YCLOAK

LOS ANGELES — When the biggest names in music gather Sunday for the industry’s top honors at the Grammy Awards, they will hand out a new trophy for best African music performance.

The prize reflects the growing popularity of Afrobeats, and other music from the continent, which is gaining a global audience with help from social media platforms such as short-form video app TikTok.

Afrobeats originated in West Africa, primarily Ghana and Nigeria, though the term is often used as a catch-all for various music styles coming from Africa. It features percussion rhythms mixed with various genres from rap to jazz, R&B and others.

Modern Afrobeats “has a feel-good groove to it,” said Heran Mamo, R&B and hip-hop reporter at Billboard magazine, which created a U.S. Afrobeats chart in 2022. “It’s bound to reach a wider audience because it already contains a little bit of everything for everyone.”

On Spotify, Afrobeats music was streamed 13.5 billion times in 2022, up from 2 billion in 2017.

In another milestone, Nigerian singer Burna Boy became the first African artist to sell out a U.S. stadium when he played New York’s Citi Field last summer.

Musicians in the running for the new Grammy on Sunday include Tyla, a 22-year-old South African singer. She hit the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with the danceable Water, an example of a genre known as amapiano, a jazz- and piano-infused sound.

A TikTok executive in South Africa had noticed Tyla gaining attention in her local market back in 2020, and reached out to her with tips on how to maximize her presence on the app.

Water was released in July 2023, after Tyla signed with Sony Music Entertainment’s 6758.T Epic Records.

By September, TikTok users were replicating Tyla’s dance moves in the #WaterChallenge. To date, 1.5 million videos have been created using the song, and the #WaterChallenge hashtag has been viewed 1.8 billion times, according to TikTok.

“I think that TikTok has played the role of incubator, but also the distributor to the billion-plus global users and it’s just really landed,” said Ole Obermann, global head of music at TikTok.

Tyla’s success illustrates the power of TikTok and YouTube to help artists find fan bases around the world, a role once reserved for music labels.

“The proliferation of streaming along with new social media platforms (e.g. TikTok) has accelerated artist discovery, and have provided new mediums for artists to grow their fan bases globally,” Bank of America Securities analyst Jessica Reif Cohen said in a research note predicting media trends for 2024.

TikTok remains controversial in the United States because of its ownership by Chinese company ByteDance, which critics view as a security risk. The Biden administration has banned the app on U.S. government devices. TikTok officials say they have rigorous safeguards in place and they reject allegations of spying on user data.

The app also is in a dispute with Universal Music GroupUMG.AS over how much it pays for use of songs from Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and others. Music from many Universal artists was unavailable on TikTok as of Friday.

For U.S. teenagers, TikTok ranks as the second-most common music discovery source behind YouTube, according to a recent MIDiA Research survey that showed 45% of 16- to 19-year-olds found new music through the platform.

Other Afrobeats artists who found audiences on TikTok include Nigerian rapper Rema. He collaborated with Selena Gomez for a remix of his song Calm Down, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won an award for best Afrobeats at MTV’s Video Music Awards last September.

TikTok is helping to forge new connections between U.S. and African artists. Obermann said he played a short clip of a song called Ojapiano from Nigerian musician KCee for Ryan Tedder, a songwriter and lead singer for the band OneRepublic.

Tedder liked the sound so much that he immediately reached out to KCee, who jumped on a plane from Lagos to Los Angeles two days later so the pair could make a remix of the song.

Obermann hopes the soon-to-be-released remix will give new life to Ojapiano, a combination of amapiano and a Nigerian flute called Oja, and keep fueling the Afrobeats craze.

“This is going to be a big, growing genre,” Obermann said.
…

Hong Kong  — Frustrated Hong Kong residents say they have been unable to watch the online TV series Expats, starring Hollywood star Nicole Kidman, which was launched globally on Amazon Prime Video late last week and focuses on the former British colony.

The six-part show, directed by Chinese-born American filmmaker Lulu Wang, is based on a novel by Korean American author Janice Y. K. Lee.

The plot revolves around the lives of three women in Hong Kong in 2014, and the scenes include numerous Hong Kong elements. In addition to settings in familiar tourist sites such as Victoria Harbor, it reproduces scenes of the 2014 Hong Kong protests, also known as the Umbrella Movement, when protesters took to the streets holding umbrellas, demanding the right to choose the city’s chief executive.

It is still unclear whether the decision to block the program in Hong Kong was a business decision or whether it was due to interference from authorities there. Analysts suspect that local Amazon Prime users are unable to watch the program because of those reproduced scenes of the 2014 protests.

Some also worry it may be another sign of Beijing’s broader crackdown on the arts.

A Hong Kong government spokesperson told RFA: “We have no comment on the operational arrangements of individual businesses.”

A spokesperson for the Hong Kong government issued a statement late last month saying that the current Film Censorship Ordinance only regulates films and does not apply to streaming or Internet platforms.

VOA reached out to Amazon Prime Video’s Hong Kong office for comment on why the show is not available in the city but did not receive any response by the time of publication.

“Since this movie was shot in Hong Kong, the director of the movie is of Chinese origin, and the content has a lot to do with the true events, ordinary Hong Kong citizens will definitely want to see a show that truly reflects Hong Kong society,” said Guo Zhenming, a Chinese independent film director.

Guo told VOA he believes self-censorship by Amazon may have kept the show from airing in Hong Kong.

Kenny Ng, a film censorship expert at Hong Kong Baptist University, believes that the matter is not directly related to the Hong Kong government.

“So many new shows are created on earth every day,” Ng said. “I don’t believe that the officials of the Hong Kong government have the ability to know that such a series is about to be released. The current Hong Kong censorship regulations govern films shown in theaters, not streaming platforms. … A series not being shown is often the result of a compromise made after negotiations.”

He believes Amazon may have made a business decision to abandon the Hong Kong market for this show based on the territory’s political situation and social atmosphere.

Ng believes that no matter whose decision it was, Hong Kong people’s freedom to watch the show has certainly been violated. He said many Hong Kong people are going to movie and TV show websites in China to look for the show.

“If the public had a choice, they might not be so eager to see this show. But now they suddenly cannot see it, everyone is doing everything possible to go and see it,” he said.

He said there will always be a market for banned shows.
…

MADRID — A poster in the southern Spanish city of Seville that depicts a young, handsome Jesus wearing only a loincloth has unleashed a storm on social media, with some calling it an affront to the figure of Christ and others posting lewd remarks and memes poking fun at the image.

