NASA’s Near-Earth observatory (NEO) is monitoring an asteroid bigger than New York’s Empire State building that is expected to pass by the Earth Saturday.According to the NEO, the asteroid known as 2002 NN4 at its broadest section, has a diameter of 570 meters. The Empire State building is just more than 426 meters tall. But scientists at the NEO say there is nothing to fear from the asteroid, as “near earth” is a relative term. They measure the distance to deep space objects in astronomical units, with one astronomical unit close to the mean distance between the sun and Earth – approximately 150 million kilometers. Anything that comes within 1.3 astronomical units of the sun, is considered a near-Earth objectAt its closest distance, Asteroid 2002 NN4 is expected to pass about .034 astronomical units – or about 5.09 million kilometers from Earth, about 13 times the distance between the Earth and the moon. NASA established the Near-Earth Object Observations Program in 1998 to monitor such objects. They say relatively small number of near-Earth objects pass close enough to Earth and are large enough in size to warrant close observation. They say the gravitational tug of the planets could, over time, cause an object’s orbital path to evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit, creating the possibility of a future collision.NASA says it has contingency plans for such an event. But in a recent discussion posted on the space agency’s website. NASA Director of Planetary Science, Dr. Lori Glaze, said the possibility does not keep her up at night.
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Month: June 2020
Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, has shared her sadness about racial divisions in the United States, telling students at her former high school that she felt moved to speak out because the life of George Floyd mattered.
Meghan told graduates at Immaculate Heart High School in Los Angeles that she wrestled with the question of what to tell them given the days of protests after the May 25 death of Floyd, a handcuffed black man who pleaded for air as a white police officer pressed a knee on his neck in Minneapolis.
She said her nervousness arose because her words would be “picked apart,” but she decided to speak anyway.
“I realized the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing, because George Floyd’s life mattered,” she said in the virtual address Wednesday.
Floyd’s deaths sparked days of protests and riots in the United States.
The former Meghan Markle, who is biracial, said the unrest reminded her of the riots that took place in her hometown of Los Angeles after police officers were acquitted in the video-taped beating of Rodney King in 1992.
“I remember the curfew, and I remember rushing back home and on that drive home, seeing ash fall from the sky and smelling the smoke and seeing the smoke billow out of buildings and seeing people run out of buildings, carrying bags and looting,” she said.
“And I remember seeing men in the back of a van holding guns and rifles, and I remember pulling up to the house and seeing the tree that had always been there, completely charred. And those memories don’t go away.”
Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, who is a grandson of Queen Elizabeth II, are seeking a new life in California after stepping away from royals duties earlier this year. Having cut off any cooperation with the British tabloid media, they have sought to independently shape their image and speak out on issues important to them..
The duchess’ video, which was first reported by the U.S. magazine Essence, offered encouragement to the graduates, urging them to consider the moments of light and humanity that emerged from the actions of peaceful protesters. Meghan said she wished the graduates were starting their young lives in a better world.
“I know sometimes people say, ‘how many times do we need to rebuild?”’ she said. “Well, you know what? We are going to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild until it is rebuilt. Because when the foundation is broken, so are we.”
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The temporary expansion of telehealth during the coronavirus pandemic would become permanent under a bill considered Thursday by a Senate committee.
As passed by the House in March, the bill would allow reimbursement for medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorders conducted via telehealth. But an amendment before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee would also make permanent the provisions of Gov.
Chris Sununu’s emergency order on telehealth, which allowed all health care providers to offer services via phone, video and other remote systems and required insurers to cover them.
Officials representing hospitals, community health centers, dentists and mental health providers all told the committee that telehealth has been a valuable tool during the pandemic and should continue.
Christine Stoddard of the Bistate Primary Care Association said community health centers “were able to turn on a dime” and transition to telehealth. And though in-person visits have resumed, centers still don’t have enough protective gear for staff, making telehealth options essential.
Because of the pandemic, telehealth services have become an important part of the health care system, said Paula Minnehan of the New Hampshire Hospital Association.
“As many experts have predicted, telehealth is here to stay, which is why this legislation is so important to ensure patients are able to get the right care at the right time in the right setting, which ultimately may be in the safety of their own homes,” she said.
Ken Norton, director of the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said telehealth has greatly expanded access to mental health treatment.
“We can’t go back,” he said.
Other coronavirus developments in New Hampshire:The Numbers
As of Wednesday, 4,795 people had tested positive for the virus in New Hampshire, an increase of 47 from the previous day. Nine deaths were announced, for a total of 265.
For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death.
