US investigates latest case of a rare tropical disease

In a growing medical mystery, a person who died in July 2021 in Georgia has been confirmed as the fourth U.S. case this year of an illness caused by the meliodosis bacteria from South Asia.

On Monday, Aug. 9, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent an alert about the latest case to U.S. doctors.

By MIKE STOBBE

August 9, 2021

FILE - This Nov. 19, 2013 file photo shows a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention logo at the agency's federal headquarters in Atlanta. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials are investigating the latest fatal case of a rare tropical disease typically found in South Asia.

The unidentified person, who died last month in Georgia, was the fourth U.S. case this year of melioidosis caused by a bacteria that lives in soil and water, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

None of the cases from Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota or Texas traveled internationally, puzzling experts. The CDC said two died.

Federal health officials sent an alert about the latest case to doctors, asking them to consider melioidosis if they face a bacterial infection that doesn’t respond to antibiotics — even if the patient has not traveled outside of the country. The CDC said the infection is treatable if caught early and treated correctly.

Though the illnesses were found in different states at different times, the agency said lab analyses showed the infections were closely related.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FOR PROFIT MEDICINE USA

Groups make own drugs to fight high drug prices, shortages

By LINDA A. JOHNSON

August 10, 2021

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This 2019 photo provided by Civica Rx shows vials of vancomycin in Lehi, Utah. Impatient with years of inaction in Washington on prescription drug costs, U.S. hospital groups, startups and nonprofits have started making their own medicines in a bid to combat stubbornly high prices and persistent shortages of drugs with little competition. (Civica Rx via AP)

Impatient with years of inaction in Washington on prescription drug costs, U.S. hospital groups, startups and nonprofits have started making their own medicines in a bid to combat stubbornly high prices and persistent shortages of drugs with little competition.

The efforts are at varying stages, but some have already made and shipped millions of doses. Nearly half of U.S. hospitals have gotten some drugs from the projects and more medicines should be in retail pharmacies within the next year as the work accelerates.

Most groups are working on generics, while at least one is trying to develop brand-name drugs. All aim to sell their drugs at prices well below what competitors charge.

“These companies are addressing different parts of the problem and trying to come up with novel solutions” to produce cheaper medicines, said Stacie Dusetzina, a Vanderbilt University health policy professor. “People should be able to access the drugs that work for them without going broke.”

While some of the projects are solving supply problems and reducing medication costs for hospitals, drug price experts are split on how much consumers will benefit.

Dusetzina said the efforts could bring needed price competition, at least for some drugs.

Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, a Harvard Medical School researcher and price expert at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, thinks for some drugs these projects “can lower patients’ out-of-pocket costs ... absolutely.”

But David Mitchell, founder of the independent consumer group Patients for Affordable Drugs, said the projects are workarounds that help in niches, but are “not enough to fix a broken system.”

Civica Rx was started three years ago by a hospital consortium. It now provides over 50 generic injectable medicines in chronic shortage to more than 1,400 hospital members and the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments. It already has sold enough medication to treat 17 million people, including many hospitalized with COVID-19.

Now it’s expanding to help patients directly, said chief executive Martin VanTrieste. Its new partnership with Anthem and Blue Cross health plans, CivicaScript, is picking six or seven expensive generic drugs to start. It will have contract manufacturer Catalent start producing those drugs to sell at 50,000 retail pharmacies starting in 2023.

Other “alternative drugmakers” include:

—Two enterprises, from Premier Inc. and Phlow Corp., focused on providing their hospital members with affordably priced generics that are chronically scarce.

— NP2, which is about to start producing cheaper generic IV cancer medicines.

— EQRx, which is creating brand-name drugs for cancer and inflammatory disorders to sell at “radically lower prices” than rival brands.

Walmart recently added insulin to its in-house brand of products for people with diabetes. It’s selling its own version of the mealtime insulin NovoLog, in partnership with manufacturer Novo Nordisk, for less than half NovoLog’s price.

Even entrepreneur Mark Cuban has jumped in, giving his name and money to a public-benefit company aiming to provide cheap alternatives to high-cost generic drugs at 15% above manufacturing costs, no insurance needed.

In January, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. launched its first medication, a pill for parasitic worm infections that it sells through independent pharmacies for about $40 per two-dose treatment, said founder and CEO Dr. Alex Oshmyansky. The company is building a factory in Dallas but paying other manufacturers for now and aims to launch up to 100 more drugs by year’s end.

Vanderbilt’s Dusetzina sees Cuban’s company as best positioned to cut out-of-pocket costs.

“It’s a really nice project to go after products where there’s little competition — and price gouging,” she said.

Brand-name drugs get monopolies lasting up to two decades under U.S. patent law, so most of the alternative drugmakers are targeting certain off-patent medicines whose prices have risen dramatically in recent years.

Generics are usually cheap. But as buyers pushed for barely break-even prices on these drugs over the last couple decades, generic manufacturers consolidated. With fewer factories making certain generics, even temporary plant closures triggered lasting shortages. And the reduced competition led to big price hikes, often forcing doctors to try costlier, less-effective alternatives and hospital pharmacists to spend long hours seeking alternatives for drugs in shortage.

Those years-long shortages spurred Civica’s formation. It also led a top hospital group purchasing organization, Premier Inc., to launch a program that has contractors making more than 60 products for about 850 member hospitals, said its chief pharmacy officer, Jessica Daley. The two groups say they’ve gotten numerous drugs off national shortage lists.

Phlow Corp., a public benefit drug manufacturer largely funded by government grants, partnered in March with 11 top children’s hospitals to address shortages by making generic medicines in child-size doses for cancer and other life-threatening conditions. Phlow and Civica are building neighboring factories in Petersburg, Virginia.

Such efforts have been helping hospitals stock crucial drugs — sedatives, painkillers, antibiotics and respiratory medicines — needed for COVID-19 patients.

