Latest news with #Plague
NDTV
20-05-2025
- NDTV
In Portugal: Why Travelling To A Chapel Made Of Human Bones Made Perfect Sense For A Birthday Trip
Portugal: Visiting a chapel made of human bones is not your usual birthday trip. No one wants to be reminded of mortality on the day they celebrate being born, but well, death is the only truth, like it or not. So, as I looked for day trips from Lisbon on my birthday last year, a little town glowed on the app. "The Town With The Human-Bone Chapel". Capela dos Ossos. And just like that, all other day trips were thrown out of the window, and I settled for Evora, a little reminder of life and death in central Portugal. The entry to the Chapel of Bones is chilling. The message on the entrance arch, even more. "We the bones that are here, for yours we wait." Neat. Grim. And just so true. The message of "dust to dust" echoes in every bone that holds up the Chapel of Bones. The chapel was built in the first half of the 17th century and is the oldest Chapel of Bones in Portugal. It was dedicated to the cult of the Souls of Purgatory (the cult of the dead or the cult of the abandoned, developed in Italy's Naples when the Plague killed more than half of the city's population). The bones of the burials connected to its convent were used to build the chapel. The skulls and bones of over 5,000 monks were turned into its walls. Capela dos Ossos lies within the Church of San Francisco at the southern edge of the town. For most day trips from Lisbon, this isn't the first stop. It is revealed to you after a fashion. The walk through Evora starts at its entrance, through its gardens and museum. First comes the Church of St Francis. It's only once you have ooh-ed and aah-ed at the interiors of this catholic place of worship that you are taken to the next stop: Capela dos Ossos. The Chapel of Bones, built by Franciscan friars, was inaugurated in 1816. Sunlight filters in through three windows in the bone-walls into a chamber that is otherwise quite dark. If you look up, you see a ceiling made of bricks painted white, with death motifs all over it. Yet another morbid message is scribbled on the roof: "Melior est dies mortis die nativitatis (Better is the day of death than the day of birth)". Is it? Maybe. Capela dos Ossos forces you into reflection. The chapel is a place of sober contemplation on the human facts of life and death, and that no one really escapes the latter, no matter who you are. So, "we the bones that are here, for yours we wait". Outside of Capela dos Ossos, the town diffuses into a tangle of white and yellow alleyways and lanes where you can pick up everything from an ice cream cone to fake Birkenstocks. Cork-soled sandals are everywhere. The city is among the world's largest exporters of cork. And pork. The best ham and pork products in Portugal come from this little town. The pigs, that feed on cork-oak acorns, later go on to serve as gastronomical delights around tables in Portugal. Evora is also home to some brilliant, unfussy food and wine. Robust reds and light whites that go very well with Portuguese food. At lunchtime, the entire city slows down to a stop. There's no one on the streets. The souvenir shops are shuttered shut. The bars and taverns have their shades drawn. The city holds you by the shoulders and sits you down for a leisurely lunch. Who was I to stray from the ways of Evora. So, a little Google search took me to Bistro Barao, a Tripadvisor-recommended legend, a door in a narrow lane that you can pass by without a second look. Bistro Barao seats 14 people at once. The room that the entrance leads to is a low-ceilinged, literal hole in the wall. It leads to another of the same, with three more tables inside. The restaurant is run by Manuel and Margarite. Margarite ruffles up the delicacies that her husband Manuel then takes to his guests. A team like no other. I chose a table by a wall that had scribbles from guests world over who Manuel, the one-man serving army at Bistro Barao, has served. He spoke very little English. I spoke zero Portuguese. But Google Translate bowed to Manuel's instincts as he brought me some of the best fish curry I have ever had... outside of Bengal, that is. He also picked a white to go with the fish. It was divine. An equally divine high accompanied me as I traipsed out of the restaurant, feeling full and fulfilled, out in a town where time seemed to have lost all meaning. Life is laidback in Evora. All of Evora's alleys eventually lead to Praça do Giraldo, the town square. A fountain lies at the centre of the square. The Henriquina Fountain's eight jets symbolise the eight streets that radiate from Praca do Giraldo. The municipality buildings and Evora's major banks are all around this square. There are many little keepsake stores around, in case you wanted to pick a bit of Evora to take home. From the city's well-preserved old town centre, you can still see the medieval walls that partially surround it. There are many monuments scattered all over town that date back to various historical periods, starting 2,000 years ago. Romans took over the town in 57 BC and turned it into a walled city. Then came the Moors, under Tariq ibn-Ziyad. After 400 years of Islamic rule, Gerald the Fearless snatched Evora from the Moors in 1165 AD, and Portuguese king Alfonso I got the town under his rule the following year. The Roman Temple from around the 1st century BC is still around. It began being called the Temple of Diana long after; as recently as the 17th century. All around Evora lie the dust of civilisations past. The stories of its many conquerors. The many men and women who built and are buried in Evora. The monks whose bones were dug up. The skulls that still wait for the ones who haven't yet made it there. Inside that bone-chilling bone chapel.
