Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s COVID claim denounced as racist

By ACACIA CORONADO

 In this July 9, 2021, file photo, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick speaks during opening general session of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas. Lt. Gov. Patrick blamed rising hospitalization and death rates from COVID-19 on unvaccinated Black people, and his comments were quickly denounced as racist. Patrick made the comments Thursday, Aug. 19, 2021, night on a Fox News segment. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)


AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ lieutenant governor blamed rising hospitalization and death rates from COVID-19 on unvaccinated Black people — comments that were quickly denounced as racist.

Republican Lt. Governor Dan Patrick made the remarks Thursday night on a Fox News segment in response to question about the latest coronavirus surge in Texas. The state is seeing its highest hospitalization rates since January as the highly contagious delta variant spreads.

“The biggest group in most states are African Americans who have not been vaccinated,” Patrick said.

Patrick did not change course Friday, saying “Democrat social media trolls” misstated facts and that he had used state data in his assertions. His office did not respond to a request for additional comments.

But statistics from the Texas Department of State Health Services don’t back that. Black people — who make up about 12% of the more than 29 million people in Texas — accounted for about 15% of total COVID-19 cases and just more than 10% of deaths.

Patrick also told Fox News that Democrats were to blame for low vaccination rates among Black people, who frequently support that party, even though he believes Republicans should persuade more people to get their shots, too. But he also tiptoed around that issue, which has been sensitive for the GOP.

“But we respect the fact that if people don’t want the vaccination, we’re not going to force it on them,” Patrick said. “That’s their individual right.”

City and county officials in Texas — many of whom are are in ongoing legal battles with state government over mask mandates — met Patrick with swift rebukes.

“The Lt. Governor’s statements are offensive and should not be ignored,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is Black, said on Twitter.

Rodney Ellis, a Black commissioner for the county that encompasses Houston, tweeted that Patrick’s comments were “racist and flat out wrong.”

“It’s disappointing that the Lt. Governor would rather scapegoat Black people than do the right thing and work with local government to help control the spread of COVID-19,” Ellis wrote.

About 8% of the eligible Black population in Texas has been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to state data, compared with 35% of the white population. White people make up the largest racial group in Texas at about 40% of the total residents.

Overall, 44% of Texans are fully vaccinated, less than the national rate of about 50%. COVID-19 is blamed for more than 50,000 deaths in the state, and more than 600,000 across the U.S.

Failures and abuses on behalf of government — including the “Tuskegee syphilis study,” in which unsuspecting Black men were used as guinea pigs in a study of a sexually transmitted disease — have led to mistrust in public institutions for many African Americans.

Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas State NAACP Conference, said those historic disparities combined with the politicization of vaccines, misinformation and access to shots is the problem. Bledsoe said he was “shocked” by Patrick’s comments.

“I am so concerned that he is going to give field to somebody to go out there and do something outrageous because they think someone in their community got infected by Black people. That is just not true,” Bledsoe said. “Reach out beyond your political base, reach out to people of all the political persuasions in Texas, all the races and religions, and say, ‘Let’s come together,’ because this is a major problem.”

The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths from COVID-19 in Texas has risen over the past two weeks from 50.29 deaths per day on Aug. 4 to 115.14 deaths per day on Aug. 18, according to data from Johns Hopkins University Center.

This is not the first time that Patrick has been criticized for comments related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an April 2020 appearance on Fox News, Patrick said the U.S. should get back to work in the face of the pandemic and that people over the age of 70, who the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says are at higher risk for severe illness from the coronavirus, will “take care of ourselves.”

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Acacia Coronado 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.

Artist Chuck Close, known for photorealistic portraits, dead at 81


Artist Chuck Close, who was known for painting photorealistic portraits, died at the age of 81 on Thursday. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo


Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Artist Chuck Close, known for his photorealistic paintings, died on Thursday. He was 81 years old.

Close's lawyer John Silberman confirmed Close's death to The Washington Post and Adriana Elgarresta, director of public relations at the Pace Gallery in New York, said the cause of death was congestive heart failure.

Using an airbrush and diluted black paint, Close created highly detailed paintings based on photographs of himself and his friends.

Born Charles Thomas Close in Monroe, Wash., on July 5, 1940, Close graduated from the University of Washington School of Art in 1962 and later earned a bachelor's degree and a master's of fine arts from Yale University and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.

