaborate on a new song.

“I found out that she was following me and I tried to be in touch with her to make some music but we can’t do it … maybe because she’s a busy girl and me too, I’m a really busy man, and maybe next time we can do something,” he said.

Maluma’s world tour next takes him to Mexico, Brazil and Argentina.

“I have a lot of surprises in store,” Maluma teased of his upcoming shows, although he remained tight-lipped about whether any special guest stars might join him on stage.

“I like to prepare each tour in a different way. Now that I’m heading to Mexico, I’m preparing something special for my fans in Mexico.”
…

We’re lighting up the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 1, 2017.

As has been the case, we welcome one new song this week…and it’s a big jumper.

Number 5: The Weeknd & Daft Punk “I Feel It Coming”

The Weeknd and Daft Punk surge seven slots to fifth place with “I Feel It Coming.” 

Here’s an item to pique your curiosity: on March 14, mastering engineer Rob Small went on social media to publicize an upcoming Daft Punk release. It’s about nine weeks away. It will appear on a French label and it will be available on vinyl.

Number 4: Zayn & Taylor Swift “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever”

Meanwhile, our next artist is dealing with a family tragedy.

Zayn and Taylor Swift tread water in fourth place with “I Don’t Wanna Live Forever.” Please join me in sending condolences to Zayn and his family, following the death of his five-year-old cousin, Arshiya. She reportedly succumbed to a brain tumor on Tuesday. Zayn was said to be close to his cousin, and has yet to comment.

Number 3: Migos Featuring Lil Uzi Vert “Bad And Boujee”

Slipping a slot to third place go Migos and Lil Uzi Vert, with with their former Hot 100 champ “Bad And Boujee.”

Record Store Day happens on April 22 – it’s a day dedicated to independent music retailers. Lil Uzi Vert is offering his 2016 mix tape “Lil Uzi Vert Vs the World” in a deluxe purple vinyl edition limited to 2,700 copies.

Number 2: Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like”

Bruno Mars jumps into the runner-up slot with “That’s What I Like,” and as he eyes a possible championship, it’s time to ask: do you remember when he last hit the jackpot with a solo single? 

Mars last topped the Hot 100 in 2014 with “Uptown Funk,” but that was Mark Ronson’s release and Mars was a featured artist. When did Mars last hit the top as a solo artist? It happened back in early 2013, with “When I Was Your Man.”

Number 1: Ed Sheeran ” Shape of You”

Your man at the top continues to be Ed Sheeran, posting an eighth total week at number one with “Shape Of You.”

A woman in England has been jailed for eight weeks, after using “Shape Of You” in a campaign of noise harassment against her neighbors. Sonia Bryce, 36, reportedly played the song on repeat at high volume, but defended herself in court by saying she really doesn’t like Sheeran that much.
…

Rain-fed wildflowers have been sprouting from California’s desert sands after lying dormant for years — producing a spectacular display that has drawn record crowds and traffic jams to tiny towns like Borrego Springs.

 

An estimated 150,000 people in the past month have converged on this town of about 3,500, roughly 85 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of San Diego, for the so-called super bloom. 

 

Wildflowers are springing up in different landscapes across the state and the western United States thanks to a wet winter. In the Antelope Valley, an arid plateau northeast of Los Angeles, blazing orange poppies are lighting up the ground. 

What is a super bloom?

 

But a “super bloom” is a term for when a mass amount of desert plants bloom at one time. In California, that happens about once in a decade in a given area. It has been occurring less frequently with the drought. Last year, the right amount of rainfall and warm temperatures produced carpets of flowers in Death Valley. 

 

So far this year, the natural show has been concentrated in the 640,000-acre (1,000-square-mile) Anza Borrego State Park that abuts Borrego Springs. 

 

It is expected to roll along through May, with different species blooming at different elevations and in different areas of the park. Anza Borrego is California’s largest state park with hundreds of species of plants, including desert lilies, blazing stars and the flaming tall, spiny Ocotillo.

 

‘Flowergeddon’

Deputies were brought in to handle the traffic jams as Borrego Springs saw its population triple in a single day. 

 

On one particularly packed weekend in mid-March, motorists were stuck in traffic for five hours, restaurants ran out of food, and some visitors relieved themselves in the fields. Officials have since set up an army of Port-A-Pottys, and eateries have stocked up. The craze has been dubbed “Flowergeddon.” 

 

Locals call those who view the tiny wildflowers from their cars “flower peepers.” Thousands of others have left their vehicles to traipse across the desert and analyze the array of delicate yellow, orange, purple and magenta blooms up close in the park. Many carting cameras have taken care to step around the plants.

