Images of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are seared into many Americans’ minds and remain especially vivid for members of Congress who witnessed the riot. One congressman has been especially forthcoming about the mental trauma he has been experiencing months after the riot. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti spoke with the lawmaker and filed this report. Camera: Saqib Ul Islam Produced by: Adam Greenbaum
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Month: June 2021
John McAfee, creator of the McAfee antivirus software, has been found dead in his cell in a jail near Barcelona, a government official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Hours earlier, a Spanish court issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the 75-year-old tycoon’s extradition to the United States to face tax-related criminal charges.
Security personnel at the Brians 2 penitentiary near the northeastern Spanish city tried to revive him, but the jail’s medical team finally certified his death, a statement from the regional Catalan government said.
The statement didn’t identify McAfee by name, but said he was a 75-year-old U.S. citizen awaiting extradition to his country. A Catalan government source familiar with the event who was not authorized to be named in media reports confirmed to the AP that the dead man was McAfee.
Spain’s National Court on Monday ruled in favor of extraditing McAfee, who had argued in a hearing earlier this month that the charges against him were politically motivated and that he would spend the rest of his life in prison if he was returned to the U.S.
The court’s ruling was made public on Wednesday and could be appealed. Any final extradition order would also need to get approval from the Spanish Cabinet.
Tennessee prosecutors charged McAfee with evading taxes after failing to report income made from promoting cryptocurrencies while he did consultancy work, as well as income from speaking engagements and selling the rights to his life story for a documentary. The criminal charges carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.
The entrepreneur was arrested last October at Barcelona’s international airport. A judge ordered at that time that McAfee should be held in jail while awaiting the outcome of a hearing on extradition.
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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday the COVID-19 State of Emergency, originally declared in March of 2020, will expire Thursday.Cuomo made the announcement during a news briefing, and from his Twitter account, where he wrote, “New York’s COVID-19 State of Emergency will end tomorrow [Thursday]. Fighting COVID and vaccinating New Yorkers are still top priorities, but the emergency chapter of this fight is over.”The governor had lifted most of the COVID-19-related restrictions for the state on June 15. Lifting the state emergency will allow state and local governments to decide about their own respective public health measures, without being over-ruled by the governor. It also will end the governor’s ability to issue executive orders in areas usually reserved for the state legislature.The governor said more than 71% of all state residents over the age of 18 have received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 63% are fully vaccinated.Cuomo did say the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 guidelines would remain in effect, including wearing masks on public transportation, including airplanes, at airports, and train and bus stations.
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With the Olympics in Tokyo now just a month away, Somalia is set to send its first female taekwondo athlete to the games in Japan.
No athlete representing Somalia has ever a won a medal at the Olympics, but 20-year-old Munirah Warsame is working hard to be the first when she competes at the summer games.
The taekwondo athlete was born in Britain after her parents fled violence in Somalia.
Warsame says flying the flag of her home country in Japan will be a proud moment.
“Feelings of representing my country in the Olympics for the first time is unreal as I have dreamed about this my whole life since literally the age of six when I first started Taekwondo. And also it is such an exciting experience; I foresaw it representing my home country for my first at the Olympics and, inshallah (God willing), I will do myself and my country proud,” Warsame said.
According to the Somali Olympics committee, at least six athletes will represent the country in Tokyo in three categories: taekwondo, boxing, and track and field.
Taekwondo coach Dudley Ricardo says his team is very well prepared despite its financial challenges.
“The potential of the Somali national team is looking quite bright and promising. I believe we have a small but strong current team with up-and-coming young team members and we will be able to see much more results in future competitions. The only restraints we have is funding to allow the athletes’ valuable ring time and more competitions and training camps,” Ricardo said.
Taekwondo is not a well-known sport in Somalia. But Ahmed Issa, the vice president of the Somali Taekwondo Federation says it is conducting and outreach and awareness campaign in the country to find more capable athletes like Warsame who could represent Somalia in international competitions.
“[The] Somali taekwondo federation is planning to recruit more youth to take the sport especially in universities, colleges, and schools. We try to do our free training sessions and hire special coaches from the international level so people are really interested to be part of [the] taekwondo sport,” Issa said.
More than 11,000 athletes from around the world are expected to participate in the Tokyo games, which were rescheduled from last year because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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Feeling like you are being watched? It could be from a lot farther away than you think.
Astronomers took a technique used to look for life on other planets and flipped it around — so instead of looking to see what’s out there, they tried to see what places could see us.
There’s a lot.
Astronomers calculated that 1,715 stars in our galactic neighborhood — and hundreds of probable Earth-like planets circling those stars — have had an unobstructed view of Earth during human civilization, according to a study Wednesday in the journal Nature.
“When I look up at the sky, it looks a little bit friendlier because it’s like, maybe somebody is waving,” said study lead author Lisa Kaltenegger, director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell University.
Even though some experts, including the late Stephen Hawking, warn against reaching out to aliens because they could harm us, Kaltenegger said it doesn’t matter. If those planets have advanced life, someone out there could conclude that there is life back here based on oxygen in our atmosphere, or by the radio waves from human sources that have swept over 75 of the closest stars on her list.
“Hiding is not really an option,” she said.
One way humans look for potentially habitable planets is by watching them as they cross in front of the star they are orbiting, which dims the stars’ light slightly. Kaltenegger and astrophysicist Jacqueline Faherty of the American Museum of Natural History used the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope to turn that around, looking to see what star systems could watch Earth as it passes in front of the sun.
They looked at the 331,312 stars within 326 light-years of Earth. One light-year is 5.9 trillion miles. The angle to see Earth pass in front of the sun is so small that only the 1,715 could see Earth at some point in the last 5,000 years, including 313 that no longer can see us because we’ve moved out of view. Photo of the sun seen through a neutral density filter as it glows in midday. (Photo by Diaa Bekheet)
Another 319 stars will be able to see Earth in the next 5,000 years, including a few star systems where scientists have already spotted Earth-like planets, prime candidates for contact. That brings the total to more than 2,000 star systems with an Earth view.
The closest star on Kaltenegger’s list is the red dwarf star Wolf 359, which is 7.9 light-years away. It’s been able to see us since the disco era of the mid 1970s.
