At this time of the year people in many countries chase away winter doldrums with cheerful festivals, costumed parades, masked balls and other traditional events. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the carnival season has begun and will culminate on February 25th on so-called Fat Tuesday, a day before the start of the somber season of Lent.
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The Northeastern state of New Hampshire votes on a Democratic Party nominee for President Tuesday.  The vote is the nation’s second contest for the Democratic nomination, since Iowa conducted its caucuses last week, but the first primary of the year.  VOA’s Carolyn Presutti is in New Hampshire, where she spent the week talking to numerous voters who explained why they are waiting make up their minds.
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Brothers Jesse and Alex Khoury walked into a Manchester, New Hampshire, sports bar and waded through a dense crowd.  They aren’t here to try the craft beer. It is Saturday, 8 in the morning, and they are here to canvas neighborhoods on behalf of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.Older brother Alex, 28, said he told his brother just days ago, “Hey, we gotta do this.”Jesse, 25, likes Sanders’ talk of climate change and health care for all. “A lot of people would consider that radical,” Jesse said, “but I think it is necessary.”Brothers Alex and Jesse Khoury are prepping to canvas for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who narrowly leads most New Hampshire polls. (VOA/Carolyn Presutti) Steven Yeaton is decades older. With a long white beard, he stands with a cane to maintain balance on his prosthetic leg.  He also likes Sanders’ health care pitch and does not worry about polls showing a tight race.  “They’re gonna come out of the woodwork like we did last time,” he said.”Last time” was 2016 when Sanders overwhelmingly won the New Hampshire primary but lost the national party nomination to Sen. Hillary Clinton.Hundreds of thousands undeclaredFor Tuesday, the state’s primary election day, about 413,000 voters are undeclared voters, meaning they can support a candidate from either party.  In addition, voters can register to vote Tuesday.  Most voters spent the past month studying the candidates before deciding whom to support. Some call themselves procrastinators. Others just say they need more facts before choosing.  Ann McColgan spent two days developing a spreadsheet to gauge the candidates on the issues and then to rank them, coordinating the number of issues that resonate with her beliefs.  “There are just too many candidates to keep straight this year,”said McColgan who works as a nurse at an urgent care facility.Dante Scala is a professor of political science at New Hampshire University.  He is not surprised McColgan and others are overwhelmed by the large field.  Scala says it has become very difficult for any one or two candidates to become dominant. “Even a former vice president such as Joe Biden has struggled in New Hampshire to become the leader,” he said.  Procrastinator or educatorSo many wait to meet (or at least see) candidates numerous times in person before deciding on their candidate. The Ed Brand forms chocolate into Easter eggs. The Granite State Candy Shoppe Chocolatier will support South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg. (VOA/Carolyn Presutti)Tech visionSeveral autonomous robots hum audibly as they carry out their programmed missions, gliding with intermittent stops and traversing around the test track on their omni-directional wheels. Jason Walker is co-founder and CEO of  Waypoint Robotics, which last October moved from a facility a fourth of the size of the new warehouse in Nashua, New Hampshire.  Walker says technology is a huge part of our economy so he’s looking for a presidential candidate who incorporates it into their vision.”If people don’t really understand tech, it’s hard to steer things in a direction that will be meaningful and successful,” he said.  On Tuesday, New Hampshire residents will cast their ballots.  A New Hampshire winner will propel the candidate onto more state voting contests.  Up next is the Nevada caucus on Saturday, February 22, followed by the South Carolina primary on Saturday February 29.  
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Taiwanese people are leading an Asian face mask craze this month to ward off threats from a deadly virus they fear will jump from its nearby source country China into a local population that was already extra cautious about getting sick.Local vendors normally produce 1.9 million masks a day and they’re now pushing out 3.2 million to 40 million, according to government Industrial Development Bureau figures. The island’s 80 mask producers have raised production to meet rising demand despite a rationing of sales to ensure no one hoards the supplies, a bureau official said.Many people in Taiwan, which is 160 kilometers from China, worry that a novel coronavirus discovered in December will eventually infect their own population. All 18 known cases known in Taiwan so far are linked to travel from China, where hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese work and invest.Chinese authorities had reported a cumulative 908 coronavirus deaths among 40,171 cases Sunday.“Taiwan because of its geography is close to mainland China and in addition you have Taiwanese people going back and forth quite frequently, whether tourists or Taiwanese, then add that we’re in winter, the season most suitable for the spread of disease,” said Chiu Cheng-hsun, a professor and doctor with the Linkou Chang Gung hospital children’s respiratory disease department. “As soon as mainland China has no way to control this epidemic, then Taiwan could become the first place to get hit,” Chiu said.People throughout much of East Asia have bought up surgical face masks as a precaution against catching the virus. A mask, the same type found in hospitals throughout the world, stops droplets coughed out by an infected person from landing on other people. Demand for masks has surged particularly in countries such as Malaysia and Thailand that get high numbers of Chinese tourists.Masks jumped in popularity last month so fast that the Taiwan government asked factories to raise production and rationed purchases. Shoppers must swipe their National Health Insurance cards in approved pharmacies to get their maximum of two masks, every two days. The swipe leaves a computerized purchase record.Two vendors wear face masks and wait for customers at a night market in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020.Pharmacists said last week the government was also controlling supplies to their stores, for example 200 masks per day.Lines of 50 people or more have formed outside the pharmacies – only to find in some cases that stock has sold out.  