At the age of 55, Alisa Leht fell in love with ballroom dancing. Today – at 71 – she is on the dance floor every other day, training for hours and taking part in dancing competitions. Liliya Anisimova met with Leht to talk about her passion. Anna Rice narrates her story.  Camera: Liliya Anisimova      …

In less than two weeks, more than 11,000 of the world’s best athletes will descend on Tokyo to compete at the most unusual Olympic Games in decades. Athletes will compete in empty stadiums after Olympics organizers reversed course Thursday and barred spectators in response to a major coronavirus resurgence. The decision came after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide…

Hannah Kumari has been an English soccer fan since childhood, but she never wanted to fly an England flag. Until now.Kumari is one of millions of fans ecstatic that England’s men’s team has reached the final of a major tournament for the first time since it won the World Cup in 1966. But like many…

The Olympic flame arrived Friday in Tokyo, but the public will be kept away at a low-key welcoming ceremony because of coronavirus fears, the day after a “heartbreaking” announcement that spectators would be banned from most games events.On a rainy morning exactly two weeks before the opening ceremony of the biggest sporting event since the…

Africa’s Sahel region is seeing the worst effects of climate warming anywhere on the planet, according to the United Nations.Farmers bear the brunt of the changes because 80% of the Sahel’s economy is agrarian.    Art Melody, a musician in Burkina Faso who raps in the local Djula and Moore languages, knows from experience the…

Bollywood icon Dilip Kumar, hailed as the “Tragedy King” and one of Hindi cinema’s greatest actors, died Wednesday in a Mumbai hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 98.The “Tragedy King” title came from Kumar’s numerous serious roles. In several, his character died as a frustrated lover and a drunkard. He also was known as…

At a workshop in Kullu district in North India, dozens of artisans bend over hand-operated looms, deftly weaving a garment called the sari in vibrant shades of pink and orange.The sari is an unstitched, flowing garment worn by women in India and in South Asian countries like Bangladesh. It is a new addition to the…

Britney Spears’ court-appointed attorney on Tuesday filed documents to resign from her conservatorship, the latest of several such moves that have come in the fallout from the pop singer’s comments in court decrying the legal arrangement that controls her money and affairs. Samuel Ingham III filed documents in Los Angeles Superior Court requesting that the court…

North India’s Kullu district is famed for its ancient tradition of spinning hand-woven stoles and shawls with designs that have been passed down for generations. Now artisans, many of them women, are learning to make another traditional Indian garment called the sari, under a program sponsored by the local government and private sector that aims…

The number of spectators at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics will be limited to a handful of VIP, or Very Important Persons dignitaries, and Olympic officials due to concerns over the rising number of new COVID-19 cases in the capital, according to a Japanese newspaper.A report in Tuesday’s edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper says the idea is…

“The Voice” coaches Gwen Stefani and Blake Shelton celebrated their nuptials over the Fourth of July holiday during a weekend wedding in Oklahoma.  Shelton, a country singer, and Stefani, a pop star, posted photos on Monday of their wedding including an image of the couple posing over a twilight sky. A representative for Shelton did not…

Raffaella Carrà, for decades one of Italian television’s most beloved entertainers, a woman affectionately nicknamed the “queen of Italian TV,” died Monday at 78, Italian state TV quoted her family as saying. Rai state TV read a statement from the star’s family, announcing that she died in Rome after a long illness. No further details were…

This could be it for Caster Semenya and the Olympics.  Forced out of her favorite race by World Athletics’ testosterone rules, the two-time Olympic champion in the 800 meters took a late shot at qualifying for Tokyo in the 5,000 meters, an event not affected by the hormone regulations. She came up short. Now 30, Semenya’s…

The young midshipman needed a date one evening while he was home from the U.S. Naval Academy, so his younger sister paired him with a family friend who already had a crush.Nearly eight decades later, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter are still together in the same tiny town where they were born, grew up and had…

