Year: 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden is holding talks Wednesday with a group of governors from eight Western states about wildfire preparedness as much of the region deals with drought. Biden and other administration officials will be speaking from the White House with the governors joining by video. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters last week the meeting will “focus on how the federal government can improve wildfire preparedness and response efforts, protect public safety, and deliver assistance to our people in times of urgent need.” Those attending include Democratic governors Gavin Newsom of California, Jared Polis of Colorado, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Kate Brown of Oregon and Jay Inslee of Washington, along with Republican governors Spencer Cox of Utah and Mark Gordon of Wyoming. Not among the group are three other Republican governors from the region: Doug Ducey of Arizona, Brad Little of Idaho and Greg Gianforte of Montana. Gianforte tweeted Friday that he was “disappointed to learn in news stories” that the president “didn’t offer a seat at the table to Montana and other states facing a severe wildfire season.” The National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates the mobilization of resources to battle wildfires in the United States, has warned that many Western states are facing a greater than usual likelihood that significant wildfires will occur in the next few months. The U.S. Drought Monitor reports wide areas of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah are experiencing extreme or exceptional drought.  …

Cities in the Pacific Northwest of North America reported power outages Tuesday, both from failures of utility companies and rolling blackouts due to heavy power demand. Seattle and Portland temperatures were expected to fall Tuesday, below Monday’s record highs, but inland, the city of Spokane, Washington, continued to record high temperatures and experience rolling blackouts in the city. Lytton, British Columbia, set Canada’s all-time high temperature Sunday with 46.6 degrees Celsius, only to see it broken less than 24 hours later, hitting 47.9 C Monday. Officials said Tuesday that several deaths in Portland and Seattle were tied to the extreme heat. In Vancouver, British Columbia, first responders have said that as many as two dozen deaths may be attributed to the high temperatures. On Tuesday, the U.N. World Meteorological Organization called the heat wave hitting the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States “exceptional and dangerous” and says it could last at least another five days.Guests at Sunriver resort near Bend, Oregon line up to get into the pool on June 29, 2021 as temperatures were predicted to hit 106 degrees Fahrenheit.Speaking to reporters from Geneva, a WMO spokeswoman said while records have fallen in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, western Canada has seen extreme heat as well. The official said the temperatures for this time of year and location are shocking. “It’s in the province of British Columbia, it’s to the Rocky Mountains, the Glacier National Park, and yet we’re seeing temperatures which are more typical of the Middle East or North Africa.” In an area used to temperatures 20 to 30 degrees cooler, the WMO said, the extreme heat poses major health threats to residents as well as agriculture and …

Florida’s governor has announced the start of Python Challenge in Everglades National Park. The python removal will start July 9 and last for 10 days. The Everglades ecosystem suffers from the overpopulation of Burmese pythons — a nonnative species for South Florida that kill native wildlife. The challenge is meant to protect the native wildlife and bring the local community together. Liliya Anisimova has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.Camera: Liliya Anisimova  Produced by: Anna Rice, Rob Raffaele    …

A unmanned NASA resupply ship, docked at the International Space Station (ISS) since February, departed Tuesday on one last mission to deploy satellites before burning up in the Earth’s atmosphere.The Cygnus supply ship, built by the Northrop Grumman aerospace company, is named the S.S. Katherine Johnson, after the African American NASA mathematician whose work was made famous in the movie Hidden Figures. Her calculations contributed to the February 20, 1962 mission in which John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth.After departure from the space station, the Katherine Johnson was to remain in Earth orbit to deploy five cube satellites, including one designed to study the Earth’s ionosphere, a layer of electrons in its upper atmosphere, along with an educational satellite from Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi.Thursday evening, the supply ship fires its engines one last time and re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere where it will burn up. The ship is filled with several tons of waste from the orbiting outpost.Another supply ship bound for the ISS is scheduled to be launched later Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.    …

