The port of Vancouver, Canada’s largest, said on Tuesday that all rail access had been cut by floods and landslides farther east that killed at least one person and left two others missing. 

Two days of torrential rain across the Pacific province of British Columbia touched off major flooding and shut rail routes operated by Canadian Pacific Rail and Canadian National Railway, Canada’s two biggest rail companies. 

“All rail service coming to and from the Port of Vancouver is halted because of flooding in the British Columbia interior,” port spokesperson Matti Polychronis said. 

At least one person was killed when a mudslide swept cars off Highway 99 near Pemberton, some 100 miles (160 kilometers) to the northeast of Vancouver. 

Search and rescue crews were combing through the rubble for signs of survivors or additional casualties, officials said. 

Vancouver’s port moves C$550 million ($440 million) worth of cargo each day, ranging from automobiles and finished goods to essential commodities. 

The floods temporarily shut down much of the movement of wheat and canola from Canada, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, during a busy time for trains to haul grain to the port following the harvest. 

This year drought has sharply reduced the size of Canada’s crops, meaning a rail disruption of a few days may not create a significant backlog, a grain industry source told Reuters. 

Del Dosdall, senior export manager at grain handler Parrish & Heimbecker, said he expected some rail service could be restored by the weekend. Another industry source said he expected the shutdown to last weeks. 

Floods have also hampered pipelines. Enbridge shut a segment of a British Columbia natural gas pipeline as a precaution. 

The storms also forced the closure of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which carries up to 300,000 barrels per day of crude oil from Alberta to the Pacific Coast. 

Copper and coal miner Teck Resources Limited said the floods had disrupted movement of its commodities to its export terminals, while potash exporter Canpotex said it was looking for alternatives to move the crop nutrient overseas. 

Directly to the south of British Columbia, in Washington state, heavy rains forced evacuations and cut off electricity for more than 150,000 households on Monday. The U.S. National Weather Service on Tuesday issued a flash flood warning in Mount Vernon, Washington, “due to the potential for a levee failure.” 

Some areas of British Columbia received 20 centimeters (8 inches) of rain on Sunday, the amount that usually falls in a month. 

Authorities in Merritt, some 200 km (120 miles) northeast of Vancouver, ordered all 8,000 citizens to leave on Monday as river waters rose quickly, but some were still trapped in their homes on Tuesday, said city spokesman Greg Lowis. 

Snow blanketed the town on Tuesday and some cars could be seen floating in the flood waters still up to 1.22 meters (4 feet) high. The towns of Chilliwack and Abbotsford ordered partial evacuations. 

Rescuers equipped with diggers and body-sniffing dogs started dismantling large mounds of debris that have choked highways. 

The landslides and floods come less than six months after wildfires gutted an entire town, as temperatures in the province soared during a record-breaking heat dome. 

 
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With the Earth getting warmer and weather events more extreme, the African Union has set up a Disaster Operations Center in Nairobi to help monitor major hazards and provide regional early warnings for drought, floods, extreme rainfall, food insecurity, and pests like the desert locusts. Juma Majanga reports from Nairobi. Camera – Jim Makhulo.
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Russian officials on Tuesday rejected accusations that they endangered astronauts aboard the International Space Station by conducting a weapons test that created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk.

U.S. officials on Monday accused Russia of destroying an old satellite with a missile in what they called a reckless and irresponsible strike. The debris could do major damage to the space station as it is orbiting at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph).

Astronauts now face four times greater risk than normal, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told The Associated Press.

The test clearly demonstrates that Russia, “despite its claims of opposing the weaponization of outer space, is willing to … imperil the exploration and use of outer space by all nations through its reckless and irresponsible behavior,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The Russian space agency Roscosmos wouldn’t confirm or deny that the strike took place, saying only that “unconditional safety of the crew has been and remains our main priority” in a vague online statement released Tuesday.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday confirmed carrying out a test and destroying a defunct satellite that has been in orbit since 1982, but insisted that “the U.S. knows for certain that the resulting fragments, in terms of test time and orbital parameters, did not and will not pose a threat to orbital stations, spacecraft and space activities” and called remarks by U.S. officials “hypocritical.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also charged that it is “hypocrisy” to say that Russia creates risks for peaceful activities in space.

Once the situation became clear early Monday morning, the four Americans, one German and two Russians on board the International Space Station were ordered to immediately seek shelter in their docked capsules. They spent two hours in the two capsules, finally emerging only to have to close and reopen hatches to the station’s individual labs on every orbit, or 1 1/2 hours, as they passed near or through the debris.

NASA Mission Control said the heightened threat could continue to interrupt the astronauts’ science research and other work. Four of the seven crew members only arrived at the orbiting outpost Thursday night.

A similar weapons test by China in 2007 also resulted in countless pieces of debris. One of those threatened to come dangerously close to the space station last week. While it later was dismissed as a risk, NASA had the station move anyway.

