April 17, Colombo (LNW): Showers or thundershowers will occur at several places in Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central, Southern and Uva provinces and in Ampara, Batticaloa and Polonnaruwa districts during the afternoon or night, the Department of Meteorology said in its daily weather forecast today (17).
Fairly heavy falls of above 50 mm are likely at some places in these areas.
A few showers may occur in the coastal areas of Western province and in Galle, Matara and Puttalam districts in the morning too.
Mainly fair weather conditions will be expected in the other areas over the island.
The general public is kindly requested to take adequate precautions to minimise damages caused by temporary localised strong winds and lightning during thundershowers.
Misty conditions can be expected at some places in Central, Sabaragamuwa, North-central and Uva provinces during the morning.
Marine Weather:
Condition of Rain:
Showers or thundershowers will occur at several places in the sea areas off the coast extending from Puttalam to Matara via Colombo and Galle. Showers or thundershowers may occur at a few places in the other sea areas around the island during the evening or night.
Winds:
Winds will be westerly to south-westerly and wind speed will be (20-30)kmph.
State of Sea:
The sea areas around the island will be slight. Temporarily strong gusty winds and very rough seas can be expected during thundershowers.
The Health Ministry has reported a higher number of road accidents from areas outside Colombo and its suburbs during the recent New Year long weekend.
Specialist Dr. Samitha Siritunga, Head of the Ministry’s Accident Prevention Division, stated that an investigation will be launched to assess whether there was a significant increase in accidents this year compared to the same period in previous years.
Health experts are urging the public to take special precautions amid the ongoing extreme heat affecting the country.
Consultant physician Dr. Nandana Dickmadugoda warned that the high temperatures pose serious health risks, especially for individuals with chronic illnesses, children, and the elderly.
“Although occasional rains occur, the presence of clouds traps humidity, leading to intense discomfort,” Dr. Dickmadugoda explained. He noted that prolonged exposure to high heat—especially for those working outdoors—can result in symptoms like dizziness, body pain, and excessive sweating, which may escalate into life-threatening heatstroke.
He advised the public to avoid direct sunlight when possible and to use umbrellas or wear protective clothing when going outside.
Staying hydrated is critical, he said, recommending fluids such as porridge, soup, tea, and oral rehydration solutions containing sugar and salt.
A shooting incident occurred near a public bus stand in Gampaha city last night (15), according to police.
Two individuals on a motorcycle reportedly opened fire at a moving small lorry before fleeing the scene.
At the time of the incident, two passengers in the lorry exited the vehicle and ran into a nearby shop for safety. Police confirmed that neither of them was injured, though the vehicle sustained damage.
The motive for the shooting remains unclear. Gampaha Police have launched an investigation to identify and apprehend the suspects.
Every year, 20 billion disposable menstrual products are discarded in the US alone, contributing to 240,000 tonnes of solid waste. With 1.8 billion people menstruating worldwide, the environmental impact of period products has come under increasing scrutiny. While options like menstrual cups, reusable pads, and period underwear grow in popularity, the question remains: Which is the most sustainable and safe option?
The Clear Environmental Winner: Menstrual Cups
A recent life-cycle assessment (LCA) led by researchers in France and the US compared the environmental impact of four major menstrual product categories across eight indicators—including global warming potential, land use, water use, and toxicity. The result?
Menstrual cups emerged as the most sustainable option, outperforming reusable and disposable alternatives across all three countries studied (France, US, and India).
Why?
Longevity: One cup lasts up to 10 years.
Low production impact: It’s small, light, and requires less raw material.
Fast carbon payback: Just one month of use can offset its carbon footprint, according to Philippa Notten, co-author of a UN Environment Programme review.
Period Underwear: A Strong Contender
Period pants came in second place overall, particularly when used as a substitute for both underwear and period protection. They perform better than reusable pads due to this dual function, though the electricity and water required for washing should be considered.
Sustainable use tips:
Wash at low temperatures
Air dry
Include in full laundry loads
The Surprising Worst Offender: Organic Disposable Pads
Despite the appeal of “natural” and “organic,” organic pads had the highest impact in five out of eight environmental categories. The lower crop yields in organic farming require more land and water, pushing their footprint above even conventional plastic-based pads.