People in Taipei say they support the rationing as a way to ensure no one hoards supplies.“Some people have time to shop for  masks  and others don’t have time, so now there is a computerized record,” said Lee Kuo-bin, 58, a Taipei man who uses masks even when there’s no specific virus threat. He checked a cluster of pharmacies behind a hospital last week but found nothing.Bernie Huang, 31, a Taipei high school teacher, uses two  masks  per week and fears his compatriots are overreacting.“Due to the prevailing fear for the new coronavirus, many Taiwanese people buy  masks  in bulk and hoard the  masks. However, healthy people don’t have to wear  masks  all the time, and the hoarding of  masks  will cut out  people who actually need to wear  masks, such as people with chronic diseases and respiratory infections,” he said. “The face  mask  rationing policy ensures that the  masks  are definitely available for people who actually need the  masks,” Huang said.Mask users are motivated by television images of people wearing the own and news about the rising death count in China, said George Hou, a mass communications lecturer at Taiwan-based I-Shou University. “In almost every televised image you have demonstrations of people using face masks,” he said.  Local scarcity prompts people to worry all the more, he added.Taiwanese were already using masks before the coronavirus outbreak on a perception the gear could block pollution and any germs suspended in the air.  The island with a dense population where multiple generations live under the same roof is prone to influenza and a contagious gastrointestinal illness that has killed small children, all raising fear of disease.  The 10% of people who once wore masks in Taipei now exceeds 50%.Taiwanese also recall the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic of 2003, said Huang Kwei-bo, vice dean of the international affairs college at National Chengchi University in Taipei. SARS originated in China and spread to Taiwan, killing 73 on the island.Some of the government’s rules, such as a two-week delay in starting the new public-school semester, are confusing or excessive, he said. Children clumped together risk spreading disease, but the semester delay has caused childcare headaches for some families.“If there are people who think the Tsai Ing-wen government is a bit over the top about this outbreak, I think as long as it’s not too exaggerated of an overkill, I can accept it,” he said.
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Actor Robert Conrad, who starred in several hit television series from the 1950s through the 1970s, has died just a month short of his 85th birthday.The Chicago-born Conrad came to Hollywood in the late 1950s to work as a stuntman, but soon became the star of 1959’s Hawaiian Eye, a police detective series whose setting was the newest American state.The show with its exotic backgrounds and simple plots became a huge success and ran for five years.Conrad was back the following season with his best-remembered role — James T. West in The Wild Wild West. Conrad’s West was teamed with disguise master Artemus Gordon, played by the late Ross Martin. The pair played secret agents employed by U.S. President Ulysses Grant.The surrealistic series was set in the 1870s, but featured 20th century gadgets and strange villains, all done with a sense of humor that kept the series on for another five years.Conrad also played real-life World War II pilot Gregory “Pappy” Boyington in TVs Baa Baa Black Sheep, renamed Black Sheep Squadron from 1976 thorough 1978.The short but powerfully built Conrad had an off-screen reputation for arguments and fistfights. But his daughter said that was because her father was a hard worker who had no patience for people who weren’t doing their jobs.Conrad enjoyed making fun of his tough-guy persona and told an interviewer in 2008, “If you treat me nicely, I’ll treat you nicer.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump will propose on Monday a 21% cut in foreign aid and slashes to social safety net programs in his $4.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2021, according to senior administration officials.The budget will seek an increase in funds to counter developing economic threats from China and Russia, but will also raise funds by targeting $2 trillion in savings from mandatory spending programs in the United States. The budget assumes revenues of $3.8 trillion.Trump, a Republican, sought in his budget proposal last year to slash foreign aid but faced steep resistance from Congress and did not prevail.The president’s latest blueprint for administration spending proposals is unlikely to be passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, particularly in an election year.Trump, who campaigned for the presidency in 2016 on a promise to build a wall along the U.S. Border with Mexico, will seek $2 billion in funding for further construction on that project, substantially less than the $8.6 billion he requested a  year ago. The administration shifted resources to the project from the military last year after Congress refused Trump’s request. The White House will not seek further funds from the military for the wall, a senior administration said.The budget seeks $1 trillion to fund an infrastructure spending bill that both Democrats and Republicans have said is a priority. The two sides are unlikely to agree on any major legislation this year, though, as the two sides fight for control of the White House and Congress in the November elections.The budget would raise military spending by 0.3% to $740.5 billion for the fiscal year 2021, starting Oct. 1 and propose higher outlays for defense and veterans, administration officials confirmed. But former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen raised concerns about how the foreign aid cuts would affect the U.S. civilian footprint around the world that helps reduce the need for military intervention.”This