Tag: points of interest

Real Madrid player Vinícius Jr. racially abused during Spanish La Liga match | CNN

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CNN
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Vinícius Jr., Real Madrid’s Brazilian forward, was subjected to racist chanting during his team’s defeat to Valencia at the Mestalla Stadium in Spain’s La Liga, according to club manager Carlo Ancelotti.

The flashpoint of the game came in the second half, where after a stoppage in play, an animated Vinicius Jr. pointed out a fan in the stands for the alleged abuse before engaging with the fans in the section of the crowd in question.

La Liga TV broadcasters said there was an announcement in the stadium calling on fans to not insult the players or throw objects onto the pitch.

The referee’s official report from the game described the incident.

“Racist insults: in the 73rd minute, a spectator from the southern ‘Mario Kempes’ tribune directed himself towards player No. 20 of Real Madrid CF Mr. Vinicius José De Oliveira Do Nascimiento, screaming at him: ‘Monkey, monkey’ which led to the activation of the racism protocol, notifying the pitch delegate so that a corresponding warning over the loudspeaker would be made. The match was halted until said announcement was aired over the loudspeaker of the stadium,” it reads.

Vinícius Jr. was sent off in the final minutes of the game for his involvement in an altercation with Valencia player Hugo Duro.

Ancelotti addressed the situation after the game to Movistar Plus, saying, “I don’t want to talk about football today … when a whole stadium is chanting ‘monkey’ at a player and the manager has to think about taking off a player because of it, there is something bad happening in this league.”

In a separate interview with reporters, Ancelotti suggested referees should call off matches in other instances of racism in the league. The Italian said, “I’m very sad because La Liga is a league with big teams with a good atmosphere. This we have to get rid of. We are in 2023, racism does not have to exist … the only way for me is to stop the game.”

On his personal Instagram account, Vinícius Jr. posted a story saying, “The prize that racists won was my expulsion! ‘This isn’t football, this is @LaLiga’”

The Real Madrid player then posted a longer statement on his Twitter. “It was not the first time, nor the second, nor the third,” it said. “Racism is normal in La Liga. The competition thinks it’s normal, the Federation does too and the opponents encourage it. I’m so sorry. The championship that once belonged to Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Cristiano and Messi today belongs to racists.

“A beautiful nation, which welcomed me and which I love, but which agreed to export the image of a racist country to the world. I’m sorry for the Spaniards who don’t agree, but today, in Brazil, Spain is known as a country of racists.

“And unfortunately, for everything that happens each week, I have no defense. I agree. But I am strong and I will fight to the end against racists. Even if that is far from here.”

Real Madrid quoted Ancelotti on its official social media but offered no official statement immediately in the wake of the match.

Valencia issued a statement shortly after the conclusion of the match on its website.

“Valencia CF wishes to publicly condemn any type of insult, attack or downgrading in football,” it reads. “The club, in its dedication to the values of respect and sportsmanship, reaffirms publicly its position against physical and verbal violence in stadiums and regrets the events which occurred during the game of Matchday 35 of La Liga against Real Madrid.

“Although it is an isolated incident, insults towards any footballer of the rival team have no place in football and do not fit with the values and identity of Valencia CF. The club is investigating the events and will take the most severe measures. In the same vein, Valencia CF condemns whichever offense and asks for the maximum respect towards our own fans.”

Despite other Real Madrid players also saying that monkey chants were made towards Vinícius Jr., including goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Valencia rejected Ancelotti’s claim that the stadium was chanting ‘monkey’. “Valencia CF can’t tolerate someone accusing our fans of being racist, we strongly reject Ancelotti’s comments,” the post said.

La Liga issued a statement of their own, announcing an investigation into events at the Mestalla.

“In the face of the incidents which took place during Valencia CF vs Real Madrid CF in the Estadio de Mestalla, LaLiga wishes to inform that it has requested all the available images to investigate what happened,” it said. “LaLiga will also investigate the images in which racist insults were allegedly uttered towards Vinicius Jr. outside of the grounds of Mestalla.”

Vinícius Jr. has been subjected to racism repeatedly this season, as noted by the La Liga statement. The league’s authorities told CNN in March they do not have the power to punish fans or clubs for racist abuse. Instead, La Liga can only pass on any incidents of abuse to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) or regional prosecutors, who deal with them as legal cases before sporting punishments are handed out.

“LaLiga has been proactive against all racist incidents against the Real Madrid CF player Vinicius Jr,” the league’s statement continued, before listing nine separate incidents from the past two seasons it had reported to the Competition Committee of RFEF, the State Commission against Violence, Racism, Xenophobia and Intolerance in Sport, the hate crimes prosecutors and the courts.

Several prominent names in football offered their support to Vinícius Jr. Former England and Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand said on his Instagram, “Bro you need protecting….who is protecting @vinijr in Spain?

“How many times do we need to see this young man subjected to this s***?? I see pain, I see disgust, I see him needing help…and the authorities don’t do s*** to help him. People need to stand together and demand more from the authorities that run our game. No one deserves this, yet you are allowing it. There needs to be a unified approach to this otherwise it will be swept under the carpet AGAIN.”

Milan forward Rafael Leão tweeted, “When will it end?” in response to the incident.

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May 22, 2023
Karakorum: Mongolia’s ancient capital is a cultural delight | CNN

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Editor’s Note: This CNN Travel series is, or was, sponsored by the country it highlights. CNN retains full editorial control over subject matter, reporting and frequency of the articles and videos within the sponsorship, in compliance with our policy.

Karakorum, Mongolia
CNN
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Karakorum is known by many names and even more reputations. Once the home of the world’s most famous Khan, this ancient city quickly became one of the Silk Road’s most important – and progressive – convergence points.

Located in Mongolia’s Övörkhangai province, Karakorum and its surrounding landscapes are among the best places to visit in Mongolia today.

Located just 350 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar, the country’s modern-day capital city, the road to Karakorum is an essential drive on any Mongolia travel itinerary not only for its beauty, but for its history.

It’s this same East meets West route that was once traveled by Turks, Chinese, Uighurs, Sogdians, Hungarians, Greeks, Armenians, Alans and Georgians. By diplomats, traders, artisans and merchants all looking to trade silk, spices, tea, ivory, cotton, wool and precious metals, as well as ideas.

Because of this, Karakorum quickly became a place where cultures would intertwine and learn to live in harmony with one another. Despite many of the connotations about Genghis Khan and his empire many of us hold today, Karakorum was a city built on understanding and acceptance.

It was a place where different religious practices were accepted, with at least 12 different pagan temples, two mosques, a church and at least one Buddhist temple located inside the city’s walls.

The city’s glory was, however, short lived. Kublai Khan eventually moved the empire’s capital to Beijing only 50 years after development first began. With harsh temperatures and a vulnerability to attacks, the city’s inhabitants didn’t stay around for long after that, and Karakorum quickly turned into a pile of rubble.

The Karakorum we see today may be nothing like it was in the days of the Great Khan, but with a recent vow from the president of Mongolia to revitalize this culturally significant city in the coming years, there’s a brighter future on the horizon.

Until then, there are still plenty of reasons to visit.

As a country with a nomadic culture Mongolia doesn’t have many traces of its past still standing. Even today, much of the Mongol’s history as one of the largest and most powerful empires in the world is a mystery still being pieced together.

Besides “The Secret History of the Mongols,” not many written accounts from the Mongolian Empire, as told by Mongols, remain. Archeological sites around Karakorum are still filling in many blanks.

Excavations in and around Karakorum have discovered paved roads, remains of brick and adobe buildings, floor-heating systems, bed stoves, evidence of the processing of copper, gold, silver, iron, glass, jewels, bones and birch bark, as well as coins from China and Central Asia, ceramics and four kilns.