Why Single-Use Products Fall Short
Up to 90% plastic content
Each pad = 4 plastic bags worth of non-biodegradable waste
Take 500–800 years to decompose
Many are flushed, blocking sewers and polluting oceans
Health Considerations
While menstrual cups are sustainable, they’re not without potential risks:
Incorrect insertion can compress the bladder or rectum
Infections and rare injuries (e.g., pelvic organ prolapse) have been reported
Proper education on use and size is critical
Dr. Shazia Malik, London-based gynaecologist: “Have two cups, sterilise after each use, and replace at any sign of wear.”
Concerns also exist over chemical safety in period products:
US studies have found lead and other metals in tampons
Some period pants use silver nanoparticles to reduce odor—raising toxicity concerns
Transparency and Regulation Lag Behind
Companies aren’t required to disclose all ingredients
Europe is leading regulation, with EU Ecolabels and Nordic Swan certifications
Vermont recently banned PFAs in period products; US federal legislation is being proposed
Takeaway: Mix, Match, and Make Informed Choices
If the menstrual cup isn’t a fit for your whole cycle, combine products: use period pants at home, cups or tampons for swimming, or compostable pads when needed. Every switch from single-use makes a difference.
Paula Pérez-López, environmental researcher: “No matter what we do, we will have an impact—but we can minimise it. Reusables are a key part of that.”
TL;DR – What’s the Most Sustainable Menstrual Product?
Menstrual Cup: Best overall for the environment
Period Underwear: A close second
Reusable Pads: Better than disposable
Organic Disposables: Surprisingly high environmental toll
Key Factors: Proper use, care, product transparency, and access
Let me know if you’d like that visual comparison chart or a condensed summary.
Seasonal allergy sufferers are being hit with more pollen over a longer season due to rising temperatures, but global warming is also triggering alarming extreme allergy events, say experts.
People could see the thunderstorm, but they couldn’t see what was going on inside it. Trillions of pollen particles, sucked up into the clouds as the storm formed, were now being splintered by rain, lightning and humidity into ever-smaller fragments – then cast back down to Earth for people to breathe them in.
It was around 18:00 on 21 November 2016 when the air in Melbourne, Australia, turned deadly. Emergency service phone lines lit up, people struggling to breathe began flooding into hospitals, and there was so much demand for ambulances that the vehicles were unable to reach patients stuck at home. Emergency rooms saw eight times as many people turning up with breathing problems as they would normally expect. Nearly 10 times as many people with asthma were admitted to hospital.
In total, 10 people died, including a 20-year-old law student who passed away on her lawn, waiting for an ambulance while her family tried to resuscitate her. One survivor described how he had been breathing normally and then, within 30 minutes, found himself gasping for air. “It was insane,” he told reporters from his hospital bed.
Paul Beggs, an environmental health scientist and professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, remembers the incident well. “It was an absolutely massive event. Unprecedented. Catastrophic,” he says. “The people in Melbourne, the doctors and the nurses and the people in pharmacies – they all didn’t know what was happening.”
It soon became clear that this was a massive case of “thunderstorm asthma”, which occurs when certain types of storms break up pollen particles in the air, releasing proteins and showering them on unsuspecting people below. The widely dispersed proteins can trigger allergic reactions in some people – even among those who weren’t previously asthmatic.
The strong updrafts and downdrafts in thunderstorms can whip pollen into the air ahead of them (Credit: Getty Images)
Thunderstorm asthma events like the one that hit Melbourne are one extreme example of how pollen from plants and the allergies it causes are being dramatically altered by climate change. As temperatures rise, many regions – especially the US, Europe and Australia – are seeing seasonal allergies affect an increasing proportion of people, over a longer season and with worse symptoms, say scientists.
Pollen itself is an essential and ever-present part of our world. These microscopic particles pass between plants, enabling them to reproduce. While some plants spread their pollen with the help of insects, others rely on the wind, sending huge volumes of this powdery substance airborne. Many trees, grasses and weed species rely upon wind dispersal for their pollen. It is these that are especially likely to cause seasonal allergies, or hay fever.
