On a clear, frigid night in a courtyard made of walls of ice, Bruce McCafferty and his young son stand mesmerized, bathed in the pulsating rainbow light emanating from a series of stout ice formations. McCafferty and his son Dougie have come out to Ice Castles in North Woodstock, New …

Those fur-trimmed parkas so common on city sidewalks have become a boon to backwoods trappers. Coyote fur pelts are in big demand to provide the lush, silvery or tawny-tinged arcs of fur on the hoods on Canada Goose coats and their many global imitators. A good western coyote, prized for …

Water turns to ice when it gets cold enough, and that physical state change turns a splashing summertime fountain in front of one of Washington’s museums into a smooth surface for skaters. Valdya Baraputri takes us to the Sculpture Garden Ice Rink. …

The family of Michael Jackson had a feeling the years-old child molestation allegations against the pop superstar would resurface at some point. So they say they weren’t entirely surprised to learn that a forthcoming HBO documentary would feature two of his accusers. “I thought, ‘Oh here we go again,’” Jackson’s …

The first Iranian-American woman to win an Oscar, Rayka Zehtabchi, says she wants to build on Sunday’s triumph of her documentary about menstruation by producing several films with Iran-related themes. “I’m very interested in telling Iranian stories as well as women’s stories,” the 25-year-old Los Angeles-based filmmaker told VOA Persian …

A library run by a volunteer group in New Delhi’s largest slum resettlement colony is helping underprivileged teenagers become writers. Some have had their stories published in India’s best-known Hindi language literary magazine as well as in other publications. For VOA, Anjana Pasricha reports from New Delhi. …

Smith is the most common last name in the United States, followed by Johnson, Miller, Jones, Williams, and Anderson, according to genealogy company Ancestry.com. What the most common surnames in the United States have in common is that they all have English, Scottish, Irish or Welsh roots because people from …

The famed annual Venice Carnival is in full swing with revelers donning beautiful costumes and extraordinary masks. The masks range from historical classics, to modern, original creations. VOAs Deborah Block takes us to a shop in the city of canals that makes intricate masks by hand. …

There is more than a century of Iraqi history in Sheikh Yousif Akar’s house, a modest home in the holy city of Najaf which the retired teacher has crammed full of local antiques collected over 50 years. Rifles dating back to when the city was run by the Ottomans or …

Mexico’s president on Monday denounced racism in his country a day after the Mexican film Roma emerged as a big winner at the Academy Awards with a plot that highlighted prejudice and inequality. Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron won the best director Oscar on Sunday for his semi-autobiographical film Roma, which …

Giving an Academy Award to a documentary about periods set in India will help shatter the monthly shame that impacts millions of women globally, with some even dying in isolation while menstruating, health campaigners said on Monday. The Netflix film “Period. End of Sentence.,” set in a village in northern …

Green Book, the heartwarming drama about the friendship between an eclectic African – American musician and his uncouth white driver during the segregation era won three Academy awards including Best Picture. That most coveted award fit right in to the night of diversity at the Oscars. VOA’s Penelope Poulou has …

The segregation-era road-trip drama “Green Book” was crowned best picture at the Academy Awards, handing Hollywood’s top award to a film seen as a feel-good throwback to some but ridiculed as an outdated inversion of “Driving Miss Daisy” by others.  In a year where Hollywood could have made history by …

Mexico’s “Roma” is the winner of the best foreign language film at the Oscars. Other films of director Alfonso Cuaron have won Academy Awards, but “Roma” now becomes the first film from Mexico to win the Oscar for best foreign language film. The movie’s dialogue is in Spanish and Mixtec. …

Some fun and interesting facts about Tuesday’s nominations for the 91st Academy Awards:   -After more than 30 years and some two dozen films, Spike Lee received his first Academy Award nomination for best director for “BlacKkKlansman.” It’s also the first time one of his movies has been nominated for …

The United States has a long tradition of recognizing foreign figures by naming streets after them. Often that’s done at the request of an immigrant community with a significant presence in the area. That’s the case along of stretch of Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue in New York City, which has …

Two years after his “Moonlight” triumphed on the eve of the Oscars, Barry Jenkins’ adaptation of the James Baldwin novel “If Beale Street Could Talk” Saturday topped the 34th Film Independent Spirit Awards, winning best film, best director and best supporting female for Regina King. The Spirit Awards, always a …

The number of hate crimes, or crimes against a protected minority, has increased over the last several years in the United States. Advocates fear the alleged false reporting of a hate crime by an American actor may cause people to doubt real victims and prevent some victims from going to …

The Oscars this year features a diverse range of nominations from the first Netflix film, Roma to Black Panther as possibly the first superhero film that could win the Best Picture award. Since the twitter campaign #OscarsSoWhite began in 2015, the Academy Awards has been criticized for lacking diversity and …

R&B star R. Kelly was taken into custody after arriving Friday night at a Chicago police precinct, hours after authorities announced multiple charges of aggravated sexual abuse involving four victims, including at least three between the ages of 13 and 17. The 52-year-old singer, whose real name is Robert Kelly, …

Days are left before the 91st Academy Awards ceremony that’ll take place in Los Angeles. But before actors and directors walk the red carpet and talk about the films they made, an exhibition showcasing costumes from the Oscar-nominated movies opened in Los Angeles. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by …

Musician Peter Tork, the perpetually cheerful keyboard-playing member of the 1960s rock group The Monkees, has died at 77. Tork’s family and his Facebook page gave no cause of death, but he was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer in 2009. Tork was a bass guitarist and an …

A newcomer to acting, Yalitza Aparicio is in the running for Best Actress this Sunday at the Academy Awards. She plays a domestic worker in the Mexican film “Roma” and recently sat down with VOA’s Arturo Martinez to talk about her role. …

Police in Chicago say a U.S. actor who claimed he was attacked and beaten by two masked men shouting racist and homophobic slurs staged the incident because he was because he was dissatisfied with his salary and wanted to promote his career. Chicago police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi issued a …

Scenes from the Oscar-nominated film Green Book depict post-World War II America as a land of wide prosperity, big cars, nation-spanning highways, and easy travel. But this was the Jim Crow era, before civil rights reforms, and discriminatory laws of the time made it challenging, even dangerous, for black motorists …