Month: July 2021

Categories
World News

Florida-Primarily based Physician Arrested in Haiti President’s Assassination

Hong Kong Website Doxxing Police Gets Blocked, Raising Censorship Fears

A Haitian-born doctor based in Florida has been arrested as a “central” suspect in the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, and the national police chief suggested at a Sunday news conference that he believes the suspect was plotting to become president.

The doctor, Christian Emmanuel Sanon, 63, is now the third Haitian-born suspect with U.S. ties to be arrested.

The Haitian national police chief, Léon Charles, painted Mr. Sanon as a key figure behind the president’s assassination.

“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act,” the police chief said. The firm, he said, was a Venezuelan security company based in the United States called CTU.

“The initial mission that was given to these assailants was to protect the individual named Emmanuel Sanon, but afterwards the mission changed,” Mr. Charles said, implying that Mr. Sanon had meant to install himself as president.

As evidence, Mr. Charles said that Mr. Sanon was the person one of the Colombians contacted after being arrested. During a raid of his home, the authorities said, the police found a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency cap, a box of cartridges, two vehicles, six pistol holsters, about 20 boxes of bullets, 24 unused shooting targets and four license plates from the Dominican Republic.

A YouTube video recorded in 2011 titled “Dr. Christian Sanon — Leadership for Haiti” appears to present Mr. Sanon as a potential leader of the country. In it, the speaker denounces the leaders of Haiti as corrupt plunderers of its resources.

“With me in power, you are going to have to tell me: ‘What are you doing with my uranium?’” the speaker says. “‘What are you going to do with the oil that we have in the country? What are you going to do with the gold?’”

The night of Mr. Moïse’s death, people who appeared to be arriving to assassinate him shouted that they were part of a D.E.A. operation, according to videos filmed from nearby buildings and synchronized by The New York Times.

Two Americans arrested last week have said that they were not in the room when the president was killed and that they had worked only as translators for the hit squad, according to a Haitian judge who interviewed them. They met with other participants at an upscale hotel in the Pétionville suburb of Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, to plan the attack.

The goal was not to kill the president, the two Americans told the judge, but to bring him to the national palace. On Sunday, Mr. Charles said one of the assailants had been given a warrant to arrest the president.

One of the Americans was identified as James J. Solages, 35, who lived in South Florida and previously worked as a security guard at the Canadian Embassy in Haiti. The other was identified as Joseph Vincent, 55.

Other suspects include 18 Colombian men, most of them former soldiers, and three Haitians.

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Health

5 issues to know earlier than the inventory market opens Thursday, July 8

5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday, July 8

Here are the most important news, trends and analysis that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Dow to drop 500 points as Covid concerns resurface

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

Dow futures on Thursday fell nearly 500 points, or more than 1.3%, in a broad premarket decline as Japan declared a state of emergency in Tokyo for the upcoming Summer Olympics and as countries deal with a rebound in Covid cases due to variants. Futures tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq also dropped about 1.3% each.

Thursday’s selling came one day after Wall Street’s rally had resumed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finishing at record high closes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.3% shy of Friday’s record close.

2. 10-year Treasury yield falls on global economic growth worries

Investors rotated into the perceived safety of bonds Thursday, pushing the 10-year Treasury yield below 1.26% to the lowest since late February. Bond yields move inversely to prices.

  • Despite the strengthening economy and hotter inflation, the 10-year yield continues to decline.
  • It began July around 1.58%. It hit a then-14-month high of 1.78% in March.
  • It began 2021 at less than 1%.

In another look at the recovery in the labor market, the government Thursday morning said initial jobless claims for last week totaled a worse-than-expected 373,000. That’s up slightly from the upwardly revised pandemic-era low the previous week. The level of continuing claims decreased to 3.34 million, down 145,000 from the previous week’s revised level.

3. Tokyo to go under state of emergency ahead of Olympics

The logo of Tokyo 2020 is displayed near Odaiba Seaside Park in Tokyo on July 7, 2021, as reports said the Japanese government plans to impose a virus state of emergency in Tokyo during the Olympics.

Kazuhiro Nogi | AFP | Getty Images

Just two weeks before the Tokyo Olympics, Japan’s prime minister on Thursday announced the state of emergency for the capital city due to rising Covid infections. The order goes into effect this coming Monday and through Aug. 22. That means the Olympics, opening on July 23 and running through Aug. 8, will be held entirely under emergency measures. While fans from abroad were banned months ago, Olympics officials had recently set venue limits at 50% capacity for local spectators. However, the state of emergency could force another change in the fan policy.

4. Global coronavirus deaths top 4 million as delta variant spreads

Two women walk next to graves of people who passed away due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Parque Taruma cemetery in Manaus, Brazil May 20, 2021.

