WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation Wednesday that would force the popular TikTok video app to either separate from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or sell the U.S. version of the software. The bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary control — which would include ByteDance divesting its current ownership — to remain available in the United States,” said Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the committee. “All TikTok would have to do is separate from CCP-controlled ByteDance. However, if TikTok chose not to rid itself of this CCP control, the application would no longer be offered in U.S. app stores. But TikTok would have no one but itself to blame,” the lawmakers said in a prepared statement. Here’s what we know about the legislation and what happens next in the U.S. Senate. Why is TikTok under scrutiny? “The concern is that TikTok could transfer personal information to its parent company ByteDance, who in turn could transfer it to the Chinese government,” …

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Los Angeles — Christopher Nolan has won best director at the Academy Awards for his blockbuster biopic “Oppenheimer,” a long-awaited coronation for arguably Hollywood’s preeminent big-screen auteur. Nolan has had many movies in the Oscar mix before, including “Inception,” “Dunkirk” and “The Dark Knight.” But his win Sunday for direction is the first Academy Award for the 53-year-old filmmaker. In his acceptance speech, Nolan noted cinema is just over a hundred years old. “We don’t know where this incredible journey is going from here,” said Nolan. “But to think that I’m a meaningful part of it means the world to me.” Cillian Murphy, the veteran Irish actor whose titanic performance as J. Robert Oppenheimer centered one of the year’s most acclaimed films, also won best actor. It’s the first Oscar for Murphy, a longtime Christopher Nolan regular handed a rare leading role in “Oppenheimer.” “I’m a very proud Irish man standing here tonight,” said Murphy. “For better or worse, we’re all living in Robert Oppenheimer’s world. I’d like to dedicate this to the peacemakers.” Protest and politics intruded on an election-year Academy Awards on Sunday, where demonstrations for Gaza raged outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, and awards went to …

Dohuk, Iraq — Huddled in the back of a van, Rebin Pishtiwan carefully scans one yellowed page after another, as part of his mission to digitize historic Kurdish books at risk of disappearing. Seen as the world’s largest stateless people, the Kurds are an ethnic group of between 25 million and 35 million mostly spread across modern-day Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. In Iraq, the Kurds are a sizeable minority who have been persecuted, with thousands killed under the rule of late dictator Saddam Hussein and many of their historic documents lost or destroyed. “Preserving the culture and history of Kurdistan is a sacred job,” said Pishtiwan, perusing volumes and manuscripts from Dohuk city’s public library in Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdistan region. “We aim to digitize old books that are rare and vulnerable, so they don’t vanish,” the 23-year-old added, a torn memoir of a Kurdish teacher published in 1960 in hand. In Iraq, the Kurdish language was mostly marginalized until the Kurds’ autonomous region in the north won greater freedom after Saddam Hussein’s defeat in the 1990-1991 Gulf War. After the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 toppled the dictator, remaining documents were scattered among libraries and universities or held in private …

Los Angeles — As Universal Pictures prepared for a big night at the Academy Awards with “Oppenheimer,” the studio also celebrated the No. 1 debut of “Kung Fu Panda 4,” which collected $58.3 million in domestic theaters over the weekend, according to estimates Sunday. “Kung Fu Panda 4,” the first film in the DreamWorks Animation franchise since the third installment in 2016, got off to a better start than all but the 2008 original. That “Kung Fu Panda,” which began the mystical adventures of Jack Black’s panda warrior Po, launched with $60.2 million. Working in favor of “Kung Fu Panda 4”: It’s the first big family movie since “Migration” and “Wonka” hit theaters in December. “Kung Fu Panda 4” added $22 million internationally. The news was just as good for last week’s top film, “Dune: Part Two.” Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic sequel held strongly in its second week, dropping a modest 44%. It grossed $46 million in its second week, bringing its domestic cumulative total to $157 million for Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Riding strong reviews, great word-of-mouth and plenty of sandworms, “Dune: Part Two” appears well set up for a long theatrical run. Most of Sunday’s Oscar nominees have …

