The widely used tuberculosis vaccine also fends off a slew of unrelated infectious diseases, and its immune boost can protect newborns for more than a year, researchers in Australia have found.

The bacillus calmette-guérin (BCG) vaccine for tuberculosis causes front-line immune cells to make long-lasting biological “marks” on their DNA, changing how they read genetic instructions for fighting off viruses, the researchers say.

“The DNA is like the manual for the cell. It tells you what it can and can’t do,” study author and molecular immunologist Boris Novakovic of the University of Melbourne told VOA. “You might have a sentence that says, ‘If you see a virus, turn the following genes on.’ And what we’ve done with the BCG vaccine [is] sort of [change] that full stop at the end of that sentence to an exclamation mark.”

The findings were published in the Science Advances journal.

“What is new here is the durability, the long-lasting imprinting effects of BCG vaccine at birth in these Australian babies, and also [that] they can show [in detail] how that takes place,” vaccine epidemiologist Christine Stabell Benn, of the University of Southern Denmark, said in an interview with VOA. She was not involved in the study.

Developed more than a century ago, the BCG vaccine contains live, weakened bacteria. It is one of the oldest vaccines still used and is the most frequently administered vaccine in the world.

Decades ago, Benn and her colleagues noticed that children in Guinea-Bissau who received the tuberculosis shot were less likely to die from other, unrelated diseases. They later confirmed this in a randomized trial, showing that low-birthweight babies who got BCG at birth were about a third less likely to die in their first month of life than those who got BCG later on the normal schedule. Later trials in Guinea-Bissau and Uganda corroborated these findings.

Today, this “non-specific effect” of BCG vaccination has been observed in babies, healthy adults and elderly people. The vaccine’s immune boost is used to treat bladder cancer. Clinical trials are ongoing to see if it could help protect against COVID-19.

There is growing evidence that BCG trains the innate immune system — the non-specific, fast-acting response that activates to fight a wide range of threats.

But it wasn’t until recently that scientists started to figure out how this “trained immunity” that the BCG vaccine generates actually works.

Previous studies found marks of trained immunity a month to three months after BCG vaccination in adults. But the vaccine is typically administered to young babies, and scientists had not tested whether training could last for a long time.

Novakovic and his colleagues compared the immune cells of 63 newborns who received the BCG vaccine right after birth to those of 67 babies who didn’t get the vaccine. They found that exposure to BCG left marks on virus-fighting regions of the genome that tell cells to activate specific genes more or less often. Immune cells passed down these marks, generation to generation, as they divided to make new cells. The marks of trained immunity persisted for more than a year.

In lab tests using cultured human immune cells, the scientists were able to piece together the cellular machinery involved in making these marks more precisely than before.

“We were able to look at all these different levels to see, in a really comprehensive way, what happens to these cells when they directly get exposed to BCG,” said Novakovic.

In the future, Novakovic — who also works at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute — said he’d like to see if the study’s findings hold in different populations — especially in places where infectious disease is more common than in Australia. And in the long term, he thinks scientists should design vaccines that specifically target the immune-boosting pathways BCG incidentally activates.

“The BCG vaccine is great — it’s safe, and it works. But it’s a bit of a dirty method because we don’t really know what it does. We just know it works,” he said. “Imagine you can just make a purely trained-immunity vaccine.”

Benn said future studies should consider factors such as sex and mother’s vaccination status, which epidemiologists have noticed can affect the immune boost from BCG. For instance, boys seem to benefit from the vaccine’s extra protection more than girls during the first weeks of life, she said.

But beyond more research, Benn hopes the new study will give public health officials more confidence in off-target immunity from BCG, a vaccine she says should be recommended as protection against death from infectious disease — not just as a tuberculosis vaccine.

“I feel that we’re sitting on our hands,” she said, “waiting for biological mechanisms while children could be saved.”
…

Banks along parts of the Colorado River where water once streamed are now just caked mud and rock as climate change makes the Western U.S. hotter and drier. 

More than two decades of drought have done little to deter the region from diverting more water than flows through it, depleting key reservoirs to levels that now jeopardize water delivery and hydropower production. 

Cities and farms in seven U.S. states are bracing for cuts this week as officials stare down a deadline to propose unprecedented reductions to their use of the water, setting up what’s expected to be the most consequential week for Colorado River policy in years. 

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in June told the states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — to determine how to use at least 15% less water next year, or have restrictions imposed on them. The bureau is also expected to publish hydrology projections that will trigger additional cuts already agreed to. 

Tensions over the extent of the cuts and how to spread them equitably have flared, with states pointing fingers and stubbornly clinging to their water rights despite the looming crisis. 