 

Tour groups from as far as Japan and Hong Kong have flown in to catch the display before it fades away with the rising temperatures. 

Rare sightings tracked

 

Wildflower enthusiasts worldwide track the blooms online and arrive for rare sightings like this year’s Bigelow’s Monkey flower, some of which have grown to 8 inches (203 millimeters) in height. The National Park Service has even pitched in with a 24-hour wildflower hotline to find the best spots at the state park.

 

“We’ve seen everything from people in normal hiking attire to people in designer flip-flops to women in sundresses and strappy heels hike out there to get their picture. When I saw that, I thought, ‘Oh no. Please don’t go out there with those shoes on,’” laughed Linda Haddock, head of the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce.

 

On a recent day, a young woman sat among knee-high desert sunflowers and shot selfies against the backdrop of yellow blooms that looked almost neon in contrast to the brown landscape. A mother jumped in the air as her daughter snapped her photo among yellow brittlebushes. 

Blooms draw insects, birds 

The blooms are attracting hungry sphinx moth caterpillars that munch through acres. The caterpillars in turn are attracting droves of Swainson hawks on their annual 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) migration from Argentina.

 

“It’s an amazing burst in the cycle of life in the desert that has come because of a freakish event like a super bloom,” Haddock said. “It’s exciting. This is going to be so huge for our economy.”

 

Desert super blooms always draw crowds, but lifetime residents said they’ve never seen the natural wonder attract tens of thousands like this time. The park is about a two-hour drive from San Diego and three hours from Los Angeles. 

A lot of rain, a lot of blooms

 

This year’s display has been especially stunning, experts say. The region received 6½ inches (165 millimeters) of rain from December to February, followed by almost two weeks of 90-degree temperatures, setting the conditions for the super bloom. Five years of drought made the seeds ready to pop. 

 

Humans also helped. Park staff, volunteers and female prisoners have been removing the Saharan Mustard plant, an invasive species believed brought to California in the 1920s with another plant, the date palm. Saharan Mustard stole the thunder of another super bloom six years ago, said Jim Dice, research manager at the Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.

 

“It completely took over the usual wildflower fields and starved out the wildflowers so what we had were giant fields of ugly mustard plant,” Dice said. “That galvanized the community, which depends on tourism largely brought in during the good wildflower years.”

 

Lia Wathen, a 35-year-old investigator in San Diego, took a Monday off from work so she wouldn’t miss the desert flowers.

 

“Any single color that you can think of, you’re going to find it right here,” said Wathen, walking with her Maltese dogs, Romeo and Roxy, before stopping to examine a magenta bloom on a spikey Cholla cactus.

 

Sandra Reel and her husband drove hundreds of miles out of their way when they heard about the super bloom. 

 

“It is absolutely phenomenal to see this many blooming desert plants all at the same time,” she said. “I think it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” 
…

During World War II, the Warsaw Zoo in Poland’s capital became a hideout for Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Niki Caro’s film, The Zookeeper’s Wife, chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger.

The film opens with Antonina Zabinski, an empathetic animal lover, making her morning rounds in the zoo to check on the animals. Dark clouds of war are gathering over Poland.

Watch: ‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’ a Tale of Heroism During the Holocaust

The idyllic life of the zookeepers ends abruptly with a Nazi air raid over Warsaw, which hits the zoo and kills the majority of its animals. Filmmaker Niki Caro delivers a powerful scene of helpless caged animals dismembered and killed by the bombing. This heart-breaking waste of life is a forewarning of the Nazi attacks on human life.

Nazis invade

The Nazis invaded Poland September 1, 1939, and immediately started rounding up Jewish inhabitants in Warsaw, placing them in a ghetto to be starved, harassed, and exposed to the elements.

The film, script written by Angela Workman, is based on Diane Ackerman’s novel by the same title. The novel, a more detailed account of the zookeepers’ struggle was a challenge to condense to a two-hour film, Workman said.

She says the film was a labor of love by a team of women.

“Kim Zubek, our lead producer, was a person who carried this on her shoulders for years to get this made,” Workman said. “She worked really hard. I was involved with it for eight or nine years. Niki has been involved with it for years. Jessica (Chastain) stuck around when we didn’t know whether we’d be able to get it made. We’ve had some really fierce women working on this. I’m very proud of that.”

The largely female cast reflects the feminine point of view, said novelist Ackerman, who made Antonina Zabinski her central character. 