Many of these discoveries, and the stories around them, can be found in the Karakorum Museum, a sleek and modern attraction in the heart of the city.

None of the artifacts and exhibitions, however, are as enthralling as the tale of the Silver Tree – a once ornate fountain that was the centerpiece of the Mongol capital.

According to the legend, the tree was adorned with silver fruit and flowing with various alcoholic drinks, including wine, fermented mare’s milk (airag), rice wine and honey mead, all for the grandsons of Genghis Khan and his invited guests.

The Silver Tree hasn’t been discovered and was most likely dismantled during one of the city’s raids, but the tale of it is enough to fill our own cups just like it once did those of the Mongol royals.

Back in 1585 when Karakorum was abandoned and falling into ruin, the city’s salvation came in the form of a Buddhist monastery commissioned by the then Khalkha-Mongolian prince.

It was the prince’s meeting with the third Dalai Lama, and his declaration of Tibetan Buddhism as the state religion of Mongolia, that would make Erdene Zuu Monastery the first Buddhist monastery in Mongolia.

During the Soviet purges of the 1930s, Stalin himself saved a few of the main temples from being destroyed, calling them symbols of religious freedom. The monastery complex was eventually converted into a museum.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the monastery again became active, but nothing like its former days. At its peak, the monastery was home to more than 100 temples, around 300 yurts, and 1,000 monks in residence.

Today, Erdene Zuu Monastery is one of Mongolia’s most sacred Buddhist temples, with Buddhist-practicing Mongols vowing to visit the complex at least once in their lives.

The Laviran Temple at the back of the complex is where monks can be found chanting, practicing musical instruments and providing sacred readings daily.

Another Karakorum highlight is the Erdenesiin Khuree Mongolian Calligraphy Center – among the best reasons to visit Mongolia, especially this summer.

With a recent expansion and the ability to offer a wider array of workshops and exhibitions that go beyond Mongolian calligraphy, the center focuses on promoting all aspects of Mongolian heritage.

Concerts featuring traditional Mongolian music as well as masterclasses on khoomei, or traditional Mongolian throat singing, will be held throughout the summer.

In September, the center plans to open a ceramic workshop.

While Karakorum is often considered a stop along the route to somewhere else, this culturally rich city deserves closer attention. Visitors should plan to spend at least two days exploring this ancient area, booking at least one night at one of these hotels, guesthouses or tourist ger (yurt) camps.

The modern and clean Ikh Khorum Hotel and Restaurant stands out as one of the city’s most elegant choices. The hotel features 27 rooms, a sauna, restaurant, bar and lounge. The hotel is within walking distance to Erdene Zuu Monastery, Karakorum Museum, and the Erdenesiin Khuree Calligraphy Center.

While Silver Tree Guest House is still in its opening phases, staying here feels like you’ve been invited into someone’s home. And that’s also because it is. Silver Tree Guest House is a family-run guest house offering yurt stays, rooms with toilets and showers, and a restaurant that can accommodate both meat eaters and vegetable lovers.

It’s also the first building in Mongolia to utilize a biogas heating system and can speak several languages, including English, French, Russian, Polish, and Mongolian.

For the real yurt experience, Anja Camp makes the list as one of the best in Karakorum, offering ecologically healthy and natural meals from their three-season greenhouse as well as having a focus on environmental projects.

The camp and its founders have started initiatives to grow sea buckthorn to stop soil erosion, using the trees to create creams, liqueurs, organic juice, organic oil, and – a Mongolian favorite – sea buckthorn tea. They also have a sister lodge in Elsen Tasarkhai, the Sweet Gobi Geolodge, an hour outside of Karakorum that’s worth checking into if you’re in the area.

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May 15, 2023
Where to travel in 2023: The best destinations to visit | CNN

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CNN
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As peak vacation season sails into view and the world shakes off the last shackles of the pandemic, it feels like the appetite for hitting the road has never been greater.

International tourism reached 80% of pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2023, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, with an estimated 235 million tourists traveling internationally in January, February and March. And experts are cautiously optimistic about a continued travel rebound.

Demand is high, with many popular destinations booking out earlier in the year.

Thankfully, there’s so much out there still to see and do.

Travel expert explains why you should book your dream vacation now

Here are 23 destination ideas from CNN Travel to get you started:

We could list new openings in Poland – such as Hotel Verte, the new Autograph Collection property in Warsaw, which threw open its gilded doors (it’s in a humongous Baroque palace) last August. But the reason you should visit Poland in 2023 isn’t for the chance to stay in a place fit for royalty. It’s to show solidarity with a country which has, in turn, shown solidarity to the people of Ukraine.

Sharing a 300-plus-mile border with a country under attack has meant that Poland has taken in more Ukrainian refugees than anywhere else. Add to that plummeting tourist numbers (though they’re on the rise again), and you have a tricky situation.

So whether you fancy that Warsaw palace, a city break to the likes of Krakow, Gdansk, Wrocław or Poznań – all hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border – or to get away from it all in the forests, lakes and mountains of the countryside – now’s your chance to do some good by taking a vacation. – Julia Buckley

Back in April, thousands of people descended on the town of Exmouth and the greater Ningaloo Peninsula, to witness a rare total solar eclipse as it became visible over the northwestern edge of Australia.

Organizers spent more than a year planning for the event, which lasted about a minute, and featured musical performances, educational opportunities to learn about science and astronomy, and a three-day festival.

But the state of Western Australia offers much more than some 60 seconds of wonder.

Spanning one-third of the entire continent of Australia, it stretches from the lively, growing state capital of Perth across deserts including the Great Victoria and Great Sandy to the wine country of Margaret River, the dramatic clifftops of the Kimberley and the quokka-covered Rottnest Island. – Lilit Marcus

England’s port city of Liverpool, best known around the world as the birthplace of The Beatles, has added another chapter to its musical legacy.

It’s the host city of Eurovision 2023, the spangly extravaganza of song that brings an influx of thousands of flag-waving fans from across the continent. The annual event is an opportunity for the city to bounce back after the ignominy of being stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage status in 2021.

In June, the city will celebrate 25 years of the Liverpool Biennial contemporary visual arts festival, as more than 30 international artists and collectives take over spaces in the city until September.

England is also marking the Year of the Coast in 2023, with food festivals and beach cleans taking place along the country’s shores. Just a half hour from Liverpool city center by train, Crosby Beach is the permanent home of sculptor Antony Gormley’s “Another Place,” where 100 cast-iron figures stand facing out to sea. – Maureen O’Hare

Charleston parades its past like no other US city, but it often glossed over the history of its Black residents. It’s been taking steps to fix that.

Enter the much-delayed International African American Museum, which is now expected to open in late June.

Located on the shoreline of the Cooper River in the spot where many Africans first set foot in North America, it will explore the lives of slaves and their descendants.

Visitors in late May and early June can enjoy the world-renowned Spoleto Festival featuring opera, theater, dance, musical acts and artist talks.

In March, foodies headed to the Charleston Wine and Food Festival to sample Lowcountry favorites.

For fancy Southern fare, try Magnolias. Opened in 1990, it helped spur the city’s culinary renaissance. For something informal, try Bertha’s Kitchen in North Charleston, where red rice with sausage, fried chicken and lima beans rule. The eatery even caught attention of “Roadfood” author Michael Stern. – Forrest Brown

Self-effacing Vilnius admitted in an ad campaign this year that nobody really knows where it is. If their brilliant video didn’t make you want to book a trip there immediately, perhaps this will: the capital of Lithuania celebrated its 700th anniversary on January 25, 2023.

