Using their virtual paint brushes, two Chinese-American artists are honoring frontline fighters in the battle against COVID-19.  And as VOA’s Jiu Dao reports, they are also documenting what New York City’s Chinatown is going through during these challenging times. Lin Yang narrates.  …

A decade after the “Hunger Games” series had apparently ended, readers were clearly ready for more. Suzanne Collins’ “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” sold more 500,000 copies last week, even as many of the country’s bookstores were closed or offering limited service because of the coronavirus pandemic. The total includes print, e-books and audiobooks, according to Collins’ publisher, Scholastic.   NPD BookScan, which tracks around 85 percent of the print market, reported Wednesday that “Songbirds and Snakes” topped last week’s list with 270,000 copies sold. Collins’ book, a prequel to her previous “Hunger Games” novels, came 10 years after the author seemingly wrapped up the Dystopian series with “Mockingjay.” The Associated Press in a review  praised the new novel, released May 19, as “mesmerizing” and called Collins “a master of building a fascinating world around complex characters.” The opening for “Songbirds and Snakes” was slightly higher than the numbers reported for “Mockingjay” in 2010, when Scholastic announced first week sales of more than 450,000. Collins’ novels, which also include “The Hunger Games” and “Catching Fire,” have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide and are the basis for a billion dollar movie franchise. …

Apple Music is launching its first radio show in Africa.The streaming platform announced Thursday that “Africa Now Radio with Cuppy” will debut Sunday and will feature a mix of contemporary and traditional popular African sounds, including genres like Afrobeat, rap, house, kuduro and more.  Cuppy, the Nigerian-born DJ and music producer, will host the weekly one-hour show, which will be available at 9 a.m. EDT.”The show represents a journey from West to East and North to South, but importantly a narrative of Africa then to Africa now,” Cuppy in a statement.African music and artists have found success outside of the continent and onto the pop charts in both the U.S. and U.K. in recent years. Acts like Drake and Beyoncé have borrowed the sound for their own songs, while performers like South African DJ Black Coffee as well as Davido, Burna Boy, Tiwa Savage, Wizkid and Mr Eazi — all with roots in Nigeria — continue to gain attention and have become household names.Apple Music’s announcement comes the same week Universal Music Group said it was launching Def Jam Africa, a new division of the label focused on representing hip-hop, Afrobeat and trap talent in Africa. The label said it …

Like dozens of other veteran spellers in their final year of eligibility, Anson Cook had big plans for this year’s Scripps National Spelling Bee, which was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The 13-year-old eighth-grader from Potomac, Maryland, was a two-time participant in the bee, and last year he finished in a tie for 41st. His objective was to make it into the top 12 or so who participate in the prime-time, ESPN-televised finals. “My goal for 2020 was to make it to the finals of Scripps. After the cancellation I was like, ‘What do I do now?’ And now I’ve achieved that goal,” Anson said. He reached his goal by becoming one of the 16 finalists in the SpellPundit National Online Spelling Bee, a new event created by two teenage ex-spellers to fill the void left by the cancellation and give eighth-graders one last chance to compete. The National Spelling Bee has always been limited to kids in middle and elementary school, and Scripps has said it will not extend eligibility to allow ninth-graders to participate next year. The SpellPundit bee, with spellers competing from their homes over Zoom, concludes Thursday night, the same time the Scripps winner would …

Olympic chief Thomas Bach on Wednesday held talks with International Olympic Committee members on the potential consequences of the coronavirus pandemic that has seen the Tokyo Games pushed back a year to 2021, sources said.Bach was to address the 100 IOC members in three different sessions decided by language and local time zone.Bach’s aim is to canvas the members for their view on “how to handle the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic,” a source told AFP.The IOC president wants to hear “thoughts, ideas and experiences of all members across the globe,” the source said.While Bach addressed all Olympic actors on March 24 when announcing the postponement of the Tokyo Games, it was the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak that he had specifically consulted IOC members.Bach was backed up by Olympic Games executive director Christophe Dubi, IOC sports director Kit McConnell, IOC director general Christophe De Kepper and chief operating officer Lana Haddad.The IOC’s medical and scientific director, Richard Budgett, also took to the floor to discuss “the issue of a vaccine,” according to a second source.’Last option’Bach warned last week that 2021 was the “last option” for holding the delayed Tokyo Games, stressing that postponement could not go on …

