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Meloni joins cultural elite celebrating Italian opera’s recognition as a world treasure
VERONA, Italy — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni joined top political and cultural figures at Verona’s ancient Arena amphitheater Friday night for an open-air celebration of Italian lyric opera’s recognition by UNESCO as a global cultural treasure.
Conductor Riccardo Muti presided over an orchestra of 170 musicians from Italy’s 14 opera houses, joined by over 314 choral singers and a cast of global star opera stars who delivered a greatest hits of Italian opera from Verdi to Puccini, Donizetti to Bellini for an appreciative crowd. La Scala’s two star dancers, Roberto Bolle and Nicoletta Manni, also performed.
“I am here to testify to my enthusiasm and my pride for the fact that Italian lyric opera has received this great recognition,” Muti told the crowd. “Of course, this is an important moment, because recognition is never a point of arrival but a point of departure.”
“The great masterpieces are our heritage, which we Italians have given to the world,” Muti added in a prepared message for the television audience.
While UNESCO included Italian opera on its intangible cultural heritage list in December, the Arena proved a fitting place to celebrate the milestone. The ancient stone amphitheater built by the Romans is home to a popular summer opera festival that for generations has made opera accessible to the uninitiated with lavish productions. More than half of the 400,000 spectators at the Arena each summer are foreigners.
“We have brought together the entire Italian opera system to celebrate, together with the great singers of the world,” said the Arena’s deputy artistic director, Stefano Trespidi. “I am convinced that this evening will bring benefits to the entire music and opera system.”
Joining Italian opera stars like Luca Salsi, Francesco Meli and Vittorio Grigolo were international stars including German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, Australian soprano Jessica Pratt and Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez. Russian soprano Anna Netrebko canceled at the last minute due to illness.
Though a previous center-left government prepared the UNESCO bid for Italian lyric opera, the recognition has been embraced by Italy’s far-right-led government. Besides Meloni, also attending the gala were Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano — who has set out to replace foreign opera house directors with Italians — and Senate speaker Ignazio La Russa, both members of her Brothers of Italy Party.
The loudest applause was reserved for Italy’s nonpartisan president, Sergio Mattarella. And Muti seemed to be making a point against Eurosceptics on the far-right when he transitioned from the Italian anthem, with its “Brothers of Italy” refrain echoing the name of Meloni’s party, to Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, which is the European Union anthem.
Europeans are voting for European Parliament seats in an election that concludes Sunday and could determine whether far-right parties will have a greater say in the direction of the 27-member bloc.
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Dornoch wins the first Belmont Stakes run at Saratoga Race Course
SARATOGA SPRINGS, New York — When Luis Saez first rode Dornoch at Saratoga Race Course last summer, he told trainer Danny Gargan, “You have the Derby winner.”
While that did not come true, Dornoch made good on that optimism Saturday by winning the first Belmont Stakes at Saratoga, hugging the rail and holding off Mindframe to spring a major upset in the Triple Crown finale at odds of 17-1.
The horse co-owned by World Series champion Jayson Werth won the Belmont five weeks after a troubled trip led to a 10th-place finish in the Kentucky Derby. This time, Dornoch sat off leader Seize the Grey, passed the Preakness winner down the stretch and held on for a 1 1/2-length victory.
“I would put it right up there with winning on the biggest stage. Horse racing is the most underrated sport in the world, bar none,” said Werth, who won Major League Baseball’s championship with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2008. “It’s the biggest game: You get the Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont. We just won the Belmont. This is as good as it gets in horse racing. It’s as good as it gets in sports.”
It’s the first win in any Triple Crown race for Gargan and the second in the Belmont for Saez, who said he never lost faith in Dornoch.
“He’s one of the top 3-year-olds in the country, and we’ve always thought it,” Gargan said. “We let him run his race, and he won. If he gets to run, he’s always going to be tough to beat.”
It’s the sixth consecutive year a different horse won each of the three Triple Crown races. Sierra Leone, the Derby runner-up who went off as the favorite, was third and Honor Marie fourth.
Dornoch paid $37.40 to win, $17.60 to place and $8.10 to show. Todd Pletcher-trained Mindframe paid $6.80 to place and $4.20 to show and Sierra Leone paid $2.60 to show after a jumbled start and more directional problems.
