Filmfest DC is celebrating its 32nd year in the nation’s capital, by showcasing 80 films from 45 different countries to a politically savvy international audience. But the festival provides more than just entertainment. Over the years, the festival has become a cultural and economic force for a city known around the world for its bipartisan politics. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has more.
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When the 71st Cannes Film Festival opens in France next month, the jury will include a Burundian songwriter and singer who by her own admission, has nothing to do with films.
“It was a big surprise for me. First of all, I have no connection with that world of cinema. I was surprised that they chose me,” Khadja Nin told VOA’s Central Africa Service. “This event is one of the biggest in the world and to be part of that prestigious jury is of course for me a great honor in a way.”
Nin does have great connections to the world of music, having won wide acclaim for albums stretching back to the 1990s. That was likely her ticket to Cannes, where organizers strive to include personalities from the worlds of music and art as well as film.
Nin studied music at an early age, before leaving her home country to go to Europe some 40 years ago. Her albums are a mix of occidental pop music, African and afro-Cuban rhythms.
Criticize Nkurunziza? Maybe.
Although she thinks the festival isn’t the best place to talk about the politics of Burundi, she would not shy away of speaking about it, if an opportunity arose.
“I have to see how it goes. I have no idea what will happen there. It is my first time in Cannes. Of course, I will take any opportunity to talk about my country and people,” she said.
Burundi has been plagued by deadly political violence since President Pierre Nkurunziza successfully sought a disputed third term in 2015. Hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands have fled the country.
Nin has been an outspoken critic of Nkurunziza’s regime.
“He decided to go for a third term and that is one thing. The second thing is: In Burundi they still kill, they still torture they still rape and that cannot continue,” said Nin.
She says she won’t stop speaking out until the end of the crisis.
“We will sit down the day that stops. That is our mission. We cannot let these people kill our children, rape our sisters and mothers. That is not possible for us,” Nin said.
“This is my goal. Really my goal. It is a full time job for me, at this moment.”
Other jury members
Other 2018 Cannes jury members include Australian actress and producer Cate Blanchett, Chinese actor Chang Chen, American writer, director, producer Ava DuVernay, French director Robert Guédiguian and French actress Léa Seydoux, American actress Kristen Stewart, Canadian director Denis Villeneuve and Russian director Andrei Zvyagintsev.
The 71st Festival de Cannes runs from May 8 to 19.
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For the latest beauty and makeup trends, those in the know are ditching fashion magazines and logging on to social media. YouTube and Instagram influencers are redefining beauty standards. And as Tina Trinh reports, the industry is taking notice.
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We’re locking down the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending April 28, 2018.
For the second straight week, we welcome a Hot Shot Debut … this time at No. 1.
Number 5: BlocBoy JB Featuring Drake “Look Alive”
BlocBoy JB and Drake spend another week in fifth place with “Look Alive.”
Drake just delivered on a promise to students at Miami Senior High School. Earlier this year, he donated $25,000 to the school, while also promising the school new uniforms that he designed himself. This week, Drake previewed the new designs on Instagram … and you can see them by going on our Facebook page, VOA1TheHits.
Number 4: Post Malone & Ty Dolla $ign “Psycho”
Post Malone dips a notch to No. 4 with “Psycho,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.
Ty is not the only guest appearing on Post’s “Beerbongs & Bentleys” album, out April 27. The set will feature 18 songs, with other guest stars being Swae Lee, 21 Savage, Nicki Minaj, and G-Eazy and YG.
Number 3: Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line “Meant To Be”
While Bebe Rexha and Florida Georgia Line slip a slot to third place with “Meant To Be,” it remains the top song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for a 20th week. It’s only the third single to last that long at No. 1.
Sam Hunt held the title for 34 weeks with “Body Like A Back Road,” while Florida Georgia Line was in the driver’s seat for 24 weeks with “Cruise.”
Number 2: Drake “God’s Plan”
Drake ends his 11-week run at No. 1, as “God’s Plan” slips to second place. It lasted a respectable 11 weeks, but now it’s your runner-up.
Drake is accustomed to dominating chart records, but J Cole just stole some of his thunder. J. Cole racked up 64.5 million streams in the 24 hours after releasing his new album “KOD.” This is the most 24-hour album streams on Apple Music, eclipsing Drake’s previous record with “Views.”
Number 1: Drake “Nice For What”
Drake shouldn’t feel too bad, though, because he just replaced himself atop the Hot 100. “Nice For What” is your Hot Shot Debut in first place. Furthermore, Drake is the only artist to have both songs debut at No. 1 …proving he’s in a class by himself.
