Farmer returns prosthetic leg that skydiver lost during jump

Farmer Joe Marszalkowski holds a prosthetic leg, Monday, July 27, 2020, that he found Sunday in a soybean field on his farm in West Addison, Vt. The leg was lost by double amputee Chris Marckres while skydiving on Saturday. (Jack Thurston/NECN and NBC10 Boston via AP)

WEST ADDISON, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont skydiver who lost his prosthetic leg during a jump has it back, thanks to a farmer who kept an eye out for it and spotted it in a soybean field.

Double amputee Chris Marckres, of Hyde Park, went for a jump Saturday at Vermont Skydiving Adventures in West Addison and lost one of his prosthetic legs after leaping from the plane.

“I think my adrenaline was so high and I was just so excited, I didn’t realize I had lost it,” Marckres told NECN and NBC10 Boston.

Marckres, who was harnessed to an instructor, landed safely.

He then put out the word on social media that he’d lost his leg. Farmer Joe Marszalkowski saw the post before finding the prosthetic on Sunday in a soybean field. Beyond a few scratches, it was undamaged.

“You’ve always got to keep an eye out,” said Marszalkowski, who compared the discovery to a needle in a haystack. He said he was grateful he found the leg without running it over with a machine during the fall harvest.

“Or, God forbid, the combine sucked it up — it would’ve destroyed it,” Marszalkowski said.

Marckres said losing his leg turned into a positive experience.

“We kind of take for granted sometimes how many truly good people there still are in the world,” he said.

DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER

Fauci says Marlins’ virus outbreak could endanger MLB season

HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE

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Miami Marlins' manager Don Mattingly looks out from the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Saturday, July 25, 2020, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

MIAMI (AP) — The Miami Marlins’ coronavirus outbreak could endanger the Major League Baseball season, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday, although he doesn’t believe games need to stop now.

More than a dozen Marlins players and staff members tested positive for COVID-19, and four games have been postponed, raising anew questions about MLB’s attempts to conduct a season.

“This could put it in danger,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. “I don’t believe they need to stop, but we just need to follow this and see what happens with other teams on a day-by-day basis.”

Fauci made his comments on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“Major League Baseball — the players, the owners, the managers — have put a lot of effort into getting together and putting protocols that we feel would work,” Fauci said. “It’s very unfortunate what happened with the Miami (Marlins).”

Their outbreak continued to disrupt Major League Baseball’s schedule Tuesday, the sixth day of the pandemic-delayed season. Postponed for the second consecutive day were the Marlins’ home game against Baltimore, as well as the New York Yankees’ game at Philadelphia, a person familiar with the decision told The Associated Press.

Miami played at Philadelphia last weekend. The Yankees are scheduled to host the Phillies on Wednesday and Thursday.

Nine Marlins players on the 30-man roster, two taxi squad players and two staff members tested positive, a person familiar with the situation told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because the results hadn’t been publicly disclosed. The outbreak left the Marlins stranded in Philadelphia.

“Obviously, we don’t want any player to get exposed. It’s not a positive thing,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said on the MLB Network. “But I don’t see it as a nightmare. ... We think we can keep people safe and continue to play.”

The Orioles, who made a trip to Miami without playing a game, are scheduled to host the Marlins in a two-game series starting Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Chicago White Sox manager Rick Renteria will be kept away from his team after experiencing a “slight cough and nasal congestion,” general manager Rick Hahn said. Tests were planned.

The Marlins outbreak was the talk of baseball, and Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez choked on his words as he discussed the situation. Martinez missed time last season because of a heart condition, and the Nationals are scheduled to play in Miami this weekend.

“I’m going to be honest with you: I’m scared,” Martinez said. “My level of concern went from about an eight to a 12. I mean this thing really hits home now. ... I got guys in our clubhouse that are really concerned, as well.”

The Marlins placed infielder Garrett Cooper, outfielder Harold Ramírez and right-hander José Ureña on the injured list. They claimed right-hander Justin Shafer and left-hander Josh Smith off waivers from Cincinnati, and will likely rely heavily on reinforcements from their training camp in Jupiter, Florida.

Manfred said there are factors that would force MLB to alter plans.

“A team losing a number of players that rendered it completely non-competitive would be an issue that we would have to address and have to think about making a change,” he said. “Whether that was shutting down a part of the season, the whole season, that depends on the circumstances. Same thing with respect to league-wide. You get to a certain point league-wide where it does become a health threat, and we certainly would shut down at that point.”