“She endangered her own life, the life of her child, but she felt it was the right thing to do.” Ackerman said. “Her husband was heroic in more traditional ways. He was head of an underground cell. She risked her life every single day, but she didn’t hold a gun and shoot at anybody. Her form of heroism was compassionate heroism. It’s something that I think people do every single day on our war-torn planet, but we don’t hear about it.”

Filmmaker Niki Caro echoes Ackerman’s viewpoint.

“Femininity has often been equated with weakness,” she said. “But a character like Antonina shows us that you can be both very soft and very strong.”

Manipulating Nazis to save Jews

The story pivots on Nazi official Lutz Heck, who’s eyeing the remaining rare zoo animals and Antonina.

Guided by greed and lust, Heck, played by Daniel Bruhl, offers assistance to Antonina by offering to take the remaining animals to Germany for safekeeping. And Heck is an historic figure.

“He was Hitler’s chief zoologist,” Workman said. “His family, I think, still breeds Heck cattle, and everything we see in the movie about him is true. He has feelings for Antonina; he would walk in whenever he wanted (in the zoo.) He controlled them. He had very strong animal instincts, and I think that he was a predator in a way.”

Though fearful, Antonina manipulated Heck’s feelings to convince him to let her and her husband keep the zoo open. Under Heck’s nose, Antonina and her husband smuggled about 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto using the vaults of the zoo as a way station for the refugees throughout the war.

Jessica Chastain interprets Antonina and the “gift she had in being able to communicate with all living creatures.

“Actually, we tried to showcase that in our film,” Chastain said, “and the idea what it means to possess another living thing. What does it mean to be in a cage?”

At a red carpet event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Workman said that though her script is based on Ackerman’s novel, it was also informed by her own family history.

“I am so emotional to be in this museum because I spent an enormous amount of time here when I was writing. I feel like my family’s faces are on the walls of this museum. It’s such an honor to be here.”

Message for today

Chastain said the film sends a message about today’s refugee crisis.

“I was shocked to learn that Anne Frank’s family was denied a visa to the United States twice,” she said. “Antonina was a refugee. She was born and raised in Russia, and she found her safe place in Warsaw and then from there she created a sanctuary for others. I hope that people will see the film and be inspired by her compassion and kindness, and will do what they can to help others.”
…

During World War II, the Warsaw Zoo in Poland’s capital became a hideout for Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Niki Caro’s film, The Zookeeper’s Wife, chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger.

The film opens with Antonina Zabinski, an empathetic animal lover, making her morning rounds in the zoo to check on the animals. Dark clouds of war are gathering over Poland.

Watch: ‘The Zookeeper’s Wife’ a Tale of Heroism During the Holocaust

The idyllic life of the zookeepers ends abruptly with a Nazi air raid over Warsaw, which hits the zoo and kills the majority of its animals. Filmmaker Niki Caro delivers a powerful scene of helpless caged animals dismembered and killed by the bombing. This heart-breaking waste of life is a forewarning of the Nazi attacks on human life.

Nazis invade

The Nazis invaded Poland September 1, 1939, and immediately started rounding up Jewish inhabitants in Warsaw, placing them in a ghetto to be starved, harassed, and exposed to the elements.

The film, script written by Angela Workman, is based on Diane Ackerman’s novel by the same title. The novel, a more detailed account of the zookeepers’ struggle was a challenge to condense to a two-hour film, Workman said.

She says the film was a labor of love by a team of women.

“Kim Zubek, our lead producer, was a person who carried this on her shoulders for years to get this made,” Workman said. “She worked really hard. I was involved with it for eight or nine years. Niki has been involved with it for years. Jessica (Chastain) stuck around when we didn’t know whether we’d be able to get it made. We’ve had some really fierce women working on this. I’m very proud of that.”

The largely female cast reflects the feminine point of view, said novelist Ackerman, who made Antonina Zabinski her central character. 

“She endangered her own life, the life of her child, but she felt it was the right thing to do.” Ackerman said. “Her husband was heroic in more traditional ways. He was head of an underground cell. She risked her life every single day, but she didn’t hold a gun and shoot at anybody. Her form of heroism was compassionate heroism. It’s something that I think people do every single day on our war-torn planet, but we don’t hear about it.”

Filmmaker Niki Caro echoes Ackerman’s viewpoint.

“Femininity has often been equated with weakness,” she said. “But a character like Antonina shows us that you can be both very soft and very strong.”

Manipulating Nazis to save Jews

The story pivots on Nazi official Lutz Heck, who’s eyeing the remaining rare zoo animals and Antonina.

