AYETORO, Nigeria (AP) — The coastal Nigerian community of Ayetoro was founded decades ago and nicknamed “Happy City,” meant to be a Christian utopia that would be sinless and classless. But now its remaining residents can do little against the rising sea.

Buildings have sunk into the Atlantic Ocean, an increasingly common image along the vulnerable West African coast. Old timber pokes from the waves like rotten teeth. Shattered foundations line the shore. Waves break against abandoned electrical poles.

For years, low-lying nations have warned the world about the existential threat of rising seas. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, struggles to respond. Some plans to address shoreline protection, even for Ayetoro, have come to nothing in a nation where corruption and mismanagement is widespread.

Prayers against the rising sea are “on the lips of everybody” in the church every Sunday, according to youth leader Thompson Akingboye. But they know the solution will require far more.

Even the church has been relocated away from the sea, twice. “The present location is now also threatened, with the sea just 30 meters (98 feet) away,” Akingboye said.

Thousands of people have left. Of those who remain, Stephen Tunlese can only gaze from a distance at the remnants of his clothing shop.

Tunlese said he lost an investment of eight million naira, or the equivalent of $5,500, to the sea. Now he adapts to a watery future. He repairs canoes.

“I will stay in Ayetoro because this is my father’s land, this is heritage land,” he said.

The Mahin mud coast where the community is slipping away has lost more than 10 square kilometers, or nearly 60% of its land, to the ocean in the past three decades.

Researchers studying satellite imagery of Nigeria’s coast say a number of things are contributing to Ayetoro’s disappearance.

Underwater oil drilling is one reason, according to marine geologist Olusegun Dada, a professor at the Federal University of Technology in Akure who has studied years of satellite imagery. As resources are extracted, the ground can sink.

But he and colleagues note other reasons, including the deforestation of mangroves that help anchor the earth and the erosion caused by ocean waves.

“When we started coming to this community, then we used to have fresh water,” Dada said. Today, the freshwater ecosystem is transforming into a salty, marine one.

The transformation is enormously costly in Nigeria. The World Bank in a 2020 report estimated the cost of coastal degradation in three other coastal Nigerian states — nearby Lagos, Delta and Cross River — at $9.7 billion, or more than 2% of the country’s GDP. It looked at erosion, flooding, mangrove loss and pollution, and noted the high rate of urbanization.

And yet dramatic images of coastal communities slipping away only capture Nigeria’s attention from time to time, as when the annual flooding occurs — another effect of climate change.

But Ayetoro residents can’t turn away.

“Ayetoro was like a paradise, a city where everyone lived joyfully, happily,” said Arowolo Mofeoluwa, a retired civil servant.

She estimated that two-thirds of the community has been slowly swept under the waves, along with some residents’ multiple attempts to rebuild.

“This is the third house we are living in, and there are some living in the fourth house now, and we do not have enough space for ourselves again. Four or five people living in a small room, you can just imagine how painful it is,” Mofeoluwa said.

“If you look where the sea is now, that is the end of the former Ayetoro.”

For the community’s traditional leader and head of the local church, Oluwambe Ojagbohunmi, the pain is not only in the loss of land but also “what we are losing in our socio-cultural and religious identity.”

Some residents say even burial grounds have been washed away.

Early this year, the Ondo state government announced a commitment to finding “lasting solutions” to the threat to Ayetoro. But residents said that’s been vowed in the past.

It might be too late for efforts to be effective, Dada said. For years, he has hoped for an environmental survey to be carried out to better understand what’s causing the community’s disappearance. But that’s been in vain.

The Niger Delta Development Commission, a government body meant in part to address environmental and other issues caused by oil exploration, didn’t respond to questions from The Associated Press about efforts to protect the community’s shoreline.

The commission’s website lists a shoreline protection project in Ayetoro. A photo shows a sign marking the feat with the motto, “Determined to make a difference!”

The project was awarded two decades ago. Project status: “Ongoing.”

Residents say nothing ever started.

“Help will come one day, we believe,” youth leader Akingboye said.