is a moment when more investment in diplomacy and development is needed not less,” he wrote in a letter to top congressional leaders.Trump’s foreign aid proposal seeks $44.1 billion in the upcoming fiscal year compared with $55.7 billion enacted in fiscal year 2020, an administration official said.Spending cutsThe White House proposes to slash spending by $4.4 trillion over 10 years.That includes $130 billion from changes to Medicare prescription-drug pricing, $292 billion from cuts in safety net programs – such as work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps – and $70 billion from clamping down on eligibility rules for federal disability benefits. Those changes are likely to spur Democrats’ ire.The U.S. government ended fiscal year 2019 with the largest budget deficit in seven years as gains in tax receipts were offset by higher spending and growing debt service payments, the Treasury department said on Friday.The budget forecasts $4.6 trillion in deficit reduction over 10 years and assumes economic growth will continue at annual rate of roughly 3 percent for years to come, officials said.Trump has taken credit for the strength of the U.S. economy thanks in part to tax cuts he championed and Congress passed earlier in his term. The budget funds an extension of those cuts over a 10-year period with $1.4 trillion.Aid to Ukraine would remain at its 2020 levels under the new foreign aid proposal. Trump was acquitted last week of impeachment charges that he withheld aid to Ukraine to spur Kiev to investigate political rival Joe Biden, a Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. vice president.Administration officials told Reuters that Trump would request an increase in funding for the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to $700 million from $150 million the previous year. 
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Minorities account for two of the 20 actors and actresses nominated for Oscars this year, and no women were nominated in the Best Director category. Upon announcing the Oscar nominations, actress Issa Rae underscored these facts by remarking, “Congratulations to those men.”But why is there this lack of female and minority representation four years after the Academy announced it would strive for greater diversity?Despite the academy’s unanimous 2016 vote “to double the number of women and diverse members of the Academy by 2020,” for a fourth consecutive year, change is being made but it has been slower than anticipated. According to the academy, 842 members were added in 2019, bringing the total membership of women to 32% and people of color to 16%.In the past four years, no woman has received an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Director, while, this year, Cynthia Erivo was the only nonwhite actress to receive a nomination for Harriet in the acting categories. Other lead actresses and actors of color, such as Jennifer Lopez for Hustlers, Lupita Ny’ongo in Us, and Eddie Murphy in Dolemite is my Name, did not make the cut.The reason behind this setback? “The percentages are still overwhelmingly white and male,” said Cynthia Fuchs, Associate Director of Film and Video studies at George Mason University near Washington.She said the academy is making strides, but not fast enough. She pointed to Hollywood’s reluctance to take risks by investing in films about minorities and women out of fear such projects might not yield great profit. Fuchs pointed to box-office successes such as Black Panther and Get Out, however, both featuring extensive black casts, as well as this year’s Bong Joon Ho’s South Korean film Parasite, which received six Oscar nominations this year.“Most people around the world think it is the Best Picture,” she said of Parasite.The cast and crew of “Parasite” arrive at the Oscars, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, Feb. 9, 2020.Fuchs said Oscar nominees often are Hollywood insiders, who can afford extensive advertising campaigns. Their very names become a virtual endorsement of their work, such as Martin Scorsese, nominated for The Irishman, or Quentin Tarantino for his Hollywood nostalgia movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.Many of these insiders also gain momentum from buzz generated after they receive coveted awards before the Oscars, such as British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe, and Critics Choice awards. As always, money also talks, putting films such as Todd Phillips’s billion-dollar box office hit Joker more on people’s radar than a small independent film, according to Fuchs.While the academy is slowly warming up to minorities and women, it may be too little, too late. Younger generations are tuning out the Oscars, leading to lackluster ratings in recent years, according to Richard Craig, Associate Professor of Communication at George Mason University.“I think the academies are going to shift. Maybe we’ll see more streaming in regards to categories or something of that nature,” he said.WATCH: Related video by VOA’s Angelina BagdasaryanSorry, but your player cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyFuchs agreed. More and more streaming companies are producing and showcasing diverse, smaller films, from all over the world, allowing their subscribers, for a relatively small monthly fee, access to movies from around the world, she said. Higher viewership could lead to higher recognition and consequently more awards for some of these films.At his Golden Globes award speech for Parasite, Bong drove that point home, saying through a translator, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”All that is from the comfort of a couch, or from anywhere really, using mobile technology.“People are watching movies in a variety of ways now and people who make movies watch movies in a variety of ways now. Not everybody goes to the theater,” Fuchs said, adding, “Netflix is aware of that, Amazon Prime is aware of that, Hulu is aware of that, Disney is aware of that.”Fuchs noted that as more movies are being produced outside Hollywood, using different technologies for multi-media audiences, Hollywood’s role as the epicenter of the film industry could wane — and so could the Oscars, with younger generations wanting to see a more diverse and decentralized award system, embracing women’s roles and ethnic diversity in the film industry. 
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