A statue in Benin of one of the female warriors of Dahomey, which appeared in the Hollywood film ‘The Woman King,’ was likely built by a sanctioned North Korean company, according to evidence discovered by VOA’s Korean Service. In an exclusive interview with VOA, the Beninois government denies the statue was constructed by North Korea. Henry Wilkins reports from Cotonou, Benin.
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Jeff Beck, a guitar virtuoso who pushed the boundaries of blues, jazz and rock ‘n’ roll, influencing generations of shredders along the way and becoming known as the guitar player’s guitar player, has died. He was 78. 

Beck died Tuesday after “suddenly contracting bacterial meningitis,” his representatives said in a statement released Wednesday. The location was not immediately known. 

“Jeff was such a nice person and an outstanding iconic, genius guitar player — there will never be another Jeff Beck,” Tony Iommi, guitarist for Black Sabbath, wrote on Twitter. 

Beck first came to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds and then went out on his own in a solo career that incorporated hard rock, jazz, funky blues and even opera. He was known for his improvising, love of harmonics and the whammy bar on his preferred guitar, the Fender Stratocaster. 

“Jeff Beck is the best guitar player on the planet,” Joe Perry, the lead guitarist of Aerosmith, told The New York Times in 2010. “He is head, hands and feet above all the rest of us, with the kind of talent that appears only once every generation or two.” 

Beck was among the rock-guitarist pantheon from the late 1960s that included Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix. Beck won eight Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice — once with the Yardbirds in 1992 and again as a solo artist in 2009. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” 

Beck played guitar with vocalists as varied as Luciano Pavarotti, Macy Gray, Chrissie Hynde, Joss Stone, Imelda May, Cyndi Lauper, Wynonna Judd, Buddy Guy and Johnny Depp. He made two records with Rod Stewart — 1968’s “Truth” and 1969’s “Beck-Ola” — and one with a 64-piece orchestra, “Emotion & Commotion.” 

“I like an element of chaos in music. That feeling is the best thing ever, as long as you don’t have too much of it. It’s got to be in balance. I just saw Cirque du Soleil, and it struck me as complete organized chaos,” he told Guitar World magazine in 2014. “If I could turn that into music, it’s not far away from what my ultimate goal would be, which is to delight people with chaos and beauty at the same time.” 

Beck’s career highlights include joining with bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice to create the power trio that released “Beck, Bogert and Appice” in 1973, tours with Brian Wilson and Buddy Guy and a tribute album to the late guitarist Les Paul, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Party (Honoring Les Paul).” 

Geoffrey Arnold Beck was born in Surrey, England, and attended Wimbledon Art College. His father was an accountant, and his mother worked in a chocolate factory. As a boy, he built his first instrument, using a cigar box, a picture frame for the neck and string from a radio-controlled toy airplane. 

He was in a few bands — including Nightshift and the Tridents — before joining the Yardbirds in 1965, replacing Clapton but only a year later giving way to Page. During his tenure, the band created the memorable singles “Heart Full of Soul,” “I’m a Man” and “Shapes of Things.” 

Beck’s first hit single was 1967’s instrumental “Beck’s Bolero,” which featured future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones, and future Who drummer Keith Moon. The Jeff Beck Group — with Stewart singing — was later booked to play the 1969 Woodstock music festival, but their appearance was canceled. Beck later said there was unrest in the band. 

“I could see the end of the tunnel,” he told Rolling Stone in 2010. 

Beck was friends with Hendrix, and they performed together. Before Hendrix, most rock guitar players concentrated on a similar style and technical vocabulary. Hendrix blew that apart. 

“He came along and reset all of the rules in one evening,” Beck told Guitar World. 

Beck teamed up with legendary producer George Martin — a.k.a. “the fifth Beatle” — to help him fashion the genre-melding, jazz-fusion classic “Blow by Blow” (1975) and “Wired” (1976). He teamed up with Seal on the Hendrix tribute “Stone Free,” created a jazz-fusion group led by synthesizer player Jan Hammer and honored rockabilly guitarist Cliff Gallup with the album “Crazy Legs.” He put out “Loud Hailer” in 2016. 

Beck’s guitar work can be heard on the soundtracks of such films as “Stomp the Yard,” “Shallow Hal,” “Casino,” “Honeymoon in Vegas,” “Twins,” “Observe and Report” and “Little Big League.” 

Beck’s career never hit the commercial highs of Clapton. A perfectionist, he preferred to make critically well-received instrumental records and left the limelight for long stretches, enjoying his time restoring vintage automobiles. He and Clapton had a tense relationship early on but became friends in later life and toured together. 

Why did the two wait some four decades to tour together? 

“Because we were all trying to be big bananas,” Beck told Rolling Stone in 2010. “Except I didn’t have the luxury of the hit songs Eric’s got.” 

Beck is survived by his wife, Sandra. 
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U.S. filmmaker Steven Spielberg was among the honorees at the annual Golden Globes awards ceremony Tuesday night. 

The director of such classics as “Jaws,” “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan” won the best director trophy for his autobiographical film “The Fabelmans,” which was named best movie drama. It was the third Golden Globes award for the 76-year-old Spielberg, who previously won for “Schindler’s List” and “Saving Private Ryan.” 

“The Banshees of Inisherin,” a dark story about two feuding Irishmen, was named the best movie musical or comedy.  Director Martin McDonagh won for best screenplay, while star Colin Farrell won for best actor in a comedy.  

In the best actor for a movie drama category, Austin Butler won for his performance as the King of Rock and Roll in “Elvis,” while Cate Blanchett won the Golden Globe for best actress in a movie drama for her performance as a troubled symphony conductor in “Tár.”   

Angela Bassett made history when she won for best actress in a supporting role in any motion picture for her performance in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” making her the first actor from a Marvel Comics film to win a Golden Globes. Ke Huy Quan won the best actor in a supporting role in any movie for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while co-star Michelle Yeoh won best performance by an actress in a movie musical or comedy. 

The annual Golden Globes ceremony, which also honors television shows and performances, normally begins Hollywood’s yearly awards season which is capped by the Academy Awards.  But the NBC television network took the show off the air last year after it was revealed that its parent organization, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, had no Black journalists in its membership ranks, along with ethical issues involving its finances. 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
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The Blumhouse evil-doll horror film “M3gan” got off to a killer start, debuting with $30.2 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates, while “Avatar: The Way of Water” continued its box-office reign in the top spot. 

Universal Pictures’ “M3gan,” about a robot companion built for a young girl after her parents are killed in a car accident, rode strong buzz and viral dancing memes to an above-expectations debut. In the low-budget slasher, starring Allison Williams, Blumhouse and producer James Wan crafted Hollywood’s first hit of the new year, likely spawning a new high-concept horror franchise. 

Audiences gave the PG-13 film a “B” CinemaScore — though reviews (94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) were stronger for the modern, techy twist on a “Child’s Play”-like thriller. It added $10 million internationally. 

But while “M3gan” drew audiences largely in 2D showings, large-format screens continued to be soaked up by James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water.” The 3-D three-hour sequel remained No. 1 for the fourth straight week in U.S. and Canadian theaters with $45 million in sales. 