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The post It was meant to be a Christian utopia. Now this Nigerian community is helpless against rising seas appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

With one of the hottest summers of our lifetime already settling down around us, many of us only have one thing on our minds: staying cool. And if you’re planning on heading to the beach to do just that, we have some good news for you.

Governor Hochul recently announced the next phase of subway service enhancements, and included in those enhancements is extended service to the beach!

The Rockaway Park Shuttle’s route will be extended to Rockaway Blvd on summer weekends, providing beachgoers with a much easier trip to Rockaway Beach.

Between 9 am and 9 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, the extended route will allow beachgoers to transfer to and from A trains serving both the Lefferts Blvd and Far Rockaway branches. This extended route is operating now through Labor Day and adds four stops to its normal route: Rockaway Blvd, Aqueduct Racetrack, Aqueduct-N Conduit Av and Howard Beach-JFK Airport.

Moreover, the 5-car Rockaway Park Shuttle will be extended to 10 cars to hold more people.

NYC Transit Interim President Demetrius Crichlow stated:

Whenever we have the ability to enhance service, we will. Customers consistently say that improved service and reduced wait times will keep them coming back. We are excited to roll this fourth phase of service increases out now, so riders can take the subway to the million things to do around New York City in the summer.

The news comes shortly after announcements were made that Governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to indefinitely pause NYC’s Congestion Pricing Plan would not only negatively affect the NYC subway, but also caused the city to cease its plans for expansion on the second avenue subway project.

The post More NYers Will Be Able To Take The Subway To Rockaway Beach This Summer appeared first on Secret NYC.

* This article was originally published here

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Yunusa Bawa spends a lot of time talking about the vaccine for the human papillomavirus that is responsible for nearly all cases of cervical cancer. But on most days, only two or three people allow their daughters to be vaccinated in the rural part of Nigeria where he works.

The challenge in Sabo community, on the outskirts of the capital of Abuja, is the unfounded rumor that the HPV vaccine will later keep young girls from giving birth.

“The rumor is too much,” said Bawa, 42.

As more African countries strive to administer more HPV vaccines, Bawa and other health workers tackle challenges that slow progress, particularly misinformation about the vaccine. The World Health Organization’s Africa office estimates that about 25% of the population still has doubts about it — reflecting concerns seen in some other parts of the world in early campaigns for the vaccine.

A common sexually transmitted virus, HPV can cause cervical cancer, certain other cancers and genital warts. In most cases, the virus doesn’t cause any problems, but some infections persist and eventually lead to cancer.

Across Africa, an average of 190 women died daily from cervical cancer in 2020, accounting for 23% of the deaths globally and making it the leading cancer killer among women in the WHO Africa region of 47 countries. Eighteen of the 20 countries with the highest rate of cervical cancer cases in the world are in Africa. Yet the region’s HPV vaccination rate has been low.

More than half of Africa’s 54 nations – 28 – have introduced the vaccine in their immunization programs, but only five have reached the 90% coverage that the continent hopes to achieve by 2030. Across the region, 33% of young girls have been vaccinated with HPV.

It’s a stark contrast to most European countries, where both girls and boys have been receiving HPV shots.

Part of why Africa has a high burden of cervical cancer is because of limited access to screening for women, said Emily Kobayashi, head of the HPV Program at the vaccines alliance Gavi.

“The elimination strategy is a long game … but we know that vaccination is the strongest pillar and one of the easiest to implement,” Kobayashi said.

But “it is one thing to introduce the vaccine, but if the vaccine remains in the fridge, it doesn’t prevent cervical cancer,” said Charles Shey Wiysonge, head of the vaccine-preventable diseases program in the WHO’s Africa region. He said information must be provided by people ”who are trusted, people who are close to the communities.”

There is a long history of vaccine hesitancy in many African countries that is sometimes linked to a lack of trust in government, as one study published in the Nature science journal in May found, giving room for conspiracy theories and misinformation from social media influencers and religious leaders.

In Zimbabwe, where cervical cancer is the most frequent cancer among women, a group of mostly women known as Village Health Workers have been trained to raise awareness about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine in rural areas. But they fight a high level of hesitancy among religious sects that discourage followers from modern medicines, asking them to rely instead on prayers and “anointed” water and stones.