Carnegie Institution for Science planetary scientist Alan Boss, who wasn’t part of the study, called it “provocative.” He said in addition to viewing Earth moving in front of the star, space telescopes nearby could spot us even if the cosmic geometry is wrong: “So intelligent civilizations who build space telescopes could be studying us right now.”
So why haven’t we heard from them?
It takes a long time for messages and life to travel between stars and civilizations might not last long. So between those two it’s enough to limit the chances for civilizations to exchange “emails and TikTok videos,” Boss said in his own email. “So we should not expect aliens to show up anytime soon.”
Or, Kaltenneger said, life in the cosmos, could just be rare.
What’s exciting about the study is that it tells scientists “where to point our instruments,” said outside astronomer Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute that searches for extraterrestrial intelligence. “You might know where to look for the aliens!”
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Medical aid group Doctors Without Borders says tens of thousands of people in Cameroon’s western regions have been deprived of lifesaving healthcare since December, when authorities stopped their services. Cameroon accused the aid group of being too close to anglophone separatists, which the group denies. Doctors Without Borders says over 1.4 million people in Cameroon’s restive western regions need humanitarian support, with access to healthcare extremely limited.The coordinator for the group’s operations in Central Africa, Emmanuel Lampaert, said that’s due to insecurity, lockdowns, and the targeting of health facilities.He said mortality among vulnerable groups, such as women and children, has increased, and the government’s suspension of their support since December has made the situation even worse.”Humanitarian and health needs have surges due to the armed violence and notably for the population and several hundreds of thousands of them who have to flee their houses, and who have barriers to access health care. Concretely speaking, this means suffering from malaria or diarrhea for children in the bush, women in labor who are unable to reach health facilities, people suffering from acute respiratory infections, women victims of sexual violence and so on,” said Lampaert.Cameroon’s government in 2020 accused Doctors Without Borders of being too close to separatists who are fighting to create an independent English-speaking state in the majority French speaking country.Lampaert denied the accusation and said their only goal is to save lives.”Responding to urgent health needs is our mere and only concern. Viruses, bullets, and infections do not care which side of the crisis one is on and neither do the Doctors Without Borders. That is our DNA and that is the DNA of principled humanitarian medical action,” he said.When contacted by a reporter, Cameroon officials would not say when the aid group, known by its French initials MSF, might be allowed to resume work in the western regions.Cameroon’s health ministry last week reported about 30 percent of hospitals in the regions are no longer functioning due to separatist attacks.The health ministry said several hundred health care workers have fled the separatist conflict areas in the past month alone.Philip Ambe is a government health worker who fled flighting in the northwest town of Bafut last Sunday.Speaking from the town of Dschang, he said MSF’s work was professional and authorities should allow them to resume saving lives.”The government does not need to stay mute on this issue [over asking MSF to resume work] again. The situation is very pathetic. People can no longer live in the comfort of their bedrooms. People were kidnapped. Some are in the bush. It is moving from bad to worse. The only way out is dialogue so that things should come back to normal.”MSF was one of the few groups offering free emergency care to Cameroon’s northwest and southwest populations since 2018.MSF says community health workers it supported last year conducted over to 150,000 consultations for communities in both regions.And a free ambulance service it initiated transported over a thousand women in labor to hospitals.Violence erupted in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions in 2017 when teachers and lawyers protested alleged discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority.The military reacted with a crackdown and separatist groups took up arms, claiming that they were protecting civilians.The U.N. says 3,000 people have since been killed and more than 750,000 displaced both internally and to neighboring Nigeria.
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The Delta COVID-19 variant first identified in India has spread quickly around the world and is now hitting Indonesia. Southeast Asia’s largest country now looks at another peak as it hits the 2 million mark in confirmed cases. VOA’s Ghita Permatasari reports. Ahadian Utama contributed to this reportCamera: Ahadian Utama
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In the most anticipated hearing in the case in years, Britney Spears is expected to address a judge overseeing the conservatorship that has controlled the pop star’s money and affairs since 2008.
If Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny does not make a last-minute decision.
Wednesday to seal the proceedings, Spears’ words will be heard in open court for the first time in the 13-year conservatorship.
The hearing has been eagerly awaited by the fans in the so-called #FreeBritney movement, who feel she is being controlled unfairly against her will and are likely to gather outside the courthouse in large numbers.
Spears, who is scheduled to take part remotely, asked for the hearing so she could address the court directly.
Her court-appointed attorney, Samuel Ingham III, made the request at an April 28 hearing. He gave no indication of what the 39-year-old pop star wants to say.
But in recent court filings, Spears has sought a greater say over who runs the conservatorship, and has asked that her father, who had extensive power over her life and money for most of its existence, be removed.
Spears said through Ingham that she fears her father James Spears, and would not end a 2 1/2-year pause on her career as long as he has control over it.
The judge declined to remove James Spears entirely, though he now plays a smaller role. He serves as co-conservator of her finances along with estate management firm the Bessemer Trust, and in 2019 relinquished his role as conservator over his daughter’s life choices to a court-appointed professional.
Last week, Britney Spears said on Instagram that she wasn’t sure if she will ever perform live again.
“I have no idea,” she said, answering a fan who asked when she planned to take the stage. “I’m having fun right now. I’m in a transition in my life and I’m enjoying myself. So that’s it.”
Britney Spears has spoken in court in the conservatorship before, but the courtroom was always cleared and transcripts sealed.
The last time she was known to have addressed the judge was in May 2019. Spears has since requested greater transparency from the court since then, and Penny has allowed far more to remain public.
The singer has never asked the court to end the conservatorship entirely, though she has emphasized in documents that she reserves the right to do so at any time.
It was put in place as she underwent a mental health crisis in 2008. She has credited it with saving her from financial ruin and keeping her a top flight pop star.
Her father and his attorneys have emphasized that she and her fortune, which court records put at more than $50 million, remain vulnerable to fraud and manipulation. Under the law, the burden would be on Spears to prove she is competent to be released and free to make her own choices.
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Japanese soccer player Kumi Yokoyama said they are transgender — a revelation praised in the U.S. where they play in the National Women’s Soccer League but an identity not legally recognized in Japan.
The 27-year-old forward for the Washington Spirit said they felt more comfortable with their own gender identity while living in the United States, where teammates and friends are more open to gender and sexual diversity.
“I’m coming out now,” Yokoyama said in a video talk on former teammate Yuki Nagasato’s YouTube channel. “In the future, I want to quit soccer and live as a man.”
