Terrence McNally, one of America’s great playwrights whose prolific career included winning Tony Awards for the plays “Love! Valour! Compassion!” and “Master Class” and the musicals “Ragtime” and “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” has died of complications from the coronavirus. He was 81.McNally died Tuesday at Sarasota Memorial Hospital in …

The Michael Jackson estate is donating $300,000 to help entertainment industry workers on Broadway, the music business and in Las Vegas who have been hurt by the coronavirus pandemic. The estate announced Wednesday that it will give $100,000 apiece to Broadway Cares, the food bank Three Square in Nevada and …

The global coronavirus outbreak keeps many of us at home and away from the things we enjoy. Sporting leagues around the world have postponed or canceled live competitions, and on Tuesday, the biggest event of them all, the summer Olympics, announced the Tokyo Games will be postponed to 2021. VOA’s …

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will be postponed until next year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Tuesday. Although the International Olympic Committee had said it would spend up to a month debating the matter, the decision to postpone became inevitable after several countries said …

Athletes, national associations and sporting federations from around the world reacted with a mixture of sadness, relief and goodwill to the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic.After weeks of speculation and mounting criticism at the delay in announcing a postponement, Japan’s Prime …

Patty Mills for Prime Minister. In a statesman’s-style address, the San Antonio Spurs guard delivered a message to Olympians and to his fellow Australians who are dealing with the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.With the NBA season suspended, and serious travel restrictions in play, Mills posted a video on social …

Renowned jazz man Manu Dibango, to many the beloved “Papy Groove” who served as an inspiration and pioneer in his art, died on Tuesday with the coronavirus, his official Facebook page announced. He was 86. The saxophonist who inspired what is known as “world music” was recently hospitalized with an illness …

Lauren Beukes, a script and fiction writer, is drawn to narratives that allow her to probe themes of gender and power. For her upcoming novel, “Afterland,” she imagined a plot twist in which a disease wipes out virtually the entire male population.”I wanted to explore what a world without men …

Taylor Swift may have ended her feud with Katy Perry but the one with Kanye West seems simply not to want to die.New leaked video clip of the entire four-year-old phone call between the rapper and pop superstar about his controversial song “Famous” have been posted online and further complicate …

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games may have to be postponed if the event cannot take place “in a complete way” due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Prime Minister Abe made the admission during a parliamentary session Monday, but ruled out the possibility the Games, …

The troubles of opera superstar Placido Domingo continue to mount.The 79-year-old Domingo announced Sunday he has tested positive for the coronavirus.He said in a Facebook post it is his “moral duty” to reveal that he has the illness.The tenor says he and his family are in self-quarantine, adding that except …

Singer Kenny Rogers, who embodied The Gambler” persona and whose musical career spanned jazz, folk, country and pop, has died at 81.Rogers died at home Friday night in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.The …

The NBA plans to pay full salaries to players as scheduled on April 1 but could begin cutting salaries to recover money from canceled games by April 15, ESPN reported Saturday.Citing a league memo shared with NBA clubs on Friday, the sport network’s website said the league might soon begin …

At 28, musician Fabi Reyna is the founder and editor-in-chief of She Shreds magazine, a publication dedicated to women guitarists and bassists. She also continues to perform in concerts around the world. Karina Bafradzhian met with the inspiring young woman and filed this report narrated by Anna Rice. …

Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV died Friday night. He was 81.He died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, …

Celebrities, politicians and professional athletes faced a backlash this week as many revealed that they had been tested for the coronavirus, even when they didn’t have a fever or other tell-tale symptoms.That’s fueling a perception that the wealthy and famous have been able to jump to the head of the …

Faced with a lengthy shutdown due the coronavirus pandemic, movie theaters are requesting relief from the U.S. government.   The National Association of Theater Owners, the trade group that represents most of the industry’s cinemas, said Wednesday that it’s asking for immediate federal help for its chains and its 150,000 …

The European Union is calling on video streaming services to limit providing programs in high-definition to avert an internet crash that could be triggered by extremely heavy usage because of the coronavirus pandemic.   European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton tweeted late Wednesday that he had spoken with Netflix …

The Olympic flame is set to arrive in Japan from Greece even as the opening of the Tokyo Games in four months is in doubt with more voices calling for the event to be postponed or canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. The flame will touch down Friday aboard a white …

After months of bickering over new competitions, talks of closed  super leagues and complaints of greed by elite clubs, football’s leaders have buried their differences to tackle the effects of the coronavirus outbreak.   On Tuesday, UEFA agreed to delay its flagship Euro 2020 competition for one year to allow …

The organizers of Britain’s Glastonbury music festival have canceled the celebrated event, adding to the growing list of large entertainment and sporting events that have been forced to cancel or postpone because of the coronavirus.“Clearly this was not a course of action we hoped to take for our 50th anniversary …

One of the supposedly most valuable exhibits at the Museum of the Bible in Washington has turned out to be fake. Experts have determined that 16 waxy yellow fragments said to be remnants of the Dead Sea Scrolls are not part of an ancient Hebrew Bible, but rather forgeries. The real ancient scrolls were first found in 1947 in Qumran caves near the Dead Sea shore. They are …

The NCAA made more than $1 billion last year, almost $867 million from the men’s Division I basketball tournament, and most of that from a massive television rights deal with CBS and Turner that runs through the 2032 tournament.The cornonavirus not only wiped out the games, but it will create some unexpected …

A retired African American educator is using his new career as an artist to educate younger generations about racial divisions that led to some of the darkest chapters in American history. The work of the sculptor is now on exhibit in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where VOA’s Chris Simkins caught …

A retired African American educator is using his new career as an artist to educate younger generations about racial divisions that led to some of the darkest chapters in American history. The work of the sculptor is now on exhibit in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where VOA’s Chris Simkins caught …