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Politics

Search resumes at collapsed Florida apartment web site

Search resumes at collapsed Florida condo site

A sad family awaits at the site while a team of rescue workers work during a rescue operation of the Champlain Tower, which partially collapsed on June 30, 2021 in Surfside, Florida, USA.

Tayfun Coskun | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Search and rescue operations in a Florida condo collapse resumed Thursday after a one-day shutdown, Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said at a press conference Thursday evening.

The decision to resume operations was made around 4:45 p.m. Thursday after civil engineers said conditions were safe enough, Levine Cava said. Operations were suspended Thursday morning over concerns that the rest of the building could collapse.

“I am grateful for your hard work in getting us back to search and rescue as quickly as possible,” said Levine Cava. “Of course, we continue to assure that we are doing everything we can to protect our first aiders.”

The death toll remained unchanged through Thursday, with 18 confirmed deaths and 145 missing, according to Levine Cava.

While search and rescue is the authorities’ top priority, plans to demolish the building are currently underway, Levine Cava told reporters.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue chief Alan Cominsky said all task force leaders, division group leaders, and heavy equipment operators had been briefed of a search resumption plan with security measures.

Authorities are restricting access to parts of the collapse zone that raise safety concerns, Levine Cava said. Technologies such as cameras and drones are used to search inaccessible areas of the building.

A team of engineers are also conducting tests and evaluations to safely expand the search area, she added.

Levine Cava and other authorities also thanked President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden for visiting Surfside early Thursday, noting that Biden offered comfort to families affected by the collapse.

Kevin Guthrie, director of the Florida emergency management department, added that Biden has pledged to cover 100% of reimbursements for local governments facing deficits due to the breakdown.

Emergency Management Director Charles Cyrille also briefed on Tropical Storm Elsa, which continues to move rapidly through the Caribbean Sea. Cyrille told reporters that the State Department of Emergency Management continues to monitor the storm and that contingency plans are in place.

Cyrille said “Miami-Dade County is not in imminent danger,” but urged citizens to be prepared with disaster packages and evacuation plans.

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Cominsky, the chief of the fire department, said the decision to cease operations Thursday morning was based on “additional concerns about building stability” identified by subject matter experts.

These concerns included 15 to 12 inches of movement, a large pillar hanging from the building that could fall and damage the support columns in the underground car park, and slight movement in the concrete floor slabs on the south side of the structure that “could lead to additional failure” . of the building, “says Cominsky.

In the last few days there have been increasing indications that the 40-year-old apartment building had already suffered considerable structural damage in 2018.

A newly discovered video, captured the night of the collapse, shows water pouring into the Champlain Towers parking garage.

On Wednesday evening, the National Institute of Standards and Technology announced it had launched a federal investigation into the causes of the building collapse.

“We are going in with an open mind,” said Judith Mitrani-Reiser, deputy head of the materials and support systems department at NIST, at a press conference near the collapse site on Wednesday.

“Whenever a building collapses, we want to understand how the building was designed, built, modified and maintained,” she said.

Several lawsuits have been filed on behalf of the victims’ families, some of which are still missing.

But the question of who, if anything, was responsible for the breakdown is unlikely to be resolved anytime soon.

James Olthoff, the director of NIST, told the Miami Herald the federal investigation will not attempt to assign the blame for the collapse.

“This is a kind of fact-finding, not troubleshooting, type of investigation,” he told the Herald. “It will take time, possibly a few years.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correctly describe Tropical Storm Elsa.

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Business

Atlas Obscura, a Journey Website Centered on the Bizarre and Obscure, Digs Deeper

Atlas Obscura, a Travel Site Focused on the Weird and Obscure, Digs Deeper

When the pandemic hit last spring, Atlas Obscura had just received a $20 million investment from a group of investors led by Airbnb. Atlas Obscura, at the time, was focused on building the “experience” side of its business — guided tours and classes — which it expected to snap into the giant home rental platform. (The New York Times is also an investor in Atlas Obscura.) But Airbnb gave up on the initiative as it scrambled to weather the crisis. And like the rest of travel media, Atlas Obscura has spent a year mostly catering to the fantasies of homebound travelers. That led, the company says, to record traffic and advertising revenue, as well as a new business in online classes.

Now, the travel media and the travel industry are bracing — and hoping — for a surge of tourism. Though few in the travel media have taken on re-editing of their product like Atlas Obscura, they’re also trying to adapt to a changed political situation, seeking to find nonwhite writers who live in the places they write about, or to have more diverse American writers tell the stories of destinations. Jacqueline Gifford, the editor in chief of Travel and Leisure, said the travel media was trying to ask itself, “Who gets to tell travel stories, why they’re telling them, and what’s the way we can be more representative of this country, of the world we’re living in today?”

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May 28, 2021, 12:54 p.m. ET

But there are also built-in limits to how much you can revolutionize travel writing, said Rafat Ali, the founder of the travel business site Skift.

“It’s always going to be outsiders looking in,” he said.

The challenge for editors and writers across media is how to make journalism inclusive as well as riveting and provocative, rather than just a corporate media exercise in box-checking. (One top newspaper editor described that genre to me last week as “D.E.I. dutiful,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.)

