#NOTOKYOOLYMPICS

WHO leader says virus risk inevitable at Tokyo Olympics

TOKYO (AP) — The Tokyo Olympics should not be judged by the tally of COVID-19 cases that arise because eliminating risk is impossible, the head of the World Health Organization told sports officials Wednesday as events began in Japan.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

How infections are handled is what matters most, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a speech to an International Olympic Committee meeting.

“The mark of success is making sure that any cases are identified, isolated, traced and cared for as quickly as possible and onward transmission is interrupted,” he said.

The number of Games-linked COVID-19 cases in Japan this month was 79 on Wednesday, with more international athletes testing positive at home and unable to travel.

“The mark of success in the coming fortnight is not zero cases,” Tedros said, noting the athletes who already tested positive in Japan, including at the athletes village in Tokyo Bay, where most of the 11,000 competitors will stay.

Teammates classed as close contacts of infected athletes can continue training and preparing for events under a regime of isolation and extra monitoring.

Health experts in Japan have warned of the Olympics becoming a “super-spreader” event bringing tens of thousands of athletes, officials and workers during a local state of emergency.

“There is no zero risk in life,” said Tedros, who began his keynote speech minutes after the first softball game began in Fukushima, and added Japan was “giving courage to the whole world.”

The WHO leader also had a more critical message and a challenge for leaders of richer countries about sharing vaccines more fairly in the world.

“The pandemic is a test and the world is failing,” Tedros said, predicting more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19 worldwide before the Olympic flame goes out in Tokyo on Aug. 8.

It was a “horrifying injustice,” he said, that 75% of the vaccine shots delivered globally so far were in only 10 countries.

Tedros warned anyone who believed the pandemic was over because it was under control in their part of the world lived in “a fool’s paradise.”

The world needs to produce 11 billion doses next year and the WHO wanted governments to help reach a target of vaccinating 70% of people in every country by the middle of next year.

“The pandemic will end when the world chooses to end it,” Tedros said. “It is in our hands.”

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More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press

#CANCELTOKYOOLYMPICS

Olympics, pandemic and politics: There's no separating them


TOKYO (AP) — Over and over, year after year, the stewards of the Olympics say it: The Games aren't supposed to be political. But how do you avoid politics when you're trying to pull off an event of this complexity during a lethal and protracted pandemic?

 Provided by The Canadian Press

Consider:


— The Japanese medical community largely opposes these Olympics; the government’s main medical adviser, Dr. Shigeru Omi, has said it’s “abnormal” to hold them during a pandemic.

— Medical journals The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine have raised questions about the risks, with the former criticizing the World Health Organization for not taking a clear stand and the latter saying the IOC’s decision to proceed “is not informed by the best scientific evidence.”

— The second-largest selling newspaper in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun, has called for the Olympics to be canceled. So have other regional newspapers.

— There's the risk of the Olympics spreading variant strains, particularly after two members of the Ugandan delegation were detected with the delta variant.

Still, they are going ahead; the opening ceremony is Friday. So how have the International Olympic Committee and the Japanese government of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga been able to surmount strong opposition?

At the core: the “host city contract” that gives the IOC sole authority to cancel. If Japan cancels, it would have to compensate the IOC. And there are billions at stake. Japan has officially spent $15.4 billion but government audits suggest it’s twice that much. Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Inc., a key player in landing the corruption-tainted bid in 2013, has raised more than $3 billion from local sponsors.

Estimates suggest a cancellation — highly unlikely at this point, less than 48 hours before the opening — could cost the IOC up to $4 billion in broadcast rights income. Broadcasting and sponsors account for 91% of the IOC income, and American network NBCUniversal provides about 40% of the IOC’s total income.

The Associated Press sought perspectives from inside and outside Japan on the politics of putting this on.

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KOICHI NAKANO, political scientist, Sophia University:

“It’s a bit like a gambler who already has lost too much. Pulling out of it now will only confirm the huge losses made, but carrying on you can still cling to the hope of winning big and taking it all back. (Suga) might as well take the chance and hope for the best by going ahead with it. At least there is some chance that he can claim the games to be a success — just by doing it — and saturating the media with pride and glory might help him turn the negative opinion around.”

