At Ukraine's Largest Art Gallery, A Race To Protect Heritage

LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — The director of Ukraine’s largest art museum walked its hallways, supervising as staff packed away its collections to protect their national heritage in case the Russian invasion advances west.

In one partially empty gallery of the Andrey Sheptytsky National Museum, employees placed carefully wrapped baroque pieces into cardboard boxes. A few meters away, a group walked down the majestic main staircase carrying a giant piece of sacred art, the 18th century Bohorodchany iconostasis.

“Sometimes the tears are coming because a lot of labor has been put in here. It takes time, energy. You are doing something good, you feel pleased. Today you see empty walls, so it feels bitter, sad. We didn’t believe it till the last minute that this could happen,” museum General Director Ihor Kozhan said Friday.

The doors of the museum in the western city of Lviv have been closed since Russia’s war on Ukraine began on Feb. 24, and heritage sites across the country face danger as the fighting continues. Korzhan said he receives daily calls from other European cultural institutions offering to help as he and his staff race to preserve the museum’s works.

Anna Naurobska, the head of the rare manuscripts and books department, said she still doesn’t know where to safely store the collection of more than 12,000 items being packed into boxes.

The relocation process and the fear that the collection is in danger in the event of an attack on the city overwhelms her.

“This is our story; this is our life. It is very important to us,” Naurobska said.

She walked into another room and held up a massive tome, tears forming in her eyes. “It’s a Russian book,” she said, putting it back on the shelf. “I’m so angry.”

Like the museum, other sites in Lviv are rushing to protect works of artistic or cultural importance. The display cabinets at the Museum of the History of Religion are almost empty. Workers are assembling metal containers in the patio to safely store the remaining items before placing them in basements. At the Latin Cathedral, the sculptures have been covered with cardboard, foam and plastic to protect them from possible shrapnel.

Amid the bare walls and shrouded statues, Kozhan lamented the empty museum, which has survived two world wars.

“Museum has to live. People have to be there, and first of all children. They have to learn the basics of their culture,” he said

US To Resume Some Visa Services In Cuba After 4 Year Break

The U.S. government has announced that it would resume limited processing of immigrant visas in Havana more than four years after halting that service and removing most diplomats from Cuba over suspicions they had been targeted for mysterious attacks.

The Havana embassy’s chargé d’ affaires, Timothy Zúñiga-Brown, announced that the consulate would soon begin processing some immigrant visas for which documentation already is complete, though he did not give a date.

Most visas will continue to be processed in Guyana on the South American mainland — a costly and difficult journey away for most Cubans.

Zúñiga-Brown said the U.S. is interested in “safe and legal” immigration, particularly for family reunification cases which had been complicated by the withdrawal of diplomats.

Cuba last year saw a surge in unauthorized migration attempts fueled in part by an economic crisis that was exacerbated by the pandemic, increased U.S. sanctions and cutbacks in aid from Venezuela.

Most U.S. diplomats were withdrawn from Cuba in 2017 after the administration of then-President Donald Trump accused Cuba of targeting some at the post with weapons that that caused lingering and sometimes serious brain injuries — allegations Cuba has always denied. Canadian diplomats also reported such incidents.

While the maladies came to be called “Havana Syndrome,” they were also reported by hundreds of American officials at missions around the world and even in Washington.

CIA findings released in January determined it was unlikely that Russia or another foreign adversary had used microwaves or other forms of directed energy to attack the Americans.

That conclusion was not universally accepted. A separate panel of intelligence experts said last month that several potential causes remain plausible, including the use of devices that emit beams of directed energy. The panel said some of the injuries are not compatible with psychological causes.

The uncertainty about the cause of the illnesses has added to friction between officials and those suffering from symptoms.

President Joe Biden had campaigned on easing the Trump administration’s tough series of new sanctions on Cuba, but so far has taken only limited steps toward the sort of relaxation that occurred under Barack Obama, who visited Cuba and made dealings with it far easier.

Germany Wipes Its List Of COVID ‘High-Risk Areas’ Clean

BERLIN (AP) — Germany is removing all countries currently on its list of “high-risk areas” as part of a rethink of its coronavirus travel rules that took effect on March 3rd.

The country’s disease control center, the Robert Koch Institute, said that from now on Germany’s list will only include places where high infection rates are linked to variants of COVID-19 that are more virulent than the currently dominant omicron variant, which in many cases leads to relatively mild illness.

That change will result in the current list of “high-risk areas,” which contains dozens of countries and territories, being wiped clean from Thursday on. Health Ministry spokesman Andreas Deffner said Wednesday, however, that Germany will still require people to show proof of vaccination, recent recovery or a negative test to enter the country.

People arriving from “high-risk areas” who either haven’t recovered recently or been fully vaccinated have to self-isolate for 10 days, which can be cut to five with a negative test. Everyone arriving from those areas has to register online before arrival.

For countries that do end up on the list, quarantine requirements will be relaxed for under-12s — who will be able to avoid self-isolating with a negative test — and dropped for children under 6.

