Annie Griffiths, One of National Geographic’s first female photographers, has traveled to more than 150 countries taking pictures. During her 45 year career, she has been to every continent documenting nature, and collecting the stories of women she has met along the way. Maxim Moskalkov has the story.VIDEOGRAPHER: Sergey Sokolov   …

Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” is officially a hit single again 39 years after its release, thanks to a pair of twins from Gary, Indiana, whose spontaneous reaction to the unexpected drum break in Collins’ ballad has caused it to be possibly the most memed song of August 2020. “In the Air Tonight” currently sits at No. 3 on the iTunes song sales chart, trailing only the brand-new releases “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion and “Beers and Sunshine” by Darius Rucker. It’s not just a passing single-day phenomenon, either. Numbers provided by Alpha Data show that “In the Air Tonight” was the fourth biggest selling song of the week ending Aug. 8, up from No. 185 the week before. The Collins song may not make the same kind of splash on the overall songs chart, since its streaming numbers remain out of the league of those enjoyed by today’s top current artists. The fact that it’s making more of an impact on sales than streaming may indicate that it’s appealing to an older audience that is rediscovering its love for the song more than reaching a new one that, like the twins, is hearing it for the first time. But, …

An Israeli jewelry company is working on what it says will be the world’s most expensive coronavirus mask, a gold, diamond-encrusted face covering with a price tag of $1.5 million. The 18-karat white gold mask will be decorated with 3,600 white and black diamonds and fitted with top-rated N99 filters at the request of the buyer, said designer Isaac Levy. Levy, owner of the Yvel company, said the buyer had two other demands: that it be completed by the end of the year, and that it would be the priciest in the world. That last condition, he said, “was the easiest to fulfill.” He declined to identify the buyer, but said he was a Chinese businessman living in the United States.Isaac Levy, owner of Israeli jewelry company Yvel looks at a worker and parts of a mask in Motza near Jerusalem, Aug. 9, 2020. An Israeli jewelry company is working on what it says will be the world’s most expensive coronavirus mask.The glitzed-up face mask may lend some pizzazz to the protective gear now mandatory in public spaces in many countries. But at 270 grams — nearly 100 times that of a typical surgical mask — it is not likely to be a practical accessory …

As the Trump administration orders retaliatory bans on Chinese tech companies such as Tik Tok and WeChat, officials and civic groups have growing concerns about the influence China has over Hollywood.A new report says that Hollywood companies have been censoring films to avoid losing access to China’s lucrative box office market, adding that China was effectively influencing movies released in cinemas around the world.The 94-page report, published Wednesday, was compiled by the New York-based free speech organization Pen America, and said key players in Hollywood are increasingly making decisions about their films “based on an effort to avoid antagonizing Chinese officials who control whether their films gain access to the booming Chinese market.”It said that in some instances, filmmakers or directors have directly invited Chinese government censors onto their film sets to advise them on “how to avoid tripping the censors’ wires.”A new normThe report concluded that appeasing Chinese government investors and gatekeepers has “become a way of doing business in Hollywood.”Hao Jian, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a former professor at the Beijing Film Academy, told VOA he agrees with that conclusion.“Because of long-term censorship, many production companies choose not to cross the red …

NYC’s famous Broadway shows were put on hold when the coronavirus pandemic hit the US. And though the bright signs with pictures of “Aladdin” and “The Lion King” are still there, the actors and audiences won’t come back into the beautiful halls to enjoy the performances until at least the winter of 2021. Evgeny Maslov has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Michael Eckels …

