If DNA is destiny, it took an unexpected turn when the grandson of legendary World War II commander General Claire Lee Chennault was growing up.General Claire Lee Chennault (1890-1958), who commanded the legendary Flying Tigers and later the 14th Air Force in China, landed on the covers of Time and Life magazines during WWII. (U.S. Air Force)New York-based jazz musician Paul Sikivie says he was brought up with “a sense of awe” regarding his grandfather, one of the most storied commanders in the Asia theater during that war. But “he belonged to the world at large and not so much to me.” Sikivie is one of two grandsons of Chennault and his second wife, Anna. His mother is a noted medieval Chinese literature specialist, his father a Belgian-American physicist. “I wanted to be a geneticist for a while after ‘Jurassic Park’ was made into a movie; I never thought about Chinese language and literature as something for me,” Sikivie, now 37, recalled as he looked back on his childhood aspirations. By age 14, Sikivie knew he wanted to be a musician. Four years later, he knew his calling was jazz. “St. Thomas by Sonny Rollins came on NPR and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” he said of jazz’s enduring appeal. Paul Sikivie plays the bass alongside vocalist Cecile McLorin Salvant at a memorial concert for Lawrence Leathers held on Feb. 3, 2020, at Dizzy’s Club at Lincoln Center. (Frank. Stewart/Jazz at Lincoln Center)Would that have made sense to his grandfather, who landed on the covers of Life and Paul Sikivie, right, in a family photo with his parents, Pierre Sikivie and Cynthia Chennault, brother Michael, and grandmother Anna Chennault, in an undated photo. (Photo provided by Cynthia L. Chennault)Perhaps his grandfather would also understand the notion of the “band of brothers” that has also been central to Sikivie’s journey as a musician. Lawrence Leathers, a noted drummer on the New York jazz scene, was one of them.  Leathers, who died last year, “was like a brother to me. I learned a lot about being present and always reaching for the next level from being around him and playing music with him,” Sikivie said. Sikivie, Leathers and pianist Aaron Diehl often played as a band, traveling both in the United States and other parts of the world — including China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, where General Chennault had once set foot. Looking toward the future, the jazz bassist said, “I am continuing to learn how to organize my thoughts, feelings, values into music; there’s really no limit to the ways [in which] this can be accomplished.” 
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The U.N. Security Council reflected Friday on the lessons learned from World War II on the 75th anniversary of its end in Europe, as the world faces its biggest collective challenge since then — the coronavirus.“How we react to the new challenge before us — the COVID-19 pandemic — could be as significant as how the world rebuilt after fascism was vanquished,” U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told a virtual meeting of more than 80 nations, including nearly 50 foreign ministers, organized by Estonia, which presides over the Security Council this month.The end of six brutal years of war, massive death and destruction in Europe marked a turning point. From the devastation, the European Union, the United Nations and NATO were born, along with a new world order. The European High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell attends a video conference with Europeans Foreign Ministers in Brussels, Belgium, April 22, 2020. 
“COVID-19 is a test of our humanity, but also of the multilateral system itself,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said of the disease caused by the coronavirus. “The rules-based international order — with the U.N. at its core — must be upheld and strengthened.”He expressed concern that the pandemic has rattled societies and exposed vulnerable nations to great peril.“It has the potential to deepen existing conflicts and generate new geopolitical tensions,” Borrell said. “It is a reminder that peace, democracy and prosperity must constantly be nurtured, expanded and made more inclusive.”Several diplomats warned that, 75 years after World War II, some of the characteristics that marked Nazi Germany are reemerging on the world stage.“The voices of populism, authoritarianism, nationalism and xenophobia are making themselves heard ever more loudly,” the U.N.’s DiCarlo said. “We must confront those who would drag the world back to a violent and shameful past.”Germany, which was an aggressor in World War II and is now a leading nation on the European and international stage, also expressed concern about rising nationalism.German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas addresses the media at the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on March 17, 2020, to comment on the situation concerning the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Tobias Schwarz / AFP)“In Germany, we have a saying: ‘He who closes his eyes to the past will be blind to the present,’ ” Foreign Minster Heiko Maas said. He urged political support for international institutions and multilateralism, and threw his government’s support behind the U.N. chief’s call for a global humanitarian cease-fire.On March 23, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for the cease-fire to focus attention and resources on fighting the virus. Dozens of nations and at least 16 armed groups have signed on, but so far, the 15-nation Security Council has been unable to adopt a resolution supporting the truce.The United States, which accuses Beijing of lying and covering up the spread of the coronavirus early on, has butted heads with China at the Security Council over the language in the draft resolution.The Trump administration has blasted the World Health Organization for what it says is a bias favoring China and has suspended funding to the agency. Washington wants a reference to supporting the WHO in the fight against COVID-19 removed from the draft resolution. China wants it to remain.In this file photo taken on Feb. 8, 2020, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference at the African Union headquarters.France and Tunisia, which drafted the text, thought they found a way around it, changing the WHO reference to “specialized health agencies” of the United Nations — of which there is just one. Washington rejected that on Friday afternoon, ending yet another week without support from the U.N.’s most powerful body for Guterres’ now seven-week-old appeal.The feud between the two powers has frustrated diplomats who want to see strong support from the council for a global cease-fire, but fear the foot-dragging will further corrode the council’s credibility, which has found itself paralyzed on other important crises, including the war in Syria.Council resolutions require nine votes in favor and no vetoes from the five permanent members, which include China and the United States, to pass.
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While the White House looks ahead to reopening houses of worship, most Americans think in-person religious services should be barred or allowed only with limits during the coronavirus pandemic — and only about a third say that prohibiting in-person services violates religious freedom, a new poll finds.
The survey by the Center for Public Affairs Research suggests that, even as President Donald Trump projects eagerness to reopen, many religious Americans are fine with waiting longer to return to their churches, synagogues and mosques.
Among that group is 54-year-old Andre Harris of Chicago, a onetime Sunday school teacher who has shifted his routine from physical worship to the conference calls his church is holding during the pandemic.
Harris, a Methodist, said that until “either there’s a vaccine, or if we know that things have calmed down, I am not comfortable going back to the actual building.”
Just 9% of Americans think in-person religious services should be permitted without restrictions, while 42% think they should be allowed with restrictions and 48% think they should not be allowed at all, the poll shows. Even among Americans who identify with a religion, 45% say in-person services shouldn’t be allowed at all.
White evangelical Protestants, however, are particularly likely to think that in-person services should be allowed in some form, with just 35% saying they should be completely prohibited. Close to half – 46% — also say they think prohibiting those services violates religious freedom.
That constituency’s support for some form of in-person worship underscores the political importance of Trump’s public calls to restore religious gatherings as a symbol of national recovery from the virus, as energizing evangelical voters remains a key element of the president’s reelection strategy. Trump won praise from some evangelical leaders for citing the aspirational ideal of “packed churches” on Easter during the first weeks of the pandemic, though his goal didn’t materialize on Christianity’s holiest day.
Trump has since consulted with religious leaders on a phased-in return to in-person worship.
“It’s wonderful to watch people over a laptop, but it’s not like being at a church,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall on Sunday. “And we have to get our people back to churches, and we’re going to start doing it soon.”
Vice President Mike Pence is set to meet with faith leaders Friday in Iowa to talk about their reopening of worship. Iowa is one of several states, including Tennessee and Montana, where restrictions on in-person services are starting to ease as stay-home orders imposed to stop the virus run their course.
That’s in line with the preference of Patrick Gideons, 63, of Alvin, Texas, who said worshipers “should be able to do what they want.”
“If they want to be able to hold church the way they normally do, they should be able to do that,” said Gideons, a self-described born-again Baptist.
As houses of worship wrestle with when to reopen, draft guidance by a team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that offered recommendations for faith gatherings has been shelved by the Trump administration. While those guidelines aimed to help religious organizations use best practices to protect people from the virus, leaders in various denominations have already initiated their own internal discussions.
“Churches are very aware of the implications of people gathering in their buildings,” Kenneth Carter, president of the United Methodist Church’s Council of Bishops, said in a recent interview about the draft CDC guidance.
Compared with in-person religious services, Americans are more likely to favor allowing drive-through services, although most still say there should be limits. Overall, 25% think that those services should be allowed without any limits, and 62% say they should be allowed with limits.  
The Justice Department last month sided with a Mississippi church in its legal challenge to local limits on drive-in worship. Still, the poll found 56% of Americans say prohibiting drive-in services does not violate religious freedom.  
White evangelical Protestants were more likely than those of other faiths to favor allowing drive-through services without restriction, at 40%. In total, those who identify with a religious faith are more likely than those who do not to favor no restriction on drive-through religious services, 28% to 15%.  
As many houses of worship have paused in-person services during the virus, a sizable share of religious Americans have used technology to connect with their faith. One-fifth of religious Americans said they watched live streaming religious services online at least weekly in 2019 — but since the outbreak began, that has risen to 33%.  
About a third of evangelical Protestants streamed services at least weekly in 2019, but about half do now. Among Catholics, the share streaming services weekly has increased from 11% to 22%.
For members of the Southern Baptist Convention, when and how to resume in-person worship “would be a congregation-by-congregation decision,” Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said in a recent interview about the draft CDC guidance.
Moore predicted that some virtual worship would continue even as different areas transition back to in-person gatherings. Part of his work in offering resources to inform decisions, Moore said, involves “preparing churches for the fact that reopening probably won’t be one Sunday when everything goes back to the status quo.”
“Instead, there’s going to be probably a lengthy period of time where multiple things are happening at once,” Moore said.
 
