Africa Cup of Nations – Day 3, Jan. 11, 2022 Algeria vs Sierra Leone | 0-0 Nigeria vs Egypt | 1-0 Sudan vs Guinea Bissau | 0-0   …

A group of Indigenous people is prepping a bid to bring the 2030 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to Vancouver, Canada. It would be the first time any Olympics was hosted by Indigenous people and could lead to further reconciliation with Canada’s First Nations. The group was known as the “Four Host First Nations” when Vancouver hosted the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in 2010.   The Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh are from the area around the present-day city of Vancouver. The Lil Wat are near the present-day village of Whistler, the famed ski resort about 120 kilometers north of downtown Vancouver.  They have signed a memorandum of understanding with the municipal governments of both Vancouver and Whistler to take the lead on making the bid for the same Games in 2030. The First Nations played a prominent role in the 2010 Games and during the opening and closing ceremonies. Wilson Williams, a council member and spokesperson for the Squamish Nation, fondly recalls the Vancouver area hosting the Winter Games and how it brought together over 300 Indigenous youth from across Canada in what came to be known as “The Gathering.” He said in the years since, the United Nations Declaration on …

Novak Djokovic, the world’s top-ranked male tennis player, says errors were made on his entry documents about his activities in the weeks before traveling to Australia, adding another layer of controversy in his fight to compete in the year’s first major “Grand Slam” tennis tournament.  The Serbian star issued a statement Wednesday saying his assistants had incorrectly declared that he had not traveled anywhere in the 14-days before departing for Melbourne last week. Reports have surfaced showing he traveled to Serbia and Spain.  Djokovic also said he did not know he tested positive for COVID-19 on December 16 until the next day, after he appeared at a tennis event in Belgrade to present awards to children. He also admitted that he should have canceled a planned magazine interview and photoshoot the day after learning of his status.   The 34-year-old Djokovic has been at odds with Australian officials since his arrival in Melbourne last Wednesday to begin preparations for the Australian Open, which begins next Monday, January 17. An open skeptic of COVID-19 vaccines, he said he had received a medical exemption from two medical panels and Tennis Australia, the tournament’s organizer, from the government’s requirement that all visitors should be …

A Ugandan author who wrote critical comments about President Yoweri Museveni’s son has been charged with offensive communications. Kakwenza Rukirabashaija’s lawyer says he was tortured in detention.   Award-winning writer Kakwenza Rukirabashaija appeared before a court Tuesday and was charged with two counts of offensive communication. Rukirabashaija was arrested on December 28 and taken from his Kampala home. The government says he was using his Twitter account to offend President Yoweri Museveni and his son, Commander of Land Forces Lieutenant General Muhoozi Kainerugaba. The writer’s lawyer, Eron Kiiza, tells VOA he was not made aware of his client’s court appearance until later. “This was a clandestine move intended to deny him an opportunity for legal representation and an opportunity to pursue his legal remedies like bail and opposing the charges which are bogus,” said Kiiza. Rukirabashaija’s court appearance comes a day after the high court issued an order for it to take place before the close of business Wednesday. The magistrate Tuesday also issued an order for him to be subjected to a medical examination by prison authorities to ascertain his health status. During a January 3rd search at his home in Iganga district in the Eastern region, the writer reportedly whispered to …

The world number one tennis player Novak Djokovic has won his case against deportation from Australia on the country’s strict COVID-19 vaccination rules.   Djokovic’s fans celebrated Monday outside an immigration hotel in Melbourne where he had been detained. Federal Court Judge Anthony Kelly said the Australian government’s decision to cancel his visa was “unreasonable.” He said that the Serbian tennis star was not given enough time to speak with tournament organizers or his legal advisers after he was detained Wednesday at Melbourne airport, a standard treatment for an “unlawful non-citizen” according to Australian law. He had flown to Australia believing he had an exemption from the country’s COVID-19 vaccination regulations, which state all foreign nationals entering the country must fully be inoculated or have a medical waiver. Djokovic said he had contracted coronavirus in December, which gave him the right to apply for an exemption. However, Australian border authorities had said that the tennis star had not met immigration regulations and would be deported. But his lawyers told the court that the decision to revoke his visa was “illogical, irrational and legally unreasonable.” “This is the outcome I expected, yes,” Immigration lawyer John Findlay told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “Mr. Djokovic’s …

