The future of abortion rights is in flux in the U.S. as the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in on the issue in June. Since September, Texas has banned abortions after six weeks. For women seeking an abortion, many are in a race against time. Deana Mitchell has the story.
Camera: Deana Mitchell Produced by: Deana Mitchell
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The Muslim holy month of Ramadan — a time when Muslims abstain from food, drink, smoking and other activities from dusk to dawn daily, begins at sundown Saturday in most parts of the world
At sunset, Muslims break the daily fast with the iftar, a meal shared with family and friends.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar, and start and end dates vary each year. According to conventional Islamic belief, the Quran, the Muslim holy book, was first revealed to the Prophet Muhammad more than 1,400 years ago during Ramadan.
Fasting, one of the five pillars of Islam, is practiced by Muslims to achieve a greater consciousness of God. The other pillars include praying, giving alms, professing one’s faith and going on a pilgrimage to Mecca, called the hajj.
This year will be the largest hajj since global coronavirus pandemic restrictions were enacted two years ago.
The Islamic Networks Group, based in San Jose, California, describes Ramadan as “a month of intense spiritual rejuvenation with a heightened focus on devotion, during which Muslims spend extra time reading the Quran and performing special prayers,”
Last year, fasting across the world ranged from 10 to 20 hours a day. In many majority-Muslim countries, working hours are reduced and restaurants close during fasting hours.
Ramadan ends at sundown on May 1.
Will Smith resigned Friday from the motion picture academy following his Oscars night slap of Chris Rock and said he would accept any further punishment the organization imposed.
Smith in a statement released Friday afternoon said he would “fully accept any and all consequences for my conduct. My actions at the 94th Academy Awards presentation were shocking, painful and inexcusable.”
Film academy president David Rubin said Smith’s resignation was accepted.
“We will continue to move forward with our disciplinary proceedings against Mr. Smith for violations of the Academy’s Standards of Conduct, in advance of our next scheduled board meeting on April 18,” he said.
Smith loses voting privileges with his resignation. But there are other, less tangible benefits to being part of the academy, Hollywood’s most prestigious organization: It bestows industry credibility on its members. It’s invitation only, with a once-a-year membership review.
“I betrayed the trust of the Academy. I deprived other nominees and winners of their opportunity to celebrate and be celebrated for their extraordinary work,” Smith’s statement said. “I am heartbroken. I want to put the focus back on those who deserve attention for their achievements and allow the Academy to get back to the incredible work it does to support creativity and artistry in film.
“Change takes time and I am committed to doing the work to ensure that I never again allow violence to overtake reason,” Smith concluded in the statement.
The resignation came two days after the academy’s leadership board met to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations of the group’s standards of conduct. Those proceedings could have resulted in suspension or expulsion, and it was not immediately clear what additional punishment he could face.
Few expulsions
Had he been expelled, Smith would have joined a small group of men removed from the academy: Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby and the actor Carmine Caridi, who was kicked out for sharing awards screeners.
On Sunday, Smith strode from his front-row Dolby Theatre seat onto the stage and slapped Rock, who had made a joke at the expense of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Moments later, he went on to win the best actor award for his role in King Richard.
Rock, who was about to present Oscar for best documentary, declined to file charges when asked by police.
The fallout was immediate and intense. Smith had supporters for coming to his wife’s defense, but he was widely condemned for responding with violence and for marring both his long-sought Oscar victory and overshadowing the night’s other winners.
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The Cambodian artist Morn Chear is having something of a moment in the art world, with exhibits in his country’s capital, Phnom Penh, and the U.S. cities of Seattle and Denver. On canvass and with block prints, he is challenging prejudices against people with disabilities. VOA’s Scott Stearns has our story from Colorado, with VOA Khmer’s Sokummono Khan and Socheata Hean in Cambodia.
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The Kremlin’s clampdown on news of the war in Ukraine has hackers and volunteers from around the world are sending messages directly to Russian citizens’ phones to keep them informed. Matt Dibble has the story.
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Cameroon is struggling to contain a cholera outbreak that has sickened 6,000 people with the bacteria and killed nearly 100 since February. Authorities have dispatched the ministers of health and water to affected areas and have begun quarantining cholera patients to prevent it from spreading.
Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry said the number of cholera patients received in hospitals was growing by the day.
In the seaside city of Limbe in the past week alone, 200 of 300 patients were treated and discharged from the government hospital.
Filbert Eko, the highest-ranking official in Cameroon’s Southwest region where Limbe is located, said the region was the worst hit by cholera, with more than 800 cases since February, forcing the the quarantining of patients to prevent the disease from spreading.
“The treatment center will be separated from the hospital and from the public. No outsider will be allowed to have access to the patients,” Eko said. “We don’t want contact between families and the patients. We are taking [efforts] upon ourselves, searching for resources to feed these patients free of charge.”
Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry says many of those sickened by cholera do not go to hospitals, seeking only traditional cures, and end up dying at home, though no official figures are given.
Health officials are urging traditional healers to direct their cholera patients to the closest hospital.
Linda Esso, director of epidemics and pandemics at Cameroon’s Public Health Ministry, said cholera has spread to more than 40% of major towns, including the capital, Yaounde, the economic capital, Douala, and western commercial towns like Buea, Limbe and Bafoussam. Esso said scores of villages have reported cholera cases and the entire country is threatened by the outbreak. She said the public should be very careful and protect itselves because contaminated persons may be spreading the disease without knowing it.
Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, dispatched the ministers of health and water this week to cholera-affected areas to assess the situation.
The two ministers blamed a shortage of clean drinking water in towns and villages, brought on by the long dry season, for rising cholera infections.
They said medical staff were increased in the areas and about 30 new public toilets have been constructed in Limbe, Buea, and Douala to improve public hygiene. The ministers called on the public to stop defecating in the open and in streams.
