Russia is developing an anti-satellite weapon, the White House confirmed Thursday, after a lawmaker sounded an alarm over what he described as a serious national security threat. While White House officials say it could land Moscow in violation of a treaty banning weapons of mass destruction in space. They said it is not an urgent threat, and urged Americans not to panic, as lawmakers met behind closed doors to discuss the issue. Anita Powell reports from Washington.
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Corts
Health Agencies Call for Stepped-up Action to Eliminate Cervical Cancer
GENEVA — Health agencies are urging governments and civil society to step up action to eliminate cervical cancer, a vaccine-preventable disease that kills a woman every two minutes, mostly in low- and middle-income countries.
“It is the fourth-most common cancer among women worldwide. It is also one of the few types of cancer that can be prevented by a vaccine,” said Herve Verhoosel, spokesperson for Unitaid, an organization that provides affordable lifesaving health products for people in low- and middle-income countries.
“Vaccination against human papillomavirus, the leading cause of cervical cancer, together with HPV screening and treatment, is a proven path to elimination,” Verhoosel said Tuesday in advance of the first global forum on elimination of cervical cancer.
The forum, which takes place from March 5 to 7 in Cartagena, Colombia, is hosted by Spain, Colombia and nine leading development and health agencies.
348,000 women died in 2020
Verhoosel said, “The forum offers a watershed moment for the world to collectively accelerate progress on a groundbreaking promise made in 2020, when nearly 200 countries signed on to the WHO’s global strategy to eliminate cervical cancer.”
The World Health Organization, Unitaid and other aid agencies provided the statistics on case rates. The WHO estimates 348,000 women died of cervical cancer in 2020, 90% of them from low- and middle-income countries. It warns annual deaths from cervical cancer will likely reach 410,000 by 2030 “if we do not change course.”
To put countries on the path to elimination, the WHO has set three targets: It calls for 90% of girls to be vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by age 15; 70% of women to be screened with a high-performance test by age 35 and again at 45; and for 90% of women with cervical disease to receive treatment.
The WHO says sub-Saharan Africa has the highest cervical cancer burden globally. It notes the HIV epidemic has worsened the situation because the common HPV virus is sexually transmitted.
Prebo Barango, cross-cutting specialist on noncommunicable diseases and special initiatives at the WHO, explains that the prevalence of cervical cancer in some countries “demonstrates the inequity of access to prevention and health care as well as social and economic deprivation” in the affected communities.
He stressed the importance of vaccinating young girls and making access to screening and early treatment for older women more widely available.
“It is not an either-or approach,” he said. He notes, however, that “access to screening and treatment has been very, very low because most countries have no coverage for these procedures.”
Barriers to vaccination
The WHO reports that only one in five adolescent girls has been vaccinated against HPV, despite the vaccine’s proven efficacy. Barango explained that a key constraint related to its use is that the recommended age of 14 for receiving the vaccine “falls outside of the normal vaccination age for children.”
Besides that, he said, “During COVID-19 there was a significant drop in the uptake of these vaccines because schools were closed” and many health facilities were focused on dealing with the pandemic.
The World Health Organization says cost effective and evidence-based tools for screening and treatment are available. Despite this, it says barriers and inequities in the hardest-hit areas remain unacceptably high. The WHO notes that fewer than 5% of women in low- and middle-income countries are ever screened for cervical cancer.
Unitaid spokesperson Verhoosel observed that the WHO’s recommendation of a one-dose HPV vaccine instead of the previous two-dose recommendation could prove to be a game changer.
“A one-dose HPV vaccine opens new opportunities to reach more girls worldwide and will significantly reduce costs and logistical barriers,” he said.
The nonprofit GAVI vaccine alliance is providing millions of low-cost HPV vaccine doses to developing countries at the affordable price of around $5.00 per dose. And Unitaid says that, together with its partners, it “has secured agreements that have reduced the price of HPV tests by nearly 40%.”
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Bangkok Says Work from Home as Pollution Blankets City
Bangkok — Bangkok city employees have been told to work from home to avoid harmful air pollution, as a layer of noxious haze blanketed the Thai capital Thursday.
