Author: Uponent

When Pope Francis left the Vatican earlier this month for his traditional Christmastime outing downtown, he acknowledged what many Romans have been complaining about for months: That his big plans for a Holy Year had turned their city into a giant construction pit, with traffic-clogging roadworks tearing up major thoroughfares, scaffolding covering prized monuments and short-term rentals gobbling up apartment blocks.

Francis urged Romans to pray for their mayor — “He has a lot to do” — but to nevertheless welcome the upcoming Jubilee as a time of spiritual repair and renewal. “These worksites are fine, but beware: Don’t forget the worksites of the soul!” Francis said.

When he formally opens the Holy Year next week, Francis will launch a dizzying 12-month calendar of events that include special Jubilee Masses for the faithful from all walks of life: artists, adolescents, migrants, teachers and prisoners.

And while the Jubilee’s official start means the worst of the construction headache is ending, the arrival of a projected 32 million pilgrims in 2025 is set to only increase congestion in the Eternal City and intensify a housing crunch that has been driving residents away.

Like many European art capitals, Rome has been suffering from overtourism as the Italian travel sector rebounds from COVID-19: Last year, a record high number of people visited Italy, 133.6 million, with foreign tourists pushing Italy over the EU average in growth of the travel sector, national statistics bureau ISTAT reported.

Rome, with its innumerable artistic treasures, the Vatican and Italy’s busiest airport, was the top city in terms of nights booked in registered lodging, ISTAT said.

And yet for all its grande bellezze, Rome is hardly a modern European metropolis. It has notoriously inadequate public transportation and garbage collection. For the past two post-pandemic summers, taxis have been so hard to come by that the city of Rome authorized 1,000 new cab licenses for 2025.

Rome’s growing housing crisis — rents have risen about 10% this year — has gotten so bad that vigilantes have taken to going out at night with wire cutters to snip off the keyboxes on short-term apartment rentals that are blamed in part for driving up rents and driving out residents.

“The market is out of control and has definitely gotten worse with touristification, with the additional load of the Jubilee,” said Roberto Viviani, a university researcher whose landlord recently refused to renew his lease in favor of turning the apartment over to an agency to run as a holiday rental. “The surprise was that he gave the Jubilee as the justification.”

All of which has set the stage for a Jubilee opening Dec. 24 that is being received as something of a mixed bag. For the Vatican, the Holy Year is a centuries-old tradition of the faithful making pilgrimages to Rome every 25 years to visit the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul and receiving indulgences for the forgiveness of their sins in the process.

For the city of Rome, it’s a chance to take advantage of some 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in public funds to carry out long-delayed projects to lift the city out of years of decay and neglect and bring it up to modern, European standards.

But for Romans who have seen the short-term rental market take over neighborhoods like Pigneto, on the eastern flank of the capital, it’s just another pressure point in a long-running battle to keep the flavor of their neighborhoods with affordable rents for ordinary Romans.

“The Jubilee has significantly worsened this phenomenon that we have seen, above all in the last months,” said Alberto Campailla, director of the association Nonna Roma, which has been slapping stickers “Your BnB, our eviction” on Pigneto keyboxes to protest the growth of tourist rentals.

Rome’s relationship with Jubilees dates to 1300, when Pope Boniface VIII inaugurated the first Holy Year in what historians say marked the definitive designation of Rome as the center of Christianity. Even then, the number of pilgrims was so significant that Dante referred to them in his Inferno.

Massive public works projects have long accompanied Holy Years, including the creation of the Sistine Chapel (commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV for the Jubilee of 1475) and the big Vatican garage (for the 2000 Jubilee under St. John Paul II).

Some works have been controversial, such as the construction of Via della Concilliazione, the broad boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square. An entire neighborhood was razed to make it for the 1950 Jubilee.

The main public works project for the 2025 Jubilee is actually an extension of that boulevard: A pedestrian piazza along the Tiber linking Via della Conciliazione to the nearby Castel St. Angelo, with the major road that had separated them diverted to an underground tunnel.

The project, at 79.5 million euros ($82.5 million) the most ambitious of the 2025 Jubilee works, ran into a predictable glitch over the summer when archaeological ruins were discovered during the dredging of the tunnel. The artifacts were transferred to the castle museum and the digging resumed, with the grand opening scheduled for Monday, the eve of the Jubilee’s start.

Mayor Roberto Gualtieri has pointed to another feature of the 2025 projects that previous Jubilees have largely ignored, an emphasis on parks and “green” initiatives, in keeping with Francis’ focus on environmental sustainability.

But Francis himself has acknowledged the paradox of the Jubilee on the lives of everyday Romans. He wrote to Rome-area priests and religious orders earlier this year to ask them to “make a courageous gesture of love” by offering up any unused housing or apartments in their increasingly empty convents and monasteries to Romans threatened with eviction.

“I want all diocesan realities that own real estate to offer their contribution to stem the housing emergency with signs of charity and solidarity to generate hope in the thousands of people in the city of Rome who are in a condition of precarious housing,” Francis wrote.

Gualtieri has gone farther, demanding alongside other mayors that the national government pass the necessary norms to let them regulate the proliferation of short-term rentals, which have been blamed for reducing the available long-term rental stock and driving up prices.

“This for us is an emergency because we need to prevent entire blocks of the center from emptying out and turning into B&Bs, because the presence of residents in the center is fundamental,” Gualtieri said.

Just this week, Gualtieri joined nine other European mayors in urging the European Commission do more to address the overall urban housing crisis in many cities, where homelessness and rising rents are driving out students and workers and threatening the cities’ abilities to attract and retain talent.

But the Vatican’s point-man for the Jubilee, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, defended the Holy Year as part of Rome’s fabric and denied the influx of pilgrims was anything but a net gain for the city.

“As long as it has existed, Rome has always been called a ‘common home,’ a city that has always been open to everyone,” Fisichella said on the sidelines of a Jubilee promotional event. “To think that Rome might reduce the presence of pilgrims or tourists would in my opinion inflict a wound that doesn’t belong to it.” 
…

BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA — On Christmas Eve in 1741, Moravian settlers named this Pennsylvania city after the biblical birthplace of Jesus. Nearly 300 years later, Moravians continue celebrating their Christmas season traditions in Bethlehem.