It shouldn’t be that hard. Complicated, surprising stories are often the best ones, as illustrated by the superb “Reckoning With a Reckoning” issue that Adrienne Green, the features editor at New York magazine, put together last week. It sought, as the magazine’s editor in chief, David Haskell, wrote in an email, “to clarify stakes and also complicate them, to tell morality tales but avoid easy morals.”

Atlas Obscura, which also publishes magaziney features like the disturbing story of how a Black woman’s remains wound up on display at a Philadelphia museum and the secret queer history of Colonial Williamsburg, is another good example of how a publisher can meet the moment by deepening its content with an inquiry into, in particular, the violence Americans often choose to forget.

Indeed, Mr. Patel told me he’s not sure “decolonizing” was the right word for the project. “Decolonization suggests removal, and that’s not what we’re doing,” he said Wednesday morning, as we began our tour of unusual New York sites on the edge of the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. “Adding this kind of perspective to travel and travel writing makes it less boring.”

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World News

Iran Vows to Enhance Uranium Enrichment After Assault on Nuclear Website

Iran Vows to Increase Uranium Enrichment After Attack on Nuclear Site

Iran said Tuesday that it would begin enriching uranium to 60 percent purity, which is three times what it is now and much closer to that required to make a bomb, although American officials doubt the country is in has the ability to make a weapon in the near future.

Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s leading nuclear negotiator, gave no reason for the relocation, but it appeared to be retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian nuclear power plant, as well as a strengthening of the Iranian hand in nuclear talks in Vienna.

Sunday’s Israeli attack reduced Iran’s uranium enrichment ability to 60 percent, but it is unclear how long.

Mr Araghchi said Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of its decision in a letter on Tuesday.

Iran also attacked an Israeli-owned cargo ship off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday. This was the most recent clash in his shadow maritime war with Israel. The attack was another sign of mounting tension in the region, but is believed to have caused little to no damage.

The uranium enrichment announcement came when American intelligence agencies said that while Iran has gradually resumed nuclear material production since President Donald J. Trump stepped down from the 2015 nuclear deal, there is no evidence that it has resumed operations that was necessary to turn this material into a nuclear weapon.

“We continue to assume that Iran is not currently engaged in the main nuclear weapons development activities that we believe are necessary to manufacture a nuclear device,” the agencies said in their annual threat assessment report released Tuesday.

However, the report states: “Unless Tehran receives sanctions relief” – as Iran has requested – “Iranian officials are likely to consider options ranging from further enriching uranium up to 60 percent to designing and building a new one” Nuclear reactor that could do this. Long-term production of bomb-quality material. That would take years.

The assessment seems to give President Biden some breathing space when negotiations begin in Vienna aimed at restoring some form of the nuclear deal.

But there are still risks: Iran has a long relationship with North Korea, with whom it has exchanged missile technology, and officials have been concerned for years that Iran might try to buy proven nuclear technology from the north.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called Iran’s announcement “provocative” on Tuesday and said she “questions the seriousness of Iran regarding the nuclear talks”.

Mr Araghchi, who was instrumental in the negotiations on the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and the United States, also said on Tuesday that Iran would replace the centrifuges damaged by the attack on the Natanz nuclear power plant on Sunday that have exploded put the system out of operation. He said Iran will install another 1,000 centrifuges there to increase the facility’s capacity by 50 percent.

An Iranian official also re-estimated the damage caused by the attack, saying that several thousand centrifuges were “completely destroyed”. This level of destruction undermines much of Iran’s ability to enrich uranium.

However, the full extent of the damage is unknown and Iran is believed to be vulnerable to further attacks on its nuclear infrastructure. Until the power supply systems in Natanz are rebuilt, it would be impossible to get new centrifuges to turn.

Iran is expected to replace the first generation centrifuges damaged in the Israeli attack with more advanced and efficient models.

Iran has another well-known manufacturing facility, Fordow, which is buried deep in a mountain, but its capacity is limited.

Iran blamed Israel for Sunday’s Natanz explosion, an assessment confirmed by American and Israeli intelligence officials. The Israeli government has not made a public statement.

Mr Araghchi is in Vienna this week for indirect talks with the United States to revive the 2015 nuclear deal. The deal restricted Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting certain sanctions against Iran, and Mr Biden has spoken out in favor of restoring it in some way.

After the United States withdrew from the deal and Mr Trump imposed new sanctions, Iran abandoned its obligations under the deal and increased its uranium enrichment to 20 percent, a level that would have violated the terms of the deal.

Uranium enriched to 60 percent purity would be another breach and is a short step away from bomb fuel, which is typically considered 90 percent or greater in purity. While uranium enriched to 60 percent can be used as fuel in civilian nuclear reactors, such uses have been discouraged worldwide because of the ease with which it can be converted into bomb fuel.

Iran has enriched uranium to a purity of around 20 percent in its Fordow plant, which uses around 1,000 centrifuges.

To increase the level to 60 percent purity, Iran would have to use roughly half of these machines for the new enrichment job. Cleaning to 90 percent would require around a hundred more machines.