City authorities asked for cooperation from employers to help workers in the city of some 11 million people avoid the pollution, which is expected to last into Friday.
The air monitoring website IQAir ranked Bangkok among the 10 most polluted cities in the world Thursday morning.
Levels of the most dangerous PM2.5 particles — so tiny they can enter the bloodstream — were more than 15 times the World Health Organization’s annual guideline, according to IQAir.
Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt said late Wednesday that all city employees would work from home Thursday and Friday.
“I would like to ask for cooperation from the BMA network of about 151 companies and organizations, both government offices and the private sector,” he said in a statement, adding that more than 60,000 people were affected.
BMA is an abbreviation for the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
Chadchart said at least 20 of Bangkok’s 50 districts were expected to have unhealthy levels of PM2.5 particles, and the problem would linger because of calm weather.
Air quality in Thailand regularly plummets in the early months of the year as smoke from farmers burning stubble in the fields adds to industrial emissions and vehicle exhaust fumes.
Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai ranked among the most polluted cities in the world on a number of days last year.
A public health crisis is brewing over the problem, with at least two million people in Thailand needing medical treatment because of pollution in 2023.
The government of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, which took over in August, has promised to make tackling air pollution a “national agenda,” and a draft Clean Air Act was endorsed by his Cabinet last month.
But the problem persists, and a court in Chiang Mai last month ordered the government to come up with an urgent plan to tackle air pollution within 90 days.
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Scientists Create New Map of the World’s Coral Reefs
SYDNEY — Using satellite technology and sophisticated machine learning, a team led by marine experts in Australia have created new maps of the world’s coral reefs.
The scientists discovered there are more coral reefs around the world than previously documented, with Indonesia, Australia and the Philippines having the most coral reefs.
Over 100 trillion pixels of data were examined. The result is a high-resolution map that gives fresh insight into the distribution of reefs.
The Allen Coral Atlas initiative has identified approximately 348,000 square kilometers of shallow coral reefs globally to depths of up to 30 meters, an increase from previous estimates.
Experts hope the study will allow politicians, scientists and environmentalists to better understand and manage coral reef systems.
Coral reefs face a range of threats, including climate change, overfishing and pollution.
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef — the only living thing visible from space – is also undermined by industrialization and coral-eating crown of thorns starfish.
“In Australia we, kind of, had a reasonable idea of where a lot of our reefs might have been,” Mitchell Lyons from the School of the Environment at Australia’s University of Queensland told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “But for some jurisdictions across the southwest Pacific or Indonesia, Philippines, there were not very good, consistent maps of where coral reefs were. I guess the advantage of having these consistent maps all over the globe is that we can start to report and account and, I guess, conserve.”
The maps are publicly available through the Allen Coral Atlas and Google Earth Engine.
The project receives funding from a company founded by the Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and managed by Arizona State University in partnership with conservationists and the University of Queensland.
The full study was published in the journal Cell Reports Sustainability. It states that “coral reefs possess a quarter of all marine life and contribute to the well-being and livelihoods of a billion people worldwide.”
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Private US Moon Lander Launched Half Century After Last Apollo Lunar Mission
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A moon lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was launched from Florida early Thursday on a mission to conduct the first U.S. lunar touchdown in more than a half century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.
The company’s Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, lifted off shortly after 1 a.m. EST (0600 GMT) atop a Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk’ SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
A live NASA-SpaceX online video feed showed the two-stage, 25-story rocket roaring off the launch pad and streaking into the dark sky over Florida’s Atlantic coast, trailed by a fiery yellowish plume of exhaust.
The launch, previously set for Wednesday morning, was postponed for 24 hours because of irregular temperatures detected in liquid methane used in the lander’s propulsion system. SpaceX said the issue was later resolved.
Although considered an Intuitive Machines mission, the IM-1 flight is carrying six NASA payloads of instruments designed to gather data about the lunar environment ahead of NASA’s planned return of astronauts to the moon later this decade.
Thursday’s launch came a month after the lunar lander of another private firm, Astrobotic Technology, suffered a propulsion system leak on its way to the moon shortly after being placed in orbit on January 8 by a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket making its debut flight.
