Month: August 2021

A Spanish judge in a decision cheered by environmentalists has put a halt to backup plans for the construction of a giant telescope in the Canary Islands — eliminating at least for now the primary alternative location to the preferred spot in Hawaii, where there have been protests against the telescope.  Construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope, or TMT, on Hawaii’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea, has been stalled by opponents who say the project will desecrate land held sacred to some Native Hawaiians.Telescope officials had selected the alternate location near an existing scientific research facility on the highest mountain of La Palma, one of the Spanish islands off the western African coast, in the Atlantic Ocean. But an administrative court in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the capital of the Spanish archipelago, ruled last month that the 2017 concession by local authorities of public land for the tentative project was invalid. The ruling was dated on July 29, but only became public this week after local media reported about the decision.  In the ruling obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Roi López Encinas wrote that the telescope land allocation was subject to an agreement between the Canary Astrophysics Institute, or IAC, and the telescope’s promoter, the TMT International Observatory (TIO) consortium.  But the judge ruled that the agreement was not valid because TIO had not expressed an intention to build on the La Palma site instead of at the Hawaii site. The judge also sided with the plaintiff, the environmental group Ben Magec-Ecologistas en Acción, in rejecting arguments by TIO’s legal team and the …

A Belgian-African company operating in Burkina Faso is planting trees to help curb desertification and open up lands for grazing cattle and farming. The project by the company, Hommes et Terre (Men and Earth), is taking place in Burkina Faso’s dangerous conflict zones where expanding desertification is a cause for strife. Henry Wilkins reports from Ouagadougou.Camera: Henry Wilkins       …

The U.S. intelligence community has reportedly told President Joe Biden that it has not reached a definitive conclusion after reviewing available information on the origins of the COVID-19. The pandemic has sickened more than 213.2 million people around the globe since late 2019 and killed more than 4.4 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. President Biden ordered the nation’s intelligence agencies in May to deliver a report within 90 days on whether the virus, which was first detected in Wuhan, China, was the result of an animal-to-human transmission or an accidental leak from a Wuhan laboratory.   FILE – Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan, China, Feb. 3, 2021.The president ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to examine the origins of the outbreak after the World Health Organization issued a report based on its own investigation. The WHO report, which found that the outbreak more likely began as an animal-to-human transmission, was criticized as incomplete, mainly due to the Chinese government’s failure to cooperate with the global health agency’s investigation.The director of national intelligence presented a classified report to Biden on Tuesday, U.S. news outlets reported. Unidentified officials said parts of the report will be declassified and released to the public in the coming days. Vaccine diminishing efficacy Meanwhile, a new study out of Britain reveals that the effectiveness of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines diminishes after six months.The study found that protection from …

The U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday announced a new kind of climate observatory near the headwaters of the Colorado River that will help scientists better predict rain and snowfall in the U.S. West and determine how much of it will flow through the region. The multimillion-dollar effort led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory launches next week. The team has set up radar systems, balloons, cameras and other equipment in an area of Colorado where much of the water in the river originates as snow. More than 40 million people depend on the Colorado River. Alejandro Flores, an associate professor of hydrology at Boise State University, said the weather in mountainous areas is notoriously difficult to model and the observatory will be a “game changer.” “We have to think about the land and the atmosphere as a linked system that interact with each other,” he said in a call with reporters. “Up until now, there have been a lack of observations that help us understand this critical interface.” The West is in the midst of a more than 20-year megadrought that studies link to human-caused climate change. That, along with increased demand on the Colorado River led to the first-ever shortage declaration in August, and there is an increasing threat of deeper, more widespread water cuts. Arizona, Nevada and Mexico will not get their full allocations of river water next year. Scientists will use the observatory to gather data on precipitation, wind, clouds, tiny particles, humidity, soil moisture and other things. Along with a better understanding of the hydrology, they hope to learn more about how …