The alternative drugmakers are hiring U.S. contract manufacturers whenever possible and getting drug ingredients here or in Europe, to diversify supply chains heavily reliant on China and India, which limited exports of drugs and ingredients early in the pandemic. The Biden administration also is working to increase domestic production of essential generic drugs.

Harvard’s Kesselheim foresees the new generic manufacturers helping to boost supply and lower prices, but he thinks developing new brand-name drugs — as EQRx is trying to do — is tougher.

EQRx is currently testing 10 novel drugs that it licensed the rights to, for cancers and immunologic disorders like rheumatoid arthritis. One already in final-stage testing could launch within three years.

The company expects to start work on another 10 patented drugs in ultra-expensive categories in the next year and is collaborating with Exscientia, a firm that uses artificial intelligence to design drugs and speed up testing.

Insurers are among EQRx’s early investors, said the company’s president, Melanie Nallicheri. They expect the company to turn a profit, but they also support plans to price medicines at up to two-thirds off rival brand-name drugs, she said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

#ENDCOYOTEKILLING
Nevada officials hit impasse over coyote killing contests

By SAM METZ

August 11, 2021

FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2013, file photo, a coyote stands in a field in Montana. The Nevada Department of Wildlife's efforts to develop a policy on coyote killing contests are failing to progress as commissioners say they little faith that hunters and conservationists can reach agreement. (Karen Nichols/The Daily Inter Lake via AP)


CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — After years of attempts to devise rules on coyote killing contests, a policy has yet to materialize in Nevada, where Department of Wildlife commissioners said last week that they are getting less hopeful about finding a solution that hunters and conservationists accept.

Hunters in the contests use dogs, scopes and rifles to kill the most coyotes, sometimes for prizes. Unlike predators such as gray wolves or prey species such as elk, coyotes have no species protections and can be killed without licenses.

The coyote debate often mirrors other disputes in the West over how to manage populations of predator species like wolves and bobcats. Hunting communities worry they eat too many deer and elk. Ranchers tell horror stories about livestock being targeted. Suburban pet owners stress about their dogs or cats being seen as tasty predator snacks.

Some states like Utah and South Dakota offer bounties for coyotes to control their population. Coyote killing contests have been banned in at least eight states since 2014, including Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, which in the past rotated hosting the World Championship Coyote Calling Contest with Nevada.

The yearslong debate in Nevada reemerged in March when the Clark County Commission called for an immediate ban.

Last week, state Department of Wildlife commissioners informally surveyed meeting attendees, hoping to find middle ground between tournament advocates and their opponents. The survey asked participants to rank priorities including “social perception of hunting,” “wanton waste” and “tradition/heritage,” and floated ideas like public notices, bag limits or licenses.

The effort resulted in an impasse after both sides made it clear regulation wasn’t a desirable outcome, frustrating members who warned that inaction would result in the issue landing in the state Legislature.

“I was optimistic that we could get different constituencies in to help us really dissect this and learn where there may be some common ground. But after today, I’m being honest, I don’t know that we’re any further along than I had hoped,” Chairwoman Tiffany East said in a commission meeting last week.

Unlike the nine-member governor-appointed commission, which state law requires have five residents with hunting licenses, the Legislature is dominated by urban Democrats from the Las Vegas area who mostly do not hunt.

Activists have been pushing the commission for a ban since 2015. In the state Legislature, a ban proposal from Sen. Melanie Scheible, a Las Vegas Democrat, stalled before getting a hearing in 2019 and was not reintroduced in this year’s legislative session.

Contest advocates see attempts to regulate coyote hunting as a gateway to further hunting restrictions. They argue it’s both hobby sport and useful “predator control,” culling the population to manageable levels to protect livestock.

Representatives of the community advisory boards that report to the commission said it made more sense for hunters to remove overabundant predators free of charge rather than have a state agency do it.

Robert Boehmer of Carson City said a local rancher told the board that upwards of 40% of his sheep herd had been killed by predators, and that recreational hunters helped manage their population and protect his herd the following year.

“The fact that we are paying for folks to go out and control predators, and we have a group of folks that are willing to do this at no cost seemed like pretty like a pretty good deal on our end,” said Jim Ray of Washoe County.

Opponents draw distinction between predator control and contests and say removal via tournaments is too random to effectively manage species population and downplay the dangers to people and livestock. They have cited science that suggests population management efforts spread the population and increase the reproductive rate for coyotes.

A coyote has not killed anyone in Nevada in a century and, in 2020, none of the coyotes tested by the state agriculture department had rabies, the department said Wednesday. Coyotes are seen by many scientists as vital parts of ecosystems like the Great Basin — maintaining nature’s balance, eating small rodents and ensuring foraging herbivores don’t degrade vegetation and damage the landscape.

Patrick Donnelly, the Nevada State Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, called the tournaments “brutal slaughters,” said they were antithetical to fair-chase hunting norms and criticized the commission’s efforts to reach compromise as misguided.

“Right now, the state at least has the plausible deniability of saying there’s no specific rule against them, even if the state doesn’t specifically sanction them. Regulating these sick contests would give them the sanction of the state — a seal of approval from the people of the state of Nevada,” he told the commission. “If your intent is to put this issue to bed, regulating these contests will have the exact opposite effect.”

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Sam Metz is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

FOR THE BETTER

How COVID pandemic changed methadone treatment for addiction

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

FILE - In this March 7, 2017 photo, Paul "Rip" Connell, CEO of Private Clinic North, a methadone clinic, shows a 35 mg liquid dose of methadone at the clinic in Rossville, Ga. In the spring of 2020, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised. Early research shows it didn't lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives. (AP Photo/Kevin D. Liles, File)

Here’s one more lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic: It appears safe to relax restrictions on methadone, the oldest and most stigmatized treatment drug for opioid addiction.

Last spring, with coronavirus shutting down the nation, the government told methadone clinics they could allow stable patients to take their medicine at home unsupervised.

