Category: Entertainment

When members of a tourist group did not like the food in the only restaurant in Turkey’s ancient city of Mardin in 2000, their tour guide, Ebru Baybara Demir, invited them to her home for dinner. That decision created a whole new life and career for Demir. VOA’s Mahmut Bozarslan has this report from Mardin, narrated by Begum Donmez Ersoz.
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Hollywood actors on strike want to limit the use of Artificial Intelligence in moviemaking, hoping for the same success as Hollywood writers, who ended their five-month strike last week after a deal with major studios. From Los Angeles, Genia Dulot has our story. Video edit: Bakhtiyar Zamanov
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Muslim comic creators are working to change Islamic stereotypes in American pop culture. Genia Dulot has our story, with videography by Roy Kim.
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The fourth edition of the World Culture Festival brought together hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world to the National Mall in Washington Sept. 29 through Oct. 1. First held in Bangalore in 2006, the festival continued in 2011 in Berlin and 2016 in Delhi. That event was attended by more than 3 million people. VOA’s Saqib Ul Islam has more.
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For 31 years Macedonian-born Sasho Cirovski coach has instilled his passion for excellence into the University of Maryland’s soccer program. The result is success on and off the field. VOA’s Jane Bojadzievski reports. Camera, edit: Larz Lacoma
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During World War II, the basement of Seattle, Washington’s Panama Hotel was where local Japanese Americans stored their belongings before being incarcerated in camps. For the Panama’s current owner, preserving its dark history became her life’s work. Natasha Mozgovaya has the story. (Camera: Natasha Mozgovaya)
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Colombian artist Fernando Botero, who died in September, was known for his plump, colorful and playful portraits of all levels of society – from a Colombian seamstress to crime boss Pablo Escobar to the pope. His ashes will be buried in Italy, but before that his remains made a stop in his native city of Medellin. For VOA, Austin Landis reports from Medellin.
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After several quiet weeks in movie theaters, four films entered wide release over the weekend. “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” came out the top dog, with $23 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The performances of all four films – “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” “Saw X,” “The Creator” and “Dumb Money” – told a familiar story at the box office. What worked? Horror and animated franchises. What didn’t? Originality and comedy.

“PAW Patrol,” from Paramount Pictures and Spin Master, had timing on its side. The film, a sequel to the 2021 “PAW Patrol” movie adapted from the Nickelodeon TV series, was the first family animated movie in theaters since “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” was released in early August.

The first “PAW Patrol,” released during the pandemic, debuted with $13 million while simultaneously releasing on Paramount+, and its success in both arenas was a contributing factor in leading Nickelodeon chief Brian Robbins to be named head of Paramount. A third “PAW Patrol” movie has already been green-lit.

“Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” which cost $30 million to make, added $23.1 million in overseas sales.

“Saw X,” the tenth release in the long-running horror series, managed to bounce back from a franchise low with an opening weekend of $18 million for Lionsgate. The previous “Saw” movie, 2021’s “Spiral,” starring Chris Rock, debuted with $8.8 million and totaled $23.3 million domestically.

But the 10th “Saw” doubled back on gore and brought back Tobin Bell as the serial killer Jigsaw. It came away with the franchise’s best opening weekend in more than a decade and strong audience scores.

The $13-million production was also the widest “Saw” release yet, playing in 3,262 theaters. Since James Wan’s 2004 original, the “Saw” franchise — the flagship series of so-called torture porn — has made more than $1 billion worldwide.

“The Creator,” an $80 million movie financed by New Regency and distributed by Disney’s 20th Century Studios, was easily the biggest film to launch in theaters over the weekend but struggled to catch on. It grossed a modest $14 million at 3,680 theaters while adding $18.3 million internationally.

The film, directed by Gareth Edwards, stars John David Washington as an undercover operative in an AI-dominated future. “The Creator” drew mostly positive reviews and a B+ CinemaScore from audiences.

Sony Pictures’ “Dumb Money,” expanded nationwide after two weeks of limited release but failed to ignite the kind of populist movement it irreverently dramatizes. The film, directed by Craig Gillespie, came away with a disappointing $3.5 million in 2,837 locations.

