Nigeria’s top female golfer, Uloma Mbuko, has won more than 200 trophies in her 17-year career as an international player. Now, she’s passing on her crown, training the next crop of young golfers in Nigeria. VOA’s Chika Oduah reports.
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Day: July 21, 2017
To understand the significance of the so-called Monkey Trial, one must try to imagine the America of 1925; specifically, the southern state of Tennessee.
Under pressure by a coalition of strict Christians, Tennessee became the first state in the United States to pass a law — the Butler Act — that deemed it illegal to “teach any theory that denies the Story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animal.”
The act alarmed many in the legal community, including the recently formed American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which persuaded John Scopes, a 24-year-old high school science teacher and football coach from Illinois, to test the constitutionality of the law in what became known as “The Monkey Trial.”
The trial also attracted intense media attention, including live radio broadcasts of the trial for the first time in history, according to an award-winning documentary by PBS’s American Experience on the trial.
Attorney Clarence Darrow represented Scopes; William Jennings Bryan, a Democratic conservative, represented both Tennessee and the fundamentalists who were deeply opposed to Charles Darwin’s theory.
“I knew, sooner or later, that someone would have to stand up to the stifling of freedom that the anti-evolution act represented,” Scopes wrote in his 1967 book Center of the Storm: Memoirs of John T. Scopes.
The trial ended on July 21 with a guilty verdict and $100 fine.
A year later, the ACLU issued its appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which upheld the law, but overturned the conviction of Scopes on a legal technicality.
Decades later in 1967, Tennessee repealed the act and teachers were free to teach the theories of Darwin without breaking the law.
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About 30 youngsters were on a golf course, practicing their swing on a hot Saturday morning in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The students were as young as 3 and as old as 16. For nearly a year, they’ve come out every Saturday to Abuja’s IBB International Golf and Country Club to learn the rules of the game.
Uloma Mbuko guided them with a watchful eye.
“Princess, I want to see you hold your swing,” she said to one of them.
Mbuko walked up and down the line of students.
She is the lead instructor at this beginners’ golf training program for boys and girls. Nigeria’s premier female golfer, Mbuko has played in tournaments across Africa, winning a place in nearly all of them and garnering about 200 awards. She has been called the Queen of Golf in Africa. After 17 years as a Class A professional, she has risen to a level in sports that few women in Nigeria ever reach.
Ambitious youth
Even from a young age, Mbuko showed ambition, said her sister, Chinyere Mbuko.
“She’s always been a sports lady. She started with football, then handball. So when she was starting, you know, playing golf, I was like, ‘Ah! Serious?’ ” Chinyere Mbuko said with a laugh. “But I knew she could do it.”
The golfer comes from a working-class family, so getting into the sport was not easy.
“We all know that golf is expensive, even though we try to shy away from it. But it is expensive,” Uloma Mbuko said. “Now, to be a member of a golf club in Nigeria, definitely you’re talking about nothing less than 500,000.”
The 500,000 naira ($1,640) covers only the membership. At the IBB club where Mbuko spends most of her time, the fee is upward of 800,000 naira ($2,622). A golfer has to pay for access to practice facilities, training, a caddy, proper clothing and equipment.
WATCH: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Trains Her Potential Successors
More Nigerian golf professionals, like Mbuko, are trying to help young people overcome the financial hurdles of playing golf. Emeka Okatta, president and founder of the West Africa Golf Tour, said the government should help make golf more affordable.
No public courses
“There are no facilities for common people to play golf. We only have absolute member golf courses and a common man cannot walk into here and play. For you to walk in here just to have green fees is 10,000 naira ($32); that’s a lot of money. That’s probably some people’s salary in a month,” Okatta said. “But in other parts of the world, the government provides public golf courses, public drive ranges; but here there’s none and so a common man cannot play. That’s why it’s called a rich man’s game.”
Okatta founded the West Africa Golf Tour to give young golf enthusiasts more opportunities and exposure. Okatta said he was looking forward to collaborating with Mbuko’s Ladies Professional Golfers Association of Nigeria to organize tournaments.