The poster by internationally recognized Seville artist Salustiano García Cruz shows a fresh-faced Jesus without a crown of thorns, no suffering face and minuscule wounds on the hands and ribcage. It was commissioned and approved by the General Council of Brotherhoods, which organizes the renowned and immensely popular Holy Week processions ahead of Easter in Seville.

As soon as it was unveiled last week criticism of it went viral on social media and a debate erupted over how a resurrected Christ should be depicted. Many called it a disgrace, inappropriate, too pretty, modernist and out of line with Seville’s Easter tradition.

Spain is predominantly Catholic and church traditions such as marriage, baptisms and religious parades are immensely popular both among believers and nonbelievers. A campaign on Change.org to have the poster of Jesus withdrawn was signed by some 14,000 people from around the country.

The artist, García, defended the work and dismissed the poster’s critics as old fashioned.

“There is nothing revolutionary in the painting,” García told Atlas news agency. “There is contemporaneity, but all the elements that I have used are elements that have been used in the last seven centuries in sacred art.

“I don’t see at what point, at what element, people who don’t like it don’t like it,” he said.

In another interview published by El Mundo daily, Garcia responded to criticism from conservative groups that the depiction of Jesus was “effeminate” or “homoerotic.”

“A gay Christ because he looks sweet and is handsome, come on! We are in the 21st century,” García said.

The artist said he used his son, Horacio, as the model for the poster.

“It caught us a little more by surprise because everything was done with respect,” Horacio Garcia told Atlas.

“A lot of controversy comes from the fact that the model is too good, the Christ too handsome, too attractive,” he said. But it hasn’t been all bad: Horacio Garcia said he also has received many compliments and good wishes from people.

The General Council of Brotherhoods has so far ignored calls to replace the poster before Holy Week at the end of March. In past years, some posters for different Catholic celebrations were withdrawn following criticism.

Seville Mayor José Luis Sanz labeled the controversy “artificial.”

“I like the poster,” he said, adding that not all Holy Week posters can be the same each year. “Some posters are riskier, some more classical, some are more daring.”
…

NEW YORK — Carl Weathers, a former NFL linebacker who became a Hollywood action movie and comedy star, playing nemesis-turned-ally Apollo Creed in the “Rocky” movies, facing off against Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Predator” and teaching golf in “Happy Gilmore,” has died. He was 76.

Matt Luber, his manager, said Weathers died Thursday. His family issued a statement saying he died “peacefully in his sleep.”

Weathers was comfortable flexing his muscles on the big screen in “Action Jackson” as well as joking around on the small screen in such shows as “Arrested Development.” He was perhaps most closely associated with Creed, who made his first appearance as the cocky, undisputed heavyweight world champion in 1976’s “Rocky,” starring Sylvester Stallone.

“It puts you on the map and makes your career, so to speak. But that’s a one-off, so you’ve got to follow it up with something. Fortunately, those movies kept coming, and Apollo Creed became more and more in people’s consciousness and welcome in their lives, and it was just the right guy at the right time,” he told The Daily Beast in 2017.

Most recently, Weathers appeared in all three seasons of the Disney+ hit “The Mandalorian,” for which he earned an Emmy nomination in 2021.

Creed, who appeared in the first four “Rocky” movies, memorably died in the ring of 1984’s “Rocky IV,” going toe-to-toe with the hulking, steroid-using Soviet Ivan Drago, played by Dolph Lundgren.

Weathers went on to 1987’s “Predator,” where he flexed his pecs alongside Schwarzenegger, Jesse Ventura and a host of others, and 1988’s nouveau blaxploitation flick “Action Jackson.”

He later added a false wooden hand to play a golf pro for the 1996 comedy classic “Happy Gilmore” opposite Adam Sandler and starred in Dick Wolf’s short-lived spin-off series “Chicago Justice” in 2017.

He also voiced Combat Carl in the “Toy Story” franchise.

Weathers grew up admiring actors such as Woody Strode, whose combination of physique and acting prowess in “Spartacus” made an early impression. Others he idolized included actors Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte and athletes Jim Brown and Muhammad Ali, stars who broke the mold and the color barrier.

“There are so many people that came before me who I admired and whose success I wanted to emulate, and just kind of hit the benchmarks they hit in terms of success, who created a pathway that I’ve been able to walk and find success as a result. And hopefully I can inspire someone else to do good work as well,” he told the Detroit News in 2023.

Growing up in New Orleans, Weathers started performing in plays as early as grade school. In high school, athletics took him down another path, but he would reunite with his first love later in life.

Weathers played college football at San Diego State University — he majored in theater — and went on to play for one season in the NFL, for the Oakland Raiders, in 1970.

After the Raiders, he joined the Canadian Football League, playing for two years while finishing his studies during the offseason at San Francisco State University. He graduated with a B.A. in drama in 1974.

After appearing in several films and TV shows, including “Good Times,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Starsky & Hutch,” as well as fighting Nazis alongside Harrison Ford in “Force 10 From Navarone,” Weathers landed his knockout role — Creed. He told The Hollywood Reporter that his start in the iconic franchise was not auspicious.

He was asked to read with the writer, Stallone, then unknown. Weathers read the scene but felt it didn’t land and so he blurted out: “I could do a lot better if you got me a real actor to work with,” he recalled. “So I just insulted the star of the movie without really knowing it and not intending to.”

Weathers is survived by two sons.
…

…

Bangkok — A dissident Russian-Belarusian rock band held in Thailand on immigration charges have left the kingdom to fly to Israel, according to a post Thursday on the group’s official Facebook page.

Bi-2 have criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine, and their arrest sparked fears they would be deported to Russia where they would face persecution.

Thailand’s National Security Council, chaired by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, took charge of the case on Wednesday, and early Thursday the band’s Facebook page confirmed they had left the country.

“All musicians of the Bi-2 group have safely left Thailand and are heading to Tel Aviv,” read the post.

Several members of the band have dual nationalities, including Israeli and Australian.

On Wednesday, the band said singer Egor Bortnik, known by his stage name Lyova, had already left Thailand to fly to Israel.

The band were held last week after they played a gig on Phuket, a southern island popular with Russian holidaymakers.

Thai officials said they were arrested for performing without the correct work permits and transferred to an immigration detention center in Bangkok.

The organizers of the band’s Thailand concerts — which also included a show in the raucous beach resort of Pattaya — said all the necessary permits were obtained, but the band had been issued tourist visas in error.

VPI Event accused the Russian consulate of having waged a campaign to cancel the concerts since December and said they had faced “unprecedented pressure” as they sought the band’s release.