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The Bundesliga soccer season will resume on May 16 in empty stadiums, picking up right where it left off two months ago amid the coronavirus pandemic.Thursday’s announcement comes one day after clubs were told the season could restart following a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the country’s 16 state governors.”Everyone has to be clear. We’re playing on probation,” German soccer league managing director Christian Seifert said. “I expect everyone to live up to this responsibility. Our concept is designed to catch infections early.”Seifert said the return of soccer was because of the success the country’s leaders and health officials have had in response to the outbreak.Germany has had a high number of COVID-19 infections — nearly 170,000 by Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins University — with about 7,000 deaths, a lower number compared to elsewhere.The country’s relative success in combating the virus has been attributed to early testing, a robust health service and strict lockdown measures that are now being loosened.”That we’re allowed to play again boils down to German politics for managing this crisis, and the health system in Germany,” Seifert said. “If I were to name the number of tests that I was asked about in teleconferences with other professional leagues, with American professional leagues, with clubs from the NFL, the NHL, Major League Baseball and others, and I tell them how many tests are possible in Germany, they generally check, or there’s silence, because it’s just unimaginable in the situation over there.”Only about a third of Germany’s massive testing capacity of almost 1 million a week is being currently used, said Lars Schaade, the deputy head of the Robert Koch Institute.Seifert said the season will restart with the 26th round of games, including the Ruhr derby between Borussia Dortmund and Schalke on the opening Saturday. That match will test local authorities who hope to keep groups of fans from gathering around the stadium or at bars to watch on television.Pay-TV broadcaster Sky said it will show all games on the first two weekends for free in Germany.Seifert, who was speaking in Frankfurt after a video conference with members from each club, warned that everyone involved will need to maintain strict hygiene measures to ensure another suspension will not be necessary.The Bundesliga was suspended on March 13 with nine rounds remaining. Seifert said the last round is now planned for the weekend of June 27-28. He said the second division will also begin on May 16.”The decision means economic survival for some clubs,” Seifert said.Seifert said there have been 10 positive cases of COVID-19 in the first two waves of tests among the 36 professional clubs, with another two positive cases found in a third wave.It was initially planned that teams would spend two weeks in quarantine before games could resume, but a compromise on shorter training camps in isolation for each team was reached because players have been undergoing regular tests.Seifert said a decision on whether to temporarily allow five substitutions per match depends on FIFA rules. FIFA made the proposal to help players cope with game congestion but it is still subject to approval from the International Football Association Board, soccer’s law-making body.
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Mandopop superstar Jay Chou is bringing a little magic into viewers’ lives with his Netflix show “J-Style Trip.”  
Part travelogue, part magic performance, the show has Chou diving into adventures around the world with his A-lister friends.  
“Magic is actually like music. It is a universal language,” Chou told The Associated Press in Taiwan recently.  
Chou and his friends take their magic tricks everywhere – from Pompidou in Paris to a local food court in Singapore – taking homebound viewers on virtual trips amid pandemic shutdowns.
 
“I wanted to show the warmness and friendliness of people around the world, and how people connect with each other in different ways,” Chou said.  
Each episode features a special guest like Taiwanese singer Jam Hsiao, Singaporean singer Wayne Lim Junjie, better known as JJ Lin, and classical pianist Lang Lang.  
Chou’s especially excited about Lang Lang’s upcoming appearance. “Lang Lang, in fact, is a very humorous and really fun person,” Chou said of the classical superstar who has a whopping 15 million followers on his social media.  
He couldn’t resist giving a sneak peek, revealing that Lang Lang will show up in hip-hop attire and fake mustache to surprise people.
 
