A young actress drags a suitcase despondently up a tree-shaded street, as a crew shoots a scene in a film about director Norris Wong’s unachieved dream of becoming a Cantopop lyricist. The movie “The Lyricist Wannabe” is the latest from Wong and part of an unprecedented trend in Hong Kong’s …
your ad hereHong Kong Film Industry Undergoing Revival
In its heyday, Hong Kong was the Hollywood of Asia, turning out stars such as Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat and recent Best Actress Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh. While the industry has seen a decline over the past two decades, Hong Kong is experiencing what some say is a …
your ad hereCameroon Officials Campaign Against Taboos to Encourage People to Donate Blood
Blood banks in Cameroon are usually close to empty due to widely held taboos against blood donation. Officials in the central African country are trying to convince people to move past those beliefs amid an increased demand for blood and blood products in hospitals and on the front lines where …
your ad hereMcCartney: ‘Final Beatles Record’ Out This Year Aided by AI
A “final Beatles record”, created with the help of artificial intelligence, will be released later this year, Paul McCartney told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Tuesday. “It was a demo that John (Lennon) had, and that we worked on, and we just finished it up,” said McCartney, who …
your ad hereMcCartney:’Final Beatles Record’ Out This Year Aided by AI
A “final Beatles record”, created with the help of artificial intelligence, will be released later this year, Paul McCartney told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Tuesday. “It was a demo that John (Lennon) had, and that we worked on, and we just finished it up,” said McCartney, who …
your ad hereIndia Denies Dorsey’s Claims It Threatened to Shut Down Twitter
India threatened to shut Twitter down unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the government’s handling of farmer protests, co-founder Jack Dorsey said, an accusation Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government called an “outright lie.” Dorsey, who quit as Twitter CEO in 2021, said on Monday that India …
your ad hereBTS Turns 10; Seoul Lights Up Landmarks to Celebrate
Skyscrapers, bridges and other landmarks in South Korea’s capital will be lit up in purple Monday as the country begins celebrating the 10th anniversary of K-pop band BTS, whose global popularity is a source of national pride. The lights will provide the backdrop for various social media-driven events marking the …
your ad hereAre Abortion Laws in Idaho Hurting Maternal Health Care?
In the United States, women’s access to legal abortion depends on where they live. The Western U.S. state of Idaho has some of the toughest laws against abortion, and that may be having an impact on women who are trying to have babies. Deborah Bloom has our story. …
your ad hereStartup Firm Leads Kenya Into World of High-Tech Manufacturing
A three-year-old startup company is leading Kenya into the world of high-tech manufacturing, building a workforce capable of making semiconductors and nanotechnology products that operate modern devices from mobile phones to refrigerators. Anthony Githinji is the founder of Semiconductors Technologies Limited, or STL, located in Nyeri, about a three hours’ …
your ad hereDenver Contemporary Art Gallery Adds 2 Painters from Ghana
The new Modern Art gallery at the Denver Art Museum includes two painters from Ghana. VOA’s Scott Stearns gives us a look. …
your ad hereLab-Grown Meat Industry Makes Progress but Faces Supply, Public Acceptance Hurdles
Singapore was the first country in the world to greenlight the sale of lab-grown meat, but even after nearly 2½ years, the fledgling industry is still struggling with supply issues and hurdles such as public acceptance, experts say. Lab-grown or cultivated meat is meat grown in a lab by extracting …
your ad hereUN Chief Considering Watchdog Agency for AI
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday that he will appoint a scientific advisory body in the coming days that will include outside experts on artificial intelligence, and said he is open to the idea of creating a new U.N. agency that would focus on AI. “I would be favorable to …
your ad hereSelect List of Winners of 2023 Tony Awards
Best musical: “Kimberly Akimbo” Best play: “Leopoldstadt” Best revival of a musical: “Parade” Best revival of a play: “Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog” Best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical: Victoria Clark, “Kimberly Akimbo” Best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play: Sean …