Los Angeles — Hollywood’s glitterati gather on Sunday to celebrate the best performances in film at the annual Academy Awards, a ceremony expected to turn into a toast to blockbuster atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer.” Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel returns for the fourth time to emcee the film industry’s highest honors from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. “Oppenheimer,” the three-hour drama directed by Christopher Nolan, leads the field with 13 nominations. The movie is the frontrunner to win the prestigious best picture prize, capping its sweep of other major awards this year. “If the best picture isn’t ‘Oppenheimer,’ it will be one of the biggest upsets, if not the biggest upset, in the history of the Oscars,” said Scott Feinberg, executive editor for awards at The Hollywood Reporter. After 2023 was marred by actors and writers strikes, the Oscars give Hollywood a chance to celebrate two global hits. “Oppenheimer” and feminist doll adventure “Barbie,” another best picture nominee, brought in a combined $2.4 billion in a summer box office battle dubbed “Barbenheimer.” Oscar producers said they have planned unannounced cameos and other surprises to entertain audiences at home. “My biggest hope is that they go through a range of emotions …

New York — Six years ago, Nachiket Chanchani visited Angkor Wat for the first time. Inspired, the architectural historian began thinking about the relationship between the complexities of modern post-genocide Cambodia and the ancient temple complex. Chanchani, an associate art history professor at the University of Michigan, kept reflecting on Angkor Wat, juxtaposing the temple complex against art created since the Khmer Rouge killed nearly 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. During the pandemic, his thoughts crystallized amid worldwide suffering, anxiety and fear. “I thought that this art, both from the deep past and from more recent times in Cambodia, can teach us lessons of how to kind of stay stable, find some way forward,” he told VOA Khmer Service via Zoom. The University of Michigan Museum of Art, or UMMA, one of the largest university museums in the United States, is now exhibiting 80 pieces of Cambodian art in a show guest curated by Chanchani in Ann Arbor. Titled “Angkor Complex: Cultural Heritage and Post-Genocide Memory in Cambodia,” it opened February 3 and runs through July 28. Featured artists Vann Nath, Sopheap Pich, Svay Sareth, Amy Lee Sanford and Leang Seckon, who live in Cambodia and the U.S., have …

MUMBAI, India — Krystyna Pyszková of the Czech Republic was crowned Miss World at a glittering contest held in India on Saturday night. Yasmina Zaytoun of Lebanon was the first runner-up among 112 contestants in the competition held in Mumbai, India’s financial and entertainment capital. “Being crowned Miss World is a dream come true. I am deeply honored to represent my country and the values of ‘beauty with a purpose’ on a global platform,” Pyszkova said. After the reigning Miss World, Karoline Bielawska of Poland, passed the crown to her, Pyszková waved to the large crowd at the Jio World Convention Center and hugged some of the other contestants. The event showcased the rich tapestry of India’s culture, traditions, heritage, arts and crafts, and textiles to a massive global audience. The participants wore heavily embroidered skirts and blouses and danced to popular Bollywood songs. The beauty competition returned to India for the first time in 28 years. India’s Sini Shetty exited after making it to the final eight. Six Indian women have won the title, including Reita Faria (1966), Aishwarya Rai (1994), Diana Hayden (1997), Yukta Mookhey (1999), Priyanka Chopra (2000) and Manushi Chillar (2017). The 71st Miss World beauty pageant …

Paris — The makers of “Game of Thrones” return with “3 Body Problem,” the adaptation of an iconic Chinese sci-fi trilogy.   It premieres this weekend at the South by Southwest Festival in Texas before launching on Netflix on March 21.  Showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, coming off their huge hit with “Game of Thrones,” have liberally translated from the books by Liu Cixin, which has already been adapted for Chinese TV.   The trilogy of books, which began with “The Three-Body Problem” in 2008, jumps between countries, eras and protagonists as Earth confronts an existential threat. It is considered a sci-fi landmark.   “Making ‘Game of Thrones’ was the greatest experience of our lives, but we spent 10 solid years living in that fictional world, so we wanted something that presented a new set of challenges on every level,” Weiss said.  “It’s the story of an impending threat, but it’s tethered by and centered around this core group of characters,” said Benioff.  The cast includes three of the main actors from “Game of Thrones”: John Bradley as an Oxford scientist, Liam Cunningham as the head of an intelligence agency and Jonathan Pryce as an oil tycoon.   The showrunners …