The U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Tuesday called the heatwave hitting the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States “exceptional and dangerous,” and says it could last at least another five days. Speaking to reporters from Geneva, a WMO spokeswoman said while records have fallen in the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington, western Canada has seen extreme heat as well. Extreme #heat hits Northwest USA and Western Canada, which saw new record temperature of 47.9°C Many parts of northern hemisphere have seen exceptionally high temperatures#Climatechange ➡️more frequent and intense heatwaves Roundup is here https://t.co/qI0ncloKpd Graphic @ecmwfpic.twitter.com/fposUALIMU — World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) People look for ways to cool off at Willow’s Beach during the ‘heat dome,’ currently hovering over British Columbia and Alberta as record-setting breaking temperatures scorch the province and in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, June 28, 2021.The WMO said the extreme heat is caused by “an atmospheric blocking pattern,” which has led to a “heat dome” — a large area of high pressure — trapped by low pressure on either side. The organization said the temperatures would likely peak early this week on the coast and by the middle of the week in the interior of British Columbia; afterward, the baking heat is expected to move east toward Alberta. The U.S. National Weather Service in Portland, Oregon, on its Twitter account late Monday, reported cooler air was already in the region along the coastline. In a tweet Sunday, the Oregon Climate Service said the climate system is no longer in a balanced state, and such …

The number of major Australian cities heading into lockdown due to the growing presence of the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 has risen to four. Authorities in the eastern state of Queensland imposed a three-day lockdown for the capital, Brisbane, and other neighboring regions that took effect Tuesday evening, while in Western Australian state, the capital Perth entered a four-day lockdown. The cities of Darwin, the capital of Northern Territory state, and Sydney in New South Wales state are already under lengthy lockdowns.   At least 150 newly confirmed coronavirus cases across Australia have been traced to a Sydney airport limousine driver who had been transporting international air crews. A transit worker is seen wearing a face mask inside a mostly empty city center train station during a lockdown in Sydney, Australia, June 29, 2021.Australia has been largely successful in containing the spread of COVID-19 due to aggressive lockdown efforts, posting just 30,560 total confirmed cases and 910 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.  But it has proved vulnerable to fresh outbreaks due to a slow rollout of its vaccination campaign and confusing requirements involving the two-shot AstraZeneca vaccine, which is the dominant vaccine in its stockpile. Health officials are now offering the AstraZeneca vaccine to all adults under 60 years of age, lifting a restriction imposed due to concerns of a rare blood clotting condition that has been blamed for at least one death.  Adults under the age of 60 had only been able to receive the two-shot Pfizer vaccine, …

Three major investor groups representing some of Australia’s biggest finance firms are calling for government regulators to force big companies to disclose how they plan to address financial risks from climate change. The coalition of investors is warning climate change is becoming a major threat to the global economy.   In a new report, the group of major investors from Australia and New Zealand is demanding regulators set new standards for companies reporting on how climate change and global warming affect their business and change the value of investments. The authors believe the current voluntary disclosure of climate-related risks is failing to provide investors with confidence.  Erwin Jackson is the director of policy at the Investor Group on Climate Change, which contributed to the report. “Essentially what investors are asking companies are they ready for the impacts of climate change, are they ready for the transition to net zero emissions? But unfortunately, at the moment the information that investors are getting from companies is really inadequate and it is not really allowing investors to ‘kick the tires’ of many companies to see if they are adequate investments in the face of climate risk,” Jackson said.Australia has suffered devastating bushfires in recent years.  The 2019-20 bushfire season burned more than 18 million hectares of land and cost more than $6 billion dollars. The investor group says it is concerned about the long-term impact of bushfires and droughts in Australia.  The majority of Australian company chief executives now consider global warming to be a hazard to economic growth.   All Australian states and territories have a set a target of net-zero emissions, but the federal government has yet to commit to such an ambition. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has insisted his environmental policies …

The coronavirus, climate change and food security are on the agenda Tuesday as foreign ministers from the G-20 group of nations meet in Italy. The talks in the city of Matera represent the first time the ministers are gathering in person since 2019. U.S. State Department officials said Secretary of State Antony Blinken would stress the importance of working together to address such global challenges, a common theme in recent months as he and President Joe Biden set a foreign policy path heavily focused on boosting ties with allies. “To address the climate crisis, Secretary Blinken will encourage G-20 members to work together toward ambitious outcomes, including a recognition of the need to keep a 1.5 degree Celsius of warming threshold within reach, the importance of actions this decade that are aligned with that goal, and taking other steps like committing to end public finance for overseas unabated coal,” Susannah Cooper, director of the Office of Monetary Affairs in the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, told reporters ahead of the meetings. Cooper said Blinken would advocate for “building a sustainable and inclusive economic recovery,” including an equitable global tax system with a minimum corporate tax rate. Finance ministers from G-7 nations, all of which are part of the G-20, agreed in principle in early June to the creation of a global minimum tax on corporations that would force companies that shift profits to subsidiaries in low- or no-tax jurisdictions to pay as much as 15% in taxes on that income to the country where they are headquartered. Protestors wearing giant heads portraying G7 leaders pose after …

