On anniversary of Frida Kahlo’s death, her art’s spirituality keeps fans engaged around the globe

 An art handler adjusts Frida Kahlo’s “Diego and I” on display at Sotheby’s auction house during a press preview for the Modern Evening auction,in New York. 

The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. 

(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

BY MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ
 July 13, 2024

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Frida Kahlo had no religious affiliation. Why, then, did the Mexican artist depict several religious symbols in the paintings she produced until her death on July 13, 1954?

“Frida conveyed the power of each individual,” said art researcher and curator Ximena Jordán. “Her self-portraits are a reminder of the ways in which we can exercise the power that life — or God, so to speak — has given us.”

Born in 1907 in Mexico City — where her “Blue House” remains open for visitors — Kahlo used her own personal experiences as a source of inspiration for her art.

The bus accident that she survived in 1925, the physical pain that she endured as a consequence and the tormented relationship with her husband — Mexican muralist Diego Rivera — all nurtured her creativity.

Her take on life and spirituality sparked a connection between her paintings and her viewers, many of whom remain passionate admirers of her work on the 70th anniversary of her death.

One of the keys to understand how she achieved this, Jordán said, lies in her self-portraits.

Kahlo appears in many of her paintings, but she did not portray herself in a naturalistic way. Instead, Jordán said, she “re-created” herself through symbols that convey the profoundness of interior human life.

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“Diego and I” is the perfect example. Painted by Kahlo in 1949, it sold for $34.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York in 2021, an auction record for a work by a Latin American artist.

In the painting, Kahlo’s expression is serene despite the tears falling from her eyes. Rivera’s face is on her forehead. And, in the center of his head, a third eye, which signifies the unconscious mind in Hinduism and enlightenment in Buddhism.

According to some interpretations, the painting represents the pain that Rivera inflicted on her. Jordán, though, offers another reading.

“The religiosity of the painting is not in the fact that Frida carries Diego in her thoughts,” Jordán said. “The fact that she bears him as a third eye, and Diego has a third eye of his own, reflects that his affection for her made her transcend to another dimension of existence.”

In other words, Kahlo portrayed how individuals connect to their spirituality through love.

“I connected with her heart and writings,” said Cris Melo, a 58-year-old American artist whose favorite Kahlo work is the aforementioned painting. “We had the same love language, and similar history of heartache.”

Melo, unlike Kahlo, did not go through a bus accident that punctured her pelvis and led to a life of surgeries, abortions and a leg amputation.

Still, Melo said, she experienced years of physical pain. And in the midst of that suffering, while fearing that resilience might slip away, she said to herself: “If Frida could handle this, so can I.”

Even if most of her artwork depicts her emotional and physical suffering, Kahlo’s paintings do not provoke sadness or helplessness. On the contrary, she is seen as a woman — not only an artist — strong enough to deal with a broken body that never weakened her spirit.

“Frida inspires many people to be consistent,” said Amni, a London-based Spanish artist who asked to be identified only by his artistic name and reinterprets Kahlo’s works with artificial intelligence.

“Other artists have inspired me, but Frida has been the most special because of everything she endured,” Amni said. “Despite her suffering, the heartbreak, the accident, she was always firm.”

For him, as for Melo, Kahlo’s most memorable works are those in which Rivera appears on her forehead, like a third eye.

According to Jordán, Kahlo touched a chord that most artists of her time did not. Influenced by revolutionary nationalism, muralists like Rivera or David Alfaro Siqueiros kept a distance from their viewers though intellectual works that mainly focused on their social, historic and political views.

Kahlo, on the other hand, was not shy in portraying her physical disabilities, her bisexuality and the diversity of beliefs that weigh on the human spirit.

In “The Wounded Deer,” for example, she is transformed into an animal whose body bleeds after being shot by arrows. And just like a martyr in Catholic imagery, Kahlo’s expression remains composed.

Aligned with a Marxist ideology, Kahlo thought that the Catholic Church was emasculating, meddlesome and racist. But in spite of her disdain toward the institution, she understood that devotion leads to a beneficial spiritual path.

A decade after her accident, probably overwhelmed by the fact that she survived, Kahlo started collecting votive offerings — tiny paintings that Catholics offer as gratitude for miracles. In her Blue House, the 473 votive offerings are still preserved.

Kahlo might have regarded her survival as a miracle, Jordán said. “The only difference is that she, due to her context, did not attribute that miracle to a deity of Catholic origin, but to the generosity of life.”

Perhaps that’s why, in her final days, she decided to paint a series of vibrant, colorful watermelons that would be her last work.

In that canvas, over a split watermelon lying underneath a clouded sky, she wrote: “Vida la vida,” or “Long live life.”

