Dubai to find out if pandemic-delayed Expo 2020 will pay off

By JON GAMBRELL
Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai’s Expo 2020 opens this week, after being delayed for a year over the coronavirus pandemic. It will put this city-state all-in on its bet of billions of dollars that the world’s fair will boost its economy. The sheikhdom built what feels like an entire city out of what once were rolling sand dunes on its southern edges to support the fair. It’s an outpost that largely will be disassembled after the six-month event ends in March. But questions about the Expo’s drawing power in the modern era began even before the pandemic. It’s also become a lightning rod for international critics.