The U.S. Pacific Northwest baked under record-breaking temperatures again Monday as the region endures a dangerous heat wave that has placed at least portions of six states under excessive heat warnings from the National Weather Service.Portland, Oregon, hit 46 Celsius (115 Fahrenheit), an all-time high, by late afternoon. Seattle, Washington, a city known for its normally cool and rainy climate, also broke records: 41.6 C (107 F) at the National Weather Service Seattle station and 41 C (106 F) at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.Temperatures are expected to fall starting Tuesday with highs in the low 90s.The two cities broke all-time heat records over the weekend, as Portland reached 44 C (111 F) on Sunday, setting a new record from the day before when the mercury climbed to 42 C (108 F).Seattle’s temperature rose to a record of 40 C (104 F) on Sunday.Portland and Seattle rank among the three least air-conditioned cities in the nation, according to a study by The Seattle Times, compounding the impacts of the heat wave for residents.Numerous other records broke on Sunday in Washington, Oregon and California, including the record for the highest temperature ever recorded during the month of June in Washington state.According to heat alerts published by the National Weather Service, the extreme temperatures “significantly increase the potential for heat-related illnesses,” such as heat stroke and in some cases, death.A man visiting California died last week after spending an hour in the sun, during which he reached an internal body temperature of nearly 41 …

“The threat of COVID-19 remains,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his monthly broadcast Sunday, “and we have to focus on vaccination, as well as follow COVID-19 protocols.”Modi encouraged Indians to get vaccinated and give up any vaccine hesitancy. He urged them to trust science and scientists in the battle against the coronavirus that has overwhelmed India.On Sunday, India’s health ministry reported more than 50,000 new COVID-19 cases and more than 1,200 deaths.According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, India is second only to the U.S. in the number of coronavirus cases, but health officials have warned that India’s case numbers are likely significantly undercounted.Johns Hopkins said Sunday that the U.S. has 33.6 million infections, while India has 30.2 million. Brazil follows with 18.3 million cases. The global count for cases is 180.8 million.The delta variant of the coronavirus is sending Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh into some form of lockdown, along with parts of Portugal. Even Israel, where more than half of the population is vaccinated, is reimposing a mask mandate in enclosed public places.The variant, which was first discovered in India, has been identified in at least 85 countries and “is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far … and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, on Saturday began a two-week lockdown because of the growing number of cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.The delta variant is to blame …

The delta variant of the coronavirus is sending Australia, New Zealand and Bangladesh into some form of lockdown, along with parts of Portugal. Even Israel, where more than half of the population is vaccinated, is reimposing a mask mandate in enclosed public places.The variant, first discovered in India, has been identified in at least 85 countries and “is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far … and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations,” World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday.Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, on Saturday began a two-week lockdown because of the growing number of cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.The delta variant is to blame for the first lockdown in Sydney since December. Stay-at-home orders will also apply to other areas in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state.New Zealand, because of the Australian outbreaks, is suspending quarantine-free travel between the two neighbors for three days. On Monday, Bangladesh enters a national lockdown for a week, with people allowed to leave their homes only for medical reasons.Medical workers carry a patient suspected of having coronavirus on a stretcher at a hospital in Kommunarka, outside Moscow, Russia, June 26, 2021.Russian surgeThe delta variant is also behind a surge in cases in Russia. St. Petersburg, which next Friday will host the quarterfinal of the Euro 2020 football matches, on Saturday announced that there had been 107 COVID-19 deaths, a daily record for the city since the pandemic began.And the variant is prompting alarm …