Cameron’s sci-fi spectacle has now surpassed $500 million domestically and $1.7 billion globally. After dominating the otherwise lackluster holiday corridor, the “Avatar” sequel is nearly matching the original’s pace; the 2009 “Avatar” scored $50.3 million in its fourth weekend. “The Way of Water” already ranks as the seventh highest grossing film ever, not accounting for inflation — a total particularly owed to its strong overseas performance. The film’s $1.2 billion in international ticket sales exceeds that of any film released since the start of the pandemic. 

“M3gan” was the only new film in wide release, though Sony Pictures’ “A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks, played in 637 theaters after first launching in four theaters. The film, a remake of the Swedish film “A Man Called Ove,” managed a solid $4.2 million ahead of its nationwide release on Friday. 

Third place went to “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” with $13.1 million in its third week of release. The animated Universal Pictures sequel has tallied $87.7 million in three weeks, plus $109.7 million internationally. 

While many awards contenders have struggled in recent months at the box office, Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” is proving a modest exception. The A24 indie starring Brendan Fraser ranked seventh in its fifth week of release with $1.5 million and a cumulative total of $8.6 million — a good return for a film that cost an estimated $3 million to make. 

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 

"Avatar: The Way of Water," $45 million. 
"M3gan," $30.2 million. 
"Puss in Boots: The Last Wish," $13.1 million. 
"A Man Called Otto," $4.2 million. 
"Black Panther: Wakanda Forever," $4 million. 
"Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody," $2.4 million. 
"The Whale," $1.5 million. 
"Babylon," $1.4 million. 
"Violent Night," $740,000. 
"The Menu," $713,000. 

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Nature photographers from around the world expressed their sentiments about an ever-changing planet in a contest sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, a U.S.-based environmental nonprofit. VOA’s Julie Taboh has more on the winning images.
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It was uplifting enough for the Buffalo Bills staff and players to see Damar Hamlin appear on the video screen in the team’s meeting room Friday — “larger than life,” as coach Sean McDermott put it — for the first time since the safety collapsed and had to be resuscitated on the field.

What sent everyone’s emotions over the top was hearing Hamlin, his mouth and throat still raw shortly after having a breathing tube removed, softly say: ” Love you, boys.”

“Amazing. Touching. To see Damar, No. 1, through my own eyes, I know it’s something I’ve been looking forward to, kind of needing to see,” McDermott said. “And to see the players’ reaction. They stood up right away and clapped for him and yelled some things at him. It was a pretty cool exchange.”

Four days since his heart stopped after making what appeared to be a routine tackle in a game, the 24-year-old Hamlin from his hospital room in Cincinnati and the Bills enjoyed a moment of jubilation in celebrating the next step in what his doctors have termed a remarkable recovery.

“We got our boy, man. It’s all that matters,” left tackle Dion Dawkins said.

“To see the boy’s face, to see him smile and to see him go like this in the camera,” Dawkins said, flexing his muscles to mimic Hamlin, “it was everything. And then to hear him talk, it was literally everything. That’s what we needed.”

Hamlin is now breathing and walking on his own and traded in the writing pad he had been using to communicate. Though there is no timetable for his release, Hamlin’s doctors said Thursday that both breathing on his own and showing continued signs of improvement are the final steps for him to be discharged from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

Hamlin spent his first two days in the hospital under sedation. Upon being awakened Wednesday evening, Hamlin was able to follow commands and grip people’s hands. The breathing tube was removed, the team said Friday, and Hamlin’s “neurologic function remains intact.”

The team did not say whether Hamlin’s status remains critical or whether he’s been moved from intensive care.

“The hair on the back of my neck stood up when he said, ‘I love you boys,'” said general manager Brandon Beane, who returned to Buffalo Thursday after spending the three days at Hamlin’s bedside along with the player’s family.

The turning point in Hamlin’s recovery, for Beane, anyway, came Thursday morning when the two exchanged hugs.

“Just to be able to hug him and the grip strength that he had,” Beane said, before recalling what he told Hamlin’s father, Mario. “I told him, I’m not a crier, but man it was emotional and a lot of grown men in there [were] crying yesterday. Something I’ll never forget.”

The sight of Hamlin collapsing, which was broadcast to a North American TV audience on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” has led to an outpouring of support from fans and players from across the league. Fans, team owners and players — including Tom Brady and Russell Wilson — have made donations to Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation, which had raised just short of $8 million by Friday afternoon.
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Jordynn Cromartie entered her senior year of high school facing a daunting choice, one countless other Black gymnasts have faced for decades.

The teenager from Houston wanted to attend a historically Black college or university. And she wanted to compete in the sport she’s dedicated most of her life to.

One problem. She knew she couldn’t do both, something Cromartie brought up over Thanksgiving dinner while talking to her uncle, Frank Simmons, a member of the Board of Trustees at Fisk University, a private HBCU of around 1,000 students in Nashville, Tennessee.

“He and my aunt were like, ‘Oh you haven’t made a decision, you should come to Fisk,’” Cromartie said. “I’m like, ‘Well, they don’t have a gymnastics team.’ To go to a college that doesn’t have what I would be working for forever was crazy to me.”

Simmons, stunned, made a promise to his niece.

“Watch,” he told her. “I’ll make it happen.”

In the span of a few weeks, Simmons connected Derrin Moore — the founder of Atlanta-based Brown Girls Do Gymnastics, an organization that’d been trying to drum up support for an HBCU for years — with Fisk’s trustees. One trustee listened to Moore’s pitch and offered to make a $100,000 donation on the spot if Fisk adopted the sport.

And seemingly in a flash, all the roadblocks and misconceptions Moore had encountered while spending the better part of a decade trying to persuade an HBCU to take the leap on an increasingly diverse sport evaporated.

On Friday afternoon at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, barely 14 months after Fisk committed to building a program from the ground up, Cromartie — now a freshman at her uncle’s alma mater — and the rest of her teammates will make history when they become the first HBCU to participate in an NCAA women’s gymnastics meet. The Bulldogs will compete against Southern Utah, North Carolina and Washington as part of the inaugural Super 16, an event that also includes perennial NCAA powers like Oklahoma, UCLA and Michigan.

“I feel like it’s nice to show that Black girls can do it, too,” Cromartie said. “We have a team that’s 100% of people of color and you’ve never seen that before anywhere. … I feel like we have a point to prove.”

The face of high-level women’s gymnastics is changing. While athletes of color have excelled at the sport’s highest level for decades, participation among Black athletes has spiked over the last 10 years thanks in part to the popularity of Olympic champions Gabby Douglas and Simone Biles.

Black gymnasts account for around 10% of scholarships at the NCAA Division I level, an increase from 7% in 2012, when Douglas became the first Black woman win to Olympic gold. More than 10% of USA Gymnastics members self-identify as Black.

It’s a massive jump from when Corrinne Tarver became the first Black woman to win an NCAA all-around title at Georgia in 1989.

“When I first went to school, there were a scattering of (Black gymnasts),” said Tarver, now the head coach and athletic director at Fisk. “One on this team, one on that team … there wasn’t a lot of African-American gymnasts around back then compared to today.”

Still, it caught Umme Salim-Beasley off guard when she began exploring her college options in the early 1990s. Salim-Beasley grew up in the Washington, D.C., area and competed in the same gym as four-time Olympic medalist Dominique Dawes. Salim-Beasley wanted to go to an HBCU. When she approached an HBCU recruiter at a college fair and told the recruiter she was a gymnast, the response she received shocked her.

“They didn’t see it as a sport for women of color,” said Salim-Beasley, who ended up competing at West Virginia and is now the head coach at Rutgers. “And that was the perception, that gymnastics was not a sport that was welcoming or had enough interest from women of color.”