Yokoyama’s revelation was praised by President Joe Biden.
“To Carl Nassib and Kumi Yokoyama – two prominent, inspiring athletes who came out this week: I’m so proud of your courage. Because of you, countless kids around the world are seeing themselves in a new light today,” Biden tweeted.To Carl Nassib and Kumi Yokoyama – two prominent, inspiring athletes who came out this week: I’m so proud of your courage. Because of you, countless kids around the world are seeing themselves in a new light today.— President Biden (@POTUS) June 23, 2021Nassib is the first active NFL player to come out as gay.
The Spirit also expressed the team’s support and pride in Yokoyama. “Thank you for showing the world it’s ok to embrace who you are!” the team tweeted, adding that the player uses they/them pronouns.Thank you Mr.President for being a great, supportive neighbor! https://t.co/pJVmKpRpvR— Washington Spirit (@WashSpirit) June 23, 2021Support and awareness of gender and sexual diversity has slowly grown in Japan, but LGBTQ people lack many legal protections and often suffer discrimination, causing many to hide their sexual identities. An equality law pushed by rights groups was scrapped recently due to opposition from the conservative ruling party.
Transgender people in Japan also must have their reproductive organs removed to have their gender recognized on official documents — a requirement that human rights and medical groups criticize as inhuman and unnecessary and say should end.
Yokoyama said they weren’t enthusiastic about coming out but it was a choice made while thinking about the future and that it would be harder to live closeted. “I would not have come out in Japan,” they said.
They thanked their teammates, friends and girlfriend for their support and courage.
Yokoyama played for Japan at the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France and moved from Japanese club AC Nagano Parceiro to the Washington Spirit.
Yokoyama said they felt a strong pressure to conform and remain closeted in Japan but hoped to live as a man after retiring as a professional soccer player and to help raise awareness for sexual minorities in Japan.
“More people in Japan are becoming familiar with the word LGBTQ and it’s seen more (in the media), but I think awareness won’t grow unless people like myself come out and raise our voices,” Yokoyama said.
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India’s technology driven vaccination initiative has raised concerns the country’s huge digital divide is making it difficult for many people to get inoculated, particularly in the nation’s vast countryside. While tech savvy, digitally aware city dwellers have managed to get shots, millions in rural areas are left behind because of a technology barrier. Anjana Pasricha has a report. Camera: Rakesh Kumar
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Residents in North India’s rural Kangra district say they have been anxious to get vaccinated for COVID-19 after a second wave of the pandemic created havoc and ravaged villages last month. While tech savvy, digitally aware city dwellers have managed to get shots, millions in rural areas are being left behind because of a technology barrier. Registering on the official website called CoWIN, they say, has been a challenge for many residents like Harnam Singh — who only has an old-fashioned feature phone and no internet connection. “I have a simple phone. I don’t even know how smart phones operate,” Singh said with a shrug. After widening its inoculation drive to all adults last month, the government in India made it mandatory for those between 18 and 45 years old to register on a digital portal for a shot. The move created a divide between people in towns and cities at an advantage in getting shots while millions in rural areas were jostled out of vaccine lines because they did not have smart phones or adequate resources. Criticism that the digital divide was excluding millions from its inoculation drive prompted the government to act. This week, all those eligible for vaccines will be allowed to walk into health centers for appointments, according to authorities. People leave a vaccination center after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine in Imphal, India, June 21, 2021.India’s vaccination program is gaining momentum — the country administered more than eight million shots on Monday as it offered free vaccines to all. But sustaining that record pace, especially in vast rural areas, remains a challenge as demand for vaccines continues to outstrip supply amid shortages. Residents in Kangra however say not much has changed for them with the new policy because only limited numbers could walk to vaccination centers. On the other hand, those with access to an online booking are assured a shot. That means people like Manoj Sharma, who don’t own a smart phone, are still scrambling to get an online slot, usually turning to friends for help. “The government should facilitate this process for us,” said Sharma, who works as a driver. “I am driving all day and providing an essential service. Being on the road, I worry about getting the virus.” The technology barrier prompts about 15 people a day to walk to Lok Mitra Kendra, a local center that offers assistance. “The registration on the official website is a problem because many people in villages are not very educated and struggle with the online process,” said Vijay Kapoor, who runs the center. Public health experts say ensuring equal access to rural areas could be critical in ending the pandemic, especially in the wake of warnings of an impending third wave. “Two thirds of India is rural. If you do not vaccinate them in adequate numbers, there will be a huge reservoir of susceptible persons which the virus or any new variant can attack and then come back to urban areas,” said K. Srinath Reddy, president of the Public Health Foundation of India. India’s Supreme Court had also flagged concerns earlier this month about the technology-driven vaccination drive. “It is the marginalized sections of the society who would bear the brunt of this accessibility barrier,” a three-judge bench had said. Even educated rural residents with smart phones have struggled to get a vaccine — patchy internet connections and poor network coverage in remote areas mean that the tech savvy in nearby towns grab coveted vaccine slots faster. “Even if I register on the website, I can’t find a vaccine center close by,” says Vivek Chand, a poultry farmer. “The only place where vaccines were available in the district when I checked today was about 50 kilometers away. Those too were restricted to above 45.” An elderly woman, left, holds the arm of her domestic helper as she receives Covishield vaccine against the coronavirus at a vaccination center in Mumbai, India, June 22, 2021.The underfunded and ill-equipped rural healthcare infrastructure puts villages at a further disadvantage. India has allowed the private sector to administer shots giving people in cities the option to pay and get a shot at a private hospital, but rural areas have few such facilities. Such challenges have led to growing calls for administering shots closer to village homes, especially as authorities expect vaccine shortages to ease substantially in the coming months — the government has said it will have enough shots to vaccinate all adult citizens by the end of the year. So far India has administered about 300 million shots. Those vaccinated with two doses add up to about 5% of the country’s population. “Centers should be opened in each village for people to get vaccinated. This will remove all the hurdles they are facing,” said Kapoor as he tried to help out people at the Lok Mitra Kendra center. Health experts say giving India’s vast countryside easy access to vaccines should be a priority. “Ultimately, when in India’s election we manage to reach the ballot box to the remotest area, including the interior of the forest, we ought to find ways in which we can carry vaccines to such places,” said Reddy. “We may have to think of innovative ideas such as taking mobile vans to villages. Some states want to use drones to deliver vaccines to remote areas, but they will also have to ensure there are also people to administer the vaccines there.” That is what village residents in Kangra want — an easily available shot for which they don’t have to struggle online or trek for kilometers, just to find out if a vaccination center will allow them to walk in for a shot.