Guided by greed and lust, Heck, played by Daniel Bruhl, offers assistance to Antonina by offering to take the remaining animals to Germany for safekeeping. And Heck is an historic figure.

“He was Hitler’s chief zoologist,” Workman said. “His family, I think, still breeds Heck cattle, and everything we see in the movie about him is true. He has feelings for Antonina; he would walk in whenever he wanted (in the zoo.) He controlled them. He had very strong animal instincts, and I think that he was a predator in a way.”

Though fearful, Antonina manipulated Heck’s feelings to convince him to let her and her husband keep the zoo open. Under Heck’s nose, Antonina and her husband smuggled about 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto using the vaults of the zoo as a way station for the refugees throughout the war.

Jessica Chastain interprets Antonina and the “gift she had in being able to communicate with all living creatures.

“Actually, we tried to showcase that in our film,” Chastain said, “and the idea what it means to possess another living thing. What does it mean to be in a cage?”

At a red carpet event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Workman said that though her script is based on Ackerman’s novel, it was also informed by her own family history.

“I am so emotional to be in this museum because I spent an enormous amount of time here when I was writing. I feel like my family’s faces are on the walls of this museum. It’s such an honor to be here.”

Message for today

Chastain said the film sends a message about today’s refugee crisis.

“I was shocked to learn that Anne Frank’s family was denied a visa to the United States twice,” she said. “Antonina was a refugee. She was born and raised in Russia, and she found her safe place in Warsaw and then from there she created a sanctuary for others. I hope that people will see the film and be inspired by her compassion and kindness, and will do what they can to help others.”
…

During WWII, the Warsaw Zoo became a refuge for Jews hiding from Nazi persecution. Niki Caro’s film “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
…

In a custom-built arena in Kabul, crowds cheered as young Afghan men punched, kicked and wrestled in the country’s first professional mixed martial arts league, a welcome distraction to the violence besetting the country.

While cricket and football more commonly grab public attention in Afghanistan, fighters and fans see martial arts not just as entertainment but as a constructive pastime for youths in a country torn by war and economic malaise.

Against a soundtrack of booming music and shouts of encouragement, sweat and blood mixed inside the cage. Each match, however, ended in a hug.

Outlet for frustration

“I think it provides a very good platform for the social frustrations that we have here in Afghanistan,” said Kakal Noristani, who a year and a half ago helped found the Snow Leopard Fighting Championship.

To date, only men have competed in the handful of competitions, but organizers say they are training women fighters. The walls of the club feature posters of American martial arts competitor Ronda Rousey.

Noristani and his partners want to develop mixed martial arts as a professional sport in Afghanistan, hoping to host foreign fighters and send Afghan competitors abroad.

“We’ve just begun here in Afghanistan,” Noristani said. “The professional structure was nonexistent before this.”

That’s helped some fighters dream of national and international glory.

“This is the wish of every fighter: To reach the highest level and be able to fight abroad,” said Mir Baba Nadery, who won his match that night.

Diversion from the war

Outside the cage, spectators expressed gratitude for a diversion from the country’s woes.

“Coming to these kind of events takes your mind off of our problems,” said Nadia Sina. “We are happy to see such an organization encouraging sportsmen and improving the sport in the country.”
…

On Tuesday, it will be “1984” again in movie theaters across the country.

About 190 art-house theaters have banded together to show the 1984 big-screen adaptation of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece as a pointed comment on the presidency of Donald Trump, whose “alternative facts” administration has already sent “1984” back up the bestseller lists .

“It’s what’s in the air. People want to do something,” said Dylan Skolnick, an organizer of the event and co-director of the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, New York. “This started with a conversation about: We need to do something. Well, what do we do? We show movies. So the obvious answer was: We should show a movie.”

New resonance

Cinemas around the country are increasingly programming with political protest in mind, playing movies that have newfound resonance for those who disagree with the policies of the Republican president. In May, 60 theaters are planning to screen films from the predominantly Muslim nations targeted by Trump’s proposed travel ban. That initiative has been dubbed the Seventh Art Stand and billed as “an act of cinematic solidarity against Islamophobia.”

Cinemas, particularly independent ones, are places to gather and connect, and they are finding under Trump a renewed sense of mission that goes beyond the usual arguments for the big-screen experience over Netflix.

“To really genuinely connect with other people — which seems to be a consistent theme our country is struggling with — it’s all about being in a corporeal public sphere together, and doing that in and around art,” said Courtney Sheehan, executive director of Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum and an organizer of the Seventh Art Stand. “We’re not just an ancillary component of social change conversation. This is ground zero for action.”

