Global Pulse

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  • US federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN’s Francesca Albanese

    US federal judge blocks US sanctions against UN’s Francesca Albanese

    In a landmark ruling that upholds core free speech principles, a US federal judge issued a temporary preliminary injunction on Wednesday halting the Trump administration’s sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestine, finding the punitive measures likely violated her constitutional right to free expression.

    Albanese was targeted with US sanctions in July 2025, just weeks after she published a sweeping, critical report on June 30 that condemned Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. In that document, she identified over 60 major global firms — including tech giants Google, Amazon, and Microsoft — alleging the companies were complicit in shifting Israel’s occupation-based economy into what she framed as an economy of genocide. The report called on the International Criminal Court (ICC), national judicial bodies worldwide to launch investigations and prosecute implicated corporate leaders and companies, and urged UN member states to impose targeted sanctions and asset freezes on the entities named.

    The sanctions imposed on Albanese carried severe practical consequences: she was barred from entering the United States, and was shut out of the US banking system, cutting off access to basic financial services. The legal challenge to the sanctions was brought by Albanese’s husband Massimiliano Cali, a senior World Bank economist based in Tunisia, who filed the civil suit on behalf of himself, Albanese, and the couple’s US citizen daughter. The complaint argued that the Trump administration had unlawfully seized Albanese’s accessible assets without adhering to due process, violated existing US sanctions legislation, and effectively de-banked her, leaving her unable to meet routine daily needs.

    In his opinion accompanying the injunction order, US District Judge Richard Leon emphasized that safeguarding free speech is always aligned with the public interest. The judge further ruled that Albanese’s status as a non-US resident does not strip her of protections under the First Amendment to the US Constitution, noting that the administration targeted her specifically because of the content and message of her public criticism.

    Albanese celebrated the court’s decision in a public post on X, writing, “BREAKING! US court has suspended the US sanctions against me! As the judge says: ‘Protecting the Freedom of speech is always just the public interest’. Thanks to my daughter and my husband for stepping up to defend me, and everyone who has helped so far. Together we are One.”

    The ruling comes amid growing international solidarity with Albanese. Earlier that month, on May 7, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez awarded the UN expert the Order of Civil Merit in a clear show of support. A day before that honor, Sanchez formally asked the European Commission to activate the EU’s Blocking Statute, a regulation designed to protect EU individuals and institutions from extraterritorial US sanctions, to shield both the ICC and the United Nations from US punitive measures.

  • Princess of Wales’ Italy visit highlights progressive preschool approach that shuns standardization

    Princess of Wales’ Italy visit highlights progressive preschool approach that shuns standardization

    When the Princess of Wales touched down in northern Italy for her first solo international trip following her cancer remission, she did not come for a simple ceremonial visit. Instead, her two-day tour of preschools in Reggio Emilia has pulled back the curtain on one of the world’s most revolutionary early childhood education models, a framework that upended conventional ideas about how toddlers learn and continues to spark debate about educational standardization decades after its founding.

    For Catherine, who has centered her public advocacy on early childhood development, the trip offered a first-hand look at a philosophy that aligns perfectly with her policy priorities. “I love that you put children and childhood at the heart of the community, and I’m really fascinated to learn more about it,” she told local educators during her Wednesday arrival at one of the city’s flagship preschools. On Thursday, she joined young students in the garden at Reggio Emilia’s Salvatore Allende daycare, kneeling in the grass to examine insects with a magnifying glass and even letting a slimy wild newt crawl across her open palm, noting that similar newts are found in gardens back in her home country.

    The Reggio Emilia Approach, as it is formally known, is rooted in a child-first philosophy that stands in stark contrast to the test-heavy, standardized early education frameworks common in the U.S. and United Kingdom. Unlike traditional models that cast teachers as lead instructors, Reggio frames educators as facilitators who guide children’s curiosity, rather than dictating lesson plans. The approach also requires active participation from parents and the local community, centering early learning as a collective public responsibility rather than a private individual pursuit. Partially built on the foundations of the earlier Montessori method, another Italian-origin educational philosophy, Reggio has spread to every corner of the globe, but it remains unevenly adopted even in its home country.