They include the “putz,” a Nativity scene that tells the story of Christ’s birth with miniature wooden figurines, the making of thousands of beeswax candles by hand as a symbol of the light that Jesus brought to the world and a “lovefeast,” a song service where worshippers share a simple meal of sweet buns and coffee in their pews.

“Like all Moravian traditions, the importance of it is that it brings people together,” said the Rev. Janel Rice, senior pastor of Central Moravian Church — Bethlehem’s first congregation and the oldest Moravian church in North America.

“Building community, emphasizing that, over doctrine or dogma, is really the Moravian practice and tradition at our core,” she said.

Moravians relate to the story of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Rice said, because their ancestors began as a refugee church fleeing religious persecution. The Nativity is also a poignant reminder today, when the number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution continues to rise worldwide.

“It’s so crucial because this story is not just Jesus’s story of 2,000 years ago. It’s today’s story. And we need to make sure that we’re living the word that we were told when it comes to these refugees,” said church member Sarah Wascura. “That word is to give them refuge and to take care of them and to love them as ourselves.”

A town founded on Christmas Eve

The Moravian Church is one of the world’s oldest Protestant denominations. Its name comes from the historical provinces of Bohemia and Moravia in what is now the Czech Republic.

Their beliefs of practice over dogma began with a religious reformer, John Hus, who led a protest movement against some of the practices of Roman Catholic hierarchy. Hus believed congregants in his church should listen to Mass and read the Bible in their native Czech instead of Latin. He was accused of heresy and burned at the stake in 1415.

His ideas were carried on by his supporters, who broke with Rome and founded the Moravian Church, or Unitas Fratrum (Unity of Brethren) in 1457 — decades before Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation.

Moravians facing persecution eventually fled to Herrnhut, Germany, and established the original Renewed Moravian Church settlement, according to accounts of church history.

Moravian missionaries later settled in Pennsylvania.

On Christmas Eve in 1741, their leader, Count Nicolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, who was visiting them, led them to a stable, where they sang the hymn Jesus Call Thou Me. Its lyrics say: “Not Jerusalem — lowly Bethlehem ’twas that gave us Christ to save us.” Thus inspired, Zinzendorf named the settlement Bethlehem.

Beloved tradition retells the story of the birth of Jesus

Bethlehem’s first settlers brought with them hand-carved figures to retell the story of Christ’s birth. The tradition is known as the putz, from the German word “putzen,” meaning to clean or decorate.

“It relates back to the creches of the Middle Ages,” Rice said. “But it’s not just a creche, which would be just the one Nativity scene.”

Instead, it uses figures to tell different parts of the Gospel in miniature, including Mary’s annunciation and the visit of the three wise men to the infant Jesus.

In Victorian days, Rice said, Bethlehem’s residents would “go putzing” — visiting each other’s homes between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day to look at Nativity scenes.

In 1937, the local chamber of commerce launched a campaign promoting Bethlehem as “Christmas City USA.” As part of that promotion, they took the tradition of the putz to the historic Hotel Bethlehem on Main Street. Thousands turned up.

“The story goes that the hotel got so crowded that they couldn’t really accommodate the number of people that were coming to see it, and they asked Central Moravian Church to host it.”

For every Christmas since then, the community putz has been put together by the church’s congregants and displayed at the nearby Christian education building.

“It’s more than Christmas for four weeks a year,” said Wascura, who went to the putz on her first date with Bob Wascura, her husband of 33 years.

“The nature of the faith heritage of the city is something that is never forgotten.”

On a recent day, she led families visiting the community putz to their seats. After recounting a brief history of the Moravian Church and the Pennsylvania city, she drew a curtain to display the dozens of wooden figures — angels, shepherds, kings carrying gifts — in a tiny landscape decorated with pebbles, wood and moss.

Children and parents listened to the recorded voice of Janel Rice, who narrated the biblical story about the other Bethlehem.

“We might wonder why setting up a putz and telling the story of Jesus’ birth is so important to the Moravians, and now to the city of Bethlehem,” Rice says in the recording. “One reason has to do with the naming of the city itself.”

The church choir, after some singing, gave way to the powerful sound of the renowned Moravian Trombone Choir, known for playing its brassy tunes from the belfry of Central Moravian Church. When the lights turned on, children approached the stage to look up close at the figurines and point at surprises near the manger, including miniature zebras, lions and giraffes.

“We feel really lucky to live so close to Bethlehem with all of the history here and specifically the history pertaining to Christmas,” said visitor Kelly Ann Ryan. “It’s just something that we can’t miss every holiday season as it rolls around.”

She came to Bethlehem from a nearby town with her husband, Daniel, and their 5- and 8-year-old sons to see the community putz, in what she said has become a family tradition.

“Telling the Christmas story this way is a great way for kids to connect with it.”

Lighting candles on Christmas Eve, joining Santa for a sleigh ride

Christmas — from the Christian celebration to the secular commercial holiday — is omnipresent in Bethlehem.

On a recent day, Santa Claus checked on a red sleigh (drawn by horses instead of reindeer) outside Central Moravian before he led families who hopped on for a tour of Bethlehem and its Moravian church settlements, which were recently designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Others strolled to nearby holiday-themed wooden huts or along Main Street with its stores decorated with Christmas globes and Moravian stars. Some stopped outside an Italian restaurant to greet Santa and Mrs. Claus, who welcomed diners and posed for photos.

Across town, vendors sold ornaments at Christkindlmarkt, in the shadow of rusting blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel illuminated in red and green. That company once supplied steel for construction of the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and other landmarks.

At Central Moravian, the choir sang hymns while sacristans handed out buns and mugs of coffee to families who enjoyed the sustenance in their pews at the “lovefeast.”

After Rice delivered a final blessing, Linda Thudium walked up the stairs and opened a large closet, where the congregation keeps thousands of handmade candles wrapped in red ribbons that they light during Christmas services.

