Porti & ambiente — le notizie raccolte

Before a single offshore wind turbine rises off Philippine waters, something else has to be built first. Not at sea, but on land. Across San Miguel Bay in Bicol and the Guimaras Strait in Western Visayas, the country’s most advanced offshore wind zones are beginning to reveal a hard truth about the energy transition: the real starting point is not generation, but logistics. And in offshore wind, logistics means ports. Despite more than 40 gigawatts of awarded Offshore Wind Energy Service Contracts and growing investor interest, the Philippines has yet to move a single project into offshore construction. Turbines have not been installed. Foundations have not been laid. No wind farm has reached full marine execution. What exists instead is a rapidly advancing pre-development pipeline — permitting, site assessments, engineering studies, and early infrastructure planning. That distinction matters. Because offshore wind does not fail or succeed at the concept stage. It fails or succeeds at the interface between land and sea. The Global Wind Energy Council’s 2026 study makes this point implicitly but repeatedly. San Miguel Bay and the Guimaras Strait were not chosen only for their wind resource. They were selected because they already have identifiable port pathways. In Camarines Norte, Pambuhan Port is being positioned as a potential offshore wind hub through government-led planning. In the Guimaras corridor, Pulupandan is emerging as a privately driven logistics base supported by nearby industrial centers. These are not secondary details. They are the foundation of the entire industry. Offshore wind turbines are among the largest machines ever deployed in the energy sector. A single unit can exceed 15 megawatts, with blades longer than a football field and components that cannot be transported or assembled using conventional port infrastructure. Building offshore wind at scale requires specialized “marshaling ports” capable of handling heavy-lift operations, deepwater berths, vast laydown areas, and continuous assembly workflows. In effect, the port becomes the factory floor of offshore wind. This is where the Philippines faces its first real bottleneck. The country does not yet have a fully developed offshore wind port capable of supporting turbine assembly and large-scale deployment. Existing ports were not designed for this type of industrial activity. Retrofitting them — or building new ones — takes years, significant capital, and coordinated policy support. Offshore wind is often framed as a clean energy technology. But in reality, it is also a heavy industrial system. And the transition to offshore wind is as much about building new coastal industrial ecosystems as it is about generating zero-carbon electricity. Ports sit at the center of that transformation. The GWEC report highlights how port development triggers a cascade of sustainability-linked effects. Upgraded ports attract shipbuilding and maritime services. They enable local fabrication of components, reducing reliance on long-distance imports and lowering embedded carbon in supply chains. They create hubs for operations and maintenance over decades, anchoring long-term employment in coastal regions. In other words, ports are not just enabling offshore wind. They are shaping the kind of offshore wind industry the Philippines will have. This becomes even more critical when viewed against the country’s policy timeline. The Department of Energy’s Green Energy Auction program is targeting offshore wind capacity deployment beginning toward the end of the decade. On paper, the pipeline is moving. But offshore wind timelines are unforgiving. Globally, port readiness often determines which projects actually get built and which remain stalled. Without ports, turbines do not move. Without staging areas, foundations do not reach the water. Without logistics hubs, installation vessels have nowhere to operate from. The Philippines is now entering that decisive phase where ambition meets infrastructure reality. The first visible structures of the Philippine offshore wind industry may not be turbines rising above the horizon. They may be reinforced quays, expanded laydown yards, and heavy-lift cranes along the shoreline. San Miguel Bay and the Guimaras Strait illustrate two different pathways forward. One is state-led, anchored in national planning and early public investment. The other is market-driven, leveraging existing industrial corridors and private-sector initiative. Both approaches recognize the same underlying constraint: offshore wind begins onshore. There is also a deeper sustainability implication. If the Philippines develops its port infrastructure strategically, it can localize significant portions of the offshore wind supply chain — fabrication, assembly, maintenance — turning what could be an import-dependent industry into a domestically anchored one. That reduces emissions associated with global transport, strengthens energy sovereignty, and embeds long-term economic value in coastal communities. CleanTechnica's Comment Policy

Giornalisti italiani ed europei alla scoperta dei tesori del mare della natura, dell’archeologia e del gusto PORTO CESAREO – Le meraviglie di Porto Cesareo protagoniste del 76° educational tour per giornalisti organizzato dalla rivista Spiagge, diretta da Carmen Mancarella, in programma dal 5 al 12 maggio. Un viaggio esperienziale che ha portato in Salento redattori e inviati di importanti testate italiane ed europee specializzate in turismo, territori, lifestyle, eventi e cultura. Il gruppo continuerà le sue escursioni per raccontare uno dei territori più affascinanti del Mediterraneo, dove natura incontaminata, biodiversità marina, archeologia, tradizioni e sapori autentici si fondono in un patrimonio unico. Tra le testate presenti figurano National Geographic edizione Polonia, Il Resto del Carlino, Il Giorno e La Nazione del gruppo QN Quotidiani, oltre a numerosi magazine e portali europei di settore come reise.news.de , einfachraus.de , Funken Medien di Berlino, Week End and Morgen Medien Group, House&Hotel Luxury Berlino, tenminutesetravel.com di Bruxelles, viaggiemondo.it di Tenerife, Turismo del Gusto, Web Lombardia, cosabolleinpentola.it , ambienteeuropa.com , insieme alle emittenti radiofoniche CS Radio Canarie Media Group e WNET Varsavia. Oggi 8 maggio, la visita al Museo di Biologia Marina “Pietro Parenzan”, autentico presidio di divulgazione scientifica e memoria del mare, alle spettacolari dune costiere di Porto Cesareo, l’incontro con uno storico pescatore e un emozionante tour in barca tra acque cristalline, fondali ricchi di biodiversità e paesaggi mozzafiato. I giornalisti potranno inoltre conoscere le testimonianze archeologiche del territorio, le eccellenze enogastronomiche locali e i tesori ambientali che rendono Porto Cesareo una delle destinazioni più amate del turismo nazionale e internazionale. L’iniziativa rappresenta una straordinaria opportunità di promozione per il territorio salentino, che sarà raccontato attraverso reportage, servizi, approfondimenti, collegamenti radiofonici e pubblicazioni online diffuse in Italia e in diversi Paesi europei. Al progetto ha aderito il Comune di Porto Cesareo, guidato dalla gestione commissariale, con il supporto del commissario straordinario Emanuela Pellegrino e dei subcommissari Antonio Calignano e Simona Maselli che hanno condiviso l’importanza strategica dell’iniziativa per la valorizzazione e la promozione del territorio e accompagnato i giornalisti nel tour. «Porto Cesareo continua ad affermarsi come destinazione di eccellenza del turismo esperienziale e sostenibile – sottolinea Carmen Mancarella –. I giornalisti avranno modo di vivere un’esperienza autentica tra mare, cultura, natura e tradizioni, diventando ambasciatori di questo straordinario angolo di Puglia nel mondo». Ancora una volta Porto Cesareo si conferma così non solo meta balneare d’eccellenza, ma luogo identitario capace di offrire esperienze autentiche in ogni stagione, grazie alla sua straordinaria ricchezza ambientale, culturale ed enogastronomica. . .

Center-right leader Peter Magyar was sworn in as Hungary's prime minister on Saturday, propelled into ‌office on promises of change after years of economic stagnation and strained ties with key allies under his predecessor Viktor Orban. Magyar defeated nationalist Orban after 16 ‌years in power in an April 12 election ⁠landslide, handing his Tisza party a constitutional majority that ⁠will allow ⁠him to roll back reforms critics say have weakened democracy. Foreign investors ‌and Hungarians alike have welcomed Magyar's victory, with the forint hitting four-year ⁠highs against the euro, ⁠bond yields falling and post-election polls showing more voters backing Tisza. But any honeymoon for the 45-year-old leader may be short-lived, with the clock ticking to secure billions of euros in suspended ⁠European Union funding needed to kick-start the economy and ⁠shore up strained public finances. "Hungarian people ‌have given us a mandate to put an end to decades of drifting," Magyar said. "They have given us a mandate to open a new chapter in Hungary's history. Not only to change the ‌government, but to change the system as well. To start again." Magyar inherits an economy that only just emerged from stagnation in the first quarter and now faces fresh headwinds from surging energy costs linked to the Middle East conflict, which could weigh heavily on Europe's import-reliant economy. Data released on Friday showed Hungary's budget deficit had ​reached 71% of the full-year target by April, driven by Orban's pre-election spending. Magyar has said the deficit could approach ‌7% of output this year. He has pledged to reaffirm Hungary's Western orientation. The NATO member had been seen as drifting towards the Kremlin under Orban, who opposed ‌EU efforts to support Ukraine against Russia's invasion. Magyar has also ⁠said he would suspend ⁠public media news broadcasts after taking ​power, accusing state media and pro-Orban outlets of helping the ⁠former leader maintain ‌his hold on power while giving limited airtime ​to critics. Magyar, who has pledged a sweeping anti-corruption drive, aims to broker a deal with EU leaders to unlock suspended EU funding by May 25. Highlights from the CJPF Award Ceremony Learn More Highlights from the CJPF Award Ceremony Putinism not making very many gains at all. Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Long before“Reug Reug” Oumar Kanestrapped 26 pounds of ONE Championship gold around his waist, the Senegalese wrestling sensation was already grappling absolute monsters. On May 15, the reigning ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion will step back into the spotlight to defend his coveted belt against fierce rival and former titleholderAnatoly “Sladkiy” Malykhinin a highly anticipated rematch atThe Inner Circle. The blockbuster main event is the next explosive chapter in a bitter rivalry that began when Kane handed the Russian powerhouse the first defeat of his career, and The Inner Circle members can catch all the action exclusively onlive.onefc.com. Facing an enraged, heavy-handed striker inside the ring is a daunting task for any martial artist. But for “Reug Reug,” the intense pressure of a World Title fight is nothing compared to battling a 300-kilogram leviathan in the open ocean with his bare hands. With no modern machinery, no hydraulic winches, and no advanced tracking equipment, Kane and his crew relied strictly on brute force, raw courage, and a simple fishing net to conquer the titans of the deep. This was life back home in Thiaroye sur Mer, a rural fishing town near Dakar that gave Kane the ultimate test of his strength – one that resulted in a staggering, unbelievable catch. The 34-year-old revealed toonefc.com: “The biggest fish I caught was a 300-kilogram swordfish. It’s a very dangerous fish. We caught it with our bare hands. The only tools we had were spears and a big fishing net. It was challenging because we had to swim in the deep ocean and try to get it with what we had, but we did it.” Swimming miles out into the open ocean naturally brings a person face-to-face with apex predators. For most, the thought of treading water in shark-infested territory is the stuff of nightmares. For “Reug Reug,” it was just another day in his normal, mundane life. When asked if he ever had harrowing encounters with the ocean’s most feared hunters, which would have been inevitable in that line of work, the heavyweight MMA king simply laughed off the danger. In his mind, he was the true apex predator in those waters. Kane recalled: “Sharks are nothing. I was more concerned about making sure that we came back to shore with a boat full of fish. That was the only way we would survive. I’m not scared of sharks. I think they were scared of me. I’m a big black shark. “But to be honest, there are more dangerous fish in the ocean than sharks. The most dangerous one I came across was a tuna. It’s very strong and very fast. If you ever caught one, it moves a lot and it will drag you into the sea.” While the global fan base recognizes “Reug Reug” Oumar Kane for his incredible physical presence and his Senegalese wrestling, that foundation of his superhuman strength was actually built during those daily, life-or-death struggles on the unforgiving coast of West Africa. Growing up, his childhood was strictly divided between the sand and the sea. If he was not studying at school or tossing grown men around in the wrestling pits, he was staring out at the horizon, preparing for the grueling daily grind of fishing to help his community survive. He said: “All I did was wrestling and school. That’s it. But when I wasn’t doing that, I was fishing. We lived in a fishing village, in a small shack right by the sea. Our boats were parked up on the shore. We were always in the ocean, every day. That was normal life for us. It is how we made a living, and how we survived.” For the young Senegalese behemoth, the ocean was not just a workplace. It was a proving ground. “Reug Reug” didn’t simply cast lines from the safety of a boat. He immersed himself completely in the crushing depths, building a set of lungs and a level of cardiovascular endurance that most elite combat sports athletes could only dream of possessing. When you have spent your formative years holding your breath for as long as he has, wrestling 300-kilogram swordfish, and shrugging off sharks, the prospect of fighting another man inside a ring suddenly feels much less intimidating. Kane said: “I love fishing. It’s what gave me life. The water is my home. I can go very deep into the ocean, miles out. I hold my breath very long and can swim very well.” The ONE Heavyweight MMA World Champion’s raw, primal power and absolute fearlessness are exactly what he will carry with him into The Inner Circle on May 15. Kane’s opponent, ONE Middleweight and Light Heavyweight MMA World Champion Anatoly Malykhin, is a ferocious competitor who is desperate to avenge his only career loss, recapture the heavyweight MMA crown he used to own, and become a three-division king once again. The Russian has promised to bring immense pressure and knockout power to this high-stakes rematch. But as Malykhin prepares to drag the African superstar into deep waters, he must remember one crucial detail: “Reug Reug” was born in the deep waters, and the big black shark is ready to feed again.