    Its origins stretch back to the immediate aftermath of World War II, when Reggio Emilia, a hub of anti-Fascist resistance left decimated by conflict, began the slow work of rebuilding. A group of local mothers, eager to create a safe space for children while the rest of the community rebuilt their lives and livelihoods, banded together to launch a new preschool. “They sold the metal from a abandoned German tank for funds and they hand-carried stones from the nearby river to reconstruct a place for the children to be cared for,” explained Margie Cooper of the North America Reggio Emilia Alliance. That grassroots effort caught the attention of innovative pedagogical scholar Loris Malaguzzi, who expanded on Montessori and other early 20th century educational reform movements to formalize the Reggio framework for children aged 0 to 6.

    At the time, Malaguzzi’s core argument — that young children hold inherent curiosity, existing capabilities, and unique perspectives worth centering — was radical. Mid-20th century conventional wisdom viewed children as incomplete adults-in-training, with no valuable knowledge or skills of their own. Malaguzzi captured the philosophy in a iconic poem that became the movement’s manifesto, arguing that children communicate and understand the world through hundreds of forms of expression: drawing, painting, dancing, singing, play, and exploration, not just written or verbal instruction.

    The approach quickly spread to other progressive, left-leaning municipalities across northern Italy, but faced decades of political pushback from Rome’s national government, which was led by conservative Christian Democrats until the 1990s. Historians attribute that resistance to Reggio’s deep roots in the communist-led resistance movement of Reggio Emilia. Today, that old political opposition has faded, but adoption remains uneven across Italy. Cash-strapped local governments often lack the funds to invest in specialized teacher training required for the model, so expansion is largely left to individual educators who seek out training on their own, explained Elisabetta Nigris, professor of didactic programs and evaluation at the University of Studies Milan-Bicocca.

    Unlike many traditional early education settings, Reggio classrooms prioritize natural materials, open green space, and long-term student-teacher relationships: children typically stay with the same teacher for multiple years, rather than moving between instructors each academic year. Students often help prepare meals, and outdoor exploration and art are core components of daily learning. Research from University of Chicago senior researcher Sylvi Kuperman, who published a 2017 study of Reggio outcomes in Italy, has found measurable long-term benefits: children who attended Reggio early education programs saw higher high school graduation rates and better employment outcomes in adulthood compared to peers who did not have access to formal early childcare.

    Still, even for Italian parents who experienced rigid rote learning in their own childhoods, the lack of structured test preparation can cause anxiety, particularly as children approach age 5 and primary school. “When the children are 3 or 4, they’re totally fine with it. And then when they hit 5, they (the parents) start getting a little twitchy because they’re thinking about Grade 1,” where children are expected to sit still for extended periods and master formal reading and writing skills, said Kathryn Ramsay, a veteran early childhood educator who runs a Reggio-inspired bilingual program north of Rome.

    Ramsay’s center, called Wild Joy, embodies the modern Reggio approach: a sprawling grassy outdoor space replaces traditional playground equipment, with no bright branded posters or rigid classroom layouts. Most learning happens outside, at a “mud kitchen” play area, a digging pit, and a large rock climbing slide. Ramsay argues that unstructured child-led play is actually the best preparation for formal academic skills, because it teaches children to focus by following their own curiosity. “They don’t learn to concentrate by being told what to concentrate on. They’re learning to concentrate by having the freedom to be able to follow their own interests,” she said.

    For the United Kingdom, Catherine’s visit carries particular significance, because the Reggio Approach is not formally recognized in UK national education policy, and the vast majority of British early childhood programs are run by for-profit private organizations, explained Peter Moss, emeritus professor at University College London’s Institute of Education. Moss added that while the model is influential, its origins in post-Fascist reconstruction make it difficult to replicate elsewhere. “Reggio Emilia is a reaction to 20 years of authoritarian rule under Mussolini and, after that fell, of course a lot of places in Italy were asking the question ’How do we make sure that never happens again?’” he noted, pointing out that the child-centered, community-focused model was intentionally designed to foster democratic values from a young age.

  • Germany’s Merz calls for more investment, less subsidies in EU budget

    Germany’s Merz calls for more investment, less subsidies in EU budget

    A pivotal debate over the future of the European Union’s long-term budget has taken center stage at the 2026 Charlemagne Prize ceremony in Aachen, Germany, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for sweeping structural reform to align the bloc’s spending with 21st-century challenges. The event, which honored former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi for his decades of work advancing European integration, became a platform for confronting longstanding frictions over EU fiscal policy and competitiveness.

