Nick Cannon apologized to the Jewish community late Wednesday for his “hurtful and divisive” words, a day after ViacomCBS severed ties with him for the remarks made on a podcast.  The Anti-Defamation league and some Jewish leaders had condemned what they called anti-Semitic theories expressed by Cannon and demanded the apology.”First and foremost I extend my deepest and most sincere apologies to my Jewish sisters and brothers for the hurtful and divisive words that came out of my mouth during my interview with Richard Griffin,” Cannon said on his Twitter account.”They reinforced the worst stereotypes of a proud and magnificent people and I feel ashamed of the uninformed and naïve place that these words came from. The video of this interview has since been removed.”ViacomCBS cut ties with the TV host and producer Tuesday in response to his comments on a podcast where he discussed racial bias.  Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean, told The Associated Press that Cannon reached out to him Wednesday and during a 30-minute telephone conversation he apologized to the Jewish community and Cooper asked him to post it on social media.  “He started out the right way, he said the right things. Half an hour is a long time, and we’ll probably meet tomorrow in the LA area,” Cooper said.  “He understood that the words and references that he thought were based on fact, turned out to be hateful propaganda and stereotypical rhetoric.”The TV host and producer wrote earlier a lengthy Facebook post defending himself and criticizing his firing for what the company deemed “bigotry” and “anti-Semitism,” prominent members of the U.S. Jewish community said the post fell well short and demanded an apology.  “It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m not a racist, I’m not a bigot,'” Cooper had told the AP earlier. “The statements he made are hurtful, and they’re false.”  Cooper said Cannon should read and heed the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who “dedicated his life for civil rights for all and a color-blind America.” Cooper also had advised him to seek out the guidance of basketball Hall of Famer-turned-writer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who has condemned several sports and entertainment celebrities for anti-Semitic posts.In the hour-plus episode of “Cannon’s Class” released last month that prompted his firing, Cannon and Richard “Professor Griff” Griffin, formerly of the rap group Public Enemy, contended that Black people are the true Hebrews and Jews have usurped that identity.  Cannon then argued that lighter-skinned people — “Jewish people, white people, Europeans” — “are a little less” and have a “deficiency” that historically caused them to act out of fear and commit acts of violence to survive.”They had to be savages,” he said.  “When I first heard about the comments Mr. Cannon made, it was very, very disappointing,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “We’re in a time where hatred of all kinds is very much apparent. It’s in the news every day.”  “Anti-Semitism in particular over the past several years has been something that we’ve seen in increase , as well as racism and other issues,” Segal added. “So when you hear an individual who has a public profile, who has influence over people, make statements that are highly offensive to the Jewish community, the first reaction is disappointment.”Anti-Semitic violent attacks rose worldwide by 18% in 2019 compared with the previous year, according to a report published in April by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary Jewry.  Segal said some members of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement see themselves as the true “chosen people,” and believe that Blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans are the true descendants of the 12 Tribes of Israel. He noted that not all spew hateful rhetoric, although many adhere to an extreme set of anti-Semitic beliefs.  Bruce D. Haynes, a professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis, who has been studying Black Jews for more than two decades, agreed that the remarks echo the ideas of extreme Black Hebrew Israelites and of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who last year referenced “Satanic Jews” in a speech denying allegations of anti-Semitism. But Haynes took a more nuanced view.  “The danger is that those groups get confused with other self-identified Israelites like (Rabbi) Capers Funnye, who has a congregation in Chicago, and who is very much involved with the Ashkenazim Jewish community. So I want to make clear that the term ‘Israelites’ is a tricky term,” he said.  “Is it anti-Semitic to say Black people are the real Israelites or the real Jews? I’m not sure I’d call it anti-Semitism,” Haynes said. “It’s not a good reading of history, but I wouldn’t call it anti-Semitism. On the other hand, some of those groups that call Jews impostors certainly cross the line.”  Until his firing, Cannon produced “Wild ‘n Out,” a comedy improv series for VH1, the ViacomCBS-owned cable channel.  In an earlier Facebook post, he had said that he welcomes being held accountable and takes responsibility for his words, while also accusing the company of trying to silence an “outspoken black man” and demanding full ownership of the “Wild ‘n Out” brand.  “I do not condone hate speech nor the spread of hateful rhetoric. … The Black and Jewish communities have both faced enormous hatred, oppression persecution and prejudice for thousands of years and in many ways have and will continue to work together to overcome these obstacles,” he wrote.Cooper had said that Cannon should reject Farrakhan’s hate speech and “reduce the long statement to two sentences” — a simple apology, which he did after their conversation.”I just had the blessed opportunity to converse with Rabbi Abraham Cooper director of global social action @SimonWiesenthal. My first words to my brother was, I apologize for the hurt I caused the Jewish Community” Cannon tweeted.”On my podcast I used words & referenced literature I assumed to be factual to uplift my community instead turned out to be hateful propaganda and stereotypical rhetoric that pained another community For this I am deeply sorry but now together we can write a new chapter of healing.”
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Last year saw record representation of LGBTQ characters in the 118 films released by major studios, according to a new study by GLAAD. But for the third straight year, the racial diversity of LGBTQ characters has waned and transgender characters again went unseen.
GLAAD called the decrease in non-white LGBTQ characters “concerning.” In 2019, 34% of LGBTQ characters were people of color. That’s down from 42% in 2018 and 57% in 2017.
“GLAAD is calling on the studios to ensure that within two years at least half of their LGBTQ characters are people of color,” said the advocacy group that tracks representation of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the media.
For the third year in a row, transgender characters were also absent from major studio releases.
But overall, GLAAD found higher rates of inclusion than it has in the eight years its been tracking studio films. Of the 118 films studied, 22 (18.6%) included lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer characters. That’s a slight increase from 18.2% in 2018.
But none of the studios studied — the Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, STX Films and United Artists Releasing — received a “good” or higher grade for LGBTQ representation. Sony and Disney received “poor” grades. STX Films, which released “Hustlers,” “21 Bridges” and “Uglydolls” last year, failed GLAAD’s test since their 2019 movies featured zero LGBTQ representation.
GLAAD has sought that studios reach inclusion of LGBTQ characters in 20% of their films by 2021 and 50% by 2024. Paramount, Lionsgate, Disney and United Artists reached the 20% level last year.
Screen time is also an issue. In many of Hollywood’s biggest films, LGBTQ characters — when included — came and went. Only nine of the 22 films with an LGBTQ character featured one with more than 10 minutes of screen time.  
“Despite seeing a record high percentage of LGBTQ-inclusive films this year, the industry still has a long way to go in terms of fairly and accurately representing the LGBTQ community,” said GLAAD President and CEO, Sarah Kate Ellis. “If film studios want to stay relevant to today’s audiences and compete in an industry that is emphasizing diversity and inclusion, then they must urgently reverse course on the diminishing representation of LGBTQ women and people of color, as well as the complete absence of trans characters.” 
 
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From New York to Alabama to Oregon, many tangible displays of African American culture and heritage are in deep disrepair. Due to a lack of recognition and funding, these spaces are slowly being lost before their full story can be told. But a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation will help maintain 27 historic sites that showcase African American perseverance, activism and contributions to the nation. 