In an interview, Olli Heinonen, former chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency based in Vienna, said that Iran could theoretically enrich from 60 percent to 90 percent in a week, compared to a month or so from 20 percent.

“It’s not much of a difference,” he said.

“This is a demonstration at this point,” said Dr. Heinonen that Iran has reached the 60 percent level. “They want to show that they can.”

The much more difficult step, he said, would be converting 90 percent enriched uranium into the core of an atomic bomb.

In yet another possible retaliation for Sunday’s Israeli attack, Iran attacked an Israeli-owned cargo ship, the Hyperion Ray, off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday.

According to a person familiar with the details of the voyage, the ship evaded the attack and was not hit. Israeli news media reported that it suffered minor damage.

An Israeli security official said Israel was trying to ease tension in the Persian Gulf region and has no intention of responding with another attack on an Iranian ship.

The Israeli army, the Ministry of Defense and the Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment.

In the past few days, Israel had asked the United States to help protect the ship, an American official said.

Israeli officials were concerned that it could be targeted by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to Israel’s apparent mine attack on an Iranian military ship in the Red Sea last week, the American official said.

A cargo ship from the same company, the Helios Ray, was attacked by Iran earlier this year.

Iranian officials on Tuesday released more details about the Natanz attack, suggesting the damage was greater than Iran had previously reported.

Alireza Zakani, MP and head of the research center, said on state television that “several thousand of our centrifuges have been completely destroyed,” which is a large part of the country’s uranium enrichment ability.

He described official statements on Monday that the facility would be repaired quickly as false promises.

Foreign intelligence officials said it could take many months for Iran to undo the damage.

Iranian officials were furious at the vulnerabilities that enabled a range of attacks on the Iranian nuclear program over the past year, ranging from sabotage of nuclear facilities to classified information theft to the murder of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist. Most of these attacks were believed to have been carried out by Israel.

Mr Zakani criticized the Iranian security apparatus for being sloppy, saying it enabled spies to “roam free”, which made Iran a “haven for spies”.

He said that in one incident, some nuclear devices at a large facility were being sent overseas for repair and that the devices were packed with 300 pounds of explosives on their return. In another incident, he said, explosives were placed in a desk and smuggled into the nuclear facility.

Iran has long claimed that its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at energy development. Israel claims Iran had, and may still have, an active nuclear weapons program, and regards the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat.

The nuclear talks that began last week in Vienna have been delayed because a member of the European Union delegation tested positive for the coronavirus. Talks could resume as early as Thursday if the member tests negative.

Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman and Steven Erlanger contributed to the coverage.

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World News

Blackout Hits Iran Nuclear Web site in What Seems to Be Israeli Sabotage

Blackout Hits Iran Nuclear Site in What Appears to Be Israeli Sabotage

A power outage, apparently caused by a deliberately planned explosion, struck Iran’s uranium enrichment facility in Natanz on Sunday in what Iranian officials called an act of sabotage, which they suspected was carried out by Israel.

The blackout added new uncertainty to diplomatic efforts that began last week to save the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Trump administration had rejected.

Iran did not say exactly what caused the blackout at the heavily fortified site that was a target of previous sabotage, and Israel publicly declined to acknowledge or deny any responsibility. But American and Israeli intelligence officials said there was an Israeli role.

Two intelligence officials, briefed on the damage, said it was caused by a large explosion that completely destroyed the independent – and heavily protected – internal power system that powers the underground centrifuges that enrich uranium.

Officials, who spoke of a classified Israeli operation on condition of anonymity, said the explosion severely affected Iran’s ability to enrich uranium and that it could take at least nine months to restore Natanz’s production.

If so, Iran’s leverage in new talks the Biden government is seeking to restore the nuclear deal could be severely affected. Iran has announced that it will take increasingly stringent measures, which are prohibited under the agreement, pending the lifting of the sanctions imposed by President Donald J. Trump.

It was not immediately clear how much, if any, foreword the Biden administration received on the Natanz operation, which took place the same morning that Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III visited Israel. But Israeli officials have made no secret of their misfortune about Mr Biden’s desire to revive the nuclear deal, which his predecessor renounced in 2018.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Agency, described the blackout as an act of “nuclear terrorism” and said the international community must face the threat.

“This morning’s action against the Natanz Enrichment Agency shows the defeat of those who oppose our country’s nuclear and political development and the substantial gains made by our nuclear industry,” Salehi told the Iranian news media. “The incident shows the failure of those who speak out against Iran and negotiate easing sanctions.”

Israel, viewing Iran as a terrible adversary, has previously sabotaged Iran’s nuclear work with tactics ranging from cyberattacks to outright assassinations. Israel is believed to have orchestrated the killings of several Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years, including an ambush against a key developer of its nuclear program last November.

Israel neither approves nor denies such acts on political grounds.

The explosion in Natanz came barely a week after the United States and Iran, in their first major diplomacy under the Biden administration, participated in the new talks in Vienna aimed at reviving the nuclear deal abandoned by Mr Trump, the it as “the worst deal” and a giveaway for Iran.

Talks to rescue the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are slated to resume this week.