    The 27 EU member states are currently locked in tense negotiations over the 2028-2034 multiannual budget. A bloc of so-called frugal nations, led by Germany and the Netherlands, has already pushed back against a substantial spending increase proposed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive body. Speaking at the award ceremony Thursday, Merz, a conservative leader, argued that the EU’s current budget framework is hopelessly outdated. “We cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century with a 20th-century budget,” he declared, echoing growing frustration across the bloc over stagnant budget structures that have not shifted in decades.

    Merz backed a landmark 2024 competitiveness report from Draghi, which warned that the EU risks falling behind global rivals the United States and China without a fundamental shift in policy. He criticized that the EU budget’s core content and structure has remained virtually unchanged for generations, with more than two-thirds of all EU funding still allocated to redistribution programs and direct subsidies. For decades, the EU has leaned heavily on these subsidies and redistribution mechanisms to offset economic disruptions from internal trade integration and support less wealthy eastern European member states as the bloc expanded. But Merz argued this model is no longer fit for purpose, calling for an overall reduction in unnecessary budget spending and a major reallocation toward investments that boost EU competitiveness and collective defense.

    Despite backing Draghi’s call for increased joint investment, Merz drew a firm line against the funding mechanism Draghi proposed: collective debt issuance by all EU member states. “Excessive indebtedness threatens sovereignty and limits the capacity to act,” Merz stated. Analysts widely note the comment also carries weight for domestic German politics, where the country relaxed its long-standing strict constitutional “debt brake” rules only last year, after years of adhering to rigid fiscal limits, to fund increased defense and infrastructure investment.

    In his acceptance speech for the Charlemagne Prize, which recognizes individuals who work to advance European unity, Draghi offered a sharp critique of the bloc’s overreliance on external free trade deals as a growth driver — a long-standing priority for German economic policy. Draghi argued that pursuing new trade agreements is far easier than tackling “unfinished work at home,” a reference to the EU’s incomplete single market. He noted that reform requires confronting entrenched vested interests that benefit from fragmented energy markets and an incomplete single market, choices European leaders have long avoided.

    Draghi, who also served as Italian prime minister from 2021 to 2022 and led the ECB from 2011 to 2019, is widely credited with preventing the collapse of the euro during the 2010s eurozone debt crisis. His successor at the head of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, reinforced his calls for urgent action in a speech delivered the night before the ceremony, noting that global competition has shifted dramatically. “The United States and China have entered a new age of industrial strategy and geopolitical competition — intensified by tariff wars and rare-earth battles — and all this amid the worst energy crisis on record,” Lagarde said, echoing Draghi’s warning that the EU must act fast to avoid falling behind in global competitiveness.

  • Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation

    Pope decries the rise of AI-directed warfare, saying it leads to a spiral of annihilation

    On a historic Thursday visit to Rome’s La Sapienza University, the largest institution of higher education in Europe, Pope Leo XIV delivered a stark warning to the global community: unregulated investments in artificial intelligence and cutting-edge military weaponry are pushing the world toward a dangerous “spiral of annihilation.” The appearance marked a pivotal moment for the Vatican, coming 16 years after Pope Benedict XVI canceled a planned visit to the 14th-century campus amid widespread protests from faculty and students, a controversy that left a long shadow over Vatican-university relations.

    Unlike the fraught planned visit in 2008, Pope Leo was met with a warm welcome from the La Sapienza community, highlighted by a special greeting for a group of recently arrived Palestinian students from Gaza. These young scholars entered Italy this week via a humanitarian corridor organized by the Italian government in partnership with Catholic organizations, an initiative that has brought hundreds of Gazans to Italy for higher education and critical medical care since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.

    During his time on campus, Pope Leo met with several of the newly arrived Gaza students twice: once during an informal greeting at the university’s chapel, and again after his keynote address in the institution’s main lecture hall. La Sapienza, founded by Pope Boniface VIII in 1303, is one of the oldest continuously operating universities in the world, adding historic weight to the pope’s address focused on global conflict and ethical progress.

    In his speech, Pope Leo called out the dramatic surge in global military spending this year, with a specific note on exponential increases across Europe. He argued that this growth in military budgets has come directly at the expense of underfunded public education and healthcare systems, enriching a small cohort of elite stakeholders who show little regard for collective global well-being.

    The pontiff extended his critique to the rapid development of artificial intelligence, urging the creation of stricter, more transparent monitoring frameworks for AI innovation across both military and civilian sectors. He stressed that AI must never be allowed to remove human accountability for life-or-death choices, nor should it be allowed to worsen the already devastating human cost of ongoing global conflicts.