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MARK CONRAD, lawyer, Gabelli School of Business, Fordham University:

“The IOC carries a brand that is powerful. Athletes from around the world coming together to compete in peace is a heart-tugging draw. It takes an entertainment event and infuses it with a certain level of piety and awe. Who is against peace? With this “Olympism” as a goal, it has snagged corporate sponsors willing to pay lots of money. Therefore, the IOC has the leverage to exact contract terms very favorable to it and it certainly has done that in this case. The fact that only the IOC can formally decide to pull the plug on the games — even in the case of unforeseeable health events -- is testament to this.”

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HELEN JEFFERSON LENSKYI, sociologist, author, “The Olympic Games: A Critical Approach”:

“The host city contract hands over all the power to the IOC. The Olympic industry has had 120-plus years to win hearts and minds around the globe, with obvious success. In the age of the internet, their PR controls the message and protects the brand 24/7. The IOC is also beyond the reach of any oversight agency, including the governments of host countries. It can violate a country’s human rights protections with immunity, including athletes’ right to access domestic courts of law.”

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AKI TONAMI, political scientist, University of Tsukuba:

“Based on what I am hearing, people within the government have been given their instructions to make the Games happen, and that is their singular focus right now — for better or for worse. Their hope is to get through the Games with as few missteps as possible. Politicians may well be aware of the risk they are taking but hope that once the games begin the Japanese public will persevere ‘for the good of Japan’ and forget how we got there.”

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JOHN HORNE, sociologist, Waseda University, co-author with Garry Whannel of “Understanding the Olympics”:

“The IOC is an elitist club that garners support from other elites and people — and countries — that aspire to joining the elite. From a sports perspective, the IOC represents the custodian of the exclusive medals that athletes in numerous sports aspire to, acts as the chief promoter of the mythology of the healing power of sport, and the organization that most international sports federations and national Olympic committees are reliant on for funding.”

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GILL STEEL, political scientist, Doshisha University:

“Politically, the opposition is so weak, the government can do pretty much anything it wants. Although a disastrous Olympics would damage the LDP’s credibility, the party likely feels safe because a majority of the public doubts the capability of the opposition to govern. The government may be hoping that once the games start, public opinion will turn — at the very least, producing a distraction, and at most, perhaps a rally round the flag effect.”

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ROBERT WHITING, author of several books on Japan including the latest, “Tokyo Junkie”:

“You notice how nobody seems to be in charge. You have all these different entities: the Tokyo organizing committee; the Japanese Olympic Committee; the prime minister’s office; the governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike; the Japan Sports Agency; the Foreign Ministry; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Suga is asked in the Diet (Japanese parliament) about canceling the games and says it’s not his responsibility. Nobody wants to lose face."

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DAVID LEHENY, political scientist, Waseda University:

“A lot of the opposition is shallow and movable, though of course that’s contingent on the Olympics actually working out. There will be a lot of people (broadcasters, etc.) invested in trying to make it look like a good show, so I think they’ll have the winds at their back if there’s not an appreciable spike in COVID deaths or any heat-related tragedies for the athletes.”

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RYU HOMMA, author and former advertising agency executive:

“If it turns out there is a surge in coronavirus patients and it becomes a catastrophe, that’s not the responsibility of the IOC. It’s the Japanese government that will be stuck with the responsibility.”

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Associated Press reporter Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report. More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/olympic-games and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Stephen Wade, The Associated Press

#NOOLYMPICS2020

Japan PM denies IOC pressure to hold Olympics: report

Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has denied he was pressured by the International Olympic Committee into holding a Games that remains deeply unpopular as virus cases surge in Tokyo.

© Philip FONG Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has denied he was pressured by the International Olympic Committee into holding a Games that remains deeply unpopular

And with just days until the opening ceremony, the Japanese leader said Tokyo was "in the right place, and we're ready to go."

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the 72-year-old insisted he was "absolutely not" pushed into going ahead with the Games.

"We raised our hands and we sought the Olympics because we wanted to do it," he said in the interview published Wednesday.