Anti-satellite missile tests by the U.S. in 2008 and India in 2019 were conducted at much lower altitudes, well below the space station at about 260 miles (420 kilometers.)
…

Relentless rain battered Canada’s Pacific coast on Monday, forcing a town’s evacuation and trapping motorists as mudslides, rocks and debris were washed across major highways. 

Some 275 people, according to local media, were stuck overnight in their cars between two mudslides on Highway 7 near the town of Agassiz in British Columbia. 

Meanwhile, Merritt – about 300 kilometers (185 miles) from the coast – ordered the evacuation of all 7,000 of its townsfolk after flooding compromised the local wastewater treatment plant and washed out two bridges. Barricades also went up restricting access to the town. 

The province’s public safety minister, Mike Farnworth, said search and rescue crews were dispatched to free people trapped for hours without food or water in 80 to 100 cars. 

“We are looking at the possibility of air rescues, if needed,” he told a news conference, adding that “high winds may challenge these efforts.” 

Farnworth said there had been “multiple rain-induced incidents” in the southwest and central regions of the province, describing the situation as “dynamic.” 

Video footage showed a military helicopter landing on the highway covered in mud and debris, to pick up stranded motorists. 

British Columbia emergency health services said it transported nine patients to hospital with minor injuries overnight from the Agassiz landslide.

And it assembled ambulances in nearby Chilliwack “for any patients requiring care from areas affected by flooding and landslides,” it added. 

Emergency centers were also set up for displaced residents. 

In a Twitter message to British Columbians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “Please stay safe.”

“We’re ready to provide whatever assistance is needed as you deal with and recover from the flooding and this extreme weather,” he said. 

British Columbia’s transportation ministry said several highways were closed Monday. “Heavy rains and subsequent mudslides/flooding have impacted various highways in the BC interior,” it said. 

The local utility issued flood alerts due to high water flows into its reservoirs, and said it was working to restore power to thousands hit by outages. 

Construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline connecting the Alberta oil sands to the Pacific coast was also paused “due to widespread flooding and debris flows,” a company spokesperson told AFP. 

In the city of Abbotsford, outside Vancouver, authorities ordered more than 100 homes evacuated in several neighborhoods threatened by flooding and mudslides, while television images showed farms in the Fraser Valley under several feet of water. 

Meteorologist Tyler Hamilton commented on social media that Abbotsford in the past 140 days had experienced both its warmest and wettest days ever. 

Environment Canada said up to 250 millimeters (almost 10 inches) of rain — what the region normally gets in a month — was expected by the day’s end in and around Vancouver, which was also hit last week by a rare tornado.

“A significant atmospheric river event continues to bring copious amounts of rain to the B.C. south coast,” it said.

“Heavy rain will ease and strong westerly winds will develop this afternoon as the system moves inland.” 

The extreme weather comes after British Columbia suffered record-high temperatures over the summer that killed more than 500 people, as well as wildfires that destroyed a town. 
…

A Russian weapons test created more than 1,500 pieces of space junk that is now threatening the seven astronauts aboard the International Space Station, U.S. officials said Monday. 

The State Department confirmed that the debris was from an old Russian satellite destroyed by the missile strike. 

“It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was irresponsible,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. 

The Russian military and ministry of defense were not immediately available for comment, according to a Reuters report. 

Earlier Monday, the four Americans, one German and two Russians on board were forced to briefly seek shelter in their docked capsules because of the debris. 

At least 1,500 pieces of the destroyed satellite were sizable enough to show up on radar and with telescopes, Price said. But countless other fragments were too small to track, yet still posed a danger to the space station as well as orbiting satellites. 

Even a fleck of paint can do major damage when orbiting at 28,000 kph (17,500 mph). Something big, upon impact, could be catastrophic. 

“We are going to continue to make very clear that we won’t tolerate this kind of activity,” Price said. 

He said the U.S. has “repeatedly raised with Russian counterparts our concerns for a potential satellite test.” 

NASA Mission Control said the heightened threat from the debris might continue for another couple of days and continue to interrupt the astronauts’ science research and other work. Four of the seven crew members arrived at the orbiting outpost Thursday night. 

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, who’s midway through a yearlong mission, called it “a crazy but well-coordinated day” as he bid Mission Control good night. 

“It was certainly a great way to bond as a crew, starting off with our very first work day in space,” he said. 

The U.S. Space Command said it was tracking the field of orbiting debris. NASA had made no comment by late afternoon, and there was no word late Monday from Russia about the missile strike.

A similar weapons test by China in 2007 also resulted in countless pieces of debris. One of those pieces threatened to come dangerously close to the space station last week. While it later was dismissed as a risk, NASA had the station move anyway. 

Anti-satellite missile tests by the U.S. in 2008 and India in 2019 were conducted at much lower altitudes, well below the space station. 

Until Monday, the Space Command already was tracking some 20,000 pieces of space junk, including old and broken satellites from around the world.