Bruno Kelly | Reuters

The global death toll from Covid exceeded 4 million late Wednesday as infections worldwide crossed 185 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. In recent months, many countries are battling a surge in Covid infections due to the spread of the more transmissible delta variant, which first emerged in India. The delta strain now accounts for more than half of new Covid cases in the U.S. The World Health Organization has said that delta is the “fastest and fittest” variant yet, and health experts have warned it could undermine efforts to contain Covid even as vaccination campaigns are underway around the globe.

5. States bring new antitrust suit against Google over app store

The logo of Google Play is seen on a screen.

Alexander Pohl | NurPhoto | Getty Images

State attorneys general are again going after Google with an antitrust lawsuit, this time alleging the Alphabet unit abused its power over app developers through its Play Store on Android. The case marks the fourth antitrust lawsuit lodged against the company by U.S. government enforcers in the past year. By focusing on the Play Store, the latest lawsuit touches on an aspect of Google’s business that is most similar to Apple’s App Store. The App Store has become embattled in legal challenges and drawn lawmaker questions over whether it unfairly charges developers for payments through their apps by customers and whether it favors its own apps over those of its rivals.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow all the market action like a pro on CNBC Pro. Get the latest on the pandemic with CNBC’s coronavirus coverage.

Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2032.

Categories
Politics

Biden indicators order to crack down on Huge Tech, enhance competitors ‘throughout the board’

Biden signs order to crack down on Big Tech, boost competition 'across the board'

President Joe Biden signed a new executive order on Friday aimed at tackling anti-competitive practices in big tech, labor and numerous other sectors.

“Capitalism without competition is not capitalism. It’s exploitation, “Biden said in a speech ahead of the signing of the directive in the White House.

The comprehensive arrangement, which includes 72 measures and recommendations involving more than a dozen federal agencies, is intended to reshape thinking around corporate consolidation and antitrust laws, according to a White House leaflet.

These broad goals and initiatives include:

  • Call on the Federal Trade Commission to “question previous bad mergers” that previous governments let slip
  • Urging the FTC to ban restrictions on professional admission on the grounds that they “impede economic mobility”
  • Encourage the FTC to prohibit or restrict non-compete agreements
  • Encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to restore “net neutrality” rules that were reversed during the Trump administration
  • Request to the FCC to block exclusive contracts between landlords and broadband providers
  • Lowering prescription drug prices by helping government and indigenous efforts to import cheaper drugs from Canada
  • Allow hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter
  • Establishment of a “White House Competition Council” to guide the federal response to the growing economic power of large corporations

“The impetus for this executive order is really where we can encourage more competition across the board,” said White House chief economic adviser Brian Deese, Ylan Mui of CNBC in an exclusive interview aired early Friday morning.

Through its technology-related measures, the Biden order aims to ensure that the largest companies in the industry wield their power to crowd out smaller competitors and exploit consumers’ personal information.

The regulation calls on regulators to undertake a number of reforms, including increased scrutiny over technology mergers and a greater focus on maneuvers like “killer acquisitions” where companies buy smaller brands to take them off the market.

The tightened grip of the technology giants has led to a decline in innovation, Deese told Mui.

These platforms have “caused significant problems,” Deese said. These include “privacy and security issues for users” and “small business entry issues,” he said.

The executive order “is not just about monopolies,” said Deese, “but about consolidation in general and the lack of competition when you have a limited number of market participants.”

He noted that some research suggests that wages are lower in more concentrated markets dominated by only a handful of companies. A White House factsheet cites a May 2020 Journal of Human Resources paper that based on data from CareerBuilder.com, it found that market consolidation points to a double-digit percentage decline in wages.

The order was announced just weeks after the House Judiciary Committee voted for six antitrust laws to reinvigorate competition in the technology sector.

The draft laws that would make it more difficult for dominant companies to complete mergers and forbid certain common business models for such companies have been significantly pushed back by those concerned that they will not go far enough or have unintended side effects.

In late June, a judge dismissed complaints from the Federal Trade Commission and a group of attorneys-general alleging that Facebook illegally maintained monopoly power.

Biden’s executive order also calls on the FTC to enact new rules for Big Tech’s data collection and user monitoring practices, and calls on the agency to ban certain unfair competition practices in internet marketplaces.

The arrangement could provide some relief to small and medium-sized businesses that have complained about the alleged crippling grip of tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google on the digital markets.

Biden’s executive ordinance does not unilaterally impose its will on big tech companies, but instead often calls on independent agencies to take action.

But the new FTC chairman, Lina Khan, a Biden-appointed person who, at 32, was the youngest person to ever hold that role when she was sworn in last month, already has a reputation for being a vocal advocate of reform and empowerment Developed regulations for technology giants.