What will Drake do next? Join us in seven days and we’ll see for ourselves.
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Mamma Mia! The members of ABBA announced Friday that they have recorded new material for the first time in 35 years.
The Swedish pop supergroup said it had recorded two new songs, including one titled “I Still Have Faith in You.”
The news was announced in an Instagram statement from Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Agnetha Faltskog.
ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with “Waterloo” and had a sequin-spangled string of hits including “Dancing Queen” and “Take a Chance on Me” before splitting up in 1982.
The band’s statement said the members reunited to plan a virtual tour featuring digital avatars, and decided to go back into the studio.
ABBA said “it was like time had stood still and that we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyous experience!”
“I Still Have Faith in You” is due to be performed by the group’s holograms in a December TV special broadcast by the BBC and NBC. There was no word on when the second track will be released.
Ulvaeus revealed earlier this month that digitally created virtual band members — “Abbatars” — would perform in a television show in 2018, followed by a tour in 2019 or 2020.
The band members have performed together just once since the 1980s, at a private party in 2016, and have long said they will never tour live together again.
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Participants at the Cannes Film Festival will be given fliers warning “Proper Behavior Required” as part of an anti-sexual harassment campaign at the May 8-19 event.
The top women’s rights official for the French government announced Friday that she reached a deal with Cannes organizers for the campaign. It will include written warnings urging appropriate behavior and a hotline for victims and witnesses to report abuse.
Secretary of State for Women’s Affairs Marlene Schiappa noted that Cannes is one of the places where disgraced Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein allegedly raped and harassed women.
Schiappa’s office says the French government is urging other upcoming festivals and events to join the effort.
Film festivals have been soul-searching since the Weinstein scandal, rewriting codes of conduct and redoubling gender equality efforts.
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She had traveled to Alabama all the way from California to be here for this moment.
She had managed to stay dry in a torrential downpour that would have forced many others away. Had somehow beat the odds, got in line early, and secured one of the sold-out opening day tickets for access to The Legacy Museum.
So it was a surprise to Isoke Femi that the hardest thing for her to manage were the words to describe what she had just witnessed.
“My experience in there… is so painful,” she said exiting the exhibit.
Site of slave warehouse
Built on the site of a slave warehouse in downtown Montgomery, once the epicenter of the slave trade in the United States, in a town that at one time was the capital of the Confederacy, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is filled with visual exhibits that serve as a catalyst for understanding what many blacks in the United States have historically endured.
“Five-thousand blacks were lynched between 1880 and 1940,” said civil rights leader the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was an early supporter of the museum and the nearby National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a new memorial that sits on a grassy, six-acre hill overlooking Montgomery.
It is the first memorial and museum of its kind in the United States, tackling subjects such as racial terrorism and lynching.
Founded by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization working in marginalized and impoverished communities, the group hopes the Memorial and The Legacy Museum will help change the national narrative about race.
“We must face the truth of our origins,” Jackson told VOA in an exclusive interview immediately following his own trip through the museum in its opening hours. “We are a post-genocidal, post-slavery, post-Jim Crow society.”
Facing the past
But not a post-racial society, says Mark Potok, former senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center, who spent much of his career tracking hate groups in the United States.
“It is white people in this country, and in the South in particular, who are so averse to facing the past squarely,” he said.
Potok says racism and bigotry, particularly in Alabama, which now hosts this museum and memorial, are not yet consigned to the history books.
“It’s worth remembering that 15 years ago, a very short time ago, the majority of white people in Alabama voted to keep segregated schools in the state constitution,” Potok said.
Jackson says it’s not just Alabama.
“And even today … 200 attempts to get federal anti-lynching legislation has not passed,” he said.
Speaking to the impact of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, he hopes “this will give us a deeper narrative … and we will seek to become better. At the end of the day, we must educate and enlighten us. Not make us get behind more barriers.”
Change at the ballot box
The biggest barrier in Jackson’s mind today is the one keeping people from the ballot box.
“There are 4 million blacks in the South unregistered to vote,” he said.
Mark Potok agrees with Jackson, and believes the best way to bridge the racial divide in the United States is to vote.
“You know, it’s not beating up white supremacists on the streets of Charlottesville,” he said. “It is really changing the people who represent us.”
Isoke Femi, still reeling from her walk through the images and displays that deal with powerful and uncomfortable truths long avoided, sees hope in the crowds around her.
“The love it took to do this, the commitment, the courage, and the fact that everybody is here that it’s not just something that black people are coming to. Everybody is here. And even if they can’t find the words … they want the healing of America.”
In that healing, Jesse Jackson hopes there is also a lesson.