Early research shows it didn’t lead to surges of methadone overdoses or illegal sales. And the phone counseling that went along with take-home doses worked better for some people, helping them stay in recovery and get on with their lives.

U.S. health officials are studying the changes, their impact and how they might be continued.

Since the 1970s, rigid rules have guided methadone treatment, requiring most people to line up and take the liquid medicine, sipping it from small cups, while watched by employees at clinics. Only long-term patients were allowed to take home more than a day’s dose.

Now, scientists are gathering information to put those rules — never rigorously tested — under scrutiny.

“It took a pandemic to change the climate to allow us to actually study it,” said Dr. Ayana Jordan of Yale University School of Medicine, who is among researchers studying the methadone rule changes. “If we roll these policies back post-COVID, it’s going to be devastating.”

More than 400,000 people in the United States receive methadone as part of their treatment for addiction to opioids such as heroin, fentanyl and painkillers. Methadone, an opioid itself, can be dangerous in large amounts, but when taken correctly, it can stop drug cravings without causing a high. People can hold jobs and work on rebuilding their lives.

This photo provided by Scott Mancini of Providence, R.I., shows him in a selfie photo on Tuesday, July 27, 2021. Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic. “You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit. (Scott Mancini via AP)

Scott Mancini, 58, a retired truck driver in Providence, Rhode Island, has been taking methadone for a heroin addiction since 1989. Before the pandemic change, Mancini, as a long-term patient who followed the rules, could take home a six-day supply, requiring a weekly stop at the clinic.

“You’re tied down,” Mancini said of the old system. Now, with a 28-day supply, he can enjoy a long camping trip or family visit.

“It’s worked very well for me and lot of other people,” Mancini said. “I think it’s time we rewrite the rules of the programs throughout the country because the rules haven’t changed in years.”

Not all methadone clinics loosened the rules, but Rhode Island’s oldest methadone program, CODAC, where Mancini is a patient, jumped at the chance to use phone counseling and give more take-home doses. In a patient survey conducted by Brown University, most people said phone counseling was useful.

“There are two things we learned from COVID,” said CEO Linda Hurley. “Take-homes do not need to be severely restricted and telehealth works.”

Because of how opioids act on the brain, people dependent on them get sick if they stop using. Withdrawal can feel like a bad flu with cramping, sweating, anxiety and sleeplessness. Cravings can be so intense that relapse is common. Methadone eases those symptoms.

The idea behind the Nixon era rules was to prevent illegal street sales and overdoses.

“I understand the concern, but there are ways to address those issues” such as urine screening to make sure patients are taking their methadone, said 37-year-old Lyna Chaves of Pleasantville, New Jersey.

She now gets five days’ of take-home methadone from John Brooks Recovery Center under the pandemic rules. Working to become a peer support specialist, she also distributes donated food, toothpaste and other items to people who are homeless.

Rutgers University plans to analyze New Jersey health data for any bump in methadone overdoses. In interviews with researchers, New Jersey methadone providers support the relaxed take-home rules, said Rutgers researcher Stephen Crystal.

People who live far from clinics or hold steady jobs are particularly burdened by daily trips to be watched getting a dose, Crystal said.

When the government eased restrictions, it said stable patients could receive 28 days of take-home methadone and less stable ones could get 14 days. Clinics were allowed to figure out which patients were eligible; many relied on their experience and previous government criteria such as time in treatment and absence of criminal activity.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is studying the changes and how they might be continued, said Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use.

In the meantime, a new federal rule that just took effect will allow the expansion of mobile vans to bring methadone treatment to rural and hard-to-reach areas. There are a dozen or so operating now.

Methadone vans would be a good way for states to spend their money from opioid lawsuit settlements, said Beth Connolly, who directs the Pew Charitable Trusts’ substance use prevention and treatment project. As soon as next year, states could begin to see money from settlements with prescription drugmakers and distributors.

Overdose deaths soared to a record 93,000 last year, the U.S. government reported last month, with more than 60% involving fentanyl.

The pandemic provided the opportunity to give more take-home doses, said Allegra Schorr, who leads a coalition of addiction treatment providers in New York. “This worked. Why would you just return to the way things were?”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Major drought in Idaho could last years, water manager says

August 10, 2021

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho is facing unprecedented drought despite getting normal snow levels last winter, and water managers warn the state could be entering a dry spell that may last for years.

“Idaho is in the midst of a drought that is unprecedented in recent memory, mostly due to an exceptionally dry spring followed by a summer heat wave,” David Hoekema, hydrologist for the Idaho Department of Water Resources, wrote in a new analysis, the Idaho Press reported. “Without a snowpack that is significantly greater than normal next winter, Idaho could be seeing several years with limited water supply.”

Few saw this coming, as Idaho began the year with normal snowfall in the mountains, though temperatures were above normal every month but February. Then came a dry spring, followed by a blistering hot summer. The state’s basins all experienced the hottest June and July on record, Hoekema said.

“With storage being rapidly depleted across the state, concern is rising that we may be entering into a multiyear drought,” he said.

Still, it’s not the driest year on record in Idaho. That came in 1977, Hoekema said, which became known as “the year without snow.” Historically, Idaho’s drought years have followed winters with poor snowpack levels.

Irrigation-reliant farmers saw the reasonable snowpack levels in late March and planted accordingly, not expecting the dry, hot weather that followed.

“This year’s a really tough water year for farmers in Idaho,” said Sean Ellis, spokesman for the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. “If they could’ve foreseen this … there would’ve been some farmers that would’ve switched from higher-water crops like sugar beets and potatoes into lower-water crops” like barley, wheat, hay and dry beans.

Thanks to the reservoirs, many farmers’ crops will survive the season, Ellis said, though many are reporting lower yields. Next year could be more troublesome.

“We finished last year’s irrigation season with carryover water that was above normal,” Ellis said. “This year, we’re not going to do that.”

