YCLOAK

The U.S. will protect gay and transgender people against sex discrimination in health care, the Biden administration announced Monday, reversing a Trump-era policy that sought to narrow the scope of legal rights in sensitive situations involving medical care. The action by the Department of Health and Human Services affirms that federal laws forbidding sex discrimination in health care also protect gay and transgender people. The Trump administration had defined “sex” to mean gender assigned at birth, thereby excluding transgender people from the law’s umbrella of protection. “Fear of discrimination can lead individuals to forgo care, which can have serious negative health consequences,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “Everyone — including LGBTQ people — should be able to access health care, free from discrimination or interference, period.” Becerra said the Biden administration policy will bring HHS into line with a landmark Supreme Court decision last year in a workplace discrimination case, which established that federal laws against sex discrimination on the job also protect gay and transgender people.  Despite that ruling, the Trump administration proceeded to try to narrow the legal protections against health care discrimination, issuing rules that narrowly defined “sex” as biological gender.  A federal judge had blocked those rules from taking effect, although Trump administration officials argued that as a legal matter health care discrimination was a separate issue from the employment case the Supreme Court decided. Monday’s action means that the HHS Office for Civil Rights will again investigate complaints of sex discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Hospitals, clinics and other medical providers can face government sanctions for violations of the law. The Biden administration action essentially restores policy established during the Obama years. The Affordable Care Act included a prohibition on sex discrimination in health care and the Obama administration had interpreted that to apply to gay and transgender people as well. It relied on a broad understanding of sex shaped by a person’s inner sense of being male, female, neither or a combination. Behind the dispute over rights for transgender people in particular is a medically recognized condition called “gender dysphoria” — discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between the gender that a person identifies as and the gender assigned at birth. Consequences can include severe depression. Treatment can range from gender confirmation surgery and hormones to people changing their outward appearance by adopting a different hairstyle or clothing. Medical groups and civil rights organizations generally support broader legal protections for gay and transgender people, while social and religious conservatives sought to narrow their scope. 
…

A senior female air force officer whose childhood idol was iconic Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong will become Australia’s first space commander. Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts will oversee the space activities across Australia’s armed forces. Experts have said the army, navy and air force have relied on space-based technologies and communication, and centralized coordination was sensible. There is growing international competition for supremacy in space. The United States has a military arm called the U.S. Space Force while China and Russia both set up similar units in 2015. But officials in Canberra have been keen to stress that Australia has no plans to further “militarize space” nor would it seek to build technologies to attack enemy satellites. A dedicated space command brings Australia into line with Canada, France, India and Japan.  Senior officers have said part of its job would be to establish if satellites used by Australia were under threat or being subjected to accidental interference or natural events. Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts is a trained engineer, who has served with the Royal Australian Air Force for 35 years. She will take up her position as space commander next year. In an official RAAF video, she explained how she was inspired by the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969. “Today I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about role models and how important it is for each one of us to pave the way for the next generation as we head into a rapidly accelerating future. The first person I remember ever having a material impact on my ambition was Neil Armstrong. In 1969 as a three-year old I watched on in awe as Lieutenant Armstrong descended the ladder of the lunar lander and uttered the first words ever spoken on the moon. It was an incredible moment for humanity and millions of aspiring engineers that were probably created at that moment. I was no different,” Roberts said.Last year, the civilian Australian Space Agency officially opened its new headquarters in the city of Adelaide. It is responsible for developing the nation’s multi-billion-dollar commercial space industry. The government believes it will generate 20,000 jobs in Australia by 2030. Prime minister Scott Morrison has previously estimated the global space economy could be worth more than US$780 billion by 2040, and that Australia needed to be in a position to take advantage of the opportunities. Analysts have said that as the cost and intricacies of exploiting space have fallen, more countries and businesses are developing and launching the type of surveillance and navigation technology that could have military capabilities. To this end, experts have said there needs to be close cooperation between the civilian-run Australian Space Agency and the planned new military “space command” division that will be led by Air Vice-Marshal Roberts. 
…

