The wife of a former Manchester United player says she spent years hating her lavish Cheshire lifestyle but felt unable to complain because ‘rich people aren’t supposed to have problems’.
Danielle Gibson, 36, was raised by a single mother in a tenth floor flat in Wythenshawe, Manchester, and met her footballer husband Darron when she was a teenager.
But after being catapulted into a life of fortune and fame, mother-of-two Danielle claims she ‘didn’t feel thankful or grateful of any of it’ and wanted to return to a simpler life.
Speaking at an event marking International Women’s Day in Manchester, Danielle admitted she felt she had ‘no right to complain’ while living in a ‘big house in Bowdon’ with two kids in private school.
‘It still feels tricky sat here in my designer outfit saying this, but I want to be honest and say that there have been years and years where I didn’t feel thankful or grateful of any of it – I just wanted to be Danielle from Wythenshawe’, she said, according to the Manchester Evening News.
Danielle Gibson, 36, pictured in 2013, says she spent years hating her lavish Cheshire lifestyle but felt unable to complain because ‘rich people aren’t supposed to have problems’
Therapist Danielle was raised by a single mother in a tenth floor flat in Wythenshawe, Manchester, and met her footballer husband Darron when she was a teenager. She is pictured with her husband in 2011
Trained psychotherapist Danielle grew up in a working class home in south Manchester, recalling watching her mother ‘struggling up and down the stairs with shopping bags’ as a child.
Irish-born footballer Darron made his football debut with Manchester United in 2005 and joined Everton in January 2012 where reportedly earned a wage of £35,000 per week.
Danielle met Darron at the age of 16 and after tying the knot in 2013, she was plunged into a world of swanky events, designer outfits and travelling around the globe.
However shortly after her husband joined Everton, the midfielder tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during a match in Dublin and was forced to undergo surgery.
Danielle now plans to launch her own psychotherapy business and says that while it was a ‘relief’ when her husband retired last year, she is a ‘very proud wife for everything that he has achieved in his career’
Danielle, who was pregnant with her second child at the time, recalled the horror of watching her husband face a potentially career-ending injury on live television with no ability to help.
She says the injury was so bad they would later have to shave his thigh muscle and create two new ligaments behind his knee.
As he recovered, Darron would spend the majority of his day confined to bed, having to sleep downstairs in a metal cast and spent the next 12 months with Danielle helping him wash and go to the toilet.
In the years following his injury, Danielle says her husband continued to face various ailments, surgeries and long recovery periods – and couldn’t help but read the swathe of nasty comments about his proneness to injury.
She said she couldn’t help thinking about friends’ husbands who worked as builders or in a call centre, and said she envied how they could live a normal life.
‘I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone how difficult life was feeling. So I put up and shut up’, she said.
In September 2015, Darron was banned from driving for 20 months and sentenced to a 12-month community order after pleading guilty to drink-driving, careless driving and failing to stop at the scene of an accident after he crashed into three cyclists.
Irish-born footballer Darron made his football debut with Manchester United in 2005 and joined Everton in In January 2012
Danielle and her husband are pictured arriving for the world premiere of Amazon Prime Video’s Rooney in February
In July 2017, Darron joined Sunderland which meant moving away from the family home – leaving Danielle feeling increasingly overwhelmed as the mum to two young children.
Shortly after joining Sunderland for a reported £35,000 per week, Darron was caught on video camera in a hotel bar branding his team ‘s***’ – with the infamous rant featuring in the opening episode of recent Netflix docu-series ‘Sunderland ‘Till I Die’.
Less than a year later, Sunderland terminated Darron’s contract as he pleaded guilty to drink-driving – something Danielle believes to be a turning point for the couple.
The midfielder was found to be three times over the limit after clipping a taxi and then driving on for several miles before crashing his Mercedes 4×4 into several parked cars while on his way to Sunderland’s training ground on St Patrick’s Day in March 2018.
Darron received a community service order, but Danielle says the incident ‘ultimately saved [her] family’ by inspiring her to spend the past five years training as a therapist.
She said that after years of important decisions being placed in the hands of managers and agents, she wanted to take back control of her life.
After qualifying as a therapist, Danielle has spent the past year working with female prison inmates carrying a life sentence and helping people to address substance abuse issues.
She plans to launch her own psychotherapy business The Heard Hub in September and says that while it was a ‘relief’ when her husband retired last year, she is a ‘very proud wife for everything that he has achieved in his career.’
The 2022 NHL trade deadline has passed. Some teams got better. Some teams didn’t. One team might have made both the best and worst trades of the deadline by itself.
Here’s a look at the winners and losers of the 2022 deadline, from the players who controlled their fate to the teams that took fate into their own hands. A full 32-team report card will arrive later this week.
Wyshynski: The Avalanche took their swing at acquiring Claude Giroux from the Philadelphia Flyers, but he had other plans. So rather than go all in for another top six guy, the Avs smartly addressed a couple of their smaller but glaring needs.
I’ve been screaming since the offseason that the Avalanche had to address their lack of veteran forward depth, having lost a few key players in the past year. They did that and more by acquiring Artturi Lehkonen from the Montreal Canadiens at a steep cost — prospect Justin Barron was likely part of the Giroux package — but with 50% salary retention. The Sharks retained 50% on Andrew Cogliano, who hopefully has some fourth-line contribution left in his tank. Nico Sturm brings more physicality than Tyson Jost.
Meanwhile, they pulled off a great trade in snagging defenseman Josh Manson for the Ducks, who addresses a lack of physicality and defensive zone play that will be vital against the crashing forecheckers from Calgary and (maybe) Vegas. Manson also didn’t cost what Ben Chiarot did for Florida. The rich got richer at the trade deadline. These are the types of moves one looks back on fondly during a championship parade.
Shilton: If general manager Jim Nill truly believed Dallas could win a Stanley Cup this season, then not trading John Klingberg and/or not making any notable moves before the deadline would be understandable. But the Stars are not built for that type of success this season (especially not with Miro Heiskanen out indefinitely with mononucleosis). So why is Klingberg, a pending unrestricted free agent who has been publicly sour about the lack of a new contract and would fetch a solid-to-good return on the trade market, still with the team?