    “What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation,” Pope Leo told the assembled audience. He pushed back against this trend, arguing that education and academic research must chart a different course centered on the inherent value of human life—“the lives of peoples who cry out for peace and justice.”

    Addressing ongoing conflicts, Pope Leo explicitly repeated his call for immediate ceasefires and negotiated peace in both the Middle East and Ukraine, two conflicts that have dominated global headlines and displaced millions of people over the past several years. This address aligns with Pope Leo’s long-stated position that AI regulation is one of the most critical existential challenges facing humanity, particularly when it comes to its unregulated use in warfare and daily life. Vatican observers confirmed he plans to expand on these themes in his first encyclical, a major papal teaching document set for release in the coming weeks.

    For 19-year-old Nada Rahim Jouda, one of the Gaza students who met the pope just two days after arriving in Italy, the visit marked a surreal moment in a life upended by war. Jouda, who will study business science at La Sapienza, described Rome as “like heaven for me,” contrasting the city’s lush, calm landscape with the constant instability and destruction of Gaza, where “everything is gray and troubles everywhere and miserable people in the streets.”

    Even as she begins her new life, Jouda carries the weight of the family she left behind. Her mother is recovering from leukemia and was unable to access consistent cancer treatment or check-ups amid the war, which forced her entire family to flee their home four times. Her two younger sisters, ages 13 and 17, remain in Gaza with her mother. “They all rely on me. I’m the only hope that they have,” Jouda said.

    This Associated Press religion coverage is produced through a collaboration between AP and The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP retains sole editorial responsibility for all content.

  • BBC at the scene of Russian strikes in Kyiv

    BBC at the scene of Russian strikes in Kyiv

    Since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, the capital Kyiv has faced repeated threats of air attacks, but a new wave of strikes stands out as one of the most intense assaults the city has seen in the entire conflict. According to on-the-ground reporting from the BBC, multiple civilian apartment blocks were directly hit in the latest offensive, bringing immediate danger to residential neighborhoods that are home to thousands of ordinary Ukrainians. The attack comes amid a prolonged period of heightened tensions across Ukraine, with Russian forces continuing to target infrastructure and populated areas in a campaign that has disrupted daily life for millions. BBC correspondents present in Kyiv in the aftermath of the strikes documented the extent of the damage, with visible impacts to residential buildings that serve as primary homes for local families. This assault marks a significant escalation in air activity directed at the Ukrainian capital, reinforcing the ongoing volatility of the conflict that has gripped Eastern Europe for more than two years. Local residents have been forced to seek shelter amid the attack, with emergency services responding quickly to the incident to assess damage, rescue trapped civilians, and address the aftermath of the strikes.

  • Former Nigerian minister sentenced to 75 years in rare corruption verdict

    Former Nigerian minister sentenced to 75 years in rare corruption verdict

    In a landmark conviction that has sent shockwaves through Nigeria’s political landscape, former Nigerian Power Minister Saleh Mamman has been handed a 75-year prison sentence for laundering 33.8 billion naira (equivalent to roughly $24.7 million), marking one of the rare high-profile convictions of corrupt senior officials in the West African nation.

    The 68-year-old ex-minister, who led Nigeria’s power sector from 2015 to 2021 under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, was found guilty last week on 12 separate corruption charges. Prosecutors proved that Mamman used privately owned front companies to siphon and launder public funds allocated for government-backed power infrastructure projects.

    In an unusual turn of proceedings, the Abuja High Court handed down the sentence on Wednesday in absentia. Nigeria’s lead anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), confirmed that Mamman has gone missing, and has been untraceable since the guilty verdict was issued. Just days after his conviction, the court issued a formal arrest warrant for the former minister on Monday. Mamman has not issued any public response to the charges or conviction.

    What makes the case even more remarkable is the timing: just weeks before his sentencing, Mamman officially announced his intention to run for governor of Taraba State in Nigeria’s 2027 general election, running on the ticket of the country’s ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). He made the announcement in a social media post, writing that he had picked up his Expression of Interest and Nomination Forms “with a deep sense of responsibility and unwavering commitment” to serve the state.

    Buhari, whose administration campaigned on a promise to crack down on endemic public sector corruption, ultimately removed Mamman from his cabinet in a 2021 reshuffle following what the presidency described as an “independent and critical self-review” of government performance.