“The Power of the Dog” and “West Side Story” on Sunday won the top film prizes at an untelevised Golden Globes that was largely ignored by Hollywood, with awards unveiled via a live blog without any of the usual A-list glamour.    Jane Campion’s dark Western “The Power of the Dog” became only the second film directed by a woman to win the best drama prize. The film also won for best director and best supporting actor for Kodi Smit-McPhee.    Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” remake claimed top honors for best comedy or musical, as well as lead and supporting actress prizes for stars Rachel Zegler and Ariana DeBose.    Will Smith and Nicole Kidman won the prizes for best actor and actress in film dramas for their turns in “King Richard” and “Being the Ricardos.”    But none of the stars were present as usual at the Beverly Hilton, with the ceremony held behind closed doors.    The awards, which are usually closely followed for the immediate boost to box office tallies and Oscar hopes that a Globes win can provide, were hugely overshadowed by a long-brewing row over ethical lapses by the organizers.  The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a group of …

Bob Saget, a comedian and actor known for his role as a widower raising a trio of daughters in the sitcom “Full House,” has died, according to authorities in Florida. He was 65.   The Orange County, Florida, sheriff’s office was called Sunday about an “unresponsive man” in a hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, according to a sheriff’s statement on Twitter.   “The man was identified as Robert Saget” and death was pronounced at the scene, the statement said, adding that detectives found “no signs of foul play or drug use in this case. A “#BobSaget” concluded the tweet.   Saget was in Florida as part of his “I Don’t Do Negative Comedy Tour,” according to his Twitter feed. His publicist didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.   Saget was also the longtime host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” …

If the Golden Globe Awards aren’t on television, will anyone care? That’s just one of the uneasy questions facing the embattled Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which is proceeding with its film awards Sunday night without a telecast, nominees, celebrity guests, a red carpet, a host, press or even a livestream. In a year beset by controversy, the self-proclaimed biggest party in Hollywood, has been reduced to little more than a Twitter feed. Members of the HFPA and some recipients of the group’s philanthropic grants are gathering at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for a 90-minute private event starting at 9 p.m. ET Sunday. The names of the film and television winners will be revealed to the world in real time on the organization’s social media feeds and website. Special emphasis, they say, will be given to their charitable efforts over the years. That the organization is proceeding with any kind of event came as a surprise to many in Hollywood. The HFPA came under fire after a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed in February ethical lapses and a stunning lack of diversity — there was not a single Black journalist in the 87-person group. Studios and PR firms threatened to boycott. …

Greece this week takes delivery of an ancient fragment that once adorned the Parthenon temple, the country’s most important archeological site. The return from a museum in Italy is being seen as the strongest nudge yet to the British Museum, which holds the largest collection of Parthenon Sculptures and has refused for centuries to return the antiquities to their ancient home. The marble fragment will be unveiled at the Acropolis Museum Monday, displayed in a full-size representation of the Parthenon’s frieze. The return is part of a groundbreaking loan deal signed between the Acropolis Museum and the Antonio Salinas Regional Archeological Museum in Sicily, where the artifact has been on display since the 19th century. The Parthenon fragment, depicting the foot of a goddess, will be lent for a four-year period in exchange for a fifth century B.C. headless statue of the goddess Athena and an eighth century B.C. amphora as part of an extensive cultural exchange agreement. The loan period may be extended a further four years, and the fragment’s move to Greece could eventually become permanent. Sicily’s councilor for culture, Alberto Samonà, said this is an important cultural exchange that can pave the way for even bigger international …

Verdell Blackmon showed up for a recent NFL game and left no doubt who she was cheering for that afternoon. Blackmon’s hair, makeup, nails and dress were bright hues of blue, and Detroit Lions Women of the Pride was printed on her black shirt. The Lions season ticket holder was one of about 50 women in the team’s Women of the Pride group who attended a pregame party at Ford Field and witnessed Detroit’s first win of the season against Minnesota last month. Earlier this season, the Women of the Pride had access to the turf before Detroit played at Green Bay and watched the game against the Packers on TVs in a club at Lambeau Field. The group will gather again later this month for a football clinic at Ford Field. “Female fans are not recognized like they should be in the NFL, and it’s about time that’s starting to happen,” Blackmon said. “We love our teams just as much as the guys do.” The NFL is starting to recognize that. More than half of the league’s 32 teams have female fan clubs, according to the NFL, and that doesn’t count Philadelphia and its annual Eagles Academy for Women. …