We witnessed some serious returns for other rental defensemen. Mark Giordano pulled two second-rounders and a third out of Toronto. Ben Chiarot drew a first-rounder from Florida. So did Hampus Lindholm from Boston. There were options that Nill could have exercised to improve Dallas for the future. Now Klingberg is probably going to walk for nothing and keeping him won’t, in all likelihood, change the Stars’ fate this season.
Shilton: Unlike the GM in Dallas, the new GM in Anaheim knows what he doesn’t want — and it’s pending UFAs.
To top off the deadline, Verbeek grabbed Evgenii Dadonov and another second-round selection from Vegas — assuming the trade actually goes through, after an issue was found involving his no-trade clause.
That’s quite a haul for the Ducks. It not only sets them up in future drafts, but it makes room for Verbeek to get a look at more players Anaheim already has in its ranks. That will be crucial to decisions made moving forward as he guides the Ducks out of this rebuild and back toward playoff contention.
Loser: Golden Knights GM Kelly McCrimmon
Wyshynski: The Golden Knights’ salary cap had been an absolute mess well before they added Jack Eichel‘s $10 million hit this season. They’ve been living on the edge, making specious cap-impacted deals for the past few offseasons, costing them good players and better teammates.
That cap management hindered their ability to add reinforcements at the deadline or seek to shore up their goaltending. Instead, they were forced to trade winger Evgenii Dadonov to the Ducks to open $3.375 million in salary-cap space, hoping it will help them bring back some of their injured stars as they hang on to a playoff berth for dear life.
But wait! In a twist that could only happen to the Golden Knights during this hellish stretch of the season, the trade is being disputed by the National Hockey League Players’ Association, as Anaheim might have been on Dadonov’s limited no-trade list. Sources told ESPN that the Golden Knights claim that no-trade clause wasn’t disclosed by the Senators when they traded Dadonov to Vegas last offseason. There also are questions about whether Dadonov and his agent submitted a list before this season. Now, it’s an NHLPA and NHL entanglement that has put the trade in limbo.
If it does eventually go through, consider this asset management: The Golden Knights traded a 2022 third-round pick and defenseman Nick Holden for Dadonov last summer in a deal that didn’t make a ton of sense at the time given their cap crunch. Now they’ve traded him to the Ducks along with their choice of a 2023 or 2024 second-round pick. So that’s a second, a third and an NHL defenseman for 62 games of Dadonov. It’s not a first, second and third for Tomas Tatar in 2018, but it’s still bewildering.
If the Dadonov trade doesn’t go through? Now they have a disgruntled player who is still taking up $5 million in cap space.
Wyshynski: The Bruins won the Hampus Lindholm derby with a massive offering to the Ducks, trading them a 2022 first-round pick and second-round picks in 2023 and 2024 along with defenseman Urho Vaakanainen in the multiple-asset deal. Then they signed him to an eight-year, $52 million deal with a no-movement clause through 2026-27.
Lindholm is not the player he once was, but he is still better than anything the Bruins have had on their left side since they let Torey Krug walk. They could pair him with Charlie McAvoy or have him anchor his own unit. Whatever the case, GM Don Sweeney finally landed the defenseman the Bruins have been chasing.
Shilton: Yes, the Maple Leafs landed Mark Giordano to bolster the blue line. That was a priority. But Toronto did nothing to improve its lackluster goaltending situation, although it wasn’t for complete lack of trying.
On Sunday, GM Kyle Dubas did sign Finnish netminder Harri Sateri — fresh from an Olympic gold-medal win — to a one-year deal. Per NHL rules, though, Toronto had to place Sateri on waivers in order to add him to the roster. Arizona, of course, claimed Sateri, leaving the Leafs no better off. And Dubas didn’t complete any transactions to add another goaltender before the deadline.
So, Toronto is where it is. Beleaguered goalie Petr Mrazek also was placed on waivers on Sunday, which Dubas clarified was for cap-related purposes, and Mrazek cleared, so he’s still around. That doesn’t help the Leafs much, though. Mrazek has allowed four or more goals in each of his past four starts (1-2-1), and he was recently usurped by rookie Erik Kallgren. It appears Kallgren (who is 2-1-1 with a .930 SV%) will have to continue carrying the load for now, at least until Jack Campbell is up and running.
Toronto’s starter has been sidelined by a rib injury, but he returned to the ice this week. Can Campbell attain his previous form and be the top-end goalie he was early in the season? The Leafs can only cross their fingers and hope.
Shilton: After 24 hours of wheeling and dealing, the Kraken now hold 34 picks in the next three entry drafts. That’s … a lot of choices. It should translate into a whole lot of fun for Seattle’s scouting staff, which will basically be building this franchise from the ground up with its recommendations (both in draftable players and trade candidates). Talk about having an impact!
Wyshynski: One questions the philosophy of GM Lou Lamoriello at their own peril, but … seriously?
The Islanders have been one the biggest disappointments of the season. Lamoriello’s response at the deadline was not only not to move a single player from this roster, but to extend forwards Cal Clutterbuck and Zach Parise in new contract deals. There were no takers for goalie Semyon Varlamov, or any of the forwards with term? Maybe these end up being summertime moves. For now, the Islanders’ deadline paralysis was as baffling as their season’s been.
Wyshynski: The temptation was no doubt there to really push hard for someone like J.T. Miller of the Vancouver Canucks, a former Ranger who would have been an ideal acquisition at the deadline. Instead, the Rangers and GM Chris Drury made a series of smart smaller moves that could add up to something positive come playoff time. They traded for Panthers winger Frank Vatrano, Jets forward Andrew Copp, Canucks forward Tyler Motte and Flyers defenseman Justin Braun.
Copp was a coup. He cost a bit — a 2022 second-rounder that could become a first and another 2022 second-rounder — but he’s one of those players that can be effective down the lineup or playing up with the skilled stars, as was the case with the Jets this season. Braun, meanwhile, is a win-at-all-costs defensive defenseman with 100 games of playoff experience, something in short order on their blue line.
Shilton: The inaction from GM Tom Fitzgerald here is a head-scratcher. The Devils aren’t in the playoff hunt this season so they had some pieces that could have been moved, like Pavel Zacha or P.K. Subban or even Damon Severson, and yet, New Jersey did nothing.