MLB and the union held talks Monday after aspects of the protocols were widely ignored during the season’s first four days, such as the prohibitions on high-fives and other physical celebrations.

The NBA and NHL plan to resume their seasons in bubble environments, with basketball at Lake Buena Vista, Florida, and hockey at Edmonton, Alberta, and Toronto.

“The NBA and the NHL have an advantage: smaller numbers of players, shorter period of time,” Manfred said. “I understand why they did what they did. I’m just not sure it was workable for us.”

The NFL has opted not to create a bubble environment as training camps open for the coming season.

“It might be that they have to go in a bubble,” Fauci said, “but I think they’re conscientious enough and want to protect their players and protect the personnel that they will do the right thing.”

___

Associated Press writers Ronald Blum in New York, Rob Maaddi in Philadelphia and Howard Fendrich and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.

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Cosmetology students, hairstylists describe a race divide

WHITE, BLUE OR PINK, NO MATTER THE COLOUR OF YOUR COLLAR

WE ARE ALL PROLETARIANS NOW!

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FILE - Steam rises as a hair stylist works on a model prior to a show displaying the Tom Ford collection during Fashion Week on Feb. 6, 2019, in New York. People of color in the industry trace bias and discrimination in predominantly white salons to the sidelining of formal education focused on Black hair. Horror stories are not uncommon, from outright refusal of service to botched treatments and cuts by stylists who don't know what they're doing. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — After repeatedly being denied service by high-end salons because her hair was perceived as “too difficult” to style, Kanessa Alexander took an unusual step. She opened a shop of her own in a predominantly white Boston neighborhood with four Black stylists serving all hair textures.

“I wanted to be someplace where we existed but were not represented,” the African American cosmetologist said of her decision five years ago to set up Perfect 10 in West Roxbury, near where she grew up. “So many salons were just seeing a Black person.”

As a racial reckoning unfolds around the globe, Alexander and more than a dozen other people of color in the beauty industry trace such bias and discrimination in mostly white salons to the sidelining of formal education on tightly curled, coiled or kinky hair.

The lack of experience, or interest, is particularly acute when it comes to hair worn naturally, a growing trend among African American women who want to celebrate both personal identity and Black culture.

“They didn’t learn Black hair. They’ve been taught Black hair is difficult,” Alexander said. “Nobody will come in here and hear that their hair is too difficult.”

(Isis Alexander via AP)

About 25 miles from Alexander’s salon, in mostly white Westborough, Massachusetts, Damalyn Matthews knows the struggle firsthand. Matthews, who is white and Native American, has three children with her African American husband. She recently sent her two oldest, ages 7 and 5, to her regular salon, a Supercuts, with her 21-year-old niece, who is white.

A white stylist grumbled that the children’s race should have been disclosed when the appointments were made because: “We don’t cut Black people’s hair here,” Matthews said. While service wasn’t denied, the remark and others like it made by the stylist led to her termination and an apology from the salon.

“The part that bothered me the most is there were two other hairstylists standing there. Neither one of them said anything, nor reported it,” Matthews said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Such stories are not uncommon, from outright refusals to botched treatments and cuts by stylists who don’t know what they’re doing but are reluctant to say so, fearing legal retribution or out of embarrassment or guilt.

(Damalyn Matthews via AP)

Some cosmetology schools include educators with experience on a range of textured hair, but they’re often stymied by other priorities. While textbooks include pages on all hair types, students said highly textured hair is often barely mentioned during training. Mannequins of color are not routine.

It’s possible to receive a cosmetology license, a process conducted by the states, without ever touching a Black head.

Kayla Naclerio, 23, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, is enrolled in beauty school near her home. She plans to graduate in September.

“They don’t really tend to teach ethnic hair,” said Naclerio, who is white. “I would like to learn how to do Black hair. I don’t really see why there seems to be such a big lack of education on Black hair.″

Keen to learn, Naclerio found her own mannequin of color.

Tammy Jolivette, a Ph.D. candidate at Walden University, studies the psychological roots of biases against natural hair and how those biases affect communities of color. She’s also a Houston hairstylist who specializes in working with curly hair, particularly Black hair.

