Space tourism notches another win after Amazon founder Jeff Bezos follows fellow billionaire Richard Branson in rocketing to weightlessness. Plus, the hunt for ancient life on Mars is about to begin, and wildfires rage out of control in the U.S. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi brings us The Week in Space
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Koshur Nizam — a hip-hop collective — is reviving “Conscious” hip-hop music in Indian-administered Kashmir. The genre made its way in the disputed territory following an anti-Indian government uprising in 2010. The rappers continued to produce their songs up to 2016, but pressure from the Indian government, financial constraints, and a lack of opportunity forced the rappers to move to other places or find other work to earn their livelihood.
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Claims for jobless benefits jumped in the U.S. last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as the world’s biggest economy remains on an uneven recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
A total of 419,000 unemployed workers sought government compensation, up 51,000 from the revised figure of the week before, the agency said. The new figure followed declines in the number of claims in recent weeks and remained well above the 256,000 total recorded just before the coronavirus waylaid the American economy 16 months ago and closed many U.S. businesses.
The weekly claims total has tracked unevenly in recent weeks, but overall, jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs of workers, have fallen by more than 40% since early April, while remaining well above the pre-pandemic levels.
About 9.5 million people remain unemployed in the U.S. and looking for work. There also are 9.2 million job openings, the government says, although the skill sets of the jobless do not necessarily match the needs of employers.
The U.S. added 850,000 jobs in June, with the unemployment rate at 5.9%. Some employers are offering new hires cash bonuses to take jobs as the economy rebounds and consumers are willing to spend.
State governors and municipal officials across the U.S. have been ending coronavirus restrictions, in many cases allowing businesses for the first time in a year to completely reopen to customers. That could lead to more hiring of workers.
Nearly 60% of U.S. adults have now been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, boosting the economic recovery, although the pace of inoculations has dropped markedly from its peak several weeks ago, worrying health experts and government officials.
Now, the Delta variant of the coronavirus is spreading rapidly, infecting tens of thousands of people who have not been vaccinated.
Officials in many states are offering a variety of incentives to entice the unvaccinated to get inoculated, including entry into lucrative lotteries for cash and free college tuition. The U.S. did not meet President Joe Biden’s goal of 70% of adult Americans with at least one vaccination shot by the July 4 Independence Day holiday. The figure stands shy of that at 68.4%, with Biden and health officials often calling for more people to get vaccinated.
With the business reopenings, many employers are reporting a shortage of workers, particularly for low-wage jobs such as restaurant servers and retail clerks. Biden suggested Wednesday night at a CNN town hall with voters in Ohio that employers having trouble finding enough workers may simply need to offer would-be workers more money to get them to agree to accept a job opening.
The federal government approved sending $300-a-week supplemental unemployment benefits to jobless workers through early September on top of less generous state-by-state payments.
But at least 25 of the 50 states, all led by Republican governors, are ending participation in the federal payments program, contending that the stipends let workers make more money than they would by returning to work and thus are hurting the recovery by not filling available job openings.
Some economists say, however, other factors prevent people from returning to work, such as lack of childcare or fear of contracting the coronavirus as the Delta variant first found in India infects more people.
The economic picture in the U.S. has advanced as money from Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package filters through the economy. The measure has likely boosted consumer spending, as millions of Americans, all but the highest wage earners, are now receiving $1,400 stimulus checks from the government or have already been sent the extra cash.
With more money in their wallets and more people vaccinated, Americans are venturing back to some sense of normalcy, going out to restaurants and spending money on items they had not purchased for a year.
Biden is supporting a plan to spend $1.2 trillion to repair deteriorating roads and bridges and construct new broadband service, agreeing to the deal with a group of centrist lawmakers. But lawmakers have struggled to reach a deal on how to pay for the package. With its approval still possible, it could add thousands of construction jobs to the U.S. economy.
Last week, Democratic lawmakers unveiled a $3.5 trillion plan for more health care coverage for older Americans, increased financial benefits for most U.S. families with young children, and more spending to advance clean energy. But Republicans are uniformly opposed to its cost and Biden’s plan to pay for it with higher taxes on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
The so-called human infrastructure measure will only win passage in the Senate if Democrats vote as a unified 50-member bloc, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the deciding tie-breaking vote in the politically divided Senate, because no Republicans currently support it.
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China has rejected the World Health Organization’s proposal for a second phase of its investigation into the origin of the novel coronavirus pandemic.Zeng Yixin, the vice minister of the Chinese National Health Commission, told reporters in Beijing Thursday that he was extremely surprised when he read the proposal offered by the U.N. health agency includes audits of laboratories in the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in late 2019 that led to more than 192 million infections around the globe, including 4.1 million deaths. Zeng said the WHO’s origin-tracing proposal lacks “common sense” and displays a disrespect toward science that makes it “impossible” for Beijing to accept. A team of WHO researchers visited Wuhan earlier this year to research the initial cause of the virus. The team concluded the virus likely jumped from animals to humans and that it was “extremely unlikely” that it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology as some experts have speculated. But WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has criticized China for not fully cooperating with investigators by not sharing raw data, and has called for a continued probe of all theories, including a lab accident.Chinese officials and news outlets have begun speculating that the virus may have escaped from a U.S. military laboratory, a theory that has been widely dismissed by the scientific community.Meanwhile, a new study says that two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine are effective against the highly contagious delta variant of the disease. In a study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at Public Health England found that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine are 88% effective at preventing symptomatic disease caused by the delta variant, compared to 93% against the alpha variant. The researchers also say two doses of AstraZeneca vaccine are 67% effective against delta, compared to 74% against the alpha variant.A single dose of Pfizer is just 36% effective against delta, the researchers say, while one shot of AstraZeneca was just 30% effective. A study posted online Tuesday suggests that Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine may be less effective against the emerging variants of the coronavirus, compared to either of the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines.Some information for this report came from the Associated Press, Reuters and AFP.