 

A Trump effect has already been partially seen in the recent box-office success of Jordan Peele’s horror hit “Get Out” and Raoul Peck’s James Baldwin documentary “I Am Not Your Negro” — movies that offer a straight talk on racial issues that might be lacking in Washington. On the small screen, Turner Classic Movies more cheekily programmed Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd,” with Andy Griffith as a populist radio personality who rises to political demagogue, to air on Inauguration Day.

“1984,” the second movie version starring John Hurt and Richard Burton, will play in 175 cities and 44 states, as well as a few internationally in Canada, England and Sweden. The event has been organized under the name United States of Cinema; its website lists the participating theaters. April 4 was selected because that’s when Orwell’s Winston Smith begins his forbidden diary as a rebellion against his oppressive government.

“It’s just a work that has a lot of resonance with what’s going on. It hits a lot of crucial notes,” Skolnick said. “Orwell wrote about and the film talks about the essential thing of being able to say two plus two equals four, even if the government says, ‘No, two plus two equals five.’ ”

A similar motivation fueled Richard Abramowitz, founder and president of the indie film distributor Abramorama. He and Sheehan began discussing organizing something at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and their plan has attracted the support of Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Demme, Woody Harrelson and others. Other companies have joined, as well; the online video hub Vimeo will show shorts focused on refugee stories.

Since the Seventh Art Stand was announced two weeks ago, Sheehan said, participating theaters have doubled from 30 to about 60. The state with the largest number, she said, is Indiana. Theaters have a long list of films from which to choose from Iran, Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. (The most recent version of the travel ban has thus far been blocked by the courts.) Most notable is Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “The Salesman.” The celebrated filmmaker boycotted February’s Academy Awards, where he won his second Oscar, because of the travel ban.

Abramowitz calls the movie theater “a safe space now,” where people can experience other cultures “that are being more threatened now than before.”

“We recognize that there are far more people that are welcoming in this country than not. And we wanted to try to create spaces all over the country where people could recognize this,” he said. “We thought maybe this would be a good way to engage the community rather than sit around and fume.”
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During their first-ever formal meeting, culture ministers representing Group of Seven industrialized nations on Thursday decried the looting and trafficking of cultural treasures by terror groups while experts acknowledged that objects believed looted by extremists are starting to surface in the marketplace.

The topic was on the table both during technical sessions by experts and law enforcement and during the afternoon meeting of G-7 cultural ministers and top officials. The gathering in Florence came a week after the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution co-authored by Italy and France warning that the destruction of cultural treasures may constitute war crimes.

 

Now, the discussion is turning not just to the destruction of cultural treasures, as seen in Syria and Afghanistan, but also to their trafficking as a source of funding to support the activities of extremist groups.

Heritage sites included

U.S. Ambassador Bruce Wharton, acting undersecretary for public diplomacy, told reporters that the ministers discussed the grave risk posed by “looting and trafficking at the hands of terrorist organizations and criminal networks.”

He cited the pillaging of heritage sites in Timbuktu in Mali, Palmyra in Syria  and the Mosul museum in Iraq, which experts are just beginning to assess after 2 years being under control of Islamic State group extremists.

“Looting, trafficking and the illicit sale of cultural heritage objects have helped ISIS-Daesh finance its operations, along with trafficking in drugs, weapons and people,” Wharton said.

 

German Minister of State Maria Boehmer said “terrorism feeds on illegal trafficking of cultural treasures” and applauded moves by the International Criminal Court to make “the targeted destruction of cultural property a war crime.”

“’The barbaric destruction by terrorist groups is targeting people’s identity,” she said.

Details are few

 

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Director Ray Villanueva said developments in identifying artifacts looted by extremists “are very fresh … happening as we speak.” Villanueva said providing details, including of the countries of origin of looted objects, could compromise the ongoing investigations.

 

“However, I can tell you in general that [through the] internet [and] art dealers we are seeing artifacts coming up from different places,” Villanueva said, adding that the public, museums and art dealers were key to providing law enforcement with information.

 

Milan lawyer Manlio Frigo, who represents museums and art dealers, acknowledged that not all the trafficking in war zones was at the hands of extremists. Refugees crossing the border from Syria have been seen with plastic bags containing artifacts, Frigo said.

Looting for profit

Director-General Irina Bokova of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said there is plenty of evidence that extremists are looting for profit.

 

A group of partners that includes Interpol and the world customs organization are  creating a common database and sharing information in a bid to recover the treasures, Bokova said.