The failure of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which was also flying NASA payloads to the moon, marked the third time a private company had been unable to achieve a “soft landing” on the lunar surface, following ill-fated efforts by companies from Israel and Japan.
Those mishaps illustrated the risks NASA faces in leaning more heavily on the commercial sector than it had in the past to realize its spaceflight goals.
Plans call for Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C vehicle, a hexagonal cylinder with four legs, to reach its destination after about a weeklong flight on February 22 for a landing at crater Malapert A near the moon’s south pole.
If successful, the flight would represent the first controlled descent to the lunar surface by a U.S. spacecraft since the final Apollo crewed moon mission in 1972, and the first by a private company.
The feat also would mark the first journey to the lunar surface under NASA’s Artemis moon program, as the U.S. races to return astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite before China lands its own crewed spacecraft there.
IM-1 is the latest test of NASA’s strategy of paying for the use of spacecraft built and owned by private companies to slash the cost of the Artemis missions, envisioned as precursors to human exploration of Mars.
By contrast, during the Apollo era, NASA bought rockets and other technology from the private sector, but owned and operated them itself.
NASA announced last month that it was delaying its target date for a first crewed Artemis moon landing from 2025 to late 2026, while China has said it was aiming for 2030.
Small landers such as Nova-C are expected to get there first, carrying instruments to closely survey the lunar landscape, its resources and potential hazards. Odysseus will focus on space weather interactions with the moon’s surface, radio astronomy, precision landing technologies and navigation.
Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission is scheduled to land at the lunar south pole in 2024, followed by an IM-3 mission later in the year with several small rovers.
Last month, Japan became the fifth country to place a lander on the moon, with its space agency JAXA achieving an unusually precise “pinpoint” touchdown of its SLIM probe last month. Last year, India became the fourth nation to land on the moon, after Russia failed in an attempt the same month.
The United States, the former Soviet Union and China are the only other countries that have carried out successful soft lunar touchdowns. China scored a world first in 2019 by achieving the first landing on the far side of the moon.
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Pope Urges Catholics to Swap Social Media for Reflection as Lent Begins
ROME — Pope Francis urged Catholics to forgo worldly trappings and focus on essentials as he opened the season of Lent with a traditional Ash Wednesday Mass on one of Rome’s historic seven hills.
He criticized people’s tendency to lay bare their lives on social media, deploring “a world in which everything, including our emotions and deepest feelings, has to become ‘social.'”
Instead, the faithful should enter their “inner chamber” to find time for quiet reflection and prayer, the 87-year-old pontiff said in a homily.
Lent is a 40-day period of penance that leads to Easter, the most important Christian festival, which celebrates the day on which Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead.
It represents the 40 days Jesus is said in the Bible to have spent fasting in the desert. During the season, Catholics are asked to fast, remember the needy and reflect on mortality.
“Life is not a play: Lent invites us to come down from the stage and return to the heart, to the reality of who we are,” Francis said.
“Let us not be afraid to strip ourselves of worldly trappings and return to the heart, to what is essential.”
He spoke at a service held in the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill, preceded by prayers in a nearby church and a procession of cardinals and bishops.
Mass goers, including the pope, had ashes sprinkled on their heads in the Ash Wednesday ritual that, for the world’s more than 1.35 billion Catholics, serves as a reminder of mortality.
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Delhi’s Deadly Air Pollution Prompts Some to Quit City
Many, especially those with young children are relocating to the western coastal city of Goa
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New Delhi’s Deadly Air Pollution Prompts Some to Quit City
The Indian capital’s severe air pollution, which has failed to improve despite efforts, is prompting a small but growing number of people to leave New Delhi to escape the health hazards posed by dirty air. Many are relocating to the western coastal city of Goa, which has witnessed an influx of what are being called pollution migrants. Anjana Pasricha spoke to two families on why they decided to quit the capital. Video: P. Pallavi
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How COVID-19 Changed US Office Fashion
Hybrid work relaxed office fashion, but formal attire might be making a comeback
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Oscar Nominees From Films ‘Oppenheimer,’ ‘Barbie’ Gather for Luncheon
LOS ANGELES — The casts of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” gathered Monday for the annual Academy Award nominees’ luncheon along with other Oscar hopefuls coming together for photos, hugs and congratulations.