 
The trust’s This Jan. 29, 2019, photo shows homes in Africatown in Mobile, Alabama, established by the last boatload of Africans abducted into slavery and shipped to the United States.“These 27 sites represent examples of Black resilience, activism and excellence. And as a collection, they begin to elevate the historic landscapes and buildings that tell an underrecognized and unappreciated story about the United States,” says Brent Leggs, executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.   Over the past two years, 65 historic African American sites received more than $4.3 million to help preserve and restore places that exemplify Black life and cultural heritage.Grant recipient “While We Are Still Here” seeks to preserve Harlem history, including buildings that housed a cross section of Black America. (Courtesy While We Are Still Here)Educator Booker T. Washington and Sears Roebuck president Julius Rosenwald built schools like grant recipient May’s Lick in Maysville, Kentucky, in the early 1900s for Black students in the South. (Mays Lick Community Development Board)The recent Black Lives Matter protests have helped shine a light on the need to restore historic Black spaces. Leggs says the Action Fund has received more online donations, and he is hopeful that current talks with corporations and others will result in large gifts to help extend the Action Fund’s reach and impact. “To be able to preserve these kinds of places help our nation learn more about the complexity and breadth of its own history,” Leggs says. “There’s power in truth, and preservation begins to reveal more of the truth.” 
 
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Rap superstar Kanye West has qualified to appear on Oklahoma’s presidential ballot, the first state where he met the requirements before the filing deadline. But confusion remains over whether he’s actually running.  A representative for West filed the necessary paperwork and paid the $35,000 filing Wednesday afternoon, which was the deadline for a spot on the state’s Nov. 3 presidential ballot, said Oklahoma Board of Elections spokeswoman Misha Mohr. He was one of three independent presidential candidates to pay the filing fee prior to the deadline, she added. The others were concert pianist Jade Simmons and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Brock Pierce. The filing came a day after New York Magazine’s  “Intelligencer” quoted West adviser Steve Kramer saying “he’s out” and noting that the staff he had hired were disappointed. However, TMZ reported that the West campaign had filed a “Statement of Organization” Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, stating that a Kanye 2020 committee would serve as principal campaign committee for a West candidacy. West has already missed the deadline to qualify for the ballot in several states, and it’s unclear if he is willing or able to collect enough signatures required to qualify in others. FILE – Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West arrive at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)West, who is married to reality television star Kim Kardashian West, initially announced his candidacy on July 4. Days later, he told Forbes magazine that he, who once praised President Donald Trump and said the two share “dragon energy,” was “taking the red hat off” — a reference to Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” cap. West, who said that he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, told the magazine that he planned to model his White House on the fictional land in “Black Panther” if he won the presidency, adding “Let’s get back to Wakanda.” 
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The International Olympic Committee (IOC) remains fully committed to staging the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 and is considering multiple scenarios for them to take place safely, IOC President Thomas Bach said Wednesday. Japan and the IOC postponed the Tokyo Games until 2021 in March because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers have since spoken of trying to simplify the event — which had been due to start on July 24 — to reduce costs and ensure athletes’ safety. Bach said the IOC’s coordination commission had reported “very good work in progress” and that more details would be given to a full IOC session which will take place by video conference on Friday. Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee, attends a meeting of IOC’s executive board in Lausanne, Switzerland, July 15, 2020.”We remain fully committed to celebrating Tokyo 2020 next year in July and August,” Bach told reporters in a conference call. “The entire IOC is following the principle we established before the postponement (in March) that the first priority is about the safety of all participants.” “We continue to be guided by the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO) and based on this advice we are preparing multiple scenarios,” he added. “We don’t know the health situation one year from now.” He said that holding events without spectators was clearly something the IOC did not want. “We are working for a solution which on the one hand is safeguarding the health of all participants and on the other hand is also reflecting the Olympic spirit,” Bach added. Bach also said the IOC had agreed with host nation Senegal to postpone the 2022 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar until 2026. “This allows the IOC and national Olympic committees to better plan activities which have been strongly affected by the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games and subsequent postponement of other major sports events,” he said. The decision will have to be ratified by the full IOC session on Friday. 
 
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In the digital age, you can take acting lessons from Samuel L. Jackson or enjoy basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar personally wishing you a happy birthday. Online firms like Cameo and MasterClass are democratizing access to celebrities by turning the famous into gig economy workers. Tina Trinh reports
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New York Philharmonic’s first and only African-American principal player took a stand of his own for the Black Lives Matter movement. In a black-and-white video posted on social media platforms, clarinetist Anthony McGill called on musicians to #taketwoknees for Black lives. Elena Wolf has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.VIDEOGRAPHER: Dmitrii Vershinin, Elena Matusovsky 
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“Glee” star Naya Rivera ‘s 4-year-old son told investigators that his mother, whose body was found in a Southern California lake Monday, boosted him back on to the deck of their rented boat before he looked back and saw her disappearing under the water, authorities said.  “She must have mustered enough energy to get her son back on the boat, but not enough to save herself,” Ventura County Sheriff Bill Ayub said at a news conference.  The boy, Josey Hollis Dorsey, was found asleep and alone in a life vest on the drifting pontoon boat about three hours after they launched on Lake Piru northwest of Los Angeles, setting off a five-day search that ended with the discovery of the body of the 33-year-old floating near the surface early Monday, authorities said.  The mother and son had gone swimming, which was permitted in that part of the lake, Ayub said. She was not wearing a life vest.  Authorities believe that Rivera drowned accidentally, and that her body was most likely trapped in the vegetation under the lake for several days before floating to the top, Ayub said.  Divers had already thoroughly searched the area where she was eventually found, but shrubbery that had grown wildly in the area, which was recently dry, must have kept her hidden in the murky water.  Family members chatted with Rivera via FaceTime when she was on the boat, and search crews watched those videos for clues to where she might have gone down, Ayub said.  “It has been an extremely difficult time for her family throughout this ordeal,” Ayub said “We share in their grief.”  FILE – Actress Naya Rivera participates in the “Step Up: High Water” panel during the YouTube Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, California, Jan. 13, 2018.Rivera played singing cheerleader Santana Lopez for six seasons from 2009 to 2015 on the Fox musical-comedy “Glee.” She is the third major cast member from the show to die in their 30s.  The announcement of her death comes seven years to the day after co-star Cory Monteith died at 31 from a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin, with the series losing one of its leads while it was still on the air.  Another co-star, Mark Salling, who Rivera dated at one point, killed himself in 2018 at age 35 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.  Rivera’s body was flown by helicopter 40 miles (64 kilometers) to the coroner’s office in Ventura, where an autopsy would be conducted and an official identification made, authorities said. Ayub said the circumstances from the location of the body to the fact that no one else has been reported missing in the lake makes the department “confident that the body we found is Naya Rivera.”  Rivera had experience boating on the lake in Los Padres National Forest an hour’s drive from Los Angeles.  It was closed down and searched by dozens of divers with help from sonar and robotic devices combing the bottom and helicopters and drones searching above.  Surveillance video showed the mother and son parking and renting the boat at about 1 p.m. on July 8.  The vendor who rented it to them went looking for them when they failed to return on time, and found the boat drifting in the northern end of the lake with the boy aboard.  The boy, Rivera’s son from her marriage to actor Ryan Dorsey, was safe and healthy and quickly reunited with family members after he was found, authorities said.  His parents divorced in 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.  The day before her death, Rivera tweeted a photo of herself and Josey that read, “just the two of us.”  