The White House was working closely with top U.S. fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline on Sunday to help it recover from a ransomware attack that forced the company to shut a critical fuel network supplying populous eastern states. The attack is one of the most disruptive digital ransom schemes reported and has prompted calls from American lawmakers to strengthen protections for critical U.S. energy infrastructure from hacking attacks. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the pipeline fix was a top priority for the Biden administration and Washington was working to avoid more severe fuel supply disruptions by helping Colonial restart as quickly as possible its more than 5,500-mile (8,850 km) pipeline network from Texas to New Jersey. “It’s an all hands on deck effort right now,” Raimondo said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” program. “We are working closely with the company, state and local officials, to make sure that they get back up to normal operations as quickly as possible and there aren’t disruptions in supply.” Colonial said on Sunday its main fuel lines remain offline but some smaller lines between terminals and delivery points are now operational. Neither Raimondo nor the company gave an estimate for a full restart date and Colonial declined further comment on Sunday. U.S. gasoline futures jumped more than 3% to $2.217 a gallon, the highest since May 2018, as trading opened for the  week and market participants reacted to the closure. Colonial transports roughly 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline and other fuels from refiners on the Gulf Coast to consumers in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States. Its extensive pipeline network serves major U.S. airports, including Atlanta’s Hartsfield Jackson Airport, the world’s busiest by passenger traffic. A Charlotte Douglas International Airport spokesperson said the airport had supply on-hand and was “monitoring the situation closely,” adding that the complex is supplied by another major pipeline as well as Colonial. Retail fuel experts including the American Automobile Association said an outage lasting several days could have significant impacts on regional fuel supplies, particularly in the southeastern United States. During previous Colonial outages, retail prices in southeastern states have risen substantially. Offices of governors in several of the U.S. states most vulnerable to fuel shortages – including Tennessee, Georgia and Maryland – were not immediately available for comment. Cybercriminals suspectedWhile the U.S. government investigation is in the early stages, a former U.S. official and three industry sources said the hackers are suspected to be a professional cybercriminal group called DarkSide. DarkSide is one of many ransomware gangs extorting victims while avoiding targets in post-Soviet states. The groups gain access to private networks, encrypt files using software, and often also steal data. They demand payment to decrypt the files and increasingly ask for additional money not to publish stolen content. In the Colonial attack, the hackers took more than 100 gigabytes of data, according to a person familiar with the incident. As the FBI and other government agencies worked with private companies to respond, the cloud computing system the hackers used to collect the stolen data was taken offline Saturday, the person said. Colonial’s data did not appear to have been transferred from that system anywhere else, potentially limiting the hackers’ leverage to extort or further embarrass the company. Cybersecurity firm FireEye is among those dealing with the attack, industry sources said. FireEye declined to comment. Colonial said it was working with a “leading, third-party cybersecurity firm,” but did not name the firm. Messages left with the DarkSide hackers were not immediately returned. The group’s dark website, where hackers regularly post data about victims, made no reference to Colonial Pipeline. Colonial declined to comment on whether DarkSide hackers were involved in the attack, when the breach occurred or what ransom they demanded. Biden briefed on hack President Joe Biden was briefed on the cyberattack on Saturday morning, the White House said, adding that the government was working to try to help the company restore operations and prevent supply disruptions. U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana who sits on the Energy Committee, said lawmakers are prepared to work more with privately held critical infrastructure companies to guard against cyberattacks. “The implication for this, for our national security, cannot be overstated. And I promise you, this is something that Republicans and Democrats can work together on,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Another fuel pipeline serving the same regions carries a third of what Colonial does. Any prolonged outage would require tankers to transport fuels from the U.S. Gulf Coast to East Coast ports. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is issuing a temporary hours of service exemption to truckers transporting refined products to 17 southern and east coast states including Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey and New York. Complicating the fallback plans, according to one industry source familiar with the federal response, was that the ranks of fuel-truck drivers for the main road transportation companies, which could pick up some of the pipeline volume, are down by 25% or more because of coronavirus infections. Oil refining companies contacted by Reuters over the weekend said their operations had not yet been impacted. Some were working to find alternative transport for customers. The privately held, Georgia-based company is owned by CDPQ Colonial Partners L.P., IFM (US) Colonial Pipeline 2 LLC, KKR-Keats Pipeline Investors L.P., Koch Capital Investments Company LLC and Shell Midstream Operating LLC. 
…