The luncheon is a warm, feel-good, egalitarian affair where little-known first-time nominees in categories like best animated short get to rub shoulders and share tables with acting nominees like Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, whose snubs for best director and best actress, respectively, for “Barbie” caused a major stir, were both present for the nominations they did get and were all smiles before lunch.
Gerwig, nominated for adapted screenplay, was surrounded by selfie-seekers as soon as she entered the ballroom.
Robbie, up for best picture as a “Barbie” producer, beamed nearby as she hugged and chatted with a woman who got one of the best actress spots, Sandra Hüller of “Anatomy of a Fall.”
The centerpiece of the event in Beverly Hills, California, is a class photo of the entire group of nominees. Nearly all of them usually attend, both as part of the Oscars experience and as part of their unspoken campaigns for votes.
Before the luncheon began, nominees including Cillian Murphy, a favorite for best actor for “Oppenheimer,” and Da’Vine Joy Randolph, a favorite for best supporting actress for “The Holdovers,” made the rounds of media outlets whose reporters are set up in cabanas around the Beverly Hilton pool.
Steven Spielberg, nominated for best picture as a producer of “Maestro,” chatted with a small group on the patio.
Less famous nominees packed into the ballroom and posed for group pictures.
They’ll later be seated for a vegetarian menu of king oyster mushrooms and wild mushroom risotto.
The event is also a chance for the leadership of the Academy, including President Janet Yang to give speeches and address their prominent members in person.
She used last year’s luncheon to address what she called the Academy’s “inadequate” response to Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the previous year’s ceremony.
Yang’s remarks this year had a much lighter tone, and dealt with more banal matters, like the timing of the Oscars ceremony.
“In case any of you have been in a nominations haze, we are starting an hour earlier this year,” she said.
When she saw surprise around the room she said, “Ooh, some people didn’t know! I’m glad I reminded you!”
She drew groans when she added that the Oscars come on the first day of daylight-saving time.
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As Alcohol Abuse Rises in Zambia, Authorities Pledge to Enforce Regulation
The World Health Organization says that in Zambia over 70% of men and over 30% of women are drinking too much, too often. Some nonprofit organizations are intervening to help those on the path to recovery from alcohol addiction. Kathy Short reports from Lusaka, Zambia. Video editor: Elias Chulu
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Malawian Innovator Electrifies Homes Amid Skepticism From Experts
A secondary school dropout from rural Malawi has brought electricity to his community using what he says is a groundbreaking air-powered generator, bypassing use of fuel, oil or batteries. Experts have questions about how the system works, but Malawi’s government is pledging support. Lameck Masina reports from Dowa District.
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Mexican Avocado Scarcity Affects Super Bowl Guacamole
MEXICO CITY — As the Super Bowl approaches, there could be problems for guacamole, a favorite game-time food in America: A lack of rain and warmer temperatures has resulted in fewer avocados being shipped from Mexico.
The western state of Michoacan, which supplies almost 90% of the creamy textured fruit for the big game, has suffered a hotter, drier climate that has led to a lack of water in growing areas.
Lakes in the state are literally drying up: Desperate avocado growers send tanker trucks down to suck up the last water, or divert streams, to feed their thirsty orchards, sparking conflicts. The state received about half the rain it normally gets last year, and reservoirs are at about 40% of capacity, with no rain in sight for months.
Meanwhile, some growers are illegally cutting down pine forests that feed the water system to plant more avocados. To top it all off, another American obsession — tequila — is starting to cause problems too.
The whole situation is not good for avocados. Last year, avocado exports from Michoacan for the Super Bowl grew by 20% to 140,000 tons. This year, that number actually declined by 2,000 tons, despite increased planting; meaning fewer of the creamy textured fruit in U.S. produce departments. Alejandro Méndez, the state secretary of the environment, estimates 30% of avocado orchards in Michoacan are now water-stressed.