(Kayla Naclerio via AP)

“Cosmetology programs typically only teach styles and looks for people of European descent. This serves as a tactic of segregation against African Americans. If the salon stylists do not know how to do Black hair, then the business will not have to serve Black people,” Jolivette said.

Serving Black people in the beauty business has become increasingly lucrative. In 2018, the Black hair care industry raked in an estimated $2.51 billion as Black consumers have progressively made the switch from general products to those that cater specifically to them. Black women spend nine times more on ethnic-targeted beauty and grooming products than the average for all consumers in the hair sector, according to Nielsen.

Kari Williams in Los Angeles has a seat on the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology, which administers exams and licenses in the state. A licensed barber, cosmetologist and salon owner, she specializes in natural hair care.

Williams said few states have licensing and certifications for natural hair, braiding, locing and twisting. Most beauty schools focus on salon safety and sanitation, and the use of heat styling tools and chemicals for straightening, coloring, perming and relaxing.

(AP Photo/Kathleen Ronayne)

“When you have a stylist going through 1,100 hours of training, when it comes to Black hair, they’re learning how to destroy Black hair,” Williams said. “They’re not learning how to maintain and style Black hair in its natural state.”

In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 30-year-old Britany Bain graduated in 2014 from Aveda Institute South Florida, one of more than 60 independently owned and run Aveda schools in the U.S. considered among the top in the industry.

“The education for textured hair was just completely zero,” said Bain, who is Black. “Whenever we touched on textured hair as a topic it was just like how to straighten it. I had come from the natural hair world. It got to the point where I was saying, `No, we need to use this, or can I bring this in?′ It was always `No, what we teach you here is the standard and you just use what we teach you to figure it out when you get into the world.′ This is supposed to be the Harvard of cosmetology.”

(Britany Bain via AP)

Kevin Molin, vice president of Aveda Global Education for Aveda Corp., said the company released educational curricula focused on the care and styling of curly and coily hair in 2012. A substantial expansion is launching next month, he said, the “start of our long-term commitment to create an Aveda experience that is fully inclusive.”

Students at Paul Mitchell Schools, another top name in cosmetology education, have made similar complaints. The schools, most also independently owned, recently announced initiatives aimed at including “all hair types as standard learning, not specialized.”

One of the changes is getting practice dolls with a wider range of textured hair, said Paul Mitchell brand ambassador John Mosley, a Black barber in Dallas.

“I feel their pain, and I understand where they’re coming from,” he said of dissatisfied students, including several of color who took to KSNV-TV in Las Vegas to object.

Brittany Johnson is the senior content manager for Mayvenn, a company that connects Black hairstylists and clients. She earned her cosmetology license in California in 2010 after attending beauty school in San Jose.

“All the mannequins had names. The ones that I can remember were Jessica, Beverly and Mia. The one male mannequin was named Jake. The only Black mannequin there, they labeled her Overly Curly. It was the only one there that didn’t have a name,” she said.

When it came time to work on live clients, those of color were sent to the Black students, Johnson said.

“On one hand, I wanted to service these clients because I wanted them to feel comfortable and not have someone who was going to struggle with their hair texture, but on the other hand, I’m like, `Well all these other students should learn, too,’” she said.

(Brittany Johnson via AP)

In the Paul Mitchell curriculum, Mosley said, hair is broken down as “straight, wavy, curly and extra curly,” along with “fine, medium and coarse.” Extra curly, he said, can cover a broad range of textures and curl patterns.

Inclusive enough?

“I think it is,” Mosley said. “Hair is hair, not a skin tone. Paul Mitchell is definitely making rapid changes to be able to instruct on more of it.”

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A note on AP style on Black and white: https://apnews.com/afs:Content:9105661462

Luck? Genetics? Italian island spared from COVID outbreak

July 26, 2020

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Italian scientist Paola Muti Paola Muti poses after an interview in her home at the Giglio Island, Italy, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Muti was stranded on the tiny island where mainlanders sick with COVID-19 came ashore but no islanders apparently took ill. So she decided to do a scientific study to find out why. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia)


GIGLIO ISLAND, Italy (AP) — Stranded on a tiny Italian island, a cancer researcher grew increasingly alarmed to hear that one, and then three more visitors had fallen ill with COVID-19.

Paola Muti braced for a rapid spread of the coronavirus to the 800 closely-knit islanders, many of whom she knows well. Her mother was born on Giglio Island and she often stays at the family home with its charming view of the sea through the parlor’s windows.