“Dumb Money,” starring an ensemble of Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, American Ferrera and Anthony Ramos, turns the GameStop stock frenzy into a ripped-from-the-headlines underdog tale of amateur traders rattling Wall Street. While all the weekend’s new releases were hampered by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike, “Dumb Money” would have especially benefitted from its cast hitting late-night shows and other promotions.

Made for $30 million, “Dumb Money” wasn’t a massive bet. But it represented the kind of movie – a mid-budget, acclaimed original mostly targeted at adults – that Hollywood seldom makes anymore. As the industry enters an awards season a year after many high-profile contenders (among them “Tár” and “The Fabelmans”) failed to catch on in theaters, the results for “Dumb Money” may be cautionary for films queuing up.

The weekend’s other notable success came from a four-decade-old concert film. The 4K restoration of the Talking Heads concert film “Stop Making Sense” made $1 million on 786 screens, and surely led all movies in the number of dancing moviegoers. The Jonathan Demme film has surpassed $3 million thus far. Indie distributor A24 promised it will “have audiences dancing in the aisles around the world for a very long time to come.”

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

1. “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” $23 million.

2. “Saw X,” $18 million.

3. “The Creator,” $14 million.

4. “The Nun II,” $4.7 million.

5. “The Blind,” $4.1 million.

6. “A Haunting in Venice,” $3.8 million.

7. “Dumb Money,” $3.5 million.

8. “The Equalizer,” $2.7 million.

9. “Expend4bles,” $2.5 million.

10. “Barbie,” $1.4 million.
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Syrian writer and veteran government critic Khaled Khalifa has died of cardiac arrest at the age of 59 at his home in Damascus, a close friend told AFP.  

Khalifa, who hailed from Maryamin in northwestern Aleppo province, was celebrated for his novels, television screenplays and newspaper columns, and honored with several of the Arab world’s top literary awards.  

He “died in his home alone in Damascus” on Saturday, said journalist Yaroub Aleesa, who had spent time with the author during his final days. “We called him repeatedly and he didn’t respond. When we went to his home, we found him dead on the sofa.”  

Doctors at the Abbassiyyin Hospital in Damascus said the cause of death was a heart attack.  

Khalifa gained fame as a writer of several popular Syrian TV series in the early 1990s.  

He was known as a staunch opponent of the ruling Baath party and his columns criticizing the authorities.  

But despite his well-known stance, he chose to remain in the country after the 2011 civil war broke out with the repression of protests aimed at the government.  

“I am staying because this is my country,” he said in a 2019 interview. “I was born here, I live here, and I want to die here!”  

His 2006 novel In Praise of Hatred was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arab Fiction — often dubbed the Arab Booker prize — and was translated into six languages.  

The novel recounts the story of a young Syrian woman from Aleppo who escapes her sequestered life by joining a jihadi organization.

In 2013, his novel No Knives in the Kitchens of this City won the Naguib Mahfouz literature prize, Egypt’s top accolade for writers.

It focuses on the lives of Syrians under the rule of the Baath party headed by President Bashar al-Assad.

The writer’s death sparked a wave of condolences on social media from fellow writers and members of Syria’s exiled opposition.

“Goodbye, you kind man,” wrote Syrian writer and academic Salam Kawakibi.

Khalifa was expected to be buried later Sunday in Damascus, though details of the funeral had yet to be disclosed.
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In northern Chile, Teofila Challapa learned to weave surrounded by the hills and sandy roads of the Atacama Desert.

“Spin the threads, girl,” her grandmother told her a half a century ago.

Aymara women like Challapa, now 59, become acquainted with wool threads under blue skies and air so thin that outsiders struggle to breathe. While herding llamas and alpacas through scarce grasslands 11,500 feet above sea level, they create their first textiles.

“We had no clothes or money, so we needed to learn how to dress with our own hands,” said Challapa, sitting next to fluffy alpacas outside her humble home in Cariquima, a town with fewer than 500 inhabitants near the Chile-Bolivia border.

The knowledge of her craft passes on from one generation to another, securing Aymara families’ bond with their land.

Challapa prays before beginning her work: “Mother Earth, give me strength, because you’re the one who will produce, not me.”