The women who eventually agree to be screened for cervical cancer do so in secret, said Zanele Ndlovu, one of the health workers on the outskirts of Bulawayo city.

For a deeply religious country like Zimbabwe, “the spiritual leaders have so much influence that a lot of our time is taken trying to educate people about the safety of vaccines, or that they are not ungodly,” Ndlovu said.

There are also success stories in Africa where authorities have achieved up to a 90% vaccination rate. One example is Ethiopia, which relies heavily on religious leaders, teachers and hotline workers.

In Rwanda, the first African country to implement a national HPV vaccination program in 2011, the coverage rate has reached 90%. Hesitancy is less of an issue due to vigorous awareness work that has relied on school-based campaigns and community outreach programs, said Dr. Theoneste Maniragaba, director of the cancer program at Rwanda Biomedical Center.

Mozambique has deployed school-based programs, a door-to-door approach and mobile outreach for girls in hard-to-reach areas that has helped it reach 80% coverage rate with the first of two doses. In Tanzania, where the HPV vaccine has been in use since at least 2018, authorities in April launched a campaign to target over 5 million girls and further raise coverage, which has reached 79% of girls with the first dose.

One of Africa’s largest HPV vaccination drives targeting girls recently kicked off in Nigeria, which has procured nearly 15 million doses with the help of the U.N. children’s agency. It will target girls aged 9–14 with single doses that the WHO’s African immunization advisory group has said is as effective as the regular two doses.

One challenge is explaining the HPV vaccination to girls ahead of the onset of sexual activity, especially in conservative societies, said Dr. Aisha Mustapha, a gynecologist in northern Kaduna state.

Mustapha has been successfully treated for cervical cancer. She said the experience helps in her meetings with religious leaders and in community outreach programs in Kaduna, where she leads the Medical Women Association of Nigeria.

They try to make the girls feel comfortable and understand why the vaccine is important, she said. That sometimes requires comic books and lots of singing.

“The (cervical) cancer … is no respecter of any identity,” she said. “The vaccine is available, it is free, it is safe and effective.”

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Associated Press writers Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe, and Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda, contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The post More African nations focus on HPV vaccination against cervical cancer, but hesitancy remains appeared first on New York Amsterdam News.

* This article was originally published here

Step into this stunning and immersive world where art meets air, Balloon Story is finally open and is a limited, two-month pop up! This whimsical experience showcases massive balloon sculptures and scenes you can walk through. The adventure takes place NYC’s iconic Armory Building.

Only until July 4th, you can snag up to 30% off of tickets when you book tickets to go to Balloon Story by July 18th. Use the codes below at checkout and book tickets here.

A 50% discount for the first 1,000 purchases with code JULY4BS50 – SOLD OUT
A 30% discount for the next 1,000 purchases with code JULY4BS30 
A 20% discount for the last 2,000 purchases with code JULY4BS20

Walk through this space filled with hundreds of thousands of balloons which make up an underwater seascape or in the midst of a tropical jungle and even to the arctic! All of these different scenes are nothing short of stunning, creative and most importantly eco-friendly. It’s a perfect way to spend time with the family or for unique photo ops with friends! All ages are welcome and kids under four-years old enter for free. Oh did we mention there’s a ball pit?

So head on over to Park Avenue Armory located  643 Park Avenue for Balloon Story, the venue is also ADA compliant.  This special experience is only here until August 24th! Make it a whimsical air-filled summer at Balloon Story!

Event details

Balloon Story: An immersive experience where Art Meets Air at the Park Ave Armory

July 3, 2024 10:00

(+ more dates)

Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Avenue, New York, 10065-6122, New York)

From $36.57

Buy tickets

The post This Incredible & Eco-Friendly Balloon Wonderland Is Now Open In NYC appeared first on Secret NYC.

* This article was originally published here

You know we love waterfront dining, and this summer, you’ll be able to have meals at one of Brooklyn’s most picturesque spots: the iconic Prospect Park Boathouse Terrace. On Thursday, July 4, the team behind popular Brooklyn restaurants Rucola, June and Rhodora will debut Purslane Cafe at the century-old, Beaux Arts–style landmark.

