The lineup for the first women’s basketball World Cup in 2018 has been completed by African champion Nigeria and runner-up Senegal. The top-ranked United States, which qualified as the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics champion, heads the 16-team tournament being played Sept. 22-30 next year in Spain, ranked No. 2. …

The daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. stood beside her father’s newly unveiled statue Monday, just a few blocks from where he grew up, handing out hugs and telling each well-wisher: “It’s about time.” The statue paying tribute to King made its public debut Monday morning on …

Stars including Kevin Hart, Katy Perry and country singer Chris Young are lining up to help raise money for flood relief efforts in Houston.   Hart has pledged $25,000 to victims of Hurricane Harvey. In an Instagram video posted Sunday, Hart said he was starting a celebrity challenge to donate …

Country music star Chris Young is donating $100,000 for disaster relief efforts in Texas.   Nashville-based Monarch Publicity says in a news release that Young lived in Arlington, Texas, before signing with RCA records and has family and close friends in Hurricane Harvey’s path. Young says in the statement that …

Kendrick Lamar was the king of the 2017 MTV Video Music Awards, winning six awards on a night full of emotional performances, political moments and a new, eye-popping Taylor Swift music video.   Lamar’s “Humble” won video of the year, best hip-hop video, direction, cinematography, art direction and visual effects …

Taylor Swift isn’t nominated for an award, but she could own the night at the MTV Video Music Awards.   The pop star who made headlines all week as she teased her new single will debut a music video at the show Sunday. She dropped the juicy song, “Look What …

An Emirati filmmaker is pushing boundaries and bypassing state censors by delicately unraveling a story about a traditional Arab family grappling with issues of homosexual love, gender identity, sectarianism and women’s rights. The movie focuses on a conservative Iraqi family who begin seeing and unearthing one another’s secrets after the …

Floyd Mayweather Jr. figured out a 50th opponent, letting Conor McGregor have the early rounds before stalking him late and leaving the mixed martial artist defenseless and exhausted on the ropes. Mayweather battered McGregor around the ring in the later rounds, finally stopping him at 1:05 of the 10th round …

Spotify says Taylor Swift has set a new global first day streaming record. The music delivery site said Saturday it had logged more than 8 million same-day streams for her new single, “Look What You Made Me Do.” The 27-year-old singer dropped the much-anticipated song late Thursday to streaming platforms …

We’re interfacing with the five most popular songs in the Billboard Hot 100 Pop Singles chart, for the week ending August 26, 2017. We greet a new song this week, but that’s not the big story. Number 5: Charlie Puth “Attention Let’s open in fifth place, where Charlie Puth jumps …

Detectives missed chances to stop pedophile rock star Ian Watkins in the years before he was charged with child sex abuse, Britain’s police watchdog said Friday. Watkins, lead singer of the Welsh band Lostprophets, was sentenced in 2013 to 29 years in prison for crimes against children as young as …

Section by section, American artist Ryan Mendoza painstakingly disassembled the small wood-frame home of civil rights icon Rosa Parks after learning that the struggling city of Detroit was going to have it demolished. He shipped it across the Atlantic Ocean and rebuilt it in the German capital of Berlin, saving …

You can finally shake it off: Taylor Swift has released her new single.   The 27-year-old singer dropped the upbeat song “Look What You Made Me Do” –  which uses an interpolation from Right Said Fred’s 1991 hit “I’m Too Sexy’” – late Thursday to streaming platforms and iTunes. The …

On Alaska’s Kenai peninsula, the city of Homer proudly calls itself the halibut fishing capital of the world. For more than 30 years it has held an annual “Halibut Derby.” VOA’s Natasha Mozgovaya and Aleksandr Bergan were there for this year’s big event. …

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Thursday he won’t seek to rescind any national monuments carved from the wilderness and oceans by past presidents. But he said he will press for some boundary changes and left open the possibility of allowing drilling, mining or other industries on the sites. Twenty-seven monuments …

One of six African nations will bid to host the 2025 World Athletics Championships as the continent hopes to stage the global meet for a first time, the Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) president Hamad Kalkaba Malboum has said. African countries have previously held several major sporting events with South …

A lottery player in the U.S. state of Massachusetts won the $759 million Powerball jackpot Wednesday night, the second highest in the game’s history and an amount that prompted millions of Americans to buy tickets in hopes they would have the lucky numbers. The odds of winning the top prize …

The Nazi symbol known as the swastika was on display in Charlottesville, Virgina, during a white supremacist rally earlier this month that led to violence and division in the U.S. It sparked a national debate about how to respond. In Germany, where the swastika is banned, a group of graffiti …

Yes, Taylor Swift fans, Wednesday was a lucky one for you.   The pop star who whipped her army of Swifties into a frenzy with video snippets of slithery snake parts on social media posted the title of her new album, “Reputation,” and announced online it will be out Nov. …

A 1,500-year-old mosaic floor with a Greek inscription has been uncovered during works to install communications cables in Jerusalem’s Old City — a rare discovery of an ancient relic and an historic document in one. The inscription cites sixth-century Roman emperor Justinian as well as Constantine, who served as abbot …

Though the LOCKN’ Festival had been in the works for more than six months, the event taking place about 40 minutes from Charlottesville, Virginia, will now serve as an uplifting moment for the city following its racially charged rally that left one dead and others injured. Festival co-founder Peter Shapiro …

Bruno Mars has met the man he’s nicknamed after: former pro wrestling champion Bruno Sammartino.   The two met Tuesday night when the pop singing sensation’s 24K Magic World Tour stopped in Pittsburgh.   Sammartino heard through friends that Mars, born Peter Gene Hernandez, was nicknamed “Bruno” by his father …

A Connecticut farm once owned by Mark Twain is for sale for $1.8 million. The Connecticut Post reports the 18.7-acre property in Redding is next to Twain’s country home, known as “Stormfield.” He bought it for his daughter, Jean Clemens, in 1909 and named it “Jean’s Farm.” But Clemens died …

Praise keeps pouring in for a Muslim model, who earlier this month became the first contestant in the Miss Universe Great Britain pageant’s history not to wear a bikini in the swimsuit round. The model, Muna Jama, spoke about her decision with VOA’s Jon Spier. …

The Village Voice, the alternative weekly newspaper co-founded by Norman Mailer and known for its culture coverage and investigative reporting, said Tuesday that it would end its print version and continue as an online-only publication. Peter Barbey, who purchased the newspaper from Voice Media Group in 2015, said in a …