The United States is “turning the corner” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, a key White House official said Sunday. Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told CNN that the U.S. has “enough supply [of vaccines] for all Americans,” even as the number of new daily vaccinations has dropped to 2.1 million, down 40% from last month’s peak pace. He said that 58% of those 18 and older in the U.S. — nearly 149 million people — have now received at least one shot, a figure President Joe Biden says he hopes will reach 70% by July 4, the country’s annual Independence Day holiday. People check-in at a Covid-19 vaccination site at a sports center in Brooklyn, New York on May 8, 2021.Zients said the country is “on the path” to becoming “safer and safer and closer and closer to normal.” But he acknowledged that “everyone is tired” of restrictions imposed because of the pandemic and said, “Wearing a mask can be a pain.” He urged Americans to get vaccinated if they have not, as well as to “keep up our guard” and wear a face mask in crowded groups. “Let’s stay vigilant,” he said. Zients said that regardless of whether the U.S. reaches the 70% vaccination figure by July 4, the nation will continue to vaccinate as many people as possible afterward and that if booster shots “are necessary [a half year or more from now], we’ll be ready.” In all, 112.6 million Americans are fully vaccinated, most often with the two-shot regimen developed by either the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech drug makers. But polls show that about 20% of Americans — often supporters of former President Donald Trump — say they will not get vaccinated, making it more difficult for the country to increase its overall rate. FILE – U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci speaks at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan. 21, 2021.Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and the country’s top infectious disease expert, told ABC’s “This Week” show that one key factor in increasing the number of inoculations is to “make it extremely easy to get vaccinated,” such as through the increasing number of no-appointment, walk-in vaccination sites at pharmacies. He said the country also needs to get “trusted messengers,” such as family doctors, clergy and sports figures, to spread the word of the need to be vaccinated. Currently, he said, about 43,000 new U.S coronavirus cases are being recorded each day. “We’ve got to get it to even lower,” Fauci said. Since the pandemic first swept into the U.S. in March 2020, the nation has recorded more than 581,000 deaths and nearly 32.7 million infections, with both figures more than in any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University. 
…

Experts say this has already been a busy year for volcanic activity, but now NASA scientists say they may be able to predict eruptions far enough in advance to save lives. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
…

The United States is “turning the corner” in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, a key White House official said Sunday. Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told CNN that the U.S. has “enough supply [of vaccines] for all Americans,” even as the number of new daily vaccinations has dropped to 2.1 million, down 40% from last month’s peak pace. He said that 58% of those 18 and older in the U.S. — nearly 149 million people — have now received at least one shot, a figure President Joe Biden says he hopes will reach 70% by July 4, the country’s annual Independence Day holiday. People check-in at a Covid-19 vaccination site at a sports center in Brooklyn, New York on May 8, 2021.Zients said the country is “on the path” to becoming “safer and safer and closer and closer to normal.” But he acknowledged that “everyone is tired” of restrictions imposed because of the pandemic and said, “Wearing a mask can be a pain.” He urged Americans to get vaccinated if they have not, as well as to “keep up our guard” and wear a face mask in crowded groups. “Let’s stay vigilant,” he said. Zients said that regardless of whether the U.S. reaches the 70% vaccination figure by July 4, the nation will continue to vaccinate as many people as possible afterward and that if booster shots “are necessary [a half year or more from now], we’ll be ready.” In all, 112.6 million Americans are fully vaccinated, most often with the two-shot regimen developed by either the Moderna or Pfizer BioNTech drug makers. But polls show that about 20% of Americans — often supporters of former President Donald Trump — say they will not get vaccinated, making it more difficult for the country to increase its overall rate. FILE – U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci speaks at the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, Jan. 21, 2021.Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and the country’s top infectious disease expert, told ABC’s “This Week” show that one key factor in increasing the number of inoculations is to “make it extremely easy to get vaccinated,” such as through the increasing number of no-appointment, walk-in vaccination sites at pharmacies. He said the country also needs to get “trusted messengers,” such as family doctors, clergy and sports figures, to spread the word of the need to be vaccinated. Currently, he said, about 43,000 new U.S coronavirus cases are being recorded each day. “We’ve got to get it to even lower,” Fauci said. Since the pandemic first swept into the U.S. in March 2020, the nation has recorded more than 581,000 deaths and nearly 32.7 million infections, with both figures more than in any other country, according to the Johns Hopkins University. 
…