"If they tried to force something on me, I'd kick it right back at them."

Suga, who came to power last September, also insisted the Games could be held safely, saying infections in Tokyo remain comparatively low.

The Japanese capital, with some 14 million residents, has seen around 1,000 daily infections in recent days, far fewer than many major cities of a similar size.

On Wednesday, the Japanese capital recorded 1,832 daily cases, the highest figure since January, with medical experts pleading with the public to stay home, watch the Olympics on TV and avoid physical contact with others.

Suga told the Journal he had defied repeated counsel to cancel the event.

"The simplest thing and the easiest thing is to quit," he said.

But "the government's job is to tackle challenges."

Games competition opened Wednesday, but the official opening ceremony comes on Friday, with events running until August 8.

They will be held mostly behind closed doors in an effort to reduce the risks of coronavirus spreading in the Japanese capital and other cities.

Suga stressed that infections in Tokyo remain relatively low and pointed to recent major sporting events, including Wimbledon and the Euro tournament, that took place before packed fans without masks despite tens of thousands of new daily infections.

"If you compare our number of infections to countries abroad, we have fewer by a whole order of magnitude," he said.

"We've got vaccinations advancing, we're taking tough steps to prevent infections, and so my judgement is we're in the right place and we're ready to go."

Suga's government and Olympic organisers have faced public criticism for their insistence on hosting the event.

Approval ratings for Suga's government have dropped to just above 30 percent, and he faces a leadership race and general election after the Games

PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY
Russia unveils new 'Checkmate' fighter jet

By Anna Chernova and Zahra Ullah, CNN 

Russian President Vladimir Putin got a sneak peek of a new fifth-generation lightweight single-engine fighter jet at an air show just outside of Moscow on Tuesday.

© Alexander Zemlianichenko/Pool/AFP/Getty Images A prototype of Russia's new Sukhoi "Checkmate" fighter is on display at the MAKS 2021 International Aviation and Space Salon, in Zhukovsky, outside Moscow, on July 20.

Russian aircraft makers unveiled a prototype of the stealth fighter dubbed "Checkmate" for the 68-year-old leader at the MAKS-2021 International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky, ahead of its official unveiling later in the day, according to a statement from Rostec, the state-owned military giant which is responsible for exporting Russian technology.

The head of Rostec, Sergey Chemezov, and the general director of United Aircraft Corporation (UAC), Yury Slyusar, presented the warplane to Putin at the exhibition pavilion of the Sukhoi company.

The fighter prototype is unique and has not been developed before in Russia, according to a presentation by state-owned UAC.

A UAC press release said the fighter jet "combines innovative solutions and technologies" and has "low visibility and high flight performance."

The company's head, Slyusar, also touted the aircraft's features on Russian state TV, describing the planes as "unique in their class" and adding that they have "a combat radius of 1,500 kilometers, the largest thrust-to-weight ratio, shortened takeoff and landing, more than seven tons of combat load, which is an absolute record for aircraft of this class."

Its first flight is expected in 2023, Russian state media reported, citing a presentation shown to the Russian President.

UAC also expects deliveries of the new single-engine fighter to begin in 2026.

Earlier in the day, Putin lauded Russia's aviation industry in a speech at the air show's opening.

"What we see today in Zhukovsky clearly shows that Russian aviation has great potential for development, and our aircraft industry continues to create new competitive aircraft," he said.

Dmitry Stefanovich, research fellow at the Center for International Security, Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO RAS) in Moscow, told CNN the focus of the Sukhoi fighter jet is likely to be on export and military-technical cooperation with other countries.

"This is a game-changing offer on the market," Stefanovich said. "It's been a long time since Russia demonstrated single-engine fighters. For a very long time, there haven't been any new Russian light combat aircraft on the market. And no fifth generation as such."

Countries such as UAE, Argentina, Vietnam and India may be the first to be lining up to sign contracts with Russia for the new jet, according to Stefanovich.

On Monday, Russia's Defense Ministry announced that it had tested its Tsirkon hypersonic missile from the frigate Admiral Grigorovich in the White Sea, hitting a land target on the Barents Sea more than 200 miles away.