Cameroon’s minister of water, Gaston Eloundou Essomba, said officials are also providing clean water to villages and towns hit by the outbreak. He said he has asked the Cameroon Water Distribution Company (CAMWATER) to make sure trucks transport water regularly and free of charge to towns and villages that lack piped water. He said the water distribution company should immediately treat water in all community and family wells to ensure the public has quality drinking water.
Cameroon’s public health minister, Manaouda Malachie, says Douala’s New Bell Prison has become an epicenter of cholera.
He said hygiene had been improved at the prison but would not say how many of the more than 6,000 inmates were infected or died from the bacteria.
Cameroon suffers from frequent cholera outbreaks. One of the worst, in 2011, infected more than 23,000 people and killed more than 800.
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Golden butterflies adorn the walls of the Netherland’s only euthanasia expertise center, put up in remembrance of thousands of patients who have chosen to die with dignity over the past two decades.
Situated in a leafy upmarket suburb of The Hague, the Euthanasia Expertise Center is the only one of its kind, giving information, assisting medical doctors and providing euthanasia as end-of-life care, which was legalized in a world first in the Netherlands on April 1, 2002.
Belgium soon followed later that year and Spain last year became the sixth country to adopt euthanasia — the act of intentionally ending a life to relieve a person’s suffering, for instance through a lethal injection given by a doctor.
The number of people seeking euthanasia is growing in the Netherlands, with some 7,666 last year, up by more than 10 percent from the year before, according to official figures.
The vast majority are aged 60 or over, suffering from cancer or other terminal illnesses.
“Twenty years ago, when the law was passed, it was known, but certainly not used as often as today,” said Sonja Kersten, director of the Euthanasia Expertise Center.
The reasons are many: an ageing Dutch population; the fact that euthanasia is no longer a taboo subject and society has opened up to the issue.
“Dying with dignity is a debate that’s growing within Dutch society, which is quite open to the subject,” Kersten said.
‘Existential question’
Euthanasia is only authorized in a few countries around the world.
In Belgium, which will mark two decades of euthanasia in May, some 40 French citizens also benefitted from the practice last year.
The decision to ask for euthanasia as end-of-life care remains a “difficult and existential question,” Kersten said.
“It’s neither a patient’s right, nor a doctor’s duty,” to have euthanasia, she added.
In the Netherlands, euthanasia can only be carried out under strict conditions set down in Dutch law.
Children aged up to 16 need the permission of their parents and guardians, while parents must be involved in the process for children aged 16 and 17. From 18, any Dutch citizen may ask for assisted death.
In all cases, the patient must have “unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement” and must have requested to die in a way that is “voluntary, well considered and with full conviction”.
Other criteria apply as well, like the absence of a reasonable alternative to the patient’s situation.
Doctors, too, cannot be forced to perform euthanasia.
‘Die at home’
The Euthanasia Expertise Centre helps doctors through the process by sharing knowledge and providing guidance. At the same time, the center helps patients whose doctors refuse to help them.
The center, established in 2012, is a foundation but patient care is reimbursed by health insurers.
It first positioned itself as the “Levenseindekliniek,” Dutch for “End-of-life clinic,” offering on-site euthanasia.
But even before the start, it became apparent that most patients preferred to die at home, Kersten said.
Today, the center can call upon a network of about 140 doctors and nurses around the country, employed by the Euthanasia Expertise Center.
Most euthanasia requests, however, are handled by the patient’s own physician, with whom they already have a relationship of trust. Last year, this was true for 80 percent of euthanasia procedures performed in the country.
“There are however still doctors in the Netherlands who are opposed to euthanasia,” said Kersten, adding “they have every right.”
The center’s medical team itself provided euthanasia to nearly 900 people in 2020, out of nearly 3,000 requests, with figures on the rise.
About 20 percent had dementia or psychiatric disorders.
The Netherlands’ highest court ruled in 2020 that doctors can euthanize patients with severe dementia without the fear of prosecution.
It concerns patients with advanced dementia who are no longer mentally competent but who previously had a clear request for euthanasia.
The decision followed a landmark case, not related to the Expertise center, in which a doctor was acquitted of providing euthanasia on a woman in 2016 with severe Alzheimer’s disease, who earlier requested the procedure.
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When the end of the COVID-19 pandemic comes, it could create major disruptions for a cumbersome U.S. health care system made more generous, flexible and up-to-date technologically through a raft of temporary emergency measures.
Winding down those policies could begin as early as the summer. That could force an estimated 15 million Medicaid recipients to find new sources of coverage, require congressional action to preserve broad telehealth access for Medicare enrollees, and scramble special COVID-19 rules and payment policies for hospitals, doctors and insurers. There are also questions about how emergency use approvals for COVID-19 treatments will be handled.
The array of issues is tied to the coronavirus public health emergency first declared more than two years ago and periodically renewed since then. It’s set to end April 16 and the expectation is that the Biden administration will extend it through mid-July.
Some would like a longer off-ramp.
Transitions don’t bode well for the complex U.S. health care system, with its mix of private and government insurance and its labyrinth of policies and procedures. Health care chaos, if it breaks out, could create midterm election headaches for Democrats and Republicans alike.
“The flexibilities granted through the public health emergency have helped people stay covered and get access to care, so moving forward the key question is how to build on what has been a success and not lose ground,” said Juliette Cubanski, a Medicare expert with the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, who has been researching potential consequences of winding down the pandemic emergency.
Medicaid churn
Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for low-income people, is covering about 79 million people, a record partly due to the pandemic.
But the nonpartisan Urban Institute think tank estimates that about 15 million people could lose Medicaid when the public health emergency ends, at a rate of at least 1 million per month.
Congress increased federal Medicaid payments to states because of COVID-19, but it also required states to keep people on the rolls during the health emergency. In normal times states routinely disenroll Medicaid recipients whose incomes rise beyond certain levels, or for other life changes affecting eligibility. That process will switch on again when the emergency ends, and some states are eager to move forward.