 The house where Frida Kahlo once lived, called the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo House and Studio Museum, is linked with a walkway bridge to a white and pink house-studio once occupied by her husband Diego Rivera, in Mexico City, Oct. 31, 2017. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anita Snow, File)

 Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter and surrealist, poses at her home in Mexico City, April 14, 1939. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo, File)

 A visitor stylized as Frida Kahlo takes a selfie with Frida’s Kahlo self-portrait at the Frida Kahlo retrospective exhibition at the Faberge Museum in St. Petersburg, the first Frida Kahlo exposition of such scale in Russia, Feb. 2, 2016. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)

Autumn Williams and Mateo Londono view a 1938 photo by Nickolas Muray titled “Frida and Diego with Gas Mask” at the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera art show hosted by the NSU Art Museum in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, March 10, 2015. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter, File)

 Dione Lugones shows off her tattoo in the likeness of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, at La Marca, or The Brand tattoo parlor in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 3, 2016. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Desmond Boylan, File)

- Children color in a giant poster of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, during a ceremony marking the 5th anniversary of the Tate Modern gallery in Southwark, London, May 12, 2005. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)

Play director and actress Carla Liguori performs the role of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo in the musical “Frida, entre lo absurdo y lo fugaz” or “Frida, between the Absurd and Fleeting” in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 15, 2013. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File)

 A mural of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, painted by Los Angeles muralist Levi Ponce, decorates the Pacoima section of Los Angeles, known as Mural Mile, June 6, 2015. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

 An artist makes screen prints in the background of Frida Kahlo’s face printed on the art installation from artists, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Tomas Vu, at the Untitled Art gallery during Art Basel, Dec. 6, 2018, in Miami Beach, Florida. The 70th anniversary of Kahlo’s death is on July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File)

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ
Hernández is a reporter on the AP’s Global Religion team. She is based in Mexico City and covers Latin America.

Who is the Buddhist nun who built a global charity from a tiny apartment in rural Taiwan?

In this photo provided by the Taiwan Presidential Office, the then President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen meets with Cheng Yen in Hualien county, eastern Taiwan, Sept. 21, 2022. In 1966, Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun living in eastern Taiwan, asked local housewives to contribute 50 cents a month to fund her charity. That grassroots effort grew into Tzu Chi, a global organization that responds to disasters and builds schools and hospitals around the world. (Taiwan Presidential Office via AP)Read More


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A medical technologist performs tests at the department of laboratory medicine of the Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien, Taiwan, Wednesday, July 5, 2023. Tzu Chi is a global organization that responds to disasters and builds schools and hospitals around the world, started from a grassroots efforts by Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun living in eastern Taiwan. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)


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People walk out of Hualien Tzu Chi Hospital in Hualien, Taiwan, Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Jing Si Abode, the headquarters of Tzu Chi, stands in the morning light in Hualien, Taiwan, Thursday, July 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

BY HUIZHONG WU AND DEEPA BHARATH
, July 12, 2024

HUALIEN, Taiwan (AP) — The Buddhist teacher who founded what is now a global charity and religion with a $283 million operating budget grew up at a time when women could not be ordained as Buddhist nuns.

What Cheng Yen, now 87, started in 1966 in Taiwan’s countryside as a grassroots effort among housewives has now burgeoned across 67 countries, including the United States. The organization, called Tzu Chi, has mobilized 10 million volunteers who have helped build schools and hospitals, run programs for refugees in Ukraine and victims of mass shootings, and respond to natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes and floods.

Cheng Yen and about a dozen other nuns reside in the Jing Si Abode in Hualien, the headquarters of Tzu Chi. The picturesque region — known for its majestic mountains that overlook the Pacific — gets its name from the phrase “huilan,” a reference to the swirling currents of the Hualien River where it meets the Pacific Ocean.

What sets Cheng Yen apart is that she is one of very few Buddhist women leaders in a strongly patriarchal faith tradition where ordination was barred for women — and still is in many countries.


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“A female leader in our entire research of religious history is very, very different,” said Yao Yu-shuang, a professor at Fo Guang University in Taiwan who has studied Buddhist movements.

Cheng Yen was born Wong Chin-Yun in 1937 to a relatively well-off family, but her parents gave her to her childless uncle’s family to raise. After her adoptive father died from a heart attack when she was 21, she ran away from home to become a nun.

Yao said getting ordained was an uphill task for her because, in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia at the time, being a monk was reserved for men.

That changed when Taiwan came under Japanese rule, and women started receiving educations. Japan’s approach also allowed nuns to study at Buddhist universities in Japan, and when they came back to Taiwan, they established their own practices, formally opening the path to women being ordained.

Later, a chance meeting in Taipei with Master Yin Shun became a defining moment for Cheng Yen. He agreed to take her as a disciple and formally ordain her.

Even though the Buddhist master’s base was in Hsinchu in northern Taiwan, and he spent little time with Cheng Yen, the two developed a connection, said Guo-Fang Tseng, a professor of anatomy at Tzu Chi University’s medical college. During his final days, Yin Shun was cared for at Tzu Chi’s hospital.

During her time in Hualien, Cheng Yen saw extensive poverty in the countryside. She wanted to help, but as a nun, she didn’t have her own source of income. She turned to local housewives, asking if they could spare 50 cents, according to Deng Su-qin, an early volunteer at Tzu Chi’s hospital.

“Anyone can spare 50 cents,” she said, which has become the organization’s mantra over the decades.

Cheng Yen saw how poverty was inextricably linked to lack of health care access as she helped families with loved ones who were sick and unable to work.

“I truly discovered that there were many people who fell ill because of their poverty, and even more people who were poor because they were sick,” said Cheng Yen, recounting the hospital’s origin at a meeting with volunteers in 2007. “Poverty and illness are like twins.”