But days passed and none of Giglio’s islanders developed any COVID-19 symptoms even though the conditions seemed favorable for the disease to spread like wildfire.

The Gigliesi, as the residents are known, socialize in the steep alleys near the port or on the granite steps that serve as narrow streets in the hilltop Castle neighborhood, with densely packed homes built against the remnants of a fortress erected centuries ago to protect against pirates.

People enjoy the sun and the fresh water on a beach at the Giglio island, in front of Tuscany, Italy, Wednesday, June 24, 2020. In spite of various people with coronavirus stopped by the island at times, no one of the islanders developed COVID-19 infection. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia)

Dr. Armando Schiaffino, the island’s sole physician for around 40 years, shared Muti’s worry that there would be a local outbreak.

“Every time an ordinary childhood illness, like scarlet fever, measles or chicken pox strikes, within a very few days practically all get” infected on Giglio, he said in an interview in his office near the port.

Muti, a breast cancer researcher at the University of Milan where she is an epidemiology professor, decided to try to find out why it wasn’t happening this time.

Were residents perhaps infected but didn’t show symptoms? Was it something genetic? Something else? Or just plain luck?

“Dr. Schiaffino came to me and told me, ‘Hey, look, Paola, this is incredible. In this full pandemic, with all the cases that came to the island, nobody is sick.’ So I said to myself: ‘Right, here we can do a study, no? I am here,’” Muti said.

By then, Muti was trapped on the island by Italy’s strict lockdown rules. What was especially puzzling to her was that many of the islanders had had close contact with the visitors.

Giglio’s first known COVID-19 case was a man in his 60s who arrived on Feb. 18 — a couple of days before Italy’s first “native case” would be diagnosed in the north. The man came to Giglio for a relative’s funeral, and had been “coughing all the way” though the service, Muti said.

The virus is mainly spread through droplets when someone coughs, sneezes or talks. The man headed back on the ferry the same day to the mainland and died three weeks later in a hospital.


Italian scientist Paola Muti talks with the Associated Press during an interview in his studio at the Giglio Island, Italy, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Muti was stranded on the tiny island where mainlanders sick with COVID-19 came ashore but no islanders apparently took ill. So she decided to do a scientific study to find out why. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia)


On March 5, four days before the national lockdown was declared, three more visitors came from the mainland and would test positive on the island. One of them was a German man from northern Italy, the initial epicenter of Europe’s outbreak. He socialized for several days with longtime friends in Giglio, including in public eateries. After a week, due to a bad cough, he was tested on the island and the result was positive. He self-isolated in a house on Giglio.

There were other known cases, including an islander who had lived in Australia for two years before slipping back onto Giglio in mid-March during lockdown to see his parents. Three days after arriving on Giglio, he developed a mild fever and tested positive, Muti said. He self-isolated at his parents’ home.

No other case has surfaced on Giglio, including since lockdown was lifted in early June, and tourists from throughout Italy have been arriving.


Armando Schiaffino, a native son and the island’s doctor for some 40 years now, talks with the Associated Press during an interview in his studio at the Giglio Island, Italy, Tuesday, June 23, 2020. Italian scientist Paola Muti was stranded on the tiny island where mainlanders sick with COVID-19 came ashore but no islanders apparently took ill. So she decided to do a scientific study to find out why. (AP Photo/Paolo Santalucia)

Giglio is part of Tuscany, and its health office quickly sent over kits to test for antibodies to see if others may have had COVID-19. In late April, just before the first lockdown travel restrictions would be eased, the islanders had their blood tested, lining up outside the island’s school and doctor’s office.

Of the 800 or so year-round residents, 723 volunteered to be tested.

“We all wanted to do it, to be tranquil” about any possible infection, but also “to help science,” said Simone Madaro, who had been working at the cemetery while the infected man had gathered with fellow mourners.

The Rev. Lorenzo Pasquotti, the priest who conducted the service for around 50 mourners, and who himself was tested recalled: “After the funeral, there were greetings, hugging and kissing,” as is the custom. Then came the procession to the cemetery, where “there were more hugs and kisses.”



Of the islanders tested, only one was found to have antibodies, an elderly Gigliese man who had sailed on the same ferry to the island with the German visitor, Muti said.