Close later evolved his process by adding color to the paintings and eventually scanning hand-painted marks into a computer. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

In 1967, he moved to New York where he developed his style of photorealist paintings drawing a grid on the photo and a larger version of the grid on a blank canvas creating "Big Self-Portrait."

The painting depicted him staring at the camera through his black-rimmed glasses while smoking a cigarette on a 7-by-9-foot canvas.

Close later evolved his process by adding color to the paintings and eventually scanning hand-painted marks into a computer which he used to produce portraits of artists Cecily Brown, Kiki Smith, Cindy Sherman and Kara Walker.

In 2017, several women who came to his studio to pose accused Close of sexually harassing them between 2005 and 2013. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

In 1967, during his first solo exhibition at the gallery at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he was teaching at the time, the university deemed several male nudes on display obscene and sent campus police to dismantle the show.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the American Association of University Professors sued on Close's behalf and won the trial but the decision was overturned on appeal.

In 2017, several women who came to his studio to pose accused Close of sexually harassing them between 2005 and 2013.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington indefinitely postponed an exhibition of Close's work following the allegations.

A collapsed spinal artery left Close paralyzed from the neck down in 1988 but he was ultimately able to regain movement in his arms and sit up and paint using brushes strapped to his hand after months of rehabilitation.

He was also diagnosed with frontal lobe dementia in 2015.

Close was married twice and is survived by his daughters, Georgia and Maggie, and four grandchildren.

Lake Tahoe a pool for air pollution during smoke-filled wildfire season
By Lauren Fox, Accuweather.com

Trees catch fire after flames from the Caldor Fire jump the Mormon Emigrant Trail in Happy Valley, Calif., on Tuesday. As of Friday, the wildfire has burned close to 70,000 acres. Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 20 -- Lake Tahoe has experienced "especially bad" air quality through the second half of this summer, and new data reveals the lake's air quality is at its worst levels of this decade.

The intense wildfire season California has experienced so far and the bowl-like geography surrounding Lake Tahoe that can cause pollutants to linger after getting trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, are partially responsible for the lake's poor air quality this year.

"The second half of summer has been especially bad for air quality around Lake Tahoe," AccuWeather Meteorologist Joe Curtis said. "The first half of summer was not as bad, but things rapidly deteriorated by late July and August."

According to AccuWeather Forecast Manager Bryan Sausman, summer tends to be the worst time for air quality due to less airflow. In addition, the wildfires throughout California have played a role.

RELATED Caldor Fire in Northern California explodes in size; zero containment

The Caldor Fire, which is burning in El Dorado County directly southwest of Lake Tahoe, has so far torched close to 70,000 acres. As of Friday, the fire has been active for six days and is 0% contained.

On Tuesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for El Dorado County.

The sun sets on Tuesday behind the partially burned sign of the Walter Tyler Elementary School in Grizzly Flats, Calif., amid the the Caldor Fire. Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI

"Any amount of smoke in the air will lead to poor air quality," Curtis said.

The Dixie Fire and Tamarack Fire, both of which erupted near Lake Tahoe in Northern California this summer, have also played a role in the dwindling air quality of the lake. The Tamarack Fire has burned over 68,000 acres so far and is more than 82% contained as of Friday while the massive Dixie Fire remains just 35% contained with more than 700,000 acres already burned.

Pollution from wildfires may increase COVID-19 risk in affected regions, study finds

"It's been bad in the past, it's bad now and it will be bad again in the future," Dave Johnston, air pollution control officer for the El Dorado County Air Quality Management District, told The San Francisco Chronicle.

"Lake Tahoe is in a basin surrounded by mountains, so it is difficult for smoke to dissipate without some wind behind it."

This year's air pollution at Lake Tahoe has been much higher than in previous years.

A firefighting tanker drops retardant on the Caldor Fire over Grizzly Flats, Calif., on Tuesday. Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI

RELATED Study: Wildfires ravage firefighters' long-term physical, mental health

One way of measuring pollution is through particulate matter. According to the California Air Resources Board, particulate matter is an airborne mixture of chemicals. Most of pm 2.5 is made up of emissions coming from the combustion of gasoline, oil, diesel fuel and wood, and it gets its name from being less than 2.5 microns in diameter.

In 2020, data from the board reveals that Lake Tahoe's air basin had an average level of 5.3 pm 2.5 between June 1 and Aug. 17. The year prior, the basin had an average level of 1.1 pm 2.5 during the same time frame.

