Estonia won its war on fentanyl, then things got worse

By ERIKA KINETZ March 26, 2020

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Igor Smirnov was introduced to opiates the day his first son was born, when he got celebratory drunk and a neighbor injected him with an intoxicating extract of opium poppies.

“I’ve never tried anything better in my life,” he said. “It’s natural, it’s a clean high.”

Smirnov graduated to heroin during a stint in prison for robbery in the mid-’90s, as the Estonian economy was reeling from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and drug abuse rates shot up. After the Taliban banned poppy production in Afghanistan, decimating the 2001 harvest, a new drug appeared to take the place of heroin on the quaint, cobbled streets of Estonia’s capital, Tallinn: Fentanyl. People called it “China White.”

Smirnov didn’t like the drug at first, but soon learned to live with it.

“Fentanyl costs too much,” he said. “If you use fentanyl, the dealers are simply collecting money because the high lasts a short time.”

Smirnov has lived the arc of illicit drug abuse in Estonia, a tiny Baltic state that for nearly two decades has battled a fentanyl epidemic so severe its overdose death rate was almost six times the European average.

Once fentanyl landed in Estonia, heroin disappeared. Even after poppies started growing again in Afghanistan and Estonian police choked off fentanyl supply in 2017, heroin didn’t come back. Instead, users turned to cocktails of other kinds of synthetic drugs, including amphetamines, alpha-PVP, a dangerous stimulant also known as flakka, and prescription drugs, harm reduction workers, users, public health officials and police told The Associated Press.



Video: Estonia won its war on fentanyl in 2017 after major police busts effectively cut off supply to the tiny nation. Overdose deaths plunged. But many users didn't return to heroin. Instead, they began injecting combinations of synthetic drugs. (March 26)

There are signs that the U.S. is on a similar path, tipping from plant-based drugs like heroin to synthetic ones like fentanyl and methamphetamine. That could herald big changes in global narcotics supply chains and cement the role of China -- an important source of illicit synthetic drugs -- as a vital link in the worldwide drug trafficking business.

“The trajectory is toward full synthetics,” said Daniel Ciccarone, a professor at University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, who researched heroin and opioid supply chains under a federally-funded study. “Name the major drug producers in world – Afghanistan, Colombia -- only people in the know would say China. Well, guess what? China.”

Fentanyls are easier to make and smuggle than heroin, and far more profitable to sell. One kilogram of fentanyl bought in China for $3,000 to $5,000 can generate over $1.5 million, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Fentanyl is also at least 30 times more potent, which can make it hard for users to return to heroin after getting used to the punch of synthetics.

“What happens after fentanyl is heroin doesn’t work anymore,” said Jaan Vaart, who used to use drugs and now runs a mobile outreach bus for Convictus, a harm reduction center in Tallinn. “Nobody wants to spend their money on water. Heroin was like injecting water after that.”

Dusk falls over Estonia's medieval capital, Tallinn, Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

HEALTH EXPERTS WARN: “BE AFRAID”

Estonia won its war on fentanyl in 2017. A massive law enforcement surveillance operation led to a clandestine laboratory hidden beneath a staircase in a brick home outside Tallinn. It was one of two major busts by police that year that effectively cut off fentanyl supplies to the tiny nation, which is roughly twice as big as New Hampshire. Police seized nearly 10 kilograms of fentanyl that year, up from 314 grams in 2016. Overdose deaths plunged after the busts.

What happened next took many by surprise.

Users unable to find good fentanyl didn’t return to heroin. Instead, they began injecting combinations of different synthetic drugs, including amphetamines, the opioids isotonitazene and tramadol, benzodiazepine sleeping pills and cathinones. Unidentifiable mystery drugs have also appeared.

“Something fishy is going on. They don’t like heroin after this. They prefer stimulants,” said Katri Abel-Ollo, a researcher at the center for addiction prevention of Estonia’s National Institute for Health Development. “They use different types of drugs, it’s like Lego construction. Our harm reduction workers say the mental state of patients is becoming worse and worse. They are unpredictable in how they behave.”

Ekaterina, a thin 30-year-old in methadone treatment, said if you know where to look you can still find fentanyl in Estonia. But people are increasingly into new things, especially something her friends call “crystal.”

She said crystal hits like a bunch of different drugs all at once. Her friend had the chemical formula for the main ingredient tattooed on her arm: C15H21NO, or alpha-PVP, the drug known as flakka.

“In Estonia, it’s new,” said Ekaterina, who did not want her last name published.

Flakka gained notoriety in the U.S. five years ago for the insane things it made people do: One user impaled himself on a fence. Another reportedly jumped off a bridge. A young woman in South Florida, also believed to be on flakka, ran through the streets naked and covered with blood screaming about God and Satan. After China banned the drug in late 2015, flakka use plummeted in the U.S.

New synthetics like flakka are bringing agitation and volatility to the streets of Estonia.

“A person who uses fentanyl compared to a person who uses alpha-PVP is still more in control,” said Aljona Kurbatova, head of the drug abuse prevention center at Estonia’s National Institute for Health Development. “They are mostly a danger to themselves, but with alpha-PVP, people don’t really control how they act.”

Looking ahead, Kurbatova sees two possibilities, neither good. Fentanyl comes storming back into Estonia and users with diminished tolerance overdose in droves. Another possibility is that alternative synthetics dominate the market, creating costly new health and social problems that Estonia’s drug treatment systems, calibrated to address opioid abuse, are ill-equipped to handle.

“Be afraid. Be very, very afraid,” she said. “It was so much easier when it was just heroin.”