Intrigued about why “the virus didn’t seem to interact” with the island’s native population, Muti hadn’t reached any conclusions by the time she was preparing to leave the island this month. She plans to write up up her study for eventual publication.

It’s possible, Muti guessed, that islanders weren’t exposed to enough COVID-19 to get infected.

That possibility was also voiced by Massimo Andreoni, head of infectious diseases at Rome’s Tor Vergata hospital. He noted some patients are simply less capable of spreading the disease for reasons that are still unclear.

Chance might have played a role, said Daniel Altmann, a professor of immunology at Imperial College London. “It could be something more or less trivial — nobody got infected because through good luck there was little contact,″ he said in an email exchange.

Or, Altmann also noted that “it could be something important and exotic,” such as a genetic variant common among the island’s population.

With many of the Gigliesi intermarrying through generations, Muti would like to do a genetic study someday if she could obtain funding.

Giglio lies in pristine waters in a protected regional marine sanctuary, and the islanders voice relief that they live in a natural environment they like to think is good for health, whatever Muti’s study might determine.

“As an island, as the environment goes, we’re OK, no?” said Domenico Pignatelli, as the elderly man kept company with friends in chairs placed on a stony street atop Giglio.

Egypt releases news editor after over 2 years in detention



CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian authorities released the editor of an independent news website after more than two years in pre-trial detention, the head of Journalists’ Union said.

Diaa Rashwan said Adel Sabri, editor of the Masr al-Arabia website, was freed late on Monday, after he had been held for the maximum pre-trial detention period under the law.

Sabri, who arrived at his home in Cairo in a police vehicle, was released pending an investigation into accusations that include disseminating false news and joining an outlawed group, said Rashwan.

The website reported Sabri’s release, saying it came a few days before the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

Sabri was arrested in April 2018 after his website published an Arabic translation of a New York Times report, which said voters in Egypt’s presidential elections at the time were offered cash, food and promises of better services in exchange of taking part in the vote.

In that vote, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi overwhelmingly won a second, four-year term in office. He faced no serious competition since a string of potentially strong candidates had been arrested or pressured into withdrawing.

Last year, Egypt approved constitutional amendments allowing el-Sissi, a general turned president, to stay in power possibly until 2030. The move has drawn criticism from rights groups and pro-democracy movements. 

LIKE XI AND PUTIN DID AND TRUMP WANTS TO 

El-Sissi has wagged the heaviest crackdown on dissent in the country’s modern history. Unauthorized protests have been outlawed, thousands of Islamists and prominent secular activists have been jailed, critics silenced and hundreds of independent websites blocked.

AL JAZEERA REPORTER IS STILL IN JAIL

The Committee to Protect Journalists has ranked Egypt the third worst jailer of journalists, after China and Turkey.

U.S. agency: Pandemic masks thwarting face recognition tech
ANOTHER REASON TO WEAR ONE OUTSIDE

This photo provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows digitally applied mask shapes to photos and tested the performance of face recognition algorithms developed before COVID appeared. Because real-world masks differ, the team came up with variants that included differences in shape, color, and nose coverage. A preliminary study published by a U.S. agency on Monday, July 27, 2020, found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces. (B. Hayes/National Institute of Standards and Technology via AP)


Having a tough time recognizing your neighbors behind their pandemic masks? Computers are finding it more difficult, too.

A preliminary study published by a U.S. agency on Monday found that even the best commercial facial recognition systems have error rates as high as 50% when trying to identify masked faces.

The mask problem is why Apple earlier this year made it easier for iPhone owners to unlock their phones without Face ID. It could also be thwarting attempts by authorities to identify individual people at Black Lives Matter protests and other gatherings.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology says it is launching an investigation to better understand how facial recognition performs on covered faces. Its preliminary study examined only those algorithms created before the pandemic, but its next step is to look at how accuracy could improve as commercial providers adapt their technology to an era when so many people are wearing masks.

Some companies, including those that work with law enforcement, have tried to tailor their face-scanning algorithms to focus on people’s eyes and eyebrows.

NIST, which is a part of the Commerce Department, is working with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security’s science office to study the problem.

It tested the software by drawing digital masks onto the faces in a trove of border crossing photographs, and then compared those photos against another database of unmasked people seeking visas and other immigration benefits. The agency says it scanned 6.2 million images of about 1 million people using 89 algorithms supplied by tech firms and academic labs.