Among the 3 million Aymaras who live along the borders of Chile, Perú and Bolivia, the Earth is known as “Pachamama.” Homages and rituals requesting her blessings are intertwined in everyday life.

“I believe in God, but the Earth provides us with everything,” Challapa said.

Pachamama offers Challapa inspiration for her textiles, connections to ancestors and her cultural identity. It provides means for survival, too.

“My animals are my mother,” Challapa said.

Her alpacas and llamas were a source of meat, wool and company during the tough years she spent raising her children as a single mother.

In the neighboring town of Colchane, Efrain Amaru and Maria Choque share their one-floor house with Pepe, an elegant white llama that flirts with visitors.

“To be an artisan, one must have the raw materials,” said Amaru, a 60-year-old descendant of Aymara craftsmen. His parents taught him how to raise camelids that produce the finest wool. “You have to communicate with your animals because they are part of you.”

Ahead of Pachamama Day, on August 1, the couple prepared a ritual honoring Mother Earth. Over a mantle they weaved for the occasion, they placed grains from their crops and pieces of wool — among other objects they are grateful for — and asked for prosperity.

“We make offerings hoping for good seeds and crops, welfare for our animals and rain,” Choque said. “Then we turn to the moon and the stars. Our grandparents told us that those are the souls of our ancestors, who look at us from above.”

Choque learned how to turn wool into thread when she was 6. Without toys to play with, Choque said, she and her peers spent their days watching their elders weave — a demonstration of the craft and how to live fulfilling lives.

Her grandmother was her first teacher. After giving her a sewing needle, she taught Choque how to produce socks and hats. Vests and ponchos came after that.

Once a young disciple masters sewing needles, she moves on to weaving on looms. A few years later, she’ll face her utmost challenge: weaving her own “aksu,” the Aymara’s most precious and traditional garment.

“My aksu is not a suit,” Choque said. “It’s a part of me. When I was little, I wore mine daily, until I had to wear a uniform for school.”

From wool production to fabric making, the entire textile-making process can take up to two years.

Aymara craftswomen shear their animals in October, when the weather is milder. Their llamas keep a few inches of wool to keep them warm and ready for the “floreo.” During this ancient ritual celebrated in February, Aymaras tie wool flowers and pompoms to their camelids identifying them as their property and thanking Pachamama for abundance.

Once the wool is collected and clean, craftswomen manipulate it with the tip of their fingers and pull threads out of it, creating skeins that are mounted on their looms for weaving.

Through the income they made from the sale of their textiles, Aymara women like Challapa and Choque could afford to send their children off to school.

“I thank God because I always told myself: I don’t want them to be like me,” said Marcelina Choque (no relation to Maria), another craftswoman who lives in the town of Pozo Almonte. “This is my only profession. If I don’t sell, I have nothing.”

Progress, though, is bittersweet. “I taught my daughters how to weave just like me, but now that they have other jobs, they don’t weave anymore,” Marcelina Choque said.

Because so many young people move away from their hometowns for study and work, several craftswomen agree their legacy might be in danger. Although they passed on their knowledge to their descendants, there are currently only a handful of young Aymara women who know how to use a loom.

“In rural areas, there is a significant migration of young people, and the population is aging,” said Luis Pizarro, who works at the Agricultural Development Institute of Chile. “Their grandparents are the ones who remain in the territories, so their cultural roots are severed.”

The institute supports rural development for Chilean communities linked to the Aymara culture, according to Pizarro. The goal is to boost camelid farming and craft sales through fairs, an online presence and special events.

On a recent weekend, the institute held a fashion show inside a city shopping center in Iquique, where Teofila Challapa, Maria Choque and other women sold textiles and their daughters modeled their work.

“We try to get daughters and granddaughters of artisans involved in their cultural inheritance,” Pizarro said.

Nayareth Challapa (no relation to Teofila) speaks proudly about her mother, Maria Aranibar, who taught her how to pick the perfect weeds to dye wool.

“The colors of our textiles are related to nature: the earth, the sky, the hills. The land is sacred for us,” the 25-year old said. The work reflects craftswomen’s moods and “the rheas, llamas, flowers and mountains she wants to keep present.”