This occurs when your immune system mistakenly identifies the pollen as a harmful substance, triggering a response normally reserved for pathogenic bacteria or viruses. Common symptoms can include a runny nose, itchy eyes and sneezing. In some cases, seasonal allergies can trigger breathing difficulties when inflammation in the airways leads to swelling, making it hard to get enough air into the lungs.
Every time we cranked up the carbon dioxide, the ragweed responded. There was some evidence they were producing a more allergenic form of pollen – Lewis Ziska
While it isn’t possible to determine exactly how much climate change influenced the 2016 thunderstorm asthma incident in Melbourne, Beggs is “reasonably certain” it had some impact.
Exactly how thunderstorms trigger or exacerbate asthma in this way is still not fully understood. The leading theory is that cold air downdrafts that occur during thunderstorm weather systems generate strong cross winds that blow at ground level, whipping up pollen grains and fungal spores from grass and plants. These then get carried high into the storm system by updrafts, where moisture in the clouds causes them to swell and break apart into smaller fragments, massively increasing the number of allergen particles in the air. The strong electric field that develops during thunderstorms may also enhance the rupture of the pollen.
This smaller particle size makes it easier for the pollen fragments to get into the airways as they are carried back to ground-level by cold down-draft winds. Pollen levels seem to spike during the first 20-30 minutes of a thunderstorm, according to studies on the phenomenon. Younger people seem to be particularly affected.
Thankfully, major thunderstorm asthma events remain rare. But climate change is increasing people’s risk of pollen exposure in other ways, too.
For one thing, rising temperatures mean that pollen seasons – when plants emit pollen, typically during spring and summer – are starting earlier and lasting longer, says Elaine Fuertes, a public health scientist who focuses on the environment and allergic disease at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, UK. “You’re going to get people who experience symptoms earlier in the year, for a longer period of time,” she says.
In parts of the world, including the US and Europe, one of the key culprits is ragweed – a widespread group of flowering plants that many people consider to be weeds. There are various species of ragweed around the world but they can produce mind-bending amounts of pollen. A single plant is capable of emitting one billion pollen grains, for example. Ragweed grows in gardens and farmland but also in nooks and crannies in urban environments.
Allergies to ragweed pollen already affect some 50 million people in the US alone. A study analysing data from 11 locations in North America between 1995 to 2015 found that 10 of those locations experienced longer ragweed pollen seasons – sometimes much longer. During that 20-year period, the season lengthened by 25 days in Winnipeg, Manitoba, 21 days in Fargo, North Dakota and 18 days in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“The winter warms, the springs are starting earlier, and the falls are being delayed, and so the time that you spend outdoors in contact with allergic pollen is definitely going up,” says Lewis Ziska, associate professor of environmental health science at Columbia University, in New York, US, and one of the scientists who researched the ragweed pollen season.
These changes get more drastic in northern parts of North America, Europe and Asia, Ziska says. But also in Australia and the southern parts of South America and Africa.
Without immediate cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, the effect is likely to only get worse. One 2022 study, for example, estimated that, by the end of the century, pollen seasons will begin up to 40 days earlier and end up to 15 days later than they do now – potentially meaning an additional two months of symptoms for hay fever sufferers per year.
Ragweed plants are a such a major source of pollen allergies that in some parts of the world there are efforts to get rid of them (Credit: Alamy)
It isn’t just that people are being exposed to allergens for longer. It is also that the amount of allergens in the air are increasing in many parts of the world. In the 2000s, the pollen season in the continental US started three days earlier than it did during the 1990s, but crucially, the amount of pollen in the air was also 46% higher.
This is partly because carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere are rising, due to emissions from human activities. And many of the most bothersome plants for hay fever sufferers thrive on CO2.
When researchers grew a certain type of grass under different CO2 levels, for example, they found that plants grown in an atmosphere containing CO2 at 800 parts per million (ppm) had flowers that produced about 50% more pollen than plants grown in air containing 400ppm. The latter mimics current levels of CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere.
