June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Pride month. In the Western U.S. city of Denver, a museum exhibition features fashions from the gender-inclusive DCR Studios. VOA correspondent Scott Stearns caught up with designer Darlene Ritz at the show. Videographers: Scott Stearns, Jodi Westrum …

The National Football League (NFL), the top league in American-style football, has hosted its first African developmental camp in Ghana’s capital, Accra. The weeklong program was aimed at finding fresh talent and building the sport’s popularity across Africa. Senanu Tord reports from Accra, Ghana. …

Held for the first time since the pandemic, the world’s biggest transgender pageant pulled contestants from as far apart as Honduras and India to Thailand, a country where gender equality law is under the spotlight. For VOA, Vijitra Duangdee has this story from Pattaya, Thailand. …

Shackled and looking wary, WNBA star Brittney Griner was ordered to stand trial Friday by a court near Moscow on cannabis possession charges, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team.  The Phoenix Mercury center and two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist also was ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the U.S., acquittals can be overturned.  At Monday’s closed-door preliminary hearing at the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photos obtained by The Associated Press showed the 31-year-old in handcuffs and looking straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head down and covered with a hood.  Her detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in Moscow-Washington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of U.S. weapon …

 Step into Yuet Tung China Works, Hong Kong’s last remaining hand-painted porcelain factory, and you find yourself surrounded by stacks of dinnerware, each piece painstakingly decorated by hand with vibrant motifs of flowers, fruits and animals.  Joseph Tso, the third-generation owner of the factory, and his small team are among the few people in Hong Kong who have mastered the traditional technique of painting “guangcai,” or Canton porcelain.  It is a fading art in this modern metropolis, as fewer young people are willing to put in the time and effort required to master the craft or to work at the factory full-time.  “The business environment in Hong Kong is not suitable for labor-intensive industries,” Tso said. “Hong Kong’s traditional handicraft industry is gradually declining. It will eventually disappear.”  Guangcai, which comes from the nearby Chinese city of Guangzhou, is characterized by an overglaze technique in which the painter sketches a design on white porcelain and then fills it in with color using thin brushes before firing the piece in a kiln.  Tso’s grandfather established the factory in Hong Kong’s Kowloon City in 1928. It rose to prominence over the years, becoming famous for its delicate craftmanship and custom dinnerware.  The …

Part of the wooden stands collapsed during a bullfight in central Colombia on Sunday, sending spectators plunging to the ground and killing at least four people and seriously injuring about 30, authorities said.  The disaster took place in a stadium in the city of El Espinal in Tolima state during a traditional event called “corraleja” in which members of the public enter the ring to engage the bulls.  Videos taken during the bullfight show a three-story section of the stands collapsing as people screamed.  “We have activated the hospital network in Tolima,” Tolima Gov. José Ricardo Orozco told local Blu Radio. “Four people have died, as of this moment: two women, a man and a minor.”  Authorities said about 30 people had been seriously injured.  Orozco said he had asked for the traditional “corralejas” to be suspended in Tolima earlier Sunday but this one was held anyway.  President-elect Gustavo Petro urged local officials to ban such events, noting that it was not the first time an incident like this had taken place.  “I ask mayors not to allow more events involving the death of people or animals,” he said.  Current President Iván Duque on Twitter announced an investigation of the …

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic “Elvis” shook up theaters with an estimated $30.5 million in weekend ticket sales, but — in a box-office rarity — “Elvis” tied “Top Gun: Maverick,” which also reported $30.5 million, for No. 1 in theaters. Final figures Monday, once Sunday’s grosses are tabulated, will sort out which film ultimately won the weekend. With a high degree of accuracy, studios can forecast Sunday sales based on Friday and Saturday business, though numbers often shift by a few hundred thousand dollars. But for now, the unlikely pair of “Elvis” and “Maverick” are locked in a dance off (if you favor “Elvis”) or a dead heat (if you prefer “Maverick”). That it was this close at all was due to both a better-than-expected opening for “Elvis” and remarkably strong continued sales for “Top Gun: Maverick.” The “Top Gun” sequel reached $1 billion in worldwide box office in its fifth week of release. “Elvis,” starring newcomer Austin Butler as Presley, came into the weekend with expectations closer to $25 million. Among recent music biopics, a $30.5 million debut puts the King ahead of the pace of Elton John (“Rocketman” launched with $25.7 million in 2019) though not in the …