Former drug-user turned councillor Jaan Vaart, sits inside the staff room at the Convictus drug rehabilitation center in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. After Fentanyl, "Heroin was like injecting water," he said. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

A GLOBAL NARCOTICS SHIFT

Supply and demand drivers are fueling the rise of synthetics in other countries as well, according to a sweeping 2019 analysis by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit policy research group headquartered in Los Angeles.

In U.S. regions with the most extensive exposure to fentanyl, synthetic opioids appear to be replacing heroin just as they did in Estonia, drug seizures and mortality data show. Rising overdose rates from methamphetamine, often with opioids present, and studies that show growing numbers of people taking both opioids and stimulants suggest users in the U.S. also may be turning to cocktails of synthetic drugs, as they did in Estonia.

In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio and West Virginia, per capita heroin seizures started falling around 2014, while seizures of synthetic opioids rose. By 2017, there were more fentanyl seizures than heroin seizures in all those states except West Virginia.

“It’s kind of all we see now,” said Brian Boyle, DEA special agent in charge of New England. “We do not just see pure heroin anymore.”

It’s a global trend. Illicit drug markets in Latvia and parts of Canada also appear to be tipping from heroin toward fentanyls, while in Finland, heroin has been largely replaced by the semi-synthetic opioid buprenorphine, according to RAND.

“This is a new dawn,” said Bryce Pardo, a lead author of RAND’s report. “It’s no longer plant-based.”

A young man waits for his methadone treatment at a rehabilitation center in Estonia's capital Tallinn on Friday, June 28, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

CHINA’S RISE ON THE SYNTHETIC DRUG FRONT

That shift is potentially bad news for Mexican poppy farmers and good news for unscrupulous chemists at clandestine Chinese labs.

The rise of e-commerce, darknet marketplaces and the cryptocurrency bitcoin helped China emerge as a global supplier of novel synthetic drugs. Before Chinese suppliers exported fentanyls and fentanyl precursors, they were selling cathinones, stimulants sometimes sold as “bath salts,” cannabinoids and sending methamphetamine precursors to super-labs in Mexico, according to U.S. and international law enforcement agencies and officials, as well as U.S. legal cases and U.S. Treasury Department sanctions.

“China has been doing this for the last ten years,” Pardo said. “The synthetic opioid phenomenon is one chapter in the new psychoactive substances saga.”

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says China’s vast, freewheeling chemicals industry is the largest source of synthetic opioids that end up in the U.S., either via mail directly or through Mexico.

Beijing disagrees. Chinese officials have lashed out at U.S. assertions that Chinese supply is at the root of America’s opioid problem and called for evidence to support claims that China is the top supplier.

DEA data shows that after China bans a specific kind of fentanyl, seizures of that substance in the United States drop, suggesting that China is a meaningful source of synthetic opioids. In May, China designated all kinds of fentanyls as a class of controlled substances, a move that appears to be having an impact.

“We are seeing less coming directly from China, and more fentanyl and precursors being routed through Mexico,” Mary Brandenberger, a DEA spokeswoman, said in an email.

Igor Smirnov sits inside a drug rehabilitation center with his councillor in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

The takedown of Estonia’s main Russia-linked fentanyl networks in 2017 did not appear to disrupt flows of fentanyl analogs, suggesting alternative supply chains may still be active.

“While fentanyl is reported to enter the country from Russia, the new fentanyl derivatives mainly originate in China,” according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction’s 2019 report on Estonian drug markets.

Estonian police told the AP they’d gathered a few investigative leads implicating Chinese sources but have struggled to trace supply chains definitively. Estonian customs said each year a handful of packages with synthetic drugs shipped directly from China are seized, but more may be transshipped via larger European countries.

China’s National Narcotics Control Commission told the AP that Estonian authorities have not asked for help. “We really have not received this kind of cooperation request from Estonian police, nor have we received contacts providing leads,” a NNCC spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, the volume of synthetic narcotics coming into Estonia by mail is growing and new psychoactive substances, or NPS, are proliferating.

“We see more and more drugs being sold in crypto markets and more and more drugs are being shipped by post,” said state prosecutor Vahur Verte. “We see the emergence of more and more NPS.”

Many long for the simpler days of heroin.

Today, Smirnov is in treatment and, like Estonia itself, is off fentanyl. He still yearns for a lost organic past, when he could head out into Estonia’s poppy fields and harvest the bulbs for a clean, natural high.

“Poppy liquid is better,” he said wistfully. “One hundred percent.”

Igor Smirnov leaves a drug rehabilitation center in Tallinn, Estonia on Thursday, June 27, 2019. (AP Photo/David Keyton)

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Associated Press newsperson Kali Robinson in Washington and researcher Chen Si in Shanghai contributed to this report.https://apnews.com/be15d6289f39b45742d598f6f65185ce

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Follow Kinetz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ekinetz

Rumors hampering fight against coronavirus in South Asia

By SHEIKH SAALIQ MARCH 28, 2020

In this Tuesday, March 24, 2020 photo, an Indian girl wearing a face mask as a precaution from coronavirus watches a video on the WhatsApp app in New Delhi, India. With the pandemic starting to gain a foothold in the region, social media are rife with bogus remedies, tales of magic cures and potentially hazardous medical advice. Experts are urging caution and say the “coronavirus infodemic” could have disastrous consequences. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup)

NEW DELHI (AP) — The message started with an outlandish claim: The coronavirus was retreating in India because of “cosmic-level sound waves” created by a collective cheer citizens had been asked to join.

