Month: November 2020

An agreement announced Tuesday paves the way for the largest dam demolition in U.S. history, a project that promises to reopen hundreds of miles of waterway along the Oregon-California border to salmon that are critical to tribes but have dwindled to almost nothing in recent years. If approved, the deal would revive plans to remove four massive hydroelectric dams on the lower Klamath River, creating the foundation for the most ambitious salmon restoration effort in history. The project on California’s second-largest river would be at the vanguard of a trend toward dam demolitions in the U.S. as the structures age and become less economically viable amid growing environmental concerns about the health of native fish. Previous efforts to address problems in the Klamath Basin have fallen apart amid years of legal sparring that generated distrust among tribes, fishing groups, farmers and environmentalists. Opponents of dam removal worry about their property values and the loss of a water source for fighting wildfires. Lawsuits challenging the agreement are possible. “This dam removal is more than just a concrete project coming down. It’s a new day and a new era,” Yurok Tribe chairman Joseph James said. “To me, this is who we are, to have a free-flowing river just as those who have come before us. … Our way of life will thrive with these dams being out.” FILE – The Iron Gate Dam, powerhouse and spillway are on the lower Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif., March 3, 2020.A half-dozen tribes across Oregon and California, fishing groups …

Iota continues to pound Nicaragua with strong winds and heavy rains even after weakening from a hurricane to a tropical storm. As of late Tuesday night, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Iota was carrying maximum sustained winds of 65 kilometers an hour on a path towards Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  Forecasters say Tropical Storm Iota will dump between 7 to 20 kilometers of rain on a stretch of Central America from southern Nicaragua to southern Belize overnight, leading to “significant, life-threatening flash flooding and river flooding,” along with mudslides in higher areas. The storm is expected to weaken to a tropical depression through the night before dissipating sometime Wednesday.A woman sits near her house damaged the passing of Hurricane Iota, in Puerto Cabezas, Nov. 18, 2020.Iota made landfall Monday on the northeastern coast of Nicaragua Monday carrying maximum winds of 210 kilometers an hour, then grew in speed to 250 kilometers an hour, becoming a Category 5 storm — the top level on the five-level scale that measures a storm’s potential destructiveness.   The storm left scores of communities cut off from the outside world and forced thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.  At least eight people across the region have been killed, including two children who reportedly drowned while trying to cross a flooded river in Nicaragua. At least one person died in Providencia island, located in Colombia’s Caribbean archipelago, while another person was killed in Panama’s western Ngabe Bugle indigenous community.Iota is the 30th named storm of this year’s record-setting Atlantic hurricane season.  It …

A group of major U.S. utilities, Tesla, Uber and others said on Tuesday they are launching a new group to lobby for national policies to boost electric vehicle sales. The new Zero Emission Transportation Association wants to boost consumer electric vehicle (EV) incentives and encourage the retirement of gasoline-powered vehicles. It also advocates for tougher emissions and performance standards that will potentially enable full electrification by 2030. Under President Donald Trump, the White House rejected new tax credits for electric vehicles as it proposed to kill existing credits and made it easier to sell gas-guzzling vehicles. President-elect Joe Biden promises new tax incentives, including new rebates to buy EVs and a dramatic expansion of charging stations for electric vehicles – policy measures automakers have long advocated. “We can own the electric vehicle market – building 550,000 charging stations – and creating over a million good jobs here at home – with the federal government investing more in clean energy research,” Biden said Monday. Biden’s measures are in line with the group’s call for “strong federal charging infrastructure investments” and its goal to reach 100% electric vehicle sales by 2030. Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi said the group will support “Uber’s work to move 100% of rides to EVs in (the United States), Canadian and European cities by 2030 and go fully zero-emissions by 2040. It will take all of us working together to address the urgent crisis of climate change.” Automakers in the United States sold 326,000 EVs in 2019, accounting for about 2% of total U.S. …