“We must learn to live together,” he said. “And that is one of the great challenges of our past.”
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For some people, makeup isn’t just about the latest shade of lipstick or eye shadow. It’s about empowerment.
Just ask the fans at Beautycon, a recent two-day event in New York that showcased more than 100 makeup and beauty brands, along with speaker panels featuring social media stars whose expertise is all things beauty.
At Beautycon, the spotlight wasn’t on supermodels or fashion editors, but everyday people who have used social media to upend the industry. With online fans numbering in the millions, these Instagram and YouTube influencers are charting a path into a once exclusive field and forcing insiders to rethink conventional notions of beauty.
“I figured out a way to express myself through social media and through my platform and just share my individuality,” said Irene Kim, a Korean-American social media influencer who spoke on a panel, “Niche is the New Norm.”
“Beauty is limitless,” Kim said. “It’s whatever you want to do and how you want to express yourself.”
Mecca Iman is a makeup enthusiast who agrees.
“It’s deeper than just, how it looks, it’s how you feel,” she said.
Democratization of beauty
“There’s no longer a publisher who’s dictating what is beauty or what does health and well-being mean,” said Moj Mahdara, CEO of Beautycon Media. “Now you have a generation of young people who are creators creating that dialogue for a consumer, but that consumer is really their friend — their friend, their fan, it’s a two-way conversation.”
Iman teared up during a meet-and-greet session with social media star Raye Boyce. Boyce, who’s better known by her online handle, “ItsMyRayeRaye,” posts instructional makeup and beauty videos on YouTube and currently has 1.8 million subscribers.
“She’s just so relatable and so cool and then the makeup that she does, I learn from her. I learn so much from her,” Iman said.
Major brands take note
Boyce recently partnered with CoverGirl to promote the company’s cosmetics on her social media channels. She was also given the opportunity to visit the research and development labs of Coty, the parent company of CoverGirl and other consumer beauty brands like Clairol, Rimmel and Max Factor.
“I feel like them listening to us, they’re trying to understand the space,” Boyce said.
Nabela Noor, a beauty influencer with 749,000 Instagram followers and counting, has partnered with companies like Sally Hansen, Benefit and e.l.f. Cosmetics.
“The reason why I wanted to do what I’m doing is because I wasn’t seeing anyone else like me,” said the plus-sized, Muslim Bangladeshi-American. “I wasn’t seeing myself represented on television, in the media. I thought, if I’m not seeing it happen, I’m going to make it happen for myself,” she added.
“By being online and being myself and being proud of who I am, I’ve been able to help people feel good about themselves,” she said.
Tokyo Stylez, originally from Nebraska, calls himself “one of the others’“ or an “alien.” The flamboyant hairstylist started posting his wig creations on Instagram, and now works with artists like Nicki Minaj, Beyonce and Rihanna.
“People really support what I do, they trust my vision, they trust my judgment on things. So if I say, ‘Go do this’ they really go do it, which is amazing,” said Tokyo, who also commands upward of $900 per person for all-day workshops where he teaches his hair techniques. “I just do me, and it works for me,” he said.
Beauty from the inside out
Self-acceptance is a key theme for the demographic that marketers have dubbed Generation Z, the post-millennial group born in the mid-90s to mid-2000s who are well-versed with consumer technology. A section of Beautycon entitled “B-Well” focused on health and well-being, with vendors hawking probiotic beverages, vitamins and healthy snacks.
“Beauty is both inside and out, and how you treat your insides and your mental health and your physical health and your spirituality is all a part of how you foster beauty,” Mahdara said. “I think the industries around health and well-being and beauty are colliding into one and will be a very big movement moving forward.”
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U.S. comedian Bill Cosby was convicted Thursday of drugging and molesting a one-time friend in 2004, which could send him to prison for the rest of his life.
The 80-year-old Cosby now faces up to 10 years in prison for each of three counts of aggravated assault after a Pennsylvania jury convicted him of an attack on Andrea Constand, now 45. At the time of the assault, she was an administrator for the women’s basketball team at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosby’s alma mater.
Cosby, best known as the lovable dad on his 1980’s television hit The Cosby Show, was convicted by a jury of seven men and five women after a two-week trial, not quite a year after another jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charges and a mistrial was declared.
Cosby stared straight ahead when the jury announced its verdict after deliberating 14 hours over two days.
But moments later Cosby lashed out at District Attorney Kevin Steele, calling the prosecutor an “asshole” after he asked that Cosby be immediately jailed because he might flee. The judge, however, decided Cosby could remain free pending sentencing.
A Cosby defense attorney said the entertainer continues to believe he did nothing wrong. “The fight is not over,” the lawyer said.
