“The cruise ship season is projecting 179 cruise ship calls in 2025,” Minister of Transport Wayne Furbert said in the House of Assembly today [Dec 6]. The Minister said, “In 2025, Mr. Speaker, we are projecting 518,510 passengers @95% occupancy, accounting for weather cancellations, similar to 2024. Also, in 2025, there is a reduction in winter calls. There is one [1] call in January, one call [1] in February and eight [8] calls in March. “You might notice a reduction of eleven [11] calls overall from the 2024 season and there is a reason. Progress is the prime reason, and I know the Minister of Public Works will join with me in our exhilaration that the Kings Wharf pier is finally going to get its much-needed extension by 200 feet and become equal in size and stature to that of the Heritage Wharf pier in Dockyard. “The Kings Wharf pier will be under construction from the 2nd of October 2025 to March 31st 2026. In addition, this winter 2025 some pre-construction work will start.” Mr. Speaker, growth requires pause, and progress sometimes means rebuilding. While 2025 may see slightly fewer ships sailing to our shores, it’s all part of preparing for a spectacular 2026—a future larger, stronger, and more vibrant than ever. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to share with my Honourable colleagues a preview of the cruise season for 2025 and provide a snapshot of the projections for the remainder of the year. Mr. Speaker, you will be aware that the Ministry of Transport released a joint press release with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Limited last week and just recently the 2025 Cruise Ship Schedule. I would like to share a little more detail at this time. Mr. Speaker, the cruise ship season is projecting 179 cruise ship calls in 2025, a few more than the 2024 season will end with year at approximately one hundred and seventy-two 172 calls, after eighteen [18] cancelled calls, thus far. In 2024, these cancelled calls are attributed to both weather events and preplanned itinerary changes. Thirteen [13] weather, and five [5] itinerary changes. There are still five [5] more cruise ship calls before the end of this season before the final numbers will be tallied. In 2025, Mr. Speaker, we are projecting 518,510 passengers @95% occupancy, accounting for weather cancellations, similar to 2024. Also, in 2025, there is a reduction in winter calls. There is one [1] call in January, one call [1] in February and eight [8] calls in March. Mr. Speaker, you might notice a reduction of eleven [11] calls overall from the 2024 season and there is a reason. Progress- Progress is the prime reason, and I know the Minister of Public Works will join with me in our exhilaration that the Kings Wharf pier is finally going to get its much-needed extension by 200 feet and become equal in size and stature to that of the Heritage Wharf pier in Dockyard. The extension is between the terminal building and the current dolphins. 100 feet each side of the terminal building. This news may not mean much to many, but to those who know, it is a significant milestone. This project will significantly help Bermuda attract certain ships, and the Bermuda Land Management Corporation [formerly WEDCO] will be postured to better service ships at Kings Wharf. Most importantly, this enhancement will help the Department of Marine & Ports and Ships Agent manage the cruise ship schedule more efficiently as both piers will be equal in size and the upgrades will allow guests during the disembarkation and embarkation process to have a better passenger experience because more hatches will be deployed, allowing more gangways to be used. Mr. Speaker, this construction project would not be possible without the Ministry of Transports collaborative efforts with the Bermuda Land Management Corporation, the Ministry of Public works and the sincere support, and partnership of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Limited, a dedicated partner to Bermuda for decades. Mr. Speaker, the Kings Wharf pier will be under construction from the 2nd of October 2025 to March 31st 2026. In addition, this winter 2025 some pre-construction work will start. Mr. Speaker, the good news does not finish here. Norwegian Cruise Lines has committed to deploying some of its newest ships to Bermuda and a third ship starting regularly from 2026, thereby calling 7- days a week in peak season. Mr. Speaker, in 2026 passenger projections will increase again. Deployment bookings today for 2026 include 199 cruise ship calls, estimating 575,000 passengers. It is in 2026 that our [2] new Marine and Ports 550 passenger ferries will also be in service. Mr. Speaker, these numbers remain fluid, but we are preparing for a future larger, stronger, and more vibrant than ever. Mr. Speaker, the 2025 Cruise Ship Schedule is on-line at Mr. Speaker, thank you. : , ,