It took her eight years to build a full-service hospital in Hualien; then came the challenge of staffing it, because doctors and nurses didn’t want to live in the rural area. So she established a medical college, which serves as a feeder school to the hospital. Today, many of the hospital’s doctors and staff members come from Tzu Chi’s universities.

That focus on health care and decades of expertise led Tzu Chi to mobilize during the coronavirus pandemic, and the Buddhist organization was able to purchase 5 million doses of BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine when Taiwan’s government couldn’t.

Stephen Huang, executive director of Tzu Chi’s international operations based in Southern California, calls his teacher “an old soul” who experienced difficulties at a young age — losing her loved ones, running for cover as United States aircraft bombed Taiwan during World War II and seeing people around her suffer in poverty. He sees her as a Bodhisattva — compassionate beings who put off their own enlightenment to help others.

“She is now 87, skinny and has a heart condition,” he said. “But she still wakes up at 4 in the morning and walks for two hours. She barely sleeps and eats. Her strength comes from her spirituality and loving compassion.”

Cheng Yen’s followers view her as a wise, down-to-earth, empathetic leader with a sense of humor who likes to keep a low profile. She rarely gives interviews and declined to speak with The Associated Press as well.

While an aging Cheng Yen continues to attend to her duties diligently, the organization’s followers are already planning to ensure her legacy endures. Huang said there is a plan for a core group of disciples to take the helm in the future — a daunting challenge for an organization that has for decades relied entirely on its charismatic leader for guidance.

Still, “there is no one person,” he said, “who can replace Master Cheng Yen.”
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Bharath reported from Los Angeles.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

HUIZHONG WU
China correspondent based in Taiwan

DEEPA BHARATH
Bharath is a reporter with AP’s Global Religion team. She is based in Los Angeles.

New England fishermen sentenced in complex herring fraud case


Herring are unloaded from a fishing boat in Rockland, Maine, July 8, 2015. Several commercial fishermen in New England have been sentenced in a fish fraud scheme described by prosecutors as complex and wide-ranging that centered on a critically important species of bait fish. The fishermen were sentenced last week for “knowingly subverting commercial fishing reporting requirements” in a scheme involving Atlantic herring, prosecutors said.

Herring are unloaded from a fishing boat, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, in Rockland, Maine. Several commercial fishermen in New England have been sentenced in a fish fraud scheme described by prosecutors as complex and wide-ranging that centered on a critically important species of bait fish. The fishermen were sentenced last week for “knowingly subverting commercial fishing reporting requirements” in a scheme involving Atlantic herring, prosecutors said. 

Glenn Robbins discusses the herring fishery aboard his fishing boat, the Western Sea, Wednesday, July 8, 2015, in Rockland, Maine. Robbins pleaded guilty in March of 2024 to submitting false information to the federal government regarding catch and sale of Atlantic herring and failure to pay taxes, prosecutors said. 

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)


BY PATRICK WHITTLE
 July 15, 2024

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Several commercial fishermen in New England have been sentenced in a fraud scheme that centered on a critically important species of bait fish and that prosecutors described as complex and wide-ranging.

The fishermen were sentenced for “knowingly subverting commercial fishing reporting requirements” in a scheme involving Atlantic herring, prosecutors said in a statement. The defendants included owners, captains and crew members of the Western Sea, a ship that operates out of Maine.

Western Sea owner Glenn Robbins pleaded guilty in March to submitting false information to the federal government regarding the catch and sale of Atlantic herring and a failure to pay taxes, prosecutors said. Members of the ship’s crew conspired to submit false trip reports to the federal government from 2016 to 2019, court records state. The charges are misdemeanors.

Robbins was sentenced Thursday to two years of probation and a $25,000 fine, and Western Sea was fined $175,000. The false reports threatened to jeopardize a fish species that is vitally important as commercial lobster bait, said federal prosecutor Darcie McElwee.


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“The defendants in this case subverted regulations for the sole purpose of lining their own wallets — regulations that are in place to ensure Atlantic herring are not overfished and are available for future generations of fishermen and safeguard the viability of the marine ecosystem,” McElwee said.

Reached by phone on Monday, Robbins said that despite his plea, he doesn’t consider himself to be guilty and that he took a plea deal because of the uncertainty of taking the case to a jury.

“We took the plea deal just so we wouldn’t be felons,” Robbins said.

A federal judge also sentenced a part-time captain and three crew members to similar sentences last week. Those defendants all pleaded guilty in March.

Four other defendants were sentenced earlier in the year and received similar sentences. All of the defendants in the case are based out of Maine or New Hampshire.

Federal rules require fishermen to submit trip reports about the species they caught, the weight of a catch and the dealers who buy the fish.