The coronavirus crisis is not abating in India, with the country reporting Sunday that it had counted more than 403,000 new infections and 4,000 deaths in the last 24 hours. In addition, health experts say the tolls are likely undercounted. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not imposed a nationwide lockdown to help stop the spread of the coronavirus despite calls to do so from politicians and public health officials. Some local governments, however, have imposed lockdowns on their jurisdictions. New Delhi has announced that a lockdown that began April 20 will be extended to May 17. The Indian capital also announced that Metro transit service will be suspended, starting Monday. The southern state of Tamil Nadu said it would shift from a partial to a full lockdown after neighboring Karnataka state extended its full lockdown Friday. FILE – Beds are seen inside a Gurudwara (Sikh Temple) converted into a coronavirus care facility amidst the spread of COVID-19 in New Delhi, India, May 5, 2021.In an interview Saturday with the French news agency, Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist, warned that “the epidemiological features that we see in India today do indicate that it’s an extremely rapidly spreading variant.” Swaminathan said the B.1.617 variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was clearly a contributing factor to the catastrophe in India, her homeland.  “There have been many accelerators that are fed into this,” the 62-year-old pediatrician and clinical scientist said, adding, “A more rapidly spreading virus is one of them.” She added, however, that large gatherings and a lapse in mask-wearing also played a role. The B.1.617 variant was first discovered in India last October. The United States and Britain consider it a “variant of concern,” which indicates it is more dangerous than the original virus. In addition to the number of cases and deaths, Swaminathan said another danger is the increasing likelihood of variants that could outwit vaccines. “Variants which accumulate a lot of mutations may ultimately become resistant to the current vaccines that we have,” she said. The India toll came as the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center in the U.S. recorded 157.7 million global infections early Sunday, with 3.3 million deaths.  Johns Hopkins also said India currently had more than 22 million confirmed cases and 242,000 deaths. India is second to the U.S. in the number of infections. The U.S. currently has more than 32.6 million infections and 581,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins. EU summit, US criticism On the second day of a European Union summit in Portugal on Saturday, the EU approved a contract extension with Pfizer-BioNTech to provide up to 1.8 billion additional doses of its vaccine through 2023. Pfizer-BioNTech has already provided the EU with 600 million doses, as required in the initial contract. Also at the EU summit, the U.S. faced mounting criticism from EU leaders over U.S. President Joe Biden’s surprise endorsement last week of lifting COVID-19 vaccine patents to make more doses available to poorer countries. “We don’t think, in the short term, that it’s the magic bullet,” said EU Council President Charles Michel. Michel and other EU leaders said the U.S. should, instead, start boosting U.S. vaccine exports to have maximum impact on the global pandemic. “I’m very clearly urging the U.S. to put an end to the ban on exports of vaccines and on components of vaccines that are preventing them being produced,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. The U.S., like Britain, has limited exports of domestically developed vaccines so it can inoculate its population first. The EU has become the world’s leading vaccine provider, distributing about 200 million doses to the 27-nation bloc and roughly an equal number to nearly 90 countries around the world. Pope Francis said that he supports the temporary suspension of vaccine patents, according to news reports. He added that market forces, as it relates to the vaccines, must not predominate. 
…