The air basin reported an average level of 18 pm 2.5 so far in 2021 -- higher than any other year of this decade within the time frame of June 1 to Aug. 17.

Particulate matter can reduce visibility by affecting the way light is absorbed in the atmosphere and cause negative impacts to the climate and ecosystem when it deposits into water sources, also affecting water quality and clarity.

On Thursday, Lake Tahoe was experiencing "pretty good" air quality however, with the presence of the Caldor fire just 40 miles away, the good air quality is not expected to last long, Curtis said. He added that forecasters are able to predict changes in air quality by observing changes in wind direction and patterns.

Trees catch fire after flames from the Caldor Fire jumped the Mormon Emigrant Trail in Happy Valley, Calif., on Tuesday. Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI

"Anyone visiting the area should take advantage of the nice weather and relatively clean air while it lasts because more smoke and haze will fill the atmosphere again by Friday," he said. "Winds will shift out of the west-southwest Saturday afternoon, which will allow smoke particles from distant wildfires to drift toward Lake Tahoe."

According to Curtis, individuals with underlying respiratory or cardiovascular conditions are at a bigger risk of being affected by poor air quality. He recommended that those who have underlying conditions avoid strenuous outdoor activity when the atmosphere is filled with smoke.

"The best thing to do is to stay inside as much as possible. Using an air filter inside the home will also be helpful because it continuously works to clean the air," he said.

States can use pandemic funds to extend unemployment benefits


Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said states can use leftover portions of the $350 billion allocated to state and local governments through the American Rescue Plan to supplement unemployment benefits. File Pool photo by Greg Nash/UPI | License Photo


Aug. 19 (UPI) -- States can use funds from pandemic relief legislation to pay benefits to unemployed people past a Sept. 6 expiration date, heads of the departments of Labor and Treasury said Thursday.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh sent a letter to the heads of the Senate finance, and house ways and means committees saying that while benefits initially established by the March 2020 CARES Act are set to expire it may make sense for some states to use federal funding to continue support for the unemployed.

As unemployed people are set to lose an additional $300 per week provided in response to the pandemic Yellen and Walsh said states can use leftover portions of the $350 billion allocated to state and local governments through the American Rescue Plan to supplement unemployment benefits.

"In states where a more gradual wind down of income support for unemployed workers makes sense based on local economic conditions, American Rescue Plan funds can be activated to cover the cost of providing assistance to unemployed workers beyond September 6th," they wrote.

A Labor Department official told CNBC that states will not be required to meet specific economic conditions to offer the extra assistance.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said the Department of Labor will also provide an additional $47 million in new grants to support reemployment services.   File Photo by Jemal Countess/UPI | License Photo

Yellen and Walsh also announced the Department of Labor will provide an additional $47 million in new grants to support re-employment services.

The winding down of unemployment benefits comes as the Labor Department on Thursday reported 348,000 U.S. workers filed new claims in the past week, the lowest figure since March 2020.

In the letter, Yellen and Walsh said President Joe Biden believes the pandemic has "exposed serious problems" in the U.S. unemployment insurance system and has called on Congress to reform the system through reconciliation.

"The president has already laid out his principles for such reform: he believes a 21st century UI system should prevent fraud, promote equitable access, ensure timeliness of benefits, provide adequate support to the unemployed and automatically expand benefits in a recession," they wrote.

Foreign correspondents in South Korea worry about penalties in proposed law



The Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club warned Friday revisions to a media law in South Korea could interfere with press freedoms. File Photo by Yonhap

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- The Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club raised concerns about South Korean plans to pass a law that would allow heavier penalties to be imposed on news media organizations and journalists.

The group's board of directors said Friday in statement that the revision to the Press Arbitration Act "puts at risk the international image and free press environment that South Korea has built up over a long period of time" and allow powerful politicians to "affect the news gathering environment, for both domestic and foreign media."

Governing Democratic Party lawmakers have supported the amendment to South Korea's media law, citing the rise of disinformation in an age of digitization and online communications.

The correspondents' statement comes after the Democratic Party-led parliamentary committee on culture passed the revision without input from the main opposition conservatives, who staged a protest at the National Assembly on Thursday.

The law allows plaintiffs, including public figures, to sue reporters for five times the actual damages.

The correspondents' club said Friday that while the "damage caused by fake news" must be addressed, foreign correspondents are "concerned that this bill could result in a penny-wise and pound-foolish situation of undermining the basic rights of a democratic society."