Similarly, other scientists have also experimented with growing different types of oak tree, the pollen from which often causes hay fever in countries such as South Korea. Under a 720ppm CO2 scenario, they found that each oak tree had an average pollen count 13 times what the trees had under a 400ppm scenario. Even at 560ppm, pollen production was 3.5 times higher than current levels.
Ziska, who authored the 2022 book Greenhouse Planet, ran similar experiments with ragweed. His results mirror those of other researchers. “Every time we cranked up the carbon dioxide, the ragweed plants responded. They grew more. They produced more pollen,” he says. “And there was some evidence that they were producing a more allergenic form of the pollen, one that could induce your immune system to respond even to a greater extent than had been in the past.”
The spread of invasive species across new parts of the world is also triggering allergic reactions in new populations of people. While originally from North America, ragweed, for example, has spread across Europe, as well as into Australia, Asia and South America. Already, some 60% of people in Hungary, 20% in Denmark and 15% in the Netherlands are reportedly sensitive to the pollen from this prolific group of plants.
With the amount of pollen in the air increasing due to climate change, scientists predict that seasonal allergies will also worsen (Credit: Getty Images)
About one-third of the increase is due to the continuing spread of the invasive species, the researchers note. The remaining two-thirds is specifically due to climate change, including the lengthening of the growing season as temperatures warm. “So it’ll be an earlier season, a longer season, as well as a more intense season for those who experience allergic symptoms – and then a higher risk of new sensitisation for a previously unexposed population,” Fuertes says.
Not every region in the world will see more pollen production. Some researchers have found that southern California, for example, will experience earlier but less productive pollen seasons, largely as a result of reduced rainfall.
Relatively speaking, the amount of pollen in the air will still vary from year to year, Fuertes points out. But that may not be of much help to hay fever sufferers. “Once you’re sensitised and go on to develop allergic symptoms, you’ll still likely experience symptoms during years when pollen levels may be lower than average,” she says. “You’ll react to the pollen that’s around.”
So, what can people do about this? Cutting carbon emissions would help to avert some of the worst climate impacts and other strategies might also mitigate the problem.
It might be possible to make some drastic but direct interventions, for example. A century ago, some US cities even set up commissions to tackle ragweed. “Chicago employs 1,350 in hay fever fight,” blares one headline from 1932. The news story explains that men – otherwise unemployed during the Great Depression – were paid the equivalent of one week’s food and lodging (and “25 cents in cash”) for each day they spent cutting down the plant.
Planting of tree species that produce less allergy-inducing airborne pollen is one way cities can help sufferers (Credit: Getty Images)
Other solutions lie in smarter urban design. “We should definitely green our cities,” Fuertes says. “But we do need to do it thoughtfully.”
Planting of exotic species, for example, can trigger new allergies. Opting for the male, pollen producing trees in some species over “messy” fruit and seed producing female ones – so-called “botanical sexism” – can also increase pollen levels in urban areas, although studies have shown the effect of this bias is relatively small in major cities such as New York.
It is also important to monitor and forecast pollen levels, scientists say. “We need to know what we’re breathing in. That’s a pretty fundamental thing in terms of our health,” says Beggs, who points out that while most people take it for granted that they can get reliable, real-time, validated information on metrics like temperature or rainfall in their area, relatively few can say the same for airborne allergens.
But even those services that are modelling pollen counts in an extensive, detailed way – such as the Finnish Meteorological Institute – aren’t monitoring or modelling airborne allergen levels, which are more accurate as each pollen grain can release different amounts of allergens and they can vary by the weather conditions. These are a different measurement, Fuertes points out, and one that she’s shown is more closely linked to allergy symptoms. “Nobody is measuring allergen levels on a routine basis,” Fuertes says. “We should be moving towards that.”
Overall, experts say, the science is clear. Without concrete, coordinated action, climate change will continue to make hay fever worse across many regions of the world. This might include more dramatic, deadly events like thunderstorm asthma. But it might also mean more people sniffling and suffering, for a longer season, every year.
“We have the studies now to show that it’s really having an impact on human health,” says Beggs. “And there’s more to come.”