Mbuko created the LPGAN in 2016 because there was no professional golf group for women in Nigeria. That was one of the challenges she faced in her early years. Women who wanted to become professionals had to join associations outside the country. Mbuko joined the Professional Golfers Association in South Africa and was able to attract sponsors for her training.
Mbuko has slowed down from playing in tournaments to focus on training the next generation of Nigerian women to reach the level of success she has attained. They meet several days a week under the LPGAN banner.
Mbuko’s students, like Stella Kadiri and Obiageli Ayodele, all hope to become pros.
“I’m here Monday to Friday. I’ve been playing golf since 2011,” said Kadiri, 25. “I’ve been going to Ladies’ Open, different places, and I’ve been winning. When I see my medal, it inspires me to play more.”
Swing barrel
Mbuko instructs the women to stand in a swing barrel. It’s a metallic circle that goes around the body. The golfer runs the club across it. The prop helps the golfer learn the proper hip rotation to get that perfect swing.
“Wow, it’s fantastic,” Ayodele said after using the barrel. “The few days that I took lessons from her, I found out that my game changed automatically.”
The 29-year-old golfer is one of the few female players whose husband supports her athletic goals.
“In our country, Nigeria, they find it difficult for the ladies to get into sports because of their husbands — I mean, the ones that are married. They don’t want their wives to be out there. They don’t want them to be in the midst of other men. They feel they will not properly take care of their home,” Ayodele said.
IN PHOTOS: Nigeria’s ‘Queen of Golf’ Mentors Next Generation of Potential Pro Golfers
Mbuko said she wanted to see her ladies playing internationally in the next three years.
“Yes, we are ladies, yes, we are African, but we have what it takes, we have the talent,” she said. “I want to sit down and watch television and see Nigerian ladies competing in ladies’ Masters and say, ‘This is my girl, this is my girl.’ ”
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President Donald Trump was expected to sign an executive order Friday authorizing a comprehensive review of the U.S. manufacturing sector to help ensure the security of the nation, according to White House officials.
White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro told reporters Friday industrial supply chains will also be reviewed in the effort to address possible industrial vulnerabilities that may have been created as a result of U.S. factory closings.
Administration officials say there is a dearth of U.S. companies that can repair submarine propellers and circuit boards and produce parts such as flat panels in the event of a war.
“America’s defense industrial base is now facing increasing gaps in its capabilities,” Navarro said, adding that “certain types of military-grade semiconductors and printed circuit boards have become endangered species.”
The order will call for a 270-day review that will be conducted by the Pentagon, along with the departments of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, Labor and the National Security Council.
The Commerce Department is already reviewing the possibility of imposing steel tariffs for national security reasons as a possible way to reshape international trade without negotiating new agreements with foreign countries.
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Businesses owned by U.S. President Donald Trump have filed requests for visas with the Department of Labor to hire dozens of temporary foreign workers.
The news of the requests comes during the White House’s “Made in America Week,” urging American companies to hire American workers, a central theme of Trump’s presidential campaign.
The president’s Mar-a-Lago Resort and his nearby golf club in southern Florida are seeking to bring in the workers under the H-2B visa program, which allows companies to hire temporary, non-agricultural workers when American workers can’t be found. The jobs would run during the clubs’ busy season between October and May.
Mar-a-Lago is seeking to hire 70 cooks, servers and housekeepers, while the golf club is looking for six cooks.
The Department of Labor certifies companies to apply for the visas, which are issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
Trump announced a one-time expansion of the H-2B visa program earlier this week, increasing the number of available visas from 66,000 to 81,000.
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Russia’s parliament passed a bill to outlaw the use of virtual private networks, or VPNs, and other Internet proxy services, citing concerns about the spread of extremist materials.
The State Duma on Friday unanimously passed a bill that would oblige Internet providers to block websites that offer VPN services. Many Russians use VPNs to access blocked content by routing connections through servers outside the country.