PORTO CESAREO – La tutela e il controllo dei fondali grazie alle nuove tecnologie e all’innovazione al servizio del mare e in questo caso dell’area marina protetta di Porto Cesareo. Il ministero dell’Ambiente e della sicurezza energetica con il supporto scientifico di Ispra, e grazie ai fondi messi a disposizione dal Pnrr (con la misura sulla digitalizzazione delle Aree marine protette), ha dotato il parco marino protetto di Porto Cesareo di una nuova strumentazione tecnologica per il monitoraggio dei fondali marini. Come spiegato dalla gestione dell’area marina si tratta di un avanzatissimo strumento, altamente innovativo dal punto di vista tecnologico, costituito da un veicolo di superficie senza pilota (Usv) Otter, implementato con un sistema multibeam, una tecnologia avanzata di mappatura che utilizza fasci acustici per rilevare e ricostruire con elevata precisione la morfologia dei fondali marini, permettendo di studiare habitat, biodiversità e cambiamenti dell’ambiente sommerso. La nuova tecnologia per il monitoraggio del parco marino In questi giorni, sul litorale cesarino, si sono svolte le attività formative dedicate all’utilizzo della nuova strumentazione, concluse oggi con l’ultima giornata di corso. Hanno partecipato alle attività formative anche rappresentanti delle aree marine protette di Capo Rizzuto, Torre del Cerrano, Torre Guaceto e Isole Tremiti. In una logica di sistema, infatti, lo strumento potrà essere utilizzato in rete per favorire l’implementazione di tali tecnologie e la condivisione dei risultati ottenuti dalla loro applicazione non solo a Porto Cesareo, ma anche nelle altre aree marine protette coinvolte. Le nuove tecnologie permetteranno quindi di migliorare il monitoraggio degli habitat e delle specie marine, analizzare le pressioni sugli ecosistemi e osservare gli effetti dei cambiamenti climatici, contribuendo a una tutela del mare sempre più efficace e consapevole, non solo a Porto Cesareo ma anche negli altri ecosistemi marino-costieri protetti d’Italia. LeccePrima è anche su Whatsapp.Seguici sul nostro canale. LeccePrima è anche su Mobile!Scarical’App per rimanere sempre aggiornato. © Riproduzione riservata

In five months, the United Nations will try again to impose the world’s first global carbon tax — and American families will pay the bill if Washington isn’t ready. The vote at the International Maritime Organization (IMO)returnsin October 2026. The same scheme, the sameUN-administered fund, the same transfer of American wealth to international bureaucrats accountable to no voter anywhere. The European Union is already regrouping. Small island nations are already lining up with their hands out. The clock is ticking. This fight should already be over. Last October, the Trump administrationstared downthe IMO and killed — at least temporarily — what would have been the first global carbon tax on any industry. Secretaries Marco Rubio, Chris Wright and Sean Duffy issued a joint statement threatening visa restrictions, port fees and sanctions on any country that voted yes. The IMO blinked. Member states voted 57 to 49 to postpone for a year. President Donald Trump called theproposalthe “Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping.” He was right.(RELATED: Britain’s Regulatory Suicide Note) But postponed is not killed. The vote returns this October, and the EU is pressing hard to resurrect the levy. Washington needs to be ready to fight it again — and this time finish the job. Here is what the IMO is preparing to vote on. Ships would pay a carbon penalty of$100 to $380 per metric tonof excess CO₂. The revenue — projected at$11 to $13 billion per year— flows into aUN-administered Net-Zero Fund. Officially it’s for “green fuels” and “just transitions.” In practice, it is a permanent revenue stream for the same international agencies that have held decades of climate summits while global emissions have continued to rise, with a well-documented history of incompetence, graft and waste. Small island nations and developing countries are already lining up with their hands out, seeing the levy not as a tool to cut emissions but as a fresh source of climate reparations. The fund’s architects have promised the lion’s share will flow to the poorest states for “capacity building” — diplomatic language for a wealth transfer on a global scale, administered by bureaucrats who answer to no voter anywhere. Meanwhile, American families get stuck with the bill. Higher shipping costs don’t stay at sea. They flowstraight into the priceof every imported good: clothes, electronics, medicine, car parts, food. The Trump administration’s own analysis warned shippingcosts could jump 10%or more. That is not abstract climate justice. It is a regressive tax falling hardest on working Americans who already face inflation fatigue. And for what? Global CO₂ emissions keep rising even in places with aggressive carbon pricing. Europe’s Emissions Trading System hasn’t stopped continental emissions from growing in several sectors. Chinaemits more CO₂ than all industrial nations combined,burns more than halfthe world’s coal, and is building hundreds of new coal plants designed to run for 40 years or longer — while lecturing the West about responsibility. China also operates theworld’s largest commercial fleet. Under the IMO framework, Chinese state-owned shippers pay the levy and pass the cost to American importers. American families would fund the UN bureaucracy and subsidize Beijing’s trade dominance at the same time. That is a bad deal by any measure.(RELATED: Navy Sighs In Relief As Trump Floats $65,000,000,000 To Confront China’s Shipbuilding Empire) The EU will argue the United States helped develop this framework for years before reversing course. That is true — and it is an argument for walking away permanently, not returning to a bad deal out of diplomatic inertia. If a policy is wrong, the fact that earlier administrations supported it is not a reason to continue. It is a reason to be grateful someone finally said no. The correct position for October 2026 is the same as last fall: no centralized UN fund, no deal. If trading partners want to address shipping emissions, there is a better path — support American innovation in cleaner marine fuels, negotiate bilateral agreements with verifiable standards, and keep the revenue and accountability at home with elected governments answerable to their own citizens. The pattern never changes. Every UN climate levy starts with noble language and ends with a self-perpetuating bureaucracy skimming off global trade. If this one passes, aviation, agriculture and consumer goods will be next. The tax ratchets up every year while emissions continue their stubborn climb largely driven by Asian need for more reliable electricity primarily from coal. Trump and his team did the American people a genuine service last fall. The job is not finished. Washington should return to the IMO in October 2026 with the same message: American sovereignty and American wallets are not bargaining chips for bureaucrats in London and Geneva. Kill the fund. Kill the levy. And if our trading partners won’t agree, make the consequences clear. Frank Lasee is President of Truth in Energy and Climate and a former Wisconsin state senator. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation. All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contactlicensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

By VIKRAM NIRANJAN FOR THE CONVERSATION andEMILY JOSHU STERNE, US ASSISTANT HEALTH EDITOR Published:18:15 BST, 9 May 2026|Updated:18:34 BST, 9 May 2026 Cruises are sold as floating vacations, but they are also useful for understanding public health. Cruise ships are carefully designed places where many people live, eat, relax and move through the same shared spaces for days at a time. They show how easily illness can spread when people are packed into a single interconnected environment. Think of a cruise ship as a temporary city at sea. It has restaurants, theaters, elevators, cabins, kitchens, water systems and indoor gathering spaces. That is great for convenience, but it also means that once an infection gets on board, it can move through the ship in ways that are hard to stop. The Diamond Princess Covid-19 outbreak is perhaps the best-known example. In February 2020, 619 passengers and crew on the ship tested positive for the disease. Researchers found that the ship conditions made the novelcoronavirusspread more easily. Their modeling suggested that public health measures, such as isolation and quarantine, prevented many more cases, but it also showed that an earlier response would have further limited the outbreak. Norovirus (commonly referred to as the stomach bug) is theinfection most closely linked to cruise ships. In a review of previously published studies, researchers found 127 reports of norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships, with many linked to contaminated food, contaminated surfaces and person-to-person spread. A more recent report from the CDC's Vessel Sanitation Program also showed that norovirus, which strikes 20 million Americans per year, can spread very rapidly from person to person on a cruise ship. A view of the cruise ship MV Hondius stationary off the port of Praia, the capital of Cape Verde. Oceanwide Expeditions, the company that operates the cruise ship, said three people are dead and eight others are sick from a suspected viral outbreak Health workers are seen evacuating a patient from luxury cruise liner MV Hondius, which is the center of a hantavirus outbreak Legionnaires’ disease, a serious lung disease caused by Legionella bacteria, shows a different kind of risk. Affecting 6,000 to 10,000 Americans ever year, it's not usually spread directly from one person to another. Instead, people can get infected by breathing in tiny droplets from contaminated water systems, hot tubs or showers. One 1994 outbreak among 50 cruise passengers was linked to a whirlpool spa, and recent reports from the CDC have described other cruise-associated legionnaires’ disease outbreaks linked to ship water systems like outdoor hot tubs. These outbreaks help explain why ships such as Celebrity Mercury, Explorer of the Seas and Carnival Triumph have become familiar names in outbreak reports. These were not unusual in some special way; they were simply settings where shared dining, close contact and frequent movement through common areas allowed infection to spread fast. Now, as three passengers aboard the Dutch-flagged MV Hondius cruise ship have died from hantavirus - and at least eight others have been sickened - many health experts fear another serious outbreak is on the horizon. Hantavirus, which is primarily spread by rodents, outbreaks on ships are rare. However, as the MV Hondius outbreak unfolds, germs in close quarters find it much easier to spread. Food service plays a big part in the risk associated with cruise ships. Buffet-style dining, shared utensils and many people touching the same surfaces can make it easier for stomach bugs to spread. If someone is infected but does not yet feel sick, they may still contaminate food or surfaces before they realize they are sick. Health workers in protective gear evacuate patients from the MV Hondius cruise ship into an ambulance at a port in Praia, Cape Verde The ship’s design adds to the problem. People spend time together in dining rooms, bars, elevators, corridors, theaters and spa areas. Crew members also live and work in the same environment, often in shared accommodation, so illness can move through the ship from passenger to passenger or between passengers and crew. Ventilation also plays a crucial role. Cruise ships are not closed boxes, but they do rely heavily on indoor spaces where people spend long periods together. Studies into cruise ship air quality have shown that illness can spread more easily in crowded, enclosed spaces, like cabins, restaurants and entertainment venues, if the ventilation system is not up to par. Things like adequate fresh air circulation, specialist filters and air-purifying technology all play a role in keeping passengers safe. Age also matters. Cruise vacations are especially popular with older adults, and many passengers have long-term health conditions that make infections more serious. A stomach bug on a cruise can lead to dehydration, and a respiratory infection can lead to pneumonia or hospitalizations. Cruise ships do have medical facilities, but they are limited compared with land-based hospitals. They are built to give first aid, basic treatment and short-term care, not to manage a fast-moving outbreak on a large scale. That is why cruise health depends so much on early reporting, quick isolation and strong cleaning practices. A command post is set up at the port of Granadilla de Abona, in Tenerife Island, during preparations for the arrival of the cruise ship MV Hondius How to limit your risk For travelers, the best protection starts before boarding. It is sensible to check whether the cruise line has clear illness reporting, cleaning and isolation policies. Make sure your routine vaccines are up to date. For older adults, pregnant women and anyone with health problems, consult your primary care doctor before travelling. Also, ensure your travel insurance covers illness-related disruptions. Once on board, washing your hands with soap and water is the most useful step for preventing stomach bugs like norovirus. Hand sanitizer can help, but it does not replace soap and water. If you start to feel sick, the safest move is to avoid buffets and crowded shared spaces and report symptoms early rather than trying to carry on as normal. Cruise lines have improved their hygiene and outbreak response systems over time, and many voyages pass without incident, but the basic structure of cruise travel still creates the same challenge: many people sharing the same meals, the same air, the same water systems and the same common spaces. That is why outbreaks keep returning, and why cruise ships remain a useful reminder that public health is shaped as much by design as by germs. This article is adapted from The Conversation, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge of experts. It was written by Vikram Niranjan, an assistant professor in public health at the University of Limerick, and edited by Emily Joshu Sterne, Daily Mail's assistant health editor.