Representatives from the seven states convened in Denver last week for last-minute negotiations behind closed doors. Those discussions have yet to produce concrete proposals, but officials close to the negotiations say the most likely targets for cuts are Arizona and California farmers. Agricultural districts in those states are asking to be paid generously to bear that burden. 

The proposals under discussion, however, fall short of what the Bureau of Reclamation has demanded and, with negotiations stalling, state officials say they hope for more time to negotiate details. 

“Despite the obvious urgency of the situation, the last 62 days produced exactly nothing in terms of meaningful collective action to help forestall the looming crisis,” John Entsminger, the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority wrote in a letter Monday. He called the agricultural district demands “drought profiteering.” 

The Colorado River cascades from the Rocky Mountains into the arid deserts of the Southwest. It’s the primary water supply for 40 million people. About 70% of its water goes toward irrigation, sustaining a $15 billion-a-year agricultural industry that supplies 90% of the United States’ winter vegetables. 

Water from the river is divided among Mexico and the seven U.S. states under a series of agreements that date back a century, to a time when more flowed. 

But climate change has transformed the river’s hydrology, providing less snowmelt and causing hotter temperatures and more evaporation. As the river yielded less water, the states agreed to cuts tied to the levels of reservoirs that store its water. 

Last year, federal officials for the first time declared a water shortage, triggering cuts to Nevada, Arizona and Mexico’s share of the river to help prevent the two largest reservoirs — Lake Powell and Lake Mead — from dropping low enough to threaten hydropower production and stop water from flowing through their dams. 

The proposals for supplemental cuts due this week have inflamed disagreement between upper basin states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — and lower basin states — Arizona, California and Nevada — over how to spread the pain. 

The lower basin states use most of the water and have thus far shouldered most of the cuts. The upper basin states have historically not used their full allocations but want to maintain water rights to plan for population growth. 

Gene Shawcroft, the chairman of Utah’s Colorado River Authority, believes the lower basin states should take most of the cuts because they use most of the water and their full allocations. 

He said it was his job to protect Utah’s allocation for growth projected for decades ahead: “The direction we’ve been given as water purveyors is to make sure we have water for the future.” 

In a letter last month, representatives from the upper basin states proposed a five-point conservation plan they said would save water, but argued most cuts needed to come from the lower basin. The plan didn’t commit to any numbers. 

“The focus is getting the tools in place and working with water users to get as much as we can rather than projecting a water number,” Chuck Cullom, the executive director of the Upper Colorado River Commission, told The Associated Press. 

That position, however, is unsatisfactory to many in lower basin states already facing cuts. 

“It’s going to come to a head particularly if the upper basin states continue their negotiating position, saying, ‘We’re not making any cuts,'” said Bruce Babbitt, who served as Interior secretary from 2003-2011. 

Lower basin states have yet to go public with plans to contribute, but officials said last week that the states’ tentative proposal under discussion fell slightly short of the federal government’s request to cut 2 to 4 million acre-feet. 

An acre-foot of water is enough to serve 2-3 households annually. 

Bill Hasencamp, the Colorado River resource manager at Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District, said all the districts in the state that draw from the river had agreed to contribute water or money to the plan, pending approval by their respective boards. Water districts, in particular Imperial Irrigation District, have been adamant that any voluntary cut must not curtail their high priority water rights. 

Southern California cities will likely provide money that could fund fallowing farmland in places like Imperial County and water managers are considering leaving water they’ve stored in Lake Mead as part of their contribution. 

Arizona will probably be hit hard with reductions. The state over the past few years shouldered many of the cuts. With its growing population and robust agricultural industry, it has less wiggle room than its neighbors to take on more, said Arizona Department of Water Resources Director Tom Buschatzke. Some Native American tribes in Arizona have also contributed to propping up Lake Mead in the past and could play an outsized role in any new proposal. 

Irrigators around Yuma, Arizona, have proposed taking 925,000 acre-feet less of Colorado River water in 2023 and leaving it in Lake Mead if they’re paid $1.4 billion or $1,500 per acre-foot. The cost is far above the going rate, but irrigators defended their proposal as fair considering the cost to grow crops and get them to market. 

Wade Noble, the coordinator for a coalition that represents Yuma water rights holders, said it was the only proposal put forth publicly that includes actual cuts, rather than theoretical cuts to what users are allocated on paper. 

Some of the compensation-for-conservation funds could come from $4 billion in drought funding included in the Inflation Reduction Act under consideration in Washington, U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona told the AP. 

Sinema acknowledged that paying farmers to conserve is not a long-term solution: “In the short term, however, in order to meet our day-to-day needs and year-to-year needs, ensuring that we’re creating financial incentives for non-use will help us get through,” she said. 

Babbitt agreed that money in the legislation will not “miraculously solve the problem” and said prices for water must be reasonable to avoid gouging because most water users will take be impacted. 