Virtually all of those losing Medicaid are expected to be eligible for some other source of coverage, either through employers, the Affordable Care Act or — for kids — the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
But that’s not going to happen automatically, said Matthew Buettgens, lead researcher on the Urban Institute study. Cost and lack of awareness about options could get in the way.
People dropped from Medicaid may not realize they can pick up taxpayer-subsidized ACA coverage. Medicaid is usually free, so people offered workplace insurance could find the premiums too high.
“This is an unprecedented situation,” said Buettgens. “The uncertainty is real.”
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, is advising states to take it slow and connect Medicaid recipients who are disenrolled with other potential coverage. The agency will keep an eye on states’ accuracy in making eligibility decisions. Biden officials want coverage shifts, not losses.
“We are focused on making sure we hold on to the gains in coverage we have made under the Biden-Harris administration,” said CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “We are at the strongest point in our history and we are going make sure that we hold on to the coverage gains.”
ACA coverage — or “Obamacare” — is an option for many who would lose Medicaid. But it will be less affordable if congressional Democrats fail to extend generous financial assistance called for in President Joe Biden’s social legislation. Democrats stalling the bill would face blame.
Republicans in mostly Southern states that have refused to expand Medicaid are also vulnerable. In those states, it can be very difficult for low-income adults to get coverage and more people could wind up uninsured.
State Medicaid officials don’t want to be the scapegoats. “Medicaid has done its job,” said Matt Salo, head of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “We have looked out for physical, mental and behavioral health needs. As we come out of this emergency, we are supposed to right-size the program.”
Telehealth static
Millions of Americans discovered telehealth in 2020 when coronavirus shutdowns led to the suspension of routine medical consultations. In-person visits are again the norm, but telehealth has shown its usefulness and gained broader acceptance.
The end of the public health emergency would jeopardize telehealth access for millions enrolled in traditional Medicare. Restrictions predating COVID-19 limit telehealth mainly to rural residents, in part to mitigate health care fraud. Congress has given itself 151 days after the end of the public health emergency to come up with new rules.
“If there are no changes to the law after that, most Medicare beneficiaries will lose access to coverage for telehealth,” the Kaiser Foundation’s Cubanski said.
A major exception applies to enrollees in private Medicare Advantage plans, which generally do cover telehealth. However, nearly 6 in 10 Medicare enrollees are in the traditional fee-for-service program.
Tests, vaccines, treatments, payments & procedures
Widespread access to COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments rests on legal authority connected to the public health emergency.
One example is the Biden administration’s requirement for insurers to cover up to eight free at-home COVID-19 tests per month.
An area that’s particularly murky is what happens to tests, treatments and vaccines covered under emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.
Some experts say emergency use approvals last only through the duration of the public health emergency. Others say it’s not as simple as that, because a different federal emergency statute also applies to vaccines, tests and treatments. There’s no clear direction yet from health officials.
The FDA has granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for those 16 and older and Moderna’s for those 18 and older, so their continued use would not be affected.
But hospitals could take a financial hit. Currently Medicare pays them 20% more for the care of COVID-19 patients. That’s only for the duration of the emergency.
And Medicare enrollees would have more hoops to jump through to be approved for rehab in a nursing home. A suspended Medicare rule requiring a prior three-day hospital stay would come back into effect.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra recently told The Associated Press that his department is committed to giving “ample notice” when it ends the public health emergency.
“We want to make sure we’re not putting in a detrimental position Americans who still need our help,” Becerra said. “The one that people are really worried about is Medicaid.”
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A Russian opera said Thursday it had canceled a concert by Russian superstar soprano Anna Netrebko over her comments on Moscow’s military operation in neighboring Ukraine.
The 50-year-old singer who lives in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Wednesday “condemned” the operation, after she and other Russian artists in Europe and the United States came under pressure to publicly take a stance.
The Novosibirsk Opera in Siberia canceled a concert at which she was to perform on June 2.
“Living in Europe and having the opportunity to perform in European concert halls appears to be more important (for her) than the fate of the homeland,” it said in a statement.
But “our country is brimming with talent and the idols of yesterday will be replaced by others with a clear civic position.”
Netrebko, who has voiced pro-Kremlin views over the years, and in 2014 posed with a flag in the separatist Donetsk region in Ukraine, also holds Austrian citizenship.
Netrebko’s statement on Wednesday was, however, not enough for the Metropolitan Opera in New York to reconsider its ban on her performance there.
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Laura Purdy is a U.S. doctor on Ukraine’s front lines. In her case, that’s a computer screen in Tennessee.
“Patients that I have talked to from some of the larger cities in Ukraine are fearful of leaving their homes because of air raid sirens or offshore attacks,” said Purdy, a surgeon who, until 2016, served in the U.S. Army’s units that provide health care to civilians worldwide. “They need/want to speak to a physician but are fearful to venture out to do so.”
Purdy now cares for patients in Kyiv and other cities under Russian attack through Starlink, an internet constellation of some 2,000 satellites operated by billionaire Elon Musk’s private firm SpaceX.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, and as of March 30, 1,189 Ukrainians had been killed and 1,901 injured, according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.
U.S. doctors are stepping up to provide much-needed advice via telehealth, a practice honed during the pandemic, to the Ukranian soldiers, civilians and refugees injured in the fighting or attempting to manage chronic diseases amid the chaos.
Purdy is just one of the many physicians who have joined Aimee, a 10-year-old telehealth platform headquartered in Silicon Valley. Having built the telehealth systems for the International Space Station and SpaceX, Aimee is staffed by self-described “nerds who want to make a difference” and are now partnering with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health to provide Ukrainians with free telemedicine visits.
By using the Aimee app, Purdy said, patients can get advice and treatment recommendations from a U.S. physician while they remain in a safe location.