There were no such issues for Dornoch, who triumphed at the track known as the graveyard of favorites for its penchant for upsets.
“No one believed in this horse,” Gargan said. “It’s speechless. He’s such a talented horse.”
Despite there not being a Triple Crown on the line, it’s a historic Belmont because the race was run at Saratoga for the first time in the venue’s 161-year history. It returns next year while Belmont Park undergoes a massive, $455 million reconstruction with the plan for the Triple Crown race to go back to the New York track in 2026.
Having it at Saratoga necessitated shortening the race to 1 1/4 miles from the usual “test of the champion” 1 1/2-mile distance that has been a hallmark of the Belmont for nearly a century. The temporary change contributed to getting more quality horses into the field who previously ran in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness or both. At 1 1/4-mile distance, Dornoch crossed the wire in a time of 2:01.64.
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Pope invites comedians such as Chris Rock, Whoopie Goldberg to Vatican
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, who says he regularly prays “Lord, give me a sense of humor,” will welcome comedians from around the world to a cultural event in Italy to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity,” the Vatican said Saturday.
Whoopi Goldberg, Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Chris Rock will be among more than 100 entertainers at the Vatican on June 14.
The pope “recognizes the significant impact that the art of comedy has on the world of contemporary culture,” a Vatican statement said.
British comedian Stephen Merchant — the co-writer of the TV comedy series “The Office” — and Italian comedian Lino Banfi will also be at the event.
The meeting will take place Friday morning, before the pope travels to Puglia to attend the Group of Seven (G7) leaders’ summit.
“The meeting between Pope Francis and the world’s comedians aims to celebrate the beauty of human diversity and to promote a message of peace, love and solidarity,” the Vatican said.
The audience has been organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and Dicastery for Communication.
Goldberg last month said in an interview that she had offered the pope a cameo in “Sister Act 3,” in which she will reprise her comedy role of a singer who takes refuge in a convent and organizes a choir.
“He said he would see what his time was like,” Goldberg said joking, when asked if the pope had accepted her offer.
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US shocks cricket world with win over powerhouse Pakistan
The United States cricket team beat Pakistan — a former world champion — on Thursday, achieving one of the biggest upsets in T20 Cricket World Cup history. This year’s tournament is being hosted by the United States and the West Indies. Saqib Ul Islam has more from the games in Dallas, Texas.
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US lawmakers call for scrutiny of NewsBreak app over Chinese origins
WASHINGTON AND LONDON — Three U.S. lawmakers have called for more scrutiny of NewsBreak, a popular news aggregation app in the United States, after Reuters reported it has Chinese origins and has used artificial intelligence tools to produce erroneous stories.
The Reuters story drew upon previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and a 2022 company memo registering concerns about “AI-generated stories” to identify at least 40 instances in which NewsBreak’s use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve.
“The only thing more terrifying than a company that deals in unchecked, artificially generated news, is one with deep ties to an adversarial foreign government,” said Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who chairs the Intelligence Committee.
“This is yet another example of the serious threat posed by technologies from countries of concern. It’s also a stark reminder that we need a holistic approach to addressing this threat — we simply cannot win the game of whack-a-mole with individual companies,” he said.
The lawmakers expressed concerns about NewsBreak’s current and historical links to Chinese investors, as well as the company’s presence in China, where many of its engineers are based.
In response to a request from Reuters for comment about the lawmakers’ statements, NewsBreak said it was an American company: “NewsBreak is a U.S. company and always has been. Any assertion to the contrary is not true,” a spokesperson said.
NewsBreak launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app. Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of NewsBreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an “Interest Engine” algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user’s interests and location, Reuters reported.
Yidian in 2017 received praise from ruling Communist Party officials in China for its efficiency in disseminating government propaganda. Reuters found no evidence that NewsBreak censored or produced news that was favorable to the Chinese government.
“This report brings to light serious questions about NewsBreak, its historical relationship with an entity that assisted the CCP, and to Chinese state-linked media,” said Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the top Democrat on the House select committee on China, in a reference to Yidian and its former investor, state-linked media outlet Phoenix New Media.