Which has made the response to Fisk’s inaugural class even more rewarding.

For years, Moore and Salim-Beasley — a member of the advisory council at Brown Girls Do Gymnastics — would struggle just to set up exploratory interviews with HBCU athletics officials. In the months since Fisk’s program launched, Moore and Salim-Beasley have talked to presidents at nine HBCUs.

“People are really interested,” Moore said. “They still have a lot of questions and still not pulling the trigger, but they are reaching out.”

All of which puts Fisk in an enviable if challenging spot. The program is a beta test of sorts as other HBCUs watch from afar to see how Fisk handles the massive logistical and economic hurdles that come with launching a program.

The Bulldogs don’t have an on-campus facility and are currently training at a club gym a few miles from campus, though they are fundraising in hopes of remedying that soon. They are competing this year as an independent while waiting to get their NCAA status sorted out.

And Tarver immediately threw the program into the deep end of the pool. Their inaugural schedule includes meets at Michigan, Georgia and Rutgers.

“It would have been really easy to just put in schools that were not as strong and then make our whole schedule like that and then just hope for the best,” Tarver said. “But I didn’t want to do that. I wanted them to realize that they belong on that stage.”

In that way, Tarver is following through on her recruiting pitch last spring, when she spent hours on Zoom asking young women of color to believe in something that had never existed before.

“Basically, I pitched them on the dream,” Tarver said. “I told them they’ll be a part of history. Their names will go down in history as the first HBCU ever.”

It proved to be a far easier sell than Tarver imagined.

Morgan Price initially committed to Arkansas so she could compete with her older sister, Frankie. Yet once Fisk announced it was going to take the ambitious step of competing in 2023, Price felt drawn to the opportunity.

“Since we are the first, it’s kind of special,” Price said. “We get to build it from the ground up.”

And yes, the perks of being the first don’t hurt. Several Bulldogs appeared on Jennifer Hudson’s talk show in the fall. An Emmy-winning documentarian is following them throughout the season. The splash on social media has been sizable.

So has the splash in real life. When Price returned to her club gym in Texas shortly after committing to Fisk, the energy she felt from younger gymnasts of color as they peppered her with questions was palpable.

“They were telling me, ‘I can’t wait until I can be recruited so I can be an HBCU gymnast as well,’” Price said.

That’s the big-picture plan. Moore is optimistic several HBCU schools will follow in Fisk’s footsteps soon.

They just won’t be the first. That honor will go to the women in the blue-and-gold leotards who will salute the judges for the first time Friday, as the team filled with athletes who “come from backgrounds where they were kind of told that they weren’t as good,” as Tarver put it, makes history.

Athletes who no longer have to choose between heritage and opportunity.

“Already being an HBCU, we’re the underdogs,” Cromartie said. “We haven’t had much time to practice. We don’t have the resources of other schools yet … but we are eager to prove we can keep up with everyone else. That we belong.”
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Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin has shown what physicians treating him are calling “remarkable improvement over the past 24 hours,” the team announced Thursday, three days after the player went into cardiac arrest and had to be resuscitated on the field. 

“While still critically ill, he has demonstrated that he appears to be neurologically intact,” the Bills said in a statement. “His lungs continue to heal and he is making steady progress.” 

Bills rookie cornerback Kaiir Elam also posted a message on his Twitter account that said Hamlin “is doing better, awake and showing signs of improvement.” 

The developments came as the Bills were scheduled to return to practice on Thursday for the first time since Hamlin collapsed after his heart stopped after making a tackle and was rushed to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center during the first quarter of Buffalo’s game against the Bengals on Monday night.

The second-year player has spent the past two days sedated and listed in critical condition.

The Bills’ announcement comes as they prepare to play a home game against the New England Patriots on Sunday, and with the team still dealing with the shock of seeing their teammate collapse on the field, his heart not beating.

After returning home early Tuesday once the game was suspended, the Bills held meetings and a walkthrough practice without any media availability on Wednesday. On Thursday, players were spotted arriving at the facility, though the team has not yet released a practice schedule.

The chilling sight of Hamlin collapsing, which was broadcast to a North American TV audience on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” has led to an outpouring of support from fans and players from across the league.

Numerous players — former teammates and those who didn’t know Hamlin until Monday — voiced their support, while saying they were shaken by what happened.

Colts safety Rodney Thomas made the two-hour drive from Indianapolis to Cincinnati on Tuesday just to be by the side of his former high school teammate.

“He’s a fighter. I know he’s a fighter and there’s no other thought in my mind other than him walking out under his own power,” Thomas said Wednesday.

Minnesota Vikings defensive tackle Harrison Phillips, who spent the previous four seasons playing for Buffalo, had dinner delivered to the hospital for Hamlin’s family and medical staff.

Hamlin’s marketing representative Jordon Rooney said Wednesday that the player’s family was buoyed by the words and acts of kindness.

“They are elated right now,” Rooney said. “Damar is still their first concern. But for them, they always look at how they can turn a somewhat troubling situation into a good one. The bounce back from this, for him and his family, is going to be incredible.”

What remains unclear is whether the NFL will reschedule the Bills’ game against the Bengals, which has major implications in determining the top spot in the AFC. The playoffs are set to open on January 14.

The Chiefs (13-3) have a half-game lead over Buffalo (12-3), with the Bills owning the tiebreaker after beating Kansas City this season. The Bengals (11-4) are currently the third seed and have also defeated the Chiefs.

Hamlin was hurt in the first quarter when he was struck squarely in the chest while making what appeared to be routine tackle of Bengals receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin briefly got up and adjusted his facemask before collapsing backward.

Hamlin was selected by Buffalo in the sixth round of the 2021 draft out of Pitt. He spent his rookie season limited to special teams roles, and took over the starting safety job in Week 3 in place of veteran Micah Hyde, who remains sidelined by a neck injury.

Fans, team owners and players — including Tom Brady and Russell Wilson — have made donations to Hamlin’s Chasing M’s Foundation, which had raised more than $7 million by Thursday morning. 

 
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Iran released a prominent actress from an Oscar-winning film on Wednesday, nearly three weeks after she was jailed for criticizing a crackdown on anti-government protests, local reports said.

Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency said Taraneh Alidoosti, the 38-year-old star of Asghar Farhadi’s Oscar-winning “The Salesman,” was released on bail. Her mother, Nadere Hakimelahi, had earlier said she would be released in a post on Instagram.

After her release from the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran on Wednesday, Alidoosti posed with flowers among her friends. No further details have been released about her case.

Alidoosti was among several Iranian celebrities to express support for the nationwide protests and criticize the authorities’ violent clampdown on dissent. She had posted at least three messages in support of the protests on Instagram before her account was disabled.

One message had expressed solidarity with the first man to be executed on charges linked to the protests, which were triggered by the death of a woman in police custody and have escalated into widespread calls for the overthrow of Iran’s ruling clerics.

The protests mark one of the biggest challenges to the Islamic Republic since it was established after the 1979 revolution. Security forces have used live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and batons to disperse protesters, according to rights groups.

Mohsen Shekari was executed Dec. 9 after being charged by an Iranian court with blocking a street in Tehran and attacking a member of the country’s security forces with a machete. A week later, Iran executed a second prisoner, Majidreza Rahnavard, by public hanging. He had been accused of stabbing two members of the paramilitary Basij militia, which is leading the crackdown.