“There’s no way that these cuts can all be paid for at a premium price for years and years,” he said. 

 
…

In an effort to boost monkeypox vaccination rates, Los Angeles County is organizing pop-up clinics where eligible individuals can get the shot. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.
Videographer: Vazgen Varzhabetian
…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday he tested positive for COVID-19 for the second time this year and is experiencing mild symptoms.

The Pentagon chief said in a statement that he will continue to work a normal schedule but do so virtually from home. Austin said he would quarantine for the next five days in accordance with CDC guidelines and “retain all authorities.”

In January, Austin, 69, also contracted COVID-19.

“Now, as in January, my doctor told me that my fully vaccinated status, including two booster shots, is why my symptoms are less severe than would otherwise be the case,” he said.

Austin said he would continue to consult closely with his doctor in the coming days.

The defense chief urged all Americans to get vaccinated, saying the inoculations “continue to both slow the spread of COVID-19 and to make its health effects less severe.”

Austin said his last in-person contact with President Joe Biden was July 29.

Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on July 21 and came out of isolation July 27. He tested positive again on July 30 and spent another week in isolation.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
…

People who live in the poorest regions of England are diagnosed with serious illnesses earlier and die sooner than their counterparts in more affluent regions, according to a new study.

The Health Foundation study, published Monday, found that “A 60-year-old woman in the poorest areas of England has a level of ‘diagnosed illness’ equivalent to that of a 76-year-old woman in the wealthiest areas . . . While a 60-year-old man in the poorest areas of England will on average have a level of diagnosed illness equivalent to that of a 70- year-old man in the wealthiest areas.”

The Health Foundation is an independent charity dedicated to improving “the health and healthcare of the people in the UK.”

The foundation said while previous studies about health inequalities in England have mostly relied on self-reported health outcomes, their study “linked hospital and primary care data to examine socioeconomic, regional and ethnic variations in the prevalence of diagnosed long-term illnesses.”

The study also uncovered “significant ethnic disparities in diagnosed illness” in populations of people from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and black Caribbean backgrounds.  This group had higher levels of long-term illness than the white population.

People from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds also had “the highest rates of diagnosed chronic pain, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.”

The Health Foundation, however, also found that the white population “had the highest levels of diagnosed anxiety or depression, and alcohol problems.”

“White people are also more likely to be living with cancer,” according to the study’s findings. This may be occurring because of “the increased survival rates associated with cancers that are more prevalent in this group and due to more diagnoses resulting from greater access to cancer screening in the white population.”

‘The NHS wasn’t set up to carry the burden of policy failings in other parts of society,” Jo Bibby, director of Healthy Lives at the Health Foundation said in a statement. “A healthy, thriving society must have all the right building blocks in place, including good quality jobs, housing and education. Without these, people face shorter lives, in poorer health”.
…

NASA researchers are studying “Mars-like” salt lakes in Western Australia in their hunt for extra-terrestrial life. Experts from the United States say the region, with its pink-hued water and distinctive trees, is more like Mars than almost any other location on Earth.

The Yilgarn Craton is a vast mineral-rich region about 400 kilometers east of Perth in Western Australia.

Yilgarn is a word used by the area’s indigenous people to describe quartz. The region has been the focus of exploration and mining, but scientists believe it could harbor clues about the universe and life on other planets.

Western Australia’s acidic lakes are said to mimic conditions on ancient Mars. Three-billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia are some of the oldest on Earth and academics believe they are about the same age as those on the Red Planet.

A team of U.S. experts, supported by local Indigenous elders, are investigating how so-called “hyper-saline environments” — or places with lots of salt — are not only present-day ecosystems, but how they preserve a record of the past.

Associate Professor Britney Schmidt, from Cornell University in New York state, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that the project is funded by NASA, the Washington-based National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

“We are members of the Oceans Across Space and Time project, which is a program funded by the NASA Astrobiology Program and we are out here studying analogues, or examples, of what we think ancient Mars might have been like. So, Western Australia’s unique because it has very, very old rocks. So, here in the Yilgarn Craton somewhere around two to three million years old as well as highly acidic water, and so those two combinations are things that we see on the surface of other planets. So, it is really unique,” she said.

The U.S. team of researchers has been working with indigenous elders, who have explained the region’s so-called “dreaming stories,” which chart the creation of the land by ancestral spirits.

There are many big questions to answer; if life can survive in toxic and hyper-saline environments in Western Australia, could it have existed in extreme conditions on other planets?

We may never find out, but together science and traditional knowledge could yield valuable clues.

Much of the data will help to craft Ph.D. and master’s theses when the team returns to the United States.
…

A measles outbreak has killed 80 children in Zimbabwe since April, the ministry of health said, blaming church sect gatherings for the surge.