Messages were pinging from phone to phone across this country of 1.3 billion saying the applause Prime Minister Narendra Modi had organized for health workers had been detected by a “bio-satellite” that confirmed the weakening of the virus.

Soon, Siddhart Sehgal’s family group chat on WhatsApp was buzzing with messages hailing Modi as India’s savior.

It of course wasn’t true.

In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, photo, Ringhuila Zimik, 26, smiles as she speaks about the rumor of medicine being sprayed from the sky to contain a new virus, in Shangshak village, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. "We all heard about it. I didn't know whether to believe it or not but stayed indoors anyway," she said. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. This battle has been hard to contain as social media continues to be rife with bogus remedies to tales of magic cure and potentially dangerous medical advice. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur)

As India and other South Asian nations work to stop the spread of the virus, they face another battle: reams of misinformation.

With the pandemic starting to gain a foothold in the region, social media sites are rife with bogus remedies, tales of magic cures and potentially hazardous medical advice. Experts are urging caution and warning that the “coronavirus infodemic” could have disastrous consequences.

Its a trend also seen elsewhere and governments around the world have been urging citizens not to listen to or spread rumors about the pandemic.

So far it hasn’t worked in South Asia, a region where online misinformation has in the past had deadly consequences such as lynchings, arson and communal riots where neighbors turn on one another.

On Tuesday, Indians were ordered to stay indoors for three weeks in the world’s biggest coronavirus lockdown. In announcing the move, Modi reiterated the danger of misinformation.

FILE - In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, families of roadside shopkeepers ring bell and clap to cheer health workers during 14-hour "people's curfew" called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to stem the rising coronavirus caseload, in New Delhi, India. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. The WhatsApp messaging app was flooded with claims that “cosmic level sound waves” generated by a collective cheer Modi had asked the country of 1.3 billion to participate in last Sunday had weakened the virus in India. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

“I appeal to you to beware of any kind of rumors or superstitions,” the prime minister said.

Earlier appeals against virus rumors have yet to prove effective.

Poultry sales in India plunged following false claims that chickens were linked to the pandemic. Racial attacks against people from the country’s northeastern states increased after rumors spread that they carried the virus.

On Sunday, people in a remote village in Manipur state locked themselves inside their homes because of rumors that fumigants were being sprayed from the sky to kill the virus.

The government has asked social media companies to launch awareness campaigns about virus misinformation. It also set up a government WhastApp channel where people can ask questions about the virus and vet claims they hear.

Still the falsehoods spread.

FILE - In this Thursday, March 5, 2020, file photo, an Indian doctor displays homeopathy medicine recommended by a group of experts under India's AYUSH ministry, that claims to prevent COVID-19, at a government hospital in Hyderabad, India. As South Asian nations, including India, brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. In India, a major challenge comes from advisories released by a parallel health ministry set up by the Modi government that promotes alternative therapies such as yoga and traditional Ayurveda medicine. The advisories by AYUSH recommend herbs and homeopathy as cures and prescribe virus prevention methods. These advisories have drawn widespread criticism. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)

On Monday, Amitabh Bachchan, a top Bollywood star who has more than 40 million Twitter followers, said clapping and blowing conch shells would “destroy virus potency.” He later deleted the tweet after facing criticism.

Elected representatives from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party have also offered bizarre claims of cures for the virus, ranging from cow urine and cow dung to cloves “energized by mantras.”

Rumors have spawned concerns elsewhere in the region as well.

In Bangladesh, some clerics claimed Muslims would not be affected by the virus and exhorted tens of thousands of people to gather for a mass prayer last week despite concerns about the health risk.

One preacher claimed to have interviewed — in his dream — a man in Italy to obtain a cure for the virus.

When a journalist at a leading private television station reported about the misinformation, he received death threats.

“We are monitoring and doing our part, but it (misinformation) comes from various sources, one after another,” said Zakir Hossain, a spokesman for the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. “This is a huge task.”

Pakistan too has had to fight against religious leaders urging the devout to attend prayers and promising their faith will protect them. A cleric in Lahore made a video saying it was impossible to catch the virus while praying and said he should be hanged if he were wrong. Police arrested him instead and he made another video urging people to take the pandemic seriously and wash their hands.

FILE - In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, people clap from balconies in a show of appreciation to health care workers during a 14-hour "people's curfew" called by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in order to stem the rising coronavirus caseload, at a Chawl in Mumbai, India. As India and other South Asian nations brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. The WhatsApp messaging app was flooded with claims that “cosmic level sound waves” generated by a collective cheer Modi had asked the country of 1.3 billion to participate in last Sunday had weakened the virus in India. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

On the outskirts of Islamabad the army was called in to shut down a mosque after its prayer leader despite exhibiting symptoms kept his mosque open.

In Sri Lanka, authorities warned that legal action will be taken against people who spread false information over social media. Several people have been arrested.

Pakistan has been the worst hit South Asian nation with some 1,200 virus cases reported. India has reported more than 725.

For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in a few weeks. But for some it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death.

There are concerns that if cases were to surge in South Asia, it would overwhelm already strained health systems.

Sumaiya Shaikh, an editor for fact-checking website ALT News, has been tracking misinformation on messaging apps in India since before the pandemic.

In January, when the virus was still largely limited to China, Shaikh said India experienced a deluge of false WhatsApp messages claiming that Chinese police were shooting people suspected of having the disease.

When India started having cases, rumors about cures began, Shaikh said.

“This misinformation has reached a critical mass and is jeopardizing public health,” she said.

The search for accurate virus information in India is complicated by advice issued by a parallel health ministry, the Ministry of AYUSH, created in 2014 by Modi to promote alternative therapies such as yoga and traditional Ayurveda medicine.