Hurricane Iota made landfall along the northeastern coast of Nicaragua late Monday night and flash flooding and landslides are expected across Central America. The National Hurricane Center said Iota struck Nicaragua as a Category 4 storm, with winds of 210 kilometers per hour. Many people hunkered down in shelters while the Nicaraguan government evacuated thousands of residents in low lying coastal areas ahead of the storm. One resident in the seaside town of Bilwi, business owner Business owner Adán Artola Schultz, described the sound of metal structures banging and buckling in the wind as “like bullets” to the Associated Press.  Jason Bermúdez, a university student from Bilwi, told AP a lot of houses have lost their roofs, fences and fruit trees that got knocked down. Bermúdez said “(W)e will never forget this year.” “The situation is exacerbated by the fact that Iota is making landfall in almost the exact same location that category 4 Hurricane Eta did a little less than two weeks ago,” the Hurricane Center said in a statement. Iota came ashore south of where Hurricane Eta made landfall Nov. 3, also as a Category 4 storm. Hurricane Eta killed more than 130 people as the heavy rains caused flash flooding and landslides over parts of Central America.  …

The World Health Organization’s 194 member states have agreed to push for the global elimination of cervical cancer, a disease that every year affects 570,000 women and kills more than 300,000. A new strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer was adopted at this year’s World Health Assembly.Cervical cancer is a vaccine-preventable disease and curable if detected early and adequately treated. Health officials say the tools are available to eliminate this disease, the fourth most common cancer among women globally.   WHO’s three-point strategy calls for all girls to be vaccinated for HPV or human papillomavirus before age 15. It says women should be screened twice between the ages of 35 and 45 and those found to have the cancer should receive treatment. WHO’s assistant director-general, Princess Nothemba Simelela, says new technology based on artificial intelligence can be used to screen women for cervical cancer.    “If these technologies are used, we would be able to get a diagnosis of cervical cancer within 15 to 20 minutes,” she said. “At this point in time, turnaround from the laboratories can be anything up to a month or longer and women do not get their results because most of them do not stay or live near a facility.”   Simelela says the rapid diagnosis will be a lifesaver for many women in developing countries. She says they will be able to be treated immediately on site for a pre-cancerous condition without having to return.    FILE – Women sign up for free breast and …

The Trump administration is moving to finalize the sale of controversial oil drilling leases in a wildlife refuge in Alaska.A notice from the Bureau of Land Management posted on the federal register is listed as “unpublished” as of Monday, but it calls for nominations on the lease tracts considered for the oil sale. Oil drilling in the sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) was banned for decades before a 2017 reversal by the Trump administration.In an executive order signed in April 2017, Trump reversed the Obama administration’s decision to prohibit oil and gas drilling in the Arctic waters off Alaska.The White House said 90 billion barrels of oil and 327 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are buried off the U.S. coastline but that 94% of the area is off limits. President-elect Joe Biden opposes drilling in ANWR. Conservationists have fought against drilling since the 2017 executive order. In recent months, several U.S. banks said they would not help finance the project.The 19-million-acre refuge is home to numerous Indigenous tribes and wildlife, including polar bears and caribou.Thirty days after the call for nominations is published on Tuesday, the Trump administration would have to issue a notice for an impending sale of leases. The sale would take place 30 days after that, according to Reuters, which would be just before Biden’s inauguration on January 20. …

The high-pitched whine of a mosquito is annoying, but scientists have developed an app that uses that sound to detect dangerous mosquitoes.Mosquitoes kill hundreds of thousands of people each year by spreading microbes that cause diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and yellow fever. But researcher Haripriya Vaidehi Narayanan says anyone with a cellphone can help tackle these diseases by using the Abuzz app to identify mosquitoes. “If they see a mosquito around us, they just open the phone, open up the app, point their phone towards the mosquito and hit the record button,” said Narayanan, who started working on the project as a graduate student at Stanford University. She’s now in the Department of Immunology at the University of California Los Angeles. “So then, when the mosquito flaps its wings and starts flying around, it makes that noise, that annoying buzzing noise … that noise is what gets recorded by the Abuzz app,” she added. Many mosquito-borne diseases don’t have cures or vaccines, so targeting mosquitoes is the best approach to controlling these diseases. “If we’re going to tackle diseases caused by mosquitoes like malaria or dengue, the most important step is to know where the mosquitoes are,” Narayanan said.Listening for answersTraditional mosquito monitoring can be time-consuming and expensive because it requires labor-intensive trapping and trained scientists to identify the tiny insects. There are around 3,500 different mosquito species, but only about 40 are dangerous to humans, according to Manu Prakash, professor of bioengineering at Stanford University and principal investigator of the project. “In your …

