French luxury group LVMH has offered to buy Tiffany & Co. for $14.5 billion in cash, sending shares in the New York jewelers soaring.The purchase would add another household name to LVMH’s plethora of upscale brands. It owns fashion names such as Christian Dior, Fendi, and Givenchy as well as watchmaker Tag Heuer.It would also give LVMH a much broader foothold in the United States and broaden its offerings in jewelry.LVMH cautioned in a brief statement that “there can be no assurance that these discussions will result in any agreement.”Tiffany said the offer was for $120 a share, which is about $14.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the offer over the weekend.The New York-based company said Monday that it was considering the offer. Its shares jumped 31% to $128.81 in premarket trading in New York.The offer comes as Tiffany has struggled with stagnating sales as China’s slowing economy has weighed on spending by Chinese tourists, who make up a substantial portion of luxury spending. The strong dollar has also made Tiffany products more expensive for consumers outside the U.S.LVMH competes with the Kering Group, which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, and Richemont SA, which owns Cartier. 
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In Ivory Coast, an artist works hard for his money, painting scenes with pen, brush and paint — even though he has neither arms nor legs. VOA’s Jim Randle tells us how he does it. 
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People in Laos have been converted into everyday items materials from hundreds of millions of bombs dropped on Laos during the Vietnam War. That idea has inspired a New York woman to make jewelry from the fragments of bombs and use some of the profits to help Laos clear millions of explosives that never went off. Valdya Baraputri reports.
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The Jaipur Literature Festival began in the city of Jaipur, India. With 300 speakers and over 500 million visitors every year, it is the world’s largest free literary festival. The festival also travels internationally. One stop is Boulder, Colorado. Shelley Schlender reports.
 
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President Donald Trump’s plan to attend Game 5 of the World Series Sunday will continue a rich tradition of intertwining the American presidency with America’s pastime.Franklin D. Roosevelt’s limousine drove onto to the field ahead of the 1933 World Series, the last time the nation’s capital hosted the Fall Classic. Congressional hearings on the stock market collapse were postponed so senators could attend the game.Harry S. Truman tossed out a first pitch from the stands of a regular season game in August 1945, just days after the end of World War II, giving Americans a sense that normalcy was returning after years of global conflict.George W. Bush wore a bulletproof vest under his jacket when he threw a perfect strike from the Yankee Stadium mound during the 2001 World Series, not 10 miles from where the World Trade Center was attacked a month earlier.FILE- Former President George W. Bush throws the ceremonial first pitch before Game 5 of baseball’s World Series between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Dodgers, in Houston, Oct. 29, 2017.Trump, who has yet to throw out a ceremonial first pitch since taking office, plans to arrive after the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros are underway and leave before the final out, in hopes of making his visit less disruptive to fans, according to Rob Manfred, baseball’s commissioner.Deep ties to baseball While it will be Trump’s first time attending a major league game as president, he has deep ties to the sport.A longtime New York Yankees fan who was spotted regularly at games in the Bronx, he was also a high school player with enough talent that, he has said, he drew the attention of big league scouts.Presidential attendance at baseball games has “become an institution and a unifying influence in a nation that is losing both,” said Curt Smith, a former Bush speechwriter and author of “The Presidents and the Pastime.”“It is part of the job description, whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat or a liberal or a conservative. Bush found it a joy, he understood the symbolism of the moment. And he was the rule, not the exception,” Smith said.Trump mentioned his World Series plan to reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. But when asked whether he might throw out the first pitch, he said, “I don’t know. They’re going to have to dress me up in a lot of heavy armor,” apparently referring to a bulletproof vest. “I’ll look too heavy. I don’t like that.”FILE – Chef Jose Andres, left, and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda attend the grand opening of the Shops & Restaurants at Hudson Yards, March 14, 2019, in New York.First pitch honor goes to AndresBut the Nationals, who decide on ceremonial first pitches, made clear that the president was not asked to take the mound. That honor instead will go to a notable Trump critic, celebrity chef Jose Andres, whose humanitarian work has been widely acclaimed.Andres, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Spain, has been a longtime critic of the president’s views on immigrants and he halted plans to open a restaurant at the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. The Trump Organization then sued Andres, who also denounced the administration for failing to do enough to help the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.There’s some suspense around how Trump might be greeted at the game.Though the fans at the high-priced event are likely to skew more corporate than at a regular season Nationals contest, Trump is extremely unpopular in the city he now calls home. In the 2016 election, Trump won 4% of the vote from the District of Columbia.Trump’s White House staff has long tried to shield him from events where he might be loudly booed or heckled, and he rarely ventures out into the heavily Democratic city. (With the exception of his hotel, a Republican-friendly oasis a few blocks from the White House.)