A new museum recently opened in Rome to display stolen art recovered by the Italian police squad charged with safeguarding the country’s artistic and cultural heritage. On display at the Rescued Art Museum are around 100 valuable artifacts, returned from the United States after having been stolen by tomb raiders and making their way illegally into private collections, museums and auction houses.   In December 2021, the art squad of the Carabinieri — Italy’s national police — announced the recovery of more than 200 priceless artifacts from between the 7th and 3rd centuries BC.  It credited the recovery to in-depth investigations, diplomacy, and collaboration with authorities in the U.S. It took more than two decades of negotiations and legal proceedings to obtain the return of the looted art.  Over the years, investigations overseen by the Rome Public Prosecutors’ Office enabled the Carabinieri art squad to examine photos of antiquities collections held by museums, private collectors, auction houses and antiques galleries in the U.S.   This allowed the squad to identify hundreds of items that they knew had been illegally excavated in Italy and illicitly exported from the country. The Carabinieri were also able to thwart a black market trade in …

A movie theater owner in the western U.S. state of Oklahoma said the theater never carried out a plan to fast forward through a same-sex kiss in a newly released Disney/Pixar film. The theater had posted a warning sign about the kiss and its intention to fast forward through the brief kissing scene in Lightyear, part of the Toy Story franchise. The sign said that management found out about the kiss between two women after booking the film, adding that, “We will do all we can to fast-forward through that scene, but it might not be exact.” Instead, the owner of the theater in Kingfisher told local television station KOCO 5 that the plan to interrupt the film was never executed in any of the showings of the film. Some countries have banned the film because of the kiss. …

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Jurors at a civil trial found Tuesday that Bill Cosby sexually abused a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in 1975. The Los Angeles County jury delivered the verdict in favor of Judy Huth, who is now 64, and awarded her $500,000. Jurors found that Cosby intentionally caused harmful sexual contact with Huth, that he reasonably believed she was under 18, and that his conduct was driven by unnatural or abnormal sexual interest in a minor. The jurors’ decision is a major legal defeat for the 84-year-old entertainer once hailed as “America’s Dad.” It comes nearly a year after his Pennsylvania criminal conviction for sexual assault was thrown out, and he was freed from prison. Huth’s lawsuit was one of the last remaining legal claims against him after his insurer settled many others against his will. Cosby did not attend the trial or testify in person, but short clips from a 2015 video deposition were played for jurors in which he denied any sexual contact with Huth. He continues to deny the allegation through his attorney and publicist. Jurors had already reached conclusions on nearly every question on their verdict form, including whether Cosby abused Huth and whether she deserved …

Why would the smell of a baby’s head calm men but rile women? It may be another example of how we’re more animal than we like to think. …

Oscar-winning Canadian screenwriter and director Paul Haggis is under house arrest in southern Italy on charges of sexual assault and aggravated personal injury, accusations that Haggis denies, his lawyers said on Monday. “Mr. Paul Haggis was detained on Sunday with an emergency measure issued by the Brindisi prosecutors and is now under house arrest in Ostuni. He will be questioned by Thursday by a judge who will have to decide whether or not to confirm the detention,” his Italian lawyer Michele Laforgia told Reuters. Haggis was charged with forcing a young non-Italian woman to have sexual intercourse against her will the course of two days in Ostuni, Italy, public prosecutors in Brindisi said in a statement on Sunday. “Under Italian Law, I cannot discuss the evidence. That said, I am confident that all allegations will be dismissed against Mr. Haggis,” Haggis’ personal attorney Priya Chaudhry said in a statement. Both lawyers said Haggis was pleading innocent and would cooperate with authorities.  “A young foreign woman was forced to seek medical care” following the sexual relations, the prosecutors said in the statement. They said that on Sunday after the non-consensual relations that man accompanied the woman to Brindisi airport, where she …

The surprise announcement by BTS last week that they were taking a break to focus on members’ solo projects stunned their global fanbase, shaking their label’s stock price and leaving many questions about the K-pop supergroup’s future. HYBE, the company behind the band, denied the group was taking a hiatus — a word used in a translation of the group’s emotional dinnertime video announcement. In the days since, band members have remained active on social media, continuing the stream of posts, photos and assurances that the band wasn’t breaking up. Despite the immediate impacts — HYBE’s stock initially dropped more than 25% and has yet to fully recover — several factors may still affect BTS’ future. One is looming military enlistment for older BTS members, as well as how engaged the group and their devoted fans, known as ARMY, will continue to be in social issues. In 2020, at the height of BTS’ success, the South Korean government revised the country’s military law that requires able-bodied South Korean men to perform approximately two years of military service. The revised law allows top K-pop stars — including Jin, the oldest member of BTS — to defer their military service until they …