Milton Chen, founder and CEO of VSee, the telehealth company that launched Aimee, said a “couple thousand” physicians and a “couple hundred” translators have joined the platform to provide 24/7 telecare in Ukraine. The doctors provide care for battlefield trauma injuries as well as basics such as prenatal care, chronic disease management and mental health services.
“You could do a remote ultrasound; you could connect to a digital stethoscope to listen to someone’s heart and lung sound. All these medical signals will stream live to the physicians — so other than physically touching the patient — and the physician could get quite a bit of information on the patient,” he said via video.
Through telemedicine, Purdy treated a legally blind man who relies on his family for all his daily needs. Purdy helped him set up a free consultation with an ophthalmologist to interpret tests he underwent in Ukraine.
“This occurred in a city that was actively under attack, and we were able to provide advice and support to the patient while allowing him to stay safely sheltered in place,” she told VOA Mandarin.
The lack of medicine is one of the biggest hurdles for patients in Ukraine, said Purdy, who earned her medical degree at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.
“The pharmacies have run out of medication, or they are closed. So, many times we find patients who we can give medical recommendations to, but they may not have access to the pharmaceuticals that they need to treat the condition they are experiencing,” she said.
And while remote doctors can’t solve challenges such as the lack of insulin for patients with diabetes, they can provide much-needed assistance. Dr. Mohamed Aburawi, founder and CEO of Speetar, a telehealth platform founded in 2017 to operate in Libya, told Forbes that “every day a conflict lasts, the situation worsens, and telehealth provides care, relief and stability to communities and people that need it most. Our own experience in protracted conflict highlights how telehealth maintains continuity of care for refugees, migrants and internally displaced populations.”
Telemedicine can also include teaching patients how to stop bleeding from wounds and injuries, a challenge for citizens in war zones, said Patricia Turner, executive director of the American College of Surgeons, which since 2015 has trained people without medical backgrounds through the Stop the Bleed initiative launched by the White House.
“When you bleed … you can actually die in as quickly as five minutes, so stopping the bleeding helps … save a life,” she told VOA Mandarin.
Two doctors who have family ties to Ukraine and work at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, turned to telemedicine and developed a training video for Ukrainians.
Dr. Nelya Melnitchouk, a Ukraine native, came up with the idea for the video, and Dr. Eric Goralnick, who is of Ukrainian descent, helped organize the collaboration between the hospital and the Stop the Bleed initiative, according to The Boston Globe.
The training course can be finished in a few hours, Turner said, and can help health care workers and the public learn how to effectively stop bleeding.
“More than 100 people are being trained every other day,” she said. “We’re doing it via video so you can watch them on YouTube. We’re also doing them live remotely so that we can answer questions.”
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The U.K. will ban conversion therapy for gay or bisexual people in England and Wales, but not for transgender people, ITV reported Thursday.
Hours earlier, the government had confirmed an ITV report that it would drop a plan to introduce legislation to ban LGBT conversion therapy and would instead review how existing law could be utilized more effectively to prevent it.
That prompted an angry response from LGBT groups and some lawmakers.
“The Prime Minister has changed his mind off the back of the reaction to our report and he WILL now ban conversion therapy after all,” ITV political reporter Paul Brand tweeted.
“Senior Govt source absolutely assures me it’ll be in Queen’s Speech (of planned legislation). But only gay conversion therapy, not trans,” he said.
A Downing Street spokesperson declined to comment.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has come under increasing pressure on the issue after former leader Theresa May vowed in 2018 to eradicate a procedure that aims to change or suppress someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
In May last year, when the government set out its post-pandemic parliamentary agenda, it said measures would be brought forward to prevent these “abhorrent practices which can cause mental and physical harm,” starting with a consultation on how best to protect people and how to eliminate coercive practices.
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Scientists say they have finally assembled the full genetic blueprint for human life, adding the missing pieces to a puzzle nearly completed two decades ago.
An international team described the first-ever sequencing of a complete human genome – the set of instructions to build and sustain a human being – in research published Thursday in the journal Science. The previous effort, celebrated across the world, was incomplete because DNA sequencing technologies of the day weren’t able to read certain parts of it. Even after updates, it was missing about 8% of the genome.
“Some of the genes that make us uniquely human were actually in this ‘dark matter of the genome’ and they were totally missed,” said Evan Eichler, a University of Washington researcher who participated in the current effort and the original Human Genome Project. “It took 20-plus years, but we finally got it done.”
Many — including Eichler’s own students — thought it had been finished already.
“I was teaching them, and they said, ‘Wait a minute. Isn’t this like the sixth time you guys have declared victory? I said, ‘No, this time we really, really did it!” Eichler said.
Scientists said this full picture of the genome will give humanity a greater understanding of our evolution and biology while also opening the door to medical discoveries in areas like aging, neurodegenerative conditions, cancer and heart disease.
“We’re just broadening our opportunities to understand human disease,” said Karen Miga, an author of one of the six studies published Thursday.
The research caps off decades of work. The first draft of the human genome was announced in a White House ceremony in 2000 by leaders of two competing entities: an international publicly funded project led by an agency of the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a private company, Maryland-based Celera Genomics.
The human genome is made up of about 3.1 billion DNA subunits, pairs of chemical bases known by the letters A, C, G and T. Genes are strings of these lettered pairs that contain instructions for making proteins, the building blocks of life. Humans have about 30,000 genes, organized in 23 groups called chromosomes that are found in the nucleus of every cell.
Before now, there were “large and persistent gaps that have been in our map, and these gaps fall in pretty important regions,” Miga said.
Miga, a genomics researcher at the University of California-Santa Cruz, worked with Adam Phillippy of the National Human Genome Research Institute to organize the team of scientists to start from scratch with a new genome with the aim of sequencing all of it, including previously missing pieces. The group, named after the sections at the very ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, is known as the Telomere-to-Telomere, or T2T, consortium.