To mark the milestone, a packed program of events, including music festivals and exhibitions, are being held throughout the year. But use the anniversary as a push to visit rather than following a program religiously.

The entire city center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site – putting it up there with its fellow V-cities, Venice and Vienna. Vilnius makes it on the list thanks to its Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque buildings, all sitting on a medieval street plan, but it’s best known for its Baroque architecture.

Don’t miss the frothy bell tower of St. John’s church (you can climb it for sweeping city views) or the church of St. Casimir, topped by a giant crown. Got an eye for social media? This is Europe’s only capital city that allows hot air balloons to cruise over the city skyline. – JB

Brilliant blue waters, expansive coral reefs and hundreds of peaceful islands: Fiji is not a hard sell. But why go there in 2023? For one, the country only reopened post-Covid at the end of 2021, meaning that visitor numbers to the South Pacific paradise have yet to fully rebound.

While the country is spoiled for underwater beauty, take an opportunity to explore its above-ground treasures, too. The country’s lone UNESCO World Heritage site is the town of Levuka, a former capital and an important port, which is studded with British colonial-era buildings amid coconut and mango trees.

To learn about the local Indigenous communities, travelers can take part in a kava welcoming ceremony – named for the traditional drink at its center – or enjoy a lovo, a meal cooked by hot coals in an underground pit covered with banana leaves.

Fiji Airways now has direct flights from Los Angeles and San Francisco, making it relatively easy to get to the islands. As the Fijians say, bula! – LM

As the fate of the Amazon rainforest hangs in the balance, two eco-lodges around Manaus – the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state, and gateway to the river – have used their pandemic pause to get even more environmentally friendly.

Juma Amazon Lodge, about 50 miles south of the city, is now fully powered by a new $400,000 solar plant, whose 268 double panels swagger nearly 40 feet into the air above the canopy (meaning no trees had to be cut). They’ve also built a biogas system to increase the efficiency of organic waste treatment, reducing annual carbon emissions by eight tons.

Meanwhile, Anavilhanas Jungle Lodge, northwest of Manaus on the Rio Negro river, opened an off-grid “advanced base” during the pandemic that’s 30 miles from the main lodge and accessible only via river.

Guests can take long jungle hikes through territory home to jaguars, pumas and giant armadillos in what’s one of the Amazon region’s most remote hotel facilities, then spend the afternoon in a hammock or by the pool. For 2023, the lodge is planning overnight stays in a creekside tent for small groups.

Don’t miss Manaus itself – eating behemoth Amazonian fish outside the pink 1896 opera house is a bucket list experience. – JB

There’s been no shortage of reasons to visit Greece’s second city in recent times, with a UNESCO-endorsed local food scene that recently celebrated the refurb and reopening of its century-old Modiano food market.

Throw in a popular waterfront and proximity to beautiful beaches and inland mountains, Thessaloniki is surely a contender for one of Europe’s best city-break destinations.

What could make it even better? How about a gleaming new metro system? All being well, November 2023 should see the opening of the main line of an infrastructure megaproject that will eventually connect the city’s downtown to its international airport. Driverless trains will whisk passengers through tunnels whose excavation has added to Thessaloniki’s already rich catalog of archeological discoveries, many of which will be on display in specially created museum stations. – Barry Neild

January 2023 saw the official opening of Rwanda’s most exciting hotel yet: Sextantio Rwanda, a collection of traditionally crafted huts on an island on Lake Kivu, one of Africa’s largest lakes.

It’s the first project outside Italy for Daniele Kihlgren, whose part-hotel, part-living history projects keep local tradition alive. A nonprofit delivering money straight to local communities, Sextantio sees guests fishing on the 1,000-square-mile lake, paddling in dug-out canoes, trying local banana beer and wildlife-spotting – and not just the chickens, cows, pigs and goats that roam around the property.

Of course, you’ll want to see gorillas. Adjoining Volcanoes National Park, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund opened the 4,500-square meter Ellen DeGeneres Campus in 2022. Its visitor center includes exhibits, virtual reality gorilla “encounters” and nature trails.

Over in Akagera National Park, white rhinos – transferred from South Africa in 2021 to aid conservation – are already calving. It’s easier to get there, too. A new route from London joins Brussels, Dubai, Guangzhou and Mumbai as the only direct flights to Kigali from outside the African continent. – JB

Voted the world’s most sustainable destination in the world for six years running, Sweden’s second-biggest city is finally emerging from the shadow of Stockholm.

Once a major trading and shipping town, Gothenburg is now considered to be one of the greenest destinations in Europe, with 274 square meters (2,950 square feet) of green space per citizen, while 95% of its hotels are certified as eco-friendly.

Although Gothenburg officially turned 400 in 2021, the celebrations were put on ice because of the global pandemic. But they’re finally taking place in 2023, so it’s a great time to visit.

Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav, who celebrates 50 years on the throne this year, will be in town on June 4, Gothenburg’s official birthday, and the city’s major anniversary festival is being held in the Frihamnen port district from June 2 to 5, with concerts and art events among the activities on offer.

The festivities will continue throughout the summer until the September 3 kick off of Göteborgsvarvet Marathon, a new 26-mile race following on from the city’s popular half marathon on May 13. – Tamara Hardingham-Gill

When travelers think of the United Arab Emirates, the dazzling skyline of Dubai is usually what springs to mind.

But the UAE has a lot to offer nature lovers too – particularly the northernmost emirate Ras al-Khaimah, which is aiming to become the Middle East’s most sustainable destination by 2025 thanks to a new “Balanced Tourism” strategy.

Just 45 minutes from Dubai, it’s often called the “adventure Emirate,” and for good reason. Offering beaches, deserts and mountains, outdoor attractions abound, such as sand boarding, trekking, wakeboarding, skydiving, scuba diving and even the world’s longest zipline.

But it’s not all about the adrenaline rush. Ras Al Khaimah is where you’ll find the highest restaurant in the United Arab Emirates, 1484 by Puro, which sits in the emirate’s Jebel Jais Mountains. Culture seekers can head for the historic Dhayah Fort, which dates back to the Late Bronze Age (1600-1300 BC).

Where to stay? Luxury hospitality brand Anantara is opening a fabulous new resort there later this year that will offer 174 guestrooms, suites and overwater villas along with specialty restaurants and a spa. – Karla Cripps

Sharing borders with Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar, landlocked Laos has long been a must-hit spot for time-rich travelers making their way through the Southeast Asia circuit.

But now, thanks to the 2021 opening of a semi-high-speed railway, it’s easier than ever to get around the country at a quicker pace, shaving hours off journeys that previously took full days to travel.

You’re still going to have to make some hard choices – there’s a lot to see in Laos.

Towering karst peaks await visitors to adventure-haven Vang Vieng, while UNESCO-listed Luang Prabang is filled with French-colonial heritage, Buddhist ritual and natural beauty. (Luxury seekers will want to check into the Rosewood Luang Prabang, with its stylish hilltop tents)

The mysterious Plain of Jars, a megalithic archaeological site, can be found in the Xiangkhoang Plateau. For a once-in-a-lifetime experience that makes a difference, head for Bokeo Province and join one of the Gibbon Experience’s overnight treks. Guests of this tourism-based conservation project spend the night in the world’s tallest treehouses – only accessible by zipline – among wild, black-crested gibbons. – KC

Rolling hills, medieval buildings – and the officially crowned world’s best cheese. Welcome to Gruyères, Switzerland.

Everywhere you look in this tiny, hilltop town, there’s a different picture-perfect view – from the medieval market square to the turreted 13th-century castle. A doable day trip from Geneva, summer promises hiking opportunities aplenty, while winter allows for venturing to the nearby Moléson-sur-Gruyères ski resort.