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A New York state judge lifted a stay on Monday that had temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s niece from publishing a book offering an unflattering look at the U.S. president and his family. Justice Hal Greenwald of the state Supreme Court in Poughkeepsie, New York, denied the request to stop publication and canceled the temporary restraining order he issued on June 30 against Mary Trump and her publisher, Simon & Schuster, at the request of Robert Trump, the brother of the president. Simon & Schuster was due to release the book on Tuesday. Robert Trump said previously that the release of “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” would violate a confidentiality agreement tied to the estate of his father, Fred Trump Sr., who died in 1999. Mary Trump, a trained psychologist, is Fred Trump’s granddaughter. “Notwithstanding that the Book has been published and distributed in great quantities, to enjoin Mary L. Trump at this juncture would be incorrect and serve no purpose,” Greenwald said in his decision. “It would be moot. … To quote United States v. Bolton, 2020, ‘By the looks of it the horse is not just out of the barn, it is out of the country,'” he wrote. Mary Trump’s attorney, Theodore Boutrous, said in a statement: “The court got it right in rejecting the Trump family’s effort to squelch Mary Trump’s core political speech on important issues of public concern.” Lawyers for Robert Trump could not immediately be reached for comment. The book’s publication comes as the Republican president seeks a second term in the Nov. 3 election. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has described it as a “book of falsehoods.” Mary Trump applies her training in psychology to conclude in the book that the president likely suffers from narcissism and other clinical disorders – and was boosted to success by a father who fueled those traits. She writes of a “malignantly dysfunctional family” dominated by a patriarch, Fred Trump, who showed little interest in his five children other than grooming an heir for his real-estate business. Ultimately, he settled on Donald, she wrote, deciding that his second son’s “arrogance and bullying” would come in handy at the office, and encouraged it. 
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Anthropologist Lawrence Kuznar isn’t a fan of Confederate statues, but he feels Americans have a lesson to learn from them. “I’m not necessarily against taking them down,” says the professor of anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, who is in the process of retiring.“It’s easy to get emotional and excited in a group and go tear down a monument. It absolutely does nothing to address a deep racial and political divide that really seems to be tearing this country apart. Even lawfully removing them, I think, should be done in a thoughtful way.” As the Black Lives Matter protests gained momentum nationwide in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody, some demonstrators took it upon themselves to bring the statues down. Other monuments are being removed by local authorities. Overall, dozens of statues have been removed, and countless others vandalized nationwide.  Isaiah Bowen, right, takes a shot as his dad, Garth Bowen, center, looks on at a basketball hoop in front of the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, June 21, 2020.In addition to Confederate statues, other monuments that are viewed as symbols of oppression and systemic racism are also being targeted. On Independence Day, a crowd tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus and dumped it in the Baltimore Inner Harbor.   There were 1,747 symbols honoring the Confederacy in public spaces, according to a 2019 report from the FILE – A carving in Stone Mountain, Georgia, depicting Confederate leaders Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, is America’s largest Confederate memorial.The SPLC found construction of the monuments actually spiked in the early 1900s, and then again in the 1950s and ‘60s during times of civil rights tension.  “The stated purpose was to honor men who symbolized such values as valor and honor, but the actual purpose was to affirm the power relationships between Black and white southerners,” James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association, told VOA in an email. “These monuments reminded everyone, in a very public way, that white people would maintain their monopoly on power.  That, Kuznar says, is precisely the history Confederate monuments can tell.  “They say something about the U.S. If more people understood the political forces behind why many, not all, but many of the Confederate statues were erected in the Jim Crow era … (it’s) a rather dark chapter of the nation’s history,” he says. “Taking the statues away makes it harder to bring that story out to people. Quite frankly, I think it makes it harder for us to tell and memorialize the full truth of the nation’s history.”   Defaced bronze sculpture on the base of the statue of Confederate general, Albert Pike, after protestors toppled the Pike statue, June 20, 2020, in Washington.Jim Crow laws were state and local statutes enacted in the American South in the late 1800s and early 1900s to enforce racial segregation. While some might view removing statues as “whitewashing” history, others see taking them down as correcting a false narrative.  “Whitewashing history is what the statues were doing in the first place by setting up as heroes men who committed treason in defense of the supposed right of some people to own other people. That’s the ‘whitewash,’” Grossman says. “That is the attempt to cleanse the reputations of men who deserve no honor for what they did or what they stood for.”  Anthropologist Lawrence Kuznar at Cueva Quellaveco, Peru in 1989. (Photo courtesy Lawrence Kuznar)Kuznar points out that removing or destroying monuments isn’t new. Spanish conquerors destroyed Aztec and Inca monuments. Russia removed several Soviet-era statues after the fall of the USSR. The Taliban blew up a pair of ancient sandstone Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan in 2001.  Kuznar, who has an archeological background, cautions against moving too quickly in the heat of passion or due to political expediency.  “I think communities erected these things. I think the communities themselves need to have some very sober, very serious discussion about why is that statue there,” he says. “Do we want to memorialize this person anymore? Can we use the statue to tell a more complete story of the nation’s history? And for them to decide accordingly whether they want that there or not.”  
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The body of “Glee” star Naya Rivera was found Monday at a Southern California lake, authorities said.  Ventura County Sheriff’s officials confirmed at an afternoon news conference that the body that search crews found floating in the northeast corner of Lake Piru earlier in the day was the 33-year-old Rivera.  The discovery came five days after the 33-year-old Rivera disappeared on Lake Piru, where her son was found July 8 asleep and alone on a rented pontoon boat, authorities said.  Authorities said the following day that they believed Rivera had drowned, and they had shifted to working to find her body rather than find her alive.  The body was flown 40 miles (64 kilometres) to the coroner’s office in Ventura, where an autopsy would be conducted, Sheriff’s Capt. Eric Buschow said. Rivera’s family has been notified of the discovery.  The lake an hour’s drive from Los Angeles was searched by dozens of divers working in waters with little visibility, with help from sonar and robotic devices combing the bottom and helicopters and drones searching above.  “I can’t imagine what it’s like for her parents, her family,” Buschow said. “It takes an emotional toll on the search teams too.”  Rivera played singing cheerleader Santana Lopez for six seasons on the Fox musical-comedy “Glee.” She is the third major cast member from the show to die in their 30s.  FILE – Cory Monteith, a cast member in “Glee,” poses at the television show’s second season premiere in Los Angeles, Sept. 7, 2010.The confirmation of her death comes seven years to the day after co-star Cory Monteith died at 31 from a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin, with the series losing one of its leads while it was still on the air.  Another co-star, Mark Salling, who Rivera dated at one point, killed himself in 2018 at age 35 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.  Rivera had experience boating on the lake in Los Padres National Forest, authorities said. Surveillance video shows Rivera and her son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, leaving on the rented boat. When the boat failed to return, its vendor found the vessel drifting in the northern end of the lake late Wednesday afternoon with the boy asleep on board, about three hours after it was first taken out. The boy told investigators that he and his mother had been swimming and he got back into the boat but she didn’t, according to a sheriff’s office statement. The boy was wearing a life vest, and another life jacket was found in the boat along with Rivera’s purse and identification. The boy, Rivera’s son from her marriage to actor Ryan Dorsey, was safe and healthy and quickly reunited with family members after he was found, authorities said.  His parents divorced in 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.  The most recent tweet on Rivera’s account, from the day before her death, read “just the two of us” along with a photo of her and her son. 