Their work adds new genetic information to the human genome, corrects previous errors and reveals long stretches of DNA known to play important roles in both evolution and disease. A version of the research was published last year before being reviewed by scientific peers.
“This is a major improvement, I would say, of the Human Genome Project,” doubling its impact, said geneticist Ting Wang of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who was not involved in the research.
Eichler said some scientists used to think unknown areas contained “junk.”
“Some of us always believed there was gold in those hills,” he said. Eichler is paid by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which also supports The Associated Press’s health and science department.
Turns out that the gold Eichler believed in includes many important genes, he said, such as some integral to making a person’s brain bigger than a chimp’s, with more neurons and connections.
To find such genes, scientists needed new ways to read life’s cryptic genetic language.
Reading genes requires cutting the strands of DNA into pieces hundreds to thousands of letters long. Sequencing machines read the letters in each piece and scientists try to put the pieces in the right order. That’s especially tough in areas where letters repeat.
Scientists said some areas were illegible before improvements in gene sequencing machines that now allow them to, for example, accurately read a million letters of DNA at a time. That allows scientists to see genes with repeated areas as longer strings instead of snippets that they had to later piece together.
Researchers also had to overcome another challenge: Most cells contain genomes from both mother and father, confusing attempts to assemble the pieces correctly. T2T researchers got around this by using a cell line from one “complete hydatidiform mole,” an abnormal fertilized egg containing no fetal tissue that has two copies of the father’s DNA and none of the mother’s.
The next step? Mapping more genomes, including ones that include collections of genes from both parents. This effort did not map one of the 23 chromosomes that is found in males, called the Y chromosome, because the mole contained only an X.
Wang said he’s working with the T2T group on the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium, which is trying to generate reference, or template, genomes for 350 people representing the breadth of human diversity.
“Now we’ve gotten one genome right and we have to do many, many more,” Eichler said. “This is the beginning of something really fantastic for the field of human genetics.”
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A microgravity ceremony ushers in a new commander of the International Space Station. An old space telescope finds something new in the cosmos. And a futuristic helmet to study astronauts’ brain waves. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space.
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Bruce Willis is stepping away from acting after a diagnosis of aphasia, a condition that causes loss of the ability to understand or express speech, his family said Wednesday.
In a statement posted on Willis’ Instagram page, the 67-year-old actor’s family announced that Willis was recently diagnosed with aphasia and that it is impacting his cognitive abilities.
“As a result of this and with much consideration, Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him,” read the statement signed by Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, his ex-wife Demi Moore, and his five children, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel and Evelyn.
“We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him,” they said. “As Bruce always says, ‘Live it up’ and together we plan to do just that.”
There are many potential causes of aphasia. It often occurs after a stroke or head injury, but can also develop gradually due to a slow-growing brain tumor or a disease that causes degenerative damage, like Alzheimer’s disease. It’s treated primarily with speech therapy and learning non-verbal means of communication.
Willis’ family didn’t divulge what caused his aphasia. Representatives for the actor declined to comment.
The news about Willis, one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors, immediately spread online as fans reacted. His four-decade career has amassed more than $5 billion in box office worldwide.
Willis had been working steadily and frequently. Renowned for films like “Die Hard,” “Pulp Fiction” and “The Sixth Sense,” Willis has in recent years churned out straight-to-video thrillers. Last year, he starred in a staggering eight films. Most came and went quietly, including titles like “Cosmic Sin,” “Out of Death” and “Deadlock.”
Most recently, Willis starred in February’s “Gasoline Alley” and “A Day to Die,” released in early March. Willis has already shot at least six more films due out in 2022 and 2023, including “Die Like Lovers,” “Corrective Measures” and “The Wrong Place.”
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After spending two years being socially distanced in his home country of South Korea, Kim Hoe-jun booked a last-minute flight to Hawaii, where he had enjoyed his honeymoon six years ago, giving in to his craving for overseas travel.
“I bought the ticket just a week ago, but it was rather a no-brainer. It felt like I was making up for those two years not being able to go abroad often as I used to before COVID,” he said, before boarding the plane from Incheon International Airport on Friday.
Vaccinated and boosted, Kim and his wife are among South Koreans joining in a rush for “revenge travel” — a term that has been trending on social media as people scramble to book overseas trips that were delayed by coronavirus restrictions.
The boom started after March 21 when South Korea lifted a seven-day mandatory quarantine for fully vaccinated travelers arriving from most countries. The restriction had been eased last year but was reimposed in December as the highly infectious Omicron variant spread.
The country has largely scrapped its once-aggressive tracing and containment efforts despite a record COVID-19 wave, joining a growing list of Asian countries that have eased quarantine rules, including Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
Koreans now appear more ready to travel. Polls showed people are less worried about the implications of catching the virus, and increasingly see its prevention as out of their hands.
Sales of overseas flight tickets on 11st, an e-commerce unit of SK Telecom, South Korea’s top mobile carrier, rose more than eight-fold compared with a year before between March 11, when the lifting of quarantine was announced, and March 27, the company said.
Kim Na-yeon, 27, was excited to return to Hawaii, where she used to live.
“I couldn’t dare to travel even in Korea because of COVID,” she said. “But now I feel a bit freer with the exemption, so I’ve decided to go meet old friends and do some sightseeing.”
Exploding demand
Airlines and travel agencies have reported exploding demand for routes to Hawaii, Saipan and Guam, as well as some destinations in Europe and Southeast Asia where tourists submitting a vaccination certificate or negative test result are exempted from quarantine.
Saipan and Guam, both of which have travel bubble pacts with South Korea, also offer free COVID testing and pay for quarantine expenses if a traveler tests positive. Each South Korean national visiting Saipan receives $100 in “travel bucks” to spend at businesses there.