— Larry Kramer, the playwright whose angry voice and pen raised theatergoers’ consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to militant protests in the early years of the epidemic, has died at 84. Bill Goldstein, a writer who was working on a biography of Kramer, confirmed the news to The Associated Press. Kramer’s husband, David Webster, told The New York Times that Kramer died Wednesday of pneumonia. “We have lost a giant of a man who stood up for gay rights like a warrior. His anger was needed at a time when gay men’s deaths to AIDS were being ignored by the American government,” said Elton John in a statement. Kramer, who wrote “The Normal Heart” and founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP, lost his lover to acquired immune deficiency syndrome in 1984 and was himself infected with the virus. He also suffered from hepatitis B and received a liver transplant in 2001 because the virus had caused liver failure. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for “Women in Love,” the 1969 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s novel. It starred Glenda Jackson, who won her first Oscar for her performance. He also wrote the …

The founder of the Knights of Colombus, the influential U.S.-based lay Catholic organization, is moving a step closer to possible sainthood. Pope Francis has approved a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Rev. Michael McGivney, a Connecticut priest who died at age 38 of pneumonia in 1890 during a pandemic similar to the current coronavirus outbreak. He would be the first U.S. parish priest to be beatified, the first major step before canonization. The Vatican said Wednesday that Francis had signed off on the miracle required. The Knights said it concerned the medically inexplicable cure of a baby with a life-threatening condition who was healed in utero in 2015 “after prayers by his family to Father McGivney.” McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882 in New Haven, Connecticut, to encourage greater, active participation of lay Catholics in their faith and to care for families when the breadwinner died. Today the Knights are one of the biggest Catholic organizations in the world, known for their charitable efforts and counting about 2 million members in the Americas, Caribbean, Asia and Europe. The organization is also an insurer, boasting more than $100 billion in financial protection for members and their families. …

If you add garlic to your guacamole, we have bad news: You’re not doing it right. Do you mince the onion? That’s also a no-no. And, please, leave the avocado lumpy.So says 97-year-old Diana Kennedy, a foremost authority on traditional Mexican cuisine. Over many decades, she has mastered, documented and become fiercely protective of the culinary styles of each region.  This summer, a portrait as zesty as her dishes comes in the form of the documentary ” Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy,” which marks director Elizabeth Carroll’s feature film debut.The documentary traces the unlikely rise of an Englishwoman who became one of the most respected authorities on Mexican food. She’s been called “the Julia Child of Mexico,” “the Mick Jagger of Mexican Cuisine” and even the “Indiana Jones of food.”Carroll’s camera follows Kennedy as she navigates Mexico in her trusty Nissan truck, walks through her remarkable garden, teaches professional chefs in a harrowing class in her home, and meticulously makes coffee — toasting her beans in an antique toaster.”It’s some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. I know that sounds like what I’m supposed to say, but it’s true,” said Carroll, laughing.The film includes various TV appearances by Kennedy during …

It may have been plagued with controversy after Oprah Winfrey pulled out as executive producer, but “On the Record” has moved on. The the new #MeToo documentary about rape accusations against hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is a powerful look at one woman’s agonizing decision to go public, and an exploration of misogyny and sexual harassment in the music industry. Most importantly, though, it shines a light on the unique burden faced by women of color, who are often not believed or accused of being traitors to their own community if they come forward with accusations. The film premieres Wednesday on the new streaming service HBO Max.  There’s an elegant, almost poetic silence to one of the most compelling scenes of “On the Record,” a powerful new documentary about sexual violence that knows just when to dial down to a hushed quiet.In the early morning darkness of Dec. 13, 2017, former music executive Drew Dixon walks to a coffee shop and buys the New York Times. On the front page is the story in which she and two others accuse the powerful hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, her former boss, of rape. Dixon examines the article, carefully folds the paper back up, …

J.K. Rowling is publishing a new story called The Ickabog, which will be free to read online to help entertain children and families stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic. The Harry Potter author said Tuesday she wrote the fairy tale for her children as a bedtime story over a decade ago. Set in an imaginary land, it is a stand-alone story “about truth and the abuse of power” for children from 7 to 9 years old and is unrelated to Rowling’s other books. Rowling said the draft of the story had stayed in her attic while she focused on writing books for adults. She said her children, now teenagers, were “touchingly enthusiastic” when she recently suggested retrieving the story and publishing it for free.  “For the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again. As I worked to finish the book, I started reading chapters nightly to the family again,” she said.  “‘The Ickabog’s first two readers told me what they remember from when they were tiny and demanded the reinstatement of bits they’d particularly liked (I obeyed).”The first two chapters were posted online Tuesday, with daily installments to follow until July 10.The book will …