Last week the World Health Organization hosted its annual summit known as the World Health Assembly to outline new policies and priorities, but a controversy involving Taiwan ended up also drawing renewed attention on how Beijing’s politics continue to influence the WHO.During the summit, which was hosted on the WHO official Facebook page, WHO moderators appeared to censor comments that contained words related to Taiwan or that implied the coronavirus originated in China. Several Taiwanese media reported that the WHO Facebook page blocked any Taiwan-related comments that included “Taiwan” or “Taiwan can help.”After coming under criticism, the WHO said it was facing an “onslaught” of cyberattacks during the summit by activists using words including “Taiwan” and “China.” The group said it applied content filters to improve moderators’ ability to monitor conversations. The measures were later removed after the Taiwanese government complained.The censorship goes beyond Taiwan. Since the incident, internet users have found that phrases such as “Winnie the Pooh,” “Wuhan Virus” and “China Virus” were also blocked. Winnie the Pooh has become a sensitive character in China because people use it to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinping.Several members of Congress have raised concerns about the WHO’s actions.In this image from video, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, speaks on the floor of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, April 23, 2020.Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in response to a VOA email last Thursday that he was concerned about the WHO’s approach.“I …

Experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) say the news Monday of another COVID-19 vaccine candidate is encouraging but more information is needed and, as new virus cases surge around the world, it is no time to be complacent.At their regular COVID-19 news briefing in Geneva, WHO officials reacted to the news from U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna that its vaccine candidate tested at better than 90% efficacy.WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan said that level of efficacy in this vaccine, as well as the Phizer/BinNTech vaccine candidate announced last week, is very encouraging.WHO Head ‘Extremely Concerned’ by Increase in Coronavirus CasesTedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tells reporters at regular briefing in Geneva that the case increases are pushing health workers to ‘breaking point’But, she said, there are many questions remaining about the duration of protection they provide, the impact on severe cases of the virus, the impact on different subpopulations, especially the elderly, as well as the adverse events beyond a certain period. Swaminathan said she hoped the clinical trials would continue to collect data to answer these questions.WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that while the vaccine news is cause for “cautious optimism,” this is no time for complacency. He said the agency is currently “extremely concerned” by the surge in cases they are seeing in some countries, “particularly in Europe and the Americas.”Echoing comments he made earlier in the day to the WHO executive board, Tedros said a vaccine alone will not end the pandemic. Rather, it will be a valuable …

U.S. forecasters says Hurricane Iota has strengthened to a “catastrophic” Category 5 storm — the latest in the year such a storm has formed — and is likely to bring catastrophic winds, life-threatening storm surges and torrential rainfall to Central America, still trying to recover from Hurricane Eta. In its latest report, the National Hurricane Center says Iota is about 160 kilometers east-southeast of Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, with maximum sustained winds of 260 kilometers per hour, making it the strongest storm of the 2020 season. It is moving to the west at about 15 kilometers per hour.  Forecasters say on its current track, the core of Iota will make landfall within the hurricane warning area in northeastern Nicaragua Monday night, in almost the exact location Hurricane Eta came ashore two weeks ago.  Workers of banana fields evacuate the area in El Progreso, Yoro department, Honduras, on November 14, 2020, before the arrival of tropical storm Iota.That storm killed at least 50 people, destroyed buildings, knocked out power, and led to flooding and landslides. Iota is the record-breaking 30th named storm of the 2020 season and, along with Eta, marks the first time two major hurricanes have formed in the month of November.  It is also the tenth named storm to “rapidly” intensify — that is, strengthen by more than 55.5 kph in a 24-hour period. Meteorologists attribute the effect to warm waters in the southern Caribbean. …