Herring is an important part of the food chain, as it is eaten by marine mammals, larger fish and seabirds. Fishing managers have raised concerns about the sustainability of the Atlantic herring population in recent years.
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Cape Cod’s fishhook topography makes it a global hotspot for mass strandings by dolphins


This photo provided by the International Fund for Animal Welfare shows a IFAW staff member, left, and a trained volunteer, right, working among stranded dolphins, in Wellfleet, Mass., on Cape Cod, Friday, June 28, 2024. The recent stranding of more than 100 dolphins on Cape Cod, the largest such event involving dolphins in U.S. history, is due in part to the natural geography of the cape, with its gently sloping sand flats, tidal fluctuations, proximity to productive feeding grounds, and the hook-like shape of the cape itself. (International Fund for Animal Welfare via AP)Read More

This photo provided by the International Fund for Animal Welfare shows two stranded dolphins in Wellfleet, Mass., on Cape Cod, Friday, June 28, 2024. The recent stranding of more than 100 dolphins on Cape Cod, the largest such event involving dolphins in U.S. history, is due in part to the natural geography of the cape, with its gently sloping sand flats, tidal fluctuations, proximity to productive feeding grounds, and the hook-like shape of the cape itself. (International Fund for Animal Welfare via AP)

This photo provided by the International Fund for Animal Welfare shows a IFAW staff member, left, and a trained volunteer, right, working among stranded dolphins, in Wellfleet, Mass., on Cape Cod, Friday, June 28, 2024. The recent stranding of more than 100 dolphins on Cape Cod, the largest such event involving dolphins in U.S. history, is due in part to the natural geography of the cape, with its gently sloping sand flats, tidal fluctuations, proximity to productive feeding grounds, and the hook-like shape of the cape itself. (International Fund for Animal Welfare via AP)

BY STEVE LEBLANC
July 15, 2024

The recent stranding of more than 100 dolphins on Cape Cod, the largest such event involving dolphins in U.S. history, is partly due to the peninsula’s geography, with its gently sloping sand flats, tidal fluctuations and proximity to productive feeding grounds, experts said.

The elements, along with the hook-like shape of the cape itself, make Cape Cod a global hotspot for dolphin mass strandings.

Rescuers who helped free more than a hundred dolphins from the shoreline last month said Friday that they confirmed the mass stranding that began June 28 was the largest in the U.S.

A final review of data and aerial imagery last week revealed that 146 dolphins were involved in the stranding, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. The group estimated that 102 dolphins survived the multiday event. There were 37 natural deaths and seven dolphins had to be euthanized.

Brian Sharp, director of marine mammal rescue for the group, said dolphins strand more frequently along Cape Cod than along any other shoreline in the U.S.

The group looked at national data on dolphin strandings over 10 years and found that 25% of dolphins stranded in the U.S. became stuck on Cape Cod, most along a 16-mile stretch of coastline there. In 2012, the group responded to 32 mass strandings on the cape.


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“We’re not seeing any underlying diseases or injuries,” Sharp said.

The cape poses several challenges for dolphins including gently sloping beaches, beaches with fine sand, mud flats, and high and low tides that fluctuate by 9 to 12 feet. Dolphins swimming too close to shore at high tide can find themselves beached as the tide races out.

Those challenges can also make it harder for dolphins to rely on echolocation, he said.

While strandings typically happen from December through April, rescuers are seeing more mass strandings in the summer, according to Sharp, who said the group is trying to determine if climate change is a factor. He said fishermen have also reported seeing more bait fish that dolphins feed on moving closer to shore.

It’s not just dolphins that become trapped in the fishhook topography of Cape Cod.

Sea turtles can also find their way into the cape during warmer months and then become trapped when the seasons turn and they try to head south for warmer waters.

‘“They’re not looking at a map,” said Adam Kennedy, Director of the New England Aquarium’s Rescue and Rehabilitation Program. “They’re used to just open water.”

The turtles can become stunned by the cold water and float to the surface where they can be collected and brought in to be treated for dehydration and poor nutrition before ultimately being returned to warmer waters, Kennedy said. It can take weeks to months before a turtle can be released.

The number of rescued turtles is on the rise with an average of about 400 turtles a year being brought into the facility for help, One new factor is the warming of waters in the Gulf of Maine which can allow turtles to remain longer and get caught in the cape, Kennedy added.

Response efforts by rescuers have continued on a smaller scale including the rescue, relocation, and release of nine of the same Atlantic white-sided dolphins on July 2.

On that day, 11 dolphins were found stranded near Powers Landing in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Two were euthanized, and nine were transported in a custom-built mobile dolphin rescue clinic vehicle. Satellite tags tracked several of these animals safely offshore.

Rescuers faced many challenges as they attempted to guide the dolphins back to open water, including difficult mud conditions and the dolphins being spread out over a large area.

During some rescue attempts workers started on foot, herding the creatures into deeper waters, and then used small boats equipped with underwater pingers, which make noise to help attract the dolphins.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare has also received reports from whale-watching vessels that have seen some of the dolphins — identified with temporary markings — now swimming among other groups of hundreds of other dolphins that had not been part of the stranding.

NO SEA BED MINING

UN body that regulates the deep sea tackles proposed mining code amid growing concerns


 People gather on Wickie Wackie Beach in Kingston, Jamaica, Oct. 2, 2016. Deliberations over how and if to allow deep sea mining unfolded Monday, July 15, 2024, as the U.N. International Seabed Authority, based in Jamaica, resumed talks over a proposed mining code after the last meeting in March 2024. 

AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, 

BY DÁNICA COTO
 July 15, 2024

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Tense deliberations over how and if to allow deep sea mining unfolded Monday in Jamaica as at least one company threatened to apply for permission before rules and regulations are in place.

More than two dozen countries have called for a ban, pause or moratorium on deep sea mining — including most recently Peru and Greece — as the U.N. International Seabed Authority resumed talks over a proposed mining code after last meeting in March.

“We have two very busy weeks ahead of us,” said Olav Myklebust, the authority’s council president as some countries warned that the proposed regulator framework has significant gaps and does not include some of their proposals.

The Jamaica-based authority, which is the global custodian for deep waters that don’t fall under a country’s jurisdiction, has granted 31 mining exploration contracts but has not authorized any exploitation as the debate continues.

Much of the ongoing exploration is centered in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which covers 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) between Hawaii and Mexico. It is occurring at depths ranging from 13,000 to 19,000 feet (4,000 to 6,000 meters).

Scientists have said that minerals at those depths take millions of years to form, and that mining them could unleash noise, light and suffocating dust storms.

“The deep ocean sustains crucial processes that make the entire planet habitable, from driving ocean currents that regulate our weather to storing carbon and buffering our planet against the impacts of climate change,” said Sofia Tsenikli with the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition ahead of the meeting.

Those who support deep sea mining argue that it is cheaper and has less of an impact than land mining. Among those pushing for exploitation is The Metals Company, a Canadian business that is largely expected to be the first to seek permission to start mining.

The debate over deep sea mining comes amid growing demand for precious metals including cobalt, nickel and copper that grow in the ocean’s bowels and are used in electric car batteries and other green technology.

“There is a lot of work that remains to be done,” said France’s representative, Olivier Guyonvarch. of the proposed mining code.

Elza Moreira Marcelino de Castro, the representative for Brazil, said the draft needs more clarity about issues including liability and additional details about a proposed environmental compensation fund.

The council is scheduled to debate the issue for two weeks and will then hold an assembly to elect a secretary general.

Bolivia’s beleaguered president announces natural gas discovery, promising a boon for the country


Bolivian President Luis Arce addresses an assembly of farm workers from the Confederation of Intercultural People of Bolivia in La Paz, Bolivia, Oct. 3, 2023. Arce announced on Monday, July 15, 2024, the discovery of a new natural gas and oil field in northern La Paz. (AP Photo/Juan Karita, File)

July 15, 2024

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia’s embattled president on Monday announced the discovery of vast natural gas reserves, describing it as the biggest find in nearly two decades that could help the cash-strapped country reverse its falling production.

President Luis Arce called the trove just north of the capital a “mega field,” saying it has some 1.7 trillion cubic meters of gas at a likely market value of $6.8 billion.

He said the field — named Mayaya X-1 — is way to revive the gas industry. That was the engine of robust growth in the early 2000s, a period of booming exports and declining poverty that experts have termed Bolivia’s “economic miracle.”

“This marks the beginning of a new chapter for the northern sub-Andean region, offering hope of maintaining our country as an important gas exporter,” said Arce, who is the alleged target of a military coup attempt last month and the main focus of anger among Bolivians over shortages of fuel and foreign currency. “It’s the most important discovery since 2005.”

In more recent years, investment in exploration projects by Bolivia’s state-owned energy company has dwindled and natural gas extraction has faded fast.

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In a warning for the government, the Bolivian Institute of Foreign Trade reported last year that the country — once among the world’s top 10 natural gas producers — had become a net importer of hydrocarbons, spending $2.9 billion on diesel imports while earning only $2 billion from natural gas exports.

Last month, Arce described production as having “hit rock bottom.”

Bolivia’s state-controlled energy company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos, or YPFB, said Monday that the newly announced natural gas field was discovered thanks to a $50 million investment.

The field, it said, covers several regions north of La Paz, the administrative capital, and will add to Bolivia’s existing gas reserves, which stood at 8.7 trillion cubic meters in 2019. There has been no publicly available data since.

“It’s a new exploratory frontier,” said Armin Dorgathen, YPFB president.

Gnatalie is the only green-boned dinosaur found on the planet. She will be on display in LA



A 150 million year old dinosaur skeleton is displayed at the Natural History Museum’s new welcome center currently under construction on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 in Los Angeles. It’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. Researches believe Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) is a member of a new species of sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur that lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era. 

The skull of a 150 million year old dinosaur is displayed at the Natural History Museum’s new welcome center currently under construction on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 in Los Angeles. It’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. Researches believe Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) is a member of a new species of sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur that lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic 

A 150 million year old dinosaur skeleton is displayed at the Natural History Museum’s new welcome center currently under construction on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 in Los Angeles. It’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. Researches believe Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) is a member of a new species of sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur that lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era. 

The mid section of a 150 million year old dinosaur skeleton is displayed at the Natural History Museum’s new welcome center currently under construction on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. Los Angeles’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. Researches believe Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) is a member of a new species of sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur that lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era. 

Museum employees walk past a 150 million year old dinosaur skeleton on display at the Natural History Museum’s new welcome center currently under construction on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. Los Angeles’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. 