Activists say at least a dozen people have been sentenced to death in closed-door hearings over charges linked to the protests.

“His name was Mohsen Shekari,” Alidoosti wrote on an account with some 8 million followers before her arrest. “Every international organization who is watching this bloodshed and not taking action, is a disgrace to humanity.”

At least 516 protesters have been killed and over 19,000 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest. Iranian authorities have not provided an official count of those killed or detained.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, two other famous Iranian actresses, were arrested in November for expressing solidarity with protesters on social media. Voria Ghafouri, an Iranian soccer star, was also arrested that month for ”insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.” All three have been released.

The protests began in mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Women have played a leading role in the protests, with many publicly stripping off the compulsory Islamic headscarf, known as the hijab.

The protesters say they are fed up after decades of political and social repression. One of the main slogans has been “Death to the dictator,” referring to Iran’s 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has held the country’s highest office for more than three decades.

Iranian officials blame the protests on the U.S. and other foreign powers. State-linked media have highlighted attacks on security forces, while authorities have imposed heavy restrictions on coverage of the demonstrations, including periodically cutting off internet access.

Khamenei, who has said little about the protests, spoke about Islamic dress on Wednesday in a meeting with women, saying the hijab is necessary but that those who do not “completely observe” the practice “should not be accused of being non-religious or against the revolution.”

Even before the protests, many Iranian women wore the headscarf loosely, and authorities sometimes eased off on enforcing it, particularly during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who governed from 2013 to 2021. His successor, the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi, had moved to tighten the restrictions.

Alidoosti had previously criticized the Iranian government and its police force before this year’s protests.

In June 2020, she was given a suspended five-month prison sentence after she criticized the police on Twitter in 2018 for assaulting a woman who had removed her headscarf.

Other well-known movies Alidoosti has starred in include “The Beautiful City” and “About Elly.”
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The suspected mastermind behind the removal of a Banksy mural in a Ukrainian town could face up to 12 years in prison if found guilty, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said Monday.

The artwork, depicting a woman in a gas mask and a dressing gown holding a fire extinguisher, was taken off a wall in the town of Hostomel on December 2, according to officials.

The ministry announced on its website that the man it believes orchestrated the operation had been handed a “suspicion notice.”

The artwork by the renowned British artist had been valued at $243,900, the ministry statement said.

“The criminals tried to transport this graffiti with the help of wooden boards and polyethylene,” it said.

“Thanks to the concern of citizens, the police and other security forces managed to arrest the criminals.”

The mural was retrieved.

Banksy confirmed he had painted the mural and six others in places that were hit by heavy fighting after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. 

 
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The Brazilian coastal city of Santos, which sporting giant Pele turned into a byword for soccer brilliance during a glittering club career, started bidding goodbye to its hero on Monday with a 24-hour wake.

Mourners lined up to see Pele’s body in an open casket in the center of the field at the Vila Belmiro stadium, home of the Santos Football Club. Pele died on Thursday at 82 after battling colon cancer.

“Pele leaves millions of Santos fans across our country. He was the creator of Brazilian soccer,” said Antonio da Paz, a fan outside the stadium for the memorial that began at 10 a.m. (1300 GMT). 

FIFA President Gianni Infantino was among the first to arrive for the service and said he would ask every country to name a stadium after Pele, the only man to win the World Cup three times as a player.

“Pele is eternal,” Infantino told reporters. “FIFA will certainly honor the ‘king’ as he deserves. We have asked all football associations in the world to pay a minute of silence before every game and will also ask them, 211 countries, to name a stadium after Pele. Future generations must know and remember who Pele was.”

Edson Arantes do Nascimento – Pele’s given name – was born in 1940 in the small country town of Tres Coracoes, but moved to Santos in 1956 and lived there for most of his life.

In the early hours Monday, his body arrived under fireworks in the city of about 430,000 people from Sao Paulo’s Albert Einstein Hospital.

Former Brazil midfielder Ze Roberto and Pele’s son Edinho helped placing his coffin in the field, TV footage showed. Floral wreaths were sent by the likes of Neymar, Vinicius Junior and Real Madrid.

On Tuesday, a procession carrying Pele’s coffin will pass through the streets of Santos, ending at the Ecumenical Memorial Necropolis cemetery, where he will be buried in a private ceremony.

Santos’ press office said some 5,000 journalists from all over the world had been accredited to cover the wake of Pele, who scored more than 1,000 goals for Santos.

Several government officials are expected to attend the memorial, including newly sworn-in Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, a longtime Santos supporter.

Sao Paulo state military police said in a statement they had prepared a special operation called the “King Pele Operation” to ensure public order.

“I’ll be here all day, 24 hours, from 10 a.m. to 10 a.m.,” fan Roberto Santos said. “Pele deserves it.”
…

An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday.

The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world.

Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from 664 B.C. until Alexander the Great’s campaign in 332 B.C.

The sarcophagus, almost 3 meters (9.5 feet) tall with a brightly painted top surface, may have belonged to an ancient priest named Ankhenmaat, though some of the inscription on it has been erased, Waziri said.

It was symbolically handed over at a ceremony Monday in Cairo by Daniel Rubinstein, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Egypt.

The handover came more than three months after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office determined the sarcophagus was looted from Abu Sir Necropolis, north of Cairo. It was smuggled through Germany into the United States in 2008, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg.

“This stunning coffin was trafficked by a well-organized network that has looted countless antiquities from the region,” Bragg said at the time. “We are pleased that this object will be returned to Egypt, where it rightfully belongs.”

Bragg said the same network had smuggled a gilded coffin out of Egypt that was featured at New York’s Metropolitan Museum. Met bought the piece from a Paris art dealer in 2017 for about $4 million. It was returned to Egypt in 2019.
…

Anita Pointer, one of four sibling singers who earned pop success and critical acclaim as The Pointer Sisters, died Saturday at the age of 74, her publicist announced.

The Grammy winner died while she was with family members, publicist Roger Neal said in a statement. A cause of death was not immediately revealed.

“While we are deeply saddened by the loss of Anita, we are comforted in knowing she is now with her daughter Jada and her sisters June & Bonnie and at peace. She was the one that kept all of us close and together for so long,” her sister Ruth, brothers Aaron and Fritz and granddaughter Roxie McKain Pointer said in the statement.

Anita Pointer’s only daughter, Jada Pointer, died in 2003.

Anita, Ruth, Bonnie and June Pointer, born the daughters of a minister, grew up singing in their father’s church in Oakland, California.

The group’s 1973 self-titled debut album included the breakout hit, “Yes We Can Can.” Known for hit songs including “I’m So Excited,” “Slow Hand,” “Neutron Dance” and “Jump (For My Love),” the singers gained a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994.

The 1983 album “Break Out” went triple platinum and garnered two American Music Awards. The group won three Grammy Awards and had 13 U.S. top 20 hit songs between 1973 and 1985, Neal said.

The Pointer Sisters also was the first African American group to perform on the Grand Ole Opry program and the first contemporary act to perform at the San Francisco Opera House, Neal said.

Bonnie Pointer left the group in 1977, signing a solo deal with Motown Records but enjoying only modest success. “We were devastated,” Anita Pointer said of the departure in 1990. “We did a show the night she left, but after that, we just stopped. We thought it wasn’t going to work without Bonnie.”

The group, in various lineups including younger family members, continued recording through 1993.