    Along with the prison sentence, the high court ordered Mamman to repay 22 billion naira ($16 million) of the laundered funds to the Nigerian government. His conviction is part of a broader ongoing anti-corruption crackdown by the EFCC targeting former senior government officials. The agency is currently pursuing investigations into other high-profile figures, including former Justice Minister Abubakar Malami and former Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq, who was recently declared a wanted person by the EFCC. Both officials have denied all allegations against them.

    The verdict has also reignited long-simmering public anger over Nigeria’s ongoing national electricity crisis, a problem Mamman was tasked with solving during his tenure as power minister. Despite being one of Africa’s largest energy producers, Nigeria suffers from chronic, nationwide power shortages that bring frequent, extended blackouts to residential and commercial areas across the country. Millions of households and businesses are forced to rely on expensive private fuel-powered generators, and soaring global fuel prices have left countless Nigerians unable to afford the cost of backup power, deepening economic hardship across the country.

  • France allows asymptomatic passengers off new cruise ship struck by stomach bug outbreak

    France allows asymptomatic passengers off new cruise ship struck by stomach bug outbreak

    BORDEAUX, France – A public health incident that kept more than 1,700 passengers and crew confined to a British cruise ship off the French Atlantic coast has entered a new phase, with local authorities allowing all unaffected guests to leave the vessel Wednesday evening, after confirming the outbreak stems from the highly contagious stomach bug norovirus.

    The Ambition, operated by UK-based Ambassador Cruise Line, had been mid-voyage on a 14-night itinerary departing from Belfast and Liverpool, with planned stops across northern Spain and coastal France, when widespread gastrointestinal symptoms were reported among people on board. The ship docked in Bordeaux on Tuesday evening, and French public health officials immediately issued a full lockdown order, requiring all passengers and crew to stay on board to contain the spread of the pathogen.

    Within a day, officials adjusted the policy, clearing guests who showed no signs of illness to disembark. Photos and on-scene observations captured one passenger exiting the ship with arms raised in a gesture of relief and celebration. As of Thursday, officials had not released an exact count of how many people took advantage of the permission to leave.

    Testing conducted at Bordeaux University Hospital confirmed norovirus as the source of the outbreak, ruling out any connection to the recent deadly hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch vessel that had put European public health agencies on high alert in recent weeks. Local health officials added that no severe cases of illness have been recorded so far, and passengers experiencing symptoms are receiving ongoing care from the cruise ship’s in-house medical team.

    It remains unclear whether the Ambition will resume its scheduled journey, and if so, when operations will restart.

    The outbreak aligns with broader patterns of norovirus spread on cruise ships documented by global health authorities. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which tracks gastrointestinal illness outbreaks on cruise vessels calling at both U.S. and international ports, recorded 23 separate outbreaks on cruise ships last year. The vast majority of these outbreaks, including one caused by a newly identified strain, were linked to norovirus, a pathogen known for spreading quickly in enclosed communal settings such as cruise liners.

    Ambassador Cruise Line, the operator of the Ambition, is a UK-based company founded in 2021 that focuses on serving travelers over the age of 50.

  • Stars flying into Cannes in private jets ‘obscene’, say ex-pilots

    Stars flying into Cannes in private jets ‘obscene’, say ex-pilots

    As the iconic Cannes Film Festival approaches, climate campaigners and former aviation professionals are shining a harsh spotlight on the luxury private jet travel habit of Hollywood’s biggest names, calling their excessive carbon and fuel use a deeply unethical indulgence amid a mounting global energy crisis.

    Last year’s festival alone saw 750 private jet flights carry A-list stars and industry executives to the French Riviera, according to new data compiled by Brussels-based environmental nonprofit Transport and Environment (T&E). That volume of travel burned through a staggering 2 million liters of jet kerosene — a footprint equal to the fuel consumption of 14,000 commercial passengers flying the route between Paris and Athens, T&E’s aviation lead Jerome du Boucher told AFP in an interview this week.

    Anthony Viaux, a former Air France pilot and one of the dozens of aviation professionals backing the campaign, argued that the wasteful consumption by the rich and famous is far more than just out of touch. “The rich and famous burning through scarce fuel to get to a film festival isn’t just tone deaf, it’s obscene,” Viaux said. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East pushing global fuel markets into chaos and many nations facing acute fuel shortages, the global community can no longer justify reserving massive volumes of scarce fuel for elite luxury travel, campaigners say.