  
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After a Paris auction house defied his requests and those of Nigerian authorities to halt the sale of artifacts over questions of provenance, a scholar says he’ll push harder for repatriating cultural treasures. “For those who think the story is over, it’s not. We are just beginning,” said Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Princeton University professor of African and American diaspora art, whose Twitter petition for #BlackArtsMatter has drawn thousands of supporters.   Okeke-Agulu’s comments followed Christie’s June 29 auction, which included the sale of Nigerian artifacts, including two Igbo sacred statues. The pair sold to an anonymous buyer for $239,000, NigeriaIn mid-June, five activists dislodged a funeral pole at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris, demanding its return to Africa. The activists face trial in September. Such demands have echoes that are both global and longstanding. Greece, for example, has fought for two centuries to reclaim the ancient Elgin marbles from Britain. ‘Complex debates’ Nigeria “was saddened” by the Christie’s sale, the lawyer representing the country’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during the closing press conference at the G5 Sahel summit on June 30, 2020, in Nouakchott, Mauritania.Okeke-Agulu contends that Nigeria’s government needs to do more to halt the trade in stolen goods and reckon with “the sordid histories of collecting” during and after the colonial period. “There are legal instruments that can be applied to stopping the sale of illegal, illegally exported cultural property,” he said, adding that he expects Nigerian authorities “to pursue these objects much more robustly than they have done up until now.” Nigeria’s diplomatic approachAliyu L. Abdu, who directs Nigeria’s museums commission, told VOA in an email that its members appreciate “the strong protests expressed by concerned citizens such as Professor Chika Okeke to assert his cultural right as a member of a community whose cultural integrity and sensitivity (have) been violated by commercial interest.” But, he wrote, the government entity is “taking a more comprehensive approach,” using diplomatic and institutional channels for recovering Nigeria’s “cultural patrimony.” Abdu cited the Benin Dialogue Group as an example. The initiative aims to establish a museum in southern Nigeria’s Edo state capital, Benin City, that would reunite looted artworks now scattered around the globe. Representatives from Nigeria, including from the commission, are collaborating with museum directors and delegates from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.   The group has “started the moves to identify and inventory thousands of Nigerian artifacts in European museums for repatriation through an agreeably mutual process,” Abdu wrote. “However, that angle does not substitute prompt reaction towards recovery of our stolen artifacts that has come to light. As long as Nigeria has noted, recorded and tracked the movements of  objects exposed through Christie’s auction, the matter can no longer be denied or suppressed, so we shall continue our efforts of recovery through all available means, which happily are becoming more available.” Examining ethics of collecting Okeke-Agulu also has called on public museums that own looted African objects to come clean about where the objects came from and how they were obtained. American museums, like their European counterparts, are grappling with repatriation. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, wary of the provenance of some African items it received in a bequest, in 2014 contacted Nigeria’s museums commission. “When the commission confirmed that export documents had been forged, the MFA returned the (eight) works in question,” ARTnews magazine reported last summer. The same story noted that Maryland’s Baltimore Museum of Art – with more than 2,500 African works, including ancient sculptures and modern paintings – was creating a Cultural Property Working Group to assess the museum’s collection policies. The group had hoped to complete its recommendations by late this year, but it has been delayed by the pandemic, the museum told VOA in an email.      In Okeke-Agula’s opinion, “negotiation about the status and ownership of these objects ought to begin sooner rather than later, and until there is a lot of pressure put on the institutions or the private collections that have them, they’re not going to do anything.”  “It’s not a sprint,” he said of his campaign. “What I want to be associated with is a long journey, and as I said, we’re only beginning.” VOA Africa Division’s Jason Patinkin and Carol Guensburg reported from Washington, with additional reporting by Catherine Field in Paris. 
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A body was found Monday at a Southern California lake during the search for “Glee” star Naya Rivera, authorities said.The body was discovered five days after the 33-year-old Rivera disappeared on Lake Piru, where her son was found July 8 alone a few hours later on a boat the two had rented, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said.Authorities would not immediately say if the person found was Rivera, but said the day after she disappeared that they believed she drowned in the lake northwest of Los Angeles. A 2 p.m. press conference was scheduled.Search crews found the body floating in the northeast area of the lake and the county medical examiner was notified, authorities said.The lake an hour’s drive from Los Angeles was searched by dozens of divers working in waters with little visibility, with help above from helicopters, drones and all-terrain vehicles.Rivera played singing cheerleader Santana Lopez for six seasons on the Fox musical-comedy “Glee.” If she is declared dead, she will become the third major cast member from the show to die in their 30s.Cory Monteith, one of the show’s leads, died at 31 in 2013 from a toxic mix of alcohol and heroin.And co-star Mark Salling, who Rivera dated at one point, killed himself in 2018 at age 35 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.Rivera had experience boating on the lake in Los Padres National Forest, authorities said.Surveillance video shows Rivera and her son, Josey Hollis Dorsey, leaving on the rented boat.When the boat failed to return, its vendor found the vessel drifting in the northern end of the lake late Wednesday afternoon with the boy asleep on board. He told investigators that he and his mother had been swimming and he got back into the boat but she didn’t, according to a sheriff’s office statement.The boy was wearing a life vest, and another life jacket was found in the boat along with Rivera’s purse and identification.Rivera is believed to have drowned “in what appears to be a tragic accident,” the statement said.The boy, Rivera’s son from her marriage to actor Ryan Dorsey, was safe and healthy and with family members, authorities said. The couple finalized their divorce in June 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.The most recent tweet on Rivera’s account, from July 7, read “just the two of us” along with a photo of her and her son. 
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The son of Lisa Marie Presley has died. He was 27.  Presley’s representative Roger Widynowski said in a statement Sunday to The Associated Press that she was “heartbroken” after learning about the death of her son Benjamin Keough. He is the grandson of the late Elvis Presley.  TMZ reports that Keough died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday in Calabasas, California.  “She is completely heartbroken, inconsolable and beyond devastated but trying to stay strong for her 11-year-old twins and her oldest daughter Riley,” Widynowski said in the statement. “She adored that boy. He was the love of her life.” Presley had Keough and actress Riley Keough, 31, with her former husband Danny Keough. She also had twins from another marriage.  Nancy Sinatra tweeted her condolences to Presley, writing, “I have known you since before your mama gave birth to you, never dreaming you would have pain like this in your life. I’m so very sorry.” 
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Kelly Preston, who played dramatic and comic foil to actors ranging from Tom Cruise in “Jerry Maguire” to Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Twins,” died Sunday, husband John Travolta said. She was 57. Travolta said in an Instagram post that his wife of 28 years died after a two-year battle with breast cancer.  “It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer,” Travolta said. “She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many.” The couple had three children together. “Shocked by this sad news,” Maria Shriver said on Twitter. “Kelly was such a bright loving soul, a talented actress, and a loving mom and wife. My heart breaks for her family who have already known such sadness and grief.” Preston had a lengthy acting career in movies and television, starring opposite Kevin Costner in the 1999 film “For the Love of the Game.” In 2003, she starred in “What a Girl Wants” and as the mom in the live-action adaptation of “The Cat in the Hat.” The following year she appeared in the music video for Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved.” Russell Crowe tweeted that he met Preston “first in late ’92 I think,” adding, “In 1995 we auditioned together for Breaking Up, Salma Hayek got that gig.” Crowe said he hadn’t seen Preston much, “but when I did, she was always the same sparkly eyed gem.” She occasionally appeared in films with her husband, as they did in the box-office bomb “Battlefield Earth” in 2000. Preston and Travolta were married at a midnight ceremony in Paris in 1991 while the couple were expecting their first son, Jett. In January 2009, Jett Travolta, 16, died after a seizure at the family’s vacation home in the Bahamas. The death touched off a court case after an ambulance driver and his attorney were accused of trying to extort $25 million from the actors in exchange for not releasing sensitive information about their son’s death. Travolta testified during a criminal trial that ended in a mistrial and was prepared to testify a second time, but decided to stop pursuing the case and it was dismissed. He cited the severe strain the proceedings and his son’s death had caused the family.  Both Preston and Travolta returned to acting, with Preston’s first role back in the Nicholas Sparks adaptation, “The Last Song,” which starred Miley Cyrus and her future husband, Liam Hemsworth. They had two other children, daughter Ella Bleu in 2000 and son Benjamin in 2010. Ella wrote on Instagram Sunday: “I have never met anyone as courageous, strong, beautiful and loving as you. Anyone who is lucky enough to have known you or to have ever been in your presence will agree that you have a glow and a light that never ceases to shine and that makes anyone around you feel instantly happy.” Travolta and Preston met while filming 1988’s “The Experts.” They last starred together in the 2018 film “Gotti,”  with Travolta playing John Gotti and Preston playing the crime boss’s wife, Victoria.  “Kelly’s love and life will always be remembered,” Travolta said on Instagram. “I will be taking some time to be there for my children who have lost their mother, so forgive me in advance if you don’t hear from us for a while. But please know that I will feel your outpouring of love in the weeks and months ahead as we heal.” Preston’s death was first reported by People magazine. 