The lawmakers behind the bill argued that the move could help to enforce Russia’s ban on disseminating extremist content online.
The bill has to be approved at the upper chamber of parliament and signed by the president before it comes into effect.
Russian authorities have been cracking down on Internet freedoms in recent years. Among other things they want Internet companies to store privacy data on Russian servers.
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The U.N. says women’s and children’s health is improving faster than at any point in history. VOA’s Carol Pearson reports on a massive program has saved countless lives and is gaining momentum.
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An international energy watchdog warns that the decline in global investment in the oil sector could lead to energy shortages when prices start to rebound. The International Energy Agency says energy investments have declined 20 percent in the past three years as oil profits fell. One analyst tells VOA that is a short-term recipe for long-term problems. Mil Arcega reports.
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In some parts of the world, the race is on to find the next generation of clean fuel. In the Netherlands, a group of students called Team Fast has developed a unique secret catalyst that can produce hydrogen fuel that is cheaper and cleaner than gasoline. VOA’s Kevin Enochs.
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A team of forensics experts Thursday opened the tomb of famed Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali to take DNA samples to settle a paternity suit.
In a spectacle that most likely would have pleased the eccentric Dali, a crowd stood outside the Dali Theater-Museum in Figueras, Spain, to watch the experts file in.
Officials in Spain say that hair, nails and two long bones have been removed from Dali’s embalmed remains to find genetic samples for a paternity test.
The sample will be sent to Madrid, where it will be analyzed for a match with the DNA in a saliva sample provided by Maria Pilar Abel, 61.
Abel alleges her mother and Dali had an affair in the fishing village where he lived and that it was no secret among the villagers.
The Dali estate is worth about $460 million. But Abel has said she’s not interested in money and only wants to be recognized as Dali’s daughter.
Dali is the world’s most renowned surrealist painter. His picture of melting watches, The Persistence of Memory, is an icon of surrealism.
Dali was was also known for his long, pencil-thin mustache that curled on each end. He delighted in painting mustaches on the upper lips of those he met.
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From the dragons of Westeros and the “Walking Dead” zombies to the deadly humanoid robots of “Westworld,” the golden age of television is dominating the limelight at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con.
Kicking off on Thursday, this year’s four-day Comic-Con gathering of nerd and pop culture fans will see fewer films being marketed by movie studios, which are instead focusing more narrowly on projects that tie directly into the interests of the convention’s fandom.
Meanwhile, numerous hit sci-fi television shows have garnered avid viewers and Emmy nominations, and can drum up buzz for upcoming seasons with an already engaged fan base.
Drawing more than 100,000 attendees, Comic-Con has become an increasingly important tool for Hollywood to generate interest in upcoming projects. Yet this year, only three major Hollywood film studios – Fox, Warner Bros and Disney – and newcomer Netflix will hold panels for upcoming movies, a vast difference from five years ago when movies dominated the buzz from the convention.
Warner Bros. will bring its sci-fi sequel “Blade Runner 2049,” virtual reality thriller “Ready Player One” and its DC movie franchise of superheroes, while Disney will bring its Marvel superhero franchise.
“Studios are eyeing more quality than quantity at Comic-Con,” Entertainment Weekly’s senior writer Darren Franich told Reuters.
“There are less films debuting now, but there’s high stakes for the ones that are, as studios are thinking ‘if we do well here then that can create buzz over a year,'” he added.
On Thursday, Fox hosted a panel on upcoming British spy comedy sequel “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” with Colin Firth and Halle Berry.
“You really feel like [Comic-Con] is owned by fans,” Firth told Reuters Television. “I don’t think I’ve been in an environment where it’s more about the passion for the material.”
The fandom of Comic-Con attendees is what drove organizers in 2012 to give medieval fantasy “Game of Thrones,” zombie drama “The Walking Dead” and nerd comedy “The Big Bang Theory” a coveted spot at Comic-Con’s prestigious Hall H. The 6,500-capacity hall is usually reserved for movie studios bringing in A-list talent, and fans often sleep outside overnight to gain access.
