- Saudi crown prince says no Israel ties without Palestinian state
- Canada to further cut international student, foreign worker permits
- YouTube launches new TV-focused tools for creators
- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ |
500 New York couples attend mass celebration after pandemic-hit weddings
About 500 couples celebrated their unions under a blue sky Sunday in a New York event aimed at healing the wounds of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Garlands on their heads, the couples, many of them already married, walked in procession before a symbolic ceremony by an imam, a rabbi and a pastor.
Some could hardly hold back their tears.
"We were supposed to get engaged on March 24, 2020 in Hawaii, but obviously the pandemic canceled everything," Erica Hackman told AFP, hanging on her husband Richard's arm in the festive atmosphere at Damrosch Park.
The couple, who are expecting a child, got married the following year on a rooftop with just immediate family members in attendance.
"Everybody wore masks," recalled 35-year-old Erica.
"It was a very small wedding... so now this feels like a really big deal to come and celebrate with other people who went through the same thing," said Richard, 37.
-- 'Just celebrating love' --
Hit hard by the pandemic, New York came to a standstill in 2020, with images of a deserted Times Square and makeshift morgues becoming emblems of the crisis.
Hosted by the Lincoln Center -- the famed arts complex on Manhattan's Upper West Side -- the event was billed as a celebration for couples whose weddings had been disrupted.
But everyone was welcome.
Some, like Esther Friesner Stutzman and her husband Walter Stutzman, had been married for decades.
"He promised me a trip to Paris," she said, smiling.
Wonderful Lloyd-Kline, who married her spouse Anisa in 2008 in Toronto, Canada was happy "to have a day that's just celebrating love.
"We're a same-sex couple, it's very important for us to come out and celebrate and show ourselves out here public as much as we can," the 56-year-old said, before referring to the US Supreme Court, which some fear will undermine marriage equality after its recent decision to roll back abortion rights.
Anne-Marie Colon, 59, strolled among the couples with a photo of her fiance Louis Steven, a professor from the Bronx neighborhood who died of Covid in April 2020.
"The week that he passed away, we were supposed to be in Aruba getting married. And so I thought coming today would be a nice celebration for the life that he and I had together for 11 years," she said.
L.Dubois--BTB