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the delta variant of the novel coronavirus has been identified in at least 85 countries and “is the most transmissible of the variants identified so far . . .  and is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations.” He also said, “As some countries ease public health and social measures, we are starting to see increases in transmission around the world.”“It’s quite simple: more transmission, more variants. Less transmission, less variants,” the WHO chief said. “That makes it even more urgent that we use all the tools at our disposal to prevent transmission: the tailored and consistent use of public health and social measures, in combination with equitable vaccination.Meanwhile, health officials say a new strain of the delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, has emerged in almost a dozen countries, including India, the United States, and the U.K. The new variant has been dubbed Delta Plus. Authorities fear Delta Plus may be even more contagious the delta variant. Scientists are just beginning to study the new strain.Australia’s biggest city has been ordered into a two-week lockdown because of a growing number of COVID-19 cases.  Health authorities in Sydney are fighting to contain an outbreak of the highly infectious delta variant.  Stay-at-home orders will also apply to other areas in New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state.  It is the first lockdown in Sydney since December. Australia has consistently maintained very low rates of coronavirus transmission. The latest outbreak is …

California will extend its ban on evictions and cover back rent and utility payments for people who fell behind during the pandemic under a $7.2 billion plan announced Friday that Gov. Gavin Newsom called the “largest and most comprehensive renter protection deal in the United States.”California placed a moratorium on evictions after Newsom imposed the nation’s first statewide shutdown in March 2020 and ordered most businesses to close and people to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus.That protection is scheduled to expire Wednesday. The new agreement between Newsom and legislative leaders will extend the eviction moratorium by three months and pledges to pay off all unpaid rent and utility bills for qualifying renters from April 2020 through Sept. 30 of this year.No one knows exactly how many people will qualify and how much it will cost. But the state has $5.2 billion to spend on back rents, enough to provide $10,400 each to a half-million tenants, all of it coming from the federal government.”I think that everyone is breathing a sigh of relief,” said Madeline Howard, senior attorney for the Western Center on Law and Poverty.Newsom’s administration believes the pot of money is more than enough to pay off rental debts for everyone eligible. Another $2 billion in state money will cover people’s unpaid utility bills.The proposal, which will be voted on in the Legislature next week, also gives tenants more time to apply for assistance after a landlord tries to evict them while also masking their …

A solid majority of Americans believe most abortions should be legal in the first three months of a woman’s pregnancy, but most say the procedure should usually be illegal in the second and third trimesters, according to a new poll.The poll comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving a currently blocked Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, two weeks into the second trimester. If the high court upholds the law, it would be the first time since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision confirming a woman’s right to abortion that a state would be allowed to ban abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb. The new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal in most or all circumstances in the first trimester of a pregnancy. However, 65% said abortion should usually be illegal in the second trimester, and 80% said that about the third trimester. Still, the poll finds many Americans believe that the procedure should be allowable under at least some circumstances even during the second or third trimesters. For abortions during the second trimester, 34% say they should usually or always be legal, and another 30% say they should be illegal in most but not all cases. In the third trimester, 19% think most or all abortions should be legal, and another 26% say they should be illegal only in most cases. …

World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the delta variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is spreading rapidly among unvaccinated populations and in nations where COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted.At a briefing from the agency’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Tedros said the delta variant was the most transmissible of the COVID-19 variants identified so far and had been detected in at least 85 countries.He said that while the global number of COVID-19 cases had been declining for eight straight weeks, the rate of decline had slowed. In Africa, the number of cases and deaths increased by almost 40%.Residents leave a vaccination center in Capbreton, southwestern France, June 24, 2021. The delta variant, first identified in India, is estimated to represent 9 to 10% overall in France.As some countries ease public health and social measures, virus transmission has increased around the world, Tedros said.”More cases mean more hospitalizations, further stretching health workers and health systems, which increases the risk of death,” he said.Variants of any widespread virus are to be expected, Tedros said, because it is how viruses evolve. They can be prevented by stopping transmission, he said, which makes it even more urgent for people in areas with low vaccination rates to consistently follow public health measures and take advantage of effective vaccine programs.That is why he has been stressing for the past year the importance of “vaccine equity,” along with protecting health workers and the most vulnerable, he said. The lack of vaccine in the …

Parts of the western United States are seeing record high temperatures in the midst of drought — signaling, experts say, long-term changes in the weather.  With dozens of fires now burning in Western states, President Joe Biden will convene a meeting of Western governors, emergency officials and others to talk about the problem in coming days. …