‌‌ ‌ ‌ Un brote denorovirusa bordo del cruceroCaribbean Princessencendió las alertas sanitarias en Estados Unidos y el Caribe. Los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades (CDC) confirmaron que 115 personas presentaron síntomas gastrointestinales durante el viaje. El reporte oficial detalla que entre los afectados hay102 pasajerosy13 miembros de la tripulación. La embarcación transporta a 3.116 viajeros y 1.131 trabajadores. El crucero salió el 28 de abril desde Port Everglades. Tiene previsto llegar a Puerto Cañaveral, Florida, el próximo 11 de mayo. Actualmente navega por el noroeste del océano Atlántico con destino a Puerto Plata, en República Dominicana. La compañía activó protocolos de bioseguridad para contener la situación. Entre las medidas figuran el aislamiento de personas afectadas y la toma de muestras para análisis médicos. Princess Cruises informó, mediante un comunicado difundido por el periodista Eddy Mosquera en W Radio, que un número limitado de personas reportó síntomas gastrointestinales leves durante el recorrido delCaribbean Princess. La naviera también indicó que realizó unadesinfección intensivaen las áreas del barco y que reforzó las medidas sanitarias durante el trayecto. Además, anunció que el crucero recibirá una limpieza exhaustiva cuando llegue a Puerto Cañaveral antes de iniciar su próximo viaje. Elnoroviruses una de las principales causas de gastroenteritis aguda. El virus provoca inflamación en el estómago y en los intestinos. Aunque muchas personas lo llaman “gripe estomacal”, especialistas aclararon que no tiene relación con la influenza ni con otros virus respiratorios. Los síntomas más frecuentes son: La recuperación suele tardar entre uno y tres días. Sin embargo, la persona puede seguir transmitiendo el virus después de desaparecer los síntomas. Este corresponde alcuarto brotede norovirus registrado en cruceros durante el 2026. Los CDC advirtieron que cualquier persona puede contagiarse. El riesgo de complicaciones aumenta en adultos mayores, niños menores de cinco años y personas con sistemas inmunitarios debilitados. El virus se propaga principalmente por tres vías: Las autoridades sanitarias también alertaron sobre el consumo de mariscos crudos, especialmente ostras, debido al riesgo de contaminación. Actualmente no existe un medicamento específico contra el norovirus. Por esa razón, las autoridades insistieron en las medidas preventivas. Las principales recomendaciones incluyen: *La creación de este contenido contó con la asistencia de inteligencia artificial. La fuente de esta información es de un medio del Grupo de Diarios América (GDA) y revisada por un editor para asegurar su precisión. El contenido no se generó automáticamente.

Tenerife se prepara para la llegada del crucero del hantavirus. El puerto deGranadillaparece más un escenario de contención biológica que una infraestructura industrial del sur deTenerife. El viento arrastra polvo volcánico entre las explanadas grises y los operarios caminan con chalecos reflectantes junto a vehículos de emergencias. Al fondo, frente al muelle donde habitualmente atracan petroleros y buques de carga, ya se delimitan lastres zonas de seguridaddesde las que España intentará ejecutar en menos de 24 horas una de las operaciones sanitarias y logísticas más complejas desde la pandemia. A cientos de millas náuticas de aquí, elMV Hondius—147 personas a bordo, tres muertos, al menos seis contagios confirmados de hantavirus Andes y un cadáver aún dentro del barco— avanza lentamente hacia Canarias mientras ministerios, OMS, Guardia Civil, Ejército del Aire y Tierra, Sanidad Exterior y autoridades portuarias ultiman un protocolo diseñado para que ni un solo pasajero llegue a tocar realmente suelo español. La Guardia Civil controla el acceso al puerto de Granadilla, al que este sábado no han dejado de entrar vehículos policiales de diferentes unidades.Julio César R. A. La escena en Granadilla tiene algo de anomalía. El puerto, situado en una de las zonas más áridas y ventosas de Tenerife,a apenas diez kilómetros del aeropuerto Tenerife Sur, fue construido para absorber grandes operaciones industriales y tráfico marítimo pesado, no para recibir un barco convertido durante días en una cuarentena flotante frente a Cabo Verde. Sin embargo, precisamente esa combinación de aislamiento físico, baja densidad poblacional y proximidad aeroportuaria es la que ha llevado a la Organización Mundial de la Salud y al Gobierno español a elegir este punto concreto del Atlántico para evacuar el Hondius. La distancia por carretera entre el muelle y las pistas del aeropuerto apenas supera los diez minutos. Esa cercanía es la pieza central del operativo: bajar pasajeros, introducirlos en autobuses burbuja escoltados por laUnidad Militar de Emergencias, conducirlos directamente hasta la escalerilla de los aviones y hacerlos despegar sin contacto con la población civil. "Ningún pasajero tendrá contacto alguno con la población", repitió este sábado el ministro del Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, durante una comparecencia junto a la ministra de Sanidad, Mónica García. La frase se ha convertido prácticamente en la consigna oficial del dispositivo. Horas antes, Interior había ordenado prohibir toda navegación a menos de una milla náutica del barco una vez entre en aguas canarias. La intención esaislar completamente el perímetro marítimomientras el Hondius fondea dentro de la dársena sin llegar a atracar. El crucero permanecerá suspendido frente al puerto, inmóvil, mientras pequeñas lanchas motoras trasladan grupos reducidos —cinco personas aproximadamente— desde el barco hasta tierra. Solo entonces comenzará el corredor sanitario. En el puerto, trabajadores consultados estos días porEL ESPAÑOLadmiten que la tensión ha ido creciendo conforme se aproxima la llegada del buque. La imagen del barco quedó inevitablemente asociada al miedo colectivo de la covid desde el momento en que comenzaron a conocerse los fallecimientos: primero una pareja neerlandesa, después una pasajera alemana. La diferencia es que esta vez el escenario no es un aeropuerto asiático ni una gran capital europea, sino una isla acostumbrada a gestionar emergencias migratorias, rescates atlánticos y saturación logística. La maquinaria desplegada recuerda, en parte, a las operaciones de traslado de cayucos o a ciertos protocolos de ébola ensayados durante años en Canarias; pero multiplicados ahora por una presión internacional inédita, pues más de veinte países participan ya en la repatriación de pasajeros y tripulación. La OMS ha asumido un papel central en la coordinación. El director general del organismo,Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, viaja este sábado a Tenerife para seguir sobre el terreno una operación que el organismo considera modélica desde el punto de vista de cooperación internacional. A la gente de Tenerife,Mi nombre es Tedros, y ejerzo como Director General de la Organización Mundial de la Salud, el organismo de las Naciones Unidas responsable de la salud pública mundial. No es habitual que escriba directamente a la gente de una sola comunidad, pero hoy…pic.twitter.com/ouRuVDawks La propia OMS confirmó, también este sábado, que uno de los casos sospechosos dio positivo en PCR, elevando a seis los contagios confirmados y dejando la tasa de letalidad provisional cerca del 38 %. El virus implicado,la variante Andes del hantavirus, es especialmente sensible porque constituye la única cepa conocida capaz de transmitirse entre humanos en circunstancias limitadas. mAgz4-distancia-entre-puerto-y-aeropuerto-.png Aunque los expertos insisten en que el riesgo para la población general es bajo, la dimensión simbólica del operativo ha obligado a las autoridades a reforzar constantemente los mensajes de tranquilidad."El alarmismo, la desinformación y la confusión son contrarios a los principios básicos de la salud pública", dijo Mónica García. Dentro del puerto, sin embargo, la preocupación no se mueve en términos abstractos. Se mueve en términos operativos. El protocolo depende casi por completo del tiempo atmosférico y de la sincronización exacta entre puerto y aeropuerto. El mar empeorará el lunes, según las previsiones, y por eso toda la evacuación debería completarse el domingo."Hay que correr. El lunes será tarde", expresan fuentes de Protección Civil implicadas en el operativo. Ningún pasajero bajará del barco hasta que los aviones estén repostados, preparados y en pista. Cuando eso ocurra, el puerto enviará la señal al Hondius y comenzará el desembarco escalonado por nacionalidades. Tres de los pasajeros actualmente a bordo del buque, durante un fondeo del MV Hondius.E. E. Francia, Alemania, Bélgica, Irlanda y Países Bajos ya han coordinado vuelos específicos. La Unión Europea dará cobertura a ciudadanos cuyos países no dispongan de medios propios. Los españoles serán trasladados en un avión militar hasta la base aérea de Torrejón y, desde allí, al Hospital Gómez Ulla, donde permanecerán siete días en cuarentena obligatoria ratificada judicialmente este sábado por un juzgado de Madrid. La resolución judicial refleja hasta qué punto las autoridades consideran excepcional el escenario. El auto habla de"riesgo grave, inminente y extraordinario"y justifica la restricción de movimientos por la necesidad de impedir cualquier expansión del virus. El texto recuerda que la enfermedad puede ser mortal, que existen antecedentes de transmisión interpersonal y que el periodo de incubación puede prolongarse varias semanas. Todo eso explica por quéel operativo no termina realmente cuando los pasajeros abandonen Tenerife. Mientras el puerto prepara las rutas de evacuación, hospitales de media Europa trabajan ya en el rastreo de contactos. En Alicante continúa ingresada una mujer de 32 años que compartió vuelo con una de las fallecidas neerlandesas y que presenta síntomas respiratorios leves compatibles con la infección. En Barcelona, otra mujer asintomática ha ingresado este sábado en aislamiento preventivo en el Hospital Clínic tras haber coincidido en aquel mismo avión de KLM. Las autoridades sanitarias localizaron además a una pasajera sudafricana que pasó una semana en Cataluña antes de regresar a su país. Toda esa red internacional de rastreo contrasta con el aislamiento casi absoluto en el que ha permanecido el Hondius durante los últimos días. El barco, operado por Oceanwide Expeditions, no pertenece al universo de los cruceros masivos del Caribe ni al turismo de pulsera ybuffet. Los pasajeros describen a este periódico un buque obsesionado con la bioseguridad, diseñado para expediciones científicas y de naturaleza extrema en la Antártida y el Ártico. A bordo se daban charlas sobre biodiversidad y geopolítica; los viajeros desembarcaban en islas remotas con botas esterilizadas; había perros rastreadores en Ushuaia para impedir contaminación biológica; las mochilas se depositaban sobre lonas para evitar introducir semillas o especies invasoras en ecosistemas protegidos. "Eran ridículamente estrictos",relata un pasajero reciente. Precisamente por eso el brote ha desconcertado tanto a quienes conocen el barco. La hipótesis principal sigue apuntando a que el contagio inicial se produjo antes de embarcar, probablemente en Sudamérica. Imagen de archivo del MV Hondius fondeando en la Antártida.Andrew Peacock. Ahora el Hondius navega hacia Tenerife convertido en una especie de cápsula suspendida entre dos mundos: demasiado peligroso para desembarcar libremente, demasiado complejo para permanecer indefinidamente aislado en alta mar. Aunque, capacidad, tiene. Algunos expertos incidían en que el puerto de Granadilla es de "difícil fondeo" por sus condiciones de vientos. Sin embargo, el MV Hondius es unbuque de expedición acostumbrado a fondear en los lugares más peligrosos del mundo. Desde la Antártida hasta las islas atlánticas del sur, con corrientes violentas. Dentro de él continúan cerca de 30 tripulantes que regresarán posteriormente con el barco a Países Bajos, aunque aún no tienen un plan de evacuación establecido. También sigue el cuerpo del primer fallecido, que no será desembarcado en Canarias. Las autoridades neerlandesas supervisarán posteriormente el regreso del buque y su futura desinfección, que no se realizará en aguas canarias. Mientras tanto, en Granadilla, los preparativos continúan bajo una mezcla extraña de normalidad y excepción. Los periodistas se acumulan junto a las vallas. Los trabajadores portuarios miran continuamente hacia el horizonte.La Guardia Civil prepara controles. Los sanitarios revisan protocolos de protección individual. Y a pocos kilómetros, en el aeropuerto Tenerife Sur, empiezan a reservarse posiciones para una cadena de vuelos que deberá despegar con precisión casi militar.Todo debe hacerse rápido. Todo debe hacerse a plena luz del día. Todo debe hacerse sin errores. Porque después de cinco días convertido en un problema sanitario global flotando frente a Cabo Verde, el MV Hondius está ya a pocas horas de llegar a Canarias. KESPIMA260509_1003744239550Miguel Barreto / EFE.