The tour arm of online retail giant Interpark reported a 324% growth in flight bookings for Oceania between March 11-22 from the same period of 2021, a 268% increase for Southeast Asia and 262% more bookings for Europe.
On Sunday, the company sold a record 5,200 Hawaii tour packages within 70 minutes. CJ Corp’s home shopping unit said it received about 2,800 orders for a Spain and Italy trip in one hour on Sunday, totaling 15 billion won ($12.41 million), days after garnering 9 billion won ($7.4 million) from its sales of a Hawaii package.
“The surge reflects growing customer sentiment that an end of COVID travel curbs might be in the offing after the mandatory quarantine was lifted,” said Lee Jeong-pil, general manager of CJ’s home shopping unit.
Lee Tae-woo, a 36-year-old frequent traveler to Japan, said he has changed some money into yen, taking advantage of the currency’s sharp decline and hoping to jump on the revenge travel bandwagon soon.
Though Japan has yet to allow tourists back in, it has reduced the quarantine period for arrivals for business and other purposes to three days from seven this month and signaled further easing of travel curbs.
“It’s been a long wait, and I’m ready to go back as soon as they finally open up again and visit my favorite coffee roastery and enjoy the night view from Shibuya station,” Lee said, referring to Tokyo’s bustling central district.
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Federal health officials are dropping the warning they have attached to cruising since the beginning of the pandemic, leaving it up to vacationers to decide whether they feel safe getting on a ship.
Cruise-ship operators welcomed Wednesday’s announcement, which came as many people thought about summer vacation plans.
An industry trade group said the move by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention validated measures that ship owners have taken, including requiring crew members and most passengers to be vaccinated against the virus.
The CDC removed the COVID-19 “cruise ship travel health notice” that was first imposed in March 2020, after virus outbreaks on several ships around the world.
However, the agency expressed reservations about cruising.
“While cruising will always pose some risk of COVID-19 transmission, travelers will make their own risk assessment when choosing to travel on a cruise ship, much like they do in all other travel settings,” CDC spokesperson Dave Daigle said in an email.
Daigle said the CDC’s decision was based on “the current state of the pandemic and decreases in COVID-19 cases onboard cruise ships over the past several weeks.”
COVID-19 cases in the United States have been falling since mid-January, although the decline has slowed in recent weeks, and the current seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. is roughly unchanged from two weeks ago, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. States have rolled back mask mandates, putting pressure on federal officials to ease virus-related restrictions.
Outbreaks continue to be reported on cruise ships, which conduct random testing before the end of voyages.
On Sunday, a Princess Cruises ship returning from the Panama Canal had “multiple” passengers who had tested positive for the virus. Princess Cruises said all the affected passengers showed mild symptoms or none at all, and that all crew members and passengers had been vaccinated. About a dozen passengers tested positive before the same boat docked in San Francisco in January.
Operators are required to tell the CDC about virus cases on board ships. The agency has a colored-coded system to classify ships based on the percentage of passengers who test positive. The CDC said that system remains in place.
Cruise-ship operators have complained since the start of the pandemic that their industry has been singled out for a shutdown and then tighter COVID-19 restrictions than others, including airlines.
The Cruise Lines International Association said in a statement that the CDC’s decision to remove its health warning “recognizes the effective public health measures in place on cruise ships and begins to level the playing field between cruise and similarly situated venues on land.”
Colleen McDaniel, editor in chief of Cruise Critic, a site that publishes review of trips, called the CDC decision big news.
“Symbolically it’s a notice of winds of change when it comes to cruising,” she said. “I do think it can convince some of the doubters. What the CDC says does matter to cruisers.”
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The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Wednesday said that Will Smith was asked to leave Sunday’s Oscar ceremony after hitting Chris Rock but refused to do so.
The academy’s board of governors met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for violations against the group’s standards of conduct. The academy said disciplinary action for Smith could include suspension, expulsion or other sanctions.
Many have focused on why Smith was allowed to remain seated in the front row at the Dolby Theatre after the incident. On Wednesday, the academy suggested that it attempted to remove the actor from the audience.
“Things unfolded in a way we could not have anticipated,” the academy said. “While we would like to clarify that Mr. Smith was asked to leave the ceremony and refused, we also recognize we could have handled the situation differently.”
A representative for the academy declined to give specifics on how it tried to remove Smith. After Smith struck Rock in response to a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, several stars including Denzel Washington, Bradley Cooper and Tyler Perry spoke with Smith, 53.
Stronger language
The academy said Smith has the opportunity to defend himself in a written response before the board meets again on April 18. The film academy earlier condemned Smith’s onstage assault of Rock, but it used stronger language Wednesday.
“Mr. Smith’s actions at the 94th Oscars were a deeply shocking, traumatic event to witness in person and on television,” the academy said. “Mr. Rock, we apologize to you for what you experienced on our stage and thank you for your resilience in that moment. We also apologize to our nominees, guests and viewers for what transpired during what should have been a celebratory event.”
On Monday, Smith issued an apology to Rock, the academy and to viewers, saying “I was out of line and I was wrong.”
Rock, who had yet to respond publicly to the incident, performed stand-up Wednesday night in Boston. He was greeted by a thunderous standing ovation.
“How was your weekend?” began Rock, who then cautioned the crowd that he didn’t have a lot to say yet about the Oscars, according to audio posted by the Hollywood trade outlet Variety. “I’m still kind of processing what happened.”
A representative for Smith didn’t immediately respond to messages Wednesday regarding the academy’s latest moves.
Few expulsions
Only a very small number of academy members have ever been expelled, including Harvey Weinstein, Roman Polanski, Bill Cosby and the actor Carmine Caridi, who was kicked out for sharing awards screeners.