Hoekema wrote in his report that it could take several years for some of the state’s reservoirs to recover. That means less water for everything from irrigating crops to providing water for fast-growing communities, and water officials around the state are strongly urging conservation.

SUEZ Water, which serves 240,000 people in Boise and the surrounding area, reported in late July that its customers’ water use was up 15%, using a billion gallons more than anticipated, largely for lawn-watering amid the heat. It urged water-saving measures, including limiting lawn-watering and not watering during the heat of the day.

Northwest heat wave targeted vulnerable, tested climate prep

By GILLIAN FLACCUS

August 11, 2021

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Karen Colby listens on July 22, 2021 in Portland, Ore., while her neighbor Joel Aslin tells how he called an ambulance for her when she got heat stroke as temperatures reached 107 F in her small fifth-floor studio apartment during a record-breaking heat wave in June. The unprecedented heat, which reached 116 F in Portland, killed dozens of people in Oregon and hundreds across the region and was a wake-up call for the normally cool region as climate change accelerates. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Karen Colby thought she could make it through an unprecedented Pacific Northwest heat wave with a little help from her neighbor, who dribbled cold water on her head and visited every hour to wrap frozen towels around her neck

But when temperatures in her tiny fifth-floor studio soared to 107 degrees Fahrenheit (42 Celsius), Colby suddenly stopped responding to questions and couldn’t move from her recliner to her walker. The friend called an ambulance, and Colby, 74, wound up hospitalized for 10 days with heatstroke.

“We had just survived the coronavirus and had been in complete lockdown. We were basically in jail here,” said Joel Aslin, Colby’s longtime friend who lives in the same apartment complex for low-income Portland residents who have a disability or are over 62.

“We did everything right and she survived — and then we had that stupid heat wave and that almost took her life,” Aslin said.

The record-smashing heat that swept through cities from Portland to Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of June silently killed scores of the region’s most vulnerable who could not leave their homes, afford air conditioning or get a ride to public cooling centers.

Consecutive days of temperatures as high as 116 F (47 C) in Portland made a folly of years of planning for more anticipated emergencies such as earthquakes and snowstorms — and it was only as the disaster unfolded that authorities got a sense of how devastating it would ultimately be. Emergency rooms overflowed, 911 calls spiked and death reports rolled in.

The crisis was a wake-up call for the normally temperate Pacific Northwest about what lies ahead with climate change and was a harsh lesson in how unprepared the region is, particularly when it comes to those living on society’s margins.

The median summer temperature in Oregon could increase as much as 10 degrees by the end of the century, according to the Climate Impact Lab, and extreme weather events like heat waves will become more frequent.

“The really important and complex point is that places that are already hot — and are going to get hotter — are already adapted. They have air conditioning and they have homes built for wind to flow through,” said Alan Barreca, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Institute of Environment and Sustainability.

“Definitely the Pacific Northwest is not used to those temps, and so they’re more vulnerable,” he said.

Authorities in Portland spent days leading up to the heat wave warning the public, calling and texting hundreds of the most vulnerable, dispatching volunteers with thousands of bottles of water and opening round-the-clock cooling centers.

Still, it was not enough to prevent what officials labeled a mass casualty event.

While nobody is certain exactly how many died, officials have estimated that the number is in the hundreds in Oregon, Washington state and British Columbia combined.

In Oregon, officials say 83 people died of heat-related illness, and the hot weather is being investigated as a possible cause in 33 more deaths. Washington state reported at least 91 heat deaths, and officials in British Columbia say hundreds of “sudden and unexpected deaths” were likely due to the soaring temperatures.

Most of the Oregon deaths occurred in Multnomah County, home to Portland, where the average victim was white, lived alone and 70 years old. There were more heat deaths in Portland in June than in the entire state over the past 20 years, authorities said.

Cassie Sorensen, who heads a nonprofit that does free grocery shopping and delivery for the homebound, said their phone lines were swamped by desperate clients in need of an air conditioning unit or a ride to a cooling center.

“We have clients who are bedbound or chairbound on their couches, and they were home in the heat until ‘home in the heat’ became a medical emergency and they were in an ambulance taking them to the hospital. It was a bit of a helpless feeling,” said Sorensen, program director of Store to Door.

The crisis also exposed gaps in planning that stymied those seeking transportation to cooler locations.

Leading up to the heat wave, officials publicized the number of a statewide call center that could direct people to cooling centers or help them get rides — but it was unstaffed for more than 24 hours during the peak heat, which fell on a weekend.

More than 700 callers gave up on hold or in the voicemail system as temperatures hit 112 F (44 C); it’s unclear how many needed rides or what happened to them.

Portland’s famed light rail system also shut down during the worst heat to reduce strain on the power grid, eliminating one transportation option for low-income people seeking relief. And many homeless people didn’t want to leave their belongings or pets behind to go to a cooling shelter, advocates said.

“This is great that we’re having a conversation around cooling centers, but what are we doing around people who can’t get there? Those are the people who are literally dying,” said Sorensen, who has been involved in discussions about how Portland can improve.

When a shorter and less intense heat wave struck last weekend, authorities applied some of the easiest lessons. Many more cooling centers opened, buses were free for people headed to those facilities and the statewide call center was staffed 24/7. It included a new option high in the voicemail menu for information on cooling centers.

Gov. Kate Brown activated an emergency coordination center, making more resources available to tribes and local governments, and authorities held a news conference to urge each resident to check on five people during the peak heat.

“We hadn’t experienced an event like that before, so we were working off potential impacts,” said Andrew Phelps, director of Oregon Emergency Management. “Now, we understand just how deadly these events can be, especially in our urban centers.”

Yet the longer-term solutions needed to prepare the Pacific Northwest for its future climate require much bigger fixes: revising building codes to require air conditioning, installing heat-repelling sidewalks in city centers and providing subsidies so lower-income residents can afford air conditioning.