The ministry has recommended herbs and homeopathy as cures for the virus, along with frequent sipping of water boiled with basil leaves, crushed ginger and turmeric.

P.C. Joshi, a medical anthropologist at the University of Delhi, said that advice “falls into the category of misinformation which can be hazardous for public health.”

The ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

The messages spreading online, often shared among friends and relatives, have unnerved many Indians who don’t know whether to take them seriously.

When the messages claiming that the virus was retreating in India spread on WhatsApp, members of the Sehgal family wanted to leave their home and join others outside celebrating. But Siddhart stopped them.

“My family usually believes whatever they get on WhatsApp regarding the virus,” he said. “It’s hard to explain to them that most of it is fake.

FILE- In this Sunday, March 22, 2020, file photo, a woman walks her dog, as most people in this mountain village stayed indoors with fears of a rumor of medicine being sprayed from the sky to contain the new virus, in Shangshak village, in the northeastern Indian state of Manipur. As South Asian nations, including India, brace for the likely spread of the virus, they are facing another battle: reams of misinformation, misleading rumors and false claims. This battle has been hard to contain as social media continues to be rife with bogus remedies to tales of magic cure and potentially dangerous medical advice. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur)

Associated Press writers Julhas Alam in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Bharatha Mallawarachi in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Yirmiyan Arthur in Manipur, India, and Kathy Gannon and Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Widow of Yuri Gagarin, first human in space, dies at 84
March 17, 2020

FILE - In this Tuesday, April 5, 2011 file photo, an undated photo of the first man in space Yuri Gagarin and his wife Valentina is on a display at the upper house of Russian parliament in Moscow, Russia. The widow of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly to space, has died at the age of 84. Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced Valentina Gagarina's death Tuesday, March 17, 2020 in a short statement, offering condolences to her relatives. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)
MOSCOW (AP) — The widow of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly to space, died Tuesday. She was 84.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced Valentina Gagarina’s death in a short statement, offering condolences to her relatives. It didn’t give any details about the cause or circumstances of her death.

Born Valentina Goryacheva, she married Gagarin in 1957. After Gagarin’s pioneering April 12, 1961 space flight she appeared alongside him at official events but mostly sought to avoid the limelight.

Following Gagarin’s 1968 death in an air crash, Gagarina worked as a biochemical experts at the Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow. She dodged the media but published a book of memoirs about her husband.
FILE - In this Thursday, Sept. 6, 1962 file photo, Russian spaceman Major Yuri Gagarin replaces his cap, and a footman helps his wife, Valentina, with her coat, as they leave after visiting King Frederik of Denmark in Copenhagen, Denmark. The widow of Yuri Gagarin, the first human to fly to space, has died at the age of 84. Russia's space agency Roscosmos announced Valentina Gagarina's death Tuesday, March 17, 2020 in a short statement, offering condolences to her relatives. (AP Photo, File)

NATIONALIZE PG&E
PG&E to use wildfire victims fund to pay for past crimes

MARCH 27, 2020

In this photo taken Feb. 18, 2020, people walk behind a Pacific Gas and Electric truck parked in San Francisco. The stock market turmoil triggered by the coronavirus pandemic is raising worries that Pacific Gas & Electric's $13.5 billion settlement with victims of catastrophic wildfires may be worth far less by the time the beleaguered company emerges from bankruptcy. A lawyer who represents more than 81,000 wildfire victims flagged the escalating concerns during a Wednesday, March 25, 2020, court hearing held by conference call. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — Pacific Gas & Electric is warning its elaborate plan for getting out of bankruptcy might collapse if the utility can’t pay for its crimes in a deadly Northern California wildfire by taking money away from a fund set up to compensate thousands of victims for their losses.

The latest twist in an already complicated saga emerged this week after PG&E disclosed it will plead guilty to 84 felony counts of involuntary manslaughter for neglecting to properly maintain equipment that ignited a 2018 wildfire that destroyed three towns in Butte County.


PG&E will pay a $4 million penalty as part of the plea agreement, but plans to do so by drawing upon a $13.5 billion settlement that it reached with wildfire victims as part of its bankruptcy case.

Although the $4 million represents a tiny fraction of the $13.5 billion fund, the notion that PG&E may be siphoning away any money earmarked for fire victims to pay for its criminal behavior is provoking more outrage about a company already widely unpopular for its role in other catastrophic wildfires, a malfunctioning gas line that blew up a neighborhood, and its bungling of power outages.

“It is my sincere hope that PG&E finds another way to pay the penalty because it’s not what I want, and it certainly doesn’t look good for PG&E in terms of the public relations or the overall optics,” Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey told The Associated Press.

Ramsey, though, said he has no control over over where PG&E gets the money to pay the fine.

PG&E also says its hands are tied by a clause included in the settlement with wildfire victims that won bankruptcy court approval three months ago. The provision requires all fines and other penalties arising from the wildfires that drove PG&E into bankruptcy last year be paid from the victims’ fund.

If PG&E doesn’t abide by the settlement terms, the company said it could cause other deals reached in its complex case to unravel. In addition to the victims’ fund, PG&E has negotiated another $12 billion in settlements with insurers and government agencies, and also has lined up commitments to raise tens of billions of dollars through stock sales and loans to help the company continue to operate after it gets out of bankruptcy. PG&E also expects to pay $1.6 billion to the lawyers, bankers and other specialists that help it put together its bankruptcy deals.


Any revisions to its past settlements “risks investors walking away from their commitments to provide the funding essential to the company’s ability to make payments to victims,” PG&E said in a statement Friday.