"This is hardly a coincidence," Stefanovich said. "Russia demonstrates in practice that it remains a very serious force in the development and production of advanced missile systems."

Imprisoned Myanmar politician dies from COVID-19


BANGKOK (AP) — The spokesperson for ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's political party died Tuesday after being infected with the coronavirus in prison, his lawyer said.


Nyan Win had been a member of the National League for Democracy's Central Executive Committee as well as a confidante of Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi and top members of her party and government, including Nyan Win, were arrested when the military seized power in February. The military-installed government has since arrested thousands of mostly young people who protested its takeover.

The death of Nyan Win, 79, came as Myanmar is reeling from soaring numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths that are badly straining the country’s medical infrastructure, already weakened when many state medical workers went on strike to protest the army’s seizure of power.

Charity workers and cemetery staff say hundreds of people in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, are dying daily due to suspected cases of COVID-19, particularly from a lack of medical oxygen to help them breathe.

The country’s overcrowded prisons are especially susceptible to the spread of the virus, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has done surveys of detention facilities.

Deputy Information Minister Zaw Min Tun said Tuesday that 375 people have been confirmed to have COVID-19 in prisons across the country, the Voice on Myanmar online news service reported.

Many believe the real number is much higher. Neighboring Thailand has recorded more than 39,000 COVID-19 cases in its prison population since the beginning of April.

Health authorities on Tuesday reported 5,860 new COVID-19 cases, bringing Myanmar’s official total since the pandemic began to 240,570. There were 286 new deaths recorded, bringing the total to 5,567.

Nyan Win, who was charged with sedition, had been confined in Yangon’s Insein Prison, which for decades has held many prominent political prisoners. Suu Kyi is being held under house arrest at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyitaw.

He was moved from Insein Prison to Yangon General Hospital’s intensive care unit on July 11 after testing positive for the virus. It is believed he had underlying health problems.

Nyan Win’s death was confirmed by his lawyer, San Mar La Nyunt, who said she reached him in a video call Tuesday morning, just minutes before he died.

Lawyers for some inmates at Insein Prison told U.S. government-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia on Friday that there are about 50 confirmed COVID-19 cases there. The prison began a two-week lockdown on July 8 due to the virus surge.

Detained American journalist Danny Fenster, also held in Insein Prison, told his lawyer last week he believes he has COVID-19, but prison authorities deny he is infected. Fenster, managing editor of Frontier Myanmar, an independent online news outlet based in Yangon, has been charged with incitement for allegedly spreading false or inflammatory information.

Grant Peck, The Associated Press

Russia and Myanmar cooperating on military equipment supplies -Ifax

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is cooperating closely with Myanmar to supply military hardware including aircraft, the Interfax news agency cited Alexander Mikheev, the head of Russian state arms trader Rosoboronexport, as saying on Wednesday.

© Reuters/Stringer . FILE PHOTO: Protest against the military coup in Yangon

Rights activists have accused Moscow of legitimising Myanmar's junta, which seized power in a Feb. 1 coup, by continuing bilateral visits and arms deals.

Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Myanmar's junta leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing during his visit to the Russian capital last month that Moscow was committed to strengthening military ties.

Speaking on the sidelines of Russia's annual MAKS air show, which President Vladimir Putin attended on Tuesday, Mikheev said Myanmar is one of Rosoboronexport's key customers in south east Asia and a key partner of Rostec, Russia's state aerospace and defence conglomerate.

He gave no further details.

Defence ties between the two countries have grown in recent years with Moscow providing army training and university scholarships to thousands of soldiers, as well as selling arms to a military blacklisted by several Western countries.

(Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; Writing by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

Senator Warren questions Lockheed's antitrust solution to buy Aerojet

By Mike Stone 

© Reuters/Peter Nicholls FILE PHOTO: A RAF Lockheed Martin F-35B fighter jet taxis along a runway

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the Federal Trade Commission to take a tougher look at defense industry mergers, questioning a proposal from Lockheed Martin that would allow it to buy the biggest independent maker of rocket motors, Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings.