Authorities also are looking at using an existing emergency alert system that would send a phone notification or landline message to warn people in real time as temperatures spike, said Dan Douthit, spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Emergency Management.

An “earthquake is a big, looming hazard for Portland, but globally, heat emergencies kill more people than any type of emergency,” he said. “We did more for this heat emergency than any heat emergency we’ve ever responded to, but it doesn’t mean that we did enough.”

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Follow Flaccus on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gflaccus.

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‘We fought a great battle’: Greece defends wildfire response

By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS and ELENA BECATOROS

August 10, 2021

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A firefighter from Slovakia tries to extinguish a fire in Avgaria village on Evia island, about 184 kilometers (115 miles) north of Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. A massive wildfire burning for days on the northern tip of Greece's second largest island continued to devour forests Tuesday, its thick smoke hanging in the streets of a nearby town as hundreds of firefighters battled to save what they could. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — As the worst of Greece’s massive wildfires were being tamed Tuesday, the country’s civil protection chief defended the firefighting efforts, saying every resource was thrown into the battle against what he described as the fire service’s biggest-ever challenge.

Nikos Hardalias said authorities “truly did what was humanly possible” against blazes that destroyed tens of thousands of hectares (acres) of forest and hundreds of homes, killed a volunteer firefighter and forced more than 60,000 people to flee. Two other firefighters were in intensive care with severe burns.

“We handled an operationally unique situation, with 586 fires in eight days during the worst weather conditions we’ve seen in 40 years,” Hardalias told a news conference. “Never was there such a combination of adverse factors in the history of the fire service.”

Greece had just experienced its worst heat wave since 1987, which left its forests tinder-dry. Other nearby nations such as Turkey and Italy also faced the same searing temperatures and quickly spreading fires.

Worsening drought and heat – both linked to climate change – have also fueled wildfires this summer in the U.S. West and in Siberia in northern Russia.

Scientists say there is little doubt that climate change from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas is driving extreme events. Researchers can directly link a single event to climate change only through intensive data analysis, but they say such calamities are expected to happen more frequently.

In Greece, the worst blaze still burning Tuesday was in the northern section of Evia, the country’s second-largest island, which is linked by a bridge to the mainland north of Athens and is a favorite holiday destination for the Greek capital’s residents.

Nearly 900 firefighters, 50 ground teams and more than 200 vehicles were fighting the blaze that broke out Aug. 3, the fire service said. They included crews from Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Cyprus and Poland — part of a huge international response to Greece’s plea for assistance.

A burnt mountain over a beach in Agia Anna village on Evia island, about 148 kilometers (92 miles) north of Athens, Greece, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. As Greece's massive wildfires appeared to largely recede Tuesday, the country's civil protection chief defended the firefighting efforts, saying every resource was thrown into the fight against what he described as the fire service's worst challenge ever. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

Fourteen helicopters provided air support Tuesday on Evia, including three from Serbia, two from Switzerland and two from Egypt. The wildfire on Evia, unlike many in the United States, was burning in an area in which villages and forests are entwined.

Hardalias said all the fire fronts on Evia were waning, but firefighters were guarding the perimeter of the blaze, particularly around a cluster of villages that were among the dozens evacuated on the island in recent days. However, heavy smoke from the fires has often reduced visibility to zero, making it too dangerous for water-dropping aircraft to assist ground forces.

According to EU wildfire data and satellite imagery, more than 49,000 hectares (121,000 acres) have burned up on Evia — by far the worst damage from any of the recent fires in Greece.

Several other wildfires were burning in the country, with the most significant in the southern Peloponnese region, where new evacuations were ordered Tuesday afternoon. About 400 firefighters, including teams from the Czech Republic and Britain, battled that blaze, assisted by five helicopters and 23 water-dropping planes from several countries.

A judicial investigation is under way into the causes of the fires, including any links to criminal activity. Several arson suspects have been arrested.

“I don’t know whether there is any organized arson plan, that’s not my job,” Hardalias told the news conference. But it was his “feeling” that at least with the flames near ancient Olympia, the seven or eight fires that broke out in close succession could be due to arson.

Also on Tuesday, a woman convicted of intentionally starting a fire in an Athens park last week was sentenced to five years in prison.

Residents and local officials on Evia have complained about a lack of water-dropping planes in the early stages that they say left the fire to grow to such proportions that flying became too hazardous.

Hardalias argued that when the Evia blaze broke out, authorities were already facing other enormous challenges. A major forest fire was burning through the northern outskirts of Athens, forcing the evacuation of thousands, and another was coursing through villages towards ancient Olympia — a hugely important archaeological site in the Peloponnese where the ancient Olympic Games were held for more than 1,000 years.

“Every house lost is a tragedy for all of us. It’s a knife in our heart,” he said.

Asked whether he was satisfied with the country’s firefighting response, Hardalias said: “Obviously, there can be no satisfaction after such a catastrophe. But all our available forces, ground and airborne, were sent immediately to the fires.”

“Whether we could have done something different remains to be seen,” he said. “But in any case, we fought a great battle, and the losses were among those fighting it, not among civilians.”

Greek authorities have emphasized saving lives, issuing evacuation alerts for dozens of villages and neighborhoods this summer. In 2018, a deadly fire that engulfed a seaside settlement near Athens killed more than 100 people, including some who drowned trying to escape the flames and smoke by sea.

Critics say the government’s focus on evacuating villages prevented villagers with local knowledge from helping firefighters and led to more property destruction.

Greece’s center-right government has pledged to provide compensation to everyone who suffered loss from the wildfires and to undertake a massive reforestation effort to replace the trees that have burned.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a special cabinet meeting Tuesday that owners of destroyed or damaged homes would receive up to 150,000 euros ($176,000) in state compensation, with initial payments to begin next week, while businesses and farmers will also get support and tax breaks.