June Pointer died of cancer at the age of 52 in 2006.

Anita Pointer announced Bonnie Pointer’s death resulting from cardiac arrest at the age of 69 in 2020. “The Pointer Sisters would never have happened had it not been for Bonnie,” she said in a statement. 
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Avatar: The Way of Water” is the box office king for a third straight week and shows no sign of slowing down.

James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel to the first “Avatar” film brought in an estimated $63 million over the holiday weekend, roughly the same as the previous week, and now has made more than $400 million domestically and more than $1.3 billion globally. “The Way of Water” is already the 15th highest global release ever, just behind the first “Black Panther.”

Numbers released Sunday by Comscore showed “Avatar” far ahead of the runner-up, Universal’s “Shrek” spinoff “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” which made an estimated $16 million, and Disney’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” which brought in around $4.8 million.

The Sony biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” made $4.2 million in its second week of release. “Babylon,” the epic of early Hollywood starring Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie, continued to fare badly despite its five Golden Globe nominations. The Paramount release earned just $2.7 million in its second week, a 24% drop, and averaged just $815 per location. By comparison, the new “Avatar,” a 20th Century Studios film, averaged more than $15,000.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “Avatar: The Way of Water,” $63 million.

2. “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” $16 million.

3. “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” $4.8 million.

4. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” $4.2 million.

5. “Babylon,” $2.7 million.

6. “Violent Night,” $2.1 million.

7. “The Whale,” $1.3 million.

8. “The Fabelmans,” $1.1 million.

9. “The Menu,” $1.1 million.

10. “Strange World,” $538,000.
    …

The world welcomed the new year with a packed party in Times Square and fireworks soaring above European capitals, while hoping for an end to the war in Ukraine and a return to post-COVID normality in Asia. 

It was a year marked by the conflict in Ukraine, economic stresses and the effects of global warming. But it was also a year that saw a dramatic soccer World Cup, rapid technological change, and efforts to meet climate challenges. 

After 2023 descended upon Asia, Africa and Europe, New York rang in the new year in typical style as thousands corralled themselves into pens under pouring rain in Times Square, waiting hours for the ball to drop. A 12-foot (3.7-meter) geodesic sphere made of Waterford crystal triangles slid down a pole atop a 25-story building to mark the calendar change. 

Meanwhile, millions watched the accompanying musical acts and countdown on television from dry and warm living rooms around the world.  

Tommy Onolfo, 40, a mechanic from nearby Nassau County, said he wore a diaper during his drenched, 14-hour wait in Times Square, as security measures require spectators to deprive themselves of all comforts to maintain a front-row view. 

“I’m a lifeguard in the summer so I’m not afraid of water at all,” Onolfo said. “I have my bathroom thing down to a science. I haven’t had to use the diaper yet. It’s just in case.” 

Earlier, across the Atlantic, the London Eye turned blue and yellow in solidarity with Ukraine as fireworks saw in midnight in the British capital. 

The celebration, which London’s mayor had branded the biggest in Europe, also referenced Queen Elizabeth II, who died in September, the red and white of England’s soccer team, and the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ Pride event, which had its 50-year anniversary in 2022. 

For Ukraine, there seemed to be no end in sight to the fighting that began when Russia invaded in February. 

Numerous blasts were heard in Kyiv and in other places around Ukraine and air raid sirens wailed across the country in the early hours of New Year’s Day. 

On Saturday, Russia fired a barrage of cruise missiles that Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman described as “Terror on New Year’s Eve.” 

Evening curfews remained in place nationwide, making the celebration of the beginning of 2023 impossible in many public spaces. Several regional governors posted messages on social media warning residents not to break restrictions. 

In Kyiv, though, people gathered near the city’s central Christmas tree as midnight approached. 

“We are not giving up. They couldn’t ruin our celebrations,” said 36-year-old Yaryna, who was celebrating with her husband, tinsel and fairy lights wrapped around her. 

In a video message to mark the New Year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Time Magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year, said: “I want to wish all of us one thing – victory.” 

Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his New Year’s address to rallying the Russian people behind his troops. 

Festivities in Moscow were muted, without the usual fireworks on Red Square. 

“One should not pretend that nothing is happening – our people are dying (in Ukraine),” said 68-year-old Yelena Popova. “A holiday is being celebrated, but there must be limits.” Many Muscovites said they hoped for peace in 2023. 

Elsewhere in Europe, fireworks exploded over the Parthenon in Athens, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, where crowds gathered on the Champs-Elysees avenue to watch the French capital’s first New Year fireworks since 2019.  

But, like many places, the Czech capital Prague was feeling the pinch economically and so did not hold a fireworks display. 

“Holding celebrations did not seem appropriate,” said city hall spokesman Vit Hofman. 

Earlier, Australia kicked off the celebrations with its first restriction-free New Year’s Eve after two years of COVID disruptions. Sydney welcomed the New Year with a typically dazzling fireworks display, which for the first time featured a rainbow waterfall off the Harbour Bridge. 

In China, rigorous COVID restrictions were lifted only in December as the government abruptly reversed its “zero-COVID” policy, a switch that has led to soaring infections and meant some people were in no mood to celebrate. 

While China’s official death toll is barely ticking higher, UK-based health data firm Airfinity estimated last week that around 9,000 people in the country are probably dying each day from COVID. 

“This virus should just go and die, cannot believe this year I cannot even find a healthy friend that can go out with me,” wrote one social media user based in eastern Shandong province. 

But in the city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, thousands of people gathered to despite a heavy security presence. 

Barricades were erected and hundreds of police officers stood guard. Loudspeakers blasted out a message on a loop advising people not to gather. But the large crowds of revelers took no notice. 

In Shanghai, many thronged the historic riverside walkway, the Bund. 

“We’ve all traveled in from Chengdu to celebrate in Shanghai,” said Da Dai, a 28-year-old digital media executive who was visiting with two friends. “We’ve already had COVID, so now feel it’s safe to enjoy ourselves.” 
…

Sherlock Holmes is finally free to the American public in 2023.

The long-running contested copyright dispute over Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of a whip-smart detective will finally come to an end as the 1927 copyrights expiring January 1 include Conan Doyle’s last Sherlock Holmes work.

Alongside the short-story collection The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, books such as Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, Ernest Hemingway’s Men Without Women, William Faulkner’s Mosquitoes and Agatha Christie’s The Big Four — an Hercule Poirot mystery — will become public domain as the calendar turns to 2023.

Once a work enters the public domain it can legally be shared, performed, reused, repurposed or sampled without permission or cost. The works from 1927 were originally supposed to be copyrighted for 75 years, but the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act delayed opening them up for an additional 20 years.

While many prominent works on the list used those extra two decades to earn their copyright holders good money, a Duke University expert says the copyright protections also applied to “all of the works whose commercial viability had long subsided.”

“For the vast majority — probably 99% — of works from 1927, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason,” Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, wrote in a blog post heralding “Public Domain Day 2023.”

That long U.S. copyright period meant many works that would now become available have long since been lost, because they were not profitable to maintain by the legal owners but couldn’t be used by others. On the Duke list are such “lost” films as Victor Fleming’s “The Way of All Flesh” and Tod Browning’s “London After Midnight.”

1927 portended the silent film era’s end with the release of the first “talkie” — a film with dialogue in it. That was “The Jazz Singer,” the historic first feature-length film with synchronized dialogue also notorious for Al Jolson’s blackface performance.