But PG&E already has made several other changes to its plan since reaching the settlement with wildfire victims. The latest, reached with Gov. Gavin Newsom, came just a week ago. PG&E left the crack open for making a change that would allow it to pay its criminal penalty without tapping into the victims’ fund if it can get “the necessary consents.”

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali has made it clear throughout the case that he is unlikely to approve any plan that doesn’t pay the wildfire victims as much as possible. The judge could still prevent PG&E from using the victims’ fund to pay its criminal fine.

Some of the more than 81,000 victims who filed claims in PG&E’s bankruptcy case already have been raising doubts about whether the $13.5 billion will be enough to pay everyone for the losses of loved ones and property in a series of 2017 and 2018 fire that killed nearly 130 people and destroyed more than 25,000 homes and other buildings. Two of the victims, Kirk Trostle and Adolfo Veronese, recently resigned from a 11-person committee overseeing people’s claims in the bankruptcy case because of their misgivings over the settlement with PG&E.

S.D. Gov. Kristi  Noem signs hemp and other bills, but says budget in doubt

MARCH 27,2020

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Kristi Noem on Friday signed 15 bills that allocate millions of dollars to South Dakota programs, including industrial hemp, but offered no guarantee on whether the funding would remain after the state reworks its budget in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Noem said the budget allocations likely depend on how much money the state gets from the federal government in a stimulus bill. The bills give millions of dollars to an industrial hemp program, repairing abandoned natural gas wells, a veteran’s cemetery, a School of Health Sciences building at the University of South Dakota and expanding broadband services to rural communities.

“I’m signing these 15 bills with one caveat — we may need to come back in June and make drastic changes to both the current budget and next year’s fiscal year budget,” Noem said in a statement.

In the 15 days since the Legislature finalized the state budget, the state’s economic outlook has changed drastically due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Lawmakers will meet via teleconference on Monday to consider action on the four bills the governor has vetoed. Noem is also asking them to act on a series of emergency bills to address the coronavirus crisis.

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Water shutoffs in sharp focus amid coronavirus outbreak

By KAT STAFFORD MARCH 27,2020


Rabbi Yosef Chesed, left, helps unload bottled water being donated from Lorie Lutz, right, at the Brightmoor Connection Food Pantry in Detroit, Monday, March 23, 2020. The global coronavirus pandemic has brought water shutoffs in Detroit and in communities across the nation into sharp focus again amid a crucial time when officials are urging Americans to practice social distancing and basic hand-washing techniques to stop the spread of COVID-19. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

DETROIT (AP) — The advice is simple and universal: Washing your hands with soap and water is one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of the coronavirus. But for millions of people across the country, that’s not simple at all: They lack running water in their houses due to service shutoffs prompted by overdue bills.

The Rev. Roslyn Bouier remembers when children began to show up at the Brightmoor Connection Food Pantry on Detroit’s northwest side, clutching empty pitchers. It was the summer of 2014 and the kids were parched. But their thirst didn’t come from playing outside — they had no water at home.


That was the year the city of Detroit started its water shutoff campaign, turning off water to 28,500 residential accounts behind on payments. Through the end of 2019, the city has recorded about 127,500 total service cutoffs, according to the water department, though that figure includes households where the water was turned off repeatedly.

“In this pandemic, it’s the people who are living on the margins of society and the poorest of our society that’s being the most adversely impacted,” Bouier said.

Michigan has the sixth-highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, according to Johns Hopkins University’s data tracking of the disease. The state has reported 3,657 cases and 92 deaths as of Friday afternoon. Detroit leads Michigan with 1,075 cases and 23 deaths.

We the People of Detroit co-founder Monica Lewis-Patrick said her organization, which has campaigned for years to end shutoffs, has struggled to find bottled water to deliver to families without service because supplies are being hoarded.

“Water is locked down,” Lewis-Patrick said. “Many people have been texting and emailing me to say ‘What else can we do?’ The world is crying out that there must be a turning on of the water.”

Water advocates and elected officials argue that it’s impossible for families to follow the hygienic coronavirus standards outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization when they don’t have water in their homes. And members of Congress and national organizations are pushing for federal legislation and other action to protect residents facing high water bills and shutoffs amid the crisis.

House Democrats released proposed legislation Monday that included a $1.5 billion allocation to help cover water bills for low-income families and also would ban utility shutoffs during the pandemic.

Rev. Roslyn Bouier, Director of the Brightmoor Connection Food Pantry prepares bags of food in Detroit, Monday, March 23, 2020. The global coronavirus pandemic has brought water shutoffs in Detroit and in communities across the nation into sharp focus again amid a crucial time when officials are urging Americans to practice social distancing and basic hand-washing techniques to stop the spread of COVID-19.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Michigan U.S. Congress members Rashida Tlaib, Debbie Dingell and Dan Kildee also sent a letter to the congressional leadership Wednesday, signed by 80 members, urging them to take action, citing Detroit’s water shutoffs and the longstanding water crisis in nearby Flint, where lead leached into the municipal water supply. The allocation was not part of Friday’s approved $2.2 trillion rescue package, so Tlaib is pushing for another bill to address shutoffs.

A White House official said Thursday that Wayne County, which includes Detroit, could be the next hotspot for COVID-19.

The coronavirus has sickened more than 566,000 people and killed more than 25,000 people worldwide. For most people, it causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. But for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

Water shutoffs have been recorded in all 50 states, according to Mary Grant, director of the Food & Water Action’s Public Water for All Campaign.