The European Commission, the European Union’s administrative branch, announced  Monday a deal with to purchase 405 billion doses of a potential coronavirus vaccine from German bio-tech company CureVac. The announcement comes just days after EU officials announced a similar deal with German company BioNTech and U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for an initial 300 million doses of the vaccine candidate they jointly produced, which, they say, has proven 90 percent effective against COVID-19 in late-stage testing. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters the deal with CureVac is, of course, conditional on their vaccine proving to be safe and effective.  Von der Leyen said the fifth CureVac is fifth company the alliance has contracted with a for its COVID-19 vaccine portfolio.FILE – A sign marks the headquarters of Moderna Therapeutics, which is developing a vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Cambridge, Mass., May 18, 2020.She said they are already working on a deal with U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna, for a sixth contract. On Monday, Moderna announced testing showed its vaccine candidate to also be better than 90 percent effective. Von der Leyen said the European Commission hopes to have finalize their contract with Moderna soon.  She said all the vaccines must independently tested by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) before they will be accepted. She said, “We do not know at this stage which vaccine will end up being safe and effective… And this is why we need to have a broad portfolio of vaccines based on very different technologies.” European nations continue …

Meteorologists at the U.S. National Hurricane Center predicted late Friday Iota will “become a dangerous major hurricane soon.”   The forecasters said Iota is “expected to bring potentially catastrophic winds, life-threatening storm surge and extreme rainfall impacts to Central America.”  Iota is moving with maximum sustained winds of 165 kilometers per hour.  Hurricane warnings are in effect for portions of Colombia, Nicaragua and Honduras, covering much of the same area devastated by Hurricane Eta earlier this month. The NHC said a hurricane warning means that “preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion.”  …

Giant, aging cables that support one of the world’s largest single-dish radio telescopes are slowly unraveling in this U.S. territory, pushing an observatory renowned for its key role in astronomical discoveries to the brink of collapse.The Arecibo Observatory, which is tethered above a sinkhole in Puerto Rico’s lush mountain region, boasts a 1,000-foot-wide (305-meter-wide) dish featured in the Jodie Foster film “Contact” and the James Bond movie “GoldenEye.” The dish and a dome suspended above it have been used to track asteroids headed to Earth, conduct research that led to a Nobel Prize and helped scientists trying to determine if a planet is habitable.”As someone who depends on Arecibo for my science, I’m frightened. It’s a very worrisome situation right now. There’s a possibility of cascading, catastrophic failure,” said astronomer Scott Ransom with the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, a collaboration of scientists in the United States and Canada.Last week, one of the telescope’s main steel cables that was capable of sustaining 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) snapped under only 624 pounds (283 kilograms). That failure further mangled the reflector dish after an auxiliary cable broke in August, tearing a 100-foot (30-meter) hole and damaging the dome above it.  Officials said they were surprised because they had evaluated the structure in August and believed it could handle the shift in weight based on previous inspections.  It’s a blow for the telescope that more than 250 scientists around the world were using. The facility is also one of Puerto Rico’s …

Space X is preparing to send a rocket carrying four astronauts to the International Space Station Sunday evening.“All systems are go for tonight’s launch at 7:27 p.m. EST of Crew Dragon’s first operational mission with four astronauts on board,” SpaceX, the rocket company of high-tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, wrote on Twitter Sunday. SpaceX also said, “Teams are keeping an eye on weather conditions for liftoff, which are currently 50% favorable.”All systems are go for tonight’s launch at 7:27 p.m. EST of Crew Dragon’s first operational mission with four astronauts on board. Teams are keeping an eye on weather conditions for liftoff, which are currently 50% favorable → https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdKpic.twitter.com/GTpvVAiLkK— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 15, 2020Separately, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tweeted that he was looking forward to attending the viewing of the launch with the second lady, Karen Pence. A White House statement said the Pences would travel to Florida Sunday and return to Washington in the evening.Looking forward to attending the viewing of @NASA’s @SpaceX Crew-1 Mission Launch tomorrow with @SecondLady! https://t.co/vDjOAHrOoJ— Mike Pence (@Mike_Pence) November 15, 2020The mission will be the first time NASA is launching a privately-owned rocket into space.The journey to the orbiting outpost is expected to take 27 hours. It was initially scheduled to begin on Saturday, but was delayed due to wind gusts, according to NASA officials.In August, two U.S. astronauts returned to Earth, splashing safely into the Gulf of Mexico after a mission to the International Space Station aboard the commercially developed SpaceX spacecraft Crew …