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A report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says emergency room visits for non-coronavirus illnesses plummeted in April at the peak of the pandemic.The agency released an analysis Wednesday that the declines were greatest among children 14 years old and younger, women and for people living in the U.S. northeast region. The CDC noted a steep drop in the number of people seeking emergency care for chest pain, including heart attack, along with declines in children needing help for conditions like asthma. FILE – A view of medical personnel working in Mt. Sinai Hospital Morningside during the coronavirus pandemic on May 18, 2020 in New York City.The United States has the world’s largest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 1.8 million infections, with the death toll now topping 107,175. The New York Times reports the Trump administration has selected five companies as the most likely candidates to produce a coronavirus vaccine. The companies have been identified as Massachusetts-based Moderna; AstraZeneca, which is partnering with Oxford University; and the pharmaceutical giants Johnson & Johnson, Merck and Pfizer. The Times quotes a government official as saying the White House will announce the decision in the next few weeks. FILE – Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks about the new coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, in Washington.Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert and the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Tuesday he is “cautiously optimistic” that scientists will come up with an effective vaccine by the start of 2021, saying he hopes to have “hundreds of millions of doses.” But he added, “there’s never a guarantee.” “It could take months and months and months” before researchers find out if a vaccine works, Fauci said. Fauci also warned that a new vaccine may not provide long-term immunity against COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. “When you look at the history of coronaviruses, the common coronaviruses that cause the common cold … the durability of immunity that’s protective ranges from three to six months to almost always less than a year,” he said. “That’s not a lot of durability and protection.” FILE – A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Minnesota say hydroxychloroquine, the treatment that President Donald Trump highly touts as an effective COVID-19 treatment, does not keep healthy people exposed to the virus from getting sick. The report in The New England Journal of Medicine says the drug was no more effective than a placebo in clinical trials. The scientists carried out their tests on 800 people exposed to someone with the coronavirus. Hydroxychloroquine is a drug used to treat malaria, which Trump called a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19. He claims to have taken the drug himself. But some doctors say the drug could have serious side effects, including heart rhythm problems or even death. The World Health Organization has suspended the use of hydroxychloroquine in tests for a coronavirus treatment. France has outlawed its use altogether.
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A group of young professionals in California’s Silicon Valley has created a non-profit organization called “Code for Venezuela,” dedicated to bringing together tech innovators to solve the most pressing needs of the South American nation. The group’s latest initiative aims to help residents in Venezuela find information about COVID-19. Cristina Caicedo Smit has the story
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The White House medical team kept a close eye on President Donald Trump’s heart rhythms, including at least one electrocardiogram, to watch for potential side effects when he took a two-week course of a malaria drug to try to prevent the coronavirus, his doctor reported Wednesday.”The President completed the regimen safely and without side effects,” Dr. Sean Conley wrote in a report on Trump’s latest physical and his treatment with hydroxychloroquine.A pharmacy tech pours out pills of hydroxychloroquine at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, May 20, 2020.Overall, Conley said, Trump showed little change in basic health measurements from 16 months ago. On the negative side, he gained a pound. But on the plus side, his cholesterol level continued to fall.”The data indicates the President remains healthy,” Conley concluded. Trump recently took a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine after two White House staffers tested positive for COVID-19.Conley said it was done in consultation with “appropriate care team members and close monitoring of the electrocardiogram (EKG),” indicating that doctors were looking for changes in his heartbeat because abnormal heart rhythms are one of the dangerous side effects that have been found in studies of the drug.The drug proved ineffective for preventing COVID-19 in the first large, high-quality study to test it in people in close contact with someone with the disease. Results published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine show that hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus. The drug did not seem to cause serious harm, though — about 40% on it had side effects, mostly mild stomach problems. Trump has frequently cited anecdotal reports and seemed determined to prove the naysayers wrong. Trump’s weight came in a 244 pounds. That gives him a Body Mass Index of 30.5, based on his 6-foot, 3-inch frame. An index rating of 30 is the level at which doctors consider someone to be obese. About 40% of Americans are obese. Trump was evaluated twice for the physical, first in November 2019 and then in April. He has a resting heart rate of 63 beats per minute. A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute, and generally, a lower rate implies better cardiovascular fitness. His blood pressure came in at 121 over 79. The American Heart Association says an elevated blood pressure range is when a reading for the upper number consistently ranges from 120-129 and less than 80 for the lower number. People with elevated blood pressure are likely to develop high blood pressure unless steps are taken to control the condition. Trump has shown marked improvement in his cholesterol levels during his presidency, helped by medication. At his physical in January 2018, his total cholesterol was 223. In early 2019, the reading came in at 196. It now stands at 167. The president takes rosuvastatin to help lower his bad cholesterol, known as LDL, and to raise his good cholesterol, or HDL. Ideally, total cholesterol should be less than 200. Trump also takes aspirin daily and finasteride, a drug to treat enlargement of the prostate and male pattern hair loss. Aspirin reduces the risk of heart attack and stroke in people at high risk for them.
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Turkey and Russia have agreed to cooperate in the development of a coronavirus vaccine and plan to carry out joint clinical trials, the Turkish health minister said Wednesday. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said scientific advisers from the two countries were scheduled to hold a second round of talks later this week. A total of 22 Turkish universities and research centers are working to develop a vaccine, and four of them have advanced to the animal-testing stage, Koca said. The minister also said that Turkey has seen the benefit of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine and will continue to administer it to COVID-19 patients, despite concerns raised over the drug. Koca said that unlike other countries, Turkey has been using the drug early in COVID-19 threatment. Turkey recorded 867 confirmed virus cases and 24 deaths between Tuesday and Wednesday, the minister said. The update brought total confirmed cases in the country to 144,422 and the death toll in the pandemic to 4,609. Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier Wednesday that Turkey evacuated more than 75,000 stranded Turkish nationals from 126 countries during the pandemic. At least 562 Turks died abroad, he said Turkish airline companies resumed domestic flights this week as restaurants welcomed sit-down customers and beaches and museums reopened.