Bi-2 are well known in Russia.

Several of their concerts were cancelled in 2022 after they refused to play at a venue with banners supporting the war in Ukraine, after which they left Russia.

One of the band’s founders has openly denounced the Putin government, saying it makes him feel “only disgust” and accusing the long-serving leader of having “destroyed” Russia.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) earlier this week urged Thailand to let the band go free, saying they would face “persecution” if returned to Russia — pointing to comments by a Kremlin foreign ministry spokesperson accusing the band of “sponsoring terrorism.”

HRW said Russia’s foreign ministry last year designated frontman Bortnik a “foreign agent” for opposing the war in Ukraine.

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya weighed into the case on Wednesday, urging Thailand to “find a solution” to ensure the band’s freedom.

“I’m worried about the situation involving the Belarus-born rock band Bi-2,” she wrote on social media platform X.

“It’s now absolutely clear that Russia is behind the operation to deport the band.” 
…

TEHRAN, Iran — Lighting fires that brightened the night sky, followers of Iran’s minority Zoroastrian religion marked the Sadeh festival in several cities Tuesday, celebrating the end of the coldest winter days.

Every year on January 30, Zoroastrians gather after sunset to celebrate the 50 days and 50 nights remaining until spring. Sadah, which means “the 100,” is an ancient feast from when the religion was the dominant faith in the powerful Persian empire, which collapsed after the Arab invasion in the 7th century.

On the southwestern outskirts of Tehran, several Zoroastrian priests and priestesses, dressed in white from head-to-toe to symbolize purity, led young followers to light a giant bonfire in a joyful ceremony.

Around the fire, people listened to bands and theological lectures as they milled about while eating and celebrating.

In a rare move, the Islamic Republic’s air force band played the national anthem, among other tunes, to the excitement of the attendees.

Iran’s 85 million population is mostly Shiite Muslim. The country has been ruled by hardline clerics who preach a strict version of Islam since the 1979 Islamic revolution. They discourage people from following pre-Islamic feasts and traditions.

Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that predates Christianity and Islam. It was founded 3,800 years ago by the prophet Zoroaster. It stresses good deeds, and fire plays a central role in worship as a symbol of truth and the spirit of God. Zoroastrians stress they are not fire worshippers but see fire as a symbol of righteousness.

Alongside other minorities, including Christians and Jews, they have one representative in parliament, Esfandiar Ekhtiari.

During Tuesday’s ceremny, Ekhtiari said the celebration belongs to everyone and is a symbol of “felicity, respect to humanity and nature as well as human beings.”

In 2023, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization recognized Sadeh for its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity from Iran and Tajikistan.

Although they have common elements, such as lighting fire, the Sadeh festival is different from Nowruz, which marks the Persian new year.
…

washington — South Korean kimchi exports hit a record high amid a global surge in the popularity of Korean culture, hitting 44,041 tons in 2023, a 7.1% increase from 42,544 tons exported in 2021. 

Kimchi, a traditional Korean dish made by fermenting cabbage or other vegetables, was exported to 92 countries from South Korea last year, with the United States and Japan being the top customers, according to BusinessKorea, a monthly magazine.  

The United States imported more than 10,000 tons of kimchi in 2023, and Japan imported more than 20,000 tons. Kimchi exports to the United States have grown significantly in the past few years, increasing from $14.8 million in 2019 to $29 million in 2022, according to The Korea Daily. 

Some experts see a connection between this rise in exports and the rising popularity of Korean entertainment content, such as K-pop and K-dramas. According to Forbes, U.S. viewership of Korean dramas rose 200% from 2019 to 2021, with TV shows like “Squid Game” topping the Netflix viewership charts in the United States.  

Others attribute the rising popularity of kimchi to its health benefits, as fermented foods expand the diversity of digestive tract microbes.  

Patrice Cunningham, founder and CEO of Tae-Gu Kimchi in Washington, spoke about the increase in popularity of kimchi in the United States. 

“Kimchi is a huge part of the Korean diet,” she said. “They eat it as a side dish with almost every meal. … In the states now, we’re kind of implementing that same style of eating.”  

Cunningham makes and distributes kimchi with her mother, selling both vegan and non-vegan varieties made from napa cabbage.  

“I always knew that my mom had a really great kimchi recipe, and I remember saying to myself for a while that I wanted to bottle it one day and sell it,” Cunningham said.  

She attends 15 to 16 farmers markets a week in the main season and has won multiple grants for her business, contributing to its growth. 

She said many of their customers focus on their “gut health … and so they buy our kimchi for that.”   

K-culture boosts popularity

Another Washington business that sells kimchi is Rice Market. Partner Sak Pollert said kimchi sales have increased significantly over the past two years.  

He said more customers come in “with recipes on their phone, looking for Korean and other Asian ingredients, too.”   

As to kimchi’s rise in popularity, particularly in the United States, Pollert said that many in Washington are world travelers already familiar with kimchi but don’t like the smell.  

“But now, they learned it’s probiotic foods that taste good and help with digestion,” he said. “It helps make other foods taste better, so they get over the smell quickly.”  

Pollert said he thinks that K-content has played an important role in bolstering kimchi’s global popularity. K-dramas “did a phenomenal job promoting kimchi and Korean food and drinks, especially soju,” a Korean grain-based alcohol.  

He noted that restaurant and dinner scenes in many K-dramas feature ajummas — Korean for married or middle-aged women — gathering around a table to gossip and make kimchi before winter.  

South Korea promotes its cuisine 

This rise in popularity of kimchi, though influenced by multiple factors, is a part of a broader plan by the South Korean government to push Korean cuisine worldwide.  

“South Korea’s government and corporations are thinking of ways to promote Korean food and profit from it,” National Public Radio’s Anthony Kuhn said in an interview with Yang Joo-Pil, an official at the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.  

Yang said that each year, about 10 food items are chosen for product placement in popular dramas, and Korean foods are sold at K-pop concerts. 

In Washington, efforts to promote Korean food and spread Korean culture are evident in the work of the Korean Cultural Center. Last November, the center partnered with Tae-Gu Kimchi for “DC’s First Kimjang: Making and Sharing Kimchi.”  

Kimjang in Korea is an event that occurs once or twice a year “as a way for communities to collectively stock up on and share essential foods,” according to the Korean Cultural Center’s event page.  

At the kimjang event, participants had the opportunity to try kimchi over rice and make their own kimchi in a hands-on workshop. 
…

…

…

NEW YORK — N. Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator and folklorist whose debut novel “House Made of Dawn” is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature, has died. He was 89.