Something’s got to give, and with consumers demanding more environmentally conscious produce, state officials are finally putting together a sustainable certification program.
The certification program would presumably result in growers improving their water use, enabling them to offer consumers both greener avocados and more of them.
Coming soon to a grocery store near you: fruit with a sticker saying something like “this avocado wasn’t grown on deforested land,” or “this avocado used water responsibly.”
Officials are still working on a catchy slogan for the greener avocados. But given that it’s coming from the same people who brought you years of Super Bowl ads about avocados from Mexico, a catchy slogan is highly likely.
“The idea is that there is going to be a certification sticker with a QR code that you can scan with your telephone, and that link will take you to a page with a satellite photo of the orchard … and the forest associated with the orchard,” said Méndez.
Because they use more water than pine forests, growers will have to contribute to a fund that ensures several acres of forest are preserved for each acre of orchard.
“So with that orchard, you can be assured the dollar you paid for this avocado is going to preserve this piece of forest,” said Méndez, who estimates about 70% of the orchards in place before 2011 were planted on old farmland, not forests. But the remaining 30% give the rest a bad name, he complains.
The decision to act comes not a moment too soon. The Center for Biological Diversity said Thursday that more than 28,000 people have signed an online petition calling on grocery chains to adopt more sustainable avocado-sourcing policies.
“Many people in Mexico have lost their forests and water because of the 304 million pounds [138 kilograms] of avocados we’ll be eating on Super Bowl Sunday,” said Stephanie Feldstein, the center’s director for population and sustainability. “Our obsession with avocados has a horrific hidden cost. It’s time for grocery chains to take responsibility and make sure they’re not buying avocados grown in deforested areas.”
Up to now, there hasn’t been much consumers could do. There are few certified sustainable avocados available year-round on the market, and if you want guacamole, there’s not much else you can use. That’s despite all the news coverage about how avocado growers and packers have to pay protection money to drug cartels.
Julio Santoyo, a front-line anti-logging activist in Villa Madero, Michoacan, says he’s taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the new certification program. Until then, Super Bowl this year — like every year — was “a kick in the pants,” he said.
“The growth in illegal orchards continues unabated,” Santoyo said. “We assume that more than half of the avocados consumed around the Super Bowl are from illegal planting.
“Up to now, the Mexican government has not taken practical steps to certify environmentally sustainable avocado production,” he said.
The crisis is clear in the once heavily forested, lake-dotted state. Lake Cuitzeo, Mexico’s second largest, was once a vast sheet of water reflecting blue skies near the state capital; it is now about 60% dry, exposing kilometers of dry ground and grass.
And poor Michoacan faces new threats from U.S. consumers: Part of the state next to neighboring Jalisco is certified to grow the blue Weber agave, the only plant from which true tequila can be distilled.
While agave likes drier, hotter, poorer soils than avocados, growers are still cutting down native scrub and low, thorny woods to plant the spikey-leafed seedlings, whose barrel-like centers will later be cooked down and fermented.
It’s a relatively new problem, fed by rising demand for tequila.
“In the last two years, the price for a kilo of agave went up a lot, it went up to almost 35 or 40 pesos [about $2] per kilo,” Méndez said.
“We have 50 million agave plants,” he said. “It’s grown a lot, and we have started to see deforestation as well in that area.”
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First Female Argentine Saint Brings Together Pope Francis and Milei
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday will elevate to sainthood the first female saint from his native Argentina, an event that will be attended at the Vatican by his former strong critic, Argentine President Javier Milei.
Milei, a maverick right-wing libertarian, in the past called Francis an “imbecile,” a “son of a bitch preaching communism” and the devil’s man on Earth — but has softened his tone since taking office in December.
The pope, for his part, has said he did not pay too much attention to the insults, telling Mexican broadcaster N+ that what matters is what politicians do in office, rather than on the campaign trail.
Francis is set to lead a canonization Mass for Maria Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, better known as “Mama Antula,” an 18th century woman who renounced her family’s riches to focus on charity and Jesuit spiritual exercises.