In a statement seen by Reuters Sunday, the ministry said the outbreak had now spread nationwide, with a case fatality rate of 6.9%.

Health Secretary Jasper Chimedza said that as of Thursday, 1,036 suspected cases and 125 confirmed cases had been reported since the outbreak, with Manicaland in eastern Zimbabwe accounting for most of the infections.

“The ministry of health and childcare wishes to inform the public that the ongoing outbreak of measles which was first reported on 10th of April has since spread nationwide following church gatherings,” Chimedza said in a statement.

“These gathering which were attended by people from different provinces of the country with unknown vaccination status led to the spread of measles to previously unaffected areas.”

Manicaland, the second-most populous province, had 356 cases and 45 deaths, Chimedza said.

Most reported cases are among children aged between six months and 15 from religious sects who are not vaccinated against measles due to religious beliefs, he added.

Bishop Andby Makuru, leader of Johane Masowe apostolic sect, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Zimbabwe, some apostolic church sects forbid their followers from taking vaccinations or any medical treatment. The churches attract millions of followers with their promises to heal illnesses and deliver people from poverty.

With a low vaccination rate and in some cases, no record keeping, the government has resolved to start a mass vaccination campaign in areas where the outbreak was recorded.

The measles outbreak is expected to strain an ailing health sector already blighted by lack of medication and intermittent strikes by health workers. 
…

China’s financial hub Shanghai said on Sunday it would reopen all schools including kindergartens, primary and middle schools on Sept. 1 after months of COVID-19 closures.

The city will require all teachers and students to take nucleic acid tests for the coronavirus every day before leaving campus, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission said.

It also called for teachers and students to carry out a 14-day “self health management” within the city ahead of the school reopening, the commission said in a statement.

Shanghai shut all schools in mid-March before the city’s two-month lockdown to combat its worst COVID outbreak in April and May.

It allowed some students at high schools and middle schools to return to classrooms in June while most of the rest continued home study for the remainder of the semester.

The announcement on schools reopening brings great relief to many residents but fears about COVID lockdowns continue to persist, as China vows to stick to its dynamic zero policy which requires all positive cases and their close contacts to undergo quarantine.

On Saturday, videos circulating on Chinese social media showed customers pushing past security guards and running out of an IKEA mall in central Shanghai in panic as an announcement blared over its sound system saying the mall was being locked down due to COVID contact tracing.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the videos, but IKEA customer service said on Sunday the mall was shut due to COVID curbs. IKEA did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Shanghai, the most populous in China, reported five new local infections of COVID, all asymptomatic, for Saturday, while 2,467 domestically transmitted cases were reported nationwide.

It has extended its weekly COVID-19 test requirement and extended free testing until the end of September in a bid to keep the virus in check, authorities announced on Saturday.

The southern province of Hainan is now China’s worst hit region, with 494 symptomatic cases and 846 asymptomatic cases reported for Saturday.

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan urged Hainan to achieve zero cases at the community level as soon as possible when she inspected several places on the island, including the Sanya Phoenix International Airport on Saturday, state media reported. 
…

Poland’s environment minister says laboratory tests following a mass fish die-off have detected high salinity levels but no mercury in the Oder River. That means the mystery is continuing as to what killed tons of fish in Central Europe.
…

Idaho’s top court on Friday refused to stop a Republican-backed state law criminalizing nearly all abortions from taking effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade that had recognized a constitutional right to the procedure.

In a 3-2 ruling, the Idaho Supreme Court rejected a bid by a Planned Parenthood affiliate to prevent a ban from taking effect on Aug. 25 that the abortion provider argued would violate Idahoans’ privacy and equal protection rights under the state’s constitution. The measure allows for abortions only in cases of rape, incest or to prevent a pregnant woman’s death.

The court also lifted an earlier order that it issued in April blocking a separate Idaho law banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy enforced through private lawsuits by citizens, allowing it to take effect immediately.

Justice Robyn Brody, writing for the court, said given the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision, Planned Parenthood was not entitled to the “drastic” relief it sought, noting that abortion was illegal in Idaho before the Roe decision.

“Moreover, what Petitioners are asking this Court to ultimately do is to declare a right to abortion under the Idaho Constitution when – on its face – there is none,” Brody added.

Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement called the ruling “horrific and cruel.”

Idaho state officials did not respond to requests for comment.

About half of the U.S. states have or are expected to seek to ban or curtail abortions following the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized the procedure nationwide.

Those states include Idaho, which like 12 others adopted “trigger” laws banning abortion upon such a decision.

Louisiana’s top court earlier on Friday rejected an appeal by abortion rights supporters seeking to block a similar ban.