Marilyn Bergman, the Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with husband Alan Bergman on The Way We Were, How Do You Keep the Music Playing? and hundreds of other songs, died at her Los Angeles home Saturday. She was 93. She died of respiratory failure not related to COVID-19, according to a representative, Jason Lee. Her husband was at her bedside when she died. The Bergmans, who married in 1958, were among the most enduring, successful and productive songwriting partnerships, specializing in introspective ballads for film, television and the stage that combined the romance of Tin Pan Alley with the polish of contemporary pop. They worked with some of the world’s top melodists, including Marvin Hamlisch, Cy Coleman and Michel Legrand, and were covered by some of the world’s greatest singers, from Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand to Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson. “If one really is serious about wanting to write songs that are original, that really speak to people, you have to feel like you created something that wasn’t there before — which is the ultimate accomplishment, isn’t it?” Marilyn Bergman told The Huffington Post in 2013. “And to make something that wasn’t there before, you have to know what …

Whether you’re looking to fly through the air with the greatest of ease, explore the aerial arts, or just raise your spirits, the Trapeze School in Washington, DC, will make sure things are looking up. Maxim Moskalkov visited the school and met its many instructors. Camera: David Gogokhia …

More than two decades ago, Natalia Paruz was hit by a car in New York. While recovering from the accident, she went to Austria, where she saw bells on necks of cows. And that simple vision prompted a huge change in her life. Anna Nelson has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Natalia Latukhina and Vladimir Badikov …

In Egypt, Christmas celebrations are officially sanctioned by Islamic clerics for people of all faiths, despite objections from some conservative Muslims. On Friday, January 7, the holiday season concluded with Coptic Christmas, observed by the vast majority of Christians in Egypt. For VOA, Hamada Elrasam has this photo essay, with words by Elle Kurancid.  …

Sidney Poitier, who broke through racial barriers as the first Black winner of the best actor Oscar for his role in Lilies of the Field, and inspired a generation during the civil rights movement, has died at age 94, an official from the Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Friday.  Eugene Torchon-Newry, acting director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed Poitier’s death.  Poitier created a distinguished film legacy in a single year with three 1967 films at a time when segregation prevailed in parts of the United States.  In Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner he played a Black man with a white fiancee, and In the Heat of the Night he was Virgil Tibbs, a Black police officer confronting racism during a murder investigation. He also played a teacher in a tough London school that year in To Sir, With Love.  Poitier had won his history-making best actor Oscar for Lilies of the Field in 1963, playing a handyman who helps German nuns build a chapel in the desert. Five years before that Poitier had been the first Black man nominated for a lead actor Oscar for his role in The Defiant Ones. His Tibbs character from In the Heat of the …

Midday queues snake out to the street in an upmarket Shanghai neighborhood, but it’s not lunch at the city’s hottest restaurant that people are lining up for — it’s cosmetic “micro-procedures”, which are surging in popularity in China.     The “lunchtime facelift” and other “medical aesthetics” procedures are booming as a new generation of Chinese consumers grapple with the pressure to look good on social media as well as in person.    Kayla Zhang has never actually gone under the knife for cosmetic reasons, but she’s had laser treatments, injections and a thread lift — a barbed string inserted under the skin and pulled up to “lift” the face.   “I’m not changing my nose or my eyes, which would be an extreme change in my looks,” the 27-year-old told AFP, adding that she’s seeking a “better version” of herself rather than “a totally new face.”     Already popular in the West because they are less invasive and more affordable than traditional cosmetic surgery, micro-procedures — from laser facials and fillers to thread lifts — are fast becoming the norm in China’s cities where disposable incomes have jumped in the past decade.     The Chinese Association of Plastics and Aesthetics estimates, overall, the cosmetic industry …

Peter Bogdanovich, the ascot-wearing cinephile and director of 1970s black-and-white classics like The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon, has died. He was 82. Bogdanovich died early Thursday morning at his home in Los Angeles, said his daughter, Antonia Bogdanovich. She said he died of natural causes.  Considered part of a generation of young “New Hollywood” directors, Bogdanovich was heralded as an auteur from the start, with the chilling lone shooter film Targets and soon after The Last Picture Show, from 1971, his evocative portrait of a small, dying town that earned eight Oscar nominations, won two (for Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman) and catapulted him to stardom at age 32. He followed The Last Picture Show with the screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal, and then the Depression-era road trip film Paper Moon, which won 10-year-old Tatum O’Neal an Oscar as well.  His turbulent personal life was also often in the spotlight, from his well-known affair with Cybill Shepherd that began during the making of The Last Picture Show while he was married to his close collaborator, Polly Platt, to the murder of his Playmate girlfriend Dorothy Stratten and his subsequent marriage to her younger sister, Louise, who was 29 years his …