Meanwhile, the singer-songwriter has another surprise in stored for his fans.  
“I haven’t released any albums for a very long time. That’s because I have been spending more time with my family,” said Chou, who got married in 2015 and has two children.  
Chou recently updated his Instagram with a picture of a piano painting by German artist Albert Oehlen.  
“I’ve started producing,” the caption said, with a piano emoji. Chou confirmed that he’s working on new songs. “I know my fans are excited. Seems like everyone’s been waiting for a long time,” Chou said.  
“Many people think my past songs are great and can’t be surpassed,” Chou said. He thinks his songs, albeit similar in some ways, cannot be compared because people project their own “memories” to each track.  
With more than 10 albums, Chou, who describes himself as “workaholic,” is still leveling up.  
“I always feel like only I can outperform myself!” 
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Photographers and models typically go from one photo shoot to another. COVID-19 pandemic restrictions are making their jobs challenging, but just like thousands of people around the world, they are finding a way to work. Iacopo Luzi reports in this piece adapted by Cristina Smit.
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Dancer and choreographer Nicolas Maloufi has not worked since France went into lockdown in mid-March, and his daily yoga sessions in a borrowed Paris apartment are his only form of training.  Although France will begin easing its unprecedented curbs on public life from Monday, with shops re-opening and some pupils returning to primary school, the doors to the country’s cinemas, theaters and concert halls will remain closed.   For Maloufi, 49, who has collaborated with venues including the Philharmonie de Paris and the Etoile du Nord theater, that means his productions are on hold. Nor is it easy to line up any more projects.   “I’m waiting for responses from about 20 bookers who are not available. I don’t dare chase them, it’s almost indecent given how many things they have to handle,” he told Reuters.   Maloufi is among those in France’s creative industry known as “intermittents” — the dancers, singers, comedians and technicians who work from gig to gig and receive state stipends to help cover costs between jobs if they work at least 507 hours per year.  French President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a protective face mask, speaks with schoolchildren during a class at the Pierre Ronsard elementary school, May 5 2020 in Poissy, outside Paris.With the entertainment industry shut down by the virus, President Emmanuel Macron promised to guarantee their stipends, as well as money for filmmakers whose productions have been cancelled, as part of a wider bailout for the arts.   Maloufi said the stipends were a lifeline.  “We live a precarious existence,” he said.  Jean-Marc Dumontet owns several venues across Paris including the Bobino on Rue de la Gaite, a street in the Montparnasse district famous for its theaters. Singers including Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel and Amy Winehouse all performed there, but now its auditorium and dressing rooms are empty, its family-friendly program of comedy, circus and musical theatre halted.   Macron encouraged artists to think of new, more intimate ways of performing, but Dumontet said it was not clear how that would work in his 900-seater Bobino.  “It’s not easy when you’re at the helm of big ships like we are to imagine smaller formats, for the very simple reason that it wouldn’t be profitable,” he said.   Nonetheless, he welcomed Macron’s announcements. “Today it’s about trying to face down this very difficult time,” he said.  Others were less positive. Jean-Michel Ribes, the respected head of the Rond-Point theatre off the Champs Elysees, said he was irked by the president’s calls for the industry to “reinvent” itself.   Ribes said the 41 shows for his next season, due to start in September, were decided on 18 months in advance. Delaying shows now was a logistical nightmare, he said. 
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Atlanta’s new archbishop will be installed Wednesday in a socially-distant Mass, adapting some Catholic traditions in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Inside the Cathedral of Christ the King in Atlanta, a small number of priests will look on from a choir loft, while a handful of others in attendance will be seated strategically in the church’s main nave, well away from the altar, Deacon Dennis Dorner said.
And instead of hugs, priests will applaud as Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer becomes the new leader of the Catholic Church in Atlanta.
“One of the challenges was just keeping the tradition but figuring out how to do that without having all the people there who are typically there,” said Maureen Smith, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
Typically, the cathedral would be packed for such an occasion. Guests would include Pope Francis’ representative, the papal nuncio, who would present Hartmayer with the papal bull, a document inscribed in Latin appointing Hartmayer to his post. Rather than traveling to Atlanta, the nuncio will appear by video for that portion of Wednesday’s service.
“We would typically have a full cathedral, a couple of hundred priests,” who would come up to the altar to greet the new archbishop. In the midst of a pandemic, “that’s just not going to happen,” Dorner said.
However, the Mass will be live-streamed for the faithful, and aired on the Catholic cable networks EWTN and The Catholic Television Network starting at 12:30 p.m.
“The end result will still be the same and wonderful,” Dorner said. “While we won’t have a full crowd in the cathedral, we’ll have a lot of people obviously watching the live-stream,” he said.
Pope Francis named Hartmayer, the bishop of Savannah, Georgia, since 2011, to the lead the Atlanta diocese in March.  
As a Conventual Franciscan, Hartmayer, 68, pledged to serve his vows of chastity, poverty and obedience in service to society. The Buffalo, New York, native worked as a guidance counselor, school director and teacher in Catholic schools in Baltimore, New York and Florida.
He replaces Archbishop Wilton Gregory, who took over in Washington, D.C., amid leadership changes in response to the global church’s sex abuse and cover-up scandals.
Hartmayer has held video calls with some of the priests and others he will be working with, and he’s been able to have some one-on-one, personal meetings.
“Fortunately he has a large conference room with a very long table, and they can separate from one another,” Dorner said. 
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Soccer players in Spain returned to their team’s training camps Wednesday for the first time since the country entered a lockdown nearly two months ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.Players for Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and other clubs started preparing for the return to training this week. They were all expected to be tested for COVID-19 and should be cleared to practice once the results are back. Most clubs are expected to resume practicing by the end of the week.The majority of players did not wear masks or gloves when they arrived, according to Spanish media. Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué and Luis Suárez were among those without masks when they drove into Barcelona’s training center. Antoine Griezmann, Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic did wear masks. Sergi Roberto arrived without a mask but had one on when he left.Real Madrid players Gareth Bale, Luka Modric and Karim Benzema arrived without masks, as did most of their teammates.Atlético Madrid posted some photos of its players arriving for tests wearing gloves and masks.Our first team players continue to carry out tests before training resumes.➡ https://t.co/3aipyTKfkX🔴⚪ #AúpaAtletipic.twitter.com/GxXgU1tV9Z— Atlético de Madrid (@atletienglish) May 6, 2020In general, players didn’t stay long at the club facilities, usually less than 30 minutes.Coaches also went to training camps and were tested. Barcelona coach Quique Setién was wearing gloves and a mask when he arrived.The training centers of all clubs were disinfected over the last couple of days. In addition to the players, all members of the coaching staff and other employees involved in training have to be tested for COVID-19 before the practice sessions can resume.The league wants the clubs to test all players daily after they start training.Players will initially practice individually. Smaller group sessions and full squad sessions will be allowed in upcoming weeks. The league sent clubs a protocol with safety guidelines on how to return to practice, detailing all measures that the players and the clubs must adopt.The league wants a training period of about a month before it can restart. It hopes to resume sometime in June with games without fans.Spain this week began easing some of the lockdown measures that were put in place in mid-March. Soccer players have been among the few athletes allowed to return to training facilities.However, players and coaches of Spanish club Eibar released a statement on Tuesday saying they were concerned about playing again amid the pandemic.
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A California appeals court on Tuesday overturned most of a 2017 jury verdict awarding Quincy Jones $9.4 million in royalties and fees from the Michael Jackson estate over the use of Jones-produced Jackson hits in the concert film “This Is It” and two Cirque du Soleil shows.The state’s 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that the jury misinterpreted a contract that was the judge’s job to interpret anyway. It took away $6.9 million that jurors had said MJJ Productions owed Jones for his work on “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and more of Jackson’s biggest hits.The appeals court found that the jury wrongly granted Jones money from licensing fees, wrongly went beyond the 10% royalty rate Jones was owed for record sales, and incorrectly granted Jones money for remixes of Jackson’s master recordings.The court kept intact $2.5 million of the award, which Jones said he was owed for the use of his masters in “This Is It” and other fees.The court also rejected a counter-appeal from the 87-year-old Jones arguing that the trial court should have allowed him to make a claim of financial elder abuse.”While we disagree with portions of the Court’s decision and are evaluating our options going forward, we are pleased that the Court affirmed the jury’s determination that MJJP failed to pay Quincy Jones more than $2.5M that it owed him,” Jones’ attorney J. Michael Hennigan said in a statement.Jones, who was already a music business giant when he produced the classic Jackson albums “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” had sought $30 million from the estate when he first filed the lawsuit in 2013.”Quincy Jones was the last person we thought would try to take advantage of Michael Jackson by filing a lawsuit three years after he died asking for tens of millions of dollars he wasn’t entitled to,” Jackson attorney Howard Weitzman said in a statement. “We knew the verdict was wrong when we heard it, and the court of appeal has completely vindicated us.”On the stand during the trial, Jones was asked by Weitzman whether he realized he was essentially suing Jackson himself.Jones angrily disagreed.”I’m not suing Michael,” he said. “I’m suing you all.”The trial centered on the definitions of terms in the two contracts Jackson and Jones signed in 1978 and 1985.Under the deals, for example, Jones is entitled to a share of net receipts from a “videoshow” of the songs. The Jackson attorneys argued that the term was meant to apply to music videos and not feature films like “This Is It.”The film was created from rehearsal footage for a comeback tour that Jackson was working toward when he died in 2009 at age 50.”So many people have tried to take advantage of Michael and mischaracterize him since his death,” Jackson estate co-executor John Branca said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s gratifying that in this case the court in an overwhelmingly favorable and just decision, recognizes that Michael Jackson was both an enormous talent and an extremely fair business executive.” 
 