Bajo la consigna 'No es diversión, es esclavitud', la organización global Empty the Tank, dedicada a poner fin al cautiverio de ballenas y delfines, primueve este fin de semana concentraciones y protestas en diferentes ciudades españolas y europeas con el objetivo de poner fin al sufrimiento de los cetáceos. En España, diferentes organizaciones animalistas harán concentraciones en Palma (Mallorca), el Puerto de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Lanzarote y València para “visibilizar la dura realidad de estos animales en cautividad y promover el fin de esta industria a nivel global”. En concreto, Satya Animal ha llevado a cabo una protesta esta mañana frente al parking del parque temático de Marineland, mientras que la organización Imagine Canarias lo ha hecho frente al Loro Parque (Puerto de Santa Cruz de Tenerife) con el objetivo de “unir nuestras voces contra la industria mundial del cautiverio”. “Es importante destacar que cuatro orcas han muerto en un corto periodo de tiempo en Loro Parque de Tenerife”, critica la Asociación We Whale, que convoca la protesta de Lanzarote. Esta protesta tendrá lugar este domingo a partir de las diez de la mañana enfrente del parque temático Rancho Texas Lanzarote Park, en una acción “para mostrar nuestro rechazo al cautiverio y la explotación de estos animales increíblemente inteligentes y sensibles” en un “momento crítico” para la conservación marina. “Mientras que más parques marinos están cerrando, los delfines y las orcas están siendo reubicados en otras instalaciones, en lugar de darles la oportunidad de tener la libertad que merecen en santuarios marinos”, lamenta el movimiento. Finalmente, bajo el lema “Libertad”, diferentes entidades (FAADA, AnimaNaturalis, Captain Paul Watson Foundation Spain, WeWhale, ARDA, Denia Animal Save y la activista Olivia Mandle) se concentrarán también el domingo a partir de las once y cuarto de la mañana frente al Oceanogràfic de Valencia. Durante el fin de semana habrá concentraciones en Reino Unido (Manchester y Londres), Países Bajos (Utrecht), Alemania (Duisburg), Bélgica (Brujas) y Grecia (Atenas). En el caso de Mallorca, la movilización promovida por el grupo animalista Satya Animal se ha situado en el entorno del parque temático de Marineland, en Costa d’en Blanes (Calvià), uno de los epicentros turísticos de la isla. Kike Gimeno, portavoz de la organización, explica que la explotación animal se resume “en dos niveles”. Por un lado, el conjunto de animales que viven en cautividad en instalaciones de este tipo, y por otro, aquellos que además son utilizados en espectáculos. “Uno son los animales que simplemente viven ahí, encerrados en pocos metros, en unas condiciones que no son las propias de su medio”. “Viven en condiciones de espacio muy limitado en el que reciben además ruido de las personas que entran”, explica. Marineland no ha respondido a las preguntas de este diario, en las que se le consultaba por las protestas frente a sus instalaciones. “Se les priva de comida” Gimeno detalla que estas condiciones afectan de forma general a todas las especies mantenidas en cautividad en este tipo de parques, en su mayoría animales exóticos, alejados de su entorno natural. Sin embargo, añade un segundo nivel de preocupación en el caso de los cetáceos y otros animales utilizados en exhibiciones. “Los delfines, leones marinos y loros son forzados a realizar espectáculos ante el resto de personas que vienen”, señala. Estos animales no solo viven en espacios reducidos, sino que además son sometidos a dinámicas de entrenamiento y exhibición basadas en refuerzos alimentarios. “Se les priva de comida para estimularles y obligarles a realizar los ejercicios que les mandan”, afirma. “Después de eso se les premia con comida”. En este sentido, Gimeno recuerda que se trata de animales “especialmente inteligentes y sensibles”. Esa misma capacidad cognitiva es la que intensifica el sufrimiento en cautividad. “La misma inteligencia que les permite hacer el espectáculo es la que además les pone en situación de vulnerabilidad absoluta ante el sufrimiento”, sostiene. En el caso concreto de los delfines, Gimeno insiste en que “son animales muy inteligentes”. “Son conscientes plenamente de lo que está pasando, de lo que se les pide y de las condiciones en las que están”, critica. La alimentación, añade, se convierte en la principal herramienta de control del comportamiento. “La única forma de estimularles y de recibir su atención es privándoles de alimento”. “A menudo están muchas horas sin comer hasta que tienen tanta hambre que son mucho más receptivos a lo que se les está pidiendo”, asegura. La organización también denuncia las interacciones con el público como parte del mismo sistema de explotación. “Se venden interacciones directas con turistas, o con visitantes del parque, en las que se puede hacer una foto o tocar a los delfines”, explica Gimeno. “Todo esto solo se consigue porque detrás está la comida”. En el caso de los delfines, añade además un problema adicional derivado de la exposición ambiental. “Al estar en una piscina tan poco profunda, les va generando problemas de piel continuamente porque están excesivamente expuestos al sol”, lamenta. Mientras tanto, medio centenar de personas se ha concentrado este sábado frente a las puertas de Loro Parque, en Puerto de La Cruz. Durante la protesta han gritado consignas como “no más cárceles de agua, pedimos vida libre para los cetáceos”, “no son payasos, tienen derecho a la libertad”, “no son máquinas de hacer dinero” o “basta ya de maltrato animal”. También han explicado que los delfines no pueden mover sus músculos de la cara, “con lo que no nos engañen más con sus sonrisas, pues se les suministra antidepresivos porque saben de su encierro”. Contra una industria global Las protestas en España se producen en un contexto más amplio que, según Empty the Tanks, conecta la industria del cautiverio con el turismo internacional y con la captura de animales en distintos puntos del mundo. En el caso de los delfines, el movimiento señala especialmente la existencia de redes de captura y comercio internacional. “El mercado de venta de delfines está muy conectado con la situación de Japón y son los principales proveedores al resto de zoológicos del mundo”, señala Gimeno, que alude a métodos de captura de crías en el medio natural. En paralelo, el movimiento sitúa el fenómeno dentro de una industria global vinculada al turismo. “Al final los mayores proveedores son los establecimientos turísticos. Es un gran reclamo porque saben para el turismo familiar porque saben que los niños van a querer acudir a ver a los delfines”, asegura. Apunta además a la presencia de campañas promocionales en el Aeropuerto de Palma como parte de esa estrategia de visibilidad. La Federación Hotelera de Mallorca (FEHM) no ha respondido a las preguntas de este diario. A la patronal hotelera se le pedía, concretamente, su posición respecto a las críticas planteadas por organizaciones y colectivos en relación a la tenencia de cetáceos en parques temáticos; el papel que desempeñan este tipo de “atractivos” en la oferta turística del destino y las consideraciones del sector hotelero en relación con el bienestar animal y la sostenibilidad de la oferta. La acción prevista en Mallorca no se ha limitado a la concentración. Satya Animal ha llevado a cabo además una performance simbólica en la que una persona ha ocupado una estructura que simula una pequeña piscina. El objetivo, según explican, es trasladar visualmente la idea de confinamiento. “Hemos fabricado una pequeña piscina en la que hemos introducido a una persona para que se vea en perspectiva la vida que tienen los delfines ahí dentro”, señala Gimeno. “Es una pequeña simulación de la vida que pasan los delfines”. Más allá de la protesta puntual, la organización insiste en un horizonte de transformación del modelo. “Lo primero es que desaparezcan estos espacios porque hacen un uso comercial de los animales”, afirma el portavoz de Satya Animal. En su planteamiento, la alternativa pasa por reconvertir estas instalaciones en centros de rescate y recuperación. “El futuro sería que acogiesen animales que no pueden ser reintroducidos en el medio natural o que se utilicen como centros de rescate, se les cure y se les devuelva al mar cuando sea posible”. Brooke Spurling, coordinadora de AnimaNaturalis en Valencia, insiste en que el problema no es puntual ni aislado, sino estructural. “Nuestro mensaje es claro: orcas, delfines y belugas no pertenecen a un tanque. Son animales que en libertad recorren decenas de kilómetros al día, viven en estructuras sociales complejas y desarrollan culturas propias. Encerrarlos en piscinas para que hagan piruetas no es educación, es entretenimiento a costa de su sufrimiento”, sostiene. España, el país con más delfinarios En este sentido, lamenta que España es el país de la Unión Europea “con más delfinarios” y el único que “todavía mantiene orcas y belugas en cautividad”. Mientras que otros países europeos avanzan hacia el cierre de estas instalaciones o prohíben directamente la cría en cautividad, España sigue “legitimando una industria que se sostiene sobre la reproducción forzada y el traslado de individuos entre centros, rompiendo vínculos familiares y sociales que para estos animales son esenciales”. Por estas razones, Spurling considera que acciones como la que llevarán a cabo frente al Oceanogràfic de Valencia son “fundamentales” ya que “trasladan a la calle un debate que la industria prefiere mantener oculto tras la fachada del ocio familiar”. “La ciudadanía cada vez tiene más información y rechaza estos espectáculos; ahora hace falta que las administraciones estén a la altura y acompañen ese cambio social con un marco legal que ponga fin al cautiverio de cetáceos en España”, concluye. El Oceanogràfic de Valencia ha respondido a estas críticas explicando que es “un centro comprometido con los más altos estándares de bienestar animal”, en el que trabajan cada día más de 120 profesionales veterinarios, científicos y técnicos especializados “en el cuidado, seguimiento y enriquecimiento de los animales bajo su responsabilidad”. Defienden que el bienestar animal “es una disciplina científica evaluable mediante indicadores objetivos y verificables”, y que, en su caso, está respaldada por un Comité de Cuidado y Bienestar Animal independiente liderado por la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), “integrado por expertos internos y externos que supervisan todos los protocolos”. Además, defienden que cuentan con la certificación de Global Humane, que establece “exigentes estándares internacionales en bienestar animal, conservación e investigación”. Asimismo, aseguran que participan en distintos “proyectos de conservación desarrollados en diferentes ecosistemas marinos”. En un contexto en el que los océanos afrontan amenazas crecientes derivadas de la contaminación, la pérdida de biodiversidad, el cambio climático o la actividad humana, destacan que centros científicos y de conservación como el Oceanogràfic “contribuyen al conocimiento, recuperación y protección de especies amenazadas y de sus hábitats”. Sobre los modelos de santuarios marinos, afirman que “cualquier propuesta relacionada con animales marinos debe analizarse desde criterios científicos, veterinarios, logísticos y de sostenibilidad a largo plazo, garantizando siempre el máximo bienestar animal”. En este sentido, afirman que en la actualidad “existen muy pocas instalaciones operativas a nivel internacional y su funcionamiento continúa siendo objeto de análisis y debate dentro de la propia comunidad científica y profesional”. Pese a todo, aclaran que respetan “el derecho de todas las personas y colectivos a expresar sus opiniones”. Los parques canarios se defienden Loro Parque defiende que las instalaciones zoológicas modernas cumplen estándares científicos y veterinarios orientados al bienestar animal. “Cuando se decide albergar una especie animal en un parque zoológico, esto solo puede hacerse si se pueden satisfacer sus necesidades biológicas, fisiológicas y comportamentales, para que cada individuo pueda disfrutar de una experiencia de vida positiva”, señala el parque a elDiario.es. La compañía asegura que todos los animales bajo su cuidado, incluidos delfines y orcas, disponen de “hábitats adecuados”, alimentación suficiente y condiciones que les permiten expresar “comportamientos naturales”. Además, explica que el estado de los animales es supervisado de forma continua por veterinarios y especialistas en comportamiento animal. “Todos nuestros animales son objeto de un seguimiento regular por parte de un equipo especialmente dedicado, compuesto por veterinarios y especialistas en comportamiento, que evalúan su nivel de bienestar sobre la base de criterios científicos y objetivos”, añade. Respecto a las peticiones de cierre de este tipo de instalaciones o su reconversión en santuarios marinos, Loro Parque rechaza esa posibilidad y cuestiona la viabilidad de estos modelos alternativos. “Estamos muy preocupados por las consecuencias que este tipo de discurso extremadamente simplificador puede tener para los propios animales”, sostiene. La empresa afirma que “los santuarios marinos no existen” y los define como “el gran negocio de los