 

“Every single day something happens somewhere that testifies to the fact that it is a systematic, I would say, looting of sites to engage with the illicit trafficking,” she said.
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Afghanistan’s first – and only – all-female symphony is trying to change attitudes in a deeply conservative country where many see music as immoral, especially for women.

 

The symphony’s two conductors show how difficult that can be, but also how satisfying success is.

 

One of them, Negin Khpolwak, was supported by her father when she joined the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and then became part of its girls’ orchestra, called Zohra. But the rest of her family was deeply against it. Her uncles cut off ties with her father.

 

“They told him he is not their brother anymore,” said Khpolwak, now 20. “Even my grand-mother disowned my father.”

 

Khwolpak had learned about the music institute at the orphanage in Kabul where she spent most of her life. Her father sent her to the orphanage because he was afraid for her safety in their home province of Kunar in eastern Afghanistan, an area where Taliban militants are active.

 

The institute is one of the only schools in Afghanistan where girls and boys share classrooms, and it draws its students from the ranks of orphanages and street children, giving them a chance at a new life. Khpolwak studied piano and drums before becoming the orchestra’s conductor.

 

First international tour

More than 30 girls aged 12 to 20 play in Zohra, which is named after a goddess of music in Persian literature. In January, the orchestra, which performs traditional Afghan and Western Classical music, had its first international tour, appearing at the World Economic Forum in Davos and four other cities in Switzerland and Germany.

 

“The formation of the orchestra is aimed at sending a positive message to the community, to send a positive message to the girls, to encourage families and girls to join the music scene of the country,” said Ahmad Naser Sarmast, the institute’s founder and director.

 

Sarmast has experienced firsthand the militants’ hatred of music. In 2014, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up at a concert Sarmast was attending. He was wounded and a German man in the audience died.

 

The Zohra orchestra was created in 2014 when one of the institute’s students, a girl named Meena, asked Sarmast if there could be a group where girls could play together. Sarmast leaped at the idea.

 

Since then, Meena has disappeared. Last year, the 7th grader told the school she had to attend her sister’s wedding in her family’s village in eastern Nangarhar province. She never returned, a sign of how tenuous people’s situation is in a country where war rages, communications are poor and poverty is rife. Sarmast said the school has not been in contact with her, but he’s hopeful she’ll return to the school and Zohra.

 

The orchestra’s other conductor, 18-year-old Zarifa Adiba, faced resistance from her family just as Khpolwak did.

 

Societal barriers

When she joined the school in 2014, she only told her mother and step-father, not her four brothers and her uncles, because she knew they would disapprove. Her mother and step-father tried to tell them about the importance of music – without mentioning Adiba – but they weren’t convinced.

 

“If my brothers and uncles had known about me learning or playing music, they 100 percent would have stopped me because they had a very negative view toward music,” Adiba said.

 

Her family’s opposition to music was so intense she hesitated to join the orchestra’s trip to Davos. But she ended up going, and as one of the conductors she was widely interviewed in the media there and appeared on TV.

 

When she returned, her uncles were the first to congratulate her. Two of her brothers are still not happy about her involvement with music but now she has the support of the rest of the family, she has more courage, and she said she is sure her brothers will eventually come around.

 

“I changed my family, now it is time for other girls to change their families because I am sure that slowly all Afghanistan will change,” she said.
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In addition to visiting the hallowed battlesite grounds at Vicksburg National Military Park, national parks traveler Mikah Meyer also had the chance to visit several other national park sites in Mississippi, each with its own unique history.

Natchez National Historical Park

Natchez National Historical Park, in the southern part of the state, protects the sites and structures associated with the people of Natchez and its surrounding area — from its earliest inhabitants through the modern era. 

The name is derived from the Natchez American Indians who lived along the Mississippi River at the time of European exploration.

But the area is also known for its pre-Civil War history.

Pre-Civil War South

Mikah, who’s on a mission to visit all of the more than 400 national parks, was able to learn about that history and other aspects of life in the antebellum South through many of the city’s preserved properties.

“It’s a historical park, so it’s kind of like the other historical parks in that it’s basically the old portion of the town of Natchez and a bunch of various sites,” he explained.

William Johnson House

Among those sites is the home of William Johnson, who was a free black barber.

 

 

“It was interesting to learn about his story,” Mikah recounted. “He lived in Natchez before the Civil War as a free black man and had his own house and his own business as a barber.”

According to the National Park Service, Johnson used bricks from buildings destroyed in the infamous tornado of 1840 to construct the State Street estate and commercial business area. The family lived in the upper stories of the house, while the first floor was rented out to merchants. The house allows visitors to learn more about the life of free African Americans in the pre-Civil War South.