Geologists on Tuesday said they had detected a swarm of earthquakes at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, though it is not erupting.  The quakes began overnight and continued into the morning, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.  More than 140 earthquakes were recorded as of 4:30 a.m. The largest was magnitude 3.3. Most were less than magnitude 1.  At the same time as the swarm, scientists recorded changes to the ground surface of the volcano. That may indicate magma was moving beneath the south part of Kilauea’s caldera, the observatory said. There’s been no evidence of lava at the surface.  The observatory changed its volcano alert level to watch from advisory, meaning Kilauea is showing heightened or escalating unrest with more potential for an eruption.  Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes, having erupted 34 times since 1952.  In 2018, about 700 homes were destroyed when lava surged through volcanic vents in a residential neighborhood during the final year of an eruption that lasted more than three decades.  Kilauea is about 200 miles south of Honolulu, on the Big Island of Hawaii.  …

The British government is considering plans to release beavers back into the wild across England some four centuries after the dam-building mammals became extinct in Britain. The proposals, described as a cautious step toward establishing a native beaver population, would see the animals allowed to be introduced if strict criteria were met along with an assessment of their impact on the surrounding land and other species. It comes after a successful five-year trial on the River Otter in Devon, a rural county in southwest England, concluded a family of beavers had a beneficial effect on the local ecology in what was the first legally sanctioned reintroduction to England of an extinct native mammal. “Today marks a significant milestone for the reintroduction of beavers in the wild,” environment minister George Eustice said on Wednesday at the start of a 12-week consultation on the plans. “But we also understand that there are implications for landowners, so we are taking a cautious approach to ensure that all potential impacts are carefully considered.” The government said beavers could play a hugely significant role in helping to restore nature, creating dams from trees, mud and rocks, which raise water levels and create wetland habitats that support the recovery of a wide range of native species. The semi-aquatic vegetarian mammals were hunted to extinction in Britain about 400 years ago because people wanted their meat, fur and castoreum, a secretion that was used in medicine and perfumes. The government said it also planned to make it an offense to capture, kill, disturb or …

A new study finds the number of people with hypertension has doubled over the last 30 years to 1.28 billion, mostly in developing countries.  The study led by Imperial College London and the World Health Organization is the first comprehensive global analysis of trends in hypertension prevalence, detection, treatment and control.Data from more than 100 million people aged 30 to 79 in 184 countries showed that more than 700 million people with hypertension, a life-threatening illness, go untreated. Most do so because they are undiagnosed and do not know they have this condition.Bente Mikkelsen, director of WHO’s department of noncommunicable diseases, said lack of knowledge can have deadly consequences.”First of all,” Mikkelsen said, “we know that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of deaths. In the last global health estimates, we know that 17.1 million people are dying from cardiovascular diseases every year. And we know that hypertension is the main reason among those.”Hypertension significantly increases the risk of heart, brain and kidney diseases and is a leading cause of death worldwide. Major risk factors include unhealthy diets, lack of physical activity, consumption of tobacco and alcohol, and obesity, regarded by some as the tsunami of risk factors.Besides advocating healthy lifestyles, authors of the report say hypertension can be easily detected by measuring blood pressure and often can be effectively treated with low-cost medications.Over the past three decades, the study found, the burden of hypertension has shifted from wealthy nations to low-and-middle-income countries.  Majid Ezzati, professor of global environmental health at Imperial College London, …

The judge overseeing Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy said Monday that some members of the Sackler family who own the OxyContin maker face a “substantial risk” of liability and could be on the hook for “huge amounts of money” over claims the company fueled the opioid epidemic. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain in White Plains, New York, made the remark during closing arguments in a trial over Purdue’s proposed reorganization plan. Drain said he believes some Sacklers face liability, but that “the question is where you draw the line.” Under the deal, which Purdue said is worth more than $10 billion, the Sacklers would contribute approximately $4.5 billion and would receive legal protections against future opioid-related litigation. Drain did not explicitly state how he would rule but suggested he finds the deal sufficient. The judge is expected to issue a formal ruling on the deal later this week. The money would go toward various entities and private individuals with opioid claims, as well as state and local opioid abatement programs. Critics of the settlement argue that the liability releases are too broad. An attorney representing the states of Washington and Oregon, which oppose the plan, told Drain on Monday that approving the deal would be a “historic mistake.” The judge also stated that appeals courts generally support the types of releases the Sacklers would receive if they meet certain standards. At the outset of Monday’s hearing, a lawyer for the Sacklers said they had agreed to narrow the litigation releases to exclude protections for the family against non-opioid-related claims. But the crux of …