Stanley Ho, the man credited with transforming Macau from a sleepy former Portuguese colony into one of the world’s gambling meccas, has died at the age of 98. His daughter, Pansy, said Ho died Tuesday at a hospital in his native Hong Kong. The son of a once-influential and wealthy Hong Kong family who lost their fortune in the Great Depression of the 1930s, Stanley Ho escaped to Macau during World War Two when Japanese forces captured Hong Kong.  He built his fortune smuggling luxury goods from Macau to China, turning that into a successful trading company.  Ho’s gambling empire began when he successfully bid for a casino monopoly from Portuguese authorities in 1962.  He built a harbor to ferry high-stakes gamblers from Hong Kong to his casino, and also had stakes in numerous businesses in the enclave, including department stores, luxury hotels and horse racing tracks.   By the time China gained control of Macau and opened it to foreign competition in 2002, Ho had become notorious not only for his wealth but his flamboyant lifestyle, his love of ballroom dancing and the 17 children he fathered with four wives.  He was forced to restructure his business in 2012 after a legal battle broke out within the family. Ho was also dogged by allegations that he had ties to Chinese criminal gangs known as triads, which he denied.   …

Longtime broadcast news executive William J. Small, who led CBS News’ Washington coverage during the civil rights movement, Vietnam War and Watergate and was later president of NBC News and United Press International, died Sunday, CBS News said. He was 93. Small, whose career spanned from overseeing the news operation at a small radio station to testifying in Congress about press freedom, died in a New York hospital after a brief illness unrelated to the coronavirus, the network said. During a six-decade career, Small supervised, guided and in some cases hired generations of some of the best-known reporters and anchors in television news, among them: Dan Rather, Eric Sevareid, Daniel Schorr, Connie Chung, Diane Sawyer, “60 Minutes” correspondents Ed Bradley and Lesley Stahl and “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer. “He was heroic and steadfast, especially during Watergate, when it seemed we were getting angry calls from the White House every night,” Stahl said in a statement. “He made us want to be better — and nobody wanted to disappoint him.” Small hired the current CBS News president, Susan Zirinsky, to her first job at the network when she was 20. She remembered Small as a “hero to journalism” and said, “every one of …

Jimmy Cobb, a percussionist and the last surviving member of Miles Davis’ 1959 Kind of Blue groundbreaking jazz album that transformed the genre and sparked several careers, died Sunday. His wife, Eleana Tee Cobb, announced on Facebook that her husband died at his New York City home from lung cancer. He was 91. Born in Washington, D.C., Cobb told The Associated Press in 2019 he listened to jazz albums and stayed up late to hear disc jockey Symphony Sid play jazz in New York City before launching his professional career. He said it was saxophonist Cannonball Adderley who recommended him to Davis, and he ended up playing on several Davis recordings. Cobb’s role as a drummer on the Kind of Blue jam session headed by Davis would forever change his career. That album also featured Adderley and John Coltrane. FILE – The “Kind of Blue” album cover is on display at Bull Moose record store in Portland, Maine, August 17, 2019, the 60th anniversary of the album’s release.Kind of Blue, released on Aug. 17, 1959, captured a moment when jazz was transforming from bebop to something newer, cooler and less structured. The full takes of the songs were recorded only once, with one exception, Cobb said. Freddie Freeloader needed to …

Country music singer Morgan Wallen apologized Sunday following his weekend arrest on public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges. Wallen, 27, was arrested Saturday night after he was kicked out of Kid Rock’s bar in downtown Nashville, news outlets reported. Wallen said on Twitter that he and some friends were “horse-playing” after a few bar stops. “We didn’t mean any harm, and we want to say sorry to any bar staff or anyone that was affected,” Wallen tweeted. “Thank you to the local authorities for being so professional and doing their job with class. Love y’all.” Wallen’s hits include “Whiskey Glasses” and “Chasin’ You.” He competed on “The Voice” in 2014 and co-wrote songs for Jason Aldean and Kane Brown. …

With no congregational prayers or family gatherings, Salsabiel Mujovic has been worried that this year’s Eid al-Fitr celebration will pale. Still, she’s determined to bring home holiday cheer amid the coronavirus gloom.  Her family can’t go to the mosque, but the 29-year-old New Jersey resident bought new outfits for herself and her daughters. They are praying at home and having a family photo session. The kids are decorating cookies in a virtual gathering and popping balloons with money or candy inside — a twist on a tradition of giving children cash gifts for the occasion.”We’re used to, just like, easily going and seeing family, but now it’s just like there’s so much fear and anxiety,” she said. “Growing up, I always loved Eid. … It’s like a Christmas for a Muslim.”Like Mujovic, many Muslims in America are navigating balancing religious and social rituals with concerns over the virus as they look for ways to capture the Eid spirit this weekend.  Eid al-Fitr — the feast of breaking the fast — marks the end of Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Just like they did during Ramadan, many are resorting to at-home worship and relying …