your ad hereTony Awards Makes History With Laurels for Nonbinary Actors
The intimate, funny-sad musical “Kimberly Akimbo” nudged aside splashier rivals on Sunday to win the musical crown at the Tony Awards on a night when Broadway flexed its creative muscle amid the Hollywood writers’ strike and made history with laurels for nonbinary actors J. Harrison Ghee and Alex Newell. “Kimberly …
your ad hereUK Hobbyist Stuns Math World With ‘Amazing’ New Shapes
David Smith, a retired print technician from the north of England, was pursuing his hobby of looking for interesting shapes when he stumbled onto one unlike any other in November. When Smith shared his shape with the world in March, excited fans printed it onto T-shirts, sewed it into …
your ad here‘Transformers’ Edge Out ‘Spider-Verse’ to Claim Box Office Lead
It was Miles Morales and the Spider-Verse versus the “Transformers” at the box office this weekend and the bots came out on top. “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” the seventh entry in the series, took the No. 1 spot in its first weekend in North American theaters with $60.5 million …
your ad hereThe Show Must Go On: Putting on a Tony Awards Telecast During a Writers’ Strike
New location? No script? No rehearsal? No sweat. Welcome to the 2023 Tony Awards, a show with an extra jolt of electricity this time due to the Hollywood writers’ strike. Unpredictability has been inserted into what is usually an upbeat, safe and chummy night. The strike has left Broadway’s biggest …
your ad hereDutch Minister Discusses Health Care in an Age of Longevity
Huge strides in life expectancy worldwide are bringing new challenges that come with increased longevity, the Dutch health minister told VOA this week. “If you look at it from a global perspective, we’ve seen that over the past 25 years, on average we added more than five years of global …
your ad hereAI Chatbots Offer Comfort to the Bereaved
Staying in touch with a loved one after their death is the promise of several start-ups using the powers of artificial intelligence, though not without raising ethical questions. Ryu Sun-yun sits in front of a microphone and a giant screen, where her husband, who died a few months earlier, appears. …
your ad hereUgandan Baseball Player Debuts in America
In the heart of Maryland, the Frederick Keys baseball team introduced its newest player last week, one unlike any other the team has seen in its 35-year history. Dennis Kasumba, 18-year-old catcher. From Uganda. Kasuma recently turned what seemed like an impossible dream into a reality, making the leap from …
your ad hereApple, Defying the Times, Stays Quiet on AI
Resisting the hype, Apple defied most predictions this week and made no mention of artificial intelligence when it unveiled its latest slate of new products, including its Vision Pro mixed reality headset. Generative AI has become the tech world’s biggest buzzword since Microsoft-backed OpenAI released ChatGPT late last year, revealing …
your ad hereEl Nino Climate Pattern Now Underway, NOAA Reports
El Nino has officially returned and is likely to yield extreme weather later this year, from tropical cyclones spinning toward vulnerable Pacific islands to heavy rainfall in South America to drought in Australia. After three years of the La Nina climate pattern, which often lowers global temperatures slightly, the hotter …
your ad hereU.S. East Coast Blanketed in Smoke From Canadian Wildfires
Schools across the U.S. East Coast canceled outdoor activities, airline traffic slowed, and millions of Americans were urged to stay indoors Wednesday as smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted south, blanketing cities in thick, yellow haze. The U.S. National Weather Service issued air quality alerts for virtually the entire Atlantic seaboard. …
your ad hereNewer Transplant Method Could Boost Number of Donor Hearts By 30%
Most transplanted hearts are from donors who are brain dead, but new research shows a different approach can be just as successful and boost the number of available organs. It’s called donation after circulatory death, a method long used to recover kidneys and other organs but not more fragile hearts. …
your ad hereExplainer: Will COP28 Deliver a New Fund for Climate Loss and Damage?
As communities in countries rich and poor face soaring costs from extreme weather and rising seas, governments are grappling with how to set up a new fund to tackle “loss and damage” driven by global warming. The topic was for years controversial at U.N. climate talks, as wealthy nations rejected …
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