Momaday died Wednesday at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, publisher HarperCollins announced. He had been in failing health.

“Scott was an extraordinary person and an extraordinary poet and writer. He was a singular voice in American literature, and it was an honor and a privilege to work with him,” Momaday’s editor, Jennifer Civiletto, said in a statement. “His Kiowa heritage was deeply meaningful to him and he devoted much of his life to celebrating and preserving Native American culture, especially the oral tradition.”

“House Made of Dawn,” published in 1968, tells of a World War II soldier who returns home and struggles to fit back in, a story as old as war itself: In this case, home is a Native community in rural New Mexico. Much of the book was based on Momaday’s childhood in Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, and on his conflicts between the ways of his ancestors and the risks and possibilities of the outside world.

“I grew up in both worlds and straddle those worlds even now,” Momaday said in a 2019 PBS documentary. “It has made for confusion and a richness in my life.”

Despite such works as John Joseph Mathews’ 1934 release “Sundown,” novels by American Indians weren’t widely recognized at the time of “House Made of Dawn.” A New York Times reviewer, Marshall Sprague, even contended in an otherwise favorable review that “American Indians do not write novels and poetry as a rule, or teach English in top-ranking universities, either. But we cannot be patronizing. N. Scott Momaday’s book is superb in its own right.”

Like Joseph Heller’s “Catch-22,” Momaday’s novel was a World War II story that resonated with a generation protesting the Vietnam War. In 1969, Momaday became the first Native American to win the fiction Pulitzer, and his novel helped launch a generation of authors, including Leslie Marmon Silko, James Welch and Louise Erdrich.

His other admirers would range from the poet Joy Harjo, the country’s first Native to be named poet laureate, to the film stars Robert Redford and Jeff Bridges.

“He was a kind of literary father for a lot of us,” Harjo told The Associated Press during a telephone interview Monday. “He showed how potent and powerful language and words were in shaping our very existence.”

Over the following decades, he taught at Stanford, Princeton and Columbia universities, among other top-ranking schools, was a commentator for NPR, and lectured worldwide.

He published more than a dozen books, from “Angle of Geese and Other Poems” to the novels “The Way to Rainy Mountain” and “The Ancient Child,” and became a leading advocate for the beauty and vitality of traditional Native life.

Addressing a gathering of American Indian scholars in 1970, Momaday said, “Our very existence consists in our imagination of ourselves.” He championed Natives’ reverence for nature, writing that “the American Indian has a unique investment in the American landscape.” He shared stories told to him by his parents and grandparents. He regarded oral culture as the wellspring of language and storytelling, and dated American culture back not to the early English settlers, but also to ancient times, noting the procession of gods depicted in the rock art at Utah’s Barrier Canyon.

“We do not know what they mean, but we know we are involved in their meaning,” he wrote in the essay “The Native Voice in American Literature.”

“They persist through time in the imagination, and we cannot doubt that they are invested with the very essence of language, the language of story and myth and primal song. They are 2,000 years old, more or less, and they remark as closely as anything can the origin of American literature.”

In 2007, President George W. Bush presented Momaday with a National Medal of Arts “for his writings and his work that celebrate and preserve Native American art and oral tradition.” Besides his Pulitzer, his honors included an Academy of American Poets prize and, in 2019, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.

Momaday was married three times, most recently to Barbara Glenn, who died in 2008. He had four daughters, one of whom, Cael, died in 2017.

He was born Navarre Scott Mammedaty, in Lawton, Oklahoma, and was a member of the Kiowa Nation. His mother was a writer, and his father an artist who once told his son, “I have never known an Indian child who couldn’t draw,” a talent Momaday demonstrably shared. His artwork, from charcoal sketches to oil paintings, were included in his books and exhibited in museums in Arizona, New Mexico and North Dakota. Audio guides to tours of the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of the American Indian featured Momaday’s avuncular baritone.

After spending his teens in New Mexico, he studied political science at the University of Mexico and received a master’s and Ph.D. in English from Stanford. Momaday began as a poet, his favorite art form, and the publication of “House Made of Dawn” was an unintentional result of his early reputation. Editor Fran McCullough, of what is now HarperCollins, had met Momaday at Stanford and several years later contacted him and asked whether he would like to submit a book of poems.

Momaday did not have enough for a book, and instead gave her the first chapter of “House Made of Dawn.”

Much of his writing was set in the American West and Southwest, whether tributes to bears — the animals he most identified with — or a cycle of poems about the life of Billy the Kid, a childhood obsession. He saw writing as a way of bridging the present with the ancient past and summed up his quest in the poem “If I Could Ascend”: 

Something like a leaf lies here within me; / it wavers almost not at all, / and there is no light to see it by / that it withers upon a black field. / If it could ascend the thousand years into my mouth, / I would make a word of it at last, / and I would speak it into the silence of the sun.

In 2019, he was the subject of a PBS “American Masters” documentary in which he discussed his belief he was a reincarnation of a bear connected to the Native American origin story around Devils Tower in Wyoming. He told The Associated Press in a rare interview that the documentary allowed him to reflect on his life, saying he was humbled that writers continued to say his work has influenced them.

“I’m greatly appreciative of that, but it comes a little bit of a surprise every time I hear it,” Momaday said. “I think I have been an influence. It’s not something I take a lot of credit for.” 
…

In Mogadishu, the troubled capital of Somalia, elderly citizens gather every afternoon in the Bondere district for an archery contest. The activity is part of a deeper historical tradition. Jamal Ahmed Osman has more about this unique activity, in this story narrated by Kevin Enochs. Camera and video editing by Abdulkadir Zubeyr.
…

Tampa, Florida — Revelers clad in pirate finery packed Tampa’s waterfront this weekend as a flotilla of boats arrived for the city’s annual Gasparilla Pirate Fest.

Led by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the invading pirates docked to make a final demand for the key to the city. Once ashore, the festivities celebrating their annual invasion included a Saturday afternoon parade through downtown and live music and bead throwing that lasted well into the night.

A fixture nearly every year since 1904, the Gasparilla Pirate Fest is named for the mythical pirate Jose Gaspar. There’s not much evidence he actually existed, but according to legend he plundered ships and captured hostages in the Gulf of Mexico from the 1780s until around 1821.

The colorful account of his supposed life first surfaced in the early 1900s in an advertising brochure for the Gasparilla Inn, which was located south of Tampa in Boca Grande at the end of a rail line and in need of an exciting promotion to lure in guests.