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A physical extension of Purslane—New York’s first zero-waste, carbon-neutral catering company—the new café will feature that same eco-friendly sensibility, offering sustainability-sourced, health-minded food options and coffee daily from 8am to 3pm, as well as summer cocktails, wine and beer on select evenings. (The restaurant’s Instagram will be updated with select evening hours.) It will also carry only sustainable, recyclable and compostable products.

As one of the only food options located inside of Prospect Park itself, picnic-ready parkgoers should be pleased about a menu full of tasty-sounding stuff like fig-and-prosciutto sandwiches, a daily frittata, overnight oats, almond butter croissants and more. Non-alcoholic beverages include drip coffee and cold brew, lemonade and Arnold Palmers, and both hot and iced tea.

Open all week long, the café will offer outdoor seating only (because, really, with a scenic view like this, why would you want to sit inside anyway?) and in the future will play host to live music and small pop-up events. 

* This article was originally published here

Longtime patrons of the Duplex were gutted two years ago when a roof fire destroyed the venue’s upstairs Cabaret Theatre. The Duplex is no ordinary West Village club, after all, but a local institution. From the 1950s through the 1970s, when it was on Grove Street, it was an incubator for such performers as Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Joan Rivers, Hal Holbrook and Barry Manilow; in its newer incarnation on Christopher Street, it has helped launch alt-cabaret stars like Cole Escola, Justin Elizabeth Sayre, Molly Pope, Ben Rimalower and Amy Jo Jackson. It was at the Duplex that Sean Hayes’s Jack McFarland performed his cabaret show, Just Jack, on Will & Grace; Bowen Yang and Cecily Strong spoofed it on Saturday Night Live.

When this beloved hole in the wall was forced to close in July 2022, it left a hole in the hearts of local arts fans. But now, the venue is finally getting ready to return. Time Out has learned that the Duplex Cabaret Theatre will reopen in mid-October with an ambitious slate of programming. In a gesture of audacious irony, the venue is fighting fire with Fire Island: The restored second-floor complex will be re-envisioned by designer Shawn Lewis as Ferry’s Landing NYC, a Fire Island–themed immersive space that aims to give queer New Yorkers a place to visit when vacation season is through. (The first-floor piano bar, which stayed open after the fire, will continue as usual.)

The centerpiece of Ferry’s Landing NYC will be Rob Gould’s original musical Little House on the Ferry, which depicts a group of friends on a trip to the isle on the eve of the New York Senate’s marriage-equality vote in 2011. “I’ve been working on this production for over a decade,” says Gould. “It’s beyond my wildest dreams to be bringing it to the West Village, the place where it all began.” The musical’s story is one that needs to be told, says director Victoria Rae Sook: “This show is a chance to teach everyone what it was like to be queer before gay marriage was legal. And what it is still like now, fighting the war for equal rights, even though that battle was won.”

Little House on the Ferry will run six nights a week at 7:30pm, preceded at 6pm by a Fire Island–style “tea” party. It will be followed each night at 9:30pm by Fire Island Follies, a risqué cabaret variety show that incorporates elements of music, comedy, drag and circus arts. On Thursdays through Saturdays, this double bill will lead into a dance party called Farandole, which will feature a DJ and go-go performers. Performances will happen in and around the audience in a space that nods to F.I. destinations including the Pavilion, the Ice Palace and the infamous Meat Rack.  

“I’ve wanted this kind of entertainment in our space for the past 30 years,” says Duplex owner Tony DeCicco. “We are so excited to be restoring our cabaret space after such a long and tragic absence.” 

Ferry’s Landing NYC is currently scheduled to last from October 15 through January 5 at the Duplex (61 Christopher St at Seventh Ave South). For more information, and to buy tickets or VIP packages, visit the brand-new Ferry’s Island website. 

* This article was originally published here

Drake is currently all over pop culture for all the wrong reasons, but a brand new exhibit at Madame Tussauds New York will finally give fans of the Canadian superstar one reason to celebrate.