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said it will take days if not weeks and months to catalogue the latest wreckage and confirm their orbits. The fragments will begin to spread out over time, due to atmospheric drag and other forces, he said in an email. 

The space station is at especially high risk because the test occurred near its orbit, McDowell said. But all objects in low-Earth orbit — including China’s three-person space station and even the Hubble Space Telescope — will be at “somewhat enhanced risk” over the next few years, he noted. 

John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said the most immediate concern was the space debris. Beyond that, the United States is monitoring “the kinds of capabilities that Russia seems to want to develop which could pose a threat not just to our national security interest but to the security interests of other space-faring nations.” 

Earlier in the day, the Russian Space Agency said via Twitter that the astronauts were ordered into their docked capsules, in case they had to make a quick getaway. The agency said the crew was back doing routine operations, and the space station’s commander, Russian Anton Shkaplerov, tweeted: “Friends, everything is regular with us!” 

But the cloud of debris posed a threat on each passing orbit — or every one and a half hours — and all robotic activity on the U.S. side was put on hold. German astronaut Matthias Maurer also had to find a safer place to sleep than the European lab. 
…

The British government Monday announced Monday an expansion of the nation’s COVID-19 booster shot program to people ages 40 and up, to fight off a potential winter surge of the deadly disease.

Until now, only British residents ages 50 and up, those clinically vulnerable because of underlying conditions, and frontline health workers were eligible for booster shots. But at a news briefing in London, the chairman of Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization, Wei Shen Lin, announced the extension to those ages 40 and up who have been fully vaccinated for at least six months.

He said, as with the original booster program, either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines can be used as the booster dose, regardless of the type of vaccine originally received.

The committee also recommended a second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for young people between the ages of 16 and 18. In August, the committee had advised only one dose of the vaccine for people of that age group, but would review the data, and were anticipating that a second dose may well be advised. Monday, the committee chairman said that was “indeed the case.” 

The chief executive of Britain’s drug regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Dr. June Raine, said they had closely monitored the use of the vaccines in people under 18, and their use raised no additional safety issues specific to this age group. 

Speaking via video conference, British Deputy Chief Medical Officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said the data so far showed that adults over age 60 who have received the booster were achieving over 90% protection against symptomatic illness and he expected protection against hospitalization and death to be even higher. 

He said if the booster program is successful and participation numbers are high, it would “massively reduce the worry about hospitalization and death due to COVID at Christmas and for the rest of this winter, for literally millions of people.” 

 
…

Pakistan rolled out a massive two-week drive Monday to immunize more than 90 million children in what officials hailed as one of the world’s biggest vaccination campaigns against measles and rubella.

An official announcement said children aged between 9 months and 15 years across the country will be inoculated against the contagious viral infections.

The Pakistani government has mobilized more than 600,000 health professionals, vaccinators and social mobilizers for the campaign with the support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization.

“Measles and rubella are contagious diseases and can have severe complications for children even death,” said Dr. Faisal Sultan, special assistant to the Pakistani prime minister on health.

“I urge both the front-line workers to work with dedication and the caregivers to express their support by vaccinating their children against the diseases,” Sultan added.

Officials said Pakistan has experienced an alarming rise in measles cases in recent years, affecting thousands of children and claiming many young lives.

“The measles and rubella campaign will move us not only one step closer to maintaining measles elimination and accelerating rubella control, but also one step closer to reducing the overall child mortality across Pakistan,” said WHO Country Representative Palitha Mahipala.

UNICEF said children under the age of five will also receive polio drops during the campaign to support Pakistan’s eradication efforts against the crippling disease. 

“Today’s world is still grappling with the very contagious measles and rubella viruses, none of which have gone away despite being entirely preventable with a simple vaccine,” said UNICEF Country Representative Aida Girma in remarks during the launch of the vaccination campaign in Pakistan.

The WHO says more than 140,000 people died from measles in 2018 worldwide – mostly children under the age of 5 years, despite the availability of a safe and effective vaccine.

Measles is caused by a virus in the paramyxovirus family and it is normally passed through direct contact and through the air.

WHO experts say there is no specific treatment for rubella but the disease is preventable by vaccination.

The rubella virus is transmitted by airborne droplets when infected people sneeze or cough. Humans are the only known host. 
…

ith the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, or COP 26, now over, countries are looking to begin funding a global counterattack on rising temperatures on Earth. Meanwhile, scientists in Denmark are searching for clues to our warming planet’s future by studying ice from the past. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more
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Malawi has begun a mass distribution of mosquito nets, aiming to reach almost half the country’s population of 18 million people. Health authorities say the campaign is aimed at reducing the spread of malaria, which in Malawi currently accounts for 36% of all hospital outpatients and 15% of hospital admissions.

The Global Fund-supported campaign was announced during the commemoration of Southern Africa Development Community Malaria Day November 6 and is expected to be rolled out nationally November 15.

Khumbize Kandodo-Chiponda, Malawi’s minister of health, says the intervention is a response to the health threat malaria is posing in Malawi. 