Grammy Award-winning music producer Detail was arrested Wednesday on more than a dozen charges of sexual assault, authorities said. The 41-year-old producer was held on nearly $6.3 million bail, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Detail, whose real name is Noel Christopher Fisher, was charged on July 31 with 15 counts of sexual assault and five counts of felony assault, the statement said. He is accused of crimes between 2010 and 2018. Detectives submitted the case to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office in January, the statement said. It didn’t provide other details. “Mr. Fisher was just arrested some hours ago and I have not had an opportunity to speak to him or look at the charges. I am quite certain he will enter a not guilty plea and contest to the fullest all of these allegations,” his attorney, Irwin Mark Bledstein, said in an email late Wednesday night. Detail won a Grammy in 2015 for co-writing the Beyonce and Jay-Z hit “Drunk in Love” and has also produced hits for Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj and Wiz Khalifa. Last year, a model and aspiring singer was awarded $15 million in a Los Angeles lawsuit …

When two strangers walking by stopped to accuse James “Jamie” Juanillo of defacing private property, the San Francisco man immediately took a defensive posture. He started recording the encounter, which eventually went viral, garnering more than 23 million views. “I came up recording not because I thought there was a potential for a viral video, but because I believed that I was going to need to prove my innocence, that they were going to accuse me of a crime,” says Juanillo, 50, a Filipino American. James “Jamie” Juanillo stands in front of the Black Lives Matter wall art that prompted a woman to question whether he was defacing private property at his San Francisco home. (Courtesy James Juanillo)His “crime” was chalking a Black Lives Matter message on the retaining wall in front of the Pacific Heights home he shares with his husband and some friends. In the video, the woman, identified as Lisa Alexander, along with her male partner, approach Juanillo and question whether he lives at the property. They say they know that he does not and suggest he is breaking the law. Juanillo is heard calmly refusing to answer any questions while challenging the woman’s apparent insinuation that a person who looks like him could not belong …

In a ceremony watched by millions of Indians on television, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered prayers and laid the foundation stone for a grand Hindu temple to be built in the northern town of Ayodhya on the site of a mosque demolished by Hindu radicals.    The ceremony marks a historic triumph for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, whose rise to political prominence was propelled by the three-decade campaign to build a temple to honor the revered Hindu deity Rama.    “It is an emotional moment for India. A long wait ends today,” Modi said after the ceremony that was held even as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in India.    The temple is being built on the exact spot Hindus believe is the birthplace of Lord Rama. The demolition of the 16th century mosque that stood there in 1992 sparked deadly Hindu-Muslim riots and became a deeply divisive issue in the Hindu-majority country, where many Hindus want the temple to be built.    The Supreme Court approved the temple’s construction last November when it handed the bitterly contested plot of land to a Hindu group after a long legal battle.     Modi said the site had been liberated and a “grand …

The roses, dahlias and daisies are in full bloom at the home of 19th-century artist Claude Monet. So are colorfully clad tourists, posing for pictures in front of Monet’s iconic lily pond.But one popular perennial is absent: the Americans.The coronavirus pandemic has put on indefinite pause a century-plus pilgrimage here by U.S. artists and tourists — the leading foreign visitors to this heartland of impressionist painting. Instead, it is mostly the French who are flocking to Monet’s home and garden amid the ongoing pandemic, as they rediscover their heritage.With coronavirus cases soaring in parts of the United States, polls show many Europeans, including French, do not want American tourists entering their countries right now. Chances are remote at any rate, current European Union restrictions bar travelers from the United States, along with many other countries.But in this tiny Normandy village, nestled between rolling hills and the Seine River, the Americans are sorely missed.Nestled between rolling hills and the Seine River, Giverny has long been a hub for American tourists. (Photo: Lisa Bryant/VOA)Giverny is the region’s second most popular tourist attraction after Mont Saint-Michel island. And Americans are among the top foreigners flocking here — accounting for one-fifth of those visiting …