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Amid the growing number of Zoom, Skype and other video interviews happening lately, a new form of entertainment has emerged: Judging the interior of other people’s homes. Tina Trinh reports.
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Danny Lin cruised his white sports car down Broadway, the bright lights of Times Square gleaming off his sharply detailed Audi R8. He looped through the tourist hotspot again and again, navigating around Corvettes, Mercedes, Mustangs and BMWs — a parade of high-priced vehicles gathered for a rare photo-op.”I never bring my car here,” said the 24-year-old from Queens. “Only for today, to get some cool shots.”From a star turn in “Taxi Driver” to the Naked Cowboy to the million people who crowd its streets on New Year’s Eve, the “Crossroads of the World” has for generations been an iconic New York backdrop in movies, culture and the arts. Now, Times Square has taken a turn toward Tokyo Drift, just without the “Fast and the Furious,” as car-loving New Yorkers flock to the barren streets of the theater district.Car mavens normally wouldn’t dare rev their engines in gridlocked Midtown, but they’re eagerly driving into Manhattan to take photos and show off for sparse crowds walking through the famed streets.  With the weather turning toward summer and restlessness settling in after six weeks of mandated social distancing, hundreds of automobile aficionados rolled down Broadway on Saturday night.”This is the only time we could come down here and take photos,” Lin said.  At least 100 pedestrians were wandering the area when the cars began roaring down Times Square’s main drag Saturday, along with dozens of motorcycles in one crew that created a deafening buzz. Police — some in cars, some on horseback — were mostly patient with the procession and only intervened if cars remained parked for too long.Some families with young children also drove through in minivans and SUVs, taking in Times Square as if touring neighborhood Christmas lights.Onlookers, mostly keeping six feet apart and wearing facemasks, cheered and took video from the sidewalks as suped-up cars and bikes went by.The area maintained some of its touristy quirks. A violinist with a glowing wand and blue hair played for tips, and a salsa-dancing couple put a camera phone on a tripod to record their performance. One woman wearing a leather leotard biked down Broadway a few times, cycling next to a giant van with a cameraman hanging out the passenger window to record as she sang and danced.By 11 p.m., sports cars were backed up for blocks along Broadway, and police closed the road from 47th Street down through Times Square, effectively ending the party.Car collectors have been driving into the area for weeks in smaller packs. Mike Hodurski and Steve Cruz brought their Chevrolet pickup trucks Wednesday night and took photos in front of a light-up American flag at the corner of Broadway and 43rd Street.  It was already Hodurski’s second trip to Midtown amid the outbreak. This time, the MTA bus driver brought a blue 1977 Chevy C10 pickup that he’d purchased earlier that day.”It’s a lot of fun. Might as well take advantage of it now, while nobody’s over here,” Hodurski said. “The streets are dead. You’d never get to see the streets like this. So we said, ‘You know what, screw it,’ and we all got together.”Hodurski is from Queens and Cruz from Brooklyn, and both said they usually avoid Times Square as much as possible — too many tourists and too much traffic. There was hardly anyone in the area when they cruised through Wednesday. They spent about five minutes in front of the flag before a cop asked them to keep moving.Andre Godfrey has driven his 2018 Ford Mustang — with glowing red shark teeth embedded in the grill — into Times Square twice. He and a buddy came around 3 a.m. last Thursday, when the area was completely empty, and pulled his car up onto a sidewalk for a glamour shot.  “Nobody bothered us,” Godfrey said. “There was one police officer down the street, like a crossing agent, and they didn’t really seem bothered by us on the sidewalk.”He came back Saturday after hearing from a friend that a crew of over 100 BMWs was heading toward the area. That caravan never got into Times Square — it arrived in Midtown shortly after police blocked off Broadway.”This is crazy,” Godfrey said. 
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South Korea reported just three new coronavirus cases Tuesday, while the country’s professional baseball league returned to action with a slate of games played in stadiums without fans.    Two months ago, South Korea was adding around 500 new cases each day, but used a series of measures, including aggressive testing and a smartphone app alerting people to nearby infections, to push down the spread of the virus.    Sports leagues all over the world were forced to put their seasons on hold amid stay-at-home orders and limits on public gatherings.    The Korea Baseball Organization is one of the first to resume play, and in a sign of the appetite for watching sports at this time, the league struck a deal to have some of its games broadcast on the U.S. cable sports giant ESPN in the middle of the night, U.S. time.    The U.S. National Football League is set to announce its schedule Thursday, but has decided to abandon plans to hold games this season in London and Mexico City.  New Zealand is also reporting promising progress with its second consecutive day of zero new cases.  Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday they were working on a plan to reopen travel between the two countries, but cautioned it would take some time to put in place. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern briefs the media about the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Parliament House in Wellington, April 27, 2020.Monday brought cooperation from all over the globe on a European Union-led effort to raise more than $8 billion to fund the development of treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.  About 40 countries, philanthropic organizations and individuals pledged donations, including $1 billion from the European Commission, $1 billion from Norway, $800 million from Japan and more than $500 million each from France, Saudi Arabia and Germany.    The World Health Organization (WHO) praised the effort as a sign of international solidarity in the fight against the virus.    “This virus will be with us for a long time, and we must come together to develop and share the tools to defeat it,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.   Notably absent was any participation from the United States.  French President Emmanuel Macron said he has held talks with President Donald Trump on the issue and that he is confident the United States will join the effort.    A senior State Department official said the United States is closely partnering with European allies, G-20 nations and the G-7 to respond to the coronavirus.  “The United States is in the process of providing $2.4 billion in global health, humanitarian, and economic assistance towards the COVID-19 response, and we continue to ensure that the substantial U.S. funding and scientific efforts on this front remain an essential and coordinated part of this worldwide effort against COVID-19,” the official told reporters in a briefing.    About 3.6 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19 worldwide, and more than 250,000 have died. Britain’s Office of National Statistics reported the death toll Tuesday had surpassed 30,000.  That is roughly equal to Italy as the highest reported in Europe.  Globally, only the United States has reported more COVID-19 deaths with about 69,000.  In India, a day after the government eased lockdown restrictions in some areas, thousands of people flocked to liquor stores, prompting authorities to institute a special 70% tax starting Tuesday to deter the crowds. 
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Players for the U.S. women’s national team may have been dealt a blow by a judge’s ruling in their gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation but the case is far from over.  The women have vowed to keep up the fight, encouraged by the likes of Joe Biden, Billie Jean King and even the men’s national team.  “This is just a setback,” King said when asked what she would tell the team. “There’s so many of these ups and downs. Just keep learning from it, keep going for it. You’re still such a great influence, not only in soccer, but for equality for everyone.”  King, who was calling for equitable prize money in tennis in the 1970s, once famously proclaimed: “Everyone thinks women should be thrilled when we get crumbs, and I want women to have the cake, the icing and the cherry on top, too.” The players sued the federation last year, claiming they have not been paid equally under their collective bargaining agreement to what the men’s national team receives under its labor deal. They asked for more than $66 million in damages under the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  The federal judge threw out the players’ claim of discriminatory pay Friday in a surprising loss for the defending World Cup champions. U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner said the women rejected a pay-to-play structure like the men’s agreement and accepted greater base salaries and benefits.  But he allowed aspects of their allegations of discriminatory working conditions to go forward. The trial remains scheduled for June 16 in federal court in Los Angeles. Players have vowed to appeal the judge’s decision.  There are several legal options. Players could seek to overturn Friday’s decision at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and could even discuss with the USSF the possibility of a joint application for a stay pending appeal. They could proceed with a trial limited to working conditions such as flights, hotels and medical staff, then appeal Friday’s ruling. Or the sides could seek to settle, perhaps as part of a deal to replace and extend the current collective bargaining agreement, which expires on Dec. 31, 2021. On Feb 7, 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA; Mexico defender Jimena Lopez (5) passes the ball while US midfielder Samantha Mewis (3) defends during the second half of the CONCACAF Women’s Olympic Qualifying soccer tournament.Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, went to Twitter this weekend to encourage the players.  “To @USWNT: don’t give up this fight. This is not over yet. To @ussoccer: equal pay, now. Or else when I’m president, you can go elsewhere for World Cup funding,” he posted, referring to the 2026 men’s World Cup, set to be hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The players’ association for the men’s national team also released a statement Monday expressing support. “For a year and a half the USMNT players have made proposals to the federation that would achieve equal pay for the USMNT and USWNT players,” the statement said. “We understand the WNT players plan to appeal last week’s decision and we support them.” Steven A. Bank, a professor at UCLA, said he was expecting Klausner’s decision on the summary judgment to focus the case but not to the degree it did.  “Frequently, judges will do that in order to narrow down the issues, but because it also spurs the parties to settle by essentially using a heavy hand and saying, ‘Hey, a lot of these things you have is fluff, so let’s get rid of this, and neither of you have as great a case that you think you do.’ So I’m not surprised that there was some level of summary judgment granted and some level denied,” he said. “But I was surprised that the judge came down with what is a fairly complete victory for U.S. Soccer.” In an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday, Megan Rapinoe said she was shocked by the decision. She pointed out the women’s team was far more successful than the men, winning consecutive World Cup titles and playing more games.  “If I earn $1 every time I play, and a man earns $3, just because I win 10 games and he only wins three games, so I made $10 and he made $9, I’m not sure how that’s me making more money, while having to essentially win everything we could’ve possibly won over these last two years: two World Cups and just about every game we’ve played,” Rapinoe said. “For me, it missed the point, and was very disappointing, to be honest.” Arguments could be made that the team has already made its case in the court of public opinion. Following the U.S. victory in the World Cup final last year in France, the crowd chanted “Equal Pay” as the players celebrated on the field.  The women also drew support from some of U.S. Soccer’s most high-profile sponsors when the federation argued in court documents that the women lacked the skills and responsibilities of their male counterparts. The so-called scorched earth argument led to the resignation of USSF President Carlos Cordeiro, who was replaced by former national team player Cindy Parlow Cone.  “I think it’s great that they brought the case forward, because I think any visibility into this issue is just going to help further the cause, because it’s going to make more people sensitive and aware that the issue of unequal pay persists in all spectrums of our economy,” said Mary Ellen Carter, an associate professor of accounting at Boston College. “I happen to know it well in the executive space, but it’s not only there. So I think the courage that they had to come forward with the suit keeps the issue at the forefront, and I think that that’s important.” 
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The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize in public service on Monday for illuminating the sparse policing of many Alaska villages. The New York Times won the investigative reporting prize for an expose of predatory lending in the New York City taxi industry, while the staff of The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky, took the breaking news reporting award for unpacking racial disparities and other issues in a spate of governor’s pardons. And a first-ever award for audio reporting went to “This American Life,” the Los Angeles Times and Vice News for “The Out Crowd,” an examination of the Trump administration’s “remain in Mexico” immigration policy. The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were first awarded in 1917 and are considered the field’s most prestigious honor in the U.S. The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism and the arts were announced Monday after being postponed by the coronavirus outbreak. The initial Pulitzer ceremony, which was scheduled for April 20, was pushed to give Pulitzer Board members who were busy covering the pandemic more time to evaluate the finalists. The awards luncheon that is traditionally held at Columbia University in May will be postponed as well. Details of a fall celebration will be announced at a later date, the Pulitzer Board said. The Pulitzer Prizes in journalism were first awarded in 1917 and are considered the field’s most prestigious honor in the U.S.  
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CBS News “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl said Sunday that she’s finally feeling well after a battle with COVID-19 that left her hospitalized for a week.
Stahl said she was “really scared” after fighting pneumonia caused by the coronavirus for two weeks at home before going to the hospital.
“One of the rules of journalism is ‘don’t become part of the story,'” Stahl said at the end of Sunday’s broadcast. “But instead of covering the pandemic, I was one of the more-than-one-million Americans who did become part of it.”
Stahl, 78, is the dean of correspondents at television’s best-known newsmagazine. She joined “60 Minutes” in March 1991, and before that was moderator of the Sunday talk show “Face the Nation” and a Washington correspondent.
She landed the first television interview with Donald Trump after he was elected president, and the first with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she become speaker — both in 2007 and again in 2019.
Stahl said there was a cluster of “60 Minutes” employees with the virus. One “had almost no symptoms while others had almost every symptom you can imagine,” she said. “Each case is different.”
Stahl said she found an overworked and nearly overwhelmed staff when she was hospitalized but paid tribute to their care, and said she was wheeled out through a gauntlet of cheering medical workers when discharged.
“In the face of so much death, they celebrate their triumphs,” she said.
60 Minutes declined to name the hospital involved.
“Thanks to them, like so many other patients, I am well now,” she said. “Tonight, we all owe them our gratitude, our admiration and, in some cases, our lives.”
Stahl is arguably the most prominent television journalist to disclose they had the disease. CNN hosts Chris Cuomo and Brooke Baldwin have tested positive, the former continuing his prime-time show while fighting symptoms. ABC “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos had it, but like many infected, had only mild symptoms.
The virus has infected 3.5 million people and killed more than 246,000 worldwide, including more than 66,000 dead in the United States, according to a count by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the numbers are likely larger.
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The winningest coach in U.S. National Football League history, Don Shula, has died at the age of 90.His former franchise, the Miami Dolphins announced his death from their official Twitter account Monday, saying he died peacefully at his home in Miami. Their statement went to say “Don Shula was the patriarch of the Miami Dolphins for 50 years, He brought the winning edge to our franchise and put the Dolphins and the city of Miami on the national sports scene.”Shula played college football at John Carroll University in Ohio and was drafted to play in the NFL in 1951. Shula played defensive back for the Cleveland Browns, the Baltimore Colts, and Washington Redskins through 1957.He became a coach in the NFL in 1960, when he was hired as the defensive coordinator for the Detroit Lions. Three seasons later, the Colts hired Shula to serve as head coach – at 33, the youngest head coach in league history at the time.After the 1969 season, Shula signed to coach the Dolphins and quickly turned them into a dominant team. Miami went to the Super Bowl to cap the 1971 season, where they lost to the Dallas Cowboys. After that the team won Super Bowls in the next two seasons.  This included NFL’s only undefeated (17-0) season in 1972.The Hall of Famer remained the head coach in Miami through 1995, winning the coach of the year award four times. Shula finished with 328 regular-season wins and 19 playoff victories. His regular-season winning percentage translates to a victory rate of more than two out of every three games played.
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Idir, an Algerian singer who gave voice to the Berber and Kabyle cultures, has died in Paris. He was 70.Saturday’s death of the singer, whose real name was Hamid Cheriet, was confirmed on a post on his official Facebook page that read “we regret to announce the passing of our father (to all), Idir. Rest in peace.”French media report that he died from pulmonary disease after being hospitalized on Friday.Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune paid tribute to him on Twitter, saying that “with his passing, Algeria has lost one of its monuments,” and referred to him as “an icon of Algerian art.”Idir was a national treasure in his native Algeria.Born on Oct. 25, 1949 in Ait Lahcene, near the Kabylie capital of Tizi Ouzou and part of French Algeria at the time, he studied to be a geologist, but his life took a twist in 1973 when he was called up as a last-minute replacement on the radio to sing “A Vava Inouva.” It was a lullaby with the “rich oral traditions” of the Berber culture and became a beloved song in the country.Idir moved to France in 1975, after finishing military service, where he recorded his first album, also titled “A Vava Inouva,” and a series of popular North African-style songs in the same decade.The style of his music, with lone vocals and acoustic guitar, championed the sounds of Kabyle music, and as such he was widely considered an ambassador of the Kabyle culture.The Berber-speaking Kabyle people are a sub-group of North and West Africa’s wider Berber ethnic population. In Algeria, the Kabyles are a minority that have historically been repressed by the central government and are indigenous to the north of the country, spanning the Atlas Mountains. Many Kabyle settled in France following the Algerian civil war. 
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Gil Schwartz, the longtime CBS communications executive who wrote humorous novels and columns under the pen name Stanley Bing, has died. He was 68.  CBS representatives said Sunday that Schwartz died Saturday at his home in Santa Monica, California. His death, they said, was unexpected, but due to natural causes.  Schwartz had a distinguished nearly 40-year career in corporate America with CBS, Viacom and Westinghouse Broadcasting. He retired in 2018 from his post as senior executive vice president and chief communications officer of CBS Corporation.But unlike most of his peers, Schwartz had a once-secret and then public side career as a lauded humorist and writer of 13 books who satirized the business world he was part of. Under the pseudonym Stanley Bing, Schwartz wrote a column in Esquire for 13 years and then in Fortune. One, “Executive Summary: Stanley Bing,” from 1991, describes an unwelcome 40th birthday in the style of a corporate presentation.  “You’ll have to excuse me if I sound a little morose. I am morose,” he wrote. “This corporation recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary of operations. Quite a few parties were held in its honor, and they succeeded in getting this speaker somewhat depressed in the way that only enforced merriment truly can.”Although he was able to hold the dual identities in secret for a while, in the 1990s, it became “the most poorly held secret in the media business.””Bing’s” books included “Crazy Bosses: Spotting Them, Serving Them, Surviving Them,” “You Look Nice Today,” “Lloyd: What Happened,” and “Immortal Life: A Soon to Be True Story.”Born in New York City in 1951, Schwartz studied theater arts and English at Brandeis University. He was a renaissance man: A poet, playwright, actor, guitarist and photographer of birds, food and travel.  Schwartz is survived by his wife of 14 years, Laura Svienty, two children, two step children and two grandchildren. The statement says a memorial service will take place in the fall. In lieu of flowers, the family requests anyone seeking to honor Schwartz donate to lafoodbank.org, foodbanknyc.org  or sfmfoodbank.org. 
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Two of Bollywood’s biggest directors teamed up with charity Give India to present a virtual fundraising event on Sunday. Much like the “One World Together at Home” event coordinated by Lady Gaga earlier this month, Indian directors Karah Johar and Zoya Akhtar hosted a livestream including dozens of actors and musicians to raise money for India’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. World-renowned actors such as Shahrukh Khan and musicians including A.R. Rahman performed and gave inspiring speeches in the Facebook Live event, dubbed the iFor India concert, that was streamed by thousands of people around the world. Mick Jagger, Joe Jonas and Mindy Kaling were also taking part. Organizers hope the event will raise over a million dollars. “100% of all proceeds of #IForIndia will go to GiveIndia’s Covid 19 relief efforts. This will help provide PPE kits to healthcare workers and food, rations, and cash relief to daily wagers and migrant workers,” a description under the event’s livestream read.The virtual event comes as India recorded the highest one-day spike in new cases, having reported over 2600 new positives on Saturday, according to national news. India has confirmed COVID-19 cases have surpassed 40,000 and the death toll is over 1300, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus resource center. Late last week, India announced that it would extend its lockdown — one of the strictest in the world — another two weeks. 
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A young Egyptian filmmaker imprisoned for directing a music video critical of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi has died in a Cairo jail, his lawyer said Saturday.Shady Habash, 24, died in Tora prison, said lawyer Ahmed al-Khawaga, who was unable to give a cause of death.”His health had been deteriorating for several days. … He was hospitalized, then returned to the prison yesterday evening, where he died in the night,” he told AFP, without giving further details.Habash was detained in March 2018, accused of “spreading fake news” and “belonging to an illegal organization,” according to the prosecution.He was arrested after having directed the music video for the song “Balaha” by rock singer Ramy Essam.The song’s lyrics lambast “Balaha” — a name given to el-Sissi by his detractors in reference to a character in an Egyptian film known for being a notorious liar.Essam gained popularity during the popular revolt against then-President Hosni Mubarak in early 2011. He has since gone into exile in Sweden.The video has had more than 5 million views on YouTube.Died of ‘negligence’The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI) said in a Twitter post that Habash died as a result of “negligence and lack of justice.”Human rights groups have regularly highlighted poor prison conditions in Egypt.Since early March, because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, authorities have suspended visits and the work of the courts, further isolating detainees.”Due to the measures taken against the coronavirus, no one has been able to see [Habash]” recently, said Khawaga.Habash himself warned of his predicament in October, in a letter posted Saturday on Facebook by activist Ahdaf Soueif.”It’s not prison that kills, it’s loneliness that kills. … I’m dying slowly each day,” he wrote.Fearing the spread of the virus in overcrowded prisons, human rights defenders have called for the release of political prisoners and detainees awaiting trial.According to several NGOs, an estimated 60,000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners, including secular activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and Islamists arrested in an ongoing crackdown against dissent since the military’s 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi.
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Two of India’s most beloved movie stars, Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, died within a day of each other this week, and though they came from two very different worlds and two very different schools of acting, both leave behind a treasure of cinematic work and millions of grieving fans.
This double whammy for India’s Hindi-language film industry, known as Bollywood, comes amid a crippling coronavirus lockdown that has brought the entertainment business — along with so much else — to a complete halt.
“It seems we are in the midst of a nightmare,” popular actor Akshay Kumar tweeted.
In normal times, the funerals for two of Bollywood’s most-admired actors would mean tens of thousands of fans gathering to bid them goodbye. Instead, their ceremonies were held in the presence of a handful of family and friends, surrounded by police.
The 54-year-old Khan died Wednesday after battling a rare cancer, while the 67-year-old Kapoor had leukemia and died Thursday.  
The career trajectories of both actors reflect the changing contours of Bollywood, which in the past traversed two parallel streams of arthouse cinema and commercial films. The growing acceptance and box-office viability of content-driven films over the last two decades gave the two a chance to cross paths and act in movies that were both critically acclaimed and popular.
 