The Democratic senator, who has a keen interest in corporate behavior, asked the FTC to examine the premise and efficacy of internal firewalls like those Lockheed proposes to prevent it from gaining a competitive advantage over peers once the deal closes, according to a July 16 letter seen by Reuters.

Lockheed Martin announced a $4.4 billion agreement to buy Aerojet late last year, a deal that has raised eyebrows because it would give Lockheed - the No. 1 defense contractor - ownership of a vital piece of the U.S. missile industry whose motors are used in everything from the homeland missile shield to Stinger missiles.

Lockheed has said after the deal closes "the Aerojet Rocketdyne business will continue to serve as a merchant supplier" to the entire defense industry, a premise that was met with skepticism by Raytheon Technologies, a major customer for rocket motors.

Internal firewalls would be needed at the new company to protect competitor intellectual property, pricing and product progress in the highly competitive weapons business.

Warren's letter urged the FTC to take a stronger antitrust stance on defense deals and said the Lockheed tie-up should not be allowed until the FTC understood the effectiveness of past internal firewalls, which she views as necessary to maintain competition, as well as national security.

A firewall is an example of a "behavioral remedy," one of the tools the FTC has to preserve competition. That is why Warren's letter to FTC Chair Lina Khan asked if "behavioral remedies" have protected competition and prevented monopolistic behavior in the defense industry.

Behavioral remedies usually expire after a few years.

A "structural remedy," a more common enforcement mechanism, generally requires a company to sell a line of business to prevent monopolistic behavior.

In February, the FTC extended its review of the deal under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act to scrutinize potentially anti-competitive mergers.

Lockheed did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It has previously said it expects the deal to close by the end of this year.

(Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; Additional reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Dan Grebler)

Scientists Find Evidence Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Caused Mile-High Tsunami

Joseph Golder, Zenger News 


Scientists have discovered enormous fossilized ripples underground in Louisiana, supporting the theory that a giant asteroid hit the sea near Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula 66 million years ago and causing a mile-high tsunami.

© Alex Antropov/Zenger About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the earth, triggering a massive tsunami and the eventual extinction of the dinosaurs.

Scientists have speculated that a space rock struck the water and kicked up a blanket of dust that blotted out the sun for a long period of time, reducing temperatures and ultimately killing off the dinosaurs.

A tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico was generated by the event, known as the Chicxulub impact. Some experts believe the deadly wave was a mile tall. The tsunami crashed into North America, and smaller waves followed.

Scientists now believe they have discovered evidence of that event in central Louisiana.

"It is great to actually have evidence of something that has been theorized for a really long time," said Sean Gulick, a geophysicist at the University of Texas.

To find ancient structures underground, scientists use industrial hammers or set off explosives in the earth. Seismic instruments then measure vibrations to build images based on reflections from the many layers of rock and sediment beneath them.

Energy companies use the same technique to look for gas and oil, revealing a wealth of data for scientists to use for research, especially in regions around the Gulf of Mexico.

University of Louisiana geophysicist Gary Kinsland obtained seismic images from the company Devon Energy more than a decade ago.

Sea levels were higher at the time of the asteroid collision, and Kinsland believed the area held clues about what happened in the shallow waters off what was then the North American coastline — now far inland.

Kinsland and his colleagues analyzed a layer about 1,500 meters (just under a mile) beneath the ground, and found fossilized ripples spaced up to a half-mile apart with an average height of about 3 feet

.

When an asteroid slammed into what is now the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, it triggered a series of calamitous events known as the Chicxulub impact. Geralt/Zenger News

Scientists believe the ripples are the imprint of the tsunami's waves as they approached the coast in water around 197 feet deep, disturbing sediments on the seabed.

Kinsland said the orientation of the mega-ripples was also consistent with the Chicxulub impact, and he said the location was ideal for preserving the ripples for eons. "The water was so deep that once the tsunami had quit, regular storm waves couldn't disturb what was down there," he said.

The Chicxulub impact was first hypothesized in the 1980s. Cores from a drilling expedition in 2016 revealed details about how the impact crater was formed.