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Many Olympic nations are expected to demonstrate their support for gender equality and racial justice on Friday night with their selections of athletes to carry flags at the opening ceremony.The International Olympic Committee changed it rules and asked each nation to select two flagbearers in an effort to increase gender equality at the Tokyo Games.Gold-medal rower Mohamed Sbihi will be the first Muslim to carry the British flag at the Games, alongside sailor Hannah Mills.”It is such an honor to be invited to be the flagbearer for Team GB,” Sbihi said. “It is an iconic moment within the Olympic movement – people remember those images.”Aussies Cate Campbell and Patty Mills are both attending their fourth Olympics. Mills, a basketballer who plays for the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, will be the first indigenous Australian selected to carry the flag for the Opening Ceremony.”It’s identity, it’s being able to showcase who you are throughout the world,” Mills said. “It’s one of those things that makes you proud of who you are. We have definitely come a long way for Australian sport and it’s special.”Team USA will be represented by 40-year-old basketballer Sue Bird and Cuban-American baseballer Eddy Alvarez. Alvarez, who also won a silver medal for speedskating in the 2014 Winter Olympics, has expressed support for those in Cuba who have joined recent protests over the country’s economic crisis.”We feel for the people of Cuba right now. We’re so proud of them because they are going out there to protest with stones, forks and broomsticks,” he said.For the Netherlands, it will be 36-year-old Dutch sprinter and Black athlete Churandy Martina, from Curaçao, and skateboarder Keet Oldenbeuving, 16. They are the oldest and youngest members of the Dutch Olympic team.In Belgium’s case, the two will also represent the country’s linguistic divide – heptathlete Nafi Thiam, a French speaker, and hockey player Felix Denayer, a Dutch speaker.”What an honor!” posted Black sprinter Mujinga Kambundji with an emoji of the Swiss flag on Instagram after she was selected alongside Max Heinzer.”When I started athletics as a child, going to the Olympics never sounded really realistic. Today, I’m preparing for my third Olympic Games, and this honor makes the experience even more special.”
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Authorities in Madagascar have arrested several people they believe were part of a plot to kill President Andry Rajoelina.
The attorney general’s office issued a statement Thursday saying the suspects were part of a conspiracy to undermine the island nation’s security, including “the elimination and neutralization” of a number of people.
The suspects include both foreign nationals and Madagascar-born citizens.
The statement said the investigation is still ongoing.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and AFP.
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Asian countries are reporting record COVID-19 waves this year compared to 2020, as vaccination drives fall short and governments lose hope that mass closures and border controls can keep the coronavirus away, observers in the region say.
Spread of the delta variant from India, infections among airline personnel and citizens who brought back the virus from trips spread COVID-19 in parts of Asia with recent outbreaks. Containment measures had relaxed in some spots after months of low caseloads while domestic travel picked up.
Officials from Bangkok to Taipei sidelined vaccine procurement last year while Western countries were preparing to make shots so widespread that England is now 87% vaccinated and in the United States just about any adult can get shots from a local drugstore.
Many Asian countries held back the respiratory disease in 2020 by barring foreign tourists and shutting down places where people gather. Manufacturing-reliant Asian economies held up economically last year for lack of long-term work stoppages.
“I call this a complacency curse,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political science professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
“Thailand did so well during virus stage last year that it sat on its laurels and got behind the curve on vaccine procurement,” he told VOA.
Thailand has fully vaccinated just 5% of its population, with Vietnam at around 1%, according to the Our World in Data research website. Vietnam hit a one-day coronavirus infection record of 5,926 on July 18, while Thailand posted its own record of 11,397 the same day.
In Taiwan, which reported its first major COVID-19 wave in May, just 0.5% of people had received two shots as of mid-July and 20% had gotten one shot.
In the Philippines, which has battled COVID-19 steadily for more than a year, daily caseloads have held at around 5,000 after an earlier spike. Malaysia touched a one-day record of 13,215 cases on July 15. Both have strict community quarantine rules.
Asian countries are fighting now to get vaccines because Western pharmaceutical companies are busy filling orders in other parts of the world, governments in Asia are slow to grant permits for domestic drug firms, and their citizens worry about side effects, news reports say. Cold storage has run short in some spots.
Many have turned to donations or rush orders from China, Japan and the United States. Taiwan and Vietnam aim to release domestically produced vaccines to augment supplies. Japan offered Vietnam $1.8 million as well for vaccine cold storage, the Vietnam Insider news website said in May.
“I think slowly [Vietnam] will recover as people are doing in Europe and in the U.S.,” said Phuong Hong, 40, a travel sector worker in Ho Chi Minh City who spends 95% of her time at home with four family members as they all await text messages from the government telling them when they qualify for vaccines.
“It should be faster, but I think the distribution channel — they also need to understand how to store the vaccine,” she said.
In Indonesia, the government has accepted vaccines from China and other sources, but the country’s full vaccination rate is just 6%. On July 15, Indonesia hit a record daily caseload of 56,757.
Citizens have a list of misgivings, said Paramita Supamijoto, an international relations lecturer at Bina Nusantara University in Jakarta. They might believe vaccines are not halal, according to Islamic rules about what a person should ingest, or that COVID-19 itself is a “hoax,” she said. Indonesians with possible symptoms tend to avoid hospitals, she added, in part because they’re full.
“It’s really complicated here in Indonesia, in general,” Supamijoto said. “You don’t know whether the people who stand next to you or sit next to you [are] healthy or not.”
Much of 660 million-population Southeast Asia now faces new rounds of economic inactivity triggered by business closures and stay-home orders to contain the virus. The Asian Development Bank said this month it had downgraded Southeast Asia’s 2021 economic growth forecast to 4.0% from 4.4% “as some countries reimpose pandemic restrictions.”
“Countries have been significantly impacted quite a lot in terms of their economies and the impact is increasing, so that’s I would say quite a contrast to what’s happening say in the U.S. and Europe, where things have improved quite a lot,” said Rajiv Biswas, Asia-Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit.
A surge in delta variant cases brought from India by frequent travel has added to Southeast Asia’s woes, Biswas added. He said, though, that most Asian countries are shunning the “total lockdowns” of last year because of the economic impacts.
Asian governments say vaccine supplies should surge in the second half of the year. Thai officials said in June they would fill an earlier pledge for doses by the end of this month, while Taiwan’s president set a target of vaccinating 25% of the island’s population by July 31.
Vietnam anticipates providing 110 million doses by December, though still short of its goal of 150 million doses for 75% of the population, Vietnam Insider reports.
Economic slowdowns are “not permanent,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist in the private banking unit of Malaysian bank CIMB, adding, “we will get back once the vaccine rollout comes.”