The wax museum just unveiled a brand-new figure of Drake in a new Music area, which simulates a New Year’s Eve concert in Times Square and includes “Drake” standing in the midst of wax figures of all your fave celebrities.

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This is definitely the type of experience you’ll appreciate if you’ve ever thought about going to Times Square for New Year’s Eve but don’t want to endure the crowds and hours of not having access to toilets. The new music area is part of a multimillion-dollar investment into Madame Tussauds that will give visitors an immersive experience that feels as close to the most famous event in the city without actually having to be there.

The music area includes “performances” by the wax icons, countdown clocks, full-blown confetti, and more. Besides Drake, the other celebrities at the New Year’s simulation include Beyoncé, Elvis, Anitta, Dua Lipa, J Balvin, Megan Thee Stallion and Harry Styles. “Our new Music experience is one of those magical spaces within the museum that guests are immediately drawn to, so we’re confident the reimagined area, which is more immersive than ever, will bring a new level of excitement to the experience,” Marketing Manager for Madame Tussauds, Eliza Rose, said in a statement.

As for Drake himself? He’s wearing a khaki “shacket” (a crossover between a jacket and a shirt), jewelry, a grey shirt, and Air Force 1’s. Like the other wax figures in the museum, this one looks so realistic that it’ll take you a while to realize he’s not quite like us.

After the new music area, make sure to check out the museum’s new Behind-The-Scenes tour, where guests can actually learn how the world-famous wax figures are made, starting from the initial measurements and clothing selection all the way to the hair and makeup process. 

To learn more about the exhibition and plan your visit, check out the museum’s website. 

* This article was originally published here

The MTA just unveiled two new digital artworks at Grand Central Madison that pay homage to the frantic and electric energy of New York City.

The two works are “Ouranos, Above Us Only Sky” by Colombian-born and NYC-based artist Monika Bravo, and “Anyplace, Anytime, Anywhere” by Korean-born artist Yehwan Song.

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Each artwork will be displayed for two minutes at regular intervals across five LED screens near the 47th Street entrance to Grand Central Madison, which is located inside Grand Central Terminal. 

Bravo’s colorful collaged work depicts a vibrant cityscape that reflects the passage of time and the creation of modern civilization, all while borrowing images from futurist architecture. The surreal landscape depicted in the artwork is meant to prompt introspection around our role in shaping our lived environment.

“Inspired by my recent studies in Praxeology and open market economic principles, this animation explores how human action, purposeful behavior, and personal accountability shape civilization,” Monika Bravo said. “It highlights how individuals, through voluntary interactions, contribute to our collective journey.”

Song’s artwork, on the other hand, features digital icons that bounce like a pinball machine throughout the screen before creating a word at the center of each screen. She drew inspiration from the subway’s intricate network of tracks and the many people who move through them each day. The amalgamation of humans with machines takes center stage and the moving graphic references images from artificial intelligence, emojis, and browser windows that move around before the final configuration reveals a poem: “Any Place Time Where Any.”

“People move between places on their own paths in chaos. One moment, they would be going somewhere, and then they would come back to each other,” Yehwan Song said. “They move along their individual paths but still share a mutual story. These are events we can glimpse from each other and ones we can imagine, understand, and empathize with based on our own experiences on the train platform.”  

The two new works are part of the MTA Arts & Design Digital Art Program, which invited digital media artists to propose artwork to exhibit at Grand Central Madison as part of an effort to create a “cultural corridor” that includes permanent exhibits by artists like Yayoi Kusama and Kiki Smith. The latest exhibits are an addition to the cultural corridor that might be worth a brief moment of reflection for the next time you find yourself in the frantic train station in Manhattan. 

“These new projects by artists Monika Bravo and Yehwan Song take inspiration from our built environment for the delight of all who traverse above and below ground,” Sandra Bloodworth, Director, MTA Arts & Design, said. “This is the third set of Digital Art commissions for the Madison Concourse and MTA customers have come to expect a visual feast that will stay with them on their journeys and beyond.”

* This article was originally published here