WATCH: Cosby accusers react moments after guilty verdict
In the retrial, unlike in the first trial, prosecutors introduced testimony from five women who said that Cosby, married for 54 years, drugged and violated them.
One of them, through tears, asked him, “You remember, don’t you, Mr. Cosby?”
Constand told jurors that Cosby knocked her out with three blue pills he called “your friends.” She testified that Cosby penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized, unable to resist or say no.
Cosby’s conviction came in one of the first celebrity sexual-assault cases of the MeToo era in the U.S., in which dozens of powerful men in the corporate world, the film industry, media circles and academia have been accused by women of years of repeated behind-the-scenes sexual misconduct.
Cosby’s first trial ended just before women leveled a flood of accusations against the rich and famous, including powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, television anchors Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose, and Senator Al Franken. Many of the men apologized for their misconduct, some resigned from their jobs, and others were fired.
In all, more than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexual assaulting them over several decades.
Gloria Allred, a lawyer who represented one of the women who testified against Cosby, said, “We’re very, very happy and proud of the result. Women were finally believed. And we thank the jury for that.”
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Tech giants such as Facebook and Google must step up efforts to tackle the spread of fake news online in the next few months or potentially face further EU regulation, as concerns mount over election interference.
The European Commission said on Thursday it would draw up a Code of Practice on Disinformation for the 28-nation EU by July with measures to prevent the spread of fake news such as increasing scrutiny of advertisement placements.
EU policymakers are particularly worried that the spread of fake news could interfere with European elections next year, after Facebook disclosed that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters through the social network in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election. Moscow denies such claims.
“These [online] platforms have so far failed to act proportionately, falling short of the challenge posed by disinformation and the manipulative use of platforms’ infrastructure,” the Commission wrote in its strategy for tackling fake news published on Thursday.
“The Commission calls upon platforms to decisively step up their efforts to tackle online disinformation.”
Advertisers and online platforms should produce “measurable effects” on the code of practice by October, failing which the Commission could propose further actions, including regulation “targeted at a few platforms.”
Companies will have to work harder to close fake accounts, take steps to reduce revenues for purveyors of disinformation and limit targeting options for political adverts.
The Commission, the EU’s executive, will also support the creation of an independent European network of fact-checkers and launch an online platform on disinformation.
Tech industry association CCIA said the October deadline for progress appeared rushed.
“The tech industry takes the spread of disinformation online very seriously…when drafting the Code of Practice, it is important to recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to address this issue given the diversity of affected services,” said Maud Sacquet, CCIA Europe Senior Policy Manager.
Weaponizing fake news
The revelations that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica – which worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign – improperly accessed the data of up to 87 million Facebook users has further rocked public trust in social media.
“There are serious doubts about whether platforms are sufficiently protecting their users against unauthorized use of their personal data by third parties, as exemplified by the recent Facebook/Cambridge Analytica revelations,” the Commission wrote.
Facebook has stepped up fact-checking in its fight against fake news and is trying to make it uneconomical for people to post such content by lowering its ranking and making it less visible. The world’s largest social network is also working on giving its users more context and background about the content they read on the platform.
“The weaponization of online fake news and disinformation poses a serious security threat to our societies,” said Julian King, EU Commissioner for security. “The subversion of trusted channels to peddle pernicious and divisive content requires a clear-eyed response based on increased transparency, traceability and accountability.”
Campaign group European Digital Rights warned that the Commission ought not to rush into taking binding measures over fake news which could have an effect on the freedom of speech.
King rejected any suggestion that the proposal would lead to censorship or a crackdown on satire or partisan news.
“It’s a million miles away from censorship,” King told a news conference. “It’s not targeting partisan journalism, freedom of speech, freedom to disagree, freedom to be, in some cases, a bit disagreeable.”
Commission Vice-President Andrus Ansip said there had been some debate internally over whether to explicitly mention Russia in the fake news strategy.
“Some people say that we don’t want to name just one name. And other people say that ‘add some other countries also and then we will put them all on our list’, but unfortunately nobody is able to name those others,” the former Estonian prime minister said.
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An American German-Catholic woman who converted to Islam decided to design modest clothes after she couldn’t find them in stores. Macy’s, the nationwide department store, is now carrying her designs on its website. But some people’s idea of fashion options is being viewed by others as condoning the repression of women. In her first television interview, designer Lisa Vogl talks about why she designed her fashion line. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has our story.
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The freedom to wear whatever you want is taken for granted here in the U.S. But some people’s idea of fashion options is being viewed by others as condoning the repression of women. In her first television interview, a U.S. designer of Muslim clothing explains her why she designed her line. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has our story.