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A form of ibuprofen called flarin is being studied in Britain to see if it is effective for treating COVID-19 respiratory symptoms caused by the coronavirus.Also called lipid ibuprofen, flarin has anti-inflammatory effects and is designed to shield the stomach from irritation when taken.The study, LIBERATE Trial in COVID-19, aims to test flarin on 230 people who have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 and have acute respiratory failure. Only patients who are 18 or older are eligible.COVID-19 patients who have shown hypersensitivity to other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) do not qualify for the study.Ibuprofen received attention in March, when French Health Minister Olivier Veran tweeted that NSAIDS, which include ibuprofen, could aggravate COVID-19 symptoms.Since then, the World Health Organization, European Medicines Agency and other groups said there was not enough evidence to prove ibuprofen would worsen COVID-19 symptoms. The sponsor of the LIBERATE study is King’s College London, with the Guy’s and St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust as the collaborator.The estimated date for initial results is Sept. 25, 2020, and the final estimated study completion date is May 25, 2021.
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In Ethiopia, mobile applications are spreading fast to help health care workers and the public fight against COVID-19, which has claimed 12 lives in the country and affected about 1,100 people. Ethiopian web developers have designed seven apps that do everything from virus tracing to sharing data and patient information among health workers. But while the apps are spreading in cities, getting into remote and poor areas of Ethiopia remains a challenge. FILE – Ethiopians have their temperature checked for symptoms of the new coronavirus, at the Zewditu Memorial Hospital in the capital Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 18, 2020.Just days after Ethiopia confirmed its first case of the coronavirus in March, 38-year-old software engineer Mike Endale, who emigrated to the U.S. 20 years ago, sent out a solitary tweet calling for help. He called on all software developers and engineers in the Ethiopian diaspora to help the health ministry by contributing open source software to respond to COVID-19. Endale became coordinator of the Ethiopia COVID-19 Response Team, a volunteer force of doctors, artificial intelligence specialists, software engineers and data analysts. He spoke via a messaging application from Washington, D.C., where he works as principal technologist at BLEN Corporation, a company that provides technology solutions for the public sector and charities. “People just organically gathered around a slack channel and we started figuring out how to help,” he said. “So, the impetus for the group was… to see if we could augment the Ministry of Health’s work in a couple of areas. One originally was around tech. Luckily for that there was already an internal initiative going on that started a day before [we originated]. We got connected with them and we started working on broad-based solutions.” Alongside software engineers at the Ministry of Health and the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, Endale’s army of tech gurus helped to develop a series of applications to aid health workers. The apps allow health workers to register the identity and medical profiles of people entering the country and also record information about those in contact with COVID-19 patients. The ministry’s contact tracing team is then sent into communities with tablet computers to identify suspected infections and test for the virus. Though still limited in their use, the apps are modernizing how health workers and hospitals accurately and quickly share information in Ethiopia, where — until the pandemic — patient data was recorded on paper. Other apps created through the response team can be downloaded by the public. The COVID-19 Ethiopia app was launched in late May so that the public can self-report cases or alert health authorities to others with symptoms. And an app called Debo captures the identity of anyone who comes within two meters of the user so that contacts can be traced should the person one day test positive. “This is very important work for the country in responding to COVID-19,” said Biruhtesfa Abere, a senior health information specialist at the Ministry of Health. “Also, for decision makers, the ministry task force is sitting here trying to forecast how many cases they’re going to have in the future, next month. So, they need data, they need baseline data.” Biruhtesfa says the digital tools mean that test results — thousands per day — can be shared to health workers nationwide within 24 hours, allowing those who test negative for the virus to leave isolation quicker. Data in the apps are also being used to record where test kits are sent in Ethiopia, how many are being used, and how many are being wasted. But while the apps are making progress in cities, Biruhtesfa says getting rural health workers using the tools where good internet and smartphones are rare, is a challenge. “The tool can help you manage your records, maintain contact listing and [record] the relationship of the positive person’s contacts in the past 14 days. That is basically automated and fully functional,” he said. “But the problem is bringing the users on board to use the system. We are strongly pushing contact tracing and the follow-up team to record using the system and they are coming a little bit at a time. They will be on board very soon.” Biruhtesfa says the health ministry is rolling out training sessions via video link to health workers in rural areas so they can learn how to use the applications. And 30,000 tablet computers that were to be used for Ethiopia’s national census are being repurposed so that health workers in areas with poor internet can also use the applications. Endale’s global network of volunteers are now organizing themselves beyond developing digital apps for Ethiopia. He says members of the community have organized themselves into ten different work streams for tasks such as donation drives and repairing ventilators.
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Several prominent media and entertainment organizations, including Apple and ViacomCBS, paid tribute to the call for racial equality and justice in the United States amid the recent protests, some violent, by pausing regular services and company events on what they are calling “Black Out Tuesday.”
According to Reuters, CBS said it would spend the day reflecting on “building community,” putting business ventures temporarily “on pause.”
The company also said it would broadcast 8 minutes and 46 seconds of breathing sounds with the words “I can’t breathe,” echoing the last words of George Floyd, a man killed last week in Minneapolis.
Floyd’s death has caused international outrage and days of protests across the nation, many turning violent. The officer present at the time of Floyd’s death, Derek Chauvin, has been arrested and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
Black Out Tuesday was initially organized by the music community, the AP reports, although the movement quickly spread across social media to include sports stars, such as Lebron James, and other prominent cultural icons like Kylie Jenner.
There has been some criticism on social media, however, that people tagging #black lives matter on the post has pushed the protest content and resources out of sight and actually has obscured it, rather than help to amplify it. They charge that this approach is not well conceived and is harming the cause rather than helping it.
