NEW YORK: Little Amal, a 12-foot (3.7-meter) puppet of a Syrian refugee, will journey across the United States this fall, visiting key places in America’s history to raise awareness about immigration and migration.
The puppet of the 10-year-old girl will visit the US Capitol, Boston Common, Joshua Tree National Park and the Edmund Pettus Bridge among other sites during a trek which starts in Boston on Sept. 7 and ends Nov. 5 along the US-Mexico border.
“There is something in the act of welcoming a stranger which redefines you,” says Amir Nizar Zuabi, the artistic director. “I think that’s part of what we’re trying to create when walking into places that have a beautiful, complicated, defining history.”
Stops are also planned for Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, the Tennessee cities of Nashville and Memphis, New Orleans, the Texas cities of Austin, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, as well as the California cities of Los Angeles and San Diego.
“Obviously there’s a lot of specific points in our American history that we felt that we needed to address and that’s the reason why we’re starting in Boston,” says Enrico Dau Yang Wey, lead puppeteer and co-associate artistic director. “The reason why we’re finishing in San Diego is that there’s just such a thin line between the United States and Mexico.”
Little Amal demands empathy, the puppet of a vulnerable, naive girl who is in a strange place after surviving a long ordeal alone.
“She’s just a symbol of millions of children,” says Zuabi. “Just having a community breathe together and walk with Amal for a stretch in the streets becomes a very, very meaningful act.”
Organizers are reaching out to community artists and leaders at each of the 35 stops — including places revered in Civil Rights Movement history like Selma, Alabama, and recent scenes of gun violence like Uvalde, Texas — to create more than 100 special events anchored by each place visited.
“We work very closely with our local partners and try and understand what is the story they’re trying to tell and try to co-create an event that resonates in this place to this community,” says Zuabi. “I think that’s part of why this project becomes so emotional for many people.”
Little Amal was created by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, who made the award-winning puppets for the hit show “War Horse.” She requires four puppeteers at each visit, three to move her head and limbs and one to collect items people give her. A total of nine puppeteers will make the coast-to-coast trek with Little Amal.
“A lot of the ways we think about refugees, about immigrants, about migration, are formed and informed in American,” says Zuabi. “In a way, that’s a discussion we want to join and learn and listen.”
Last year, the puppet made a 17-day circuit through every corner of New York City, including joining a reading of the book “Julián Is a Mermaid” at the Brooklyn Public Library and a drum circle in Harlem. This June, she will be in Toronto.
The puppet completed a 5,000-mile (8,050-kilometer) trek across Europe in 2021, from the Syrian-Turkish border to northwest England, traveling through 12 countries — including greeting refugees from Ukraine at a Polish train station and stopping at refugee camps in Greece — and meeting with Pope Francis.
Wey describes Little Amal as a “miraculous thing that pulls people together suddenly” to create a “collective sense of empathy and a collective sense of awe.”
“Every time it’s different and every time you learn a little bit more. It’s one of those things where we learn on the job,” he adds. “I have to get a new pair of walking boots.”
Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, will travel the US
https://arab.news/cnm2m
Little Amal, a 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee, will travel the US
- The puppet of the 10-year-old girl will visit the US Capitol, Boston Common, Joshua Tree National Park and the Edmund Pettus Bridge among other sites
- Little Amal was created by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, who made the award-winning puppets for the hit show “War Horse”
Authorities seize ailing alligator kept illegally in New York home’s swimming pool
- The home’s owner built an addition and installed an in-ground swimming pool for the 30-year-old alligator
- The alligator has “blindness in both eyes” and spinal complications
NEW YORK: An ailing alligator was seized from an upstate New York home where it was being kept illegally, state officials said.
Environmental conservation police officers seized the 750-pound (340-kilogram), 11-foot-long (3.4-meter-long) alligator on Wednesday from a home in Hamburg, south of Buffalo.
The home’s owner built an addition and installed an in-ground swimming pool for the 30-year-old alligator and allowed people, including children, to get into the water with the reptile, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The alligator has “blindness in both eyes” and spinal complications, among other health issues. The reptile was sent to a licensed caretaker until a place is found where it can receive permanent care, according to a release from the agency.
The owner’s state license to keep the alligator expired in 2021. The state determined at that time the alligator’s holding area failed to meet safety standards. Officers took action this week after learning the “extent at which the owner was seriously endangering the public,” according to a statement from the agency.
State environmental officials haven’t decided whether to bring charges.
Officials believe a lethargic 4-foot (1.2-meter) alligator found in Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn in February 2023 was likely an abandoned pet.
McDonald’s hit by system failure at Asian outlets
- In Japan, the US fast food giant said it was “currently experiencing a system failure” and “temporarily suspending operation at many outlets”
TOKYO: Hungry McDonald’s customers in parts of Asia had trouble ordering at stores, on cellphones and at electronic kiosks on Friday after a system outage.
In Japan, the US fast food giant said on X, formerly Twitter, that it was “currently experiencing a system failure” and “temporarily suspending operation at many outlets”.