There are 54 million coronavirus cases around the world, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Sunday.The U.S., India, and Brazil continue to top the list as the places with the most infections. The U.S. has almost 11 million cases, while India and Brazil have 8.8 million and 5.8 million, respectively.On Sunday, India reported 41,100 new infections in the previous 24-hour period.Mexico’s tally of coronavirus cases passed the 1-million-mark Saturday. Mexico has avoided issuing mask-wearing mandates or lockdowns.   Masks “are an auxiliary measure to prevent spreading the virus,” Mexican Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López-Gatell told the Associated Press, rejecting international public health experts’ pleas to wear masks to stop people from contracting and spreading the coronavirus.  “They do not protect us,” Lopez-Gatell said of the masks, “but they are useful for protecting other people.” Hopkins reports Mexico has recorded more than 98,000 COVID-19 deaths. An uptick in cases in the U.S. has prompted the Navajo Nation to impose a three-week lockdown, beginning Monday.“The Navajo Nation is experiencing an alarming rise in positive COVID-19 cases and uncontrolled spread in 34 communities across the Navajo Nation,” the reservation’s Department of Health said in a public health order announcing the lockdown. “These cluster cases are a direct result of family gatherings and off-Reservation travel.”The Navajo health department reported Saturday that there are 13,249 COVID-19 infections on the massive reservation where almost 600 people have died from the virus.Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says the world may be on the brink of a child …

In an unassuming house in rolling hills east of the Hungarian capital, a small family firm is helping oil the wheels of the world’s big pharmaceutical companies on the path to a coronavirus vaccine. Biologist Noemi Lukacs, 71, retired to Szirak, her birth village, to establish English & Scientific Consulting (SciCons) and manufacture a genetic sensor so sensitive that a few grams can supply the entire global industry for a year. “We produce monoclonal antibodies,” Lukacs told Reuters in the single-story house where she was born, now partly converted into a world-class laboratory. The white powder ships worldwide from here, micrograms at a time. “These antibodies recognize double-stranded RNA [dsRNA],” she explained. DsRNA is a byproduct of viruses replicating, so its presence signals the presence of a live virus, long useful in virus-related research. More importantly, dsRNA is also a byproduct of the process used by U.S. giant Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech to create their experimental COVID-19 vaccine which is more than 90% effective according to initial trial results last week.And because dsRNA can be harmful to human cells, it must be filtered out from any vaccine to be used in humans. Several filtering methods exist, but the most widely used way to do quality control is to expose the vaccine to Lukacs’ antibodies. Not only will the antibodies show if there is any dsRNA in the vaccine, they will also tell researchers how much of it is present. Only once completely freed from dsRNA can the vaccine be administered. The result: a line of big …

This year’s U.N. World Diabetes Day on Nov. 14 was observed in Cameroon with medical staff all over the central African state encouraging those with the disease to return to hospitals for treatment.Health workers say patients scared of COVID-19 stopped going to hospitals for control of their glucose levels. Although the disease is spreading rapidly due to Cameroonians’ sedentary lifestyles, experts say, health workers complain that 80% of patients do not know they have diabetes.A medical doctor told scores of people at the General Hospital in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé, to go to the nearest hospital if they get tired and thirsty regularly, drink water and urinate frequently. She said while at any hospital, such people should immediately ask for their blood sugar levels to be measured.Diabetes educator Agnes Koki said the campaign is part of World Diabetes Day activities. She said medical staff members want to encourage people to find out whether they have diabetes.”There were so many people out there without the knowledge of diabetes,” she said. “We educate them on what diabetes is all about, how to feed and so many other things. We do free consultation, free screening.”Sixty-year-old carpenter Hilary Lingalia said he was diagnosed with diabetes after his wife forced him to go to the hospital. He said the African traditional healers he counted on for treatment from nerve pain, a diabetes-related condition, instead told him that he had been bewitched.”It was a strange sickness to me because my father did not have diabetes nor my …