Americans have the right to “full transparency” about any connections to the CCP from news distributors, Krishnamoorthi said, particularly with regard to the use of “opaque algorithms” and artificial intelligence tools to produce news.
Reuters reported the praise Yidian received from the Communist Party in 2017 but was unable to establish that NewsBreak has any current ties with the party.
U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik, a Republican, said IDG Capital’s backing of NewsBreak indicated the app “deserves increased scrutiny.”
“We cannot allow our foreign adversaries access to American citizen’s data to weaponize them against America’s interests,” she said.
NewsBreak is a privately held start-up, whose primary backers are private equity firms San Francisco-based Francisco Partners and Beijing-based IDG Capital, Reuters reported. In February, IDG Capital was added to a list of dozens of Chinese companies the Pentagon said were allegedly working with Beijing’s military.
IDG Capital has previously said it has no association with the Chinese military and does not belong on that list. It declined to comment on the lawmaker’s reaction.
A spokesperson for Francisco Partners, which has previously declined to answer questions from Reuters on their investment in NewsBreak, described the story as “false and misleading” but declined to provide details beyond saying the description of them as a “primary backer” of NewsBreak was incorrect because their investment was less than 10%.
They did not provide documentation to prove the size of the holding. NewsBreak has told Reuters as recently as May 13 that Francisco Partners is NewsBreak’s primary investor. NewsBreak did not respond to two requests late Friday asking for documentation supporting the assertion.
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Climate crisis creates a health crisis, WHO reports
GENEVA — Scientific evidence documented in a series of articles presented by the World Health Organization this week highlights the harmful impact of climate change at key stages of the human life cycle.
“These provide important scientific evidence on how the health of pregnant women, newborns, children, adolescents and older people is affected by air pollution and different climate hazards, including wildfires, flooding and extreme heat,” Anayda Portela, director of the WHO’s department of maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health and aging, said at a briefing Friday for journalists in Geneva.
“This evidence is critically important, because it shows the leading health risks for each of these groups for these different climate events,” Portela said.
She noted that the collection of articles published in the Journal of Global Health shows that climate-related health risks “have been crucially underestimated” for younger and older people and during pregnancy, “with serious, often life-threatening implications.”
The studies find that climate-related natural hazards have some “serious mental and physical health impacts” in pregnancy, and for younger and older people.
For example, the authors note that preterm births, which now are the leading cause of childhood deaths, “increase during heatwaves, while older people are more likely to suffer heart attacks or respiratory distress.”
They report that heatwaves also “affect cognitive function and therefore learning for children and adolescents.”
The World Meteorological Organization’s State of Global Climate report confirms 2023 as the hottest year on record and predicts that global temperatures over “the entire five-year 2024-2028 period will exceed 1.5 degrees centigrade above the pre-industrial era,” which scientists warn could lead to rapid and irreversible changes in the climate.
According to the World Health Organization, between 2030 and 2050, climate change is projected to cause approximately “250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress alone.”
Portela also warned that air pollution increases the likelihood of high blood pressure during pregnancy, low birth weight, preterm birth and negative impacts on fetal brain and lung development.
“It raises risk of respiratory illness among children and older people,” she said, adding that they also face greater risks of “cancer, cardiovascular disease and pneumonia.”
The studies detail the many noxious effects on mental and physical well-being from climate-related natural disasters, including flooding and drought, as well as wildfires, which have been shown to increase respiratory disorders and cardiovascular mortality rates for older people.
“There is an urgent need to mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to build climate resilience, to take specific actions that protect health at these various life stages,” Portela said.
Authors of the reports note that “few climate adaptation measures are tailored for the specific needs of women, infants, children and adolescents,” as well as older people who may have mobility and cognitive constraints.
Nevertheless, the WHO urges governments to prioritize climate change as a health issue, pointing out several specific actions they can take to promote and protect health at different life stages.
For example, this could include flexibility around work hours, preparing childcare and educational systems for extreme weather events and rising temperatures, and informing people and communities about various measures that can protect vulnerable people during heatwaves and periods of worsening air pollution.
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Methodist church regrets Ivory Coast’s split from the union as lifting of LGBTQ ban roils Africa
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Leaders of the United Methodist Church expressed regret over last week’s decision by the branch in Ivory Coast to leave the union following the church’s decision to repeal a long-standing ban on LGBTQ+ clergy but pledged to accept it.