“Africa is facing a fast-surging third wave of COVID-19 pandemic, with cases spreading more rapidly and projected to soon overtake the peak of the second wave the continent witnessed at the start of 2021,” according to the World Health Organization’s regional office in Africa. WHO said in a statement the pandemic is resurging in 12 African countries. Meanwhile, the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, first identified in India, has been detected in 14 African countries.“The third wave is picking up speed, spreading faster, hitting harder. With rapidly rising case numbers and increasing reports of serious illness, the latest surge threatens to be Africa’s worst yet,” Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa said.The third wave comes as Africa is experiencing a vaccine shortage. WHO says just slightly more than 1% of Africans have been fully vaccinated. While approximately 2.7 billion COVID-19 vaccine shots have been administered globally, WHO says just under 1.5% of those shots have been administered on the African continent.  FILE – Kenyan tour guide, Daniel Ole Kissipan, receives the AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine in Nairobi, Kenya, April 27, 2021.The Associated Press reports that its analysis of recent COVID-19 deaths reveals that nearly all the deaths occurred in people who were unvaccinated. The news agency said the results of its assessment are “a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been.” In addition, AP said the deaths per day “could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine.”Workers and residents in several neighborhoods in Sydney, Australia, …

Workers and residents in Sydney were ordered to stay home for a week on Friday, as authorities locked down several central areas of Australia’s largest city to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19.Sixty-five COVID-19 cases have been reported so far in the flare-up linked to a limousine driver infected about two weeks ago when he transported an international flight crew from Sydney airport to a quarantine hotel.But authorities have since identified scores of potential infection sites visited by thousands of people across central Sydney, including the city’s main business district.Authorities have been alarmed by instances of people passing on the virus during fleeting encounters in shops and then quickly infecting close family contacts.Premier Gladys Berejiklian of New South Wales state, which includes Sydney, called it the “scariest period” since the pandemic broke out more than a year ago.On Friday, she ordered anyone who lived or worked in four central Sydney neighborhoods to stay home for at least a week, only venturing out to purchase essential goods, obtain medical care, exercise or if they are unable to work from home.The restrictions included central business district workers over fears that commuters were potentially spreading the virus into other parts of the city, Berejiklian said.”We’ve done better than expected in terms of contact tracing and getting on top of all those links,” she said.”But what this does is make sure that we haven’t missed any chains of community transmission.”An earlier ban on Sydneysiders leaving the city was also …

Fossils from tiny baby dinosaurs discovered in northernmost Alaska offer strong evidence that the prehistoric creatures lived year-round in the Arctic and were likely warm-blooded, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology.The fossils are from at least seven types of dinosaurs just hatched or still in their eggs about 70 million years ago. Researchers have never found evidence of dinosaur nests so far north, said lead author Pat Druckenmiller, director of the University of Alaska Museum of the North.The find helps upend past assumptions of dinosaurs as giant cold-blooded reptiles.”If they reproduced, then they over-wintered there. If they overwintered there, they had to deal with conditions that we don’t usually associate with dinosaurs, like freezing conditions and snow,” Druckenmiller said.To survive dark Arctic winters, those dinosaurs could not have basked in the sun to warm their bodies, as lizards do, he said.”At least these groups had endothermy,” he said, using the term for the ability of animals to warm their bodies through internal functions. “They had a degree of warm-bloodedness.”The discovery site is a steep bluff on the Colville River on Alaska’s North Slope, at latitude 70 and about 400 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle. In the Cretaceous period, when North America was positioned differently, it was even farther north, at latitude 80 or 85, Druckenmiller said.The region was much warmer then than Alaska’s North Slope is now but hardly tropical. From remnants of ancient plants, scientists calculate the average annual temperature at about …

The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that the first recruitment drive for astronauts since 2008 netted 22,000 applications, including an increase in female applicants and the first applications from people with disabilities.The agency put out a call for applicants in February, encouraging more women and people with disabilities to apply to boost diversity among crews. The agency launched the “parastronaut” program to examine what is needed to get disabled astronauts onto the International Space Station.The ESA said the preliminary number of applications this year far exceeded the 8,413 applications received in 2008. More than 200 people applied for the newly established vacancy for astronauts with a physical disability, and about 5,400 women — about 24% of all applicants — applied. The share of women was 15.5% in 2008, the ESA said.The space agency said applications would next be screened through a six-stage process, with finalists expected to be announced in October 2022.The Associated Press contributed to this report.   …

The Northern Hemisphere sees its longest day of the year; astronauts make power moves outside the International Space Station. Plus: do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?  Details in The Week in Space from VOA’s Arash Arabasadi.Produced by: Arash Arabasadi  …