activistas”. Como ejemplo, menciona el caso de dos belugas trasladadas a Islandia desde China, cuya situación —asegura— ha evidenciado “importantes dificultades de gestión y de bienestar animal”. También alude a las orcas Keijo y Wikie, de Marineland Antibes, que “llevan más de un año con promesas incumplidas”. El parque tinerfeño sitúa además el debate en el marco más amplio de la conservación marina. “Creemos que el verdadero desafío es la conservación de las especies y la protección de los ecosistemas marinos”, sostiene la compañía, que considera que amenazas como la contaminación, las capturas accidentales, el cambio climático o el ruido submarino continúan agravándose para los cetáceos salvajes. En este sentido, Loro Parque reivindica el trabajo desarrollado por su fundación y los programas científicos en los que participa junto a instituciones públicas. “Loro Parque y su fundación han contribuido al rescate y la conservación de numerosas especies amenazadas”, afirma, citando proyectos impulsados junto al Gobierno de Canarias en el marco del programa CANBIO y otras iniciativas vinculadas a la protección de la Macaronesia y de los cetáceos salvajes. “Nuestro compromiso con los animales se traduce en acciones concretas. Somos verdaderos activistas, en el sentido más positivo y útil del término”, concluye. En la misma línea, Rancho Texas Park ha explicado a este diario que “es importante señalar que, al igual que existen posturas críticas, hay otras opiniones que sí respaldan la labor que realizamos”. “Desde nuestra responsabilidad hacia los animales que aquí albergamos, su salud y su bienestar, cumplimos con todos los estándares de bienestar establecidos por la legislación europea, española y, por supuesto, canaria”, señalan. Asimismo, afirman que trabajan constantemente “para garantizar que los animales se encuentren en las mejores condiciones posibles, mediante programas de enriquecimiento ambiental, planes de control veterinario preventivo y todos los cuidados necesarios para atender adecuadamente sus necesidades”. Por otro lado, fuentes del parque afirman que también desarrollan “una importante labor de conservación, colaborando en proyectos de investigación in situ junto a universidades y entidades especializadas”. Esta labor contribuye, en su opinión, a conservar estas especies en su hábitat natural, así como a proteger y preservar a los cetáceos y otros animales marinos. Finalmente, en cuanto a los santuarios marinos, consideran que se trata “una propuesta difícilmente viable desde el punto de vista científico y técnico”. “Estamos hablando de animales que han nacido y se han desarrollado bajo el cuidado humano, por lo que su adaptación a otro tipo de entornos plantea numerosos desafíos relacionados con su salud, bienestar y seguridad”, concluyen.

Let's run down the top prospects in this year's draft class. Be sure to check out our2026 NBA Draft Guide, which features multiple big boards, a full two-round mock draft, and full scouting reports on all 60 of these prospects. Latest NBA mock draft|Combine participants Dybantsa could become one of the NBA’s most unstoppable shot-creators. At 6-foot-9, he has a special blend of athletic tools the way he bends, shifts, and explodes with the ball in his hands. Dybantsa led the nation with 25.5 points per game while breaking Danny Ainge’s 48-year-old BYU freshman scoring record with a 43-point eruption. He gets to the rim at will, cooks in the midrange, draws fouls at a high rate, and displays point forward potential. What will determine his upside is whether he can become a knockdown 3-point shooter, as well as a more impactful defender to take full advantage of his physical tools. But the native of Brockton, Mass., has a tremendously high floor with his scoring skill alone. At 6-foot-9 and 250 pounds, Boozer is the most polished player in the class. He scores from the post with both footwork and power, hits 40% of his 3s on high volume, and has enough handle to run offense as a point forward. He shifts between those modes based on what the defense gives him, and that adaptability led to a 35-win season at Duke and the Naismith Player of the Year. The worry is that he’s not a vertical athlete and the foundation of all that production — overpowering smaller defenders — gets diminished against NBA length. Plus, he’s a modern tweener on defense, lacking the explosiveness and size to protect the rim full-time and the lateral quickness to switch onto guards. With the bloodline of two-time All-StarCarlos Boozer, the team that drafts him is betting that skill, adaptability, and a track record of winning at every level all lead to superstardom. Peterson is a buttery smooth scorer with a blend of fluid body control and positional size that gives him the ingredients to become an elite NBA player. At the high school level, he was a dynamic playmaker who used his burst to get into the teeth of defenses and generate buckets for himself and his teammates, while also showing off the kind of shot-making that draws comparisons to Hall of Famers. At Kansas, he thrived in an off-ball role, stroking jumpers out of movement actions and showing he can scale up or down depending on what a roster needs. Even when he isn't scoring, he's a high-impact defender who causes chaos off-ball and has the 6-foot-11 wingspan to switch screens. The concern isn't his game. It's his body. He missed 11 of 35 games and pulled himself out of others due to cramping, capping off one of the weirdest freshman seasons in recent memory. Questions about his burst, his availability, and what exactly is going on under the hood are going to define how NBA front offices feel about him at the top of this draft. Wilson is the most gifted athlete in the draft class. He's 6-foot-10 with springs for legs. When he's flying above the rim, finishing through contact, and chasing down every shot in his area code, he looks like a future franchise cornerstone. But the conversation changes when you watch his jumper because he hasn’t shown any consistency as a shooter at any level. Still, even without the jumper, he has star upside. Wagler showed up at Illinois as a four-star recruit with no expectations of becoming a one-and-done. But he became the orchestrator of a high-powered Illinois offense with his high-IQ playmaking and crafty scoring, leading the team to the Final Four. And now, he’s a top-10 lock. To become an NBA star, Wagler needs to overcome a lack of traditional athleticism. But the best case is that his feel for the game is enough for him to continue ascending. At age 7, Flemings chased a ball into the street and got hit by a car, and ended up in the hospital with a fractured hip, a punctured spleen, and road rash. He says it changed his outlook on life, and it sure looks like it given the incredible effort and passion he plays with. He plays with surgical midrange touch, an explosive first step, and passing vision of a true point guard who can run an offense. But Flemings is also 190 pounds, midrange-heavy in a 3-point league, and watched his efficiency crater against the stiffest competition late in the season. The question is whether his scoring package translates to NBA length and spacing, or whether opposing scouts figure him out the same way late-season defenses did. Acuff is not the biggest guard or the most explosive athlete, but he reads defenses like someone who's been in the league for a decade. He emerged as a freshman as a skilled, low-turnover playmaker. And that’s not even what he’s best at. Acuff is a wiry scorer who can get a bucket from anywhere on the floor with a quick trigger, slippery handle, and a feel for manipulating defenses. He has a knack for clutch moments too. The question that follows every undersized guard into the draft is whether the brilliance survives contact with bigger, longer, faster defenders. Mara stepped on UCLA’s campus as a lottery-projected center from Spain. Then he fell off draft boards during two forgettable seasons there before transferring to Michigan and becoming one of the best true 5s in the country on his way to winning the national championship. He reads the floor like a guard, finishes with both hands, and swats shots with elite timing. The complication is he doesn't shoot from outside, makes below 60% of his free throws, and opponents are going to attack him on the perimeter. When Brown is in the zone, he has an unstoppable pull-up jumper, an ambidextrous finishing ability, and the quick reads to rifle passes before the defense has time to react. He had a 45-point breakout performance in February after a back injury dogged him all freshman year and then ended his year later in the month. The absences muddy the evaluation and leave real questions about his consistency that may not get answered until he’s fully healthy. López is the best basketball prospect Mexico has ever produced. He left Hermosillo at 14 to play professionally in Barcelona, then at 17 moved to Auckland, New Zealand, where he shined for two years in the NBL Next Stars program. He checks a lot of boxes with his excellent physical tools, a hardnosed approach, and a well-rounded ability to defend multiple positions, handle the ball, and a blossoming shot. But he’s thus far more of a jack of all trades since his jumper runs hot and cold and he lacks the burst to blow by defenders off the bounce. But he has all the requisite skills to become a longtime pro on a winning team. Lendeborg has a compelling story. Poor grades kept him off his high school varsity team. He went to a JUCO. Then UAB. Then he entered the draft, went through the combine, pulled his name back, and came back for one more year at Michigan and won a national championship. He just kept getting better every single time the competition got harder. He fills the stat sheet, he can play multiple positions, and he has a 7-foot-4 wingspan at 240 pounds with a genuine handle. But he'll be 24 as a rookie. The arc is a great story. Whether it ends with NBA stardom is still up for debate. Burries arrived at Arizona as a top-10 recruit, started slow, and then erupted once conference play began, helping lead his team to the Final Four. He's a physical, versatile scorer who can beat you from all three levels, rebounds like a forward, and competes hard on defense. But he's a methodical creator rather than an explosive one, and his shooting history before Arizona gives scouts reason to wonder whether the efficiency is real or a blip. Philon is a shifty, score-first point guard who blossomed into one of the best guards in college basketball as a sophomore. He doubled his scoring output with buttery floaters, a deceptive handle, and a feel for running an offense, while also beginning to shore up the shooting questions that once clouded his projection. But Philon is also a below-the-rim athlete and is listed under 180 pounds, so his slight frame remains the one thing standing between him and stardom. Okorie is the best driving guard in the class, a 6-foot-2 jitterbug who manipulates defenders with a tight handle, sudden changes of speed, and an advanced feel for the game. He's not an above-the-rim athlete, though, and not long ago he was a kid from New Hampshire who ranked outside the top 100 and committed to Harvard. Then Stanford found him, he flipped his commitment, and he proceeded to lead the ACC in scoring with eight 30-point games and a habit for hitting clutch shots. NBA teams will have to decide whether what carved up the ACC will survive against bigger, longer defenders. Steinbach played professionally in Germany before enrolling at Washington, and he’ll enter the NBA with some readymade skills as an interior scorer and rebounder. He has massive hands that he uses to grab every possible rebound and finish effectively around the basket. He also showed legitimate touch on 3-pointers in flashes, which would turn him into a very different player if it becomes real. But he’s a bit of a modern tweener. He’s not a true 7-footer, and there are specific matchups where he gets targeted in space. He needs to be the right kind of center for the right team. Swain played two competent seasons at Xavier, transferred to Texas, and somehow became the most efficient isolation scorer in the entire country. He's relentless getting to the rim, creative as a finisher, and active enough defensively to project as a switchable wing. But the reason he lives at the rim is because his jump shot is genuinely terrible. He has stiff mechanics, bad percentages, and a reluctance to even attempt it that goes all the way back to high school. Until the shooting becomes a credible threat, defenses are going to pack the paint and dare him to beat them from the outside. Players who can handle, shoot off the dribble, and stand at 6-foot-10 don’t grow on trees. This physical foundation kept Ament in lottery consideration even after a dreadful start to his freshman season when he struggled to score efficiently and make an impact defensively. But over the second half of the year for Tennessee, he flipped a switch and shots began to fall. He averaged 23.8 points over a six-game stretch in January and February that reminded everyone why he was a top recruit in the country. Then he dealt with an ankle injury that ruined his momentum entering March and he severely