    At present, EU regulations leave two-thirds of all private jet flights exempt from carbon taxes under the bloc’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a loophole T&E traces back to EU policymakers’ fear of retaliatory action from the former U.S. Trump administration if private aviation were added to the scheme. This creates a stark double standard: ordinary commercial passengers flying within the EU are required to pay these carbon levies, while the world’s wealthiest elite escape the cost entirely.

    The call for reform has even won support from wealthy advocates for change. Julia Davies, an investor and co-founder of Patriotic Millionaires UK, pointed out that private aviation is a luxury accessible only to a tiny sliver of the global population, yet that same elite group avoids the fuel and carbon taxes that ordinary working people pay every day when they commute to work.

    Campaigners are pointing to a small but high-profile example to prove change is possible: last year, Chilean-American star Pedro Pascal — who gained global fame for his lead role in *The Last of Us* and *Narcos* — traveled to Cannes on a commercial economy flight, defying the unwritten rule that A-listers arrive via private transport. Former private jet pilot Katie Thompson argues there is no reason every other celebrity cannot follow Pascal’s lead, or opt for low-carbon train travel for short European routes to the Riviera.

    The current global fuel crunch, driven by months of heightened tension around the Strait of Hormuz following U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, has created widespread disruption across European aviation already this year. France alone has canceled more than 500 flights in recent months, and up to 20 million passengers across Germany are expected to face scheduling disruptions and shortages during the peak summer holiday travel period, du Boucher noted. Against this backdrop, campaigners say the crisis presents a rare opening to force long-overdue reform of private aviation regulations.

    T&E is currently lobbying European national governments to enact a full ban on private jet travel, arguing that scarce kerosene reserves should be reserved for essential travel rather than elite luxury. The group is also calling for EU policymakers to close the existing ETS loophole, requiring all private jet flights and international routes into the bloc to pay full carbon taxes, regardless of external political pressure. “EU policymakers shouldn’t let Trump’s administration dictate the rule,” Viaux said.

    T&E data shows that even a simple shift from private to commercial travel for all Cannes attendees would put the festival 40 percent of the way to meeting its 2030 carbon emissions reduction target, a meaningful step forward for an event that has pledged to cut its climate impact. AFP has reached out to the Cannes Film Festival organizing committee for comment on the campaign’s demands, and no response has been issued as of yet.

  • Swapping Love Island for Eurovision: Antigoni’s pride at representing Cyprus

    Swapping Love Island for Eurovision: Antigoni’s pride at representing Cyprus

    The Eurovision Song Contest has increasingly become a stage where familiar faces from across the entertainment world make surprise appearances, with small participating nation San Marino leading the trend in recent years — from a fleeting cameo by 80s pop icon Boy George at this year’s contest to a high-profile guest spot from American rapper Flo Rida that helped the country secure its place in the 2021 grand final. This year, however, it is fans of hit British reality series *Love Island* that are in for a surprise: 2022 series eight contestant Antigoni Buxton is set to take the stage in the contest’s second semi-final, representing Cyprus with her upbeat dance-pop entry *Jalla*.

    For many viewers who only know Buxton from her time as a bombshell on the reality dating show, her leap to Eurovision may come as a shock — but the London-born singer-songwriter says that transition is anything but out of the blue. In an interview with BBC Newsbeat, Buxton explained that singing has been her lifelong passion, long before her *Love Island* appearance. “I’ve been wanting to be a singer, that has been my dream since I was as young as I can remember,” she said. “And I had an obsession with Eurovision ever since I saw Helena Paparizou win for Greece back in 2005.” Buxton frames her 2022 reality TV stint as a happy accident that opened unexpected doors: “If anything doing Love Island was random. It was a great moment because it gave me the chance to introduce myself to a lot of people and now I’m on that path I always wanted to be on.”

    Though raised in the British capital, Buxton has deep Greek-Cypriot roots, and she has woven her cultural heritage into every layer of her Eurovision entry. She spent six to eight weeks every summer on the Mediterranean island growing up, and says she has always felt a strong connection to her Cypriot identity, making representing the country a point of immense pride. *Jalla* blends modern pop production with traditional Greek instrumentation, and draws direct inspiration from Tsifteteli, the beloved Greek belly dance style. The track’s title itself holds special local meaning: it is unique Cypriot-Greek slang that roughly translates to “more” or “again”, a detail Buxton says she is excited to share with a global audience. “Sharing my roots is something I do across all my music, and I am really proud to be able to share that specific part of Cypriot culture here,” she added.