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has officially welcomed the selection of the Fairgrounds in Pomona, Southern California, as the designated venue for cricket at the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 (LA28) — marking the sport’s historic return to the Olympics after a 128-year hiatus.
The T20 format, widely regarded as the most dynamic and accessible version of the game, will be featured in both men’s and women’s competitions, each with six teams vying for Olympic glory. This marks a monumental step in cricket’s global journey, building on its rising popularity and efforts to enter new markets.
ICC Chair Jay Shah expressed optimism and excitement following the announcement, calling it a “significant step” toward cricket’s reintroduction to the Olympic stage.
Jay Shah, ICC Chair: “Although cricket is a hugely popular sport, it will be a fantastic opportunity to expand traditional boundaries when it features in the Olympics in the fast-paced, exciting T20 format that should appeal to new audiences. On behalf of the ICC, I want to express my gratitude to LA28 and the International Olympic Committee for their support and look forward to collaborating with them and ICC Members in preparing for LA28 and making cricket a huge success there.”
Cricket last featured in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1900, with only a single match between Great Britain and France. Its re-entry into the Games was confirmed during an IOC meeting in Mumbai in October 2023, following sustained efforts from the ICC and member nations.
Cricket joins five new sports at LA28:
Baseball/Softball
Flag Football
Lacrosse (sixes)
Squash
Cricket (T20)
The T20 format has already been embraced by other global multi-sport events. Both men’s and women’s cricket featured at the Asian Games (2010, 2014, 2023), and a women’s tournament took center stage at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.
With LA28 on the horizon, the ICC now gears up for a global showcase that could be a watershed moment in cricket’s journey—blending sport, culture, and a fresh, Olympic-sized audience.
A new exhibition documents American photography’s first 70 years, exploring the US during a period of immense social, geographical and industrial change.Modern culture is indebted to photography. “We can’t be literate in today’s world if we don’t know how to make and share and interpret images”, Jeff Rosenheim, photography curator at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, tells the BBC. “And when did camera culture become so much a part of all of our lives? It actually started in the 1840s and 50s.”
Though originating in Europe, “the speed with which this medium took hold in the US is one of the great surprises,” says Rosenheim, who, thanks to the incredible range of early American images in the William L Schaeffer Collection, a recent gift to the museum, saw an opportunity “to tell an expanded story about the birth of this medium”.
The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910, which opened on 11 April, documents American photography’s first 70 years through 225 photographs, reversing the usual top-down approach by focusing on unknown makers that tell nuanced stories about the US during a period of immense social, geographical and industrial change.
Young Man with Rooster (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
“I quickly realised that there was fantastic picture-making, really important stories, outside of the big cities, all across the country,” says Rosenheim. One such story is embodied in an anonymous 1950s daguerreotype (an image created on silver-coated copper plate) of a young man holding a chicken − a man for whom a painted portrait was probably unaffordable. But, thanks to this new art, he had made his way to a studio, along with his feathered companion, to receive his likeness.
Holding the pose – sometimes for minutes rather than seconds − was essential to a good image, and the bird’s minimal blurring suggests it was at ease in the boy’s arms. Though photography was in its infancy, the sharpness of the image, from the boy’s freckles to the rooster’s scaly feet, is remarkable. The young farmer’s photograph captures the spirit of the American pioneers and is filled, says Rosenheim, “with pride and optimism for his own future”.
Woman Wearing a Tignon (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
It would be another decade before the US would abolish slavery, and a century before the Civil Rights Act prohibited racial segregation. As a result, the theme of agency is implicit in many of these early images. An 1850s daguerreotype of a woman wearing a tignon (cloth turban) is a reminder of the Tignon Law in colonial Louisiana that required free black women to cover their hair. In response, some women reclaimed the tignon as an object of beauty and pride. This elegant portrait, with its extraordinary detail − from the delicately carved earrings to the weave in the translucent shawl − provides an opportunity for positive self-representation against a background of racial discrimination and negative stereotyping.