“To me, this is Christmas — looking at these candles,” said Thudium. She recalled attending Christmas Eve services with lit candles since she was 5, a tradition she continued with her children and grandchildren.

“To me, this is just magical. I remember my parents doing this, my grandparents,” she said. “It’s just a wonderful warm feeling of being connected with this church.”
…

DOHA, QATAR — It could only have been her. 

Marta won the inaugural FIFA award for the best goal in women’s soccer — named after the Brazil great. 

The 38-year-old was given the Marta Award at FIFA’s “The Best” awards on Tuesday for her goal for Brazil in an international friendly against Jamaica in June. 

Prior to this year, the Puskas award covered all of soccer but it was decided to award it to the best goal in the men’s game — won this year by Manchester United forward Alejandro Garnacho — and create the new Marta Award for the women’s game. 

“To compete against so many great players — we had some fantastic goals,” she said. “It’s been a wonderful season, too. But I’m even happier to receive an award that bears my name; this is undoubtedly the greatest honor.” 

Marta is widely regarded as the greatest female soccer player of all time and had won the award for the women’s player of the year on a record six occasions. 

She scored a record 119 goals for Brazil in 185 appearances for her country, spanning six World Cups and six Olympics, before retiring from international soccer after the Paris Games — where Brazil lost to the United States in the final. 

Marta won the first NWSL title of her career last month when Orlando Pride beat Washington Spirit 1-0 in the final. She had scored in the semifinal. 

Marta was asked the day before the title match if she thought it was possible she might give the award to herself. 

“You guys need to decide, because who votes for the best goal in the year? It’s you. It’s the people in the public. So it should be really interesting, like Marta’s Award goes to Marta!” she said with a laugh. 

The Marta Award was voted for by fans and a panel of FIFA legends.
…

Denver, Colorado — Dozens of kids cheered on a festively decked-out plane in Denver on Saturday when the pilot announced their destination for the day: the North Pole.

More than 100 children, some of whom have serious health issues, were then taken on a roughly 45-minute flight near the city before landing back at Denver International Airport and being towed to a hangar transformed by United Airlines employees and volunteers into the North Pole.

Streamers, paper snowflakes and tufts of cotton resembling feathery snow dotted the plane and seats. Flight personnel paraded a bubble machine up and down the aisle to shouts of “bubbles, bubbles, bubbles” from the excited children. Holiday songs played in the background and there were apple snacks and juice for all.

Before landing, the children were asked to close their window shades. When they opened, the kids were met by the sight of a waiting Santa and Mrs. Claus and a host of elves. An ice cream truck was on hand and the children received gifts.

Bryce Bosley, 6, was tickled to see Santa and all the North Pole had to offer.

“The North Pole is fun because there’s games, food, and all the activities are really fun,” he said.

United Capt. Bob Zimmermann, the holiday flight’s pilot, was struck by the joy and wonder of the youngsters.

“Throughout the year I’ll think of the fantasy flight,” he said. “When life seems to get tough or I want to complain about something, I remember these kids and the joy and the love and what this feels like, and it just keeps my life in perspective.”

United partnered with Make-A-Wish Colorado, Girls Inc., Children’s Hospital Colorado and Rocky Mountain Down Syndrome Association to invite Denver-area kids ages 3 to 10 years on the flight.

For more than 30 years, United has staged its annual “fantasy flights” to fictional North Poles at airports around the world to bring holiday cheer to children and their families.

This year they took place in 13 cities, starting Dec. 5 in Honolulu and then in Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, San Francisco, Tokyo, Cleveland and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and on the island of Guam. Newark, New Jersey, also had a flight Saturday.

Jonna McGrath, United’s vice president for operations at its Denver hub, has participated in 29 flights and said it is one of her favorite days of the year.

“It gives them a day where they are away from some of the challenges they face in their day-to-day life,” said McGrath, who was dressed as an elf. “Bringing a little magic and some gifts to their holiday season is something they’ll never forget.”
…

The Spider-Man spinoff “Kraven the Hunter” got off to a disastrous start in North American theaters this weekend. 

The movie starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson earned only $11 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, making it one of the worst openings for a Marvel-adjacent property. Its box office take was even less than the film “Madame Web.” 

The weekend’s other major studio release was Warner Bros.’ animated “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” which made $4.6 million. Made for about $30 million, the movie is set 183 years before the events of “The Lord of the Rings” films and was fast-tracked to ensure New Line did not lose the rights to Tolkien’s novels. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens have been working on future live-action films for the franchise. 

Meanwhile, the top of the charts again belonged to “Moana 2” and “Wicked.” 

“Moana” added $26.6 million to its domestic total in its third weekend and $57.2 million internationally, bringing its global tally to $717 million. It’s now the fourth highest grossing film of the year, surpassing “Dune: Part Two.” 

“Wicked,” which is in its fourth weekend, brought in another $22.5 million to take second place. The Universal musical has made over $359 million domestically and over $500 million worldwide. 

“Gladiator II” also made $7.8 million, bringing its domestic total to $145.9 million in four weeks. 

“Kraven the Hunter” is the latest misfire from Sony in its attempt to mine the Spider-Man universe for spin-off franchises without the lucrative web slinger himself. “Kraven” joins “Madame Web” and “Morbius” in franchise additions that fell flat with both audiences and critics. The one exception on this rollercoaster journey has been the “Venom” trilogy, which has made over $1.8 billion worldwide. 

The R-rated “Kraven the Hunter” was directed by J.C. Chandor and faced a number of delays, partly due to the Hollywood strikes. It was shot nearly three years ago and originally slated to hit theaters in January 2023. The film cost a reported $110 million to produce and was co-financed by TSG. Internationally, it made $15 million, but its potential for longevity appears limited: It currently carries a 15% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes and got a C grade on CinemaScore from opening weekend audiences. 

“It’s not always a guarantee that you’ll be able to connect with audiences when you have a spinoff character,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “General audiences seem to want to know exactly what they’re getting.” 