    The music video for *Jalla* leans even further into Buxton’s cultural and entertainment connections, featuring cameos from her own mother and grandparents, as well as iconic UK-based Cypriot dance duo Stavros Flatley. The father-son pair rose to fame after their memorable 2009 run on *Britain’s Got Talent*, and Buxton says they are one of the most famous Cypriot acts to break through in the UK. She reached out directly to Demi, the duo’s lead performer, who jumped at the chance to join the project with open enthusiasm.

    Unlike her experience on reality competition television, Buutton says she has found the Eurovision community to be overwhelmingly warm and supportive, a sharp contrast to the critical culture that often surrounds reality TV appearances. “That’s the thing about Eurovision, it’s almost the opposite of some things I’ve done in the public eye in the past where people want to judge and give bad comments,” she explained. “People still do, but it’s a very loving community. It’s a really warm, happy, loving, supportive community. Everyone sees that it’s a big opportunity to learn about culture, to have fun. So I feel overwhelmed with joy and with gratitude.”

    This year marks the 42nd time Cyprus has competed in the Eurovision Song Contest — a record for the most participation by any country without ever claiming the top prize. After failing to qualify for the 2025 grand final, the country is pulling out all the stops for Buxton’s performance in this year’s host city Vienna. Her live staging takes the track’s lyric about dancing on tables literally, featuring a giant prop table that dancers emerge from underneath, and builds to a explosive climax packed with extensive pyrotechnics. But despite the high stakes for her country, 30-year-old Buxton says she is not solely focused on taking home the win. “In terms of my career and in terms of success, the focus is just doing my very best,” she said. “If I can leave there and feel like I did myself proud, Cyprus is proud of me, my family and my team, that is a win in itself. But I also feel like I have an opportunity to make history for my country and it would just mean so much to the people of Cyprus.”

  • Underwater memorial to wrecked slave ship draws pilgrims seeking to connect with their roots

    Underwater memorial to wrecked slave ship draws pilgrims seeking to connect with their roots

    Off the sun-dappled coast of Key West, Florida, Ruthie Browning slipped into the glassy Atlantic waters in early May, expecting nothing more than a quiet moment of respect at a sunken memorial. She had joined a cohort of Black divers and community advocates on a journey to a sacred maritime site: the final resting place of the Henrietta Marie, a British slave ship that sank 326 years ago, at the height of the brutal trans-Atlantic slave trade.

    The vessel’s tragic story is etched into the seafloor: after delivering 200 kidnapped West African people into chattel slavery in Jamaica, the ship set sail for Britain in 1700, only to be swallowed by a storm at New Ground Reef, where the Atlantic merges with the Gulf of Mexico. Today, a six-meter-deep concrete marker anchors the site, a permanent tribute to the lives stolen and forever altered by the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Browning arrived ready to observe, honor, and depart—but the moment she reached the marker, an unexpected wave of emotion overtook her.

    Staring at the memorial, now a thriving micro-reef draped in soft corals and sponges, tears flooded her eyes. As she quieted her mind to listen, she felt a gentle, unmistakeable connection to the ancestors whose stories the site holds: “My daughter, we’re so glad you’re here.” Overwhelmed by gratitude, she lingered at the marker, which bears the inscription: “Henrietta Marie. In memory and recognition of the courage, pain and suffering on enslaved African people. Speak her name and gently touch the souls of our ancestors.” “Without their stamina, their spirit and survival, I wouldn’t be here today. None of us would be here today,” Browning reflected after her dive.

    This pilgrimage was years in the making. The group’s 2023 attempt to reach the site was foiled by dangerously choppy waters, which group members framed as a sign the timing was not right. “The ancestors were not smiling down on us then,” said Jay Haigler, a master diving instructor with Underwater Adventure Seekers, the world’s oldest Black scuba diving club. “This year was different.”

    Michael Cottman, an author of two books on the Henrietta Marie and a member of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers that installed the memorial in 1992, noted that this journey was never supposed to be simple. The site carries what he calls “spiritual turbulence”: “Even if it wasn’t carrying enslaved people, it embodies the oppression of our people.” After annual pilgrimages in the 1990s lapsed, the 2024 trip was revived by an underwater oral history project led by Stanford University anthropologist Ayana Omilade Flewellen, who serves on the board of Diving With a Purpose, a Black-led nonprofit dedicated to documenting and preserving slave shipwreck sites.