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U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday he will continue “this encounter with China” to attempt to stem the flow of deadly drugs being smuggled into the United States via Mexico.Biden, during an appearance on a CNN “town hall”-style program from Cincinnati, said his administration is “dealing with the whole opioid issue” by significantly increasing the number of people in the Justice Department working on it.Fentanyl is considered 50 to 100 times stronger than heroin. The health crisis in America caused by synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, was frequently raised by Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.The former president repeatedly criticized China, the primary exporter of fentanyl or its precursor chemicals to Mexico, where cartels smuggle it into the United States, for not cracking down on the drug trafficking.A 1,500-word background memo issued ahead of Biden’s third visit to Ohio during his 6-month-old presidency, covered key concerns in the state ranging from repairing highway bridges to combating childhood obesity. It did not mention the opioid crisis, although Ohio has one of the highest per capita rates of overdose deaths, which have been the leading cause of fatal injuries in the state for more than a decade.Asked by VOA on the Air Force One flight Wednesday to the event whether — in view of this — the issue remains a priority for the Biden administration, White House press secretary Jen Psaki responded: “Absolutely, it’s a top priority, and there’s no question it is an issue that has impacted people across Ohio and continues to. Any health expert will tell you that the most important thing we could do is make sure people have access to health care coverage. ”Some U.S. objectives set during the Trump administration with respect to China remain unmet.China has not taken action to control additional fentanyl precursors, following Beijing’s crackdown on two such substance in 2018.Chinese traffickers shifted to sending not yet controlled chemicals to Mexico and Chinese nationals indicted in the United States on fentanyl trafficking charges remain at large, noted a January report from the Congressional Research Service.“I don’t believe there’s much we can do to slow these countries’ export of these drugs,” said Ben Westhoff, author of Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Created the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic.“All we can do is implement harm reduction measures at home, like supervised injection facilities, while also providing greater access to fentanyl testing strips, medication assisted treatment, and needle exchange programs,” he said.Westhoff, described himself as an advocate for harm reduction, the philosophy that accepts people cannot be stopped from using drugs and that instead users should be taught about their dangers and helped to use them more safely.“In this framework, the Biden administration has been only marginally better than Trump’s. Mostly they have simply maintained the status quo,” Westhoff told VOA. “In the midst of the worst drug crisis in American history, we need much bolder action.”Projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Ohio last year likely saw its largest-ever number of drug overdoses — more than 14 per day for a total of 5,215, breaking the recorded high from 2017.That puts the midwestern state with the fourth-largest total among the 50 U.S. states.Overall, there was a dramatic spike in U.S. drug deaths, up about 27% in the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic.A total of 88,000 Americans died in the 12-month period ending in August 2020, according to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.”Illicitly manufactured fentanyl and synthetic opioids are the primary drivers of this increase,” with people between the age of 35 and 44 most at risk, the acting head of the office, Regina LaBelle, told reporters in early April.“The Biden administration is not doing enough to address this issue with either China or Mexico,” according to Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.Larkin said the question for the president is how many people must die from smuggled fentanyl before he closes the southwest border to drug smugglers.“Hundreds of people are dying every day in this country while we wait for the answer to that question,” Larkin told VOA.Tom Synan, police chief of the village of Newton, in Hamilton County, Ohio, who testified before the U.S. Senate in 2017 about the fentanyl crisis, said most of the emergency calls his officers respond to are drug-related, be they overdoses or gun crimes.Throughout Hamilton County there are 50 to 70 overdoses each week and more than 400 people dying every year.While the numbers have stabilized in the county, Synan told VOA those statistics are “a person, a mother, father, brother, sister, son or daughter, I just had a mother reach out today asking for help. Every single day we’re dealing with an addiction epidemic.”Synan said he wrote Trump asking whether 70,000 to 100,000 Americans needed to die before action is taken.“I thought I was being overdramatic. But now I realize that not only was I not dramatic, but the number was pretty close,” said the police chief, adding he has a similar question for Biden.“I wholeheartedly believe that when a president of the United States stands up and says that we as Americans need to change the way we view and deal with addiction. It’ll shift the stigma. It’ll shift funding research out of the criminal justice system and into the mental medical health care system. And that would be my question to him — is what will it take for us to shift?” said Synan.The White House, nearly four months ago, after the start of the Biden administration, introduced a seven-part plan intended to decrease the number of deaths. It is to be implemented over the next year.One goal is to shift the government response from a focus on arrests toward treatment.“What really is the biggest enabler of addiction is our own ideologies and policies that hold us back from changing addiction from being punished to actually treating it as the mental medical health condition it is,” said the Newtown police chief.Biden has expressed understanding of that approach.“We shouldn’t be sending people to jail for [drug] use. We should be sending them to mandatory rehabilitation,” the president said on Wednesday night’s television program.
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The U.S. has averaged more than 26,000 new COVID-19 cases per day over the past week — more than double the number it was a month ago — with the more contagious delta variant making up over 80% of cases. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara looks at the Biden administration’s strategy for dealing with the surge, as misinformation continues to drive anti-vaccination sentiments in certain groups.
Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks
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A senior Chinese health official said Thursday he was shocked by the World Health Organization’s plan for the second phase of a COVID-19 origins study.
National Health Commission Vice Minister Zeng Yixin dismissed the lab leak theory as a rumor running counter to common sense.
The head of the WHO acknowledged last week that it was premature to rule out a potential link between the pandemic and a leak of the coronavirus from a Chinese lab.
Zeng said that the lab in the city of Wuhan has no virus that can directly infect humans.
He said that China has made repeated clarifications and does not accept the WHO plan.
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The Kennedy Center Honors will return in December with a class that includes Motown Records creator Berry Gordy, “Saturday Night Live” mastermind Lorne Michaels and actress-singer Bette Midler.Organizers expect to operate at full capacity, after last year’s ceremony was delayed for months and later conducted under COVID-19 restrictions.This 44th class of honorees for lifetime achievement in the creative arts is heavy on musical performers. The honorees also include opera singer Justino Diaz and folk music legend Joni Mitchell.All will be honored on December 5 with a trademark program that includes personalized tributes and performances that are kept secret from the honorees.Deborah Rutter, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, said the current plan is to pack the center’s opera house to full capacity and require all attendees to wear masks. But the plans remain fluid and Rutter said they’re ready to adapt to changing circumstances depending on the country’s COVID-19 situation.Time to party”We don’t know for sure what it’s going to be like,” Rutter said in an interview. “But don’t you think we all deserve to have a party?”The 43rd Kennedy Center Honors class was delayed from December 2020 as the center largely shut down its indoor programming. A slimmed-down ceremony was finally held in May of this year, with a series of small socially distanced gatherings and pre-taped video performances replacing the normal gala event.”We know how to do it now. We will make whatever adjustments we need,” Rutter said. “We’re going to be wearing masks right up until we don’t have to.”Midler, 75, has won four Grammy Awards, three Emmys and two Tony Awards, along with two Oscar nominations. Her albums have sold over 30 million copies. In a statement, Midler said she was “stunned and grateful beyond words. For many years I have watched this broadcast celebrating the best talent in the performing arts that America has to offer, and I truly never imagined that I would find myself among these swans.”FILE – Joni Mitchell arrives at the Hammer Museum’s “Gala In The Garden,” in Los Angeles, Oct. 11, 2014.Mitchell, 77, emerged from the Canadian coffee shop circuit to become one of the standard-bearers for multiple generations of singer-songwriters. In 2020, Rolling Stone magazine declared her 1971 album “Blue” to be the third-best album of all time. In a brief statement, Mitchell, said, “I wish my mother and father were alive to see this. It’s a long way from Saskatoon.”The December 5 ceremony will be the centerpiece of the Kennedy Center’s 50th anniversary of cultural programing. The center opened in 1971 and a young Diaz, now 81, actually performed at the grand opening of the opera house.”It’s a very special thing,” said Diaz, a bass-baritone from San Juan, Puerto Rico. “It’s such a great privilege to be able to say I shared this space with all these geniuses.”Gordy, 91, founded Motown Records — the Detroit-based hit factory that spawned what became known as the Motown Sound and launched the careers of a huge list of artists, including Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Ritchie, Marvin Gaye and Martha and the Vandellas.FILE – Berry Gordy attends the the 48th Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction and Awards Gala at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York, June 15, 2017.Gordy said in an interview that he always held President John Kennedy as one of the greatest leaders in American history.”So to be honored in his name just means the world to me,” he said.Michaels, 76, is a comedy institution unto himself — creating and producing “Saturday Night Live” since 1975 and producing dozens of movies and television shows, including “Wayne’s World,” “Kids in the Hall” and “Mean Girls.” He received the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Award for lifetime achievement in comedy in 2004.Not normally an on-stage performer, Michaels recalls the Mark Twain evening as “mostly nerve-racking” because he spent the evening dreading the traditional end-of-night speech he had to deliver.FILE – Producer Lorne Michaels attends the American Museum of Natural History’s 2019 Museum Gala in New York, Nov. 21, 2019.But the Kennedy Center Honors bring no such pressures, and Michaels said he intends to sit back in the special honorees box at the opera house and see what surprises the organizers have in store.”You don’t have to give a speech at the end, which is huge,” he said. “You’re just there with your friends.”