Amazon is demanding that Khan be excluded from ongoing investigations into his business, arguing that it lacks impartiality and that it has repeatedly said the company is “guilty of antitrust violations and should be liquidated.”

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WATCH: How US Antitrust Law Works and What It Means for Big Tech

Categories
Entertainment

Assessment: A Higher Day Dawns With Pam Tanowitz’s Witty New Dance

Review: A Better Day Dawns With Pam Tanowitz’s Witty New Dance

RED HOOK, NY – For a moment or two, Pam Tanowitz may have regretted the title of her latest dance: “I’ve been waiting for the echo of a better day.”

The sentence comes from a film by Jean-Luc Godard, and Tanowitz certainly meant the accusation of a return to live and in-person performances. But the work commissioned by the Bard SummerScape Festival is designed for outdoor use, and the premiere originally scheduled for Thursday has been canceled due to rain. So was the Friday show. The title threatened to become an explanation for the unprecedented premiere.

On Saturday, however, the weather cleared long enough for “I was Waiting” to make its debut. The wait was worth it. As for better days, since the pandemic began, I can only imagine a few dance experiences as exciting as this one.

Unlike many performances forced outdoors by coronavirus protocols, this one really took advantage of their surroundings. This wasn’t a dance that would have been better in a theater. It cannot have existed in one.

In the beginning, the setting was wonderful: Montgomery Place, a property next to Bard College that belongs to him and where Tanowitz works as a choreographer in residence. A pleasant walk (or a golf cart ride) around the grounds led to a steeply sloping strip of lawn that stretched from the balustrade and steps of a mansion to a pond with views of the Catskill Mountains and a sliver of the Hudson River.

We spectators sat on the lawn, isolated from each other in areas like circles on a twister board. String quintet players – including the violinist Jessie Montgomery, whose lively compositions served as the score – got ready on a covered platform. But where should the dancers dance?

Everywhere turned out. And that was the fame of that 45 minute work. First the audience had to turn back to look at the view like at a wedding to see how the first dancer – the brilliantly clear Zachary Gonder – flew down the slope and darted between the circles like a firefly. Other dancers followed, but the first surprise wasn’t in the foreground: there were dancers in the distance, dressed in bright yellow or blue, arabesques between the trees, visual echoes that expanded the dance.

This was the general effect of Tanowitz’s brilliant use of space: to stretch one’s attention with relish. Sometimes a couple of dancers would continue down by the pond while something else up in the mansion did something else. But this more-than-you-see simultaneity was just one option among many.

When a dancer caught our attention, one or two or three others would often emerge from the surrounding foliage: more visual echoes that, by changing the shape and direction of the dance, seemed to change the space around them. When the dancers embarked on a new path or ventured into new open grass, it was like illuminating landscape features and illuminating discoveries. When Melissa Toogood drove down from the balustrade to the pond in a solo part – and then past it to perform in a new place, closer to the river – the dimensions of the dance increased once more, as it is only possible outside. It was a funny move that aroused amazement.

This choreography of the room was enlivened by a movement vocabulary that is more complex, intricate and varied than one would expect from dancers in sneakers on wet and uneven terrain. These dancers – Jason Collins, Brittany Engel-Adams, Christine Flores, Lindsey Jones, Victor Lozano and Maile Okamura, and Gonder and Toogood – are marvels, alone and together. In slow sections they merged into sculptural groups of great, balanced beauty.

Their phrases had their own music, but it harmonized with Montgomery’s score and its oscillating rhythms, quickening pizzicati, scraps of gershwinesque tunes, folk songs and the roar of insects. Birds fell into the silence.

To me, the joys of “I Was Waiting” mirrored the joys of previous Tanowitz works, including the sublime “Four Quartets” that she debuted at Bard SummerScape (indoor) in 2018 and me of Ronald K’s bold, grand SummerScape program Brown / Evidence in 2019. This series builds a track record of dependable transcendence, a promise for better days.

Pam Tanowitz dance
Montgomery Square, July 10-11; bard.edu.

Categories
Health

Covid Lambda Variant of Peru: What Scientists Know

Covid Lambda Variant of Peru: What Scientists Know

Viruses develop. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, is no exception. So the emergence of variants is no surprise, and not every new genetic mutation poses a serious threat.

But in recent weeks a growing drum of news coverage has started to sound the alarm about lambda, a variant first discovered in Peru late last year. The variant, initially known as C.37, quickly spread in parts of South America. On June 14, the World Health Organization classified it as an “interesting variant,” which essentially means that experts suspect it could be more dangerous than the original strain.

The prevalence of lambda and its mutations, which are similar to those found in several other highly contagious or worrying variants, make it worth watching, scientists said. But much remains unknown and it is not yet clear how high the risk is.