Chris Weisbart, associate vice president of exhibitions at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles talks during an interview at the museum on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. Los Angeles’s newest resident is big, green, and 150 million years old, the 75-foot-long green dinosaur named Gnatalie (pronounced Natalie) which will be available for public viewing in the fall at the museum. Weisbart said “We want it to be named by the people of LA and we want it to express how engaged we are with our communities”. While researchers referred to the fossil as Gnatalie after the swarms of stinging gnats that attacked them during the excavation, Los Angeles residents confirmed the name earlier this year in a popular vote.

 (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)Read More

BY JAIMIE DING
July 14, 2024

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The latest dinosaur being mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species — it’s also the only one found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.

Named “Gnatalie” (pronounced Natalie) for the gnats that swarmed during the excavation, the long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaur’s fossils got its unique coloration, a dark mottled olive green, from the mineral celadonite during the fossilization process.

While fossils are typically brown from silica or black from iron minerals, green is rare because celadonite forms in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions that typically destroy buried bones. The celadonite entered the fossils when volcanic activity around 50 million to 80 million years ago made it hot enough to replace a previous mineral.

The dinosaur lived 150 million years ago in the late Jurassic Era, making it older than Tyrannosaurus rex — which lived 66 million to 68 million years ago.

Researchers discovered the bones in 2007 in the Badlands of Utah.

“Dinosaurs are a great vehicle for teaching our visitors about the nature of science, and what better than a green, almost 80-foot-long dinosaur to engage them in the process of scientific discovery and make them reflect on the wonders of the world we live in!” Luis M. Chiappe of the museum’s Dinosaur Institute said in a statement about his team’s discovery.


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Matt Wedel, anatomist and paleontologist at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona near Los Angeles, said he heard “rumors of a green dinosaur way back when I was in graduate school.”
When he glimpsed the bones while they were still being cleaned, he said they were “not like anything else that I’ve ever seen.”

The dinosaur is similar to a sauropod species called Diplodocus, and the discovery will be published in a scientific paper next year. The sauropod, referring to a family of massive herbivores that includes the Brontosaurus and Brachiosaurus, will be the biggest dinosaur at the museum and can be seen this fall in its new welcome center.

John Whitlock, who teaches at Mount Aloysius College, a private Catholic college in Cresson, Pennsylvania, and researches sauropods, said it was exciting to have such a complete skeleton to help fill in the blanks for specimens that are less complete.

“It’s tremendously huge, it really adds to our ability to understand both taxonomic diversity ... but also anatomical diversity,” Whitlock said.

The dinosaur was named “Gnatalie” last month after the museum asked for a public vote on five choices that included Verdi, a derivative of the Latin word for green; Olive, after the small green fruit symbolizing peace, joy, and strength in many cultures; Esme, short for Esmeralda, which is Spanish for Emerald; and Sage, a green and iconic L.A. plant also grown in the Natural History Museum’s Nature Gardens.

Mexico’s costly Maya Train draws few passengers in its first six months of partial operation




FILE - A Mayan Train worker waits for passengers to board in Cancun, Mexico, Wednesday, March 6, 2024. When it’s completed, the high-speed Maya Train will wind around Mexico’s southern Yucatan peninsula. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd, File)
BY MARK STEVENSON
Updated 7:53 PM MDT, July 15, 2024Share


MEXICO CITY (AP) — The pet rail project of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador could wind up costing as much as $30 billion, is only half finished as he heads into the final 2 1/2 months of his term, and has wreaked major damage on the environment.

But the most damning judgments on the Maya Train tourist line, which runs in a loop around the Yucatan Peninsula, are the ridership figures on about half the railway that is now open: only about 1,200 people per day use the train, according to government figures released Monday.

Most ride it only on short stretches between the city of Merida and Cancun, or the nearby city of Campeche. The big hope for paying the train’s massive cost was that tourists would use it to depart from the resort of Cancun and explore the whole 950-mile (1,500-kilometer) route to visit the Mayan archaeological sites that dot the peninsula.

But a round-trip route from Cancun to the well-known Mayan temple complex of Palenque has drawn only about 100 passengers per day each way in the first six months of operation. That is a volume that a bus or two per day could handle far more cheaply.

Mexico will build passenger train lines to US border in an expansion of its debt-laden rail projects

The government had originally promised the train would carry between 22,000 and 37,000 people per day. Current ridership is about 3-5% of that, with three of the four most popular stations — Cancun, Merida, Palenque and Campeche — already in service.

Admittedly, the rail line down the heavily traveled corridor linking Cancun and the resorts of Playa del Carmen and Tulum — an area known as the Riviera Maya — isn’t finished yet, and only 17 trains are operating; three times as many may eventually be added.

But critics say there is little evidence the Cancun-Tulum line will make the project profitable, because it doesn’t run particularly near any of the resort towns it is supposed to serve.

The Cancun-Tulum railway was originally supposed to run on an elevated line over the coastal highway, where most hotels are. But facing technical difficulties, the government changed the route by cutting a 68-mile (110-kilometer) swath through the jungle and moving the tracks about 4½ miles (7 kilometers) inland.
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So instead of hopping one of the micro-buses that run constantly down the coastal highway, tourists or resort workers would have to take a taxi to the train station, wait for one of the few daily trains, and then take another taxi to the resorts once they reach their destination.