A trained stage actor, Khan started his career with television and found work in new-age Bollywood, which was experimenting with visceral themes reflecting India’s social and political fault lines in the 1990s.  
It took years of roles in small films before Khan made it to the Bollywood big leagues. Balancing arthouse movies with popular commercial fare, Khan went on to play a wide array of roles including an intensely tormented lover in “Maqbool,” an adapation of “Macbeth,” and a gentle immigrant in Mira Nair’s “The Namesake.”
Unlike other Bollywood superstars with mega-stylized personas, the versatile Khan brought a rare intelligence and empathy to his characters over his 30-year career.
“He managed to walk off the screen and come home with us,” wrote film critic Shubhra Gupta in the Indian Express newspaper.
One of the best-known Indian faces in world cinema, Khan crossed over to Hollywood with ease, playing a variety of parts in movies like “Slumdog Millionaire,” “Life of Pi” and “The Amazing Spider Man.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a tweet that Khan was an ” incredible talent” and “left his imprint on global cinema.”  
“Gone too soon. When he is on screen, you can’t take your eyes off of him. He lives on in his films,” tweeted Hollywood filmmaker Ava Duvernay.
Kapoor’s cinematic journey could not have been more different.
Kapoor was a third-generation actor, born with showbiz in his blood. His grandfather Prithiviraj Kapoor and father Raj Kapoor were legendary actors of their time.  
Rishi Kapoor started young, receiving the National Award, India’s preeminent film award, for his role as a child artist in his father’s 1970 film “Mera Naam Joker.”
“Acting was in my blood and there was simply no escaping it,” Kapoor wrote in his 2017 autobiography.
The runaway success of the teenage romance “Bobby” in 1973 made him a Bollywood heartthrob and a string of romantic, musical blockbusters followed.  
The charming lover boy of the 1970s and 1980s went on to become one of the most dependable actors of his time and appeared in some of Bollywood’s most-loved films, including “Amar Akbar Anthony” and “Chandni.”  
To be in sync with contemporary filmmakers moving away from melodrama and mining plot-driven stories, Kapoor refashioned his career in later years to play a variety of strong character roles. His portrayal of an old man in the 2016 movie “Kapoor & Sons” and as a Muslim man forced to prove his patriotism in “Mulk” in 2017 won him great acclaim. His most recent movie “The Body” was released last year.
“There may not be another actor who grew up and grew old on camera,” tweeted film critic Uday Bhatia.
In his final years, Kapoor became a popular presence on social media, and was refreshingly honest about his opinions. In his last tweet on April 2, he appealed to people to respect the work frontline health workers were doing.
“We have to win this Coronavirus war together,” Kapoor wrote.
Altogether Kapoor acted in more than 100 movies in a career spanning more than 40 years.
“He smiled on screen and the world outside became a little bit lighter,” film critic Baradwaj Rangan wrote in a tribute. “He gave us joy.” 
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NASCAR announced Thursday that it will resume its season without fans starting May 17 at Darlington Raceway in South Carolina with the premier Cup Series racing three more times in a 10-day span.  NASCAR joins the UFC as the first major sports organizations to announce specific return to play plans since the coronavirus pandemic shut down U.S. sports in mid-March.  “NASCAR and its teams are eager and excited to return to racing, and have great respect for the responsibility that comes with a return to competition,” said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “NASCAR will return in an environment that will ensure the safety of our competitors, officials and all those in the local community. NASCAR’s revised schedule goes only through May and has a pair of Wednesday Cup races, fulfilling fans longtime plea for midweek events. The first race is scheduled for Darlington, NASCAR’s oldest superspeedway, followed by a second race at the 70-year-old, egg-shaped oval track three days later.  Charlotte Motor Speedway will then host the Coca-Cola 600 on May 24 to mark 60 consecutive years the longest race on the NASCAR schedule will be held on Memorial Day weekend. The track in Concord, outside NASCAR’s home base of Charlotte, will then host a Wednesday race three days later.  There will also be lower-tier Xfinity and Trucks series races at the two tracks. The North Carolina governor has said the the Charlotte races can be held as long as health conditions in the area do not deteriorate. “This has been a proactive effort to put our motorsports industry back to work and boost the morale of sports fans around the world, while at the same time keeping the health and safety of all who will be on site the top priority,” said Marcus Smith, president and CEO of Speedway Motorsports. He said “sports fans around the world need this, a return to some sense of normalcy with live sports on TV, and NASCAR is uniquely positioned to deliver it from a competition standpoint.” NASCAR has set guidelines to safely hold the events using CDC guidelines on social distancing and personal protective equipment. Only essential personnel will be permitted to attend the events, and cloth face masks will be required. The entire venue will be used to maintain distancing in garage stalls and where the haulers are parked.  NASCAR suspended its season March 13 with only four of its 36 scheduled races completed. The stock car series, heavily reliant on television money and sponsor payments, has vowed to complete its full schedule. The revised schedule for now stays at tracks within driving distance of Charlotte-based race teams and in states that have started reopening.  “Darlington is one of the most iconic and historic tracks in the sport and will be a tremendous backdrop when NASCAR returns to racing,” said track President Kerry Tharp, who noted the track will now have three Cup races in one season for the first time in its history.  Darlington is also scheduled to open the playoffs with the Southern 500 on Sept. 6. Because the track now has two additional dates, NASCAR will lose two Cup races from its other properties. The same goes for Speedway Motorsports, which gained one additional race so far and will have to forfeit one at another facility.  Almost all teams began returning to their shops this week with either a reduced initial workforce or in split shifts. Now that NASCAR has told the teams where it will be racing this month, they can start preparing cars suitable for the two tracks.  Although Florida and Texas invited NASCAR to compete in those states without spectators, the sanctioning body is holding off on scheduling events at tracks that require air travel and hotel accommodations. 
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The Army’s top leaders on Thursday defended their decision to bring 1,000 cadets back to the Military Academy at West Point for graduation, where President Donald Trump is slated to speak, saying that despite the coronovirus risk students would have had to return anyway to prepare for their next duty assignment.
The announcement has been criticized as a political move to get Trump on stage at the academy, where he hasn’t yet given a graduation address. But Army officials said the students must return for final medical checks, equipment and training.  
“We can’t telecommute to combat,” Gen. James McConville, the chief of staff of the Army, told Pentagon reporters when asked about the decision, which forces cadets spread out across the U.S. to travel, risking exposure on public transportation, and then land in New York, a coronavirus hot spot.
Cadets have been home since spring break in March, with their return to school delayed because of the outbreak. Only the seniors will return, and the graduation is set for June 13.
Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, academy superintendent, said the students must return for medical and other required tasks that can only be done at the academy before they can be turned over as new officers to the Army.
He said the school will create a “safety bubble” around the cadets and build a staging base where they will arrive. All cadets will be screened and tested for the virus at the staging area and then separated into five groups that will eat and live separately. They will be quarantined for 14 days.
 