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Facebook Inc. shares rose Wednesday after the social network reported a surprisingly strong 63 percent rise in profit and an increase in users, with no sign that business was hurt by a scandal over the mishandling of personal data.
After easily beating Wall Street expectations, shares traded up 7.1 percent after the bell at $171, paring a month-long decline that began with Facebook’s disclosure in March that consultancy Cambridge Analytica had harvested data belonging to millions of users.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal, affecting up to 87 million users and prompting several apologies from Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, generated calls for regulation and for users to leave the social network, but there was no indication advertisers immediately changed their spending.
“Everybody keeps talking about how bad things are for Facebook, but this earnings report to me is very positive, and reiterates that Facebook is fine, and they’ll get through this,” said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust Company. His firm holds about 73,000 shares in Facebook.
Facebook’s quarterly profit beat analysts’ estimates, as a 49 percent jump in quarterly revenue outpaced a 39 percent rise in expenses from a year earlier. The mobile ad business grew on a push to add more video content.
Facebook said monthly active users in the first quarter rose to 2.2 billion, up 13 percent from a year earlier and matching expectations, according to Thomson Reuters.
The company reversed last quarter’s decline in the number of daily active users in the United States and Canada, saying it had 185 million users there, up from 184 million in the fourth quarter.
Resilient business model
The results are a bright spot for the world’s largest social network amid months of negative headlines about the company’s handling of personal information, its role in elections and its fueling of violence in developing countries.
Facebook, which generates revenue primarily by selling advertising personalized to its users, has demonstrated for several quarters how resilient its business model can be as long as users keep coming back to scroll through its News Feed and watch its videos.
It is spending to ensure users are not scared away by scandals. Chief Financial Officer David Wehner told analysts on a call that expenses this year would grow between 50 percent and 60 percent, up from a prior range of 45 percent to 60 percent.
Spending on security
Much of Facebook’s ramp-up in spending is for safety and security, Wehner said. The category includes efforts to root out fake accounts, scrub hate speech and take down violent videos.
Facebook said it ended the first quarter with 27,742 employees, up 48 percent from a year earlier.
“So long as profits continue to grow at a rapid rate, investors will accept that higher spending to ensure privacy is warranted,” Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter said.
It has been nearly two years since Facebook shares rose 7 percent or more during a trading day. They rose 7.2 percent on April 28, 2016, the day after another first-quarter earnings report.
Net income attributable to Facebook shareholders rose in the first quarter to $4.99 billion, or $1.69 per share, from $3.06 billion, or $1.04 per share, a year earlier.
Analysts on average were expecting a profit of $1.35 per share, according to Thomson Reuters.
Total revenue was $11.97 billion, above the analyst estimate of $11.41 billion.
Some details secret
The company declined to provide some details sought by analysts. It has not shared the revenue generated by Instagram, the photo-sharing app it owns, and it declined to provide details about time spent on Facebook. Facebook also owns the popular smartphone apps Messenger and WhatsApp.
Tighter regulation could make Facebook’s ads less lucrative by reducing the kinds of data it can use to personalize and target ads to users, although Facebook’s size means it could also be well positioned to cope with regulations.
Facebook and Alphabet Inc’s Google together dominate the internet ad business worldwide. Facebook is expected to take 18 percent of global digital ad revenue this year, compared with Google’s 31 percent, according to research firm eMarketer.
The company said it was increasing the amount of money authorized to repurchase shares by an additional $9 billion. It had initially authorized repurchases up to $6 billion.
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YouTube is overhauling its kid-focused video app to give parents the option of letting humans, not computer algorithms, select what shows their children can watch.
The updates that begin rolling out April 26, 2018, are a response to complaints that the YouTube Kids app has repeatedly failed to filter out disturbing content.
Google-owned YouTube launched the toddler-oriented app in 2015. It has described it as a “safer” experience than the regular YouTube video-sharing service for finding “Peppa Pig” episodes or watching user-generated videos of people unboxing toys, teaching guitar lessons or experimenting with science.
Failure of screening system
In order to meet U.S. child privacy rules, Google says it bans kids under 13 from using its core video service. But its official terms of agreement are largely ignored by tens of millions of children and their families who don’t bother downloading the under-13 app.
Both the grown-up video service and the YouTube Kids app have been criticized by child advocates for their commercialism and for the failures of a screening system that relies on artificial intelligence. The app is engineered to automatically exclude content that’s not appropriate for kids, and recommend videos based on what children have watched before. That hasn’t always worked to parents’ liking — especially when videos with profanity, violence or sexual themes slip through the filters.
