Qatar is preparing to welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors to the 2022 World Cup and many local businesses are eager to receive them. For many tourists, it’s a chance to see this part of the world for the first time.  VOA News reporter Celia Mendoza has the story from Doha, Qatar. Camera: Celia Mendoza, Nelson Biñoles …

Beyoncé has propelled herself into the highest Grammy echelon: The singer claimed a leading nine nominations Tuesday, making her tied — with her husband, Jay-Z — as the most nominated music act in the history of the awards show.  Beyoncé’s “Break My Soul” reeled in record and song of the year nominations, while “Renaissance,” which ventured into the world of dancehall music, netted an album of the year nod. With Jay-Z also earning five nods this year, each spouse now holds the record for the most-ever Grammy nominations at 88 apiece.  Kendrick Lamar came away with the second-most nominations, with eight. Adele and Brandi Carlile both received seven nods. Harry Styles, Mary J. Blige, Future, DJ Khaled, The-Dream and mastering engineer Randy Merrill each picked up six.  Nearly half of this year’s leading nominees are women and more than half are people of color, according to the recording academy. The ceremony will be held February 5 in Los Angeles.  “This makes me feel very proud, but it makes me conscious of the fact that we have to maintain the work we have done,” said Harvey Mason jr., the Recording Academy’s CEO. He said there have been strides in the peer-driven …

In a last-minute controversial move, Pakistan has banned the screening of its international award-winning movie, “Joyland” in theaters across the country for containing “highly objectionable” content. The movie, which features a married man falling for a transgender woman, was supposed to be released in Pakistani cinemas Friday. In May, “Joyland” became the first Pakistani feature film to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is also Pakistan’s entry for the 2023 Academy Awards in the United States. The government-led Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) had in August formally granted the filmmaker the license to screen the movie in cinemas. A federal information ministry statement, however, said that it had stopped the screening of the movie as the material in question does not “conform with the social values and moral stands of our society.” The material in question is “clearly repugnant to the norms of decency and morality” in line with the relevant laws, said the statement without elaborating. The director of “Joyland” denounced the decision as “absolutely unconstitutional and illegal.” “We — a team — are gutted by this development but fully intend to raise our voice against this grave injustice,” Saim Sadiq said in an Instagram …

California is home to the largest Arab American community in the United States. That growing economic and political visibility is evident in Southern California’s newly designated “Little Arabia” neighborhood. For VOA, Genia Dulot takes us there. Videographer and producer: Genia Dulot …

Facial hair enthusiasts claimed to have set a new world record for longest beard chain during an event in Wyoming on Friday, the Casper Star-Tribune reports. Participants gathered at Gaslight Social, a bar in Casper, where they stood side by side and clipped their beards together to create a hairy chain that was measured at 150 feet long, according to the newspaper. That’s more than double the Guinness World Record of 62 feet, 6 inches, set in Germany in 2007. To participate, people needed to sport a beard at least 8 inches long, according to the Star-Tribune. The event occurred on the sidelines of the National Beard and Moustache Championships, which took place Saturday at the city’s Ford Wyoming Center. …

Phrygian caps will be the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games mascots as organizers look to to celebrate the French revolution’s spirit. “‘Phryges’ aim to show that sport can change everything, and that it deserves to have a prominent place in our society,” Paris 2024 brand director Julie Matikhine said on Monday. The Phrygian caps were favored over animals, who have mostly been the first choice in other Olympics — such as the ‘Bing Dwen Dwen’ panda at the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing this year. “We were almost ready not to make a mascot if we didn’t find a real reason to do so, and a real message to convey,” said Matikhine. “The mascot must embody the French spirit, which is something very fine to grasp. It’s an ideal, a kind of conviction that carries the values of our country, and which has been built up over time, over history.” The red Phrygian caps come in two versions — the Olympic and the Paralympic one — with a blade leg. The Olympic Games will be held from July 26-Aug. 11 and the Paralympics from Aug. 28-Sept. 8. …