In southwest Turkey, crews battled two fires Tuesday in the coastal province of Mugla, including a brush fire near Bodrum’s Gumusluk resort neighborhood. Bodrum’s mayor said the fire was close to being extinguished and no residential areas were threatened.

Meanwhile, firefighters quickly put out a new blaze in a forest in Istanbul’s Sariyer district.

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Paphitis reported from Kontias, Greece.

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Follow all AP stories about climate change issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.

Huge California fire grows; Montana blaze threatens towns

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Isaac Slabaugh and Fannie Stutzman are surrounded by smoke from the Richard Spring Fire as it moves toward Ashland, Mont., Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. The fire burning on and around the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation has grown into Montana's largest blaze so far in 2021. (Mike Clark/The Billings Gazette via AP)


GREENVILLE, Calif. (AP) — California’s largest single wildfire in recorded history continued to grow Wednesday after destroying more than 1,000 buildings, nearly half of them homes, while authorities in Montana ordered evacuations as a wind-driven blaze roared toward several remote communities.

The dangerous fires were among some 100 large blazes burning across 15 states, mostly in the West, where historic drought conditions have left lands parched and ripe for ignition.

Burning through bone-dry trees, brush and grass, the Dixie Fire has destroyed at least 1,045 buildings, including 550 homes, in the northern Sierra Nevada. Newly released satellite imagery showed the scale of the destruction in the small community of Greenville that was incinerated last week during an explosive run of flames.

The Dixie Fire, named after the road where it started on July 14, by Wednesday morning covered 783 square miles (2,027 square kilometers) and was 30% contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. At least 14,000 remote homes were still threatened.

The Dixie Fire is the largest single fire in California history and the largest currently burning in the U.S. It is about half the size of the August Complex, a series of lightning-caused 2020 fires across seven counties that were fought together and that state officials consider California’s largest wildfire overall.

The fire’s cause was under investigation. Pacific Gas & Electric has said it may have been sparked when a tree fell on one of its power lines.

California authorities arrested a man last weekend who is suspected in an arson fire in remote forested areas near the Dixie Fire.

The 47-year-old suspect was charged with setting a small blaze in Lassen County, which is among the counties where the larger blaze is burning, around July 20.

In southeastern Montana, the uncontrolled Richard Spring Fire continued to advance Wednesday toward inhabited areas in and around the sparsely-populated Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, after several thousand people were ordered to evacuate the previous night.

Two homes caught fire Tuesday but were saved, authorities said.

The fire began Sunday and powerful gusts caused it to explode across more than 230 square miles (600 square kilometers).

A few miles from the evacuated town of Lame Deer, Krystal Two Bulls and some friends stuck around to clear brush from her yard in hopes of protecting it from the flames. Thick plumes of smoke rose from behind a tree-covered ridgeline just above the house.

“We’re packed and we’re loaded so if we have to go, we will,” Two Bull said. “I’m not fearful; I’m prepared. Here you don’t just run from fire or abandon your house.”

Some of the people who fled the fire Tuesday initially sought shelter in Lame Deer, only to be displaced again when the fire got within several miles.

The town of about 2,000 people is home to the tribal headquarters and several subdivisions and is surrounded by rugged, forested terrain. By late Wednesday a second fire was closing in on Lame Deer from the west, while the Richard Spring fire raged to the east.

Also ordered to leave were about 600 people in and around Ashland, a small town just outside the reservation with a knot of businesses along its main street and surrounded by grasslands and patchy forest.

The flames were within several miles of town and came right up to a subdivision outside it.

Local, state and federal firefighters were joined by ranchers using their own heavy equipment to carve out fire lines around houses.

Heat waves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the American West.

Scientists have said climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive. The fires across the West come as parts of Europe are also enduring large blazes spurred by tinder-dry conditions.

State of emergency in Russia’s Yakutia expanded over fires

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A man rides his bicycle through smoke from a forest fire covers Yakutsk, the capital of the republic of Sakha also known as Yakutia, Russia Far East, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Smoke covered hundreds of villages in Siberia as wildfires raged for another day in Russia's vast, forest-rich region. Emergency officials in southeastern Siberia's Irkutsk oblast said that smoke from the wildfires in the north and in the neighboring Sakha Republic, covered 736 villages and nine cities in the region. (AP Photo/Ivan Nikiforov)


MOSCOW (AP) — Russian authorities expanded a state of emergency in northeast Siberia on Friday to bring in outside resources to combat wildfires that have engulfed the vast region.

Russian Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev declared the state of emergency for Sakha-Yakutia. The move should help organize the transfer of firefighting resources from other regions to help fight the blazes in Yakutia, which is Russia’s largest territory and bigger than Argentina.

The vast territory, also known as Sakha Republic, has faced a spell of particularly devastating wildfires this year following months of hot and dry weather featuring record-breaking temperatures.

A boy walks through smoke from a forest fire covers Yakutsk, the capital of the republic of Sakha also known as Yakutia, Russia Far East, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Smoke covered hundreds of villages in Siberia as wildfires raged for another day in Russia's vast, forest-rich region. Emergency officials in southeastern Siberia's Irkutsk oblast said that smoke from the wildfires in the north and in the neighboring Sakha Republic, covered 736 villages and nine cities in the region. (AP Photo/Ivan Nikiforov)

On Friday, officials reported 117 active forest fires burning across nearly 1.4 million hectares (3.4 million acres) in Yakutia, which encompasses 308.4 million hectares (762 million acres).

Smoke from burning forests has enveloped wide areas and forced the airport in the regional capital of Yakutsk to suspend operations Thursday. Flights resumed Friday to what is often described as the coldest city on Earth.

In recent years, Russia has recorded high temperatures that many scientists regard as a result of climate change. The hot weather coupled with the neglect of fire safety rules has caused a growing number of fires.

Experts blame the worsening situation with fires on a 2007 decision to disband a federal aviation network tasked to spot and combat fires and turn its assets to regional authorities. The forests that cover huge areas of Russia make spotting new fires a challenge, and the much-criticized transfer led to the force’s rapid decline.