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Bollywood star and former Miss World Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and her eight-year-old daughter tested positive for the coronavirus, state officials confirmed Sunday. The news follows an announcement Saturday that her father-in-law Amitabh Bachchan and her husband Abhishek tested positive and were admitted to the hospital. Though Amitabh Bachchan, 77, was admitted to the hospital, he is reportedly stable with only mild symptoms, Rajesh Tope, minister of public health for the state of Maharashtra, said in a tweet Sunday. महानायक अमिताभ बच्चन व अभिषेक बच्चन यांची कोरोना टेस्ट पॉझिटिव्ह आल्याने ते मुंबई येथील नानावटी हॉस्पिटलमध्ये ऍडमिट आहेत. FILE – Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan waving to fans in Mumbai, India, Dec. 13, 2018.Legendary actor Bachchan, who has starred in over 200 of Indian films since the early 1970s, tweeted on Saturday that he had tested positive for the virus.  “Family and staff undergone tests , results awaited … All that have been in close proximity to me in the last 10 days are requested to please get themselves tested !” he wrote. T 3590 -I have tested CoviD positive .. shifted to Hospital .. hospital informing authorities .. family and staff undergone tests , results awaited ..All that have been in close proximity to me in the last 10 days are requested to please get themselves tested !— Amitabh Bachchan (@SrBachchan) July 11, 2020His son Abhishek tweeted a similar message shortly afterward. Earlier today both my father and I tested positive for COVID 19. Both of us having mild symptoms have been admitted to hospital. We have informed all the required authorities and our family and staff are all being tested. I request all to stay calm and not panic. Thank you. 🙏🏽— Abhishek Bachchan (@juniorbachchan) July 11, 2020Amitabh Bachchan has been a prominent figure in India’s campaign to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, filming ads about wearing masks and appealing to citizens to stay home. Still, despite enforcing one of the most strict lockdowns in the world earlier this year, India’s case numbers of COVID-19 are rising.  Over 27,000 new cases have been reported in the past 24 hours, with over 500 new deaths.  With nearly 850,000 confirmed cases, India has the third highest rate of COVID-19 infections in the world, after Brazil and the United States.  
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“The Most Magical Place on Earth” is reopening after nearly four months with new rules in place to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom are reopening Saturday, while Epcot and Disney’s Hollywood Studios will follow four days later.The reopening comes as a huge surge of Floridians have tested positive for the new coronavirus in recent weeks. Many cities and counties around the state have recently reinstated restrictions that had been lifted in May, when cases seemed to drop.Disney Plans to Reopen Florida Parks July 11 Walt Disney World says parks will enforce social distancing, require masksAll of Disney’s Orlando parks closed in mid-March in an effort to stop the virus’s spread.Universal Orlando and SeaWorld Orlando closed around the same time but reopened several weeks ago after instituting similar rules to protect employees and customers from the virus.Disney’s new rules include mandatory masks and social distancing. Visitors will need reservations to enter a park, and they won’t be allowed to hop between parks. Both visitors and employees will receive temperature checks when they enter. Fireworks shows and parades have been suspended to prevent drawing too many people together.Disney has been opening its parks back up around the globe for the past two months. In May, the company opened Disney Springs, a complex of shops, restaurants and entertainment venues in Lake Buena Vista.
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Johnny Depp described the breakdown of his marriage to Amber Heard on Friday in a London court, saying the last straw came when feces were found in the couple’s bed after a party.Depp was wrapping up his evidence in his libel case against a British tabloid newspaper that accused him of physically abusing Heard. The Hollywood star is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the paper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that called him a “wife-beater.”In three and a half days in the witness box at the High Court, Depp has described a volatile relationship that descended into screaming matches which sometimes turned physical. But he has strongly denied hitting Heard and accused her of compiling a dossier of fake claims against him as an “insurance policy.”Depp, 57, and Heard, 34, met on the set of the 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. Heard, a model and actress, filed for divorce the following year and obtained a restraining order against Depp on the grounds of domestic abuse. The divorce was finalized in 2017.Depp said one of the triggering incidents for the couple’s separation came when a cleaner found feces in a bed at their Los Angeles penthouse the morning after Heard’s 30th birthday party in April 2016.Heard blamed the couple’s Yorkshire terriers, Pistol and Boo, but Depp was convinced a person had done it.”It was not left by a three- or four-pound dog. I was convinced that it was either Ms Heard herself or one of her cohorts involved in leaving human feces on the bed,” he said.He said that after this he realized that the marriage could not be saved.”I wanted nothing to do with her,” Depp said. “I thought that was an oddly fitting end to the relationship.”The Sun’s defense relies on a total of 14 allegations by Heard of Depp’s violence between 2013 and 2016. He strongly denies all of them.Under cross-examination by The Sun’s lawyer, Sasha Wass, Depp has depicted a tumultuous relationship with Heard during a period when he was trying to kick drugs and alcohol, and sometimes lapsing.  He said he came to feel he was in a “constant tailspin” and recalled telling Heard several times: “Listen, we are a crime scene waiting to happen.” But he denied being violent.Depp has denied Heard’s claims he assaulted her while under the influence of alcohol and drugs, in settings including his private island in the Bahamas, a rented house in Australia and the couple’s Los Angeles penthouse.The Sun’s lawyer alleged that during a fight at the penthouse in December 2015, Depp trashed Heard’s wardrobe, threw a decanter at her, slapped her, pulled her by the hair and headbutted her, causing two black eyes.The lawyer said Depp was “in an uncontrollable rage” and “screaming you were going to kill her.”Depp claimed Heard was the aggressor, and he had only tried to restrain her “to stop her flailing and punching me.” He conceded he might have head-butted her, but only by accident, and denied causing her injuries.Depp also rejected Heard’s claim that he subjected her to a “three-day ordeal of assaults” in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was appearing as Capt. Jack Sparrow in the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film.He agreed that the couple had an altercation, which ended up with their rented house being trashed and Depp’s fingertip being severed to the bone.Depp accuses Heard of cutting off his fingertip by throwing a vodka bottle at him. She denies being in the room when the digit was severed.According to Heard, Depp snorted cocaine, swigged Jack Daniels from the bottle, broke bottles, screamed at Heard, smashed her head against a refrigerator, threw her against a pingpong table and broke a window.”These are fabrications,” he said.Depp has admitted in court that he may have done things he can’t remember while he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. But he denied he could have been physically abusive and not remember it.”There were blackouts, sure, but in any blackout there are snippets of memory,” Depp said.Heard is attending the three-week trial and is scheduled to give evidence next week. 