Now, you might argue it’s better to complete no trades than to make a bad move. That’s true. Fitzgerald noted on Monday he wasn’t going to trade a player like Severson just because he’s got one year left on his deal, for example, when Severson is helping New Jersey win games now. It’s just that the Devils aren’t collecting victories that often, and the choice to stand pat is different when you’re a perennial contender or up against the salary cap or have already acquired a boatload of future draft choices. That’s not what the Devils have been up to, either.
As it is, New Jersey will enter the final stretch of this season near the bottom of their division and having made no strides in any direction. Fitzgerald may well like his team. Maybe he just has a lot of patience. But in his results-oriented business, patience only stretches so far, for so long.
Shilton: Everything’s coming up Flower!
Monday couldn’t have played out much better for Fleury. He put his time in with Chicago — a place the veteran clearly enjoyed playing — and now gets to reunite with old teammate Bill Guerin in Minnesota and chase another Stanley Cup. At 37 years old, those opportunities are increasingly rare. While Fleury had some control over a new landing spot, the fact Minnesota is a contending team that could make room (by trading Kaapo Kahkonen), satisfy the Blackhawks in return (with a conditional first-round pick) and offer a fellow veteran goalie (in Cam Talbot) to pair Fleury with … it seems like a great match.
There’s no pressure for Fleury to carry the load immediately, he can ease into the role and figure out getting his family settled if needed. Minnesota has needed a spark to help it climb out of a recent funk, too. Given Fleury’s reputation as the league’s most beloved teammate, this deal was a pretty big winner for the Wild, too.
Loser: Other big-name trades
Wyshynski: We had some players like Sharks center Tomas Hertl and Stars center Joe Pavelski that re-signed with their teams — and another in Filip Forsberg that appears on his way to doing so with Nashville. We had other players like Brock Boeser and J.T. Miller of the Vancouver Canucks and Jakob Chychrun of the Arizona Coyotes that are likely summertime moves.
Then we had players like Phil Kessel, Braden Holtby, Tyler Bertuzzi, Paul Stastny and Jeff Petry that were rumored to be on the move but never moved. There was some star power at the deadline in Fleury and Giroux. But for the most part, the flat salary cap meant a lot more singles than home run swings.
Winner: Player empowerment
Wyshynski: If there’s one takeaway from the 2022 NHL trade deadline, it’s how much player empowerment played a key role. Claude Giroux had a full no-movement clause. According to veteran Philadelphia reporter Anthony SanFilippo, Giroux wanted to leverage that into a guarantee that the Flyers would bring him back in the offseason, agreeing to expand his trade options. Reportedly, they wouldn’t, so he didn’t and would only go to Florida, taking away any leverage from Philly. (Please note that GM Chuck Fletcher and Giroux’s agent Pat Brisson both deny this was the case.)
Marc-Andre Fleury agreed to join the Chicago Blackhawks when they gave him their word that he would have approval over any trade they’d make with him, despite not having a no-move clause. He was presented with a chance to play for former teammate and Minnesota GM Bill Guerin, and he accepted. Seattle captain Mark Giordano had modified trade protection and the team’s backing to choose his next destination, and he ultimately chose to play for the Maple Leafs.
This didn’t make for the most thrilling trade deadline, but was certainly a moment where veteran players gladly controlled the narrative.
Shilton: Brett Kulak and Derick Brassard were the best Edmonton could do, eh? It really felt like this team deserved more.
The Oilers have worked hard to turn a corner in recent weeks. After losing six of eight, Edmonton responded with five straight wins where they scored four or more goals in each. More notably, the Oilers goaltending seems to be (somewhat) stabilized and they’re back to sitting third in the Pacific.
So, why did GM Ken Holland do so little to reward his group for their efforts? McDavid and Draisaitl are in their prime, right in front of you. And there are clear indications of buy-in throughout the lineup to gain ground and maybe make a push in the crowded Western Conference field. It just seems like a missed opportunity by Holland to let the deadline pass and not capitalize on the momentum Edmonton has generated.
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2:24
Check out the unconventional but hilarious locations in which Kevin Weekes broke NHL trades throughout the week.
Wyshynski: There’s nothing general managers hate more at the NHL trade deadline than juicy details of deals that didn’t happen leaking out to the media.
The Maple Leafs were engaged in trade talks that involved Marc-Andre Fleury. News and notes about those talks were reported by TSN.
“I’ve never had that in our time here, where conversations on something that didn’t happen are out a day later,” said Toronto GM Kyle Dubas, referring to Chicago GM Kyle Davidson. “We rely on other teams to keep that confidential, so it’s disappointing.”
Wyshynski: There isn’t a team that made a move that I loved and a move that I loathed more than the Panthers did at the trade deadline.
Acquiring Claude Giroux is an absolute coup — a veteran leader with loads of playoff experience, top-line production and lineup versatility. On top of it all, a star that’s dreamed about winning a Stanley Cup for so long that his pillow has etchings on it. Did they luck out by only having to give up Owen Tippett, a conditional first-rounder in 2024 (!) and a third-rounder in 2023, because Giroux — for whatever his reasons — would only play for the Panthers? Absolutely, but that’s hockey: How do you think the Rangers ended up with Artemi Panarin and Adam Fox?
I also liked the trade for defenseman Robert Hagg too.
Unfortunately, I did not like that move they made for another defenseman: Ben Chiarot.
I’ve been told incessantly by Montreal fans that the analytics don’t properly tell the story of Chiarot this season. The Panthers had better hope so because, based on the numbers, that story was written by Stephen King. Even if you believe Chiarot can reclaim what made him a solid defender before this season — and without a functional Shea Weber next to him, that’s not likely — this was an overpayment. Like, a torrid housing market level of overpayment. They gave up a conditional first-rounder (top-10 protected in 2022, unprotected in 2024 if necessary) at a deadline where players like Josh Manson, Mark Giordano and Rickard Rakell moved without a first-rounder being sent the other way. Quinnipiac’s Ty Smilanic isn’t a bad prospect, either, and he was included in the deal. You could argue this is around the same price that Tampa Bay paid for David Savard last deadline. You could also argue that Savard is a better player, or at least was having a superior season.
Again, a lot to like and not to like from Florida at the deadline. But you can’t say they weren’t aggressive, and maybe that pays off in their first playoff round series win since 1996.