Williams said Keller Army Community Hospital at the base now has all the needed testing equipment, and was converted to be able to handle and quarantine virus patients.
Asked if cadets will face discipline if they can’t or don’t want to come back because of the virus, he said commanders will decide on a case-by-case basis.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., a member of West Point’s Board of Visitors, said she expressed her concerns about the decision to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy in a call this week.
“Trump’s reckless decision to gather 1,000 Cadets at West Point for a speech puts our future military leaders at increased risk — all to stroke his own ego,” said Duckworth, a retired Army helicopter pilot, who served in the Iraq war and received a Purple Heart.
McCarthy told reporters the Army wants to have a “small, safe graduation ceremony” for the cadets to celebrate.
In contrast, the U.S. Naval Academy has announced it will hold a virtual graduation and postpone other traditional milestone events until large-scale gatherings are allowed. The academy’s superintendent, Vice Adm. Sean Buck, called it a difficult decision but necessary “to safeguard the health and welfare of the entire Naval Academy family and local community.”
The U.S. Air Force Academy opted to hold a scaled-down ceremony with hundreds of graduating cadets sitting in chairs eight feet apart on the school’s parade field, instead of in its stadium. The ceremony was closed to visitors.
West Point’s graduation ceremonies are usually held in May in a football stadium.
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Veteran Bollywood actor Rishi Kapoor died Thursday in Mumbai after battling leukemia for two years.   
 