Under ideal conditions, NIST says the failure rate for the best facial recognition systems is only about 0.3%, though research has found significant disparities across race, gender and age. Add masks and the failure rate rises to 5% or worse. When confronted with masks, the agency says, “many otherwise competent algorithms failed between 20% to 50% of the time.”

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, some governments had sought technology to recognize people when they tried to conceal their faces.

Face masks had become a hallmark of protesters in Hong Kong, even at peaceful marches, to protect against tear gas and amid fears of retribution if they were publicly identified. The government banned face coverings at all public gatherings last year and warned of a potential six-month jail term for refusing a police officer’s order to remove a mask.

Privacy activists, in turn, have looked for creative ways to camouflage themselves. In London, artists opposed to high-tech surveillance have painted their faces with geometric shapes in a way that’s designed to scramble face detection systems.

Then came the coronavirus outbreak, when health experts around the world began strongly encouraging everyone to wear masks that cover the mouth and nose.

NIST’s preliminary study says what masks people wear, and how they wear them, makes a difference to facial recognition systems. The results are mostly unsurprising: The more facial features that are covered, the harder it is to recognize the person beneath the mask.

Sinclair says it won't air Fauci conspiracy theory segment

NEW YORK (AP) — The Sinclair Broadcast Group says it will not air a segment on its “America This Week” program in which a conspiracy theorist speculates about Dr. Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus.

Over the weekend, Sinclair said it was delaying the story for a week after it attracted media attention.

But in a tweet late Monday, Sinclair said that given the nature of Judy Mikovits’ claims to correspondent Eric Bolling, the segment was “not appropriate” to air.

“We also reiterate our appreciation for all that Dr. Fauci and his team have accomplished for the health and well-being of Americans and people worldwide,” said Sinclair. The company owns local television stations in 81 markets across the country.
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Mikovits, maker of the widely debunked “Plandemic” video, had told Bolling that she believed Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, had manufactured the virus that causes COVID-19 and shipped it to China.

She presented no evidence to back up her theory because there is none.

Despite Sinclair telling its stations on Saturday not to air the interview, the lobbying group Media Matters for America said that it was shown on WCHS-TV, a Sinclair-owned ABC affiliate in Charleston, West Virginia. Media Matters first uncovered the segment last week.

Sinclair offered an “open invite” to Fauci to appear on any of its stations.

The broadcast group is known for pushing a conservative viewpoint through editorials and reports that it compels its stations to run.

Orca who carried her dead calf for 1,000 miles is pregnant

SEATTLE (AP) — An orca known as Tahlequah, who raised worldwide concern when she carried her dead calf for 17 days and more than 1,000 miles almost two years ago, is pregnant, scientists said.

Scientists John Durban, senior scientist of Southall Environmental Associates and Holly Fearnbach, marine mammal research director for the nonprofit SR3, recently finished recording drone images of the endangered southern resident whales and discovered pregnancies amid the J, K and L pods, The Seattle Times reported.

The pregnancies are not unusual but Tahlequah’s pregnancy carries special meaning for a region that grieved the death of her calf with her.

The southern residents frequent Puget Sound, are struggling to survive, and most pregnancies are not successful. Tahlequah’s baby was the first for the whales in three years. The southern residents have since had two more calves, in J pod and L pod. Both are still alive.

The current population of the southern resident orcas is 72.

About two-thirds of all southern resident pregnancies are typically lost, researcher Sam Wasser of the Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington has found. Stress from hunger because of a lack of salmon is linked to the whales’ poor reproductive success, according to his research.

Several of the juveniles in the pods also are looking thin, Fearnbach said.

“There are stressed whales out there, critically stressed,” she said.

Boaters should respect the whales’ space and give them the quiet they need, Fearnbach and Durban said. Whales use sound to hunt, and boat disturbance and underwater vessel noise is one of the three main threats to their survival, in addition to lack of adequate, available salmon and pollution.

Democratic committee OKs platform with progressives’ input

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event at the Colonial Early Education Program at the Colwyck Training Center, Tuesday, July 21, 2020 in New Castle, Del. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Reflecting presidential candidate Joe Biden’s careful positioning, a key Democratic Party committee on Monday approved a 2020 platform that presents a liberal outline for the country but rejects many policies pursued by the left’s most outspoken progressives.