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The Rolling Stones will release a new version of their 1973 album “Goats Head Soup” featuring three unheard tracks, including one featuring Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page. The band announced on Thursday that the release on Sept. 4 will include a four-disc CD and vinyl box set editions that includes 10 bonus tracks, including outtakes and alternative versions.  Page appears on a song called “Scarlet,” and the Stones also released a video for one of the unheard songs, called “Criss Cross.” “Goats Head Soup” features one of the band’s well-known acoustic ballads, “Angie.” 
 
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Authorities say former “Glee” star Naya Rivera is missing and being searched for at a Southern California lake. 
The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department late Wednesday confirmed that Rivera, 33, is the person being searched for in the waters of Lake Piru, which is approximately 56 miles (90 kilometers) northwest of downtown Los Angeles.
KNBC reported late Wednesday that Rivera rented a pontoon boat at the Lake Piru reservoir Wednesday and that her young son was found on the boat wearing a life vest. Rivera’s identification was found on the boat. Sheriff’s officials launched a boat and helicopter search Wednesday afternoon, but that had been suspended by nighttime. The search will continue early Thursday.
“We’re going on the belief that she did go in the water and we have not been able to locate her. So this may well be a case of drowning,” Captain Eric Buschow said during a news conference.
Rivera’s 4-year-old son is from a marriage with actor Ryan Dorsey. The couple finalized their divorce in June 2018 after nearly four years of marriage.  
She called her young son “my greatest success, and I will never do any better than him” in her 2016 memoir “Sorry Not Sorry.”
The actress was engaged to rapper Big Sean in 2013, but their relationship ended a year later. The pair met on Twitter and collaborated musically, with the rapper appearing on Rivera’s debut single “Sorry.”
Rivera played Santana, a cheerleader in the musical-comedy “Glee” that aired on Fox from 2009 until 2015. She appeared in 113 episodes of the series and dated co-star Mark Salling, who killed himself in 2018 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.
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Johnny Depp denied assaulting ex-wife Amber Heard on a private Caribbean island and during a furious rampage in Australia in a third day of evidence Thursday in the actor’s libel suit against a U.K. tabloid newspaper that called him a “wife-beater.”
Depp is suing News Group Newspapers, publisher of The Sun, and the paper’s executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an April 2018 article that said he’d physically abused Heard. He strongly denies the allegation.
Under cross-examination by The Sun’s lawyer, Sasha Wass, Depp depicted a volatile relationship with Heard, during a period when he was trying to kick drugs and alcohol, and sometimes lapsing. He said he came to feel he was in a “constant tailspin” but denied being violent.
Depp rejected Heard’s claim that he subjected her to a “three-day ordeal of assaults” in March 2015 in Australia, where Depp was filming the fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie.
“I vehemently deny it and will go as far as to say it’s pedestrian fiction,” he said.
He said his relationship with Heard was a “constant barrage of insults and demeaning footnotes and accusations of things that never happened.”
Depp and Wass sparred over disputed details of the Australia episode, which ended up with the couple’s rented house being trashed and Depp’s fingertip being severed to the bone.
Depp accuses Heard of cutting off his fingertip by throwing a vodka bottle at him. She denies being in the room when the digit was severed.
According to Heard, Depp snorted cocaine, swigged Jack Daniels from the bottle, smashed bottles, screamed at Heard, smashed her head against a refrigerator, threw her against a pingpong table and broke a window.
“These are fabrications,” he said.
He denied taking drugs but agreed that the couple had argued and at one point he “decided to break my sobriety because I didn’t care anymore. I needed to numb myself.”  
Depp agreed with the lawyer that the house was “wrecked” after the couple’s argument. The court was shown photographs of graffiti-covered mirrors, which Depp acknowledged he’d written on by dipping his bloody fingertip in paint.
But he said Heard was responsible for most of the damage to the house.
“That is completely untrue,” Wass said.
“Thank you, but it’s not,” Depp replied.
Wass also alleged that Depp had lashed out at Heard during an attempt to break an addiction to the opioid Roxicodone on his private island in the Bahamas in 2014.  
Wass said that at the time Depp praised Heard’s efforts to help him get clean. The lawyer read from a message Depp sent to Heard’s mother, saying “your daughter has risen far above the nightmarish task of taking care of this poor old junkie” and speaking of her “heroism.”
Heard alleges that Depp became violent towards her. He denied physical violence, but said Heard’s claim that he was “flipping” and “screaming” might be accurate.
“I remember that I was in a great deal of pain and uncontrollable spasms and such. … So flipping could be a word that was correct,” he said.
“I was not in good shape. It was the lowest point I believe I’ve ever been in in my life.”
Depp accused Heard of telling “porkie pies” — slang for lies — about his behavior. He acknowledged striking out at objects, saying it was better than “taking it out on the person that I love.”
Depp has acknowledged that he may have done things he can’t remember while he was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. But he denied he could have been physically abusive and not remember it.
“There were blackouts, sure, but in any blackout there are snippets of memory,” Depp said.
The Sun’s defense relies on a total of 14 allegations by Heard of Depp’s violence between 2013 and 2016.
The case is shining a light on the tempestuous relationship between Depp and Heard, who met on the set of the 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. Heard, a model and actress, filed for divorce the following year and obtained a restraining order against Depp on the grounds of domestic abuse. The divorce was finalized in 2017.
While neither Heard, 34, nor 57-year-old Depp is on trial, the case is a showdown between the former spouses, who accuse each other of being controlling, violent and deceitful during their marriage.
Wass read the court an email to Depp that Heard had composed in 2013 but never sent, saying he was “like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Half of you I love madly, and the other half scares me.”
Depp accused Heard of making up “hoax” abuse claims. He has acknowledged heavy drinking and drug use, but said Heard’s claim that drugs and alcohol made him a monster was “delusional.”
He also denied claims he hit Heard when she laughed at one of his tattoos, dangled her Yorkshire terrier, Pistol, out a car window and threatened to put the dog in a microwave.
Depp acknowledged having a “rather skewed” sense of humor and said the microwave comment was a running joke because the dog was so tiny.
Heard is attending the three-week trial and is expected to give evidence later.
Depp is also suing Heard for $50 million in the U.S. for allegedly defaming him in a Washington Post article about domestic abuse. That case is due to be heard next year. 