Hall H is where Netflix’s 1980s-set supernatural mystery series “Stranger Things” will make its Comic-Con debut on Saturday, almost a year after it became a breakout hit “largely thanks to the passion of the fan base,” producer Shawn Levy told Reuters.
“Comic-Con is such a hub of fans and passionate fanhood, so it feels like an organic match to the ‘Stranger Things’ franchise,” he said.
But celebrity panels alone aren’t enough for engaging fans.
This year, Warner Bros has a virtual reality experience of its upcoming “Blade Runner 2049” sequel, HBO has installations of the futuristic theme park of “Westworld” and “Stranger Things” fans can experience the dark, evil “Upside Down” world from the show.
“It’s no small thing to get yourself to Comic-Con and spend money and time in a high-intensity environment, and we want to reward that interest level and commitment with something special,” Levy said.
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The government of Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said on Thursday that it was firing its special counsel in a corruption probe of Brazilian builder Odebrecht, sparking accusations of interference.
Justice Minister Marisol Perez said she dismissed special attorney Katherine Ampuero for blocking Odebrecht’s sale of its irrigation company Olmos. Perez said the decision put thousands of jobs at risk and deprived the state of revenues it would have seized as payment for reparations under a new anti-graft law.
Ampuero argued that Odebrecht would have used the sale of Olmos to pay its creditors abroad instead of Peru, which the company denied.
“Trust in Ampuero was lost because she did not apply the law, and by not applying the law she created economic loss for the state,” Perez told reporters on Thursday.
The announcement put the Odebrecht graft probe in Peru under increased scrutiny and renewed tensions between Kuczynski’s year-old government and the opposition-controlled Congress, which has already pressured three of Kuczynski’s ministers to step down.
“The president should ask Perez to resign immediately,” Popular Force lawmaker Hector Becerril said in broadcast comments on local broadcaster RPP. “This is a government of lobbyists.”
Odebrecht has been offloading its assets as it faces at least $2.6 billion in fines and graft probes in several countries where it has admitted bribing officials. In Peru, the company has been negotiating a plea deal with the attorney general’s office in which Ampuero had taken part as the state’s representative.
Anti-corruption state attorney Julia Principe said she was fired for refusing to dismiss Ampuero and noted that Ampuero had asked the attorney general’s office in March to look into any links that Kuczynski might have had with Odebrecht.
“This situation is a clear interference by the executive branch,” Principe said in a news conference flanked by Ampuero.
Kuczynski’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kuczynski has denied knowing about or being involved in the $29 million in bribes that Odebrecht has said it paid to officials in Peru over a decade.
Last year Odebrecht said it agreed to sell Olmos to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners LP and Suez SA for an undisclosed sum.
The sale will remain blocked pending an appeals court’s decision on whether to allow it.
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Rio de Janeiro’s port area may be one of the city’s most inviting spots since being renovated for the Olympic Games last year. But while the area is home to attractions that include two museums and an aquarium, its rich history remains unknown to most locals and tourists.
A new app seeks to educate visitors about the area’s role in Brazilian history, from colonization and the arrival of slave ships to recent cases of corruption.
Launched in late June by the nonprofit investigative journalism agency Agencia Publica, the app called “Museum of Yesterday” offers tours of the port in Portuguese and English.
But there’s a catch. Inspired by Pokemon Go, the app detects users’ geo-location and only reveals the stories once users arrive at the location where the story took place.
With over 160 points of interest, the app offers five options. The terror tour explores slavery, colonization and the country’s military dictatorship, along with other incidents like the 1993 Candelaria massacre in which eight people — many of them teenagers — were killed while sleeping on the steps of the Candelaria church. The corruption tour investigates bribery from the time of King John VI of Portugal to recent kickback schemes. The samba tour explores the roots of Rio’s traditional Carnival music. Finally, the tour of ghosts explores important historical figures that are sometimes forgotten.