Updates give parents option
The updates allow parents to switch off the automated system and choose a contained selection of children’s programming such as Sesame Street and PBS Kids. But the automated system remains the default.
“For parents who like the current version of YouTube Kids and want a wider selection of content, it’s still available,” said James Beser, the app’s product director, in a blog post Wednesday. “While no system is perfect, we continue to fine-tune, rigorously test and improve our filters for this more-open version of our app.”
Beser also encouraged parents to block videos and flag them for review if they don’t think they should be on the app. But the practice of addressing problem videos after children have already been exposed to them has bothered child advocates who want the more controlled option to be the default.
Cleaner, safer kids’ app
“Anything that gives parents the ability to select programming that has been vetted in some fashion by people is an improvement, but I also think not every parent is going to do this,” said Josh Golin, director of the Boston-based Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. “Giving parents more control doesn’t absolve YouTube of the responsibility of keeping the bad content out of YouTube Kids.”
He said Google should aim to build an even cleaner and safer kids’ app, then pull all the kid-oriented content off the regular YouTube — where most kids are going — and onto that app.
Golin’s group recently asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether YouTube’s data collection and advertising practices violate federal child privacy rules. He said advocates plan to meet with FTC officials next week.
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Tennis faces “very significant” integrity problems, particularly at the lower levels of the sport, caused by the sharp increase in internet betting, an independent report concluded in its interim finding on Wednesday.
The Interim Report of the Independent Review of Integrity said that its two-year investigation had not revealed widespread corruption at the highest levels of the professional game globally although “there is nonetheless evidence of some issues at these levels”.
Among its recommendations are a review of appearance fees and the ranking system and a halt to the sale of sporting data by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) at the low-level Futures events.
It also recommended greater monitoring of the lower levels where one investigator said there were a “tsunami” of problems.
The Review was commissioned by tennis’ major bodies (ATP, WTA, ITF and Grand Slam Board) in 2016 following a report by the BBC and BuzzFeed News which claimed 16 players ranked in the world’s top 50 had been flagged to the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) over suspicions that matches had been thrown.
The panel said: “the integrity problems are greatest where prize money relative to costs, prospects of advancement, pubic interest and attention, and financial resources of tournaments are lowest”.
It also said the advent of online betting and the sale of official live scoring date have greatly exacerbated the problem and recommends that the ITF ends its date sale agreement at Futures events.
It added that there are no simple solutions but called on the sport “to address and limit the betting markets that ultimately drive, and give expression to, the problem; and to improve the systems of preventing and disrupting breaches of integrity, and for detecting and sanctioning them when they occur.”
The report paints a picture of financial privation among many of the sport’s 15,000 professionals, with many at the lowest level struggling to cover the costs of competing. This, the report said, made betting on matches more attractive to players, many of whom admitted knowledge of match-fixing.
A survey of 3,200 players found that 16 percent indicated they had first-hand knowledge of players betting on matches, 11 percent knew of inside information being provided and 14.5 percent of match-fixing. Of these, 35 percent said they had knowledge of more than one instance.
Tennis’ governing bodies have committed to implementing the report’s final findings after a period of consultation.
The panel, which was chaired by Adam Lewis QC, took statements from 200 key stakeholders, conducted more than 100 interviews and collected more than 3,200 survey responses.
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There has been a long tradition of making and drinking coffee across cultures and continents. Now, a tech company in Austin is adding to this tradition by creating robot baristas to make the coffee-drinking experience more convenient. For a similar price of a cup of Starbucks designer coffee, a robot can now make it, too. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee finds out whether robots will replace traditional baristas.
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Volkswagen and Nissan have unveiled electric cars designed for China at a Beijing auto show that highlights the growing importance of Chinese buyers for a technology seen as a key part of the global industry’s future.
General Motors displayed five all-electric models Wednesday including a concept Buick SUV it says can go 600 kilometers (375 miles) on one charge. Ford and other brands showed off some of the dozens of electric SUVs, sedans and other models they say are planned for China.
Auto China 2018, the industry’s biggest sales event this year, is overshadowed by mounting trade tensions between Beijing and U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened to hike tariffs on Chinese goods including automobiles in a dispute over technology policy.
The impact on automakers should be small, according to industry analysts, because exports amount to only a few thousand vehicles a year. Those include a GM SUV, the Envision, and Volvo Cars sedans made in China for export to the United States.
China accounted for half of last year’s global electric car sales, boosted by subsidies and other prodding from communist leaders who want to make their country a center for the emerging technology.