To taste Gruyères’ namesake fromage, stop off at the wood-lined Chalet de Gruyères. And to learn how cheesemakers perfect this creamy goodness, head to La Maison du Gruyère factory. For further foodie delights, there’s the Maison Cailler chocolate factory – from the outside it looks like something from a Wes Anderson movie, inside it offers a glimpse into the secrets of Swiss chocolate making.

Gruyères is also home to the surreal HR Giger Museum, celebrating the work of the acclaimed Swiss artist behind the eponymous alien in the 1979 movie “Alien.” A drink at the museum’s bar, designed by Giger in an eerie skeletal aesthetic, offers an antidote to Gruyères’ fairytale vibe. – Francesca Street

A modern Indigenous restaurant in Minneapolis has earned one of the culinary world’s highest honors, and it’s not alone in shining light on Native communities in the area.

At Owamni, a James Beard Award winner for best new restaurant, Indigenous ingredients – trout, bison, sweet potatoes and more – make up “decolonized” menus where ingredients such as wheat flour and beef are absent. The restaurant is a partnership between chef Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota and Dana Thompson, who is a lineal descendant of the Wahpeton-Sisseton and Mdewakanton Dakota tribes.

Earlier this year, one of the pair’s community-owned initiatives, Indigenous Food Lab, opened a market in Minneapolis’ Midtown Global Market, a former Sears building housing businesses that represent more than 22 cultures.

The open-air Four Sisters Farmers Market (Thursdays June through October) also focuses on Indigenous products. And at the Minnesota History Center in neighboring St. Paul, the exhibit “Our Home: Native Minnesota” looks at thousands of years of Native history in the state. – Marnie Hunter

Caribbean coast destinations such as the Rosario archipelago or the UNESCO heritage list city of Cartagena are rightly top of most Colombia travel wish lists, but also deserving a look-in is the country’s somewhat unsung capital of Bogotá.

Yes, it’s a messy, traffic-snarled urban sprawl, but it’s also a high-altitude crucible of culture and cuisine. There are tours that chart the city’s transformation from graffiti wild west to incredible street art gallery.

Equally colorful are the restaurants that make the most of Colombia’s diverse natural larder of flora on menus that range from delicious peasant dishes to mind-blowing Michelin-level gastronomy. And then there’s the coffee!

The congestion (except on regular cycle-only days) thins quickly on its outskirts, allowing day trips to see historic and modern treasures. Itineraries include Lake Guatavita, where conquistadors once plundered sunken gold offerings left by indigenous Muisca people, or the majestic subterranean Zipaquirá salt cathedral. – BN

Famed for its mountain treks through ancient trails that once facilitated trade between the Himalayas and India, Nepal’s stunning Mustang Valley sits on the doorstep of Tibet.

Expect to hear a lot more about this remote destination in the coming months thanks to the arrival of the soon-to-open Shinta Mani Mustang. Part of the Bensley Collection, this all-inclusive resort perched above the small town of Jomsom in the Lower Mustang will offer luxury seekers 29 suites inspired by traditional Tibetan homes.

In addition to trekking, Mustang visitors can explore ancient villages and Buddhist monasteries. Also not to be missed, the man-made Mustang Caves sit above the Gandaki River and are filled with 2,000-year-old Buddhist sculptures and paintings.

Getting to the Mustang Valley is part of the adventure. Travelers will need to take a 25-minute flight from capital Kathmandu to Pokhara then hop on another plane for the 20-minute journey to Jomsom. The views alone might make this option more pleasing to some than the alternative – a 12-hour drive from Kathmandu. – KC

From the spectacular wildlife to the beautiful national parks and beaches, Tanzania is absolutely bursting with visual splendor.

The East African country holds a seemingly endless list of incredible sights, with Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, UNESCO world heritage site Serengeti National Park, and the Zanzibar Archipelago, among its many highlights.

This year, flag carrier Air Tanzania will launch new routes to West and Central Africa, along with the UK, in a bid to transform the country’s largest airport in Dar es Salaam into a transport and logistics hub, while construction on the country’s first toll expressway is also scheduled to begin.

Meanwhile, the Delta Hotels by Marriott brand made its Africa debut with the opening of its Dar es Salaam Oyster Bay property earlier this year. –– THG

Could this finally be the year tourists can see the Grand Egyptian Museum? After delay upon delay, the museum is expecting a 2023 opening.

GEM will be the largest museum dedicated to a single civilization, costing around $1 billion and holding the entire King Tut collection. See video here of a CNN insider visit.

If you arrive in Cairo before it opens, the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square can still scratch your antiquity itch.

While the Pyramids of Giza are the city’s tour-de-force, there’s still more to see. Start with Islamic Cairo. This area has one of the largest collections of historic Islamic architecture in the world. While there, visit the Al-Azhar mosque, which dates back to 970.

The city also has a rich Christian tradition. Coptic Cairo, part of Old Cairo, has a concentration of Christian sites that pre-date the arrival of Islam.

If you need a respite from Cairo’s cacophony, Al Azhar Park has a nice expanse of greenery and a design inspired by historic Islamic gardens. And the affluent neighborhood of Zamalek, which sits on an island in the Nile River, serves up restaurants, antique stores and swanky hotels. – FB

Yayoi Kusama has the distinction of being the best-selling living female artist on the planet. In particular, she has become a global icon for her sculptures of giant polka-dotted pumpkins, one of which was reinstalled at the pier of Naoshima, one of Japan’s “art islands,” in 2022 after being swept into the sea the year before.

However, Naoshima is so much more than its famous yellow gourd or its works by Kusama.

There are five small, walkable “art islands” in the Seto Inland Sea, which is located between the main islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku in southeastern Japan. The largest collection of things to see – not to mention the only hotel – is on Naoshima. Together, the five champion modern and contemporary art, with emphasis on Japanese artists.

Don’t come here expecting calligraphy and other classical forms. Instead, be awed by Tadao Ando’s massive stone monoliths, a tiny gallery where patrons can listen to nothing but the beats of human hearts, a makeshift thunderstorm created inside a wooden house and an exhibit where jumping in and taking a bath is intended to be part of the artistic experience. – LM

With direct flights to Belize City from about a dozen North American airports, this Central American country is a low-hassle hop for many travelers during the November to April high season.

Most visitors head directly to Belize’s Caribbean coastline. The country’s largest island, Ambergris Caye, sits next to Belize Barrier Reef – the world’s second largest coral reef system. Margaritaville Beach Resort opened on the island in March, and “eco-luxury” resort Alaia Belize opened in 2021.

Farther south, the Great Blue Hole – a massive underwater sinkhole – is an aquatic magnet for both scuba divers and aerial photographers.

But Belize offers way more than its enticing islands.

Lush rainforests, cave networks, winding rivers and rich Mayan archaeological sites invite exploration in a country that’s had an evolving sustainable tourism master plan since 2012. Ruins of the Mayan city of Altun Ha are just about an hour north of Belize City. Or farther west, Lamanai is one of Belize’s largest and most fascinating Mayan sites. – MH

Mexico is arguably as rich in culinary heritage as it is in Mesoamerican archaeological treasures, and Eva Longoria explores many distinctive flavors in her series “Searching for Mexico,” which aired on CNN this year.

The state of Oaxaca, which Longoria visits, has an especially deep well of culinary traditions. Plus, Oaxaca produces most of the world’s mezcal.

Tlayudas, known as Oaxacan pizzas, are a street food staple. A large corn tortilla is typically layered with lard, beans, traditional Oaxacan cheese, pork and other toppings such as avocado and tomato. The state is also renowned for its seven mole sauces, with recipes that may call for dozens of ingredients from chiles and sesame seeds to chocolate and dried fruit.