The document, approved by Democrats’ platform committee on a voice vote, now goes to more than 4,000 Democratic delegates who will vote by mail on whether to approve the document ahead of the party’s August convention, which will take place almost entirely online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The final draft endorses universal health care coverage but, as Biden does, calls for a “public option” insurance plan to compete in existing private insurance markets as the next step. Committee members overwhelmingly rejected amendments to more explicitly endorse the single-payer insurance model like what Bernie Sanders pushed.

In a lengthy passage demanding an overhaul of the criminal justice system, Democrats decry the effects of a decadeslong “war on drugs.” But committee members rejected an amendment calling to legalize marijuana. The same section demands an end to police violence against Americans, but it does not endorse some activists’ calls to “defund the police.”

In total, the platform is part of Biden’s effort to balance the center-left establishment that has been his political home for decades with the party’s ascendant progressive wing represented by high-profile figures like Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, the drafting process included a series of policy committees that Biden’s campaign convened with Sanders’ campaign after the Vermont senator finished as runner-up in the nominating fight. Ocasio-Cortez was included in that process, while Warren has emerged as a key policy adviser who talks regularly with Biden.

Biden’s goal has been to avoid the kind of rancor that hobbled Hillary Clinton’s general election campaign four years ago, even as President Donald Trump and Republicans lambaste the former vice president as “captive” to a “radical left.”

The platform committee voted repeatedly Monday not to modify language that would push the party closer to embracing Sanders’ “Medicare for All” health insurance model, sticking with Biden’s preferred language promising to build on the 2010 health care law signed by President Barack Obama.

Abdul El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former health commissioner for the city of Detroit, argued that the coronavirus outbreak demonstrates why the country needs a single-payer system like Medicare for All rather than just an expansion of the Affordable Care Act.
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“We have an opportunity to go bigger because this moment demands it,” El Sayed said, arguing for an amendment that was eventually defeated.

Cecilia Muñoz, who was director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Obama, countered that the platform was already shaping up to be the most progressive ever proposed by Democrats. She also noted that it incorporated the work of the Biden-Sanders task forces that had labored to craft language to appeal across the Democratic spectrum.

“I’m proud and thankful that the Biden-Sanders unity task force has outlined such a progressive statement on our party’s views on this issue,” Muñoz said. “I believe we should retain that language, the language that they negotiated.”

On climate, the platform calls for rejoining international alliances of nations agreeing to sharp reductions in carbon pollution. Biden, after working with progressives, agreed explicitly to the goal of making the nation’s energy grid carbon neutral by 2035. That detail does not appear in the platform. The document also makes no mention of some Democrats’ Green New Deal legislative proposals that includes even more aggressive timelines.

The party’s discussion of law enforcement reflects the nation’s reckoning with systemic racism.

“Our criminal justice system is failing to keep communities safe,” the draft reads, adding that “police brutality is a stain on the soul of our nation.” The platform calls for “strict national standards governing the use of force” and for the nation to “reimagine policing for the benefit and safety of the American people,” with the U.S. Justice Department taking a more active role in collecting statistics on police violence and investigating departments where it is alleged. But the document stops short of activists’ calls to “defund the police,” reflecting Biden’s position on the matter.

Trump has sought to link Biden to the activists’ calls for eliminating traditional law enforcement.

Still, Democrats’ draft language on policing and law enforcement is significantly sharper than a much shorter section on the matter in 2016. That platform called for improving police-community relations but emphasized: “Across the country, there are police officers inspiring trust and confidence, honorably doing their duty … demonstrating that it is possible to prevent crime without relying on unnecessary force. They deserve our respect and support.”

Asia Today: Australian outbreak attributed to sick workers

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A woman gets her nasal swab sample taken for COVID-19 test at a government health center in Hyderabad, India, Monday, July 27, 2020. India is the third hardest-hit country by the pandemic in the world after the United States and Brazil. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s hard-hit Victoria state on Monday posted a new daily record of 532 new COVID-19 cases, and the government leader warned that a lockdown in the city of Melbourne will continue if infected people continue to go to work instead of staying home.

Melbourne is almost half way through a six-week lockdown aimed at curbing community spread of the coronavirus. Mask wearing in Australia’s second-largest city became compulsory last week.

The new cases and six deaths reported on Monday surpass a previous record of 484 new infections reported last Wednesday.

Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews said the biggest source of the new infections is people continuing to go to work after showing symptoms.