The ceremony comes as Argentina is facing its worst economic crisis in decades, with inflation at more than 200%. Francis has said he hopes to be able make his first trip back to his homeland since being pope in 2013 in the second half of this year.
The Argentine leader, who has said he may convert to Judaism, will attend the service in St. Peter’s Basilica with his entourage, and is set to have a private audience with Francis on Monday.
Mama Antula was the daughter of a wealthy landholder and slave owner.
She promoted spiritual exercises — a mix of prayers and meditations — walking thousands of kilometers barefoot, involving the rich and poor, despite the Jesuits having at the time been banished from Latin America.
Francis, himself a Jesuit, described her on Friday in a meeting with pilgrims from Argentina as a “gift to the Argentine people and also to the entire Church,” praising her dedication to the poor.
Quoting from his past writings, the pope condemned the “radical individualism” that permeates today’s society as a “virus,” in words that may jar with Milei’s radical free market instincts.
On Monday, wrapping up a week-long overseas tour that took him to Israel before Italy and the Vatican, Milei is also scheduled to meet Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
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Taylor Swift to Cross 9 Time Zones for Super Bowl
TOKYO — Will she make it in time?
Taylor Swift’s last song was still ringing in the ears of thousands of fans at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday night when the singer rushed to a private jet at Haneda airport, presumably embarking on an intensely scrutinized journey to see her boyfriend, NFL star Travis Kelce, play in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas.
“We’re all going to go on a great adventure,” Swift earlier told the crowd. She was speaking of the music, but it might also describe her prospective race against time, which was to cross nine time zones and the international date line.
With a final bow at the end of her sold-out show, clad in in a blue sequined outfit, the crowd screaming, strobe lights pulsing, confetti falling, Swift disappeared beneath the stage — and her journey to the other side of the world began.
Her expected trip to see Kelce’s Kansas City Chiefs play the San Francisco 49ers in Las Vegas on Sunday, U.S. time, has fired imaginations and speculation for weeks.
“I hope she can return in time. It’s so romantic,” said office worker Hitomi Takahashi, 29, who bought matching Taylor Swift sweatshirts with her friend and was taking photos just outside of the Tokyo Dome.
At Saturday night’s concert, there was plenty of evidence of the unique cultural phenomenon that is the Swift-Kelce relationship, a nexus of professional football and the huge star power of Swift. In addition to people wearing sequined dresses celebrating Swift in the packed Tokyo Dome, there were Travis Kelce jerseys and hats and other gear celebrating the Chiefs. Some in Tokyo spent thousands of dollars to attend the pop superstar’s concerts this week.
“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone,” Swift sang Saturday.
She won’t find that Sunday in Las Vegas when a sold-out crowd, not to mention millions around the world, will be watching her.
If she makes it, that is.
To call the worldwide scrutiny of Swift’s travels intense is an understatement.
Fans have tracked her jet. The planet-warming carbon emissions of her globe-trotting travels have been criticized. Officials have weighed in on her ability to park her jet in Las Vegas airports.
Even Japanese diplomats have gotten into the act. The Japanese Embassy in Washington posted on social media that she could make the Super Bowl in time, including in their statement three Swift song titles — “Speak Now,” “Fearless” and “Red.”
“If she departs Tokyo in the evening after her concert, she should comfortably arrive in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl begins,” it said.
Takahashi, the fan at the Tokyo Dome, was aware of the criticism Swift has faced about her private jets but said the singer was being singled out unfairly.
“Many other people are flying on business, and she is here for her work. She faces a bashing because she is famous and stands out,” Takahashi said.
Swift has been crisscrossing the globe this week already.
Before coming to Asia, she attended the Grammys in Los Angeles, winning her 14th Grammy and a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year award for “Midnights.” The show was watched by nearly 17 million people. She also made a surprise announcement that her next album is ready to drop in April.
Then came the four concerts in Tokyo, and now apparently a rushed trip to try to make it to Las Vegas to watch Kelce, the tight end for the Chiefs, play in the Super Bowl. She has followed Kelce for much of the Chiefs’ season.
If it all goes as planned, she’s then expected to fly to Australia later this week to continue her tour.