A large new study found that people who recovered from Covid-19 within the past year are 40% more likely to receive a new diagnosis of diabetes compared to those who weren’t infected.
The increased risk translates into 1% of people who have had Covid-19 developing diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t have, the study’s author says, resulting in potentially millions of new cases world-wide.
Most of the people with diabetes in the study, published online Mondayin the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, not Type 1. Some researchers say Covid-19 could also be triggering an entirely new type of diabetes in which certain cells mistakenly start to raise, rather than lower, blood sugar.
The study adds to evidence showing an increased post-Covid-19 risk of cardiometabolic conditions, such as diabetes as well as heart and kidney complications. Normally when people think of long-term Covid-19 symptoms, they think of problems such as cognitive issues, fatigue or shortness of breath. But scientists say there are likely different types of long Covid, and one appears to be defined by cardiometabolic problems that arise after Covid-19. So far, the World Health Organization estimates there have been more than 464 million cases of Covid-19, so even small percentages of those people developing long-term complications would be significant.
New studies offer clues about who might be more susceptible to long Covid, a term for lingering Covid-19 symptoms. WSJ breaks down the science of long Covid and the state of treatment. Illustration: Jacob Reynolds for The Wall Street Journal
“We’re finding out more and more that it’s not only respiratory problems or brain fog or only fatigue,” says
Ziyad Al-Aly,
chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who led the study. “There are heart manifestations, and clearly diabetes and kidney manifestations.”
Dr. Al-Aly’s group has recently published studies on those broader risks. One showed a higher risk of developing heart problems, including stroke and heart attack, in people who have had Covid-19 than in people who haven’t. Another showed post-Covid-19 patients were more likely to have declines in kidney function or kidney damage as much as six months after infection when compared to patients who hadn’t had Covid-19.
The researchers found only an association between Covid-19 and cardiometabolic conditions, without proving a cause. Some doctors say that new diagnoses of Type 2 diabetes and heart conditions could be influenced by weight gain or decreased activity during the pandemic, although lifestyle changes wouldn’t necessarily explain an increase specifically in people who have had Covid-19.
In the new diabetes study, Dr. Al-Alyand co-researchers analyzed the records of 181,000 Covid-19 patients in the Veterans Health Administration system who were diagnosed with Covid-19 within the past year and compared them tomore than eight million people who didn’t have Covid-19. The VA study didn’t look at diabetes cases by vaccination status.
“When you look at the data on a national scale it’s clearly happening even in people who have no risk factors or very little risk factors,” Dr. Al-Aly said, adding that new diagnoses are happening even in young adults with a healthy weight and no previous history of high blood sugar.
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Have you or someone you know dealt with diabetic symptoms after a Covid-19 infection, and what was that experience? Join the conversation below.
Maren Laughlin, a program director at the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said the study was very well done. Its main limitation, she noted, is that VA patients generally tend to be older and sicker and include more males than the broader population.
It hasn’t been determined why a Covid-19 infection might be leading to new cases of diabetes. One possibility is that the virus might damage the pancreas’s ability to secrete insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar. Another theory is that the strong immune response to Covid-19 generates an inflammatory cascade that results in low-grade inflammation, which interferes with insulin secretion and sensitivity.
All types of diabetes share the symptom of high blood sugars, but they are distinct conditions. Type 2 is the most common, and can be associated with diet and exercise. Typically in Type 2, people become resistant to the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. The pancreas struggles to keep up with the body’s increased demand for insulin, leading to higher blood-sugar levels.
Type 1, by contrast, is an autoimmune disease in which the body destroys pancreatic cells that produce insulin. Other types of diabetes include gestational diabetes, which can develop in pregnant women.
In a March study in the journal Diabetologia, German researchers found that people who had Covid-19 had a roughly 28% increased risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis compared to those who had an acute upper-respiratory infection that wasn’t Covid-19. The researchers compared data from more than 35,000 Covid-19 patients to an equal number of people with infections that weren’t Covid-19. They didn’t find an increased risk for other types of diabetes.
And a February JAMA Network Open study found that people who tested positive for Covid-19 had roughly a two times greater risk of a new Type 2 diagnosis one to five months after their infection compared to those who tested negative for the virus. About 7% of hospitalized adults with Covid-19 received new diabetes diagnoses within five months, compared to 3.6% of adults without Covid-19.
There are many challenges in interpreting the data, says
Jason Block,
an internal-medicine physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who is senior author of the JAMA study. Many people hadn’t been to see a doctor for a while during the pandemic, so they might have had diabetes without knowing it. In addition, steroids—a commonly used medication for severe Covid-19 patients—can temporarily increase blood sugar and might also trigger diabetes in patients at risk for the condition.
There are several possible biological reasons why a diabetes diagnosis might follow a Covid-19 infection. Research has indicated that the virus can infect and damage beta cells in the pancreas so that they produce less insulin.
In one study, researchers found that when they added the coronavirus to beta cell samples, genetic changes occurred in the cells that significantly reduced their ability to make insulin. Instead, to the researchers’ surprise, the cells did something unusual: They started making a different hormone, glucagon,whose function is to increase blood-glucose levels.
“The beta cells lost their cell identity and turned into a different type of cell,” says
Shuibing Chen,
director of the diabetes program at Weill Cornell Medicine in Manhattan, who led the study.
Dr. Chen says Covid-19 infection appears to be triggering a new type of diabetes that isn’t Type 1 or Type 2. Dr. Chen says her team is studying treatments specifically for Covid-19 patients newly diagnosed with diabetes to see whether they can block the process by which the cells might change.
“It reduced their viability pretty quickly and reduced their ability to secrete insulin in less than a day,” says
Peter Jackson,
a professor in the microbiology and immunology department at Stanford University School of Medicine, and senior author on the study. “It’s a strong effect.”
LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) – Australia’s decision to ban exports of alumina to Russia tightens further the raw materials squeeze on Russian aluminium giant Rusal . read more
The company’s four million tonnes of smelter capacity each year processes eight million tonnes of alumina, which sits between bauxite and refined metal in the aluminium production chain.
Rusal’s domestic alumina plants accounted for only 37% of its smelter needs last year. The balance was imported. The top two suppliers were Ukraine, where Russia’s invasion has closed Rusal’s Nikolaev refinery, and Australia.