It was not immediately clear how the Natanz incident might affect this. But Iran now faces a complicated calculation of how to react, especially if it concludes that Israel was responsible.

“Tehran faces an extremely difficult equilibrium,” said Henry Rome, Iran analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk adviser. “It will feel compelled to take revenge in order to signal to Israel that attacks are not free.”

At the same time, Rome said: “Iran must also ensure that such retaliation does not make it politically impossible for the West to press ahead with the re-entry of the JCPOA.”

Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the civilian nuclear program, told Iranian state television that the power supply at the Natanz facility had been cut. He said there was no loss or damage. But Iran has sometimes offered such assessments immediately after the sabotage in order to revise them later.

Malek Shariati Niasar, an Iranian lawmaker who serves as spokesman for the parliament’s energy committee, said on Twitter the outage was “very suspicious” and pointed to the possibility of “sabotage and infiltration”.

The blackout came less than a year after a mysterious fire devastated another part of the Natanz facility, about 155 miles south of Tehran, the capital. Iranian officials initially downplayed the effects of the fire that destroyed an above-ground facility for assembling centrifuges, but later admitted it had caused significant damage.

The blackout came a day after Iranian officials praised the inauguration of new, advanced centrifuges housed in a site built after the Natanz fire.

Some Iranian experts rejected initial speculation that a cyber attack could have caused the blackout. The Natanz complex has its own power grid, several backup systems and security layers to prevent such an attack from shutting down its system abruptly.

“It is difficult to imagine that it was a cyber attack,” said Ali Vaez, the Iranian project manager at the International Crisis Group. “The likely scenario is that it will target the facility either indirectly or through physical infiltration.” The intelligence officials said it was actually a detonation of explosives.

While there is no direct dialogue between Iran and the United States during the talks in Vienna, the other participants in the agreement – Great Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia under the chairmanship of the European Union – take part in a kind of shuttle diplomacy.

One working group is looking at lifting the Trump administration’s economic sanctions, while another is looking at how Iran can return to conditions that limit the enrichment of enriched uranium and the centrifuges required to manufacture it.

Iran has said its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.

It has also said that while it intends to steadily resume the nuclear activities banned under the agreement, it could easily reverse course if the sanctions are lifted.

On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani celebrated the new centrifuges that will reduce the time it takes to enrich uranium, the fuel for atomic bombs. But Mr. Rouhani also insisted that Iran’s efforts were not aimed at making weapons.

“When the West looks at the morals and beliefs that exist in our country, they will find that they should not be worried and sensitive to our nuclear technology,” Rouhani said in remarks by Iranian news agency Mehr.

The new centrifuges were inaugurated on Iran’s National Nuclear Day, an annual event to demonstrate the country’s advances in nuclear technology despite its economic isolation. The celebrations even included the debut of a music video in which scientists in white robes stood next to centrifuges holding photos of murdered colleagues.

Secretary of Defense Austin was in Israel on Sunday for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the country’s Secretary of Defense Benny Gantz.

It was unclear whether they were discussing the Natanz attack.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Gantz said, “We will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new deal with Iran safeguards the vital interests of the world and the United States, prevents a dangerous arms race in our region, and protects the State of Israel . “

The United States and Israel have a history of covert cooperation dating back to the administration of President George W. Bush to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program.

The most famous operation under this collaboration, code-named “Olympic Games”, was a cyberattack that became known during the Obama administration and deactivated nearly 1,000 centrifuges in Natanz. It was believed that this attack slowed Iran’s enrichment activities by many months.

The reporting was written by David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt, Lara Jakes, Gerry Mullany and Patrick Kingsley.

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Entertainment

New York’s Pop-Up Live shows Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination Web site

New York’s Pop-Up Concerts Kick Off With Jazz at a Vaccination Site

At first it seemed like a small, no-frills concert in a carefully controlled environment: Jazz musician Jon Batiste sat at a piano in an auditorium in the Javits Center on Manhattan’s West Side, performing in front of about 50 seated health care workers in evenly spaced rows – some wear scrubs, other army clothes.

The dancer Ayodele Casel began to knock, with no musical accompaniment other than a recording of her own voice, and her increased convulsive roles filled the room. And the opera singer Anthony Roth Costanzo played “Ave Maria” in the angelic tones of a countertenor.

But about half an hour later, the performers stepped off the stage and left the room. What began as a formal concert turned into a boisterous procession of music and dance that ran through the sterile building – the convention center was turned into a field hospital early in the pandemic and is now a mass vaccination site – where hundreds of hopeful people are had come on Saturday afternoon to get their shots.

Batiste switched to the melodica, a stylish, hand-held reed instrument with keyboard, and the band of musicians, which had been expanded to include a horn section and drummer, marched up the escalator and through the convention center, finally reaching a climax. Ceiling room where dozens of people quietly waited 15 minutes after the vaccination for the required waiting times.

This concert roaming party was the first in a series of “pop-up” shows in New York designed to give the arts a jolt by giving artists paid work and audiences the chance to perform live after nearly a year see darkened theaters and concert halls. Governor Andrew M. Cuomo last month announced plans for the “NY PopsUp” series in which he stated “we need to bring art and culture back to life,” adding that their revitalization is essential for the economic revitalization of New York the city is of decisive importance. The shows begin as he comes under fire for the government’s handling of Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents.