The correspondents club was founded in 1956 three years after the end of the Korean War with nine members. The organization now includes 300 foreign correspondents, according to South Korean newspaper Maeil Business on Friday

The group also said that South Korea's democratization and industrialization have invited greater foreign media interest in the country over the decades, and Seoul is becoming an attractive hub for media.

"Many [organizations] noted the peaceful change of power through the candlelight protests, and the country's improved media environment and awareness," the statement read.

Musun Kim, a senior producer for Al Jazeera, said in a statement to Maeil Business that the revision would present obstacles to coverage. Kim said members have been asking about ways to resolve issues that could surface if the bill becomes law, the report said.

RELATED South Korean parliamentary committee passes 'fake news' law despite objections


The bill is expected to be discussed at the National Assembly this month, where the ruling party holds the majority.

Baseball card maker Topps drops merger after MLB signs with Fanatics


MLB's departure from Topps won't happen immediately. The company's existing contract with the league runs through 2025. File Photo by Joe Marino/Bill Cantrell/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Topps, which has been synonymous with baseball trading cards since the 1950s, ended plans Friday to go public with a merger after Major League Baseball and its players' union signed a deal with rival Fanatics.

Topps in April announced a merger with Mudrick Capital to go public, but that deal was mutually called off Friday after MLB and the players union signed an exclusive licensing deal with Fanatics this week to produce baseball cards in the future.

Fanatics is an online sports merchandise retailer.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the NBA, its players' union and the NFLPA also will have stakes in the new company created by Fanatics.

Topps continues to have the rights to Formula One, Major League Soccer and other soccer leagues, the German Bundesliga and UEFA Champions League. Upper Deck has a licensing agreement with the NHL and its players' union.

MLB's departure from Topps won't happen immediately. The company's existing contract with the league runs through 2025.

Initially a chewing gun company, Topps produced its first series of baseball cards in gum packs in 1951. In January, a Topps baseball card featuring Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle sold for $5.2 million.

Social media platforms have boosted the appeal of trading cards, with their ability to speed up transactions and finding collectors.

Giant African land snail found at package distribution center in Britain



The RSPCA said officials are trying to determine the origins of a giant African land snail found in an unmarked box at the DPD package distribution center in Hinckley, England. Photo courtesy of the RSPCA

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Animal rescuers in Britain said they are trying to determine the origins of a giant African land snail found in an unmarked box at a package distribution center.

The RSPCA said inspector Richard Durant was dispatched to the DPD package distribution center in Hinckley, Leicestershire, after employees encountered a box with no address or other labeling and discovered it contained a snail with a shell the size of a lemon.

"The workers found an unmarked box containing a giant African land snail amongst the boxes ready to be distributed for delivery across the country. When they realized there was this giant snail inside they contacted us for help," Durant said in a news release.

"Luckily, the snail was doing OK and could be transferred straight to an exotics center for specialist care," he said.

Durant said officials are now trying to determine the exotic animal's origins.

"Giant African land snails are kept as pets but we don't come across them very often so it's strange to find one in such a random place. We have no idea whether someone abandoned this snail, or whether they were trying to post the poor creature," he said.

"As with all pets, it's really important that anyone thinking of taking on a giant snail is aware of what is involved in taking care of them before they bring one home."

Bat pup 'babbling' similar to that of human infants, researchers say


Bat pups emit similar babbling tones to human infants,

 researchers say. Photo by Max Pixel/Pixabay

Aug. 19 (UPI) -- Pups of a bat species found in Central America make babbling sounds similar to those of human infants, a study published Thursday by the journal Science said.

The young of the greater sac-winged bat, or Saccopteryx bilineata, engage in "babbling bouts" for up to 43 minutes, the researchers said.

As in humans with speech, these babbling noises are a precursor to the tones or "songs" adults of this bat species use to communicate, they said.

"Pup babbling is a very conspicuous vocal behavior [that] is audible at a considerable distance from the roost and babbling bouts have a duration of up to 43 minutes," study co-author Martina Nagy said in a press release.

"While babbling, pups learn the song of the adult males," said Nagy, a researcher at the Museum for Natural History in Berlin.

Historically, researchers have studied vocal patterns in animals as a way to gain additional understanding of human language acquisition, according to Nagy and her colleagues.

However, in the animal kingdom, babbling behavior is rare, and limited almost exclusively to songbirds, they said.

Although studies of babbling in songbirds have provided researchers with important insights about speech development in children, the findings do not translate well to humans, the researchers said.