China was also affected for several hours, with the outage a hot topic on social media platform Weibo, but the firm later said its online ordering system had been fully restored.
McDonald’s in Hong Kong wrote on Facebook that its “mobile ordering and self-ordering kiosks are not functioning” but later said its system was “gradually returning to normal”.
Singapore was also hit, as were Australia and New Zealand according to media reports.
India, Indonesia and Thailand were unaffected.
‘Miracle’ birth on Jordan-London flight thanks to junior doctor
- Hassan Khan, 28, leapt into action to deliver baby after crew appealed for help
- ‘I only realized how significant it was after I had the chance to process it all’
LONDON: A “miracle” baby has been born on a flight from Jordan to the UK thanks to the help of a junior doctor, Metro newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The Wizz Air flight from Amman to London’s Luton Airport recorded an extra passenger in the manifest after Hassan Khan, 28, leapt into action and helped deliver the newborn.
Two hours into the flight, a pregnant woman on board went into labor, with the crew appealing for a doctor to help.
Khan, who had been holidaying in Jordan with friends, used his experience working at Basildon Hospital’s neonatal resuscitation unit.
He said: “I told the flight attendants what equipment I needed — which would include a neonatal-sized oxygen mask, a clamp for the umbilical cord and a stethoscope — none of which they had on a plane, of course.”
But the lack of equipment did not deter Khan who, with the help of a fellow passenger to translate Arabic, delivered the baby girl using only towels.
The flight was diverted to Italy’s Brindisi Airport so the mother and newborn could receive postpartum medical care.
The family later contacted Khan to thank him and report the good health of mother and child, which he said caused “a big sigh of relief.”
His employers “were very impressed,” he added. “My consultant congratulated me and said it was a really good job.
“People were saying it was miraculous — I only realized how significant it was after I had the chance to process it all.”
It is just the 75th instance in aviation history of a baby being born on a commercial flight. The rarity can be attributed to medical guidance, which recommends that pregnant women avoid flying past the 36-week mark, or 32 weeks with twins or triplets.
Several births have taken place on flights in recent years. In 2017, a baby was given free air tickets for life after being born on a flight from Saudi Arabia to India.
Princess Kate says sorry for manipulated family photo, saying she was experimenting with editing
LONDON: Kate, the Princess of Wales, has apologized for “confusion” caused by her editing of a family photo released by the palace.
In a post on social media, Kate said that “like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.”
“I wanted to express my apologies for any confusion the family photograph we shared yesterday caused,” the post said.
The Associated Press and other news agencies withdrew the photo of Kate and children George, Charlotte and Louis, which was issued by Kensington Palace on Sunday to mark Mother’s Day in Britain. It appeared to have been manipulated, in violation of AP photo guidelines.
The palace said the photo was taken by Prince William.
It was the first official photo of Kate since her abdominal surgery nearly two months ago, and followed weeks of speculation about her whereabouts. Designed to quell speculation, it has sparked even more conjecture.
2 women drove a man’s body to a bank to withdraw his money, US police say
- The two women were charged in court with gross abuse of a corpse and theft from a person in a protected class
ASHTABULA, Ohio: Two Ohio women have been accused of driving the body of a deceased 80-year-old man to a bank to withdraw money from his account before dropping his body off at a hospital.
Karen Casbohm, 63, and Loreen Bea Feralo, 55, were charged Tuesday in Ashtabula with gross abuse of a corpse and theft from a person in a protected class, according to Ashtabula Municipal Court records.
Police said they were called Monday evening and told that two women had dropped off a body at the Ashtabula County Medical Center emergency room without identifying the person or themselves. A few hours later, one of them contacted the hospital with information on the deceased, who was then identified as 80-year-old Douglas Layman of Ashtabula.
Officers responded to Layman’s residence and made contact with Casbohm and Feralo, who told them they had found Layman deceased earlier at the home where all three resided. Police allege that, with the help of a third unnamed person, they placed Layman in the front seat of his car and drove to a bank where they withdrew “an undisclosed amount of money” from his account.
Layman’s body “was placed in the vehicle in such a manner that he would be visible to bank staff in order to make the withdrawal,” Ashtabula Police Chief Robert Stell said in a news release Thursday. Stell told the (Ashtabula) Star Beacon that the bank ”had allowed this previously as long as they were accompanied by him.”
Lt. Mike Palinkas told WEWS-TV that one of the women had been in a live-in relationship with Layman for several years while the other had been staying there for a few months. The women said it was normal for them to take money from the account, but Palinkas said he didn’t have a full explanation for why they went there that day.
“Allegedly, they wanted to pay some bills but outside of that, there wasn’t a specific motivation provided,” Palinkas said.
Casbohm was arraigned and ordered held on $5,000 bond while Feralo is scheduled for arraignment next week. It’s unclear whether they have attorneys; numbers listed in their names had been disconnected. A message was sent to the county public defender’s office seeking comment if the office was defending one or both.
Police said they continue to investigate and other charges are possible. The coroner’s office said an autopsy to determine the cause of Layman’s death could take up to eight months.