Since the program doesn’t attract crowds, most of the performances will be unannounced and suddenly pop up in parks, museums, parking lots and street corners. The idea is to bring a dose of inspiration into the lives of New Yorkers – a moment when they can disrupt their planned lives and experience art during a pandemic year when human contact is limited and people’s activities are severely restricted.

“We need more spontaneity; That’s the beauty of it, ”said Batiste in an interview. “You don’t know what’s around the corner.”

As the band of musicians roamed the Javits Center, the audience of healthcare workers followed them, clapping to the beat, and recording the spectacle on their cell phones. Batiste, the bandleader on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” drove his musicians around the room (most of whom played with the show’s house band, including Endea Owens on bass, Tivon Pennicott on saxophone, and Joe Saylor and Nêgah Santos on drums).

Bre Williams, a 35-year-old blue scrub nurse who had come from Savannah, Georgia to help out in New York, watched wide-eyed.

“You guys do all that stuff up here?” she said with a laugh.

Just before the music ended, some of the health workers rushed off to continue their work day (this concert, after all, took place during their breaks).

The series is being created by a public-private partnership led by producers Scott Rudin and Jane Rosenthal along with the New York State Council for Art and Empire State Development. Zack Winokur, the director and interdisciplinary artist in charge of the program, said the group intends to have more than 300 pop-up performances in all counties and across the state by Labor Day. The performers are selected by an artists’ council – including Batiste, Casel and Costanzo – who are each asked to use their own networks to find participants.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a live performance,” said Winokur in an interview. “It’s a much needed experience right now.”

After performing at the Javits Center for the first time, the musicians made their way to Brooklyn, where they began another flash mob style street jam that started from Cadman Plaza Park and snaked through Dumbo to land at a skate park where teenagers stared at them curiously before hopping back on their skateboards. The free, mobile concerts are described by Batiste, who previously planned them on social media, as “love riots”. This drove over sidewalks and slushy snow and sometimes slowed down traffic.

Casel was prevented from tap dancing in the street and beat out rhythms by clapping her hands on the metal plates of her tap shoes. Costanzo danced with the band and at one point grabbed the megaphone to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

While the music was meant to offer passers-by a spontaneous display, the march itself was as strictly regulated as any event from the time of the pandemic. Security guards guided members of the musical entourage through rough terrain and dog litter. Another employee asked viewers to spread out when they started violating social distancing guidelines.

Despite the logistics, the plan managed to arouse a spontaneous curiosity for dozens of people who unexpectedly came across the music. The band moved through narrow streets and shopping streets, making people stop, stare and sometimes groove a bit. Children peered through windows along Washington Street; A doorman shot out of an apartment building to see what all the noise was about. Pharmacy workers leaned out the door to film the procession on the sidewalk.

However, not everyone seemed to appreciate the music. At one point, someone in a residential building threw objects from several floors at the protesters (one of the security officers said he saw an orange juice container and a trophy in the snow).

The band, used to improvising, simply avoided the flying objects and marched a little faster, the music never stopped.

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Health

Biden speaks at Pfizer vaccine manufacturing website as storm delays shipments

Biden speaks at Pfizer vaccine manufacturing site as storm delays shipments

[The stream is slated to start at 3:15 p.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

President Joe Biden speaks at Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan on Friday as his government works to increase the supply of doses in the U.S.

Earlier in the day, government officials said the massive winter storms in the Midwest and Texas had delayed delivery of 6 million Covid-19 vaccine doses this week, affecting every state in the US. The backlog equates to three days of late deliveries, Andy Slavitt, Senior White House Advisor on Covid Response, said during a news conference.

Slavitt also announced that the government is working with Florida and Pennsylvania to open five more vaccination centers.

Four of the five vaccination centers will be located in the cities of Jacksonville, Miami, Orlando and Tampa, Florida. The four sites could vaccinate up to 12,000 people a day. A fifth center in Philadelphia will be able to vaccinate 6,000 people a day, he said.

Read CNBC’s live updates for the latest news on the Covid-19 outbreak.

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Health

Honeywell CEO on mass Covid vaccination website in North Carolina

Honeywell CEO on mass Covid vaccination site in North Carolina

More than 20,000 people were vaccinated against Covid-19 last weekend at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina. The idea for the three-day event came during a humble walk, according to Darius Adamczyk, CEO of Honeywell International.

“In the Covid era, one of the more social things you can still do is go for a walk outside with some of your friends,” Adamczyk said on Squawk Box on Tuesday. One weekend, Adamczyk said he was walking with Carolina Panthers President Tom Glick and Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods, who both live in his neighborhood.

The men discussed the introduction of Covid vaccinations in the US, which started more slowly than expected from mid-December, Adamczyk recalled. “We said, ‘You know, maybe we could help here. Maybe we could work together as a team.'”

