Traffic stops and hallways clear as the diva arrives, her attendants escorting her backstage ahead of her rendition of the role she’s perfected over years of delighting audiences.”You’ve got this, Wanda,” one opera manager says as she heads inside.Before the show, she gets a quick pedicure touch-up — her hooves tend to pick up hay and debris.Wanda is, after all, a donkey.She’s played roles in classic New York Metropolitan Opera productions including “La Boheme” and “The Barber of Seville” since 2022.In Act II of “La Boheme” — Puccini’s popular if heartbreaking portrayal of 19th-century Paris — Wanda joins hundreds of performers including diners, shoppers and vendors.The donkey pulls the colorful cart of Parpignol, who peddles toys to children in the spectacular street market scene that also literally features a horse-drawn carriage.But Wanda and her colleague Max — the elegant brown horse who takes the stage after the donkey exits — are pros, calmly hitting their marks.Their handlers don cloaks alongside the animals during the performance, while Wanda’s costume includes a magenta cone hat with multi-colored gems and a frilly collar.As they wait in a holding area for their cues, Max usually naps, handler Angelina Borello told AFP during one performance. Wanda gets visits and pets from people including actor Gregory Warren, who plays Parpignol.Wearing elaborate clown make-up, he pats his co-star lovingly.”I think it comforts them a little bit just to know who’s there and who’s dressed like a clown,” Warren said. “She’s very chill. It’s a lot of fun.””It adds an energy, I think especially for the kids on the stage, to get to see a live animal in action in the middle of it all.”- ‘Confidence’ -Wanda debuted at the Met after her predecessor Sir Gabriel retired to Maryland, where he lives on a farm as a companion to a mare whose partner passed.When she’s scheduled for several opera roles in a short period, Wanda lives at stables in the New York borough of the Bronx to minimize her time on the road. When she has longer stretches off, she resides in upstate New York. She also has regular gigs in Palm Sunday processions in Manhattan.”She’s fabulous,” said Nancy Novograd, the owner of the agency All Tame Animals.Animals well-disposed to show business have similar qualities as people born to perform, Novograd said.”What I’m looking for is confidence. I’m looking for an animal that can walk into an unusual environment and maintain its focus,” she told AFP.On any given day, Novograd’s agency might be working on a commercial shoot with horses on the beach or waxworms appearing in a television show.Stage manager Hester Warren-Steijn said the logistics of working with live animals is an intricate dance — much like everything else backstage at the Met, home to a complex revolving stage with hydraulic lifts.There’s always a Plan B in case something goes awry, she said. The occasional allergy to equine hair crops up — those singers stay away to protect their voices.- Post-show peppermints -Warren-Steijn said part of the job of including animals onstage at the Met is ensuring that “they are well-treated” and “taken care of.”Animal rights advocates over the years have protested the use of live animals in stage productions, especially in Europe. The German arm of PETA notably convinced the Berlin State Opera in 2022 to stop using guinea pigs in several performances of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle.”At the Met, Warren-Steijn said the live animals in beloved productions like “La Boheme” are part of the grandeur and world-building that “this company does so well.””People want to see it,” she said. “This is the Met at its Mettiest.”According to Novograd, some animals simply aren’t right for performance. When that’s the case, it’s quickly evident to her and the trainers she works with.When “it’s overwhelming,” she said, “they should not be working.”But for some animals, “it’s something different, it’s stimulating,” she continued.”They get to be with the people they like to be with. They see new and different things.”When Wanda’s done performing, the donkey, like many high-caliber artists, demands refreshments — ideally lots of starlight peppermints.But she gets her treats only after her stroll across the stage, which lasts approximately a minute.Otherwise, Novograd said, “she’ll be asking for them constantly.”