Yahoo
17-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mysterious package received at North Canaan facility tests negative for Plague, Anthrax
NORTH CANAAN, Conn. (WTNH) — The town of North Canaan has released an update about the hazmat incident that occurred Thursday at Becton-Dickinson. Over 300 people 'decontaminated' due to suspicious package incident in North Canaan Over 300 people had to be decontaminated after a mysterious package arrived at the facility. The Connecticut Department of Public Health confirmed that the mysterious package received negative test results for Anthrax, Burkholderia Species, Plague, Tularemia and Smallpox. Additionally, a negative Ricin test was confirmed. Officials continue to ensure that there is no risk to the public and no symptoms or illnesses reported by employees who had to be decontaminated. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Telegraph
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The future of romantasy plots? Fewer hunks, more nerds
If you have a teenage daughter, today is likely to be a very important day: the publication of the final book in Lauren Roberts's mega-selling Young Adult trilogy, Powerless – the best-selling YA title of 2024. Bookshops are opening early in expectation of queues, over 100 Waterstones stores are running events with activities like origami rose-making, book trivia, crown-making and plot predictions. The participating stores will be decorated with in-world décor, featuring themed drinks, branded stickers and exclusive event tote bags. Roberts has sold out huge venues in Liverpool, Birmingham and London and one can only assume her hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers will get plenty of content to enjoy. Roberts – who, at just 23 years old, has sold four million books in over 29 languages – is a key player in the romantasy reading phenomenon, a portmanteau of romance and fantasy that blew up on BookTok (the book themed area of TikTok) two years ago and has now become so popular among young women in particular that it boosted the fantasy/sci-fi genre by 41 per cent in the last year alone. The genre has been embroiled in a growing moral panic of late, with critics finding its erotic content inappropriate for the YA (12-18 year old) readership – a recent Substack on the topic was titled 'If BookTok was a community of men we would be calling the police', lamenting that girls were deciding whether to pick up a book or not depending on its 'spiciness' rating. Roberts, however, is an outlier, with her trilogy being remarkably chaste for the genre. The Powerless trilogy takes place in the kingdom of Ilya where Elites, who have inherited special powers from the Plague, live a privileged life whilst Ordinaries (those without gifts) are banished. Our heroine, Paedyn Gray, an Ordinary who fakes a power, is thrown into the brutal Purging Trials alongside Kai, a highly gifted, smoking hot Prince. The pair's relationship is at once sincere, relatable and cringe – and they don't even kiss until book two. This might have something to do with the fact that Roberts, who became an instant New York Times best-seller aged 20, was raised in a typical Christian household in the US Midwest. She joined TikTok and the BookTok community in her mid-teens, initially to talk about her love of fantasy novels. But then she started reading extracts of her work, and her followers begged her to write a book. She began writing a first draft of Powerless aged 17. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Lauren Roberts (@laurenrobertslibrary) Whilst studying physical therapy at college and doing work experience, she dashed between ultrasound practice and her desk, where she scribbled down a character idea or plot hole. In her second year of university she persuaded her mother – 'a very practical, analytical maths teacher' – to let her come home for a term and complete the work. Together they worked out a budget with her limited student funds, until Roberts was able to hire a freelance editor, who spent four months working on the manuscript. Then Roberts Googled: 'How to publish your own book?' It all paid off. By the time Roberts published Powerless she had an audience primed to buy it in the kinds of numbers that glowing New York Times reviews or publishing house marketing departments can't promise. The day the book was self-published, she sold over 4,000 copies. For context, that would have placed her in the top three of the UK's bestseller list this week. Three months later, an email arrived from Simon & Schuster requesting a meeting, and Roberts became part of their roster. But why, when successful self-published authors generally receive about 60 per cent royalties for print sales versus around 10 per cent in traditional publishing? Simply put, to take the pressure off. 