The 67-year-old star, who made his debut as a child actor in “Mera Naam Joker,” (My Name is Joker) went on to win the hearts of millions of fans with a teenage love story, “Bobby” in 1973.
 
The news of his death was a double blow for the Bollywood Hindi movie industry and its tens of millions of fans – Kapoor passed away a day after another acclaimed actor, Irrfan Khan, succumbed to cancer.   
 
Kapoor had undergone treatment in a New York hospital for almost a year before returning to India last September. He was admitted to a hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday.
 
“The doctors and medical staff at the hospital said he kept them entertained to the last. He remained jovial and determined to live to the fullest right through two years of treatment across two continents,” Kapoor’s family said in a statement.
 
Kapoor was a third-generation actor in a famed Bollywood family that has played a dominant role in the industry.   
 
During a career that spanned nearly five decades, he made a mark as a romantic hero during his earlier films but transitioned to a much-acclaimed character actor in the past decade. He last starred in a film “102 Not Out” released in 2018.
 
Tributes poured in from veteran actors and his fans on social media. Bollywood’s most iconic star, Amitabh Bachchan tweeted “I am destroyed.”
 
“Multifaceted, endearing and lively, this was Rishi Kapoor,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter.   
 
“This is a terrible week for Indian cinema, with the passing of another legend, actor Rishi Kapoor,” Congress Party leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted.
 
With India in a strict lockdown due to COVID-19, Kapoor’s family appealed to the public to follow the rules in force and said “he would like to be remembered with a smile and not with tears.”
 