Atrium Health, as a non-profit healthcare system with 42 hospitals, could of course direct the actual administration of the vaccines, Adamczyk said. The Panthers are now well experienced in handling large crowds at Bank of America Stadium, where David Tepper’s NFL franchise plays its home games.

Honeywell could bring its logistics and sales expertise, as well as its technological capabilities, to the table more broadly, Adamczyk said. Put all three Charlotte-based organizations together, he said, and “we think we can do something really different.”

“I have to thank our mayor, [Vi Alexander Lyles,] thank our governor, [Roy Cooper,] for actually shooting ourselves because it could have been a disaster, “said Adamczyk. But it turned out to be a success, he said.

The goal was to deliver 19,000 vaccines at the stadium event, a spokesman for Atrium Health told CNBC. In the end, more than 20,000 were administered. The week before, Honeywell, Atrium Health, and Tepper Sports & Entertainment, the company that holds Tepper’s ownership of the Panthers, also worked together on a vaccination site at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where more than 15,000 shots were fired.

The pace of vaccinations in the US has improved in recent weeks and the number of doses given now exceeds the number of confirmed Covid cases since the pandemic began. As of Monday, a total of 32.8 million doses had been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including just over 6 million Americans who both received two-dose vaccinations. 26.4 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the United States, data from Johns Hopkins University shows.

The event at Bank of America Stadium was vaccinated every 4.5 seconds on average, Adamczyk said. “The other statistic that I think is really important here is that 30% are from communities of colored people.”

“We did it in three days – Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” he added. “Twelve hours a day, 20,000 people. See if we could do it and set up 50 or 100 such locations across the country.”

Adamczyk acknowledged that vaccine supply restrictions may currently prohibit this vision, but was confident that those restrictions would ease in the coming weeks and months.

“Ultimately, this becomes a queuing problem, and the right and most efficient way to solve the queuing problem is to have very large, very efficient distribution centers that are all over the country, across the states, and very quickly take them in the arms of the people, “said Adamczyk.

“We have to get back to life, we have to go back to good economic times and the fastest way the economy can recover is to get people vaccinated,” he added.

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Business

Disneyland as a Vaccination Website? Airports as Check Facilities? The Journey Trade Pitches In

Disneyland as a Vaccination Site? Airports as Test Centers? The Travel Industry Pitches In

Many corners of the travel industry are looking for a way to end the pandemic.

More than a dozen U.S. airports including Chicago O’Hare and Chicago Midway, Los Angeles International, Tampa, Newark, and Minneapolis-St. Paul. In many terminals, XpresSpa has evolved from offering airport massages and manicures to rapid coronavirus tests.

Covid19 vaccinations>

Answers to your vaccine questions

If I live in the US, when can I get the vaccine?

While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary from state to state, most doctors and residents of long-term care facilities will come first. If you want to understand how this decision is made, this article will help.

When can I get back to normal life after the vaccination?

Life will only get back to normal once society as a whole receives adequate protection against the coronavirus. Once countries have approved a vaccine, they can only vaccinate a few percent of their citizens in the first few months. The unvaccinated majority remain susceptible to infection. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines show robust protection against disease. However, it is also possible that people spread the virus without knowing they are infected because they have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all. Scientists don’t yet know whether the vaccines will also block the transmission of the coronavirus. Even vaccinated people have to wear masks for the time being, avoid the crowds indoors and so on. Once enough people are vaccinated, it becomes very difficult for the coronavirus to find people at risk to become infected. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve this goal, life could approach a normal state in autumn 2021.

Do I still have to wear a mask after the vaccination?

Yeah, but not forever. The two vaccines that may be approved this month clearly protect people from contracting Covid-19. However, the clinical trials that produced these results were not designed to determine whether vaccinated people could still spread the coronavirus without developing symptoms. That remains a possibility. We know that people who are naturally infected with the coronavirus can spread it without experiencing a cough or other symptoms. Researchers will study this question intensively when the vaccines are introduced. In the meantime, self-vaccinated people need to think of themselves as potential spreaders.

Will it hurt What are the side effects?

The vaccine against Pfizer and BioNTech, like other typical vaccines, is delivered as a shot in the arm. The injection is no different from the ones you received before. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported serious health problems. However, some of them have experienced short-lived symptoms, including pain and flu-like symptoms that usually last a day. It is possible that people will have to plan to take a day off or go to school after the second shot. While these experiences are not pleasant, they are a good sign: they are the result of your own immune system’s encounter with the vaccine and a strong response that ensures lasting immunity.

Will mRNA vaccines change my genes?

No. Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use a genetic molecule to boost the immune system. This molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse with a cell, allowing the molecule to slide inside. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus that can stimulate the immune system. At any given moment, each of our cells can contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules that they produce to make their own proteins. As soon as these proteins are made, our cells use special enzymes to break down the mRNA. The mRNA molecules that our cells make can only survive a few minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a little longer, so the cells can make extra viral proteins and trigger a stronger immune response. However, the mRNA can hold for a few days at most before it is destroyed.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California has been closed to guests since March. in December they loaned one of their ultra-cold freezers to a hospital in nearby Salinas; The special freezer can maintain temperatures of minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, which is necessary for the safe storage of some coronavirus vaccines.