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Barring another postponement, Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics will launch competitions overshadowed by a pandemic that has already forced a major delay, has interfered with the pageantry ahead of the Games, and will keep spectators from the stands and prevent some athletes from competing at all.For casual observers in the United States, excitement and anticipation are hard to find as the Olympic Games vie for attention with dire domestic and international headlines.”We’ve hardly heard much about it,” Kevin Watson of Alexandria, Virginia, told VOA. “It’s already been a letdown, with few interviews with the athletes or TV commercials to promote the sports.”Even before the pandemic, primetime ratings for the Summer Olympics had been declining.Surfer Carissa Moore of the United States heads into the water for a practice run at Tsurigasaki beach at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in Ichinomiya, Japan, July 21, 2021.Data compiled by Zeta Global in New York indicated that 60% of Americans were not interested or excited about the Tokyo Games. And at least 45% were not even looking forward to them.No spectatorsAccording to the Zeta Global website, the reasons included last year’s postponement of the Games, less desire to sit in front of the TV after a year of lockdown, and the barring of spectators at the events.”Since there won’t be spectators to watch, cheer, jeer and shout in the stands behind the competitors, that makes the coverage boring,” Alex Willman in Carlsbad, California, said in a VOA interview. “The best part of any sporting event with a large audience is to watch their reaction to the scores.”Eliot Greenwald said he hadn’t paid much attention to the run-up to the Olympics. The avid sailor from Bethesda, Maryland, said he’d probably get more interested in the events once they began, especially watersports like sailing and diving.FILE – Katie Ledecky participates in the women’s 800-meter freestyle during wave 2 of the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials, June 19, 2021, in Omaha, Neb.With some of the athletes testing positive for the coronavirus in Tokyo, some people think the Games should be postponed again.”I love the Olympic Games, but I don’t think they should be happening now,” Barry Hunter, a boxing trainer at Headbangers Gym in Washington, told VOA by phone. He added that because of the pandemic, “the average person in the U.S. is not as excited about them as they normally would be.””They seem less important when there’s a pandemic going on around the world,” said Louise Korver, who lives in Huntersville, North Carolina.However, Jeff Shell, the chief executive of NBCUniversal, the major U.S. television network that is broadcasting most of the Olympics, thinks the time is right for the Games to begin.NBC is airing 7,000 hours of coverage across its multiple television networks. Shell told a virtual conference this week that the Tokyo Games could be the most profitable Olympics in NBC’s history.Some fans are eagerThe lack of enthusiasm is far from universal. Some Americans can’t wait to watch their favorite sports.Luisa Handem Piette in Londonderry, New Hampshire, said she would be among those glued to the TV watching the Olympics. “The U.S. audience will be much larger than anticipated,” she said in a phone interview with VOA.FILE – Signs from the Belgian and Austrian teams hang on the apartment building hosting Olympics participants at the Athletes Village, in Tokyo, July 18, 2021.Bob Mandau, in Chesterland, Ohio, said he “welcomes the Olympics as a much-needed break from the negative politics on TV.”Meanwhile, Rick Kinney from Wellesley, Massachusetts, said Americans like him would watch the Olympics because “people like a feel-good story about how hard the athletes worked to get to the Games.”Sam Doering is on the swim team at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She will be following American Katie Ledecky, one of the world’s top swimmers and a favorite for top medals at the Games.”I think it’s going to be fantastic watching Ledecky, and hopefully other U.S. swimmers, do well in the swimming competitions,” she said. “And hearing the national anthem being played after they’ve won the medals is really cool.”Of all the events, women’s gymnastics is projected to be the most popular with American viewers. Zeta Global predicted 33% of the people interested in the Olympics would be focusing on that competition.Ashley Umberger, owner and head coach at North Stars Gymnastics Academy in Boonton, New Jersey, said she thought the U.S. women’s team “is going to be the one to watch” as Americans tune in to watch Simone Biles, the top-ranked female gymnast, “who is really breaking barriers.”
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Olympic officials are warning against what they say are divisive political protests at the Summer Games in Tokyo. But as VOA’s Bill Gallo reports, the event may be the perfect opportunity for athlete activism.
(Jesusemen Oni contributed to this video.)
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Pfizer and BioNTech have reached an agreement with a South African company to produce their COVID-19 vaccine for distribution in Africa, the biotechnology companies said Wednesday.The Biovac Institute in Cape Town will manufacture 100 million doses of the vaccine annually starting in 2022. The company will mix vaccine ingredients it receives from Europe, place them in vials and package them for distribution to the 54 countries in Africa.The agreement may eventually help alleviate vaccine shortages on a continent where the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says less than 2% of its population of 1.3 billion has received at least one dose. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the company’s goal is to provide people throughout Africa with the vaccine, a departure from previous bilateral agreements that saw most doses being sold to wealthy countries.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is already being manufactured in South Africa in a similar “fill and finish” process that has the capacity to produce more than 200 million doses annually. The vaccines are also being distributed across the African continent.