'Now there's so many people behind the scenes, working and pulling everything together. It's just a really well-oiled machine,' says Roberts, who can focus instead on writing – for Fearless she wrote for 12 hours a day for four months. At the moment she is in the process of completing the second of two novellas also purchased by Simon & Schuster, and working with a screenwriter to bring Powerless to the small screen. The feedback loop with her readers is one of the most fascinating parts of Roberts's story. She's able to see how her fans respond to certain characters and plot devices in almost real-time, and even take on plot requests – apparently the 'nightmare' trope (where a character appears to be living through their worst fear, only to wake up screaming) was in high demand whilst writing. Much of the YA and romantasy style of writing is built on tropes, which perhaps explains some of the snobbery towards the genre. But whilst some readers might think 'here we go again…' when enemies become lovers (or at another dagger to the throat), fans can't get enough of them. So long as the story she wants to write isn't altered, Roberts is relaxed about including a handful of requests. 'I know these people support me and love these stories and want to see more of that, so I'm happy to provide it.' But as a result of these tropes, plagiarism accusations crop up repeatedly. Roberts has come under fire for some themes of her books closely resembling two in particular: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, which includes special powers, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which has brutal state-organised tests. 'I don't feel the need to address it because it's not the truth. I've always credited Powerless as a mixture of Red Queen and The Hunger Games,' Roberts says. 'Those tropes and those common themes are what help the authors get their foot in the door and market their books. But I do really think that the author is the variable that changes everything. It's their story and their characters that make it different.' After all, she explains, Ancient Rome's gladiatorial games showed violence as entertainment was in demand millennia ago. Plagues and persecuted peoples are textbook Old Testament. People imbued with special powers are straight out of The Fantastic Four. Roberts's books may be more PG than the majority of romantasy, but why, I ask her, does the genre seem to hit the perfect erotic note for women? 'I think women need some sort of an emotional connection. It's the banter, the yearning and longing that draws women in.' I think she's right. There's something almost Austenian in the meaningful glances, written notes and courtly behaviour between her lovers – certainly it must be more chivalrous than anything today's teenage girls have come to expect. Romantasy also gets accused of perpetuating alpha male stereotypes. But Roberts thinks the genre is swinging away from this particular escapist fantasy 'towards a more attainable romance, or like a more everyday romance [with]... the nerdy, sweet, golden retriever boy'. Her own healthy relationship with her fiancé couldn't be further from the will-they-won't-they, enemies-to-lovers journey of her protagonists. To the snobs who look down on romantasy, Roberts believes they're missing out. 'There's still this weird hierarchy in the reading world of some people looking down on others for reading a certain genre… but [romantasy] blends so perfectly the intensity and plot of a fantasy with the longing and like tension of romance. And that's what we're looking for, because we don't experience that in everyday life.' It might be worth giving those four million readers the benefit of the doubt.