Rapper Little Nas X called for more exposure, saying the black-out effect shields the public from “what’s going on.”
“This is not helping us,” he tweeted.
Apple Music and iTunes both featured the group Black Lives Matter on their homepage, while streaming service Spotify created black logos for several of their most popular playlists, each captioned with the phrase “black lives matter.”
The company added that it, too, would feature an 8 minute and 46 second track in select playlists and podcasts, and that it would halt social media publications.
Eight minutes and 46 seconds is the length of a video capturing Floyd’s death.
Several artists took to Instagram, posting black squares, some using the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused or encouraging people to vote.
Grammy-nominated singer Kehlani expressed doubts about the movement’s efficacy on Twitter, citing the various messaging surrounding the event.“The messages are mixed across the board and i really hope it doesn’t have a negative effect,” she tweeted.Several artists and record labels also announced that the release of new singles and albums would be delayed due to their participation in Black Out Tuesday.
Interscope Geffen A&M Records said it would not release music this week, while new releases from Glass Animals, Chloe x Halle and others all will be pushed back, and will drop in coming weeks.
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An advocacy group backed by the tech industry filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s executive order on social media, as U.S. technology companies have been fighting White House efforts to weaken a law that protects them. The Washington-based Center for Democracy & Technology said in its lawsuit that Trump’s executive order violates the First Amendment rights of social media companies. It noted that the order was issued after Twitter Inc amended one of Trump’s tweets and called it “plainly retaliatory.” The lawsuit argues that Trump’s executive order will “chill future online speech by other speakers” and reduce the ability of Americans to speak freely online. Trump, in an attempt to regulate social media platforms where he has been criticized, said last week he will introduce legislation that may scrap or weaken a law that has protected internet companies, including Twitter and Facebook. The proposed legislation was part of an executive order Trump signed on Thursday afternoon. Trump had attacked Twitter for tagging his tweets about unsubstantiated claims of fraud about mail-in voting with a warning prompting readers to fact-check the posts. Trump said he wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law known as Section 230 that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users. He also said Attorney General William Barr will begin drafting legislation “immediately” to regulate social media companies. The White House declined comment on the lawsuit. “Twitter appended the President’s tweets … in immediate retaliation, the President issued the Executive Order,” said the lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
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Though Black Out Tuesday was originally organized by the music community, the social media world also went dark in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, joining voices around the world outraged by the killings of black people in the U.S.
Instagram and Twitter accounts, from top record label to everyday people, were full of black squares posted in response to the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
Most of the captions were blank, though some posted #TheShowMustBePaused, black heart emojis or encouraged people to vote Tuesday since seven states and the District of Columbia are hosting the largest slate of primary elections in almost three months.
Rihanna, Alicia Keys, Radiohead, Coldplay, Kelly Rowland, Beastie Boys and were among the celebrities to join Black Out Tuesday on social media.
“I won’t be posting on social media and I ask you all to do the same,” Britney Spears tweeted. “We should use the time away from our devices to focus on what we can do to make the world a better place …. for ALL of us !!!!!”
Spotify blacked out the artwork for several of its popular playlists, including RapCaviar and Today’s Top Hits, simply writing “Black lives matter.” as its description. The streaming service also put its Black Lives Matter playlist on its front page, featuring songs like James Brown’s “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud,” N.W.A.’s “(Expletive) the Police,” Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Childish Gambino’s “This Is America.”
The opening pages of Apple Music and iTunes focused on supporting Black Lives Matter, and SiriusXM said it will be silencing its music channels for three minutes at 3 p.m. EDT in tribute to “all of the countless victims of racism.”
The company said it “will continue to amplify Black voices by being a space where Black artists showcase their music and talents, and by carrying the message that racism will not be tolerated.”
Some on social media questioned if posting black squares would divert attention away from posts about the Black Lives Matter movement.
“this is the 4th completely different flyer i’ve seen for it,” Grammy-nominated singer Kehlani tweeted about Black Out Tuesday. “”this is the only one without the saying go completely silent for a day in solidarity. the messages are mixed across the board and i really hope it doesn’t have a negative effect.”
When musician Dillon Francis posted that the hashtag for Black Lives Matter was blank on Instagram because users were posting black squares, rapper Lil Nas X responded with: “this is not helping us. bro who the (expletive) thought of this?? ppl need to see what’s going on.”
Several music releases and events were postponed as a result of Black Out Tuesday. Interscope Geffen A&M Records said it would not release music this week and pushed back releases from MGK, 6lack, Jessie Ware, Smokepurp and others. Chloe x Halle said its sophomore album will come out June 12 instead of Friday, while the group Glass Animals postponed the Tuesday release of its new single “Heat Waves.” Instead of being released Wednesday, singer Ashnikko will drop her song “Cry” and its video on June 17.
A benefit for the Apollo Theater will take place Thursday instead of Tuesday, and South by Southwest postponed an event planned with Rachael Ray.
“At SXSW we stand with the black community and will continue to amplify the voices and ideas that will lead us to a more equitable society,” the company said.