Whoopi Goldberg, a member of the academy’s board of governors, said Monday on The View, “We’re not going to take that Oscar from him.” (Even Oscars won by expelled members haven’t previously been ordered to be returned.) Goldberg added that “nobody is OK with what happened.”
Others from Sunday’s telecast also began speaking out. Co-host Wanda Sykes told Ellen DeGeneres in an interview to air April 7 that she felt physically ill after Smith slapped Rock. When he returned to his seat, Smith twice shouted at Rock to “keep my wife’s name out your [expletive] mouth.”
“I’m still a little traumatized by it,” said Sykes in a clip released Wednesday.
Within an hour, Smith was back on stage accepting the award for best actor for his performance in King Richard. Many in the Dolby Theatre gave him a standing ovation.
“I was like, how gross is this? This is the wrong message. You assault somebody and you get escorted out the building and that’s it. But for them to let him continue, I thought it was gross,” Sykes said. “I wanted to be able to run out [on stage] after he won and say, ‘Uh, unfortunately, Will couldn’t be here tonight.’ ”
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A batch of dome-shaped ice volcanoes that look unlike anything else known in our solar system and may still be active have been identified on Pluto using data from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, showing that this remote frigid world is more dynamic than previously known.
Scientists said that these cryovolcanoes — numbering perhaps 10 or more — stand anywhere from 1 kilometer (six-tenths of a mile) to 7 kilometers (4-1/2 miles) tall. Unlike Earth volcanoes that spew gases and molten rock, this dwarf planet’s cryovolcanoes extrude large amounts of ice — apparently frozen water rather than some other frozen material — that may have the consistency of toothpaste, they said.
Features on the asteroid belt dwarf planet Ceres, Saturn’s moons Enceladus and Titan, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Neptune’s moon Triton also have been pegged as cryovolcanoes. But those all differ from Pluto’s, the researchers said, owing to different surface conditions such as temperature and atmospheric pressure, as well as different mixes of icy materials.
“Finding these features does indicate that Pluto is more active, or geologically alive, than we previously thought it would be,” said planetary scientist Kelsi Singer of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
“The combination of these features being geologically recent, covering a vast area and most likely being made of water ice is surprising because it requires more internal heat than we thought Pluto would have at this stage of its history,” Singer added.
Pluto, which is smaller than Earth’s moon and has a diameter of about 2,380 kilometers (1,400 miles), orbits about 5.8 billion kilometers (3.6 billion miles) away from the sun, roughly 40 times farther than Earth’s orbit. Its surface features plains, mountains, craters and valleys.
Images and data analyzed in the new study, obtained in 2015 by New Horizons, validated previous hypotheses about cryovolcanism on Pluto.
The study found not only extensive evidence for cryovolcanism but also that it has been long-lived, not a single episode, said Southwest Research Institute planetary scientist Alan Stern, the New Horizons principal investigator and study co-author.
“What’s most fascinating about Pluto is that it’s so complex – as complex as the Earth or Mars despite its smaller size and high distance from the sun,” Stern said. “This was a real surprise from the New Horizons flyby, and the new result about cryovolcanism re-emphasizes this in a dramatic way.”
The researchers analyzed an area southwest of Sputnik Planitia, Pluto’s large heart-shaped basin filled with nitrogen ice. They found large domes 30-100 kilometers (18-60 miles) across, sometimes combining to form more complexly shaped structures.
An elevation called Wright Mons, one of the tallest, may have formed from several volcanic domes merging, yielding a shape unlike any Earth volcanoes. Although shaped differently, it is similar in size to Hawaii’s large volcano Mauna Loa.
Like Earth and our solar system’s other planets, Pluto formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Based on an absence of impact craters that normally would accumulate over time, it appears its cryovolcanoes are relatively recent — formed in the past few hundred million years.
“That is young on a geologic timescale. Because there are almost no impact craters, it is possible these processes are ongoing even in the present day,” Singer said.
Pluto has lots of active geology, including flowing nitrogen ice glaciers and a cycle in which nitrogen ice vaporizes during the day and condenses back to ice at night — a process constantly changing the planetary surface.
“Pluto is a geological wonderland,” Singer said. “Many areas of Pluto are completely different from each other. If you just had a few pieces of a puzzle of Pluto you would have no idea what the other areas looked like.”
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Scientists in Kenya are testing a project using solar panels to shade crops while generating clean energy. It’s called agrivoltaics. Successful trials have shown that this technology reduces water loss and results in higher yields. Juma Majanga reports from Kajiado, Kenya.
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China has connected a high-speed, multimillion-dollar, 15,000-kilometer undersea cable to Kenya, as Beijing advances what’s been dubbed its “digital silk road,” and Africa seeks the infrastructure it badly needs for better internet connectivity.
Chinese giant Huawei is a shareholder in the $425-million PEACE cable, which stands for “Pakistan and East Africa Connecting Europe.” It stretches from Asia to Africa and then into France, where it terminates.
It reached the coastal city of Mombasa on Tuesday, with the CEO of local partner company Telekom Kenya, Mugo Kibati, saying the cable would help meet the sharp rise in demand for internet services on a continent where internet adoption has trailed the rest of the world, but which is home to a growing, young and increasingly digital population.
“This ultra-high-capacity cable will assist Kenya and the region in meeting its current and future broadband capacity requirements, bolster redundancy, minimize transit time of our country’s connectivity to Asia and Europe, as well as assist carriers in providing affordable services to Kenyans,” said Kibati.
Business development
For his part, the PEACE Cable’s COO, Sun Xiaohua, said in a statement that the new infrastructure would “bring more business development to this region.” From Kenya, the cable will later be extended further down the continent’s east coast to South Africa.
It’s estimated that 95% of international data flows via submarine cables, and in terms of Africa, China dominates, with the most projects aimed at connecting the continent. Aside from the PEACE cable, China’s proposed 2Africa cable will become one of the biggest undersea projects in the world when it goes live in 2024.