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A landmark cyberbullying trial in Paris, involving thousands of threats against a teenager who savaged Islam in online posts, is blazing a trail in efforts to punish and prevent online abuse.It has also raised uncomfortable questions about freedom of expression, freedom to criticize a religion, and respect for France’s millions of Muslims. But most of all, it’s been a trial about the power of the online word, and prosecutors hope it serves as a wake-up call to those who treat it lightly.Thirteen young people of various backgrounds and religions from across France face potential prison time for charges including online harassment, online death threats and online rape threats in the two-day trial wrapping up Tuesday. It’s the first of its kind since France created a new court in January to prosecute online crimes, including harassment and discrimination.Tweet or post without thinkingOne of the defendants wants to become a police officer. Another says he just wanted to rack up more followers by making people laugh. Some denied wrongdoing, others apologized. Most said they tweeted or posted without thinking.The teen at the center of the trial, who has been identified publicly only by her first name, Mila, told the court she feels as if she’s been “condemned to death.””I do not see my future,” she said.Mila, who describes herself as atheist, was 16 when she started posting videos on Instagram and later TikTok harshly criticizing Islam and the Quran. Now 18, she testified that “I don’t like any religion, not just Islam.”Her lawyer Richard Malka said Mila has received some 100,000 threatening messages, including death threats, rape threats, misogynist messages and hateful messages about her homosexuality.Quit high school twiceMila had to quit her high school, then another. She is now monitored daily by the police for her safety.”It’s been a cataclysm, it feels like the sky is falling on our heads … a confrontation with pure hatred,” her mother told the court.Mila’s online enemies don’t fit a single profile. Among the thousands of threats, authorities tracked down 13 suspects who are on trial this week. All are being identified publicly only by their first names, according to French practice.TikTok videoThe trial focused on comments in response to a TikTok video by Mila in November criticizing Islam. A defendant named Manfred threatened to turn her into another Samuel Paty, a teacher who was beheaded outside Paris in October after showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in class.Manfred told the court he was “pretending to be a stalker to make people laugh.””I knew she was controversial because she criticized Islam. I wanted to have fun and get new subscribers,” he testified.Defendant Enzo, 22, apologized in court for tweeting “you deserve to have your throat slit,” followed by a sexist epithet.Others argued their posts didn’t constitute a crime.”At the time, I was not aware that it was harassment. When I posted the tweet, I wasn’t thinking,” testified Lauren, a 21-year-old university student who tweeted about Mila: “Have her skull crushed, please.”Stands by criticismAlyssa, 20, one of the few Muslim defendants, says she reacted “like everyone else on Twitter” and stood by her criticism of Mila’s posts.While the defense lawyer argued that it’s not the same thing to insult a god or a religion and a human being, Alyssa disagreed.”For me, it is of the same nature. Mila used freedom of expression; I thought that (tweeting an angry response) was also freedom of expression,” she said.Freedom of expression is considered a fundamental right and blasphemy is not a crime in France. After Mila’s initial video in January 2020, a legal complaint was filed against her for incitement to racial hatred. That investigation was dropped for lack of evidence.Some French Muslims feel that their country, and President Emmanuel Macron’s government, unfairly stigmatize their religious practices.French society dividedMila’s online videos rekindled those concerns and divided French society. While the threats against her were broadly condemned, former Socialist President Francois Hollande was among those who argued that while she has the right to criticize religion, “she should not engage in hate speech about those who practice their religion.”Nawfel, 19, didn’t see the harm when he tweeted that Mila deserved the death penalty and insulted her sexuality. He has passed tests to become a gendarme and hopes not to be sentenced, to keep a clean record. The trial has given him new perspective on online activity.”Without social media, everyone would have a normal life,” he said. “Now there are many people who will think before they write.”Prison time, finesThe defendants face up to two years in prison and 30,000 euros in fines (about $37,000) if convicted of online harassment. Some are also accused of online death threats, an offense that carries a maximum prison sentence of three years and a fine of up to 45,000 euros ($55,000).The prosecutor, however, requested suspended sentences. A verdict is expected July 9.”You have the power to stop this digital lynching,” defense lawyer Malka told the judges. “Fear of the law is the only thing that remains.”Mila remains active on social networks.”I have this need to show that I will not change who I am and what I think,” she said. “I see it as like a woman who has been raped in the street and who is asked not to go out, so that it doesn’t happen again.”
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Colombia is home to the world’s largest variety of butterflies, approximately 20% of all known species, according to a study published Tuesday by the Natural History Museum in London.An international team of scientists cataloged 3,642 species and 2,085 subspecies, registering them in a document titled “Checklist of Colombian Butterflies.”More than 200 butterfly species are found only in Colombia, said Blanca Huertas, the senior butterfly collection curator at the museum and a member of the research team.An Alissa de Pteronymia “Crystal wings” butterfly lands on a flower at the Botanic Garden Jose Celestino Mutis during an exhibition in Bogota on Sept. 14, 2011.Project researchers traveled widely in Colombia, analyzed more than 350,000 photographs and studied information collected since the late 18th century, the museum said.”Colombia is a country with a great diversity of natural habitats, a complex and heterogeneous geography and a privileged location in the extreme northeast of South America,” the report reads in part.”These factors, added to the delicate public order in the last century in certain regions, has limited until now, the advancement of field exploration.”Colombia has endured more than a half century of armed conflict, with some areas controlled by leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitary groups or drug lords, and with little government presence.Protecting butterflies in Colombia will also help protect its forests as well as other less likeable species, Huertas said.Between 2000 and 2019 Colombia lost nearly 2.8 million hectares of forest, equivalent to the area of Belgium, according to the National Department of Planning.A Siproeta Ephaphus butterfly lands on the finger of a man at the Botanic Garden Jose Celestino Mutis during an exhibition in Bogota on Sept. 14, 2011.