“I think part of the interest is just due to the fact that there is a new variant that has a new name,” said Nathaniel Landau, a microbiologist at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine who studies the new coronavirus variants .

“But I don’t think there is any more cause for concern than before we knew about this variant,” added Dr. Landau added. So far, there is no evidence that Lambda will displace Delta, the highly transmissible variant that now dominates most of the world. “There is no reason to believe that this is now anything worse than Delta.”

Pablo Tsukayama, a microbiologist at Cayetano Heredia University in Peru who documented the creation of lambda, agreed. Latin America has “limited capacity” for genomic surveillance and laboratory follow-up studies of new variants, he said. This has created an information gap that is fueling concerns about lambda. “I don’t think it will be worse than anyone else we already have,” he said. “We know so little that it lends itself to a lot of speculation.”

According to a June 15 update by the WHO, lambda had been reported in 29 countries, territories or areas by mid-June. The variant had been detected in 81 percent of the coronavirus samples sequenced in Peru since April, and 31 percent of them in Chile so far, the agency said.

The variant accounts for less than 1 percent of samples sequenced in the United States, according to GISAID, an archive for viral genomic data. Isolated cases have been reported in some other countries.

The variant contains eight notable mutations, including seven in the gene for the spike protein found on the surface of the virus. Some of these mutations come in other flavors and could make the virus more contagious or help bypass the body’s immune response.

But big questions remain unanswered. It’s not yet clear whether lambda is more transmissible than other variants, whether it causes more serious illnesses, or makes vaccines less effective.

Updated

July 11, 2021 at 1:57 p.m. ET

“We don’t have a lot of information compared to the other variants,” says Ricardo Soto-Rifo, a virologist at the University of Chile who studied lambda.

Preliminary laboratory studies that have not yet been published in peer-reviewed journals are cause for concern and reassurance. In these studies, research teams led by Dr. Soto-Rifo and Dr. Landau found that antibodies against Lambda induced by the Pfizer, Moderna and CoronaVac vaccines are less effective than against the original strain, but are still able to neutralize the virus.

The results suggest that these vaccines should still work against lambda, the scientists said. In addition, antibodies aren’t the body’s only defense against the virus; even if they are less strong against lambda, other components of the immune system, such as T cells, can also offer protection.

“This decrease in neutralizing antibodies does not mean that the vaccine is less effective,” said Dr. Soto-Rifo. Real-world studies of how well the vaccines hold up against the variant are still needed, he said.

The researchers also reported that, like several other variants, lambda binds more tightly to cells than the original strain of the virus, making it potentially more transmissible.

Though many questions remain unanswered, Trevor Bedford, an evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said that he doesn’t find lambda as worrying as Delta and doesn’t expect it to become as dominant worldwide.

“Lambda has been around for a while and it has barely made its way into the US, for example, compared to, for example, Gamma” – the variant first identified in Brazil – “which did pretty well here.” He added, “I think it did entire focus should be on Delta. “

Categories
Politics

After Marathon Hearings, Texas Republicans Advance Voting Measure

After Marathon Hearings, Texas Republicans Advance Voting Measure

AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Republicans moved the state electoral overhaul legislation closer to enactment on Sunday, putting aside fierce opposition from the Democrats to gain approval from key House and Senate committees after hearings over the marathon weekend.

The committee’s votes, held just days after a 30-day special session, stick to Governor Greg Abbott’s schedule for swift action against legislation he has identified as a priority for his administration. The Senate, which consists of 31 members, is expected to vote on its bill on Tuesday. The 150-strong house is likely to take up its own version of the measure this week.

The Democrats on both committees united against the bills and prepared for further fighting on the Senate and House floors. Beverly Powell, a Senator from the Fort Worth suburbs who voted against the bill on committee, said Senate Democrats were planning “many” changes during the plenary debate and could try to propose an alternative bill.

It took the Senate State Affairs Committee about 45 minutes Sunday afternoon to approve the bill, known as SB1, in a 6-to-3 party election after modifying the bill slightly with nine Republican amendments. “We feel good about the bill,” said Bryan Hughes, chairman of the Republican committee.

Previously, the committee met for nearly 15 hours, ending at around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, and heard testimony from more than 200 witnesses, many of whom were against the law.

The House Committee hearings lasted even longer, ending around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday with a vote on the adoption of the bill after nearly 24 hours of debate and public comment. All nine Republicans on the committee supported the bill, while the five Democrats voted against.

Mr. Abbott, a Republican, has said that passing a new electoral law is one of his top priorities. He called the legislature into the special session that began Thursday after the Democrats blocked the law in late May with an 11-hour walkout from the Capitol denying Republicans the quorum.