Called the “Last of the Buccaneers,” Gaspar’s memory lives on in the name of Tampa Bay’s NFL team.
…

New Orleans, Louisiana — With their purple, gold and green colors and toy babies hidden inside, king cakes are staples of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but apparently they’re also valuable enough to steal — at least this time of year during the Carnival season.

A thief stole seven king cakes — about as many as he could carry — during a break-in last week at a New Orleans bakery. The thief also took cash and a case of vodka from Bittersweet Confections last Wednesday, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

“Our king cakes are just that good,” the bakery wrote on social media. “But please come and purchase one during our regular store hours.”

While it’s a secular celebration, Carnival in New Orleans — and around the world — is strongly linked to Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. The season begins on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and continues until Mardi Gras, known as Fat Tuesday, which is the final day of feasting, drinking and revelry before Ash Wednesday and the fasting associated with Lent.

King cakes are among the foods most associated with Carnival in New Orleans. The rings of pastry are adorned with purple, green and gold sugar or icing, and they often have a tiny plastic baby hidden inside as a prize.

One wisecracker responded to the bakery’s social media post with a tongue-in-cheek false admission that he was the thief.

“It was me. …I’m holding all seven babies hostage until I get a lifetime supply of King Cakes from you every year,” the man posted.
…

…

albany, new york — A performer who appeared naked in a show by world-renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art is suing the museum, saying it failed to take action after he was sexually assaulted multiple times by attendees during the performances nearly 14 years ago. 

The suit was filed in Manhattan on Monday under the New York Adult Survivors Act, a special state law that created a yearslong suspension of the usual time limit for accusers to sue. Although the law expired last year, the suit says the parties agreed to extend the window closing. 

John Bonafede alleges in the suit he was sexually assaulted by five public onlookers who attended a show he was hired by the museum to perform in as part of Abramovic’s retrospective “The Artist Is Present.” 

Email messages sent to the museum this week were not returned. Abramovic is not named as a defendant and did not immediately return a request for comment. 

The work, titled “Imponderabilia,” saw Bonafede and another performer standing face-to-face with each other in a doorway about 18 inches (45.7 centimeters) apart, fully nude, silent, and still. The exhibition, which ran from March 14, 2010, through May 31, 2010, was curated by the museum in a way that encouraged visitors to pass in between the performers as they went from one gallery to the next, the suit alleges. 

Mostly older men involved, says suit

The people who assaulted Bonafede were mostly older men, the suit says. One of the perpetrators was a corporate member of the museum, who was ultimately kicked out and revoked of his membership, according to the suit. 

During the final weeks of the exhibition, another attendee non-consensually groped Bonafede’s private areas three times before they were finally stopped by security, the suit said. 

Bonafede reported four of the individuals to the museum staff and security immediately, according to the suit, while the fifth was witnessed personally by the museum security staff. 

Female performer also assaulted, suit says

At one point, Bonafede also witnessed a public attendee sexually assault his female co-performer by kissing her on the mouth without her consent, the suit said. 

Prior to the exhibition, the performers had voiced their concerns about nude performers being subject to harassment in a letter to the museum during contract negotiations, the suit said. 

Once it began, several news outlets including The New York Times reported on the inappropriate behavior by visitors, and the sexual assaults on “Imponderabilia” were discussed within New York City’s art and performance communities, the suit says. 

Despite the museum having knowledge of the issue, it failed to take action to protect the performers and prevent further sexual assaults, such as telling visitors ahead of time that touching was not allowed, the lawsuit said. 

About a month into the exhibition, the museum created a handbook outlining protocols for the performers to alert museum staff if they felt unsafe or were inappropriately touched. 

Bonafede agreed to continue the performance after he was assaulted because of the “tough it out” culture of the exhibition, the suit says, but suffered for years from emotional distress, and his mental health, body image and career were damaged as a result. 

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly. Bonafede gave consent through his lawyer, Jordan Fletcher. 

Fletcher declined to comment further on the suit, but said they will be seeking a jury trial and compensatory damages. 
…

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s government has acknowledged that at least two well-known Mayan ruin sites are unreachable by visitors because of a toxic mix of cartel violence and land disputes.

But two tourist guides in the southern state of Chiapas, near the border with Guatemala, say two other sites that the government claims are still open to visitors can only be reached by passing though drug gang checkpoints.

The explosion of drug cartel violence in Chiapas since last year has left the Yaxchilán ruin site completely cut off, the government conceded Friday.

The tour guides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they must still work in the area, said that gunmen and checkpoints are often seen on the road to another site, Bonampak, famous for its murals.

They say that to get to yet another archaeological site, Lagartero, travelers are forced to hand over identification and cellphones at cartel checkpoints.

Meanwhile, officials concede that visitors also can’t go to the imposing, towering pyramids at Tonina, because a landowner has shut off across his land while seeking payment from the government for granting the right of way.

The cartel-related dangers are the most problematic. The two cartels warring over the area’s lucrative drug and migrant smuggling routes set up the checkpoints to detect any movement by their rivals.

Though no tourist has been harmed so far, and the government claims the sites are safe, many guides no longer take tour groups there.

“It’s as if you told me to go to the Gaza Strip, right?” said one of the guides.

“They demand your identification, to see if you’re a local resident,” he said, describing an almost permanent gang checkpoint on the road to Lagartero, a Mayan pyramid complex that is surrounded by pristine, turquoise jungle lagoons.

“They take your cellphone and demand your sign-in code, and then they look through your conversations to see if you belong to some other gang,” he said. “At any given time, a rival group could show up and start a gunbattle.”

The government seems unconcerned, and there is even anger that anyone would suggest there is a problem, in line with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s policy of playing down gang violence — even as the cartels take over more territory in Mexico.

“Bonampak and Lagartero are open to the public,” the National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement Friday.

“It is false, biased and irresponsible to say that these archaeological sites are in danger from drug traffickers,” added the agency, known as the INAH, which claimed it “retains control of the sites.”

Both guides stressed that the best-known Mayan ruin site in Chiapas, the imposing temple complex at Palenque, is open and perfectly safe for visitors. But starting around December, tourists have canceled about 5% of trips booked to the area, and there are fears that could grow.

Things that some tourists once enjoyed — like the more adventurous trip to ruins buried deep in the jungle, like Yaxchilán, on the banks of the Usumacinta river and reachable only by boat — are either no longer possible, or so risky that several guides have publicly announced they won’t take tourists there.