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As part of a national “moonshot” to cure blindness, researchers at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus will receive as much as $46 million in federal funding over the next five years to pursue a first-of-its-kind full eye transplantation. “This is no easy undertaking, but I believe we can achieve this together,” said Dr. Kia Washington, the lead researcher for the University of Colorado-led team, during a press conference Monday. “And in fact I’ve never been more hopeful that a cure for blindness is within reach.” The CU team was one of four in the United States that received funding awards from the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health , or ARPA-H. The CU-based group will focus on achieving the first-ever vision-restoring eye transplant by using “novel stem cell and bioelectronic technologies,” according to a news release announcing the funding. The work will be interdisciplinary, Washington and others said, and will link together researchers at institutions across the country. The four teams that received the funding will work alongside each other on distinct approaches, though officials said the teams would likely collaborate and eventually may merge depending on which research avenues show the most promise toward achieving the ultimate goal of transplanting an eye and curing blindness. Dr. Calvin Roberts, who will oversee the broader project for ARPA-H, said the agency wanted to take multiple “shots on goal” to ensure progress. “In the broader picture, achieving this would be probably the most monumental task in medicine within the last several decades,” said Dr. Daniel Pelaez of the University of Miami’s Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, which also received ARPA-H funding. Pelaez is the lead investigator for that team, which has pursued new procedures to successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors, amid other research. He told The Denver Post that only four organ systems have not been successfully transplanted: the inner ear, the brain, the spinal cord and the eye. All four are part of the central nervous system, which does not repair itself when damaged. If researchers can successfully transplant the human eye and restore vision to the patient, it might help unlock deeper discoveries about repairing damage to the brain and spine, Pelaez said, as well as addressing hearing loss. To succeed, researchers must successfully remove and preserve eyes from donors and then successfully connect and repair the optical nerve, which takes information from the eye and tells the brain what the eye sees. A team at New York University performed a full eye transplant on a human patient in November 2023, though the procedure — while a “remarkable achievement,” Pelaez said — did not restore the patient’s vision. It was also part of a partial face transplant; other approaches pursued via the ARPA-H funding will involve eye-specific transplants. Washington, the lead CU researcher, said she and her colleagues have already completed the eye transplant procedure — albeit without vision restoration — in rats. The CU team will next work on large animals to advance “optic nerve regenerative strategies,” the school said, as well as to study immunosuppression, which is critical to ensuring that patients’ immune systems don’t reject a donated organ. The goal is to eventually advance to human trials. Pelaez and his colleagues have completed their eye-removal procedure in cadavers, he said, and they’ve also studied regeneration in several animals that are capable of regenerating parts of their eyes, like salamanders or zebra fish. His team’s funding will focus in part on a life-support machine for the eye to keep it healthy and viable during the removal process. InGel Therapeutics, a Massachusetts-based Harvard spinoff and the lead of a third team, will pursue research on 3-D printed technology and “micro-tunneled scaffolds” that carry certain types of stem cells as part of a focus on optical nerve regeneration and repair, ARPA-H said. ARPH-A, created two years ago, will oversee the teams’ work. Researchers at 52 institutions nationwide will also contribute to the teams. The CU-led group will include researchers from the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Indiana University and Johns Hopkins University, as well as from the National Eye Institute . The teams will simultaneously compete and collaborate: Pelaez said his team has communicated with researchers at CU and at Stanford, another award recipient, about their eye-removal research. The total funding available for the teams is $125 million, ARPA-H officials said Monday, and it will be distributed in phases, in part dependent on teams’ success. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat who represents Denver in Congress, acknowledged the recent election results at the press conference Monday and pledged to continue fighting to preserve ARPA-H’s funding under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration. The effort to cure blindness, Washington joked, was “biblical” in its enormity — a reference to the Bible story in which Jesus cures a blind man. She and others also likened it to a moonshot, meaning the effort to successfully put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon nearly 50 years ago. If curing blindness is similar to landing on the moon, then the space shuttle has already left the launchpad, Washington said. “We have launched,” she said, “and we are on our trajectory.”
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