This is due in part to the fact that birds use their syrinx, a region of their spinal cords, to create and emit sounds, while humans use a larynx, which is an organ located in the throat that contains the vocal cords, according to the researchers.

From infancy, humans start the process of speech development with babbling, or the first sounds resembling speech, they said.

To study this process in the greater sac-winged bat, which is capable of vocal imitation and engages in a obvious vocal practice behavior, Nagy and her colleagues observed 20 pups in their natural habitat in Panama and Costa Rica for several weeks.

The bats were habituated to the presence of the researchers in close vicinity of their roosts, which enabled the scientists to collect daily acoustic and video recordings from birth until weaning, or the point at which mothers stop nursing their pups, the researchers said.

Back in Germany, the acoustic recordings were analyzed to investigate the characteristics of pup babbling.

Pup babbling is characterized by the same features as human infant babbling, including syllable repetition and alterations of different sounds, such as different vowels and consonants in humans, the researchers found

The pups spent seven weeks, on average, engaging in daily babbling behavior in which they used long, multi-syllabic vocal sequences, according to the researchers.

In addition, the pup babbling is rhythmic and occurs in both males and females, the researchers said.

"For example, pup babbling is characterized by reduplication of syllables, similar to the characteristic syllable repetition -- 'dadada' -- in human infant babbling," study co-author Lara Burchardt, also a researcher at the Museum for Natural History, said in a press release.

Survey forecasts increasing CO2 emissions from oil refineries

The HOVENSA petroleum refinery in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands (later operated by Limetree Bay Energy), is shown in February 2005. File photo by Cumulus Clouds/Wikimedia Commons

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Scientists expect global oil refineries to emit more carbon dioxide than previously predicted.

In an analysis of the planet's oil refinery inventory, scientists determined carbon dioxide emissions could balloon to as much as 16.5 gigatons to 2030 from 2020.

According to the new survey, published Friday in the journal One Earth, carbon emissions from global oil refineries increased by 24% between 2008 and 2018.

"This study provides a detailed picture of oil refining capacity and CO2 emissions worldwide," study co-author Dabo Guan, a researcher at Tsinghua University in China, said in a press release.

"Understanding the past and future development trends of the oil refining industry is crucial for guiding regional and global emissions reduction."

The oil refinery industry account for 6% of global carbon emissions. Even as more and more clean energy sources come online, the expansion of fossil-fuel-based energy infrastructure is likely to complicate efforts to meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement.

For the study, scientists compiled emissions data for 1,056 oil refineries from 2000 to 2018. The data showed global oil refineries released 1.3 gigatons into the atmosphere in 2018.

RELATED Report reveals elevated benzene levels at 10 U.S. oil refineries

If refineries continue to operate without taking steps to mitigate emissions, oil refineries are likely to emit as much 16.5 gigatons of CO2 between 2020 and 2030.

However, scientists determined simple mitigation methods, including upgrading heavy oil-processing technologies and boosting refinery efficiency, could reduce global cumulative emissions by 10% between 2020 and 2030.

While scientists found all types of refineries increased oil barrel production between 2008 and 2018, the data showed the youngest refineries increased their production capacity most dramatically.

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"Given the greater committed emissions brought about by the long remaining operating time of young refineries, there is an urgent need for these refineries to adopt low-carbon technologies to reduce their CO2emissions," Guan said.

"As for middle-aged and old refineries, improving operational efficiency, eliminating the backward capacity, and speeding up the upgrading of refining configuration are the key means to balance growing demand and reducing CO2 emissions.

Baby shark born in aquarium tank where only females are kept

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Officials at an Italian aquarium said a baby smooth-hound shark was born in a tank in which only females are kept in what might be the first documented case of asexual reproduction for the species.

The Acquario Cala Gonone in Sardinia said the baby, dubbed Isperia, was born in a tank in which only two female smooth-hound sharks have lived for the past decade

The aquarium said officials suspect the shark was born via a process known as parthenogenesis, which involves a polar cell, which contains a duplicate of an egg's DNA, fertilizing the egg in the absence of sperm.

Marine biologists at the aquarium said they have sent samples for testing to confirm whether Isperia is a genetic clone of her mother.

Parthenogenesis has previously been observed in three species of shark: the bonnethead, the blacktip shark and the zebra shark.

The aquarium said the results of the DNA test could determine whether smooth-hound sharks become the fourth species to make the list.