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Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan has moved away from her predecessor’s pandemic denial to urge social distancing, handwashing and mask-wearing. But as the third wave of coronavirus sweeps across Africa, it seems the measures are being ignored by most of the public. Charles Kombe reports from Dar es Salaam.Camera: Rajabu Hassan
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A finger-sized fossil from 308 million years ago unearthed in the United States gives tantalizing clues to the habits of tiny dinosaurlike creatures that may be the forerunners of reptiles, researchers revealed Wednesday. The new species is a microsaur — small lizardlike animals that roamed the Earth well before proper dinosaurs made their appearance.The find sheds important light on the evolution of different animal groups, including amphibians and reptiles, scientists wrote in the journal Royal Society Open Science. Microsaurs lived during the Carboniferous period, when the forebears of modern mammals and reptiles, called amniotes, first appeared.”Many details of that transition aren’t well known,” study co-author Arjan Mann, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, told AFP.”Microsaurs have recently become important in understanding the origins of amniotes,” he said. “A lot of these microsaurs have been thought to be either ancestors of amphibians or ancestors of reptiles.”Encased in a bog in what is today the central United States, the specimen’s serpentlike body measures about 5 centimeters (2 inches). The animals had four short, plump legs.In deference to its tiny size, researchers dubbed the new species Joermungandr bolti, after a giant sea serpent from Norse mythology who did battle with Thor.Scientists were astonished to discover the fossil also contained the animal’s skin.”Areas of the skin had only been known from fragmentary fossils before,” Mann said.”This microsaur is the whole shebang. … That’s very rare for these fossils. It’s very rare for anything 300 million years old to have skin with it!”Contrary to previous ideas about microsaurs, which had been classed as amphibians, Mann and his team discovered that Joermungandr had scales.”Modern amphibians … are soft and slimy things, this was not a soft and slimy thing,” said Mann. “This animal really had a reptilelike look to it.” Mann said the research suggests not only that microsaurs might be early relatives of reptiles but also that the ability to burrow may have played a bigger role in the origin of amniotes than originally thought.The researchers used a highly sensitive imaging technique called scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to get an up-close look at the nearly perfect fossil.They discovered a pattern of ridges similar to those found on the scales of modern reptiles that dig into the ground.Along with other features such as a robust skull and elongated body, the scale shape led researchers to hypothesize that Joermungandr burrowed as well.”It would probably have been a head-first burrower, using its head to smack itself into the soil,” said Mann.”Its limbs were probably not very functional. It may have used them to stabilize itself as it was wobbling around. But its primary mode of movement would have been side winding like a snake.”The SEM imaging technique is now being applied to many other ancient fossils, Mann said.”We plan to do a lot of SEM and also 3D printing the scales at larger sizes,” he added. “And some biomechanics to see how they interacted with things like dirt and water.”
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Brisbane was picked Wednesday to host the 2032 Olympics, the inevitable winner of a one-city race steered by the IOC to avoid rival bids.The Games will go back to Australia 32 years after the popular 2000 Sydney Olympics. Melbourne hosted in 1956.“We know what it takes to deliver a successful Games in Australia,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told International Olympic Committee voters in an 11-minute live video link from his office.When the award was later confirmed, winning the vote 72-5, Morrison raised both arms in the air and gave two thumbs up.The victory led to a fireworks display in Brisbane that was broadcast to IOC members in their five-star hotel in Tokyo.Brisbane follows 2028 host Los Angeles in getting 11 years to prepare for hosting the Games. Paris will host in 2024.The 2032 deal looked done months before the formal decision at the IOC meeting, which was held ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games.The IOC gave Brisbane exclusive negotiating rights in February. That decision left Olympic officials in Qatar, Hungary and Germany looking blindsided with their own stalled bidding plans.Though the result was expected, a high-level Australian delegation went to Tokyo amid the COVID-19 pandemic to present speeches, films and promises on stage.The city of Brisbane sent Mayor Adrian Schrinner, the state of Queensland sent Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Australia’s federal government sent sports minister Richard Colbeck to woo Olympic voters.They were joined by long-time Australian Olympic official John Coates, now an IOC vice president who shaped the fast-track selection process two years ago.The first-time format, designed to cut campaign costs, gives the IOC more control and removes the risk of vote-buying.The project will see events staged across Queensland, including in Gold Coast, which hosted the 2018 Commonwealth Games.Brisbane’s renowned cricket stadium, known as the Gabba, will be upgraded and may host the sport at the Games. Cricket was played once at the Olympics, at the 1900 Paris Games.The next three Summer Games hosts — starting with Paris in 2024 — are now secured in wealthy and traditional Olympic host nations without any of the trio facing a contested vote.The IOC and its hands-on president, Thomas Bach, have torn up the template of traditional bidding campaigns and hosting votes to lock down preferred cities with the minimum risk.The future hosts offer stability for the IOC, which was stung by the two previous Summer Games contests being tainted by allegations of vote-buying when multiple cities were on the ballot.The 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics are still under investigation by French prosecutors. They have implicated officials who then lost their place in the IOC family as active or honorary members.A low-risk future beckons for the IOC following the often-troubled Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games in February, which will throw scrutiny on China’s human rights record. Key partners have also been secured through 2032. The IOC’s signature broadcasting deal with NBC and top-tier sponsors Coca-Cola, Visa and Omega are tied down for the decade ahead.
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A study suggests Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot COVID-19 vaccine may be less effective against the emerging variants of the coronavirus.Researchers at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine reached the conclusion after conducting laboratory testing of blood samples from volunteers.Nathaniel Landau, the lead researcher, said the Johnson & Johnson vaccine does not provide the same protection against the variants as either the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, which were developed differently, using the messenger RNA method.The study, posted online Tuesday, has not been peer-reviewed nor published in a scientific journal, and does not reflect the real-world effects of the vaccine. But the findings are similar to other studies that show single-dose vaccines such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca do not produce enough antibodies to fight the delta and lambda coronavirus variants.The delta variant, which was first detected in India, reportedly spreads more easily than other iterations of the virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said delta now accounts for 83% of new cases in the nation.Johnson & Johnson recently published a study that shows a single dose of its vaccine is effective against the delta variant for up to eight months.But Landau says the results of the NYU study bolster the growing theory that a follow-up shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is necessary.The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been plagued with problems since it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has been linked to a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder, plus a rare neurological condition. Millions of doses were ruined earlier this year when a Baltimore-based manufacturing plant mixed the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with ingredients from the AstraZeneca vaccine.The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported that there are 191.4 million total confirmed COVID-19 infections in the world, including 4.1 million global fatalities as of Wednesday.South Korean health officials reported a new single-day record of 1,784 new COVID-19 infections Wednesday as the country struggles to contain a wave of infections linked to the delta variant, with more than 1,000 new cases recorded each day for the past two weeks.The surge has been centered mainly in the capital, Seoul, which has been put under a variety of restrictions and more cases have been reported outside the city.South Korea has recorded 182,265 total coronavirus cases, including 2,060 deaths. Only 32% of the country’s 52 million people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 6.6 million fully vaccinated.Health officials are also dealing with an outbreak on a naval warship that has been patrolling the waters off the coast of Africa that has sickened at least 270 crewmen.(Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.)