“This is what is driving these numbers up and the lockdown will not end until people stop going to work with symptoms and instead go and get tested,” Andrews said.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for patience in Victoria.

“There has been significant community transmission in Victoria. That will take some time to get on top of,” Morrison said.

Australian Deputy Chief Medical Officer Michael Kidd said New South Wales is the only other state or territory to record new cases in the last 24 hours. New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state, reported 17 new cases.

Of the 259 COVID-19 patients in Australian hospitals, 245 were in Victoria.

Australia’s death toll has risen to 161 with six deaths in Victoria, mostly in aged care. There were more than 600 cases of COVID-19 cases among residents and staff at Melbourne aged care homes, Kidd said.

In other developments in the Asia-Pacific region:

— As India recorded nearly 50,000 new cases of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepared to ramp up testing capacity in three major cities. The 49,931 cases reported on Monday brought India’s nationwide tally to beyond 1.4 million. India has the world’s third-highest confirmed caseload after the United States and Brazil. The 32,771 reported deaths from the disease in India, however, represent a far lower fatality rate than in the other two countries, in part because of limited testing. Modi’s office says new high-volume test facilities in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi, and Mumbai and Kolkata, each capable of as many as 10,000 tests per day, will help authorities track the virus. India’s chief medical research agency says the country tested about 515,000 samples for COVID-19 on Sunday.

— Hong Kong will ban dining in at restaurants completely and make it mandatory to wear masks in all public places, as the city battles a worsening coronavirus outbreak that has infected over 1,000 people in the last two weeks. The tightened measures will be effective for at least one week starting Wednesday. They are an extension of a previous ban on eating at restaurants after 6 p.m., as well as a mandatory wearing of masks on public transport. A ban on public gatherings of more than four people has also been tightened, with gatherings limited to two people.

— Vietnam has postponed its hosting of Asia’s largest security forum, which includes North Korea, and an annual meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers by a month to September due to the pandemic. Two Southeast Asian diplomats said Monday that Vietnam, which leads the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, hopes to hold face-to-face meetings in mid-September instead of over video if the annual gatherings were to be held as originally scheduled later this week. The 10-nation bloc hosts the ASEAN Regional Forum, which brings together its top diplomats with counterparts from the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, the two Koreas and other Asia Pacific countries to discuss the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and other security issues. Most of about 1,300 ASEAN meetings this year have shifted online due to the pandemic.

— About 80,000 people, mostly local tourists, are being evacuated from the popular Vietnamese beach city of Da Nang after more than a dozen people there were confirmed to have COVID-19, the government said Monday. Vietnam reimposed a social distancing order in Da Nang on Sunday following the confirmation of four initial cases, the first known to be locally transmitted in the country in over three months. The Civil Aviation Administration said the country’s four airlines have added extra flights and larger planes to transport the people out of the city in central Vietnam. “It will probably take four days to evacuate the 80,000 passengers,” CAA director Dinh Viet Thang said in a statement. Those leaving Da Nang have been told to self-quarantine and report their health condition to local health agencies, the Ministry of Health said.

— New Zealand health authorities say they will trace and test people who came into contact with a traveler from the country who tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving in South Korea last week. Health Minister Chris Hipkins says they’ve also asked South Korean authorities to undertake a second test to make sure the passenger has the virus. It has been nearly three months since the last case of community transmission was found in New Zealand and any proof the passenger caught the virus while in New Zealand would come as a big shock to the nation of 5 million people. Health officials in New Zealand say their counterparts in South Korea suspect the traveler was infected while in transit in Singapore. “We have got our contact tracing system kicking into gear though,” Hipkins said.

— China on Monday reported 61 new cases of coronavirus, spread between its northeastern and northwestern regions. The Xinjiang region in the northwest reported 41 new cases, while Liaoning and Jilin provinces in the northeast saw a combined 16. Another four cases were brought by Chinese travelers from outside the country. China has reported 4,634 deaths among 83,891 cases of COVID-19.

— South Korea reported 25 new cases, bringing its national caseload to 14,175 infections and 299 deaths. South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 16 of the new cases were tied to people arriving from abroad. The country in past days have reported dozens of cases among crew members of a Russia-flagged cargo ship docked in Busan and hundreds of South Korean construction workers airlifted from virus-ravaged Iraq. Eight of the nine local transmissions were from the Seoul metropolitan area.