“So, one of the interventions is the distribution of the nets as vector control. As a country, we are going to distribute 9 million nets. Out target is that at least two Malawians should share a net. Our population we are targeting we are about 18 million, that why we reached the figure of 9 million,” Kandodo-Chiponda said.

She said during the campaign all expectant mothers will be given anti-malaria drugs to prevent them from suffering from malaria while pregnant. 

Statistics show that malaria is the No. 1 deadly disease in Malawi. Last year alone, malaria killed 2,500 people in Malawi, more than any other disease, including COVID-19.

However, Kandodo-Chiponda said the campaign is strewn with challenges.

“And one of the challenges is that when you distribute the nets, you will find that, especially along the lake, these nets are used for fishing and sorts of things,” she said.

To reduce the changes of such misuse of the nets, the campaign also involves teaching the recipients about the importance of sleeping under the net. 

The mosquito net distribution is part of the Zero Malaria Starts With Me campaign, launched by Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera in June as part of global campaign to end malaria by 2030.

Elias Mpedi Magosi, executive secretary of the Southern Africa Development Community, commended Malawi’s efforts to eradicate malaria and said the bloc is working to adopt a regional malaria strategy.

“Primarily because if one country, one member state removes or clears malaria, these mosquitos known no boundaries, they just relocate to another country. So, it requires a pooled regional effort, resources, attributes and behaviors so that it is eliminated,” Magosi said.

Janet Kayita, the World Health Organization country representative in Malawi, said the campaign is among major steps Malawi has successfully taken against malaria.

“Malawi has been exceptional in taking forward WHO recommendations on what to do, how to prevent malaria, how to treat malaria. But the most historic groundbreaking event in the last month actually, that Malawi is at the front of, is the information that is coming out about the new malaria vaccine for infants and children,” Kayita said.

Last month, the WHO endorsed the world’s first malaria vaccine for children across Africa following a successful three-year trial in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi. 

Although it is only 30% effective, scientists say the vaccine, known as Mosquirix, will have major impact against malaria in Africa, which records 200 million cases and 400,000 deaths per year.
…

The idea was striking in its ambition: African countries aimed to plant trees in a more than 8,000 kilometer-line spanning the entire continent, creating a natural barrier to hold back the Sahara Desert as climate change swept the sands south.

The project called the Great Green Wall began in 2007 with a vision for the trees to extend like a belt across the vast Sahel region, from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east, by 2030. But as temperatures rose and rainfall diminished, millions of the planted trees died.

Efforts to rein in the desert continue in Senegal on a smaller scale. On the western end of the planned wall, Ibrahima Fall walks under the cool shade of dozens of lime trees, watering them with a hose as yellow chicks scurry around his feet. Just beyond the green orchard and a village is a desolate, arid landscape.

The citrus crop provides a haven from the heat and sand that surround it. Outside the low village walls, winds whip sand into the air, inviting desertification, a process that wrings the life out of fertile soil and changes it into desert, often because of drought or deforestation.

Only 4% of the Great Green Wall’s original goal has been met, and an estimated $43 billion would be needed to achieve the rest. With prospects for completing the barrier on time dim, organizers have shifted their focus from planting a wall of trees to trying a mosaic of smaller, more durable projects to stop desertification, including community-based efforts designed to improve lives and help the most vulnerable agriculture.

“The project that doesn’t involve the community is doomed to failure,” says Diegane Ndiaye, who is part of a group known as SOS Sahel, which has helped with planting programs in Senegal and other countries across the Sahel, a broad geographic zone between the Sahara in the north and the more temperate African savanna to the south.

The programs focus on restoring the environment and reviving economic activity in Sahel villages, Ndiaye said.

With the loss of rainfall and the advance of the desert, “this strip of the Sahel is a very vulnerable area to climate change,” he said. “So we should have projects that are likely to rebuild the environment … fix the dunes and also help protect the vegetable-growing area.”

On Senegal’s Atlantic Coast, filao trees stretch in a band from Dakar up to the northern city of St. Louis, forming a curtain that protects the beginning of Green Wall region, which also grows more than 80% of Senegal’s vegetables. The sky-reaching branches tame the winds tearing in from the ocean.

This reforestation project started in the 1970s, but many trees were cut down for wood, and work to replant them has been more recent. More trees are also planted in front of dunes near the water in an effort to protect the dunes and keep them from moving.

“We have had a lot of reforestation programs that today have not yielded much because it is often done with great fanfare” and not with good planning, Ndiaye said.

Fall, the 75-year-old chief of his village, planted the citrus orchard in 2016, putting the trees near a water source on his land. His is one of 800 small orchards in six communes of a town called Kebemer.

“We once planted peanuts and that wasn’t enough,” he said in the local Wolof language. “This orchard brings income that allows me to take care of my family.” He said he can produce 20 to 40 kilos of limes per week during peak season.

Enriched by the trees, the soil has also grown tomatoes and onions.