Residents of the town of Frontera Comalapa, where the boats once picked up tourists to take them to Yaxchilan, closed the road in October because of constant incursions by gunmen. 

Even the INAH admits there is no access to Yaxchilan, noting that “the institute itself has recommended at certain points that tourists not go to the archaeological site, because they could have an unsuccessful visit.” But it said that the problems there are “of a social nature” and are beyond its control.

Cartel battles started to get really bad in Chiapas in 2023, which coincides with the uptick in the number of migrants — now about a half-million annually — moving through the Darien Gap jungle from South America, through Central America and Mexico to the U.S. border.

Because many of the new wave of migrants are from Cuba, Asia and Africa, they can pay more than Central Americans, making the smuggling routes through Chiapas more valuable. The problem now seems to be beyond anyone’s control.

The National Guard — the quasi-military force that López Obrador has made the centerpiece of law enforcement in Mexico — has been pelted with stones and sticks by local residents in several towns in that region of Chiapas in recent weeks.

The other tour guide said that was because the two warring drug cartels, Sinaloa and Jalisco, often recruit or force local people to act as foot soldiers and prevent National Guard troopers from entering their towns.

In Chiapas, residents are often members of Indigenous groups like the Choles or Lacandones, both descendants of the ancient Maya. The potential damage of using them as foot soldiers in cartel fights is grim, given that some groups have either very few remaining members or are already locked in land disputes.

The guide said the ruin sites have the added disadvantage of being in jungle areas where the cartels have carved out at least four clandestine landing strips to fly drugs in from South America.

But the damages are mounting for the Indigenous residents who have come to depend on tourism.

“There are communities that sell handicrafts, that provide places to stay, boat trips, craftspeople. It affects the economy a lot,” said the first guide. “You have to remember that this is an agricultural state that has no industry, no factories, so tourism has become an economic lever, one of the few sources of work.”
…

CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — Mikaela Shiffrin, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Petra Vlhova, Alexis Pinturault, Corinne Suter.

All five former overall World Cup ski champions or Olympic gold medalists have been involved in severe crashes during races over the past 15 days.

And they’re not the only ones.

Marco Schwarz, a former world champion who was leading the overall standings, didn’t even make it to January. He injured his knee on the dark and bumpy Bormio downhill in late December.

In a season without a Winter Olympics or a world championships, the ski circuit is hurting.

Why? Many skiers are pointing to an overloaded schedule in January after many races were canceled at the start of the season.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) scheduled two downhills for the men at Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbühel, Austria, and also two in Cortina for the women. Add in multiple training sessions at each of those venues and there’s high-speed, on-the-edge skiing going on virtually all week.

“If the strongest skiers are going down, it’s got to make you wonder,” leading downhiller Sofia Goggia said.

Shiffrin, who has a record 95 World Cup wins, crashed into the safety net at high speed during Friday’s downhill in Cortina on the course to be used for the 2026 Olympics. She avoided a serious leg injury and wrote on Instagram she was thankful it wasn’t worse. It’s unclear when Shiffrin will return.

Suter pulled up midway on her run, clutching her left knee. She tore her ACL, damaged her meniscus and is out for the season. Shiffrin and Suter were airlifted down the mountain.

The weekend before, Vlhova’s season ended after tearing ligaments in her right knee in a giant slalom in front of her home fans in Slovakia. That came after Pinturault and Kilde had season-ending crashes at Wengen.

“Races, travel, training sessions, pressure, stress,” said Federica Brignone, another former overall champion who crashed on Friday — although without getting hurt. “It’s time to reflect about the overloaded schedule.”

There were more crashes on Saturday in Cortina, where American racer Bella Wright sustained bruises and a cut on her chin.

“It hurt, but I knew right away my legs were OK,” Wright said. “They’re bruised and they’re definitely going to be more and more sore as time goes on. I was also spitting up blood and I wasn’t sure what that was from. And then they told me I have a laceration on my chin.”

Racing was suspended several times for long periods due to strong winds.

Czech skier and snowboarder Ester Ledecka was the first racer on the course and she pulled up shortly into her run after losing control.

Germany’s Kira Weidle and Switzerland’s Joana Haehlen also fell, and Haehlen was carried away from the finish area with her entire leg bandaged. She tore her right ACL.

The race was eventually stopped with two skiers still to start after Ania Monica Caill of Romania went cartwheeling into the safety nets.

“Talking only about the number of races is pointless,” said Lara Gut-Behrami, the Olympic super-G champion and a former overall winner. “There’s a ton of reasons that affect performance. True, the schedule is very full, but it’s been that way for years. Even when there are no races all the athletes go train.

“There’s more stress because of everything else surrounding the sport,” Gut-Behrami added. “Whereas before it was only about skiing, now an athlete has to multitask and worry about curating their image and marketing themselves. But the days still last 24 hours.”

The men will have a break, though, with FIS announcing that two upcoming downhills scheduled for Chamonix, France, have been canceled due to poor snow conditions.

Cut-proof underwear

Considering all of the recent crashes, some skiers are suggesting cut-proof underwear should become mandatory in more races.

Already required in parallel events, the cut-proof underwear could prevent racers from being injured by their super-sharp ski edges during crashes. But downhillers don’t wear it because it slows them down.

“This should be a safe improvement for all of us,” Goggia said. “It should be mandatory.”

Kilde had to have urgent surgery to repair a severe cut and nerve damage in his right calf, plus two torn ligaments in his right shoulder.

Cut-proof underwear, made of resistant polyethylene substances that are said to be stronger than steel or Kevlar on a per-weight basis, might have prevented Kilde’s injury. Just as inflatable airbags that skiers wear under their racing suits can provide protection.

“It’s a no brainer,” U.S. women’s coach Paul Kristofic said. “But there’s always people that push against these things for various reasons. There wasn’t unanimous support for the airbag either.” 
…

ACULCO, Mexico — The corral gate swings open and an energetic calf charges in, only to be wrestled struggling to the ground and immobilized by having its legs tied. The men go to work vaccinating the calf and marking its number with a burning iron on its back.

It happened in one of the sessions of a workshop that José Arturo Jiménez gave this past week at his ranch in Aculco, a town in the State of Mexico near Mexico City, attended by about 40 university students and others.

The event was part of an initiative by the Mexican Association of Bullfighting to attract new followers for the centuries-old tradition of bullfighting by educating young people about the different activities that surround the breeding of fighting bulls.

The association is trying to counter the growing global movement driven by animal defenders who seek to abolish bullfighting, which they consider torture of bulls.