In addition to the Alan Crosland-directed film, other movies including “Wings” — directed by William A. Wellman and the “outstanding production” winner at the very first Oscars — and Fritz Lang’s seminal science-fiction classic “Metropolis” will enter the public domain.

Musical compositions — the music and lyrics found on sheet music, not the sound recordings — on the list include hits from Broadway musicals including “Funny Face” and jazz standards from the likes of legends such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington, in addition to Irving Berlin’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream” by Howard Johnson, Billy Moll and Robert A. King.

Duke’s Center for the Public Domain highlighted notable books, movies and musical compositions entering the public domain — just a fraction of the thousands due to be unleashed in 2023.

Books

— The Gangs of New York, by Herbert Asbury (original publication)

— Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather

— The Big Four, by Agatha Christie

— The Tower Treasure, the first Hardy Boys mystery by the pseudonymous Franklin W. Dixon

— The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle

— Copper Sun, by Countee Cullen

— Mosquitoes, by William Faulkner

— Men Without Women, by Ernest Hemingway

— Der Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse (in German)

— Amerika, by Franz Kafka (in German)

— Now We Are Six, by A.A. Milne with illustrations from E.H. Shepard

— Le Temps retrouvé, by Marcel Proust (in French)

— Twilight Sleep, by Edith Wharton

— The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder

— To The Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

Movies

— “7th Heaven,” directed by Frank Borzage

— “The Battle of the Century,” a Laurel and Hardy film directed by Clyde Bruckman

— “The Kid Brother,” directed by Ted Wilde

— “The Jazz Singer,” directed by Alan Crosland

— “The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog,” directed by Alfred Hitchcock

— “Metropolis,” directed by Fritz Lang

— “Sunrise,” directed by F.W. Murnau

— “Upstream,” directed by John Ford

— “Wings,” directed by William A. Wellman

Musical compositions

— “Back Water Blues,” “Preaching the Blues” and “Foolish Man Blues” (Bessie Smith)

— “The Best Things in Life Are Free,” from the musical “Good News” (George Gard “Buddy” De Sylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson)

— “Billy Goat Stomp,” “Hyena Stomp” and “Jungle Blues” (Ferdinand Joseph Morton)

— “Black and Tan Fantasy” and “East St. Louis Toodle-O” (Bub Miley, Duke Ellington)

— “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” and “Ol’ Man River,” from the musical “Show Boat” (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern)

— “Diane” (Erno Rapee, Lew Pollack)

— “Funny Face” and “‘S Wonderful,” from the musical “Funny Face” (Ira and George Gershwin)

— “(I Scream You Scream, We All Scream for) Ice Cream” (Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, Robert A. King)

— “Mississippi Mud” (Harry Barris, James Cavanaugh)

— “My Blue Heaven” (George Whiting, Walter Donaldson)

— “Potato Head Blues” and “Gully Low Blues” (Louis Armstrong)

— “Puttin’ on the Ritz” (Irving Berlin)

— “Rusty Pail Blues,” “Sloppy Water Blues” and “Soothin’ Syrup Stomp” (Thomas Waller)
…

Photo collage above: Top row, from left, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, singer Ronnie Spector, actor Sidney Poitier, Queen Elizabeth, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. Bottom row, from left, actress Angela Lansbury, singer Jerry Lee Lewis, Pakistani doctor who championed women’s health and rights Nafis Sadik, Soviet cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, revered Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh and NBA star Bill Russell.
…

Cristiano Ronaldo completed a lucrative move to Saudi Arabian club Al Nassr on Friday in a deal that is a landmark moment for Middle Eastern soccer but will see one of Europe’s biggest stars disappear from the sport’s elite stage.

Al Nassr posted a picture on social media of the five-time Ballon d’Or holding up the team’s jersey after Ronaldo signed a deal until June 2025, with the club hailing the move as “history in the making.”

“This is a signing that will not only inspire our club to achieve even greater success but inspire our league, our nation and future generations, boys and girls to be the best version of themselves,” the club wrote.

It also gives the 37-year-old Ronaldo a massive payday in what could be the final contract of his career. Media reports have claimed the Portugal star could be earning up to $200 million a year from the deal, which would make him the highest-paid soccer player in history.

Ronaldo said in a statement that he was “eager to experience a new football league in a different country.”

“I am fortunate that I have won everything I set out to win in European football and feel now that this is the right moment to share my experience in Asia,” the forward added.

While the signing is a massive boost for Middle Eastern soccer, it will also fuel the debate about Saudi Arabia using so-called “sportswashing” to boost the country’s image internationally. Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund owns Premier League team Newcastle, and the country is considering a bid to host the 2030 World Cup.

Ronaldo had been a free agent after his contract was terminated by Manchester United following an explosive TV interview in which he criticized manager Erik ten Hag and the club’s owners after having been repeatedly benched and even temporarily suspended by the club.

He is also coming off a disappointing World Cup where he was benched in the knockout rounds and left the field in tears after Portugal lost in the quarterfinals to Morocco.

And after a storied career that saw him win the Champions League with both United and Real Madrid, along with league and cup titles in England, Spain and Italy, he will now seemingly see out the last years of his career far away from the spotlight of top European soccer.

While Saudi Arabia earned its biggest international soccer win ever at the World Cup in Qatar last month when it beat eventual champion Argentina in its first group-stage game, the domestic league has few other stars and is not watched by a major international audience.
…

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, the first pope in 600 years to resign, has died. Below are highlights from his life.

April 16, 1927: Born Joseph Alois Ratzinger in Marktl am Inn, Germany, youngest of three children to Joseph and Maria Ratzinger.

1943-45: Assistant in Germany’s anti-aircraft defense and infantry soldier; imprisoned in 1945 in American POW camp in Neu-Ulm.

June 29, 1951: Ordained along with brother Georg Ratzinger in Freising.

1969-77: Professor at University of Regensburg.

March 25, 1977: Named archbishop of Munich and Freising.

June 27, 1977: Made a cardinal by Pope Paul VI.

Nov. 25, 1981: Named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II; takes up post in March 1982.

April 2, 2005: Pope John Paul II dies.

April 8, 2005: As dean of the College of Cardinals, Ratzinger presides over John Paul’s funeral.

April 19, 2005: Elected 265th pope in one of the fastest conclaves in history. Choosing name Benedict XVI, he says he is merely a “simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.”

April 24, 2005: Installed as pope with Mass.

Aug. 18-21, 2005: First foreign trip, to World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany.

Sept. 24, 2005: Meets with dissident theologian Hans Kung at papal summer residence.

Dec. 25, 2005: First encyclical, God is Love, signed. Released Jan. 25, 2006.

May 28, 2006: During trip to Poland, visits Auschwitz concentration camp.

Sept. 12, 2006: During visit to Germany, delivers speech at University of Regensburg that enrages Muslims; quoting a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith.”

April 16, 2007: First volume of Jesus of Nazareth completed on his 80th birthday. Released April 13.

May 27, 2007: Signs letter to China’s Catholics, urging them to unite under his authority. Published June 30.

July 7, 2007: Removes restrictions on celebrating the old Latin Mass in major gesture to traditional Catholics.

April 20, 2008: During visit to United States, prays for victims of Sept. 11, 2001 attacks at ground zero.

July 19, 2008: During visit to Australia for World Youth Day, meets with victims of priestly sex abuse and during a Mass apologizes for their suffering.