Studio Photographer at Work (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
For the 19th-Century US, the making of these images was a spectacle in itself. In a rare photograph printed on salted paper around 1855, we see this wizardry at work. “There’s this sort of magic about photography, that you have to go into the box itself, in a certain sense, and cover your head to make a picture,” says Rosenheim. But for all the photographer’s mastery, they are never entirely in control. Edward’s Steichen’s famous 1903 portrait of JP Morgan is an example; it inadvertently conveys his impatience with posing, and an innocent object – the chair handle – appears like a dagger in his hand.
“The world coalesces and comes together in ways that the photographer intended and did not,” says Rosenheim. “A painter can always redo things. They can add and subtract. A photographer, until recently, had to accept what the film or the plate recorded.”
Showing Weather Among the Alleghenies (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
Though the miracle of photography captured America’s imagination, it was still deemed inferior to fine art. Pioneers such as John Moran, who came from a family of artists, challenged this by demonstrating the medium’s creative potential and the unacknowledged artistry involved in making images. “It is the power of seeing and deciding what shall be done, on which will depend the value and importance of any work, whether canvas or negative,” he argued in an essay published in The Photographic News of 1848. In his landscapes, we see a more atmospheric, ethereal quality that goes beyond realism to emphasise mood and emotion. “There are hundreds who make, chemically, faultless photographs,” he asserted, “but few make pictures.”
Railroad Worker with Wye Level (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
While the daguerreotype was indebted to France, the tintype – an image created on blackened iron – was an American invention. Producing high-quality results at a low cost, with no need for a studio, the tintype, peddled by itinerant photographers, meant remote communities and those of limited means could now also take part.
The broadening of access was reinforced by the industrialisation of the US, with the railroad and the telegraph connecting distant corners of the country – to the detriment of the Native American population who were pushed into ever-decreasing spaces. This geographic expansion, supported by topographic photography, is encapsulated in a c 1870 tintype of a man, perhaps a railroad worker, with his surveying equipment. Occupational portraits such as this, featuring workers with the tools of their trade, were a popular way to show the pride people took in their work and how they were contributing to the burgeoning American society.
Musician (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
In an 1870s tintype of a boy posing with a cornet, it may be an interest or talent, rather than a career, that this tiny keepsake records. On the left is a lock of his hair, fastened with paper flowers, possibly from his first haircut or perhaps obtained post-mortem. It was not uncommon for families to employ a photographer to memorialise a deceased loved one who had never been photographed before. Photography is “very linked” to life and death, says Rosenheim. A photograph is always younger than we are, always reminds us of our mortality, but at the same time preserves us in time.
Novelty Portrait (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
As sitting for a portrait became more commonplace, novel experiences were sought. In a self-deprecating, comical tintype from the 1870s, the sitter’s headshot is surrounded by an imagined scene scratched into the metal plate. The studio was Golder & Robinson, on Broadway, New York City, also known for its photographs of public figures that people would collect in the form of “cabinet cards'” – slender photographs mounted on card.
“Cartomania” as the craze became known, “was somewhat driven by Queen Victoria, who sat for her portraits and everyone wanted them,” says Rosenheim. The introspection of the self-portrait era was running alongside the dawning of a culture of celebrity, with “everybody collecting pictures of everybody else”.
Group on Petria, Lake Mahopac (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
While Golder & Robinson were distributing images of the good and the great, Alice Austen would use photography to speak up for the marginalised. She documented the daily lives of impoverished children, street sellers, and immigrants; and, as a queer women in a society that saw no place for same-sex relationships, questioned gender norms with her satirical images of women in the arms of other women, larking about in their underclothes or dressed as men.
Several of these photographs involve Austen’s close friend Trude Eccleston, who features in an 1888 silver print of a boat trip on Lake Mahopac. There’s a charming complicity as a smiling Eccleston locks eyes with the photographer. The gaze goes unnoticed by the dozing men, one of whom Eccleston would eventually marry.
View on the Columbia River, from the O.R.R., Cascades (Credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection, Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz)
Carleton E Watkins was a gold prospector who moved from New York to California to seek his fortune, but instead of taking from the landscape, made a career of photographing it, recording the humbling scale of its mighty glaciers, waterfalls and canyons. This awe was intensified by the stereograph experience, where two slightly different images were viewed through a stereoscope to create a 3D effect. In Watkins’ picturesque View on the Columbia River (1867), the felled trees in the foreground hint at the impermanence of the US’s breathtaking landscapes.