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Washington — A U.N. report released Friday about the prevalence of female genital mutilation around the globe is drawing attention to the practice among the Dawoodi Bohra community, a Muslim minority sect based in India. India is not on the UNICEF list of 31 countries released Friday. But the extent of FGM in India, although small relative to its population and long shrouded in secrecy, is coming into the open. The ritual is mostly practiced by the Dawoodi Bohras, a subsect of the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam with an estimated 1 to 2 million followers around the globe. Recent surveys show that as many as 80% of Bohra girls undergo genital mutilation as a religious right of passage. “We are still significant, even if our numbers are few,” said Aarefa Johari, a Dawoodi Bohra activist and co-founder of Sahiyo, an anti-FGM advocacy group. “Injustices and harmful practices must be opposed because they are wrong, not because of the number of people they affect.” Affluent and politically influential, most Dawoodi Bohras live in India’s Gujarat province, with smaller communities thriving in Pakistan, Yemen, East Africa, the Middle East, Australia and North America. The World Health Organization defines FGM, also known as …

WASHINGTON — The Islamic holiday of Ramadan is being observed this year as the Israel-Hamas war surges in Gaza, where the United Nations is warning of a growing humanitarian crisis. Imam Talib Shareef of Masjid Muhammad, the Nation’s Mosque, in Washington said there will be differences in how Muslims observe this year because of the conflict. Other than organizing prayers for the community, the mosque is “more engaged in service and feeding; we actually feed at the masjid and [also at] shelters, and we also go to other faith communities,” said Shareef, who served for more than 30 years in the U.S. Air Force and helped to establish the first Islamic military chaplain in 1993. “I do expect that … religious communities are going to be trying to come together,” he said, noting that his mosque also works with churches and gives food to others in the community. “Obviously [the conflict] is going to be on people’s hearts, on people’s souls, it’s bothering people,” Shareef said. Nearly 2 billion Muslims around the world will begin observing the Islamic holiday Ramadan, which is expected to begin on March 10 or 11, depending on the sighting of the moon. During the month of …

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GENEVA — Former Wimbledon and French Open champion Simona Halep had her four-year doping ban cut to nine months by the top court for global sport on Tuesday, making the former world number one eligible to return to competition immediately.  Halep was initially banned for four years for two separate anti-doping rule violations. But the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that her suspension should be reduced to nine months, a period she has already served.  “The CAS Panel has unanimously determined that the four-year period of ineligibility imposed by the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Independent Tribunal is to be reduced to a period of ineligibility of nine (9) months starting on 7 October 2022, which period expired on 6 July 2023,” CAS said in a statement.  The 32-year-old Romanian was suspended in October 2022 after she tested positive for roxadustat – a banned drug that stimulates the production of red blood cells – at the U.S. Open that year.  She was also charged with another doping offense last year due to irregularities in her athlete biological passport (ABP), a method designed to monitor different blood parameters over time to reveal potential doping.  Halep had vigorously denied the charges …

LONDON — The estate of Sinead O’Connor asked Donald Trump Monday not to play her music at campaign rallies, saying the late singer considered the former president a “biblical devil.” Trump has played O’Connor’s biggest hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” at events as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination. In a joint statement, O’Connor’s estate and her record label, Chrysalis, demanded Trump “desist from using her music immediately.” It said the Irish singer, who died last year aged 56, “lived by a fierce moral code defined by honesty, kindness, fairness and decency towards her fellow human beings.” “It was with outrage therefore that we learned that Donald Trump has been using her iconic performance of Nothing Compares 2 U at his political rallies,” the statement said. “It is no exaggeration to say that Sinead would have been disgusted, hurt and insulted to have her work misrepresented in this way by someone who she herself referred to as a ‘biblical devil.’ As the guardians of her legacy, we demand that Donald Trump and his associates desist from using her music immediately.” Fiery and outspoken, O’Connor was a critic of the Roman Catholic Church well before   allegations of sexual abuse were …

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Jerusalem — Israel on Sunday said it had asked lyricists to revise its proposed Eurovision Song Contest entries, potentially heading off a dispute with organizers over political content. Authorities last week said Israel would not be able to participate in this year’s edition of the popular competition if organizers rejected the song choice, which reportedly referenced victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that triggered the ongoing war in Gaza. Eurovision rules ban political content. In a statement on Sunday, Israeli public broadcaster Kan said President Isaac Herzog had called for “necessary adjustments” that would ensure Israel’s inclusion in the event, which it has won four times. This year’s competition is set to be held in Sweden in May. The Israeli broadcaster “contacted the lyricists of the two selected songs, ‘October Rain’ which was chosen in first place, and ‘Dance Forever’ which came in second place, and asked them to readapt the texts, while preserving their artistic freedom,” the statement said. “Among the new texts that will be proposed, Kan will choose the song that will be sent to the Eurovision supervisory committee, so that it approves Israel’s participation in the competition.” The selected song, to be performed by …