Some have claimed she’s indulging a forbidden romance. More likely, loneliness compels her to seek company at Rio de Janeiro’s zoo. Either way, a blue-and-yellow macaw that zookeepers named Juliet is believed to be the only wild bird of its kind left in the Brazilian city where the birds once flew far and wide.Almost every morning for the last two decades, Juliet has appeared. She swoops onto the zoo enclosure where macaws are kept and, through its fence, engages in grooming behavior that looks like conjugal canoodling. Sometimes she just sits, relishing the presence of others. She is quieter — shier? more coy? — than her squawking chums. Blue-and-yellow macaws live to be about 35 years old and Juliet — no spring chicken — should have found a lifelong mate years ago, according to Neiva Guedes, president of the Hyacinth Macaw Institute, an environmental group. But Juliet hasn’t coupled, built a nest or had chicks, so at most she’s “still just dating.”A blue-and-yellow macaw that zookeepers named Juliet flies outside the enclosure where macaws are kept at BioParque, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, May 5, 2021.“They’re social birds, and that means they don’t like to live alone, whether in nature or captivity. They need company,” said Guedes, who also coordinates a project that researches macaws in urban settings. Juliet “very probably feels lonely, and for that reason goes to the enclosure to communicate and interact.”Aside from Juliet, the last sighting of a blue-and-yellow macaw flying free in Rio was in 1818 by an Austrian naturalist, according to Marcelo Rheingantz, a biologist at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and there are no other types of macaws in the city.  The lovebirds featured in the 2011 film “Rio″ are Spix’s macaws, which are native to a different region of Brazil and possibly extinct in the wild.Being boisterous with brilliant plumage helps macaws find each other in dense forest, but also makes them easier targets for hunters and animal traffickers. They’re often seen in other Brazilian states and across the Amazon, and it is suspected Juliet escaped from captivity.Biologists at BioParque aren’t sure if Juliet’s nuzzling is limited to one caged Romeo, or a few of them. They’re not even certain Juliet is female; macaw gender is near impossible to determine by sight, and requires either genetic testing of feathers or blood, or examination of the gonads.Either would be interference merely to satisfy human curiosity with no scientific end, biologist Angelita Capobianco said inside the enclosure. Nor would they consider confining Juliet, who often soars overhead and appears well-nourished.A blue-and-yellow macaw that zookeepers have named Juliet, left, grooms with a captive macaw at BioParque, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, May 5, 2021.“We don’t want to project human feelings. I look at the animal, and see an animal at ease,” Capobianco said, noting Juliet has never exhibited behavior to indicate disturbance, such as insistently pecking at the fence.“Who am I to decide it should only stay here? I won’t. It comes and goes, and its feathers are beautiful.”After more than a year of COVID-19 quarantine and travel bans, the appeal of roaming without restriction is evident to humankind. Macaws are used to flying great distances of more than 30 kilometers a day, Guedes said.Last year, BioParque gave its macaws more space: a 1,000-square-meter aviary where they fly beside green parrots and golden parakeets to compose an aerial, technicolor swirl. It’s a massive upgrade from prior enclosures that were roughly 9 square meters.BioParque reopened to the public in March, after privatization of Rio’s dilapidated zoo and almost 17 months of renovations.BioParque aims to feature species associated with research programs at universities and institutes. One such initiative is Refauna, which reintroduces species into protected areas with an eye on rebuilding ecosystems, and is participating with BioParque to start breeding blue-and-yellow macaws.The plan is for parents to raise some 20 chicks that will receive training on forest food sources, the peril of predators and avoidance of power lines. Then the youngsters will be released into Rio’s immense Tijuca Forest National Park, where Juliet has been sighted and is thought to sleep each night.“Their role could be important in terms of ecosystem and reforestation. It’s a big animal with big beak that can crack the biggest seeds, and not all birds can,” said Rheingantz, the university biologist, who is also Refauna’s technical coordinator. “The idea is for it to start dispersing those seeds, complementing forest animals that can’t.”After some pandemic-induced delays, the project has slowly restarted and Rheingantz expects to release blue-and-yellow macaws into Tijuca park toward the end of 2022.After two decades of relative solitude, Juliet will then have the chance to fly with friends. Neves said Juliet could teach them how to navigate the forest, or even find a love of her own.
…