Pipe by precious pipe, the organ that once thundered through Notre Dame Cathedral is being taken apart after last year’s devastating fire.The mammoth task of dismantling, cleaning and re-assembling France’s largest musical instrument started Monday and is expected to last nearly four years. It will take six months just to tune the organ, and its music isn’t expected to resound again through the medieval Paris monument until 2024, according to the state agency overseeing Notre Dame’s restoration.Amazingly, the 8,000-pipe organ survived the April 2019 fire that consumed the cathedral’s roof and toppled its spire. But the blaze coated the instrument in toxic lead dust that must now be painstakingly removed.And while the organ didn’t burn, it did suffer damage from a record heatwave last summer and has been affected by other temperature variations it’s been exposed to since the 12th-century cathedral lost its roof, the agency said.Experts started removing the organ’s keyboards Monday and will then take out its pipes in a dismantling process that will last through the end of this year, according to the restoration agency. The pieces will be placed in special containers inside the huge cathedral, where the cleaning and restoration will take place.The general who …

Egypt’s minister of international cooperation has extended an invitation to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after a Musk post on Twitter that the pyramids were built by extraterrestrial beings.  Musk tweeted Saturday: “Aliens built the pyramids obv.” Aliens built the pyramids obv— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2020Musk’s posting prompted Rania Al Mashat, the international cooperation minister, to tweet: “I follow your work with a lot of admiration.  I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you.”I follow your work with a lot of admiration. I invite you & Space X to explore the writings about how the pyramids were built and also to check out the tombs of the pyramid builders. Mr. Musk, we are waiting for you 🚀. @elonmuskhttps://t.co/Xlr7EoPXX4— Rania A. Al Mashat (@RaniaAlMashat) August 1, 2020It was not immediately clear whether Musk’s tweet was serious or tongue-in-cheek. However, extraterrestrial entities as builders of Egypt’s ancient pyramids is the premise for several television shows and books.   Egypt Today reports on its website that famed Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass also weighed in on the topic on social media, saying that Musk’s tweet was a “complete hallucination.” Hawass added that he had “found the tombs of the pyramids builders that tell everyone that the builders of the pyramids are Egyptians and …

A typical school day for Elon University junior Skyler Sajewski began at 7 a.m., starting with ballet, history, economics and tap classes, then rehersal for the upcoming musical. She would get back to her apartment around 11 p.m.     Then, the COVID pandemic hit.     The musical theater major who was used to “constantly running from place to place” returned home to Florida to shelter in place. She’s worried about missing out on “literally all of it” in terms of preparing for her future career.   “To be a well-rounded musical theater performer, you have to have a certain set of skills and be really good at them,” Sajewski said. “And you know, I go to a school to constantly get better. And this year, if I reach a plateau of no growth it could be potentially harming versus someone who went all their four years.”   Sajewski is not alone in her anxieties for the future. She has friends who are considering taking a semester — or even a year — off, realizing that an online arts education may not be worth it.     When she returned home, Sajewski and her peers were faced with “Zoom …

Wilford Brimley, who worked his way up from movie stunt rider to an indelible character actor who brought gruff charm, and sometimes menace, to a range of films that included “Cocoon,” “The Natural” and “The Firm,” has died. He was 85.Brimley’s manager Lynda Bensky said the actor died Saturday morning in a Utah hospital. He was on dialysis and had several medical ailments, she said.The mustached Brimley was a familiar face for a number of roles, often playing characters like his grizzled baseball manager in “The Natural” opposite Robert Redford’s bad-luck phenomenon. He also worked with Redford in “Brubaker” and “The Electric Horseman.”Brimley’s best-known work was in “Cocoon,” in which he was part of a group of seniors who discover an alien pod that rejuvenates them. The 1985 Ron Howard film won two Oscars, including a supporting actor honor for Don Ameche.Brimley also starred in “Cocoon: The Return,” a 1988 sequel.For years he was pitchman for Quaker Oats and in recent years appeared in a series of diabetes spots that turned him at one point into a social media sensation.“Wilford Brimley was a man you could trust,” Bensky said in a statement. “He said what he meant, and he meant …

One of the most famous American broadcasters of the 20th century was largely unknown at home, but Willis Conover, host of the VOA Jazz Hour, was a celebrity from Warsaw to Moscow during the Cold War.  Mike O’Sullivan recalls Conover’s influence on the 100th anniversary of his birth. …