As Miles Orvell writes in American Photography (2003): “Nature, in this 19th-Century context, was land to claim and defend in the name of the US government, it was a wild land to be exuberantly explored, mined, and mapped… And it was spectacularly beautiful.” But photography was beginning to cast a critical eye on what this nascent civilisation was doing to this ancient wilderness.
“If the mood of the 19th Century was an essentially optimistic one, happy in its discovery and exploitation of the American continent,” continues Orvell, “the 20th Century began gradually to wake up from that dream, look around, and see everywhere the destructiveness of the machines that had invaded the garden.”
The stories the camera told about the US and its people, argues Rosenheim, “entered their consciousness in a way that no painting or sculpture, or other forms of art, ever have”. Most of the pictures in the exhibition have never been published and offer fresh insights into early photography’s role in the making of America. This, Rosenheim says, has proved instructive. “The more we release things that are not known, the more we learn about our own history.”
Nobel Prize-winning author Mario Vargas Llosa, one of Latin America’s most celebrated literary figures and a fierce critic of authoritarianism, has died at the age of 89, his family confirmed Sunday.
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” read a statement shared by his son, Álvaro Vargas Llosa, on social media.
A towering voice in world literature, Vargas Llosa will be remembered for his incisive explorations of power, resistance, and human frailty, captured in landmark novels such as Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), The War of the End of the World (1981), and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977). In 2010, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognized for his “cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”
Born in Arequipa, Peru, Vargas Llosa’s path to international acclaim began with the 1963 release of La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero), a brutally honest portrayal of life in a military academy that scandalized the Peruvian establishment. The novel catapulted him into the Latin American literary boom, alongside contemporaries like Gabriel García Márquez and Julio Cortázar.
His literary journey took him across continents—from Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he spent his early years, to Madrid, Paris, London, and eventually Barcelona, where he produced much of his early fiction. A writer of remarkable discipline and range, Vargas Llosa explored themes as diverse as political violence, sexuality, journalism, and the absurdities of bureaucracy.
In 1990, he famously stepped into politics, running for president of Peru. He was defeated in a runoff by Alberto Fujimori, after which he relocated to Spain, obtaining citizenship in 1993 and winning the Cervantes Prize the following year.
Throughout his life, Vargas Llosa championed liberal democratic values, often taking controversial stances that distanced him from the political left with which he once aligned. Still, his commitment to free expression and individual liberty remained steadfast, as did his belief in literature as a transformative force.
“Literature is pleasure,” he once said, “but it’s also a very important instrument to move forward in life.”
In recent years, concerns over Vargas Llosa’s health had mounted, but his passion for writing never dimmed. His later works, including The Feast of the Goat (2000) and The Bad Girl (2006), showed an enduring ability to provoke thought and challenge readers.
Peru’s President Dina Boluarte paid tribute to Vargas Llosa, calling him an “illustrious Peruvian of all time” and lauding his vast literary legacy. “His intellectual genius and vast body of work will remain an everlasting legacy for future generations,” the presidential office added.
Vargas Llosa’s final farewell will be a private gathering of close friends and family, his children confirmed.
Yet for the millions who found truth, beauty, and urgency in his words, his voice will continue to echo through the pages of literature—and through the ideals he so fiercely defended.
Colombo, April 12 – The Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) has reported a remarkable income of nearly Rs. 600 million over the past four days, as Avurudu season travel surged across the island.
According to SLTB Deputy General Manager R.T. Chandrasiri, the daily revenue peaked at approximately Rs. 200 million, driven by the large number of commuters traveling to their hometowns to celebrate the Sinhala and Tamil New Year.
In anticipation of the seasonal rush, the SLTB deployed around 350 additional buses throughout the country. The move aimed to ease travel congestion and provide greater convenience to passengers during the peak holiday period.
The significant income boost underscores the critical role of the SLTB in facilitating mass transportation during festive times, while highlighting the enduring reliance on public transport infrastructure for long-distance travel in Sri Lanka.