struggled during the tournament. You know the guy on a championship team who never gets enough credit nationally? The one who sets the bone-crushing screen that springs the star, then immediately sprints to the rim for the lob, then turns around and blows up the other team's pick-and-roll on the other end all in one sequence? That's Morez Johnson. He transferred from Illinois to Michigan and became the connective tissue of the national champions as a 250-pound wrecking ball with surprisingly soft hands and the defensive IQ to guard 1 through 5 in a switch-heavy scheme. The catch is he's not quite big enough to be a true center and not yet proven enough as a shooter to guarantee he spaces the floor. But even without a jumper, Johnson has a long future ahead of him at the next level. You could have watched every Tennessee game for two years and genuinely not known that Carr existed. Then he transferred to Baylor, and led the team in scoring, shot nearly 40% from 3 on high volume, and looked like a 3-and-D role player who also has blossoming skills off the dribble. With NBA genes in his blood, as the son of former player Chris Carr, Cameron has the skills to make it in the NBA. But at 175 pounds with not a ton of games under his belt, he's going to get introduced to the NBA's physicality in a way college basketball never did. Graves was a point guard before a late growth spurt, and the floor skills carried over when he sprouted to 6-foot-9. He came off the bench at Santa Clara as a redshirt freshman and quietly became one of the most efficient producers in college basketball. He stands as the top-ranked player still in the transfer portal, so he could return to college, which wouldn't be a surprise given he came off the bench, lacks great athleticism, and had some struggles against the limited top competition that he faced. But the analytics love him, and he passes the eye test with his elite feel for the game, which is why he's in the lottery conversation. Stirtz feels the game at a different frequency than everyone else on the floor, and yet still makes scouts squint because he doesn't look the part athletically. The question isn't whether he can play though. After transferring from Drake to Iowa, he kept cooking with bullseye passes, pump-fakes, and shooting touch off the dribble from NBA range. If he adjusts to the physicality and speed of the NBA, he could thrive as both a floor general and off-ball connector. Suigo has said he wants to be the Italian Wemby and, at 7-foot-2 with passing feel and shooting touch, you can see why a teenager might put that out into the universe. Suigo lacks the handle and self-creation chops to ever be the best player on a team, but his dynamic skills as a passer, shooter, and lob threat layer cleanly on top of baseline center duties as a screener, finisher, and rim protector. Becoming the ItalianMarc Gasolis a more realistic goal, and would still be an excellent outcome. Tanner enrolled at Vanderbilt as a three-star recruit, stayed off draft boards as a freshman, and then blew up as a sophomore. He became the kind of player where you’d watch him and think: How is nobody stopping this guy? He’s barely 6-feet tall, but he gets wherever he wants on the floor, makes reads before the defense has time to rotate, and then turns around and picks your pocket on the other end. His height is a concern, though, because the NBA has a poor track record with guards his size, especially when it comes to playoff basketball. But maybe Tanner can be one of the exceptions since he plays bigger than his body. Thomas has the confidence to "run for president," according to Arkansas head coach John Calipari. You could see that on the court the way he never hesitated to fire, stepped right into the lead role when Darius Acuff was sidelined at Missouri to close the regular season, and willed Arkansas to the SEC championship game with 29 against Ole Miss. He's a legit NBA shooter with deep range, a quick release, and creation juice off the bounce. But he doesn't get to the rim, his shot selection drifts into hero-ball, and there are questions about how he’ll deal with NBA physicality. Peat's bloodline is so loaded with offensive linemen that it's almost funny he ended up playing basketball. His father played nine NFL seasons. His uncle was a Pro Bowl tackle. Two brothers played college ball on the line. And you can absolutely see it in how he plays: powerful, physical, relentless, and it genuinely takes something special to stop him from getting to where he wants to go. He opened the season with a 30-point game against defending champion Florida and backed it up as one of Arizona's best players all year. The concern is that he doesn't really shoot, doesn't create for himself off the dribble without assistance, and he's not going to wow anyone as a vertical athlete. Anderson showed up at Texas Tech as the 101st-ranked recruit and has played his way into the first-round conversation behind dynamic pick-and-roll creation and knockdown perimeter shooting. He does a good job of creating easier shots for his teammates, but at his small stature he hasn’t shown a consistent ability to get to the rim with any regularity. And any small guard will always be a target on defense, so there’s a lot of pressure on his shot translating to the next level. De Larrea is a tall playmaking guard with major feel and a knockdown jumper who thrives within team concepts. He suffered a dislocated shoulder that ended his 2024-25 season and removed him from draft boards, but it ended up a blessing in disguise since he returned with a bigger role and stronger production for a great team in the EuroLeague. With size, smarts, and defensive versatility, he could carve out a role in the NBA if his international skill can translate. Allen landed at Alabama as the third scoring option, which is either a red flag about his limited ceiling or a positive preview of exactly how he'll thrive in the NBA. As a 6-foot-7 wing, Allen does a little bit of everything without needing touches, rebounds like a big, and displays incredible defensive versatility. The concern is purely about his upside, since he hasn’t shown many star flashes. Veesaar is an agile big with real shooting touch, connective playmaking, and baseline big skills with the ability to set screens and catch lobs. He also offers rim protection and is a locked-in help defender. In all three of his collegiate seasons, he made a massive leap in production each year. But he's 225 pounds so his lanky frame can get pushed around, plus he still hasn't fully defined his cornerstone skill. Moreno has an NBA frame at only 19 years old: 7-feet, 250 pounds. He does the baseline things as a big man with above-the-rim finishing, hard-nosed rebounding, and stout rim protection. He also adds a layer as a passer, showing an advanced feel for the game and for manipulating defenders. It's important for him to improve his touch as a finisher and as a shooter, but he's in a good place for his age with skills that should be translatable to the next level. Evans is the kind of shooter that defenses guard and think they’ve got him contained, then he uses a screen and catches it off a full sprint, moving away from the rim, and he somehow manages to rise into a perfect 3-pointer. He’s a legitimate sharpshooter with the off-ball chops to thrive without even running any offense for himself, and he also has a developing handle that could unlock more creation chances. But he’s still a perimeter-based player who needs to add more layers to his game to become a complete offensive talent. Some of his in-game dunks are worthy of the Dunk Contest. He’s an explosive athlete who thrives at the basket and brings constant hustle as a multi-positional defender — he made the SEC All-Defensive Team as a sophomore. But in order to carve out a long NBA career, he needs to figure out his jumper. If he does, he could be a lottery pick. Richmond is currently testing the pre-draft process, so there’s a chance he returns to Arkansas. Quaintance is going to get drafted based almost entirely on what he looked like before his knee exploded. As a freshman at Arizona State, he was blocking everything in sight, showing defensive instincts and mobility that players his size aren't supposed to have, and he was 17 years old doing it. Then came the ACL, the meniscus, the fractured knee, the transfer to Kentucky, persistent swelling, and a shutdown for the remainder of his sophomore season. Now teams have to make a decision after 28 games of great defense with eyesore offense. Cenac checks every box on paper as a superb athlete who moves like a wing, has the length to alter shots, and shoots from the perimeter. Houston handed him a starting role with national title aspirations and trusted him with heavy minutes. But the Cougars fell short again, in part because Cenac struggled to stay out of foul trouble, couldn’t score efficiently, and was overeager to play on the perimeter despite having the body of a bruiser. He arrived in college with lottery expectations, and he still could become that player in the future. But the NBA team drafting him is taking a project. Yessoufou grew up in West Africa, moved to California at 15 speaking only French, and left four years later as the state's all-time leading scorer, breaking a record that had stood since 2004. He entered Baylor as a projected lottery pick with freakish athleticism, a relentless motor, and the kind of physicality that makes scouts dream. But Baylor missed the tournament, and when quality opponents took away his drives, there wasn't much left in his arsenal. He’s still a shaky shooter, and he needs to improve his passing feel, and defend at the level his physical tools suggest that he should. Karaban makes defenses pay the moment they relax on him. He relocates for a 3, cuts when nobody's watching, and does everything efficiently. He’s a similarly high-effort, high-IQ player on the defensive end, which helps him overcome his average athleticism. But he'll be 24 as a rookie, and hasn’t shown much upside. He rarely shoots off the dribble because of his funky mechanics. So if his role-player skills are slow to translate, his margin for error is narrower than for most. Conwell's college career took him from South Florida to Indiana State to Xavier, and then to Louisville, and he got better at every stop. By the end of his senior year he was the leading scorer for the Cardinals at 18.8 points per game. He’s a stocky 6-foot-4 lefty with broad shoulders, no real first step, and exactly one dunk in four years of college basketball. But he's a knockdown shooter with deep range and a bruiser at the rim who absorbs contact like a fullback. The question is whether the climb continues at the next level, when he can't muscle his way to the cup or shoot over the top of smaller defenders the way he could in college. Bidunga is a 6-foot-10 vertical weapon with bouncy legs, soft hands, and the defensive instincts to anchor the paint. He also has some switchability, which could make him highly valuable on defense. But he lacks the size of a true center, and he lacks any perimeter skill on offense. As a player who was born in Kinshasa, and moved to the United States as a teenager, he’s still learning the nuances of high-level basketball. So there could be untapped potential for the long term. Momcilovic just put together one of the most efficient shooting seasons in college basketball, draining nearly half of his 3s on over seven attempts per game. He also has soft touch attacking closeouts and the discipline to stay in his lane by keeping the ball moving and not trying to do too much. The only real concern is the fact he isn’t much of a shot creator, doesn’t rebound much for his size, and will be an average defender at best. He has one skill that is genuinely elite though, that happens to be the most important skill in the modern league. Able has a strong 6-foot-6 frame as a wing to pair with a smooth jumper and a good feel for passing the ball. Even though he was inconsistent coming off the bench for NC State, he looks the part of a role player who could blossom into something much greater given his blend of skills. If Able doesn’t stay in the draft class, he is committed to North Carolina. Stojaković is the son of three-time NBA All-Star and 2011 champion Peja Stojaković, and he certainly has professional DNA with his slick footwork and feel for the game. But unlike his father, he shockingly has a clunky jumper that needs a lot of seasoning for him to thrive at the next level. Some players are drafted for their ceilings. Others for their floor. Jefferson lands in the latter category as a 22-year-old senior who spent four years in college getting better at everything to the point he’s a steady, high-feel forward. He can pass out of the post, make connective reads, and guard multiple positions. He just needs his shooting progress to prove to be real, and right now there's not enough of a sample to be sure it is. Smith left Purdue as the NCAA's all-time assists leader, breaking a 33-year-old record. He's arguably the highest-IQ player in the draft who could orchestrate an offense at the college level while also providing scoring off the bounce. But the issue is the one every 6-foot guard