‘Every president gets booed’“It’ll be loud for Trump but every president gets booed: both Bushes, Reagan, Nixon. When Americans pay for their ticket, most of them buy into the great American tradition to boo whomever they want,” Smith said. “He should embrace it: So what if the elites boo you? Think of how it plays with your voters elsewhere in the country, thinking ‘There they go again, booing our guy.’ Use it!”Trump has long been a baseball fan, especially of his hometown Yankees. Before he became president, he would be spotted at games, sometimes along the first-base line with then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly. Trump was also memorably photographed behind home plate across town in the moments after the final outs of the 2006 NLCS when the New York Mets lost to the St. Louis Cardinals.Trump played high school baseball at New York Military Academy, where he was a star first baseman. His coach, Col. Ted Dobias, told Rolling Stone in 2015 that Trump “thought he was Mr. America and the world revolved around him.”“He was good-hit and good-field,” Dobias said. “We had scouts from the Phillies to watch him, but he wanted to go to college and make real money.”Phillies spokesman Greg Casterioto said Friday that the team’s scouting records do not go back that far and there is no way to verify that claim. But Trump, when honoring the 2018 World Series champion Boston Red Sox at the White House in May, fondly remembered his time playing the sport.“I played at a slightly different level,” Trump said, “but every spring I loved it. The smell in the air.”FILE – President Donald Trump shakes hands with former New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera during ceremony presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rivera, in the White House, Sept. 16, 2019, in Washington.Relationship with pro sportsThat event also underscored Trump’s tumultuous relationship with professional sports. Several Red Sox stars, including Mookie Betts, and the team’s manager, Alex Cora, declined to attend the White House ceremony. Trump has disinvited other championship teams, including the Golden State Warriors and Philadelphia Eagles, from attending after some of their players criticized him.Trump is, so far, the only president since William Howard Taft in 1910 not to have thrown a first pitch at a major league game. The first president known to attend a game was Benjamin Harrison in 1892. Calvin Coolidge, nearly a decade before Roosevelt, was the only other president to attend a World Series game in Washington.Trump will sit with league officials and likely watch from a luxury box, behind security and away from much of the crowd. That would be very different from some of his predecessors, including John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, who sat by the field for their ceremonial duties.“In the old days, they would throw from the presidential box,” said baseball historian Fred Frommer, who has written several baseball books, including a pair of histories about Washington baseball. “Players from both teams would line up on the first base line and would fight for it, like a mosh bit. And whoever emerged with it would take it to the president for a signature.”
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In 1977, Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller became the first woman to ever be nominated for best director at the Academy Awards. Although she didn’t win that year — “Rockyz” director John G. Avildsen did — the 91-year-old with the famous white glasses will finally get an Oscar of her own Sunday at the annual Governors Awards.”This is making me very happy,” Wertmuller said last month through a translator.Forty years ago the Federico Fellini-protege barely even registered the historic nature of her nomination, however. She was too busy thinking about her next film.”Lina never gave too much importance to awards,” said Valerio Ruiz, Wertmuller’s biographer. “She left that for other people to talk about.”Ruiz also directed a documentary about Wertmuller called “Behind the White Glasses.”Born in Rome in 1928, Wertmuller had been working in theater, sketch comedy and puppetry before making her transition into film. A friend from school married actor Marcello Mastroianni and he made the fateful introduction to Fellini whom she assisted on the set of “8 1/2.””Anything that he would ask her to do she would do,” Ruiz said. “He would see a face going by in a taxi and he would say ‘get me that face’ and she would chase the taxi.”The relationship was hardly one-sided. Fellini provided his own crew to help Wertmuller make her first film, “The Lizards,” in 1963.”Fellini was much more than a person and friend,” Wertmuller said. “Fellini was like opening a window and discovering in front of you a wonderful landscape which you didn’t know before. Our relationship was much larger, much deeper and much more meaningful than anything I can describe.”The picture that ultimately caught the attention of the film academy was “Seven Beauties,” a sprawling story about a man with seven unattractive sisters who puts himself on a complicated path during World War II when he murders a pimp who turned one of his sisters into a sex worker. Roger Ebert called it “opaque, despairing, and bottomless” in a review at the time.This combination photo shows Italian film director Lina Wertmuller at her home in Rome, Italy, June 7, 1993, left, and Wertmuller on Jan. 18, 1978.Besides “Seven Beauties,” Wertmuller had a string of notable films in the 1970s including “The Seduction of Mimi” and “Swept Away,” which Guy Ritchie would attempt to remake with Madonna in 2002. But the attention around the Oscar nomination put her on a different level and soon enough she was signing a contract with Warner Bros. to make four films stateside. There was even a two-page ad in Variety magazine saying “Welcome Lina.”The Hollywood honeymoon was short, though. The first film she made, “A Night Full of Rain” with Giancarlo Giannini and Candice Bergen, was a disappointment. Even she acknowledges it was one of her “least accomplished.” Warners cancelled the contract after that.  