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Rapper Kanye West signaled he no longer supported U.S. President Donald Trump and said he would enter the presidential race to win it, according to an interview published on Wednesday.West, previously a vocal supporter of Trump, announced on Saturday that he would run for president in 2020. West and his reality TV star wife Kim Kardashian West have visited Trump in the White House.”I am taking the red hat off, with this interview,” West told Forbes magazine, referring to Trump’s trademark red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. “Like anything I’ve ever done in my life, I’m doing (this) to win.”Kanye West? The Girl Scouts? Hedge funds? All Got PPP LoansThe government’s small business lending program has benefited millions of companies, with the goal of minimizing the number of layoffs Americans have suffered in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the recipients include many you probably wouldn’t have expectedHe said he would run under a new banner – the Birthday Party.There was no record of West filing any official paperwork with the Federal Election Commission. The deadline to add independent candidates to the ballot has not yet passed in many states.West denied that his aim was to split the Black vote and hurt the chances of Trump’s Democratic opponent, Joe Biden. It was “a form of racism and white supremacy” to suggest all Black people should support the Democrats, he said.Trump, who hosted Kanye West in a widely publicized visit to the Oval Office in 2018, said the rapper’s candidacy “would be a great trial run” and that he had a “real voice,” according to an interview Tuesday with Real Clear Politics news website.Kanye West Wants the Oval OfficeEntertainer says he’s running for presidentWhite House spokesman Hogan Gidley on Wednesday called Kanye’s announcement “a scathing indictment of the Democrat Party, not just their policies on abortion, the Planned Parenthood, but also the policies that disproportionately affected African Americans in a negative way.”West told Forbes he believed “Planned Parenthoods have been placed inside cities by white supremacists to do the Devil’s work.” The group provides reproductive health care and education, with most of that being preventive care.The rapper also said he had been ill in February with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, and would be suspicious of any vaccines developed to prevent the infection. Reiterating false theories that link vaccines with child developmental disorders, he said: “So when they say the way we’re going to fix COVID is with a vaccine, I’m extremely cautious.”
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Legendary rock musician and former drummer of the Beatles Ringo Starr turned 80 Tuesday and celebrated with an online concert. Starr made an appearance Tuesday — wearing a mask with peace signs on it and practicing social distancing — along with his wife, Barbara Bach, at the “Peace and Love” statue to promote his online birthday concert, the proceeds from which, among other causes, went to support the Black Lives Matter movement. The iconic drummer told reporters “peace and love around the world” was his birthday wish and he believes supporting the Black Lives Matter movement is part of that. He said, “You can’t say ‘peace and love’ with someone’s knee on your throat,” referring to the death of George Floyd while in custody of the Minneapolis police department. Starr looked fit and healthy as he spoke with reporters and was, asked if he had a secret. He said, “God blessed me with these good looks. I don’t know, I work out, I eat right, I just do the best I can for the body and the mind.” His online concert, “Ringo’s Big Birthday Show” was streamed live on YouTube and other online channels, and featured, among other acts, his former Beatle bandmate Paul McCartney, Joe Walsh, and Sheryl Crow, and included birthday wishes from celebrities.      
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Johnny Depp gave evidence in a London court on Tuesday, denying claims that he hit ex-wife Amber Heard and accusing her of assaulting him and depicting him as a “monster.” Depp sat in the witness box in a wood-paneled High Court courtroom on the first day of his libel case against The Sun over an article that branded him a “wife-beater.” The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star began by taking the court oath and giving his full name: John Christopher Depp II. Depp is suing the tabloid’s publisher, News Group Newspapers, and its executive editor, Dan Wootton, over an 2018 story alleging he was violent and abusive to then-wife Amber Heard. Depp strongly denies the claim. Depp said Heard had “said to the world that she was in fear of her life from me, and I had been this horrible monster if you will. Which was not the case.” Depp, 57, and model-actress Heard, 34, met on the set of the 2011 comedy “The Rum Diary” and married in Los Angeles in February 2015. They divorced in 2017, and now bitterly accuse one another of abuse. Amber Heard arrives at the High Court in London, Britain July 7, 2020.Depp and Heard arrived by separate entrances at the neo-Gothic court building on the first day of the three-week trial, one of the first to be held in person since Britain began to lift its coronavirus lockdown. Both wore face coverings over their noses and mouths. Proceedings have been spread over several courtrooms to allow for social distancing. Witnesses are likely to include Depp’s former partners, Vanessa Paradis and Winona Ryder, both of whom have submitted statements supporting the Hollywood star. Depp’s claim centers on an April 2018 story in the British tabloid headlined: “Potty – How can JK Rowling be ‘genuinely happy’ casting wife beater Johnny Depp in the new Fantastic Beasts film?” While Heard isn’t on trial, the case is also a showdown between the former spouses, who accuse each other of being controlling, violent and untruthful during their tempestuous marriage. Describing one incident in which Heard claims he hit her, Depp said the opposite was true. “As things tended to do, [it] escalated and got physical, ending with a bit of assault. Ms. Heard struck me,” he said. He painted himself as the peacemaker who tried to de-escalate things. “Whenever it would escalate I would try to go to my own corner, as it were … before things got out of hand,” he said. The Sun’s defense relies on Heard’s allegations of 14 incidents of violence by Depp between 2013 and 2016, in locations including Los Angeles, Australia, Japan, the Bahamas and on a private jet. He denies them all and says Heard attacked him with items including a drink can and a cigarette. He also claims Heard or one of her friends defecated on his bed. “She was the abuser, not him,” Depp’s legal team, led by barrister David Sherborne, said in a written statement. “She is a highly complex and aggressive individual who suffered extreme mood swings, would provoke endless circular arguments, and fly into violent rages.” Depp’s lawyers said the judge would have to decide between two starkly opposing accounts of the relationship. “There is no real room for a middle ground here,” they said. “One side is plainly lying, and to an extraordinary extent.”  The case is set to put the two performers’ complex private lives under a microscope. In pre-trial wrangling, the Sun’s lawyers tried to have the suit thrown out on the grounds that Depp failed to disclose text messages he exchanged with an assistant showing that he tried to buy “MDMA and other narcotics” while he was in Australia with Heard in 2015.  Heard alleges that Depp subjected her to “a three-day ordeal of physical assaults” while they were in the country after drinking and taking drugs. The newspaper’s lawyer, Adam Wolanski, said withholding the texts was a breach of a previous court order requiring Depp to provide all documents from separate libel proceedings against Heard in the United States. Depp is suing Heard for $50 million for allegedly defaming him in a Washington Post article about domestic abuse. That case is due to be heard next year. Last week, judge Andrew Nicol ruled that Depp had breached the court order, but said “it would not be just” to throw out the actor’s claim. He also rejected an attempt by Depp to force Heard to disclose evidence including communications with actor James Franco and Space-X founder Elon Musk, with whom she allegedly had affairs while involved with Depp. The judge said the issue of Heard’s extramarital relations was irrelevant to the central issue in the case, which is “whether Mr. Depp assaulted Ms. Heard.” 
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A painting by artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith is joining works by the legendary pop artists Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol at the National Gallery of Art.         Smith’s “I See Red: Target” is the first painting on canvas by a Native American artist to enter the collection. The gallery announced the purchase of the painting this week.          Smith, a Corrales resident and an enrolled Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation in Montana, told the Albuquerque Journal she was shocked to be the first Native American painter to appear in the national museum.  
“Why isn’t Fritz Scholder or R.C. Gorman or somebody I would have expected?” included, she asked.         “On the one hand, it’s joyful; we’ve broken that buckskin ceiling,” she said. “On the other, it’s stunning that this museum hasn’t purchased a piece of Native American art” before.         Gallery spokeswoman Anabeth Guthrie said that while Smith’s work is the first painting by a Native American to be acquired, the museum owns two dozen works on paper by Indigenous artists.          The 11-foot-tall (3.3-meter-tall) mixed media painting addresses racism through the commercial branding of Indigenous American identity through Smith’s assemblage of ephemera and painterly touches.         “It’s Indians being used as mascots. It’s about Native Americans being used as commodities,” Smith said.         “I see Red: Target” belongs to a series about the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. Smith was responding to the appropriation of Native American names by sports teams, specifically the Washington Redskins.         Historic photographs of Native Americans and red stripes form the body of the piece. Newspaper clippings, the Char-Koosta News (the official publication of the Flathead Reservation, where Smith was raised), a comic book cover, fabric and a pennant cover the work.         The piece was created in 1992.         “[Racism] is still happening with Black Lives Matter,” she said. “It’s been 25 years and I thought ‘Oh, this will be obsolete.’”         “I See Red: Target” is on view in the East Building pop art galleries, among works by Johns and Warhol, who also incorporated recognizable imagery into their signature styles.          Like another work in the gallery, Warhol’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” Smith’s piece makes use of grid, repetition, photographic elements and painterly effects.     Smith’s roles as artist, teacher, curator and activist have resulted in hundreds of exhibitions across four decades. Her work hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Albuquerque Museum. 