“The Chinese market is key for the international auto industry and it is key to our success,” VW CEO Herbert Diess said on Tuesday.
Volkswagen unveiled the E20X, an SUV that is the first model for SOL, an electric brand launched by the German automaker with a Chinese partner. The E20X, promising a 300-kilometer (185-mile) range on one charge, is aimed at the Chinese market’s bargain-priced tiers, where demand is strongest.
GM, Ford, Daimler AG’s Mercedes unit and other automakers also have announced ventures with local partners to develop models for China that deliver more range at lower prices.
On Wednesday, Nissan Motor Co. presented its Sylphy Zero Emission, which it said can go 338 kilometers (210 miles) on a charge. The Sylphy is based on Nissan’s Leaf, a version of which is available in China but has sold poorly due to its relatively high price.
Automakers say they expect electrics to account for 35 to over 50 percent of their China sales by 2025.
First-quarter sales of electrics and gasoline-electric hybrids rose 154 percent over a year earlier to 143,000 units, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That compares with sales of just under 200,000 for all of last year in the United States, the No. 2 market.
That trend has been propelled by the ruling Communist Party’s support for the technology. The party is shifting the financial burden to automakers with sales quotas that take effect next year and require them to earn credits by selling electrics or buy them from competitors.
That increases pressure to transform electrics into a mainstream product that competes on price and features.
Automakers also displayed dozens of gasoline-powered models from compact sedans to luxurious SUVs. Their popularity is paying for development of electrics, which aren’t expected to become profitable for most producers until sometime in the next decade.
China’s total sales of SUVs, sedans and minivans reached 24.7 million units last year, compared with 17.2 million for the United States.
SUVs are the industry’s cash cow. First-quarter sales rose 11.3 percent over a year earlier to 2.6 million, or almost 45 percent of total auto sales, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
On Wednesday, Ford displayed its Mondeo Energi plug-in hybrid, its first electric model for China, which went on sale in March. Plans call for Ford and its luxury unit, Lincoln, to release 15 new electrified vehicles by 2025.
GM plans to launch 10 electrics or hybrids in China from through 2020.
VW is due to launch 15 electrics and hybrids in the next two to three years as part of a 10 billion euro ($12 billion) development plan announced in November.
Nissan says it will roll out 20 electrified models in China over the next five years.
New but fast-growing Chinese auto trail global rivals in traditional gasoline technology but industry analysts say the top Chinese brands are catching up in electrics, a market with no entrenched leaders.
BYD Auto, the biggest global electric brand by number sold, debuted two hybrid SUVs and an electric concept car.
The company, which manufactures electric buses at a California factory and exports battery-powered taxis to Europe, also displayed nine other hybrid and plug-in electric models.
Chery Automobile Co. showed a lineup that included two electric sedans, an SUV and a hatchback, all promising 250 to 400 kilometers (150 to 250 miles) on a charge. They include futuristic features such as internet-linked navigation and smartphone-style dashboard displays.
“Our focus is not just an EV that runs. It is excellent performance,” Chery CEO Chen Anning said in an interview ahead of the show.
Electrics are likely to play a leading role as Chery develops plans announced last year to expand to Western Europe, said Chen. He said the company has yet to decide on a timeline.
Chery was China’s biggest auto exporter last year, selling 108,000 gasoline-powered vehicles abroad, though mostly in developing markets such as Russia and Egypt.
“We do have a clear intention to bring an EV product as one of our initial offerings” in Europe, Chen said.
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The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy 50 years ago this June fractured the nation just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and five years after his brother John F. Kennedy was killed.
But RFK’s funeral, particularly the train that took his body from New York City, following a funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, to Washington, D.C., brought the country together. An estimated 2 million ordinary Americans gathered beside railroad tracks to honor him as the train passed by.
An exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “The Train: RFK’s Last Journey,” displays 21 of the 1,000 unique color slides made by photographer Paul Fusco on June 8, 1968. The images captured America’s grief in a way that was unusual in photography, by seeing the events through the eyes of ordinary people.
The photos show Americans of all colors and classes. Catholic schoolgirls, field hands, firefighters, blue-collar workers and housewives in their bonnets create a tableau of those who came to say farewell to the man many knew simply as “Bobby.”
Some climbed fence posts to get a better view. Some saluted. Others stood rock-ribbed straight. Some waved American flags or handmade posters: “So Long Bobby.” Others turned from work to see what was happening as the maroon train car holding his coffin rolled by en route to Washington, and from there to his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Fusco, at the time a staffer for Look magazine, made the images from his unique position aboard the funeral train. He said he was astonished when the train emerged from a New York City tunnel to see hundreds of people gathering beside the tracks. At times he used a panning motion to isolate certain people and scenes, creating a blur around the edges of the images.
