Usher, Fantasia Barrino, ‘Color Purple’ Honored at 55th NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES — Usher was named entertainer of the year at the 55th annual NAACP Awards on Saturday night, which highlighted works by entertainers and writers of color. After Usher accepted his award at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the superstar R&B singer spoke about being thankful about the journey of his successful career that…

Russian-Belarusian Band Returns to Stage After Detention in Thailand

Warsaw, Poland — A Russian-Belarusian rock band that denounces Moscow’s Ukraine invasion returned to the stage this week, voicing defiance after being detained in Thailand in January and threatened with deportation to Russia.  The band, Bi-2, formed in the 1980s in Belarus when it was part of the Soviet Union, left Russia in protest over the…

‘Squid Game’ Star Found Guilty of Sexual Misconduct

Seoul — South Korea’s “Squid Game” actor O Yeong-su has been found guilty of sexual misconduct, a local court said Friday, after he was charged with assaulting a woman in 2017. The 79-year-old in 2022 became the first South Korean to win a Golden Globe Award for best supporting actor in a series for his performance as a seemingly…

Alec Baldwin Seeks Dismissal of Grand Jury Indictment in Fatal Shooting of Cinematographer

SANTA FE, N.M. — Defense attorneys for Alec Baldwin urged a New Mexico judge on Thursday to dismiss a grand jury indictment against the actor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the Western movie “Rust.” The indictment in January charged Baldwin with involuntary manslaughter in the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins…

Ukraine Oscar Winner Mstyslav Chernov Talks to VOA About His Film 

This month’s Academy Awards ceremony saw a big first for Ukraine as Mstyslav Chernov’s “20 Days in Mariupol” won the best documentary Oscar. The film is a first-person account of being in the eastern Ukrainian city during the first weeks of Russia’s invasion. Khrystyna Shevchenko talked with Chernov. Anna Rice has that story. …

US House Expected to Pass Bill Forcing Chinese Company to Give Up TikTok

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to approve legislation Wednesday that would force the popular TikTok video app to either separate from its Chinese-owned parent company ByteDance or sell the U.S. version of the software. The bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act “gives TikTok six months to eliminate foreign adversary…

‘Oppenheimer’ wins best picture at Academy Awards, Emma Stone takes best actress

Los Angeles — “Oppenheimer,” a solemn three-hour biopic that became an unlikely billion-dollar box-office sensation, was crowned best picture at a 96th Academy Awards that doubled as a coronation for Christopher Nolan. After passing over arguably Hollywood’s foremost big-screen auteur for years, the Oscars made up for lost time by heaping seven awards on Nolan’s blockbuster…

‘Sacred Job’ Iraq Kurds Digitize Books to Save Threatened Culture

Dohuk, Iraq — Huddled in the back of a van, Rebin Pishtiwan carefully scans one yellowed page after another, as part of his mission to digitize historic Kurdish books at risk of disappearing. Seen as the world’s largest stateless people, the Kurds are an ethnic group of between 25 million and 35 million mostly spread across…