Paris on Saturday was the only place to be for die-hard Jim Morrison fans.   Fifty years after his death at age 27, rock music lovers from France and across the world came to the Pere-Lachaise cemetery in eastern Paris where The Doors’ frontman is buried. Many brought candles and pictures, and some burned incense sticks near…

Amateur or “ham” radio operators sometimes take their two-way radios to remote locations and talk to people around the world using battery power and portable antennas.  As Mike O’Sullivan reports, they are making friends and preparing for emergencies. Camera: Mike O’Sullivan …

American champion Sha’Carri Richardson cannot run in the Olympic 100-meter race after testing positive for a chemical found in marijuana.  Richardson, who won the 100 at Olympic trials in 10.86 seconds on June 19, told of her ban Friday on the “Today Show.” She tested positive at the Olympic trials and so her result is erased. Fourth-place finisher…

Britain’s Prince William and Prince Harry unveiled a statue to their late mother Princess Diana in a ceremony Thursday at London’s Kensington Palace, on what would have been her 60th birthday. It’s the first time the brothers have met each other since the funeral of their grandfather, Prince Philip, in April.Prince Harry flew to London…

American comedian Bill Cosby issued his first statement Wednesday after being freed from prison by the state of Pennsylvania Supreme Court, saying he has never changed his story and has always maintained his innocence.  On his Twitter account, Cosby went on to say, “Thank you to all my fans, supporters and friends who stood by…

The Golden Globes, American film awards at the heart of a lively controversy in recent months over their representativeness, announced Wednesday that they would change their rules to allow foreign language films to compete in the generalist categories and films of animation.   These criticisms prompted the NBC broadcaster to cancel the ceremony scheduled for next year,…

A judge has shot down Britney Spears’ request to have her father removed from her conservatorship — at least for now.New court documents that were filed by the Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday show that the judge has denied the request by Spears’ attorney, Samuel Ingham III, to remove her father, Jamie Spears, as…

Pennsylvania’s highest court threw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction and released him from prison Wednesday in a stunning reversal of fortune for the comedian once known as “America’s Dad,” ruling that the prosecutor who brought the case was bound by his predecessor’s agreement not to charge Cosby.Cosby, 83, flashed the V-for-victory sign to a…

Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned  Bill Cosby’s sex assault conviction Wednesday after finding an agreement with a previous prosecutor prevented him from being charged in the case. Cosby has served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence at a state prison near Philadelphia. He had vowed to serve all 10 years rather than…

A former CIA operative known for his exploits everywhere from Miami to Nicaragua to Afghanistan has a book deal. Enrique “Ric” Prado’s “Black Ops: The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior” will come out next March.  “A lot has been said about the CIA over the years,” Prado said in a statement Wednesday. “And a…

The freshest faces among South Korean influencers are no longer the usual, 20-something celebrities. Instead, entertainment and social media are focusing on a new generation: the elder generation.   Older women were once invisible in South Korean entertainment as the industry stuck to rigidly conservative traditional female roles and cast them only as devoted mothers.…

Solstice Yoga returned to New York City’s Times Square in 2021, after being suspended last year because of the pandemic. The all-day event brought together over 2,000 enthusiasts with their yoga mats to the very heart of Times Square. Evgeny Maslov filed this story narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Michael Eckels …

Cuban screenwriter Delia  Fiallo, widely seen as “the mother of the telenovela” and the writer behind international hits like the soap opera “Crystal,” died Tuesday in Miami at the age of 96, her daughter-in-law confirmed to AFP. A pioneer of the wildly popular romantic soap operas in Latin America, Fiallo , whose career began in the middle…

Tennis great Serena Williams limped out of Wimbledon in tears on Tuesday after her latest bid for a record-equaling 24th Grand Slam singles crown ended in injury. The American sixth seed and seven-time Wimbledon winner was clearly in pain on a slippery Centre Court and sought treatment while 3-2 up in her first-round match against unseeded…