The village has used profits from the orchard to replace straw homes with cement brick structures and to buy more sheep, goats and chickens. It also added a solar panel to help pump water from a communal well, sparing villagers from having to pay more for water in the desert.

African Development Bank President Akinwumi A. Adesina spoke about the importance of stopping desertification in the Sahel during the United Nations’ COP26 global climate conference. He announced a commitment from the bank to mobilize $6.5 billion toward the Great Green Wall by 2025.

The newest projects in Senegal are circular gardens known in the Wolof language as “tolou keur.” They feature a variety of trees that are planted strategically so that the larger ones protect the more vulnerable.

The gardens’ curving rows hold moringa, sage, papaya and mango trees that are resistant to dry climates. They are planted so their roots grow inward to improve water retention in the plot.

Senegal has 20 total circular gardens, each one adapted to the soil, culture and needs of individual communities so they can grow much of what they need. Early indications are that they are thriving in the Great Green Wall region. Solar energy helps provide electricity for irrigation.

Jonathan Pershing, deputy special envoy for climate at the U.S. State Department, visited Senegal as part of an Africa trip last month, saying the U.S. wants to partner with African nations to fight climate change.

“The desert is encroaching. You see it really moving south,” Pershing said.

In terms of the Great Green Wall project, he said, “I don’t think that very many people thought it was going to go very far,” including himself. But there are indications of progress, as seen in the community projects.

“It has a global benefit, and people are prepared to make those kinds of long-term investments through their children and their families, which I think is a hallmark of what we need to do in other climate arenas.”
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Medicare’s “Part B” outpatient premium will jump by $21.60 a month in 2022, one of the largest increases ever. Officials said Friday a new Alzheimer’s drug is responsible for about half of that.

The increase guarantees that health care will gobble up a big chunk of the recently announced Social Security cost-of-living allowance, a boost that had worked out to $92 a month for the average retired worker, intended to help cover rising prices for gas and food that are pinching seniors.

Medicare officials told reporters on Friday that about half the increase is due to contingency planning if the program ultimately has to cover Aduhelm, the new $56,000-a-year medication for Alzheimer’s disease from pharmaceutical company Biogen. The medication would add to the cost of outpatient coverage because it’s administered intravenously in a doctor’s office and paid for under Part B.

The issue is turning into a case study of how one pricey medication for a condition afflicting millions of people can swing the needle on government spending and impact household budgets. People who don’t have Alzheimer’s would not be shielded from the cost of Aduhelm, since it’s big enough to affect their premiums.

The new Part B premium will be $170.10 a month for 2022, officials said. The jump of $21.60 is the biggest increase ever in dollar terms, although not percentage-wise. As recently as August, the Medicare Trustees’ report had projected a smaller increase of $10 from the current $148.50.

“The increase in the Part B premium for 2022 is continued evidence that rising drug costs threaten the affordability and sustainability of the Medicare program,” said Medicare chief Chiquita Brooks-LaSure in a statement. Officials said the other half of the premium increase is due to the natural growth of the program and adjustments made by Congress last year as the coronavirus pandemic hit.

The late Friday afternoon announcement — in a time slot government agencies use to drop bad news — comes as Congress is considering Democratic legislation backed by President Joe Biden that would restrain what Medicare pays for drugs. However, under the latest compromise, Medicare would not be able to negotiate prices for newly launched drugs. The news on Medicare premiums could reopen that debate internally among Democrats.

“Today’s announcement … confirms the need for Congress to finally give Medicare the ability to negotiate lower prescription drug costs,” Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said in a statement. “We simply cannot wait any longer to provide real relief to seniors.” Pallone has been a proponent of the original House version of the legislation, which took a tougher approach toward the pharmaceutical industry.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurological disease with no known cure, affecting about 6 million Americans, the vast majority old enough to qualify for Medicare.

Aduhelm is the first Alzheimer’s medication in nearly 20 years. It doesn’t cure the life-sapping condition, but the Food and Drug Administration determined that its ability to reduce clumps of plaque in the brain is likely to slow dementia. However, many experts say that benefit has not been clearly demonstrated.

Medicare has begun a formal assessment to determine whether it should cover the drug, and a final decision isn’t likely until at least the spring. For now, Medicare is deciding on a case-by-case basis whether to pay for Aduhelm.

Cost traditionally does not enter into Medicare’s coverage determinations. But in this case there is also plenty of debate about the effectiveness of Aduhelm. Last November, an FDA advisory panel voted nearly unanimously against recommending its approval, citing flaws in company studies. Several members of the panel resigned after the FDA approved the drug anyway over their objections.

A nonprofit think tank focused on drug pricing pegged Adulhelm’s actual value at between $3,000 and $8,400 per year — not $56,000 — based on its unproven benefits.

But Biogen has defended its pricing, saying it looked carefully at costs of advanced medications to treat cancer and other conditions. The company also says it expects a gradual uptake of the Alzheimer’s drug, and not a “hockey-stick” scenario in which costs take off. Nonetheless Medicare officials told reporters they have to plan for contingencies.

