Nikki Giovanni, the poet, author, educator and public speaker who rose from borrowing money to release her first book to decades as a literary celebrity sharing her blunt and conversational takes on everything from racism and love to space travel and mortality, has died. She was 81. Giovanni, subject of the prize-winning 2023 documentary “Going to Mars," died Monday with her life-long partner, Virginia (Ginney) Fowler, by her side, according to a statement from friend and author Renée Watson > Watch NBC Bay Area News 📺 Streaming free 24/7 “We will forever feel blessed to have shared a legacy and love with our dear cousin,” Allison (Pat) Ragan, Giovanni’s cousin, said in a statement on behalf of the family. Author of more than 25 books, Giovanni was a born confessor and performer whom fans came to know well from her work, her readings and other live appearances and her years on the faculty of Virginia Tech among other schools. Poetry collections such as "Black Judgement" and "Black Feeling Black Talk" sold thousands of copies, led to invitations from "The Tonight Show" and other television programs and made her popular enough to fill a 3,000-seat concert hall at Lincoln Center for a celebration of her 30th birthday. In poetry, prose and the spoken word, she told her story. She looked back on her childhood in Tennessee and Ohio, championed the Black Power movement, addressed her battles with lung cancer, paid tribute to heroes from Nina Simone to Angela Davis and reflected on such personal passions as food, romance, family and rocketing into space, a journey she believed Black women uniquely qualified for, if only because of how much they had already survived. She also edited a groundbreaking anthology of Black women poets, "Night Comes Softly," and helped found a publishing cooperative that promoted works by Gwendolyn Brooks and Margaret Walker among others. For a time, she was called "The Princess of Black Poetry." "All I know is the she is the most cowardly, bravest, least understanding, most sensitive, slowest to anger, most quixotic, lyingest, most honest woman I know," her friend Barbara Crosby wrote in the introduction to "The Prosaic Soul of Nikki Giovanni," an anthology of nonfiction prose published in 2003. "To love her is to love contradiction and conflict. To know her is to never understand but to be sure that all is life." Giovanni's admirers ranged from James Baldwin to Teena Marie, who name-checked her on the dance hit “Square Biz,” to Oprah Winfrey, who invited the poet to her "Living Legends" summit in 2005, when other guests of honor included Rosa Parks and Toni Morrison. Giovanni was a National Book Award finalist in 1973 for a prose work about her life, "Gemini." She also received a Grammy nomination for the spoken word album "The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection." In January 2009, at the request of NPR, she wrote a poem about the incoming president, Barack Obama: "I'll walk the streets And knock on doors Share with the folks: Not my dreams but yours I'll talk with the people I'll listen and learn I'll make the butter Then clean the churn" ____ Giovanni had a son, Thomas Watson Giovanni, in 1969. She never married the father, because, she told Ebony magazine, "I didn’t want to get married, and I could afford not to get married." Over the latter part of her life she lived with her partner, Virginia Fowler, a fellow faculty member at Virginia Tech. She was born Yolande Cornelia Giovanni Jr. in Knoxville, Tennessee, and was soon called "Nikki" by her older sister. She was 4 when her family moved to Ohio and eventually settled in the Black community of Lincoln Heights, outside of Cincinnati. She would travel often between Tennessee and Ohio, bound to her parents and to her maternal grandparents in her "spiritual home" in Knoxville. As a girl, she read everything from history books to Ayn Rand and was accepted to Fisk University, the historically Black school in Nashville, after her junior year of high school. College was a time for achievement, and for trouble. Her grades were strong, she edited the Fisk literary magazine and helped start the campus branch of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. But she rebelled against school curfews and other rules and was kicked out for a time because her “attitudes did not fit those of a Fisk woman,” she later wrote. After the school changed the dean of women, Giovanni returned and graduated with honors in history in 1967. Giovanni relied on support from friends to publish her debut collection, "Black Poetry Black Talk," which came out in 1968, and in the same year she self-published "Black Judgement." The radical Black Arts Movement was at its height and early Giovanni poems such as "A Short Essay of Affirmation Explaining Why," "Of Liberation" and "A Litany for Peppe" were militant calls to overthrow white power. ("The worst junkie or black businessman is more humane/than the best honkie"). "I have been considered a writer who writes from rage and it confuses me. What else do writers write from?" she wrote in a biographical sketch for Contemporary Writers. "A poem has to say something. It has to make some sort of sense; be lyrical; to the point; and still able to be read by whatever reader is kind enough to pick up the book." Her opposition to the political system moderated over time, although she never stopped advocating for change and self-empowerment, or remembering martyrs of the past. In 2020, she was featured in an ad for presidential candidate Joe Biden, in which she urged young people to “vote because someone died for you to have the right to vote.” Her best known work came early in her career; the 1968 poem "Nikki-Rosa." It was a declaration of her right to define herself, a warning to others (including obituary writers) against telling her story and a brief meditation on her poverty as a girl and the blessings, from holiday gatherings to bathing in "one of those big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in," which transcended it. "and I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy"ROME (AP) — Serie A leader Napoli was eliminated from the Italian Cup after losing 3-1 at Lazio thanks to a hat trick by Tijjani Noslin on Thursday. The Dutch forward scored in the 32nd, 41st and 50th minutes at the Stadio Olimpico as Lazio advanced to the quarterfinals. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Get updates and player profiles ahead of Friday's high school games, plus a recap Saturday with stories, photos, video Frequency: Seasonal Twice a weekslots game online free 。