Art restorers in the Italian city of Florence have begun a six-month project to clean and virtually “unveil” a long-censored nude painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most prominent women in the history of Italian art. Swirling veils and drapery were added to the “Allegory of Inclination” some 70 years after Gentileschi painted the life-size female nude, believed to be a self-portrait, in 1616. The work to reveal the image as originally painted comes as Gentileschi’s contribution to Italian Baroque art is getting renewed attention in the #MeToo era, both for her artistic achievements but also for breaking into the male-dominated art world after being raped by one of her art teachers. Her work was featured in a 2020 exhibit at the National Gallery in London. “Through her, we can talk about how important it is to restore artwork, how important it is to restore the stories of women to the forefront,” said Linda Falcone, coordinator of the Artemisia Up Close project. “Allegory of Inclination” originally was commissioned for the family home of Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, the great-nephew of the famed artist. The building later became the Casa Buonarotti museum, and the painting was displayed until recently on …

Taylor Swift walked away with four prizes at MTV’s Europe Music Awards on Sunday, including best video for her 10-minute “All Too Well.”    Double-award winners included Nicki Minaj for best song and best hip-hop, and the French DJ and record producer David Guetta won the best electronic award and best collaboration.    The event, broadcast on MTV from Duesseldorf in western Germany, honored musicians from Brazil to South Korea.    It featured an appearance by Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra, the winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which performed “Stefania” in an arena glowing with Ukraine’s national colors of blue and yellow.    The U.S. pop singer Swift, wearing a dress of bejeweled mesh, won best artist, best pop, best video and best long form video.    “I felt like I learned so much about how making film can be a natural extension of my storytelling,” Swift said as she accepted the long form video award.    In “All Too Well,” Swift draws inspiration from 1970s Hollywood and recounts a fraying romantic relationship that disintegrates, leaving behind only a scarf and memories.    “It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well,” Swift sings.    Minaj’s winning song “Super Freaky Girl” incorporates the 1981 hit …

The box office roared back to life with the long-awaited release of “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The Marvel sequel earned $180 million in ticket sales from more than 4,396 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to estimates from The Walt Disney Co. on Sunday, making it the second biggest opening of the year behind “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Overseas, it brought in an additional $150 million from 50 territories, bringing its worldwide total to $330 million. “Wakanda Forever” was eagerly anticipated by both audiences and exhibitors, who have weathered a slow spell at the box office since the summer movie season ended and there were fewer bigger budget blockbusters in the pipeline. The film got off to a mighty start a bit stronger than even the first film with an $84 million opening day, including $28 million from Thursday previews. “Some may have hoped for $200 million like the first film, but this is solid,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s senior media analyst. “This is the type of movie that theaters really need to drive audiences.” The first film opened to $202 million in February 2018 and went on to gross over $1.4 billion worldwide, making it …

At first, Saskia Nino de Rivera was excited about going to Qatar for a World Cup that would mark a significant professional event for her partner, a sports agent for Mexico soccer players. She even contemplated privately proposing there during a game, and posting photos once they left the country.  But as the lesbian couple learned more about laws on same-sex relations in the conservative Gulf country, the plans no longer sounded like a good idea. Instead, Nino de Rivera proposed at an Amsterdam stadium this summer and opted to skip the World Cup altogether.  “As a lesbian woman, it’s really hard for me to feel and think that we are going to a country where we don’t know what could happen and how we could be safe,” she said. “It was a really hard decision.”  Nino de Rivera’s concerns are shared by many LGBTQ soccer fans and their allies worldwide. Some have been mulling whether to attend the tournament, or even watch it on television.  Qatar’s laws against gay sex and treatment of LGBTQ people are flashpoints in the run-up to the first World Cup to be held in the Middle East, or in any Arab or Muslim country. …

Playwriting and theater production have opened a new world for a California man who spent 17 years in prison. Mike O’Sullivan reports on an arts program that teaches creative skills to former prisoners seeking new lives. …

Jimmy Kimmel is ready to host the Oscars again, completing a trilogy that started with him presiding over the chaotic “envelope-gate” ceremony.  The late-night talk show host will preside over the ceremony in March, the show’s producers said Monday.  “We’re super thrilled to have Jimmy score his hat trick on this global stage,” executive producers and showrunners Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner said in a joint statement. “We know he will be funny and ready for anything!”  Kimmel has hosted the show twice before, in 2017, when he managed the chaotic final moments in which the wrong best picture winner was called, and then the next year, which came just months into the #MeToo reckoning.  “Being invited to host the Oscars for a third time is either a great honor or a trap,” Kimmel said. “Either way, I am grateful to the academy for asking me so quickly after everyone good said no.”  After the 90th Oscars in 2018, which Kimmel hosted to generally positive reviews, the Academy Awards went without a host until the 94th ceremony earlier this year when Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes shared the stage.  “Jimmy is the perfect host to help us recognize …