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The company said it is “currently evaluating” the loss of its number two raw material supplier but the market has already reacted to the potential resulting loss of Russian metal.
London Metal Exchange (LME) three-month aluminium jumped more than 5% at its opening to $3,554 per tonne on Monday morning and was last trading around $3,545.
Russia’s imports of alumina in 2021
RAW MATERIALS SQUEEZE
Rusal has so far escaped direct Western sanctions thanks to the deal that was done to lift U.S. sanctions in 2019. Rusal’s oligarch owner Oleg Deripaska remained blacklisted but Rusal was excluded after he reduced his controlling stake in the EN+ holding company.
That may just have changed, though.
The Australian government’s ban, expedited to stop a Russian-bound alumina shipment leaving this week, doesn’t explicitly name Rusal but it is a de-facto sanction on the company that dominates Russian aluminium production.
The status of Rusal’s 20% stake in the QAL refinery in Queensland is highly moot since it now can’t export its offtake share and its partner Rio Tinto (RIO.L) is committed to disengaging from all Russian joint ventures. read more
Rio has already suspended a tolling arrangement with Rusal’s Aughinish alumina refinery in Ireland, forcing the Russian producer to redirect bauxite shipments from its Guinea mines.
Such self-sanctioning limits Rusal’s room for manoeuvre in terms of replacing lost Australian feed.
The sea-borne alumina market is dominated by Rio Tinto, U.S. producer Alcoa (AA.N) and Norway’s Hydro . All three have said they will reduce exposure to Russia or, in the case of Hydro, not enter into new contracts with Russian entities.
The biggest question mark of all hangs over the Irish refinery, Rusal’s largest overseas alumina plant with production last year of 1.9 million tonnes.
Only a quarter of its output flowed to Russia in 2021, meaning there is plenty of potential to redirect shipments from Europe to Russia.
The Irish government is understandably keen to keep Aughinish operating but the European Union is already extending sanctions into the metals arena with a ban on Russian steel imports and will have no doubt noted Australia’s upping of the sanctions ante.
With or without its Irish lifeline, however, Rusal is facing a raw materials squeeze.
China may be its answer but China has itself been importing significant amounts of alumina in recent years to keep up with demand.
Even assuming the political will to supply Rusal with alumina, the market incentive may not be there, given expectations of rising domestic alumina demand as Chinese smelters lift output after an easing of power controls.
ALUMINIUM SQUEEZE
The aluminium price’s reaction to news of the Australian ban tells you how concerned it is about the potential loss of Russian metal production.
As the Australian Foreign Ministry helpfully pointed out in its statement, “aluminium is a global input across the auto, aerospace, packaging, machinery and construction sectors”.
Which is a real problem if the West is losing access to Rusal’s four million tonnes of annual production.
The aluminium supply chain was already creaking. Power-efficiency constraints have turned China, the world’s largest producer, into a net importer of unwrought aluminium to feed its massive downstream products sector.
Production at Europe’s power-hungry smelters has been falling due to high energy prices, a phenomenon that has only gotten worse since Russia launched on Feb. 24 what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine.
Visible aluminium stocks have been sliding steadily for over a year to plug the supply-chain gaps. Total LME inventory stands at 704,850 tonnes, the lowest level since 2007.
The global aluminium market is tight, the Western European market particularly so, both because of the recent smelter cuts and its dependence on Russian supply.
Europe accounted for 41% of Rusal’s sales last year and disruption to Russian shipments will only widen the region’s existing supply deficit.
Moreover, Rusal is a critical supplier of “green” – low-carbon – aluminium from its hydro-powered Siberian smelters.
While global aluminium trade flows may eventually adjust in the wake of the Ukraine crisis, automakers keen to use only the greenest metal in their next-generation electric vehicles may find a far more challenging supply landscape.
TIGHTENING THE SANCTIONS SCREW
The complexity of Rusal’s raw material supply web was exposed back in 2018 when U.S. sanctions set off a chain reaction that spanned Ireland, Guinea and Australia and ended with European car companies lobbying the European Commission to intercede with the United States.
Those U.S. sanctions were a bolt from the blue.
This time around the effect has so far been more incremental as supply, logistics and financing avenues dwindle due to self-sanctioning.
The Australian government’s move to add alumina to the sanctions list marks a significant escalation in this process.
Critical for Rusal and aluminium market alike is whether other countries follow suit.
The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.
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Yesterday, Epic launched the next season of Fortnite, and announced that for the following two weeks all the money it makes from in-game purchases in the popular battle royale will be donated to charities supporting humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. Now, just 24 hours later, and with 13 days remaining, Epic has revealed that it has already raised an eye-popping $36 million.
In a blog posted yesterday on Epic’s official news page, the company announced its plans to donate proceeds from all “real-money” purchases made in Fortnite between March 20 through April 3. According to Epic, this includes the purchasing of V-Buck packs and cosmetic packs sold for real money. Epic says proceeds from retail in-store purchases of V-Buck cards will also be included, but only for those redeemed in-game during the two-week window. Xbox is also donating all proceeds made in the Xbox version of Fortnite for the next two weeks too.
What’s wild is that Epic also explained that it will be donating the funds it earns as quickly as it can and won’t be waiting for the “actual funds to come in from our platform and payment partners” as this process can take a long time. Instead, Epic will send the funds to the charities only days after the “transactions are reported.”
According to Epic, all the money earned will be donated to a selection of organizations, which includes Direct Relief, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children’s Fund, and the World Food Program. Epic says it will add more charities in the weeks to come.
The latest season of Fornite Chapter 3 went live yesterday, bringing in some big changes and new characters to the free-to-play online shooter. One of the biggest tweaks was the removal of building, one of the game’s now-defining features, from some modes of online play. There are also some new parkour features and Dr. Strange from Marvel is hanging out here alongside Jonesy, that weird cat man, and God’s ultimate sin: Peely.
Rihanna — who is pregnant and expecting her first child with boyfriend A$AP Rocky — donned a huge diamond ring on that finger while shopping for baby clothes at Kitson in Los Angeles on Monday.
In addition to her sparkling accessory — a Sloan Solitaire ring from Briony Raymond — the Fenty Beauty mogul, 34, wore a fitted Grave Digger T-shirt that just fit over her growing baby bump.