LONDON — Singer-songwriter Raye was the big winner Saturday at the BRIT Awards, the biggest night in British music, setting a new record for most prizes in one night at the annual ceremony. Raye won six awards, including for artist of the year, album of the year for My 21st Century Blues and song of the year for Escapism. The 26-year-old also triumphed in the genre category for R&B act and was named best new artist. Her tally of seven nods had broken the record for the most nominations by a single artist in any one year, according to the annual ceremony’s organizers, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Raye, who parted ways with her record label in 2021 to work as an independent artist after she said the label had withheld her debut album, began early celebrations this week, when she was named BRITs Songwriter of the Year. She is the first woman to win the award since its launch in 2022. “You just don’t understand what this means to me,” a tearful Raye said in her acceptance speech for album of the year, while standing next to her grandmother, whom she also thanked for “her prayers.” “I’m so proud of …

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who has been suffering from influenza, said he delegated the reading of a speech at a ceremony Saturday to an aide because he was unable to read it due to bronchitis.  “I have prepared a speech but as you can see, I am unable to read it because of bronchitis. I have asked Monsignor [Filippo] Ciampanelli to read it for me,” a hoarse-sounding pope said.  The speech was for the opening ceremony of the judicial year of the Vatican tribunal.  Afterward, the pope was able to meet German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during an audience at the Vatican.  Francis, 87, has had several health issues recently.  On Wednesday he made a brief trip to a Roman hospital for a checkup after he missed reading at his weekly audience, saying he had “a bit of cold.”  He canceled appointments Monday and last Saturday due to what the Vatican said was a mild flu, but he gave his regular weekly address to the crowds in St Peter’s Square on Sunday.  The pope was forced to cancel a planned trip to a COP28 climate meeting in Dubai at the start of December because of the effects of influenza and lung …

NEW YORK — Iris Apfel, a textile expert, interior designer and fashion celebrity known for her eccentric style, has died. She was 102. Her death was confirmed by her commercial agent, Lori Sale, who called Apfel “extraordinary.” No cause of death was given. It was also announced on her verified Instagram page on Friday, which a day earlier had celebrated that Leap Day represented her 102nd-and-a-half birthday. Born Aug. 29, 1921, Apfel was famous for her irreverent, eye-catching outfits, mixing haute couture and oversized costume jewelry. A classic Apfel look would, for instance, pair a feather boa with strands of chunky beads, bangles and a jacket decorated with Native American beadwork. With her big, round, black-rimmed glasses, bright red lipstick and short white hair, she stood out at every fashion show she attended. Her style was the subject of museum exhibits and a documentary film, Iris, directed by Albert Maysles. “I’m not pretty, and I’ll never be pretty, but it doesn’t matter,” she once said. “I have something much better. I have style.” Apfel enjoyed late-in-life fame on social media, amassing nearly 3 million followers on Instagram, where her profile declares: “More is more & Less is a Bore.” On TikTok, …

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The Iditarod, the annual sled dog race celebrating Alaska’s official state sport, is set to get under way Saturday with a new focus on safety after five dogs died and eight were injured in collisions with snowmobiles while training on shared, multiuse trails. For the first time, mushers who line up for the ceremonial start in Anchorage will have the chance to snag light-up, neon harnesses or necklaces for their dogs before they begin the days-long race that takes the dog-and-human sled teams about 1,600 kilometers over Alaska’s unforgiving terrain. The 38 mushers will trace a course across two mountain ranges, the frozen Yukon River and along the ice-covered Bering Sea. In about 10 days, they will come off the ice and onto Main Street in the old Gold Rush town of Nome for the last push to the finish line. Mushers always have contended with Alaska’s deep winter darkness and whiteout conditions. But the recent dog deaths even while training have put a focus on making the four-legged athletes easier to see at all times. Mushers typically wear a bright headlamp for visibility, but that doesn’t protect lead dogs running about 18 meters in front of the …