The Idaho court did not decide on the merits of Planned Parenthood’s challenge to the ban and instead said it would hear arguments on Sept. 29.

Justice John Stegner in a dissenting opinion said the court should have proceeded more cautiously and blocked the ban in the interim, saying that “never in our nation’s history has a fundamental right once granted to her citizens been revoked.”

The U.S. Justice Department on Aug. 2 separately sued in a bid to block the Idaho ban, saying it conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals to provide abortion in medical emergencies if necessary. That lawsuit, to be argued on Aug. 22, was the first action by the federal government challenging state abortion laws after Roe was reversed.
…

Talk about hot nights. America got some for the history books last month.

The continental United States in July set a record for overnight warmth, providing little relief from the day’s sizzling heat for people, animals, plants and the electric grid, meteorologists said.

The average low temperature for the Lower 48 states in July was 17.6 degrees Celsius (63.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which beat the previous record set in 2011 by a few hundredths of a degree. The mark is the hottest nightly average not only for July but for any month in 128 years of record keeping, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climatologist Karin Gleason. July’s nighttime low was more than 5.4 degrees C (3 degrees F) warmer than the 20th-century average.

Scientists have long talked about nighttime temperatures — reflected in increasingly hotter minimum readings that usually occur after sunset and before sunrise — being crucial to health.

“When you have daytime temperatures that are at or near record high temperatures and you don’t have that recovery overnight with temperatures cooling off, it does place a lot of stress on plants, on animals and on humans,” Gleason said Friday. “It’s a big deal.”

In Texas, where the monthly daytime average high was over 37.8 C (100 degrees F) for the first time in July and the electrical grid was stressed, the average nighttime temperature was a still toasty 23.5 C (74.3 F) — 7.2 degrees C (4 degrees F) above the 20th-century average.

In the past 30 years, the nighttime low in the U.S. has warmed on average about 3.8 degrees C (2.1 degrees F), while daytime high temperatures have gone up 3.4 degrees C (1.9 degrees F) at the same time. For decades, climate scientists have said global warming from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas would make the world warm faster at night and in the northern polar regions. A study earlier this week said the Arctic is now warming four times faster than the rest of the globe.

Nighttime warms faster because daytime warming helps make the air hold more moisture, then that moisture helps trap the heat in at night, Gleason said.

“So it is, in theory, expected, and it’s also something we’re seeing happen in the data,” Gleason said.

NOAA on Friday also released its global temperature data for July, showing it was on average the sixth-hottest month on record, with an average temperature of 16.67 C (61.97 F), which is 0.87 C (1.57 F) warmer than the 20th-century average. It was a month of heat waves, including one in the United Kingdom that broke its all-time heat record.

“Global warming is continuing on pace,” Colorado meteorologist Bob Henson said.
…

A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate, tax and health care bill, handing President Joe Biden a back-from-the-dead triumph on coveted priorities that the party hopes will bolster its prospects for keeping control of Congress in November’s elections. 

The House used a party-line 220-207 vote to pass the legislation, which is but a shadow of the larger, more ambitious plan to supercharge environment and social programs that Biden and his party envisioned early last year.

Even so, Democrats happily declared victory on top-tier goals like providing Congress’ largest ever investment in curbing carbon emissions, reining in pharmaceutical costs and taxing large companies, a vote they believe will show they can wring accomplishments from a routinely gridlocked Washington that often disillusions voters. 

“Today is a day of celebration, a day we take another giant step in our momentous agenda,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat. She said the measure “meets the moment, ensuring that our families thrive and that our planet survives.” 

Republicans solidly opposed the legislation, calling it a cornucopia of wasteful liberal daydreams that would raise taxes and families’ living costs. They did the same Sunday but Senate Democrats banded together and used Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote to power the measure through that 50-50 chamber. 

“Democrats, more than any other majority in history, are addicted to spending other people’s money, regardless of what we as a country can afford,” said House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican. “I can almost see glee in their eyes.” 

Biden’s initial 10-year, $3.5 trillion proposal also envisioned free prekindergarten, paid family and medical leave, expanded Medicare benefits and eased immigration restrictions. That crashed after centrist Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, said it was too costly, using the leverage every Democrat has in the evenly divided Senate. 

Still, the final legislation remained substantive. Its pillar is about $375 billion over 10 years to encourage industry and consumers to shift from carbon-emitting to cleaner forms of energy. That includes $4 billion to cope with the West’s catastrophic drought. 

Spending, tax credits and loans would bolster technology like solar panels, consumer efforts to improve home energy efficiency, emission-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-powered power plants, and air pollution controls for farms, ports and low-income communities. 