The developments were the latest in a series of ripple effects in conservative Africa, which is home to the vast majority of United Methodists outside the United States, amid disputes on sexuality and theology that have shaken the Methodist churches.
In early May, delegates at the church’s first legislative gathering in five years voted overwhelmingly to remove a rule forbidding “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained or appointed as ministers.
It was a sharp contrast to past General Conferences of the United Methodist Church, which had steadily reinforced the ban and related penalties amid debate and protests. The change doesn’t mandate or even explicitly affirm LGBTQ+ clergy, but it means the church no longer forbids them.
But each member church was free to decide for itself — and while some bishops favored staying on, others pushed to disaffiliate.
On May 28, Ivory Coast’s church voted to split from the United Methodists. With over 1.2 million members, the West African country’s church has one of the denomination’s largest overseas followers. The United Methodist Church has about 5.4 million members in the United States, and about 4.6 million in Africa, Europe and the Philippines, according to church figures.
In its first reaction following last week’s vote, the church’s Council of Bishops said on Wednesday that “while we grieve” Ivory Coast’s decision, “we commit to work with them through the process of becoming an Autonomous Methodist Church.”
“While we are not all of one mind in all things, the strength of our connection is love, respect, compassion and a shared commitment to faith in Jesus Christ,” the council said in a statement.
Elsewhere in Africa, hundreds of United Methodist Church members gathered at the church’s local headquarters in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, last Thursday to protests the church’s move to welcome LGBTQ+ members.
They sang religious songs, held placards with messages saying homosexuality is a sin and an abomination.
“Africa is not for sale. No to homosexuality,” read one placard held by an elderly woman. Church member James Kawaza reminded the gathering that “homosexuality is unlawful in Zimbabwe.”
“The church has aligned with the Rainbow Movement, and this is also a threat to our African traditions and human existence at large,” read a petition by church members, calling on their Bishop Eben Nhiwatiwa to act.
Nhiwatiwa was not available for comment.
Zimbabwe’s Christian denominations — and others in Africa — have been vocal against any moves to welcome gays into the church.
In January, Catholic bishops in Africa and Madagascar issued a unified statement refusing to follow a declaration by Pope Francis allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples, asserting that such unions are “contrary to the will of God.”
Chester Samba, director of GALZ, which represents the LGBTQ+ community in Zimbabwe, said he was not so hopeful for Zimbabwe and much of the continent to change their conservative stand.
“It is my hope that platforms for dialogue are created and supported to enhance understanding so that all may be welcome in the house of worship regardless of sexual orientation,” said Samba, whose members have over the years been targets of harassment and stigmatization.
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In many US cities, Black and Latino neighborhoods have less access to pharmacies
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Parts of the north side of Montgomery are defined by what it has lost: restaurants, grocery stores and a convenient pharmacy, the latter of which closed five years ago.
People who still live in the historically Black neighborhood of Newtown, like Sharon Harris, are frustrated. She goes to a different location of the same pharmacy chain, which is four miles from her home.
“You have to come back sometimes,” she said, “and then they wait so long to fill the prescription.”
In cities across the U.S., major retail pharmacies have closed hundreds of stores over the past few years and independents can’t always afford to stay open. That can leave residents of color without easy access to a business that provides not only prescriptions but also fundamental public health services like vaccinations, over-the-counter medicines and even food.
Closures create “a situation where there’s not just (a lack of) investment in terms of pharmacy development and expansion, but there’s no incentive to stay in those neighborhoods,” said Dima Qato, a professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California who has studied pharmacy access.
And an Associated Press analysis of licensing data from 44 states, data from the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs and the American Community Survey shows residents of neighborhoods that are majority Black and Hispanic have fewer pharmacies per capita than people who live in mostly white neighborhoods.
MAC Pharmacy is the only one serving about 20,000 people in a majority Black ZIP code in Cleveland. George Tadross, the part-owner and pharmacy manager, said he is adamant about making things as as easy as possible for his mostly older customers — sometimes by organizing their medications by day for them.
“You have to have a pharmacist to talk to,” he said. “My philosophy in the pharmacy business is you know your doctor, he knows everything about you. You need to know your pharmacist as well (because) the pharmacist is the only one that sees the whole medical treatment plan you have.”
