Tiger Woods is back in Green Jacket contention and from country club bars to boardrooms, the former world No. 1 is once again the tide lifting all boats in the golfing world.

Golf television ratings are trending upward, so are equipment and ball sales while Masters tickets and even tips are experiencing a “Tiger Bump” as a rejuvenated Woods returns to the U.S. Masters for the first time in three years.

Much of the buzz being generated around golf’s first major is emanating from a 42-year-old golfer who is closer to qualifying for the Seniors Tour (open to players 50 and over) than his last victory at Augusta in 2005.

But nothing gets the sporting public revved up more than a compelling comeback story and Woods is writing one for the ages.

“This is a little bit like a Lazarus resurrection here with respect to where he was,” Steve Mona, World Golf Foundation CEO, told Reuters. “Only last September he was talking about whether he would be able to come back at all. Now that he is the favorite at the Masters, it is just astonishing. He is certainly in form. I don’t think anyone would be terribly surprised if he were in the hunt.”

The greatest player of his generation, Woods dominated golf like few athletes in any sport ever have.

A prodigious talent who first appeared on television swinging a golf club at two years old, Woods grew into a champion by winning 14 majors in swashbuckling style. He became a crossover celebrity and very wealthy with career earnings totaling $1.7 billion, according to a 2017 report by Forbes.

Having climbed to such great heights, Woods’ fall from grace that started in 2009 has been all the more shocking.

A tawdry divorce, a DUI and years and years of injuries, surgeries and failed treatments sent sponsors scurrying.

The back that had caused Woods so much pain was getting no better and the golfer who had held the No. 1 world ranking for a collective 683 weeks slumped out of the top 1,000.

Even the ever-positive Woods suddenly seemed resigned to a dour fate.

Yet after undergoing spinal fusion surgery last April, the dark clouds hanging over Woods slowly began to lift.

Shaking off years of competitive rust, Woods returned with an encouraging tie for ninth at the Hero World Challenge, followed by a tie for 23rd at the Farmers Insurance Open and a missed cut at the Genesis Open.

Highest ratings

Then suddenly Woods grabbed the spotlight as only he can, announcing his return to form with three impressive results — 12th at the Honda Classic, a tie for second at the Valspar Championship and a tie for fifth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Woods’ back now appears to be strong enough to carry the hopes of an entire industry that is experiencing a “Tiger Bump.”

With Woods back in contention, NBC/Golf Channel said the final rounds of both the Arnold Palmer and Valspar championships registered the highest ratings for a PGA Tour telecast, outside of the majors, since the 2015 Wyndham Championship.

The golf industry has also seen a spike. Bridgestone said that when Woods (who uses its ball) has been in the field in 2018, the average basket value with Bridgestone products increased by over 120 percent compared with the same period in 2017.

“His endorsement [that we make the best ball] is more valuable than all of the science and data that we throw out to the consumers,” Angel Ilgan, President & CEO of Bridgestone, told Reuters. “It is just ridiculous that we can show them hundreds and thousands of testings with robots and projectile guns that we’re the best ball, the most accurate ball. And the consumer doesn’t believe us until Tiger says, ‘Yeah that’s true.’

“During Tiger’s absence the entire industry, the PGA Tour, we were all kind of looking who is the next player,” he continued. “Then when Tiger came back, the entire industry is jumping on the Tiger bandwagon.”

Far-reaching effects

The trickle-down economics of Woods’ comeback are far-reaching.

During the final round of the Valspar, a bartender at a golf club raved on social media that tips were up 300 percent with Woods in contention.

“I was slammed packed with people watching Tiger play, it was insane,” said Alcaonline in a post on Reddit picked up by several news outlets. “I know it seems minimal but the economic trickle down effect this has when it comes to the golf world is hard to explain. I made at least 3X the amount of money I usually make on Sundays just because Tiger was in contention.”

With Woods at the start of a comeback but on the downslope of a turbulent but spectacular career, it is uncertain how long this Tiger bubble will last.