Igor Vovkovinskiy, the tallest man in the United States, has died in Minnesota. He was 38.His family said the Ukrainian-born Vovkovinskiy died of heart disease on Friday at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. His mother, Svetlana Vovkovinska, an ICU nurse at Mayo, initially posted about his death on Facebook.Vovkovinskiy came to the Mayo Clinic in 1989 as a child seeking treatment. A tumor pressing against his pituitary gland caused it to secrete abnormal levels of growth hormone. He grew to become the tallest man in the U.S. at 2 meters, 34.5 centimeters (7 feet, 8.33 inches) and ended up staying in Rochester.His older brother, Oleh Ladan of Brooklyn Park, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that Vovkovinskiy was a celebrity when he arrived from Ukraine because of his size and the flickering Cold War of the late 1980s. But Ladan said Vovkovinskiy “would have rather lived a normal life than be known.”Vovkovinskiy appeared on “The Dr. Oz Show” and was called out by President Barack Obama during a campaign rally in 2009, when the president noticed him near the stage wearing a T-shirt that read, “World’s Biggest Obama Supporter.” In 2013, he carried the Ukrainian contestant onto the stage to perform in the Eurovision Song Contest.When he was 27, Vovkovinskiy traveled to New York City and was declared America’s tallest living person by a Guinness World Records adjudicator on Oz’s show. He edged out a sheriff’s deputy in Virginia by one-third of an inch.He issued a plea in 2012 to …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.  “The public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards of safety effectiveness and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product,” acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said in a statement Monday.The vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioTech was approved for emergency use last December.  More than 200 million doses have been administered in the U.S. and hundreds of millions more worldwide.Information from AP and Reuters was used in this report. …

“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” is the succinct warning the U.S. Food and Drug Administration posted on its Twitter account Saturday about Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic medication for livestock that some people have used as a COVID treatment.“The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses,” the agency said on its website.You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4 — U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) Demonstrators march during a far-right rally against the health pass, Aug. 21, 2021 in Lille, northern France.The protesters see the pass as a restriction of their freedom in a country of more than 60 million people, more than 60% of whom have been fully vaccinated. Russia reported 20,564 new COVID cases Sunday. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Sunday Russia has more than 6 million COVID infections.   The global count of COVID cases has reached  211.4 million, according to Johns Hopkins, while there have been 4.4 million deaths. The center says 4.9 billion vaccines have been administered. (Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.) …

Scores of firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft battled a forest fire that broke out early Monday on the southern part of Greece’s Evia island, less than two weeks after an inferno decimated its northern part.   The fire was burning near the village of Fygia where two neighborhoods have been evacuated and was moving toward the coastal tourist village of Marmari, where authorities were preparing boats to evacuate people if needed, according to Athens News Agency.   Forty-six firefighters were battling flames fanned by high winds — assisted by 20 fire engines, three water-dropping airplanes and two helicopters, the Greek fire brigade said.    Authorities have boats on standby off Marmari. Evia is northeast of the capital Athens.   The civil protection authorities had announced on Sunday a “very high risk” of fire for many areas of Greece on Monday.  Wildfires since July have ravaged the islands of Evia and Rhodes as well as forests to the north and southeast of Athens, and parts of the Peloponnese peninsula. Three people have died as a result of the fires. The government has blamed the disaster on the worst heatwave the country has seen in decades.   Climate scientists warn extreme weather and fierce fires will become increasingly common due to man-made global warming, heightening the need to invest in teams, equipment and policy to battle the flames.  …