“The uselessness of this project was foreseeable,” said Jose “Pepe” Urbina, a local diver who opposes the train because its steel pilings have damaged the caverns he has explored for decades. “In reality, the train doesn’t go anywhere you couldn’t get to by highway before.”

“These are rail lines that don’t provide any useful service for workers, for students, for any daily use,” Urbina said.

One thing the railway project did create was jobs: Manuel Merino, the governor of the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, said the Maya Train had created 20,000 direct or indirect jobs in his state and lowered the unemployment rate by 40%.

“This makes it truly a motor for developing the south,” a historically poorer and undeveloped part of Mexico, Merino said. But most of those jobs will be gone once construction is finished, and federal officials are also casting around for ways to try to make the railway pay for itself.

Officials have suggested freight trains may run on the tracks as well, but there is little industry in the region, and thus freight demand is limited.

It’s not clear whether the government ever thought the railway would be profitable. López Obrador had already decided to build it before feasibility studies were carried out. According to a 2019 government study, the railway was going to cost $8.5 billion, and the estimated benefits would be about $10.5 billion.

But those “estimated benefits” always included a lot of intangibles, like reduced traffic on highways, quicker travel or increased tourism revenues, all of which either didn’t happen or were unrelated to the train.

Moody’s Analytics Director Alfredo Coutiño noted that cost overruns are common on such projects.
“As was expected, the Maya Train project was not finished as planned and the cost was much higher than the original budget,” Coutiño wrote.

“The question that still must be resolved is if this project will be profitable in the medium term when it is expected to be fully functional, operating at full capacity and managed as a government concern and not as a private enterprise.”


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Far-right groups that block aid to Gaza receive tax-deductible donations from US and Israel


Israeli police prevent activists from blocking trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, southern Israel, Monday, Jan. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov, File)

Activists stand in front of trucks carrying humanitarian aid as they try to stop them from entering the Gaza Strip in an area near the Kerem Shalom border crossing, southern Israel, Thursday, May 9, 2024. 

 Israeli activists block the exit of Ashdod port to stop trucks they claim are carrying humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, in Ashdod, Israel, Thursday, Feb. 1, 2024.

 Israeli activists block the exit of Ashdod port to stop trucks they claim are carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, in Ashdod, Israel, Feb. 1, 2024.

Israeli police prevent activists from blocking trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, Jan. 29, 2024.

BY URI BLAU, MILAN CZERNY OF SHOMRIM AND JOSEF FEDERMAN

 OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 July 15, 2024

JERUSALEM (AP) — Under American pressure, Israel has pledged to deliver large quantities of humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. But at the same time, the U.S. and Israel have allowed tax-deductible donations to far-right groups that have blocked that aid from being delivered.

Three groups that have prevented humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza — including one accused of looting or destroying supplies — have raised more than $200,000 from donors in the U.S. and Israel, The Associated Press and the Israeli investigative site Shomrim have found in an examination of crowdfunding websites and other public records.

Incentivizing these donations by making them tax-deductible runs counter to America’s and Israel’s stated commitments to allow unlimited food, water and medicine into Gaza, say groups working to get more aid into the territory. Donations have continued even after the U.S. imposed sanctions against one of these groups.

By not cracking down on these groups, Israel is showing a “lack of coherence” in its Gaza aid policy, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli nonprofit that has long called on Israel to improve conditions in the territory.

“If you’re on the one hand saying you’re allowing aid in but then also facilitating the actions of groups that are blocking it, can you really say you’re facilitating aid?” she said.

Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment. The U.S. State Department said it is committed to ensuring the delivery of aid, but had no comment on the fundraising efforts by the far-right groups.

Israel has said repeatedly it does not restrict humanitarian aid and that the United Nations has failed to distribute thousands of truckloads of goods that have reached the territory. The U.N. and aid groups say deliveries have repeatedly been hampered by military operations, lawlessness inside Gaza and delays in Israeli inspections.

The three groups examined by AP and Shomrim have slowed the delivery of aid by blocking trucks on their way to Gaza, either by snarling traffic or simply standing in front of the main Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

While these organizations are not the primary impediment to aid shipments, they have received tacit support from some Israeli leaders. Israel’s ultranationalist minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said aid shipments to Gaza should be blocked and he supported the right of opponents to demonstrate, though he said it should not be done violently.

One of the groups, Mother’s March, has raised the equivalent of over $125,000 via Givechack, an Israeli crowdfunding site, the AP and Shomrim found. The group also raised some $13,000 via JGive, a U.S. and Israeli crowdfunding site. Donations to charitable organizations are tax-deductible in Israel and the U.S.

Mother’s March does not raise the money directly. Instead, it works with an allied group called Torat Lechima that raises funds on its behalf.

Torat Lechima, whose name translates loosely as “combat doctrine,” is active in Israeli nationalist circles and works to “strengthen the Jewish identity and fighting spirit” among Israeli soldiers, according to its website. Torat Lechima continues to solicit funds for Mother’s March on the JGive site in the U.S.