Was she disappointed?”Honestly not,” she said.Wertmuller has continued working and is still writing to this day and is currently making the rounds in Los Angeles once more as Sunday’s big event nears. The non-profit Women in Film, which honored her with a Crystal Award in 1985, hosted an intimate luncheon for Wertmuller Thursday with attendees like “It’s Complicated” director Nancy Meyers and “Valley Girl” director Martha Coolidge.”The honor is long overdue,” said Amy Baer, Women in Film’s board president.On Saturday, “The Lizards” will have its American premiere at the TCL Chinese Theatre, Sunday she’ll be feted by the film academy and on Monday she’ll receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.Wertmuller isn’t just a piece of Oscars trivia for being “the first” female directing nominee: She remains only one of five including Jane Campion (“The Piano”, Sofia Coppola (“Lost in Translation”), Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”) and Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”). Bigelow is the only one to have won.It’s a statistic that came as a surprise to her during a September interview.”I didn’t even know,” she said. “I’m obviously very happy and proud and full of admiration but five is too few. There should be a lot more.” 
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“Western Stars” was just the change of pace that Bruce Springsteen needed after baring his soul over the past few years.First, he shared his darkest secrets in his memoir, “Born to Run.” Then he spent more than a year telling his story five nights a week in Springsteen on Broadway. So, an album set in the American West, with an accompanying documentary seemed like the perfect bookend.“I see it like that myself, because for me, there was the book and then from the book we did the play. And out of the play really came this film,” Springsteen told The Associated Press Wednesday at the film’s New York premiere. The film opened in theaters Oct. 25. The album was released in June.Film a concert and a commentaryThe songs of “Western Stars” reveal characters experiencing love and loss, needing family and partners but sometimes feeling lonely and uncertain. In the film, Springsteen performs in front of a live audience under the cathedral ceiling of his family’s giant old barn with a backing band and orchestra.Between each song he shares commentary and draws connections to his own life. Springsteen’s voice accompanies archive footage and home movies of his family. Several amusing scenes from their honeymoon touched wife, Patti Scialfa, who missed last month’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.“I was surprised, because I hadn’t seen it in so long. I hadn’t even remembered that we did all those silly things. So, it’s actually very, very sweet. It’s really a lovely surprise,” Scialfa said.Bruce Springsteen and director Thom Zimny arrive for the world premiere of “Western Stars” at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Sept. 12, 2019.Feeling of the WestThe presence of the American Southwest is felt in the music with hints of Glen Campbell and Jimmy Webb and in the vast expanses of land shown in the film.Thom Zimny, who shares directing credit with Springsteen on the film, knew they had something special.“Working on ‘Western Stars’ was an interesting time, because it was a different collaboration. Bruce was with me from day one, and literally we knew we had something different. Because the sonic landscape of this music, the strings, the feeling of the West, we knew that was different than ‘Springsteen on Broadway,’ and all other projects that we worked with, together,” Zimny said.Back to the studio and E Street BandSpringsteen has no plans for a “Western Stars” tour, instead he’s heading back into the studio to work on a new E Street Band record. Springsteen laughed at the notion of incorporating recent social and political upheavals in the lyrics of the band’s new music. He’s leaning toward the personal. Most of what he’s written so far “ruminates a little bit about some of the things from my past,” Springsteen said.“I think it’s a little more forward looking than writing the memoir or doing a play,” he said.At 70, Springsteen still impresses audiences around the world with his energetic concert performances, but equally as important is his ability to create an album and film like “Western Stars.” At some point, even the most established artists stop making new music and begin resting on their previous accomplishments, despite having successful tours.Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau said The Boss’ approach to his craft is what precludes him from ever being a nostalgia act.“Never gonna happen. The magic is that he’s an artist. He’s an artist every day. He’s not looking back, he’s looking forward. I mean he loves to go on tour, and he loves to play his favorite songs. He loves for his audience to hear him. But if he wasn’t pursuing new things, none of that would matter. It’s the new things that keep him young,” Landau said.Guests at the star-studded premiere included Ralph Lauren, Clive Davis, Jon Stewart, Edward Burns, Harvey Keitel, Steven Van Zandt and Gayle King. Music mogul Jimmy Iovine said he’s not surprised by the caliber of work Springsteen is creating at this point in his life.“What Bruce always tries to do is not compromise and do great. Everyone thinks they’re trying to do great, but deep down inside, some people keep going hard, but they — they end up compromising here and there. And this guy doesn’t. He just has no interest in doing it until he is completely satisfied with it,” Iovine said.