The drive-in movie, dismissed by many as a relic of an earlier time in America, is making a comeback as entertainment seemingly designed for the coronavirus era.   Beth Wilson, who owns the Warwick Drive-in about an hour’s drive from Manhattan, says it has been sold out since May 15, the first day drive-ins were allowed to operate under New York’s reopening plan.   The drive-in has struck a chord with Americans who have been largely confined to their homes since March watching the death toll from COVID-19 accumulate on their TV screens.   Customers come “just to be out and for some form of entertainment that is not streaming on their TV,” said Wilson, adding she hopes the Warwick Drive-In can help people reconnect.   “I just want to see their happiness, their well-being.”   The drive-in experience is virtually tailor-made for the pandemic. Patrons control their close social interactions and any contact with other people happens outdoors, which is seen as lower risk for infection than indoors.   The Four Brothers Drive-In in Amenia, New York, which like Warwick has halved its capacity to put more distance between cars, is selling into next week after running out of …

President Donald Trump is calling on the nation’s governors to immediately reopen churches, synagogues, mosques and other houses of worship, characterizing them as “essential places that provide essential services” during the pandemic. “At my direction, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is issuing guidance for communities of faith,” Trump said Friday. Trump admonished governors who have “deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential but have left out churches and other houses of worship” and threatened to override any governors who continue to keep houses of worship closed for safety reasons. “Ministers, pastors, rabbis, imams and others faith leaders will make sure that their congregations are safe as they gather and pray,” Trump said. The sign for First Presbyterian Church of Annapolis, Md., displays information for online services, May 22, 2020.Cool reception While Trump claimed that Americans are “demanding to go to church and synagogue or their mosque,” religious communities are reacting cautiously to the president’s announcement. The In this March 24, 2020, photo, a man walks past the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, R.I.The survey also shows that readiness to return to houses of worship differs across religious traditions and race. Of the white evangelical Protestants who attended services before the pandemic, 63% say they would likely return to the …

In April, as the coronavirus was ravaging New York, Susan Jones learned her older brother had been diagnosed with a blood cancer. His supervisor at work launched a GoFundMe page to help with costs, and Jones shared it on Facebook. What happened next stunned her.   While Jones, who works as principal ballet mistress at American Ballet Theatre, was confident her closest friends would help, she was stunned to see scores of colleagues — some she didn’t even know that well, and didn’t even know she had a brother — donating, despite their own economic challenges in a struggling dance community.   Jones found herself asking: Would the response have been the same just two months earlier, before the pandemic? She’s fairly certain it wouldn’t. Instead, she thinks the instinct to help shows, along with simple kindness, how people are striving to make a difference. At a time of helplessness, she says, helping others makes a mark on a world that seems to be overwhelming all of us. “People everywhere are trying to keep control of their lives, grasping at anything to preserve who they are,” Jones says.   That helping others can feel good is not just an anecdotal …

Just before Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the Islamic observance of Ramadan, customers in Pakistan rushed to finish shopping in bazaars that opened after a nearly two-month lockdown because of the coronavirus.In many places, crowds simply ignored warnings and guidelines to protect against the pandemic.”I don’t think it’s such a big deal,” said Rozeena Abbasi, who roamed around in an overcrowded market in Islamabad without wearing a face mask. “I want people to continue with their lives and routines as usual. Whatever is fated to happen will happen.”Despite her nonchalance, she acknowledged that Eid is going to be different this year.Women buy jewelry at the Baghbanpura Bazaar ahead of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr festival in Lahore, Pakistan, May 21, 2020.Eid al-Fitr, the most festive Muslim holiday, is marked with celebrations, friends and family reunions, and a lot of feasting. This year, the coronavirus is threatening to dampen that spirit.”This Eid is not just a little different, it’s entirely different. We used to go to each other’s houses, everyone used to cook, the whole week used to be one long festival. Not this time,” said Sehrish Lodhi of Islamabad.Unlike Pakistan, shops and shopping malls in many other countries …