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Hungry for a night out of the house, people are turning to the nostalgia of drive-in movie theaters as a safe entertainment option amid coronavirus social distancing orders.Today’s total of Empty Haar’s Drive-in lot and large movie screen. (Photo courtesy Haar’s Drive-In Theater)Pop-ups
Traditional theaters like Haar’s are not the only type of drive-in growing in popularity. Pop-up theaters, true to their name, are popping up in many restaurant and venue parking lots, catering to the public’s drive to socialize.“In order to do a drive-in theater, there’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of expense,” Hardy said. “I’m a little disappointed that pop-ups are being permitted because that is taking away from the industry that started it.”Businesses that contribute to the pop-up theater sensation are busier than ever.One of these is the franchise FunFlicks, which delivers and sets up inflatable drive-in movie-theater-sized screens to any location. Often for birthday parties and church or company events, these pop-up screens recently have been in high demand. “It has surprisingly become significantly busier,” FunFlicks Mid-Atlantic General Manager Matthew Goon told VOA about early quarantine’s effect on business. “In comparison to usual, I’d say almost five times as much, just because so many people are looking to do something for the community.”FunFlicks has a variety of screen types including drive-in movie inflatable screens at either 32, 40 or 52 feet wide. None of these sizes, however, compares to the average screen size of 52 feet tall by 120 feet wide seen at most original drive-in theaters.Many of the events FunFlicks has set up in the past few months were not for private parties or events, but public places that wanted to use their space to host community events.“We’re doing a ballroom … that usually is a wedding venue, but since they can’t have any weddings … they are utilizing their parking lot for the drive-in. We’ve got a lot of requests from schools to do virtual graduations and things like that,” Goon said.“It’s a lot of community-oriented type of requests,” Goon said, such as Rotary clubs sponsoring community events for residents and local businesses.People watch the movie “Jaws” at The Tribeca Drive-In outside Rose Bowl stadium during the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Pasadena, California, July 2, 2020.Social distancing challenges
One of FunFlicks Mid-Atlantic’s ongoing challenges is to follow different social distancing regulations among Maryland, Philadelphia, Delaware, New Jersey and the Washington areas.“It’s been a bit of false hope at times. We’ve gotten a ton of requests for events, but a lot of it is depending on what the individual governors say since we do operate through different states,” Goon said. “The different … mandates on social distancing are whether or not you can have bathrooms or food at these events. It’s been a lot of back and forth and waiting for someone else’s approval.”Despite these challenges, increased demand is exciting for pop-ups such as FunFlicks and established drive-ins such as Haars. It’s difficult to predict the longevity of the drive-in movie craze, but for the first time in recent years, these businesses are being recognized on a much larger scale.“I am very excited about the noticeability that drive-in theaters are getting now, because I always thought it was a great place to go,” Hardy said. “No matter what, you get to sit out under the stars with your family or friends and watch a movie on the biggest screen that you could have.” 
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Country music firebrand and fiddler Charlie Daniels, who had a hit with “Devil Went Down to Georgia,” has died at age 83.  A statement from his publicist said the Country Music Hall of Famer died Monday at a hospital in Hermitage, Tennessee, after he had a stroke, doctors said.  He had suffered what was described as a mild stroke in January 2010 and had a heart pacemaker implanted in 2013 but continued to perform. Daniels, a singer, guitarist and fiddler, started out as a session musician, even playing on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year. “I can ask people where they are from, and if they say `Waukegan,’ I can say I’ve played there. If they say `Baton Rouge,’ I can say I’ve played there. There’s not a city we haven’t played in,” Daniels said in 1998. Daniels performed at White House, at the Super Bowl, throughout Europe and often for troops in the Middle East. He played himself in the 1980 John Travolta movie “Urban Cowboy” and was closely identified with the rise of country music generated by that film. FILE – Charlie Daniels Band: “The Essential” CD. Daniels started out as a session musician, and playe on Bob Dylan’s “Nashville Skyline” sessions. Beginning in the early 1970s, his five-piece band toured endlessly, sometimes doing 250 shows a year.”I’ve kept people employed for over 20 years and never missed a payroll,” Daniels said in 1998. That same year, he received the Pioneer Award from the Academy of Country Music. In the 1990s Daniels softened some of his lyrics from his earlier days when he often was embroiled in controversy. In “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” a 1979 song about a fiddling duel between the devil and a whippersnapper named Johnny, Daniels originally called the devil a “son of a bitch,” but changed it to “son of a gun.” In his 1980 hit “Long Haired Country Boy,” he used to sing about being “stoned in the morning” and “drunk in the afternoon.” Daniels changed it to “I get up in the morning. I get down in the afternoon.” “I guess I’ve mellowed in my old age,” Daniels said in 1998. Otherwise, though, he rarely backed down from in-your-face lyrics. His “Simple Man” in 1990 suggested lynching drug dealers and using child abusers as alligator bait. His “In America” in 1980 told this country’s enemies to “go straight to hell.” Such tough talk earned him guest spots on “Politically Incorrect,” the G. Gordon Liddy radio show and on C-Span taking comments from viewers. He hosted regular Volunteer Jam concerts in Nashville in which the performers usually were not announced in advance. Entertainers at these shows included Don Henley, Amy Grant, James Brown, Pat Boone, Bill Monroe, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, Alabama, Billy Joel, Little Richard, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eugene Fodor and Woody Herman. Daniels, a native of Wilmington, N.C., played on several Bob Dylan albums as a Nashville recording session guitarist in the late 1960s, including “New Morning” and “Self-Portrait.” Eventually, at the age of 71, he was invited to join the epitome of Nashville’s music establishment, the Grand Ole Opry. He was inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2016. He said in 1998 that he kept touring so much because “I have never played those notes perfectly. I’ve never sung every song perfectly. I’m in competition to be better tonight than I was last night and to be better tomorrow than tonight.” Daniels said his favorite place to play was “anywhere with a good crowd and a good paycheck.” 
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The Louvre, Paris’ famous and the world’s most visited museum, partly reopened Monday, after being on lockdown for 16 weeks due to the spread of COVID-19.   The museum has lost more than $45 million in ticket sales in nearly four months, according to its director Jean-Luc Martinez, and may continue to have reduced visitation for a few more years, as the world adapts to the virus. The Louvre’s most famous works of art, like “Mona Lisa” and its big antiquities collection will be accessible, but a third of its galleries where social distancing is more difficult to observe, will remain shut.   However, no selfies will be allowed in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, and visitors are required to stand on marked spots on the floor. About 70 percent of the Louvre’s 9.6 million visitors last year were foreigners, but the situation is much different this year. The museum is hoping to have more French visitors to fill the gap, as France is trying to counter its elitist image ahead of the Paris Olympics to be held in four years. 
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