Pharmacists play a role in managing chronic diseases like diabetes and heart-related issues, which Black and Hispanic people are more likely to be diagnosed with.
And when pharmacists or pharmacy technicians reflect their customer base — by speaking the same language or understanding the community — it can be easier to build a strong rapport and trust, said Jasmine Gonzalvo, who teaches at Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy and has researched the needs of Spanish-speaking patients at pharmacies.
She noted that if people don’t feel comfortable asking questions about the medication, then it might mean they don’t take it or don’t take it correctly.
“You don’t get a refill,” Gonzalvo said, “simply because there were barriers in the way of your communicating and feeling safe in that relationship with your pharmacist.”
That’s why Bert’s Pharmacy in Elizabeth, New Jersey, has “Spanish- and English-speaking staff all the time,” said owner and pharmacist Prakash Patel said. His business is located in an ZIP code where nearly 70% of the residents are Hispanic.
“We want to make sure, too, they understood everything,” Patel said. “We have Spanish-language labels for them, we print all the instructions in Spanish for them.”
In Montgomery, where Harris lives, the city is working on a development plan for the north side. A retail analysis in the plan shows a small pharmacy could generate $1.5 million in sales a year.
“There’s an opportunity there because you have what I call a captive market,” said Bob Gibbs, the director of Gibbs Planning Group, which did the analysis. “People that live in a lot of these neighborhoods have limited access to transportation … and they’re very loyal to local businesses that will treat them with respect.
“They will go out of their way just to go there. And they just don’t like having to drive … two miles to go to a drugstore. That’s unfair.”
Harris, though, doesn’t have much hope a new pharmacy will open.
“I don’t see it,” she said. “As long as they have (that CVS) they think it’s OK. … Everybody is waiting for them to do something on this side.”
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22 Chinese nationals sentenced to prison in Zambia for cybercrimes
LUSAKA, Zambia — A Zambian court on Friday sentenced 22 Chinese nationals to long prison terms for cybercrimes that included internet fraud and online scams targeting Zambians and other people from Singapore, Peru and the United Arab Emirates.
The Magistrates Court in the capital, Lusaka, sentenced them for terms ranging from seven to 11 years. The court also fined them between $1,500 and $3,000 after they pleaded guilty to charges of computer-related misrepresentation, identity fraud and illegally operating a network or service on Wednesday. A man from Cameroon also was sentenced and fined on the same changes.
They were part of a group of 77 people, the majority of them Zambians, arrested in April over what police described as a “sophisticated internet fraud syndicate.”
Director-general of the drug enforcement commission, Nason Banda, said investigations began after authorities noticed a spike in the number of cyber-related fraud cases and many people complained about inexplicably losing money from their mobile phones or bank accounts.
Officers from the commission, police, the immigration department and the anti-terrorism unit in April swooped on a Chinese-run business in an upmarket suburb of Lusaka, arresting the 77, including those sentenced Friday. Authorities recovered over 13,000 local and foreign mobile phone SIM cards, two firearms and 78 rounds of ammunition during the raid.
The business, named Golden Top Support Services, had employed “unsuspecting” Zambians aged between 20 and 25 to use the SIM cards to engage “in deceptive conversations with unsuspecting mobile users across various platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, chat rooms and others, using scripted dialogues,” Banda said in April after the raid. The locals were freed on bail.
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Former astronaut who took iconic photo of Earth dies in plane crash
seattle, washington — Retired Major General William Anders, the former Apollo 8 astronaut who took the iconic “Earthrise” photo showing the planet as a shadowed blue marble from space in 1968, was killed Friday when the plane he was piloting alone plummeted into the waters off the San Juan Islands in Washington state. He was 90. His son, Greg Anders, confirmed the death to The Associated Press.
“The family is devastated,” Greg Anders said. “He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.”
Anders said the photo was his most significant contribution to the space program, given the ecological and philosophical impact it had, along with making sure the Apollo 8 command module and service module worked.
A report came in around 11:40 a.m. local time that an older-model plane had crashed into the water and had sunk near the north end of Jones Island, San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said.
Only the pilot was on board the Beech A45 airplane at the time, according to the Federal Aviation Association.