Another $64 billion would help 13 million people pay premiums over the next three years for privately bought health insurance. Medicare would gain the power to negotiate its costs for pharmaceuticals, initially in 2026 for only 10 drugs. Medicare beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket prescription costs would be limited to $2,000 starting in 2025, and beginning next year they would pay no more than $35 monthly for insulin, the costly diabetes drug. 

The bill would raise around $740 billion in revenue over the decade, over a third from government savings from lower drug prices. More would flow from higher taxes on some $1 billion corporations, levies on companies that repurchase their own stock and stronger Internal Revenue Service tax collections. About $300 billion would remain to defray budget deficits, a sliver of the period’s projected $16 trillion total. 

Against the backdrop of GOP attacks on the FBI for its court-empowered search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate for sensitive documents, Republicans repeatedly savaged the bill’s boost to the IRS budget. That is aimed at collecting an estimated $120 billion in unpaid taxes over the coming decade, and Republicans have misleadingly claimed that the IRS will hire 87,000 agents to target average families. 

Representative Andrew Clyde, a Georgia Republican, said Democrats would also “weaponize” the IRS with agents, “many of whom will be trained in the use of deadly force, to go after any American citizen.” Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, asked Thursday on “Fox and Friends” if there would be an IRS “strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person.” 

Few IRS personnel are armed, and Democrats say the bill’s $80 billion, 10-year budget increase would be to replace waves of retirees, not just agents, and modernize equipment. They have said typical families and small businesses would not be targeted, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen directing the IRS this week to not “increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold” that would be audited. 

Republicans say the legislation’s new business taxes will increase prices, worsening the nation’s bout with its worst inflation since 1981. Though Democrats have labeled the measure the Inflation Reduction Act, nonpartisan analysts say it will have a barely perceptible impact on prices. 

The GOP also says the bill would raise taxes on lower- and middle-income families. An analysis by Congress’ nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which didn’t include the bill’s tax breaks for health care and energy, estimated that the corporate tax boosts would marginally affect those taxpayers but indirectly, partly due to lower stock prices and wages. 

The bill caps three months in which Congress has approved legislation on veterans’ benefits, the semiconductor industry, gun checks for young buyers and Ukraine’s invasion by Russia and adding Sweden and Finland to NATO. All passed with bipartisan support, suggesting Republicans also want to display their productive side. 

It’s unclear whether voters will reward Democrats for the legislation after months of painfully high inflation dominating voters’ attention and Biden’s dangerously low popularity with the public and a steady history of midterm elections that batter the party holding the White House. 

The bill had its roots in early 2021, after Congress approved a $1.9 trillion measure over GOP opposition to combat the pandemic-induced economic downturn. Emboldened, the new president and his party reached further. 

They called their $3.5 trillion plan Build Back Better. Besides social and environment initiatives, it proposed rolling back Trump-era tax breaks for the rich and corporations and $555 billion for climate efforts, well above the resources in Friday’s legislation. 

With Manchin opposing those amounts, it was sliced to a roughly $2 trillion measure that Democrats moved through the House in November. He unexpectedly sank that bill too, earning scorn from exasperated fellow Democrats from Capitol Hill and the White House. 

Last-gasp talks between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, seemed fruitless until the two unexpectedly announced agreement last month on the new package. 

Manchin won billions for carbon capture technology for the fossil fuel industries he champions, plus procedures for more oil drilling on federal lands and promises for faster energy project permitting. Centrist Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Arizona Democrat, also won concessions, eliminating planned higher taxes on hedge fund managers and helping win the drought funds.
…

New York state and city health authorities said Friday that poliovirus, which causes paralytic polio, had been detected in samples of New York City sewage, suggesting the disease likely was circulating in the city.

Their statement followed the initial discovery of the virus in wastewater in neighboring counties in May, June and July. A man in Rockland County, north of New York City, was confirmed to have polio last month.

Health officials fear that the detection of the poliovirus in New York City could precede other cases of paralytic polio. Polio can lead to permanent paralysis of the arms and legs and even death.

In a statement Friday, State Health Commissioner Dr. Mary T. Bassett said, “The detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in New York City is alarming, but not surprising. … The best way to keep adults and children polio-free is through safe and effective immunization.”

The spread of the virus poses a risk to unvaccinated people, but a three-dose course of the vaccine provides at least 99% protection. Health officials are urging unvaccinated adults to get vaccinated and parents to vaccinate their children if they have not done so.

The health department reports most adults in New York City were vaccinated as children.

Overall, about 86% of children 5 and younger in New York City have been vaccinated, though the city health department said some neighborhoods were lagging.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports polio was once one of the nation’s most feared diseases, with annual outbreaks causing thousands of cases of paralysis, many of them in children.

