CARNIVAL

A Texas woman is now banned from stepping onboard any Carnival cruise ship for life all because she tried to bring CBD gummies on board to help her sleep.

Four cruise passengers hailing from Tennessee and Georgia didn’t have much to celebrate after the Carnival Celebration returned to PortMiami Sunday; police say they all spent big on the seven-day trip using fraudulent credit cards.

A cruise operator that failed to cancel a voyage from Sydney that led to a COVID-19 outbreak has been ruled negligent in an Australian class-action case.

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed Thursday that it has suspended the search for a missing Carnival cruise ship passenger in the waters off Miami.

The U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday that it’s searching for a man who fell from a cruise ship off the coast of Florida.

As Carnival approaches in Rio de Janeiro, members of samba schools perfect their minutely-timed dances and rhythms.

Wall Street closed out a miserable September with a loss of 9.3%, the worst monthly decline since March 2020.

Rio de Janeiro’s samba schools have begun putting on this year's delayed Carnival parades, the first after a two-year hiatus caused by the COVID-19-pandemic.

Party-minded people dressed in traditional purple, green and gold filled New Orleans' streets for the city's first full-dress Mardi Gras since the coronavirus pandemic began.

The pandemic has disrupted Carnival in Rio de Janeiro for a second straight year.

Artists, florists, actors, technicians and drivers are putting the final touches on their costumes, lavish flower arrangements and giant floats for the Carnival in the French Riviera city of Nice.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell helped usher in the city's Carnival season by sampling a city delicacy — king cake — at a morning event.

Mayors across Brazil are divided on whether to maintain end-of-year festivities and February’s legendary Carnival in spite of the ongoing pandemic.

Carnival said Wednesday that it expects nine ships spread across six of its cruising lines to be sailing by this summer, including in Italy, Greece and the United Kingdom.

A reveller stands in front of a political carnival float depicting Russia's President Vladimir Putin fighting with opposition leader Alexei Navalny in the streets of Duesseldorf, Germany, Monday, Feb. 15, 2021. Because of the coronavirus pandemic the traditional 'Rosenmontag' carnival parade are canceled but eight floats are pulled through the empty streets in Duesseldorf, where normally hundreds of thousands of people would celebrate the street carnival. But organizers in Duesseldorf, one of the German Rhineland's main Carnival strongholds, didn't want to let Rose Monday in 2021 go completely without the traditional caricatures of current events. “It's a small signal that we're alive,” float builder Jacques Tilly told the German news agency dpa. Another depicted the brain flying out of the head of an activist against coronavirus restrictions.

A woman dressed as a superhero and wearing a mask to curb the spread of the new coronavirus performs in the "Desliga da Justica" street band in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Feb. 14, 2021. Their performance was broadcast live on social media for those who were unable to participate in the carnival due to COVID restrictions after the city's government officially suspended Carnival and banned street parades or clandestine parties. “When everyone is immunized, we are going to have the biggest Carnival that Brazil has ever seen. One of the biggest street party associations, Blocos da Sebastiana, this year organized workshops on Carnival makeup and instruments and offered playlists of their music. “We would like to be partying on the street but we can’t.” said Rita Fernandes, president of Blocos da Sebastian.

A carnival reveler is watched by public order guards at the "Alter Markt" where normally tens of thousands of revelers dressed in carnival costumes would celebrate the start of the street carnival in Cologne, Germany, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021. This year all carnival celebrations are banned due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)BERLIN – Germany’s renowned Carnival celebrations got underway Thursday but without any of their usual raucous revelry. One of Germany’s first superspreader events stemmed from a Carnival celebration in a town west of Cologne last February where many people came in contact with an infected man. Cologne festival committee President Christoph Kuckelkorn told Germany’s dpa news agency that Carnival could emerge from this year purified, returning closer to its roots from the increasingly commercial, excessive celebration it had become.

In a normal year, Rios Sambadrome would be preparing for its great moment of the year: the worlds most famous Carnival parade. But a week before what should be the start of Carnival, the pandemic has replaced pageantry. (AP Photo/Bruna Prado)RIO DE JANEIRO – In a normal year, Rio de Janeiro’s Sambadrome would be preparing for its great moment of the year: the world’s most famous Carnival parade. Rio’s hotel occupancy rate normally reaches about 80% in the hot summer months and 100% during Carnival. It's now at roughly 50-60%, according to Alfredo Lopes, the president of Rio’s Hospitality Workers Union.