She, too, moved to a city to attend university, but home is never far from her heart.

“When migrating, many forget their ethnicity and leave their roots behind,” Challapa said. “But my family tries to avoid that. We herd the llamas and raise crops to preserve what my grandfather taught us. If we were to lose that, we would lose him as well.”
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Pope Francis created 21 new cardinals at a ritual-filled ceremony Saturday, including key figures at the Vatican and in the field who will help enact his reforms and cement his legacy as he enters a crucial new phase in running the Roman Catholic Church.

On a crisp sunny morning filled with cheers from St. Peter’s Square, Francis further expanded his influence on the College of Cardinals who will help him govern and one day elect his successor: With Saturday’s additions, nearly three-quarters of the voting-age “princes of the church” owe their red hats to the Argentine Jesuit.

In his instructions to the new cardinals at the start of the service, Francis said their variety and geographic diversity would serve the church like musicians in an orchestra, where sometimes they play solos, sometimes as an ensemble.

“Diversity is necessary; it is indispensable. However, each sound must contribute to the common design,” Francis told them. “This is why mutual listening is essential: Each musician must listen to the others.”

Among the new cardinals was the controversial new head of the Vatican’s doctrine office, Victor Manuel Fernandez, and the Chicago-born missionary now responsible for vetting bishop candidates around the globe, Robert Prevost.

Also entering the exclusive club were the Vatican’s ambassadors to the United States and Italy, two important diplomatic posts where the Holy See has a keen interest in reforming the church hierarchy. Leaders of the church in geopolitical hotspots like Hong Kong and Jerusalem, fragile communities like Juba, South Sudan, and sentimental favorites like Cordoba, Argentina, filled out the roster.

Francis’ promotions of Prevost and his ambassador to Washington, French Cardinal Christophe Pierre, were clear signs that he has his eye on shifting the balance of power in the U.S. hierarchy, where some conservative bishops have strongly resisted his reforms. Between them, Pierre and Prevost are responsible for proposing new bishop candidates and overseeing any investigations into problem ones already in place.

“I think I do have some insights into the church in the United States,” Prevost said after the ceremony during a welcome reception in the Apostolic Palace. “So, the need to be able to advise, work with Pope Francis and to look at the challenges that the church in the United States is facing, I hope to be able to respond to them with a healthy dialogue.”

The ceremony took place days before Francis opens a big meeting of bishops and lay Catholics on charting the church’s future, where hot-button issues such as women’s roles in the church, LGBTQ+ Catholics and priestly celibacy are up for discussion.

The October 4-29 synod is the first of two sessions — the second one comes next year — that in many ways could cement Francis’ legacy as he seeks to make the church a place where all are welcomed, where pastors listen to their flocks and accompany them rather than judge them.

Several of the new cardinals are voting members of the synod and have made clear they share Francis’ vision of a church that is more about the people in the pews than the hierarchy, and that creative change is necessary. Among them is Fernandez, known as the “pope’s theologian” and perhaps Francis’ most consequential Vatican appointment in his 10-year pontificate.

In his letter naming Fernandez as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Francis made clear he wanted his fellow Argentine to oversee a radical break from the past, saying the former Holy Office often resorted to “immoral methods” to enforce its will.

Rather than condemn and judge, Francis said, he wanted a doctrine office that guards the faith and gives people hope. He also made clear Fernandez wouldn’t have to deal with sex abuse cases, saying the office’s discipline section could handle that dossier.

It was a much-debated decision given that Fernandez himself has admitted he made mistakes handling a case while he was bishop in La Plata, Argentina, and that the scale of the problem globally has long cried out for authoritative, high-ranking leadership.

On the eve of the consistory to make Fernandez a cardinal, clergy abuse survivors, including a La Plata victim, rallied near the Vatican, calling on Francis to rescind the nomination.

“No bishop who has covered up child sex crimes and ignored and dismissed victims of clergy abuse in his diocese should be running the office that oversees, investigates and prosecutes clergy sex offenders from around the world, or be made a cardinal,” said Julieta Añazco, the La Plata survivor, according to a statement from the End Clergy Abuse.