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The World Bank announced a partnership with the African Union Tuesday to finance the acquisition and distribution of COVID-19 vaccine for 400 million people in Africa.In a remote news conference via Zoom, World Bank Managing Operations Director Axel van Trotsenburg said the World Bank is providing $12 billion to not only acquire but deploy 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — a single dose shot — in support of the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT) initiative.The announcement comes a day after African finance ministers and the World Bank Group met to fast-track vaccine acquisition on the continent and avoid a third wave of COVID-19.Van Trotsenburg said the bank is making the financing available in an effort to address the imbalance in vaccine access between the world’s wealthy and not-so-wealthy nations. He said, “Less than one percent of the African population has been vaccinated. Africa has been marginalized in this global effort to get a vaccine. We have to correct this unfairness; and given that this is a global pandemic, we need global solutions and global solidarity.” The project will be a big step toward helping the African Union meet its goal to vaccinate 60% of the continent’s population by 2022. Van Trotsenburg said the regional effort complements the work of the World Health Organization-managed COVAX vaccine cooperative and comes at a time of rising COVID-19 cases in the region.The World Bank has already approved operations to support vaccine roll outs in 36 countries. By the end of June, the World Bank expects to be supporting vaccination efforts in 50 countries, two thirds of which are in Africa.
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The United States is likely to miss President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% of U.S. adults partially or fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by the July 4 Independence Day holiday; but, the White House says the U.S. could reach that mark for adults 27 or older.
In a new assessment Tuesday of the country’s vaccination effort, COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients is expected to say the federal government now will focus on convincing those who are 18 to 26 years of age to get vaccinated, a White House official said.
Many young U.S. adults, for various reasons, have shown little interest in getting vaccinated, especially since the number of new coronavirus cases and deaths has fallen sharply in the country in recent weeks and many businesses have reopened without facemask and social distancing restrictions that had been in place for more than a year.
Overall, however, since the pandemic first spread widely in the U.S. in March 2020, the country has recorded more than 602,000 deaths and 33.5 million infections, more than in any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University.Johns Hopkins: 177.8 Million Global COVID InfectionsFrench and German leaders urge vigilance against COVID-19 variants
Biden, who set the 70% vaccination goal for the July 4 holiday, has not publicly acknowledged it is unlikely to be met.
Like on many divisive political issues in the U.S., a sharp split has developed on getting vaccinated, with numerous Democratic states that voted for Biden in last November’s election showing higher vaccination rates than Republican states that voted for his predecessor, President Donald Trump.
Some of the lowest vaccination rates have been recorded in southern states that Trump won handily and where skepticism is widespread about the need to be vaccinated.
Trump and former first lady Melania Trump, who both contracted the virus, were privately vaccinated before he left office in January, but Trump often downplayed the spread of the infection in the U.S. Both Biden and first lady Jill Biden were vaccinated on live television before he took office. They have made numerous appeals to Americans to get the shot. Joe Biden receives his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine at ChristianaCare Christiana Hospital in Newark, Del., Dec. 21, 2020, from nurse practitioner Tabe Mase. Zients is expected to say that 70% of Americans 30 and older already have received at least one shot, a Biden official said. The pace of inoculations, however, has fallen markedly in recent weeks even though plenty of shots are available.
The White House is planning a large July 4 celebration on the South Lawn with about 1,000 guests expected to attend the picnic and watch the fireworks celebrating the country’s 1776 independence from Britain.
Even as Biden likely misses the 70% vaccination rate for adults, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week, “We’ve made tremendous progress in our vaccination efforts to date, and the ultimate goal has been to get America back to normal … and we’re looking forward to doing that even here at the White House.”
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The European Union announced Tuesday it is once again investigating Google for what could be anti-competitive activities in digital advertising.The investigation will try to determine if Google is harming competitors by restricting third party access to user data that could better target advertising.”We are concerned that Google has made it harder for rival online advertising services to compete in the so-called ad tech stack,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.Google said it would cooperate in the investigation.”Thousands of European businesses use our advertising products to reach new customers and fund their websites every single day. They choose them because they’re competitive and effective,” a Google spokesperson said.The EU has fined Google more than $9.5 billion over the past decade for restricting third parties from online shopping, Android phones and online advertising.In the past year, online ads generated $147 billion in revenue for the U.S.-based company.Google’s ad business also is facing scrutiny in the U.S., where several states and the U.S. Justice Department are suing the company for alleged anti-competitive behavior.
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The number of STEM jobs — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — have sped past the number of non-STEM jobs by three times since 2000. And experts say there might not be enough graduates in those fields to fill the jobs. “Look around at how many times a day you touch a computer, tablet, phone … these industries are accelerating so much that these high school kids will have jobs that don’t even exist yet,” said Kenneth Hecht, the leader of the National STEM Honor Society, an membership program that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). STEM covers both high-tech and long-established professions. For example, STEM jobs in demand include those in cloud computing, informatics and other software developers that write code for computation. They also include occupations for actuaries, cartographers, critical care nurses and epidemiologists. Jobs in the medical and healthcare fields have boomed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as populations age, but traditionally, computer technology, or tech, is the number one major that international students pursue within STEM, according to a study by the Institute of International Education. Jobs in computer and information technology are projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, “much faster than the average for all occupations.”These occupations are projected to add about 531,200 new jobs to the U.S. workforce by 2029. Jobs in cloud computing, big data, and information security will be in high demand, according to BLS.COVID plus and minuses Recent enrollment declines because of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed the pipeline between graduates and jobs, as most international students rode out the pandemic in their home countries. But recent graduates who land STEM jobs show greater availability and higher salaries. “A STEM education and a STEM career can change the trajectory of one family’s path and even others,” said Kenneth Hecht, leader of the National STEM Honor Society that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). Nidhi Thaker, a Ph.D. student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, also is optimistic about the promise of STEM opportunities. “Applying and combining a biology background with technology that can be helpful in making a product, and by product, I mean, it could be a machine, it could be a drug, it could be any other thing, to help medicine itself and to help the field grow,” is what biotechnology means to Thaker. Her experience working in the Boston area, one of America’s biotech hubs and close to several top U.S. universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has been largely positive. “It’s not just work, work, work. They also incorporate, like, team-building exercises, going out and having parties and things like that,” Thaker noted. “It’s a very well rounded, cultural approach that they’re taking, in regard to giving all the benefits.” Lack of people skills One problem, though, is many graduates have a proficiency in tech skills but lack people skills, said Sahil Jain, senior enterprise architect at Adobe. “This means they are good at coding. You can give them a digest code, they will do it very well. But they cannot speak to the senior leadership at the customer site.” Jain explains that both soft and hard skills are necessary to do well in emerging technology jobs, yet students often excel at one or the other, not both. “That means they are good at speaking, but when it comes to technicalities, the customer brings his architects on the call, ‘Oh, tell me how this will work? Can you give me some architectural aspects as well?’ … That is where the big gap is,” he explained. In addition, Jain said the STEM job market is crowded with numerous evolving technologies. “The industry is evolving a lot. It’s no longer only cloud computing based. There are many, many areas of blockchain,” a way to code to enhance the security of the information. “We have machine learning, we have [artificial intelligence] …” said Jain, who has recently enrolled in Georgia Institute of Techology, a public university in Atlanta, to keep his skills up to date. Filling needed roles Even with initiatives to alert students to STEM opportunities, like NSTEM, there were an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled in STEM fields in 2018, according to a study by Impact Science, a California teacher-founded initiative to engage young students with science.“Being on the educational side, these numbers are well published and well recognized in the world, and the question is and has been, ‘What do you do about it?’” Hecht asked. “If you look at the differences in ethnicities and gender it would be even worse,” which inspires one of NSTEM’s missions to help close equity divisions in STEM, he added. Immigration issues An April 2021 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that “enrolling more international undergraduate students does not crowd out U.S. students at the average American university and leads to an increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students.” “Each additional 10 bachelor’s degrees—across all majors—awarded to international students by a college or university leads to an additional 15 bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students,” the study found. The data suggests that U.S. students are more likely to major in STEM fields if they go to school with international students. “In much of the U.S., STEM graduates are in short supply. Students who graduate with a STEM major typically earn more than other graduates, especially early in their careers,” according to the NFAP study. “The finding here that the presence of international students actually increases the number of U.S. students graduating with a STEM major is another reason to encourage international students to come to the United States,” stated Madeline Zavodny, the study’s author. “America’s future competitiveness depends on attracting and retaining talented international students,” according to companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter with other parties in a group letter to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) in July 2020. ICE had announced it would revoke international student visas during the COVID-19 pandemic if those students were not in person to study on campus. ICE Won’t Compel Foreign Students to Be on Campus Immigration agency retreats from ruling that risked student visa status
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Home security companies often rely on cameras and motion sensors to catch trespassers, but as VOA’s Tina Trinh discovers, Wi-Fi signals can be a less intrusive way to monitor activity.
Produced by: Tina Trinh
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Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib on Monday became the first active NFL player to come out as gay.
Nassib, who is entering his sixth NFL season and second with the Raiders, announced the news on Instagram, saying he wasn’t doing it for the attention but because he felt representation and visibility were important.
“I just wanted to take a quick moment to say that I’m gay,” Nassib said in his video message from his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now, but I finally feel comfortable enough to get it off my chest.
“I really have the best life. I got the best family, friends and job a guy can ask for. I’m a pretty private person, so I hope you guys know that I’m really not doing this for attention. I just think that representation and visibility are so important.”
Nassib added in a written message that followed the video that he “agonized over this moment for the last 15 years” and only recently decided to go public with his sexuality after receiving the support of family and friends.
“I am also incredibly thankful for the NFL, my coaches, and fellow players for their support,” Nassib wrote. “I would not have been able to do this without them. From the jump I was greeted with the utmost respect and acceptance.”
Nassib, whose announcement came during Pride Month, added that he was donating $100,000 to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent suicides among LGBTQ youth.
“The NFL family is proud of Carl for courageously sharing his truth today,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “Representation matters. We share his hope that someday soon statements like his will no longer be newsworthy as we march toward full equality for the LGBTQ+ community. We wish Carl the best of luck this coming season.”
Nassib’s announcement also was greeted by Brian Burke, president of the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins. Burke has been a major proponent of LGBTQ rights for more than a decade since his late son Brendan came out as gay.
“Proud to support Carl and his decision to come out as the first active gay player in the NFL,” Burke said. “I hope other sports executives will join me in publicly expressing their support as well.”
The Raiders showed their support, writing, “Proud of you, Carl,” on their repost of Nassib’s message on Twitter and adding a black heart emoji.
DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association, tweeted: “Our union supports Carl and his work with the Trevor Project is proof that he — like our membership — is about making his community and this world a better place not for themselves, but for others.”
Penn State coach James Franklin said he and his wife Fumi were inspired by Nassib’s announcement to donate $10,000 to the Trevor Project.
“I am very proud of Carl for his courage and voice,” Franklin said. “This announcement doesn’t surprise me because if you know Carl, you know his strength. Carl’s story continues to add chapters which will have an impact well beyond the field of play.”
Nassib led the nation with 15½ sacks in 2015, Franklin’s second season in State College, and he was a cornerstone of the program’s path back to contention.
“Carl’s brave announcement will forge a path for others to be true to their authentic self,” Franklin added. “I was proud of Carl when he led the nation in sacks, but I’m even more proud of him now.”
Former All-Pro linebacker Shawne Merriman commended Nassib and suggested teammates and opponents won’t have a problem with his announcement.
“Congrats to Carl Nassib on coming out that’s a big step, I think that most players are concerned if you can play or not,” Merriman tweeted.
In a post saying he was proud of Nassib, Hall of Famer Warren Moon said he played with several gay football players in a storied pro career that spanned from 1978 to 2000 but none were “comfortable enough to go public.”
“They were great teammates, & obviously very talented. As long as they helped us win and were great teammates, their sexual preference was never a issue,” Moon wrote. “We live in a different time now where diversity is much more accepted. Cheers Carl, and I hope this lets other athletes know, its OK to say who you are…”
Added fellow Nittany Lions alum and Giants running back Saquon Barkley, “Much respect brudda.”
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, a leading LGBTQ advocacy organization, called Nassib’s “powerful coming out is a historic reflection of the growing state of LGBTQ visibility and inclusion in the world of professional sports, which has been driven by a long list of brave LGBTQ athletes who came before him.”
Ellis said Nassib’s story “will not only have a profound impact on the future of LGBTQ visibility and acceptance in sports, but sends a strong message to so many LGBTQ people, especially youth, that they too can one day grow up to be and succeed as a professional athlete like him.”
More than a dozen NFL players have come out as gay after their careers were over.