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Since the last Summer Olympics in 2016, a global Black Lives Matter protest movement has resurfaced. The “Me Too” movement sprung up in support of women’s rights. And both may influence the Tokyo Games, which are expected to be a major platform for athlete activism.Several high-profile athletes competing at the Games have been at the forefront of progressive causes in their own countries and may make political statements in Tokyo, despite the International Olympic Committee threatening to punish those who speak out.“The more there are vibrant social movements in the streets, the better chances that we will see activism on the Olympic stage,” said Jules Boykoff, a former Olympic soccer player and author of four books on the Olympics. “I think we have a perfect storm, if you will, for an outburst of athlete activism.”Political protests are technically banned at the Games by Olympic Charter Rule 50. Though the rule was loosened earlier this year to allow more athlete expression, it still forbids protests from the medal stand or field of play.Rule 50 was enacted after the 1968 Olympics produced one of the most inspiring athlete protests in Olympic history. That’s when U.S. stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists into the sky on the medal stand in a Black Power Salute.FILE – In this Oct. 16, 1968 file photo, U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos raise their gloved fists after Smith received the gold and Carlos the bronze for the 200 meter run at the Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City.ContradictionsSmith and Carlos are now widely viewed as icons for their salute. Even the IOC website FILE – Players take a knee before a Euro 2020 soccer championship quarterfinal match between Belgium and Italy at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany, July 2, 2021.The newly relaxed Rule 50 is vague about punishment. It’s not clear to what extent it will be enforced.Separately, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced late last year it would no longer punish U.S. athletes who conduct peaceful protests, such as kneeling or raising a fist.Professional U.S. athletes — most prominently basketball players but also others — have attended anti-racism protests and worn Black Lives Matter gear before and during games.U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe has also been outspoken for equal pay for women.United States’ Megan Rapinoe gives the victory sign before a women’s soccer match against Sweden at the 2020 Summer Olympics, July 21, 2021, in Tokyo.The British women’s football team has already announced it will take a knee before its matches to protest racism and discrimination.Conservatives, including most notably former U.S. President Donald Trump, often criticize activist athletes, saying players should stick to sports. But even Trump has embraced players who support him and who defend conservative ideals.Intertwined with politics“In reality, there has never been a separation of sport and politics,” said Heather Dichter, a professor of sports history at Britain’s De Montfort University. That’s especially the case with the Olympics, which is full of national flags, symbols, and anthems, Dichter said. “This is the world’s biggest platform,” she added.The ‘No Fun’ Olympics May Struggle to Attract Viewers Organizers hope new tech can spur online fan interaction But not every athlete will feel comfortable speaking out. Wealthier players who receive large salaries from their professional careers may be more likely to risk punishment by speaking their minds.“If you’re an athlete from a lesser-known sport who might get kicked off the team and have their career ended by standing up for politics and lose all your sponsorships, which are the only thing that can keep you going as an athlete, you might be less inclined to speak out,” Boykoff said. Since there is an abundance of professional athletes competing in the Games this year, it’s just more reason to expect protests.“It actually opens the door to the possibility that these athletes might speak out,” he said. “After all, the Olympics need these athletes more than these athletes need the Olympics.”VOA’s Jesusemen Oni contributed to this report.
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Giannis Antetokounmpo had the Larry O’Brien Trophy in one arm, the NBA Finals MVP trophy in the other and there was a cigar on the table in front of him.All the work it took to lift the Milwaukee Bucks from a team that won 15 games when he was a rookie to one with 16 wins this postseason was finally finished.“This is time to celebrate,” Antetokounmpo said.Milwaukee waited 50 years for that.Antetokounmpo ended one of the greatest NBA Finals ever with 50 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots as the Bucks beat the Phoenix Suns 105-98 on Tuesday night to win an entertaining series 4-2 and cap off a joyous return to a fan-filled postseason after last year’s NBA bubble.It was the third game this series with at least 40 points and 10 rebounds for Antetokounmpo, a dominant debut finals performance that takes its place among some of the game’s greatest. Antetokounmpo finished with 35.2 points, 13.2 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game while shooting 61.8%, the first player in finals history to reach those numbers.He shot 16 for 25 from the field and made an unbelievable 17-of-19 free throws — a spectacular showing for any shooter, let alone one who was hitting just 55.6% in the postseason and was ridiculed for it at times.“People told me I can’t make free throws and I made them tonight. And I’m a freaking champion,” Antetokounmpo said.He hopped around the court waving his arms with 20 seconds remaining to encourage fans to cheer, but there was no need. Their voices had been booming inside and outside for hours by then, having waited 50 years to celebrate a winner after Lew Alcindor — before becoming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — and Oscar Robertson led the Bucks to their first championship in 1971.“For the city, I’m sure it means everything,” said Khris Middleton, the other player left from that 15-67 team in 2013-14. “They’ve seen the work that we put in over the years for them to get to this point.”In a season played played largely without fans, the Bucks had 65,000 of them packed into the Deer District outside, a wild party that figured to last deep into the Midwestern night. The party wasn’t bad inside, either: Confetti rained down inside as fans chanted “Bucks in 6! Bucks in 6!” — a hopeful boast by former player that turned out to be a prophetic rallying cry.“I hope they enjoyed it just like we are now,” Middleton added.The Bucks became the fifth team to win the NBA Finals after trailing 2-0 and the first to do it by winning the next four games since Miami against Dallas in 2006.Chris Paul scored 26 points to end his first NBA Finals appearance in his 16th season. Devin Booker added 19 points but shot just 8 for 22 and missed all seven 3-pointers after scoring 40 points in each of the last two games.“There’s just a pain that goes with your season being over,” Suns coach Monty Williams said. “But I’ve never dealt with this and so I’m grateful, like I said, but I know this is going to hurt for a while.”The teams that came into the NBA together as expansion clubs in 1968 delivered a fine finals, with the last three games all in the balance deep into the fourth quarter.The Bucks won them largely because of Antetokounmpo, a two-time MVP in the regular season who raised his game even higher in the finals and was voted the unanimous NBA Finals MVP.He was the star of these finals in every way, from his powerful play on the court to his humble thoughts in interviews to taking time after Tuesday night’s win to find children to high-five amid the celebrations. He teared up afterward talking about the sacrifices his family endured while he grew up in Greece.He did all this after missing the final two games of the Eastern Conference finals with a hyperextended left knee, an injury he feared could be serious enough to end his season.Just think what people would have missed.What started as a gradual rise for Antetokounmpo and the Bucks sped up in the last few years and they thought they might be here the last two seasons. They had the NBA’s best record in 2018-19 but blew a 2-0 lead against Toronto in the Eastern Conference finals.They came back with the best record again last season but never regained their momentum after the season was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic in March. They were eliminated in the second round by Miami in the bubble.The Bucks traded for Jrue Holiday before this season and even though they weren’t quite as strong in the regular season, they were finally NBA Finals ready.And Milwaukee was ready for the moment.Middleton scored 17 points and Bobby Portis came off the bench with 16. Holiday had 12 points, 11 assists and nine rebounds to go along with his usual sturdy defense that helped finally cool off Booker.“I think it’s just a credit to the players,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “We’ve been pushing. We’ve been trying to get better. The players embrace everything. They’re amazingly coachable. They take it, soak it in and make the best of it.”Fans began filling the streets and restaurants in the afternoon on what felt like a holiday in Milwaukee. The Brewers moved up the start time of their home game against Kansas City to be played in the afternoon to accommodate Milwaukee fans — and Brewers star Christian Yelich, who was part of the crowd inside Fiserv Forum.The game was tied at 77 after three quarters but Antetokoumpo had 13 points in the fourth to make sure Milwaukee wouldn’t have to go back to Phoenix for Game 7 on Thursday.The Suns returned to the postseason for the first time since 2010 but remain without a title and have never won more than two games in their three appearances in the NBA Finals.“Nobody probably expected us to be where we are except for us,” Paul said. “But it is what it is. Like I said all season long with our team, ain’t no moral victories.”