Several awards contenders opened in limited release over the weekend, including Paramount’s “September 5” about ABC’s coverage of the Munich Olympics hostage crisis. Amazon MGM and Orion’s “Nickel Boys,” based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winner about an abusive reform school in Florida, opened in two theaters in New York. It averaged $30,422 per screen and will be expanding to Los Angeles before going nationwide in the coming weeks. 

Some big hitters are on the way in the home stretch of the 2024 box office. “Mufasa” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” will hit in the coming weeks along with a bevy of arthouse and adult releases like “Babygirl,” “Nosferatu” and “A Complete Unknown.” 

The box office has seen a dramatic recovery since June, when it was down nearly 28% from the previous year. The deficit now stands at 4.8%. 

Final domestic figures will be released Monday. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore: 

1. “Moana 2,” $26.6 million. 

2. “Wicked,” $22.5 million. 

3. “Kraven the Hunter,” $11 million. 

4. “Gladiator II,” $7.8 million. 

5. “Red One,” $4.6 million. 

6. “Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” $4.5 million. 

7. “Interstellar” (rerelease), $3.3 million. 

8. “Pushpa: The Rule — Part 2,” $1.6 million. 

9. “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,” $1.4 million. 

10. “Queer,” $790,954. 
    …

ATHENS, GREECE — Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, a smile spreads across the little girl’s face. Blinking behind her glasses, she inches her wheelchair forward and gently reaches out to stroke the tiny gray horse.

Soon, 9-year-old Josifina Topa Mazuch is beaming as she leads Ivi, a specially trained miniature horse, standing no taller than her pink wheelchair, through the school hallway.

“I really want them to come again,” Josifina said of Ivi and a second miniature horse, Calypso, after a November morning visit to her Athens primary school for children with special needs. “They made me feel really happy.”

Ivi and Calypso are two of eight miniature horses from Gentle Carousel Greece, a Greek offshoot of Florida-based charity Gentle Carousel Miniature Therapy Horses offering visits to hospitals, rehabilitation centers and care homes.

Trained over two years to work comfortably in confined environments and with vulnerable children and adults, the tiny equines, which stand about 75 centimeters tall, provide a form of pet therapy that carers say offers valuable interactions and learning experiences, particularly to people confined to hospitals or care homes.

But the charity they are part of is struggling to make ends meet — run by one woman who funds the entire operation herself, with one assistant and no support team.

How it all began

Started in 2014 by Mina Karagianni, an interior architect and designer, the Athens operation is the only one affiliated with the Florida-based charity outside the United States. Karagianni came across Gentle Carousel while scouring the internet for information on caring for an abandoned Shetland pony she had rescued.

When she saw photos of the charity’s work in pediatric oncology wards, “I was touched and I was moved, and I said: ‘OK, we have to bring this to Greece,'” she said.

It took months to track down and persuade the U.S. charity to work with her, and even longer to obtain the requisite permits and arrange transport to bring the horses over. But after incessant efforts, six already trained miniature horses stepped off a flight from Florida via Frankfurt in November 2013.

Entirely self-funded through her day job, Karagianni now has a total of eight horses — the American six, one that was later born in Greece, and Billy, the rescued pony.

Karagianni transformed her family land in Rafina, a seaside area east of Athens, into Magic Garden, complete with stables, a paddock for the horses to run free every day, a small café and an area to host children’s parties and baptisms.

At the time, she was open for visits every weekend, charging a small entrance fee to help cover running costs – specialized food for the horses, wood shavings for their bedding, grooming material, veterinarian visits and transportation to and from hospitals and care homes. She also began visiting schools and setting up an education program.

From 2014 when Gentle Carousel Greece first opened until the first COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020, Karagianni said her little equine team saw roughly 12,000 children.

Hard times

But the lockdowns took their toll. Karagianni had to shut down the café and hasn’t been able to reopen since.

With even the tiny income from the café drying up, and Karagianni herself facing a health issue that took her out for 1 ½ years, “we fell apart,” she said. Unable to meet utility bills, both the electricity and water companies cut off her supply, leaving her relying on neighbors for water for the horses.

“I’m just starting to get myself back together again now,” she said. “With a lot of financial difficulties. But what can I do? I’m trying.”

She’s got the utilities running again, but still owes thousands of euros. Approaches to companies and institutions for funding have been unsuccessful so far. “Maybe I just don’t know how to ask properly,” Karagianni said.

Running Gentle Carousel single-handedly is taking its toll. “I’m making super-human efforts,” said Karagianni, who at 68 wonders for how long she can go on and is searching for someone to ensure the program’s continuity.

“I’m doing what I can. But I can’t do it alone,” she said. “I can’t do it without a team.”

The joy they bring to children

Despite her financial struggles, Karagianni said seeing the horses’ effect, particularly on children, makes her determined to continue for as long as she can.

During a visit to the Athens special needs primary school, staff lined up children in wheelchairs so each could spend a few moments with the horses. Some reached out to stroke them; others bent their heads forward over the miniature horses for a kiss.

“It’s incredible, the reactions. It’s like something awakens their senses,” said special needs teacher Eleni Volikaki.

The state-run school, which shares facilities with a private charity for disabled children, ELEPAP, caters to children aged 6-14 with cognitive or mobility problems, or both. Anything that encourages the children to make even small hand gestures, such as reaching out to stroke a horse, “is very important for us. Especially when it’s spontaneous and comes directly from the child and isn’t instigated by us,” Volikaki said.

“We saw things we didn’t expect. We saw children with autism, or children who are generally afraid of animals, coming very close, letting the ponies get close to them,” Volikaki said. “And we saw … spontaneous contact that under other circumstances we wouldn’t see.”

Equines also help adults

The tiny horses don’t just enchant children.

In the seaside area of Nea Makri northeast of Athens, residents of an adult psychiatric care home gather to greet Omiros – Homer in Greek – a 12-year-old miniature gray and white stallion with a flowing mane and blue eyes.

Some show their excitement at the long-anticipated visit. Others are shyer at first, but nearly all eventually approach Omiros, leading him around the home’s recreation room or simply whispering to him.

The interaction is invaluable, said social worker Alex Krokidas, who heads the staff at the Iasis home.