Grant said her organization has tracked 417 municipalities and states that have issued moratoriums on the shutoffs, including the state of New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the suspension of utility shutoffs March 13. The group estimates the moratoriums protect more than 142 million Americans from disconnections — or more than 40% of the U.S. population.

In Alaska, the Rural Utility Collaborative advisory committee, which manages water systems for 26 communities, just voted to immediately reconnect running water to homes cut off for not paying their bills.

“Hand-washing is the No. 1 prevention for spreading any illness,” said Francine Moreno, the utility’s senior program manager.

Grant’s group is calling for the moratoriums to be extended nationwide.

“At a time when we’re hearing the federal government, the CDC, our governors say ‘wash your hands,’ for people who have lost their water service because they can’t afford the water bill, they can’t take these measures,” she said.

A team of independent experts affiliated with the United Nations Human Rights Council has called on governments around the world to end water cuts.

“The global struggle against the pandemic has little chance to succeed if personal hygiene, the main measure to prevent contagion, is unavailable to the 2.2 billion persons who have no access to safe water services,” the experts said.

While many U.S. communities have announced moratoriums, the city of Detroit is one of the few to have a specific plan to turn on the water, announcing a program March 9 that would restore service for $25 a month.

The city has restored water to more than 840 homes, with about 190 work orders still pending, but does not know the exact number of homes without service, the water department said. An official said the city plans to reach out to 5,400 houses “out of abundance of caution.”

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Monday that he hopes service will be restored to all within the next two weeks, with crews working around the clock.

But some question the plan’s ambitious timeline and stipulations. After the COVID-19 outbreak passes, residents will be responsible for the full bill and any past due amounts incurred, though the city says individuals would be enrolled in plans to keep “water service affordable” afterward.

Nick Leonard, the executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said the center has asked the Michigan Department of Human Services to immediately require all the state’s public water systems to turn water on, provide service at a flat rate no greater than $25 a month as long as COVID-19 is classified as a pandemic, and prevent them from assessing or collecting deferred payments for service provided during the crisis.

“At this point, it’s a bigger public health question now than it’s ever been,” Leonard said.

A spokesperson said the state is reviewing the most recent request and “believes that water is critical to ensuring the public health and safety of Michiganders.”

Already, an additional 150 accounts in Detroit have been unable to be restored because the homes need significant plumbing repairs.

Black and Hispanic households are more likely to have incomplete plumbing in their households, according to a 2019 study by Shiloh Deitz & Katie Meehan. African Americans account for just 12.8% of U.S. households, but 16.6% of households with incomplete plumbing.

Of U.S. cities larger than 100,000 households, San Francisco has the highest number without plumbing facilities with 2.5%, followed by Detroit with 1.1%, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

California grassroots organizer Crystal Huang noted that even though the Bay Area is one of the richest regions in the U.S. “a lot of people, especially service workers, still have to work two or three jobs and are still barely able to survive.”

“I think it’s a very common reality across the country,” she said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Tlaib, the Michigan congresswomen, echoed that the problem stretches beyond Detroit.

“These are front-line communities and neighborhoods that haven’t actually recovered since the Great Recession,” she said. “And now with the coronavirus, they are going to be hurt the most if we don’t do something very aggressively and with a sense of urgency.”

Drugmaker backpedals on specialty status for COVID-19 drug

By MATTHEW PERRONE March 25, 2020

FILE - In this July 9, 2015, file photo, a man walks outside the headquarters of Gilead Sciences in Foster City, Calif. Gilead Sciences said Wednesday, March 25, 2020 it will give up the specialty status it received days earlier for its COVID-19 drug amid public outrage that the company was seeking to boost the profits of its treatment. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing public criticism, the maker of a promising coronavirus drug said Wednesday it will waive a special regulatory designation that could have allowed it to block competition and boost profits for its treatment.

Gilead Sciences said it will ask U.S. regulators to revoke the so-called “orphan drug” status it received for its experimental drug remdesivir. The status would have entitled the company to financial incentives and exclusive marketing intended for rare disease treatments.

The Food and Drug Administration granted the company’s request for the designation on Monday, noting that COVID-19 qualified as a rare disease under U.S. rules, since fewer than 200,000 Americans are infected.

But experts and public advocates blasted Gilead for seeking the status.

“COVID-19 is anything but a rare disease,” stated a letter sent to the company earlier Wednesday by more than 50 consumer and patient advocacy groups. The groups noted that millions of Americans are expected to eventually be infected with the virus. As of Wednesday, cases in the U.S. topped 61,000.

Gilead said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that it asked the FDA to rescind the orphan drug designation and that the company “recognizes the urgent public health needs posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Currently, there are no FDA-approved drugs, vaccines or specific treatments for the coronavirus. A few existing and experimental drugs are being studied, and vaccines are being developed.

Remdesivir, originally developed for Ebola, is being tested in at least five experiments. The drug interferes with viral reproduction and has shown some promise in lab and animal studies against other coronaviruses that cause similar diseases, MERS and SARS.

The drug has been given to hundreds of COVID-19 patients thus far, but rigorous studies are needed to determine if it works before it is approved.

Congress created the orphan drug program more than 35 years ago to encourage companies to develop drugs for niche diseases and conditions Since then, filing for the program has become a standard industry tactic.

Under FDA rules, manufacturers of orphan drugs receive seven years of exclusive U.S. marketing rights and tax credits on their research and development costs.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

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Maine sail-maintenance shop turns to sewing medical masks
MARCH 27, 2020

In this Monday, March 23, 2020, photo, Karen Haley cuts cotton fabric for masks to be given to caregivers during the coronavirus outbreak, at the North Sails shop in Freeport, Maine. The sail-maintenance business has converted part of its operation towards stitching masks instead of sails. Owner Eric Baldwin stitches masks in background. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

NEW YORK (AP) — On the coast of Maine, Eric Baldwin and his staff of two usually spend their days selling, repairing and washing sails for boats. They transform their surplus sailcloth into tote bags to bring in extra money.