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Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-change

Russian investigators probe big Black Sea oil spill

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

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An aerial view of the Black Sea coast following an oil spill that happened while being pumped into the Minerva Symphony tanker, near Novorossiysk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into an oil spill off the country's Black Sea coast that appeared to be far bigger than initially thought. Authorities initially estimated the spill to cover only 200 square meters, but Russian scientists said Wednesday after studying satellite images that it actually covered nearly 80 square kilometers (nearly 31 square miles). (AP Photo)


MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s top criminal investigation agency on Thursday probed an oil spill off the country’s Black Sea coast that appeared hugely bigger than initially reported.

The spill occurred over the weekend at the oil terminal in Yuzhnaya Ozereyevka near the port of Novorossiysk that belongs to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, which pumps crude from Kazakhstan. The oil spilled while being pumped into the Minerva Symphony tanker, which sails under the Greek flag.

Authorities initially estimated that the spill covered only about 200 square meters (2,153 square feet), but Russian scientists said Wednesday after studying satellite images that it actually covered nearly 80 square kilometers (nearly 31 square miles).

WWF Russia has estimated that about 100 metric tons of oil have spilled into the sea.


The Minerva Symphony tanker, which sails under the Greek flag is seen at the Black Sea coast after an oil spill, near Novorossiysk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Russia'n prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into an oil spill off the country's Black Sea coast that appeared to be far bigger than initially expected. The oil spilled while being pumped into the Minerva Symphony tanker. Authorities initially estimated the spill to cover only 200 square meters (2,153 square feet). But Russian scientists said Wednesday after studying satellite images that it actually covered nearly 80 square kilometers (nearly 31 square miles). (AP Photo)

A part of the Black Sea near a delphinium at a coast following an oil spill that happened while being pumped into the Minerva Symphony tanker, near Novorossiysk, Russia, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021. Russian prosecutors have opened a criminal probe into an oil spill off the country's Black Sea coast that appeared to be far bigger than initially thought. Authorities initially estimated the spill to cover only 200 square meters, but Russian scientists said Wednesday after studying satellite images that it actually covered nearly 80 square kilometers (nearly 31 square miles). (AP Photo)


The Investigative Committee, the country’s top criminal investigation agency, said Thursday it was conducting a probe on charges of inflicting significant damage to marine biological resources. The committee said it performed searches at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and inspected the area for damage.

Russian media said traces of oil were spotted along the scenic Black Sea coast, including Abrau-Dyurso and a dolphin aquarium in Bolshoy Utrish, 25 kilometers (15 miles) to the west, where workers urgently put up barriers to protect the mammals. The spill’s oily film was also spotted in the resort city of Anapa, further west down the coast.

Veniamin Kondratyev, the governor of the Krasnodar region, sought to downplay the impact of the spill, saying that he and other officials flew over the area in a helicopter and saw no trace of it at sea. “Quick measures were taken to eliminate the consequences,” Kondratyev said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The governor later met with the head of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, who assured him that the sea has remained clean thanks to quick efforts to contain the spill.

Brazil’s Bolsonaro loses his bid to reform voting system

By MAURICIO SAVARESE and MARCELO SILVA DE SOUSA

August 11, 2021

SAO PAULO (AP) — President Jair Bolsonaro has suffered a major defeat in Congress when Brazilian lawmakers rejected a proposal to require printed receipts at some electronic ballot boxes.

Without presenting any evidence, Bolsonaro has insisted Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, and that printouts would allow for auditing results. The proposed constitutional change needed 308 votes in order to pass, and received 229 Tuesday night.

The opposition, however, also fell short of reaching an overwhelming majority to rebuff the president’s relentless efforts to undermine confidence in the voting system. Only 218 lawmakers voted against the measure.

Electoral authorities and even many of Bolsonaro’s political allies opposed the proposal, saying the system is fully reliable and the change could create opportunities for vote buying. Critics contend Bolsonaro is trying to sow doubt among his passionate supporters about the 2022 election results, setting the stage for potential conflicts similar to those spawned by then U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the United States.

Cláudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university, said Tuesday’s vote marked the biggest legislative defeat for Bolsonaro since he took office in 2019. The measure was a watered-down version of an initial proposal to adopt printouts at all of the nation’s voting ballot boxes. That initiative was rejected last week by a congressional committee

“The administration is getting more fragile in every aspect,” Couto said. “By insisting on the printed vote — for a nonexistent problem — Bolsonaro made this defeat important.”

Bolsonaro told supporters on Wednesday that, despite the loss, the divided vote showed that a large part of Congress doesn’t believe elections are conducted seriously and that Brazilians won’t trust next year’s results.

He said some lawmakers who voted against the proposal were pressured by Brazil’s electoral court, while others were blackmailed or feared retaliation. He offered no evidence for those claims.

In pushing for the change, Bolsonaro has repeatedly insulted Luis Roberto Barroso, a Supreme Court justice who is president of Brazil’s electoral court, accusing him of working to benefit former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is expected to run in next year’s election and is leading in early polls.

Earlier Tuesday, dozens of military vehicles and hundreds of soldiers paraded past the presidential palace as Bolsonaro looked on, then they continued past Congress. The vehicles left the city at night.

The navy issued a statement saying the convoy had been planned long before the congressional vote. But it was announced only on Monday and critics said it looked like an attempt to intimidate the president’s opponents.

Tuesday’s vote represented a bid by lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally, to resolve the dispute and ease tensions in the capital.

“In the lower house, I hope that this issue is definitively settled,” Lira told reporters last night.