Hundreds of Texans flocked to the Capitol over the weekend to watch the committee hearings on Republican-sponsored voting laws, part of a national effort by the party to place new restrictions on state electoral systems. Republicans say the restructuring is necessary to improve voter integrity, but opposition Democratic forces are fighting what they call an unprecedented campaign to suppress the vote.

“This is the largest coordinated attack on democracy in our lifetime, and perhaps in the lives of this country,” said Beto O’Rourke, a former US representative and presidential candidate who took and was a leading role for the Democrats in voting on the subject for the hearing in the Capitol.

But Mr. Hughes, the Republican chairman, opened the hearing on Saturday by stating that the law was intended to “create a better electoral process that is safe and accessible”.

House and Senate Democrats have vowed to do whatever it takes to kill the legislature a second time, but their options are limited. They have indicated that they are ready to take another bold step, such as another strike or possibly the more extreme step of fleeing the state.

Studies consistently place Texas at the top of the list of states making it harder to register and vote, which in part explains why the Democrats view the stakes as so high.

Voting laws would, among other things, prohibit 24-hour voting and drive-through polling sites, increase criminal penalties for election workers who violate regulations, limit support for voters, and expand the authority and autonomy of partisan election observers.

But two provisions from the previous session that the Democrats had vehemently opposed were removed: a restriction on the Sunday election and a proposal that would have made it easier to reject an election.

For the weekend hearings, Democrats and opposition to the bill had gathered witnesses from across the state to testify.

State Senator Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, said two busloads of Witnesses and a caravan of 20 cars had traveled from his district. Both Mr. Miles and Lina Hidalgo, the executive director of Harris County, the state’s most populous district, told reporters that the Houston area’s bills would take a heavy toll by introducing electoral innovations like the 24-hour vote that was tabled , would be reduced in the 2020 election.

“We’re under attack,” said Mr. Miles.

After starting the poll late by spending hours on a bail revision bill, the House committee worked all night to hear many of the nearly 300 witnesses who had pledged to testify. Some who waited in the committee room after sunrise began to joke about the time, thanking Trent Ashby, chairman of the Republican House of Representatives, for not stopping his testimony.

“Good morning, Mr. Chair, thank you for staying,” said Hector Mendez, who represented the Texas College Democrats group. “Good luck at 6:30 am,” said another witness.

Although the Democrats were looking for more time to digest the bill, Ashby said he wanted to move on to a committee vote because of the “compressed nature” of the special session. Before voting on sending the measure to plenary, the committee also rejected eight Democratic amendments, including on party-level votes.

Texas follows several other Republican-controlled battlefield states that have radically revised their electoral laws and introduced new voting restrictions this year. Since January, at least 22 bills have been signed in 14 states that make voting difficult.

Categories
Health

These are among the new high 5 Covid signs

These are some of the new top 5 Covid symptoms

PeopleImages | E+ | Getty Images

LONDON — When the coronavirus pandemic first emerged in early 2020, governments quickly put out information on what symptoms to look out for, little knowing then that much of the transmission was asymptomatic.

The public was told to look out for a high temperature and a new continuous cough, with a loss of taste or smell, fatigue and a sore throat also named as possible symptoms (some added at different points of the pandemic).

Fast forward to the present day and more symptoms are being reported and recognized. The variation in symptoms has happened over time as several variants of the virus — such as the alpha strain and now the highly transmissible delta variant — have gone on to replace the “original” strain of Covid-19 first discovered in China in late 2019.

Read more: Covid delta variant: Symptoms, spread and what to look out for

Now, an ongoing U.K.-based study which enables the public to enter their Covid symptoms on an app — which enables scientists to then analyze the data — says there are new coronavirus symptoms being widely reported.

The Zoe Covid Symptom study has identified the current top five symptoms that have emerged in recent weeks which seemingly differ depending on whether you’ve been vaccinated, and how many doses you’ve had.

The symptoms highlighted below were first published in late June but still represent the top five symptoms being reported, the Zoe Covid Symptom study told CNBC Wednesday.

The symptoms rankings are based on members of the public’s reports in the app alone and do not take into account which variant caused the virus or demographic information.  

These are the top five symptoms being reported by people who are fully-vaccinated, have had one dose of a vaccine or are unvaccinated.

Symptoms if fully-vaccinated?

The Zoe Covid Symptom study says that, generally, it has seen similar symptoms of Covid-19 being reported overall in the app by people who had and hadn’t been vaccinated.

However, fewer symptoms were reported over a shorter period of time by those who had already had the shot, suggesting that they were falling less seriously ill and getting better more quickly.