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The power of music and art to influence generations is well documented, and that’s sometimes why authoritarian regimes tend to silence artists. The brutal Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia is no different and a huge percentage of Cambodia’s musicians and artists were killed during the Pol Pot Regime. But some remember, and their tales can now be heard. VOA’s Chetra Chap reports.
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In international diplomacy, sports can sometimes act to bridge bitter divides between longstanding rivals. A similar unifying force could be at work, at least temporarily, in America’s politically polarized capital city. VOA’s Brian Padden reports, Democrats and Republicans are coming together to support the Washington Nationals baseball team playing in Major League Baseball’s World Series.
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Alaska’s famed Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has joined a new global partnership billed as the World Series of long-distance sled dog racing and aimed at bringing more fans to the cold-weather sport.The Iditarod has teamed up with Norway pet food supplement company and series creator, Aker BioMarine, and other races in Minnesota, Norway and Russia for the inaugural QRILL Pet Arctic World Series, or QPAWS, next year.Logistics were still being worked out, but the series will use a joint point system over a still-undetermined time frame, GPS tracking and an online platform to follow the racing teams. Talks with potential broadcast outlets also are under way, organizers say.FILE – Defending Iditarod champion Joar Lefseth Ulsom of Norway greets fans on the trail during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, March 2, 2019, in Anchorage, Alaska.“Together with Iditarod and the other unique events, we will make QPAWS a winning TV concept in order to build the sport for the future,” series project manager Nils Marius Otterstad said in an email to The Associated Press. He said the Iditarod was approached about the idea a year ago and agreed to move forward on it during this year’s race in March.The other racesAt 1,000 miles (1,610 kilometers), the Iditarod will be the longest race among those participating the first year, as well as serve as the finale to the series next March. The series also will feature races kicking off in late January with the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Minnesota, followed by the Femundlopet in Norway in early February by the Volga Quest in Russia a week later.Discussions also are under way to add other races, including the 1,000-mile (1,610-kilometer) Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race traversing Alaska and Canada’s Yukon each February. Marti Steury, the Quest’s executive director for Alaska, said Quest officials are watching to see how the first year goes.New Iditarod CEO Rob Urbach poses for a photo in Anchorage, Alaska, Oct. 15, 2019.Participants in any of the QPAWS races don’t have to join the circuit if they prefer to stick to just one contest, according to the Iditarod’s new CEO, Rob Urbach. Because the races are so globally distant and scheduled so closely together, he said the circuit could take place over two years.“The complexity of our racing is unique in the world of sports, and therefore may see some different ways to do the series,” he said.The Iditarod is already well-steeped in technology, despite the low-tech aspect of the trail, which spans two mountain ranges and the frozen Yukon River before it heads up the wind-scrubbed Bering Sea Coast to the finish line in the Gold Rush town of Nome. Sleds are equipped with GPS trackers that allow fans to follow them online and enable organizers to ensure no one is missing.Race volunteers and contractors working out of an Anchorage hotel process live video streamed from village checkpoints, using satellite dishes. Some volunteers handle race-standing updates sent through equipment that activates a super-size hot spot in the most remote places with satellite connections.Troubled time for IditarodThe move to QPAWS follows a troublesome time for the Iditarod that was marked in recent years by multiple challenges, including escalating pressure from animal-welfare activists over multiple dog deaths, a 2017 dog-doping scandal and the loss of major sponsors.Urbach, a former CEO of USA Triathlon, recently met with representatives of the Iditarod’s harshest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA’s executive vice president Tracy Reiman called the new racing circuit a “World Series of Cruelty” destined for failure.“Just as Ringling Bros. circus struggled to find an audience for its abusive elephant shows, the dogsledding industry is desperately scrambling for viewers — but kind people today have no interest in watching dogs being forced to run until their paws bleed, they choke on their own vomit, and they drop dead on the trail,” Reiman said in an email.Branding expert Conor O’Flaherty said the venture has the potential to create a bigger audience.“What’s important for a sport like this is it not only represents the distinct community, it also represents part of cultural history that’s important to protect,” said O’Flaherty, managing director at New York-based SME Branding.Urbach contends QPAWS will go far in raising the exposure of long-distance mushing and better educate the public about the special relationship the dogs have with their human teammates. “You could argue that the sport needs a rejuvenation,” said Urbach, who took the helm of the Iditarod in July.Mushers interested, cautiousWith so many details about the series still unknown, many mushers are taking a wait-and-see approach. Defending champion Pete Kaiser said he plans to participate only in the Iditarod.“My main concerns are, what do you have to do to win this thing and what are the logistics,” he said.Three-time winner Mitch Seavey, who comes from a multigenerational family of mushers, also is watching developments closely.“I’m in favor of the Iditarod and other races doing new things. We need to change our demographic. We need to change our fan base, or at least expand it. We need to modernize and appeal to more people,” Seavey said. “Give them a chance. That’s what I’m saying.”