William Anders said in a 1997 NASA oral history interview that he didn’t think the Apollo 8 mission was risk-free but there were important national, patriotic and exploration reasons for going ahead.
He estimated there was about a one-in-three chance that the crew wouldn’t make it back and the same chance the mission would be a success and the same chance that the mission wouldn’t start to begin with. He said he suspected Christopher Columbus sailed with worse odds.
He recounted how the Earth looked fragile and seemingly physically insignificant yet was home.
“We’d been going backwards and upside down, didn’t really see the Earth or the sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise,” he said. “That certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing. To see this very delicate, colorful orb which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape really contrasted.”
The National Transportation Safety Board and FAA are investigating the crash.
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UN development agency installing solar energy at Zimbabwean clinics, hospitals
Zimbabwe is facing long hours of power cuts due to its dilapidated infrastructure and the impact of recurring droughts on hydropower. To help, the United Nations Development Program is installing solar panels on government-owned health facilities. Columbus Mavhunga reports from Bulawayo.
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SpaceX’s mega rocket completes its fourth test flight from Texas without exploding
Boca Chica, Texas — SpaceX’s mega Starship rocket completed its first full test flight Thursday, returning to Earth without exploding after blasting off from Texas.
The previous three test flights ended in explosions of the rocket and the spacecraft. This time, both managed to splash down in a controlled fashion.
The world’s largest and most powerful rocket — almost 121 meters tall — was empty as it soared above the Gulf of Mexico and headed east on a flight to the Indian Ocean.
Minutes after Thursday morning’s liftoff, the first-stage booster separated from the spacecraft and splashed into the gulf precisely as planned, after firing its engines.
An hour later, live views showed parts of the spacecraft breaking away during the intense heat of reentry, but it remained intact enough to transmit data all the way to its targeted splashdown site in the Indian Ocean.
“And we have splashdown!” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice announced from Mission Control at company headquarters in California.
It was a critical milestone in the company’s plan to eventually return Starship’s Super Heavy booster to its launch site for reuse.
SpaceX came close to avoiding explosion in March, but lost contact with the spacecraft as it careened out of space and blew up short of its goal. The booster also ruptured in flight, a quarter-mile above the gulf.
Last year’s two test flights ended in explosions shortly after blasting off from the southern tip of Texas near the Mexican border. The first one cratered the pad at Boca Chica Beach and hurled debris for thousands of feet (meters).
SpaceX upgraded the software and made some rocket-flyback changes to improve the odds. The Federal Aviation Administration signed off Tuesday on this fourth demo, saying all safety requirements had been met.
Starship is designed to be fully reusable. That’s why SpaceX wants to control the booster’s entry into the gulf and the spacecraft’s descent into the Indian Ocean — it’s intended as practice for planned future landings. Nothing is being recovered from Thursday’s flight.
NASA has ordered a pair of Starships for two moon-landing missions by astronauts, on tap for later this decade. Each moon crew will rely on NASA’s own rocket and capsule to leave Earth, but meet up with Starship in lunar orbit for the ride down to the surface.
SpaceX already is selling tourist trips around the moon. The first private lunar customer, a Japanese tycoon, pulled out of the trip with his entourage last week, citing the oft-delayed schedule.
SpaceX’s founder and CEO has grander plans: Musk envisions fleets of Starships launching people and the infrastructure necessary to build a city on Mars.
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War traumatizes, haunts both Israeli and Palestinian children
Many Israeli and Palestinian children are suffering from trauma because of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing eight months of war between the two sides. Therapists in both communities say the emotional scars could linger for years. Linda Gradstein reports from Jerusalem.
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Novo Nordisk braces for generic challenge to Ozempic, Wegovy in China
SHANGHAI, China — Novo Nordisk is facing the prospect of intensifying competition in the promising Chinese market, where drugmakers are developing at least 15 generic versions of its diabetes drug Ozempic and weight loss treatment Wegovy, clinical trial records showed.
The Danish drugmaker has high hopes that demand for its blockbuster drugs will surge in China, which is estimated to have the world’s highest number of people who are overweight or obese.
Ozempic won approval from China in 2021, and Novo Nordisk saw sales of the drug in the greater China region double to $698 million last year. It is expecting Wegovy to be approved this year.