But with Woods’ stock soaring, everyone is buying in and Mona believes that it could be a good long-term investment.

“That [bartender] obviously takes it down to the grass-roots level and it is felt on many different levels and the most obvious ones are from TV ratings standpoint,” he said. “It’s astronomical how much they have increased and there is one common denominator and that is Tiger in contention.

“You look at attendance at those events and it is much the same story. What Tiger does is he increases interest in the game … they get interested and think maybe this is a game for me,” he added.
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From: MeNeedIt

Anyone who has seen Kristen Bell break down in (happy) hysterics over a sloth knows the actress’s affinity for animals, especially those of the cute and cuddly variety. So when the people behind the new IMAX original film “Pandas” asked “The Good Place” star if she would consider narrating the documentary, it was a no-brainer.

“I’m not un-secretive about the fact that I’m an animal lover, or an IMAX lover to be totally honest with you,” Bell said. “I think they produce some of the best content out there and I take my kids to the science center every time there’s a new IMAX movie. I just think the patience with which they produce particularly their animal documentaries is kind of astounding.”

“Pandas,” from David Douglas and Drew Fellman (“Born to be Wild” and “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar”), takes audiences to the Chengdu Research Base For Giant Panda Breeding in China where scientists are working toward a goal of releasing captive-born pandas into the wild, where only about 2000 remaining pandas live.

The film, out Friday, focuses in on one, Qian Qian (pronounced Chen Chen), from cub stage to her supervised release in the wild and the humans trying to make that happen. Hou Rong, the Director of Research at Panda Base since 1994, has raised over 200 baby pandas during her tenure and hopes that one day their work will help pandas thrive outside of captivity.

In an inspiring display of cross cultural solidarity, she travels to New Hampshire to observe how a man named Ben Kilham has for 20 years been successfully raising orphaned black bear cubs for eventual release in the wild. At Kilham’s suggestion, Panda Base hires American conservation biologist Jake Owens, who Douglas calls “the Indiana Jones of biologists” to help supervise Qian Qian’s transition from city panda to country panda.

Bell, who got involved later in the process, didn’t get to meet the pandas but hopes that one day she will. But that didn’t stop her from peppering the scientists like Owens with questions, like how much do their weigh (“150 pounds”), how much for they feel like they weigh (“about 300 pounds”) and what do they smell like (“sweet grass and milk”).

An avid watcher of nature documentaries, Bell said that she and her young daughters Lincoln and Delta particularly love David Attenborough and the “Planet Earth” series. The girls saw an early cut of “Pandas” and “loved it” which makes Bell all the more excited for additional kids and families to experience “Pandas” too.

“It’s inspiring the next crop of biologists and conservationists,” she said.

She thinks the film will connect beyond animal die-hards too.

“It makes you feel good,” Bell said. “It’s inspiring, it’s beautiful, it’s
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From: MeNeedIt

Jeremy McLellan has been labeled an extremist and accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

But the white Catholic comedian from South Carolina says he’s only an extremist when it comes to Biryani, his favorite dish.

In his stand-up act, McLellan uses sarcasm and comedy to explore the commonalities between Christians and Muslims.

“I think that there is so much that we have in common…Christians and Muslims,” said McLellan. “And there are so many practices that we both have that we aren’t necessarily aware of, like Lent. Lent is a period of 40 days, you know, Ramadan is a month. And it’s a period of fasting and alms-giving and all these things that are the same in both traditions. But the rules are different.”

McLellan finds it interesting to compare the religious rituals.

“Are we as strict as you? Like, who’s fasting more?” he said. “Sort of like a healthy competition.” 

Besides a talent for making people laugh, McLellan likes to foster an environment of mutual respect and understanding between the two religions. He says misunderstanding is generally to blame for much of the religious intolerance today. 

“You know right now, there seems to be a lot of tension between Christians and Muslims…” he said, “but I think now is the time when we can actually start to bridge those gaps and create dialogue and talk about our differences….talk about what we have in common and hopefully coexist.” 