An 18-year-old from South Korea has won the 16th Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of the top showcases for the world’s best pianists.  The competition held in Fort Worth, Texas, ended Saturday night with Yunchan Lim becoming the competition’s youngest winner of the gold medal. His winnings include a cash award of $100,000 and three years of career management.  The silver medalist was Anna Geniushene, a 31-year-old from Russia, and the bronze medalist is Dmytro Choni, a 28-year-old from Ukraine.  Lim told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he’ll discuss with his teacher what the next move for his career should be.  “I am still a student and I feel like I have to learn a lot still,” Lim said. “This is a great competition and I feel the burden of receiving this great honor and award so I will just push myself to live up to the honor I received today.”  The competition was founded in 1962 in honor of the celebrated pianist Van Cliburn, who lived in Fort Worth. Cliburn, who died in 2013 at age 78, played for U.S. presidents, royalty and heads of state around the world. He is best remembered for winning the first International …

Swimming’s world governing body FINA on Sunday voted to restrict the participation of transgender athletes in elite women’s competitions and create a working group to establish an “open” category for them in some events as part of its new policy. Transgender rights has become a major talking point as sports seek to balance inclusivity while ensuring there is no unfair advantage. The decision, the strictest by any Olympic sports body, was made during FINA’s extraordinary general congress after members heard a report from a transgender task force comprising leading medical, legal and sports figures. The new eligibility policy for FINA competitions states that male-to-female transgender athletes are eligible to compete only if “they can establish to FINA’s comfortable satisfaction that they have not experienced any part of male puberty beyond Tanner Stage 2 (of puberty) or before age 12, whichever is later.” The policy was passed with a roughly 71% majority after it was put to the members of 152 national federations with voting rights who had gathered for the congress at the Puskas Arena. “We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s …

American actor and director Liev Schreiber says events in Ukraine didn’t impact him much before the Russian invasion. Due to the war, he became deeply involved in charity work and rediscovered the Ukrainian part of his heritage. VOA’s Tatiana Vorozhko reports. …

Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, couples there continue to get married. For many, the war itself prompted them to officially tie the knot – especially military couples. At least one jewelry store provides military couples with free wedding bands; wedding ceremonies are often held online, at times, literally from the front lines. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. …

Former world No. 1 tennis player, Naomi Osaka pulled out of Wimbledon for the second successive year Saturday, blaming an Achilles injury. “My Achilles still isn’t right, so I’ll see you next time,” the four-time Grand Slam title winner posted on Twitter. Osaka, 24, was already considering not playing over the ATP and WTA tours decision to strip Wimbledon of ranking points after the All England Club banned Russian and Belarusian players in response to the invasion of Ukraine. Osaka’s tweet, although not mentioning Wimbledon specifically, was accompanied by a photo of herself on a grass court, and an emoji of a blade of grass. “Wishing you a speedy return to full fitness, @naomiosaka,” tweeted the Wimbledon tournament in response. The Japanese player first suffered the Achilles problem in her opening match in Madrid in May, the injury forcing her to pull out of the following Italian Open. This month she posted a video of a training exercise on social media accompanied by the caption: “Here’s me running on an underwater treadmill because my Achilles is being stubborn still I must be aging or something.” Osaka’s name had appeared on the singles entry list for Wimbledon when it was released …

After two days of deliberations in which they reached verdicts on nearly all of the questions put before them, jurors in a civil trial who were deciding on sexual abuse allegations against Bill Cosby will have to start from scratch on Monday. By the end of the court day Friday, the Los Angeles County jury had come to agreement on whether Cosby had sexually assaulted plaintiff Judy Huth at the Playboy Mansion when she was 16 in 1975, and whether Huth deserved any damages. In all they had answered eight of nine questions on their verdict form, all but one that asked whether Cosby acted in a way that should require punitive damages. Judge Craig Karlan, who had promised one juror when she agreed to serve that she could leave after Friday for a prior commitment, decided over the objections of Cosby’s attorneys to accept and read the verdict on the questions the jury had answered. But he had to change course when deputies at the Santa Monica Courthouse appeared and required him to clear the courtroom. The courthouse has a required closure time of 4:30 p.m. because of no budget for deputies’ overtime. Karlan refused to require the departing …