Syria’s prime minister said that most cabinet ministers were back at work on Monday after rebels overthrew President Bashar Assad. However, some state workers failed to return to their jobs and a United Nations official said the country’s public sector had come “to a complete and abrupt halt”. Meanwhile, streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighbouring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future and looking for relatives who disappeared during Mr Assad’s brutal rule. There were already signs of the difficulties ahead for the rebel alliance now in control of much of the country. The alliance is led by a former senior al-Qaida militant, who severed ties with the extremist group years ago and has promised representative government and religious tolerance. The rebel command said they would not tell women how to dress. “It is strictly forbidden to interfere with women’s dress or impose any request related to their clothing or appearance, including requests for modesty,” the command said in a statement on social media. Nearly two days after rebels entered the capital, some key government services had shut down after state workers ignored calls to go back to their jobs, the UN official said, causing issues at airports and borders and slowing the flow of humanitarian aid. Rebel leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who was known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, also met with Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi Jalali for the first time. Mr Jalali stayed in Syria when Mr Assad fled and has sought to project normalcy since. “We are working so that the transitional period is quick and smooth,” he told Sky News Arabia TV on Monday, saying the security situation had already improved from the day before. At the court of Justice in Damascus, which was stormed by the rebels to free detainees, Judge Khitam Haddad, an aide to the justice minister in the outgoing government, said that judges were ready to resume work quickly. “We want to give everyone their rights,” Mr Haddad said outside the courthouse. “We want to build a new Syria and to keep the work, but with new methods.” But a UN official said some government services had been paralysed as worried state employees stayed at home. The public sector “has just come to a complete and abrupt halt,” said Adam Abdelmoula, UN resident and humanitarian co-ordinator for Syria, noting, for example, that an aid flight carrying urgently needed medical supplies had been put on hold after aviation employees abandoned their jobs. “This is a country that has had one government for 53 years and then suddenly all of those who have been demonised by the public media are now in charge in the nation’s capital,” Mr Abdelmoula told The Associated Press. “I think it will take a couple of days and a lot of assurance on the part of the armed groups for these people to return to work again.” In a video shared on a rebel messaging channel, Mr al-Sharaa said: “You will see there are skills” among the rebels. The Kremlin said Russia has granted political asylum to Mr Assad, a decision made by President Vladimir Putin. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on Mr Assad’s specific whereabouts and said Mr Putin did not plan to meet with him. Damascus was quiet Monday, with life slowly returning to normal, though most shops and public institutions were closed. In public squares, some people were still celebrating. Civilian traffic resumed, but there was no public transport. Long lines formed in front of bakeries and other food stores. There was little sign of any security presence though in some areas, small groups of armed men were stationed in the streets.

None

A 16th-century secret passageway built for the ruling family of Florence, Italy, has opened to the public for the first time in history. The Corridoio Vasariano or Vasari Corridor, a walking trail through the center of the Tuscan city, began to allow pedestrians on its 2,460-foot passage on Friday, CNN reported. The pathway was constructed in 1565 for Duke of Florence Cosimo I de’ Medici of the Medici dynasty, which ruled Florence for over 300 years. It connects three of the city’s landmarks — the Palazzo Vecchio, its town hall, the Uffizi Galleries, once the rulers’ offices, now an art museum, and Palazzo Pitti, the palace where the family lived. The corridor was a “mythical place for the Western world” and a “parallel city within the city,” Uffizi director Simone Verde told the outlet. The private trial — which consists of a covered walkway of terracotta bricks, with large porthole windows and 106 steps — was built in just five months by Renaissance painter and architect Giorgio Vasari. Its purpose was to provide the ruling family with a safe way to travel between work and home, and even restricted to members of the Medici’s staff were restricted from entering. Its renovation, which took eight years, cost close to $11.5 million, according to The Art Newspaper . Prior to Friday’s unveiling, it was sometimes open for exclusive access for a steep fee, but in 2016 it shuttered for safety reasons. Tickets now cost 43 euros, or $45, and also include entry to the Uffizi Galleries, home to countless treasures by Michelangelo, Raphael, Caravaggio and more. The construction of the Corridoio Vasariano, which used to be filled with 1,000 pieces of art from the 18th century, illustrates the political family’s connection to culture, Verde said. “This was new to the Renaissance — the cultural element of government,” he told the outlet. “The culture created here was the motor for all the courts of modern Europe.” A visit to the revamped corridor, he said, “isn’t just a fantastic destination, but a trip to a vision of the world.” Sightseers, who are able to tour Corridoio Vasariano in groups of 25, are able to use the passageway to avoid the crowds in the city. They will also get a breathtaking view of the area, since the corridor is situated on top of buildings, palazzos towers and the famed Ponte Vecchio, the arch bridge over the Arno River.