Rihanna also rocked a pair of low-rise jeans, furry stilettos and a maroon-and-yellow trucker hat that notably read, “Sex is safer than smoking.”
The Fenty Beauty mogul wore the sparkler with a relatively casual outfit. BACKGRIDHere is a closer look at Rihanna’s Sloan Solitaire ring designed by Briony Raymond.
Rihanna, a noted fan of the “Real Housewives” franchise, also spoke about the Bravo moms she admires.
“Heather Dubrow is so chic while being a mom. Just love the way that she just allows her kids to be who they are. And that’s really inspiring to me,” Rihanna explained.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky announced that they were going to be parents in January. Getty Images
She continued, “But Teresa [Giudice] from ‘Jersey’ does not play about her kids. She will flatten you about those kids. And that resonates with me a lot.”
Though Rihanna and A$AP Rocky, 33, have yet to announce an engagement, the “Umbrella” singer told Kanye West in a 2010 feature for Interview magazine that she always dreamed of raising a family with a spouse by her side.
The singer recently joked to Elle that she is going to be a “psycho” mother once her bundle of joy arrives. Getty Images for Fenty Beauty by
“I definitely think a child deserves both parents. It would be selfish of me, because of my pride and independence to say, ‘Oh, I just want a sperm donor, because I can do it myself,’” the Barbados native said at the time.
“I can do it myself, but that’s not fair. I don’t know if I’ll be married or anything. But however the father is in the child’s life, he’s going to be in the child’s entire life.”
A$AP Rocky and Rihanna went public with their romance in November 2020. Getty Images for Gucci
Rihanna added that she’d be able to “handle” any situation that came her way, “but in a perfect book, there would be marriage and kids.”
Rihanna revealed her pregnancy in January with paparazzi pics of her and A$AP Rocky taking a stroll in Harlem. She and the “Praise the Lord” MC have been dating since early 2020. They went public with their romance in November of that same year.
The latest addition of 65 exoplanets to the NASA Exoplanet Archive contributed to the scientific milestone marked on Monday. This archive is the home to exoplanet discoveries from peer-reviewed scientific papers that have been confirmed using multiple methods of detecting the planets.
“It’s not just a number,” said Jessie Christiansen, science lead for the archive and a research scientist with the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in a statement. “Each one of them is a new world, a brand-new planet. I get excited about every one because we don’t know anything about them.”
We’re currently living in a golden age of exoplanet discovery. Although the existence of planets outside of our solar system had been previously proposed and certainly depicted in science fiction, these worlds were only first discovered in the 1990s.
The diversity of exoplanets represent populations of planets unlike anything found in our solar system. They include rocky worlds larger than Earth called super-Earths, mini-Neptunes bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune, and scorching hot Jupiters that dwarf our solar system’s largest planet and closely orbit their host stars.
Scientists have also found planets that orbit more than one star and even some around the remnants of dead stars called white dwarfs.
So far, of the confirmed exoplanets, 30% are gas giants, 31% are super-Earths, and 35% are Neptune-like. Just 4% are terrestrial, or rocky planets like Earth or Mars.
When Christiansen was a graduate student in the early 2000s, there were only about 100 known exoplanets.
“That’s partly why I wanted to go into the field — because it was brand new and so exciting that people were finding planets around other stars,” Christiansen said in a question and answer session shared by Caltech. “Now, exoplanets are almost ordinary. My colleague David Ciardi (chief scientist for the NASA Exoplanet Archive) pointed out the other day that half of the people alive have never lived in a world where we didn’t know about exoplanets.”
Kepler helped scientists discover about two-thirds of the 5,000 confirmed planets, Christiansen said.
In the new batch of 65 planets, many are super-Earth and sub-Neptune planets, along with some hot Jupiter-size planets. There are also two Earth-size planets, but they’re about 620 degrees Fahrenheit (327 degrees Celsius), so more like “hot rocks” than habitable planets, Christiansen said.
She also noted that one is a system with five planets orbiting a small, cool red dwarf star — not unlike the TRAPPIST-1 system, where a similar star hosts seven rocky planets.
Space observatories joining the hunt
New telescopes will only increase the potential for exoplanet discovery. The James Webb Space Telescope, launched in December, will be able to peer through the atmospheres of exoplanets.
The Webb telescope is poised to study the TRAPPIST system in detail.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will launch in 2027 and aid in the search for exoplanets with a variety of techniques. The European Space Agency’s ARIEL mission, launching in 2029, will study exoplanet atmospheres.
Although scientists have confirmed more than 5,000 exoplanets, there are likely hundreds of billions of them across the Milky Way galaxy.
“Of the 5,000 exoplanets known, 4,900 are located within a few thousand light-years of us, Christiansen said. “And think about the fact that we’re 30,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy; if you extrapolate from the little bubble around us, that means there are many more planets in our galaxy we haven’t found yet, as many as 100 to 200 billion. It’s mind-blowing.”
Next week, the late U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, will lie in state in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday — an honor accorded to fewer than 50 people in U.S. history. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)
Alaska politicians, election officials and congressional staffers scrambled Monday to adapt to one of the biggest shifts in the state’s political landscape in a half-century: the death of GOP U.S. Rep. Don Young.
Young, who was 88, was Alaska’s sole member of Congress for 49 years. And his unexpected death Friday raised a tangle of questions that will start to be answered this week.
Among them: How long will it take before Young is replaced? Who will ensure Alaska’s interests are represented in Congress in the mean time? And who will enter the races to fill the seat — both temporarily and for the next two-year term?
“Anyone worth their salt is doing scenario planning right now, figuring out who’s in and what that means,” said Chris Constant, a Democrat who launched his U.S. House campaign last month.
Don Young in his Washington, D.C. office, on June 25, 2015. (Marc Lester / ADN)
In interviews Monday, many Alaska politicians and political observers said they’re being cautious about discussing the race to replace Young too quickly, and they added that the focus in the coming days should be on the Congressman’s legacy.
But behind the scenes, phones were ringing off the hook. And Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration was rushing to sort out how it would pull off the herculean task of organizing three elections, using a new voting system, within the next five months: a special and regular primary, and a special general.
Representatives from campaigns, interest groups and political parties said they’re planning intense efforts to educate voters about the new elections system, which includes two elements untested in Alaska: a nonpartisan, top-four primary and a general election that uses a process called ranked-choice voting.