Two House committees are investigating the development of Aduhelm, including contacts between company executives and FDA regulators.

Medicare covers more than 60 million people, including those 65 and older, as well as people who are disabled or have serious kidney disease. Program spending is approaching $1 trillion a year. 

 
…

In Kansas City, Kansas, educators are opening an after-school mental health clinic staffed with school counselors and social workers. Schools in Paterson, New Jersey, have set up social emotional learning teams to identify students dealing with crises. Chicago is staffing up “care teams” with the mission of helping struggling students on its 500-plus campuses.

With a windfall of federal coronavirus relief money at hand, schools across the U.S. are using portions to quickly expand their capacity to address students’ struggles with mental health.

While school districts have broad latitude on how to spend the aid money, the urgency of the problem has been driven home by absenteeism, behavioral issues, and quieter signs of distress as many students have returned to school buildings this fall for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit.

For some school systems, the money has boosted long-standing work to help students cope with trauma. Others have launched new efforts to screen, counsel and treat students. All told, the investments put public schools more than ever at the center of efforts to attend to students’ overall well-being.

“In the last recession, with the last big chunk of recovery money, this conversation wasn’t happening,” said Amanda Fitzgerald, the assistant director of the American School Counselor Association. “Now, the tone across the country is very focused on the well-being of students.”

Last month, three major pediatric groups said the state of children’s mental health should be considered a national emergency. The U.S. Education Department has pointed to the distribution of the relief money as an opportunity to rethink how schools provide mental health support. Mental well-being, Education Secretary Miguel Cardona has said, needs to be the foundation for the recovery from the pandemic.

The pandemic relief to schools totals $190 billion, more than four times the amount the Education Department typically spends on K-12 schools annually. Mental health investments have gone into staff training, wellness screenings and curriculum dedicated to social-emotional learning.

Still, questions remain over how schools will find ways to make the benefits last beyond the one-time infusion of money, handle privacy concerns, and track the effectiveness of their efforts. The implementation worries Katie Dockweiler, a school psychologist in Nevada who sits on the state board of education.

“Not all programs are created equal,” she said. “It really comes down to how it’s implemented, school by school. And there’s great variability there.”

She said districts should develop ways of tracking the impact on students: “Otherwise, we’re just throwing our money away.”

At the top of the list for many districts has been hiring new mental health specialists. When the National Association of School Psychologists surveyed members this fall, more than half of respondents said their districts intended to add social workers, psychologists, or counselors, according to policy director Kelly Vaillancourt Strobach.

With $9.5 million from federal relief funding and outside grant money, Paterson schools added five behavioral analysts, two substance abuse coordinators, and the teams to spot students going through crises.

In Paterson, one of the lowest-income parts of New Jersey, many of the 25,000 students faced food insecurity before the pandemic and struggled after family members lost jobs, Superintendent Eileen Shafer said.

“We wanted to make sure before we try to teach anything new, that we’re able to deal with where our children are right now based on what they’ve been through,” she said.

In rural Ellicottville, New York, where school psychologist Joe Prior is seeing more anxiety and a “significant increase” in panic attacks, the district wants to use rescue funds to hire a counselor to connect students with psychological help. But the position remains unfilled, as few expressed interest.

“I have more students just looking me in the eye and saying ‘I’m completely overwhelmed and I’m not sure how to handle it,'” Ellicottville high school principal Erich Ploetz said.

It’s not the only district where ambitions for hiring have outstripped the number of available professionals. Some districts have turned to outside vendors to help fill mental health positions, while others are training existing staff.

The Kansas City, Kansas, school system is using some of the $918,000 in relief money dedicated to mental health to pay social workers and counselors already on staff to work at the new after-school clinic. The district also has added staff and mental health screenings.

Angela Dunn, who leads the 22,000-student district’s mental health and suicide prevention initiatives, said the mental health team has responded to 27 student deaths and 16 staff deaths since the pandemic started, double what is typical during that period. She said a handful of staff members died of COVID-19, but many of the others were homicides, suicides and overdoses.

The investments by schools in student mental health services have raised some privacy concerns, especially where schools are now monitoring student computers for distress signals or administering mental health screenings to all students. But the idea that it’s not the place of schools to involve themselves at all has receded.

“We just recognized that students are comfortable seeking help in a school setting,” Dunn said.

Chicago, the nation’s third-largest school district, unveiled a “healing plan” for students, using $24 million of its $2.6 billion in stimulus funds.

Over three years, the district will expand “care teams” — building staff who serve as the frontline response for struggling students — to each campus. The goal is to reach 200 schools by spring.

High school principal Angélica Altamirano used some of that funding to open a space outfitted with cozy furniture and a hand-me-down air hockey table. Already, the campus center has offered grief groups for students whose family members or friends have died and helped teachers dealing with burnout.