Jan. 21, 2009: Lifts excommunication of Holocaust-denying Bishop Richard Williamson and three other ultra-traditionalist bishops of Society of St. Pius X, igniting outrage. Decree released Jan. 24.

March 10, 2009: Acknowledges Vatican mistakes in Williamson affair, says Vatican must make better use of Internet to prevent future controversies. Letter released March 12.

March 17, 2009: En route to Cameroon, tells reporters aboard papal plane that condoms are not the solution to AIDS and can make problem worse, prompting widespread criticism.

May 11, 2009: During visit to the Holy Land, lays wreath at Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, says Holocaust victims “lost their lives but they will never lose their names.”

June 29, 2009: Third encyclical, Charity in Truth, signed. Released July 7, 2009.

July 17, 2009: Breaks right wrist in late-night fall at summer vacation home.

Oct. 20, 2009: Vatican announces pope is making it easier for Anglicans to convert en masse to Catholicism.

March 19, 2010: Rebukes Irish bishops for “grave errors of judgment” in handling clerical sex abuse but makes no mention of Vatican responsibility in letter to Irish faithful. Released March 20.

May 1, 2010: Orders major overhaul of Legion of Christ after Vatican investigation determines founder was a fraud.

Sept. 16-19, 2010: During first state visit by a pope to Britain, meets with Queen Elizabeth II, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and beatifies Anglican convert John Henry Newman.

Nov. 20, 2010: Revises controversial condom-AIDS comments in book and says male prostitutes who use condoms may be taking a first step toward a more responsible sexuality.

March 2, 2011: Issues sweeping exoneration of Jews for the death of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth-Part II. Book released March 10.

May 1, 2011: Beatifies John Paul II before 1.5 million people.

June 28, 2011: Tweets for the first time, announcing launch of Vatican news information portal.

Oct. 6, 2012: Pope’s former butler is convicted on charges he stole the pontiff’s private letters and leaked them to a journalist.

Feb. 11, 2013: Reveals in Latin that he is stepping down Feb. 28 during a meeting of Vatican cardinals, surprising even his closest collaborators.

Feb. 28, 2013: Departs Vatican City in a helicopter bound for Castel Gandolfo, where he begins his final journey as a “simple pilgrim.”

March 23, 2013: Receives Pope Francis for lunch at Castel Gandolfo; the two men pray side by side and Francis insists “We are brothers.”

April 28, 2014: Joins Francis on altar to canonize St. John Paul II and St. John XXIII, the first time a reigning and retired pope celebrate Mass together.

April 11, 2019: In an essay, blames the clergy sex abuse scandal on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and an absence of God.

January 2020: Contributes to a book reaffirming celibacy for priests at a time when Francis was considering an exception, sparking calls for rules governing future “popes emeritus.”

June 18, 2020: Travels to Germany to visit his ailing brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, who dies two weeks later, on July 1.

July 16, 2021: Has his signature relaxation of restrictions on celebration of old Latin Mass reversed by Pope Francis.

Jan. 21, 2022: Is faulted for his handling of four sex abuse cases while bishop of Munich in the 1970s and 1980s by independent report commissioned by German church.

Feb. 8, 2022: Asks forgiveness for any “grievous faults” in handling of Munich priests, but denies personal or specific wrongdoing.

Dec. 28, 2022: Pope Francis announces Benedict is “very ill,” asks for special prayers and visits him at his home.

Dec. 31, 2022: Benedict dies at 9:34 a.m. at his home in the Vatican Gardens at age 95.
…

The rudeness pandemic, the actual pandemic, and all things gray. There’s a lot to leave behind when 2022 ends and uncertainty rules around the world.

The health crisis brought on the dawn of slow living, but it crushed many families forced to hustle for their living. Rudeness went on the rise. Crypto currencies tanked. Pete Davidson’s love thing with Kim Kardashian made headlines.

A list of what we’re over as we hope for better times in 2023:

Incivility be gone

The pandemic released a tsunami of overwrought people, but heightened incivility has stretched well beyond their raucous ranks.

Researcher Christine Porath restricted herself to rudeness, disrespect or insensitive behavior when she recently wrote about the subject in Harvard Business Review. The professor of management at Georgetown University found incidents of incivility way up, in line with a steady climb stretching back nearly 20 years.

Particularly hammered this year, Porath wrote, were frontline workers in health care, retail, transportation, hospitality and education. All were declared heroes when the pandemic struck. It didn’t take long for that to become a beat down.

Noting that incivility can and does escalate to physical aggression and other violence, Axios dubbed it the rudeness pandemic.

Crypto craziness

Will the implosion of FTX, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, bring on broader chaos in a digital world that millions of people already distrust?

Time will tell as other and otherwise healthy crypto companies face a liquidity crisis. And there’s the philanthropic implications of the FTX bankruptcy collapse here in the real world, since founder Sam Bankman-Fried donated millions to numerous causes in “effective altruism” fashion.

The FTX bankruptcy filing followed a bruising of crypto companies throughout 2022, due in part to rising interest rates and the broader market downturn that has many investors rethinking their lust for risk. That includes mom-and-pop investors along for the ride.

ASMR, pipe down

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It began, innocently enough, as brain tingles brought on by whispering, tapping, brushing or scraping. Then, bam, it took off on social media like a really loud rocket on a mission to annoy.

Today, we’ve got millions of videos filled with people attempting to calm by speaking in low tones, armed with anything they can get their hands on in conjunction with their expensive, ultra-sensitive mics.

Companies are selling beer and chocolate, paint and home goods using ASMR. All the calming — and commerce — is deafening.

Gray, the color

Gray walls, gray floors, gray furniture. Is gray passé? Here’s hoping.

The color spent much of 2022 as a purportedly neutral “it.” The problem was, we were already feeling gray on the inside.

Of course, gray has been around since color itself, but it took over as an alternative to beige and Tuscan brown. Gray took a tumble midyear, but one doesn’t paint or swap out the couch as quickly as trends fade. We’ve been stuck with gray, thanks to TV home shows and social media loops.

“What would your reaction be if I told you that color is disappearing from the world? A graph suggesting that the color gray has become the dominant shade has been circulating on TikTok, and boy does it have folks in a tizzy,” wrote Loney Abrams in Architectural Digest in October.

By that, she explained, the upset folks she mentioned stand firmly behind the notion that a lack of color “spells tragedy.”

Abrams, a Brooklyn artist and pop culture curator, speaks of the fixer-uppers of Chip and Joanna Gaines and the Calabasas compound of Kim Kardashian. And she cites Tash Bradley, a trained color psychologist who works for the U.K. wallpaper and paint brand Lick.

Bradley, Abrams wrote, points to the hustle-bustle of pre-pandemic life as one villain leading to The Great Gray Washing. Bradley, the interior design director for Lick, sees no psychological benefits to gray.

Pete Davidson’s love life

Not the King of Staten Island himself, per se. Look deeply into your hearts and decide for yourselves whether to love him or Ye him.

We’re talking about the vast quantities of air volume his love life has sucked up on a near-hourly basis, especially in 2022, otherwise known as his Kim Kardashian era (which actually started in late 2021 for the obsessives).

Davidson’s love roster has puzzled for years, stretching back to his MTV “Guy Code” days in 2013 while still a teenager, leading to his Carly Aquilino phase.

There were stops along the way with Cazzie David (Larry Davidson’s daughter), Ariana Grande, Kate Beckinsale (briefly), Kaia Gerber (even more briefly), and others, including his latest: model Emily Ratajkowski.