The use of comedy to bridge the religious divide isn’t a new phenomenon. Imam Talal Eid, a Muslim scholar, says interfaith humor goes back centuries — to the Prophet Muhammad. 

“Humor is important in our life,” said Eid. “And he himself used his sense of humor when communicating with his companions…He used his sense of humor to cement his relationship with non-Muslims. So American-Muslims today and Muslims in general when they have interfaith relations, they have to do it with fun, not with too much seriousness. ”

McLellan is part of a new generation of young comedians who use humor to serve as ambassadors of faith.

And by combining those ancient methods of diplomacy with the well-timed joke, McLellan accomplishes what professional diplomats aspire to — resolving misunderstandings and creating friendly dialogue while making people laugh. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Dialogue and social discourse are among the most effective tools for promoting cultural understanding. So is humor. That’s the tool of choice for one white, Christian comedian from South Carolina, who claims an affinity for Muslims and a spicy South Asian rice dish called Biryani. VOA’s Deewa Service correspondent Niala Mohammad took in one of his shows and filed this report.
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From: MeNeedIt

Filmmaker Steven Spielberg is going into the future with his virtual reality adventure Ready Player One. Based on Ernest Cline’s bestseller of the same name, the film takes place in the dystopian world of 2045, while referencing 1980s popular culture.

Set more than 25 years in the future, the characters are driven by overpopulation and poverty to escape into a digital universe. One of them is young Wade Watts, a poor orphan living in the stacks, a poverty-ridden area in Columbus, Ohio, who escapes to the Oasis through his virtual avatar, Parzival.

WATCH: Spielberg’s New Film Goes into the Future

He is not alone. Billions of displaced people the world over escape into the digital universe, using aliases and idealized appearance through their avatars. The reason? As Watts says in the film, this “is a place where the limits of reality are your imagination. People come to the oasis for all the things they can do, but they stay because of all the things they can be.”

He describes the Oasis as “the only place it feels like I mean anything.”

Control the Oasis

The Oasis is the brainchild of reclusive James Halliday, played by Oscar winner Mark Rylance. Halliday is a genius and also a fan of 1980s popular culture.

Upon his death, Halliday reveals he has created a virtual reality game where players are called to discover a hidden object, an Easter egg. Whoever finds it first gets a half-trillion dollars and total control of the Oasis.

That sets Parzival and his friends on a collision course with the head of iOi, Innovative Online Industries, a huge virtual reality corporation, and its CEO Nolan Sorrento, played by Ben Mendelsohn. Sorrento will do anything to win the contest and control the Oasis. So, a brutal hunt for the Easter egg begins inside the virtual world, and also outside, in the real world.

​World run amok

Spielberg says this spectacular, escapist and addictive virtual future is the product of a world run amok.

“Having spent so much time trying to imagine what the future could be for all of us in that circumstance, I suddenly saw a future that Ernest Cline, the writer of the book, and Zak Penn, the screenwriter, envisioned, and it wasn’t that far away from what I think is going to happen,” Spielberg said in a release about the film.

To further accentuate the stark contrast between the Oasis and the grittier real world, Spielberg shot the scenes of the dystopian future on film, while scenes in the virtual universe were captured digitally.

Tye Sheridan, who plays Wade and his avatar Parzival, describes shooting the digital part of the film. 

“We did that in a motion-capture studio. We are wearing these suits with head cams and dots all over our face so that they can track, they can record our facial performances and put those on our avatar, animate us and create a virtual world around us.”

Sheridan says during filming, a monitor displayed the virtual version of their movements in real time. This enabled the actors to perform while seeing themselves as their avatars walking around, tracking the actors’ movements.