Former University of Missouri defensive star Michael Sam was the first openly gay football player ever selected in the NFL draft, going in the seventh round to the then-St. Louis Rams in 2014. But he never made the final roster and retired in 2015 having never played in an NFL regular-season game.
Nassib is a sixth-year pro who was drafted by the Cleveland Browns in 2016 in the third round (65th overall) out of Penn State. He played two seasons for the Browns and two for Tampa Bay before joining the Raiders in 2020. He has 20 1/2 sacks in 73 career games.
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Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie has visited war-weakened Burkina Faso to show solidarity with people who continue to welcome the displaced, despite grappling with their own insecurity, and said the world isn’t doing enough to help.
“The humanitarian crisis in the Sahel seems to me to be totally neglected. It is treated as being of little geopolitical importance,” Jolie told the Associated Press. “There’s a bias in the way we think about which countries and which people matter.”
While Burkina Faso has been battling a five-year Islamic insurgency linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State that’s killed thousands and displaced more than one million people, it is also hosting more than 22,000 refugees, the majority Malian.
As Special Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Jolie marked World Refugee Day on Sunday in Burkina Faso’s Goudoubo refugee camp in the Sahel, where she finished a two-day visit. She spoke with the camp’s Malian refugees and internally displaced people in the nation’s hard-hit Center-North and Sahel regions.
After 20 years of work with the U.N. refugee agency, Jolie told the AP the increasing displacement meant the world was on a “terrifying trajectory towards instability”, and that governments had to do something about the conflicts driving the vast numbers of refugees.
“Compared to when I began working with UNHCR twenty years ago, it seems like governments have largely given up on diplomacy … countries which have the least are doing the most to support the refugees,” she said.
“The truth is we are not doing half of what we could and should … to enable refugees to return home, or to support host countries, like Burkina Faso, coping for years with a fraction of the humanitarian aid needed to provide basic support and protection,” Jolie said.
Malians began fleeing to Burkina Faso in 2012 after their lives were upended by an Islamic insurgency, where it took a French-led military intervention to regain power in several major towns. The fighting has since spread across the border to Burkina Faso, creating the fastest growing displacement crisis in the world. Last month Burkina Faso experienced its deadliest attack in years, when gunmen killed at least 132 civilians in Solhan village in the Sahel’s Yagha province, displacing thousands.
The increasing attacks are stretching the U.N.’s ability to respond to displaced people within the country as well as the refugees it’s hosting.
“Funding levels for the response are critically low and with growing numbers of people forced to flee … the gap is widening,” UNHCR representative in Burkina Faso Abdouraouf Gnon-Konde told the AP.
The attacks are also exacerbating problems for refugees who came to the country seeking security.
“We insisted on staying (in Burkina Faso), (but) we stay with fear. We are too scared,” said Fadimata Mohamed Ali Wallet, a Malian refugee living in the camp. “Today there is not a country where there isn’t a problem. This (terrorism) problem covers all of Africa,” she said.
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A special committee with the United Nations’s cultural agency says Australia’s Great Barrier Reef should be placed on a list of World Heritage sites that should be designated as “in danger.” The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage Committee, or UNESCO, recommended the 2,300-kilometer-long coral reef system should be placed on the list because it has deteriorated due to climate change. Australian officials denounced the recommendation. Environment Minister Sussan Ley said Tuesday that Canberra opposes the designation and accused the World Heritage Committee of “a backflip on previous assurances” and that it would not take such an action before its formal meeting next month. Ley said she and Foreign Minister Marise Payne had spoken by phone to UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay about the decision, which she called “flawed” and a decision influenced by politics. “This sends a poor signal to those nations who are not making the investments in reef protection that we are making,” she said. But Richard Leck, the head of oceans for World Wide Fund for Nature-Australia, said in a statement the recommendation “is clear and unequivocal that the Australian government is not doing enough to protect our greatest natural asset, especially on climate change.” The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s biggest coral reef system that brings an estimated $4.8 billion annually in tourism revenue. Climate change has driven temperatures in the Coral Sea higher in recent decades, leading to three mass “bleaching” events since 2015, destroying at least half of the Reef’s vibrant corals and prompting the Australian government to downgrade its long term outlook to “very poor.”
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The number of STEM jobs — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — have sped past the number of non-STEM jobs by three times since 2000. And experts say there might not be enough graduates in those fields to fill the jobs. “Look around at how many times a day you touch a computer, tablet, phone … these industries are accelerating so much that these high school kids will have jobs that don’t even exist yet,” said Kenneth Hecht, the leader of the National STEM Honor Society, an membership program that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). STEM covers both high-tech and long-established professions. For example, STEM jobs in demand include those in cloud computing, informatics and other software developers that write code for computation. They also include occupations for actuaries, cartographers, critical care nurses and epidemiologists. Jobs in the medical and healthcare fields have boomed because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as populations age, but traditionally, computer technology, or tech, is the number one major that international students pursue within STEM, according to a study by the Institute of International Education. Jobs in computer and information technology are projected to grow 11% from 2019 to 2029, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) website, “much faster than the average for all occupations.”These occupations are projected to add about 531,200 new jobs to the U.S. workforce by 2029. Jobs in cloud computing, big data, and information security will be in high demand, according to BLS.COVID plus and minuses Recent enrollment declines because of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed the pipeline between graduates and jobs, as most international students rode out the pandemic in their home countries. But recent graduates who land STEM jobs show greater availability and higher salaries. “A STEM education and a STEM career can change the trajectory of one family’s path and even others,” said Kenneth Hecht, leader of the National STEM Honor Society that engages students from kindergarten into their career in STEM project-based learning (NSTEM). Nidhi Thaker, a Ph.D. student in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, also is optimistic about the promise of STEM opportunities. “Applying and combining a biology background with technology that can be helpful in making a product, and by product, I mean, it could be a machine, it could be a drug, it could be any other thing, to help medicine itself and to help the field grow,” is what biotechnology means to Thaker. Her experience working in the Boston area, one of America’s biotech hubs and close to several top U.S. universities like Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, has been largely positive. “It’s not just work, work, work. They also incorporate, like, team-building exercises, going out and having parties and things like that,” Thaker noted. “It’s a very well rounded, cultural approach that they’re taking, in regard to giving all the benefits.” Lack of people skills One problem, though, is many graduates have a proficiency in tech skills but lack people skills, said Sahil Jain, senior enterprise architect at Adobe. “This means they are good at coding. You can give them a digest code, they will do it very well. But they cannot speak to the senior leadership at the customer site.” Jain explains that both soft and hard skills are necessary to do well in emerging technology jobs, yet students often excel at one or the other, not both. “That means they are good at speaking, but when it comes to technicalities, the customer brings his architects on the call, ‘Oh, tell me how this will work? Can you give me some architectural aspects as well?’ … That is where the big gap is,” he explained. In addition, Jain said the STEM job market is crowded with numerous evolving technologies. “The industry is evolving a lot. It’s no longer only cloud computing based. There are many, many areas of blockchain,” a way to code to enhance the security of the information. “We have machine learning, we have [artificial intelligence] …” said Jain, who has recently enrolled in Georgia Institute of Techology, a public university in Atlanta, to keep his skills up to date. Filling needed roles Even with initiatives to alert students to STEM opportunities, like NSTEM, there were an estimated 2.4 million positions unfilled in STEM fields in 2018, according to a study by Impact Science, a California teacher-founded initiative to engage young students with science.“Being on the educational side, these numbers are well published and well recognized in the world, and the question is and has been, ‘What do you do about it?’” Hecht asked. “If you look at the differences in ethnicities and gender it would be even worse,” which inspires one of NSTEM’s missions to help close equity divisions in STEM, he added. Immigration issues An April 2021 study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) found that “enrolling more international undergraduate students does not crowd out U.S. students at the average American university and leads to an increase in the number of bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students.” “Each additional 10 bachelor’s degrees—across all majors—awarded to international students by a college or university leads to an additional 15 bachelor’s degrees in STEM majors awarded to U.S. students,” the study found. The data suggests that U.S. students are more likely to major in STEM fields if they go to school with international students. “In much of the U.S., STEM graduates are in short supply. Students who graduate with a STEM major typically earn more than other graduates, especially early in their careers,” according to the NFAP study. “The finding here that the presence of international students actually increases the number of U.S. students graduating with a STEM major is another reason to encourage international students to come to the United States,” stated Madeline Zavodny, the study’s author. “America’s future competitiveness depends on attracting and retaining talented international students,” according to companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Twitter with other parties in a group letter to Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) in July 2020. ICE had announced it would revoke international student visas during the COVID-19 pandemic if those students were not in person to study on campus. ICE Won’t Compel Foreign Students to Be on Campus Immigration agency retreats from ruling that risked student visa status
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Thousands of Japanese companies began the rollout of their workplace vaccine programs Monday, inoculating company workers and their families. Some of the companies had been critical of what they said was the government’s slow pace of Japan’s COVID-19 inoculation campaign. Toyota and Suntory are among the companies participating in the workplace program with vaccines provided by the government. Thousands of people are expected to receive shots through the initiative, which is beginning just weeks before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics. Organizers of the Olympics announced Monday that they will allow a limited number of spectators into venues holding Olympic events, capping the number at 10,000 people, or 50% of a venue’s capacity. The decision comes just days after health experts told the government that banning all spectators was the “least risky” option for holding the games in light of a surge of new COVID-19 infections in the Japanese capital and across the country. Record in IndiaIn India, the government announced it had given 7.5 million coronavirus vaccine doses Monday — a new single day record for inoculations. The country also saw its lowest daily number of new COVID-19 cases in about three months — 53,256 new infections. FILE – A worker handles boxes of COVID-19 vaccines, delivered as part of the COVAX equitable vaccince distribution program, at Ivato International Airport, in Antananarivo, Madagascar, May 8, 2021.U.S. officials say the deliveries have been delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient countries. “What we’ve found to be the biggest challenge is not actually the supply — we have plenty of doses to share with the world — but this is a Herculean logistical challenge,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki. Global numbersTaiwan recorded its lowest number of new COVID-19 infections since May 15. Health officials announced 75 new infections Monday. On Sunday, Taiwan received 2.5 million COVID-19 vaccines from the United States. Indonesian health officials said Monday the country has passed 2 million confirmed coronavirus infections. They also announced the country’s largest one-day jump in new coronavirus infections — 14,536. Authorities say they are tightening restrictions to try to stop the spread of the virus for two weeks in 29 “red zones” across the country where infection rates are high. There are more than 178 million global COVID-19 infections as of Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The U.S. has the most with 33.6 million, followed by India with 29.9, and Brazil with 17.9. Brazil became the second country, behind the United States, to record more than half a million COVID-19 deaths.
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The White House has laid out its plans for sharing 55 million COVID-19 vaccine doses abroad, with most of the allocations going to countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.The Biden administration said Monday that most of the doses would be shared through the COVAX international vaccine-sharing program, fulfilling a commitment by President Joe Biden to share 80 million U.S.-made vaccines with countries around the world.The Associated Press reported Monday that the administration is likely to fall short of its pledge to share the vaccines by the end of June, because of regulatory and other hurdles. Officials cited by the news agency say the vaccine doses are ready but are being delayed due to legal, logistical and regulatory requirements in both the United States and the recipient countries.Biden laid out his plans for the first 25 million doses earlier this month. On Monday, the White House revealed plans for the 55 million remaining shots, including 14 million for Latin America and the Caribbean, 16 million for Asia, and about 10 million for Africa.Another 14 million doses are being shared with “regional priorities,” including Colombia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, South Africa, the West Bank and Gaza.The United States has already begun delivering vaccine doses to Taiwan, Mexico, Canada and South Korea.“We have plenty of supply to deliver on the 80 million doses,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday’s press briefing. “Our biggest challenge is logistics, is the fact that there is not a playbook for this and there are challenges as it relates to getting these doses out to every country.”FILE – A health worker holds a tray with vials of the Pfizer vaccine for COVID-19 during a priority vaccination program at a community medical center in Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 6, 2021.In addition, President Biden announced earlier this month that the U.S. would purchase 500 million vaccine doses from drug manufacturer Pfizer and distribute them worldwide over the coming year.The United States has surplus vaccine doses after more than 177 million Americans have received at least one shot and demand for COVID vaccines has begun to fall.The White House said in a statement Monday that the United States “will not use its vaccines to secure favors from other countries.” It said the U.S. goals for the program include increasing global COVID-19 vaccination coverage, preparing for surges and helping “our neighbors and other countries in need.”
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