In Topeka, Kansas, $100,000 was budgeted for calming items and staff for sensory rooms, including one at Quincy Elementary. When students get so frustrated that they put their heads down on their desk, or wander into the hallway or cry, teachers can send them to the Roadrunner Room. There, they can climb into a tent and snuggle under a weighted blanket, put a puzzle together, play with sand or build with Legos.

Dean of students Andrea Keck has watched the room become a go-to place for one student to work out frustrations.

“She can journal it, get her hair put up, whatever she needs, and then she is successful the rest of the day,” said Keck, who oversees the room.

In Detroit, the district is spending $34 million on mental health initiatives, including screening students, expanding help from outside mental health providers, and offering extra support to parents.

On a recent Wednesday, that meant an hourlong meditation session for parents at a local coffee shop. One attendee worried her own stress was affecting her son’s ability to learn.

“As a community we have all been through something,” said Sharlonda Buckman, an assistant superintendent who participated in the session. “Part of recovery has to be some intentional work in spaces like this, so we can be there for our kids.”
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Africa is on the front line of climate change. Nowhere is this more evident than the Lake Chad Basin, which covers almost 8% of the continent and supports tens of millions of people. The United Nations says it has shrunk by 90% since the 1960s because of drought.

The resulting competition for resources has caused poverty and conflict. Over 10 million people are dependent on humanitarian assistance.

Oladosu Adenike, 27, has witnessed Lake Chad’s tragic transformation firsthand. She is a prominent campaigner on climate change in Africa and started the Nigerian “Fridays for Future” campaign, joining the global movement after meeting Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

Adenike is one of several young African delegates who traveled thousands of miles to Glasgow, Scotland, to be part of the COP26 climate summit and to convey their sense of urgency to world leaders.

“The peace and stability in this region – in the Lake Chad region, the Sahel – it depends on when we are able to restore the lake and able to say that people can get sustainable livelihoods, for them not to be able to be vulnerable to join armed groups of people. And this will likewise improve democracy in the region,” she told VOA.

Adenike is an official Nigerian youth delegate at the COP26 summit and has addressed senior delegates on the need to act fast. But she says she is frustrated by slow progress.

“We are still in the talking phase. We have not yet transited into the action phase, which is needed right now this moment, and not postponing it into the future. Because that is the most dangerous thing you can do right now. Delay now is a denial of the climate change crisis,” Adenike said.

Kaluki Paul Mutuku is a youth delegate for Kenya. Like Adenike, he’s a prominent young voice in the fight against climate change in Africa.

“We are constantly in the fear of losing our family members, losing our communities because the climate is dry – it is worsening by the day – there are droughts, there is extreme rainfall, and communities cannot bear it,” he told VOA.

“Just in 2019, we had a huge locust invasion that took over our crop plantations. We had huge floods in Nairobi, which killed so many people, and just this year, we are having so many people lives being lost due to starvation and famines,” he said.

Mutuku said that delivering on climate finance – the money rich countries have agreed to pay poorer nations to adapt to climate change and decarbonize their economies – is the most vital outcome of COP26. The 2009 pledge to pay $100 billion a year still has not been met.

“How do we finance to avoid emissions in Africa? How do we equip communities with resources and money to really be able to adapt to climate change, and how do we ensure that we give climate proofing for them?” he said.

“We cannot afford to lose hope. And as long as young people, grassroots, and our front-line communities are leading the decade of change, then we are in the right trajectory. For me, any delayed financing is a shame on (world) leaders,” Mutuku told VOA.

For young activists from around the world, it has been a long journey to COP26 in every sense. They say they will continue to fight for climate justice long after they return home. 

 
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Several young African climate activists traveled thousands of miles to Glasgow, Scotland, to be part of the COP26 climate summit — and to convey their sense of urgency to world leaders. Henry Ridgwell spoke with some of them about their climate change experiences and what COP26 must deliver to help their communities back home.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell.
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A businessman who traveled to space with William Shatner last month was killed along with another person when the small plane they were in crashed in a wooded area of northern New Jersey, state police said.

The space tourist, Glen M. de Vries, 49, of New York City, and Thomas P. Fischer, 54, of Hopatcong, were aboard the single-engine Cessna 172 that went down Thursday. 

De Vries was an instrument-rated private pilot, and Fischer owned a flight school. Authorities have not said who was piloting the small plane. 

The plane left Essex County Airport in Caldwell, on the edge of the New York City area, and was headed to Sussex Airport, in rural northwestern New Jersey. The Federal Aviation Administration alerted public safety agencies to look for the missing plane around 3 p.m.

Emergency crews found the wreckage in Hampton Township around 4 p.m., the FAA said. 

De Vries, co-founder of a tech company, took a 10-minute flight to the edge of space October 13 aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft with Shatner and two others. 

“It’s going to take me a while to be able to describe it. It was incredible,” de Vries said as he got his Blue Origin “astronaut wings” pinned onto his blue flight suit by Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos. 