    For Flewellen, the submerged interviews conducted during the pilgrimage became a deeply personal spiritual practice. “I felt a kind of tenderness in my heart,” she said. Processing the traumatic history of death and suffering that defines the site has long been a challenge, she explained: “It’s hard to attach your life with this history. The only way I could do that was turn toward what the divers were experiencing on this pilgrimage. That’s where it all bloomed and blossomed.”

    Beyond the underwater memorial, the pilgrimage also included a land-based ritual at Higgs Beach, where 297 African refugees who were rescued from three illegal slave ships in 1860 are buried. After the U.S. Navy intercepted the ships *Wildfire*, *William* and *Bogota*, the government housed more than 1,400 surviving refugees in a coastal compound, but hundreds died from the devastating health effects of their inhumane confinement on the crossing, explained Corey Malcom, lead historian at the Florida Keys History Center.

    Forgotten for nearly 150 years, the burial ground was rediscovered by researchers using ground-penetrating radar, and in 2010 a mass grave holding 100 additional bodies was found at a nearby community dog park, which has since been fenced off to protect the site. During this year’s pilgrimage, the group gathered at the cemetery to hold a traditional libation ceremony, an ancient Afro-Caribbean spiritual practice. One by one, members poured white rum—believed to act as a messenger between the living and ancestral worlds—onto the sand, tearfully honoring the lives lost. “To honor your ancestors and the road they’ve traveled is very, very important because we’re all connected,” said Addeliar Guy, a group elder and lifelong diver.

    For many participants, the most striking revelation of the pilgrimage was that the Henrietta Marie site is not merely a place of death and grief—it is a place of living history. Joel Johnson, president and CEO of the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, trained for weeks to complete his first open-water dive at the site. He was surprised by the vibrant life that now surrounds the memorial: colorful fish dart through swaying corals, and seashells dot the sandy seafloor. Protecting these marine habitats, he said, is inextricably linked to protecting the history they hold. “This was not a place of death, but a place of life,” Johnson explained. “I didn’t feel like I was grieving for my ancestors. I felt like I was in the stream of history, recognizing that I’m a part of that. It made me happy.”

    Michael Philip Davenport, president of Underwater Adventure Seekers, left the site inspired to create new art depicting ancestors emerging from the memorial. “Their spirituality is still in that space,” he said. “I was feeling their lives and their tragedy.”

    For Dr. Melody Garrett, an anesthesiologist who has worked with Diving With a Purpose to locate another slave shipwreck, the Guerrero, this pilgrimage is more urgent now than ever. She pointed to recent political efforts to erase references to slavery and Black history from U.S. national parks and federal cultural institutions, including moves during the Trump administration that labeled teachings on slavery as divisive “anti-American propaganda.” As the United States prepares to mark its 250th founding anniversary, Garrett said the site reinforces a fundamental truth about American identity: “Black people have been here since before this country’s inception, longer than many other people have. This is our country.”

    Fragments of the Henrietta Marie’s wooden hull still rest beneath the sand at the wreck site. Discovered in 1972 by treasure hunter Mel Fisher, the wreck was fully excavated in 1983, yielding hundreds of intact artifacts. Out of an estimated 35,000 ships that transported more than 12 million enslaved African people across the Atlantic, only a handful have ever been located—most were destroyed intentionally to cover up evidence of the illicit trade. Today, the Henrietta Marie’s artifacts fill an entire floor of Key West’s Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, including more than 80 sets of iron shackles, many sized for children.

    When Kory Lamberts, who runs a nonprofit working to expand equitable access to aquatic recreation, first visited the exhibit, the wooden display planks creaked under his feet, and the gravity of the history hit him instantly. “It was visceral,” he said. “It took me to a place. It also tells me that these were young people — children. These are baby shackles. There’s no sugarcoating it. The truth really hits you.” After his dive, Lamberts brought back fish caught near the Henrietta Marie site—fish he believes carry the ancestral DNA of those who died there. The group ate the fish for dinner the night after their dives, a quiet sacrament of connection. “I don’t practice a faith, but isn’t this what people are doing every Sunday at church?” he asked. “I wasn’t just bonded with this site through the experience of being there, but at this molecular level with a full circle moment of connection with myself and my history.”

    This coverage of religious and cultural practice is supported by the Associated Press through a partnership with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP holds sole responsibility for this content.