faces: he isn't a plus athlete, and bigger guards are going to hunt him the moment he steps on an NBA floor. That’s precisely why he is a projected second-rounder and will need to work his way up. Chinyelu picked up basketball as a teenager in Nigeria, worked his way up through the NBA Academy Africa pipeline in Senegal, spent a freshman year at Washington State, then transferred to Florida and became the muscle behind a national title team. As a junior, he swept every major defensive player of the year award. The role he projects for is crystal clear: rebound, anchor the paint, finish lobs, and set the tone. Reed is a throwback center who played at his best on the biggest stage on UConn’s way to the national title game. He does all the dirty work inside the paint as a finisher and rebounder and shot-blocker. But beyond his ability to screen and pass, he isn’t all too comfortable on the perimeter as a shooter or defender. So there are questions about his upside, especially since he’ll be 23 as a rookie. Saunders is a hard-nosed, two-way wing who plays with manic energy, hustling around the floor hunting for steals on defense and jumpers on offense. The team that gets him knows exactly what they’re gonna get out of him. He’s also skilled, though, with a quick-trigger jumper, soft touch on floaters, and a feel for moving the ball. With less than ideal size and athleticism, he more likely projects as a solid role player. But he’s not a guarantee to succeed at age 25 after tearing his ACL in February, ending his four-year career at BYU. Tobiason is a 6-foot-5 wing with a 7-foot-2 wingspan who finishes above the rim, racks up steals with his length, and shows the catch-and-shoot touch and connective feel to project as a 3-and-D wing. But his breakout sophomore year also featured a dip in scoring efficiency after playing a limited role as a freshman. He is testing the waters while transferring to Syracuse, so he could very well decide to spend one more year at school and build on the feedback he receives from NBA teams. Okpara knows his role as a player who protects the paint, runs the floor, finishes lobs, sets screens, and doesn’t try to be more than that. He spent two years at Ohio State, transferred to Tennessee, and helped take the Vols to the Elite Eight as their defensive backbone. He had four blocks in the Round of 32 with clutch defense down the stretch, then a 12 and 10 double-double in the Sweet 16. Onyenso has bounced from Kentucky to Kansas State to Virginia, and finally found a home in Charlottesville where he turned into one of the most feared shot-blockers in college basketball. He had 21 blocks across three ACC tournament games, including nine against Cam Boozer in the championship. He lays a brick wall around the basket, though he has heavy feet when guarding on the perimeter and is still developing his offensive skill set. Williams is a broad-shouldered wing with the versatility to run point or do the dirty work as a power forward. A lack of top-end athleticism puts him in a role player bucket, but he brings winning qualities. During a stretch in which Williams was struggling to score, his college coach Will Wade said: "What'd he have? Six rebounds, four assists, zero turnovers. Everybody needs to shut the hell up about him. He's a damn good player and the shot's going to fall.” After Ejiofor’s freshman year at Kansas, Bill Self told him he wasn't good enough to play major minutes on any Big 12 team. Three years later, he became the unanimous Big East Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, Tournament MVP, and Scholar-Athlete of the Year — the first player in the league's history to sweep all four in a single season — and he helped St. John's bounce his former team in the Round of 32 on the way to the program's first Sweet 16 in 25 years. Ejiofor found success with foundational skills: motor, length, and defensive versatility. The question with Ejiofor is the fact he’s undersized for a center and his jumper is still a work in progress. But he’s developed enough to deserve a chance to figure it out in the league. Nelson is a 6-foot-10 athlete with a 7-foot-3 wingspan who feasts on lobs, rebounds in traffic, and disrupts everywhere on defense. He sets a tone any time he’s on the floor. After three years at Arkansas State, he followed his coach to USF and proceeded to put up one of the most decorated mid-major seasons in recent memory by becoming the first player in American Conference history to win Player of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and Newcomer of the Year. Even though he lacks creation and shooting abilities, he made jaw-dropping plays at the Portsmouth Invitational, then earned an NBA Draft Combine invite, and now has a chance to go in the second round. Nickel has a flamethrower jump shot that Vanderbilt used in a wide array of actions to consistent success all season long. The questions about him are the ones every specialist faces: Does he offer enough other than shooting? Will he survive defensively? But anyone who shoots like Nickel and stands at 6-foot-7 will get a shot to make it in the NBA. Hall has been to UNLV, George Mason, UCF, and Auburn, and at every stop he just keeps scoring as a 6-foot-7, 225-pound lefty wing by knocking down 3s and overpowering smaller defenders inside. But everywhere he’s gone, his defense has been shaky and his decision-making has left a lot to be desired. After bouncing through four programs without seeing those flaws get resolved, he’ll need to figure it out in the NBA. There’s certainly a lot of talent worth betting on. Lawal is a London-born forward with elite athleticism, but he didn’t start playing basketball until age 16 and it shows with his underdeveloped skills. He’s still figuring out his jumper and doesn’t do much off the dribble. But with NBA-ready hops and a strong frame, he has the tools to be a highly versatile defender who serves as a role player on offense. Uzan is a high-IQ combo guard who knits teams together with his playmaking skills and defensive hustle. Those are the translatable skills that made him a fixture in Houston’s rotations for back-to-back 30-win seasons. But then there’s the nagging question about what he actually offers as a primary shot-creator and as a shooter. Uzan could’ve answered that question with a big senior season, but he didn’t take the leap that scouts hoped for. Miller is a fluid athlete who grew up playing guard before a late growth spurt. He retained his perimeter skills given the way he can handle in the open floor and make advanced moves. He’s also an equally compelling defensive player who can switch across positions. The big issue, and the main reason why he has spent four years in college, is that he still can’t shoot. Brazile was a projected first-rounder before tearing his ACL nine games into his sophomore year at Arkansas, and the next two years were spent rebuilding the explosiveness that made him a prospect in the first place. He finally put it together as a fifth-year senior with a career year by anchoring Arkansas' defense. His long wingspan, explosive vertical, switchability, and perimeter jumper, all give him the potential to have a long NBA career. But at this point, he’s already 23 and still projects only as a role player. As a 6-foot-4 wing with a strong frame, Oweh became one of the best slashing wings in college basketball and had one of the great games of the season with 35/8/7 against Santa Clara in the opening round of March Madness with a buzzer-beater to force overtime. At the next level, though, he doesn’t project to be a primary creator because of his shaky handle and jumper, so the odds are he’ll need to adapt as a role player. Fortunately, he has a ton of those skills as a cutter, connective passer, and versatile defender. Bilodeau was one of the most efficient stretch-4s in college basketball. With his 6-foot-9 frame, he could bring real value with his size and spacing ability at the next level. But no one should mistake Bilodeau for Tyler, The Creator, since he rarely takes shots off the dribble or serves as a playmaker for teammates. He also struggles as a defender, which is truly the big question about his ability to make it in the modern NBA.

by Rick McGinnisRick's FlicksMay 9, 2026 https://www.steynonline.com/16202/the-man-who-wasnt-there-the-korean-at-d-day-in-my The incredible story ofYang Kyoungjongis all the more phenomenal because, while there's very little proof that he ever existed, our need to believe that he did has been so urgent that facts seem to matter very little. But that hasn't stopped at least three reputable historians from telling Yang Kyoungjong's story with confidence, and the premise of his life even became the basis forMy Way, a multimillion-dollar South Korean action movie, albeit one embroidered with its own fictions. Yang Kyoungjong's story begins just after D-Day when, in an interview made for historian Stephen Ambrose years later, an American officer recalls the capture of four soldiers of Asian origin inWehrmachtuniforms. They were, he said, Koreans who had been conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army, captured by the Soviets, forced to fight against the Germans who captured them in turn and pressed them into one of the forced labour battalions sent to build and man the fortifications along the English Channel. (Or at least that's how Ambrose tells the story.) A photograph of an Asian-looking young man in a German uniform taken prisoner by the Allies after D-Day, while never attested in any official record to be Yang Kyoungjong, became attached to his story as proof that these hapless men existed. And because every story needs an ending, we were told – with remarkable confidence given the vagueness of the scraps of fact about Yang Kyoungjong's origin – that he had been sent to a prison camp in the UK and emigrated to the U.S. after the war, dying in Illinois in 1992. An incredible story, repeated in books and online and on museum walls, albeit one that hasn't been substantiated by a single piece of paperwork in eight decades. After telling us that the story we're about to see is based on facts and a brief prologue at the 1948 London Olympics, Kang Je-gyu's 2011 filmMy Waybegins in 1928 in Gyeong-seong (now Seoul) where Kim Jun-shik's father works as a servant on the farm owned by Hasegawa, a retired Japanese military officer. When his grandson Tatsuo comes to visit, they begin a rivalry based on marathon running that reaches its peak when they're teenagers and Sohn Kee-chung (Yoon Hee-won) wins a gold medal in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. By this point Tatsuo (Joe Odagiri) is a true believer in Japanese militarism after Korean nationalists kill his grandfather with a bomb. Jun-shik (Jang Dong-gun), now working as a rickshaw driver, is also a talented runner and a rallying point for nationalists protesting the Japanese occupation of Korea, which began after the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War turned colonial occupation into full annexation when Korean nationalists assassinated Prince Ito, Resident-General of Korea, in 1909. A montage shows the two young men beating each other in alternating races until Jun-shik is unfairly disqualified in a race and Japanese officials hand the win to Tatsuo. This sets off a riot after which Jun-shik and his best friend Lee Jong-dae (Kim In-kwon) are arrested and punished with conscription into the Imperial Japanese Army. They get deployed to Mongolia where Japan is fighting not just Chinese rebels but an undeclared war against the Soviet Union, where the Japanese Kwantung Army was provoking the Soviets in conflicts like the Battles of Khalkhin Gol. When the Japanese troops retreat (against forces led by General Gyorgy Zhukov) their commander is replaced by Tatsuo, who forces the old commander to commit ritual suicide. Jun-shik captures Shirai (Fan Bingbing), a Chinese sniper whose parents were killed by the Japanese, but when he refuses to join a suicide squad led by Tatsuo in the next battle against the Soviets, he's beaten viciously and thrown into the same prison pit as Shirai. Jong-dae and his friends help them both escape the night before their execution and are running away when they meet a massive Soviet armoured division heading toward their camp. When I wrote here about Kang Je-gyu's 2004 Korean War filmTae Guk Gi(released here asThe Brotherhood of War) I noted that the director was at the vanguard of a new generation in the South Korean film industry, and that he and his production team had to re-invent how to make a war movie from the ground up. Working from the precedents set bySaving Private RyanandBand of Brothers, they doubled down on realistic violence in the battle scenes, which had an almost hallucinatory quality. "Shells kick up geysers of dirt, not smoke, when they miss, and fountains of gore and viscera when they hit," I wrote. "Bodies disintegrate in the air and squibs from bullet impacts produce rich sprays of blood while the camera staggers and reels amidst the battlefield action." Pursuing Shirai after she picks off several of his comrades, Jun-shik dodges slow-motion bullets that puncture sheets hanging on a laundry line. By 2011, directors like Kang Je-gyu