The exhibit also shows the importance of the day for those who were there, through a collection of personal images sought out by Dutch artist Rein Jelle Terpstra, who became fascinated with Fusco’s photos and launched a research project in 2014 to collect pictures and films from the observers who watched the funeral procession go by. Among the most striking is a carefully labeled page from a photo album collage decorated with red, white and blue construction paper.
The moving exhibit also includes a 70 mm film reconstruction of the day by French artist Philippe Parreno, complete with the haunting sound of a train clacking through fields and cities.
So many people came to say goodbye to Bobby Kennedy on June 8, 1968, that the train slowed and the journey took nearly twice as long as usual, nearly eight hours to travel a typically four-hour route.
The RFK funeral train echoed a similar journey more than 100 years earlier when Abraham Lincoln’s body was transported by train from Washington to his home state of Illinois in 1865, with scheduled stops along the way where crowds of people turned out to pay their respects. The trip took nearly two weeks.
Kennedy, a U.S. senator from New York, was running for president and had just won the California primary when he was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles by Sirhan Sirhan. Kennedy died June 6, 1968.
“The Train: RFK’s Last Journey” is on display at the museum through June 10.
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Deep inside mountains along the China-Myanmar border, a 26-year-old ethnic Lisu villager, surnamed Zhang, sharpens his crossbow arrows to prepare for a hunt.
For Zhang and many other Lisu, a mostly Christian minority who inhabit the border region, the crossbow is an indispensable part of their culture dating back to 200 BC.
In a country that often bans the sale of kitchen knives during political summits, it’s still normal to see ethnic Lisu openly carrying the weapon in public.
Despite a decades-old hunting ban, law enforcement remains lax and Zhang and his friends still hunt birds and rodents for sport. Before the ban, Lisu hunters traditionally went for larger game such as bears and wild boar.
Lisu technically must have a crossbow license, which are regulated by district crossbow associations.
As more young people move to urban areas for work, Cha Hairong, head of the Liuku Township Crossbow Association of Lushui city, fears the crossbow is dying out.
Cha wants to preserve the tradition by promoting crossbow shooting as a sport and attract new enthusiasts far beyond the Nu River Valley.
“Our people’s crossbow culture must enter the National Games of China. It must enter the Asian Games. It must enter the Olympic Games! So that people all over world will understand our people’s culture,” said Cha.
The Lushui government has said it is committed to the preservation of the crossbow culture.
Crossbow tournaments offering cash prizes have been held in recent years in a bid to boost interest in the sport.
Some competitors simply enjoy the camaraderie at these events.
“This is just a time where we come here to chat and tell stories,” said Zuo Zhenfu, 27, who attended a crossbow tournament in late March.
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Fired FBI director James Comey’s memoir that details his private meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump sold some 600,000 copies in all formats in its first week, its publisher said on Tuesday, the latest in a series of best-selling political books.
Comey’s “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” has so far outpaced Hillary Clinton’s campaign memoir “What Happened” and journalist Michael Wolff’s behind-the-scenes White House expose “Fire and Fury” in opening week sales, according to industry figures.
Publisher Flatiron Books, a division of privately-owned Macmillan, said it has printed more than 1 million copies of Comey’s book, which has made national headlines.
Flatiron did not say whether the first week sales were global or limited to the United States.
Comey has been on a media blitz, sitting for numerous television and radio interviews, while also on a book tour that has seen him appear before sold-out audiences of more than a thousand.
The book has drawn Trump’s ire as Comey compared the president to a mob boss who stresses personal loyalty over the law and has little regard for morality or truth.
Trump dismissed Comey in May last year while the FBI was investigating allegations Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion between Russians and Trump’s campaign.
Trump has repeatedly denied any collusion.
“A Higher Loyalty,” which is billed as Comey’s thoughts on leadership, was atop Amazon.com’s bestseller list for several weeks before its release.
Clinton’s “What Happened” sold more than 300,000 copies, including hardcover, e-book, CD and digital audio, in its first week after publication in September 2017, according to CBS Corp-owned publisher Simon & Schuster.
Wolff’s portrayal of a disorganized West Wing filled with strife and aides questioning the president’s fitness to lead debuted in January with some 28,000 in sales.
Higher-than-expected demand led Macmillan imprint Henry Holt & Co to order up 2.1 million copies in its first week.
Wolff’s book has sold nearly 975,000 print copies, and Clinton’s memoir has sold some 511,000 total print copies, according to NPD BookScan.
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