“We are devastated to hear of the sudden passing of Glen de Vries,” Blue Origin tweeted Friday. “He brought so much life and energy to the entire Blue Origin team and to his fellow crewmates. His passion for aviation, his charitable work, and his dedication to his craft will long be revered and admired.” 

De Vries co-founded Medidata Solutions, a software company specializing in clinical research, and was the vice chair of life sciences and health care at Dassault Systemes, which acquired Medidata in 2019. He had taken part in an auction for a seat on the first flight and bought a seat on the second trip. 

De Vries also served on the board of Carnegie Mellon University. 

Fischer owned the flight school Fischer Aviation and was its chief instructor, according to the company’s website.

The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating.
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World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that Europe remains the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting 2 million new cases last week, the region’s highest number since the pandemic began. 

At a briefing in Geneva, the WHO chief said the region also reported nearly 27,000 deaths last week, more than half of all COVID-19 deaths worldwide.

Tedros said COVID-19 is surging in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in countries with some of the world’s highest vaccination rates in Western Europe. He said it is a reminder that while vaccines reduce the risk of hospitalization, severe disease and death, they do not replace the need for other precautions.

Tedros said that while vaccines reduced transmission of the coronavirus, they do not fully prevent it.

On the subject of vaccines, the WHO chief once again spoke about the injustices of COVID-19 vaccine inequities and how wealthy nations are neglecting low-income nations in the distribution of the drugs. Tedros said every day, there are six times more boosters administered globally than primary doses in low-income countries. 

He once again urged nations with stockpiled vaccine to donate it to the WHO-managed COVAX global vaccine cooperative to distribute to the developing world. He said that COVAX works when given the chance, having delivered almost 500 million doses to 144 countries and territories. 

Tedros said the majority of countries are prepared to distribute vaccines to their people, but they need the doses. He said there are only two countries that have not started vaccinating their populations — Eritrea and North Korea.

The WHO has set a goal of fully vaccinating 40 percent of the population of every country in the world by the end of this year. 

 
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Scientists in South Africa have discovered the first partial Homo Naledi child’s skull in one of the world’s richest hominin fossil sites. The discovery at a UNESCO World Heritage site near Johannesburg, called “Cradle of Humankind,” reveals that the non-human species performed rituals for their dead thousands of years ago, before humans did. For VOA, Marize de Klerk visited the site and has this report. Camera – Franco Puglisi.
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U.S. drug maker Johnson & Johnson announced Friday it will separate its consumer health business of over-the-counter, name brand drugs from its prescription drug and medical device business, creating two companies.

In a release posted to its website, the 135-year-old company said its new Consumer Health Company will be publicly traded and market such products as Band-Aids, Neutrogena skin cream, Tylenol pain reliever and Listerine mouthwash.

The company known as Johnson & Johnson will continue selling prescription drugs and medical devices. The company developed one of the three U.S.-approved COVID-19 vaccines, as well as the cancer treatments Darzalex, Erleada, and Imbruvica, among other medications.

Johnson and Johnson said the split is likely to be completed over the next 19 to 24 months, if approved by the company board of directors.

In the release, the company said the split is the best way to serve consumers and patients as well as healthcare professionals. Rival U.S. drug maker Pfizer made a similar move when it and GlaxoSmithKline merged their consumer divisions, with plans to create a separate pharmaceutical company next year.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 

 
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More than 22 million infants missed their first measles vaccine in 2020, according to a report by the World Health Organization and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

WHO said in a statement the 22 million tally was “the largest increase in two decades” and sets the stage for “creating dangerous conditions for outbreaks to occur.”

While reports of measles decreased by 80% in 2020, WHO says that figure is misleading because measles surveillance deteriorated with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Evidence suggests we are likely seeing the calm before the storm as the risk of outbreaks continues to grow around the world,” Dr. Kate O’Brien, director of WHO’s Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals said in a statement.

“It’s critical that countries vaccinate as quickly as possible against COVID-19, but this requires new resources so that it does not come at the cost of essential immunization programs. Routine immunization must be protected and strengthened; otherwise, we risk trading one deadly disease for another,” she said.

WHO said there were “major measles outbreaks” in 26 countries, representing 84% of all reported cases in 2020.

“We must act now to strengthen disease surveillance systems and close immunity gaps, before travel and trade return to pre-pandemic levels, to prevent­­ deadly measles outbreaks and mitigate the risk of other vaccine-preventable diseases,” said Dr. Kevin Cain, CDC’s global immunization director.

Measles is one of the world’s most contagious human viruses although it is almost entirely preventable through vaccination. 

 
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday people have a duty to be inoculated with the COVID-19 vaccine as a way of protecting not only themselves, but others as well.

She made the comments in a virtual conversation with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

COVID-19 cases are soaring in Germany. A record high daily count of 50,000 new infections were reported Thursday. A week ago, the daily tally was 33,000 new cases.

“The virus is still among us and threatens the health of its citizens,” German Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday.

German officials are meeting next week to discuss way to combat the COVID-19 surge.

 
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