But the patent on semaglutide, the active ingredient in both Wegovy and Ozempic, expires in China in 2026. Novo is also in the midst of a legal fight in the country over the patent.
An adverse court ruling could make it lose its semaglutide exclusivity even sooner and turn China into the first major market where Novo is stripped of patent protection for the drugs.
Those circumstances have drawn several Chinese drugmakers to the fray. At least 11 semaglutide drug candidates from Chinese firms are in the final stages of clinical trials, according to records in a clinical trial database reviewed by Reuters.
“Ozempic has witnessed unprecedented success in mainland China … and with patent expiry so close, Chinese drugmakers are looking to capitalize (on) this segment as soon as possible,” said Karan Verma, a health care research and data analyst at information services provider Clarivate.
Front-runner Hangzhou Jiuyuan Gene Engineering has already developed one treatment that it says has “similar clinical efficacy and safety” as Ozempic and applied for approval for sale in April. The company has not published efficacy data and did not respond to a request for information.
The company said in January that it expected approval in the second half of 2025, but it cautioned that it would not be able to commercialize the drug before Novo’s patent expires in 2026, unless a Chinese court makes a final ruling that the patent is invalid.
The Danish company’s semaglutide patent is expiring in China far ahead of its expiry in key markets such as Japan, Europe and the U.S. Analysts attribute variations in patent expiry timelines to term extensions Novo has won in specific regions.
Even more pressing for Novo is the China patent office’s 2022 ruling that the patent is invalid for reasons related to experimental data availability, which the company has challenged.
China’s top court said it was not able to say when verdicts are likely ready.
A Novo spokesperson said it “welcomes healthy competition” and was awaiting a court decision on its patent case. The spokesperson did not answer follow-up queries on the matter.
Other Chinese drugmakers who are running the final stages of clinical trials for Ozempic generics include United Laboratories, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Huadong Medicine and a subsidiary of Sihuan Pharmaceutical Holdings Group.
CSPC said in May it expected approval for its semaglutide diabetes drug in 2026.
Brokerage Jefferies estimated in an October report that semaglutide drugs from United Laboratories will be launched for diabetes in 2025 and obesity in 2027. United Laboratories did not respond to a request for comment.
Impact on prices
The number of adults who are overweight or obese in China is projected to reach 540 million and 150 million, respectively, in 2030, up 2.8 and 7.5 times from 2000 levels, according to a 2020 study by Chinese public health researchers.
If shown to be as safe and effective as Novo’s, Chinese drugmakers’ products will increase competition and bring down prices, analysts say.
Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in an August report that generics could lead to a price reduction of around 25% for semaglutide in China. The weekly Ozempic injection costs around $100 for each 3mL dose through China’s public hospital network, Clarivate’s Verma said.
Novo acknowledges the intensifying competition.
“In 2026 and 2027 we might see a few more players showing up due to the clinical trials” in progress, Maziar Mike Doustdar, a Novo executive vice president, told investors in March, referring to the China market.
But he also questioned the capability of some of the players to provide meaningful volumes, adding, “We will watch it as we get closer.”
Novo also faces competition from internationally well-known firms, including Eli Lilly, whose diabetes drug Mounjaro received approval from China in May. HSBC analysts expect China’s approval this year or in the first half of 2025 for Lilly’s weight loss drug with the same active ingredient.
Eli Lilly did not reply to a request for a comment on Chinese approval of the drug, which in the U.S. is called Zepbound.
Supplies of both Wegovy and Zepbound remain constrained, but the companies have been increasing production.
Zuo Ya-Jun, general manager of weight loss drugmaker Shanghai Benemae Pharmaceutical, said a product being competitive would depend on distinguishing features such as efficacy, durability of the treatment and a company’s sales abilities.
“It will be a market with fierce competition, but who will be [the leader] is hard to say,” she said.
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From refugee camps to World Cup glory: Inspiring journey of Afghanistan cricket
Washington — When the parents of Karim Sadiq and Taj Maluk fled a wrecked Afghanistan torn apart by the 1979 Soviet invasion and infighting warlords, they didn’t imagine their children — Karim and Taj — would return to reunite the war-torn nation through cricket.