In the city of Oaxaca, Mercado Benito Juárez is one of many markets across the state selling items such as dried chiles, fresh produce, handicrafts and crunchy grasshoppers. To sample the state’s increasingly popular beverage, the town of Santiago Matatlán is the place for mezcal distillery tours and tastings. – MH

It doesn’t have Montreal’s French flair or Toronto’s international oomph, so the Canadian capital can get overlooked. That would be a mistake. Graceful and understated, Ottawa has its own draws.

Music lovers should take note of two Ottawa Jazz Festivals. The winter edition took place in February, and the summer edition will run from June 23-30.

If you love hockey, watch the Ottawa Senators do their NHL thing at the Canadian Tire Centre in the western suburbs. If that ticket is too pricey, check out the Ottawa 67’s, a more affordable option of junior men’s hockey games at downtown’s TD Place Arena.

The Rideau Canal turns into the world’s largest skating rink from sometime in January to late February or early March, depending on ice thickness. It’s free and accessible 24/7. When it’s warmer, it’s a great spot for people and boat watching.

A don’t-miss is Parliament Hill, home to Canada’s federal government and the visually striking Parliament buildings on a promontory overlooking the Ottawa River. – FB

There’s considerable change brewing in Uganda’s travel offerings at the moment with the East African country looking beyond the traditional staples of safari and wildlife spotting to appeal to both regional and international visitors.

Keen to revitalize post-Covid tourism in all corners of the country, not just the big-ticket businesses offering wealthy visitors a glimpse of the Big Five beasts or mountain gorillas, it’s turned to marketing its other attributes.

And why not? From the expansive shores of Lake Victoria to the snowy Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda is a beautiful wilderness playground, with opportunities for adventure including treks through the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest or up to the craters of the Virunga volcano chain or whitewater rafting along the Victoria Nile.

There’s also an emphasis on connecting visitors with Ugandan communities – promising tastes of Ugandan food, music and culture. Last year saw the launch of the Uganda Cycling Trail, a 1,600-kilometer mainly unpaved 22-stage route designed to appeal to all levels of cyclist from hardcore solo bikepackers to fully-guided easy riders. – BN

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May 13, 2023
King Charles III is crowned in once-in-a-generation ceremony | CNN

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London
CNN
—

Britain’s King Charles III has been crowned in a once-in-a-generation royal event that is being witnessed by hundreds of high-profile guests inside Westminster Abbey, as well as tens of thousands of well-wishers who have gathered in central London despite the rain.

The intricate coronation service followed a traditional template that has stayed much the same for more than 1,000 years.

The King took the Coronation Oath and became the first monarch to pray aloud at his coronation. In his prayer he asked to “be a blessing” to people “of every faith and conviction.”

He was anointed with holy oil by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Church who is leading the ceremony. The anointment, considered the most sacred part of the ceremony, took place behind a screen.

The King was presented with the coronation regalia, including the royal Robe and Stole, in what is known as the investiture part of the service.

He was then crowned with the 360-year-old St. Edward’s Crown, the most significant part of the coronation ceremony. After crowning the King, Welby declared: “God Save the King.”

Wearing the crown, the King was seated on the throne, after which the Archbishop of Canterbury invited the British public, as well as those from “other Realms,” for the first time, to recite a pledge of allegiance to the new monarch and his “heirs and successors.”

Ahead of the event, some parts of the British media and public interpreted the invitation as a command, reporting that people had been “asked” and “called” to swear allegiance to the King. In the face of such criticism, the Church of England revised the text of the liturgy so that members of the public would be given a choice between saying simply “God save King Charles” or reciting the full pledge of allegiance.

Once the King was crowned, his wife, Queen Camilla, was crowned in her own, shorter ceremony with Queen Mary’s Crown – marking the first time in recent history that a new crown wasn’t made specifically for this occasion – and presented with the Sceptre and Rod.

While Charles became King on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II in September last year, the coronation is the formal crowning of the monarch and is a profoundly religious affair, reflecting the fact that aside from being head of state of the United Kingdom and 14 other countries, Charles is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

However, it has been modernized in certain key ways. The archbishop acknowledged the multiple faiths observed in the UK during the ceremony, saying the Church of England “will seek to foster an environment in which people of all faiths may live freely.”

The King and Queen arrived at Westminster Abbey in a splendid coach drawn by six horses, accompanied by the Household Cavalry. They then walked down the long aisle wearing historic robes, flanked by the top officials of the Church of England as well as some of their closest family members.

Despite the splendor of the occasion, it has not been without controversy. Some have objected to millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being spent on a lavish ceremony at a time when millions of Britons are suffering a severe cost-of-living crisis.

The coronation has also attracted anti-monarchy demonstrations, with a small number of protesters arrested in central London on Saturday morning before the event began.

Some royal fans spent the past few days camping along the 1.3-mile (2km) route from Buckingham Palace, the British monarchy’s official London residence, to Westminster Abbey, the nation’s coronation church since 1066, in order to secure the best vantage point for the procession.

By early Saturday, the London Metropolitan Police Service announced that all viewing areas along the procession route were full and closed off to new arrivals.

The Met said ahead of time that Saturday would be the largest one-day policing operation in decades, with more than 11,500 officers on duty in London. Security around the event came into focus earlier this week when a man was arrested just outside Buckingham Palace after he allegedly threw suspected shotgun cartridges into the palace grounds.

The ceremony was expected to last two hours – about an hour shorter than Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. It began with the recognition and oath, followed by a reading from the Bible by UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and – in a coronation first – gospel music.

The congregation, while including some 2,300 people, is much smaller than it was in 1953 when temporary structures had to be erected within the abbey to accommodate the more than 8,000 people on the guest list.

The doors to the abbey opened just before 8 a.m. local time, with the first guests taking their seats a full three hours before the ceremony began.

Among the first people to arrive were singer Lionel Richie, musician Nick Cave, actresses Emma Thompson, Joanna Lumley and Judi Dench, composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, and broadcaster Stephen Fry.

Top British officials, faith leaders and international representatives followed in their steps. They all took their seats in the vast church with more than an hour to go – reflecting the huge logistical challenges presented by an event attended by hundreds of VIPs.

All Sunak’s living predecessors as prime minister were there: Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, UK opposition leader Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt were also in attendance.

First Lady of the United States Jill Biden and the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry were there, as was the Chinese Vice President Han Zheng.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron and numerous other world leaders were also present.

Last to arrive, just before the King and Queen, were the most senior members of King Charles’ family, his siblings and children, including Prince Harry who traveled to the UK from the US without his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex and their two young children. Saturday is also Prince Archie’s 4th birthday.

Music is playing a central part in the ceremony, and five new compositions have been commissioned for the main part of the service, including an anthem by Lloyd Webber, who is better known for West End musicals.

Charles’ consort Camilla will also be crowned in a shorter, simpler part of the ceremony.

Once done with the formalities, the newly crowned King and Queen will ride back in a much larger parade to Buckingham Palace, where they will be greeted by a royal salute.

The pomp and pageantry will conclude with the customary balcony appearance by the King and his family as they join the crowds below in watching a flypast of more than 60 aircraft.

While undoubtedly a historic occasion, the run-up to the coronation has seen controversy.

Republic, a campaign group that calls for the abolition of the monarchy, said the idea of the “homage of the people” was “offensive, tone deaf and a gesture that holds the people in contempt.”

Some eyebrows were also raised earlier this week when a controversial and widely criticized UK public order bill came into force.

Since the death of Queen Elizabeth II last year, there have been a number of instances of anti-monarchists turning up at royal engagements to voice their grievances against the institution.

The new rules, signed into law by the King on Tuesday, just days before the coronation, empower the police to take stronger action against peaceful protesters.