After the fall of Vicksburg in 1863, the Union Army occupied the city of Natchez, enforced the Emancipation Proclamation – which freed all slaves in the rebellious states, and put an end to the tragic sale of enslaved people at the Forks of the Road, one of the largest slave markets in the South.

Subsequently, thousands of formerly enslaved men from the Natchez area joined the U.S. Army and Navy.

Driving through history

It would seem unlikely that a modern-looking expressway would be considered a site worth preserving, but that’s exactly what the National Park Service has done with Natchez Trace Parkway. The 715-kilometer roadway once was the main way settlers and travelers reached Natchez from the Tennessee area.

Driving north on that scenic parkway, Mikah said he understood why the Park Service had chosen to preserve it.

“I drove mile zero of that, all the way up to mile 15, just to get a taste of what that was like,” Mikah recounted. “It’s what a highway in America would look like if there were no Dairy Queens or gas stations on it. It’s just the road, grass and trees, so it’s really pretty — a really beautiful driving experience.”

While it was cold and wintry up north, the grass along the parkway was a vibrant green. “The trees were starting to bloom, so I can only imagine it in peak spring,” Mikah added.

Alongside much of the parkway is the Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail, a historic forest trail that roughly follows sections of the paved road through the states of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

Also known as the “Old Natchez Trace,” the trail was created and used for centuries by Native Americans, and later, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by European and American explorers, traders and emigrants.

Today, visitors like Mikah can still walk those trails and experience the area’s natural beauty.

The “Sunken Trace”

Picturesque land and waterscapes near the trail offer visitors recreational opportunities like hiking, biking, horseback riding and camping.

And Mikah said you can literally see history when you walk the trail, worn down by hundreds of thousands, even millions, of footsteps.

“One of the ways that distinguishes this is there are paths that are very clearly beaten down in that you have essentially a wall on either side of you.”

In the space of a few days, Mikah immersed himself in several fascinating aspects of his country’s history. He says he looks forward to exploring more of it when he visits two more national park sites in the northern part of Mississippi sometime in the near future.

In the meantime, he invites you to learn more about his travels across America by visiting his website, Facebook and Instagram.
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In a bizarre tale straight from the movie Sharknado, a shark was found on an Australian inland road, apparently washed up by a major storm.

Two days after cyclone Debbie slammed into Australia’s northeast coast as a category 4 storm, a nearly 2-meter long bullshark was found on a formerly flooded road.

Residents of Queensland had been warned to stay out of flood waters, apparently for good reason.

Queensland suffered widespread damage from the strong storm.
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The FBI has recovered a 1919 Norman Rockwell painting stolen more than 40 years ago from a New Jersey home.

The painting, sometimes called “Lazybones” or “Boy Asleep with Hoe,” graced the cover of the Sept. 6, 1919, edition of the Saturday Evening Post. The oil-on-canvas piece was among several items taken during a 1976 break-in in Cherry Hill, a Philadelphia suburb.

Susan Murta tells The Philadelphia Inquirer the FBI did a great job. She last saw the painting in her parents’ home in 1976. Her parents are now deceased.

An Inquirer story last year said the owner forked over $75 for it after accidentally damaging the painting with a pool cue in 1954. It’s now believed worth more than $1 million.

It’s unclear how the painting was recovered.

 
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The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 700 km drive through exceptional scenery and 10,000 years of North American history.
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Part of music icon Bob Dylan’s once-secret 6,000-piece archive, including thousands of hours of studio sessions, film reels and caches of unpublished lyrics, has opened in Oklahoma.

More than 1,000 pieces of the collection spanning Dylan’s six-decade career are available to scholars at the Gilcrease Museum’s Helmerich Center for American Research in Tulsa.

The opening comes a year after the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Tulsa acquired the collection for an estimated $15 million to $20 million.

The public will get a glimpse of some of the material when the Bob Dylan Center opens in downtown Tulsa’s Brady Arts District in about two years.

The center will occupy the opposite side of a building that houses a center devoted to Woody Guthrie, one of Dylan’s major influences.
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Universal Pictures is going back to its roots — monsters.

The studio Wednesday debuted footage from its upcoming adventure film The Mummy, which opens a monster universe drawing on Universal’s vault of classic properties like Bride of Frankenstein, Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Tom Cruise stars in the Alex Kurtzman-directed The Mummy, which is equal parts action and horror as Cruise’s explorer Nick Morton attempts to combat an ancient evil that has been unlocked and threatens to destroy the world.