During the first few weeks of the pandemic, the State Fair of West Virginia signed an agreement with the Greenbrier County Health Department that promised the use of their facilities for testing, vaccinations, and possibly even a hospital for emergencies. The site, which was closed in 2020, has since been the location for three free drive-through testing clinics and is currently operated as a vaccination center for residents.

Many of Orange County’s residents who receive their vaccination puffs at Disneyland will have coronavirus tests done at the Anaheim Convention Center, which, like convention centers across the country, stalled in March. Jay Burress, President and CEO of Visit Anaheim, estimates the freeze cost the city $ 1.9 billion in lost revenue. He responded by donating unused supplies to local nonprofits. In July, the parking lot of the congress center was converted into a mass test area.

“How do we safely open again? That was our goal all along, ”said Mr. Burress. “Marketing our goal, either as a vacation destination or as a conference destination when hotels aren’t even open for vacation travel, is turning your wheels.”

Sharon Decker is President of the Tryon Resort, North Carolina, which includes 250 rooms and an equestrian center, plus a 300,000 square foot indoor arena on 1,600 acres at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She wasn’t surprised in October when officials from Polk County, NC asked if she would be willing to donate this arena as a vaccination site, even though she knew doing so would pose logistical challenges. The site opened in mid-December.

“We have established a real partnership with public health officials,” she said. “It had to be a real public-private partnership to make this happen. But if you have common goals for a healthy economy and healthy businesses, this is the way to find out. “

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Health

New York to show Citi Subject into ‘mega’ Covid vaccination web site: Mayor

New York to turn Citi Field into 'mega' Covid vaccination site: Mayor

Citi Field Ballpark, home of the New York Mets Major League Baseball team on September 7, 2019 in Flushing, Queens, New York City.

Tim Clayton | Corbis Sport | Getty Images

New York will turn Citi Field into a 24/7 mega coronavirus vaccination site by the end of January to vaccinate thousands of residents every day, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday.

NYC Health and Hospitals will operate the New York Mets site with the goal of taking between 5,000 and 7,000 admissions daily, de Blasio said in a joint announcement with Mets owner Steve Cohen.

The announcement comes a day after Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that his city will set up a vaccination site at Dodger Stadium by the end of this week. This facility can fire up to 12,000 shots a day, according to a statement from Garcetti’s office on Monday.

“This will help so many people get vaccinated,” de Blasio said during a press conference. “We welcome all New Yorkers. We even welcome Yankees fans. There is no discrimination.”

New York City Mayor has urged Governor Andrew Cuomo to increase the number of people who would be eligible for a coronavirus vaccine, beyond the priority healthcare workers. Cuomo granted the city’s request last week, saying that people age 75 and older, as well as key workers such as first responders, teachers, school staff and others across the state could be vaccinated against the disease starting this week.

A person wearing a protective mask stands in front of a vaccination center for Covid-19 in Bathgate Industrial Park in the Bronx, New York on Monday, January 11, 2021.

David Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As of Tuesday, the state will open Covid-19 vaccinations to all over 65s as well as to younger people with compromised immune systems, the Democratic governor said during a conversation with reporters on Tuesday morning.

However, it seems that so far the problem has not found a place for people to be vaccinated – it has ensured the supply of the doses. According to Cuomo, the newly expanded federal guidelines apply to about 7 million people, but the state only receives about 300,000 doses per week.

“I ask for your patience, as there are unfortunately far more eligible New Yorkers than vaccines from the federal government,” Cuomo said in a tweet on Tuesday.

De Blasio said the city had 26,000 vaccinations on Monday. At that rate, the city will run out of vaccines in less than two weeks, he said.

“We’re going to need the doses to keep this kind of effort going,” he said.

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World News

How Canada Has Grow to be a Pilgrimage Web site for ‘Schitt’s Creek’ Followers

How Canada Has Become a Pilgrimage Site for 'Schitt's Creek' Fans

GOODWOOD, Ontario – Joe Toby was recently walking a young couple through his workshop when the man sprinkled rose petals on the concrete floor and fell to one knee.

It turned out that the woman was a huge Schitt’s Creek fan and excited to get into the building, which also doubled as a mechanic’s shop on the series, he said.

“And here I thought it was just my workshop,” said Mr. Toby, a retired machine builder who uses the space to build custom beds for disabled children. “I think it’s special.”

“Schitt’s Creek” is a satire about a fabulously wealthy family who lose all their money and are forced to settle in a town the patriarch bought as a joke because of his name. She’s a cult hit for her quirky humor, haute couture costume design, and the fictional city’s improbable embrace of gay love. It won a record of nine Emmys awards, including one for best comedy.

Nowhere is its sudden popularity more felt than in Goodwood, a sleepy commuter village 28 miles north of Toronto that was filmed over six seasons.

The hamlet feels like a postcard from ancient times, with historic houses in less than a dozen streets and farmland on either side. The last census counted 663 residents – mostly retirees and young professionals with families who commute to work.

Prior to Schitt’s Creek, Goodwood’s notoriety was much more pedestrian – potatoes grown on nearby farms and the surrounding gravel pits, which produce the raw material for building highways and downtown buildings.