Germany’s coronavirus infection rate is drifting downward slowly after a wave of infections with omicron peaked last month. Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the country’s 16 state governors agreed in mid-February on a three-step plan to end most restrictions by March 20.

Australia Fully Open To Travel As Last State Reopens Border

Australia was fully open to vaccinated travelers after Western Australia on Thursday became the last state to lift border restrictions.

Western Australia, which covers one third of the nation’s land area, closed its borders to most international and interstate travelers in 2020 to slow the spread of COVID-19.

But the state lifted restrictions on Thursday four months after Sydney began its staged reopening of quarantine-free travel and more than week after all vaccinated tourists became eligible for visas.

Perth’s airport was the scene of emotional reunions as the first of a scheduled 22 domestic flights and five international flights began arriving on Thursday.

Western Australia had successfully stopped the local spread of the coronavirus throughout the pandemic by contract tracing and isolating carriers until the highly contagious omicron variant arrived this year.

The state now reports more than 1,000 new infections every day.

“Australia is now finally back together,” Qantas Airways chief executive Alan Joyce said. “This day has been a long time coming.”

On Wednesday, 61 deaths from COVID-19 were reported across Australia. None was reported that day in Western Australia, Tasmania or the Australian Capital Territory.

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Hawaii To Lift COVID-19 Travel Quarantine Rules This Month

Hawaii plans to lift its COVID-19 quarantine requirement for travelers this month, meaning that starting on March 26 those arriving from other places in the U.S. won’t have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to avoid sequestering themselves for five days.

Hawaii is the only U.S. state to implement a coronavirus quarantine program of this kind.

Gov. David Ige said at a news conference the requirement saved lives and was a major factor in limiting the spread of COVID-19 in the islands. Hawaii has one of the lowest coronavirus infection rates in the nation.

The quarantine period for travelers lasted 14 days when Hawaii first imposed it in March 2020. The state later created testing and vaccination exemptions.

The state screened 11.3 million passengers since the testing exemption was launched in October 2020, Ige said.

Those arriving in Hawaii from outside the country still must adhere to U.S. federal guidelines, which vary depending on American citizenship. International tourists do not need to quarantine but still need proof of vaccination and a negative test.

The governor said he would maintain Hawaii’s indoor mask mandate at least through March 25, and would be evaluating whether to lift it after that. Hawaii is last state in the nation with a statewide mandate in effect.

The governor said the state Department of Health will review the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before he decides, Ige said.

Ige said he wants to make sure that public schools will be able to continue with in-person learning. He said more people will be traveling as spring break comes, which could increase the presence of the coronavirus at schools.

“The pandemic is not over. Tragically, we continue to see those that we know and love continue to suffer from COVID-19,” he said.

The governor said he was proud of how the community responded the pandemic.

“It is about the people, place and culture of all of us here, coming from diverse backgrounds but always understanding that there is a bigger reason to be willing to sacrifice individual needs to benefit the community,” Ige said. “And over and over again, we were willing to do that.”

New Orleans Hosts Its 1St Full-Dress Mardi Gras Since 2020

People are out to party as New Orleans’ first full-dress Mardi Gras since 2020 dawns Tuesday, with a day of back-to-back parades through the city and masks against COVID-19 required only in indoor public spaces.

Parade routes are shorter than usual, because there aren’t enough police for the standard ones, even with officers working 12-hour shifts as they always do on Mardi Gras and the end of the Carnival season leading up to it.

But with COVID-19 hospitalizations and case numbers falling worldwide and 92% of the city’s adults at least partly vaccinated, parades are back on after a season without them.

And people are out and ready to let the good times roll.

The crowd Sunday, when the huge Krewe of Bacchus paraded, “was a record for us in the 10 years we’ve been open,” said Thomas Houston, bar manager at Superior Seafood and Oyster Bar, located at the start of the truncated parade route.

He expected similar crowds on Fat Tuesday — a state holiday — if the weather is good. Not to mention Ash Wednesday, when people following the Catholic tradition of meatless Lenten fare are out for seafood.

“It’s not just a fun money-making time but you get to see people who’ve been around for 10 years,” he said.

Hotel occupancy, though, is expected to be about 66%, down about 19.5% from 2020, said Kelly Schultz, spokesperson for New Orleans & Co., the official sales and marketing organization for New Orleans’ tourism industry.

Parades were canceled last year because officials realized that tightly packed crowds in 2020 had created a superspreader event, making the city an early Southern hot spot for COVID-19.

But “2020 was weird,” Houston said, because two people were hit by floats and killed in the week leading up to Mardi Gras and the mayor suspended use of multiple floats hitched behind one tractor.

“Also the coronavirus was sort of looming over us,” even though its presence wasn’t yet known in New Orleans, Houston said.

As it has for years, the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club will open Fat Tuesday with a parade that started as a mockery of white festivities, with Black float riders in blackface and grass skirts.

Next come the elaborate and fantastical floats of Rex, the self-styled king of Carnival, chosen by a group of high society, old-money businessmen.

After that are the Krewe of Elks and the Krewe of Orleans, a not-quite-endless stretch of homemade floats on long flatbed trailers.