Here is the current ranking of Covid symptoms after two vaccinations:

  1. Headache
  2. Runny nose
  3. Sneezing
  4. Sore throat
  5. Loss of smell

The study noted that “traditional” Covid symptoms such as anosmia (loss of smell), fever and shortness of breath ranked way down the list, at five, 12 and 29 respectively. “A persistent cough now ranks at number 8 if you’ve had two vaccine doses, so is no longer the top indicator of having Covid.”

Symptoms after one vaccine dose?

The ranking changes again after one dose of the vaccination as observed below:

  1. Headache
  2. Runny nose
  3. Sore throat
  4. Sneezing
  5. Persistent cough

With the protection from only one vaccine dose, one of the original indicators of a persistent cough has made the top five symptoms, Zoe noted.

Symptoms if you’re unvaccinated?

If you’ve not yet been vaccinated then the symptoms are more recognizable to the traditional ranking, Zoe said, “however we can still observe some changes from when Covid-19 first appeared over a year ago.”

  1. Headache
  2. Sore throat
  3. Runny nose
  4. Fever
  5. Persistent cough

“Loss of smell comes in at number 9 and shortness of breath comes far down the list at number 30, indicating the symptoms as recorded previously are changing with the evolving variants of the virus,” the study found.

Covid cases attributed to the much more contagious delta variant are surging in parts of Europe, the U.K. and the U.S., particularly among young people and the partially vaccinated and unvaccinated.

Read more: The delta variant is spreading in Europe and can’t be stopped

While two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine provide protection against the delta variant, both were significantly less effective after only one shot.

The latest research from Israel on Monday found a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illness, coinciding with the spread of delta, but said it remained highly effective in preventing serious illness.

Categories
World News

Richard Branson reaches house on Virgin Galactic flight

Richard Branson reaches space on Virgin Galactic flight

After nearly 17 years of development and over a billion dollars invested in Virgin Galactic, Sir Richard Branson achieved his dream and reached space.

From the cabin of the spaceship, Branson spoke of space flight as “the complete experience of a lifetime”.

“This is the moment I dreamed of as a child, and to be honest, nothing can prepare you for a view of Earth from space,” said Branson after landing.

The company’s VSS Unity spacecraft launched over the New Mexico skies on Sunday, with two pilots driving the vehicle with the billionaire founder and three Virgin Galactic employees. VSS Unity – after it was released over 40,000 feet by a carrier aircraft called the VMS Eve – ignited its rocket motor and accelerated to more than three times the speed of sound as it ascended to the edge of space.

Sir Richard Branson stands on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in front of the trading of Virgin Galactic (SPCE) in New York, USA, 28 October 2019.

Richard Branson Virgin Galactic IPO NYSE

VSS Unity then performed a slow backflip in weightlessness as the Virgin Galactic crew were weightless and floating around the cabin of the spaceship. The spacecraft reached an altitude of 86.1 kilometers (53.5 miles or approximately 282,000 feet).

The vehicle then glided back through the atmosphere to land on the runway of Spaceport America where it had previously taken off.

VSS Unity will be released from the carrier aircraft VMS Eve during the launch of its third space flight on May 22, 2021.

Virgo galactic

The pilots Dave Mackay and Michael Masucci flew with Unity. Sitting next to Branson in the spacecraft’s cabin are chief ronaut trainer Beth Moses, chief operations engineer Colin Bennett, and vice president for government affairs Sirisha Bandla. Both Mackay and Masucci have previously flown into space, as have Moses and pilots CJ Sturckow and Mark Stucky.

The US officially regards pilots who have flown more than 50 miles (or approximately 262,000 feet) as astronauts.

VSS Unity is designed for up to six passengers together with the two pilots. The company has approximately 600 reservations for tickets for future flights, which sell for prices between $ 200,000 and $ 250,000 each.

“We’re here to make space more accessible to everyone,” said Branson after the flight. “The mission statement that I wrote in my spacesuit was to make the dream of space travel come true for my grandchildren … and for many people living today, for everyone.”

The space goals

This was Virgin Galactic’s fourth spaceflight to date, the second this year, and the first with more than one passenger.

In addition to flying Branson, spaceflight had other goals as Virgin Galactic is still testing its spacecraft system, with the goal of entering commercial service in early 2022.

The four crew members test the spacecraft’s cabin and the training program Virgin Galactic has developed to ensure customers are properly prepared for the experience. In addition, Bandla will test running a research experiment while doing an exercise with plants in test tubes for the University of Florida.

Sunday’s space flight is one of three Virgin Galactic still needs to complete development, and two more are expected this year.

A competition for others

Shortly after the spaceflight landed, Branson announced that Virgin Galactic had partnered with sweepstakes company Omaze to offer a chance for two seats on “one of the first Virgin Galactic commercial spaceflights” early next year.