Taj Maluk became the first coach of the Afghan national team. Fans refer to him as one of the founding fathers of Afghan cricket. Younger brother Karim Sadiq played a key role in Afghanistan’s qualification in the World Cup in 2010, creating history for the cricket-loving nation of more than 40 million.
The brothers were brought up in a refugee camp called Katcha Garhi, in Peshawar, Pakistan. The family left a decent life in the eastern Nangarhar province to live in a sea of mud houses and poverty.
“Life was all struggle those days,” Karim Sadiq recalls. “Doing odd jobs in the night and playing cricket in the daytime. We used a stick as a bat, used to make plastic balls from plastic waste material.”
There was an old black-and-white TV set in their refugee camp where the young and elders watched international matches, including Pakistan winning the 1992 World Cup. These events had a huge influence on aspiring cricketers in Afghan refugee camps.
The elder brother, Taj Maluk, searched for talent in refugee camps and founded the Afghan Cricket Club, which arguably laid the foundation of the future Afghanistan team.
Another Afghan cricketer, Allah Dad Noori, also played a key role by pioneering a path for cricket in Afghanistan.
Like the brothers, many international Afghan players, such as Mohammad Shehzad, Raees Ahmadzai, Mohammad Nabi, and the country’s first global star Rashid Khan, now captain, all grew up learning cricket and becoming cricketers in Peshawar, Pakistan.
“It was our passion. We didn’t know then that Cricket would bring such happiness to the Afghan nation,” Karim Sadiq told VOA. “Cricket conveys a message that Afghanistan is not a country of war and drugs. It’s a country of love and sports.”
In 2001, after the invasion of the U.S. forces against the Taliban rule, cricket flourished in Afghanistan, which became an associate member of the ICC, the world’s cricketing body.
A new younger generation of cricketers emerged. Now, Afghanistan is a full member of the ICC’s elite club of 12 countries, and it enjoys the status of a test-playing nation.
The Afghan team won many hearts in the 2023 World Cup after earning wins against the former world champions — Pakistan, England and Sri Lanka.
“Afghan players fight for every match as they are fighting for the nation,” Pakistan’s former captain, Rashid Latif, who coached Afghanistan, told VOA. “T20 cricket needs aggression and Afghanistan players have it. They are capable of surprises in the World Cup.”
Now, Afghanistan is playing in the T20 Cricket World Cup co-hosted by the United States and West Indies. It has strong contenders like New Zealand and West Indies in the group, along with minnows Papa New Guinea and Uganda. Some experts call it the “Group of Death” because only two teams will make it through the knockout stage.
The Taliban banned all women’s sports and put restrictions on some men’s sports, but not cricket. There is speculation it’s because they enjoyed the game themselves or were apprehensive about the possible public reaction if they banned it, given its massive popularity.
A few weeks ago, when Afghanistan’s team captain, Rashid Khan, visited Afghanistan to meet family and friends, Taliban officials presented him with bouquets and took selfies with the superstar.
Rashid and his team members, including young superstars — batters Rehmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran, allrounder Azmatullah Omarzai, spinners Mujeeb-ur Rehman and Noor Ahmed — have arrived in the West Indies, as have their diehard supporters from Europe, Canada and the U.S.
Back in Afghanistan, Karim Sadiq is now working to promote the sport, while his elder brother, 49-year-old Taj Maluk, has turned to religion. “Cricket is not just a game. It reunites Afghans and brings joy to the lives of people,” Taj Maluk told VOA. “We will pray for their success.”
Karim Sadiq recalls when Afghanistan qualified for the T20 World Cup in 2010. “When we returned home, it was a festival. Everywhere, celebrating crowds held up the Afghan flag. We all wish to see such festivity again, to see Afghanistan become the World Champion.”
Across Afghanistan, fans have made special arrangements to view the matches. Some have pooled their money to buy dish antennas. Others have decorated the hujras, or living rooms, with national flags.
“Afghanistan is a wounded land. Cricket helps people stitch those wounds,“ said Shams ul Rahman Shirzad, a cricket fan in Nangarhar, from where the brothers Taj Maluk and Karim Sadiq hailed and once dreamed of having a national cricket team.
This story originated in VOA’s Afghan service.
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