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Post Malone is the top contender at the 2019 American Music Awards, where Taylor Swift has a chance to moonwalk past Michael Jackson’s record for most wins at the show.FILE – American singer Billie Eilish performs on the Other Stage during Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, Britain, June 30, 2019.Dick Clark Productions announced Thursday that Malone scored seven nominations, while newcomer Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande each earned six nominations. Swift, who has won 23 AMAs, is up for five awards and could surpass the King of Pop, who holds the record for the most wins with 24 trophies.The fan-voted AMAs will air live Nov. 24 on ABC from the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.Swift, Malone and Grande, along with Drake and Halsey, are nominated for the top prize: artist of the year.Malone’s nominations include favorite male pop/rock artist, favorite rap/hip-hop artist, favorite rap/hip-hop album for “Hollywood’s Bleeding” and favorite rap/hip-hop song for “Wow.” His massive hit with Swae Lee, “Sunflower” from the Oscar-winning animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” is up for favorite pop/rock song and collaboration of the year.FILE – Taylor Swift arrives at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at the Prudential Center, Newark, N.J., Aug. 26, 2019.Swift will compete for favorite female pop/rock artist, favorite adult contemporary artist, favorite pop/rock album for “Lover” and favorite music video for her Equal Rights anthem, “You Need to Calm Down.”Though Lizzo scored three nominations, her hit “Truth Hurts” — currently spending its seventh week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart — is absent (the AMA nominees reflect the time period of Sept. 28, 2018 through Sept. 26, 2019).Lizzo’s nominations include favorite soul/R&B song for “Juice” and favorite female soul/R&B artist, pitting her against Beyonce and Ella Mai. Though she released her first album in 2013, Lizzo marked a major breakthrough this year with “Truth Hurts” and “Good As Hell,” and the success helped her pick up a new artist of the year nomination. She has some stiff competition though: Nominees include Eilish, arguably the year’s top new act; Lil Nas X, whose hit “Old Town Road” is the longest-running No. 1 hit in the history of the Billboard charts; Luke Combs, who has dominated the country charts and launched multiple No. 1 hits; and Mai, who won a Grammy in her debut year and topped several R&B charts.FILE – Ariana Grande accepts the award for artist of the year at the 2016 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, Nov. 20, 2016.Mai, who was at ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday to announce some of the nominees, excitedly screamed “four nominations” backstage when she learned that she’s also competing for favorite soul/R&B album for her platinum-selling self-titled debut and favorite soul/R&B song for “Trip.”“Last year, the AMAs were my first-ever (award) nominations and I had two, so to come back and now have four nominations, it’s amazing,” said Mai, whose groovy hit “Boo’d Up” won a Grammy this year. “And (to be nominated for favorite) R&B album, which is like my baby, my album, I’m really, really excited. I feel honored,” she said.Billy Ray Cyrus tied Mai with four nominations thanks to the success of “Old Town Road,” and the country singer has a chance of winning his first AMA in 26 years (he won two awards in 1993). Lil Nas X picked up five nominations.DJ-producer Avicii earned a posthumous nomination for favorite electronic dance music artist, K-pop all-stars BTS picked up three nominations, while Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper earned two nominations, including collaboration of the year for “Shallow” and favorite soundtrack for “A Star Is Born,” which will compete with “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.”
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