“You have a chance to go into space,” said Branson.

The competition requires a donation that goes to a nonprofit organization called Space For Humanity. The billionaire added that he will put on his “Willy Wonka hat” to give the winners a tour of Spaceport America.

“It’s a way of just trying to attract a lot of people who otherwise couldn’t afford to go into space,” said Branson.

Branson’s trip

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, front center, gathers with Virgin Galactic employees in front of the new SpaceShip Two VSS Unity following a new aircraft roll-out ceremony at Mojave Air and Space Port on February 19, 2016 in Mojave, California .

Ricky Carioti | The Washington Post | Getty Images

Branson has dreamed of going into space since watching the Apollo moon landing and founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to fly private passengers into space. He started the company to buy spaceships built by aerospace designer Burt Rutans Scaled Composites.

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo system emerged from Branson’s contract with Scaled Composites. However, the spacecraft’s development had several setbacks, including a rocket engine explosion on the ground in 2007 that killed three Scaled Composite employees, and the 2014 crash of the first SpaceShipTwo, VSS Enterprise, in which the co-pilot of Virgin Galactic, Michael Alsbury, was killed and injured pilot Peter Siebold.

The company then built VSS Unity, which is equipped with additional safety measures to prevent future accidents. Virgin Galactic began testing Unity in 2016 and first reached space in December 2018. In addition, Virgin Galactic rolled the next spacecraft in its fleet earlier this year, VSS Imagine, which is the first of its next-generation SpaceShip III vehicle class.

Last month, Virgin Galactic received a license extension from the US Federal Aviation Administration that allows the company to fly passengers on future space flights. The company completed a 29-element verification and validation program for the FAA and reached the last two regulatory milestones with its most recent space test in May.

Branson wasn’t previously expected to fly on Sunday’s space flight, as Virgin Galactic leadership said the company planned to fly the founder on his penultimate test flight. But after billionaire Jeff Bezos announced that he would be flying on July 20 on his company’s Blue Origin company’s first passenger flight, Virgin Galactic changed its flight schedule – with the aim of flying Branson nine days before Bezos.

Sunday’s flight, which takes off from Bezos or Elon Musk, means Branson will be the first of the multi-billion dollar space company founders to drive his own spaceship.

Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin compete in suborbital space tourism, with both companies’ spaceships taking passengers to the edge of space for a few minutes to soar in weightlessness. An orbital flight, such as with Musks SpaceX, costs tens of millions of dollars and typically spends several days or weeks in space.

Branson’s company believes there is a market that can accommodate up to 2 million people on suborbital space flights with prices between $ 250,000 and $ 500,000, with the market expanding as costs drop.

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Categories
Health

Citing the Delta Variant, Pfizer Will Pursue Booster Pictures and a New Vaccine

Citing the Delta Variant, Pfizer Will Pursue Booster Shots and a New Vaccine

Pfizer and BioNTech announced Thursday that they are developing a version of the coronavirus vaccine that will target Delta, a highly contagious variant that has spread to nearly 100 countries. The companies expect to begin clinical trials of the vaccine in August.

Pfizer and BioNTech also reported promising results from studies of people who received a third dose of the original vaccine. A booster shot six months after the second dose of the vaccine increases the effectiveness of the antibodies against the original virus and beta variant by five to ten-fold, the companies say.

The vaccine’s effectiveness could decline six months after immunization, the companies said in a press release, and booster doses may be needed to fight off virus variants.

The data were neither published nor peer-reviewed. The vaccine manufacturers said they expected to submit their results to the Food and Drug Administration in the coming weeks, a step toward approval for booster shots.

But the companies’ claims contradict other research, and several experts dismissed the claim that boosters are needed.

“Given the variants currently circulating, there is really no evidence of a third booster or a third dose of an mRNA vaccine,” said Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York. “In fact, many of us wonder if you’ll ever need boosters.”

Federal authorities also sounded dubious on Thursday night. In general, Americans who have been fully vaccinated currently do not need a booster vaccination, the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a joint statement.

“We are prepared for booster doses when science shows they are needed,” the authorities said.

The Delta variant, first identified in India, is believed to be about 60 percent more contagious than Alpha, the version of the virus that ripped through the UK and much of Europe earlier this year, and perhaps twice as contagious as the original coronavirus.

The delta variant is now causing outbreaks among unvaccinated populations in countries like Malaysia, Portugal, Indonesia and Australia. In the USA, too, Delta is now the dominant variant, the CDC reported this week.

Until recently, infections in the US were at their lowest level since the pandemic began. Hospital stays and deaths related to the virus have continued to decline, but new infections could increase.

It is not yet clear to what extent the variant is responsible for this; A slower vaccination campaign and quick reopenings also play a role.