Carnival is projecting a cruising comeback in 2022 based on advance bookings. Carnival Corp. says its 2022 cruise bookings are running ahead of 2019 numbers, a sign that guests will return once the pandemic has eased. Carnival halted sailings in March 2020 after numerous ships reported coronavirus outbreaks on board. The company expects to resume a limited amount of cruising in Europe later this month. The company says it also expects to report a loss its 2021 fiscal year, which ends in November.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, file photo, Mondo Kayo parades down Chartres Street during Mardi Gras, in New Orleans. The Mardi Gras season always starts on Jan. 6 and ends on Fat Tuesday, which this year falls on Feb. 16. The Krewe de Jeanne d’Arc is a club that annually pays homage to the fallen French hero with a parade through the French Quarter on the official start of the Carnival season. In Mobile, Alabama, dozens of parades, balls and other events also have been canceled. The city on the Gulf of Mexico calls itself the birthplace of Mardi Gras since celebrations began there a few years earlier than in New Orleans.

The benchmark S&P 500 index finished with a gain of 16.3% for the year, or a total return of about 18.4%, including dividends. And the S&P 500 rose or fell by at least 1% on twice as many days in 2020 than it did, on average, since 1950. The electric car maker jumped 743.4% in 2020 for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. All told, the S&P 500 set 33 record highs in 2020. The S&P 500 rose 24.03 points, or 0.6%, to 3,756.07, an all-time high.

Judge Patricia A. Seitz said the cruise line giant has had continuous compliance issues. The company with nine brands and more than 100 cruise ships has also been accused of failing to establish an effective internal investigations operation. When she issues the order, Carnival will have to notify her 60 days before resuming operations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s No Sail Order for cruise ships is in effect through Oct. 31. Carnival announced on Oct. 12 that cruises scheduled for December from Port Miami and Port Canaveral remain in place “while Carnival evaluates options.”

A "quadra" or court, which this time of year is usually filled with Carnival performers practicing their dance moves, sits empty in the Unidos de Padre Miguel samba school, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 21, 2020. Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, Sept. 24, said it has delayed its annual Carnival parade, saying the global spectacle cannot go ahead in February because of Brazils continued vulnerability to the new coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Silvia Izquierdo)

The samba schools are community institutions, and the parades are just one detail of all that,” Luiz Antonio Simas, a historian who specializes in Rio’s Carnival, said in an interview. As the number of infections grew, the samba schools that participate in the glitzy annual parade halted preparations for the 2021 event. Nearly all of Rio’s samba schools are closely linked to working class communities. “Carnival is our life.”The last year Rio’s Carnival was suspended was 1912, following the death of the foreign relations minister. A statement from the agency Thursday provided no further clarity on the fate of the Carnival street parties.

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Haitian police officers exchanged gunfire for hours Sunday with soldiers of the newly reconstituted army outside the national palace, in a dangerous escalation of protests over police pay and working conditions. At least three police officers were wounded, fellow officers told The Associated Press. As the afternoon wore on, uniformed officers joined their colleagues in the street outside the palace, firing at the military base with semi-automatic pistols and rifles. Uniformed police officers told an AP journalist that the wounded men were fellow officers. The uniformed officers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.

The Carnival Dream departed Galveston, Texas, Thursday on a four-day cruise when a guest went overboard. GALVESTON, Texas - The Coast Guard is searching for a 26-year-old man who was reported overboard from a Carnival cruise ship Thursday evening. The Carnival Dream departed Galveston, Texas, Thursday on a four-day cruise when the guest went overboard, Carnival said in a statement to CNN. A 22-year-old man with autism was on a cruise to Mexico with a nonprofit organization that works with disabled adults when he climbed over a deck rail and went missing, according to the cruise line. Days earlier, a 26-year-old man went overboard from a ship 35 miles south of the Florida Keys, sparking search and rescue efforts.

Associated PressMOBILE, Ala. - A Carnival cruise ship failed its health inspection after posting the worst score in the ship's 29 year history. The Carnival Fantasy scored a 77 out of 100 during its inspection on July 18. A score below 85 is considered unsatisfactory. Among a number of issues, AL.com reports health inspectors found flies in the food, brown water coming out of shower hoses and improper sneeze guards. In a statement to Cruiseradio.net, the Miami-based company said The results for Fantasy are not reflective of our robust standards and dedicated commitment to our guests health and safety.