The “SNL” alum and self-described — in appearance — “crack baby” is a paparazzi, social media, gossip monger magnet. Rather, his love life is.

Movie upchuck madness

The film industry, to state the obvious, has produced decades of genre-spanning grossness, much of it significant and legit to show on camera.

However, there’s one particular cinematic exclamation point we could do without, or at the very least, with significantly less of: The dispensable spew.

Implied vomiting with an urgent rush to a curb, hand to a mouth or turn of a head would sometimes suffice, thanks. Who spread the word in Hollywood that movie watchers actually desire all the nauseating details. The projectile-ness, the color combinations, the chunks.

Well, in some cases, audiences themselves.

That notable dress shop scene in the 2011 smash hit “Bridesmaids” was a gender test of sorts, according to The Daily Beast. Would audiences accept all the spewing and other grand scatology from women in a wedding-themed movie as they do for the bros of producer Judd Apatow’s other comedies?

Apatow and director Paul Feig extensively tested “Bridesmaids” with audiences, and they were fine.

Fast forward to 2022’s notables. There’s the satire “The Triangle of Sadness,” which could hardly do without, but there’s also “Tár,” a far more serious film that wouldn’t make the vomit hall of fame with Lydia Tár’s one fleeting gush. We ask, what’s the point of that? Meaning, the upchuck as aside.

Cate Blanchett’s Tár has far bigger problems, so let’s rein in all the gratuitous spewing.

The ultra hustle

Elon Musk put it thusly in an email to his remaining employees:

“Going forward, to build a breakthrough Twitter 2.0 and succeed in an increasingly competitive world, we will need to be extremely hardcore. This will mean working long hours at high intensity. Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

Musk is Musk, but he illustrates a moment: A need to remain in motion, to work harder, climb higher, sweat longer. With the volatile economy, political chaos, extreme weather and wars, it’s no wonder that a blanket of anxiety has kept the ultra-hustle alive.

As if all the slow living and work-life balance talk is meaningless, or more to the point, can’t exist for many.

“We’re hustling to make ends meet, `building our brand,’ ensuring our startup doesn’t tank, or dreaming about the day our side hustle takes off and we can walk into the office and give everyone the bird,” wrote Benjamin Sledge on Medium.

It stands to reason, he said, that “most of us are hustling because we literally have to in order to survive.”
…

Barbara Walters, one of the most visible women on U.S. television as the first female anchor on an evening news broadcast and one of TV’s most prominent interviewers, has died at age 93, her longtime ABC home network said on Friday.

Walters, who created the popular ABC women’s talk show The View in 1997, died Friday at her home in New York, Robert Iger, chief executive of ABC’s corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co., said on Twitter.

In a broadcast career spanning five decades, Walters interviewed an array of world leaders, including Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein of Iraq and every U.S. president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon.

She earned 12 Emmy awards, 11 of those while at ABC News, the network said.

Walters began her journalism career on NBC’s The Today Show in the 1960s as a writer and segment producer. She made broadcast history as the first woman co-anchor on a U.S. evening newscast, opposite Harry Reasoner.
…

Web searches reveal what America really cared about this year  
…

Brazil and the world said goodbye Thursday to a man who many consider the greatest football player of the last century. Pele died in São Paulo at the age of 82. Brazilians took to the streets to honor their greatest idol in the country’s most popular sport. For VOA, Edgar Maciel reports from Sao Paulo.
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As the person who dressed the Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood, who died Thursday at 81, was synonymous with 1970s punk rock, a rebelliousness that remained the hallmark of an unapologetically political designer who became one of British fashion’s biggest names.

“Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London. The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better,” her fashion house said on Twitter.

Climate change, pollution and her support for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange were all fodder for protest T-shirts or banners carried by her models on the runway.

She dressed up as then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for a magazine cover in 1989 and drove a white tank near the country home of a later British leader, David Cameron, to protest fracking.

The rebel was inducted into Britain’s establishment in 1992 by Queen Elizabeth, who awarded her the Order of the British Empire medal. But, ever keen to shock, Westwood turned up at Buckingham Palace without underwear — a fact she proved to photographers by a revealing twirl of her skirt.

“The only reason I am in fashion is to destroy the word ‘conformity,'” Westwood said in her 2014 biography. “Nothing is interesting to me unless it’s got that element.”

Instantly recognizable with her orange or white hair, Westwood first made a name for herself in punk fashion in 1970s London, dressing the punk rock band that defined the genre.

Together with the Sex Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren, she defied the hippie trends of the time to sell rock ‘n’ roll-inspired clothing.

They moved on to torn outfits adorned with chains as well as latex and fetish pieces that they sold at their shop in London’s King’s Road variously called “Let It Rock,” “Sex” and “Seditionaries,” among other names.

They used prints of swastikas, naked breasts and, perhaps most well-known, an image of the queen with a safety pin through her lips. Favorite items included sleeveless black T-shirts, studded, with zips, safety pins or bleached chicken bones.

“There was no punk before me and Malcolm,” Westwood said in the biography. “And the other thing you should know about punk too: it was a total blast.”

‘Buy less’

Born Vivienne Isabel Swire on April 8, 1941, in the English Midlands town of Glossop, Westwood grew up at a time of rationing during and after World War II.

A recycling mentality pervaded her work, and she repeatedly told fashionistas to “choose well” and “buy less.” From the late 1960s, she lived in a small flat in south London for some 30 years and cycled to work.

When she was a teenager, her parents, a greengrocer and a cotton weaver, moved the family to north London where she studied jewelry-making and silversmithing before retraining as a teacher.

While she taught at a primary school, she met her first husband, Derek Westwood, marrying him in a homemade dress. Their son, Ben, was born in 1963, and the couple divorced in 1966.

Now a single mother, Westwood was selling jewelry on London’s Portobello Road when she met art student McLaren, who would go on to be her partner romantically and professionally. They had a son, Joe Corre, co-founder of lingerie brand Agent Provocateur.

After the Sex Pistols split, the two held their first catwalk show in 1981, presenting a “new romantic” look of African-style patterns, buccaneer trousers and sashes.

Westwood, by then in her 40s, began to slowly forge her own path in fashion, eventually separating from McLaren in the early 1980s.

Often looking to history, her influential designs have included corsets, Harris Tweed suits and taffeta ballgowns.

Her 1985 “Mini-Crini” line introduced her short puffed skirt and a more fitted silhouette. Her sky-high platform shoes garnered worldwide attention in 1993 when model Naomi Campbell stumbled on the catwalk in a pair.

“My clothes have a story. They have an identity. They have character and a purpose,” Westwood said.

“That’s why they become classics. Because they keep on telling a story. They are still telling it.”

The Westwood brand flourished in the 1990s, with fashionistas flocking to her runway shows in Paris, and stores opening around the world selling her lines, accessories and perfumes.

She met her second husband, Andreas Kronthaler, teaching fashion in Vienna. They married in 1993, and he later became her creative partner.

Westwood used her public profile to champion issues including nuclear disarmament and to protest anti-terrorism laws and government spending policies that hit the poor. She held a large “climate revolution” banner at the 2012 Paralympics closing ceremony in London, and frequently turned her models into catwalk eco-warriors.

“I’ve always had a political agenda,” Westwood told L’Officiel fashion magazine in 2018.

“I’ve used fashion to challenge the status quo.”
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