But when the coronavirus outbreak slowed business, they turned their industrial sewing machines to a new task: making cotton masks for caregivers and others who need protection from the disease.

“We wanted to do something to give back,” Baldwin said from his North Sails workshop in the small village of South Freeport, about 20 miles north of Portland. “Doing something like this just makes you feel good.”

In this Monday, March 23, 2020 photo, Eric Baldwin examines the stitching on a cotton mask, one of hundreds he and the employees at his sail-maintenance business are making for caregivers during the coronavirus outbreak, at his shop in Freeport, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

The 53-year-old Baldwin, who has operated his shop, known as a loft, for about 25 years, got the idea from employee Karen Haley. They went to w
ork immediately and are now shipping to recipients as far away as Arizona after word spread on social media that masks were available.
“People are out there just pleading for masks and have no supplies. Eric immediately said yes,” Haley said.

Haley’s mother is a quilter. She raided her mom’s stash of cotton remnants to turn into double-ply rectangles called for by a mask pattern they found on a hospital website. Baldwin’s former wife got a Jo-Ann fabric store to provide elastic at a discount.





Although they still have orders to fill for totes and sails, a portion of each day is dedicated to masks. Baldwin’s other worker, Alan Platner, volunteered to sew masks at home as well.

The trio have divided labor according to skill set. Haley is on cutting.

“I do not sew, actually,” she laughed.

Baldwin chuckled, “Just the men sew here.”



In this Monday, March 23, 2020, photo, cotton masks to be given to caregivers battling the coronavirus outbreak are stacked on a table at the North Sails shop in Freeport, Maine. The sail-maintenance business has converted part of its operation towards stitching masks instead of sails. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Baldwin hired Haley to help run the tote side of the business nearly two years ago. Turning sailcloth into totes was a side gig he came up with during the 2008 recession to shore up his business and avoid having to lay off his tiny staff.

Now he faces uncertainty once again as the economic toll of the health crisis plays out.

“I have every intention of keeping both of these people employed, and we’re not at a point yet where that’s even close to being in jeopardy, but I do think in terms of the tote business. I would be shocked if that picks up. We’re essentially missing the tourist season,” Baldwin said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fabric masks are an option when other supplies have been exhausted. The world’s flow of masks has slowed to a trickle during the pandemic.


In this Monday, March 23, 2020 photo, Eric Baldwin, right, helps Alan Pratner fold a sail at North Sails in Freeport, Maine. The sail-maintenance business has converted part of its operation towards stitching masks instead of sails. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)


Baldwin and his crew join a wealth of volunteers around the globe churning out fabric masks that can be washed and reused. Their work has been met by an outpouring of gratitude from recipients.

“The response from the people has been overwhelming,” Haley said. “They’ve been so appreciative of what we’re doing. The recipients include a woman who works for the Department of Homeland Security whose husband is an EMT. Others are nurses and nursing assistants. One is a social worker who makes home visits.”

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover.

Full Coverage: One Good Thing

Baldwin estimates he and his crew have enough materials for up to 500 masks. There’s been a run on elastic so when their stash is gone they might have to quit. He’s scrounging for more.

Even if he’s no longer able to produce the masks in Maine, the effort is likely to continue elsewhere. Baldwin put out the word to other North Sails lofts around the country, letting them know what he was doing. Four have already offered to begin making masks, including shops in San Diego, Chicago and Annapolis, Maryland.

On the sail side, the three have work in house but new sales have dried up, and other customers have put their orders on hold.

“People aren’t necessarily thinking about their boats,” Baldwin said.

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While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus have become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. “One Good Thing” is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.

Veterinarians donate vital supplies to coronavirus fightTHE BEST HEALTHCARE MONEY CAN BUY

March 25, 2020

In this March 24, 2020, photo, a woman walks past a dog sculpture on the campus of the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh, N.C. The school is one of several vet schools around the country that have donated breathing machines, masks and other supplies to their human health-care counterparts in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)

RALEIGH, NC (AP) — Veterinary hospitals are donating breathing machines, masks, gowns and other vital equipment and supplies purchased with Fido in mind, but now being redeployed to help doctors fight the spread of COVID-19 among humans.

“We buy at the same stores,” said Paul Lunn, dean of the North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh, which on Monday turned over two full-service ventilators, 500 protective suits and 950 masks for use in area hospitals. “There’s no difference in the equipment.”

In response to a call last week by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue for materials to combat the pandemic, vet schools from North Carolina to Colorado to New York are stepping up.
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There are 30 fully accredited veterinary medical schools in 26 states, according to the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges. Of those, 27 have veterinary teaching hospitals with comprehensive services treating everything from pet cats and dogs to horses and other large animals. Lunn said the schools have identified more than six dozen ventilators that could be commandeered for human treatment.

The 2009 outbreak of H1N1 influenza had veterinarians readying to help in this kind of emergency, he added: “This isn’t the first time we’ve prepared for this, although it’s the first time in my personal experience that we’ve actually had to pull the trigger.”




Private institutions are also heeding the call.

Dr. Virginia Sinnott-Stutzman, chair of the Infection Control Committee at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston, said members of the Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society have identified about 100 full-service ventilators that can provide long term breathing support. She said there are also hundreds more relatively simple anesthesia ventilators — “basically like an automated hand squeezing a bag ... to get air into the patient” — nationwide that could be pressed into service, though it amounts to just a dent in the overall need with officials saying tens thousands of ventilators are needed in New York alone.