Researchers in North Dakota, about 1,900 miles north of Chicxulub, discovered a fossil site in 2019 that they said recorded the hours after the impact and includes debris dragged inland from the tsunami.

"We have small pieces of the puzzle that keep getting added in," said Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, a paleontologist at the University of Vigo in Spain.

"Now this research is another one, giving more evidence of a cataclysmic tsunami that probably inundated [everything] for thousands of miles."

This story was provided to Newsweek by Zenger News.

US Conservative media offers mixed messages on COVID-19 vaccine

NEW YORK (AP) — When Dr. Alexa Mieses Malchuk talks to patients about the COVID-19 vaccine, she tries to feel out where they get their information from.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

“Sometimes I feel like the education I have to provide depends on what news channel that they watch,” the doctor in Durham, North Carolina, said.

The mixed messaging can come from the same media outlet — and even the same source. On Fox News Channel on Monday, host Sean Hannity looked straight into the camera to deliver a clear message: “It absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated. I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccinations.”

Yet Hannity followed up his statement by interviewing a woman protesting her college’s requirement that students be vaccinated, a segment appealing to people skeptical of the immunization push. His prime-time colleagues, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, opened their own programs by questioning vaccination efforts.

Skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccination is a common theme in media appealing to conservatives, despite assurances from doctors and scientists that the vaccine is safe and effective. Some medical experts worry that conflicting takes and outright distrust of the vaccine shown by influential media personalities contribute to a failure to meet inoculation goals aimed at arresting the pandemic.

Two recent exchanges in recent days on Fox News Channel’s popular morning show, “Fox & Friends,” illustrated the mixed messaging.

During a discussion of Los Angeles County’s decision to reinstate mandates to wear masks indoors, even if people are vaccinated, guest host Lawrence Jones said, “People are saying, ‘Why get the vaccine if you’re not going to return to normal? What’s the use of doing it? Why?’”

“Well, you won’t die,” colleague Steve Doocy replied. “That’s a good reason.”

Doocy, arguably Fox’s most influential figure arguing in favor of vaccinations, also took on co-host Brian Kilmeade on Monday when he said people should not be judged if they decide not to get the shot. Doocy responded that the vast majority of people who are dying of COVID-19 are unvaccinated.

“That’s their choice,” Kilmeade replied.

Several personalities on Fox News Channel — including Bill Hemmer, Dana Perino, Bret Baier, Greg Gutfeld and the three-member “Fox & Friends” morning team — have been vaccinated and publicized their status. Rupert Murdoch, the network’s founder, has been jabbed, too.

The prime-time hosts, who consistently have the biggest audience, keep their status to themselves, although Hannity has said he was going to get vaccinated. Carlson, when asked directly by two journalists whether he’s been vaccinated, responded by asking their favorite sex position — his way of saying it’s too personal a question.

Even casual consumers of media targeting conservatives over the past few months absorb a deep skepticism about the vaccines.

Malchuk says some patients who are happy to take her advice on, say, diabetes medication, have resisted her encouragement that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective in warding off serious illness.

“I see people polarized in terms of where they get their information, from whom they get it and, yes, it is politically charged,” she said.

Dr. Laura Morris, who works in an area of Missouri that has seen a surge in COVID-19 infections, said that she had hoped for less polarization and that more people would have responded to seeing the positive effect of vaccines.

“There are a lot of things out there that are harmful to public health right now,” she said. “Anything out there that says vaccines are not good for you, that is false.”

Social media and the internet are major factors in what U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned last week was an alarming flow of disinformation about the vaccines.

Doctors like Malchuk and Morris, who regularly sees patients in Fulton, Missouri, suspect the internet is behind the more outlandish theories that they dispel — that the vaccines cause cancer, damage fertility or contain microchips.

Most themes on talk radio or television networks like Fox, Newsmax or One America News are more subtle or philosophical.

The vaccine is experimental, still not fully approved, is one line of attack. Wait and see. There’s no reason for young people to get it. Natural immunity is better. It’s none of your business what I do. Government — the Biden administration especially — is intruding upon your life, trying to take control of your body.