Parts of the northeastern United States braced for more heavy rains and the potential for flooding Monday as the storm that made landfall as Tropical Storm Henri slowly moved across the region. The bulk of the rain overnight was located over New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The National Hurricane Center expects the center of the storm, now downgraded to a tropical depression, to drift a short distance to the east during the day Monday before eventually making it back out over the Atlantic Ocean by Tuesday morning. Forecasters said total rainfall amounts across much of the region would be between 7 and 15 centimeters, with some locally higher amounts. The storm made landfall Sunday in the state of Rhode Island, and knocked out power to more than 130,000 homes in that state, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. President Joe Biden said Sunday he had already approved emergency declarations for Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, and that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had resources such as generators, food and water positioned in the region to help those in need. “We don’t know the full extent of the storm’s impact today, but we are acting to prepare for and prevent damage as much as possible, and to speed help to affected communities so they can recover as quickly as possible,” Biden said. Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee spoke of the need to get electricity service restored with warm temperatures forecast in the coming days. “We know that that’s an issue and that’s why getting power restored is critical for the health and safety of …

Experts say South Africa is seeing growing drug addiction among young people during the pandemic. A medical research center found that some teenagers are abusing cough syrup that contains the drug codeine. Franco Puglisi looks at the drug addiction problem and efforts to rehabilitate youth in this report from Johannesburg.Camera: Franco Puglisi   Produced by: Barry Unger …

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is aiming to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine by early September, according to The New York Times. The two-dose vaccine, which Pfizer developed in collaboration with German-based BioNTech, was granted emergency use authorization by the FDA last November.    It is one of just three COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. stockpile, along with the two-shot vaccine from Moderna and the single-dose version developed by Johnson & Johnson.   The newspaper says the FDA is accelerating its normal timetable to grant full approval to the two-dose vaccine as the United States undergoes a new surge of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations caused primarily by the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19. The recent surge of new infections is mainly among people who have not gotten vaccinated. The Times quotes recent polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health care research group, which found that three of every 10 unvaccinated people in the U.S. said they more likely would take a fully approved vaccine.     The surge has prompted a growing number of public and private entities to issue mandatory vaccinations for all of its employees, including an order last week by U.S. President Joe Biden for all employees of the federal government.FILE – A health care worker from Humber River Hospital’s mobile vaccination team administers the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at the Church of Pentecost Canada in Toronto, Ontario, May 4, 2021.Pfizer applied for full authorization of its COVID-19 vaccine back on May 7, while Moderna filed for full approval on June 1. Johnson & Johnson said it plans to apply for full approval later this year.   In Australia, authorities in …

The state of Florida is experiencing a hospital crisis because of a surge in the number of patients with COVID-19. These patients are younger and sicker than patients infected with the original virus, and they are largely unvaccinated. Most of them have the Delta variant that is sweeping through the southern U.S., where vaccination rates remain low. At a media briefing August 3, doctors belonging to the Infectious Disease Society of America called for more COVID testing and more vaccinations — both in the U.S. and in other countries.  The Delta variant was first detected in India, but it is rapidly spreading around the world. Rachael Walensky, head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has called the current wave “an epidemic of the unvaccinated.” She called this variant “one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of.” The Delta variant can infect even those who have been vaccinated.  Dr. Ricardo Franco, a member of the society, said Delta makes up 89% of new COVID infections at the University of Alabama hospital. He added that 97% of hospitalized patients are not vaccinated against the virus, and that the Delta variant is twice as transmissible as the original virus.Covid-19 restrictions stay in place in the subway system in New York City, Aug. 2, 2021. Covid restrictions are still in force as cases caused by variants are on the rise.  “The key here is that the overwhelming majority of infections are occurring among the unvaccinated. Data from COVID trackers show that a vaccinated person is eight times less likely to get infected by Delta compared to an unvaccinated person. He is 25 times less likely to be hospitalized and, if hospitalized, 25 times less likely to die from COVID-19,” Franco said. “The conclusion here is that vaccination is working through this Delta wave,” he continued. “More importantly, unvaccinated …