Until it was sanctioned last month, a third group, Tzav 9, raised over $85,000 from close to 1,500 donors in the U.S. and Israel via JGive. JGive said that donations made to Tzav 9 were frozen even before the sanctions were imposed and not delivered to the group.

All three groups, which have ties with Israel’s ultranationalist far right, say Israel should not be aiding the Palestinians as long as Hamas is holding dozens of people hostage. They also claim that Hamas is stealing much of the aid, though aid groups have disputed that.

“No to ‘humanitarian’ aid that grants fuel to the enemy who kills us! No to the hundreds of trucks that pass every day through Kerem Shalom – and drag out the war!” Mother’s March said in a recent crowdfunding campaign. It said the funds were needed for demonstrations, shuttles, printing materials and publicity campaigns.

Hundreds of activists set up tents at Kerem Shalom for several nights in early February to stop the delivery of aid. The head of Mother’s March, Sima Hasson, was briefly detained by Israeli police in January after temporarily blocking trucks.

Israeli news reports have shown large convoys of cars blocking aid trucks from traveling on Israeli highways, as well as activists looting trucks and destroying supplies.

In its sanctions order, the White House accused Tzav 9 of violently blocking roads, damaging aid trucks and dumping supplies on the road. It said in May that Tzav 9 members looted and set fire to two trucks in the West Bank carrying aid destined for Gaza. Last week, the White House imposed sanctions on the group’s co-founders.

Israeli police, who fall under the authority of Ben-Gvir, have made few arrests, though the group appears to have stopped its activities in recent weeks.

Tzav 9 defended its actions as “within the framework of the law, in a democratic protest.” It called the sanctions from the U.S. “anti-democratic intervention.”

Neither Mother’s March nor Torat Lechima responded to requests for comment.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which killed roughly 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage.

The offensive has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, and unleashed a humanitarian crisis in the densely populated territory. Over 80% of the population is displaced, and international officials say hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine.

Two international courts have accused Israel of war crimes and genocide – charges Israel denies as it pledges to keep the aid flowing into Gaza.

Those who violate the sanctions against Tsav 9 could have their assets frozen or face travel and visa bans.

It’s unclear how effective these sanctions will be. Extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank say similar U.S. sanctions imposed on them have had little effect, in part because Israeli leaders helped circumvent them.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined comment. The Justice Ministry, which regulates nonprofits, said it would investigate but had no further comment.

JGive said it complies with Israeli laws. In addition to freezing Tzav 9’s donations, it noted that the Mother’s March campaign ended over four months ago.

The U.S. State Department said it has urged Israel to ensure aid safely reaches Gaza and to punish those who try to block it.

“The targeting of aid trucks by violent extremist settlers is unacceptable, and we’ve made that clear to the government of Israel,” it said. It declined comment on the groups’ fundraising efforts.

Hary, of the Israeli activist group Gisha, noted that the efforts of Mother’s March and Tzav 9 appear to have quieted down in recent weeks. But as they continue to seek donors, she said they could resume activities at any moment.

“They’re getting signals from various places in the government that Gaza should be completely cut off,” she said.
___

AP correspondent Julia Frankel contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

Houthi rebels strike ships off Yemen coast, British maritime group says


Earlier this year, weapon technicians prepared a Royal Air Force Typhoon FGR4 for air strikes in response to increased malign behavior by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Red Sea. File Photo by AS1 Leah Jones/U.K. Ministry of Defense/UPI | License Photo

July 15 (UPI) -- Yemen's Houthi militia attacked two merchant vessels Monday, the British Maritime Trade Operations said.

The captain of a ship traveling 70 nautical miles southwest of Yemen's Hodeidah reported a missile fell near the ship at about 8 a.m. GMT.

Forty-five minutes later, the captain reported that two more missiles had exploded near the ship but that the ship and the crew were unharmed. He reported the vessel was attacked by three small blue and white vessels, two with people on board and one unmanned.

The unmanned craft collided with the ship twice and the two manned craft fired at it.

"The vessel and crew are reported safe and the vessel is proceeding to the next port of call," the maritime agency posted.

UKMTO also reported a merchant ship was attacked by a remotely operated boat 97 nautical miles northwest of Hodeidah at noon GMT.

The port side of his ship was hit, causing some damage and light smoke. The vessel was reported safe and proceeded to its next port of call.

The Houthis didn't claim responsibility for the attacks.

On Sunday, the Houthis claimed responsibility for two attacks -- one in the Gulf of Aden and one in Eilat at the southern tip of Israel.

Since November, the Houthis have destroyed two ships, captured another, and launched hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles, and remotely operated and explosive-rigged boats at more than 100 naval and commercial ships in international sea lanes off Yemen.

On Saturday, Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, the United States Central Command commander, visited Jordan and Syria to meet with leaders and U.S. service members and "gain a better understanding of the regional security situation," including Yemen.

Kurilla met with Jordan's Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Maj. Gen. Yousef Alhnaity and key members of his staff, Central Command said Monday. He also visited several U.S. military facilities in Jordan and Syria "to assess force protection improvements and the overall defeat ISIS campaign."

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, based in San Diego, arrived in the Middle East on Friday to replace the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower "to deter aggression, promote regional stability, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region," according to U.S. Central Command.