From Wednesday, long-standing protest tactics such as locking on, where protesters physically attach themselves to things like buildings, could lead to a six-month prison sentence or “unlimited fine,” according to the UK Home Office.

Republic said it had received a letter from the Home Office which set out the new policing powers and asked the campaign group to “forward this letter to your members who are likely to be affected by these legislative changes.” The group added that it would not be deterred by it.

Republic said it was expecting between 1,500 and 2,000 people to join an anti-monarchy protest at Trafalgar Square, just south of the royal procession route. On Saturday morning, Republic said on Twitter that organizers of the protest had been arrested shortly after the demonstration started – including the group’s leader, Graham Smith.

The Metropolitan Police tweeted: “Earlier today we arrested four people in the area of St Martin’s Lane. They were held on suspicion of conspiracy to cause public nuisance.”

A further three people were arrested “on suspicion of possessing articles to cause criminal damage,” the force added. And “a number of arrests” have been made of people suspected of breaching the peace.

Republic had said earlier on Twitter that police “won’t say” why their demonstrators were detained. “So much for the right to peaceful protest,” the group said.

Despite the pomp of Saturday’s events, the King is facing significant challenges. A CNN poll has found that Britons are more likely to say their views of the monarchy have worsened than improved over the past decade.

The results of the survey, conducted for CNN by the polling company Savanta in March, show Charles’ heir Prince William is viewed with greater affection than his father.

Despite their cooler attitude towards the King, most Britons say they plan to take part in at least one event related to the coronation this weekend, the poll found, with many communities planning street parties and lunches.

Artists Katy Perry, Richie and Take That will headline the “Coronation Concert” at Windsor Castle on Sunday evening and people have also been encouraged to use Monday, the final day of the long weekend, to volunteer in their communities.

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May 6, 2023
Tucker Carlson out at Fox News | CNN Business

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CNN
—

Fox News and Tucker Carlson, the right-wing extremist who hosted the network’s highly rated 8pm hour, have severed ties, the network said in a stunning announcement Monday.

The announcement came one week after Fox News settled a monster defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over the network’s dissemination of election lies. Fox News said that Carlson’s last show was Friday, April 21.

Carlson was a top promoter of conspiracy theories and radical rhetoric at the network. Not only did he repeatedly sow doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, but he also promoted conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 vaccines and elevated white nationalist talking points.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, praised Fox News’ decision, saying it is “about time” and that “for far too long, Tucker Carlson has used his primetime show to spew antisemitic, racist, xenophobic and anti-LGBTQ hate to millions.”

Tucker Carlson was a key figure in Dominion Voting Systems’ mammoth defamation lawsuit against Fox News, which the parties settled last week on the brink of trial for a historic $787 million.

In some ways, Carlson played an outsized role in the litigation: Only one of the 20 allegedly defamatory Fox broadcasts mentioned in the lawsuit came from Carlson’s top-rated show. But, as CNN exclusively reported, he was set to be one of Dominion’s first witnesses to testify at trial. And his private text messages, which became public as part of the suit, reverberated nationwide.

Dominion got its hands on Carlson’s group chat with fellow Fox primetime stars Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, and a trove of other messages from around the 2020 presidential election.

These communications revealed that Carlson told confidants that he “passionately” hated former President Donald Trump and that Trump’s tenure in the White House was a “disaster.” He also used misogynistic terms to criticize pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and reject her conspiracies about the 2020 election – even as those wild theories got airtime on Fox News.

The lawsuit exposed how Carlson privately held a wholly different view than his on-air persona. A Dominion spokesperson did not comment on Carlson’s departure from Fox.

Carlson was also one of the biggest promoters of conspiracy theories in right-wing media, sowing doubt about the 2020 presidential election, the January 6 insurrection, and Covid-19 vaccines.

In the two years since the attack on the US Capitol, the Fox primetime host used his huge platform to amplify paper-thin theories that the attack was a false-flag operation orchestrated by the FBI and government agents because they loathed Trump, and that the criminal rioters were themselves the victims.

The baseless theory originated from a right-wing website, and Carlson catapulted it into the mainstream by repeatedly featuring it on his show. He routinely suggested that Capitol rioter and Trump supporter Ray Epps was actually an FBI provocateur who sparked the deadly riot.

In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night, Epps had this to say about Carlson’s lies: “He’s obsessed with me. He’s going to any means possible to destroy my life and our lives.”

Carlson’s disinformation campaign about January 6 reached its apex just a few months ago, with an assist from the newly installed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican.

The top-rated Fox host obtained and aired never-before-seen footage from Capitol security cameras, but the clips were cherry-picked and selectively edited. He said on his program that he ran the tapes by the US Capitol Police before airing the material, but they disputed his claim.

Abby Grossberg, the ex-Fox News producer who has since disavowed the network, claimed in recent lawsuits that there was rampant sexism and misogyny among Tucker Carlson’s show team.

Grossberg, who joined Carlson’s team after the 2020 election, said in her lawsuit that after her first day on the job that “it became apparent how pervasive the misogyny and drive to embarrass and objectify women was among the male staff at TCT,” referring to “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

Fox News is aggressively fighting two lawsuits from Grossberg. A Fox spokesperson previously said the lawsuits were “riddled with false allegations against the network and our employees.”

In a lawsuit filed last month, Grossberg said Carlson “was very capable of using such disgusting language about women in the workplace.” She cited some of Carlson’s private texts, where he used the phrase “c-nt” to refer to Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, a top 2020 election denier.

Her lawsuits also describe seeing sexually suggestive posters that were visible in the workplace, facing “uncomfortable sexual questions” about her former Fox News boss Maria Bartiromo, and witnessing internal debates on which women politicians were “more f–kable.”

In a TV interview, she said the sexual harassment was so bad that she considered suicide.

Carlson’s departure at Fox News comes after the network also severed ties with right-wing bomb thrower Dan Bongino, who had been a regular fixture on the network’s programming, in addition to hosting a weekend show.

“Folks, regretfully, last week was my last show on Fox News on the Fox News Channel,” Bongino said on Rumble, chalking up the exit to a contract dispute.

“So the show ending last week was tough. And I want you to know it’s not some big conspiracy. I promise you. There’s not, there’s no acrimony. This wasn’t some, like, WWE brawl that happened. We just couldn’t come to terms on an extension. And that’s really it.”

Fox News responded in a statement, “We thank Dan for his contributions and wish him success in his future endeavors.”

Shares of Fox Corp.

(FOXA) fell 5% on the news. The stock had been up slightly before the announcement. Carlson did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.

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April 24, 2023
Want to help the ocean? Avoid the moisturizer with shark in it | CNN

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CNN
—

It all seems so daunting: plastics in the ocean, dying coral reefs, entire species being wiped out – but don’t click away in despair!

There really are things everyone can do to help make the ocean cleaner and keep our environment healthier.

Here are some easy (or mostly easy) life changes that have a big impact on our environment.

Whenever you eat fish, make sure you choose a sustainable variety that isn’t endangered.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Seafood Watch” program has online guides detailing which fish are your best bets. All of these directories, broken up by region, can be downloaded into a printable pocket guide – so if you’re a seafood lover, it’s a handy resource to keep nearby.

The most consumed seafoods in the US are shrimp, salmon and tuna. If those are among your go-to choices, some more environmentally responsible options to look for include shrimp from the US or Canada; salmon caught in the US Pacific or Canada; and canned tuna labeled “pole-caught,” “pole-and-line-caught,” or “troll-caught.”

How your fish is caught is important. You want to make sure you’re not consuming fish caught in nets that are notorious for trapping “bycatch” – turtles, seabirds and whales often get caught in those lines and die.