Vaccines became available in 1955, and a national vaccination campaign cut the annual number of U.S. cases to fewer than 100 in the 1960s and fewer than 10 in the 1970s.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
…

A Republican-leaning state in America’s socially conservative heartland recently shocked both sides of the long-running battle over abortion, calling into question the conventional wisdom about how and where the procedure might be restricted or banned. 

 

Voters in Kansas cast ballots last week on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would have eliminated an existing right to abortion. The amendment was expected to pass handily in a state no Democratic presidential contender has won in nearly 60 years and where Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by 15 percentage points in the 2020 election. 

 

Voters rejected the ballot measure, preserving abortion rights. 

 

“The consensus was that Republicans in Kansas were going to ban abortion like in many other conservative states,” University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock told VOA. “But we got a big surprise. Kansas voted to uphold abortion protections and the only way to explain it is that the vote exposed a rift. There seems to be a difference between what Republican politicians want and what voters – including some Republican voters – want.” 

 

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling in June, it gave each U.S. state the ability to decide whether to allow or ban abortion. 

 

Until last week, initial results seemed to follow states’ partisan leanings, with Republican-controlled states moving to outlaw abortions and Democrat-led states preserving and, in some cases, moving to bolster abortion protections.  

For example, just days after the Kansas vote, lawmakers in another conservative breadbasket state, Indiana, became the first in the post-Roe era to pass a law banning most abortions. Before the Supreme Court’s June ruling, several Republican-led state legislatures had passed so-called “trigger laws” that restricted or ended access to the procedure once Roe was overturned. 

 

“The difference between Kansas and the states like Indiana,” Bullock said, “is that in Indiana politicians in the legislature voted on the proposed laws, while in Kansas, the public got to vote directly. It turns out that distinction makes a big difference.” 

 

And the Kansas vote was decisive, defeating the anti-abortion-rights amendment 59% to 41%. 

 

While the result will impact the lives of women and families across the Sunflower State, Bullock believes the shock waves could be far reaching. 

 

“Politicians and activists from around the country are watching and analyzing what happened in Kansas,” he said, “and you might see both sides employing the lessons they’re learning when the fight comes to their own states.” 

 

Rift among Republicans 

 

Ann Mah, a Democratic member of the Kansas State Board of Education, remembers the moment she first thought abortion rights backers could win the amendment battle. 

 

“You have these Republican politicians who are always moving to the right to appeal to the loudest members of their base so they can win their primary,” she told VOA, “But I was getting the sense some conservative voters were becoming uneasy with the amount these proposed abortion policies were reaching into their private lives.” 

 

One day as the vote neared, Mah spoke with a neighbor she described as “ultra-conservative.”  

“We don’t agree on hardly anything, me and this person,” she said, “but he came to my house and asked for a ‘Vote No’ yard sign because he didn’t support the amendment. That’s when I knew we had a chance.” 

 

Not everyone believes what happened in Kansas will carry over to other states, however.

“I’m not from Kansas or Indiana so I can’t speak to what people do in those states,” said Sarah Zagorski, communications director at Louisiana Right to Life, an anti-abortion-rights advocacy organization, “but I can say that one negative result in a state isn’t necessarily indicative of how the country feels about abortion. For pro-life people here in Louisiana, they just won’t be voting for radical abortion extremists and their policies.” 

 

But former Louisiana state Representative Melissa Flournoy, a Democrat, believes the reality and consequences of the Supreme Court’s abortion decision are only just now registering for many.  

 

Flournoy pointed to a recent case that made national headlines in which a child victim of rape had to be taken to another state in order to terminate a pregnancy. 

 

“We’re confronted with this story about a 10-year-old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and was about to be denied an abortion – that’s shocking to most of America,” Flournoy told VOA. “It’s like, ‘Yes, we really are outlawing abortion in all circumstances.’ It’s disorienting, and the implications are coming into focus, even among some voters who consider themselves pro-life.” 

 

Polling data 

 

An Ipsos/USA Today poll released Wednesday found 54% of respondents would vote to keep or make abortion legal in their state, with 28% indicating they would vote against abortion-rights measures. 

 

While it’s more common for legislatures to handle these matters, voters are increasingly clamoring for a direct say. In Republican-controlled South Dakota, for example, the Kansas vote has spawned an effort to pursue a statewide referendum on reestablishing abortion rights in the state. 

 

Additionally, this November, voters in California, Kentucky, Montana and Vermont will have the opportunity to weigh in on abortion rights via the ballot box, while plans are being finalized to give residents in Colorado and Michigan that same opportunity. 

In fact, according to the Ipsos/USA Today poll, 70% of Americans say they want to vote on abortion via state ballots, including 73% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans and 67% of independents.  