The price of bitcoin fell below $20,000 Saturday for the first time since late 2020, in a fresh sign that the sell-off in cryptocurrencies is deepening.  Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, fell below the psychologically important threshold, dropping by as much as 9% to less than $19,000 and hovering around that mark, according to the cryptocurrency news site CoinDesk.  The last time bitcoin was at that level was in November 2020, when it was on its way up to its all-time high of nearly $69,000, according to CoinDesk. Many in the industry had believed it would not fall under $20,000.  Bitcoin has now lost more than 70% of its value since reaching that peak.  Ethereum, another widely followed cryptocurrency that’s been sliding in recent weeks, took a similar tumble Saturday.  It’s the latest sign of turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry amid wider turbulence in financial markets. Investors are selling off riskier assets because central banks are raising interest rates to combat quickening inflation.  The overall market value of cryptocurrency assets has fallen from $3 trillion to below $1 trillion, according to coinmarketcap.com, a company that tracks crypto prices. On Saturday, the company’s data showed crypto’s global market value stood at …

The dogs get the spotlight, but the upcoming Westminster Kennel Club show is also illuminating a human issue: veterinarians’ mental health. In conjunction with a first-time Veterinarian of the Year award that will be presented on the show’s final day Wednesday, the club is giving $10,000 to a charity focused on veterinary professionals’ psychological welfare. It’s new emotional territory for the 145-year-old event at a point when the coronavirus pandemic, and a changing culture, have bared the internal struggles of people from schoolchildren to health care workers to college athletes and professional sports stars.  For veterinarians, too, the pandemic added new strains — wrung-out clients, soaring caseloads and more — and amplified long-standing ones. “We love what we do, and there’s a certain mystique about working with animals — a lot of people think we play with puppies all day long. But there’s a lot behind this,” said American Veterinary Medicine Association President José Arce of San Juan, Puerto Rico. He hopes Westminster’s award will educate people about vets’ well-being. The show began with an agility competition Saturday and continues Monday through Wednesday, with the best in show prize awarded live on Fox Sports’ FS1 channel Wednesday night. For the …

A gnawing uncertainty hung over the Yellowstone National Park gateway town of Gardiner this week following unprecedented flooding that shut down one of America’s most beloved natural attractions and swept away roads, bridges and homes. Gardiner itself escaped the flooding but briefly became home to hundreds of park visitors stranded when the road leading into it was closed along the surging Yellowstone River. When the road reopened, the tourists vanished. “Town is eerie right now,” said Katie Gale, who does booking for a company that offers rafting and other outdoor trips. “We had all those folks trapped in here, and then as soon as they opened the road … it was just like someone just pulled the plug in a bathtub.” That draining of visitors has become a major concern for businesses in towns such as Gardiner and Red Lodge that lead to Yellowstone’s northern entrances and rely on tourists passing through. Officials have said the park’s southern part, which features Old Faithful, could reopen as soon as next week. But the north end, which includes Tower Fall and the bears and wolves of Lamar Valley, could stay closed for months after sections of major roads inside Yellowstone were washed …

For many Hong Kongers, their city has always been distinct from China. Government, laws, language, schooling, cuisine, culture, outlook — you name it, all different. And that sense, coupled with continuing political changes, propelled many Hong Kongers to emigrate after the 2019 pro-democracy protests when Beijing implemented the far-reaching Hong Kong version of China’s National Security Law. Even in the law that tightens Beijing’s control over the former British colony, Hong Kong is different. Belle, an artist, left Hong Kong for New York last year. Her work is now part of show called “Wandering Hong Kong” mounted by the Lion Rock Cafe in lower Manhattan near Chinatown. The exhibition, which runs through Sunday at the Sohotel pop-up space on Broome Street, explores what it means to be “wandering” — defined as “a life with no place to settle down, needing to move around” in promotional material. An art teacher and full-time artist in Hong Kong, Belle met her boyfriend during the 2019 Hong Kong protests. “But as the movement went on, we realized there are concerns, there is something there that we cannot draw. Or we can draw it, but we cannot show it. So, what’s the point? That just …