And since whales do an excellent job trapping planet-warming carbon emissions – even better than trees – keeping them in the ocean helps us all.

This is a big one…and one of the worst problems facing the ocean, landfills and even our bodies!

Jennifer Savage of Surfrider Foundation suggests supporting businesses that avoid single-use plastics.

If your favorite restaurant still uses plastics, she tells diners to refuse the plastic forks and gently suggest the management move to a more sustainable takeaway option (like bamboo utensils and paper containers and straws) or – even better – go with washable plates and cutlery.

“It saves money, too. If they’re spending all this money buying single-use plastic, a small investment in a dishwasher and reusable cutlery will save money in the long run.”

Also, she says, consumers are realizing they prefer the less-disposable options.

“People love it, people are so much happier. Think about how much better it feels to have a meal with metal utensils and a real plate.”

As consumers begin to worry about things like microplastics making their way into their bodies, this is a “no-brainer” for restaurants, she says.

“They found plastic in our bodies…people don’t want to eat off plastic plates with plastic utensils.”

Surfrider Foundation even has a helpful online guide, highlighting ocean-friendly restaurants.

It’s important to realize that most plastic doesn’t get recycled, according to Savage. She says the US rate of plastic recycling is only about 5% to 6%.

The number system on the bottom of plastic items are not a guarantee they will be recycled. Things marked 1 and 2 — and on rare occasion, 5 — are your best bets, experts told CNN, depending on what your municipality can handle.

“Things that have a number on them … that’s just a fallacy. That stuff just gets sorted out and put into the landfill,” Savage says. Ditto for that “chasing arrow” symbol you see on the bottom of many plastic containers, she says. Most of it still isn’t recyclable.

Some states, including California, are starting to crack down on that misleading labeling and aren’t allowing the symbol to appear on plastic that isn’t recyclable.

So whenever you can: skip single-use plastic and Styrofoam. Support businesses that are part of the solution. And talk to your representatives about phasing it out.

Picking up trash on the beach won’t solve the problem on its own, but it is really important, says Savage.

“At that moment in time, you’re going to have a cleaner beach. You will have less plastic in your environment. Cleaning it up and leaving it better than you found it makes you feel good.”

And that “feeling good” often leads to activism. “Next thing you know, they’re going to city council meetings, contacting their representatives.”

Another bonus of participating in a beach clean-up? It allows organizations to gather data about the most common items that end up as beach litter.

“In California, you don’t see as many single-use plastic bags, so you don’t see them [on the beach as often] anymore. It helps people to see what the biggest problems are. Whether it’s plastic chip bags, or cigarette butts, or whatever.”

Autumn Blum is a cosmetic chemist by day, and a shark-obsessed scuba diver on the weekends.

Ingredients you should avoid in sunscreens
Avobenzone
Benzophenones/oxybenzone
Butyloctyl salicylate
Clear or nano zinc/nano particles
Cylcopentasiloxane/cyclomethicone
Ecamsule
Formaldehyde, diazolidinyl urea, quaternium-15, DMDM hydantoin and hydroxymethylglycinate
Methylisothiazolinone
Microplastic
Octinoxate/octyl methozycinnamate
Padimate O
Parabens
Sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate (SLS/SLES)
Source: Autumn Blum/Stream2Sea

She spent years formulating skin products for other companies before striking out on her own to create a mineral sunscreen business. Her inspiration? Seeing a group of snorkelers surrounded by a circle of oily film on the water, formed by the chemical sunscreens they had slathered on. She was horrified, knowing the chemicals were deadly for coral and many fish.

“There are so many things that impact our waters. Something that we use on our bodies should not be one of them. Period,” says Blum. “That’s an easy piece that we can change to make a positive impact.”

Blum says recent chemical sunscreen bans are already making a difference in places like Hawaii, with reefs coming back to life. She’s also encouraged by efforts to renew coral reefs via coral planting.

There’s still no mutually agreed-upon term to describe what’s “reef-safe,” so what you really need to do is avoid certain ingredients that are known to be harmful, Blum says.

Avoid microbeads

Blum also encourages consumers to make sure they don’t buy products that contain microbeads.

After you wash them off your face or body, those microbeads go down the drain, pass right through your local wastewater plant, and dump into the ocean. From there, they can be eaten by fish.

Humans then eat the fish that have eaten the microbeads…and that’s another way we end up with microplastics in our bodies.

Avoid face wash with plastic microbeads.

Shark-friendly moisturizer

Many new moisturizers are touting “squalane” as their new miracle ingredient.

“Squalane is considered a bio-mimic ingredient, which means your body recognizes it,” Blum tells CNN.

It is a common ingredient in sunscreens, cosmetics, and high-end skin products. “The unfortunate thing about squalane is that it’s frequently obtained from shark livers,” says Blum.

Many species of sharks are facing extinction, and several of those species are considered “critically endangered.”

Plant-based squalanes work just as well as shark-based ones, Blum says. So when reading your ingredient label, make sure it says “vegan squalane” or “plant-based squalane.” Otherwise, advises Blum, assume it comes from sharks.

Vera Meyer, a scientist at the Berlin Institute of Biotechnology, holds a vessel made of scale sponge. The institute hopes to produce clothing, packaging and building material from fungal cultures.

Now for the good news: Materials are being developed that could revolutionize all our packaging, Blum says.

Mycelium, made from mushrooms, performs a lot like current plastics.

Meanwhile, researchers at Yale have discovered a separate fungus with tantalizing abilities to break down polyurethane. It will be awhile, Blum says, but “really cool” technology based on plastic-eating mushrooms could be in our future.

“It’s not commercial-ready, but it’s on the horizon,” she says.

So forget “The Last of Us.” The mushrooms may save us all.

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London
CNN
—

Neville Lawrence sometimes imagines walking through London and looking at buildings his son Stephen might have worked on, had he lived long enough to fulfill his dream of becoming an architect. The closest he ever got to that was building a miniature.

“He did his work experience with an architect and he built a model of a building down in Deptford. So, every time I pass Deptford and see the building, it reminds me of him,” Lawrence told CNN, referring to a neighborhood in southeast London. It’s been 30 years, but he still gets emotional speaking about Stephen.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered when he was just 18 years old in a racially motivated attack on April 22, 1993. His killing and the subsequent failure of the London Metropolitan Police Service to properly investigate the crime sparked a national outcry. It culminated in a landmark official inquiry that concluded the force was institutionally racist.

But despite decades of promises, reviews and reforms, a new government report published last month, just four weeks before the 30th anniversary of Stephen’s murder, reached the same conclusion. The Met is still institutionally racist.

Raju Bhatt, a civil liberties lawyer who has dedicated his career to representing people making claims of wrongful conduct against the police, said nothing in the new report – the Baroness Casey Review – came as a surprise.

“What our clients see is a machinery which just doesn’t want to hear what they have to say and as a result, what happens is a failure to address the cultural problems, that culture of impunity, which arises when police officers know that they won’t be brought to account – when [they] know that whatever they do, their managers will be there to back them up, or, at the very least, their managers will look away,” he said.

The Met Police chief Mark Rowley has acknowledged “systemic” problems in the force but has so far declined to use the word “institutional.”

Protesters demonstrate outside the Lawrence inquiry in south London in June 1998.

For Bhatt, the Casey report was just the latest development in a familiar cycle of events that began when he graduated from university in 1981.

That summer, racial tensions in Britain boiled over and sparked violent clashes between mostly Black protesters and the police, in south London’s Brixton neighborhood and elsewhere. Bhatt worked as a community volunteer, helping people who were arrested during the protests.