 

“Opinion on reproductive choice isn’t only based on party lines,” said Cynthia Lash, chair of the Osage County Democratic Central Committee in Kansas, speaking with VOA. “In our state, several nonpartisan groups formed solely to defeat the amendment. They canvassed, they texted voters in all counties regardless of party affiliation, they developed yard signs, they held rallies — they were much more active than traditional campaigns in reaching out to everyone.”  

 

Osage County is deeply Republican, but even there, 56% of voters opposed the abortion-rights amendment last week.  

 

“In our small, rural county, only 17% of registered voters are Democrats,” Lash said. “Even in the unlikely case that every Democrat and unaffiliated voter voted against the amendment, that means 31% of Republican voters cast a ballot against the amendment as well. That’s how unpopular it was.” 

 

Not all anti-abortion activists, however, are convinced a vote against the amendment was a vote against restricting abortions. 

 

“In Kansas, voters rejected an amendment that allows the legislature to limit or allow abortions as those politicians see fit,” said Laura Knight, president of Pro-Life Mississippi. “Maybe those voters wanted a total ban of abortion. Maybe they felt the amendment wasn’t strong enough. We don’t know.”  

Electoral implications 

 

Some in the Republican Party worry they are pushing too far in banning abortion, months before midterm elections that will determine control of the U.S. Congress. This past Sunday, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina compared the impact of anti-abortion initiatives to the fictional portrayal of an America in which women have no rights in a popular U.S. television series. 

 

“It will be an issue in November if we’re not moderating ourselves. ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ is not supposed to be a road map,” Mace said.

Others are urging anti-abortion officeholders to stay true to their beliefs. 

 

“Government officials are elected to vote their conscience, not to check in with the public on everything,” Tara Wicker, who leads Louisiana Black Advocates for Life, told VOA. “Children who are born of rape or incest are still innocent children and we should be protecting them, regardless of how popular that decision is among a subset of voters.” 

 

Bullock from the University of Georgia sees warning signs for advocates of abortion measures who ignore the will of voters. 

 

“Both sides have things they can learn from what we’re seeing in states like Indiana and Kansas,” he said, “and for Republicans, the warning is they seem to be pushing beyond what their voters want. It’s a lesson they’ve been confronted with before, but they don’t seem to be learning it.” 

 

At a time of economic uncertainty in America, the degree to which abortion could determine election outcomes remains to be seen. 

 

A recent poll in the swing state of Nevada by The Nevada Independent, a news website, and OH Predictive Insights, a market research company, showed abortion laws were the second most powerful issue for respondents – behind only the economy. But the gap between the two remained substantial (40% for the economy and 17% for abortion laws).

“Inflation and the economy as a whole is still front-of-mind for most Americans, but that doesn’t mean the abortion debate can’t impact elections this November,” Bullock said. “This is going to be a big issue for suburban white women, many of whom typically vote Republican. If 50,000 here or 100,000 there change their mind in especially tight districts or states, that’s enough to flip a result or two, and potentially even [determine] control of the [U.S.] Senate.” 
…

The nation’s top public health agency on Thursday relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.

The changes are driven by a recognition that — more than 2 1/2 years since the start of the pandemic — an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected, agency officials said.

“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” said the CDC’s Greta Massetti, an author of the guidelines.

The CDC recommendations apply to everyone in the U.S., but the changes could be particularly important for schools, which resume classes this month in many parts of the country.

Perhaps the biggest education-related change is the end of the recommendation that schools do routine daily testing, although that practice can be reinstated in certain situations during a surge in infections, officials said.

The CDC also dropped a “test-to-stay” recommendation, which said students exposed to COVID-19 could regularly test — instead of quarantining at home — to keep attending school. With no quarantine recommendation anymore, the testing option disappeared too.

Masks continue to be recommended only in areas where community transmission is deemed high, or if a person is considered at high risk of severe illness.

School districts across the U.S. have been scaling back their COVID-19 precautions in recent weeks even before the CDC relaxed its guidance.

Masks will be optional in most school districts when classes resume this fall, and some of the nation’s largest districts have dialed back or eliminated COVID-19 testing requirements.

Some have also been moving away from test-to-stay programs that became unmanageable during surges of the omicron variant last school year. With so many new infections among students and staff, many schools struggled to track and test their close contacts, leading to a temporary return to remote classes in some places.

The average numbers of reported COVID-19 cases and deaths have been relatively flat this summer, at about 100,000 cases a day and 300 to 400 deaths.

The CDC previously said that if people who are not up to date on their COVID-19 vaccinations come into close contact with a person who tests positive, they should stay home for at least five days. Now the agency says quarantining at home is not necessary, but it urges those people to wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested after five.

The agency continues to say that people who test positive should isolate from others for at least five days, regardless of whether they were vaccinated. CDC officials advise that people can end isolation if they are fever-free for 24 hours without the use of medication and they are without symptoms or the symptoms are improving.
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