With Saturday’s ceremony, Francis will have named 99 of the 137 cardinals who are under age 80 and thus eligible to vote in a future conclave to elect his successor. While not all are cookie-cutter proteges of the 86-year-old reigning pontiff, many share Francis’ pastoral emphasis as opposed to the doctrinaire-minded cardinals often selected by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI.

Such a huge proportion of Francis-nominated cardinals almost ensures that a future pope will either be one of his own cardinals or one who managed to secure Franciscan cardinal votes to lead the church after he is gone, suggesting a certain continuity in priorities.
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When 2019 finalists England and New Zealand meet again to open the Cricket World Cup next week, it will mark the tournament’s return to India after 12 years.

But preparations for this year’s tournament — in which the home side will start among the favorites and won the event when it was last played in India in 2011 — haven’t gone smoothly.

The event experienced numerous organizational and planning issues which the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the host body, often had difficulties dealing with them.

The 13th edition of the tournament was first scheduled for February-March 2023, but it was delayed to its current Oct. 5-Nov. 19 schedule after the COVID-19 pandemic caused a ripple effect for the hosting of 2021 and 2022 Twenty20 World Cups.

In the meantime, the BCCI delayed formalizing tax agreements with the Indian government — an issue that had plagued the 2011 ODI and the 2016 T20 World Cups, both hosted in India.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) usually receives a tax exemption benefit for its events, but that is in contravention of Indian laws. In March, the BCCI told he ICC that it would cover about $116 million in taxes out of its own pocket in lieu of the tax exemption from the Indian government.

It was, however, only the first of several stumbling blocks.

Most ICC event schedules are announced a year in advance. The BCCI only announced the World Cup scheduling on June 27. A month later, the original scheduling ran into problems when Ahmedabad police said they was unable to provide ample security for the high-profile India-Pakistan match on Oct. 15 because of already-planned festivities in the western India city.

The BCCI had to rework the schedule and a final version was released on Aug. 9 with the big India-Pakistan match now scheduled a day earlier on Oct. 14.

That caused further issues for ticketing and travel arrangements for fans across the world. Even before the final scheduling had been announced, hotel prices and airfares in major host cities shot up to exorbitant rates.

Ticketing has been another major issue in the build-up to this World Cup. After the scheduling was finally announced, tickets first went on sale as late as Aug. 30. Despite the staggered sale of tickets, Indian fans complained, and the BCCI released another 400,000 tickets to the general public on Sept. 6 in the second phase of ticketing.

BCCI secretary Jay Shah defended his group’s actions over the past few months.

“The scale and diversity of India require meticulous planning, coordination, and execution to ensure the tournament’s success and seamless experience for players, fans, and stakeholders,” Shah said in a statement.

With less than a week to go before the opening match, the tempo has gradually built up as fervent cricket loyalists in India — and there are millions— get ready to welcome the 10 teams.

All eyes will be on Rohit Sharma’s India as they look to emulate M.S. Dhoni’s team’s feat of winning the World Cup at home. India hasn’t won an ICC event since the 2013 Champions Trophy, and the 2011 triumph remains its last World Cup trophy.

Defending champion England and record five-time winners Australia, who play India in its first match on Oct. 8 in Chennai, are the other top contenders for the title.

Regional foe Pakistan’s challenge depends on the form and fitness of two players — skipper Babar Azam and pacer Shaheen Afridi. Pacer Naseem Shah has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a right shoulder injury.

Sri Lanka punched above its weight to reach the Asia Cup final. New Zealand — which lost to England in a controversial boundary countback in the 2019 final — South Africa, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and the Netherlands complete the 10-team lineup which will be expanded to 14 teams for the next Cricket World Cup in October-November 2027 co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.

The round-robin format sees all 10 teams play each other once in a single group (45 matches). The top four teams advance to the semifinals on Nov. 16 and 17. The final is scheduled for Nov. 19.

In between, Sharma will try not to let the home-crowd hype get to him, although that might be easier said than done.

“For me, it is important how to keep relaxed and not worry about external factors that play a role, whether positively or negatively,” Sharma said. “It is about shutting out everything.”
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A man who prosecutors say ordered the 1996 killing of rapper Tupac Shakur was arrested and charged with murder Friday in a long-awaited breakthrough in one of hip-hop’s most enduring mysteries.