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Facebook employees walked away from their work-from-home desks on Monday and took to Twitter to accuse Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg of inadequately policing U.S. President Donald Trump’s posts as strictly as the rival platform has done.Reuters saw dozens of online posts from employees critical of Zuckerberg’s decision to leave Trump’s most inflammatory verbiage unchallenged where Twitter had labeled it. Some top managers participated in the protest, reminiscent of a 2018 walkout at Alphabet Inc’s Google over sexual harassment.Twitter Adds ‘Glorifying Violence’ Warning to Trump Tweet Trump, a prolific Twitter user, has been at war with the company since earlier this week, when it applied fact checks to two of his tweets about mail-in ballotsIt was a rare case of staff publicly taking their CEO to task, with one employee tweeting that thousands participated. Among them were all seven engineers on the team maintaining the React code library which supports Facebook’s apps.”Facebook’s recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction,” they said in a joint statement published on Twitter.”Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind,” wrote Ryan Freitas, identified on Twitter as director of product design for Facebook’s News Feed. He added he had mobilized “50+ likeminded folks” to lobby for internal change.Twitter Fact-Checks Trump Tweet for First Time The blue exclamation mark notification prompts readers to ‘get the facts about mail-in ballots’ and directs them to a page with news articles and information about the claims aggregated by Twitter staffers A Facebook employee said Zuckerberg’s weekly Friday question-and-answer session would be moved up this week to Tuesday.Katie Zhu, a product manager at Instagram, tweeted a screenshot showing she had entered “#BLACKLIVESMATTER” to describe her request for time off as part of the walkout.Facebook Inc will allow employees participating in the protest to take the time off without drawing down their vacation days, spokesman Andy Stone said.Separately, online therapy company Talkspace said it ended partnership discussions with Facebook. Talkspace CEO Oren Frank tweeted he would “not support a platform that incites violence, racism, and lies.”Social justiceTech workers at companies including Facebook, Google, and Amazon.com Inc have pursued social justice issues in recent years, urging the companies to change policies.Employees “recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community,” Stone wrote in a text.”We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership. As we face additional difficult decisions around content ahead, we’ll continue seeking their honest feedback.”Last week, nationwide unrest erupted after the death of a black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis last Monday. Video footage showed a white officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes before he died.On Friday, Twitter Inc affixed a warning label to a Trump tweet that included the phrase “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter said it violated rules against glorifying violence but was left up as a public interest exception.Facebook declined to act on the same message, and Zuckerberg sought to distance his company from the fight between the president and Twitter.On Friday, Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that while he found Trump’s remarks “deeply offensive,” they did not violate company policy against incitements to violence and people should know whether the government was planning to deploy force.Zuckerberg’s post also said Facebook had been in touch with the White House to explain its policies.Twitter used the same label as for Trump on Monday to hide a message by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida that likened protesters to terrorists and called for them to be hunted down “like we do those in the Middle East.”Gaetz said in response he would “see” Twitter in the Judiciary Committee.Some of Facebook’s dissenting employees have praised Twitter for its response over Trump. Others, like Jason Toff, a director of product management and former head of short-form video app Vine, started organizing fundraisers for racial justice groups in Minnesota. Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook on Monday the company would contribute an additional $10 million to social justice causes.Toff tweeted: “I work at Facebook and I am not proud of how we’re showing up. The majority of coworkers I’ve spoken to feel the same way. We are making our voice heard.”
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The World Health Organization has warned that malaria deaths in Sub-Saharan Africa could double this year to 769,000 due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Nigeria has the highest cases of malaria in the world but with the global focus on controlling the spread of COVID-19, many malaria patients are not getting to hospitals and intervention could fall through the cracks. Nigerian technology startup Wellahealth is trying to bridge the gap with rapid malaria testing. Timothy Obiezu reports from Abuja.Camera: Emeka Gibson
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A soccer field every 6 seconds. That’s the rate at which the world lost mature tropical forests last year, according to new data from the Global Forest Watch monitoring program.Satellite data shows nearly 4 million hectares of tree cover disappeared, an increase from last year and the third-largest loss this century. Some experts find hopeful notes among the bad news, however. While Brazil’s forest losses have increased under right-wing President Jair Bolosonaro, policies to curb deforestation appear to be working in Indonesia, Colombia and West Africa. The destruction of mature tropical forests is a massive hit to biodiversity and is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to the World Resources Institute, the research and advocacy group that oversees Global Forest Watch. Since forests are massive sponges of carbon dioxide, reversing their loss would play an outsize role in fighting climate change. The United Nations set a goal of ending deforestation by 2020, “but we seem to be going in the wrong direction,” WRI Distinguished Senior Fellow Frances Seymour said. Brazil’s reversal According to satellite imagery analyzed by the University of Maryland and WRI, Brazil alone lost 1.4 million hectares of mature forest in 2019, more than one-third of the world total and nearly three times more than the country with the next-largest loss, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Not counting record-breaking forest fires in 2016 and 2017, it’s the largest loss since 2006. Brazil had been a source of optimism until recently. Conservation policies under former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva curbed deforestation rates from 2004 to 2015. It was “one of the great conservation successes of this millennium,” said Robert Heilmayr, a University of California, Santa Barbara environmental economics assistant professor, who was not involved with the WRI research. “I think that gave rise to this hope that if we can harness the policies that worked in one place and just deploy them around the world, we’re going to see an end to deforestation globally,” Heilmayr said. But the latest data shows “we still have a long ways to go,” he said. President Bolsonaro has encouraged development in the Amazon rainforest and loosened enforcement of environmental laws. His administration is backing a law that would increase access to protected indigenous lands for mining and supports legislation that