An annual hip-hop festival in Ghana is celebrating the west African country’s take on the American culture and art movement. Performers use their music and art to represent culture and life in Ghana, infusing local languages, fashion, and sounds into hip-hop style. Stacey Knott reports from Accra.  …

Dodging waves at low tide, a barefooted, shirtless Mixtec man is carefully walking along the Pacific Coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. He navigates his way through the gray rocks on a quest to catch a particular kind of snail, Purpura pansa. When he catches one, he presses just the right part …

Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry says archeologists have uncovered at least 20 ancient wooden coffins in the southern city of Luxor.A brief statement from the ministry says Tuesday says archeologists found the coffins in the Asasif Necropolis.The necropolis, located in the ancient town of West Thebes, includes tombs dating back to the …

A panel of judges rebelled against the rules of a prestigious literary award by naming both Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo the winners of the 2019 Booker Prize in London.Peter Florence, the head of the judges, said they had been told “quite firmly” that they could only pick one winner. …

President Donald Trump is trying to influence votes on ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars.”  Trump on Monday tweeted that viewers should vote for former White House press secretary Sean Spicer. The president called Spicer a “good guy” and wrote “he has always been there for us!”   Spicer tweeted his …

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Rhode Island has been vandalized on the U.S. holiday named for him.The statue in Providence was splashed from head to toe with red paint Monday, and a sign reading “Stop celebrating genocide” was leaned against the pedestal.People stop to view red paint covering a …

News reports say South Korean pop star and actress Sulli has been found dead at her home south of Seoul.   A report by Yonhap news agency said the 25-year-old was found Monday afternoon. The report said police have said there were no signs of foul play at her home …

Surveys show an increasing number of male managers are uncomfortable working closely with women since a string of prominent men lost their jobs after being accused of sexual misconduct. The #MeToo movement launched two years ago this month after accusations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein went public. Since then, people have …

American Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in world championship history on Sunday when she won the beam and floor finals to take her career tally to 25 medals.Soon after securing a convincing victory on the beam in Stuttgart to overtake Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record tally of 23 world …

California has become the first U.S. state to ban all production and sale of animal fur products.Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill that will make it illegal to make, sell and even donate any new item made using animal fur starting in 2023.The bill excludes used items, taxidemy products, fur …

Banned Books Week happens every year as many children in America begin a new school year. In honor of the occasion, local libraries organize readings of Harry Potter, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird and hundreds of other novels. Despite many of them being considered classical literature, they …

Robert Forster, the handsome and omnipresent character actor who got a career resurgence and Oscar-nomination for playing bail bondsman Max Cherry in “Jackie Brown,” has died. He was 78.Forster’s publicist Kathie Berlin said he died Friday at home in Los Angeles of brain cancer following a brief illness. He was …

Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge made athletics history Saturday when he became the first person to run a marathon in less than two hours although his remarkable effort will not be recognized by the sport’s governing body.The Olympic marathon champion and world record holder completed a course around Vienna’s Prater Park in …

From celebrities to paparazzi, media crews to music bands, hundreds gathered and attended the fourth annual Slemani International Film Festival in Sulaymaniyah city of Iraqi Kurdistan. This year, 154 films from 78 countries are competing to win awards in different categories. VOA’s Rebaz Majeed has more in this report narrated …

VOA’s Dzeilana Pecanin and Ivana Kostantinovic contributed to this report.Almost immediately after Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austria’s Peter Handke were awarded the Nobel Literature Prize, reactions started to pour in, lamenting Handke’s positions about war crimes in the Balkans.Handke won the 2019 prize for “an influential work that with linguistic …

China’s state press and internet were notably lacking in fresh attacks on the NBA Friday, in a possible sign that authorities were working to de-escalate a bitter political row.The American basketball league suffered a ferocious backlash after Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey voiced support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests …

Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and Austria’s Peter Handke have been awarded the Nobel Literature Prize.The award was not given last year, so Handke won the 2019 prize  for “an influential work that with linguistic ingenuity has explored the periphery and the specificity of human experience” while Tokarczuk won the 2018 …

All media events such as news conferences have been canceled inside the arena hosting Thursday’s NBA preseason game in China between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets, though the matchup itself remains on as scheduled.The decision to cancel media availabilities is the latest move by Chinese officials in an …

The wives of two of English soccer’s most high-profile players got embroiled in a spat on Twitter on Wednesday about the leaking of information to a tabloid newspaper.In a post to her 1.3 million followers, Wayne Rooney’s wife, Coleen, accused Rebekah Vardy, the wife of Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, of …

The NBA called off scheduled media sessions Wednesday for the Brooklyn Nets and Los Angeles Lakers in Shanghai, and it remains unclear if the teams will play in China this week as scheduled.The teams were practicing in Shanghai, where at least two other NBA events in advance of the start …

Oprah Winfrey says she’s giving $13 million to increase a scholarship endowment at a historically black college.Winfrey announced her plan Monday at Morehouse College in Atlanta, adding to the $12 million she gave to the all-male college 30 years ago. She was meeting with 47 students already benefiting from the …

U.S. gymnastics star Simone Biles clinched a record-extending 15th world championship gold medal Tuesday as the Americans won the women’s team title in Stuttgart.Biles, 22, collected her 21st medal at the championships to become the most decorated women’s gymnast, taking her one clear of Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina.She also moved to …

The Louvre opened a new sprawling art conservation center Tuesday some 200 kilometers (120 miles) from Paris to protect the museum’s priceless artworks from its flood-prone storage reserves.The Louvre Conservation Center in Lievin, northern France, will help protect valuable works from the swelling Seine River as major floods grow more …

The NBA statement originally made in English had a different twist when it came out in Chinese.The NBA’s Chinese social media account posted a statement Monday saying the league was “extremely disappointed” by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s “inappropriate” tweet that showed support for Hong Kong anti-government protesters, adding …

Michelle Obama’s first project since “Becoming” is more about her readers than about herself.”Becoming: A Guided Journal for Discovering Your Voice” will be published Nov. 19 by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The new release was announced Monday. It is a companion to her multimillion-selling “Becoming,” which …