Although bullfighting is still allowed in much of Mexico, it is suspended in some states, such as Sinaloa, Guerrero, Coahuila and Quintana Roo. There is also a legal fight in Mexico City that threatens the future of the capital’s Plaza Mexico, the largest bullfighting arena in the world.

Jimenez admitted that a good part of the public that now attends bullfights in Mexico is not very young.

So Jiménez and other members of the association in recent years have dedicated themselves to promoting a hundred events and educational workshops for young people in different parts of Mexico.

“You have to give the elements to people so they can decide what they like and don’t like … and at least let them know our truth and decide if it is good or bad,” the 64-year-old rancher said.

During the workshops, participants are taught the different aspects of the breeding of fighting bulls, their rigorous care and the studies that are conducted to determine the fighting spirit and proclivities of various animals.

Among those attending the rancher’s workshop was environmental engineering student Estefanía Manrique, who six years ago became drawn to bullfighting after reluctantly accompanying her mother to Plaza Mexico to see a cousin in a bullfight.

Before going “I had this idea that it was abuse,” Manrique said, but her perception was changed by the ritual surrounding the bullfight.

“I really like theater, and seeing how they analyze the bulls and move them according to the characteristics they have — and it even seems that they are dancing, other times they seem to be acting — I loved that,” the 22-year-old said.

She added that her love for bullfighting has caused problems among her university classmates because most of her social circle are more sympathetic to the view of animal rights activists, but she said she defends her passion.

Jimenez has high hopes that the incipient educational effort will succeed in drawing in new aficionados for bullfighting and ensure the survival of the tradition.

“We want them to continue more than with this party,” he said. “Let people follow to go to the countryside, raise their animals, sow their seeds, harvest, have a bond with the land, eat healthy food and are not hypocritical, not made of glass and know that animals have to be killed to eat them and they have to be respected and cared for.”
…

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — Aryna Sabalenka continued to be an irrepressible force at the Australian Open as she powered to a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Chinese 12th seed Zheng Qinwen on Saturday to successfully defend her title and add a second Grand Slam trophy to her cabinet. 

The Belarusian second seed has barely put a foot wrong as she became the first woman to retain the Melbourne Park crown since compatriot Victoria Azarenka in 2013. 

“It’s been an amazing couple of weeks, and I couldn’t imagine myself lifting this trophy one more time,” Sabalenka said. 

“I want to congratulate you, Qinwen, on an incredible couple of weeks here in Australia. I know it’s really tough to lose in the final, but you’re such an incredible player,” she said. “You’re such a young girl, and you’re going to make many more finals and you’re going to get it.” 

Sabalenka came into the match without dropping a set at the year’s first major. She remained perfect to join Ash Barty, Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport in the elite club of players to have managed the feat since 2000. 

She unleashed monster groundstrokes to grab the final by the scruff of the neck with an early break, and thousands of Chinese supporters and millions back home watched Zheng fall behind 3-0. 

Sabalenka did not have her nation’s flags in the stands because of a ban over her country’s role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the charismatic 25-year-old has a big Melbourne fan base. She rode the Rod Laver Arena support to take the first set. 

Zheng, who had saved four set points, showed she was slowly growing in confidence in her second meeting with Sabalenka by firing up her own big forehand amid the rallying cry of “Jia You” from her compatriots in the crowd. 

The 21-year-old first-time finalist, bidding to match her idol Li Na — the Melbourne Park champion 10 years ago and first Chinese player to win a major — saw her hopes fade after two more errors on serve left her 4-1 down. 

Sabalenka shrugged off a shaky service game to close out the most one-sided final since Azarenka beat Maria Sharapova 6-3, 6-0 in 2012. 

“It’s my first final and I’m feeling a little bit pity, but that’s how it is,” Zheng said. “I feel very complicated because I could have done better than I did in this match.” 
…

NEW YORK — Pornographic deepfake images of Taylor Swift are circulating online, making the singer the most famous victim of a scourge that tech platforms and anti-abuse groups have struggled to fix.

Sexually explicit and abusive fake images of Swift began circulating widely this week on the social media platform X.

Her ardent fanbase of “Swifties” quickly mobilized, launching a counteroffensive on the platform formerly known as Twitter and a #ProtectTaylorSwift hashtag to flood it with more positive images of the pop star. Some said they were reporting accounts that were sharing the deepfakes.

The deepfake-detecting group Reality Defender said it tracked a deluge of nonconsensual pornographic material depicting Swift, particularly on X. Some images also made their way to Meta-owned Facebook and other social media platforms.

“Unfortunately, they spread to millions and millions of users by the time that some of them were taken down,” said Mason Allen, Reality Defender’s head of growth.

The researchers found at least a couple dozen unique AI-generated images. The most widely shared were football-related, showing a painted or bloodied Swift that objectified her and in some cases inflicted violent harm on her deepfake persona.

Researchers have said the number of explicit deepfakes has grown in the past few years, as the technology used to produce such images has become more accessible and easier to use. In 2019, a report released by the AI firm DeepTrace Labs showed these images were overwhelmingly weaponized against women. Most of the victims, it said, were Hollywood actors and South Korean K-pop singers.

Brittany Spanos, a senior writer at Rolling Stone who teaches a course on Swift at New York University, says Swift’s fans are quick to mobilize in support of their artist, especially those who take their fandom very seriously and in situations of wrongdoing.

“This could be a huge deal if she really does pursue it to court,” she said.

Spanos says the deep fake pornography issue aligns with others Swift has had in the past, pointing to her 2017 lawsuit against a radio station DJ who allegedly groped her; jurors awarded Swift $1 in damages, a sum her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, called “a single symbolic dollar, the value of which is immeasurable to all women in this situation” in the midst of the MeToo movement. (The $1 lawsuit became a trend thereafter, like in Gwyneth Paltrow’s 2023 countersuit against a skier.)

When reached for comment on the fake images of Swift, X directed the The Associated Press to a post from its safety account that said the company strictly prohibits the sharing of non-consensual nude images on its platform. The company has also sharply cut back its content-moderation teams since Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022.

“Our teams are actively removing all identified images and taking appropriate actions against the accounts responsible for posting them,” the company wrote in the X post early Friday morning. “We’re closely monitoring the situation to ensure that any further violations are immediately addressed, and the content is removed.”

Meanwhile, Meta said in a statement that it strongly condemns “the content that has appeared across different internet services” and has worked to remove it.

“We continue to monitor our platforms for this violating content and will take appropriate action as needed,” the company said.