“It offers, even if only briefly, the chance to create a bond that isn’t threatening, that has tenderness, quietness,” Krokidas said. “Let’s not forget, these people have faced many difficulties in their lives.”

Meeting Omiros and having a few moments each with him “gives them the opportunity to be a bit calmer, to not feel threatened, to stroke the animal,” Krokidas said. “All of that is very therapeutic, it is deeply therapeutic.”

Giorgos, one of the residents, initially kept his distance before letting Omiros come close. He leaned his head near the flowing mane.

“He gave me a beautiful feeling when he was here,” he said after Omiros headed back into the recreation room. “Now that it’s gone, I feel an absence.” 
…

WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND — A New Zealand man playing his first-ever competitive Scrabble game in Spanish, a language he doesn’t speak, has won the board game’s Spanish-language world title.

Nigel Richards, a professional player who holds five English-language world titles, won the Spanish world Scrabble championships in Granada, Spain, in November, losing one game out of 24.

Richards started memorizing the language’s Scrabble word list a year ago, his friend Liz Fagerlund -– a New Zealand Scrabble official -– told The Associated Press.

“He can’t understand why other people can’t just do the same thing,” she said. “He can look at a block of words together, and once they go into his brain as a picture he can just recall that very easily.”

In second place was defending champion Benjamín Olaizola of Argentina, who won 18 of his games.

Nothing like the New Zealander’s feat had ever happened in Spanish Scrabble, said Alejandro Terenzani, a contest organizer.

“It was impossible to react negatively, you can only be amazed,” Terenzani said. “We certainly expected that he would perform well, but it is perhaps true that he surpassed our expectations.”

Richards has done this before. In 2015, he became the French language Scrabble world champion, despite not speaking French, after studying the word list for nine weeks. He took the French title again in 2018.

Recognized in international Scrabble over his three-decade career as the greatest player of all time, Richards’ Spanish language victory was notable even by his standards, other players said.

While compensating for different tile values in English and Spanish Scrabble, Richards also had to contend with thousands of additional seven, eight and nine letter words in the Spanish language -– which demand a different strategy.

Richards in 2008 was the first player ever to hold the world, U.S. and British titles simultaneously, despite having to “forget” 40,000 English words that do not appear in the American Scrabble word list to triumph in the U.S.

His victories are legendary in the Scrabble community, and games analyzed in YouTube videos watched by tens of thousands.

Scrabble does not require players to know the definitions of words, only what combinations of letters are allowed in a country’s version of the game, but native speakers have “a huge leg up,” American Scrabble player Will Anderson said in a video summarizing Richards’ Spanish win.

Richards’ mother, Adrienne Fischer, told a New Zealand newspaper in 2010 that he did not excel at English in school, never attended university and took a mathematical approach to the game rather than a linguistic one.

“I don’t think he’s ever read a book, apart from the dictionary,” she said.

Fagerlund said Richards impressed her when he arrived at his first Scrabble club meeting at age 28. Two years later, in 1997, he cycled 350 kilometers from Christchurch to the city of Dunedin, won the New Zealand title on his first attempt and cycled home again.

At the Spanish event he was shy and modest, organizer Terenzani said, but happily posed for photos and spoke with fans who approached him.

“Although he did so in English, of course,” Terenzani added.

What motivates Richards, who now lives in Malaysia, is a mystery. He never speaks to reporters.

“I get lots of requests from journalists wanting to interview him and he’s not interested,” Fagerlund said. “He doesn’t understand what all the hoo-ha is about.”
…

NEW DELHI — A popular actor in southern India was released from jail on bail on Saturday, a day after he was arrested by police in connection with a stampede that led to the death of a woman at the premiere of his movie earlier this month.

A 35-year-old woman died and her 8-year-old son was critically injured in the stampede, which occurred during the screening of Allu Arjun’s release for Pushpa 2: The Rule in southern Telangana state’s Hyderabad city on December 4.

Arjun was arrested after the woman’s husband filed a case against him, his security team and the theater’s management for not informing police of the actor’s plan to attend the screening, which resulted in a larger-than-expected crowd. Police charged the actor, his security team and the theater’s management staff with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Police have already arrested the theater’s owner and two of his employees in connection with the case.

A local court on Friday ordered the actor to spend 14 days in jail, but within hours the Telangana High Court granted him bail. However, the actor had to spend the night in jail because prison authorities did not receive a copy of the bail until late Friday, the Press Trust of India reported.

The accident happened after the 41-year-old actor made a surprise appearance at a local theater where the movie was being screened. As his fans surged toward the venue, the theater’s main gate collapsed, resulting in the stampede.

The actor did not comment on the police charges or his arrest. But shortly after the accident, Arjun wrote on the social platform X that he was “heartbroken by the tragic incident.” He later announced financial assistance of $29,000 for the woman’s family and promised to take care of the medical expenses for her injured son.

Deadly stampedes are relatively common in India, where large crowds gather in small areas with shoddy infrastructure and few crowd safety measures.
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The U.S. mid-Atlantic state of Maryland may seem like an odd place for hula dancing. Yet every weekend, dancers gather in downtown Silver Spring to practice the ancient form of storytelling, despite the thousands of miles between them and Hawaii, the tropical island state where hula was born. VOA’s Keith Lane has the story.
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BEIJING — The former coach of the Chinese men’s national football team has received a 20-year-prison sentence for bribery, Chinese state media reported Friday.

Liu Tie, who once played in the English Premier League as a midfielder for Everton, was found guilty of “leveraging his positions” as head coach of the national football and national selection team to receive bribes of more than 50 million yuan (about $7 million), by a court in the city of Xianning in the central Hubei province.

Liu coached the Chinese men’s team between January 2020 and December 2021. He was also charged with taking bribes between 2015 to 2019, when he worked for local football clubs.

The investigation into Liu’s conduct began in November 2022. He pleaded guilty to bribery and corruption in March of this year.

His sentencing is the latest in a series of high-profile corruption cases involving Chinese football.

In March, the former president of the Chinese Football Association, Chen Xuyuan, was sentenced to life in prison for bribery. Earlier this week, three other CFA officials received prison sentences for bribery, according to state media.
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SAN FRANCISCO — A photojournalist who captured one of the most enduring images of World War II — the U.S. Marines raising the flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima — had a block in downtown San Francisco named for him Thursday.