Duane “Keffe D” Davis has long been known to investigators as one of four suspects identified early in the investigation. He isn’t the accused gunman but was described as the group’s ringleader by authorities Friday at a news conference and in court.

“Duane Davis was the shot caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime,” said police homicide Lt. Jason Johansson, “and he orchestrated the plan that was carried out.”

Davis himself has admitted in interviews and in his 2019 tell-all memoir, Compton Street Legend, that he provided the gun used in the drive-by shooting.

Authorities said Friday that Davis’ own public comments revived the investigation.

Davis, now 60, was arrested early Friday while on a walk near his home on the outskirts of Las Vegas, hours before prosecutors announced in court that a Nevada grand jury had indicted the self-described gangster on one count of murder with a deadly weapon. He is due in court next week.

The grand jury also voted to add a sentencing enhancement to the murder charge for gang activity that could add up to 20 additional years if he’s convicted.

The first-ever arrest in the case came after Las Vegas police raided Davis’ home in mid-July in the nearby city of Henderson for items they described at the time as “concerning the murder of Tupac Shakur.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if Davis has an attorney who can comment on his behalf. Prosecutors said they did not know if he had a lawyer and several local attorneys said they did not know who from Las Vegas would represent him. Phone and text messages to Davis and his wife on Friday and in the months since the July 17 search weren’t returned.

“For 27 years, the family of Tupac Shakur has been waiting for justice,” Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill said at a news conference Friday. “While I know there’s been many people who did not believe that the murder of Tupac Shakur was important to this police department, I’m here to tell you that is simply not the case.”

Prosecutors said they have been in contact with the rapper’s family, who are “pleased with this news.”

On the night of Sept. 7, 1996, Shakur was in a BMW driven by Death Row Records founder Marion “Suge” Knight. They were waiting at a red light near the Las Vegas Strip when a white Cadillac pulled up next to them and gunfire erupted.

Shakur was shot multiple times and died a week later at the age of 25.

Davis, in his memoir, said he was in the front passenger seat of the Cadillac and had slipped a gun into the back seat, from where he said the shots were fired.

He implicated his nephew, Orlando “Baby Lane” Anderson, saying he was one of two people in the backseat. Anderson, a known rival of Shakur, had been involved in a casino brawl with the rapper shortly before the shooting.

Anderson died two years later. He denied any involvement in Shakur’s death.

Emails seeking comment from two lawyers who have previously represented Knight were not immediately returned. Knight was grazed by a bullet fragment in the shooting but had only minor injuries. He is serving a 28-year prison sentence in California for an unrelated voluntary manslaughter charge. 
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Many millions of Chinese tourists are expected to travel within their country, splurging on hotels, tours, attractions and meals in a boost to the economy during the 8-day autumn holiday period that began Friday.

This year’s holiday began with the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday and also includes the Oct. 1 National Day. The public holidays end Oct. 6.

Typically hundreds of millions of Chinese travel at home and overseas during such holidays. The eight-day-long holiday is the longest week of public holidays since COVID-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted in December. Outbound tourism has lagged domestic travel, with flight capacities lagging behind pre-pandemic levels.

Big cities like the capital, Beijing, Shanghai, and southern cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou are favored destinations. Smaller cities, such as Chengdu and Chongqing in southwest China also are popular.

All that travel is a boon for the world’s No. 2 economy: During the week-long May holiday this year, 274 million tourists spent 148 billion yuan ($20.3 billion).

“Over the last few years with the pandemic, there’s been really strong pent-up demand,” said Boon Sian Chai, managing director at the online travel booking platform Trip.com Group. Both domestic and outbound travel have “recovered significantly,” but travel within China accounted for nearly three-quarters of total bookings, Chai said.

China Railway said it was expecting about 190 million passenger trips during the Sept. 27-Oct. 8 travel rush, more than double the number of trips last year and an increase from 2019, before the pandemic started.

In Guangzhou and Shenzhen, extra overnight high-speed trains will operate for 11 days to cope with a travel surge during the long holiday, according to the China Railway Guangzhou Group Co., Ltd.