A representative for Swift didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Allen said the researchers are 90% confident that the images were created by diffusion models, which are a type of generative artificial intelligence model that can produce new and photorealistic images from written prompts. The most widely known are Stable Diffusion, Midjourney and OpenAI’s DALL-E. Allen’s group didn’t try to determine the provenance.

OpenAI said it has safeguards in place to limit the generation of harmful content and “decline requests that ask for a public figure by name, including Taylor Swift.”

Microsoft, which offers an image-generator based partly on DALL-E, said Friday it was in the process of investigating whether its tool was misused. Much like other commercial AI services, it said it doesn’t allow “adult or non-consensual intimate content, and any repeated attempts to produce content that goes against our policies may result in loss of access to the service.”

Asked about the Swift deepfakes on NBC Nightly News, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told host Lester Holt in an interview airing Tuesday that there’s a lot still to be done in setting AI safeguards and “it behooves us to move fast on this.”

“Absolutely this is alarming and terrible, and so therefore yes, we have to act,” Nadella said.

Midjourney, OpenAI and Stable Diffusion-maker Stability AI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Federal lawmakers who’ve introduced bills to put more restrictions or criminalize deepfake porn indicated the incident shows why the U.S. needs to implement better protections.

“For years, women have been victims of non-consensual deepfakes, so what happened to Taylor Swift is more common than most people realize,” said U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, a Democrat from New York who’s introduced legislation would require creators to digitally watermark deepfake content.

“Generative-AI is helping create better deepfakes at a fraction of the cost,” Clarke said.

U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle, another New York Democrat pushing a bill that would criminalize sharing deepfake porn online, said what happened to Swift was disturbing and has become more and more pervasive across the internet.

“The images may be fake, but their impacts are very real,” Morelle said in a statement. “Deepfakes are happening every day to women everywhere in our increasingly digital world, and it’s time to put a stop to them.” 
…

Washington, DC has turned the National Building Museum into a wonderland of children’s literature. Using children’s books, it’s an immersive journey into architecture, engineering and design. Maxim Adams has the story. Camera and edit: Andrey Degtyarev, Andrey Degtyarev, Anna Rice
…

MELBOURNE, Australia — Jannik Sinner has upset Novak Djokovic to reach the Australian Open men’s final, ending the 10-time champion’s career unbeaten streak in semifinals at Melbourne Park.

The 22-year-old Italian broke Djokovic’s serve twice in each of the first two sets but missed a match point in the third set of a 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (6), 6-3 victory Friday that earned him a place in a Grand Slam final for the first time.

On his second match point, 55 minutes later, he made no mistake and completed his third victory in four matches against Djokovic since losing to the world No. 1 in last year’s Wimbledon semifinals.

“It’s always nice to have this kind of player who you can learn from,” Sinner said in his on-court TV interview. “I lost last year in the semifinals in Wimbledon, and I learned a lot from that. The confidence from the end of last year has for sure kept the belief that I can play the best players in the world.”

The youngest player to reach the men’s final in Australia since Djokovic’s first title in 2008, Sinner will play either third-seeded Daniil Medvedev or No. 6 Alexander Zverev for the championship on Sunday.

Djokovic’s bid for a record-extending 11th Australian and 25th major title overall will have to wait.

He hadn’t lost a match at Melbourne Park since 2018 and was on a 33-match winning streak at the season’s first major. Every previous time he’d won a quarterfinal in Australia, Djokovic had gone on to win the hardcourt title.

The loss to Djokovic at Wimbledon has become a turning point in their rivalry. After losing the first three meetings, Sinner won two of the next three — all in November — in the group stage of the ATP Finals in Turin and in the Davis Cup semifinals.

Sinner was the only player in the final four who didn’t drop a set in the tournament, and he spent almost four fewer hours on court through five rounds than Djokovic, who was taken to four sets three times.

Still, the odds were stacked against fourth-seeded Sinner.

But he played calm, nearly flawless tennis in the first two sets and piled pressure on Djokovic’s serve in a relatively cool 21 degrees Celsius and a light breeze.

He was holding his serve with relative ease against a player contesting a 48th Grand Slam semifinal.

Djokovic rallied, as he always does, to make Sinner win it. But he had few chances and didn’t get a look at a break point in the match — the first time he’s experienced that in a completed Grand Slam match.

The 36-year-old Serbian star missed his first chance to be just the third person in history to win 11 titles at any Grand Slam event — Rafael Nadal has 14 French Open titles and Margaret Court won 11 Australian Open women’s titles. 
…

LONDON — An American scientist has sparked a trans-Atlantic tempest in a teapot by offering Britain advice on its favorite hot beverage.

Bryn Mawr College chemistry professor Michelle Francl says one of the keys to a perfect cup of tea is a pinch of salt. The tip is included in Francl’s book Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea, published Wednesday by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Not since the Boston Tea Party has mixing tea with salt water roiled the Anglo-American relationship so much.

The salt suggestion drew howls of outrage from tea lovers in Britain, where popular stereotype sees Americans as coffee-swilling boors who make tea, if at all, in the microwave.

“Don’t even say the word ‘salt’ to us,” the etiquette guide Debrett’s wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The U.S. Embassy in London intervened in the brewing storm with a social media post reassuring “the good people of the U.K. that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy.”

“Let us unite in our steeped solidarity and show the world that when it comes to tea, we stand as one,” said the tongue-in-cheek post. “The U.S. Embassy will continue to make tea in the proper way — by microwaving it.”

The embassy later clarified that its statement was “a lighthearted play on our shared cultural connections” rather than an official press release.

Steeped, in contrast, is no joke. The product of three years’ research and experimentation, the book explores the more than 100 chemical compounds found in tea and “puts the chemistry to use with advice on how to brew a better cup,” its publisher says.

Francl said adding a small amount of salt — not enough to taste — makes tea seem less bitter because “the sodium ions in salt block the bitter receptors in our mouths.”

She also advocates making tea in a pre-warmed pot, agitating the bag briefly but vigorously and serving it in a short, stout mug to preserve the heat. And she says milk should be added to the cup after the tea, not before — another issue that often divides tea lovers.

Francl has been surprised by the level of reaction to her book in Britain.

“I kind of understood that there would hopefully be a lot of interest,” she told The Associated Press. “I didn’t know we’d wade into a diplomatic conversation with the U.S. Embassy.”

It has made her ponder the ocean-wide coffee-tea divide that separates the U.S. and Britain.

“I wonder if we’re just a more caffeinated society — coffee is higher in caffeine,” she said. “Or maybe we’re just trying to rebel against our parent country.”
…