Vaccinated, masked and ready-to-revel New Orleans residents will usher in Carnival season Thursday with a rolling party on the city’s historic streetcar line, an annual march honoring Joan of Arc in the French Quarter and a collective, wary eye on coronavirus statistics. Carnival officially begins each year on Jan. 6 — the 12th day after Christmas — and, usually, comes to a raucous climax on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, which falls on March 1 this year. Thursday’s planned festivities come two years after a successful Mardi Gras became what officials later realized was an early Southern superspreader of COVID-19; and nearly a year after city officials, fearing more death and more stress on local hospitals, canceled parades and restricted access to the usually raucous Bourbon Street. This year, the party is slated to go on despite rapidly rising COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant. In what has become a traditional kickoff to the season, the Phunny Phorty Phellows will gather at a cavernous streetcar barn and board one of the historic St. Charles line cars along with a small brass band. Vaccinations were required in keeping with city regulations and seating on the streetcar was to be limited …

The Grammy Awards were postponed Wednesday due to what organizers called “too many risks” due to the omicron variant. No new date has been announced. The ceremony had been scheduled for January 31 in Los Angeles with a live audience and performances. The Recording Academy said it made the decision “after careful consideration and analysis with city and state officials, health and safety experts, the artist community and our many partners.” “Given the uncertainty surrounding the omicron variant, holding the show on January 31st simply contains too many risks,” the academy said in a statement. Last year, like most major awards shows in early 2021, the Grammys were postponed due to coronavirus concerns. The show was moved from late January to mid-March and was held with a spare audience made up of mostly nominees and their guests in and around the Los Angeles Convention Center. Many performances were pre-taped, and none were in front of significant crowds. The Grammys had been scheduled this year to return to its traditional home next door, the Crypto.com Arena, formerly the Staples Center. “We look forward to celebrating Music’s Biggest Night on a future date, which will be announced soon,” the academy statement said. Finding that date could be complicated, with …

Exactly two years after the World Health Organization issued an alert about “a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause” in the central Chinese city of Wuhan that evolved into the global COVID-19 pandemic, the world is now struggling under the weight of the fast-moving omicron variant of the coronavirus that sparked the disease. In Brazil, a surge of new COVID-19 cases driven by the omicron variant has prompted authorities in Rio de Janeiro to cancel its iconic Carnival street festival for the second consecutive year.  Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes announced the cancellation Tuesday during a speech carried live online. Paes said the “nature” and “democratic aspect” of Carnival makes it impossible to control the potential spread of the virus.  But Mayor Paes said the traditional procession of Rio’s samba schools into the city’s Sambadrome stadium will take place next month, as authorities are able to impose mitigation efforts on the spectators.  New COVID restrictions in Hong Kong In Hong Kong, chief executive Carrie Lam on Wednesday announced a two-week ban on flights from eight nations to blunt a possible fifth wave of COVID-19 infections driven by omicron. The ban on incoming flights from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, …

Mali is well known for its mudbrick Sudano-Sahelian architecture, which is also seen in buildings in the capital, Bamako, one of the fastest growing cities in Africa.  But rapid modernization is also threatening the unique structures and the face of the city, as Annie Risemberg reports from Bamako. …

Hollywood closed out 2021 with more fireworks at the box office for “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which topped all films for the third straight week and already charts among the highest grossing films ever. But even with all the champagne popping for “No Way Home,” the film industry heads into 2022 with plenty of reason for both optimism and concern after a year that saw overall ticket revenue double that of 2020, but still well off the pre-pandemic pace. Movie theaters began the year mostly shuttered but ended it with a monster smash. Sony Pictures’ Marvel sequel “No Way Home” grossed an estimated $52.7 million over the weekend to bring its three-week total to $609.9 million. That ranks 10th all-time in North America. Worldwide, it’s made $1.37 billion, a total that puts it above “Black Panther” and makes it the 12th-highest-grossing film globally.  “No Way Home,” Tom Holland’s third standalone film as the webslinger, gave a huge lift to the box-office recovery that started in earnest last spring when U.S. cinemas opened after a year of COVID-19 closures. Marvel films dominated the turbulent year, accounting for the top four movies of 2021: “No Way Home,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of …