Sofia Boutella is the Mummy, once an Egyptian princess who turned to the dark side when denied the throne.

Kurtzman and the cast, including Boutella, Annabelle Wallis and Jake Johnson, discussed Cruise’s famous commitment to eye-popping stunts.

“I think I was brought onto this movie to be afraid to do stunts with Tom Cruise,” Johnson said. “Tom does it all and he makes his co-stars do it, too. And I do mean ‘make.”’

Johnson laughed that when he would complain when he got hurt or bruised, Cruise would quip back: “Yeah, we jumped off a building dummy. It hurts!”

Cruise, who is on location for another filming, delivered a video message to the audience.

“My love for this began with universal classic films,” Cruise said. “To usher in a new age of gods and monsters is something that makes me very proud and excited.”

Audiences can meet “the original monster” June 9.
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A photograph of Harriet Tubman, believed to be the earliest-known image of the anti-slavery crusader and showing her as younger than she is normally depicted, will go up for auction Thursday in New York.

The photograph, previously unseen by scholars, shows Tubman in her late 40s, wearing an intricately decorated blouse and voluminous skirt, and sitting in a chair, leaning one arm on its back.

“It’s quite remarkable: This is what she looked like in her prime Civil War period when she was working as a spy for Lincoln,” Wyatt Day, the specialist organizing the sale at Swann Auction Galleries, said in a telephone interview.

He noted the photograph was taken about three years after the American Civil War ended in 1865. “All of the images show her as an older woman, maybe in her 70s. She looks a bit tired, and here she looks vibrant and strong.”

Kate Clifford Larson, a historian and Tubman biographer, said the photograph, which was brought to Swann last year after being purchased at auction by a collector of vintage photos about 10 years ago, could help the public “reimagine” Tubman.

“There are so many details about it that are thrilling,” she said in a phone interview. “She’s so much younger and she’s dressed so beautifully, so it helps us look at her in a different way.”

Tubman, who escaped from slavery in Maryland when she was in her 20s, later led dozens of black slaves to freedom using the Underground Railroad and became a Union Army spy during the Civil War and women’s suffragist.

The U.S. Treasury Department said last year it planned to put her on the face of the $20 bill, replacing former President Andrew Jackson, making her the first African-American so honored.

The photograph for auction is in the form of a carte de visite, a 19th-century custom in which people would leave photos of themselves as a calling card.

It appears in a carte-de-visite album compiled by the Quaker abolitionist Emily Howland. The album is estimated to sell for $20,000 to $30,000, the gallery said.

Day said research had shown the photographer Benjamin F. Powelson, who made Tubman’s carte de visite, only spent time near Tubman’s home in Auburn in upstate New York from 1868 to 1869, when Tubman was about 48.
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Vice Media is bringing its edgy style of journalism to the Middle East to tap what it thinks is an underserved market of young, digital-hungry consumers.

Vice announced its arrival with a party Wednesday at the glitzy Armani Hotel in the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa, in Dubai, the global trade hub where the New York-based company will set up its regional headquarters.

Vice reckons the region’s youthful population coupled with some of the highest smartphone penetration rates in the world in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates make it an ideal market to expand into.

“We think that this is the time that we come in and steal a lot of market share,” Vice Chief Executive Shane Smith told Reuters in an interview Wednesday.

Vice, which is aiming for 50 staff members in Dubai by the end of the year, will launch a website and digital channel this summer and is discussing a 24-hour regional cable channel to be broadcast from the emirate. The company will produce news and lifestyle content in multiple languages including Arabic, English, Farsi, Turkish and Urdu.

Vice has documented migrant worker abuses in Dubai, won acclaim for a documentary while embedded with Islamic State and garnered widespread attention when it took former National Basketball Association star Dennis Rodman to North Korea.

‘Right side of history’

“We’re always going to be looking at social justice, we’re always going to be looking at environmental justice, we’re always going to be looking at being on the right side of history, especially with millennials and our audience,” Smith said.

Vice is likely to run into the same obstacles it has faced elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa, “where journalists are most subjected to constraints of every kind,” according to global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

Worth $4.2 billion at its last valuation, Vice has transformed in 23 years from a punk magazine in Montreal, Quebec, into a global multimedia brand.

Its regional partner is Afghan media company Moby Group, whose Dubai offices are a few kilometres from the Trump International Golf Club, which was featured in a 2016 Vice episode on U.S. cable channel HBO about migrant worker exploitation.

Vice and Moby share a common shareholder in 21st Century Fox, and the Afghan company holds a license from the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, allowing it to expand into Iran — a market Vice wants to tap.
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