An out-of-control Chinese rocket is expected to reenter Earth’s atmosphere between 1:00 and 5:00 UTC Sunday, but experts do not know where debris from the craft will land or exactly when it will happen.Aerospace Corp. and Space-Track.org are following the rocket as it descends.Space-Track.org estimated Saturday evening that the rocket would reenter the atmosphere over the North Atlantic at 02:04 UTC (10:04 p.m. EDT), give or take one hour. Aerospace Corp. put it at 03:02 UTC 11:02 p.m. EDT), give or take two hours.Aerospace Corp. is a nonprofit corporation that operates a federally funded research-and-development center committed to space enterprise, according to its website. And Space-Track.org says it provides critical space situational awareness data for a worldwide space community.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday that the rocket was unlikely to cause damage.Wang told reporters in Beijing that the rocket would mostly burn up on reentry and “the probability of this process causing harm on the ground is extremely low.”He said China was closely following the rocket’s path toward Earth and would release any information about it in a “timely manner.”Carried space station moduleThe Long March 5B rocket was launched April 29 from Hainan Island. It was carrying a module for a planned Chinese space station. After the unmanned Tianhe module separated from the rocket, the nearly 21,000-kilogram rocket should have followed a planned reentry trajectory into the ocean. Because that did not happen as planned, the rocket will now make an uncontrolled reentry, and no one knows yet precisely where the debris will land.“U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” Lieutenant Colonel Angela Webb, of U.S. Space Command Public Affairs, told CBS News.Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that “this rocket debris” is “almost the body of the rocket, as I understand it, almost intact, coming down, and we think Space Command believes somewhere around the 8th of May.”While the odds are good that any debris will fall into the ocean, debris from another Long March 5B rocket fell on parts of Ivory Coast in May 2020, causing damage to some buildings.Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters that the debris could fall as far north as New York or as far south as Wellington, New Zealand.Speaking with reporters Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the United States had no plans to try to shoot down the rocket.“We have the capability to do a lot of things, but we don’t have a plan to shoot it down as we speak,” Austin said.“We’re hopeful that it will land in a place where it won’t harm anyone. Hopefully in the ocean, or someplace like that,” he added.The launch of the Tianhe module was the first of 11 planned missions to build a Chinese space station.
…

Italian archaeologists have uncovered the fossilized remains of nine Neanderthals in a cave near Rome, shedding new light on how the Italian peninsula was populated and under what environmental conditions.The Italian Culture Ministry announced the discovery Saturday, saying it had confirmed that the Guattari Cave in San Felice Circeo was “one of the most significant places in the world for the history of Neanderthals.” A Neanderthal skull was discovered in the cave in 1939.The fossilized bones include skulls, skull fragments, two teeth and other bone fragments. The oldest remains date from between 100,000 and 90,000 years ago, while the other eight Neanderthals are believed to date from 50,000 to 68,000 years ago, the Culture Ministry said in a statement.The excavations, begun in 2019, involved a part of the cave that hadn’t yet been explored, including a lake first noted by the anthropologist Alberto Carlo Blanc, who is credited with the 1939 Neanderthal skull discovery.Culture Minister Dario Franceschini called the finding “an extraordinary discovery that will be the talk of the world.”Anthropologist Mauro Rubini said the large number of remains suggested a significant population of Neanderthals, “the first human society of which we can speak.”Archaeologists said the cave had perfectly preserved the environment of 50,000 years ago. They noted that fossilized animal remains found in the cave — elephant, rhinoceros and giant deer, among others — shed light on the flora and fauna of the area and its climactic history.
…

The European Commission called on the United States and other major COVID-19 vaccine producers Friday to export what they make, as the European Union does, rather than talk about waiving intellectual property (IP) rights to the shots.Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference on the sidelines of a summit of EU leaders that discussions about the waiver would not produce a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the short and medium term.”We should be open to lead this discussion. But when we lead this discussion, there needs to be a 360-degree view on it because we need vaccines now for the whole world,” she said.”The European Union is the only continental or democratic region of this world that is exporting at large scale,” von der Leyen said.She said about 50% of European-produced coronavirus vaccine is exported to almost 90 countries, including those in the World Health Organization-backed COVAX program, whose aim is to supply vaccines to mainly poor countries.”And we invite all those who engage in the debate of a waiver for IP rights also to join us to commit to be willing to export a large share of what is being produced in that region,” she said.Only higher production, removing export barriers and the sharing of already-ordered vaccines could immediately help fight the pandemic quickly, she said.”So what is necessary in the short term and the medium term: First of all, vaccine sharing. Secondly, export of vaccines that are being produced. And the third is investment in the increasing of the capacity to manufacture vaccines,” she said.Von der Leyen said the European Union had started its vaccine sharing mechanism, citing delivery of 615,000 doses to the Western Balkans as an example.
…