“I think there’s massive confusion out there about what is about to take place,” said Lindsay Kavanaugh, executive director of the Alaska Democratic Party. “And that is absolutely on our minds.”
State elections officials declined requests for interviews and details about their plans Monday.
But Gov. Mike Dunleavy and other officials outlined a preliminary schedule on a Sunday conference call with legislators, according to multiple participants.
Under the tentative plan, the special primary election will be June 11, and the special general election will take place Aug. 16 — the same date as the state’s regular primary election.
The winner of the special general election could be seated in Congress by early September, though the dates and timelines could change before Dunleavy’s official announcement, which is expected Tuesday.
Because of the short timeframe to organize and hold the special primary in June, the Division of Elections plans to conduct a by-mail election, which state law allows in special votes. Every registered Alaska voter would be mailed a ballot — a similar process to the one used by Anchorage for its local elections.
Residents could still vote in person at a select number of locations, and mail-in voters will be required to sign their ballots in the presence of a witness who must also sign it.
Republican legislators have echoed former President Donald Trump’s unproven claims about a lack of integrity in mail-in ballots. But one GOP legislative leader said she’s partially satisfied by the signature requirement and in-person voting locations.
“I think that will garner some comfort,” said House Minority Leader Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla. “But I think that there’s still going to be some consternation around doing a statewide mail-in ballot.”
She added: “I want to feel comfortable with it, but I can’t give you a 100% answer that I would.”
Bracing for a bevy of candidates
Christopher Constant, the vice chair of the Anchorage Assembly, is a Democrat running for U.S. House. (Bill Roth / ADN)
In interviews, Constant and Nick Begich III, a Republican who announced his candidacy months ago, both said they plan to enter the upcoming special election, rather than focusing solely on the previously scheduled August primary and November general.
“Things certainly are accelerating,” Begich said in a phone interview Monday. “But we were already running close to full speed as it was.”
The field of U.S. House candidates, which also includes independent Gregg Brelsford, seemed mostly set through last week, though the official filing deadline is not until June 1.
Nick Begich III is a Republican running for U.S. House. Begich’s grandfather, Nick Begich, once held the seat before disappearing on a small plane flight in 1972, and U.S. Rep. Don Young replaced him until his death last week. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
Now, political observers say to brace for a bevy of new hopefuls in both the special elections and the regular ones.
“It’s a 60-day sprint, and I think there’s going to be 20 candidates,” said Jim Lottsfeldt, a centrist political consultant and lobbyist.
Lottsfeldt said he’s already spoken with three or four people who will run for the seat held by Young, who began contacting him within “about 30 seconds” of the news of the Congressman’s death becoming public. Candidates likely won’t announce their plans for another few days out of respect for Young, he added.
“It’s a little bit like revving your motor at the intersection,” Lottsfeldt said. “Once someone announces, they’re all going to follow suit, because they’re not going to let that person have the news cycle all by themselves.”
Previously declared candidates have a head start in setting up campaign infrastructure, and Begich supporters note that, as an entrepreneur with millions of dollars in assets, he’ll likely have a fundraising advantage.
In the phone interview, Begich also cited endorsements that came in from GOP groups over the weekend, after Young’s death.
“The Republicans across the state are unifying around this campaign, recognizing the importance of moving quickly,” he said.
Asked about his plans, Gross said in a text message Monday that he would “be in touch.” A source who has spoken with Gross said he intends to enter the race, and Gross’ former U.S Senate campaign website went dark Monday.
Al Gross, pictured during his 2020 U.S. Senate campaign in Palmer, will run for U.S. House, a source who’s spoken to him said Monday. (Bill Roth / ADN)
Others said they’re considering their options or that it’s too soon after Young’s death to make an announcement.
Meda DeWitt, a Tlingit traditional healer who helped lead the defunct campaign to recall Dunleavy, said she received several calls Monday morning from people wondering if, or hoping, she would run for U.S. House. She described that interest as a reflection of some Alaskans’ desires to see Young replaced by a Native woman.
“It’s not off the table,” DeWitt said of her own candidacy. “It’s a long time coming, having representation that is equitable.”
Former Republican Gov. Sarah Palin, in an appearance on conservative network NewsMax, also did not rule out seeking to fill the seat, saying that “we’ll see how this process is going to go” and that replacing Young “would be an honor.”
Two two co-chairs of Young’s re-election campaign, who have both been suggested as potential candidates, said Monday that their focus is elsewhere.
“Any discussions formally about who succeeds Don Young is premature at this point, and opportunistic,” said Tara Sweeney, an Iñupiaq woman who’s worked at high-level positions at the Interior Department and Arctic Slope Regional Corp. She added: “I need time to process his loss, and I think his family needs time to process and grieve.”
The other co-chair, Anchorage Republican state Sen. Josh Revak, said he had a “broken-hearted weekend” and that he’s trying to prioritize Young’s wife and legacy.
“This is very new, and my focus is on his wishes and the wishes of his family, in terms of his legacy and in terms of honoring him,” said Revak, who once worked as an aide to Young. “We’ll think about other stuff later.”
The greatest bird
As focus in Alaska began turning over the weekend to the process of replacing Young, the former Congressman’s body was flown from Seattle to Washington, D.C., in an Alaska Airlines jet.
With Young’s widow, Anne Garland Walton, watching alongside former staffers, his flag-draped casket was unloaded and taken to a funeral home, Alaska’s News Source reported.
Next week, Young will lie in state in the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday — an honor accorded to fewer than 50 people in U.S. history.
Young’s Congressional staff, meanwhile, continues to report to work under the House Clerk as the “Office of Alaska At-Large.”
“Our phones remain on, and we continue to serve Alaskans with casework needs,” Zack Brown, Young’s former spokesman and a current Alaska at-large staff member, said in a statement Monday. “Although the office cannot take a position on legislation, we are available for Alaskans who want to share their views or who may have questions on bills before Congress. In the coming days, our office will share the full list of services available from our staff.”
In a press release Monday that passed along Pelosi’s announcement, Brown replaced the office’s former letterhead, which had an image of the northern lights. The new one is an image of a lone raven — a reference to Young’s belief that he would be reincarnated as, in his words, “the greatest bird that ever was created by God.”