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At least 12 people are dead in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou after massive floods triggered by several days of heavy rains. The rains washed out streets throughout the capital of Henan province, forcing stranded motorists to wade through waist-deep waters that submerged cars and even sent them floating away. The floods also washed out Zhengzhou’s subway system, with riders posting videos on social media awaiting rescue in waist-high muddy waters. A passenger named Xiaopei posted on Weibo that “the water in the carriage has reached (their) chest.” Dozens of reservoirs and dams have reached critical levels, with local authorities warning that the Yihetan dam in the nearby city of Luoyang had sustained a 20-meter breach and was on the verge of imminent collapse. Authorities have evacuated 100,000 residents to safe zones. Henan province, home to about 94 million people, has experienced severe rains through the past week. Forecasters say Zhengzhou received as much rainfall in three days as it normally gets in a year. A representative of the city of Xu Liyi, a member of the Standing Committee of Henan Provincial Party Committee, and secretary of the Zhengzhou Municipal Party Committee said the high levels of rainfall were unusual. Extreme weather events have surged this summer in China, with recent flooding in Sichuan province killing hundreds of citizens and forcing thousands to evacuate the area. Officials of Greenpeace International, an environmental group, warn that China’s rapid urbanization will increase the frequency of climate disasters. Speaking to the Chinese media, Liu Junyan of Greenpeace said, “because of the highly concentrated population, infrastructure and economic activity, the exposure and vulnerability of climate hazards are higher in urban areas.” This report contains information from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Space company Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rocketed to space Tuesday, with the world’s oldest and youngest people to ever fly in space in tow. Bezos’ flight follows last week’s suborbital jaunt by Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson. The two billionaires are further ushering in an era of space tourism and exploration. VOA’s Laurel Bowman has our story.
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Ecologists in a vast region of wetlands and forest in remote Oregon have spent the past decade thinning young trees and using planned fires to try to restore the thick stands of ponderosa to a less fire-prone state. This week, the nation’s biggest burning wildfire provided them with an unexpected, real-world experiment. As the massive inferno half the size of Rhode Island roared into the Sycan Marsh Preserve, firefighters said the flames jumped less from treetop to treetop and instead returned to the ground, where they were easier to fight, moved more slowly and did less damage to the overall forest. The initial assessment suggests that the many years of forest treatments worked, said Pete Caligiuri, Oregon forest program director for The Nature Conservancy, which runs the research at the preserve. “Generally speaking, what firefighters were reporting on the ground is that when the fire came into those areas that had been thinned … it had significantly less impact.” FILE – The Bootleg Fire burns at night near Highway 34 in southern Oregon, July 15, 2021, in this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command.The reports were bittersweet for researchers, who still saw nearly 51.7 square kilometers of the preserve burn, but the findings add to a growing body of research about how to make wildfires less explosive by thinning undergrowth and allowing forests to burn periodically — as they naturally would do — instead of snuffing out every flame. The Bootleg Fire, now 1,569 square kilometers in size, has ravaged southern Oregon and is the fourth-largest fire in the state’s modern history. It’s been expanding by up to 6 kilometers a day, pushed by gusting winds and critically dry weather that’s turned trees and undergrowth into a tinderbox. Fire crews have had to retreat from the flames for 10 consecutive days as fireballs jump from treetop to treetop, trees explode, embers fly ahead of the fire to start new blazes, and in some cases, the inferno’s heat creates its own weather of shifting winds and dry lightning. Monstrous clouds of smoke and ash have risen up to 9.6 kilometers into the sky and are visible for more than 185.2 kilometers. The fire in the Fremont-Winema National Forest merged with a smaller nearby blaze Tuesday, and it has repeatedly breached a perimeter of treeless dirt and fire retardant meant to stop its advance. More evacuations were ordered Monday night, and a red flag weather warning signifying dangerous fire conditions was in effect through Tuesday. The fire is 30% contained. “We’re in this for as long as it takes to safely confine this monster,” Incident Commander Rob Allen said Tuesday. At least 2,000 homes have been evacuated at some point during the fire and another 5,000 threatened. At least 70 homes and more than 100 outbuildings have gone up in flames. Thick smoke chokes the area where residents and wildlife alike have already been dealing with months of drought and extreme heat. No one has died. FILE – The Bootleg Fire is seen smoldering in southern Oregon, July 17, 2021, in this photo provided by the Bootleg Fire Incident Command.The Bootleg Fire was one of many fires burning in a dozen states, most of them in the West. Sixteen large uncontained fires burned in Oregon and Washington state alone on Monday. Historically, wildfires in Oregon and elsewhere in the U.S. West burned an area as big or bigger than the current blaze more frequently but much less explosively. Periodic, naturally occurring fire cleared out the undergrowth and smaller trees that cause today’s fires to burn so dangerously. Those fires have not been allowed to burn for the past 120 years, said James Johnston, a researcher with Oregon State University’s College of Forestry who studies historical wildfires. The area on the northeastern flank of the Bootleg Fire is in the ancestral homeland of the Klamath Tribes, which have used intentional, managed fire to keep the fuel load low and prevent such explosive blazes. Scientists at the Sycan Marsh research station now work with the tribe and draw on that knowledge. Climate change is the catalyst for the worsening wildfire seasons in the West, Johnston said, but poor forest management and a policy of decades of fire suppression have made a bad situation even worse. “My colleagues and I have been predicting a massive fire in that area for years. It’s an area that’s exceptionally prone to catastrophic fire,” said Johnston, who is not affiliated with Sycan Marsh. “It’s dry. It’s fire-prone and always has been. But what’s changed over the past 100 years is an extraordinary amount of fuel buildup.” Other firesElsewhere, fire crews were engaged in other daunting battles. In Northern California, authorities expanded evacuations for the Tamarack Fire in Alpine County in the Sierra Nevada to include the mountain town of Mesa Vista late Monday. That fire, which exploded over the weekend was 158 square kilometers with no containment. On the western side of the Sierra, the Dixie Fire has scorched 163 square kilometers, threatening tiny communities in the Feather River Valley region. Meteorologist Julia Ruthford told a briefing that a surge of monsoonal moisture from the Southwest increased atmospheric instability Sunday and Monday, creating plumes topping 9.6 kilometers — so big that the fire generated a thunderstorm over itself, hurling lightning bolts and whipping up gusty winds. For the past two days in Oregon, the fire has danced around Sycan Marsh, where researchers raced to protect buildings with sprinklers and fire lines. The 121.7 square kilometer habitat attracts migrating and nesting birds and offers a unique location to research forest and fire ecology. The nonprofit operates its own fire engines and maintains federal firefighting certification. It now has three of its own engines and seven firefighters on the blaze, and more people are arriving from North Carolina and Florida to try to save the preserve. “It’s an amazing place,” Caligiuri said. “It’s very hard to watch it all happening, and seeing all of that work being threatened by this fire is a lot to process.”