An official government inquiry into the riots and the police response concluded there was an “urgent need for changes in training and law enforcement and the recruitment of more ethnic minorities into the police force.” It also found that there was “evidence of harassment of minorities by some policemen.”

Stephen Lawrence was murdered 12 years after the Brixton riots. Within days of his killing at a bus stop in southeast London, five White teens were identified as being involved. They were arrested, but none was successfully prosecuted at the time.

It took years of campaigning by the Lawrence family — and public support from the likes of Nelson Mandela and the national press — to get the investigation moving. A 1997 inquest into Lawrence’s death found that he was unlawfully killed in a “completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths.”

A wave of protests forced the then-government to commission an inquiry into the murder and the Met’s handling of it, which concluded in 1999 that “professional incompetence, institutional racism and failure of leadership by senior officers” was to be blamed for the botched investigation.

The review, known as the Macpherson report, made 70 recommendations on how to improve the police force and increase the public’s trust in the force. They included recruiting more Black and other minority ethnic officers to make sure the force reflects the communities it serves, taking steps to tackle disparities in the use of police powers against people from minority groups and developing specific guidelines on how to investigate and tackle racist crimes.

The Macpherson report was damning, but like the Brixton riots review, it failed to result in lasting and substantive reform of the Met Police.

As a Black man who grew up in 70s and 80s Britain, Leslie Thomas says he knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of police racism. He recounts how he has been racially profiled and stopped and searched by officers several times in the past, including once when he was driving with his wife and baby in the back of his car and once when he was just 14 years old.

“I was 14, in school uniform, coming home from school and a police van pulls up alongside me. Four officers jump out [and say] ‘you look suspicious’,” he said.

Like Bhatt, Thomas is a lawyer who has spent decades representing people in claims against the police and other public authorities. And, just like Bhatt, he has little faith that the latest report will lead to much change.

“Here’s the thing. You can’t hit a target unless you acknowledge the target itself. The Metropolitan Police have said, ‘oh, we want to be a more inclusive organization,’ but steadfastly, they refuse to acknowledge through their leadership that they’ve got a problem with institutional racism,” Thomas said.

“If it were just a few bad apples, then you wouldn’t expect, as we have seen, repetition after repetition, generation after generation,” he added.

The Met has not yet responded to CNN’s request for comment. But speaking to the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee last month, Rowley refused to label the Met Police “institutionally” racist, saying the word “institutional” is ambiguous and politicized.

In a statement released when the Casey report was published, Rowley said it “must be a catalyst for police reform” and “needs to lead to meaningful change.” He added: “I want us to be anti-racist, anti-misogynist and anti-homophobic. In fact, I want us to be anti-discrimination of all kinds.”

Thomas specializes in representing families of people who have died in police custody – an issue that disproportionately affects people of color.

Black people in the UK are seven times more likely to die from police restraint than White people, according to statistics compiled by Inquest, a charity that focuses on deaths in police and prison custody, immigration detention, mental health settings and other state settings.

The legacy of Stephen Lawrence’s murder, 30 years later

At a protest in London, Marcia Rigg embraces Carole Duggan, whose nephew Mark Duggan was shot dead by the police in 2011.

Thomas represented the family of Sean Rigg, who died in 2008 after being pinned down in a police arrest while experiencing a mental health crisis. While an initial investigation by then-police watchdog the Independent Police Complaints Commission cleared the police of any wrongdoing, the Rigg family kept fighting.

In 2012, an inquest jury found that Rigg died of cardiac arrest after being restrained in a prone position for approximately eight minutes and said the level and length of restraint used by the police was “unsuitable” and “unnecessary” and that this “more than minimally” contributed to his death.

In light of the findings, the police watchdog re-examined the case. But a police misconduct panel cleared five officers of gross misconduct in connection to Rigg’s death in 2019. One of those officers had earlier been acquitted of perjury relating to his account of events on the night Rigg died.

Marcia Rigg, Sean’s sister, is still fighting. She and her family have spent years watching CCTV footage of Sean’s last moments, trying to piece together what really happened. The process has been deeply upsetting and it hasn’t, so far, led to the justice she wants for her brother.

“It was four years before we had an inquest. And basically myself and my family, particularly me and my brother Wade, we had to become investigators ourselves … to see your loved one being treated in that way by officers that should be helping us. It’s traumatizing, it makes you angry,” she told CNN.

Rigg said she still dreads the police. “I hate the sound of (the sirens), I hate the sight of the uniform, what it represents.”

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 brought back all of the trauma for Rigg. Like Sean, Floyd was held face down by police in a prone position. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes and was ultimately found guilty of murdering him.

But it also made her even more determined to fight. “When George Floyd died, and everybody witnessed that murder, (British politicians) were on the side of the people, (saying) that this can’t happen. I said, well, they need to look in their own backyard,” she said.

A protester holds a picture of Sean Rigg during a 2021 demonstration in London.

Deborah Coles, Inquest’s executive director, said the struggles of the Lawrences and the Riggs to get justice for their loved ones mirror the experiences of nearly everyone she’s worked with.

She said the “cultures of denial and defensiveness and delay” within official government agencies, as well as victim blaming and the tendency to demonize the victim’s family and community, add to families’ suffering in such cases, as does “this ongoing institutional denial about the fact that institutional racism is a live and enduring issue.”

Successive governments and police chiefs have dismissed the severity of the issue, she told CNN. “We’ve always said that one of the problems is that when it comes to looking at deaths (in custody), they see them as isolated incidents, rather than being evidence of a systemic, enduring issue. This is a systemic issue across police forces.”

The UK’s largest police force commissioned the latest independent inquiry in 2021, after a serving Metropolitan Police officer was convicted of the kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old London woman. The eventual Casey report was damning, finding the Met not just institutionally racist, but also institutionally misogynistic, sexist and homophobic.

According to a separate parliamentary report published last year, Black people are more than nine-and-a-half times more likely to be stopped and searched than White people, even though the vast majority of “stop and search” actions don’t result in any further action.

The Met is still overwhelmingly White, with only 17% of officers identifying themselves as non-White in 2022, despite the city they police being far more diverse.

While that is more than the 3% figure recorded in the early 2000s, it is still well below its own targets and not at all reflective of the communities the police serve.

“We see time and again critical reviews, inquiries, inquest findings, coroner’s recommendations, a whole wealth of potentially lifesaving recommendations, but also very critical recommendations about structural changes needed. And yet there is no enforcement of those recommendations,” Coles said.

Inquest and other organizations are calling for a new oversight mechanism that would follow up and report on whether correct actions have been taken in response to the numerous inquiries, she added.

Neville Lawrence, speaking to CNN, says the family has had to fight for justice itself.

As the Lawrence family and their supporters mark the 30th anniversary of Stephen’s killing, they are still fighting for his killers to face justice.

It wasn’t until 2012, 19 years after the murder, that two of the five attackers – Gary Dobson and David Norris – were finally convicted and sent to prison. It took a change in law that allowed for a retrial in cases where new evidence is found.

To date, the other three people allegedly involved in the killing have not been brought to justice.

Neville Lawrence remains determined to keep fighting – although he said that the publication of the Casey report has made it clear to him, once again, that the family is on its own in this.

“If you want justice, you have to try and fight for it yourself, you don’t have anybody who is going to be doing it the way they should be doing it,” he said.

After years of being consumed by grief and anger, Lawrence decided to move back to Jamaica, where his son is buried. “I accept the situation where I had to leave this place so I can have some peace,” he told CNN.

“I couldn’t even bury my son here because of the vandalism that would have taken place. The amount of times that they vandalized the (memorial) plaque where he fell, that they had to put a camera on it to stop people going there and desecrating it … so just imagine Stephen, if he was here, what they would have done,” he said.

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