“The advice they are giving you is not designed to help,” Carlson said Monday on his show, the most popular on cable news. “It is designed to make you comply.”

Two hours later, Ingraham said that it was President Joe Biden and his allies, not conservative media figures, who are “superspreaders” of COVID-19 misinformation.

The cumulative effect of the stories is to raise doubt in the minds of people who may already be looking for a way to avoid the jab of a needle and syringe full of chemicals going into their bodies, said Kristin Urquiza, who started the organization Marked By COVID after her father died of the virus.

“They do not come out and say, ‘Do not get the vaccine,’” Urquiza said. “Their strategy is to create a culture of confusion.”

Carlson and Ingraham have been the most aggressive in questioning vaccinations. Carlson has said “the idea that you could force people to take medicine they don’t want or need” is scandalous. But he also told viewers on Monday: “We’re not saying there is no benefit to the vaccine. There may well be profound benefits to the vaccine. Our mind is open and has been from the first day. We never encouraged anyone to take or not to take the vaccine. Obviously, we’re not doctors.”

Ingraham has suggested viewers “hide your kids” from “Biden’s vaccine pushers.” She also said Monday that “we want everyone to be healthy and safe and have their risk assessment done properly.”

On conservative media, resisters are depicted as heroes. Fox’s Pete Hegseth hailed a woman who filmed herself confronting two health care workers who were urging residents of a Los Angeles housing complex to get vaccinated and told them to leave the building. Dan Bell, a One America News network host, invited a Republican congressman on as a guest because he admired the way the politician refused to answer an “activist journalist” who had asked about his vaccination status.

A Newsmax anchor, Rob Schmitt, on July 9 questioned whether vaccinations go against nature.

“If there’s some disease out there, maybe there’s just an ebb and flow to life where something’s supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that’s just the way evolution goes,” he said. “Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that.”

Since then, Newsmax and its founder, Chris Ruddy, have said he and the network strongly support Biden’s efforts to widely distribute the vaccine.

The impact of this messaging is difficult to measure. A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken at the end of June revealed that 86% of Democrats said they had received at least one shot, compared to 45% of Republicans.

Prolonged exposure to media messages about vaccines has an impact on attitudes, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, which has studied the issue. But viewers also come predisposed to certain beliefs, and television producers are attuned to what their viewers want to hear.

Urquiza said she believes that many vaccine segments on outlets that try to reach conservatives have less to do with medicine than with fostering a sense of grievance, that government needs to get off your back.

“They’re chipping away at confidence in lifesaving measures,” she said. “It’s terrifying to watch.”

David Bauder, The Associated Press

Climate change: Scientists are worried by how fast the crisis has amplified extreme weather

By Angela Dewan, CNN 

Until recently, climate change had been talked about as a future threat. Its frontlines were portrayed as remote places like the Arctic, where polar bears are running out of sea ice to hunt from. Sea level rise and extreme drought was a problem for the developing world

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Soldiers of the German armed forces Bundeswehr search for flood victims in submerged vehicles on the federal highway B265 in Erftstadt, western Germany, on July 17, 2021, after heavy rains hit parts of the country, causing widespread flooding and major damage. - Rescue workers scrambled on July 17 to find survivors and victims of the devastation wreaked by the worst floods to hit western Europe in living memory, which have already left more than 150 people dead and dozens more missing. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images)

But in the past month, it's been the developed world on the frontline.

In the past four weeks, floods in Germany engulfed streets and swallowed homes that had stood for more than a century in the quiet village of Schuld. A Canadian town of just 250 -- known more for its cool, mountain air -- burned to the ground in a wildfire that followed unprecedented heat.

© CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/AFP via Getty Images German Chancellor Angela Merkel, second right, and Rhineland-Palatinate State Premier Malu Dreyer, right, talk to residents during their visit to Schuld on July 18 after the flood hit.

And in the western United States, just weeks after a historic heatwave, some 20,000 firefighters and personnel have been deployed to extinguish 80 large fires that have consumed more than 1 million acres (4,047 square kilometers).