Another 21 million passengers are expected to travel by air during the holiday, with an average of about 17,000 flights per day, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. More than 80% of those flights are domestic routes.

Jia Jianqiang, CEO of Liurenyou International Travel Agency, said Chinese are splurging on more luxurious travel.

“Many people are now also inclined towards more customized, high-end tours compared to the large group tours that were popular (before the pandemic),” Jia said.

For many Chinese, long public holidays such as Golden Week are the best time to travel, since paid vacation can be as few as five days a year.

“Most Chinese don’t have long holidays, so this time of the year is when everyone can take the longest break and the only time to travel for fun,” said Fu Zhengshuai, an IT engineer and photography enthusiast who often travels alone to remote areas in China such as far western Qinghai and Xinjiang.

The downside of traveling during such big holidays is that everyone else is out there, too, and prices of tickets to attractions, food, and accommodations are high, Fu said.

For student Ma Yongle, traveling during big holidays means long waiting times, huge crowds, and heavy traffic. Train tickets often are sold out.

“I saw more people than scenery. I spent longer time waiting than eating. Train tickets were sold out quickly and traffic was heavy,” Ma said. “More time was wasted and little was left for enjoying the scenery, which spoiled my mood.”

She has since adopted what is referred in China as a “special forces travel trend” where tourists don’t stay overnight at a destination, but only take day trips to save money.

A growing but still relatively small number of Chinese are venturing abroad. According to Trip.com data, outbound travel orders this year are nearly 20 times those during last year’s autumn holidays, when many pandemic restrictions were still in place. Thailand, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia are popular destinations, as are more distant places such as Australia and the United Kingdom.

Overseas travel is bound to bounce back, Chai said.

“If you look at flight capacity, it has only recovered to about half of pre-pandemic levels,” he said. “As flight capacity starts to pick up toward the end of this year and next year, outbound travel will continue to increase.”
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Exiled Afghan female athletes are participating in the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, which end Oct. 8. They say they want to raise awareness of the plight of women in Afghanistan, who are barred from playing any sports in the country. Waheed Faizi has the story, narrated by Elizabeth Cherneff.
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Veteran actor Michael Gambon, who was known to many for his portrayal of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore in six of the eight “Harry Potter” films, has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 82.

A statement by his family, issued by his publicist, said he died following “a bout of pneumonia.”

“We are devastated to announce the loss of Sir Michael Gambon. Beloved husband and father, Michael died peacefully in hospital with his wife Anne and son Fergus at his bedside,” his family said.

No matter what role he took on in a career that lasted more than five decades, Gambon was always instantly recognizable by the deep and drawling tones of his voice. He was cast as the much-loved Dumbledore after the death of his predecessor, Richard Harris, in 2002.

He once acknowledged not having read any of J. K. Rowling’s best-selling books, arguing that it was safer to follow the script rather than be too influenced by the books. That didn’t prevent him from embodying the spirit of Professor Dumbledore, the powerful wizard who fought against evil to protect his students.

Although the Potter role raised Gambon’s international profile and introduced him to a new generation of fans, he had long been recognized as one of Britain’s leading actors. His work spanned TV, theater and radio, and he starred in dozens of films from “Gosford Park” to “The King’s Speech” and the animated family movie “Paddington.”

Gambon was knighted for services to drama in 1998.

Born in Ireland on Oct. 19, 1940, Gambon was raised in London and originally trained as an engineer, following in the footsteps of his father. He made his theater debut in a production of “Othello” in Dublin.

In 1963 he got his first big break with a minor role in “Hamlet,” the National Theatre Company’s opening production, under the directorship of the legendary Laurence Olivier.

Gambon soon became a distinguished stage actor and received critical acclaim for his leading performance in “Life of Galileo” directed by John Dexter. He was frequently nominated for awards and won the Laurence Olivier award 3 times and the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards twice.

A multi-talented actor, Gambon was also the recipient of four coveted British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards for his television work.

He became a household name in Britain after his lead role in the 1986 BBC series “The Singing Detective,” written by Dennis Potter and considered a classic of British television drama. Gambon won the BAFTA for best actor for the role.

