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Colette Maze has been playing piano for more than a century, and is still drawing thousands of fans on social media.
Born in June 1914, before the outbreak of World War I and when one of her favorite composers, Claude Debussy, was still alive, the French pianist practices four hours a day and is about to release her seventh album, "108 Years of Piano".
From her apartment overlooking the Seine river in Paris, Maze moves cautiously between the three pianos in her living room, but retains a youthful enthusiasm.
"Me? I'm young," she says with a smile.
"Age is not something I'm interested in. There are people who are forever young, amazed by everything, and then there are people who don't care about anything and never loved anything, even their man -- can you imagine?" she adds.
'Piano is my life'
Maze was a piano teacher for much of her life, and it was only after turning 100 that she started building a significant fanbase -- through her Facebook page.
Many are inspired by her continuing good health and refusal to give up the traditional French pleasures of wine, cheese and chocolate.
"She gives people strength -- that's why she has such crazy success," said her son, journalist Fabrice Maze, adding with pride that she is one of the few people over 100 releasing albums.
She still remembers the sound of "Big Bertha", the huge cannon used by the German army during World War I, but most of her memories revolve around her instrument.
"When I was little, I suffered from asthma and my mother would play violin with my piano teacher -- it would calm me," she says.
"Piano is my life, my friend. I need to feel it and hear it," she adds, before offering a rendition of Debussy's "Reflections in the Water".
Maze began playing at five, and despite reluctance from her parents, she won a place at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris with teachers including the renowned Alfred Cortot.
Cortot was known for a method of relaxing all the muscles of the body -- which Maze credits with sparing her from arthritis.
The other secret to her youth? "I did a lot of dancing," she says. "I need to feel my muscles, my abdominals, my thighs, my arms. All that must be alive."
© 2023 AFP
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The U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate Sergeant at Arms on Friday jointly issued a statement warning they "anticipate" Trump protests across the country. The statement is not time-specific, and it states it has no information on "credible threats," but some Democratic offices are allowing staffers to work from home Friday and Tuesday.
"The Sergeant at Arms and United States Capitol Police (USCP) anticipate demonstration activity across the country related to the indictment of former President Trump. While law enforcement is not tracking any specific, credible threats against the Capitol or state offices, there is potential for demonstration activity. USCP is working with law enforcement partners, so you may observe a greater law enforcement presence on Capitol Hill," the statement reads.
"The SAA and USCP are monitoring the potential nationwide impacts to Senate state offices," it adds.
The House Sergeant at Arms was conspicuously absent from the statement. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has control over that office.
Additionally, Axios is reporting, "several House Democrats are allowing staffers to work from home as a safety precaution," noting that "the memory of Trump supporters ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 is still fresh on the mind."
U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) is allowing staff to work from home for safety reasons. She told Axios, "I don't ever want to see a Jan. 6 again."
"I've been in the Trump hate tunnel, Donald Trump has gone after me, and quite frankly I don't have security. I don't have entourages."
She's not the only Democrat to raise concerns.
"Much of the language from the former President and his devotees is similar to what inspired Jan. 6th," U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips said. "I'm concerned about safety for my colleagues and my staff."
Meanwhile, House Republicans are issuing full-throated support for Trump and calling for protests.
U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was called out by name in a six-page letter Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg sent to Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Friday morning, announced she will be in New York on Tuesday to support Trump when he is arraigned. She has posted several tweets since Trump was indicted.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy issued a statement Thursday seemingly designed to gin up rage and action in the MAGA base.
"Alvin Bragg has irreparably damaged our country in an attempt to interfere in our Presidential election. As he routinely frees violent criminals to terrorize the public, he weaponized our sacred system of justice against President Donald Trump. The American people will not tolerate this injustice, and the House of Representatives will hold Alvin Bragg and his unprecedented abuse of power to account."
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Luisa Jimenez thought she was visiting an office to regularize her stay in Mexico, but instead she found herself detained in an immigration center similar to the one where dozens of migrants perished in a fire.
"It's a holding cell, a detention center, like we're criminals," the Venezuelan migrant told AFP in Ciudad Juarez, where 39 people died and 27 were injured in the blaze that began on Monday.
Jimenez said the facility where she was held was in Tuxtla Gutierrez in the southern state of Chiapas.
She was taken there with the promise that she would be given a permit to remain in Mexico while seeking asylum in the United States.
Jimenez was actually notified that she had to leave the country, she added.
"It's a disgusting place," the 56-year-old woman said, describing conditions similar to those in Ciudad Juarez.
The tragedy there unfolded after a migrant lit a fire in apparent protest over deportations, according to authorities, who have accused immigration officials and guards of failing to even try to evacuate the migrants.
Arrest warrants have been issued against three officials, two private guards and a migrant who allegedly started the fire, as part of a homicide investigation.
Just a week earlier, Moises Chavez was held in the same cell, which he described as a smelly room where guards treat migrants with disdain.
"There are no fire extinguishers or smoke detectors, but there are cameras," the 41-year-old Nicaraguan told AFP.
It was the second time that Chavez had been taken to the National Institute of Migration facility, where the fire claimed the lives of 18 Guatemalans, seven Salvadorans, seven Venezuelans, six Hondurans and one Colombian.
- Harsh conditions -
Video surveillance footage appeared to show guards leaving the 68 detainees locked inside as flames spread and smoke filled the room.
Ostensibly, such facilities are service and accommodation centers for foreigners who cannot prove their legal stay in Mexico.
In reality "you're treated like a prisoner," said Yusleidy Garcia from Venezuela, who was detained in Ciudad Juarez, where women and men are held in separate places.
"It was cold at night. They take away all your belongings. In the cell where I was there were 150 people" of various nationalities, she said.
Such conditions are in sharp contrast with rules issued by the government in 2012 requiring adequate food, hygiene protocols and protection of people and property in the event of riots.
Migrants are not supposed to remain in temporary-stay centers like the one that caught fire for more than seven days.
Some are transferred to other immigration facilities -- where the stay must not exceed 15 days -- to resolve their situation and receive legal assistance, and may be deported.
- 'Not shelters' -
Mexican immigration last year detained at least 281,149 people in "overcrowded" centers and deported at least 98,299 people, including unaccompanied children, Amnesty International said this week in an annual human rights report.
Following Monday's fire, the rights group called for "an end to the practices that have caused untold damage, including torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, to thousands of migrants who have passed through these centers."
"These facilities are not 'shelters,' but detention centers, and people are not 'housed' there, but deprived of their freedom," Amnesty said, alluding to statements by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
The United Nations office in Mexico noted that the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration -- an intergovernmentally negotiated agreement -- outlaws arbitrary detentions and calls for legal detentions to be as short as possible.
Other international standards advocate alternatives to arrest, the UN said.
Jimenez's detention lasted for two days, following a long and dangerous journey during which she said she slept next to the bodies of migrants who died in the Darien jungle between Colombia and Panama.
Outraged at being locked up when she was only trying to regularize her status, she recounted asking an immigration official: "Is it a crime to migrate?"
"She turned her back on me and left," Jimenez said.
© Agence France-Presse
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