Rome Band Brings Eurovision Back Where Song Contests Began
Voice of America
ROME - Italy woke up Sunday to news that a glam rock band who got their start busking on Rome's main shopping drag had won the Eurovision Song Contest and was bringing next year's competition back to the place where Europe's song contests began.
From the premier's office on down, congratulations poured in Sunday from the Italian establishment for the rather anti-establishment group Maneskin, giving Italy a sorely needed boost after a dreadful year as one of the countries worst hit by the coronavirus. The band was the bookmakers' favorite going into the Eurovision finale and sealed the win early Sunday with the highest popular vote in the enormously entertaining, and incredibly kitsch, annual song festival. "We are out of our minds!" Florence's Uffizi Galleries tweeted, echoing Maneskin's winning song lyrics, along with an image of a Caravaggio Medusa and the hashtag #Uffizirock.Police and forensic officials outside Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan's residential building after he was operated for stab injuries following a scuffle with an intruder at his home in Mumbai, Jan. 16, 2025. FILE - Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan arrives for a promotional event of his upcoming Hindi-language neo-noir film "Vikram Vedha" in Mumbai, Sept. 7, 2022.
Nasrieen Habib, left, and Makiya Amin pull their snow tubes on top of a hill during an outing organized by the group Habib founded to promote outdoors activities among Muslim women, at Elm Creek Park Reserve in Maple Grove, Minn., Jan. 4, 2025. Nawal Hirsi, right, goes snow tubing with her family as part of a group promoting outdoors activities by Muslim women, at Elm Creek Park Reserve in Maple Grove, Minn., on Jan. 4, 2025.