In a parallel reality, Queen Elizabeth II gushes over cheese puffs, a gun-toting Saddam Hussein struts into a wrestling ring, and Pope John Paul II attempts skateboarding.Hyper-realistic AI videos of dead celebrities — created with apps such as OpenAI’s easy-to-use Sora — have rapidly spread online, prompting debate over the control of deceased people’s likenesses.OpenAI’s app, launched in September and widely dubbed as a deepfake machine, has unleashed a flood of videos of historical figures including Winston Churchill as well as celebrities such as Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.In one TikTok clip reviewed by AFP, Queen Elizabeth II, clad in pearls and a crown, arrives at a wrestling match on a scooter, climbs a fence, and leaps onto a male wrestler.In a separate Facebook clip, the late queen is shown praising “delightfully orange” cheese puffs in a supermarket aisle, while another depicts her playing football.But not all videos — powered by OpenAI’s Sora 2 model — have prompted laughs.In October, OpenAI blocked users from creating videos of Martin Luther King Jr. after the estate of the civil rights icon complained about disrespectful depictions.Some users created videos depicting King making monkey noises during his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech, illustrating how users can portray public figures at will, making them say or do things they never did.- ‘Maddening’ -“We’re getting into the ‘uncanny valley,'” said Constance de Saint Laurent, a professor at Ireland’s Maynooth University, referring to the phenomenon in which interactions with artificial objects are so human-like it triggers unease.”If suddenly you started receiving videos of a deceased family member, this is traumatizing,” she told AFP. “These (videos) have real consequences.” In recent weeks, the children of late actor Robin Williams, comedian George Carlin, and activist Malcolm X have condemned the use of Sora to create synthetic videos of their fathers.Zelda Williams, the daughter of Robin Williams, recently pleaded on Instagram to “stop sending me AI videos of dad,” calling the content “maddening.”An OpenAI spokesman told AFP that while there were “strong free speech interests in depicting historical figures,” public figures and their families should have ultimate control over their likeness.For “recently deceased” figures, he added, authorized representatives or estate owners can now request that their likeness not be used in Sora.- ‘Control likeness’ -“Despite what OpenAI says about wanting people to control their likeness, they have released a tool that decidedly does the opposite,” Hany Farid, co-founder of GetReal Security and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told AFP.”While they (mostly) stopped the creation of MLK Jr. videos, they are not stopping users from co-opting the identity of many other celebrities.””Even with OpenAI putting some safeguards to protect MLK Jr. there will be another AI model that does not, and so this problem will surely only get worse,” said Farid.That reality was underscored in the aftermath of Hollywood director Rob Reiner’s alleged murder this month, as AFP fact-checkers uncovered AI-generated clips using his likeness spreading online.As advanced AI tools proliferate, the vulnerability is no longer confined to public figures: deceased non-celebrities may also have their names, likenesses, and words repurposed for synthetic manipulation.Researchers warn that the unchecked spread of synthetic content — widely called AI slop — could ultimately drive users away from social media.”The issue with misinformation in general is not so much that people believe it. A lot of people don’t,” said Saint Laurent.”The issue is that they see real news and they don’t trust it anymore. And this (Sora) is going to massively increase that.”burs-ac/des

US and Ukrainian envoys issued a joint statement on Sunday that hailed “productive and constructive” talks in Miami but did not announce any apparent breakthrough in efforts to end the war with Russia.Top representatives from both Ukraine and Russia, as well as Kyiv’s European allies, have been in southern Florida over the past several days for a series of separate talks hosted by US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.The meetings were the latest in a weeks-long diplomatic blitz over plans to end the war, after Washington last month presented a 28-point proposal widely seen as echoing the Kremlin’s demands.It has since been redrafted following Ukraine and Europe’s involvement, though its contents have not been publicly disclosed.”Over the last three days in Florida, the Ukrainian delegation held a series of productive and constructive meetings with American and European partners,” Witkoff and Ukraine’s top negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said in separate statements on X.They said a bilateral US-Ukraine meeting focused on developing and aligning positions on “four key documents” — a “20-point plan,” a “Multilateral security guarantee framework,” a “US Security guarantee framework for Ukraine” and an “economic & prosperity plan.””Particular attention was given to discussing timelines and the sequencing of next steps,” they said, without announcing any further meetings.National security advisors from Kyiv’s European allies “also joined the discussions to align on a shared strategic approach between Ukraine, the United States, and Europe,” the statements added.Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev was also in southern Florida and met with the US delegation, which included billionaire real estate developer Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.Witkoff on Sunday similarly said that the meetings with Dmitriev were “productive and constructive.”Earlier, the Kremlin said recent proposed changes to the plan to end the war were a non-starter.Dmitriev “should receive information about what has been developed by the Americans and Europeans” in the plan and report that back to Moscow later, Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV.Moscow, which invaded Ukraine in February 2022, sees Europe as pro-war and argues that its participation in the talks only hinders them.- War rages on -While little is known of the latest peace plans, Kyiv is likely to be expected to surrender some territory — a prospect resented by many Ukrainians — in exchange for US security guarantees.Though envoys from both Moscow and Kyiv were in town, the Kremlin had earlier ruled out three-way talks.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky earlier described the talks as “constructive” and said they were “moving at a fairly rapid pace.”He nevertheless cautioned that “much depends on whether Russia feels the need to end the war for real.”He also hailed this week as “historic” for Ukraine, thanking Europe for pledging $100 billion of funding over the next two years.Moscow’s troops have been steadily advancing at the eastern front in recent months. Putin on Friday hailed the Russian army’s territorial gains — and threatened more in the coming weeks.Just over the week, “Russia has launched approximately 1,300 attack drones, nearly 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and 9 missiles of various types” against Ukraine, Zelensky said.Most of them have pummeled the Black Sea region of Odesa, where relentless strikes wrought havoc on ports, bridges and energy facilities, killing eight people Saturday. In the eastern Sumy region, Russian troops attempted a breakthrough in an area previously spared from an intense ground offensive. Russian forces forcibly moved 50 people from a local village, said Kyiv.”Russian invaders have stolen five dozen civilian people, mostly elderly women, from a tiny Ukrainian village Grabovske, right across the state border in the Sumy region,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said. Russia made no comment on the matter.