“I’m going to come back as a raven,” he said in an interview last year, “and see how well we did.”
The company announced Monday it will replace Davidson with its chief architect of its suborbital rocket, Gary Lai.
Davidson, who has become a pillar of entertainment intrigue amid his relationship with Kim Kardashian and feud with Kanye West, had been slated to fly as an invited guest alongside five paying customers aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. But when Blue Origin announced last week that it had to delay that flight — from March 23 to March 29 — for additional ground tests on the rocket, the company also announced Davidson could no longer join the mission.
Lai, who has been with Blue origin for 18 years and holds several patents related to the New Shepard rocket’s design, will fly alongside five previously announced paying customers. They include Marty Allen, an investor and the former CEO of a party supply store; Jim Kitchen, an entrepreneur and business professor; George Nield, a former associate administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration Office of Commercial Space Transportation; Marc Hagle, an Orlando real estate developer and his wife, Sharon Hagle, who founded a space-focused nonprofit.
After years of quiet development, Blue Origin’s space tourism rocket made its crewed launch debut last year with Bezos, flying alongside a heroine of the space community, Wally Funk, as well as his brother Mark Bezos and a paying customer.
Since then, Blue Origin has been making headlines for flying other well-known names on two subsequent flights, including Star Trek star William Shatner and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan.
Blue Origin’s goal is to make these suborbital spaceflights a mainstay of pop culture, giving a 10-minute supersonic joyride to invited guests — which thus far have mostly been celebrities — and anyone else who can afford it.
The crew change-up with Lai and Davidson isn’t the first. Last year, the company held an auction for one ticket to fly alongside Bezos, and the as-yet-unnamed winner of that auction agreed to shell out a staggering $28 million for the seat. But then the winner opted out, choosing to fly on a later mission, and a runner-up in the auction, a Dutch investor, passed the ticket on to his 18-year-old son, Oliver Daemen.
Before this month’s flight, the Blue Origin passengers will spend a few days training at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas before the flight day, when they’ll climb into the New Shepard crew capsule that sits atop the rocket. After liftoff, the rocket will tear past the speed of sound, and near the top of its flight path, will detach from the capsule. As the rocket booster heads back toward the Earth for an upright landing, the crewed capsule will continue soaring higher into the atmosphere to more than 60 miles above the surface where the blackness of space is visible and the capsule’s windows will offer sweeping views of the Earth.
As the flight reaches its apex, the passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Bezos notably spent his time in weightlessness throwing Skittles and flipping around in the cabin. Others have been glued to the window.
As gravity begins to pull the capsule back toward the ground, the passengers will again experience intense G-forces before sets of parachutes are deployed to slow the vehicle down. It will then touch down at less than 20 miles per hour in the Texas desert.
Because the flights are suborbital — meaning the don’t generate enough speed or take the right trajectory to avoid being immediately dragged back down by Earth’s gravity — the whole trip will last only about 10 minutes.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Gary Lai’s name.
MEDYKA, Poland (AP) — Yulia Bondarieva spent 10 days in a basement as Russian planes flew over and bombs were falling on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Having reached safety in Poland, Bondarieva’s only wish now is for her twin sister in the besieged city of Mariupol to get out, too.
“They have been in the basement since Feb. 24, they have not been out at all,” Bondarieva said. “They are running out of food and water.”
Bondarieva managed to speak to her sister on the phone recently. The fear of what will happen to her in the encircled and bombed-out city that is going through some of the worst fighting in the war has been overwhelming.
“She does not know how to leave the city,” the 24-year-old said after arriving in the Polish border town of Medyka.
Mariupol authorities have said only about 10% of the city’s population of 430,000 has managed to flee over the past week. The Mariupol City Council has asserted that several thousand residents were taken into Russia against their will.
Bondarieva said her sister told her of “Russian soldiers walking around the city” in Mariupol, and people not being allowed out.
“Civilians cannot leave,” she said. “They don’t give them anything.”
Maria Fiodorova, a 77-year-old refugee from Mariupol who arrived Monday in Medyka, said 90% of the city has been destroyed. “There are no buildings there (in Mairupol) any more,” she said.
For Maryna Galla, just listening to birds singing as she arrived in Poland was blissful after the sound of shelling and death in Mariupol. Galla took a stroll in the park in Przemysl with her 13-year-old son Danil. She hopes to reach Germany next.
“It’s finally getting better,” Galla said.
The United Nations says nearly 3.5 million people have left Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, the largest exodus of refugees in Europe since World War II.
Valentina Ketchena arrived by train at Przemsyl on Monday. She never thought that at the age of 70 she would be forced to leave her home in Kriviy Rig, and see the town in southern Ukraine almost deserted as people flee the Russian invasion for safety.
Kriviy Rig is now “half empty,” said Ketchena. She will stay now with friends in Poland, hoping to return home soon. “It (is a) very difficult time for everyone.”
Zoryana Maksimovich is from the western city of Lviv, near the Polish border. Though the city has seen less destruction than others, Maksimovich said her children are frightened and cried every night when they had to go to the basement for protection.
”I told my children that we are going to visit friends,” the 40-year-old said. “They don’t understand clearly what is going on but in a few days they are going to ask me about where their father is.”
Like most refugees, Maksimovich had to flee without her husband — men aged 18 to 60 are forbidden from leaving the country and have stayed to fight. “I don’t know how I will explain,” she said.
Once in Poland, refugees can apply for a local ID number that enables them to work and access health, social and other services. Irina Cherkas, 31, from the Poltava region, said she was afraid her children could be targeted in Russian attacks.
“For our children’s safety we decided to leave Ukraine,” she said. “When the war ends we will go back home immediately.”
Poland has taken in most of the Ukrainian refugees, more than 2 million so far. On Sunday evening, Ukrainian artists joined their Polish hosts in a charity event that raised more than $380,000.
The star of the evening was a 7-year-old Ukrainian girl, whose video singing a song from the movie “Frozen” in a Kyiv bomb shelter has gone viral and drawn international sympathy.
Wearing a white, embroidered folk dress, Amellia Anisovych, who escaped to Poland with her grandmother and brother, sang the Ukrainian anthem in a clear, sweet voice as thousands of people in the audience waved their cellphone lights in response.
Keyton reported from Przemsyl, Poland.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
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