and the Korean film industry in general had joined in setting the wild standards in action cinema showcased constantly by directors in Russia, India, China, Thailand and elsewhere all over southeast Asia, all of them inspired by the groundbreaking work done years earlier by Hong Kong directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Sammo Hung. Jun-shik decides to leave his friends and head back to warn Tatsuo and the rest of his Korean comrades about the approaching Soviets. Caught in the open, he's strafed by a Russian pilot in an I-16 "Ishak" fighter. Shirai, following him, fights a duel against the plane with her rifle that leaves them both dead. It's exactly the kind of improbable and violent action that would get an American or British war film dismissed as a cartoon while it's the bread and butter of modern war films elsewhere in the world – such as theSisufilms from Finland. Tatsuo is leading his troops out to attack the Soviets when Jun-shik comes running to warn him – followed closely by waves of Soviet BT-5 and BT-7 tanks. (Built, apparently, on the chassis of British armoured personnel carriers.) Despite their overwhelming numbers, Tatsuo leads his suicide squad against the Russians and seems to be winning a costly victory until yet another wave of Soviet tanks and infantry come over the crest of a hill to overwhelm his diminishing troops. The gore is pitiless and impressively graphic; one of Jun-shik's wounded Korean comrades has his pelvis crushed by a Soviet tank while he holds him. Mud mixes with blood all over the screen and, while Jun-shik pleads with the fanatic Tatsuo to order a retreat, they're both blown up by a shell burst, their bodies flung in slow motion up toward the camera while it hangs in the air above the battlefield. The Battles of Khalkhin Gol shown in the film – provoked by the Kwantung Army independent of the Japanese high command, like so much of the Japanese war in Manchuria, Mongolia and China – are a reminder that while the west thinks World War Two began with the German invasion of Poland in September of 1939, it had been going on in Asia for years, and that from the Asian perspective that war lasted nearly a decade and a half and began when the Japanese staged the Mukden incident in 1931, a false flag event that started the invasion of Manchuria. The German annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the Munich Crisis all happen offscreen and unnoticed, and by the time we see Jun-shik and Tatsuo again they are prisoners of the Soviet Union, who signed a non-aggression treaty with Japan in April of 1941, while Rommel is winning in North Africa and Germany invades Greece and Yugoslavia. As a train carrying the prisoners from Khalkhin Gol takes Jun-shik and Tatsuo into captivity, a map shows them traveling through Omsk and Perm to a POW camp outside Kungursk, closer to Moscow than Mongolia, though the film depicts it as an always-winter Siberian hellscape. In the camp the Japanese soldiers no longer have authority over the Koreans. The Soviet commandant taunts Tatsuo by telling him that despite the non-aggression pact his government has forgotten him and has made no effort to repatriate captured Japanese soldiers. He encourages the Koreans to bully the Japanese prisoners, using Koreancaposlike Lee Jong-dae, who has become a pro-communist camp commissar under the name "Anton". Director Kang depicts the camp as a Soviet version of Treblinka or Sobibor, where dead and dying inmates are fed into crematoria ovens that provide the only apparent source of heat; Jong-dae happily takes his old friend Jun-shik there to share a bottle, assuring him that this is the best place to be and that as long as he's in charge his friends are safe. While rumours about Germany attacking Russia circulate through the camp, brutal work details thin out the prisoners' ranks with illness, starvation, accidents and beatings. The commandant cheerfully encourages Tatsuo and Jun-shik to fight each other to the death with a dagger he tosses on the barracks floor but Jun-shik spares Tatsuo. When a riot breaks out against the brutal conditions the two enemies are sentenced to die in front of a firing squad but get a last-minute reprieve when a press gang arrives at the camp looking to conscript prisoners to fight the invading Germans, and Jong-dae volunteers Jun-shik and Tatsuo. The Kwantung Army, the POW camp and the Soviet army all subject their inmates to relentless indoctrination, with slogans and dogma barked out constantly while loudspeakers reinforce the ideological brainwashing. But by the time Jun-shik and Tatsuo arrive to fight the Wehrmacht at Dedovsk, where the Nazi invasion of Russia is about to stall in sight of Moscow, the onetime fanatic is starting to slip his militarist conditioning. As in Mongolia, Jun-shik and Tatsuo find themselves up against a superior enemy. The movie echoes earlier films likeEnemy at the Gates(2001), which shows unarmed Russian troops advancing into German machine guns at Stalingrad hoping to pick up rifles dropped by unlucky comrades as they're mowed down. The German front line is helpfully decorated with fresh swastika banners hanging from ruined buildings, Jong-dae dies pitifully trying to lead the advance and Tatsuo sheds his last shred of patriotic fervor when he recognizes himself in the Soviet commander ordering his men on a suicidal charge while NKVD machine guns in their rear fire at retreating soldiers. Left wounded but alive after the battle is over, Jun-shik encourages Tatsuo to change into Nazi uniforms stripped from corpses so they can sneak through the German lines and try to escape home. The film relies on curious geography as, instead of making their way through the steppes and open landscape of the Fulda Gap they end up hiking through snowy mountain passes you're more likely to find in Bavaria. Tatsuo collapses just as they stumble into an abandoned town, where Jun-shik goes to find some medicine and they both get captured by German soldiers who can't understand what they say. There's another jump forward in time and Tatsuo is in a truck with soldiers from a Wehrmacht Eastern Battalion on their way to the bunkers and beaches of Normandy. Curiously, Kang's film depicts the German army as benevolent compared to the Japanese and Russians; Tatsuo and his new comrades from the Slavic countries conquered by or allied with the Nazis only work until the golden hour, after which they play soccer on the beach amidst the Belgian gates, steel hedgehogs, log ramps and wooden stakes. It's a facet of a strange andabiding east Asian takeon Nazi Germany, which has a fascination with swastikas and Hitler completely divorced from its context in the west, which places Nazism and everything about it at the pinnacle of a toxic historical evil. Kang's film does share the consensus that the Axis powers, specifically Germany and Japan, thought fit to conscript and enslave the populations they conquered when they were winning the war to fill growing gaps in their manpower when they began to lose, especially after America joined the conflict and set its massive industrial base to work. Japan and especially Germany relied on economic kleptocracy, and labour compelled at gunpoint, justified by racial ideologies. Looking out the firing slit of a bunker at the end of a day's (forced) labour, Tatsuo sees another soldier running on the beach and recognizes Jun-shik. No longer enemies but comrades united by the need to escape their situation and find a way home, Tatsuo asks Jun-shik to join him in his escape plan, to the port at Cherbourg and a freighter that will take them away from Europe. Unfortunately the dawn that breaks as they begin their escape is the morning of June 6, 1944. There are three big action sequences in the film but there's no doubt that this is the one Kang built his picture around. From the moment Tatsuo's friend looks up from his post and asks "Are those our planes?" all hell starts to break loose. Tatsuo and Jun-shik are separated when the first bombs from the B-24s start falling on their trenches and bunkers and have to find a way to each other while the fortifications are taken apart by shells from the battleships just offshore. There is just enough historical accuracy to keep one toe of this war fantasy on the ground; thereweretwoEastern Battalionsin Normandy on D-Day: the 795th, made up of Georgians, and the 649th, which was surrounded on the Cotentin peninsula and surrendered just after D-Day. Historian Antony Beevor, author of one of the definitive books about Stalingrad, is one of the most notable proponents (along with Stephen Ambrose and Steven Zaloga) of the story of Yang Kyoungjong, and he has the hapless Korean captured by the same U.S. airborne troops who surround Tatsuo and Jun-shik at the end ofMy Way(though not, as the film shows, mere yards behind the beach.) For Beevor, Yang Kyoungjong's story is useful to explain the global nature of the war and how it consumed young men from all over the world, either making them the victims of terror and brutality or its perpetrators (or both). "This reluctant veteran of the Japanese, Soviet and German armies had been comparatively fortunate in a war that stretched around the globe and killed between 60 and 70 million people,"he wrote. "In the monstrous clashes of the Second World War, individuals had no control over their own fate. It felt as if they were at the mercy of giant historical forces – as revealed in previously unpublished letters and diaries of the time. Historical writer Martin Morgan, who worked with Stephen Ambrose and his estate, has found virtually no paper trail for Yang Kyoungjong beyond myth and hearsay. He insists that the persistence of his story comes down to exoticism and the popular fondness for esoteric tales instead of solid research; in apodcast interviewhe somewhat bitterly admits that this has made it harder for him to get his work published while AI-generated pseudohistory explodes online. For both historians and their audience, there are too many stories that are simply "too good to be false." In her bookThe World War II Combat Film: Anatomy of a Genre, Jeanine Basinger writes how "the complaint of 'unreality' in Hollywood war films can be connected best to its narrative content: the sentimentalization of relationships (both on the home front and in combat), the propagandizing of motives (which was part of the war on all fronts), and the presentation of battle violence that could not actually re-create the true battle experience. The falsification that made war more exciting or glamorous was more a postwar phenomenon." At the end ofMy Way,the film returns to that marathon race at the 1948 London Olympics, where the Korean runner taking the lead is revealed to be Tatsuo competing under Jun-shik's name. (South Korea did compete in the 1948 Olympics but did not win any medals.) We have already seen how a mortally wounded Jun-shik switched his name tags with Tatsuo before their capture to prevent a Japanese in German uniform from being executed on the spot. The onetime Japanese militarist has become a Korean; this is the tale Kang's film grafts onto the myth to make a political point. (It's also proof of my long-held rule that there are no period films: every movie is about the time in which it's made.) Kang used the same identity swap on the battlefield as a plot device inTae Guk Gi, but it's employed here to address ongoing tension between Korea and Japan with a particularly Korean slant. The two counties didn't seriously begin repairing their relationship until the 1965Treaty on Basic Relationswas signed, when postwar Korea began pulling themselves out of poverty by copying Japanese economic and business models, ultimately with great success. Since then the two countries have engaged in avid cultural trade that has seen Korean food on Japanese menus and Korean pop music, movies, television and anime become wildly popular in Japan. Tensions remain, though; Koreans think the Japanese are insufficiently apologetic for atrocities committed during the colonial period, while the Japanese are alarmed by South Korea's eagerness to maintain diplomatic and economic ties with China. (An uneasy relationship with China is one thing that Japan and North Korea have in common.)Tae Guk Giwas a massive hit in South Korea butMy Way, an equally melodramatic war story, was a palpable flop, losing at its opening weekend box office toMission: Impossible – Ghost Protocoland earning back a fraction of its $24 million budget. But the irresistible story of Yang Kyoungjong marches on. Club members can let Rick know what they think by logging in and sharing in the comments below, as access to the comments section is one of many benefits that comes along withmembership in the Mark Steyn Club. © 2026 Mark Steyn Enterprises (US) Inc. All rights reserved.No part of this website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied, modified or adapted, without the prior written consent of Mark Steyn Enterprises. If you're a member ofThe Mark Steyn Cluband you take issue with this article,then have at it in our comments section. receive the latest by email: subscribe to steynonline's free weeklymailing list

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