“While that may not seem like a lot, if it’s, you know, your grandmother, spouse that gets that ventilator, we’re hoping it can save a life,” she said.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. The vast majority of people recover

Experts say there is no evidence that household pets can contract the disease.

The Colorado State University vet school delivered to Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins a breathing machine that was “brand new, right out of the box,” professor Tim Hackett said. “We did not get a chance to use it.”

And in New York, the hardest-hit place in the United States by the new coronavirus, the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine has loaned two full-service ventilators and a high-flow oxygen unit to a hospital in Manhattan. It is also preparing to send three full-service breathing machines and 19 of the smaller anesthesia ventilators to Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca, where the vet school is located.

Dean Lorin Warnick, whose institution has also provided hundreds of respirator and surgical masks, and testing materials, said the college is providing only essential emergency service to animal patients and following FDA guidelines on conserving protective equipment.

The aim, Warnick said, is “to make sure we can divert as much of our supply as possible to human health care.”

Beyond equipment and supplies, veterinarians are looking to help out with operating and bed space, and even to detail staffers to coronavirus duty.
Full Coverage: One Good Thing

“We also made contingency plans to go a lot further,” Lunn said. To provide our people … as technical experts who could work under the supervision of medical doctors, possibly to provide our physical facility. Because we have large hospital spaces with piped oxygen and a variety of other medical supplies.”

Hackett said the veterinary and human health systems already collaborate a lot.

“There are times we have to run over there and get drugs that we don’t carry, pieces of equipment or parts,” he said. “They’ve always been very open. So it’s really, it’s really nice to be able to pay that back.”

Kevin Unger, president and CEO of Poudre Valley, said he’s heard stories animals coming to its facilities after hours for CAT scans and MRIs, and agreed it’s a relationship that “goes both ways.”

“Colorado State really stepped up in a big way,” he said. “Go Rams!”

But fear not for the nation’s furry critters — Warnick and others said they have retained enough equipment to care for people’s pets.

“They are really part of the family,” Warnick said. “We are in it together.”

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While nonstop global news about the effects of the coronavirus have become commonplace, so, too, are the stories about the kindness of strangers and individuals who have sacrificed for others. “One Good Thing” is an AP continuing series reflecting these acts of kindness.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support from the Lilly Endowment through the Religion News Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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More time sought for public input on nuclear fuel proposal

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN March 21, 2020

FILE - In this April 29, 2015, file photo, an illustration depicts a planned interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in southeastern New Mexico as officials announce plans to pursue the project during a news conference at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque, N.M. Federal regulators are recommending licensing a proposed multibillion-dollar complex in southern New Mexico that would temporarily store spent fuel from commercial nuclear reactors around the United States. But the preliminary recommendation of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is making waves with critics who say the agency did not look closely enough at potential conflicts with locating the facility in the heart of one of the nation's busiest oil and gas basins. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)


ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation are requesting that federal regulators extend the public comment period for an environmental review related to a multibillion-dollar complex that would store spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants around the United States.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently issued a preliminary recommendation, favoring approval of a license for Holtec International to build the facility in southeastern New Mexico.

The comment period is set at 60 days, but the New Mexico congressional leaders say that should be extended and any public meetings delayed given the health emergency that has resulted from the new coronavirus.


“The proposal to store high-level nuclear waste has prompted a great deal of public interest across New Mexico,” they wrote in a letter sent Friday to the commission chairman. “The concerns are driven in part by the prospect that any temporary storage facility will remain in the state indefinitely while a pathway for permanent disposal for high-level radioactive waste is identified.”

It wasn’t immediately clear if the commission would entertain the request, as the federal government is moving ahead with numerous rule-makings and comment periods involving other government projects.

New Jersey-based Holtec International is seeking a 40-year license to build what it has described as a state-of-the-art complex near Carlsbad. The first phase calls for storing up to 8,680 metric tons of uranium, which would be packed into 500 canisters. Future expansion could make room for as many as 10,000 canisters of spent nuclear fuel.

Holtec said the U.S. currently has more than 80,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel in storage at dozens of sites around the country and the inventory is growing at a rate of about 2,000 metric tons per year.

The NRC staff’s preliminary recommendation states there are no environmental impacts that would preclude the commission from issuing a license for environmental reasons. That recommendation was based on a review of Holtec’s application and consultation with local, state, tribal and federal officials.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and other top elected officials are among those who have long had concerns about the potential environmental effects and the prospects of the state becoming a permanent dumping ground for spent nuclear fuel because the federal government lacks a permanent plan for what to do with the waste piling up at power plants around the country.


The governor and others also have questions about whether the facility would compromise oil and gas development in the Permian Basin, one of the world’s most prolific energy production regions.

There were a handful of public meetings in 2018, and another round was set to begin in the coming weeks.

“NRC has been running on auto-pilot to approve the Holtec license application, but hopefully this letter from the delegation will help them to wake up to the pandemic,” said Don Hancock with the watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center.

The governor has issued several orders in recent days limiting public gatherings as restaurants and other businesses have been forced to cutback their operations as part of the state’s efforts to curb the spread of the virus.

U.S. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Ben Ray Lujan, Deb Haaland and Xochitl Torres Small all signed Friday’s letter to the commission. They’re asking that regulators wait for the threat of COVID-19 to pass and to schedule public meetings at locations around New Mexico to allow ample opportunity for full participation.