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The yearslong effort by state and local governments in the U.S. to force the pharmaceutical industry to help pay to fix a nationwide opioid addiction and overdose crisis took a major step forward Tuesday when lawyers for local governments announced they were on the verge of a $26 billion settlement with the nation’s three biggest drug distribution companies and the drugmaker Johnson & Johnson. Under the deal, Johnson & Johnson would not produce any opioids for at least a decade. And AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health and McKesson share prescribing information under a new system intended to stop the avalanches of pills that arrived in some regions about a decade ago. FILE – A Johnson & Johnson logo appears on the exterior of a first aid kit in Walpole, Mass., Feb. 24, 2021.Lawyers for local governments said full details could be shared within days. That would not be the end of the deal though; each state would have 30 days to decide whether to join. And local governments will have five months after that to decide. If governments don’t opt in, the settlement total would go down. “This is a nationwide crisis, and it could have been and should have been addressed perhaps by other branches of government,” Paul Geller, one of the lead lawyers representing local governments across the U.S., said in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “But this really is an example of the use of litigation for fixing a national problem.” If approved, the settlement will likely be the biggest of many settlements to opioid litigation. While it means billions for lawyers who worked the cases, it is expected to bring more than $23 billion to abatement and mitigation efforts to help get treatment for people who are addicted along with other programs to address the crisis. The money would come in 18 annual payments, with the biggest amounts in the next several years. The deal echoes one the companies have been pushing, sometimes in public, for two years. Johnson & Johnson reiterated in a statement that it’s prepared to contribute up to $5 billion to the national settlement. “There continues to be progress toward finalizing this agreement and we remain committed to providing certainty for involved parties and critical assistance for families and communities in need,” the company said. “The settlement is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing, and the Company will continue to defend against any litigation that the final agreement does not resolve.” FILE – A sign is displayed at the Cardinal Health, Inc. corporate office in Dublin, Ohio, Oct. 16, 2019.But Cardinal Health declined to comment early Tuesday, and the other distribution companies did not respond to requests for comment. An Associated Press tally finds there have been at least $40 billion in completed or proposed settlements, penalties and fines between governments and the toll of opioids since 2007, not including one between the federal government and OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma in which most of the $8.3 billion would be waived. Purdue is trying to reach a deal through bankruptcy court that could be worth $10 billion over time; a hearing on that plan is scheduled for August. Other deals are possible. While a growing number of companies in the industry have struck deals, some manufacturers have not — and no pharmacy companies have struck nationwide settlements. But the total amount in the settlements is far below estimates of the financial costs of the epidemic. The Society of Actuaries found that the cost of the crisis in the U.S. was $630 billion from 2015 through 2018, with most of the costs borne by the private sector. And the White House Council of Economic Advisers, when considering the economic impact of people who fatally overdosed, put the one-year cost at about $500 billion nationally. Unlike with the tobacco settlements reached in the 1990s, governments have agreed to spend money they bring in from opioid-related settlements to deal with the opioid crisis. In a joint statement, the attorneys general for Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee said the settlement talks with the four companies are “potentially nearing their completion,” and that, “we look forward to bringing much-needed dollars home to our states to help people recover from opioid addiction and to fundamentally change the opioid manufacturing and distributing industries so this never happens again.” But they still have choices ahead on exactly how they do it. “Is it a nice chunk of change?” asked Ryan Hampton, who is in recovery from an opioid addiction and is a Las Vegas-based advocate for policy to address the overdose crisis. “Sure it is. Will it go to where it needs to go? The jury’s still out on that.” FILE – A pedestrian passes a McKesson sign on an office building in San Francisco, July 17, 2019.Even before the settlement plan was unveiled Tuesday, a group of public health advocates and experts began calling for any settlement money to be spent to address the opioid crisis. “It’s money that can do a lot of good if it’s used well,” said Joshua Sharfstein, a vice dean at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who is spearheading the effort. “It’s really important to use it well to save lives because it’s coming at the peak of the overdose epidemic.” Private lawyers on the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee representing local governments in opioid lawsuits across the country announced some details of the settlement Tuesday even before it was completed. The decision to do so was partly because the state of New York reached a settlement Tuesday with the three big distribution companies amid a trial playing out in a state court on Long Island. New York’s deal, worth more than $1 billion, represents the share of the national deal it will receive from distributors if the national deal is finalized. New York also reached a similar deal last month with Johnson & Johnson worth $230 million. “Today, we’re holding them accountable delivering more than $1 billion more into New York communities ravaged by opioids for treatment, recovery, and prevention efforts,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement Tuesday. FILE – An AmerisourceBergen Corp. office building is seen in Conshohocken, Pa., Oct. 16, 2019.The trial is expected to continue, but the settlement leaves only three drug manufacturers as defendants. Other manufacturers, regional distribution companies and pharmacies will remain in the New York and other cases for now. Closing arguments in a West Virginia trial against the distributors are expected to proceed as scheduled next week. The attorney general there, Patrick Morrisey, said the state would probably not agree to the terms. “I will keep fighting to protect West Virginia and will not allow larger states to dictate how we hold defendants accountable for their actions,” he said in a statement Tuesday. The state and local governments say distribution companies did not have proper controls to flag or halt shipments to pharmacies that received outsized shares of powerful and addictive prescription painkillers. The companies have maintained they were filling orders of legal drugs placed by doctors — so they should not shoulder blame for the nation’s addiction and overdose crisis. An Associated Press analysis of federal distribution data found that enough prescription opioids were shipped in 2012 for every person in the U.S. to have a 20-day supply. And opioids — including both prescription drugs and illegal ones like heroin and illicitly produced fentanyl — have been linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. since 2000. The number of cases reached a record high in 2020.
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