“This week is truly the best kind of chaos,” Swift posted Wednesday on Instagram.
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King Charles’ Cancer Announcement Raises Questions
london — In British history, the secrecy of the monarch’s health has always reigned supreme. Buckingham Palace’s disclosure that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer shattered that longstanding tradition.
On the heels of the shock and well-wishing that followed the official statement Monday came the surprise that the palace had announced anything at all. Indeed, the unprecedented missive was sparse on details: Charles, 75, had begun treatment for a cancer it did not name after being diagnosed during a recent corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate. The king is stepping back from public duties but carrying on state business during his treatment, which he’ll receive as an outpatient, the palace said.
“The King has cancer,” The Times of London declared in a terse banner headline Tuesday. It was unlike any other in British history.
Never complain, never explain, as Charles’ late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, was known to say. Charles has withheld details of his illness and treatment, and in that way is carrying on her approach. But in beaming a sliver of light from inside the palace walls and his own life, the king has broken with his mother and royal tradition.
Royals’ health a mystery
The world still does not know the cause of Elizabeth’s death in 2022 at the age of 96. In the final years of her life, the public was told only that the queen was suffering from “mobility issues.” Her death certificate listed the cause simply as “old age.”
The British public wasn’t told that Charles’ grandfather, King George VI, had lung cancer before his death in February 1952 at the age of 56, and some historians have claimed that the king himself wasn’t told he was terminally ill.
Given that Charles rules in a media-saturated age, “I do think it’s incumbent on him to reveal more than he’s revealed,” said Sally Bedell Smith, author of “Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life.”
“He was admirably candid in what he said about being treated for an enlarged prostate, and his impulse was to be open and also to encourage men to have the necessary examinations,” she added. “But then he reverted to the traditional royal form, which is mystery, secrecy, opacity.”
On Tuesday, former royal press secretary Simon Lewis told BBC Radio 4 that Charles’ openness about his cancer diagnosis has been his style as a monarch.
“I think 20 years ago we would have got a very abrupt, short statement, and that’s about it,” he said. The palace statement goes as far as possible, “given that the King has had a diagnosis of cancer and, as a lot of people know, processing that is a pretty tough process.”
One reason for disclosing his illness, the palace statement said, was “in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.” Cancer patient advocates reported glimmers of success on that front, with Cancer Research UK reporting a 42% rise in visits to its cancer information page, according to Dr. Julie Sharp, the group’s head of health and patient information.
The jump “reflects that high-profile cancer cases often act as a prompt to encourage people to find out more or think about their own health,” she said.
But there was another pragmatic reason: To keep control of the information in the age of lightning-fast social media and misinformation. The palace statement said Charles “has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation.”
Privacy part of past
In the annals of power, leaders and their advisers strive to maintain — or at least, not undermine — the perception of being in strong and in control. Because to allow any perception of vulnerability or weakness could spark a fight for the gavel or the crown — or encourage a coup.
The former Soviet Union was famous for neglecting to mention when its leaders are sick or dead — think Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, secretly sick and soon deceased one after the other in the 1980s. Each event sparked scrambles for succession.
In the United States, there’s little to no debate about the public’s right to know the health status of their leaders. It’s a key feature of the 2024 presidential rumble between President Joe Biden, 81, and former president Donald Trump, 77, with other contenders, such as GOP hopeful Nikki Haley, arguing that they’re both too old to preside.
And on February 1, U.S.. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin — sixth in the presidential line of succession — apologized for keeping secret his cancer diagnosis and surgery. In a rare press conference, he acknowledged missing a key chance to use the experience as a teaching moment for those he leads across the Defense Department and, even more importantly, for Black Americans.
How much does the British public have a right to know?
Whether the monarch owes the world more information about his health than other Britons do is a tense subject.
Royals are private citizens but also, in a sense, part of the public trust given that they are subsidized by British taxpayers and play an important — though largely powerless — constitutional role. Unelected, they inherit their wealth under a 1,000-year-old monarchy that Republican activists have long tried to dislodge.