Joe Rosenthal, who died in 2006 at age 94, was working for The Associated Press in 1945 when he took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo.

After the war, he went to work as a staff photographer for the San Francisco Chronicle, and for 35 years until his retirement in 1981, he captured moments of city life both extraordinary and routine.

Rosenthal photographed famous people for the paper, including a young Willie Mays getting his hat fitted as a San Francisco Giant in 1957, and regular people, including children making a joyous dash for freedom on the last day of school in 1965.

The 600 block of Sutter Street, near downtown’s Union Square, became Joe Rosenthal Way after a short ceremony Thursday morning. The Marines Memorial Club, which sits on the block, welcomed the street’s new name.

Aaron Peskin, who heads the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, welcomed the city’s political elite, military officials and members of Rosenthal’s family to toast the late photographer, who was born in Washington, D.C., to Russian Jewish immigrant parents.

The famous photo became the centerpiece of a war bonds poster that helped raise $26 billion in 1945. Tom Graves, chapter historian for the USMC Combat Correspondents Association, which pushed for the street naming, said the image helped win the war.

“But I’ve grown over the years to appreciate also his role as a San Francisco newspaper photographer who, as Supervisor Peskin says, went to work every day photographing the city where we all live, we all love,” he said.

Graves and others said they look forward to tourists and locals happening upon the street sign, seeing Rosenthal’s name for perhaps the first time, and then going online to learn about the photographer with the terrible eyesight but an eye for composition.

Rosenthal never considered himself a wartime hero, just a working photographer lucky enough to document the courage of soldiers.

When complimented on his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo, Rosenthal said: “Sure, I took the photo. But the Marines took Iwo Jima.”
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Rovaniemi, Finland — Shuffling across icy ground on a cold December afternoon, lots of tourist groups poured into Santa Claus Village, a winter-themed amusement park perched on the edge of the Arctic Circle.

They frolic in the snow, take a reindeer sleigh ride, sip a cocktail in an ice bar or even meet Saint Nick himself in the capital of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi, which happily calls itself the “official hometown of Santa Claus.”

The Santa Claus Village theme park, which attracts more than 600,000 people annually, is especially popular during the holiday season.

“This is like my dream came true,” beamed Polish visitor Elzbieta Nazaruk. “I’m really excited to be here.”

Tourism is booming in Rovaniemi — which has hotel and restaurant owners, as well as city officials, excited as it brings lots of money to the town. However, not everyone is happy about the onslaught of visitors, 10 times the town’s population, each year at Christmas time.

“We are worried about the overgrowth of tourism. Tourism has grown so rapidly, it’s not anymore in control,” said 43-year-old Antti Pakkanen, a photographer and member of a housing network that in September organized a rally through the city’s streets.

It’s a feeling that has been echoed in other popular European travel destinations, including Barcelona, Amsterdam, Malaga and Florence.

Across the continent, locals have protested against “over-tourism” — which generally describes the tipping point at which visitors and their cash stop benefiting residents and instead cause harm by degrading historic sites, overwhelming infrastructure and making life markedly more difficult for those who live there.

Now, it seems to have spread north, all the way to the edges of the Arctic Circle.

Rovaniemi counted a record 1.2 million overnight visitors in 2023, almost 30 percent growth on 2022, after rebounding from pandemic travel disruptions.

“Nordic is a trend,” Visit Rovaniemi CEO Sanna Karkkainen, said as she stood in an ice restaurant, where snow carvers were working nearby.

“People want to travel to cool countries to see the snow, to see the Northern Lights, and, of course, to see Santa Claus,” she added.

Thirteen new flight routes to Rovaniemi Airport opened this year, bringing passengers from Geneva, Berlin, Bordeaux and more. Most tourists come from European countries like France, Germany and the UK, but Rovaniemi’s appeal has also spread further.

Hotel availability is scarce this winter, and Tiina Maatta, general manager of the 159-room Original Sokos Hotel, expects 2024 to break more records.

Local critics of mass tourism say many apartment buildings in Rovaniemi’s city center are also used for accommodation services during peak season and are thus no longer available for residential use. They say the proliferation of short-term rentals has driven up prices, squeezed out long-term residents, and turned its city center into a “transient space for tourists.”

Finnish law prohibits professional accommodation services in buildings intended for residential use, so campaigners are calling on authorities to act.

“The rules must be enforced better,” said Pakkanen.

Not everyone agrees. Mayor Ulla-Kirsikka Vainio notes some make “good money” on short-term rentals.

Either way, stricter regulations likely won’t be in place to impact this winter season, and despite the unease expressed by locals, mass tourism to Rovaniemi is probably only going to grow in 2025 — as visitors want to experience the unique atmosphere up north, especially during the holiday season.

“It’s Christmas time and we would love to see the Northern Lights,” says Joy, a visitor from Bangkok. “Rovaniemi seems to be a good place.”
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MONTREAL — Powered by TikTok, the song Je te laisseai des mots by Quebecer Patrick Watson has become the first French-language song to surpass 1 billion listens on Spotify, the streaming platform announced Tuesday.

“It’s a dizzying number,” Canadian singer-songwriter Patrick Watson posted on Facebook on Wednesday. “It’s a huge number, almost impossible to comprehend.”

“I grew up in Montreal and am extremely proud that a French song has crossed the language barrier,” continued Patrick Watson. The Quebec artist thus ranks ahead of other French-speaking artists with global influence, such as the Belgian Stromae or the Franco-Malian Aya Nakamura.

Patrick Watson, represented by the Montreal independent label Secret City Records, composed this song almost 15 years ago, for the film Mothers and Daughters with Catherine Deneuve released in 2009.

The piano-vocal song saw renewed interest in 2019 on YouTube in a video pairing the melody with archival footage.

The melancholic anthem was then used to accompany scenes of everyday life in tens of thousands of videos on TikTok during the COVID-19 pandemic, with users adding melodrama to snippets of their everyday lives.