environmental groups say would legalize land grabs. “You’re starting to see the enforcement of the laws that are on the books back off,” Heilmayr said, “and I think that’s creating an opening for more aggressive deforestation.” Indonesia’s surprise On the other hand, the loss of mature forests in Indonesia declined in 2019 for the third straight year. “I’m continuing to be pleasantly surprised that there’s a decrease” in Indonesia, said Greg Asner, director of the Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science at Arizona State University, who was not involved with the research. While Indonesia lost the third-largest area of mature forest after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, it’s the smallest loss since the early 2000s. The country has made permanent a 2011 moratorium on logging and land-clearing for oil palm plantations, which had been a major driver of deforestation. The government has stepped up fire prevention and enforcement of existing forest laws. Colombia also saw a steep drop in the loss of primary forest last year, after two years of increases. Deforestation had spiked after a peace agreement ended decades of civil war and freed up land previously occupied by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The country has set deforestation and reforestation goals and has sent the police and military to fight deforestation in its national parks. It’s not clear if the trend will hold. Global Forest Watch’s early-warning system has logged an increase in alerts this year. Chocolate cuts its losses More tentative good news comes from West Africa. Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana, the two countries with the largest increase in mature forest loss in 2018, both cut those losses in half last year. The chocolate industry has pledged to reduce deforestation for cocoa cultivation, a major crop in West Africa, and the governments have signed forest carbon deals with the World Bank. These programs may be responsible, but WRI says it’s too soon to tell if the impact will last. The cooperation of palm oil companies has been a big part of Indonesia’s decline in deforestation, UCSB’s Heilmayr said. “When we see those two components, government and the international markets that provide the strongest incentive for deforestation, working together and in harmony with each other to disincentivize further deforestation, that’s where we generally see the biggest success,” he noted. “The 2019 data corroborates what we already know,” WRI’s Seymour added. “If governments put into place good policies and enforce the law, forest loss goes down. But if governments relax restrictions … forest loss goes up.” Seymour is concerned that fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic could push global forest losses up this year. “We do have historical precedents,” WRI’s Seymour said. Poverty and a lack of enforcement drove up deforestation after the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s, she noted. And with attention turned elsewhere, Heilmayr said, “I worry that this is a moment where the governments that want to enable additional land grabbing, that want to enable agricultural expansion, may turn away from enforcing the laws that already exist.”
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Leaders of the music industry have pledged to “disconnect” from business to support communities fighting against racial inequality as part of “Black Out Tuesday.” In response to a massive wave of outrage following the death last week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of George Floyd in police custody, major record labels denounced racial injustice on social media. They are calling for a “day of action” on June 2 to reflect and promote accountability, contemplation and change. “We stand together with the black community against all forms of racism, bigotry, and violence. Now, more than ever, we must use our voices to speak up and challenge the injustices all around us,” Ron Perry, chairman of Columbia Records, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation America, said Thursday night. Warner Records made a similar announcement, pledging that activity at their labels will not continue to operate as usual, and committing to help Black Lives Matter and other organizations battling injustice.Universal Music, part of Vivendi, said on its Twitter account that they “stand with the black community,” under the hashtag #TheShowMustBePaused. Interscope Geffen A&M, part of the Universal group, said it would release no new music this week. Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge issued a memo to staff over the weekend outlining plans for a task force to “accelerate our efforts in areas such as inclusion and social justice.” “This week, yet again, we saw our society’s most painful realities about race, justice, and inequality brought — cruelly and brutally — into the harsh light of day,” he wrote in the note, according to Reuters. Protests were ignited by a video showing white police officer Derek Chauvin suffocating Floyd, a black 46-year-old man, by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes shortly before his death May 25. Chauvin has been fired and is facing third-degree murder charges. Many influential artists have also spoken out on social media about Floyd’s death. Beyoncé posted a video to Instagram calling for her followers to sign a petition seeking “justice for George Floyd.” “We’re broken, and we’re disgusted. … I am not only speaking to people of color. If you are white, black, brown, or anything in between, I am sure you feel (left) hopeless by the racism going on in America right now,” she said to her fans. “Watching my people get murdered and lynched day after day pushed me to a heavy place in my heart!” Rihanna wrote on Instagram.Other celebrities, including Ariana Grande, J Cole, Yungblud, Camila Cabello, Shawn Mendes and Nick Cannon joined protests over the weekend. Singer Hasley was among the artists seen protesting in Los Angeles and shared her experience via social media.”We were peaceful, hands up, not moving, not breaching the line,” she tweeted, along with photos of police in protective gear. “They opened fire of rubber bullets and tear gas multiple times on us,” the singer said. National Guard Troops have been deployed in 15 states and Washington, D.C., as tensions at the protests rose. Reuters contributed to this report
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The jersey-wearing camaraderie. The scent of sizzling sausages. The buzz before a big game.
The distinctive atmosphere of live sports, that feeling in the air, will return in time as pandemic restrictions are eased. But will that very air be safe in a closed arena with other fans in attendance?
The billions of dollars spent on state-of-the-art sports facilities over the last quarter-century have made high-efficiency air filtration systems more common, thanks in part to the pursuit of green and healthy building certifications. Upgrades will likely increase in the post-coronavirus era, too.
The problem is that even the cleanest of air can’t keep this particular virus from spreading; if someone coughs or sneezes, those droplets are in the air. That means outdoor ballparks have high contaminant potential, too.
“Most of the real risk is going to be short-distance transmission, people sitting within two, three or four seats of each other,” said Ryan Demmer, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. “It’s not really about the virus spreading up, getting into the ventilation system and then getting blown out to the entire stadium because this virus doesn’t seem to transmit that way. It doesn’t aerosolize that well.”