First came the amazing pictures, then the video. Now NASA is sharing sounds of its little helicopter humming through the thin Martian air.NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California released this first-ever audio Friday, just before Ingenuity was set to soar on its fifth test flight.The low hum from the helicopter blades spinning at more than 2,500 revolutions per minute is barely audible. It almost sounds like a low-pitched, far-away mosquito or other flying insect.That’s because the 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) helicopter was more than 260 feet (80 meters) from the microphone on the Perseverance rover. Martian wind gusts also obscured the chopper’s sound.Scientists isolated the sound of the whirring blades and magnified it, making it easier to hear.The sound was recorded during the helicopter’s fourth test flight on April 30.Ingenuity — the first powered aircraft to fly on another planet — arrived at Mars on February 18, clinging to Perseverance’s belly. Its first flight was April 19; NASA named the takeoff and landing area Wright Brothers Field in honor of Wilbur and Orrville, who made the world’s first airplane flights in 1903. A postage-stamp-size piece of wing fabric from the original Wright Flyer is aboard Ingenuity.The $85 million tech demo was supposed to end a few days ago, but NASA extended the mission by at least a month to get more flying time.Friday afternoon’s test flight was aiming for twice the altitude — as high as 33 feet (10 meters). The helicopter was also headed to a new touchdown spot.With the helicopter’s first phase complete, the rover can now start hunting for rocks that might contain signs of past microscopic life. Core samples will be collected for eventual return to Earth.
…

Debris from a large, out-of-control Chinese rocket that is expected to reenter the atmosphere this weekend is unlikely to cause damage, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Friday. The Long March 5B rocket was launched April 29 from Hainan Island. It was carrying a module for a planned Chinese space station. After the unmanned Tianhe module separated from the rocket, the nearly 21,000-kilogram rocket should have followed a planned reentry trajectory into the ocean, but now, no one knows where the debris will land. “U.S. Space Command is aware of and tracking the location of the Chinese Long March 5B in space, but its exact entry point into the Earth’s atmosphere cannot be pinpointed until within hours of its reentry,” Lt. Col. Angela Webb, U.S. Space Command Public Affairs, told CBS News. Reentry is expected May 8. While the odds are that any debris will fall into the ocean, in May 2020, debris from another Long March 5B rocket fell on parts of Ivory Coast, causing damage to some buildings. Harvard-based astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Reuters that the debris could fall as far north as New York or as far south as Wellington, New Zealand. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during a briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, May 6, 2021.Speaking with reporters Thursday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said the United States has no plans to try to shoot down the rocket. “We have the capability to do a lot of things, but we don’t have a plan to shoot it down as we speak,” said Austin. “We’re hopeful that it will land in a place where it won’t harm anyone. Hopefully in the ocean, or someplace like that,” he added. The launch of the Tianhe module is the first of 11 planned missions to build the Chinese space station.  
 
…

African nations have welcomed news that the U.S. supports a proposal to waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. But, they warn, the road ahead is long and full of obstacles.Health experts and activists say the decision, announced this week by the U.S. trade representative, could save lives in parts of the world where the coronavirus pandemic continues to rage and vaccines are in short supply.  Fatima Hassan is director of the Health Justice Initiative, a South African group that advocates for equitable health care. While Hassan said she welcomes U.S. support of the so-called “TRIPS” waiver — it stands for “Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property” — she worries that the process is moving too slowly. “Obviously … we welcome the Biden administration’s announcement — and really its giving effect, partially, to a promise he made when he was campaigning to be the president of the United States,” he said, but added that it is only a “small step to be able to go forward in terms of the TRIPS waiver, but also in terms of other initiatives to scale up manufacturing not just in Africa, but in the global South, particularly in Latin America and Asia as well.” Biden Agrees to Waive COVID-19 Vaccine Patents, but It’s Still Complicated Implementing waiver of intellectual property rights at WTO is not as simple as handing over vaccine recipes so countries can make generic versionsThe waiver idea came from two nations that have suffered greatly during the pandemic: South Africa and India. South Africa is the continent’s worst-hit country, with nearly 1.6 million confirmed cases and a vaccination program that has been plagued by fits and starts. Health officials are now bracing for a third wave of infections. Hassan stressed that the waiver alone won’t immediately produce a bounty of locally produced vaccines. The Africa Centers for Diseases Control has identified about six facilities on the continent that are capable of manufacturing vaccines — hardly enough to quickly meet the needs of more than 1.2 billion Africans.And, says Yuan Qiong Hu of global aid group Doctors Without Borders, the U.S. does not have the final word here. The World Trade Organization meets in June to hammer out the conditions, and there are a number of high-profile opponents, including the European Union, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, Brazil and Australia.While more than 100 countries support the waiver proposal, countries that oppose the waiver, says Hassan, may fear that it sets an irreversible precedent. 
 