“Rio’s port carries a lot of the history of Brazil,” said Gabriele Roza, a journalist at Agencia Publica who contributed to the stories in the app. “What we realized was that these stories are not present here.”
Indeed during the Rio Olympic Games, local authorities emphatically promoted the port’s new attractions such as the futuristic looking Museum of Tomorrow designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava that cost $55 million, and a new boulevard decorated by internationally acclaimed street artists.
But the city neglects other historical attractions located a few blocks away such as the Valongo Wharf, an archaeological site where hundreds of thousands of slaves debarked after their harrowing journey across the Atlantic.
Francesca Declich, an Italian anthropologist visiting the Valongo Wharf on July 9, the day it was named a UNESCO World Heritage site, complained that the wharf was hard to find and that there was only basic information available on a three-paragraph-long plaque next to the pit.
The port is also connected to the present-day Car Wash corruption investigation. For example, Eduardo Cunha, who led Brazil’s impeachment effort against former President Dilma Rousseff, is now being investigated over allegations that he received $16 million in kickbacks related to the port renovation, which cost the city of Rio over $4 billion.
Rio’s former mayor Eduardo Paes is also being investigated for taking bribes in the port renovation. Despite the scandal, the revitalized area is considered one of the few positive legacies from the Rio Olympics.
The app, which has been downloaded over 2,000 times so far, tells these and other stories through text but also through illustrations, photographs, audio, videos and a map from the 1830s when most of today’s port was still ocean.
“As you start walking along the port area you can actually capture the stories from Rio’s past and put them in a vault,” explained Mariana Simoes, another journalist from Agencia Publica who was part of the team that developed the app.
“You are actually being encouraged to walk and discover the area, discover these elements of our past as you walk through them.”
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They dove in, splashed around and blissfully floated in the murky river water.
Intrepid swimmers got a once-a-year chance to beat the summer heat with a dip in the once-notorious dirty water of Boston’s Charles River on Tuesday.
The annual “City Splash” is one of the few days a year the state permits public swimming on the city’s stretch of the 80-mile river, which gained notoriety in the Standells’ 1960s hit “Dirty Water.”
The event, now in its fifth year, spotlights the nonprofit Charles River Conservancy’s efforts to build a “swim park” — floating docks where swimmers can safely jump into the river without touching the hazardous bottom and where water quality would be regularly tested.
Nearly 300 people signed up to take the plunge.
“It felt refreshing and wonderful,” said Ira Hart, a Newton, Massachusetts, resident as he hopped out of the river, goggles in hand. “They used to talk about how it was toxic sludge and you’d glow if you came out of the Charles. Well I’m not glowing, at least not yet.”
Boston is among the cities hoping to follow the model of Copenhagen, Denmark, which opened the first of its floating harbor baths in the early 2000s. Paris opened public swimming areas in a once-polluted canal this week, and similar efforts are in the planning stages in New York, London, Berlin, Melbourne and elsewhere.
In Boston, the Charles River Conservancy still needs to raise several million dollars and garner approvals from state, federal and city agencies.
But S.J. Port, the group’s spokeswoman, said the biggest hurdle already has been overcome: The Charles is now among the cleanest urban rivers in the country.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this month the river earned a “B” grade for water quality last year, meaning it met the standards for boating 86 percent of the time and 55 percent of the time for swimming. That’s a marked improvement from the “D” the Charles was given in 1995, when cleanup started in earnest, but down from 2015’s “B+” grade.
Here’s a sampling of where other efforts to reclaim urban rivers for swimming stand:
Portland, Oregon
The city partnered with a local civic group to entice residents to take a dip in the Willamette River this summer.
They opened the first official public beach with lifeguards on the river earlier this month. They’ve also launched a public awareness campaign and scheduled a range of water-centered events.
Among them was last weekend’s Big Float inner tube river parade that drew about 2,500 revelers.
London
A group of architects, designers and engineers have proposed a series of pools in the middle of the iconic River Thames, where river water would be constantly filtered.
Chris Romer-Lee, a lead organizer of the Thames Baths project, said the group aims to submit plans to local authorities by early 2018.