1980s deja vu

Throughout the film, Spielberg references 1980s popular culture, building on the nostalgia of his fan base. Video games like Adventure released for the Atari 2600 video game console, 1979-1980; movies such as Stanley Kubrick’s horror flick blockbuster The Shining, and Stephen King’s equally popular book by the same title, or dance moves from Saturday Night Fever. They all happen in the seductive cyber world of the Oasis, where the main character finds purpose, love and social justice.

Spielberg notes, however, that though Ready Player One builds on virtual reality cutting-edge technology, it also warns about VR’s addictive potential and encourages its viewers to disconnect from technology regularly in order to find real beauty in the world. He also says as impressive as his digital production is, it is ultimately meant to advance a story about real characters and the human condition.
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From: MeNeedIt

More than 1 billion people around the world have some sort of disability. Rong Shi of VOA’s Mandarin service toured an exhibit in New York that showcases the latest gadgets and inventions designed to help those with a range of physical, sensory or cognitive abilities lead more independent lives and engage more fully in the world. Faith Lapidus reports.
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From: MeNeedIt

Chocolate eggs and rabbits are popular candies in the United States and in other countries, especially during Easter. But while Easter eggs are thought to represent the resurrection of Jesus Christ and rabbits are a symbol of new life, environmental groups are encouraging chocolate lovers to think about the impact of cocoa on deforestation in places like Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world’s top cocoa producers. VOA’s Deborah Block has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Thousands of fans gathered in Washington for the city’s comic convention, called Awesome Con. During the three-day event, they meet their favorite artists and actors, have their comic books autographed, and do a little shopping. Many also dress up in costume. From Washington, VOA’s Jill Craig has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

From aging crooners to bubbly K-Pop starlets, some of South Korea’s biggest pop stars flew to North Korea on Saturday for rare performances that highlight the sudden thaw in inter-Korean ties after years of tensions over the North’s nuclear ambitions.

The concerts in Pyongyang on Sunday and Tuesday come ahead of a historic summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in at a border village April 27. The meeting, which will precede a planned summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in May, could prove to be significant in the global diplomatic push to resolve the standoff over the North’s nuclear weapons and missiles program.

The 120-member group that flew to Pyongyang also included government officials, reporters and a taekwondo demonstration team that will perform in Pyongyang on Sunday and Monday. Another team of 70 South Korean technicians went to Pyongyang on Thursday to set up equipment.

Singer Yoon Do-hyun, who previously performed in Pyongyang in 2002, was emotional after landing in the North Korean capital.

“My heart is bursting,” Yoon told reporters, his eyes welling up with tears. “I am most curious about the reaction of the audience, how it would be different from 16 years ago.”

The artists were greeted by Hyon Song Wol, the photogenic leader of Kim Jong Un’s hand-picked Moranbong girl band who has been working out the details of the performances with South Korean officials.

“Your arrival in Pyongyang brings big expectations,” she said. “A lot of famous singers have come.”

A look at the South Korean singers who made the trip and a certain horse-dancing specialist who didn’t:

​The legends

During stormier times, North Korea described the South’s society and culture as a “corrupt bourgeois lifestyle.” Still, that didn’t stop southern pop singers from performing across the border when relations warmed.

It’s the second trip for the iconic Cho Yong-pil, perhaps South Korea’s most influential musician of the past 50 years. He staged a solo concert in Pyongyang in 2005 during a previous era of rapprochement between the rivals.

“It will be as comfortable performing in the North as it is to perform in the South,” the 68-year-old singer said at a news conference at South Korea’s Gimpo Airport on Saturday. “There’s no reason for me or other singers to be nervous. We all finished rehearsing and will have a fun and comfortable time showing our music.”

Seoul hasn’t officially announced the titles of the songs by the South Korean artists. Cho’s “Dear Friend,” a ballad about a long-lost friend that reportedly drew an enthusiastic response from the Pyongyang crowd 13 years ago, will almost certainly be one of them.

It would be the third North Korean performances for female balladeers Choi Jin-hee and Lee Sun-hee, who are relatively well-known in the North.