Gambon was versatile as an actor but once told the BBC of his preference for playing “villainous characters.” He played gangster Eddie Temple in the British crime thriller “Layer Cake” — a review of the film by the New York Times referred to Gambon as “reliably excellent” — and a Satanic crime boss in Peter Greenaway’s “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover.”

He also had a part as King George V in the 2010 drama film “The King’s Speech.” In 2015 he returned to the works of J.K. Rowling, taking a leading role in the TV adaptation of her book “The Casual Vacancy.”

Gambon retired from the stage in 2015 after struggling to remember his lines in front of an audience due to his advancing age. He once told the Sunday Times Magazine: “It’s a horrible thing to admit, but I can’t do it. It breaks my heart.”

The actor was always protective when it came to his private life. He married Anne Miller and they had one son, Fergus. He later had two sons with set designer Philippa Hart.
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TV’s late-night hosts planned to return to their evening sketches and monologues by next week, reinstating the flow of topical humor silenced for five months by the newly ended Hollywood’s writers strike.

Bill Maher led the charge back to work by announcing early Wednesday that his HBO show “Real Time with Bill Maher” would be back on the air Friday. By mid-morning, the hosts of NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” on CBS had announced they’d also return, all by Monday. “Last Week Tonight” with John Oliver was slated to return to the air Sunday.

Fallon, Meyers, Kimmel, Colbert and Oliver had spent the latter part of the strike teaming up for a popular podcast called “Strike Force Five” — named after their personal text chain and with all proceeds benefiting their out-of-work writers. On Instagram on Wednesday, they announced “their mission complete.”

The plans for some late-night shows were not immediately clear, like “Saturday Night Live” and Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” which had been using guest hosts when the strike hit.

Scripted shows will take longer to return, with actors still on strike and no negotiations yet on the horizon.

On Tuesday night, board members from the writers union approved a contract agreement with studios, bringing the industry at least partly back from a historic halt in production that stretched nearly five months.

Maher had delayed returning to his talk show during the ongoing strike by writers and actors, a decision that followed similar pauses by “The Drew Barrymore Show,” “The Talk” and “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”

The three-year agreement with studios, producers and streaming services includes significant wins in the main areas that writers had fought for — compensation, length of employment, size of staffs and control of artificial intelligence — matching or nearly equaling what they had sought at the outset of the strike.

The union had sought minimum increases in pay and future residual earnings from shows and will get a raise of between 3.5% and 5% in those areas — more than the studios had initially offered.

The guild also negotiated new residual payments based on the popularity of streaming shows, where writers will get bonuses for being a part of the most popular shows on Netflix, Max and other services, a proposal that studios initially rejected. Many writers on picket lines had complained that they weren’t properly paid for helping create heavily watched properties.

On artificial intelligence, the writers got the regulation and control of the emerging technology they had sought. Under the contract, raw, AI-generated storylines will not be regarded as “literary material” — a term in their contracts for scripts and other story forms a screenwriter produces. This means they won’t be competing with computers for screen credits. Nor will AI-generated stories be considered “source” material, their contractual language for the novels, video games or other works that writers may adapt into scripts.

Writers have the right under the deal to use artificial intelligence in their process if the company they are working for agrees and other conditions are met. But companies cannot require a writer to use artificial intelligence. 
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The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said its members could return to work on Wednesday while a ratification vote takes place on a new three-year contract with Hollywood studios. 

Union leaders “voted unanimously to lift the restraining order and end the strike as of 12:01 a.m. PT/3:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 27th,” the WGA said in a statement on Tuesday. 

WGA members will have until October 9 to cast their votes on the contract, the union said. 

Film and television writers walked off the job in May in a fight for higher pay, protections that their work will not be replaced by artificial intelligence, and other issues. 

The writers appeared to have won concessions across the board, with raises over the three years of the contract, increased health and pension contributions, and AI safeguards. 

Under the tentative agreement, AI cannot be used to undermine a writer’s credit. Writers can choose to use AI when drafting scripts, but a company cannot require the use of the software. The studios also have to disclose to a writer if any materials they furnish were generated by AI. 
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