NOAA-supported scientists on Tuesday reported that this year’s “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico is larger than originally predicted, at more than 16,000-square kilometers, or about the surface area of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie combined.NOAA forecasted in June that the hypoxic zone — an area with little to no oxygen to support marine life — would be 12,600 square kilometers, which would have been smaller than the five-year average. The actual size proved far larger.The annual hypoxic zone survey was conducted aboard the R/V Pelican research vessel from July 25 to August 1 by scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.The researchers gathered data on the dead zone’s location, as well as oxygen and salinity levels. This evidence is vital for NOAA to refine its models and study how to decrease the size of the hypoxic area.A Mississippi shrimp boat heads out of the harbor on the first day of shrimp season in Biloxi, Mississippi on June 3, 2010.The dead zone’s expansion is believed to be driven by pollutant runoff from farms and cities contaminating the Mississippi River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico and stimulates oxygen-consuming algae growth. NOAA aims to minimize the loss of habitat caused by the phenomenon for living resources like commercially harvested fish and diminish the hypoxic zone’s influence on local economies.The Interagency Mississippi River/Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force utilizes the survey’s data to evaluate nutrient runoff and create solutions to lessen contaminants in the watershed. The …

The U.S. space agency, NASA, and aerospace company Boeing said they have scrubbed the launch of the company’s Starliner spacecraft for the second time in a week.In a release, Boeing said the launch of the Starliner crew capsule onboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket was scrubbed after a prelaunch check indicated an “unexpected valve position” in the propulsion system. Liftoff had been scheduled for 1:20 p.m. EDT Tuesday.The capsule, designed to carry up to seven crew and passengers, was to be test-launched unmanned to the International Space Station (ISS).The Boeing crew capsule had first been scheduled to launch last Friday, but that launch was postponed after the Russian lab module, Nauka, caused chaos at the space station. The Russian module unexpectedly fired its thrusters, which tilted the space station 45 degrees outside its typical orientation.The Starliner launch is seen as an opportunity for Boeing to redeem itself following an aborted initial test launch of the space craft in December 2019. NASA officials say a software problem sent the capsule into the wrong orbit and was not able to reach the ISS.In the company’s statement, Boeing’s commercial crew program manager John Vollmer, said, “We’re disappointed with today’s outcome and the need to reschedule our Starliner launch. Human spaceflight is a complex, precise and unforgiving endeavor, and Boeing and NASA teams will take the time they need to ensure the safety and integrity of the spacecraft and the achievement of our mission objectives.”NASA says Boeing’s next available launch attempt will …

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday people engaged in indoor activities including fitness clubs, bars and restaurants will be required to be vaccinated, beginning later this month, the first major city in the United States to make such a requirement. At a news conference, De Blasio said the city will create a Key to NYC Pass, available by providing proof of vaccination. The new policy will be phased in over few weeks, during which time the city will coordinate with the business community and educate the community on the process, with the final details to be announced and implemented the week of August 16. FILE – New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio speaks to people as he gives away face masks for using in public spaces to prevent the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), May 16, 2020.The new rule will require all workers as well as patrons of businesses to be vaccinated.  De Blasio has focused on getting as many New Yorkers vaccinated as possible while resisting calls to mandate masks indoors, as several cities and counties in California have done. De Blasio also said Monday he was making “a strong recommendation” that everyone wear a mask in public indoor settings but stressed that the city’s “overwhelming strategic thrust” remained getting more people vaccinated. Official data indicate about 66% of adults in New York City are fully vaccinated. The announcement comes a day after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo issued a mandate requiring all frontline workers in state hospitals get vaccinated or …

The White House announced Tuesday the U.S. has shipped more than 110 million doses of U.S.-made COVID-19 vaccines to more than 60 nations.In a statement, the White House said most of the vaccine was shipped through the World Health Organization–managed COVAX cooperative, but also through regional partnerships, such as the African Union and Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The White House said the donations reflect a fulfillment of President Joe Biden’s pledge to give at least 80 million vaccine doses to other nations around the globe, and the doses are a down payment on the “hundreds of millions of more doses that the U.S. will deliver in the coming weeks.”The statement says the Biden administration will begin shipping half-a-billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to 100 of the world’s low-income countries.Biden is expected to discuss the donations milestone and other efforts later Tuesday.The president’s announcement will come amid an increase in infections in the U.S. and around the world, fueled by the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. …