The group launched an online crowd-funding campaign last year that raised about $182,000 to refine their design but are working to secure almost $19.6 million in outside investment for the project itself.
New York
Four local artists and architects launched the idea for +Pool , a floating, filtered pool in the shape of a plus sign in 2010.
Since then, they’ve successfully tested a filtration system that removes bacteria without using chemicals, said Kara Meyer, deputy director for the nonprofit effort.
She said organizers also have raised nearly $2 million to continue developing the project, are exploring potential sites on the East and Hudson rivers and are preparing to seek necessary city approvals.
Melbourne, Australia
The nonprofit Yarra Swim Co. unveiled its concept for a floating pool on the city’s Yarra River at Australia’s Venice Biennale Exhibition last year.
Michael O’Neill, the effort’s co-founder, said the company will be reaching out to community groups and government agencies starting next month to get their feedback on what the Yarra Pools project should offer and to promote its broader vision for use of the river.
Berlin
The long-gestating Flussbad project calls for cleaning up a canal off the German capital’s Spree River for public bathing.
Barbara Schindler, a spokeswoman for the effort, said the idea has been around since the 1990s, but has reached notable milestones in recent years.
She said the organization completed a water quality study in 2015 and has received $4.6 million in government funding to hopefully turn the concept into reality.
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The lead singer of rock group Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, was found dead in his California home Thursday. He was 41.
According to news reports, Bennington committed suicide by hanging himself in his home. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office is investigating.
Bandmate Mike Shinoda confirmed the news via Twitter, saying, “Shocked and heartbroken, but it’s true.” He promised an official statement from the band “as soon as we have one.”
Successful records, MTV darling
Linkin Park’s blend of rap, electronica and heavy metal had wide appeal; nearly all of the band’s records took the top spot on the charts when released. Its style, dubbed “nu-metal,” made it an MTV darling in the early 2000s.
Linkin Park released its debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, and sold 10 million records. The band went on to produce a string of successful records, including this year’s One More Light, released in May.
The band had a show scheduled next week in New York with the group Blink 182.
While playing an essential part in Linkin Park’s sound, Bennington also participated in side projects Dead by Sunrise and Kings of Chaos, groups of high-profile musicians working together on short-term projects. Bennington also served as the lead singer for Stone Temple Pilots from 2013 to 2015 after the departure of vocalist Scott Weiland. In interviews, Bennington said performing with Stone Temple Pilots was the realization of a lifelong dream.
Difficult childhood
Born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1976, Bennington had a difficult childhood. He was the son of a police officer, and he spoke openly about being the victim of physical and sexual abuse by an older friend. He also suffered bullying in his teen years. He said in interviews that he channeled frustration in his early years into poetry, art and songwriting.
In his teens, he took up drugs and alcohol, developing the addictions that haunted him for much of his life, despite periods of sobriety. He also took up music, but found little success until the late 1990s when he won a spot in the band that would become Linkin Park.
The pains of Bennington’s childhood and young adulthood played into the band’s music, connecting with fans with songs of anger, disappointment, frustration and pain. Their videos were dramatic as well, featuring elaborate sets and scenes of deep emotion, even the one released Thursday morning, Talking to Myself, a song about disconnection and sorrow.
In 2002, Bennington told Rolling Stone magazine, “There’s something inside me that pulls me down.”
Creativity, addiction
While Bennington used creativity to cope with his feelings, he also used drugs and alcohol off and on, he said, starting in his teenage years. He spoke openly about his struggles, telling reporters about his bandmates staging an intervention for him in the early years of Linkin Park’s success. Later, he performed in concerts to benefit anti-addiction causes.
The band’s One More Light, was released just days before the death of Bennington’s close friend Chris Cornell, singer for the band Soundgarden who died of apparent suicide in a Detroit hotel room May 18.
Bennington sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah at Cornell’s funeral in May. His death fell on what would have been Cornell’s 53rd birthday.
Bennington was married twice and had six children.
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