The 61-year-old Choi will likely sing her biggest hit, “Maze of Love,” which is rumored to have been a favorite of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the late father of current leader Kim. Lee, who at 53 still might have the best pipes in the business, may sing “To J,” one of several South Korean songs North Korean musicians performed during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

“I hope we can create a stage where we can make an emotional connection and convey the warm feelings between the South and North,” Choi said.

The girls

It won’t be all slow ballads in Pyongyang. It will be interesting to see how the North Koreans react to girl band Red Velvet, currently one of the most popular acts in the highly competitive K-Pop scene.

The genre, which has a huge following across Asia, has been defined by synthesized music, powerful visuals and dance moves, and teasing sexuality. In recent years, South Korea’s military has used K-Pop for psychological warfare, blaring it from loudspeakers along the heavily armored border between the rivals.

“Happiness! Hello, it’s Red Velvet!” band member Seulgi cheerfully shouted during the news conference.

“We’re the ‘maknae’ (youngest of the group), so we will make sure to deliver our bright energy to the North,” the 24-year-old said.

K-Pop groups have performed before in North Korea. The now-disbanded Sechs Kies and Fin.K.L sang and danced in Pyongyang in 1999, as did boy band Shinhwa in 2003. Some of the artists said later that the reaction from the audience was awkward and quiet.

Red Velvet may find a better reception more than a decade later as cultural tastes change, even in isolated North Korea. Currently, the most popular music act in North Korea is Hyon’s Moranbong band, whose members often perform suggestive shimmies in short skirts with electric guitars.

Park Hyeong-il, an official at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, said North Korean officials didn’t show any discomfort about Red Velvet and also didn’t take issue with the “red” in the band’s name.

Red Velvet is originally a five-member band, but only four made the trip to Pyongyang — 22-year-old Joy stayed in South Korea to film a soap opera.

​No ‘Gangnam style,’ please 

Despite constant questioning from reporters, South Korean officials aren’t offering a clear explanation on why PSY, the “Gangnam Style” singer, was left out of the concert lineup.

South Korea’s culture ministry spokesman Hwang Seong-un said without specifying that the YouTube rapper had been initially considered for the Pyongyang events before being excluded. He said he couldn’t confirm a media report that North Korean officials had rejected PSY.

“What I can say is that we explored ways to include him, but it didn’t work out,” Hwang said. “We hope there will be better opportunities for him in the future.”

It’s possible that officials from either the North or the South concluded that PSY’s bizarre humor and highly sexualized music would be too provocative for the North Korean public.

It’s not that North Korea had entirely ignored the global Gangnam Style craze. In September 2012, the North posted a video on its Uriminzokkiri website of a horse-dancing PSY character that had a photo of conservative South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-hye’s face transposed on it. The lyrics had the character satirically defending Park’s late father, staunch anti-communist dictator Park Chung-hee.

Park went on to win the presidential race, only to be ousted from office and jailed over a corruption scandal in March last year.

Will Kim Jong Un attend?

The South Korean singers will perform at the 1,500-seat East Pyongyang Grand Theater on Sunday and then take part in a joint concert with North Korean artists on Tuesday at the 12,000-seat Ryugyong Jong Ju Yong Gymnasium. 

It’s unclear whether North Korean leader Kim will show up in any of these performances. His presence would be seen in the South as a proper response to Moon’s attending the North Korean performances in February. But Kim also was accused by Seoul in previous years of harshly punishing, and even executing, North Korean officials and people who were caught privately consuming South Korean popular culture. 

In 2014, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers that North Korea used firing squads to execute 10 officials that year for taking bribes or watching South Korean television dramas. 
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From: MeNeedIt

Researchers in Australia have begun an ambitious task to learn more about the long-term impacts of head injuries suffered by athletes. This week, the Australian Sports Brain Bank was launched in Sydney, and experts are encouraging players who have participated in all levels of sport – whether or not they’ve had a head injury – to donate their brains to the cause after they die.