A Hollywood actress and her fashion-designer husband have agreed to plead guilty in a university admissions scandal in which their daughters were falsely portrayed as a sports champion.Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli have agreed to plead guilty to charges of conspiracy to secure “fraudulent admission” of their two children to the University of Southern California (USC), according to the U.S. Department of Justice.The Justice Department stated that Loughlin agreed to two months in prison, a $150,000 fine and two years of supervised release with 100 hours of community service. Giannulli’s plea agreement includes five months in prison, a $250,000 fine and two years of supervised release with 250 hours of community service.Loughlin, 55, and Giannulli, 56, both of Los Angeles, have long fought the charges that they fabricated their daughters’ skill at rowing through an admissions’ fixer to gain her entry to the prestigious USC. Earlier this month, a federal judge refused to drop charges against the couple who had alleged that the Justice Department fabricated evidence.The couple was accused of paying $500,000 to William “Rick” Singer for his help securing them slots at USC through a sports recruiter. In a video on social media, their daughter, Olivia Jade, talked …

Next year’s Academy Awards telecast may be postponed because of the disruption to theatrical releases caused by the coronavirus pandemic. A story published Tuesday in the entertainment magazine Variety quotes an anonymous source who says it’s “likely” the annual awards ceremony, which is scheduled to air February 28 on ABC-TV, will be postponed. But the source also says the details have not been fully discussed or formally proposed. Under the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which hands out the prestigious awards, films must be released in traditional theaters before December 31 to be eligible for Oscar nominations.  But with thousands of theaters across the country shut down because of the pandemic, many feature films slated for traditional release are now debuting on streaming digital services such as Netflix, which has prompted the Academy to change its rules to allow for those films to be nominated.  “It makes sense when we don’t really know what’s to come in terms of the availability of theatrical exhibition,” Academy president David Rubin told Variety when the new rules were announced. “We need to make allowances for this year only and during this time when theaters are not open so great film work can be seen and celebrated.”  …

A song took aim at an alleged abuse of power by Poland’s ruling party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski. It rose to the top of the chart of a public radio station. Then it disappeared.The public broadcaster is now accused of censorship. The scandal, which has been a top issue of public debate in recent days, has prompted several resignations from the station, Radio Trojka, and left some musicians vowing to boycott it.The affair has created new worries about media freedom in Poland. Since Kaczynski’s party won power in 2015, it has used public media as a propaganda tool in violation of its mandate to be neutral. In the past five years, Poland has fallen in the World Press Freedom Index from 18th to 62nd place.  Kaczynski isn’t himself accused of ordering the removal of the song from a listener-voted chart, and members of the government have also been critical of what happened. Instead, the song’s removal is seen as the kind of self-censorship that happens by overzealous underlings in a system where democratic standards are under threat.Wojciech Mann, a journalist who left Radio Trojka in March, said the story played out at the bottom of a “a ladder of fear” where …

On Monday, International Museum Day, two new studies show that museums are another sector of the world economy that has been significantly weakened by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. According to the studies conducted by UNESCO and the International Council of Museums (ICOM), 90% of museums worldwide were forced to close their doors and stop in-person operations during the crisis. Of the more than 85,000 museums that have closed, an estimated 13% are at risk of never reopening because of the heavy financial losses incurred during this time. The two studies looked to determine the impact of COVID-19 on museums worldwide and explain how institutions have adapted to the pandemic. UNESCO and ICOM say that they will use this information to find ways to support institutions in the wake of the virus. They also found that only 5% of the museums in Africa and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) were able to offer online content to their visitors. Even museums with digital capabilities will face a substantial decrease in income if they are not able to host visitors in person, debilitating their ability to support their employees and continue operations and outreach. “Museums play a fundamental role in the resilience of societies. We must help …

Actor Ken Osmond, who played the legendary slimy but likable Eddie Haskell on TV’s “Leave It to Beaver,” has died in Los Angeles at 76.His family did not give a cause of death, but his partner at the Los Angeles police department with whom Osmond worked after show business, said he had suffered from respiratory problems.FILE – Ken Osmond, Dec. 1, 2013.”Leave It to Beaver” was a sitcom about a young boy nicknamed Beaver, and his older brother, Wally. It ran from 1957 until 1963 and it stood out from most early TV comedies for its realism and avoiding outlandish situations – the kids talked like real kids and their parents sometimes lost their patience over poor schoolwork and bad behavior.Osmond portrayed Wally’s friend Eddie Haskell – a curly-haired wise guy who was overly polite and deferential to adults, but the moment they turned away, he was insulting, inconsiderate and egocentric. He bullied Beaver and tried to drag Wally into schemes. But he was ultimately harmless and always wound up the loser. Audiences loved the character because everyone knew an Eddie Haskell in real life.Osmond tried to continue his acting career after “Leave It to Beaver” ended, but was frustrated …