Now it has become a place of pilgrimage for fans who call themselves “Schittheads” who arrive in droves at the hamlet’s main intersection to snap selfies in front of the buildings that served as the backdrop for the series. Some arrive in character, disguised as Moira, the dramatic matriarch who named her precious wigs like children, or Alexis, the celebrity daughter. They spend money in the local bakery and general store, but also look in windows, clog parking lots and in some cases go into houses, locals say.

“You’re rude,” said Sheila Owen, whose house doubled for the house of the minor character “Ronnie”. “They come and expect us to be the same people depicted on the show – that we are hicks who are stupid.”

This feeling is not general. Eleanor Todd, 87, got dressed with her granddaughter to stroll into the now famous corner and, like all tourists, take photos. It’s the busiest intersection since Goodwood’s glory days when there were two hotels, four general stores, an ice skating arena, and both a cobbler and tailor. That was in 1885.

“I get a kick out of it,” said Ms. Todd, a former schoolteacher who wrote and self-published the hamlet’s definitive story, Burrs and Blackberries from Goodwood.

The development of the hamlet was severely restricted because it is located on an ecologically sensitive land, the Oak Ridges Moraine. As a result, it has retained its quaint smallness and avoided the spread that affects so many cities in southern Ontario. According to their location manager Geoffrey Smither, this attracted the makers of “Schitt’s Creek”, Eugene and Dan Levy.

“They liked that feeling – this is the city, there is the country,” said Mr. Smither, who toured 28 small towns looking for the perfect setting for the show. “None of them come and go like Goodwood.”

When he appeared before the local councilors to apply for filming permission, they burst out laughing and agreed.

“It would put us on the map,” said Bev Northeast, a former longtime town councilor who lives in Goodwood.

According to the locals, fans showed up in 2016, a year after the show premiered on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national broadcaster, but really got kicked up after Netflix recorded “Schitt’s Creek” in 2017. By the summer of 2019, two chartered buses arrived at the intersection and spilled people in matching T-shirts and lanyards with the words “SchittCon” on them. (This is short for “Schitt’s Creek” Convention.)

But nobody was prepared for the flood of fans who descended after “Schitt’s Creek” swept the Emmys in September.

So many people flocked to the local Annina bakery that the owner, Marco Cassano, hired two security guards to control the crowd. Since Annie Murphy – who plays Alexis, the celebrity daughter with the heart of gold – told talk show host Seth Meyers about the bakery’s delicious butter tarts that night, he has received orders from the USA.

“It means I’ve stayed open across Covid and kept most of my staff,” said Mr. Cassano, who oversaw the crew over five seasons.

Across the street, Mr. Toby was inspired by the crowd of Schittheads asking for tours of his workshop to build a donation box on the front door. He raised $ 270 for the local hospital and historic center over one weekend, he said.

“I was the best kept secret in Goodwood for years,” said Toby, 75, a natural storyteller who loves to keep court. “Nobody knew what I was doing here.”

He knows some of his neighbors think differently, and that’s in part because of the pandemic. In the window of the building across the street, a residence that has been converted into a café for the series, a handwritten message is taped into a window: “Please stay away from the property during a pandemic, we are immunocompromised.”

At the beginning of the pandemic, the show’s co-creator Dan Levy asked fans to stay away. “The cities we filmed Schitt’s Creek in were so beautiful and accommodating to us,” he tweeted. “Please show them the same respect. Visiting the moment is a threat to the health and safety of residents. “

That did not hold up the pilgrimage any more than the rising layers of snow.

Marilyn Leonard owns the building that was Goodwood’s general store for more than a century. In “Schitt’s Creek” it was transformed into the hipster “Rose Apothecary”, who sold body milk and cat hair scarves. Ms. Leonard decided to close it permanently last month.

“It’s too revealing for me,” said Ms. Leonard, 74, who plans to convert the space into a gallery for appointments only. “I have to stay away from people.”

The motel that served as the backdrop for the family’s new residence in the series is not in Goodwood, but in Mono, about 50 miles west. One day so many people crowded around the motel that the owner called the police.

“At least 100 cars an hour tried to get in,” said Jesse Tipping, pointing out that his motel, which has been out of service for years, has received dozens of satirical reviews on Google Maps. “At some point I saw someone on the roof. They stole numbers from the doors and took the welcome mats. “

Mr Tipping, who is currently selling the motel, said he asked Dan Levy about selling paraphernalia on the property. However, the show has signed an exclusive merchandise deal with ITV Studios in London.

That means no one at Goodwood gets rich from sudden fame. Plans to do a “Schitt’s Creek” tour with the Local Heritage Railroad were thwarted by the pandemic. Dave Barton, the mayor of Uxbridge Township, which also includes Goodwood, admitted that the 145-year-old yellow-brick town hall, which had not held a council for nearly 50 years, would be the perfect place for a guided tour. Unfortunately, the community sold the building a year ago to a couple who are converting it into a private home.

“Nobody expected ‘Schitt’s Creek’ to be the most famous Canadian show forever,” said Barton.