___ Marcelo Silva da Sousa reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Military display rolls into Brazil capital before tense vote

DÉBORA ÁLVARES and MAURICIO SAVARESE

August 10, 2021

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An armored vehicle drives past Congressional buildings as part of a convoy after it passed by Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. The convoy paraded by the palace on Tuesday, the day of a key congressional vote on a constitutional reform proposal supported by Bolsonaro that would add printed receipts to some of the nation’s electronic ballot boxes. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)


BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s military staged an unusual convoy of troops and armored vehicles through the capital Tuesday — an event that was announced only a day before and that coincided with a scheduled vote in Congress on one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s key proposals.

Hours later, Congress’ lower house did not approve the constitutional reform sought by Bolsonaro to require printed receipts from some electronic ballot boxes that the president alleges are prone to fraud. His allies needed 308 votes and got only 229. The opposition, which had hoped to get an overwhelming majority against the president, fell short, getting 218 votes.

Earlier in the day, dozens of vehicles and hundreds of soldiers paraded past the presidential palace as Bolsonaro looked on, then continued past the congressional building and Defense Ministry.

The navy issued a statement saying the convoy had been planned long before the congressional vote. But it was announced only on Monday and critics said it looked like an attempt to intimidate opponents of a president who has often praised the country’s past military dictatorship.

Military parades in the capital are usually limited to independence day events. Tuesday’s procession was described as a ceremonial invitation for Bolsonaro to attend annual navy exercises that are held in a town outside the capital. The army and air force also are participating for the first time.

President Jair Bolsonaro waves next to his Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto as a military convoy passes the presidential palace in Brasilia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

The parade upset some lawmakers. Omar Aziz, the president of a Senate probe into the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response, said the parade was “a clear attempt to intimidate lawmakers and opponents. He (Bolsonaro) imagines he is showing strength, but he is showing a president weakened by investigations.”

Critics allege that Bolsonaro, who trails rivals in early opinion polls, is trying to sow doubt among his passionate supporters about the 2022 election results, setting the stage for potential conflicts similar to those spawned by former U.S. President Donald Trump’s allegations of fraud in the United States.

Supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro cheer with a Brazilian flag as protesters in opposition to the president hold flowers to give to soldiers from a military convoy. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

A soldier in a parked military vehicle outside Navy headquarters in Brasilia. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, a lawmaker, on Monday reinforced the family’s close association with Trump by posting on social media what appeared to be a recent photo of himself standing alongside the former U.S. leader and saying he (Eduardo) is “on the side of men with unblemished reputations and the moral authority to walk down the street, head held high.”

Tuesday’s military procession shows Bolsonaro is either a poor judge of the political climate or is knowingly straining against democratic norms, said Kai Kenkel, a specialist on Brazil’s military at Rio de Janeiro’s Pontifical Catholic University.

“We still need to know for sure whether there is a connection between Bolsonaro’s agenda and the motivations of the navy to do this, because the navy has been much more careful not to make political statements,” Kenkel told The Associated Press.

Electoral authorities have repeatedly denied any problems with the voting system and Bolsonaro has failed to present proof despite a Supreme Court order to substantiate his allegations.

The president has repeatedly insulted Luis Roberto Barroso, a Supreme Court justice and the electoral court’s president, accusing him of working to benefit former leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been leading in the polls.

Tuesday’s measure is a watered-down version of an initial proposal to adopt printouts at all of the nation’s voting ballot boxes — a bill rejected last week by a congressional committee.

Electoral authorities and even many of Bolsonaro’s political allies oppose the plan, saying it attacks a nonexistent problem and would create opportunity for vote buying.

The call for a vote appeared to be a bid by lower house Speaker Arthur Lira, a Bolsonaro ally, to settle the dispute for good and ease tensions.

On Monday, Lira called the military exercise taking place the same day as the vote a “tragic coincidence.″

Amid red smoke from flares lit by protesters, police detain two protesters blocking a military convoy that was heading to Planalto presidential palace. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

“We hope that this subject is finally ended in the lower house,” Lira said after the vote.

Cláudio Couto, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, said Tuesday marked the biggest legislative defeat for Bolsonaro.

“The administration is getting more frail in every aspect. It suffers in polls, it is investigated in the Senate inquiry on the COVID-19 pandemic, and the chances that Bolsonaro is not reelected are getting bigger,” Couto said. “By insisting in today’s proposal to solve a problem that does not exist, Bolsonaro has made this defeat to be important.”

Bolsonaro has repeatedly hammered on the fraud claims to rally supporters and shows no sign of dropping the issue.

“We will do everything for our freedom, for clean, democratic elections and public count of votes,” he told backers Saturday at a rally in Santa Catarina state. Any election without that isn’t an election.”

He led another rally, a motorcycle convoy, in the capital on Sunday.

“It isn’t just now that there are rumors about fraud in the ballot boxes, but now there’s this proposal and he (Bolsonaro) resolved to go in head first,” said Maria da Silva, a 61-year-old homemaker from Sao Paulo. “I trust him.”

Women offer flowers to a soldier in a show of opposition to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro after a military convoy passed Planalto presidential palace and parked outside the Navy headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021. The convoy paraded by the palace on Tuesday, the day of a key congressional vote on a constitutional reform proposal supported by Bolsonaro that would add printed receipts to some of the nation’s electronic ballot boxes. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)

Hours before the tense vote, Bolsonaro had another defeat in Congress. A dictatorship-era national security law, which was frequently used by police against critics of the president, was scrapped by the Senate. The law, which dates from 1983, made it a crime to harm the heads of the three branches of government or expose them to danger.

Juan Gonzalez, the U.S. National Security Council’s senior director for the Western Hemisphere, told reporters on Monday that Biden administration officials were “very candid” speaking last week with Bolsonaro about elections, particularly in light of parallels with what has happened in the U.S.

“We were also very direct, expressing great confidence in the ability of the Brazilian institutions to carry out a free and fair election with proper safeguards in place and guard against fraud,” Gonzalez said. “And we stressed the importance of not undermining confidence in that process, especially since there were no signs of fraud in in prior elections.” 

___ Mauricio Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. AP journalist Eraldo Peres contributed from Brasilia