Climate scientists have for decades warned that the climate crisis would lead to more extreme weather. They said it would be deadly and it would be more frequent. But many are expressing surprise that heat and rain records are being broken by such large margins.

Since the 1970s, scientists have predicted the extent to which the world would warm fairly accurately. What's harder for their models to predict -- even as computers get more and more powerful -- is how intense the impact will be.

Michael E. Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, told CNN the past few weeks have showed the limitation of climate change models.

"There is an important factor with many of these events, including the recent 'heat dome' event out west, that the climate models don't capture," Mann said. "The models are underestimating the magnitude of the impact of climate change on extreme weather events."

In climate models, Mann explained, day-to-day weather is just noise. It looks a lot like chaos. It's only the most extreme events that stand out as a clear signal.

"The signal is emerging from the noise more quickly" than models predicted, Mann said. "The [real world] signal is now large enough that we can 'see' it in the daily weather," even though the models didn't see it coming.

That means historic events like the flooding in Germany or the wildfire in Canada didn't register in the predictions. To make that happen, scientists say, we need even more powerful climate models.

Tim Palmer, a research Professor in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford, is one of several scientists who have been calling for a global center for modeling that would house an "exascale" supercomputer -- a machine that can process a mind-boggling amount of data.

Scientists and governments in the 1950s established the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), when it became clear that to advance the field of particle physics would require a machine so expensive it was unlikely any single country would develop it.

"As an international organization, CERN has been hugely successful," Palmer told CNN. "That's what we need for climate change."

Scientists use computer simulations of weather events to make projections of how they may change decades into the future. But they can't zoom in enough -- even to a city level -- to predict the most extreme events. Despite technology's progress, computers are still not typically sophisticated enough to operate at such a high resolution.

Palmer said climate models must get there.

"If worldwide we're spending trillions of dollars adapting to climate change, we've got to know exactly what we're adapting to," Palmer said, "whether it's floods, droughts, storms or sea level rise."

'A necessary evil'

While the recent extreme weather events in the Northern Hemisphere took many by surprise, they were "not completely unexpected," said Richard Allan, a professor of climate science at the University of Reading. "This is what the science has always been pointing towards," he said.

But he agrees that better computers would be useful in making more detailed and refined projections.

"It's also difficult to assess how weather patterns will shift and alter in the future, including whether westerly flow over Europe will be more commonly blocked, causing thunderstorms to stall over one place, such has been the case over Europe in July 2021, or more lengthy and sustained heatwaves such as over western North America," said Allan.

Even without this granular modeling, climate activists -- and, increasingly, communities affected by extreme weather events -- are calling for more action on climate change. German Chancelor Angela Merkel said over the weekend that, "We have to hurry, we have to get faster in the fight against climate change."

Several developed countries, including the US, have this year significantly increased their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union last week unveiled an ambitious plan to put climate at the center of just about every development and economic initiative it has.

Yet many activists say that their pledges still fall short of the action needed to contain average global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius, which the International Panel for Climate Change says is necessary to avoid even more catastrophic impacts of climate change. They also criticize governments that make ambitious pledges while continuing to approve new fossil fuel projects, including coal mines, and oil and gas facilities.

Merritt Turetsky, director at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, is hoping that these weather events in the developed world will galvanize that kind of action. She is herself challenging her own perceptions of where climate change frontlines are and who is vulnerable.

"Maybe this is a necessary evil," Turetsky said. "We used to think of frontlines as island nations because of sea level rises, or the Arctic."

"We know there is a cognitive dissonance when climate change is impacting people so far away from you and everything you know. We tend to put it on a shelf, because it's one thing to see 'this is what they say,' but it's another thing to feel it. We're at a point where everyone on the planet now has felt the impacts of climate change itself, or at least someone they love or know has. It's circling in closer and closer."

That's certainly the feeling among residents in Germany's Schuld.

"When you look at what's happening in Canada, where they had temperatures of 50 degrees, and what's going on all over the world, it is clear this is the result of climate change," Niklas Pieters told CNN, as he helped his parents clear the debris from their ravaged home in Schuld on Monday.

"I don't want to have to get used to this."