Celebrities like Justin Bieber also helped make the song popular among a wide audience.

“The modern pop song is now the soundtrack to people’s home movies,” Watson told the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail in 2022, speaking of its viral popularity.

“The modern hit is the song that makes your daily life more interesting and romantic” on social networks, he added.

Je te laisserai des mots was the most-streamed French-language song worldwide on Spotify over the past 12 months, the platform announced in September, surpassing tracks like Stromae’s Alors on danse.

Patrick Watson’s music has been featured in the popular American TV series Grey’s Anatomy and The Walking Dead, and he and his eponymous band won the prestigious Canadian Polaris Music Prize in 2007. 
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ZURICH — FIFA has confirmed Saudi Arabia as host of the 2034 World Cup in men’s soccer.

The Saudi bid was the only candidate and was acclaimed by the applause of more than 200 FIFA member federations. They took part remotely in an online meeting hosted in Zurich on Wednesday by the soccer body’s president, Gianni Infantino.

The decision was combined with approving the only candidate to host the 2030 World Cup. Spain, Portugal and Morocco will co-host in a six-nation project, with Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay each getting one of the 104 games.

The South American connection will mark the centenary of Uruguay hosting the first World Cup in 1930.

The decision announced Wednesday completes a mostly opaque 15-month bid process that FIFA president Gianni Infantino helped steer toward Saudi Arabia without a rival candidate, without taking questions, and which human rights groups warn will put the lives of migrant workers at risk.

FIFA and Saudi officials say hosting the 2034 tournament can accelerate change, including more freedoms and rights for women.

It will kick off a decade of scrutiny on Saudi labor laws and treatment of workers mostly from South Asia needed to help build and upgrade 15 stadiums, plus hotels and transport networks ahead of the 104-game tournament.

One of the stadiums is planned to be 350 meters above the ground in Neom — a futuristic city that does not yet exist — and another named for the crown prince is designed to be atop a 200-meter cliff near Riyadh.

During the bid campaign, FIFA has accepted limited scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, which was widely criticized this year at the United Nations.

The kingdom plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on projects related to the World Cup as part of the crown prince’s sweeping Vision 2030 project, which aims to modernize Saudi society and economy. At its core is spending on sports by the $900 billion sovereign wealth operation, the Public Investment Fund, which he oversees. Critics have called it “sportswashing” of the kingdom’s reputation.

The prince, known as MBS, has built close working ties to Infantino since 2017 — aligning with the organizer of sport’s most-watched event rather than directly confronting the established system as it did with the disruptive LIV Golf project.

The result for Saudi Arabia and FIFA has been smooth progress toward the win Wednesday with limited pushback from soccer officials, although some from women international players.

The steady flow of Saudi cash into international soccer is set to increase.

FIFA created a new and higher World Cup sponsor category for state oil firm Aramco, and Saudi funding is set to underwrite the 2025 Club World Cup in the United States, which is a pet project for Infantino.
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In December, many Africans return to their ancestral homes to reconnect with their families and traditions. In South Africa, that includes traditional healers. As Zaheer Cassim reports from Johannesburg, many are finding that a new app is helping to bring this age-old practice into the digital age.
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BEVERLY HILLS, California — Musical thriller “Emilia Perez” and historical epic “The Brutalist” led the roster of films nominated on Monday for the 2025 Golden Globes, the Hollywood honors that kick off the movie awards season leading to the Oscars.

“Emilia Perez,” released by Netflix NFLX.O, scored 10 nods and “The Brutalist,” from independent distributor A24, earned seven.

Taking home a Globe can help movies in the race to the Academy Awards in March. Last year’s Hollywood strikes scrambled this year’s release schedule, and awards pundits say there is no clear frontrunner for best picture at the Oscars.

The Globe winners will be chosen by 334 entertainment journalists from 85 countries and will be announced Jan. 5 at a ceremony broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.

“Emilia Perez” stars Zoe Saldana as a lawyer who helps a drug cartel leader (Spanish actor Karla Sofía Gascón) fake his death and transition from a man to a woman. Selena Gomez co-stars as the cartel leader’s wife. All three were nominated for by Globes voters for acting honors.

“The Brutalist” stars Adrien Brody in an epic tale of a Hungarian immigrant who flees the horrors of World War Two to rebuild his life in the United States.

Box office smash “Wicked,” adapted from a long-running Broadway play about the witches in “The Wizard of Oz,” landed four nominations.
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The results of the 2024 U.S. presidential election rattled the country and sent shockwaves across the world — or were cause for celebration, depending on who you ask. Is it any surprise then that the Merriam-Webster word of the year is “polarization”?

“Polarization means division, but it’s a very specific kind of division,” said Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor at large, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement. “Polarization means that we are tending toward the extremes rather than toward the center.”

The election was so divisive, many American voters went to the polls with a feeling that the opposing candidate was an existential threat to the nation. According to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters, about 8 in 10 Kamala Harris voters were very or somewhat concerned that Donald Trump’s views — but not Harris’ — were too extreme, while about 7 in 10 Trump voters felt the same way about Harris — but not Trump.

The Merriam-Webster entry for “polarization” reflects scientific and metaphorical definitions. It’s most commonly used to mean “causing strong disagreement between opposing factions or groupings.”

Merriam-Webster, which logs 100 million pageviews a month on its site, chooses its word of the year based on data, tracking a rise in search and usage.

Last year’s pick was “authentic.” This year’s comes as large swaths of the U.S. struggle to reach consensus on what is real.

“It’s always been important to me that the dictionary serve as a kind of neutral and objective arbiter of meaning for everybody,” Sokolowski said. “It’s a kind of backstop for meaning in an era of fake news, alternative facts, whatever you want to say about the value of a word’s meaning in the culture.”

It’s notable that “polarization” originated in the early 1800s — and not during the Renaissance, as did most words with Latin roots about science, Sokolowski said. He called it a “pretty young word,” in the scheme of the English language. “Polarized is a term that brings intensity to another word,” he continued, most frequently used in the U.S. to describe race relations, politics and ideology.