And though some polls show the public is friendly toward Charles, opposition and apathy to the monarchy are both growing. In a recent study by the National Center for Social Research, just 29% of respondents thought the monarchy was “very important” — the lowest level in the center’s 40 years of research on the subject. Opposition was highest among the young.
Remaining relevant is part of what makes Charles’ legacy and succession so urgent. Maintaining at least the appearance of vitality can be key to leaders’ pursuit of and hold on power. The king, the palace was careful to note, would step away from public-facing duties during his treatment but continue to manage other duties of state.
In Charles’ case, succession has long been set: Next in line is his son, William, the prince of Wales. But the king’s illness makes William’s preparation more critical at a time when he’s also caring for his wife, Kate, princess of Wales, who is recovering from abdominal surgery.
Charles’ news was received with great sympathy in a country in which 3 million people live with cancer, according to Macmillan Cancer Support, a London-based charity. On average, it says, one person is diagnosed with cancer in the UK every 90 seconds. That’s about 1,000 new cancer cases detected every day, according to the National Health Service.
That the king has joined those ranks — and, critically for a British monarch, shared that vulnerability with the world — heralded for some a new era of transparency in an era of social media and misinformation.
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Argentina Getting Its First Female Saint
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — A Catholic laywoman who lived in 18th-century Argentina and joined the Jesuits in their evangelical mission throughout the South American country will become the first female saint from the home country of Pope Francis on Sunday.
María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, more commonly known by her Quechua name of “Mama Antula,” was born in 1730 into a wealthy family in Santiago del Estero, a province north of Buenos Aires. At the age of 15, she left the comfortable life of her home and the privileges of her family to join the Jesuits — at a time when women’s options were limited to marriage or joining a convent.
“She was a rebel, just like Jesus,” Cintia Suárez, co-author of the biography Mama Antula, the first female saint of Argentina, told The Associated Press. “She confronted her father saying, ‘I’m not going to get married or become a nun.’ She just didn’t want to follow orders.”
Mama Antula collaborated in the performance of spiritual exercises based on the writings of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Company of Jesus in 1534, according to her biographer.
When the Spanish crown expelled the Jesuits from America in 1767, considering them a threat to its interests, Mama Antula decided to take up the mantle and continue her work, even at the risk of being imprisoned.
She was a very astute woman who, against the prejudices of the time, had the ability to persuade parish priests and bishops to continue the spiritual exercises of the Jesuits despite the prohibition.
“Patience is good, but perseverance is better,” is a phrase that is attributed to her in historical texts collected in Suárez’s biography.
At a time when slavery still prevailed, masters and slaves, rich and poor were welcome in her spiritual exercises. It was within that space of reflection that she helped to erase social differences.
“Mama Antula’s charity, above all in the service to the neediest, is today very much in evidence in the midst of a society that runs the risk of forgetting that radical individualism is the most difficult virus to overcome,” Francis told a group of Argentine pilgrims Friday who are in town for this weekend’s canonization.
Despite her outstanding work, Mama Antula was not widely recognized due to her status as a lay woman until 2013, when Francis, also a native of Argentina, was elected pope and brought her back to the public eye.
Francis first authorized her beatification in 2016, after the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints recognized a miracle linked to Mama Antula. It was the inexplicable healing in 1905 of a seriously ill nun belonging to the religious order in charge of the House of spiritual exercises founded by Mama Antula in Buenos Aires.
The second miracle that opened the door to her canonization came in 2017, when a former Jesuit seminarian was left on the verge of death from a stroke. A friend brought a picture of Mama Antula to the hospital and stuck it on the vital signs monitor. The man improved and left intensive care.
The canonization of Mama Antula in a ceremony to be presided over by Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica marks not only the first time a female from Argentina will become a saint, but will bring together two antagonistic figures: Francis and the newly elected president of Argentina, Javier Milei, who once called the pope an “imbecile” for defending social justice and “the representative of malignance on Earth.”
Francis, who had a long conversation with Milei after he was elected, has indicated he has forgiven him for the campaign rhetoric and even suggested he is considering visiting his native country this year.
María Antonia de Paz y Figueroa, or “Mama Antula,” died March 7, 1799, aged 69.
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