The Navajo Nation on Monday will reinstate a stay-at-home lockdown for the entire reservation while closing tribal offices and requiring new closures and safety measures for businesses due to rising COVID-19 cases.The lockdown goes into effect Monday for a three-week period, tribal officials announced Friday night. A previously ordered 56-hour weekend curfew began Friday night.Much of the Navajo Nation was closed between March and August as the coronavirus swept through the vast reservation that covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah in the U.S. Southwest.The Navajo Nation Department of Health on Wednesday warned residents of new “uncontrolled spread” of the virus in 34 communities on the reservation.On Saturday, tribal officials said the huge reservation had 172 new cases and no recent deaths, increasing the total of cases to 13,249 with 598 deaths.“With nearly 900 new cases of COVID-19 reported on the Navajo Nation in the last week and with surging cases across the country, we have to implement these public health measures to protect our Navajo people and reduce the spread of this virus,” tribal President Jonathan Nez said in a statement.With the new uncontrolled spread, “we are inching closer and closer to a major public health crisis in which we could potentially see our hospitals filling up with patients,” Nez said. The reservation’s health care system could not sustain a prolonged surge in cases, he said. “The safest place to be is at home here on the Navajo Nation.”Tribal officials already have urged residents to wear face masks, …

A year ago, if you saw someone wearing a mask, you might assume they were sick or maybe even a little weird or paranoid. Today, thanks to the pandemic, wearing a mask to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is the new normal for many Americans.Thirty-four states and the District of Columbia require people to FILE – Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, left, bumps elbows at Sergio’s Restaurant in Doral, Florida, July 23, 2020.Not all Americans have adopted mask-wearing, especially not those who view masks through a political lens. But pandemics have changed public habits in the past. Wearing a face covering is much more common in East Asia since the outbreak of FILE – Barbers Johnny ‘Geo’ Sanchez, left, and Alberto Sagentin, rear, cut hair in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, May 21, 2020.“I can see how, in the future, especially during the cold and flu seasons, people are going to step away from it saying, ‘Hey, listen, let’s just wave, let’s bow to each other, let’s do a namaste. Let’s do something different,” he says. “So yeah, I think there’s going to be a cultural shift with the handshake.”Overall, Americans might be less touchy-feely, according to Dr. Aaron Glatt, spokesperson for the FILE – A shopper wears a mask and gloves to protect against coronavirus as he shops at a grocery store in Mount Prospect, Illinois, May 13, 2020.“When you go through something like a pandemic, regardless of how you feel politically, it is a fairly scary and …

We’re closing in on a year with a viral pandemic that has affected more than 47 million people and has claimed the lives of more than 1 million, according to the World Health Organization. As VOA’s Carol Pearson reports, people are now suffering from what’s being called “pandemic fatigue.”  …

Danny Rice has a good sense of how dangerous the coronavirus can be.What puzzles him are the people who have curtailed so much of their lives to avoid being infected by the virus.”I’m not going out and looking to catch it,” he said, sitting at a desk in his auto repair shop in the tiny eastern Nebraska community of Elmwood. “I don’t want to catch it. But if I get it, I get it. That’s just how I feel.”Plenty of people agree with Rice, and health experts acknowledge those views are powering soaring COVID-19 infection rates, especially in parts of the rural Midwest where the disease is spreading unabated and threatening to overwhelm hospitals.It’s not that people in Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and elsewhere don’t realize their states are leading the nation in new cases per capita. It’s that many of them aren’t especially concerned.‘They don’t think it’s real’Wayne County, home to 6,400 people in southern Iowa, has the state’s second-highest case rate, yet its public health administrator, Shelley Bickel, says mask-wearing is rare. She finds it particularly appalling when she sees older people, who are at high risk, shopping at a grocery store without one.”I just want to get on the speaker and say, ‘Why don’t you have your mask on?’ It’s just amazing,” Bickel said.Jenna Lovaas, public health director of Jones County, Iowa, said even now that her rural county has the state’s highest virus rate, people have opted not to make any changes, such as …