The three hours spent in proximity to thousands of others is part of the fan experience. It’s also why major sports leagues have been discussing plans to reopen in empty venues, for now. High-touch areas with the potential to spread the virus — called fomite transmission — are plentiful at the ballgame, of course. Door handles. Stair rails. Restroom fixtures. Concession stands.
Hand washing by now has become a societal norm, but disinfectant arsenals need to be brought up to speed, too.
“I can’t really find good hand sanitizer easily in stores. So think about trying to scale that up, so everybody who comes into U.S. Bank Stadium gets a little bottle of Purel. Things like that can be modestly helpful,” Demmer said.
There is much work to be done. Vigilant sanitizing of the frequent-touch surfaces will be a must. Ramped-up rapid testing capability during pre-entry screening could become common for fans. Minimizing concourse and entry bottlenecks, and maintaining space between non-familial attendees, could be mandatory. Mask-wearing requirements? Maybe.
Most experts, including those at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, believe the primary mode of transmission for COVID-19 is close person-to-person contact through breathing, coughing or sneezing but there’s no consensus on some of the details.
“There’s still widespread disagreement between experts on which mode of transmission dominates for influenza. So the likelihood of us figuring this out soon for this virus is low,” said Joe Allen, director of the Healthy Buildings Program and an assistant professor at Harvard’s School of Public Health. “We may never figure it out, but I also think it’s irrelevant because it’s a pandemic and we should be guarding against all of them.”
Including, of course, the air.
The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers designed the Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) scale to measure a filtration system’s effectiveness (from 1-16) at capturing microscopic airborne particles that can make people sick. Not just viruses, but dust, pollen, mold and bacteria. Most experts recommend a MERV rating of 13 or higher, the minimum standard for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
An emerging technology in this area is called bipolar ionization. Connecticut-based AtmosAir has a bipolar ionization air treatment system in about 40 sports venues. Staples Center in Los Angeles was one of the first major sports customers. TD Garden in Boston and Bridgestone Arena in Nashville are among the others who’ve signed on.
The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority approved last year a 10-year contract for a little more than $1 million with AtmosAir to install its system in U.S. Bank Stadium, home of the Vikings and the first indoor NFL stadium to use it. The building, which measures 1.8 million square feet, has 53 air handling units with AtmosAir tubes installed, including 30 in the seating bowl.
The ions act like fresh air, reducing the amount of outside air needed to be introduced for the cleansing process. The protein spikes in the coronavirus particles make them easier to catch and kill, said Philip Tierno, a New York University School of Medicine professor of microbiology and pathology.
Said AtmosAir founder and CEO Steve Levine: “We’re never going to create a mountaintop, but we’re going to put in maybe three to four times the ions over the ambient air and then let those ions attack different pollutants in the air. The ions grab onto particles and spores and make them bigger and heavier, so they’re much easier to filter out of the air.”
The next time fans do pass through the turnstiles, in a few weeks or a few months, in most cases they will probably encounter an unprecedented level of cleanliness.
“There will be some controls that are visible, extra cleaning and disinfection, but some of it will be invisible, like for what’s happening in the air handling system,” said Allen, the Harvard professor.
“The consumers will decide when they feel comfortable going back, and that’s going to depend on what strategies are put in place in these venues and stadiums and arenas and, most importantly, how well these organizations communicate that to the paying public.”
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A study conducted by a major hospital in Milan, Italy, has found that the viral load present in people who now test positive for the coronavirus is decreasing, suggesting the infection may be weakening, according to doctors, whose findings have been greeted with skepticism.Alberto Zangrillo, head of Milan’s San Raffaele Hospital, said the coronavirus might be becoming less lethal and that those who have been recently infected have weaker symptoms than two months ago. “The swabs performed over the last 10 days show a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” Zangrillo, a physician to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, told Italy’s public broadcaster, RAI.The president of the scientific body advising the government on the pandemic says he is “baffled” by the claim. Italy has the third-highest coronavirus death toll in the world, with 33,475 people dying since the outbreak emerged it February, according to Italy’s Civil Protection agency. After a strict national lockdown, which is now being eased, infections and fatalities have fallen steadily.Italian government officials are urging caution about the claim of the virus turning less lethal, warning it could confuse Italians. “We should instead invite Italians to maintain the maximum caution, maintain physical distancing, avoid large groups, to frequently wash their hands and to wear masks,” Sandra Zampa, an undersecretary at the health ministry, said in a statement.Epidemiologists outside Italy are skeptical.Oscar MacLean, of the MRC-University of Glasgow Center for Virus Research in Scotland, said, “These claims are not supported by anything in the scientific literature, and also seem fairly implausible on genetic grounds. The vast majority of SARS-CoV-2 mutations are extremely rare, and so whilst some infections may be attenuated by certain mutations, they are highly unlikely to be common enough to alter the nature of the virus at a national or global level.”COVID-19 is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).MacLean added, “Making these claims on the basis of anecdotal observations from swab tests is dangerous. Whilst weakening of the virus through mutations is theoretically possible, it is not something we should expect, and any claims of this nature would need to be verified in a more systematic way.”FILE – A patient is carried on a stretcher from a nursing home to a hospital, as the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues, in Rome, Italy, May 2, 2020.Nonetheless, in the face of a media storm about the findings, doctors and researchers at San Raffaele Hospital are standing firm. Massimo Clementi, director of the Microbiology and Virology Laboratory at the hospital, says an analysis of 200 patients suggests the virus has “enormously weakened.”Skeptics question Zangrillo’s motivation. He has clashed with critics for saying the fear of a second wave of coronavirus infections is misplaced, according to Italian newspapers.