“The basic job of the dictionary is to tell the truth about words,” the Merriam-Webster editor continued. “We’ve had dictionaries of English for 420 years and it’s only been in the last 20 years or so that we’ve actually known which words people look up.”

“Polarization” extends beyond political connotations. It’s used to highlight fresh cracks and deep rifts alike in pop culture, tech trends and other industries.

All the scrutiny over Taylor Swift’s private jet usage? Polarizing. Beef between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake? Polarizing. The International Olympic Committee’s decision to strip American gymnast Jordan Chiles of her bronze medal after the Paris Games? You guessed it: polarizing.

Even lighthearted memes — like those making fun of Australian breakdancer Rachael “Raygun” Gunn’s performance — or the proliferation of look-alike contests, or who counts as a nepo baby proved polarizing.

Paradoxically though, people tend to see eye to eye on the word itself. Sokolowski cited its frequent use among people across the political spectrum, including commentators on Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.

“It’s used by both sides,” he said, “and in a little bit ironic twist to the word, it’s something that actually everyone agrees on.”

Rounding out Merriam-Webster’s top 10 words of 2024:

Demure

TikToker Jools Lebron’s 38-second video describing her workday makeup routine as “very demure, very mindful” lit up the summer with memes. The video has been viewed more than 50 million times, yielding “huge spikes” in lookups, Sokolowski said, and prompting many to learn it means reserved or modest.

Fortnight

Taylor Swift’s song “Fortnight,” featuring rapper Post Malone, undoubtedly spurred many searches for this word, which means two weeks. “Music can still send people to the dictionary,” Sokolowski said.

Totality

The solar eclipse in April inspired awe and much travel. There are tens of millions of people who live along a narrow stretch from Mexico’s Pacific coast to eastern Canada, otherwise known as the path of totality, where locals and travelers gazed skyward to see the moon fully blot out the sun. Generally, the word refers to a sum or aggregate amount — or wholeness.

Resonate

“Texts developed by AI have a disproportionate percentage of use of the word ‘resonate,'” Sokolowski said. This may be because the word, which means to affect or appeal to someone in a personal or emotional way, can add gravitas to writing. But, paradoxically, artificial intelligence “also betrays itself to be a robot because it’s using that word too much.”

Allision

The word was looked up 60 times more often than usual when, in March, a ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. “When you have one moving object into a fixed object, that’s an allision, not a collision. You’re showing that one of the two objects struck was not, in fact, in motion,” Sokolowski said.

Weird

This summer on the TV news show “Morning Joe,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called Republican leaders “weird.” It may have been what launched his national career, landing him as the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Though it’s a word that people typically misspell — is it “ei” or “ie”? — and search for that reason, its rise in use was notable, Sokolowski said.

Cognitive

Whether the word was used to raise questions about President Joe Biden’s debate performance or Trump’s own age, it cropped up often. It refers to conscious intellectual activity — such as thinking, reasoning, or remembering.

Pander

Pander was used widely in political commentary, Sokolowski said. “Conservative news outlets accused Kamala Harris of pandering to different groups, especially young voters, Black voters, gun rights supporters.” Whereas Walz said Trump’s visit to a McDonald’s kitchen pandered to hourly wage workers. It means to say, do, or provide what someone — such as an audience — wants or demands even though it is not “good, proper, reasonable, etc.”

Democracy

In 2003, Merriam-Webster decided to make “democracy” its first word of the year. Since then, the word — which, of course, means a form of government in which the people elect representatives to make decisions, policies and laws — is consistently one of the dictionary’s most looked up. “There’s a poignancy to that, that people are checking up on it,” Sokolowski said. “Maybe the most hopeful thing that the curiosity of the public shows, is that they’re paying attention.”
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Vancouver, British Columbia — Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” officially ended Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The nearly two-year-long tour was record-breaking and trend-setting.

It is finally the end of an era for Taylor Swift.

The last show here in Vancouver is the finale of a 149-concert tour that spanned almost two years. It is estimated that it earned around two-billion dollars since the first concert in March 2023.

Each concert lasted about three-and-a-half hours and featured at least 44 songs, divided into 10 parts, or “eras,” of her recording career. The tour stopped in 53 cities on five continents.

For Vancouver residents, the arrival of Swiftmania took over the city and drew comparisons to when the area hosted the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. 

Chris May is the general manager of BC Place Stadium, the venue that hosted the final three Swift concerts.

He said organizing and preparations for these concerts was similar to ceremonies for the Olympics, Paralympics and the 2015 Women’s World Cup of Soccer, which were held in the stadium.

He said 70% of attendees for the final concerts were from outside of the greater Vancouver area.

“That means we have a huge amount of guests that have never been here before. So, you know, it’s working through those realities of ensuring we have enough staffing, enough signage and wayfinding, and people to help to get people where they’re going,” he said.

May said the April 2024 concert for Diljit Dosanjh, which was the biggest Punjabi music concert outside of India, drew more than 50,000 fans. All told, Swift’s three Vancouver concerts drew about 160,000 people.   

Jarrett Vaughan, an adjunct professor at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, said Swift’s adept use of social media played a crucial role in the tour’s success.  

He also said the COVID-19 pandemic played a part for some younger members of her audience. 

“I think when we look at the current audience that she has, you know, they were fairly young at that time. They didn’t have the opportunity to attend concerts going through maybe middle school or elementary school, and so for them now, to be able to attend something like this is pretty remarkable,” he said.

Vaughan said the legacy of the Eras Tour will not solely be just Swift’s use of social media, but the positivity she created for her fan base.

Stephanie Burt is an English professor at Harvard College and recently taught a very popular class at the school on Swift.

For her, the secret to Swift’s Eras Tour and her career itself is simple, she is really good at writing songs that are aspirational and relatable.

“We hear the songs, and we hear both someone who’s already like us and someone who we want to be more like and want to be closer to and aspire to be like. That’s a rare gift to extend it that long, and the tour testifies to the persistence of her talent and to her versatility and to her ability to collaborate and organize and plan,” she said.

Vancouver’s tourism office estimates the final dates of Swift’s tour boosted the city’s economy by $112 million. 
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