But China’s massive digital infrastructure investments in Africa and elsewhere have not been without controversy, and Washington has expressed deep concerns that Beijing is attempting to monopolize networks and possibly use them for espionage.
Safety concerns
Some analysts are concerned the technology could be misused by authoritarian leaders on the continent, but Cobus van Staden, a senior China-Africa researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, said most Africans simply want better internet.
“I think this PEACE Cable generally plays very positively in Africa. Obviously, the United States has raised … concerns around this, particularly in relation to security, but I think for lot of African countries, the security issue is actually balanced by the wider issue of a lack of connectivity,” van Staden told VOA.
Huawei was sanctioned by the U.S. under former president Donald Trump, but the company has built about 70% of Africa’s 4G networks, and van Staden said it seems China is winning the race for digital soft power on the continent.
“I think there’s a space there for competition, but Western actors will have to step up,” he said.
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Washington celebrates 110 years of cherry blossoms in a festival not only marking the beginning of spring but also commemorating the birth of an international tourist destination and marking the ties between the United States and Japan.
Each year, the National Cherry Blossom Festival draws more than 1.5 million admirers of the fluffy pink trees. Tokyo Mayor Yukio Ozaki gifted about 3,000 of them to the nation’s capital in 1912. His act of kindness is still celebrated more than a century later.
“This year, more than ever, you really understand why the festival is so important,” said festival President Diana Mayhew. “We recognize that it’s more than just a festival. It’s about spring and renewal and a sense of new beginnings.”
Tourists and photographers flock to the Tidal Basin, where the trees were first planted in 1912. Later in 1965, the Japanese government gifted 3,800 trees to first lady Lady Bird Johnson, and many of which were planted on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
Awaiting the cherry blossoms is a long-held Japanese tradition. The delicate blooms symbolize the beginning of spring and last about one week, reflecting the Japanese belief that they embody the fleeting nature of life and a time of renewal.
Cherry blossom season is considered at its peak when 70% of the flowers around the Tidal Basin are open, according to the National Park Service. This year, the peak arrived about 10 days early, on March 21.
The National Cherry Blossom Festival also marks Washington’s unofficial reemergence from two years of COVID-19 restrictions, which prevented large gatherings and crowds.
During a recent event announcing this year’s plans, Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said, “We want D.C. to be the face of spring for the nation. Let me say, without equivocation, that D.C. is open!”
The festival includes a parade, live music, art installations, kite flying, cultural events, fireworks, a Washington Wizards basketball game, pet- and family-friendly activities, food and liquor sampling, and river cruises.
The Japanese government often exchanges about 90 old trees for new ones every year and continues to be involved in the festival.
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U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday introduced his administration’s new website, COVID.gov, designed to be a clearinghouse for the latest pandemic information, as well as a means of providing access to vaccines, tests, treatments and masks on a single site.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Biden also asked Congress to approve an additional $22 billion in emergency funding to help continue the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Biden said the nation was entering a new moment in the pandemic. He stressed that though the pandemic no longer controlled our lives, it was not over, noting an uptick of new cases in recent weeks — as expected, he said.
Biden added that the U.S. now had the tools to protect all people.
The president said COVID.gov provides access to all the tools available to address COVID-19, including a list of all 90,000 vaccination sites in the United States, links to obtaining masks and tests, and where to obtain COVID-19 treatments. The site also has a search function, which can be used to find the latest information on the status of the pandemic in any region in the country.
‘Test-to-treat’ sites
The website also features a so-called “test-to-treat” locator, designed to allow access to U.S. pharmacies and community health centers where anyone can get tested for COVID-19 and, if required, receive appropriate treatment.
The White House said the administration had launched more than 2,000 such sites across the country, as well as 240 in Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense facilities to serve veterans, military personnel and their families.
The president also urged Congress to approve additional funding to fight the pandemic. He said without it, the U.S. would not be able to sustain its testing capacity beyond June, and vaccines could run out as early as September, leaving the nation vulnerable should another wave of the virus that causes COVID-19 hit.
Biden also noted that the U.S. Food and Drug administration on Tuesday approved a second COVID-19 booster — a fourth shot overall for those receiving the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines — for all people over age 50 and people with compromised immune systems.
He urged all eligible people to get their boosters. To prove his point, following his remarks at the White House, he received his fourth vaccination as reporters watched.
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Malaysia’s health ministry is proposing a major initiative to prevent young people from smoking. It’s a bold plan but critics say it has flaws. Dave Grunebaum has the story.
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The World Health Organization reported a 43 percent spike in deaths from COVID-19 globally last week, while the number of cases continued to fall worldwide.
In its weekly epidemiological report, the WHO said 45,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 were reported in the week ending March 27, up from 33,000 the week before. That spike follows a week in which deaths declined by 23 percent.
The agency said the increase in deaths is likely driven by changes in the definition of COVID-19 deaths in nations in the Americas such as Chile and the United States, and by retrospective adjustments reported from India in Southeast Asia.
As an example, Chile had the highest number of new deaths, reporting 11,858, a leap of 1,710 percent from the previous week. The United States saw a smaller but still significant increase of 5,367 new deaths, an increase of 8 percent.
While India saw 4,525 of new deaths; it represented an increase of 619 percent. The WHO said those deaths included numbers from Maharashtra state, which initially were not included in last week’s COVID-19 death toll.
While the number of new cases overall fell globally, three European countries — Germany, Italy and France — all saw an increase in new cases from the previous week. While Germany and Italy reported increases of two and six percent respectively, France reported 845,119 new cases – a increase of 45 percent.
The WHO has said repeatedly that COVID-19 case counts are likely a vast underestimate of the coronavirus’ prevalence. The agency also expressed concern that many countries in recent weeks announced plans to drop their comprehensive testing programs and other surveillance measures. They said doing so will cripple efforts to accurately track the spread of the virus.
Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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