Kenyans Evans Chebet and Sharon Lokedi made huge splashes in their New York City Marathon debuts Sunday. Chebet won the men’s race and Lokedi the women’s race in her first-ever marathon on an unseasonably warm day, with temperatures in the 70s making it one of the hottest in race history since the marathon was moved to November in 1986. Chebet finished in 2 hours, 8 minutes and 41 seconds, which was 13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Shura Kitata of Ethiopia. There was a scary moment in the men’s race when Daniel Do Nascimento, who had been leading the entire way, collapsed 21 miles in. Race officials said later that he was OK. The Brazilian ran the first half of the race in a blistering 1:01.22, which put him 2 minutes ahead of the course record pace. He had been leading by nearly 2 minutes for the first 15 miles before he started to slow down a bit. Do Nascimento went down right before heading back into Manhattan and was quickly attended to by medical professionals. A few miles earlier, he had taken a quick 20-second bathroom break and also had stopped to walk briefly a few minutes before he …

South Korean team DRX were crowned League of Legends world champions on Saturday after scoring a surprise 3-2 victory over compatriots T1 in a thrilling final of the eSports tournament in San Francisco. T1, the most successful team in eSports history, started as favorites and took the lead in the first round of the competition. But DRX took command after many upsets, in particular thanks to 19-year-old Kim “Zeka” Geon-woo. Their win, the team’s first-ever, was highly anticipated for talented 26-year-old Kim “Deft” Hyuk-kyu, who started competing in 2014 but had only made it past the quarterfinals once, also in 2014. No player so “old” had ever won the world championships until this year. The final took place at the Chase Center in San Francisco, home to the Golden State Warriors NBA team, in front of some 16,000 spectators. The League of Legends World Championship is considered one of the most prestigious eSports tournaments.  …

The German version of the television show The Voice had a special guest Saturday on its final episode of the season. Rana Mansour, an Iranian American singer, performed the protest song For, (Baraye) a song dedicated to Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Iranian woman who died recently after being arrested by Iranian police. Amini was detained for wearing her headscarf “improperly.” Mansour performed the song in English so that it could be understood by an international audience. Demonstrators have taken to the streets across Iran since Amini’s death, protesting not only her death, but the restrictions that many, especially women, face in Iran. At the end of her performance, Mansour held up her fingers in the Victory sign and said, “Woman, life, freedom,” a phrase chanted by Iranian protesters. Mansour received a standing ovation. …

For now and forever, Dusty Baker, the epic storyteller, first-class name-dropper, toothpick chewer and baseball lifer will bear a most distinguished title: World Series champion manager. The man who can weave a tale like few others, wistfully recalling his time under Hank Aaron’s tutelage or chance encounters with Jimi Hendrix, John F. Kennedy Jr. and countless more, completed the only missing chapter in his own story Saturday night. After 25 seasons as a big league skipper peppered with a couple of painful near-misses, the 73-year-old Baker finally made it all the way home when his Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 to win the title. When Yordan Alvarez connected on a go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning, cameras panned to a beaming Baker who raised both arms high above his head. He became the oldest manager to win a World Series in his third trip as a manager to the Fall Classic. As a player he went three times with the Dodgers, winning it all in 1981. He entered Saturday’s game as the winningest manager without a World Series title and improved to 2,094-1,790 with this most memorable victory. “I got 2,000 wins and all they talk about …

Yordan Alvarez smashed a three-run homer, and the Houston Astros captured their second World Series in six seasons on Saturday with a 4-1 victory over Philadelphia. The Cuban slugger’s sixth-inning blast off Phillies relief pitcher Jose Alvarado gave Houston the lead for good as the Astros took Major League Baseball’s best-of-seven championship final four games to two. “I just tried to stay a little calm and get a good pitch to swing at and that’s what I did,” Alvarez said of his third game-winning playoff homer. “It was amazing. When I was rounding second base, I felt the whole stadium moving.” The Astros, in their fourth World Series in six seasons and fifth overall, won their only prior title in 2017, but many MLB fans regard that effort as a tainted crown. An MLB investigation revealed an electronic sign stealing system by the Astros, who used cameras in 2017 and 2018 to swipe signs from rivals, players and staff banging on drums to signal Houston batters what pitch was coming. The Astros lost their next two World Series appearances, to Washington in 2019 and Atlanta last year. But this year’s lineup, including five players from the 2017 roster, delivered a …