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The six-year fan campaign for a standalone Black Widow movie was paying off: At long last, a film would put Scarlett Johansson’s popular Avenger front and center. And, like many of Marvel’s biggest spectacles, it was set to open the weekend of May 1.  “Black Widow” was to kick off what promised to be a typically lucrative summer moviegoing season, which runs from Memorial Day through Labor Day and generally accounts for $4 billion, nearly 40% of the yearly North American box office. And there was a lot more to look forward to: Tom Cruise’s return to one of his most iconic roles; a “Wonder Woman” sequel; original fare from Christopher Nolan and Wes Anderson, and more. Then the unthinkable happened.Now modern Hollywood is faced with a gutted summer season that at the very earliest will kick off months late — and even that is changing by the minute. On Monday, Judd Apatow’s Pete Davidson movie “The King of Staten Island” switched to a June 12 home video  release, following in the path of Disney’s “Artemis Fowl,” out on Disney Plus June 12, and Warner Bros.’ “Scoob!” available May 15.No blockbusters until JulyA few states are talking about allowing movie theaters to reopen soon — Texas as early as Friday. But no major blockbusters are set to open until mid-July. The first is Christopher Nolan’s thriller “Tenet,” a Warner Bros. film, which has ardently stood its ground on July 17. Shortly afterward, Disney plans to open “Mulan” on July 24, four months after its original date. And then comes “Wonder Woman 1984” on August 14, two months later than planned. It’s something, but it’s still a shell of what summer 2020 at the movies was supposed to be.  “We’re down 50% right now,” said Comscore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “If theaters open in mid-July it’ll offset some of the really disastrous models. But it would be naive to think that we’re going to make up all that box office.”Studios have depended on massive revenues from the summer months for decades, but in recent years they have discovered that movies can do blockbuster numbers in nearly any month.  That will be tested with Hollywood’s massively revamped schedule. Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” will open on October 16, “Black Widow” will get her day on November 6; and “Top Gun: Maverick” is now set for Christmastime.Some films abandoned 2020 entirely, including the “Fast and Furious” movie “F9”; the Dwayne Johnson-Emily Blunt adventure “Jungle Cruise”; and “Ghostbusters: Afterlife,” which were all pushed to 2021.FILE – A person walks across a street as a marquee displays a message that a movie theater is temporarily closed because of the coronavirus outbreak, March 31, 2020, in downtown St. Louis.It’s not as simple as just allowing venues to reopen. Theaters need new movies to show and the biggest on the horizon, “Tenet,” is still almost three months away.”The movie theater industry is also a national one,” the National Association of Theatre Owners said in a statement. “Until the majority of markets in the U.S. are open, and major markets in particular, new wide-release movies are unlikely to be available.”The nation’s largest movie theater chain, AMC, which operates over 630 theaters in the U.S., said in a statement that in order to reopen it needs “a line of sight into a regular schedule of new theatrical blockbusters that get people truly excited.”AMC said it would open in the weeks ahead of blockbusters like “Tenet” and “Mulan” using “creative programming” of previously released films.Eric Wold, a Wall Street analyst for B. Riley FBR, said there’s simply a lot of uncertainty about when theaters can open, what the guidelines will be and how moviegoers will respond.’There’s no rush'”Do you open now and show ‘Jaws’ and ‘Harry Potter’ and older titles? Or are people going to say, ‘I can watch that at home’?” Wold said. “I think [theaters will] be smart and wait. There’s no rush. You might as well wait until June and see how it goes and slowly open from there.”  Should restrictions stay in place longer, Wold said, the bigger chains have raised enough cash to last to at least until Thanksgiving for AMC, and even into 2021 for Cinemark, with no revenue coming in.  “Black Widow” will still have her day in the sun, even if it is in November, and all of the movies will eventually come out in one form or another. On Tuesday, theater owners and Universal squabbled over “Trolls World Tour’s” straight-to-video-on-demand strategy and what it means for the future of theatrical windows.  But perhaps the turbulence of the lost 2020 summer movie season will result in some strategic rethinking — at least that’s what film critic and “Unspooled” co-host Amy Nicholson hopes.”For decades, the major studios have wandered away from producing mid-budget comedies and adult dramas to gamble their money on gargantuan summer blockbusters,” said Nicholson. “I’d love to see the industry recover by greenlighting an eclectic slate of $5 million-to-$15 million flicks that could make moviegoing fun again. Time to swap out financial risks for creative risks.”
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The most controversial movie of the year is … “Trolls World Tour”? As innocuous as the rainbow-colored, music-blaring animated movie may seem, the digital release of the “Trolls” sequel has caused a storm to course through the movie industry. Just as the pandemic worsened and movie theaters were shuttering, Universal Pictures shifted the film’s release to video on demand, leading a charge straight through the theatrical window. Universal calls the “Trolls World Tour” digital release a success and suggests it may be the beginning of a sea change in how movies are released. Theater owners strenuously disagree. AMC Theaters, the largest chain in the United States, is signaling an all-out war, saying it will no longer show Universal movies.  While few anticipated a skirmish would come over a glitter explosion like “Trolls World Tour,” it has been long in coming. Netflix, Amazon and other streaming services have in recent years broken the industry’s traditional theatrical window of 72-90 days (and thus had their films excluded from major theater chains), and the major studios have sometimes been tempted to try their own luck and head straight to homes.  FILE – Jeff Shell, NBCUniversalOn Tuesday, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell told The Wall Street Journal  that the digital release for “Trolls World Tour” has gone well enough to demonstrate the viability of direct-to-home releases. He promised that even once theaters reopen, “We expect to release movies on both formats.”  The Journal reported that in three weeks of $20 on-demand rentals, “Trolls World Tour” has grossed about $95 million. The studio, which normally splits sales approximately in half with theaters, pocketed about $75 million of that. A spokesman for Universal did not dispute those figures.  By comparison, 2016’s “Trolls” grossed $116 million in U.S. and Canada and $346.9 million worldwide. The sequel cost a reported $90 million to produce, not including marketing costs that likely exceeded $50 million.Pandemic-era fluke?Whether that performance constitutes a “hit” or merely an intriguing pandemic-era experiment has been the subject of much debate. Under stay-at-home orders, the country’s moviegoers are on lockdown. “Trolls World Tour” benefited by being the first such release during the crisis. And even in those extreme circumstances, it’s made significantly less than the original film did. The rentals may have also eaten into other “downstream” home entertainment revenue sources.  “Universal does not have reason to use unusual circumstances in an unprecedented environment as a springboard to bypass true theatrical releases,” said John Fithian, president and chief executive of the National Association of Theatre Owners. He touted the irreplaceable “beloved immersive, shared experience” of seeing a film in a theater, adding that many families would have flocked to “Trolls” if “the world had not been sequestered at home.” AMC threatAMC Theaters went further. CEO Adam Aron said his company would sever relations with Universal, effective Tuesday. He insisted the policy would continue once theaters reopened, would apply to its venues around the world and “is not some hollow or ill-considered threat.” FILE – Adam Aron, AMC TheatersAron said AMC would do the same to any distributor that “unilaterally abandons current windowing practices absent good faith negotiations between us.”  He declared absent further discussions, “decades of incredibly successful business activity together has sadly come to an end.”Late Tuesday, Universal responded it was disappointed with the AMC and NATO statements.  “We absolutely believe in the theatrical experience and have made no statement to the contrary,” Universal said, adding it would consider video on demand “when that distribution outlet makes sense.” Universal has been bolder than other studios. A day earlier, Universal said it would steer another upcoming release, the Judd Apatow comedy “The King of Staten Island,”  to on-demand. It also quickly brought movies like “The Hunt” and “Emma,” released in theaters just before the shutdown, to on-demand.Embracing streamingBut the studio isn’t the only one experimenting.  Warner Bros. will make the Scooby-Doo film “Scoob!”  available for digital rental next month instead of waiting for theaters to open. The Walt Disney Co. is steering “Artemis Fowl” to its Disney Plus streaming service. Other studios have simply sold movies to streaming services. Netflix acquired the Paramount Pictures comedy “Lovebirds,” once planned for a spring theatrical release.  Even the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been forced to embrace streaming. On Tuesday, it announced  it will allow films without a theatrical release — long a hot-button issue for the Oscars — to contend at next year’s Academy Awards.  Meanwhile, theater chains are struggling with the losses incurred by an open-ended shutdown. AMC earlier this month issued a $500 million debt offering to keep itself afloat. It has furloughed some 26,000 employees as well as executives, including Aron.  But it remains to be seen if on-demand is a box-office replacement or merely a useful Band-aid in unprecedented times. Would a more expensive movie be able to compensate for $500 million in box office? Or $1 billion? For now, only the likes of “Trolls,” “Scoob!” and “Artemis Fowl” are testing the waters. The largest movies, including the Disney-Marvel release “Black Widow,” the James Bond installment “No Time to Die” and “Wonder Woman 1984,” are waiting it out.  Also on hold: Universal’s “F9,” which moved from this summer to next year. The other nine films in the “Fast & Furious” franchise have collectively grossed nearly $6 billion in worldwide box office.  
 
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Swiss investigators concluded Sepp Blatter knew that a World Cup broadcasting contract was breached illegally and that it would cost FIFA millions of dollars, according to a federal police file obtained by The Associated Press.
Investigation reports sent to prosecutors in December and January showed FIFA wrote off a $3.8 million debt from a Caribbean TV deal signed in 2005 by then-FIFA president Blatter and long-time vice president Jack Warner. The deal was later alleged to have been illegally mismanaged by Blatter.
“Blatter acted … more in the interests of Warner than in the interests of FIFA,” concluded one investigation file seen by the AP.
However, the office of Switzerland’s attorney general decided in March it would drop a criminal proceeding  from 2015 against Blatter for the Caribbean deal. No reason was stated.
Swiss federal police believed Blatter knew in 2007 that Warner had breached — and would personally profit from — a Caribbean rights deal for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups that was sold to a Jamaica-based broadcaster.
Details of the original FIFA contract were revealed by Swiss media in September 2015, showing a $600,000 sale to the Warner-controlled Caribbean Football Union.
At the time, FIFA defended the contract by saying it required soccer’s governing body to get a 50% profit share of any future licensing arrangement. The re-sale was valued at about $15 million.
But FIFA did not try to collect money due in August 2010 within 30 days of the World Cup ending, according to the Swiss police file.
The investigation cited documents and staff emails showing FIFA was due half of any gross revenue from the Caribbean deal, into which Warner had inserted a company he owned.
“FIFA were very reluctant to implement any measures in connection with enforcing their rights against the CFU,” Swiss police said in its 491-page report.
FIFA calculated it was owed almost $3.8 million in 2011 after Warner resigned from soccer. He had been implicated in bribing Caribbean voters to oppose Blatter in that year’s FIFA presidential election.
Only then did FIFA management terminate the Caribbean rights and pursue the debt, though not directly with Warner. Instead, it asked the CFU, which had few assets after Warner left.
FIFA wrote off the debt weeks later, the police file showed. It included $3.625 million of estimated revenue from broadcasting sponsors and advertising, and $155,000 of unpaid rights fee instalments, the investigation file said.
A different police report detailed more than 15 years of FIFA’s working relations with Warner. It suggested FIFA granted favors and gifts in apparent exchange for election support to help Blatter retain the presidency.
Blatter, who is now 84 and banned from soccer until October 2021, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He has long denied wrongdoing.
Blatter faces a second criminal proceeding over a $2 million payment he authorized in 2011 to former UEFA president Michel Platini. That payment was revealed by Swiss authorities in September 2015 and led to both men being suspended and then banned from soccer.
Swiss investigations of Blatter are handled by a second prosecutor who took over after the federal office’s head of financial crimes had his contract terminated in November 2018.
Attorney general Michael Lauber was recused from FIFA cases last year. He was disciplined in March  after having secret meetings with current FIFA president Gianni Infantino and failing to tell the truth about them.
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