Industry groups also have weighed in.Canada’s Procurement minister Anita Anand poses for a photo in front of a shipment from South Africa of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at Toronto Pearson Airport in Ontario, Canada, April 28, 2021.Despite such opposition, Hassan remains upbeat.“Maybe this statement from the U.S. trade office is actually the first of a long journey, where over the next few decades we’ll finally be able to have a real reckoning around the impact of intellectual property on access to healthcare services, in particular medicine,” she said. “The fact that medicines are still commodified, that they are subject to a trade regime and subject to the quite excessive and quite protectionist rules of the World Trade Organization is a key concern for many organizations and many health advocates and activists. “I think that we shouldn’t underestimate the statement and the move by the U.S. government,” she added. “It’s certainly going to create a ripple effect.”Umunyana Rugege, director of South African advocacy group Section 27, certainly hopes that is the case. Her group campaigns for social justice in South Africa. Before COVID-19 appeared, their health advocacy focused on another pandemic: HIV. South Africa carries the world’s heaviest burden of that virus. Rugege said her country’s lengthy experience in that battle enabled them to act quickly when COVID-19 first appeared. “Early in the pandemic, what we did was to call for a number of things,” she said. “The first thing was a moratorium on any new patents on COVID-related technologies. So that’s before we even had vaccines, before we knew what treatments were going to work. We said, let’s make sure that we’re not giving out new patents on these technologies. The second thing we demanded was for automatic compulsory licenses where there are health technologies that are found to be effective against COVID, but that have patents.”  This is familiar ground for African health activists. From the mid-90s, activists lobbied hard for the World Trade Organization to issue a similar waiver for lifesaving antiretroviral medications. A final agreement was inked in 2001. According to the United Nations, as many as 42 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since counting began more 40 years ago. Since COVID was first recognized in early 2020, the World Health Organization says it has killed 3.2 million people.
…

As India sets new daily records in COVID-19 deaths and infections, some experts see the humanitarian crisis as an opportunity for other nations to counter China’s vaccine diplomacy elsewhere.Three of the nations that make up the Quad — U.S., Australia and Japan — are expected to assist the fourth, India, after U.S. President Joe Biden promised April 26 to provide New Delhi with the China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying gestures during a press conference in Beijing on Dec. 10, 2020.China has denied it is engaged in vaccine diplomacy, and it says it is supplying “vaccine aid,” This handout photo taken on May 3, 2021, shows Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte receiving a dose of China’s Sinopharm to battle the COVID-19 coronavirus at Malacanang Palace in Manila.The partnership allows Quad leaders to take “shared action necessary to expand safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing in 2021” and “work together to strengthen and assist countries in the Indo-Pacific with vaccination, in close coordination with the existing relevant multilateral mechanisms including World Health Organization (WHO) and COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access),” according to a statement the White House released March 12.Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, thinks that the partnership will need to be modified “given that it was dependent on Indian vaccine manufacturing capacity. India will, understandably, prioritize vaccines for its domestic population.”Ideally, such partnerships should be fully coordinated with COVAX and WHO to maximize impact, Adalja said in an email to VOA Mandarin. However, Joe Thomas Karackattu, assistant professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India, where he focuses on Sino-Indian relations and China’s foreign and economic policy, told VOA Mandarin via email that COVID-19 relief cannot become a strategic turf war.”All countries have to work together,” he said. “If the Quad delivers on the pitch for the ‘Quad Vaccine Partnership’ … it might cement a longer-term foundation for the Quad to coordinate on multilateral cooperation, but that necessarily does not automatically translate into an organic and systematic modus vivendi in strategic affairs.” On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. South Africa and India had proposed the waiver, which is opposed by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a group that includes vaccine makers such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures. The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,” wrote U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.This is a monumental moment in the fight against #COVID19. The commitment by @POTUS Joe Biden & @USTradeRep@AmbassadorTai to support the waiver of IP protections on vaccines is a powerful example of 🇺🇸 leadership to address global health challenges. pic.twitter.com/3iBt3jfdEr— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 5, 2021 While a waiver could remove obstacles to ramping up the production of vaccines in developing countries, crafting the waiver may take time because it will require approval from all 164 members of the World Trade Organization.Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
…