Aaron Carter, the singer-rapper who began performing as a child and had hit albums starting in his teen years, was found dead Saturday at his home in Southern California. He was 34. Representatives for Carter’s family confirmed the singer’s death. They did not provide any immediate further comment. Carter, the younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, performed as an opening act for Britney Spears as well as his brother’s boy band, and appeared on the family’s reality series “House of Carters” that aired on E! Entertainment Television. Deputies responded around 11 a.m. following reports of a medical emergency at the home in Lancaster, a desert city about 70 miles (112 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles, said Deputy Alejandra Parra with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Parra said the deputies found a deceased person at the residence, but she could not immediately confirm it was Carter. Carter’s fiancé, Melanie Martin, asked for privacy as the family grieves. “We are still in the process of accepting this unfortunate reality,” Martin said in a statement Saturday. “Your thoughts and prayers are greatly appreciated.” Hits included ‘I Want Candy’ Carter opened for the Backstreet Boys tour in 1997 — …

An ancient Christian monastery possibly dating as far back as the years before Islam spread across the Arabian Peninsula has been discovered on an island off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, officials announced Thursday. The monastery on Siniyah Island, part of the sand-dune sheikhdom of Umm al-Quwain, sheds new light on the history of early Christianity along the shores of the Persian Gulf. It marks the second such monastery found in the Emirates, dating back as many as 1,400 years — long before its desert expanses gave birth to a thriving oil industry that led to a unified nation home to the high-rise towers of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. The two monasteries became lost to history in the sands of time as scholars believe Christians slowly converted to Islam as that faith grew more prevalent in the region. Today, Christians remain a minority across the wider Middle East, though Pope Francis arrived in nearby Bahrain on Thursday to promote interfaith dialogue with Muslim leaders. For Timothy Power, an associate professor of archaeology at the United Arab Emirates University who helped investigate the newly discovered monastery, the UAE today is a “melting pot of nations.” “The fact that something …

The movies have returned to Indian-administered Kashmir after an absence of more than three decades. A new multiplex cinema, INOX Srinagar, lit up its three screens for the first time on September 30, almost 33 years after all of the region’s theaters shut down in the face of a campaign by armed militants opposed to cinemas, beauty parlors and liquor shops. Even today, the threat of violence remains high for the several dozen theatergoers who visit the multiplex each day, seeking a novel experience in the case of the younger generation or, in the case of their elders, a nostalgic reminder of times past. Would-be patrons must pass through a tight security cordon, having their cars checked by a rifle-bearing policeman, and then being frisked at the main gate before entering the theater. An armored truck with at least a dozen policemen is stationed near the entry gate, and an elevated security tower stands next to the ticket counter. The Kashmir Valley boasted some 15 movie theaters until 1989, when militants opposed to Indian rule in the region demanded their closure. All were shut down on January 1, 1990. Some were turned into malls, some into hospitals, and some into …

Migos rapper Takeoff is dead after a shooting early Tuesday outside a bowling alley in Houston, a representative confirmed. He was 28.  Takeoff — whose name was Kirsnick Khari Ball — was part of Migos along with Quavo and Offset. A representative for Migos, who was not authorized to speak publicly, confirmed to The Associated Press that Takeoff had died.  Police responded shortly after 2:30 a.m. to reports of a shooting at 810 Billiards & Bowling, where dozens of people had gathered on a balcony outside of the bowling alley, which is on the third floor, police said. Officers discovered one man dead when they arrived.  Security guards who were in the area heard the shooting but did not see who did it, a police spokesperson said. Two other people were injured and taken to hospitals in private vehicles.  No arrests have been announced.  The Grammy-nominated rap trio from Georgia have had four Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including their multi-week No. 1 “Bad and Boujee” featuring Lil Uzi Vert. They put out a trilogy of albums called “Culture,” “Culture II” and “Culture III,” with the first two albums hitting No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album …