Sri Themudu’s seasonal business, Diyaa Confectionary, is a success story at a time many businesses are struggling in the COVID-19 economic climate.His company has for eight years catered to Malaysian families and local companies that buy gift baskets of snacks such as crackers, cookies and coconut candy for Diwali, the Indian festival of lights, known as Deepavali in Malaysia.The snacks, made from scratch in the kitchens of his mother and family friends, start at about $8 each.The baskets include sweet treats such as coconut candy. (Dave Grunebaum/VOA)Sri used to go to the offices of potential corporate clients with samples but could not do so this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Moreover, many of his longtime corporate customers cut expenses and did not place orders.“It looked like this year was going to be a washout,” Sri said, adding, “Just a month ago I had so few sales and had no confidence that this year would work out at all.”However, he invested almost $1,000 for a photographer and videographer to improve his website and promote his products on Instagram. The gamble paid off – he now has three times the revenue as in his previous best year, and he even stopped taking orders last Wednesday because he could not handle any more.The cookies, crackers and candy are made from scratch in the home of Sri’s mother, Maletchumy, as well as the kitchens of several family friends.(Dave Grunebaum/VOA)“The main reason why I did professional videography and photography is because people cannot touch, …

SpaceX delayed its second astronaut flight by a day because of high wind and weather conditions that could jeopardize the recovery and recycling of the rocket booster, pushing the launch to Sunday.Friday’s postponement news came after SpaceX chief Elon Musk disclosed he had gotten mixed test results for COVID-19 and was awaiting the outcome of a more definitive test.NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said anyone testing positive for COVID-19 must quarantine under NASA policy and remain isolated. Officials said contact tracing by SpaceX found no link between Musk and any personnel in close touch with the four astronauts, who remain cleared for flight.”I can assure everyone that we’re looking good for the (crew) launch and all of the critical personnel involved,” said SpaceX’s Benji Reed, senior director for human spaceflight.It wasn’t immediately known if Musk would be allowed at the Kennedy Space Center launch site even if later tests came up negative.Norm Knight, a deputy manager at NASA, said the guidelines are rigid for restricting access to astronauts before flight in order to keep them safe and healthy.”No one’s above this access. It doesn’t matter if you’re Elon Musk or Jim Bridenstine,” Knight said at a news conference Friday night. “If you have not met those protocols, or if any of those protocols have been compromised, then we’re not going to let you near the crew.”FILE – In this Sept. 3, 2020, photo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives to visit the construction site of the future US electric car giant Tesla …

More than 130 U.S. Secret Service officers have tested positive for the coronavirus or have been in close contact with infected colleagues, according to The Washington Post newspaper.The report, published Friday, was attributed to three people “familiar with agency staffing.”The Secret Service officers, who, among other duties, are tasked with protecting President Donald Trump when he travels and at the White House, were ordered recently to isolate, the report said.FILE – U.S. Secret Service agents gather for coronavirus tests prior to President Donald Trump’s departure for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, May 27, 2020.The sources, who the Post says spoke anonymously in order to speak more freely, said the infections are believed to be related to campaign rallies Trump held before the Nov. 3 presidential election. The report also cites the sources as saying that about 10% of the agency’s primary security team has been “sidelined.”Trump, members of his immediate family, and an increasing number of White House and campaign officials have tested positive recently for the coronavirus in the wake of campaign events, where many administration officials and other attendees did not wear masks.The White House and the Secret Service did not immediately comment on the report, but White House spokesman Judd Deere told the Post the administration takes “every case seriously” and directed the Post to the Secret Service for answers to questions about the outbreak. An agency spokesperson declined to comment to the Post.The reported outbreak among the officers occurred as the coronavirus crisis in the …