Citing data from Israel, Pfizer and BioNTech suggest that the effectiveness of their vaccine “in preventing infections and symptomatic illnesses decreased six months after vaccination.” Given the surge in Delta and other variants, the companies said “a third dose may be required within 6 to 12 months of full vaccination”.

Updated

July 11, 2021 at 1:57 p.m. ET

Health officials in Israel have estimated that full vaccination with the Pfizer BioNTech is only 64 percent effective against the Delta variant. (It is more than 90 percent effective against the original virus.)

But Israel’s estimates have been disproved by a number of other studies which found the vaccine to be very effective at preventing infection – against all variants. For example, a recent study showed that mRNA vaccines like those from Pfizer trigger a sustained immune response in the body that can protect against the coronavirus for years.

“Pfizer is looking opportunistic by putting an announcement on the back of very early and undigested data from Israel,” said John Moore, a virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “When the time comes to use boosters here, the decision is not up to you.”

The companies described their plan to develop a new vaccine against Delta as a kind of backup measure in case the original vaccine replenishment fails. The new vaccine targets all of the spike protein, not a portion, and the first batch has already been made.

The delta variant poses challenges for the immune system. In the journal Nature on Thursday, French researchers reported new evidence that the delta variant can partially bypass the body’s immune response, as changes to the spike protein on its surface make it difficult for antibodies to attack.

The team analyzed blood samples from 59 people after they received the first and second doses of the vaccine. Blood samples from just 10 percent of those immunized with a dose of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were able to neutralize the Delta and Beta variants in laboratory tests.

“A single dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca was either poorly effective or not effective at all against beta and delta variants,” the researchers concluded. Data from Israel and the UK largely support this finding, although those studies also suggested that one dose of vaccine was still enough to prevent hospitalization or death from the virus.

But a second dose increased the effectiveness to 95 percent. There was not much difference in the levels of antibodies produced by the two vaccines.

“When you receive two doses of an mRNA vaccine, you are very well protected against serious illness, hospitalization and death for each of the variants,” said Dr. Gounder.

The researchers also looked at blood samples from 103 people infected with the coronavirus. Delta was much less sensitive than Alpha to samples from unvaccinated individuals in this group, the study found.

One dose of vaccine increased sensitivity significantly, suggesting that people who have recovered from Covid-19 may still need to be vaccinated to fight off some variants.

Taken together, the results suggest that two doses of the vaccine provide strong protection against all variants, as does one dose for people who have recovered from Covid-19 and have some natural immunity.

Some experts also questioned discussions about boosters for Americans while much of the world has not yet received a single dose.

“It’s impossible to ignore the global situation,” said Natalie Dean, biostatistician at Emory University in Atlanta. “I find it hard to imagine getting a third dose when there are front line workers treating Covid patients who have not yet been vaccinated.”

Every unvaccinated person offers the virus additional opportunities to mutate into dangerous variants, said Dr. Gounder feast.

“If we are concerned about variants,” she said, “our best protection is to get the rest of the world vaccinated, and not to hoard more doses to give people here in the US third doses of mRNA vaccines. “

Categories
Politics

Biden proclaims ambassador picks for France, India, Chile, Bangladesh

Biden announces ambassador picks for France, India, Chile, Bangladesh

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks before signing an executive order in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Friday, July 9, 2021.

Alex Edelman | CNP | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Friday revealed the names of four new nominees to serve as U.S. ambassadors to nations including France, India, Bangladesh and Chile, the White House said in a press release.

Biden will nominate Denise Campbell Bauer to be his ambassador to both France and Monaco. Bauer was reportedly a major fundraiser for former President Barack Obama and had served in his administration as U.S. ambassador to Belgium between 2013 and the end of Obama’s final term.

Eric Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, was officially listed in the release as Biden’s intended nominee to become U.S. ambassador to India. Outlets including NBC News had reported as early as May that Garcetti would be nominated to that post.

Peter Haas, a career member of the State Department’s senior foreign service, was tapped to become Biden’s ambassador to Bangladesh. Haas, who speaks French and German, has served as head of the U.S. Consulate General in Mumbai, India.

Biden will also nominate Bernadette Meehan, currently the head of global programs for the Obama Foundation, to be his ambassador to Chile. Meehan has more than a decade of experience as a foreign service officer and had previously served as a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

The latest crop of nominees reflect Biden’s preference toward selecting officials with ample experience within relevant institutions, unlike his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, who picked many people with limited experience in government to serve key roles.

Biden’s picks for the ambassador roles must be confirmed by the Senate. More than 80 of the president’s nominees have been confirmed by the Senate, according to The Washington Post, while the chamber is currently considering about 160 more.