The Brain Bank has been set up to investigate links between concussion, head injuries and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE.  It is a neurodegenerative disease found in people with a history of repetitive brain trauma.

The Australian study is being supported by American researchers, who set up a similar brain bank a decade ago.

Dr. Chris Nowinski, head of the Boston-based Concussion Legacy Foundation which has examined the brains of deceased National Football League players, says the presence of CTE among them is pervasive.

“Any contact sport where you receive repetitive brain trauma puts you at risk for this disease.  We do not know at what risk but we have seen CTE in 110 of the first 111 players that we have studied, which has really surprised us.”

Nowinski believes energy from blows to the head during competition causes brain tissue to move.  Symptoms of CTE include depression, aggression and memory loss, and can take years or decades to appear.

The cause of CTE has yet to be established, but the disease has prompted a class action lawsuit in the U.S.

Australia’s Brain Bank is a joint venture between Sydney University and the city’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.  It hopes to obtain 500 brains over the next 10 years.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Chef Rob Morasco didn’t set out to make a planet-friendly burger.

But the 25 percent mushroom burger he created at food service company Sodexo not only has a lower carbon footprint, it’s also lower in calories, fat and salt.

It’s juicier, too.

“When you bite into it, it’s kind of like a flavor explosion,” Morasco said. “And you don’t taste the mushrooms, either.”

And because mushrooms are cheaper than beef, he could answer customer demand for antibiotic- and hormone-free burgers “without having to jack up the price,” he said.

Mushroom-blended burgers have been catching on among both chefs and environmentalists. In March, Sonic Drive-In became the first fast-food chain to offer them.

WATCH: These Burgers Are Better for the Planet, but You’d Never Know It

​2 million cars

Americans eat about 10 billion hamburgers each year, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).

All those burgers take a toll on the planet.

Beef is “the most resource-intensive food that we commonly eat,” Richard Waite of WRI said.

Beef accounts for about half the greenhouse gases produced by the American diet, he added. Cows take far more feed, land and water than any other source of protein.

If every burger in America were blended with mushrooms, WRI estimates the greenhouse-gas savings would be like taking more than 2 million cars off the road.

It would save as much water as nearly 3 million American households use in a year. And it would reduce the demand for farmland by an area larger than the state of Maryland.

For the carnivore

Blended burgers are part of The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Menus of Change project, challenging chefs across the food industry to make their meals healthier and more sustainable.

Demand for meatless meals is growing along with rising health and environmental concerns. There are bean burgers, soy burgers, even beet-infused veggie burgers that “bleed.”

But it’s a limited market.

“The veggie burgers tend to cater to folks who identify as vegetarian or vegan, or actively want to be eating less meat,” Waite said.

On the other hand, blended burgers appeal to “the real carnivores, someone who really loves meat,” he added. “This is potentially a dish that could have broad mainstream appeal and also pretty big environmental benefits.”

Helps keep burgers juicy

Chefs say the mushrooms retain water, helping the burger stay juicy as it cooks.

Sonic Drive-In’s ads for its new Signature Slinger blended burger play up the juiciness and the lower calories.

“When you’re about something that is going to be better for you, it had better deliver the flavor first,” said Scott Uehlein, vice president for product innovation and development at Sonic Drive-In.

The company is piloting the burgers in a two-month trial run.

And the potential goes beyond burgers.

About 400 cafeterias, universities and hospitals are using Sodexo’s blended beef to prepare not only burgers, but lasagna, chili, meatballs, meatloaf and more. The company has adapted 30 popular recipes to use its mushroom blend.

“All those different things you can make with that product just like you would make with regular ground beef,” chef Morasco said.
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From: MeNeedIt

As the world’s population heads toward 10 billion by midcentury, experts are wrestling with how to feed the world without wrecking the planet. It’s not easy to find foods with lower environmental impact that still taste as good as the ones they are intended to replace. But chefs and environmentalists are both cheering one new menu item: the mushroom-blended burger. VOA’s Steve Baragona has more.
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From: MeNeedIt