“We’ve got to get back to being a normal country. Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country,” he said Sunday. He noted previous epidemics such as MERS and SARS “petered out by themselves.” He also said, “We’ve got to be wary, yes, but not kill ourselves unnecessarily. Our wards are emptying out.”Currently, close to 6,400 people are hospitalized with 435 people in intensive care in Italy. More than 32,250 people are self-isolating at home with symptoms of the virus, according to the Civil Protection agency.San Raffaele Hospital is also receiving support from some other experts. The head of the infectious diseases clinic at San Martino hospital in the city of Genoa, Matteo Bassetti, told Italy’s ANSA news agency he is seeing the same trend. “The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today,” he said, adding, “It is clear that today the COVID-19 disease is different.”Franco Locatelli, the president of the National Health Council which advises the Italian government, said he could only express “great surprise and absolute bafflement” at the claims.“You just need to look at the number of new positive cases confirmed every day to see the persistent circulation of the virus in Italy,” he told ANSA. Allan Cheng, an infectious diseases physician at The Alfred hospital in Melbourne, Australia, said, “We haven’t noticed any difference in viral loads in people we’ve tested.”He told Australian media, “We’d be pretty surprised, if that was the case. This is not a virus that mutates all that quickly.”He said the difference in viral loads the Milan hospital is seeing could well be explained by an increase in their testing of people who have not fallen very sick from the coronavirus.
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The World Health Organization on Monday confirmed a second outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, just as an initial outbreak appeared to be ending.At a briefing Monday in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this new outbreak is near the northwestern city of Mbandaka in the DRC’s Equateur province.Provincial Governor Bobo Boloko Bolumbu also confirmed four deaths on local radio. He said samples were sent to the INRC, the national medical research headquarters in Kinshasa, for secondary confirmation. He urged the population to remain calm, maintain good personal hygiene and not greet people “with your hands.”In 2018, Equateur province had an Ebola outbreak that killed 33 people before it was brought under control.Elsewhere, the eastern DRC has been battling an outbreak of the deadly virus since 2018. That outbreak left more than 2,240 people dead. The DRC is also grappling with a measles breakout, the world’s largest, as well as the novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease. Close to 3,200 coronavirus cases have been reported in the DRC, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking cases. Seventy-two deaths have been reported.
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Christo, known for massive, ephemeral public arts projects died Sunday at his home in New York. He was 84.His death was announced on Twitter and the artist’s web page. No cause of death was given.Along with late wife Jeanne-Claude, the artists’ careers were defined by their ambitious art projects that quickly disappeared soon after they were erected. In 2005, he installed more than 7,500 vinyl gates in New York’s Central Park and wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric with an aluminum sheen in 1995. Their $26 million Umbrellas project erected 1,340 blue umbrellas installed in Japan and 1,760 blue umbrellas in Southern California in 1991.The statement said the artist’s next project, L’Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped, is slated to appear in September in Paris as planned. An exhibition about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work is also scheduled to run from July through October at the Centre Georges Pompidou.FILE – In this June 16, 2016, photo, artist Christo Vladimirov Javacheff walks on his monumental installation ‘The Floating Piers’ he created with late Jeanne-Claude during a press preview at the lake Iseo, northern Italy.”Christo lived his life to the fullest, not only dreaming up what seemed impossible but realizing it,” his office said in a statement. “Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s artwork brought people together in shared experiences across the globe, and their work lives on in our hearts and memories.”Born in Bulgaria in 1935, Christo Vladimirov Javacheff studied at the Fine Arts Academy in Sofia before moving to Prague in 1957, then Vienna, then Geneva. It was in Paris in 1958 where he met Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon. They were born on the same day (June 13) in the same year (1935), and, according to him, “In the same moment” and would become partners in life and art.Christo was already wrapping smaller found objects, like cars and furniture. After he met Jeanne-Claude, their scale broadened. Within three years they were working together on an installation of oil drums and tarp on the docks in Cologne.Although their large-scale outdoor and indoor projects were collaborative, they were all credited solely to Christo until 1994, when they revealed Jeanne-Claude’s contributions. The decision, they said, was theirs and deliberate since it was difficult enough for even one artist to make a name for himself.The pair moved to New York in 1964, where they liked to say that they were illegal aliens in an illegal building in SoHo for a few years. They eventually bought that building and would call the city home for the rest of their lives.Jeanne-Claude died in 2009 at age 74 from complications of a brain aneurysm. After her death, Christo said she was argumentative and very critical and always asking questions and he missed all of that very much.In a 2018 interview with The Art Newspaper, Christo spoke about his signature wrapping aesthetic. In the instance of the Reichstag, he said, covering it with fabric made the Victorian sculptures, ornament and decoration disappear and “highlight the principal proportion of architecture.””But, like classical sculpture, all our wrapped projects are not solid buildings; they are moving with the wind, they are breathing,” he said. “The fabric is very sensual and inviting; it’s like a skin.”The two made a point of paying for all of their works on their own and did not accept scholarship or donations.”I like to be absolutely free, to be totally irrational with no justification for what I like to do,” he said. “I will not give up one centimeter of my freedom for anything.”
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